Applied Ethics Commons^™

How E-Bicycle Policy And Infrastructure Challenge Sustainable Transportation: An Ethical Assessment, Shane Ray Epting

Arts, Languages and Philosophy Faculty Research & Creative Works

While new transportation technologies such as transportation network companies and electronic scooters showed promise for sustainable mobility, their initial impacts suggest otherwise in several instances. Electronic bicycles are no exception, resulting in an increasing number of injuries and deaths in many cities. Despite having environmental advantages, such outcomes challenge the view that they qualify as sustainable, bearing in mind that negative health impacts undermine sustainability's social pillar. While this issue is of paramount importance, it is only one factor among many that could impact several stakeholder groups, including many human groups, nonhuman animals, ecosystems, future people, and urban artifacts. In …

Moral Issues In Business, Andre Dobronic Parola

Open Educational Resources

In this course students will initially be introduced to different ethical theories as well as two different theories of justice. Subsequently—following an introduction to basic economical ideas concerning the place of businesses and corporations in modern capitalistic society—various questions specific to business ethics will be taken up. Topics will include: arguments for and against the stakeholder theory of business ethics; corporate social responsibility; the problem of sex-based discrimination in the workplace-setting; business and the environment; globalisation; and lying in business negotiations.

Grieving And Attentiveness: Perception As Flourishing In Ocean Vuong And Mary Oliver, Madison Smith

Papers

The paper argues that poets Ocean Vuong and Mary Oliver treat grief as something formative to one's life and character rather than purely destructive; through their suffering, the subject has the opportunity to cultivate a sense of attentiveness that transforms perceptions of the self, others, history, and the natural world.

This project was an output for The Belmont Formation Scholars Cohort for Character Research and Writing, which received generous support funding from The Kern Family Foundation.

I gratefully acknowledge peer review feedback on this project, and I am accountable for writing of this product without generative AI and in alignment …

From Theory To Practice: Locating Moral Exemplars In Aristotelian Virtue Ethics, Joseph A. Murray

McNair Summer Research Program

Abstract

This research examines mentorship within Aristotelian virtue ethics. Aristotle holds that moral excellence develops through habituation, guided practice that forms stable dispositions, rather than through knowledge or rules alone. Central to this process are virtuous mentors who model good character and cultivate practical wisdom (phronesis). Although Aristotle stresses the necessity of such examples, he offers little practical guidance on who they are or how they may be identified. This omission raises a practical challenge: if virtue depends on guidance from the genuinely virtuous, identifying those individuals is essential to the theory’s implementation.  My research investigates whether society provides accessible …

What, Exactly, Is Surveillance Pricing?, Kaylina Stroud

McNair Summer Research Program

Surveillance pricing is a method of price discrimination in which firms use personal data to set individualized prices. While this practice is often criticized on grounds of privacy, unfairness, or exploitation, these objections do not fully explain what is morally objectionable about surveillance pricing. This paper examines surveillance pricing through the lenses of price discrimination, market competition, efficiency, exploitation, and deception. I argue that surveillance pricing is not inherently unethical merely because it results in different consumers paying different prices for the same product. Nor is it necessarily objectionable when it promotes mutually beneficial exchanges and efficient market outcomes. The …

Operational Responsibility In Ai Governance: A User-Centric Liability Framework, Zhengyang Chen

Faculty Publications

Who bears responsibility when artificial intelligence systems cause harm? This question has become central to AI ethics and governance. Most existing approaches focus on developers, yet this faces serious practical and theoretical problems. Drawing on tort law, agency law, and philosophy of technology, this paper argues that AI should be understood as an instrument whose outputs remain the responsibility of human operators rather than developers. We call this 'user-centric governance.' Placing accountability with deployers promotes public trust by creating clear lines of responsibility, a concern that governance approaches have often overlooked. It preserves democratic accountability by keeping human actors answerable …

The Story Game: Dissuading The Abolition Of Man With Narrative Intellectual Virtue & The Hunger Games, Camille Bewley

Harding Undergraduate Research Conference

Relativism in modern America is leading society toward the fruition of C.S. Lewis’ warning of the abolition of man. This nation once founded on freedom inches closer to the dystopia which Suzanne Collins depicts in her Hunger Games series. This paper recognizes the growing need for humanity to realign with truth and universal values, first by reorienting itself to narratives. Through intellectual virtues of understanding and prudence as defined by Aristotle, society can translate stories into their inherent purpose; seeing truth and reality within the bottle of imagination. Stories contain the answers, narratives are the way humanity subscribes to reality. …

Deportation And Death: Examining The Second Trump Administration’S Immigration Policy Through The Lens Of Just War Theory, Finley W. Snyder

Augustana Center for the Study of Ethics Essay Contest

From day one of the second Trump administration, the White House has treated illegal immigration as an invasion, both rhetorically and, to a lesser extent, legally. The administration has not shied away from the use of force in this campaign, leading to the notable killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti along with countless acts of violence across the nation. This essay seeks to evaluate the ethics of the second Trump administration's immigration policy from within this "war" framing through the lens of just war theory. While there has been considerable attention to just war theory in the context of …

A Proposal For More Useful Ai Ethics: Hierarchical Principlism & The Principle Of Compassion, Adam Braus

Applied Computer Science | Faculty Scholarship

Principlism is one of the leading approaches to AI ethics. Developed originally to address bioethical issues in medicine and research, the theory requires decision-makers to consider various ethical principles to justify their actions. Despite its dominance in bioethics and growing popularity in AI ethics, principlism faces serious theoretical and practical criticisms. One serious criticism is that since ethical principles are combined ad hoc, conflicts inevitably arise between them, leading to inconsistencies. While defenders of principlism propose a process for resolving such disputes, contemporary critics argue that this process is incomplete, and at best, principlist frameworks can only help structure analysis …

Free Speech On The Web And Its Limits, Moris Stern

Open Educational Resources

This assignment uses ChatGPT as a learning tool to examine the democratic justification and limits of free speech on the web. Students analyze arguments for and against online free expression through Kantian respect for persons and Utilitarian maximization of overall well-being. Using AI-generated historical and controversial cases, students evaluate whether specific instances of free speech are morally justifiable, challenge their own conclusions with AI-constructed counterarguments, and critically assess AI-generated summaries. The assignment emphasizes philosophical reasoning, ethical analysis, and reflective engagement with AI as an academic tool.

Who Bears The Cost? A Module For Researching The Intersection Of Technology, The Individual, And Climate Change, Jonathan Auyer

Climate Change and the Individual, 2025-26

Who Bears the Cost? A Module for Researching the Intersection of Technology, the Individual, and Climate Change is a multi-day writing and research module designed for first-year composition courses. Using the ongoing controversy surrounding the Science, Technology & Advanced Manufacturing Park (STAMP) in Genesee County, New York as a central case study, students investigate the ethical, environmental, and social dimensions of artificial intelligence and climate change. The module guides students from initial inquiry, exploring the philosophical question of whether technology is value-neutral or value-laden, through source research, collaborative discussion, and persuasive writing. Drawing on the rhetorical framework of They Say …

A Delphi Study Of Ethical Best Practices For Psychedelic Assisted Therapy, Alyssa K. Griskiewicz

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this Delphi study was to establish areas of ethical consensus regarding psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) from the perspectives of an expert panel of practitioners, with attention to issues of equity and access. Participants (N = 29) include individuals with two or more years of experience in one or more of the following domains of psychedelic expertise: clinical/professional practice, scholarly/research contributions, or guided community/ceremonial facilitation. In Round 1, qualitative data were collected through open-ended questions and analyzed using thematic analysis to generate Delphi statements. In Round 2, panelists (N = 24) rated these statements using a Likert-type scale to …

Righteous Defenders And Evil Challengers: The Morally Polarized Battle For Books On Reddit, Erika Casburn

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The issue of book bans has moved to the forefront of public and political debate over the past few years. Anti-censorship advocates who defend against these challenges have yet to be studied. The purpose of this study was to examine the beliefs and worldviews as expressed by those defenders in a public forum—Reddit. Data in the form of Reddit threads was collected from subreddits belonging to states that have seen the greatest number of book challenges. This data was subjected to discourse analysis, first manually, then by qualitative analysis software (MAXQDA). Analysis revealed that defenders spent a majority of discursive …

Ethical Decision-Making Processes In Authentic Environmental Engineering Contexts Through Systems Thinking And Team Collaboration Lenses: An Embedded Single Case Study, Toluwalase Eniola Brower

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Ethical and professional responsibility is a critical learning outcome emphasized in ABET accreditation. However, ethics instruction in engineering education often lacks integration of system-level considerations such as economic, environmental, and societal contexts, that are essential for developing engineering solutions that ensure the safety and welfare of diverse stakeholders. This embedded single-case study investigated the integration of authentic ethics instruction within a junior-level environmental engineering course at a Midwestern U.S. university during spring 2025 and explores how civil engineering student teams within the course engage in ethical decision-making process during authentic problem-solving.

The instructional intervention consisted of four problem-based ethics modules, …

Teaching Cybersecurity And Ai Across Borders: From Foundations To Ethics, George Antoniou

Faculty and Staff Publications & Presentations

This presentation examines how interdisciplinary course design in AI and cybersecurity can expand undergraduate research while directly supporting career readiness. At Lynn University, the Foundations of Cybersecurity & AI course was updated to serve as the entry point for both Cybersecurity and Data Analytics majors. The course integrates case studies, digital forensics and cloud security labs, and applied exercises with AI-enabled defense-in-depth strategies. Students build core technical competencies while engaging in course-based research that mirrors industry practice. As part of a Fulbright grant, a complementary course, AI & Ethics, was developed for the University of Tirana. Proposed as a mandatory …

Liberalism And Lockdowns, D. Robert Macdougall

Publications and Research

Some authors have argued that liberalism cannot support lockdowns because it cannot engage in collective welfare-type reasoning. Others have thought that liberalism can justify lockdown measures, but that legitimate lockdown measures must be based on pre-legal moral principles that set acceptable limits to the imposition of risk or forbid contributing to collective harm. In this essay, I assess the overall relationship between liberalism and lockdowns. Against the first interpretation of liberalism, I argue in favor of the idea that lockdowns can be justified by liberalism. Liberalism protects the liberty of each and so can presumably protect persons from some kinds …

Living Heritage, Resilience And Ethically Informed Infrastructures In Malawi, Martha B. Lerski, Frank Puluputu Mwale

Publications and Research

Rooted in a rural community’s needs, this paper explores how historically, and ethically informed infrastructures can support community engagement towards identification, documentation, and dissemination of local, traditional, and indigenous knowledge relating to climate change. The paper examines climate adaptation and sustainability issues through the lenses of community organizing and Library & Information Science best practices. It draws on a growing body of literature identifying a role for expanded epistemological and subject discipline perspectives. While the impacts of climate on material culture are increasingly recognized, intangible, and biocultural heritage have not received as much attention. Living heritage traditions and knowledge systems …

Arts-Based Sustainability: From New York To Malawi, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Recognizing that libraries serve multiple constituencies and subject areas, this chapter documents and advocates for development of transdisciplinary arts-based research (ABR) and culture-related projects linked to environmental challenges. Libraries contribute collections and spaces, as well as the research of library and information scientists. Libraries are currently among invisible contributors to sustainability planning and services. The chapter will link this invisibility to the value of what visual arts refer to as negative space elements in subjects ranging from traditional ecological knowledge to environmental science. Library collections, projects, and research contribute to education for sustainable development (ESD) as required to achieve the …

Love Drugs: Exploring The Ethical Implications Of Relationship Targeting Biochemical Supplements, Hallie Young

2025 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

"Love drugs" can be defined as chemical interventions that affect desire, attraction, and affection. Contemporary advancements in neurochemical interventions have increased interest in love drugs and highlighted the need for accessible love drug analyses. This project explores how love drugs will affect contemporary relationships through realistic literary scenarios informed by current philosophical literature. These scenarios consist of three vignettes compiled into a novella-length creative work. It was initially anticipated that these vignettes would reveal that introducing a meta-biological or chemical intervention into social situations where authenticity is normatively highly valued would prompt participant introspection. In practice, this work finds that …

The Grand Narratives: The Rise And Fall Of Universal Philosophical Systems, Gavin S. Litchford

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis reviews the development of narrative and systematic methods of argumentative legitimation in the Western tradition of philosophy from its conception until the present day. Utilizing both primary sources from central figures in key movements within this development process and supplementary secondary sources, this analysis notes which systems were used as appeals to higher authority and the trends in the adoption and transformation of new models. It is demonstrated that the Enlightenment era punctuated a progression begun in the premodern era from simple, cultural narratives to individualized, subjective, and self-perpetuating Grand Narrative systems, and that it generated the preconditions …

A Relational Approach To Workplace Leadership, Nathaniel J. Hunt

M.S. in Leadership

This research project examines relational leadership as an ethical and strategic foundation for fostering effective workplaces. Motivated by the growing importance of human connection in leadership, the study integrates philosophical insights, particularly Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics of the face of the Other, with empirical evidence on workplace relationship-building. A mixed-methods approach was used, combining a structured survey of 32 professionals with thematic analysis of qualitative responses. Results confirmed that strategies such as encouraging knowledge-sharing and cultivating positive relational climates significantly enhance employee well-being, psychological safety, and organizational performance. Knowledge-sharing emerged as the most effective strategy, while relationship-building was found to be …

Application Of Philosophy In Substantive Due Process Analysis Focusing On Washington V. Glucksberg, Amelia Schwensen

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Substantive due process is widely regarded as the most convoluted and controversial legal concept. For years, the court has struggled to interpret and apply value-based terms in the Fourteenth Amendment, as these terms contain deeper significance beyond the words. Additionally, the court must balance expanding the law to enshrine the abstract values of substantive due process and limiting its interpretation so that it is not “creating law” or imposing its personal beliefs on its decision. This push and pull of defending values and maintaining legitimacy has created significant issues in substantive due process analysis and is the background and basis …

The Present And Future Of Ai: Ethical Issues And Research Opportunities, Ankita Srivastava, Marco Marabelli, Danielle Blanch-Hartigan, Jeffrey Moriarty, Evan Carey

Computer Information Systems Faculty Publications

Healthcare is currently a fast-changing industry with AI and generative AI (GenAI) playing a prominent role in the transformation of clinical as well as managerial practices. Clinical practices involve AI to diagnose diseases and develop new drugs and compounds, while managerial practices concern AI-supporting processes such as billing patients and insurance companies, handling electronic medical records, and supporting remote connections with patients, increasingly using virtual and augmented reality. Yet, all these opportunities offered by AI come with challenges involving potential ethical issues, such as discrimination, bias, lack of accessibility, and privacy issues. In March 2024, we organized a panel with …

The Present And Future Of Ai: Ethical Issues And Research Opportunities, Ankita Srivastava, Marco Marabelli, Danielle Blanch-Hartigan, Jeffrey Moriarty, Evan Carey

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Healthcare is currently a fast-changing industry with AI and generative AI (GenAI) playing a prominent role in the transformation of clinical as well as managerial practices. Clinical practices involve AI to diagnose diseases and develop new drugs and compounds, while managerial practices concern AI-supporting processes such as billing patients and insurance companies, handling electronic medical records, and supporting remote connections with patients, increasingly using virtual and augmented reality. Yet, all these opportunities offered by AI come with challenges involving potential ethical issues, such as discrimination, bias, lack of accessibility, and privacy issues. In March 2024, we organized a panel with …

What's The Art In Artificial Intelligence?, Emily Verla Bovino

Open Educational Resources

This workbook learns from Black and Indigenous artists working with Artificial Intelligence to confront issues of ethics and aesthetics in its technologies. It features guided learning activities with links to publicly available video lectures and online articles, and includes options for experiential learning through both a tutorial in Midjourney and a visit to the public art collection at York College in Jamaica, Queens. Featured artists include: American Artist, Rizvana Bradley, Beth Coleman, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Suzanne Kite, Sondra Perry, Mimi Onuoha and Alisha B. Wormsley. Works by Martin Puryear and Maren Hassinger are explored in the Midjourney exercise.

About …

Exploring Generative Artificial Intelligence (Ai) Applications In Fashion: Ethical Concerns In Human-Like Technology, Melissa Kathryn Gonzalez

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Playing The Digital Dialectic Game: Writing Pedagogy With Generative Ai, Rebekah Shultz Colby

University Writing Program: Faculty Scholarship

This article explores teaching writing with generative AI as critical play where students and teachers engage in an ethically dialectical and aleatory game with generative AI. I qualitatively surveyed 24 writing teachers about how they teach writing with generative AI as well as its advantages and disadvantages. I discovered that teachers used generative AI to teach about the ethics of generative AI's design and rhetorical use to avoid plagiarism. Teachers also critically played with generative AI to teach the writing process of invention, drafting, revision, and editing. Specifically, the critical, dialectical interplay of human and machine invents in aleatory and …

Artificial Intelligence In Health Care: Business Opportunities And Ethical Challenges, Ankita Srivastava,, Marco Marabelli, Jeffrey Moriarty

Ethics Publication

Artificial intelligence (AI), and in particular generative AI (GAI), are making incredible progress toward automation. The pervasive and invasive nature of these technologies are affecting every industry, and health care is no exception. This paper summarizes insights derived from a panel that the Hoffman Center for Business Ethics and the Center for Health and Business at Bentley University hosted in March 2024. The panel invited three qualified health care professionals: Evan Carey, Susan Persky and John Torous. The panelists are all active in multiple aspects of AI in health care but represent a focus on the key areas of policy …

Against The Sale Of Homeopathy (And Other Ineffective Medicines), Jeffrey Moriarty

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Consumers spend billions of dollars per year on homeopathic products. But there is powerful evidence that these products don’t work, i.e., they are not medically effective. Should homeopathic products be for sale? I give reason for thinking that the answer is ‘no.’ It has been suggested that the sale of homeopathic products involves deception. This might be so in some cases, but the problem is simpler: it is that these products don’t do what people buy them to do. More precisely, homeopathic products don’t meet the “desire-satisfaction condition,” according to which products for sale in markets should satisfy the desires …

Navigating Cultural Differences In Community-Based Conservation: A Malagasy Case Study, Austin J. Cheng

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

This SIP explores the tension between avoiding cultural imperialism and remaining true to ideals, particularly of gender equality in the creation and funding of community-based conservation organizations in patriarchal societies. To tether these loftier ideas to practice, I use my internship with Planet Madagascar in Ankarafantsika National Park as a case study, and explore it through the lenses of feminist, pragmatist, and post-colonial philosophers.