Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

The Question Is Not “Can Humans Talk?” Or “Can They Suffer?” But “Can They Reason?”, Clive Phillips

Animal Sentience

In their target article, Rowan et al (2022) make a welcome attempt to chart the development of Western progress over the past two hundred years toward formally recognizing that animals feel. They outline the heroic efforts of Compassion in World Farming to gain for animals the status of sentient beings rather than merely human property. A broader view exists, from human prehistory to the present day, in which animals have been (and still are) understood to be sentient by indigenous peoples as well as by some Eastern religions. Growing recognition in the West that animals feel represents a new age …

Why The Recognition Of Sentience Is So Important For Animal Welfare, Mark Jones

Animal Sentience

Rowan et al. (2022) provide a useful summary of the history and development of the philosophical, public, and legal recognition of animal sentience and its importance in improving the welfare of animals. Here I argue for the incorporation of the precautionary principle in sentience recognition, and the wider significance of sentience recognition to the current climate, biodiversity and human health crises.

Righting Health Policy: Bioethics, Political Philosophy, And The Normative Justification Of Health Law And Policy, D. Robert Macdougall

Publications and Research

In Righting Health Policy, D. Robert MacDougall argues that bioethics needs but does not have adequate tools for justifying law and policy. Bioethics’ tools are mostly theories about what we owe each other. But justifying laws and policies requires more; at a minimum, it requires tools for explaining the legitimacy of actions intended to control or influence others. It consequently requires political, rather than moral, philosophy. After showing how bioethicists have consistently failed to use tools suitable for achieving their political aims, MacDougall develops an interpretation of Kant’s political philosophy. On this account the legitimacy of health laws does …

Justifying Advocacy Of Patients’ Belief Diversity W/ Support From William James’ Lectures On Pragmatism: A New Name For Some Old Ways Of Thinking, The Variety Of Religious Experiences & The Will To Believe, Sterling Courtney

The Hilltop Review

Abstract:

Predating monastic healthcare in the Middle Ages (Siraisi, 2019), spirituality and/or religion have been unified with healing, caring for the sick and consoling the dying, as documented by historical writings as early as c.3000 BCE-c.500 BCE in Mesopotamia and followed by coinciding accounts from c.750 BCE-c.280 BCE Greece and Rome (Mann, 2014). Via philosophy and science, a movement towards secularization has been perceived (as the Renaissance faded and the scientific revolution led into the Age of Enlightenment), therefore creating a dichotomy between treating the physical body separate from the metaphysical soul. In the early 1900’s, Abraham Flexner discredited any …

Must Consent Be Informed? Patient Rights, State Authority, And The Moral Basis Of The Physician's Duties Of Disclosure, D. Robert Macdougall

Publications and Research

Legal standards of disclosure in a variety of jurisdictions require physicians to inform patients about the likely consequences of treatment, as a condition for obtaining the patient’s consent. Such a duty to inform is special insofar as extensive disclosure of risks and potential benefits is not usually a condition for obtaining consent in non-medical transactions.

What could morally justify the physician’s special legal duty to inform? I argue that existing justifications have tried but failed to ground such special duties directly in basic and general rights, such as autonomy rights. As an alternative to such direct justifications, I develop an …

Informed Consent: Foundations And Applications, Joanna Smolenski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since its advent in the 20th century, informed consent has become a cornerstone of ethical healthcare, and obtaining it a core obligation in medical contexts. In my dissertation, I aim to examine the theoretical underpinnings of informed consent and identify what values it is taken to protect. I will suggest that the fundamental motivation behind informed consent rests in something I’ll call bodily self-sovereignty, which I argue involves a coupling of two groups of values: autonomy and non-domination on the one hand, and self-ownership and personal integrity on the other. I will then go on to consider two 'case …

Monetary Incentives For Producing Counterfeit, Adulterated, And Misbranded Medicine: Case Studies And Examples, Heather R. Campbell, Robert A. Lodder

Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: Pharmaceutical fraud can be very profitable. Those working in pharmaceuticals are in a tempting position as the nature of the product and supply is complex, making detection of fraud difficult and expensive. However, a reliable pharmaceutical supply can often be a life-or-death situation for patients. Thus, when detection of fraud occurs, a Regulator's Dilemma often emerges (recall a drug for which a supplier is the sole source, or allow a substandard product to be sold)—generally resulting in pharmaceutical companies receiving minimal penalties even for the worst acts. Despite pharmaceutical companies' unique leverage over regulators and profitability, studies are rare …

A Literary Analysis Of The Origin Of Human Embryonic Stem Cells, Its Advancements, Philosophical, Ethical, Sociocultural, And Political Aspects; An Investigation Of The Underlying Attributes That Affect One’S Views On Hesc Research To Resolve Turkey And Brazil’S Hesc Policy, Religious, And Cultural Conflicts, Haleema Shamsuddin

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are cells derived from 5-day human embryos and are self-renewing cell lines that change into any type of cell in the body, a trait called pluripotency. hESCs have almost unlimited clinical and medical research potential. Despite the great therapeutic promise of hESC research, it comes with a controversial ethical debate due to its involvement with the destruction of the human embryo. The central argument revolves around the question of whether or not these human embryos should be ascribed equal moral status to fully developed humans. This thesis aims to analyze the origin and advancements of …

African Environmental Ethics: Keys To Sustainable Development Through Agroecological Villages, Charles Verharen, Flordeliz Bugarin, John Tharakan, Enrico Wensing, Bekele Gutema, Joseph Fortunak, George Middendorf

Center for Global Health Publications

This essay proposes African-based ethical solutions to profound human problems and a working African model to address those problems. The model promotes sustainability through advanced agroecological and information communication technologies. The essay's first section reviews the ethical ground of that model in the work of the Senegalese scholar, Cheikh Anta Diop. The essay's second section examines an applied African model for translating African ethical speculation into practice. Deeply immersed in European and African ethics, Godfrey Nzamujo developed the Songhaï Centers to solve the problem of rural poverty in seventeen African countries. Harnessing advanced technologies within a holistic agroecological ecosystem, Nzamujo's …

Extending Animal Welfare Science To Include Wild Animals, Walter Veit, Heather Browning

Animal Sentience

Ng’s (2016) target article built on his earlier work advocating a science of welfare biology (Ng 1995). Although there were problems with the models proposed in Ng’s original paper regarding the balance of pleasure and suffering for wild animals, his call for a science of wild animal welfare was a sound one. This does not require a new discipline but just an extension of the existing frameworks and methods of animal welfare science to include wild animals.

Professional Values Of Corporate Nurses, Kasey Jeanne Sands

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Healthcare is comprised of providers, who offer patient services, and payors, who manage the financial reimbursement of providers. Not much is known about registered nurses (RNs) in the corporate payor industry due to a lack of research. Strong professional values (PVs) are expected of all RNs, but research has shown this to vary across the field, meaning that RNs may require support in this area. As little is known about RNs in the payor industry, how these nurses sustain their PVs within the industry has not been evaluated, recognized, or supported. Therefore, the aims of this quantitative, descriptive, and correlational …

Automating Autism: Disability, Discourse, And Artificial Intelligence, Os Keyes

The Journal of Sociotechnical Critique

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems shift to interact with new domains and populations, so does AI ethics: a relatively nascent subdiscipline that frequently concerns itself with questions of “fairness” and “accountability.” This fairness-centred approach has been criticized for (amongst other things) lacking the ability to address discursive, rather than distributional, injustices. In this paper I simultaneously validate these concerns, and work to correct the relative silence of both conventional and critical AI ethicists around disability, by exploring the narratives deployed by AI researchers in discussing and designing systems around autism. Demonstrating that these narratives frequently perpetuate a dangerously dehumanizing model …

“How Could You Even Ask That?”: Moral Considerability, Uncertainty And Vulnerability In Social Robotics, Alexis Elder

The Journal of Sociotechnical Critique

When it comes to social robotics (robots that engage human social responses via “eyes” and other facial features, voice-based natural-language interactions, and even evocative movements), ethicists, particularly in European and North American traditions, are divided over whether and why they might be morally considerable. Some argue that moral considerability is based on internal psychological states like consciousness and sentience, and debate about thresholds of such features sufficient for ethical consideration, a move sometimes criticized for being overly dualistic in its framing of mind versus body. Others, meanwhile, focus on the effects of these robots on human beings, arguing that psychological …

Brain Complexity, Sentience And Welfare, Donald M. Broom

Animal Sentience

Neither sentience nor moral standing is confined to animals with large or human-like brains. Invertebrates deserve moral consideration. Definition of terms clarifies the relationship between sentience and welfare. All animals have welfare but humans give more protection to sentient animals. Humans should be less human-centred.

Community Psychology's Impact On Public Health And The Experience Of Marginalization, Katie Hudick

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

Vulnerable and marginalized populations face a series of risks and dangers throughout their daily lives. This is not simply limited to explicit forms of discrimination and hatred, but systemic forms of oppression and discrimination which limit those not belonging to more privileged and affluent socioeconomic or sociocultural groups. Community psychology operates as a means of analyzing how environmental and social factors impact specific demographic groups within a larger population and by extension the experience of mental health specific to these groups (Townley, Brown, & Sylvestre, 2018). In the application of this field, it is critical to understand the dynamics of …

Ethical Considerations Regarding Paternalism In Medicine, Lola Holcomb

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

Paternalism and autonomy are typically conceptualized as opposing theoretical frameworks. With respect to medical ethics, autonomy is practiced by the patient when he/she has liberty and control over his/her own medical matters, and his/her opinions supersede those of the physician. Paternalism is practiced by the physician when he/she restricts the patient’s autonomy (sometimes against the patient’s will) to promote health and well-being while discouraging undesirable behaviors. This paper details and analyzes a number of cases of medical paternalism in practice, both from the past and in the present day, with the purpose of examining associated ethical considerations. Attention is given …

Filling The Gap: Assessing Moral Permissibility Of Rejections In Dental Practices And Promoting Pro Bono Dental Work Through A Non-Profit Organization, Min Son

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

While the level of urgency in dentistry cannot compare to that in an emergency room, oral healthcare is a crucial part of overall health. Poor oral health can lead to systemic health conditions, such as heart and respiratory diseases, oral cancer, and diabetes. Therefore, the solution to health disparities may lie in addressing oral health disparities first. Nonetheless, most dentists are business owners of their own dental practices. Hence, they work in between business and patient care, sometimes facing associated conflicts. But they are obligated to make ethical decisions when the values between the two fields clash. The dental community …

Disease Mongering: How Sickness Sells, Vanessa C. Iroegbulem

Augustana Center for the Study of Ethics Essay Contest

“Disease mongering” is the practice of widening diagnostic boundaries of an illness and promoting their public awareness to expand the markets for treatment and to increase profits. This tactic typically used by pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment manufacturers, insurance companies, and even some doctors and patient groups, has become a great concern. Disease mongering has since increased in parallel with “medicalization,” which attempts to label normal human conditions as medical problems, thus becoming the subject of medical study, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment. This paper first seeks to examine how an increasing amount of life’s natural conditions and ailments are being seen …

Reflections On Psychological And Psychiatric Consequences Of Covid-19 Pandemic, Donatella Marazziti

Animal Sentience

Although far from reaching a clear conclusion, some evidence increasingly highlights the possible connections among climate change, environmental pollution and the current COVID-19 pandemic, as well as their intertwined detrimental effects on both physical and mental health. Such a catastrophic event calls for a novel awareness of the interdependence of all biotic and nonbiotic factors in our environment and planet.

Plant-Based Diets And Covid-19: Those Who Harvest Crops Are At High Risk, Jarret S. Lovell

Animal Sentience

This commentary extends Wiebers & Feigin’s (2020) plea to adopt diets that are less dependent on animals by calling on experts and activists to work for change with regard to farm worker labor conditions. Already doing among the most dangerous jobs, farmworkers are at increased risk of COVID-19. As we increasingly transition to plant-based diets, we must all ensure that farmworkers have safe and just working conditions to meet the demands of our changing diets.

Rethinking Global Governance To Address Zoonotic Disease Risks: Connecting The Dots, Kelley Lee

Animal Sentience

Large-scale changes in human behaviour are urgently needed to prevent future pandemics involving zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19. However, this will not happen to the required degree, and with sufficient speed, without a major shift in how humanity collectively governs itself. Alongside a shift in focus from individual behaviours to the structural conditions underpinning the world economy that shape human behaviours, effective global governance presses us to connect more dots than ever before. The One Health approach is an important starting point but we need to go much further.

Whenever Possible, Treat The Cause: Shut Down The Flu Factories, Michael Greger

Animal Sentience

Over the last few decades -- and at a historically unprecedented rate -- hundreds of human pathogens have emerged, mostly from animals. The United Nations’ “Preventing the Next Pandemic” report blames increasing demand for animal protein and unsustainable agricultural intensification as two key drivers of the emergence of zoonotic threats. Animal agribusiness has become a viral disease incubator, but there is a clear path towards preventing the next pandemic as well as protecting planetary health: to reform the practice of raising domestic animals for food and to adopt eating habits that not only protect our health, but address …

Correlations To Financial Performance In The Pharmaceutical Industry, Fred Mcclellan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There exist conflicting priorities for leaders when considering ethical leadership behaviors and organizational financial performance. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine correlations between top manager ethical leadership levels and organizational financial performance, within the pharmaceutical industry. The Ethical leadership theory was used to frame the study. Relationships between top managers’ perceived ethics levels and organizational financial performance were studied, as well as, whether top managers’ practices, purposes, and virtues acted as mediators. A goal of 184 participants were recruited from 338 pharmaceutical companies. Five top managers and 17 of their direct report team members took part in …

The Necessity Of Human Attitude Change And Methods Of Avoiding Pandemics, Donald M. Broom

Animal Sentience

Humans share their biology with other animals and in each of their actions should consider the consequences for all life. A series of measures can be taken by governments and individuals that would minimise inter-specific transfer of pathogens from wildlife and reduce the development of antimicrobial resistance.

Autonomy, Suffering, And The Practice Of Medicine: A Relational Approach, Michael A. Stanfield

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this project, I argue that the conventional view of personal autonomy that is operational in contemporary American culture, bioethics and medical practice places undue emphasis on individualism and a limited range of personal qualities and attributes (such as self-sufficiency). Instead, I argue in favor of a relational approach to autonomy which recognizes that each person that exists has certain minimal connections or relations to others, and these connections/relations are identity-forming. Unfortunately, current medical practices have tended to overemphasize individuality and choice (consistent with the conventional view) while minimizing or excluding these relational aspects. As a result, informed consent and …

Introduction To Biomedical Ethics, Katherine Mendis

Open Educational Resources

This course introduces students to issues in the field of biomedical ethics, the theoretical tools bioethicists use to analyze them, and methodology for resolving clinical ethical dilemmas.

Understanding The Lived Experiences Of Counselors Who Have Been Assaulted By Clients, Cynthia S. Ellison

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Assault of community-based mental health professionals is a worldwide phenomenon, and current extant literature examines the prevalence of client assault on counselors, social workers, and psychiatric personnel. While there is significant quantitative scholarship on the incidence of this phenomenon on social workers and psychiatric personnel, there are limited statistical data on client-perpetrated violence against community-based counselors and no qualitative studies found that examined how these professionals experience this occupation risk. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore how counselors who work in community-based settings make sense of these experiences. Through semi structured interviews, 6 community-based counselors living in …

Non-Human Animals Providing Rescue In Medical Emergencies, Rainer Spiegel

Animal Sentience

In their target article, Chapman & Huffman challenge the quotation of Sir William Osler that the desire to take medication distinguishes humans from non-human animals. They provide examples of self-medication in non-human animals. Based on these examples, it can be inferred that non-human animals practice at least some form of medicine for symptom control. I would like to extend this view by showing that non-human animals not only provide self-medication, but also rescue others facing emergencies.

Protecting Patients Who Lack A Voice, Rainer Spiegel

Animal Sentience

Neither human young today nor future human generations nor non-human species have a voice in protecting the biosphere. Treves et al. propose courts and trustees for defending their interests. I describe an analogy with attempts to represent the interests of children and comatose patients in medicine.

“A New Way Of Thinking”: Frantz Fanon’S True Opinion On Violence, Caroline D. Renko

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

In an attempt to clear Frantz Fanon’s name, on account of his opinion on the role of violence in decolonizing a nation, this paper focuses on two important chapters in his last book, The Wretched of the Earth. By closely reading his articulation of the Algerian war and the wounds brought on by mental illness at such a time, Fanon’s true opinion concerning violence becomes clear. For too long, he has been seen and used as a proponent for inciting violence, but this is a misconception that has been perpetuated by devaluing the importance of his descriptions of the …