Showing posts with label ethical dilemmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethical dilemmas. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Star Trek: Enterprise's 20 Best Episodes, Ranked; ScreenRant, October 9, 2023

EMMA BIDDULPH , ScreenRant; Star Trek: Enterprise's 20 Best Episodes, Ranked

"Star Trek: Enterprise is a character-driven prequel that explores the origins and moral ambiguities of various topics, adding depth to the different characters. 

The premiere episode, "Broken Bow," is a gritty, adventure-filled introduction to an inexperienced crew facing prejudices and tackling ethical dilemmas. 

The series features thought-provoking episodes that examine themes of prejudice, ethics, loyalty, and the greater good while delving into the unknown depths of space."

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Jan. 6 shattered her family. Now they’re trying to forgive.; The Washington Post, January 9, 2023

, The Washington Post ; Jan. 6 shattered her family. Now they’re trying to forgive.

"After rioters stormed the Capitol, relatives and friends who disagreed with their actions faced a difficult choice: Should they turn their loved ones over to authorities? Could they continue to have relationships with people accused of trying to interfere with the peaceful transition of power?"

Monday, July 3, 2023

Coppedge: Do ethics and a moral compass matter?; Longview News-Journal, July 2, 2023

Dr. John Coppedge , Longview News-Journal; Coppedge: Do ethics and a moral compass matter?

[Kip Currier: The Mont Blanc pen part of this article is a jaw-dropping example of ethical decision-making in the moment. (A good defense lawyer could, I suppose, assert that the accused pen purloiner absent-mindedly picked up the pen or mistakenly thought it was his...but this is still a thought-provoking ethics example.)

American philosopher Aldo Leopold famously opined that "ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching -- even when doing the wrong thing is legal."

In this instance, someone was watching: albeit a surveillance camera.]

"If you came upon an expensive fountain pen someone left on a security tray at your local courthouse, you would be confronted by an ethical dilemma. Would you have a duty to turn it in? Or would you pocket the pen for your personal use?

That was the ethical question confronting then state Sen. Ken Paxton (the recently impeached Texas attorney general) at the Collin County Courthouse. The item in question was a Mont Blanc pen. He chose to keep it.

Backing up a bit, the person to whom the pen belonged was local attorney Joe Joplin. The pen had been a gift from his wife.

Mont Blanc pens are a status symbol, prized by many. On the Mont Blanc website, they are advertised for between $380 and $168,000, with the average price approaching $1,000. It is inconceivable to this author that someone could pick up any Mont Blanc pen and not realize it is something special, desirable and valuable.

Immediately after his hearing, Joplin, who inadvertently left the pen at the security checkpoint, rushed back to inquire if it was still there. It was gone.

Joplin then contacted Collin County Sheriff Terry Box and asked him to look at the security video recording. He did and recognized that the person coming through the security portal after Joplin and taking the pen was Ken Paxton. 

Sheriff Box had one of his deputies call Paxton saying that he was seen on security video taking the pen. Paxton admitted he had taken it. Res ipso loquitur*.

People can decide for themselves about Ken Paxton’s ethics and moral compass, or lack thereof...

Carl Sandburg is quoted as saying: “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell."...

* "Res ipso loquitur" is a Latin term meaning the thing speaks for itself."

Saturday, June 17, 2023

What Elizabeth Gilbert's publication delay reveals about the ethics of writing fiction; CBC, June 15, 2023

 Jen Sookfong Lee and Laisha Rosnau , CBC; What Elizabeth Gilbert's publication delay reveals about the ethics of writing fiction

"Elizabeth Gilbert, the bestselling author of Eat Pray Love, is delaying publication of her latest novel after facing a backlash from some Ukrainians who said it's the wrong time to put the novel — which is set in Russia — into the world.

Authors Jen Sookfong Lee and Laisha Rosnau unpack Gilbert's decision, and get into the real-world ethical dilemmas facing fiction writers today."

Sunday, June 11, 2023

Teaching the ethics of data science through immersive video; Cornell Chronicle, June 6, 2023

 By , Cornell Chronicle; Teaching the ethics of data science through immersive video

"In “Nobody’s Fault,” students experience what it’s like to be a data scientist dealing with a moral conflict. The video stops from time to time, asking viewers how they would handle the tricky situations being depicted. As they make decisions, the plot shifts, and they see the consequences unfold – and how they affect an unemployed woman who can’t get the facial recognition application to work.

After a series of unhappy outcomes, the scene rewinds, better choices are offered, and students see how things could have been different for the woman seeking her benefits.

“The video gave us real-world experience with ethical dilemmas,” said Britt Snider, M.I.L.R. ’24. “It enhanced our learning of the subject by showing us in real time the consequences of our decisions – and how something as seemingly innocuous as a few percentage points could cause such a large consequence to society overall.”"

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

Rob Stein; NPR; Experts weigh medical advances in gene-editing with ethical dilemmas; NPR, March 6, 2023

Rob Stein; NPR; Experts weigh medical advances in gene-editing with ethical dilemmas

"Hundreds of scientists, doctors, bioethicists, patients, and others started gathering in London Monday for the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing. The summit this week will debate and possibly issue recommendations about the thorny issues raised by powerful new gene-editing technologies.\

The last time the world's scientists gathered to debate the pros and cons of gene-editing — in Hong Kong in late 2018 — He Jiankui, a biophysicist and researcher at Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, shocked his audience with a bombshell announcement. He had created the first gene-edited babies, he told the crowd — twin girls born from embryos he had modified using the gene-editing technique CRISPR."

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

When a Visit to the Museum Becomes an Ethical Dilemma; The New York Times, February 14, 2023

Charly Wilder, The New York TimesWhen a Visit to the Museum Becomes an Ethical Dilemma

Western museums are major tourist attractions, drawing travelers from around the world. But what responsibility do we bear as spectators for patronizing institutions that display what critics say are stolen works?

"For museumgoers, the ethical dimensions of viewing plundered art have become impossible to ignore. Western museums are major tourist attractions, drawing travelers from around the world. But what responsibility do we bear as spectators for patronizing institutions that display what critics say are stolen works? Should we be asking how these museums got their treasures? Does our conception of a modern-day ethnological museum need a dramatic rethink?"

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

The ethical dilemmas of renaming scientific principles that honour fallen idols; Physics World, December 26, 2022

Robert P Crease, Physics World; The ethical dilemmas of renaming scientific principles that honour fallen idols

"Is removing a name good because it avoids appearing to endorse the inappropriate behaviour of a scientist and encourages others to do a better job themselves? Or is removing a name bad because it makes us complacent by suggesting that we’ve eliminated a problem and don’t need to worry about it anymore, and in allowing us to pretend to ourselves that physics is done only by the morally stainless?

What, in other words, is the ethics of eponymy? Readers with insights should inform me and I’ll write about the topic in a future column."

Saturday, March 5, 2022

‘Good Place’ creator Michael Schur asks: How can we live a more ethical life?; The Washington Post, March 4, 2022

Michael Schur , The Washington Post; ‘Good Place’ creator Michael Schur asks: How can we live a more ethical life?

"For every conscientious citizen, there’s a whole bunch of cheaters and liars and Wolf of Wall Street maniacs who see ethical rules as annoying obstacles to getting whatever they want — not, you know, once a month, but literally all the time. Perhaps we can break down this whole confusing morass into four simple questions that we can ask ourselves whenever we encounter any ethical dilemma, great or small:

What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Is there something we could do that’s better? Why is it better?...

“Trying to do the right thing” means we are bound to fail. Even making our best efforts to be good people, we’re gonna screw up. Constantly. We’ll make a decision we think is right and good, only to find out it was wrong and bad. We’ll do something we don’t think will affect anyone, only to find out it sure as hell did, and man are we in trouble. We will hurt our friends’ feelings, harm the environment, support evil companies, accidentally help an elderly Nazi cross the street. We will fail, and then fail again, and again, and again. On this test, which we take daily whether we want to or not, failure is guaranteed — in fact, even getting like a C-plus often seems hopelessly out of reach. All of which can make caring about what we do seem pointless.

But that failure means more, and has more potential value, if we do care. Because if we care about doing the right thing, we will also want to figure out why we failed, which will give us a better chance to succeed in the future. Failure hurts, and it’s embarrassing, but it’s also how we learn stuff — it’s called “trial and error,” not “one perfect trial and we nail it and then we’re done.” Plus, come on — the alternative to caring about our ethical lives is really no alternative at all. We’re supposed to just ignore all questions about our behavior? Phone it in, morally speaking? I can’t believe that’s the right move. If we care about anything in this life, we ought to care about whether what we’re doing is good or bad."

Saturday, March 27, 2021

Some people are lying to get vaccinated, and it’s testing their friendships; The Washington Post, March 25, 2021

Ashley Fetters, The Washington Post; Some people are lying to get vaccinated, and it’s testing their friendships

"The rules seem simple enough: For hundreds of millions of people to receive a lifesaving vaccination efficiently, you have to wait your turn. But as many Americans wait, they’re watching others exploit the system in plain view. And while some of the moral murkiness of the moment is rooted in the uneven, somewhat haphazard vaccination rollout in much of the country, the truth is that some friends may never see their line-jumping loved ones the same way again."

Thursday, March 4, 2021

Emerging technologies pose ethical quandaries. Where does IT leadership fit in?; CIO Dive, February 22, 2021

Katie Malone, CIO Dive; Emerging technologies pose ethical quandaries. Where does IT leadership fit in?

""More organizations are seeing that trust is a measurement of profitability, of organizational health, of success," said Catherine Bannister, Tech Savvy and ethical tech leader at Deloitte. "This notion of ethics is becoming much more visible to stakeholders across the board and they are using that as a measure of trust, both internally and externally."

But there's no common definition for what ethical technology looks like and the conversation is ongoing. Instead, CIOs and other members of IT leadership are responsible for figuring out what tech ethics mean for their organizations in the near- and long-term. 

If an organization doesn't do its ethical due diligence, customers will catch on and trust will be diminished, according to Bannister."

Monday, March 1, 2021

BYU professors create ethics field guide to help US special forces; KSL.com, February 23, 2021

 Dan Rascon, KSL.com; BYU professors create ethics field guide to help US special forces

"The U.S. special forces are getting help from two Brigham Young University professors to deal with critical ethical dilemmas.

The professors teach business ethics, and they never dreamed they would be called upon to help with top military operations...

Several years ago the two professors wrote a book called "The Business Ethics Field Guide" — a guide that breaks down common ethical dilemmas into 13 categories. Never did they think a top military official would come across this book and want to adapt it for U.S. special forces."

Monday, February 8, 2021

The Ethical Dilemmas Prompted By The Vaccine Rollout; FiveThirtyEight, February 5, 2021

  and , FiveThirtyEight; The Ethical Dilemmas Prompted By The Vaccine Rollout

"Should you take a leftover dose of the COVID-19 vaccine? Should you pass up a dose if you think you don’t need it as much as someone else does? On this week’s episode of PODCAST-19, we talk to bioethicists to get their answers on these questions and more."

Saturday, June 13, 2020

What Do I Do if My Employer Does Something I Can’t Abide?; The New York Times, June 12, 2020

, The New York Times; What Do I Do if My Employer Does Something I Can’t Abide?

You have to calibrate the difference between dumb and unacceptable, what you can live with and what you cannot.

"You have to pick your battles. You have to calibrate the difference between stupid and unacceptable, what you can live with and what you cannot. Because you work for a newspaper that will always publish a range of content, some of which you agree with and some of which you do not, you also have to calibrate the difference between disagreement and disgust.

That’s the tidy answer that doesn’t really force you to make the difficult decision. But now, more than ever, with so much at stake, we have to be willing to make difficult decisions. We have to be willing to make ourselves uncomfortable in service of what’s right. When the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, three of his co-workers stood by and did nothing. When a police officer in Buffalo shoved a 75-year-old man to the ground, dozens of his co-workers walked past that fallen man, bleeding from his ear. They did nothing.

Most situations in which you object to your employer’s conduct won’t be so extreme. But something terrible happened in this country, something that has happened with horrifying frequency. Each time we think maybe this time, something will change. For a few days or even a few weeks, change seems possible — and then we all get comfortable again. We forget about whatever terrible thing once held our attention. A new terrible thing happens. We get outraged. It’s a vicious cycle, but it is one we can break. When your employer does something that violates your ethical code, when it does something that endangers employees or the greater community, you have to ask yourself if you are going to do nothing — or get angry, vent and hold your employer accountable in whatever ways you can. I am, perhaps, simplifying the choices you can make, but maybe doing the right thing is far simpler than we allow ourselves to believe."

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Silicon Valley needs a new approach to studying ethics now more than ever; TechCrunch, April 24, 2020

Lisa Wehden, TechCrunch; Silicon Valley needs a new approach to studying ethics now more than ever

"These are fresh concerns in familiar debates about tech’s ethics. How should technologists think about the trade-off between the immediate need for public health surveillance and individual privacy? And misformation and free speech? Facebook and other platforms are playing a much more active role than ever in assessing the quality of information: promoting official information sources prominently and removing some posts from users defying social distancing.

As the pandemic spreads and, along with it, the race to develop new technologies accelerates, it’s more critical than ever that technology finds a way to fully examine these questions. Technologists today are ill-equipped for this challenge: striking healthy balances between competing concerns — like privacy and safety — while explaining their approach to the public...

If the only students are future technologists, though, solutions will lag. If we want a more ethically knowledgeable tech industry today, we need ethical study for tech practitioners, not just university students...

Over half of the class came from a STEM background and had missed much explicit education in ethical frameworks. Our class discussed principles from other fields, like medical ethics, including the physician’s guiding maxim (“first, do no harm”) in the context of designing new algorithms. Texts from the world of science fiction, like “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin, also offered ways to grapple with issues, leading students to evaluate how to collect and use data responsibly."

Friday, April 24, 2020

COVID-19 and the Ethical Questions It Poses; University of Nevada, Las Vegas, April 22, 2020

University of Nevada, Las Vegas; COVID-19 and the Ethical Questions It Poses

UNLV business ethics expert Wonyong Oh on the coronavirus pandemic and the ethical dilemmas facing health care workers, corporations, and government

"What are some ethical questions that businesses are wrestling with in light of COVID-19?


Let’s think about one controversial example. Real-time personal location information to track and manage the path of infection has been tried all over the world, especially actively in Asian countries like China, Korea, and Hong Kong. IT companies can track location information using smartphones to prevent virus spread. This raises ethical and legal issues surrounding access to personal information.
If you follow utilitarian ethics, tracking this kind of personal information can be allowed with the “maximum benefits for the greatest number” principle. It’s for keeping society safe from infection by sacrificing personal privacy. It seems that, recently, the views on tracking personal information in the U.S. and Europe began to change. In a few European countries, telecommunication companies began to use mobile phone data to fight COVID-19. In the U.S., Apple and Google are working together to track COVID-19 with Bluetooth. IT companies can help governments reduce the spread of the virus with their technologies. At the same time, high-tech companies need to balance that with protecting individual privacy, which is a new challenge.
Everything about the coronavirus pandemic, however, is unprecedented. The reality is that the virus threatens even ordinary freedoms, like the freedom of movement, with stay-at-home orders."

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Veterinarians pledge ventilators, supplies to human medicine; American Veterinary Medical Association, April 15, 2020

Greg Cima, American Veterinary Medical Association; Veterinarians pledge ventilators, supplies to human medicine


Shortages of personal protective equipment cause practitioners to make tough decisions

"Veterinarians pledged hundreds of ventilators for human use as a surge of COVID-19 cases risked shortages.

Some also described efforts to conserve or donate personal protective equipment, such as gloves and masks, amid supply chain issues as the stress on human health care strained supplies. That threat of shortages expanded as the coronavirus causing the disease spread to more communities daily this spring.

As COVID-19’s spread accelerated—the U.S. leading the world in confirmed coronavirus cases with about 400,000 people as of April 7, according to Johns Hopkins University—leaders of the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care started a database of ventilators that could potentially be used for human health care. The zoo veterinarian and veterinary anesthesiology colleges added to the effort in the days afterward.

Dr. Elizabeth B. Davidow, president-elect of the ACVECC, led the effort to create the ventilator database."

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Who Should Be Saved First? Experts Offer Ethical Guidance; The New York Times, March 24, 2020

, The New York Times; Who Should Be Saved First? Experts Offer Ethical Guidance


"Facing this dilemma recently — who gets a ventilator or a hospital bed — Italian doctors sought ethical counsel and were told to consider an approach that draws on utilitarian principles.

In layman’s terms, a utilitarianism approach would maximize overall health by directing care toward those most likely to benefit the most from it. If you had only one ventilator, it would go to someone more likely to survive instead of someone deemed unlikely to do so. It would not go to whichever patient was first admitted, and it would not be assigned via a lottery system. (If there are ties within classes of people, then a lottery — choosing at random — is what ethicists recommend.)

In a paper in The New England Journal of Medicine published Monday, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives and chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues offer ways to apply ethical principles to rationing in the coronavirus pandemic. These too are utilitarian, favoring those with the best prospects for the longest remaining life.

In addition, they say prioritizing the health of front-line health care workers is necessary to maximize the number of lives saved."

Friday, March 20, 2020

Ethical dilemmas in the age of coronavirus: Whose lives should we save?; Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2020

Jenny Jarvie, Los Angeles Times; Ethical dilemmas in the age of coronavirus: Whose lives should we save?

"In routine times, emergency room physicians operate on egalitarian principles, offering first-come, first-served intensive care on the basis that everybody’s life is equal.

But the approach becomes more utilitarian in times of catastrophe. When systems are overrun during wars and natural disasters, doctors must decide how to maximize resources for the greatest social good.

“This is the largest experiment of social mitigation strategies and handling of a pandemic in human history,” said Howard Markel, a professor of history at the University of Michigan. “Historical epidemics don’t count because they didn’t have intensive care, respirators or intravenous fluids. We’re all flying by the seat of our pants.”"