Opinion: Where was Justice Neil Gorsuch’s mask?; The Washington Post, January 7, 2022

 Ruth Marcus, The Washington Post; Opinion: Where was Justice Neil Gorsuch’s mask?

"The sad part here is that Gorsuch is more emblem than outlier. The pandemic has brought out the best in some of us, but the worst — the most selfish and irresponsible — in too many others. This “you’re not the boss of me” immaturity has made a difficult period even harder.

Actions that should be understood as minor inconveniences desirable for the greater good have somehow been transformed into intolerable incursions on liberty. Being required to wear a mask has assumed symbolic resonance far in excess of any reasonable objection.

No one is the boss of Justice Gorsuch. Like his colleagues, he had a choice about whether to wear a mask. Unlike them, he chose poorly."

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."

The dangerous morality behind the 'Open it Up' movement; CNN, April 23, 2020

Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor, CNN; The dangerous morality behind the 'Open it Up' movement

"This kind of moral calculus reflects an unpleasant truth about utilitarianism."

As COVID-19 stretches resources, ethical questions draw scrutiny; The Lewiston Tribune, April 8, 2020

Scott Jackson, The Lewiston Tribune; As COVID-19 stretches resources, ethical questions draw scrutiny

Two WSU professors discuss ethics of rationing health care resources during a pandemic

"WSU philosophy professor and ethicist William Kabasenche said when health care crises like the COVID-19 pandemic strike, health care workers must grapple with and reconcile two very different kinds of ethics.

The first of these, he said, is the familiar, day-to-day ethics doctors and nurses deploy on a regular basis. He called the first of these “clinical medical ethic,” which he described as more centered on individual patients. This mode of ethics respects patient autonomy, considers their health care goals and those of their family and generally seeks the best possible outcome on an individual basis.

However, in the event of a health care crisis like the pandemic facing the world today, he said another ethic begins to emerge that is more concerned with the collective well-being of many patients. He said if hospitals are overwhelmed with patients who require a ventilator, physicians may be faced with choosing to save a patient with better chances of survival over others in more severe condition...

Heine and Kabasenche agreed that forcing physicians to make decisions about who lives and who dies will likely be traumatic. What’s worse, Heine said because so little is known about the new coronavirus and the disease it causes, doctors will be making these decisions based on incomplete or flawed data. It’s difficult to make these calls in the first place, he said, but it’s especially difficult when you can’t even be sure that the information you’re acting on is correct and stands the best chance of saving the most people.

“Until we get a lot more experience, we’re going to have a hard time making really good decisions based on good data,” he said. “We will have medical challenges to make decisions and we will have very significant ethical challenges of how to make decisions to allocate resources during this pandemic.”

The full discussion between Kabasenche and Heine can be found at www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYy9-L0i1rk."

The Ethics of Thru-Hiking During the COVID-19 Pandemic; Outside, March 19, 2020

Grayson Haver Currin, Outside; The Ethics of Thru-Hiking During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Despite the coronavirus, you can legally thru-hike the Appalachian Trail right now. But should you?

"But what none of these organizations can do, of course, is legally or logistically close trails that run the length of the United States. That limitation and its implications have ripped the thru-hiking community into subdivisions, whose differing views are reflected on message boards and along the trails themselves. As sports leagues have canceled entire seasons and restaurants have laid off staff, the urgent question for thru-hiking in 2020 has become an ethical litmus test: Just because you can get on trail, should you? 

“People are going to do it, and that’s their choice,” says Scott Wilkinson, director of communications and marketing at the PCTA. “But hikers must take into consideration that our goal is to limit the spread of COVID-19, and the only certain way to do that is to physically limit the possibilities by social distancing. I can’t imagine a much better vehicle for a virus than a large group of hikers hitching to and out of hotels in small towns.”"

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

Austin Frakt, 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."

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.”"

Viral ethics: Keeping our moral compass in a time of confinement; The Spokesman-Review, March 19, 2020

Eli Francovich, The Spokesman-Review; Viral ethics: Keeping our moral compass in a time of confinement

"“We can’t panic and we can’t lose our intrinsic moral compass and doing right by our fellow human beings,” said Dr. Darryl Potyk, chief for medical education at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Spokane. “I would worry more about me giving it to her. But if she’s in danger, the present danger is apparent. I want to deal with the apparent danger right now.” 

Coming together

And so, last week, I approached the ailing woman.

She needed to go to the bus plaza. She’d taken a bus from her home in the Spokane Valley, where she lives alone, to drop off some paperwork downtown. While she was walking back, she had some sort of attack or episode, she didn’t know what exactly, maybe something to do with her diabetes.

She grasped the crook of my arm and, I’m not proud to admit, I recoiled at first, worried she might touch my hand. 

Five people had already passed and not helped, she said. We walked slowly to the plaza. She stumbled often, her back arching backward, threatening to upend her precarious grasp on gravity. A Spokane Transit Authority employee saw us and, without any visible hesitation, took her other arm. The three of us shuffled to the waiting area for her Paratransit bus. 

I bought her a slice of pizza and she thanked us."

Facebook’s board is throwing public support behind Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg — who are on Facebook’s board; Recode, November 15, 2018

Kurt Wagner, Recode; Facebook’s board is throwing public support behind Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg — who are on Facebook’s board

[Kip Currier: Take note of the deliberate choice of words in the Facebook Board's statement copied below: 

"grossly unfair"

The Board doesn't say that allegations that Zuckerberg and Sandberg "knew about Russian interference and either tried to ignore it or prevent investigations into what had happened" were untrue. It says that the allegations were "grossly unfair". Those are two different things. The former is of a more objective nature. The latter is more subjective--and self-serving.

That "grossly unfair" phrasing telegraphs oodles of insight into the exculpatory mindset and run-the-clock-out public relations positioning of Facebook leaders: in the words of the New York Times' 11/14/18 bombshell behind-the-scenes reporting, "Delay, Deny and Deflect". 

And that "they're-doing-this-to-us" mindset is also evident in the 11/17/18 New York Times-reported words of Elliot Schrage, Facebook's former vice president of global communications and public policy, who--at an 11/14/18 Q & A for employees with Zuckerberg and Sandberg--said that "Facebook was in a difficult news cycle, and that things would eventually calm down".

Oh, and the actual makeup of the Board? You guessed it...Zuckerberg and Sandberg are "both on Facebook’s board". So, as this Recode article wryly observes, "it looks like Facebook’s executives are throwing public support behind ... themselves."

In a sense, the well-documented history of half-truths and obfuscations (see here and here) of these conflicts of interest-riven Facebook Heads shouldn't surprise us (--read Helaine Olen's 11/15/18 WaPo piece The moral and ethical rot at Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg's Facebook): they're adhering to their long-standing Utilitarianism-derived principle that "the needs of the few (i.e. anyone employed by or enriched by Facebook) outweigh the needs of the many" (i.e. the world's billions of users AND non-users who have been and continue to be impacted by Facebook's relentlessly revenue-driven, public good-eschewing practices).

The incoming House of Representatives must hold Facebook and its leaders accountable for its actions and inaction. Bring Facebook's leaders in front of Congress, under Oath, and get the answers and remedies the American people and the World are owed. That's the rightly fair thing to suggest demand from Facebook and the elected officials who represent us.

#FacebookAccountability]

"That story got us asking: Who from Facebook might be fired for the company’s missteps?

Whoever it is, it doesn’t look like it’ll be Zuckerberg or Sandberg. At least not right now.

Facebook’s board of directors issued a public statement defending the company’s efforts in fighting Russian election meddling efforts following the 2016 presidential election. It also called the story “grossly unfair.” Here’s the full statement.

“As Mark and Sheryl made clear to Congress, the company was too slow to spot Russian interference, and too slow to take action. As a board we did indeed push them to move faster. But to suggest that they knew about Russian interference and either tried to ignore it or prevent investigations into what had happened is grossly unfair. In the last eighteen months Facebook, with the full support of this board, has invested heavily in more people and better technology to prevent misuse of its services, including during elections. As the U.S. mid-term showed, they have made considerable progress and we support their continued to efforts to fight abuse and improve security.”"

Is ‘Balanced Intellectual Property’ Code For ‘Anti-Intellectual Property’?; Above The Law, June 28, 2018

Krista L. Cox, Above The Law;

Is ‘Balanced Intellectual Property’ Code For ‘Anti-Intellectual Property’?

 

"The copyright and patent system in the United States acknowledges both the need to incentivize innovation as well as the need for public access. It is a utilitarian view that promotes further creation. Advocating for a system that incentivizes the creator or inventor while simultaneously protecting the interest of the public isn’t an anti-intellectual property stance, it’s one that encourages more creative works and innovations."

Whose life should your car save?; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/20/16

Azim Shariff, Iyad Rahwan and Jean-Francois Bonnefon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Whose life should your car save?; Whose life should your car save? :

"The widespread use of self-driving cars promises to bring substantial benefits to transportation efficiency, public safety and personal well-being. Car manufacturers are working to overcome the remaining technical challenges that stand in the way of this future. Our research, however, shows that there is also an important ethical dilemma that must be solved before people will be comfortable trusting their lives to these cars.

As the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has noted, autonomous cars may find themselves in circumstances in which the car must choose between risks to its passengers and risks to a potentially greater number of pedestrians. Imagine a situation in which the car must either run off the road or plow through a large crowd of people: Whose risk should the car’s algorithm aim to minimize?

This dilemma was explored in studies that we recently published in the journal Science...

This is why, despite its mixed messages, Mercedes-Benz should be applauded for speaking out on the subject. The company acknowledges that to “clarify these issues of law and ethics in the long term will require broad international discourse.”"

30 Years After Explosion, Challenger Engineer Still Blames Himself; NPR, 1/28/16

Howard Berkes, NPR; 30 Years After Explosion, Challenger Engineer Still Blames Himself:

"The space shuttle program had an ambitious launch schedule that year and NASA wanted to show it could launch regularly and reliably. President Ronald Reagan was also set to deliver the State of the Union address that evening and reportedly planned to tout the Challenger launch.

Whatever the reason, Ebeling says it didn't justify the risk.

"There was more than enough [NASA officials and Thiokol managers] there to say, 'Hey, let's give it another day or two,' " Ebeling recalls. "But no one did."

Ebeling retired soon after Challenger. He suffered deep depression and has never been able to lift the burden of guilt. In 1986, as he watched that haunting image again on a television screen, he said, "I could have done more. I should have done more."

He says the same thing today, sitting in a big easy chair in the same living room, his eyes watery and his face grave. The data he and his fellow engineers presented, and their persistent and sometimes angry arguments, weren't enough to sway Thiokol managers and NASA officials. Ebeling concludes he was inadequate. He didn't argue the data well enough."