The Big Question
The Atlantic Video
Originally published August 22, 2014
At this year's Aspen Ideas Festival, we asked a group of experts what new technologies like self-driving cars and drones might mean for our collective conscience. "When a technology first comes into the marketplace, there are always unintended consequences," says Ping Fu, chief strategy officer for 3D Systems. Other panelists include Sebastian Thrun, Alex Reben, Missy Cummings, Jonathan Harris, Jennifer Pahlka, Danny Hillis.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Here’s a Terrible Idea: Robot Cars With Adjustable Ethics Settings
By Patrick Lin
Wired
Originally posted August 18, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
So why not let the user select the car’s “ethics setting”? The way this would work is one customer may set the car (which he paid for) to jealously value his life over all others; another user may prefer that the car values all lives the same and minimizes harm overall; yet another may want to minimize legal liability and costs for herself; and other settings are possible.
Plus, with an adjustable ethics dial set by the customer, the manufacturer presumably can’t be blamed for hard judgment calls, especially in no-win scenarios, right? In one survey, 44 percent of the respondents preferred to have a personalized ethics setting, while only 12 percent thought the manufacturer should predetermine the ethical standard. So why not give customers what they want?
The entire story is here.
Wired
Originally posted August 18, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
So why not let the user select the car’s “ethics setting”? The way this would work is one customer may set the car (which he paid for) to jealously value his life over all others; another user may prefer that the car values all lives the same and minimizes harm overall; yet another may want to minimize legal liability and costs for herself; and other settings are possible.
Plus, with an adjustable ethics dial set by the customer, the manufacturer presumably can’t be blamed for hard judgment calls, especially in no-win scenarios, right? In one survey, 44 percent of the respondents preferred to have a personalized ethics setting, while only 12 percent thought the manufacturer should predetermine the ethical standard. So why not give customers what they want?
The entire story is here.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Should We Teach Plato in Gym Class?
By Mark Edmundson
The New York Times
Originally published August 15, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
Evidence of our neglect is everywhere. Day after day we see athletes, especially male athletes, behaving badly. The players of the most violent sports, football in particular, are too often finding their way to the front pages of the newspaper for crimes like rape and assault. These are young men who have been encouraged to develop speed and strength and, most of all, aggression. Their spiritedness has been amped up by their training.
We need a more thoughtful and sound philosophy of educating the body and the spirit than we currently possess. The athletes who are raising their quotient of thymos with every collision need to be helped to understand what a wonderful but dangerous power they are unleashing in themselves.
The entire story is here.
The New York Times
Originally published August 15, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
Evidence of our neglect is everywhere. Day after day we see athletes, especially male athletes, behaving badly. The players of the most violent sports, football in particular, are too often finding their way to the front pages of the newspaper for crimes like rape and assault. These are young men who have been encouraged to develop speed and strength and, most of all, aggression. Their spiritedness has been amped up by their training.
We need a more thoughtful and sound philosophy of educating the body and the spirit than we currently possess. The athletes who are raising their quotient of thymos with every collision need to be helped to understand what a wonderful but dangerous power they are unleashing in themselves.
The entire story is here.
Moral Distress in Medical Education and Training
by Berger, Jeffrey T
Journal of General Internal Medicine, Volume 29, Issue 2
doi: 10.1007/s11606-013-2665-0
Abstract
Moral distress is the experience of cognitive-emotional dissonance that arises when one feels compelled to act contrary to one’s moral requirements. Moral distress is common, but under-recognized in medical education and training, and this relative inattention may undermine educators’ efforts to promote empathy, ethical practice, and professionalism. Moral distress should be recognized as a feature of the clinical landscape, and addressed in conjunction with the related concerns of negative role modeling and the goals and efficacy of medical ethics curricula.
Introduction
Moral distress is the cognitive-emotional dissonance that arises when one feels compelled to act against one’s moral requirements. Moral distress is common in clinical practice, because caring for the ill is an inherently moral activity. Medical students and junior practitioners may be particularly challenged by morally distressing situations. Their development into attending physicians involves a process that is complex intellectually, sociologically, and culturally, and is no less complex in its moral dimensions.
(cut)
Academic health institutions whose leadership presupposes that moral distress affects all of its clinicians will be best positioned to mitigate this stress and to promote moral wellness and professionalism. Programs should expect that their trainees will experience moral distress and trainees should be aware of this expectation.
The entire article is here.
Journal of General Internal Medicine, Volume 29, Issue 2
doi: 10.1007/s11606-013-2665-0
Abstract
Moral distress is the experience of cognitive-emotional dissonance that arises when one feels compelled to act contrary to one’s moral requirements. Moral distress is common, but under-recognized in medical education and training, and this relative inattention may undermine educators’ efforts to promote empathy, ethical practice, and professionalism. Moral distress should be recognized as a feature of the clinical landscape, and addressed in conjunction with the related concerns of negative role modeling and the goals and efficacy of medical ethics curricula.
Introduction
Moral distress is the cognitive-emotional dissonance that arises when one feels compelled to act against one’s moral requirements. Moral distress is common in clinical practice, because caring for the ill is an inherently moral activity. Medical students and junior practitioners may be particularly challenged by morally distressing situations. Their development into attending physicians involves a process that is complex intellectually, sociologically, and culturally, and is no less complex in its moral dimensions.
(cut)
Academic health institutions whose leadership presupposes that moral distress affects all of its clinicians will be best positioned to mitigate this stress and to promote moral wellness and professionalism. Programs should expect that their trainees will experience moral distress and trainees should be aware of this expectation.
The entire article is here.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Who Is the Client and Who Controls Release of Records in a Forensic Evaluation?
By Bruce Borkosky
Psychological Injury and Law
August 2014
DOI: 10.1007/s12207-014-9199-6
Abstract
Forensic psychologists often refuse to release evaluation records, especially to the evaluee. One justification for this practice is based on the ethical positions that the referral source “is the client” and “controls release of records” (also found in the Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychology). To determine whether these ethical positions are shared by the field of forensic mental health, official documents from forensic mental health organizations were used as a proxy for these views. Thirty-four supporting arguments for either position were identified from the literature; it was postulated that official documents would support both positions and utilize supporting arguments. Fifty-four official documents were discovered, and qualitative analysis was used to construct a 17-category model of official views. Neither position was supported by a majority of documents, and few of the supporting arguments were utilized by supportive documents. The positions are unsupported because official documents espouse a wide diversity of views, there are a number of logical flaws in supporting arguments, and even official APA documents hold conflicting views. Ethical arguments are advanced for contrary positions, and the referral-source-control of records release is contrary to law. A more ethical view is that the psychologist may have multiple, possibly conflicting responsibilities to multiple entities; the psychologist’s roles and responsibilities should be clarified with each entity using an informed consent process. Psychologists should release records at the behest of the evaluee, lest they be subject to licensing discipline, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) complaints, and/or civil sanctions. Recommendations are offered for psychologists, future ethics codes and professional practice guidelines, and test security practices.
The entire article is here.
Psychological Injury and Law
August 2014
DOI: 10.1007/s12207-014-9199-6
Abstract
Forensic psychologists often refuse to release evaluation records, especially to the evaluee. One justification for this practice is based on the ethical positions that the referral source “is the client” and “controls release of records” (also found in the Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychology). To determine whether these ethical positions are shared by the field of forensic mental health, official documents from forensic mental health organizations were used as a proxy for these views. Thirty-four supporting arguments for either position were identified from the literature; it was postulated that official documents would support both positions and utilize supporting arguments. Fifty-four official documents were discovered, and qualitative analysis was used to construct a 17-category model of official views. Neither position was supported by a majority of documents, and few of the supporting arguments were utilized by supportive documents. The positions are unsupported because official documents espouse a wide diversity of views, there are a number of logical flaws in supporting arguments, and even official APA documents hold conflicting views. Ethical arguments are advanced for contrary positions, and the referral-source-control of records release is contrary to law. A more ethical view is that the psychologist may have multiple, possibly conflicting responsibilities to multiple entities; the psychologist’s roles and responsibilities should be clarified with each entity using an informed consent process. Psychologists should release records at the behest of the evaluee, lest they be subject to licensing discipline, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) complaints, and/or civil sanctions. Recommendations are offered for psychologists, future ethics codes and professional practice guidelines, and test security practices.
The entire article is here.
Is One of the Most Popular Psychology Experiments Worthless?
By Olga Khazan
The Atlantic
Originally published July 24, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
But one group of researchers thinks it might be time to retire the trolley. In an upcoming paper that will be published in Social and Personality Psychology Compass, Christopher Bauman of the University of California, Irvine, Peter McGraw of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and others argue that the dilemma is too silly and unrealistic to be applicable to real-life moral problems. Therefore, they contend, it doesn't tell us as much about the human condition as we might hope.
In a survey of undergraduates, Bauman and McGraw found that 63 percent laughed "at least a little bit" in the fat-man scenario and 33 percent did so in the track-switching scenario. And that's an issue, because "humor may alter the decision-making processes people normally use to evaluate moral situations," they note. "A large body of research shows how positivity is less motivating than negativity."
The entire article is here.
The Atlantic
Originally published July 24, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
But one group of researchers thinks it might be time to retire the trolley. In an upcoming paper that will be published in Social and Personality Psychology Compass, Christopher Bauman of the University of California, Irvine, Peter McGraw of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and others argue that the dilemma is too silly and unrealistic to be applicable to real-life moral problems. Therefore, they contend, it doesn't tell us as much about the human condition as we might hope.
In a survey of undergraduates, Bauman and McGraw found that 63 percent laughed "at least a little bit" in the fat-man scenario and 33 percent did so in the track-switching scenario. And that's an issue, because "humor may alter the decision-making processes people normally use to evaluate moral situations," they note. "A large body of research shows how positivity is less motivating than negativity."
The entire article is here.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Episode 14: Ethics and Quality Enhancement Strategies
In Episode 14, John welcomes Dr. Sam Knapp back to the podcast. Sam was fresh off his Lifetime Achievement Award in Ethics Education from the American Psychological Association. After John's first attempt at listener mail, the topic moves toward ethics education and ways to contemplate positive ethics. Rather than looking at remedial ethics or the ethical floor, John and Sam give examples about striving for the ethical ceiling. The focus on quality enhancement strategies grew out of risk management strategies. From a quality enhancement perspective, Sam and John give several examples of what may trigger the need for quality enhancement strategies. They also review four quality enhancement strategies: 1) consultation, 2) empowered collaboration, 3) documentation, and 4) redundant protections. Sam and John also talk about psychologists' emotional reactions to patients.
At the end of this podcast, the listener will be able to:
1. Outline three quality enhancement strategies,
2. Describe how to prepare for a helpful consultation, and,
3. List the reasons why redundant protections are helpful in clinical practice.
Click here to earn one APA-approved CE credit
At the end of this podcast, the listener will be able to:
1. Outline three quality enhancement strategies,
2. Describe how to prepare for a helpful consultation, and,
3. List the reasons why redundant protections are helpful in clinical practice.
Click here to earn one APA-approved CE credit
Or listen directly below
Resources for this podcast
Samuel J. Knapp and John Gavazzi
Sam Knapp and John Gavazzi
John Gavazzi, PsyD ABPP
Ken Pope and Barbara G. Tabachnick
Monday, September 1, 2014
5 Ethical Responsibilities of Corporate Boards
By Kirk O. Hanson
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Blog
Originally published August 14, 2014
Most corporate boards have learned to act quickly when a scandal breaks. General Motors’ board is moving much more quickly to clean up the fallout from its vehicles’ ignition failures than Toyota’s board did to address its rapid acceleration problems of several years ago. It is now the rare board that doesn’t launch an independent investigation quickly when misbehavior is reported.
But the responsibility of the board to prevent scandals is more important than the responsibility to clean up the mess once it has emerged. Here most boards are still at the starting gate. Recent legislation and guidance embodied in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines clearly require the board to take a key role in preventing ethics failures before they happened. This is more complicated than calling in the outside lawyers once disaster happens.
The entire article is here.
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Blog
Originally published August 14, 2014
Most corporate boards have learned to act quickly when a scandal breaks. General Motors’ board is moving much more quickly to clean up the fallout from its vehicles’ ignition failures than Toyota’s board did to address its rapid acceleration problems of several years ago. It is now the rare board that doesn’t launch an independent investigation quickly when misbehavior is reported.
But the responsibility of the board to prevent scandals is more important than the responsibility to clean up the mess once it has emerged. Here most boards are still at the starting gate. Recent legislation and guidance embodied in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines clearly require the board to take a key role in preventing ethics failures before they happened. This is more complicated than calling in the outside lawyers once disaster happens.
The entire article is here.
Thought Experiments
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Substantive revision on August 12, 2014
Thought experiments are devices of the imagination used to investigate the nature of things. They are used for diverse reasons in a variety of areas, including economics, history, mathematics, philosophy, and the sciences, especially physics. Most often thought experiments are communicated in narrative form, frequently with diagrams. Thought experiments should be distinguished from thinking about experiments, from merely imagining any experiments to be conducted outside the imagination, and from psychological experiments with thoughts. They should also be distinguished from counterfactual reasoning in general, as they seem to require an experimental element, which seems to explain the impression that something is experienced in a thought experiment. In other words, though many call any counter-factual or hypothetical situation a thought experiment, this seems too encompassing. It seems right to demand that they also be visualized (or perhaps smelled, tasted, heard, touched); there should be something experimental about a thought experiment.
The primary philosophical challenge of thought experiments is simple: How can we learn about reality (if we can at all), just by thinking? More precisely, are there thought experiments that enable us to acquire new knowledge about the intended realm of investigation without new empirical data? If so, where does the new information come from if not from contact with the realm of investigation under consideration? Finally, how can we distinguish good from bad instances of thought experiments? These questions seem urgent with respect to scientific thought experiments, because most philosophers and historians of science “recognize them as an occasionally potent tool for increasing our understanding of nature. […] Historically their role is very close to the double one played by actual laboratory experiments and observations. First, thought experiments can disclose nature's failure to conform to a previously held set of expectations. Second, they can suggest particular ways in which both expectation and theory must henceforth be revised.” (Kuhn, 1977, p. 241 and 261) The questions are urgent regarding philosophical thought experiments, because they play an important role in philosophical discourse. Philosophy without thought experiments seems almost hopeless.
There is widespread agreement that thought experiments play a central role both in philosophy and in the natural sciences. General acceptance of the importance of some of the well-known thought experiments in the natural sciences, like Maxwell's demon, Einstein's elevator or Schrödinger's cat. Probably more often than not, these, and many other thought experiments have led the careful analysis of their epistemic powers to the conclusion that we should not portray science as an exclusively empirical activity (see Winchester, 1990, p. 79).
The entire entry is here.
Substantive revision on August 12, 2014
Thought experiments are devices of the imagination used to investigate the nature of things. They are used for diverse reasons in a variety of areas, including economics, history, mathematics, philosophy, and the sciences, especially physics. Most often thought experiments are communicated in narrative form, frequently with diagrams. Thought experiments should be distinguished from thinking about experiments, from merely imagining any experiments to be conducted outside the imagination, and from psychological experiments with thoughts. They should also be distinguished from counterfactual reasoning in general, as they seem to require an experimental element, which seems to explain the impression that something is experienced in a thought experiment. In other words, though many call any counter-factual or hypothetical situation a thought experiment, this seems too encompassing. It seems right to demand that they also be visualized (or perhaps smelled, tasted, heard, touched); there should be something experimental about a thought experiment.
The primary philosophical challenge of thought experiments is simple: How can we learn about reality (if we can at all), just by thinking? More precisely, are there thought experiments that enable us to acquire new knowledge about the intended realm of investigation without new empirical data? If so, where does the new information come from if not from contact with the realm of investigation under consideration? Finally, how can we distinguish good from bad instances of thought experiments? These questions seem urgent with respect to scientific thought experiments, because most philosophers and historians of science “recognize them as an occasionally potent tool for increasing our understanding of nature. […] Historically their role is very close to the double one played by actual laboratory experiments and observations. First, thought experiments can disclose nature's failure to conform to a previously held set of expectations. Second, they can suggest particular ways in which both expectation and theory must henceforth be revised.” (Kuhn, 1977, p. 241 and 261) The questions are urgent regarding philosophical thought experiments, because they play an important role in philosophical discourse. Philosophy without thought experiments seems almost hopeless.
There is widespread agreement that thought experiments play a central role both in philosophy and in the natural sciences. General acceptance of the importance of some of the well-known thought experiments in the natural sciences, like Maxwell's demon, Einstein's elevator or Schrödinger's cat. Probably more often than not, these, and many other thought experiments have led the careful analysis of their epistemic powers to the conclusion that we should not portray science as an exclusively empirical activity (see Winchester, 1990, p. 79).
The entire entry is here.
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