Wendy E. Parmet, Jason A. Smith, and Matthew Miller
N Engl J Med 2017; 376:1901-1903
May 18, 2017
Here is an excerpt:
The majority’s well-reasoned decision, in fact, does just that. By relying on heightened rather than strict scrutiny, the majority affirmed that laws regulating physician speech must be designed to enhance rather than harm patient safety. The majority took this mandate seriously and required the state to show some meaningful evidence that the regulation was apt to serve the state’s interest in protecting patients.
The state could not do so for two reasons. First, the decision to keep a gun in the home substantially increases the risk of death for all household members, especially the risk of death by suicide, and particularly so when guns are stored loaded and unlocked, as they are in millions of homes where children live. Second, the majority of U.S. adults who live in homes with guns are unaware of the heightened risk posed by bringing guns into a home. Indeed, by providing accurate information about the risks created by easy access to firearms, as well as ways to modify that risk (e.g., by storing guns unloaded and locked up, separate from ammunition), a physician’s counseling can not only enhance a patient’s capacity for self-determination, but also save lives.
Given the right to provide such counsel, professional norms recognize the responsibility to do so. Fulfilling this obligation, however, may not be easy, since the chief impediments to doing so — and to doing so effectively — are not and never have been legal barriers. Indeed, the court’s welcome ruling does not ensure that most clinicians will honor this hard-won victory by exercising their First Amendment rights.
The article is here.
Sunday, June 4, 2017
Saturday, June 3, 2017
Trump Exempts Entire Senior Staff From White House Ethics Rules
Lachlan Markay
The Daily Beast
Originally published May 31, 2017
Here is an excerpt:
Andrew Olmem, another White House economist and a former lobbyist for a host of large financial services and insurance firms, will be free to work with former clients on specific issues affecting bank capital requirements, financial regulation of insurers, and the Puerto Rican debt crisis, all issues on which he has recently lobbied.
Those officials have been given freer rein to advance their former clients’ financial interests, but ethics rules have also been waived for every other “commissioned officer”—staffers who report directly to the president—in the White House who has worked for a political group in the past two years.
That will allow a number of White House staffers to collaborate with pro-Trump advocacy operations. The West Wing is stacked with officials who have made significant sums working, consulting for, or representing high-profile political organizations, including networks of groups financed by the Trump-backing Mercer family and the libertarian Koch family.
Conway herself consulted for more than 50 political, policy, and advocacy organizations last year, according to a White House financial disclosure statement.
The article is here.
The Daily Beast
Originally published May 31, 2017
Here is an excerpt:
Andrew Olmem, another White House economist and a former lobbyist for a host of large financial services and insurance firms, will be free to work with former clients on specific issues affecting bank capital requirements, financial regulation of insurers, and the Puerto Rican debt crisis, all issues on which he has recently lobbied.
Those officials have been given freer rein to advance their former clients’ financial interests, but ethics rules have also been waived for every other “commissioned officer”—staffers who report directly to the president—in the White House who has worked for a political group in the past two years.
That will allow a number of White House staffers to collaborate with pro-Trump advocacy operations. The West Wing is stacked with officials who have made significant sums working, consulting for, or representing high-profile political organizations, including networks of groups financed by the Trump-backing Mercer family and the libertarian Koch family.
Conway herself consulted for more than 50 political, policy, and advocacy organizations last year, according to a White House financial disclosure statement.
The article is here.
Friday, June 2, 2017
The meaning of life in a world without work
Yuval Noah Harari
The Guardian
Originally posted May 8, 2017
Most jobs that exist today might disappear within decades. As artificial intelligence outperforms humans in more and more tasks, it will replace humans in more and more jobs. Many new professions are likely to appear: virtual-world designers, for example. But such professions will probably require more creativity and flexibility, and it is unclear whether 40-year-old unemployed taxi drivers or insurance agents will be able to reinvent themselves as virtual-world designers (try to imagine a virtual world created by an insurance agent!). And even if the ex-insurance agent somehow makes the transition into a virtual-world designer, the pace of progress is such that within another decade he might have to reinvent himself yet again.
The crucial problem isn’t creating new jobs. The crucial problem is creating new jobs that humans perform better than algorithms. Consequently, by 2050 a new class of people might emerge – the useless class. People who are not just unemployed, but unemployable.
The article is here.
The Guardian
Originally posted May 8, 2017
Most jobs that exist today might disappear within decades. As artificial intelligence outperforms humans in more and more tasks, it will replace humans in more and more jobs. Many new professions are likely to appear: virtual-world designers, for example. But such professions will probably require more creativity and flexibility, and it is unclear whether 40-year-old unemployed taxi drivers or insurance agents will be able to reinvent themselves as virtual-world designers (try to imagine a virtual world created by an insurance agent!). And even if the ex-insurance agent somehow makes the transition into a virtual-world designer, the pace of progress is such that within another decade he might have to reinvent himself yet again.
The crucial problem isn’t creating new jobs. The crucial problem is creating new jobs that humans perform better than algorithms. Consequently, by 2050 a new class of people might emerge – the useless class. People who are not just unemployed, but unemployable.
The article is here.
The Theory of Dyadic Morality: Reinventing Moral Judgment by Redefining Harm
Chelsea Schein, Kurt Gray
Personality and Social Psychology Review
First Published May 14, 2017
Abstract
The nature of harm—and therefore moral judgment—may be misunderstood. Rather than an objective matter of reason, we argue that harm should be redefined as an intuitively perceived continuum. This redefinition provides a new understanding of moral content and mechanism—the constructionist Theory of Dyadic Morality (TDM). TDM suggests that acts are condemned proportional to three elements: norm violations, negative affect, and—importantly—perceived harm. This harm is dyadic, involving an intentional agent causing damage to a vulnerable patient (A→P). TDM predicts causal links both from harm to immorality (dyadic comparison) and from immorality to harm (dyadic completion). Together, these two processes make the “dyadic loop,” explaining moral acquisition and polarization. TDM argues against intuitive harmless wrongs and modular “foundations,” but embraces moral pluralism through varieties of values and the flexibility of perceived harm. Dyadic morality impacts understandings of moral character, moral emotion, and political/cultural differences, and provides research guidelines for moral psychology.
The article is here.
Personality and Social Psychology Review
First Published May 14, 2017
Abstract
The nature of harm—and therefore moral judgment—may be misunderstood. Rather than an objective matter of reason, we argue that harm should be redefined as an intuitively perceived continuum. This redefinition provides a new understanding of moral content and mechanism—the constructionist Theory of Dyadic Morality (TDM). TDM suggests that acts are condemned proportional to three elements: norm violations, negative affect, and—importantly—perceived harm. This harm is dyadic, involving an intentional agent causing damage to a vulnerable patient (A→P). TDM predicts causal links both from harm to immorality (dyadic comparison) and from immorality to harm (dyadic completion). Together, these two processes make the “dyadic loop,” explaining moral acquisition and polarization. TDM argues against intuitive harmless wrongs and modular “foundations,” but embraces moral pluralism through varieties of values and the flexibility of perceived harm. Dyadic morality impacts understandings of moral character, moral emotion, and political/cultural differences, and provides research guidelines for moral psychology.
The article is here.
Thursday, June 1, 2017
Nudges in a post-truth world
Neil Levy
Journal of Medical Ethics
Published Online First: 19 May 2017
Abstract
Nudges—policy proposals informed by work in behavioural economics and psychology that are designed to lead to better decision-making or better behaviour—are controversial. Critics allege that they bypass our deliberative capacities, thereby undermining autonomy and responsible agency. In this paper, I identify a kind of nudge I call a nudge to reason, which make us more responsive to genuine evidence. I argue that at least some nudges to reason do not bypass our deliberative capacities. Instead, use of these nudges should be seen as appeals to mechanisms partially constitutive of these capacities, and therefore as benign (so far as autonomy and responsible agency are concerned). I sketch some concrete proposals for nudges to reason which are especially important given the apparent widespread resistance to evidence seen in recent political events.
The article is here.
Journal of Medical Ethics
Published Online First: 19 May 2017
Abstract
Nudges—policy proposals informed by work in behavioural economics and psychology that are designed to lead to better decision-making or better behaviour—are controversial. Critics allege that they bypass our deliberative capacities, thereby undermining autonomy and responsible agency. In this paper, I identify a kind of nudge I call a nudge to reason, which make us more responsive to genuine evidence. I argue that at least some nudges to reason do not bypass our deliberative capacities. Instead, use of these nudges should be seen as appeals to mechanisms partially constitutive of these capacities, and therefore as benign (so far as autonomy and responsible agency are concerned). I sketch some concrete proposals for nudges to reason which are especially important given the apparent widespread resistance to evidence seen in recent political events.
The article is here.
There is no liberal right to sex with students
Maya J. Goldenberg, Karen Houle, Monique Deveaux, Karyn L. Freedman, & Patricia Sheridan
The Times Higher Education
Originally posted May 4, 2017
There is a long and distinguished history of conceptualising liberal democracy in terms of basic rights to which, all other things being equal, everyone is entitled. Sexual freedom is rightly counted among these. But should this right apply where one person is in a position of power and authority over the other? Doctors are sanctioned if they have sex with their patients, as are lawyers who sleep with their clients. Should sexual relationships between professors and students in the same department also be off limits?
Neil McArthur thinks not. As Times Higher Education has reported, the associate professor of philosophy at the University of Manitoba, in Canada, recently published a paper criticising the spread of bans on such relationships. But we believe that his argument is flawed.
The article is here.
The Times Higher Education
Originally posted May 4, 2017
There is a long and distinguished history of conceptualising liberal democracy in terms of basic rights to which, all other things being equal, everyone is entitled. Sexual freedom is rightly counted among these. But should this right apply where one person is in a position of power and authority over the other? Doctors are sanctioned if they have sex with their patients, as are lawyers who sleep with their clients. Should sexual relationships between professors and students in the same department also be off limits?
Neil McArthur thinks not. As Times Higher Education has reported, the associate professor of philosophy at the University of Manitoba, in Canada, recently published a paper criticising the spread of bans on such relationships. But we believe that his argument is flawed.
The article is here.
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
4 questions for Paul Bloom
By Lea Winerman
May 2017, Vol 48, No. 5
Print version: page 27
Here is an excerpt:
Why do you believe this kind of empathy is overrated?
I should be clear that I'm not against empathy in general. I think it's a great source of pleasure, for instance, and it plays some role in intimate relationships. But when it comes to moral judgments, empathy makes a very poor guide.
One reason is that it's biased. You naturally empathize with people who in some way are part of your circle, who look like you, who maybe share your ethnicity. So, for example, if you base your charitable giving choices on empathy, you find yourself inevitably giving to people who [are like you], and ignoring the plight of thousands, maybe millions of others.
Another problem is that empathy is innumerate. It's a spotlight—you zoom in on one person, as opposed to many. Some people think that this is one of its advantages. But real-world moral decisions involve coping with numbers. They often involve a recognition, for instance, that helping just one person can make lives worse for hundreds or thousands of others. The innumeracy of empathy often leads to paradoxical situations where we're desperate to help a single person—or even a cute puppy—while ignoring crises like climate change, because although millions of people will be affected by it, there's no identifiable victim to zoom in on.
A third problem is that empathy can be weaponized. So, unscrupulous politicians use our empathy for victims of certain crimes to motivate anger and hatred toward other, marginalized, groups. We saw a lot of that in the last election season.
The article is here.
May 2017, Vol 48, No. 5
Print version: page 27
Here is an excerpt:
Why do you believe this kind of empathy is overrated?
I should be clear that I'm not against empathy in general. I think it's a great source of pleasure, for instance, and it plays some role in intimate relationships. But when it comes to moral judgments, empathy makes a very poor guide.
One reason is that it's biased. You naturally empathize with people who in some way are part of your circle, who look like you, who maybe share your ethnicity. So, for example, if you base your charitable giving choices on empathy, you find yourself inevitably giving to people who [are like you], and ignoring the plight of thousands, maybe millions of others.
Another problem is that empathy is innumerate. It's a spotlight—you zoom in on one person, as opposed to many. Some people think that this is one of its advantages. But real-world moral decisions involve coping with numbers. They often involve a recognition, for instance, that helping just one person can make lives worse for hundreds or thousands of others. The innumeracy of empathy often leads to paradoxical situations where we're desperate to help a single person—or even a cute puppy—while ignoring crises like climate change, because although millions of people will be affected by it, there's no identifiable victim to zoom in on.
A third problem is that empathy can be weaponized. So, unscrupulous politicians use our empathy for victims of certain crimes to motivate anger and hatred toward other, marginalized, groups. We saw a lot of that in the last election season.
The article is here.
More CEOs Are Getting Fired After an Ethical Lapse, Study Finds
Vanessa Fuhrmans
The Wall Street Journal
Originally posted May 14, 2017
Ethical breaches are causing more chief executives to lose their jobs. The upside? Researchers say the rising numbers don’t point to more corporate misbehavior: It’s that CEOs are being held to a higher level of accountability.
Among the myriad reasons corporate bosses leave their jobs, firings have been on the decline. In a study of CEO exits at the world’s 2,500 largest public companies, researchers at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s strategy consulting arm, called Strategy&, found 20% of CEO exits in the past five years were forced, down from 31% of CEO exits in the previous five years.
But CEO ousters due to ethical lapses—either their own improper conduct, or their employees’—are climbing. Such forced exits rose to 5.3% of CEO departures in the 2012-to-2016 period, up from 3.9% during the previous five years.
The article is here.
The Wall Street Journal
Originally posted May 14, 2017
Ethical breaches are causing more chief executives to lose their jobs. The upside? Researchers say the rising numbers don’t point to more corporate misbehavior: It’s that CEOs are being held to a higher level of accountability.
Among the myriad reasons corporate bosses leave their jobs, firings have been on the decline. In a study of CEO exits at the world’s 2,500 largest public companies, researchers at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s strategy consulting arm, called Strategy&, found 20% of CEO exits in the past five years were forced, down from 31% of CEO exits in the previous five years.
But CEO ousters due to ethical lapses—either their own improper conduct, or their employees’—are climbing. Such forced exits rose to 5.3% of CEO departures in the 2012-to-2016 period, up from 3.9% during the previous five years.
The article is here.
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
There’s a Right Way and a Wrong Way to Do Empathy
By Sarah Watts
The Science of Us
Originally published May 18, 2017
Here is an excerpt:
When we talk about empathy, we tend to talk about it as an unqualified good thing. Research has shown that empathy is associated with kindness and helping behaviors, while its absence, clinically referred to as psychopathy, is associated with manipulation and criminal deviance. Empathy, some scientists have concluded, allows us to function well with others and survive as a species.
But what people often don’t talk about is how even a good thing like empathy can still be emotionally draining. Empathic people who easily take on other people’s feelings can spend their days feeling overwhelmed, hurt, and heavyhearted. Empathy, in other words, can be downright stressful. So would it be fair to say that sometimes it’s unhealthy?
A paper published earlier this month in the Journal of Experimental Psychology set out to answer exactly that. According to the authors, there are “two routes” to empathy. The first is imagining how someone else might feel in a given circumstance, called “imagine-other-perspective-taking,” or IOPT. The second is actually imagining yourself in the other person’s situation, called “imagine-self-perspective-taking,” or ISPT. With IOPT, you acknowledge another person’s feelings; with ISPT, you take on that person’s feelings as your own.
The article is here.
The Science of Us
Originally published May 18, 2017
Here is an excerpt:
When we talk about empathy, we tend to talk about it as an unqualified good thing. Research has shown that empathy is associated with kindness and helping behaviors, while its absence, clinically referred to as psychopathy, is associated with manipulation and criminal deviance. Empathy, some scientists have concluded, allows us to function well with others and survive as a species.
But what people often don’t talk about is how even a good thing like empathy can still be emotionally draining. Empathic people who easily take on other people’s feelings can spend their days feeling overwhelmed, hurt, and heavyhearted. Empathy, in other words, can be downright stressful. So would it be fair to say that sometimes it’s unhealthy?
A paper published earlier this month in the Journal of Experimental Psychology set out to answer exactly that. According to the authors, there are “two routes” to empathy. The first is imagining how someone else might feel in a given circumstance, called “imagine-other-perspective-taking,” or IOPT. The second is actually imagining yourself in the other person’s situation, called “imagine-self-perspective-taking,” or ISPT. With IOPT, you acknowledge another person’s feelings; with ISPT, you take on that person’s feelings as your own.
The article is here.
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