Jon Sindreu and Sarah Kent
The Wall Street Journal
Originally posted September 1, 2018
In life, ethics are in the eye of the beholder. In investing, ethics are up to the whims of your fund manager.
With little regulation governing what a fund manager can call a “socially responsible” or “ethical” investment, a myriad of bespoke standards have popped up. Increasingly, these fund strategies are designed to beat the market rather than uphold morality.
This has created a dizzying of array possibilities when it comes to what these funds might hold. Fund companies can craft their definitions in such a way that they can simply rename existing products with an ethical allusion, without having to change their fund holdings.
Fund managers have rebranded at least two dozen existing mutual funds over the past few years, adding terms such as “sustainable,” and “ESG”—which stands for environmental, social and corporate governance, an industry buzzword.
The info is here.
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Saturday, September 29, 2018
Want to live longer? Consider the ethics
John K. Davis
TheConversation.com
Originally published
Here is an excerpt:
Many people, such as philosopher John Harris and those in the Pew Center survey, worry that life extension would be available only to the rich and make existing inequalities even worse.
Indeed, it is unjust when some people live longer than the poor because they have better health care. It would be far more unjust if the rich could live several decades or centuries longer than anyone else and gain more time to consolidate their advantages.
Some philosophers suggest that society should prevent inequality by banning life extension. This is equality by denial – if not everyone can get it, then no one gets it.
However, as philosopher Richard J. Arneson notes, “leveling-down” – achieving equality by making some people worse off without making anyone better off – is unjust.
Indeed, as I argue in my recent book on life extension ethics, most of us reject leveling-down in other situations. For example, there are not enough human organs for transplant, but no one thinks the answer is to ban organ transplants.
Moreover, banning or slowing down the development of life extension may simply delay a time when the technology gets cheap enough for everyone to have it. TV sets were once a toy for the wealthy; now even poor families have them. In time, this could happen with life extension.
The info is here.
TheConversation.com
Originally published
Here is an excerpt:
Many people, such as philosopher John Harris and those in the Pew Center survey, worry that life extension would be available only to the rich and make existing inequalities even worse.
Indeed, it is unjust when some people live longer than the poor because they have better health care. It would be far more unjust if the rich could live several decades or centuries longer than anyone else and gain more time to consolidate their advantages.
Some philosophers suggest that society should prevent inequality by banning life extension. This is equality by denial – if not everyone can get it, then no one gets it.
However, as philosopher Richard J. Arneson notes, “leveling-down” – achieving equality by making some people worse off without making anyone better off – is unjust.
Indeed, as I argue in my recent book on life extension ethics, most of us reject leveling-down in other situations. For example, there are not enough human organs for transplant, but no one thinks the answer is to ban organ transplants.
Moreover, banning or slowing down the development of life extension may simply delay a time when the technology gets cheap enough for everyone to have it. TV sets were once a toy for the wealthy; now even poor families have them. In time, this could happen with life extension.
The info is here.
Friday, September 28, 2018
Nike, Kaepernick and the morality of capitalism
Steve Chapman
The Chicago Tribune
Originally posted September 5, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
The Republican Party has a large complement of corporate titans in its camp. But conservatives are reminded every day that some of the most successful and innovative companies are led and staffed by people whose worldview is deeply at odds with conservative ideology.
There is Amazon, whose founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post, a frequent target of Trump’s animosity. There is Apple, where CEO Tim Cook has been a vocal critic of racial injustice and anti-gay discrimination. Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg has written, “A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes.”
Starbucks responded to Trump’s travel ban by pledging to hire 10,000 refugees. After the Parkland school massacre, Dick’s Sporting Goods stopped selling military-style firearms. Google, under pressure from employees opposed to creating “warfare technology,” withdrew from a Pentagon project on artificial intelligence.
But at the moment, the most visible face of corporate liberalism is Nike, whose new ad campaign features Kaepernick, a former San Francisco 49ers quarterback known for kneeling during the pregame national anthem to protest police abuses and racism. The campaign decision provoked a tweet from the president, who asserted, “Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts.”
The info is here.
Originally posted September 5, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
The Republican Party has a large complement of corporate titans in its camp. But conservatives are reminded every day that some of the most successful and innovative companies are led and staffed by people whose worldview is deeply at odds with conservative ideology.
There is Amazon, whose founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post, a frequent target of Trump’s animosity. There is Apple, where CEO Tim Cook has been a vocal critic of racial injustice and anti-gay discrimination. Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg has written, “A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes.”
Starbucks responded to Trump’s travel ban by pledging to hire 10,000 refugees. After the Parkland school massacre, Dick’s Sporting Goods stopped selling military-style firearms. Google, under pressure from employees opposed to creating “warfare technology,” withdrew from a Pentagon project on artificial intelligence.
But at the moment, the most visible face of corporate liberalism is Nike, whose new ad campaign features Kaepernick, a former San Francisco 49ers quarterback known for kneeling during the pregame national anthem to protest police abuses and racism. The campaign decision provoked a tweet from the president, who asserted, “Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts.”
The info is here.
A Debate Over ‘Rational Suicide’
Paula Span
The New York Times
Originally posted August 31, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
Is suicide by older adults ever a rational choice? It’s a topic many older people discuss among themselves, quietly or loudly — and one that physicians increasingly encounter, too. Yet most have scant training or experience in how to respond, said Dr. Meera Balasubramaniam, a geriatric psychiatrist at the New York University School of Medicine.
“I found myself coming across individuals who were very old, doing well, and shared that they wanted to end their lives at some point,” said Dr. Balasubramaniam. “So many of our patients are confronting this in their heads.”
She has not taken a position on whether suicide can be rational — her views are “evolving,” she said. But hoping to generate more medical discussion, she and a co-editor explored the issue in a 2017 anthology, “Rational Suicide in the Elderly,” and she revisited it recently in an article in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
The Hastings Center, the ethics institute in Garrison, N.Y., also devoted much of its latest Hastings Center Report to a debate over “voluntary death” to forestall dementia.
Every part of this idea, including the very phrase “rational suicide,” remains intensely controversial. (Let’s leave aside the related but separate issue of physician aid in dying, currently legal in seven states and the District of Columbia, which applies only to mentally competent people likely to die of a terminal illness within six months.)
The info is here.
The New York Times
Originally posted August 31, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
Is suicide by older adults ever a rational choice? It’s a topic many older people discuss among themselves, quietly or loudly — and one that physicians increasingly encounter, too. Yet most have scant training or experience in how to respond, said Dr. Meera Balasubramaniam, a geriatric psychiatrist at the New York University School of Medicine.
“I found myself coming across individuals who were very old, doing well, and shared that they wanted to end their lives at some point,” said Dr. Balasubramaniam. “So many of our patients are confronting this in their heads.”
She has not taken a position on whether suicide can be rational — her views are “evolving,” she said. But hoping to generate more medical discussion, she and a co-editor explored the issue in a 2017 anthology, “Rational Suicide in the Elderly,” and she revisited it recently in an article in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
The Hastings Center, the ethics institute in Garrison, N.Y., also devoted much of its latest Hastings Center Report to a debate over “voluntary death” to forestall dementia.
Every part of this idea, including the very phrase “rational suicide,” remains intensely controversial. (Let’s leave aside the related but separate issue of physician aid in dying, currently legal in seven states and the District of Columbia, which applies only to mentally competent people likely to die of a terminal illness within six months.)
The info is here.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
UNC protests present debate of law versus morality
Ali AkhyariCharleston City Paper
Originally posted September 5, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
Immediately afterwards, UNC Chancellor Carol Folt referenced a 2015 law that protects historical monuments from being removed from any public property. Instead of making a public statement about the gross persistence of monuments to hate, she claimed her hands were tied and that students shouldn't break the law. Remember, after Charlottesville, it was president Trump who seemed incapable of acknowledging hate, saying there were "very fine people on both sides" after a woman was killed protesting the white supremacist march.
The debate regarding Confederate monuments and flags will never end so long as there are southerners more interested in rewriting history than admitting the Confederacy is intimately related to white supremacy. The true danger, though, is the normalization of white supremacy and nationalism in the Trump era. So it should follow, then, that Americans toppling monuments to oppression and hate will be increasingly forgivable as long as the the state and federal government coddles white nationalism.
Right after UNC, Trump tweeted a popular white nationalist talking point about land redistribution in post-Apartheid South Africa — a mirror of the battle minorities in this country have fought since emancipation.
So, I applaud the removal of Silent Sam. The monument fell at a time when the president has not only failed to recognize racism and historical oppression, instead encouraging it, pining for the return of Anglo-Saxon supremacy.
The info is here.
Superstition predicts perception of illusory control
Oren Griffiths, Noor Shehabi Robin A. Murphy Mike E. Le Pelley
British Journal of Psychology
First published August 24, 2018
Abstract
Superstitions are common, yet we have little understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that bring them about. This study used a laboratory‐based analogue for superstitious beliefs that involved people monitoring the relationship between undertaking an action (pressing a button) and an outcome occurring (a light illuminating). The task was arranged such that there was no objective contingency between pressing the button and the light illuminating – the light was just as likely to illuminate whether the button was pressed or not. Nevertheless, most people rated the causal relationship between the button press and the light illuminating to be moderately positive, demonstrating an illusion of causality. This study found that the magnitude of this illusion was predicted by people's level of endorsement of common superstitious beliefs (measured using a novel Superstitious Beliefs Questionnaire), but was not associated with mood variables or their self‐rated locus of control. This observation is consistent with a more general individual difference or bias to overweight conjunctive events over disjunctive events during causal reasoning in those with a propensity for superstitious beliefs.
The research is here.
British Journal of Psychology
First published August 24, 2018
Abstract
Superstitions are common, yet we have little understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that bring them about. This study used a laboratory‐based analogue for superstitious beliefs that involved people monitoring the relationship between undertaking an action (pressing a button) and an outcome occurring (a light illuminating). The task was arranged such that there was no objective contingency between pressing the button and the light illuminating – the light was just as likely to illuminate whether the button was pressed or not. Nevertheless, most people rated the causal relationship between the button press and the light illuminating to be moderately positive, demonstrating an illusion of causality. This study found that the magnitude of this illusion was predicted by people's level of endorsement of common superstitious beliefs (measured using a novel Superstitious Beliefs Questionnaire), but was not associated with mood variables or their self‐rated locus of control. This observation is consistent with a more general individual difference or bias to overweight conjunctive events over disjunctive events during causal reasoning in those with a propensity for superstitious beliefs.
The research is here.
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Do psychotropic drugs enhance, or diminish, human agency?
Rami Gabriel
aeon.co
Originally posted September 3, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
Psychological medications such as Xanax, Ritalin and aspirin help to modify undesirable behaviours, thought patterns and the perception of pain. They purport to treat the underlying chemical cause rather than the social, interpersonal or psychodynamic causes of pathology. Self-knowledge gained by introspection and dialogue are no longer our primary means for modifying psychological states. By prescribing such medication, physicians are implicitly admitting that cognitive and behavioural training is insufficient and impractical, and that ‘the brain’, of which nonspecialists have little explicit understanding, is in fact the level where errors occur. Indeed, drugs are reliable and effective because they implement the findings of neuroscience and supplement (or in many cases substitute for) our humanist discourse about self-development and agency. In using such drugs, we become transhuman hybrid beings who build tools into the regulatory plant of the body.
Recreational drugs, on the other hand, are essentially hedonic tools that allow for stress-release and the diminishment of inhibition and sense of responsibility. Avenues of escape are reached through derangement of thought and perception; many find pleasure in this transcendence of quotidian experience and transgression of social norms. There is also a Dionysian, or spiritual, purpose to recreational inebriation, which can enable revelations that enhance intimacy and the emotional need for existential reflection. Here drugs act as portals into spiritual rituals and otherwise restricted metaphysical spaces. The practice of imbibing a sacred substance is as old as ascetic and mindfulness practices but, in our times, drugs are overwhelmingly the most commonly used tool for tending to this element of the human condition.
The info is here.
aeon.co
Originally posted September 3, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
Psychological medications such as Xanax, Ritalin and aspirin help to modify undesirable behaviours, thought patterns and the perception of pain. They purport to treat the underlying chemical cause rather than the social, interpersonal or psychodynamic causes of pathology. Self-knowledge gained by introspection and dialogue are no longer our primary means for modifying psychological states. By prescribing such medication, physicians are implicitly admitting that cognitive and behavioural training is insufficient and impractical, and that ‘the brain’, of which nonspecialists have little explicit understanding, is in fact the level where errors occur. Indeed, drugs are reliable and effective because they implement the findings of neuroscience and supplement (or in many cases substitute for) our humanist discourse about self-development and agency. In using such drugs, we become transhuman hybrid beings who build tools into the regulatory plant of the body.
Recreational drugs, on the other hand, are essentially hedonic tools that allow for stress-release and the diminishment of inhibition and sense of responsibility. Avenues of escape are reached through derangement of thought and perception; many find pleasure in this transcendence of quotidian experience and transgression of social norms. There is also a Dionysian, or spiritual, purpose to recreational inebriation, which can enable revelations that enhance intimacy and the emotional need for existential reflection. Here drugs act as portals into spiritual rituals and otherwise restricted metaphysical spaces. The practice of imbibing a sacred substance is as old as ascetic and mindfulness practices but, in our times, drugs are overwhelmingly the most commonly used tool for tending to this element of the human condition.
The info is here.
Navigating the Ethical Boundaries of Grateful Patient Fundraising
Collins ME, Rum SA, Sugarman J.
JAMA. Published online August 27, 2018.
doi:10.1001/jama.2018.11655
Here are two excerpts:
There is limited literature examining the ethical issues that grateful patient fundraising raises for physicians. The last American Medical Association report on this topic was issued in 2004.4 The report recognized the value of philanthropy and physicians’ role in it, but rightly emphasized the paramount importance of patients’ rights and welfare in efforts directed at grateful patient fundraising. As such, the report highlighted the need to ensure that gifts are voluntary, that patients should not perceive an obligation to give, and the need to protect privacy. In addition, the report cautioned against physicians initiating discussions about philanthropy during direct patient care. Furthermore, there is also limited literature about the ethical issues grateful patient fundraising poses for development professionals and the health care institutions they represent. Grappling with the ethical issues in grateful patient fundraising necessitates considering them from all of these perspectives.
(cut)
Among the key issues were challenges related to clinicians having discussions about philanthropy with patients who might be especially vulnerable due to their diseases or conditions, the tensions related to conflicts in regard to clinicians’ primary obligations to patient care and a competing obligation to fundraising, the potential effects of fundraising on patient care, possible unintended consequences of concierge services provided to donors, and concerns about privacy.5 The recommendations for clinicians include those concerning when grateful patient fundraising is appropriate (eg, ideally separate from the clinical encounter, not in situations of heightened vulnerability), minimizing conflicts of obligation and commitment, and respecting the donor’s intent of a gift. The recommendations for fundraising professionals and institutions include the need for transparency in relationships, not interfering with clinical care, attending to confidentiality and privacy, appropriateness of concierge services, and institutional policies and training in grateful patient fundraising.
The info is here.
JAMA. Published online August 27, 2018.
doi:10.1001/jama.2018.11655
Here are two excerpts:
There is limited literature examining the ethical issues that grateful patient fundraising raises for physicians. The last American Medical Association report on this topic was issued in 2004.4 The report recognized the value of philanthropy and physicians’ role in it, but rightly emphasized the paramount importance of patients’ rights and welfare in efforts directed at grateful patient fundraising. As such, the report highlighted the need to ensure that gifts are voluntary, that patients should not perceive an obligation to give, and the need to protect privacy. In addition, the report cautioned against physicians initiating discussions about philanthropy during direct patient care. Furthermore, there is also limited literature about the ethical issues grateful patient fundraising poses for development professionals and the health care institutions they represent. Grappling with the ethical issues in grateful patient fundraising necessitates considering them from all of these perspectives.
(cut)
Among the key issues were challenges related to clinicians having discussions about philanthropy with patients who might be especially vulnerable due to their diseases or conditions, the tensions related to conflicts in regard to clinicians’ primary obligations to patient care and a competing obligation to fundraising, the potential effects of fundraising on patient care, possible unintended consequences of concierge services provided to donors, and concerns about privacy.5 The recommendations for clinicians include those concerning when grateful patient fundraising is appropriate (eg, ideally separate from the clinical encounter, not in situations of heightened vulnerability), minimizing conflicts of obligation and commitment, and respecting the donor’s intent of a gift. The recommendations for fundraising professionals and institutions include the need for transparency in relationships, not interfering with clinical care, attending to confidentiality and privacy, appropriateness of concierge services, and institutional policies and training in grateful patient fundraising.
The info is here.
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Doctors’ mental health at tipping point
Chris Hemmings
BBC.co.uk
Originally posted September 3, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
'Last taboo'
Dr Gerada says the lack of confidentiality is a barrier and wants NHS England to extend the London approach to any doctor who needs support.
She believes acknowledging that doctors also have mental health problems is "the last taboo in the NHS".
Louise Freeman, a consultant in emergency medicine, says she left her job after she felt she could not access appropriate support for her depression.
"On the surface you might think 'Oh, doctors will get great mental health care because they'll know who to go to'.
"But actually we're kind of a hard-to-reach group. We can be quite worried about confidentiality," she said, adding that she believes doctors are afraid of coming forwards in case they lose their jobs.
"I was absolutely desperate to stay at work. I never wavered from that."
One of the biggest issues, according to Dr Gerada, is the effect on doctors of complaints from the public, which she says can "shatter their sense of self".
The info is here.
BBC.co.uk
Originally posted September 3, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
'Last taboo'
Dr Gerada says the lack of confidentiality is a barrier and wants NHS England to extend the London approach to any doctor who needs support.
She believes acknowledging that doctors also have mental health problems is "the last taboo in the NHS".
Louise Freeman, a consultant in emergency medicine, says she left her job after she felt she could not access appropriate support for her depression.
"On the surface you might think 'Oh, doctors will get great mental health care because they'll know who to go to'.
"But actually we're kind of a hard-to-reach group. We can be quite worried about confidentiality," she said, adding that she believes doctors are afraid of coming forwards in case they lose their jobs.
"I was absolutely desperate to stay at work. I never wavered from that."
One of the biggest issues, according to Dr Gerada, is the effect on doctors of complaints from the public, which she says can "shatter their sense of self".
The info is here.
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