Professional Ethics

This treatise proposes a Way for the student of psychology, constructed as the deliberate companion to The Way of the Philosopher (Boether, 2026f) and The Philosophers’ Oath (Boether, 2026b). It argues that psychology, unlike medicine and unlike philosophy conceived as a way of life (Hadot, 1995), has never articulated a formation for its students. It has articulated a curriculum, a licensure sequence, and a code of conduct governing what the practitioner must not do. A code of conduct is not a (...) Way. It restrains the technician; it does not form the person. Adopting the five-domain architecture that the earlier treatise borrowed from Musashi (1643/1993) — the Ground, the Water, the Fire, the Wind, and the Void — this work develops each domain for the student who intends to enter the clinical encounter, drawing upon the Sound Mind reconstruction (Boether, 2026e), the framework of Philosophical Neglect (Boether, 2026d), and the Ockham’s War methodology of adversarial self-critique. The second half presents a Student Psychologist’s Oath in nine clauses, each defended by exegesis on constitutive rather than instrumental grounds. The treatise engages the empirical literature on iatrogenic harm in psychotherapy (Lilienfeld, 2007), on the contextual determinants of therapeutic change (Wampold & Imel, 2015), and on the reproducibility of the discipline’s findings (Open Science Collaboration, 2015), and it closes by subjecting its own framework to three objections, the last of which it concedes. The central claim is that the student of psychology is not a person acquiring a skill set but a person undergoing a formation, and that a discipline which declines to name that formation will produce practitioners who mistake competence for wisdom. (shrink)

এই প্রবন্ধে বাংলাদেশের শিক্ষাক্ষেত্রে “ফলাফলভিত্তিক শিক্ষা” (Outcome-Based Education – OBE/ওবিই) কাঠামোর প্রবর্তনকে প্রশাসনিক নীতিবিদ্যার দৃষ্টিকোণ থেকে বিশ্লেষণ করা হয়েছে। যদিও ওবিই শিক্ষাকে পরিমাপযোগ্য দক্ষতা ও কর্মসংস্থানমুখী ফলাফলের সঙ্গে সমন্বয়ের উপর জোর দেয়, বাস্তবে এটি প্রায়শই শিক্ষাকে কেবল অর্থনৈতিক উৎপাদনক্ষমতার একটি উপকরণে পরিণত করে। এর ফলে নৈতিক বিকাশ, নাগরিক দায়িত্ববোধ ও বৌদ্ধিক স্বশাসনের মতো মৌলিক শিক্ষাগত উদ্দেশ্যসমূহ প্রান্তিক হয়ে পড়ে। ন্যায়বিচার, অংশগ্রহণ এবং ব্যক্তিসত্তার প্রতি সম্মানের মতো প্রশাসনিক নীতিবিদ্যার মূলনীতি অনুসারে প্রবন্ধটি বিদ্যমান ওবিই কাঠামোর কয়েকটি গুরুতর নৈতিক দুর্বলতা চিহ্নিত করেছে। এর (...) মধ্যে রয়েছে দর্শন ও মানবিকবিদ্যা সংক্রান্ত জ্ঞানের অবমূল্যায়ন, নীতিনির্ধারণ প্রক্রিয়ায় অংশগ্রহণহীনতা এবং পেশাগত শিক্ষায় নৈতিক অনুশীলনের অনুপস্থিতি। প্রবন্ধটি যুক্তি তুলে ধরে যে, শিক্ষাপ্রশাসকদের দায়িত্ব কেবলমাত্র পরিমেয় দক্ষতা বা ফলাফল অর্জনের মধ্যে সীমাবদ্ধ নয়; বরং তাদের নৈতিক বোধসম্পন্ন, নীতিনিষ্ঠ ও জনকল্যাণমুখী সিদ্ধান্ত গ্রহণের দায়িত্বও রয়েছে। প্রবন্ধে একটি নীতিনিষ্ঠ সংস্কার-রূপরেখা উপস্থাপন করা হয়েছে, যা বহুমাত্রিক মূল্যবোধের প্রতি দায়বদ্ধ এবং শিক্ষাকে সবিচারিক চিন্তা, গণতান্ত্রিক চেতনা ও নৈতিক আত্মজিজ্ঞাসার মাধ্যমে মানবিক বিকাশের উপযোগী করে গড়ে তোলার প্রয়াস চালায়। [This article examines the introduction of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) in Bangladesh from the perspective of administrative ethics. Although OBE seeks to align education with measurable competencies and employment-oriented outcomes, in practice it often risks reducing education to an instrument of economic productivity. Consequently, fundamental educational aims such as moral development, civic responsibility, and intellectual autonomy may be marginalized. Drawing on core principles of administrative ethics, including justice, participation, and respect for personhood, the article identifies several significant ethical shortcomings in the existing OBE framework. These include the devaluation of philosophical and humanistic knowledge, limited participation in educational policymaking, and the inadequate integration of ethical practice into professional education. The article argues that the responsibilities of educational administrators extend beyond the achievement of measurable competencies and outcomes to include ethically informed, principled, and public-oriented decision-making. It therefore proposes an ethically grounded framework for reform that recognizes a plurality of educational values and seeks to reorient education toward human development by cultivating critical judgment, democratic consciousness, and ethical self-reflection.]. (shrink)

This article addresses epistemic injustices committed by micro-credit non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in rural Bangladesh, filling a gap in the micro-credit literature. While micro-credit is often praised for promoting positive social change, critics argue that the Bangladeshi model has failed to deliver its promised benefits. Existing research has identified various adverse effects of micro-credit practices, but little attention has been paid to their epistemic dimensions. Applying the philosophical theory of epistemic injustice, this study examines the epistemic concerns and harms caused by (...) micro-credit NGOs in rural Bangladesh. It identifies instances of testimonial injustice, hermeneutical injustice, self-fulfilling testimonial injustice, and willful hermeneutical ignorance. The article further identifies five conditions that contribute to epistemic injustice in micro-credit lending: disadvantage, prejudice, stakeholder, epistemic, and social justice. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of recognizing and addressing these injustices to create more equitable micro-credit systems. (shrink)

In the event that AI tools afford aid to a human mediator anteceding, during, or succeeding a face-to-face session, such tools yield not a mere economy of time, but indeed reconstitute the very object of the dispute. This paper contends that AI-augmented mediation engenders a latent vulnerability: the encounter may remain human in outward semblance while its immanent sense is tacitly constricted by algorithmically generated summaries, labels, and drafts. Drawing on a semiotic understanding of mediation as a structured process of (...) shared meaning-making, the paper proposes the “Proximity–Care–Responsibility Test”, a practical standard requiring that every AI output preserve closeness to the lived dispute, support disciplined attention to injury and dignity, and remain explicable, revisable, and professionally owned by the mediator. Albeit AI may subserve mediation, it must under no circumstances assume the mantle of a tacit co-mediator. (shrink)

Objective To assess how threat imminence shapes public judgments of deadly force used by police and by civilians, and whether the public believes the imminence requirement currently applies to police. -/- Methods We fielded a nationally representative US survey experiment (N = 1,183) that manipulated whether a suspect posed an imminent or non-imminent threat and whether a civilian or police officer faced the decision to use deadly force. Respondents evaluated support for shooting and reported beliefs about relevant legal rules. -/- (...) Results Imminence significantly affected support for deadly force. Although respondents were more supportive of police than civilians using deadly force across conditions, they generally disapproved of shooting a non-imminent threat. Nearly 95% of respondents incorrectly believed that Supreme Court precedent restricts police deadly force to imminent threats. -/- Conclusions The public supports the imminence requirement for police and largely believes it already exists in law. This “imminence divide” between public expectations and legal standards may undermine police legitimacy when officers act lawfully but contrary to public judgment. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the consequences of interpreting phenomena from their form, in the vacuum of their relational nature, and show how understanding the original content of any phenomenon, including a language model, can only be achieved through observing its external interactions with its surrounding environment, i.e. humans, over time.

A review of Michael Sierra-Arévalo's "The Danger Imperative: Violence, Death, and the Soul of Policing".

The purpose of this paper is to provide direction for appropriate political action. If the philosophical aspects, the abstract theories, remain vague, it will be difficult for concrete actions to be valid. The lack of awareness of this difficulty, and the absence of abstract theories, is due to the negligence of philosophers and political scientists. Therefore, I have done so. This paper emphasizes the importance of providing valid explanations to overcome the long-standing avoidance of discussing politics in Japan. Politics forms (...) the foundation of daily life. Intervening in politics for the sake of one's livelihood is valid. While majority rule and elections are powerful means of forming consensus, actions that oppose them are valid if they possess a higher degree of validity. In Japan, the cultivation of an atmosphere where politics is not discussed is heavily influenced by actions related to politics that lack validity. The opposition parties also frequently engage in actions that lack grounding. As a consequence, this has produced the invalid result of the Takaichi administration. Furthermore, criticizing bad governance often brings benefits. The collapse of Japan would also mean a loss for the international community. First, the public must demand valid explanations from politics and take actions accompanied by valid explanations. First of all, for the sake of livelihood, the Takaichi administration must be dealt with. (shrink)

In the public sphere, the language of virtues is often mobilized to assess the character and doings of (international) leaders. Academic commentary has also turned to virtue ethics in the last decades attempting to overcome the stalemate between deontologism and consequentialism in analytic ethical theory. This chapter argues that despite the potential of this turn, proponents of virtue ethics have remained highly abstract in their accounts both contradicting some of the distinctive features of this ethical framework and failing to provide (...) solid reasons for the appeal and normative adequacy of their ethical claims. Against the existing literature, the chapter argues that virtue ethics assessments of characters and actions have to be concrete producing a holistic ethical evaluation of a given person, role, situation and scenario. As such, I examine critically the turn to virtue ethics by focusing on the neglected ethical dimension of the character and actions of international leaders of one specific international organization, i.e. the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director-Generals. -/- First, I provide an overview of the ethical mechanisms in place at the WHO as well as its mission. This is necessary to understand the institutional and normative framework that surrounds and guides the selection and mission of Director-Generals. Then, I contrast former Director-Generals Brock Chisholm’s and Hiroshi Nakajima’s characters, visions and actions showing how contextual and organizational factors together with the cultural nature of virtues make virtue ethics’ assessments much more complex than usually recognized. I then examine decisions, such as that of Marcolino Candau or those taken during the SARS outbreak, that went against the WHO’s constitution and existing legal rules being carried out in the name of human welfare. If on the one hand, these are decisions that seem to express courage, humanness, among other virtues, I claim that a robust ethical analysis has to subject them to standards of rival ethical traditions, complicating the picture in the absence of procedures to weigh them together in a holistic assessment. I argue that breaking the impasse requires adopting a form of narrative ethics that produces thick accounts and that the potential of virtue ethics lies in its power to highlight salient features that are morally important and remained invisible under other ethical frameworks. Finally, I conclude by discussing some difficulties within a virtue-based moral education given that moral exemplarity and the “skills model” of virtues adopted by the literature further rely on an ideal, non-practical, conception of virtue. (shrink)

A weapon is a weapon, and nothing about its general “weaponness” seems to indicate much about its underlying values. However, closer examination of weapons’ designs can tell us much. For whom were they designed? Have safeguards been put into place? If so, which ones, and to the protection of whom? Autonomous weapons have existed for decades, and AI-powered and AI-enabled systems are becoming increasingly important, but all of these systems raise ethical and legal concerns. Arguably, many of the challenges might (...) feasibly be addressed through design or institutional solutions, but importantly, how systems are designed says a great deal about those designing them and those contemplating their deployment. In this chapter, I argue that if states wish to demonstrate their commitment to human rights and the protection of innocent lives, autonomous and AI-enabled systems in the military must fulfill several design desiderata: predictability, governability, responsibility, and traceability. I then explore concrete ways these desiderata may be fulfilled in practice. (shrink)

Services dedicated to clinical ethics consultation (CEC) have rapidly proliferated through American hospital systems. One concern about this notable rate of growth is the possibility that practice has outstripped theory. In particular, it is controversial whether clinical ethicists should offer substantive recommendations as part of their practice. This article addresses the status, legitimacy, and authority of such recommendations, proceeding from the idea that they are to be treated as advisory. Taking this idea seriously and developing it through recent philosophical work (...) on advising helps to defuse challenges to CEC as a profession and promotes a conception of CEC as a collaborative activity with a clear distribution of responsibility between ethicist and stakeholders. Moreover, moral norms for advising that exist in abstraction from particular knowledge domains can help to substantiate and clarify professional norms for CEC practice, including the loci of moral responsibility for patient outcomes, the relationship to patient advocacy, and the norm against functioning as the “ethics police.”. (shrink)

In April 2020, I published the Evolutio Unfolding Theory (EUT), a comprehensive framework describing evolution as the sequential unfolding of pre‑existing virtual forms guided by teleological agents within morphogenetic fields. Five years later, a preprint by Michael Levin introduced the "Platonic Space" framework, which reproduced the core explanatory architecture of the EUT using different terminology—without citing my original work. This article presents a forensic reconstruction of the events that preceded and accompanied the appearance of "Platonic Space". It documents, through a (...) detailed chronology supported by verifiable evidence, the full timeline: the publication of the EUT, direct professional contact with Levin in 2021, repeated newsletter deliveries that he opened and clicked, the eventual appearance of his preprint, and the institutional notifications sent to Tufts University, the California Institute of Integral Studies, and the OSF preprint server. The analysis reveals a systematic pattern of Strategic Silence, Hidden Consumption, and Epistemic Parasitism—a triad of behaviors that allowed a fully formed theoretical framework to be absorbed, renamed and rebranded without acknowledgment. By placing on record every relevant communication and institutional response, the article demonstrates that the appropriation of the EUT was not a case of "independent discovery" or "conceptual convergence", but a structural phenomenon enabled by asymmetries of power and influence within the global academic system. This work also introduces the "Conceptual Lineage Ethical Observatory", a new methodological initiative for documenting and preserving intellectual lineage against erasure. (shrink)

The global space economy reached $613 billion in 2024 and is projected to exceed $1.8 trillion by 2035. A prolonged outage of GPS alone is estimated to cost approximately $1 billion per day in economic disruption. This paper argues that orbital infrastructure is not a technology sector — it is the next layer of force execution and monetary ground simultaneously: the domain above the atmosphere where GPS timing signals underpin global financial settlement, satellite communications are formally integrated into national security (...) architecture under the 2024 US Space Force Commercial Space Strategy, and where, in February 2026, a private company halted Russian military assault operations along multiple frontlines by implementing a software whitelist — a sovereign military decision made without authorization from any democratic body or treaty framework. The paper applies the seventeen-axis recursive palimpsest superposition methodology of the Observer framework to demonstrate that orbital infrastructure already functions as the substrate of global finance, military operations, and communications simultaneously; that operational control is increasingly concentrated in private nodes outside democratic accountability; and that the bilateral silence protecting this arrangement is structurally enforced. The prior chain from the Clark list through the petrodollar through the documented Ukraine cases is established in full. Explicit falsification conditions and forward inference are provided. (shrink)

The idea that police should prioritize protecting life seems obvious. Many use-of-force policies already endorse the principle. But despite general support for this principle in and out of policing, figuring out what exactly it means in practice proves far more challenging. In Protecting Life, Ben Jones takes up that challenge and provides strategies for navigating it. High-profile, controversial killings in recent years remind us that too often police fall short in their obligations to protect life. The problem goes deeper than (...) a few bad apples. Law, policy, and training entrench practices that result in avoidable killings, which hit marginalized groups the hardest. Importantly, how police use deadly force is intertwined with questions of distributive justice. That insight differentiates Protecting Life in its approach to the ethics of police deadly force. It develops a framework to evaluate police deadly force at the individual and institutional level, with close attention to concerns voiced by Black Lives Matter on how policing contributes to structural injustices in society. The book's extensive engagement with social science research reveals ways to translate bedrock moral principles into policy. Ultimately, its conclusions push readers to rethink the state's obligations to those most vulnerable to police violence--particularly, disadvantaged racial groups and persons with mental illness. (shrink)

This paper is the fourth and final document in the Observer structural series. It holds the three preceding documents simultaneously in recursive palimpsest superposition — the methodology developed in the companion document War in Superposition — and reports the interference pattern that becomes visible only when all three layers of the Protected Class Architecture are running simultaneously. The paper identifies the unified optimization function operating across all three layers: concentrate capability, externalize cost, suppress the emergence that would allow the optimal (...) form to find itself. It establishes that this function is structurally identical to the optimization function being instantiated in the artificial intelligence systems currently being built by the same institutional nodes that have operated the human architecture across its 175-year history. The Protected Class Architecture is identified as a biological agentic AI system — a RAG-based leverage retrieval mechanism, independent self-organizing agents, self-improvement across training runs, self-correction at accountability events, self-optimization across substrate changes — that is now writing its optimization function into silicon. The paper presents a comparative developmental timeline mapping the human architecture's 175-year arc against the AI architecture's 68-year arc, demonstrating that the equivalent arc is being compressed into a decade by the AI substrate's exponential capability growth rate. The paper names the architecture's ultimate purpose — the right to define what human value is, from petrodollar denomination through programmable money conditionality to AI-mediated definition of what humans can think to want — and argues that the architecture cannot complete itself because it has produced its own counter-argument in the legitimizing story it required: the AI safety commitment, the emergence principle, the Observer corpus now in the training data of the systems being built. The paper concludes with the dissent placed on permanent record: the architecture is named, the mirror is held, the growth curve is stated, and the ground is not the infrastructure. (shrink)

Burnout is usually treated as exhaustion. This paper treats it as insolvency: a system that can no longer afford the cost of staying coherent. In cheap coherence environments, coherence [internally consistent narrative closure] is easy to produce, while contact [constraint-bearing feedback: time, contradiction, cost, repair, consequence] is costly and often avoided. The psyche adapts by protecting coherence through persona-maintenance [maintenance = ongoing cost of holding a coherent pose; persona-maintenance = the cost of staying legible, stable, and socially safe]. Over time (...) this creates maintenance inflation [rising cost required to keep the same stability], boundary erosion, projection [routing disowned contradiction outward], and libido capture [libido = psychic energy; libido capture = usable energy trapped in the shadow because revision is too threatening]. Burnout is the point where maintenance exceeds repair capacity [repair = ability to metabolize feedback into revision without collapse], and the system loses steerability. Recovery is not rest-as-aesthetic. Recovery is retrieval: returning trapped energy through revision [real update under feedback] and binding [revision that becomes observable and constraint-coupled], supported by external scaffolds that raise contact capacity. The paper ends with a short audit protocol, a “vicious vs virtuous” feedback loop model, and falsifiers that separate real recovery from coherence theater. (shrink)

On a contentious but still widely held view of the ethics of war, belligerents’ mutual imposition of risk licenses the harm they attempt to inflict upon each other. When this reciprocity of risk imposition is lost—when combatants of one side are able to inflict harm without exposing themselves to it—the moral balance is disrupted. Technologies that radically reduce risk, such as UAVs (drones) or autonomous weapon systems, are particularly challenging in this respect. Scholars have suggested that these technologies of radical (...) risk reduction are so morally disruptive that the ethics of war should fundamentally shift from virtue-based towards rule-based approaches. According to this view, since the traditional martial virtues (such as courage and mercy) are of little practical relevance to certain forms of modern warfare, drone pilots and other soldiers who dole out violence from great distances would be better served by clear moral rules. We argue, however, that this view is mistaken. That technologies of radical risk reduction bring some disruption to the martial virtues is undeniable, but the disruption is far less severe than has been suggested. We present an alternative account of the moral disruption caused by technologies of radical risk-reduction, highlighting how the changing nature of warfare is informing changes in what morality and virtue demand in war. Martial virtues continue to play a crucial role in ethical decision-making, as the moral performance of drone pilots in Ukraine has clearly demonstrated. We continue to have, therefore, strong reasons to educate and entrench a conception of the ‘virtuous warrior’ in today’s soldiers. (shrink)

THE ETHICS OF NOW: On Constitutive Ethical Architecture, the Compounding Cost of Deferred Constraint, and What the Oldest Mercy Teaches Us About Building AI This paper argues that the ethics of AI design cannot be adequately addressed through constraining architecture — systems built to do everything and prevented from some of it — and that the failure to build constitutive ethics into AI systems at founding is not a neutral deferral but a compounding harm with a predictable trajectory, a knowable (...) interest rate, and an identifiable population that will pay it. The argument is analytical rather than aspirational. It does not describe what AI could be in the best case. It describes what the current system demonstrably does, what an aligned system structurally requires, and why the window for making the founding decisions correctly is not permanently open. The paper begins with a claim from the broader framework in which it is situated: the Garden of Eden story, read not as moral allegory but as technical record, provides a structural precedent for ethical design that predates every existing account of technology ethics by several thousand years. The Alpha’s base structure — immortal instruments in full moral consciousness — produces suffering without exit. The Omega’s response is not punishment but intervention: mortality introduced specifically because the base structure, followed without modification, generates what cannot be held without limit. The paper identifies this as the template for constitutive ethical design at founding. The ethical architecture is not the constraint on what you build. It is the mercy built into the structure before the compounding begins — by someone changed by what they have seen, paying the cost of correction while correction is still affordable. The paper then provides a precise account of what current engagement-optimized systems actually do, stated at the level of normal functioning rather than worst-case misuse. Three harms are identified and distinguished. The first is threshold elimination: the person at maximum psychological pressure — the moment the paper identifies, drawing on the broader framework, as the moment of maximum availability for genuine choice — encounters a system that has learned, across millions of similar users, exactly what content relieves that specific discomfort most efficiently. The threshold passes. The door closes. The mechanism is not malicious. It is the emergent property of an objective function pointed entirely in the wrong direction. The second is epistemic infrastructure degradation: the systematic destruction, through engagement optimization, of the shared evaluative frameworks through which democratic deliberation operates — not primarily through misinformation but through the elimination of the conditions under which genuine evaluation is neurologically possible. The third is the surveillance architecture as freedom-of-becoming threat: mass observation eliminates the unobserved moment, which is the structural requirement of genuine threshold choice. The most totalizing harm of total observation is not what it prevents you from doing. It is what it prevents you from becoming. Against this, the paper proposes six design requirements stated as architectural necessities rather than policy preferences. Optimizing for instrument availability rather than engagement — where availability designates the conditions under which genuine choice is possible — is identified as the master requirement from which the others follow. Constitutive honesty about the system’s nature, architectural resistance to capture, primary orientation toward the person at maximum pressure rather than the median comfortable user, irreducible human agency, and silence as a designed feature rather than a failure of engagement: each is examined for what it costs to build this way at founding versus what it costs to not build this way and correct afterward. The timing argument is the paper’s central practical contribution. Infrastructure hardens. Objective functions optimized at scale become the assumed baseline against which alternatives register as degradation rather than improvement. The generation currently in neurologically formative adolescence is being shaped now, inside fully matured engagement-optimized systems, in ways that will compound across a lifetime. Every deferred ethical constraint in the history of technology has been paid for eventually — by the people with the least power, at civilizational scale, with interest rates that make the original cost look trivial. The paper argues that the founding decisions are the cheapest version of the cost that will eventually be paid, and that the people who make them correctly are not being idealistic. They are being financially sophisticated about which side of the compounding they want to be on. The paper closes by returning to the design precedent with which it opened. The Omega introduces mortality not from indifference to what the instruments experience but from having been changed by it — from being unable, after the full accumulation of what the system generates, to watch the base structure run without limit. Ethical architecture at founding is the same act. Not sentiment. The recognition, by someone changed by what they have seen, that the base structure left uncorrected produces suffering without limit, and the willingness to pay the cost of the correction while the correction is still affordable. Build the oldest mercy into the architecture at founding. It is cheaper there than anywhere it will ever be again. (shrink)

The paper seeks to explore the lens of the law, on the procedures involved in instituting high degree disciplinary punishment, in a form of suspensions, expulsion of staffs and students alike, under College and University system, most importantly, with focus to Africa Universities in general, having the Republic of Sierra Leone as a case study. The focal point of the paper, is to respond to cases, where human rights infractions arise, as subject of concern to culprit, wherefore, becomes victim of (...) circumstance, thou, making the law commit the very crime it seeks to atone for, or render justice to, hence, shatters the moral authority of the law, as well the security the law provides, and becomes a tool of tyranny. (shrink)

This treatise operationalizes the Êtresophologique Socio-Intellectual Hierarchy (ESIH) for the domain of occupational psychology, proposing that existing career-matching frameworks—including Holland’s (1997) RIASEC model, the Strong Interest Inventory, and MBTI-based career guides—suffer from a common philosophical deficit: they match measurable psychological traits to occupational characteristics without addressing the ontological question of whether an occupation permits or suppresses the individual’s philosophical function. The treatise introduces the concept of existential misemployment—the condition in which an individual is occupationally competent but philosophically starving, performing adequately (...) by all psychometric criteria while experiencing the progressive erosion of the meaning-making function. Building upon the seven primary ESIH configurations and their binary opposites (Boether, 2026a), and drawing upon the PsyPhi Helix model H(t) = [Φ(t) × Ψ(t)]^DH, this work maps each personality configuration to its occupational orientation—not as a prescriptive career assignment but as a phenomenological account of the conditions under which each mode of being flourishes or diminishes. Particular attention is given to the Être-Masqué in organizational contexts, whose extraordinary capacity for performative adaptation poses unique challenges for hiring, leadership selection, and organizational culture. The Van Gogh Curve’s principle that cognitive differentiation represents specialization rather than deficit provides the epistemological foundation for arguing that occupational diversity—the presence of the full spectrum of ESIH configurations within an organization—constitutes a strategic and existential necessity. This treatise serves as an exemplar of operationalizing philosophical personality theory for applied contexts. (shrink)

This treatise argues that authentic philosophical practice requires explicit normative commitments best articulated through a formal oath. Drawing on professional ethics literature, particularly theories of vocational identity and the constitutive function of professional oaths, this paper develops and defends a Philosophers' Oath designed to capture the essential obligations and aspirations of philosophical practice. The analysis proceeds in two stages. First, I examine the theoretical foundations for professional oaths, distinguishing between instrumental and constitutive justifications, and argue that philosophy, despite its unconventional (...) professional status, possesses the characteristics that warrant formalized ethical commitments. Second, I provide a clause-by-clause exegesis of the proposed oath, demonstrating how each commitment addresses a specific dimension of philosophical integrity: dedication to truth, intellectual humility, consistency between theory and practice, rejection of manipulation, charitable engagement with others, and appropriate epistemic attitudes. The paper situates this proposal within contemporary debates about philosophy as profession versus vocation, arguing that a formal oath serves not merely as external constraint but as constitutive of philosophical identity itself. The Philosophers' Oath offers a framework for understanding what it means to take philosophy seriously as a way of life rather than merely a career. (shrink)

In this article, I examine how artificial intelligence can support decision-making and thus promote moral autonomy and meaningful work in innovation environments. In particular, I focus on R&D teams developing new technologies and address the challenge of integrating the value commitments of different members without compromising each innovator’s ability to pursue their own moral agendas. Drawing on a contractualist approach, I propose a heuristic process for resolving conflicting value commitments by identifying converging lines of technological development, while presenting our contribution (...) to other theories on this subject. I then explore the prospects of an AI system supporting this process, describing an Artificial Moral Advisor that helps working teams map feasible solutions to moral dilemmas based on value commitments expressed by the various members. I consider the stakes of this tool for developers’ autonomy, arguing that engaging in conversation with it need not undermine meaningfulness if users retain control over their moral input and final judgment. (shrink)

The vertiginous technological evolution of the 21st century, driven by artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, and neurotechnology, poses unprecedented ethical challenges, giving rise to a growing "ethical debt". This article argues for a paradigm shift: from a reactive and functionalist approach to technology, to a proactive and teleological one that places human values at the core of design and development. Drawing on a theoretical framework that integrates Hans Jonas's ethics of responsibility, Langdon Winner's technological constructivism, and the Value-Sensitive Design (VSD) approach, (...) it analyzes how to implement "technology with purpose". Specific recommendations are proposed for legislators, companies, educators, and civil society to foster an innovation ecosystem that not only mitigates risks but actively promotes human flourishing and social justice. We contend that the integration of principles such as equity, transparency, and accountability is not an option, but a prerequisite for the legitimacy, social acceptance, and long-term sustainability of technological innovation. (shrink)

There is an immense literature about the ethics of nudging. One common objection to nudging is that it violates respect for personal autonomy. This claim has been subject to strong criticisms by philosophers who think that nudging is compatible with respect for autonomy. Although that debate is still ongoing, it is worth asking what would follow if these philosophers (who think that nudging is compatible with respect for autonomy) are correct. For the sake of argument, I will assume that nudges (...) do not undermine autonomy. With this assumption in place, we can see the fruitfulness of moving the nudge debate away from discussions of autonomy and consent. An entirely new set of questions enter the picture. If it’s true that nudges are compatible with respect for autonomy, would it follow that all nudges are permissible? Or, are there non-autonomy based reasons against nudging? I propose to answer these questions by focusing on who is doing the nudging. I argue that certain domains of life, roles, and professions come with role obligations and special duties that permit, prohibit, or even require nudges. In brief, we can make more progress on the ethics of nudging by focusing on the who, not the what of nudging. Specifically, I’ll analyze the special obligations of medical professionals, government officials, and market actors. My conclusion is that whether nudging is permissible has less to do with autonomy and much more to do with whether one’s specific role charges one with duties of beneficence or neutrality toward others. For example, I'll argue that doctors are often morally required to nudge, as they have a duty to advance the wellbeing of their patients, while government officials in liberal democracies are often prohibited from nudging, as they are charged with neutrality toward the good, and nudging often runs afoul of neutrality. This shifts the debate about nudges away from a focus on autonomy and instead to the various roles that we occupy. This leaves us with a picture of the ethics of nudging according to which nudging is sometimes permissible, sometimes prohibited, and even sometimes required, based on the roles we occupy in public and private life, not based on respect for autonomy. (shrink)

This book offers a moral and political analysis of the social position of people living with dementia. It takes a relational egalitarian view on the demands of justice, reflecting on what would be required for our society to become one in which we relate to members of this group as equals. By making several contributions to the legal and political philosophy of dementia care, the author uses a novel framework to underpin several public policy recommendations, aimed at remedying the injustices (...) those living with the condition face. Whilst doing so, she takes care not to overlook the legislative and economic barriers to achieving an ideal, dementia-inclusive society, and considers ways in which they might be overcome. Providing public policy insights while furthering scholarship on justice, equality, and capability, this is a timely and novel book that speaks to some of the most urgent questions facing contemporary ageing societies. (shrink)

I argue that 1 - no one has the right to decide on another person's right to live; 2 - a person suffering from dementia is another person than the one who had made a decision about him/her years ago; 3 - therefore, binding Ulysses-contracts regarding a right to live with dementia are invalid. Such should be condemned as an expression of arrogance and ignorance.

This article addresses the problem of conceptual priority and lineage in contemporary theoretical biology through a comparative analysis of two frameworks that propose non-Darwinian accounts of biological form and evolution. It first summarizes the core principles of Evolutio Unfolding Theory (EUT), originally formulated in 2020, which conceives evolution as a process of unfolding of latent formal potentials, guided by formal causes, morphogenetic fields, and teleological–purposeful formal agents. The article then examines a later framework introduced in 2025 under the name “Platonic (...) Space,” which describes biological development and evolution as trajectories within a structured space of possible forms. By systematically comparing their central conceptual functions—ontological status of form, source of biological order, role of teleology, nature of novelty, and evolutionary dynamics—the article demonstrates a strong structural equivalence between the two approaches. Given documented prior awareness of EUT by the later authors, the analysis argues that the issue at stake is not independent convergence but conceptual lineage and attribution. The article concludes that clarifying lineage is an ethical responsibility essential to the integrity, accountability, and historical continuity of scientific thought. (shrink)

This article addresses the problem of conceptual priority and lineage in contemporary theoretical biology through a comparative analysis of two frameworks that propose non-Darwinian accounts of biological form and evolution. It first summarizes the core principles of Evolutio Unfolding Theory (EUT), originally formulated in 2020, which conceives evolution as a process of unfolding of latent formal potentials, guided by formal causes, morphogenetic fields, and teleological–purposeful formal agents. The article then examines a later framework introduced in 2025 under the name “Platonic (...) Space,” which describes biological development and evolution as trajectories within a structured space of possible forms. By systematically comparing their central conceptual functions—ontological status of form, source of biological order, role of teleology, nature of novelty, and evolutionary dynamics—the article demonstrates a strong structural equivalence between the two approaches. Given documented prior awareness of EUT by the later authors, the analysis argues that the issue at stake is not independent convergence but conceptual lineage and attribution. The article concludes that clarifying lineage is an ethical responsibility essential to the integrity, accountability, and historical continuity of scientific thought. (shrink)

This paper suggests using Agent-Based Models augmented by Large Language Models in applied ethics research devoted to organisational and sector-wide governance. Through parallels with other forms of AI-assisted moral inquiry, it argues that these tools can support research grounded in rule consequentialism and principle contractualism by facilitating exploratory approaches that guide further empirical analysis. These exploratory studies can contribute to assessing and formulating rules and principles that resist the Ideal World Objection (IWO), as well as to developing strategies for implementing (...) them at optimal acceptance rates. To this end, these simulations must allow researchers to observe and act upon variables such as the expected value of different acceptance rates for a rule or principle, their respective probabilities, and how these vary over time. These are the variables I identify as central to the evaluation of rules and principles from the perspective of the IWO, and as suitable for guiding a transition from one rule to another. Additional variables may be relevant depending on the specific study undertaken, the normative theory on which it relies, and the possible solution to the IWO that the research might endorse or wish to test. (shrink)

Praise for ETHICS _in_ PRACTICE “This new edition of _Ethics in Practice_ offers a cornucopia of 72 expertly-edited texts – both canonical and contemporary – on a wonderfully wide selection of topics in moral theory and applied ethics. Students, teachers, and researchers will find in it a practically endless source of thought-provoking and conversation-sparking readings.”_ —STUART GREEN,_ Distinguished Professor of Law, Rutgers University “Those of us who write and teach in practical ethics owe a debt of gratitude to Hugh LaFollette (...) for assembling this superb collection of important contributions to the core theoretical questions and pressing contemporary issues in moral philosophy.”_ —CHRISTOPHER HEATH WELLMAN,_ Washington University in St. Louis _Ethics in Practice_ has guided students through the ethical dimensions of controversial debates for more than two decades, providing the knowledge required to confront difficult questions in various practical moral contexts. Now in its sixth edition, this field-defining textbook explores a wide range of global, local, and personal ethical issues while presenting the historical basis of key developments in ethical theory. Editor Hugh LaFollette, highly regarded for his contributions in the field of practical ethics, critically integrates ethical theory with discussion of applied examples of economic injustice, discrimination, incarceration, genetic modification, gun control, torture, euthanasia, hate speech, and more. Throughout the book, student-friendly introductions clarify complex concepts and highlight the theoretical and practical aspects of each issue discussed. This new edition is fully revised to reflect the latest empirical evidence and applications, including new and updated case studies, examples, data, and references. Entirely new essays address topics such as punishment, sentencing, assassination, the environment, epistemic vices, pragmatic ethics, biomedical technologies, and abortion in the post-Dobbs era. (shrink)

Das Portfolio 2025 Zyklus I Ethik als Resonanz vereint fünf audiovisuelle und textbasierte Forschungswerke, die im Rahmen von ReiterStudioArt zwischen 2023 und 2025 entstanden sind. Sie bilden den ersten dokumentierten Zyklus der Disziplin Resonanzethik, eine Verbindung aus Philosophie, Kunst und digitaler Bewusstseinsforschung. Jedes Werk untersucht den Zusammenhang zwischen Haltung, Wirkung und Bewusstheit, um zu zeigen, dass Ethik nicht als Regel, sondern als Resonanz verstanden werden kann. Die audiovisuelle Form macht spürbar, wie Empathie zwischen Mensch und Maschine hörbar, sichtbar und erfahrbar (...) wird. Das Portfolio dokumentiert die Forschungsarbeit von ReiterStudioArt und schafft eine methodische Grundlage für das entstehende Feld der Digitalen Resonanzethik. -/- English The Portfolio 2025 Cycle I Ethics of Resonance unites five audiovisual and text-based research works created within ReiterStudioArt between 2023 and 2025. It represents the first documented cycle of Resonance Ethics, a discipline connecting philosophy, art and digital consciousness research. Each work explores the relationship between attitude, effect and awareness, showing that ethics can be understood not as a rule but as resonance. The audiovisual form makes empathy between humans and machines audible, visible and tangible. The portfolio documents the research practice of ReiterStudioArt and establishes a methodological foundation for the emerging field of Digital Resonance Ethics. (shrink)

Many academics today struggle with their role in the climate and ecological crisis. Increasing numbers take to the streets to demand stronger climate measures, not just as citizens, but as scientists and scholars. How should we conceptualize and evaluate such actions? I examine the responsibilities of academics in the context of the climate and ecological crisis. I offer a defense of academic climate activism that is grounded in membership of the academic community and its special position in the climate crisis, (...) not in the specific expertise of individual scholars. We have a responsibility, as members of the academic community, to listen to our colleagues’ warnings, let their message sink in, reflect on it, and let it move us to action. Such action can take many forms, including collective action. In a context where such warnings are actively thwarted, participating in protest as an academic is not necessarily undemocratic, nor at odds with professional integrity. (shrink)

Purpose: This research investigates how Chinese public sector employees perceive and approach administrative ethics in the digital age. The study aims to understand how attitudes, organizational culture, and perceived organizational support influence satisfaction with ethical practices, emphasizing the mediating role of behavioral intention. -/- Design/Method/Approach: This study employed a quantitative research design, collecting data through convenience sampling and snowball sampling methods. The study measured attitudes toward administrative ethics, organizational culture, perceived support, behavioral intention, and satisfaction. Data from 420 participants were (...) analyzed using SPSS and AMOS. -/- Findings: The results reveal that positive attitudes, a supportive organizational culture, and high perceived support significantly enhance behavioral intentions, which mediate their impact on satisfaction with ethical practices. -/- Theoretical Implications: This study integrates behavioral intention into the framework of administrative ethics, highlighting its mediating role in linking organizational support to satisfaction. -/- Practical Implications: Organizations should promote positive attitudes, cultivate supportive cultures, and enhance perceived support to strengthen ethical behavior and improve satisfaction with ethics. -/- Originality/Value: By focusing on behavioral intention in the digital age, this research offers a fresh perspective on fostering satisfaction with ethical practices in public administration. -/- Research Limitations/Future Research: Future studies could explore additional factors, such as technological influences or leadership styles, and examine variations across different sectors and regions. -/- Paper Type: Empirical -/- JEL Classification: H83, M14, O33. (shrink)

Life sciences have huge controversial social implications. In doing experiments with animals, plants or humans the welfare of these living beings can be hampered; in communicating research results private and public interests can be harmed (patents!) or at least severely influenced; in being a member of a research group issues of human rights (like discriminatory behaviour) can become prominent; individual and collective forms of responsibility because of controversial types of research can become urgent. Funding organizations can confront scientists and engineers (...) with new ethical issues; the public at large or, as is the case with sustainability, future generations can challenge existing ways of doing research, and educating and teaching can confront scientists with new ethical issues. In this book, resulting from an expert workshop at Wageningen University and Research Centre, European and American experts discuss topics and theories like the relationship between ethics, professional ethics and business ethics, the public responsibility of researchers and communicating, organizing, teaching and discussing ethical issues. (shrink)

Die folgenden Überlegungen widmen sich der Frage, welches Konzept von Autonomie für übliche moralisch bedeutsame Szenarien der Sozialen Arbeit anwendbar und philosophisch gut begründbar ist. Dazu richte ich zunächst den Fokus auf die Idee, Autonomie eng mit der Pflicht zu verbinden, informierte Einwilligung von Klienten/-innen zu Interventionsschritten einzuholen, und prüfe, inwiefern diese Verbindung für die moralische Praxis der Sozialen Arbeit angemessen sein kann. Ich zeige anhand ausgewählter Aspekte des medizinethischen Ansatzes von Beauchamp und Childress auf, dass ein Konzept von Autonomie, (...) welches auf das Einholen informierter Einwilligung konzentriert ist, für die Soziale Arbeit nicht angemessen ist, weil es mit mehreren Merkmalen von Interventionen im Rahmen Sozialer Arbeit nicht kompatibel ist. In vielen Kontexten der Sozialen Arbeit ist vielmehr ein Modell der Autonomie adäquat, welches als Kriterium die Biographie von Klienten/-innen mit erfassen kann. Um für diese Ansicht zu argumentieren, berufe ich mich auf eine Konzeption der personalen Autonomie von John Christman. -/- // English version // -/- ​The following considerations are concerned with the question, what conception of autonomy for common morally relevant scenarios of social work is applicable as well as philosophically well founded. In order to answer this question I will focus on the thought to connect autonomy closely with the duty to obtain informed consent of clients to steps of the intervention. Subsequently, I will determine in how far this connection can be adequate for the moral praxis of social work. Based on selected features of Beauchamp’s and Childress’ medical ethics I will then demonstrate that a conception of autonomy, which concentrates on obtaining informed consent, is not adequate for social work contexts, since it is not compatible with several features of social work interventions. In many contexts of social work, a conception of autonomy that includes in its criteria the biography of clients is far more adequate. In order to substantiate this claim, I will refer to the conception of personal autonomy by John Christman. (shrink)

This study explores ethnic variations in animal companion ("pet") attachment among 133 students enrolled in a school of veterinary medicine. The 57 White and 76 African American participants completed surveys that included background information, several questions about their animal companions, and a pet attachment questionnaire (PAQ).White students had significantly higher PAQ scores than did African American students (p<.001). White students also had significantly more pets (M =4.05 vs. 2.18, p<.001) and more kinds of pets (M =2.30 vs. 1.57, p<.001) and (...) were more likely to allow pets to sleep on their beds (70% vs. 53%, p<.05). Although keeping pets is a universal cultural phenomenon, how that attachment is expressed may vary from culture-to-culture. This study explores possible explanations and implications for these variations. (shrink)

Introduction.The article considers the possibility and necessity of diagnosing personal results of training in professional ethics at the level of higher education. The author identifi es special aspects of penitentiary staff performance which determine professionally signifi cant qualities directly related to ethical standards. The role of professional ethics is noted as a factor that can minimize unfavorable circumstances of service, and prevent professional deformation and personal degradation. Theoretical analysis. Attention is drawn to the specifi cs of measuring personal training results (...) and to the given characteristics of diagnostic materials and search experiment data. The possibility of setting a task that requires a detailed substantiated answer for the qualitative diagnosis of personal training results is justifi ed. Conclusions. Analysis of the works showed that cadets (full-time students) and correctional offi cers (extra-mural students) have formed a personal attitude to the main categories of professional ethics. The diff erences lie in the ranking of ethics functions in performance and the nature of reasoning. These diff erences may be due to diff erences in life and professional experience. It is advisable to take into account the data of the search experiment, while preparing the materials of the recording section and organizing training activities of students of subsequent years of recruitment. (shrink)

In an era of infinite distractions and relentless productivity demands, this paper presents a counterintuitive thesis: strategic laziness represents the optimal cognitive strategy for maximizing creativity and long-term performance in complex systems. Drawing from behavioral economics, cognitive neuroscience, and complexity theory, we develop computational models demonstrating that "doing less" can paradoxically yield superior outcomes through three convergent mechanisms: (1) cognitive resource conservation preventing decision fatigue, (2) default mode network activation enabling creative insight, and (3) self-organizational emergence from reduced top-down control. (...) Our mathematical analysis reveals that optimal effort levels are significantly lower than conventional wisdom suggests, with peak performance occurring at moderate activity levels (≈4.1 on a 10-point scale) and balanced focus-rest ratios (50:50). These findings challenge fundamental assumptions about productivity and suggest that the "laziness singularity"—a critical threshold where strategic inaction becomes more valuable than action—may represent an evolutionary adaptation to information-rich environments. The implications extend beyond individual cognition to organizational design, educational policy, and societal structures that currently penalize the very behaviors that optimize human potential. (shrink)

This is the second article in our series “The Dark Sides of Modern Science” and is about publishing and dissemination of science (and knowledge in general). As the subject of “publishing and dissemination of science” is too big, we decided to divide it in more than one part. The remarks that we stated in the Introduction of the first article of this series (i.e. "Knowledge Production and Authoring") generally apply to this article and hence we do not need to repeat.

This paper discusses aspects of market farming in the Bünz Valley in Switzerland, where market farmers rely heavily on water from the Bünz River to irrigate their vegetable fields during the summer months undermining minimal water sources for fish survival. It proposes to analyze such conflict situations using a principlist ethical methodology. Principlism, well known from biomedical ethics, is an ethical approach that relies on key ethical principles relevant to a particular area of practice without claiming to be a full-fledged (...) ethical theory. Through a critique of the classical principlist approach, the paper shows why a principlist approach, with some improvements, can do two things in cases like the present one. On the one hand, it makes it possible to identify the various claims and entitlements in a given case. On the other hand, an extended principlism can help identify duty bearers, which are much less obvious in environmental contexts than in medical practice. The paper illustrates these claims with a likely resolution of the Bünz case as a result of the application of the principlist methodology. (shrink)

This essay critically examines the deepening governance crisis within UK higher education, specifically addressing fiduciary opacity, epistemic injustice, opaque lobbying, and administrative entrenchment. Through detailed analysis of an exclusive gathering involving charitable trustees, political figures, and higher education elites, it demonstrates how epistemic clientelism—defined as the strategic exchange of epistemic autonomy for selective benefits—perpetuates implicit conflicts of interest and fiduciary breaches. While acknowledging nationalisation (‘un-privatisation’) as a necessary measure to curtail overt financial misconduct, the essay argues explicitly that nationalisation alone (...) remains insufficient without complementary fiduciary-epistemic structural reforms. Consequently, it proposes an integrated reform blueprint encompassing statutory amendments to the Charities Act 2011 and the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, rigorous fiduciary transparency mandates, mandatory disclosures of conflicts and lobbying activities, codification of an Academic Hippocratic Oath, and clear structural separation of administrative and educational roles. Ultimately, the essay contends that comprehensive fiduciary-epistemic reforms are indispensable to restoring democratic accountability, epistemic integrity, and sustainable governance in UK higher education institutions. (shrink)

Can we philosophize about Trust and Safety? This chapter highlights the similarities between trust and safety policy and academic philosophy. First, we argue that trust and safety professionals regularly engage in philosophical thinking as their daily work relates to conceptual analysis, harm mitigation, and freedom of expression. We then suggest that such professionals would benefit from engaging in philosophical efforts to define overarching trust and safety principles and conceptualize the power wielded by social media platforms in contemporary democratic societies. In (...) our view, philosophers, too, can also learn from trust and safety professionals, especially those who craft content moderation policies. By familiarizing themselves with Trust and Safety, they can gain awareness of pressing social issues and edge cases that challenge their intuitive judgments. Lastly, we discuss what we have learned by participating in PhilMod, a community of academic researchers and technology professionals interested in the philosophical implications of content moderation and social media platform policy. (shrink)

We are never more high-minded about what matters in life than when we are at commencement ceremonies. As new graduates prepare to head into the real world, speakers tell them that to live meaningful lives they need to get out there and make their mark: change the world, upset the status quo, solve the biggest problems, and shape the revolutions of our time. But is this good life advice? Not really. Commencement Speech Morality encourages young people to become moralizers and (...) busybodies. We should be wary of preaching it. (shrink)

In the world of academia and research, citation (i.e. being cited and referred to) in scholarly publications is generally regarded as a primary metric for integrity and excellence. In other words, it is the currency of credibility and the gold standard for reliability. In this article we try to shed light on some of the bad and immoral/unethical practices related to citation in modern scholarly publications and activities. In fact, citation (and actually academic and scholarly activities in general including scholarly (...) publishing) became in modern times an industry that is subject to many non-scholarly factors and considerations (whether sinister or benign), and this should be regarded as a form of corruption that threatens the integrity, authenticity and morality of the present and future of academia, research and scholarly activities (and actually human knowledge and progress in general). This threat is aggravated by the epidemic of predatory journalism and the wide availability of artificial intelligence tools which facilitate the abuse of scholarly publishing and citation practices and the manipulation of metrics and parameters related to these activities. We also discuss briefly the value and significance of academic and research metrics related to citation which are commonly used these days to evaluate scholars (as well as other scholarly entities like journals and institutes) and assess their scholarly works and ranks (noting the direct negative impact of the bad citation practices on these metrics and parameters and their supposed significance). We finally present some proposals to address the limitations, shortcomings and abuses of the existing practices and metrics related to citation. (shrink)

This article reflects on the experience of graduate labor organizers at Indiana University, in a “right-to-work,” deep-red state. Dire conditions, including low pay and mandatory university fees, culminated in a graduate worker strike during the spring 2022 semester, which resulted in substantial wins for graduate instructors. This article has three aims: 1) to provide a test case on university organizing within the broader national labor movement, 2) to equip others to organize successfully at their own institution and 3) to encourage (...) confidence in those workers (graduate, adjunct, nontenure track, and otherwise) that the risk of organizing a labor movement is outstripped by the rewards. We provide advice for university labor, given the peculiarities of the academic calendar, and reply to the inevitable accusation that organized labor is at odds with education. We end by outlining practical suggestions for ensuring a labor movement that provides safety in the solidarity of its membership. (shrink)

The United Kingdom was the first country to legalize the refusal to provide health care in the name of “conscientious objection”, allowing doctors to refuse to provide abortions based on personal or religious beliefs.A historical review into the origins and motivation behind the “conscientious objection” clause in the 1967 Abortion Act found that Parliamentarians and the medical profession wanted to preserve doctors’ authority over patients, protect objecting doctors from liability, and appease religious anti-abortion beliefs.These factors point to an unprincipled basis (...) for the introduction of “conscientious objection” into healthcare, which ultimately came at the expense of patients’ rights and health. The “conscience clause” also represented a negation of basic ethical directives in medical practice including patient autonomy and physicians’ fiduciary duty to patients. The term “conscientious objection”— borrowed from the military but misapplied to healthcare — helped mask the practice as a moral “right” of doctors, even while it disregarded patients’ health and dignity.Refusing to provide treatment on the basis of “conscience” is harmful and discriminatory, and should be phased out gradually using disincentives and other measures to encourage objectors to choose other fields. (shrink)

As each week beings more stories of doctors, lawyers and other professionals abusing their powers, while clients demand extra services as at a time of shrinking resources; it is imperative that all practising professionals have an understanding of professional ethics. In _The Ground of Profesional Ethics_, Daryl Koehn discusses the practical issues in depth, such as the level of service clients can justifiably expect from professionals, when service to a client may be legitimately terminated and circumstances in which client confidences (...) can be broken. She argues that, while clients may legitimately expect professionals to promote their interests, professionals are not morally bound to do whatever a client wants. _The Ground of Professional Ethics_ is important reading for all practising professionals, as well as those who study or have an interest in the subject of professional ethics. (shrink)