Information ethics, its nature and scope

In recent years, “Information Ethics” (IE) has come to mean different things to different researchers working in a variety of disciplines, including computer ethics, business ethics, medical ethics, computer science, the philosophy of information, social epistemology and library and information science. Using an ontocentric approach, this paper seeks to define the parameters of IE and thereby increase our understanding of the moral challenges associated with Information Communication Technologies

The new Belgian law on biobanks: some comments from an ethical perspective

On 19 December 2008 the Official Journal of Belgium published the 'Law regarding the procurement and use of human body material destined for human medical applications or for scientific research purposes'. This paper will comment on various aspects of the Law: its scope of application (what is understood by 'body material'?); its concept of 'residual human body material' (with far-reaching implications for the type of consent required for research); the nature of actions with and uses of human body material that are explicitly prohibited; the right of donors to be informed of relevant information revealed by the use of their body material; and the special responsibilities placed on hospital ethics committees. As will be argued in this paper, several of these provisions are highly problematic from an ethical point of view, especially those relating to consent. Meanwhile, the Minister of Public Health has asked the Belgian Advisory Committee on Bioethics for advice on the incorporation of the 'presumed consent' model, that applies to post mortem organ donation, into the biobank Law's provisions on post mortem removal and use of body material. This aspect of the Law effectively extends the 'presumed consent' regime, both from organs to body material in general, and from therapeutic uses to research uses

Alat pemungut tandan kelapa sawit darjah kebebasan

Kelapa sawit merupakan tanaman yang menyumbang kepada industri penghasilan minyak di dunia seperti minyak masak, minyak industri, dan minyak bahan bakar (biodiesal). Pulangan dari sektor pertanian khususnya kelapa sawit sangat menguntungkan. Kini ramai petani telah bertukar ke tanaman kelapa sawit. Indonesia merupakan pengeluar minyak kelapa sawit terbesar di dunia [1]. Dengan terdapatnya pembukaan ladang sawit secara besar-besaran maka banyaklah syarikat-syarikat pertanian mula mencipta alat atau mesin yang baik untuk mencepatkan proses memetik dan mengeluarkan sawit dari ladang. Namun alatan yang lebih mesra pengguna dilihat tidak dipandang serius. Atas isu ini timbul idea mencipta alat pemungut tandan kelapa sawit darjah kebebasan. Semua sedia maklum untuk mengeluarkan sawit dari ladang perlunya meletakan tandan sawit ke dalam kereta sorong terlebih dahulu.Untuk meletakan sawit ke dalam kereta sorong T-shape palm fruit shank diperlukan. Pekebun akan mengangkat sawit yang telah dipetik dari pokok menggunakan alatan tersebut.Tanpa disedari alatan ini membahayakan pekebun dan membebankan. Pekebun memerlukan tenaga yang banyak untuk mengangkat tandan sawit yang amat berat ke dalam kereta sorong. Selain itu, mengangkat bebanan yang berat dalam kuantiti yang banyak menyebabkan sakit dibahagian tulang belakang pekebun. Di samping itu, mata alat yang tajam dan terdedah meningkatkan risiko kecederaan pekebun. Duri pada buah sawit juga bahaya pada pekebun

Ethics and social networking sites: A disclosive analysis of Facebook

Paper has been accepted for publication in Information, Technology and People.Purpose: This paper provides insights into the moral values embodied by a popular social networking site (SNS), Facebook. We adopt the position that technology as well as humans has a moral character in order to disclose ethical concerns that are not transparent to users of the site. Design/methodology/approach: This study is based upon qualitative field work, involving participant observation, conducted over a two year period. Findings: Much research on the ethics of information systems has focused on the way that people deploy particular technologies, and the consequences arising, with a view to making policy recommendations and ethical interventions. By focusing on technology as a moral actor with reach across and beyond the Internet, we reveal the complex and diffuse nature of ethical responsibility in our case and the consequent implications for governance of SNS. Research limitations/implications: We situate our research in a body of work known as disclosive ethics and argue for an ongoing process of evaluating SNS to reveal their moral importance. Along with other authors in the genre, our work is largely descriptive, but we engage with prior research by Brey and Introna to highlight the scope for theory development. Practical implications: Governance measures that require the developers of social networking sites to revise their designs fail to address the diffuse nature of ethical responsibility in this case. Such technologies need to be opened up to scrutiny on a regular basis to increase public awareness of the issues and thereby disclose concerns to a wider audience. We suggest that there is value in studying the development and use of these technologies in their infancy, or if established, in the experiences of novice users. Furthermore, flash points in technological trajectories can prove useful sites of investigation. Originality/value: Existing research on social networking sites either fails to address ethical concerns head on or adopts a tool view of the technologies so that the focus is on the ethical behaviour of users. We focus upon the agency, and hence the moral character, of technology to show both the possibilities for, and limitations of, ethical interventions in such cases

Some Temperance on the Doctoral Studies and On-Line Education

Toward the goal of doctoral studies, it is necessary to combine two basic characteristics of independent study. I like to call it an independent study, which would be partial to capture the whole of graduate studies. As for its high honor, the title page of dissertation in vast of universities usually use the phrase “...submitted for the partial fulfillment of doctorate degree...”. That phrase implies that the completion of dissertation would be a major part of doctoral studies, but should be partial depending on some of additional factors. Idealistically, that could be the whole quality as an independent researcher or investigator, and possibly the kind of human paradigm as a prospective teacher. In any case, we would not be incorrect if we see our principal work at the graduate level learning the ways of independent scholar. In this context, I would propose some of elements to be addressed in the end to guide the paradigm of doctoral studies and especially involving the e-age

Empowerment or Engagement? Digital Health Technologies for Mental Healthcare

We argue that while digital health technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence, smartphones, and virtual reality) present significant opportunities for improving the delivery of healthcare, key concepts that are used to evaluate and understand their impact can obscure significant ethical issues related to patient engagement and experience. Specifically, we focus on the concept of empowerment and ask whether it is adequate for addressing some significant ethical concerns that relate to digital health technologies for mental healthcare. We frame these concerns using five key ethical principles for AI ethics (i.e. autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, and explicability), which have their roots in the bioethical literature, in order to critically evaluate the role that digital health technologies will have in the future of digital healthcare

A fresh look on the role of the second kind of knowledge in Spinoza’s Ethics

In this paper, through a close reading of Spinoza's use of common notions I argue for the role of experiential and experimental knowledge in Spinoza's epistemology