MetaFilter posts tagged with ethics

Meat is Murder is Movie

DaddyNewt — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:04:15 -0800

Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home Tribe of Heart's first film, "The Witness", was an eye opening look at how one man's whole life was changed by an encounter with a kitten. Their new film, "Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home", tells the story of a group of farmers coming to grips with the realization that they can't continue to make a living from the suffering of animals.

I prefer to think of it as a 'trolley opportunity'

grobstein — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:46:36 -0800

Michael Sandel's "Justice" has long been one of the most popular courses at Harvard. Now for the first time the class is being broadcast online. The site for "Justice." "Justice" is a wide-ranging introduction to issues in normative ethics and political morality that aims to work as a kind of supplementary civic education: "In a way, . . . the course [tries] to model what public discourse would be like if it were more morally ambitious than it is." The video series is an ambitious (and expensive) production, using multiple cameras to capture student discussion as well as Prof. Sandel's words.

First, do no harm

anigbrowl — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:29:49 -0800

Was it triage or murder? A disturbing NY Times story about the choices made by certain medical staff at a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina. Long and not easy reading.

Putting a 14-year-old in a "lie detector" - what did you expect would happen?

divabat — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:54:17 -0800

Sydney radio station 2dayFM earned the ire and backlash of the Australian public - rape counsellors, Australian media, and Community Services ministers - after an on-air stunt by morning crew Kyle and Jackie O went horribly wrong. During their regular "lie detector" segment, a 14-year-old girl was interrogated by the hosts and her mother over her sexual history, against her will, and revealed that she had been raped at 12 on air (warning: possibly triggering audio clip embedded in news article). The hosts immediately offered to pay for counselling services, but questions such as "And did you have any other experiences?" led to widespread on Twitter, calls for sackings and shutdowns, and a major PR crisis for radio group Austereo. While the station and its hosts have released an official statement and Kyle Sandilands has stated he was "stunned" by the revelation, authorities are now seeking out the girl's mother for investigation. This is not the first time Kyle and Jackie O (mostly Kyle) have courted controversy.

Tyler Cowen on why it's OK to pay for sex

reenum — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:18:25 -0800

Tyler Cowen on why it's OK to pay for sex The rest of the debate can be found here.

Neurosecurity

homunculus — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:29:23 -0800

Neurosecurity: security and privacy for neural devices. "An increasing number of neural implantable devices will become available in the near future due to advances in neural engineering. This discipline holds the potential to improve many patients' lives dramatically by offering improved—and in some cases entirely new—forms of rehabilitation for conditions ranging from missing limbs to degenerative cognitive diseases. The use of standard engineering practices, medical trials, and neuroethical evaluations during the design process can create systems that are safe and that follow ethical guidelines; unfortunately, none of these disciplines currently ensure that neural devices are robust against adversarial entities trying to exploit these devices to alter, block, or eavesdrop on neural signals. The authors define 'neurosecurity'—a version of computer science security principles and methods applied to neural engineering—and discuss why neurosecurity should be a critical consideration in the design of future neural devices." [Via Mind Hacks]

Mother Courage and her Infuseion

Smedleyman — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:18:37 -0800

The Medill School of Journalism's Washington Program revealed its Pentagon Travel project last week (multimedia). Most privately paid for travel was found to be within the bounds of federal law, but some still show a clear conflict of interest. Key findings: From 1998 through 2007, sources outside the federal government paid for more than 22,000 trips worth at least $26 million. The medical industry paid for more travel than any other outside interest — more than $10 million for some 8,700 trips, or about 40 percent of all outside sponsored travel. Among the targets: military pharmacists, doctors, and others who administer the Pentagon’s $6 billion-plus annual budget for prescription drugs. Medill acquired 10 years worth of trip data and partnered with the Center for Public Integrity to form a searchable database which includes destination, date, sponsor, sponsor nationality, cost of trip or agency.

Sir Allen Stanford, the Ponzi artist

Gyan — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:27:14 -0800

The Dark Knight - On Sir Allen Stanford

Morality and context.

limon — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:02:15 -0800

How wrong is it to use a kitten for personal sexual pleasure? Depends on whether you've washed your hands.

Before there was Photoshop

starman — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:45:06 -0800

The New York Evening Graphic was published by Bernarr Macfadden, body builder, health crusader, and prolific author (Strong Eyes [1901], How Success is Won [1904], and Brain Energy [1906] to name a few of his hundred titles). After his failed "Physical Culture City" and before the ethical breach of using Photoshop for news your photographer couldn't gain access or wanted an early jump on, Macfadden began The New York Evening Graphic in 1924. Perhaps the paper's most well-known composograph was of Kip and Alice Rhinelander's divorce trial, which helped earn the paper the nickname, "The Porno Graphic." Future variety TV host Ed Sullivan even had an "I'm above writing about divorces and gossip" Broadway column in the paper, in which he avoided divorces and gossip for about two days. And by the way, next time you jump in that icy pond, you can thank Macfadden.

X-Phi

homunculus — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 23:25:20 -0800

Philosophy’s great experiment. "Philosophers used to combine conceptual reflections with practical experiment. The trendiest new branch of the discipline, known as x-phi, wants to return to those days. Some philosophers don’t like it." [Via]

Stephen Glass Didn't Pass

Effigy2000 — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:03:33 -0800

In 1998, a journalist at The New Republic named Stephen Glass wrote a compelling piece in the influential magazine entitled 'Hack Heaven'. It told the story of how Glass witnessed a 15 year old hacker named Ian Restil being hired by a large Californian computer company named Jukt Micronics at a hacker convention as a security analyst after Restil hacked Jukt's website. But the entire story was, in fact, entirely fictional. Forbes Digital reporter Adam Penenberg exposed Glass as a fraud in his article Lies, Damn Lies and Fiction (mentioned previously) in what was hailed as a breakthrough for internet journalism and which forced The New Republic to issue two apologies to its readers. It also conducted it's own internal investigation into Glass' previously published articles and subsequently determined that at least 27 of 41 stories written by Glass for the magazine contained fabricated material. Some, such as "Don't You D.A.R.E.", contained fabricated quotations and incidents woven in with real reporting. Although Glass was ultimately exposed, he did his best to try and cover his tracks beforehand, going so far as to create a fake website for Jukt Micronics and having his brother act as its chairman in a phone call to his editor. All this would later form the basis for the movie Shattered Glass. Very few of the articles that Glass wrote for The New Republic are still available online. Some of those available include; A Day on the Streets Mrs. Colehill Thanks God For Private Social Security (PDF format) Probable Claus Don't You D.A.R.E. Writing on the Wall Slavery Chic The Young and the Feckless Hack Heaven For further reading, check out A Tissue of Lies: The Stephen R. Glass Index, which provides a complete index of Glass articles with even more links and with known fabrications specially marked.

Value Altered Tax

Gyan — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 07:23:26 -0800

The Tax Gap - "The Guardian will examine the extent of tax avoidance by big business, day-by-day over two weeks. We are naming more than 20 major British companies, and analysing their secretive tax strategies to ask: are they paying their fair share?".

Facts, Opinions, Tools, Advice, and Connections

netbros — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:40:10 -0800

The Canadian Journalism Project (CJP) and its websites, J-Source.ca (English) and ProjetJ.ca (French), provides a source for news, research, commentary, advice, discussion and resources about the achievement of, and challenges to, excellence in Canadian journalism.

Soy Milk: I'm Sam Adams, and I'm here to seduce you.

strangeleftydoublethink — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:27:23 -0800

Sam Adams, the recently elected openly gay mayor of Portland, Oregon, has come under fire for lying about a relationship he had with a teenage legislative intern in 2005 named Beau Breedlove. When first asked about the relationship in 2007 during the election campaign, Sam (then 42) claimed he was being a mentor to the young man. Sam recently cut short a trip to DC to return to Portland to publicly apologize and control damage over a new article in which he admits to having a sexual relationship with Beau. It's got the town divided over whether he should resign of if the whole thing is being blown out of proportion.

Studies In Getting Smacked

Marisa Stole the Precious Thing — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 20:24:28 -0800

Three psychology experiments that raise ethics questions because of the danger they posed to the research assistants. (via) The Reaction to Rape by American Male Bystanders: "The present study simulated a rape in a realistic natural setting. The topography of the location ensured that the subjects, men walking to their adjacent parked cars, had but one of the following three options: to walk away, to intervene directly, or to intervene indirectly by summoning a police officer. Intervention was more frequent by groups of bystanders than by individual bystanders and was overwhelmingly of the direct kind." Personal space invasions in the lavatory: Suggestive evidence for arousal.: "A field experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that personal space invasions produce arousal as measured by delay of onset and duration of men’s urination. Men using a three-urinal lavatory at a Midwestern university were subjects. According to a previously determined schedule of random assignment a confederate either, stood at the urinal directly adjacent to the subject, stood one urinal away, or was absent from the lavatory. An observer with a periscope was concealed in a toilet stall and recorded measures of urination." The stare as a stimulus to flight in human subjects: "An experimenter, reading a motor scooter, arranged to arrive first at a red traffic light. When a car drew along side, the experimenter turned to stare directly at the driver until the traffic signal turned green."

Avast ye!

Horace Rumpole — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 15:12:44 -0800

Professor Mills Kelly of George Mason University had his History 389 class spend the fall semester on a class project about the intriguing figure of Edward Owens, the "Last American Pirate". They blogged about their research, made videos for YouTube, and gave Owens a Wikipedia entry. The story even got some media attention. There was just one problem: History 389 was a class on historical hoaxes, and Edward Owens was their fictional creation. Professor Kelly actually warned readers of his blog in advance that the hoax would be coming, and argued that "we need to be playful sometimes in the study of history and that this course is a good way to do just that, even as we do some serious learning along the way." But others question the costs that the class's learning experience might have for the rest of us. There's a good article at the Chronicle of Higher Education if you have subscriber access. (Via).

Society upto speed?

daksya — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:59:15 -0800

Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy - a commentary in Nature that says, "we call for a presumption that mentally competent adults should be able to engage in cognitive enhancement using drugs". Farkesque debate here. Some earlier related FPPs: "By their drugs shall ye know them." Nootropics ("smart" drugs)

APA bars participation in military interrogations

homunculus — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 15:21:22 -0800

Psychology Group Changes Policy on Interrogations. The American Psychological Association has adopted a measure prohibiting its members from participating in interrogations of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay and other military prisons where detainees have been tortured (previously). [Via Paper Chase]

Roger Williams

homunculus — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:20:30 -0800

The First Founder: The American Revolution of Roger Williams. [Via 3quarksdaily]

Do no harm?

Paid In Full — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:51:28 -0800

To treat, or not to treat? Samuel Golubchuk is 84 years old, in a coma on life support in a Winnipeg hospital, and the subject of ethical, religious, and legal debates. Three doctors have refused to continue providing care, while one has stepped in, potentially keeping the intensive care unit in operation.

Dignity and Bioethics

homunculus — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:35:43 -0800

The Stupidity of Dignity: Conservative bioethics' latest, most dangerous ploy. Steven Pinker reviews Human Dignity and Bioethics, the latest report from the President's Council on Bioethics. dgaicun posted Pinker's article in the Leon Kass vs. ice-cream thread, but I think it and the report deserve their own post.

We've Replaced The Patient's Blood With PolyHeme. Let's See If They Notice.

scrump — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:54:31 -0800

The blood substitute PolyHeme has been previously discussed on MetaFilter, but new evidence shows that PolyHeme actually raises the chances of death by nearly 30%. PolyHeme was notable mostly for the reaction to its clinical trials, which, controversially, did not require patient consent.

What is the meaning of this post?

desjardins — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:47:53 -0800

Ask a Philosopher. Is the sentence of death really a punishment? How can we discern the difference of how we authentically "feel" as opposed to how we "think" we feel? If humans didn't exist, would animals still have rights?

Vegan Strippers??

Megami — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:07:32 -0800

No, I am not just trying to get your attention - there is a Vegan Strip club in Portland. Very much a clash of ethics for some, a great opportunity to 'spread the message' for others. The article includes quotes from some of the well known names in the Vegan movement including Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Bob Torres, who wrote 'Vegan Freak'. Since the Hezbollah Tofu discussion created so much heat, try and keep it nice here people.