A Model for Ethical Problem Solving

Author(s):  
Robert M. Veatch ◽  
Amy Haddad ◽  
E. J. Last

Chapter 1 begins with a five-step model for analyzing a case posing ethical questions in pharmacy: (1) responding to a “sense” or feeling that something is wrong, (2) gathering information and making an assessment, (3) identifying the ethical problem, (4) seeking a resolution, and (5) working with others to choose a course of action. This five-step model is illustrated by the book’s first case, one involving reporting a possibly lethal medical error. A patient dies after mistakenly being given heparin intended for another patient. The case is followed by commentary applying the model and concluding with possible resolutions of the dilemma. The pharmacist might share the information with all those involved, including the family of the now-deceased patient, or tell only the pharmacist who prepared the drugs. The implications of the ethical principles involved, such as nonmaleficence and veracity, are explored.

Author(s):  
Jeffrey Kovac

Just as in chemistry, the best way to learn ethical problem solving is to confront context-rich, real-life problems (Jonsen and Toulmin 1988; Davis 1999, 143–175). The broad variety of ethical problems, or cases, presented here are hypothetical situations, but represent the kinds of problems working chemists and students face. Cases raising similar ethical questions are grouped together. To reach a diverse audience, I sometimes write several variations of the same situation. For example, a question might be posed from the perspective of the graduate student in one version and from the perspective of the research di­rector in another. For important issues I provide cases that are accessible to undergraduates who have very little research experience, usually in the context of laboratory courses. For advanced undergraduates, some cases involve undergraduate research projects. Most of the cases involve situations encountered in graduate research in universities, but some also concern industrial chemistry. Finally, a few cases present ethical problems that arise in cooperative learning, a pedagogical technique that is becoming increasingly important in undergraduate education. Each case, or related set of cases, is followed by a commentary that outlines the important issues and discusses possible solutions. Some of the commentaries are quite extensive and actually present and defend my preferred course of action; others are brief and merely raise questions that should be considered in designing a solution. The commentaries model the ethical problem-solving method presented in Chapter 6. As I have emphasized repeatedly, most ethical problems do not have clean solutions. While some courses of action are clearly wrong, there may be several morally acceptable and defensible ways to proceed. Consequently, readers might disagree with my proposed solutions for good reasons. For example, if I use a consequentialist approach, my assessment of the relative positive and negative weights of the consequences might be challenged, or I simply might have forgotten to consider some factor. Where I have made a definite recommendation, I give the reasons for my choice and contrast it with other alternatives.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 310-335
Author(s):  
Selmer Bringsjord ◽  
Naveen Sundar Govindarajulu ◽  
Michael Giancola

Abstract Suppose an artificial agent a adj {a}_{\text{adj}} , as time unfolds, (i) receives from multiple artificial agents (which may, in turn, themselves have received from yet other such agents…) propositional content, and (ii) must solve an ethical problem on the basis of what it has received. How should a adj {a}_{\text{adj}} adjudicate what it has received in order to produce such a solution? We consider an environment infused with logicist artificial agents a 1 , a 2 , … , a n {a}_{1},{a}_{2},\ldots ,{a}_{n} that sense and report their findings to “adjudicator” agents who must solve ethical problems. (Many if not most of these agents may be robots.) In such an environment, inconsistency is a virtual guarantee: a adj {a}_{\text{adj}} may, for instance, receive a report from a 1 {a}_{1} that proposition ϕ \phi holds, then from a 2 {a}_{2} that ¬ ϕ \neg \phi holds, and then from a 3 {a}_{3} that neither ϕ \phi nor ¬ ϕ \neg \phi should be believed, but rather ψ \psi instead, at some level of likelihood. We further assume that agents receiving such incompatible reports will nonetheless sometimes simply need, before long, to make decisions on the basis of these reports, in order to try to solve ethical problems. We provide a solution to such a quandary: AI capable of adjudicating competing reports from subsidiary agents through time, and delivering to humans a rational, ethically correct (relative to underlying ethical principles) recommendation based upon such adjudication. To illuminate our solution, we anchor it to a particular scenario.


Marine Drugs ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Yu-Chi Lin ◽  
Yi-Jen Chen ◽  
Shu-Rong Chen ◽  
Wan-Ju Lien ◽  
Hsueh-Wei Chang ◽  
...  

Application of LC-MS/MS-based molecular networking indicated the ethanol extract of octocoral Asterospicularia laurae is a potential source for the discovery of new xenicane derivatives. A natural product investigation of this soft coral resulted in the isolation of four new xenicane diterpenoids, asterolaurins O‒R (1‒4), together with six known compounds, xeniolide-A (5), isoxeniolide-A (6), xeniolide-B (7), 7,8-epoxyxeniolide-B (8), 7,8-oxido-isoxeniolide-A (9), and 9-hydroxyxeniolide-F (10). The structures of isolated compounds were characterized by employing spectroscopic analyses, including 2D-NMR (COSY, HMQC, HMBC, and NOESY) and high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HRESIMS). Asterolaurin O is the first case of brominated tricarbocyclic type floridicin in the family Xeniidae. Concerning bioactivity, the cytotoxic activity of those isolates was evaluated. As a result, compounds 1 and 2 demonstrated a selective cytotoxic effect against the MCF-7 cell line at IC50 of 14.7 and 25.1 μM, respectively.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 612-613
Author(s):  
ROBERT C. WOODY

The increasing availability of videorecording cameras and cassette recorders now permits the visual documentation of medical events in children at home by parents. On two occasions recently, we asked families to videorecord their children's presumed seizure activity at home. In the first case, a 10-month-old white boy had frequent "spells" which by history appeared to be complex partial seizures. Routine awake and asleep EEG tracings were normal, and the family resisted hospital admission for financial reasons. Anticonvulsant medications were prescribed, and the family suggested that they borrow their parent's videocassette recorder to document their son's spells at home. Their videorecordings produced a high quality, permanent record of definite complex partial symptom activity clearly revealing eye deviation, nystagmus, and associated head and arm tonic activity.


Episteme ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Brad Wray

AbstractI evaluate the extent to which we could learn something about how we should be conducting collaborative research in science from the research on groupthink. I argue that Solomon has set us in the wrong direction, failing to recognize that the consensus in scientific specialties is not the result of deliberation. But the attention to the structure of problem-solving that has emerged in the groupthink research conducted by psychologists can help us see when deliberation could lead to problems for a research team. I argue that whenever we need to generate alternative solutions or proposals, groupthink is a genuine threat, and research teams would be wise to allow individuals opportunities to work alone. But the benefits of team work emerge when scientists seek to evaluate the various proposals generated, and determine a course of action. Then the group is less prone is groupthink, and the interaction of group members can be an epistemic asset.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Mey Susanti AS ◽  
Dewi Rispawati ◽  
Basuki Srihermanto ◽  
Suryaningsih

Indonesia reported the first case of Covid-19 on March 2, 2020. Data as of March 31, 2020 showed that there were 1.528 confirmed cases and 136 deaths. The Covid-19 death rate in Indonesia is 8.9%, the highest in Southeast Asia. After confirming the first case, the Government of Indonesia took various countermeasures to reduce the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in various sectors. Not only the health sector but also the economic sector has suffered no less serious impacts due to this pandemic. At the family level, the small and middle levels of society become weak and decline, this is due to restrictions on community activities. Due to these conditions, it is necessary to make efforts that we must do to be able to restore the economic condition of the family by utilizing the potential that exists around it. This service was carried out at the Women Farmers Group called ‘Kelompok Wanita Tani (KWT) Maju Bersama’  Pelempat, Meninting Village, West Lombok District, West Nusa Tenggara Province. The method used in this activity is implemented in 4 (four) activity stages, namely 1) Preparation, 2) Socialization, 3) Activity Implementation, and 4) Monitoring and Evaluation. The results of the activity showed that members of  Kelompok Wanita Tani (KWT) Maju Bersama have understood the technique of developing oyster mushroom cultivation and have high motivation to become entrepreneurs through cultivating oyster mushrooms as well as making it to increase people's income in the New Normal Era of the Covid-19 pandemic.


2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-117
Author(s):  
Mieczysław Kula ◽  
Małgorzata Serwecińska

AbstractThe paper is devoted to the communication complexity of lattice operations in linearly ordered finite sets. All well known techniques ([4, Chapter 1]) to determine the communication complexity of the infimum function in linear lattices disappoint, because a gap between the lower and upper bound is equal to O(log2n), where n is the cardinality of the lattice. Therefore our aim will be to investigate the communication complexity of the function more carefully. We consider a family of so called interval protocols and we construct the interval protocols for the infimum. We prove that the constructed protocols are optimal in the family of interval protocols. It is still open problem to compute the communication complexity of constructed protocols but the numerical experiments show that their complexity is less than the complexity of known protocols for the infimum function.


2020 ◽  
Vol 144 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Jablonski ◽  
Andrej Alena ◽  
Petr Vlček ◽  
David Jandzik

Axanthism in amphibians is a relatively rare color aberration reported less often than leucism or albinism. It is caused by lack of specific types of pigment cells in the skin, namely xanthophores, erythrophores, and iridophores. Here, we present the first case of occurrence of this aberration in a widely distributed toad of the green toad (Bufotes viridis) complex and provide an extensive review of axanthism occurrence in amphibians. So far it has been reported in more than 20 species from nine families of amphibians with the highest occurrence in the family Ranidae.


Author(s):  
Mauricio Andres Soto

ABSTRACTErrors in medicine occur in all contexts in which it can be developed. For instance, in pre and post-graduate education, where the subsequent analyses that are helping to conceptualize and develop medical professionalism. This is why postgraduate education makes it necessary for residents to develop a serious attitude towards their formative process, allowing them to understand the importance of a quality education. In this regard, supervising physicians should not forget to respect residents’ autonomy and learning curve. It is also important to take into account the family-social and labor-educational environments, potentially incompatible, and often resulting in sleep deprivation, lack of free time, burnout, and depression.RESUMENEl error en medicina se manifiesta en todos los contextos en la cual esta puede desarrollarse; por ejemplo, en un ambiente formador de pre como postgrado, cobrando importancia el análisis que se haga de ello, con la finalidad de fortalecer la transmisión de ideas, invitando a la conceptualización y construcción en temas como el profesionalismo médico y con ello al desarrollo de una actitud y forma de actuar frente a una medicina que puede equivocar sus finalidades. Por ello, formación médica de postgrado implica asumir una actitud por parte del residente respecto de la seriedad en su proceso formativo, en el esfuerzo y entendimiento de la necesidad de una formación de calidad y de criterio. Por su parte, los docentes, médicos-supervisores, no deben olvidar el respeto de la autonomía y los tiempos de aprendizaje del residente. Además se debe considerar el contexto en el cual el médico-residente se desarrolla, un ambiente familiar-social y uno laboral-educacional, potencialmente incompatible y que a menudo puede resultar en privación de sueño, falta de tiempo libre, “burnout” y depresión.


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