Learning Ethics the Hard Way: Facing the Ethics Committee

1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Brad Johnson ◽  
Rioh'det Corser

This article describes an approach to enhancing the value of case study material in teaching professional ethics in psychology. The mock committee approach involves a series of hearings convened fry students who rotate membership on a class ethics committee. Members of the class participate randomly as psychologists accused of various ethical violations. While the class observes, formal complaint hearings occur that result in official rulings and the setting of appropriate penalties and remedial requirements. The larger class then joins in active feedback and exchange with the committee to highlight and discuss salient ethical issues. We present and discuss student evaluation data for this technique and comment on the potential advantages of this teaching approach.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Spyridon Stelios ◽  
Alexandros Christodoulou

In higher education there seems to be a ‘gap’ between the levels of undergraduate student expectation of being confronted by ethical issues in engineering work, and the amount of effective ethics education. Within this context, the purpose of this empirical research is to investigate engineering students’ views on two issues: a) How vital professional ethics are in their field, and b) whether they believe that professional ethics must be a part of the syllabus in their School. Findings indicate that teachers should make special reference to and strongly emphasize in class the value of an engineer's ethical responsibility. Furthermore, they need to spend a number of teaching hours on tackling problems in professional ethics as well as organize conferences, workshops, lectures and discussions, where the main speakers would be experienced engineers and academics. This way the technical and technological education incorporates more the responsibility of building professional integrity that can guarantee the much needed social goods of progress and prosperity, along with safety.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Bennett

Cannabis (marijuana) is the most commonly consumed, universally produced, and frequently trafficked psychoactive substance prohibited under international drug control laws. Yet, several countries have recently moved toward legalization. In these places, the legal status of cannabis is complex, especially because illegal markets persist. This chapter explores the ways in which a sector’s legal status interacts with political consumerism. The analysis draws on a case study of political consumerism in the US and Canadian cannabis markets over the past two decades as both countries moved toward legalization. It finds that the goals, tactics, and leadership of political consumerism activities changed as the sector’s legal status shifted. Thus prohibition, semilegalization, and new legality may present special challenges to political consumerism, such as silencing producers, confusing consumers, deterring social movements, and discouraging discourse about ethical issues. The chapter concludes that political consumerism and legal status may have deep import for one another.


2021 ◽  
pp. 263145412098771
Author(s):  
Biju Dominic ◽  
Reshmi

This case study is about misselling of insurance policies and associated ethical challenges in a leading insurance company. Pro-organisational ethical violations mostly remain unnoticed and are often protected by implausible explanations. In the long run, persistent rationalisation makes malpractices a norm. The present work describes the interventions applied by a consulting firm to bring behavioural integrity. The consulting firm found that socialisation, rationalisation and institutionalisation considerably influenced people’s behaviour at the workplace and normalised unethical behaviour of insurance agents. It architected the behaviour of salespeople by specifically designed interventions through self-control mechanism and nudges. These interventions developed integrity in employees and reduced the number of cautions, warnings and terminations.


Author(s):  
Kathryn Strong Hansen

AbstractGreater emphasis on ethical issues is needed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The fiction for specific purposes (FSP) approach, using optimistic science fiction texts, offers a way to focus on ethical reflection that capitalizes on role models rather than negative examples. This article discusses the benefits of using FSP in STEM education more broadly, and then explains how using optimistic fictions in particular encourages students to think in ethically constructive ways. Using examples of science fiction texts with hopeful perspectives, example discussion questions are given to model how to help keep students focused on the ethical issues in a text. Sample writing prompts to elicit ethical reflection are also provided as models of how to guide students to contemplate and analyze ethical issues that are important in their field of study. The article concludes that the use of optimistic fictions, framed through the lens of professional ethics guidelines and reinforced through ethical reflection, can help students to have beneficial ethical models.


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