Ethical Development of Artificial Amniotic Sac and Placenta Technology: A Roadmap

In this paper we present an initial roadmap for the ethical development and eventual implementation of artificial amniotic sac and placenta technology in clinical practice. We consider four elements of attention: (1) framing and societal dialogue; (2) value sensitive design, (3) research ethics and (4) ethical and legal research resulting in the development of an adequate moral and legal framework. Attention to all elements is a necessary requirement for ethically responsible development of this technology. The first element concerns the importance of framing and societal dialogue. This should involve all relevant stakeholders as well as the general public. We also identify the need to consider carefully the use of terminology and how this influences the understanding of the technology. Second, we elaborate on value sensitive design: the technology should be designed based upon the principles and values that emerge in the first step: societal dialogue. Third, research ethics deserves attention: for proceeding with first-in-human research with the technology, the process of recruiting and counseling eventual study participants and assuring their informed consent deserves careful attention. Fourth, ethical and legal research should concern the status of the subject in the AAPT. An eventual robust moral and legal framework for developing and implementing the technology in a research setting should combine all previous elements. With this roadmap, we emphasize the importance of stakeholder engagement throughout the process of developing and implementing the technology; this will contribute to ethically and responsibly innovating health care.

Análisis ético de los deportes electrónicos: ¿un paso atrás respecto al deporte tradicional? (Ethical analysis of esports: a step backwards compared to traditional sports?)

Los deportes electrónicos, también conocidos como esports, son un rompedor fenómeno basado en competiciones deportivas en las que el ser humano desarrolla y entrena capacidades mentales y físicas bajo el uso de videojuegos competitivos. Su especial acercamiento a las nuevas generaciones ha creado cierta preocupación social sobre la educación, concretamente ética, que ofrece esta manifestación a los más jóvenes. Apoyados en la corriente hermenéutica, nuestro objetivo es analizar, desde un prisma ético, el fenómeno de los esports y como pueden contribuir, están contribuyendo o podrían contribuir a que sus practicantes tengan una vida plena. Entre los elementos analizados encontramos el proceso de virtualización, la corporalidad, la libertad, la virtud, el autoconocimiento o la violencia. Tras el análisis, se puede concluir que esta preocupación y crítica socialmente asentada no está fundamentada pues los deportes electrónicos pueden contribuir a un desarrollo ético del individuo y, con éste, a su educación. De esta forma, el desarrollo ético del sujeto contribuye al desarrollo ético de la sociedad. Algunos aspectos desarrollados pueden las concepciones de corporalidad, género y feminismo, la democratización de la competición humana, la disonancia entre la realidad y la virtualidad, la concepción de la agresividad, la violencia y la catarsis, la idea de libertad como existencia auténtica o las implicaciones del juego y del deporte en la humanidad. Abstract: Electronic sports, also known as esports, are a groundbreaking phenomenon based on sports competitions in which the human beings develops and trains mental and physical abilities using competitive videogames. Its special approach to the new generations has created certain social concern about education, specifically ethics, which this manifestation offers to the youngest. Supported by the hermeneutical current, our objective is to analyse, from an ethical prism, the phenomenon of esports and how they can contribute, are contributing or could contribute to their practitioners having a fulfilling life. Among the analysed elements we find the process of virtualization, corporeality, freedom, virtue, self-knowledge or violence. After the analysis, it can be concluded that this socially based concern and criticism is not founded, since electronic sports can contribute to an ethical development of the individual and, with this, to his education. In this way, the ethical development of the subject contributes to the ethical development of society. Some aspects developed can be the conceptions of corporeality, gender and feminism, the democratization of human competition, the dissonance between reality and virtuality, the conception of aggressiveness, violence and catharsis, the idea of freedom as authentic existence or the implications of the game and sport in humanity.

Theorizing the (Un)Sounded in Sikhī: Anhad, Sabad, and Kīrtan

Listening to sabad kīrtan (sung scriptural verse) is a core, everyday, widespread, and loved worship practice of Sikhs around the globe. Thus, it would be fair to state that sounding is central to Sikh worship. Indeed, the Sikh scripture considers kīrtan to be an eminent mode of devotion. Yet, the ultimate aim of this sonic practice is to sense the “unsounded” vibration—anhad—and thereby the divine and divine ethical virtues. Based on a close reading of Sikh sacred texts and ethnographic research, and drawing on the analytic of transduction, the paper explicates the embodied vibratory dimensions of the (unsounded) anhad and (sounded) sabad kīrtan. It argues that the central purpose of the Sikh (un)sounding perceptual practice is embodied ethical attunement for an unmediated experience of the divine and divine ethical virtues, and thereby the development of an ethical life. At the intersection of music, sound, religious, and philosophical studies, the analysis reveals the centrality of the body in worship and ethical development, and contributes to interdisciplinary conversations on sensory epistemologies in faith traditions.

Insight Series, University of Birmingham

Ethical behaviour from a normative perspective is usually understood as following rules, decisions based on any potential consequences and fostering internal moral qualities for human flourishing. Although the process of codifying professional conduct is in itself deontological (rule-focused), a code of ethical conduct should still depict a balanced orientation towards compliance with rules, consequences or ethical development. The analysis of the examined documents, however, indicates that professional codes seem to emphasise conformity among its own members to the rules of the codes rather than developing their autonomous interest in ethical professional practice.

An Institutionalist Approach to AI Ethics: Justifying the Priority of Government Regulation over Self-Regulation

This article explores the cooperation of government and the private sector to tackle the ethical dimension of artificial intelligence (AI). The argument draws on the institutionalist approach in philosophy and business ethics defending a ‘division of moral labor’ between governments and the private sector (Rawls 2001; Scheffler and Munoz-Dardé 2005). The goal and main contribution of this article is to explain how this approach can provide ethical guidelines to the AI industry and to highlight the limits of self-regulation. In what follows, I discuss three institutionalist claims. First, principles of AI ethics should be validated through legitimate democratic processes. Second, compliance with these principles should be secured in a stable way. Third, their implementation in practice should be as efficient as possible. If we accept these claims, there are good reasons to conclude that, in many cases, governments implementing hard regulation are in principle (if not yet in practice) the best instruments to secure an ethical development of AI systems. Where adequate regulation exists, firms should respect the law. But when regulation does not yet exist, helping governments build adequate regulation should be businesses’ ethical priority, not self-regulation.

Epistemology and Ethics in Zhuangzi

On a prima facia reading, Zhuangzi seems to endorse some form of skepticism or relativism. This seems at odds with Zhuangzi as one of the two main sources of classical Daoism, considering the ideals of virtue and self-development promoted by that philosophy. However, Zhuangzi’s metaphorical and allegorical style lends itself to a number of interpretations of his epistemology, as well as the kind of self-knowledge and ethical development it might allow. A survey of the relevant literature shows that the epistemological debate is not easily solvable, but by narrowing the range of interpretations, a coherent picture of his ethics begins to emerge, one in which some form of knowledge, especially self-knowledge, is still possible, as is an ethics of self-actualization.

Character and Moral Judgment: Neo-Kohlbergian and Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics Perspectives

This article identifies theoretical and practical resources for practitioners and researchers working toward cultivating character and moral judgment in youth. In doing this, the article draws on a 3-year study on character education in U.K. schools completed by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham and research measures provided by the Center for the Study of Ethical Development at the University of Alabama.

ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The paper discovers an essence and importance of introduction of ethical dimension in all phases of artificial intelligence (AI): development of concept and source code, implementation in real-life applications and support and improvement of existing solutions. Modern society largely depends on cybertechnologies most of which are using elements of AI and ethical aspects of it is of paramount importance.

Normative Guidance, Evaluative Guidance, and Skill

At least since Aristotle, practical skill has been thought to be a possible model for individual ethical development and action. Jonathan Birch’s ambitious proposal is that practical skill and tool-use might also have played a central role in the historical emergence and evolution of our very capacity for normative guidance. Birch argues that human acquisition of motor skill, for example in making and using tools, involves formation of an internal standard of correct performance, which serves as a basis for normative guidance in skilled thought and action, and in the social transfer of skills. I suggest that evaluativemodeling, guidance, and learning play a more basic role in motor skill than standards of correctness as such-indeed, such standards can provide effective normative guidance thanks to being embedded within evaluative modeling and guidance. This picture better fits the evidence Birch cites of the flexibility, adaptability, and creativity of skills, and can support a generalized version of Birch’s ‘skill hypothesis’.

Elements of Max Weber’s model of rationalization in the political analysis of Maruyama Masao

Maruyama Masao was one of the most influential political theorists and social scientists in postwar Japan. Many of his works were translated into other languages and his theories are still often discussed in fields like the history of ideas and in political science. In this paper, some theoretical elements in Maruyama’s work borrowed from Max Weber’s sociology of religion, notably his theory of ethical development and its relation to the sociology of law and the political sociology are scrutinized. Reconstructing these links enables us to better understand Maruyama’s theoretical approach. For this purpose, first, Weber’s model of ethical development is explicated, and, second, its influence in three of Maruyama’s influential texts are highlighted.