Value-conflicts in the conservation of a native species: a case study based on the endangered white-clawed crayfish in Europe

The future of the native European crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes depends on accurate conservation management. The goal of this paper is to attempt an investigation of the major ethical conflicts that can emerge in the conservation of this endangered crayfish threatened by invasive competitors, introduced diseases, and landscape alteration. To assess this issue, we will employ the Ethical Matrix, in a version explicitly tailored for its use in conservation. The filled Ethical Matrix will highlight several potential conflicts between values such as environmental protection, social and economic interests, animal welfare, cultural and aesthetic value, etc. We will discuss these conflicts, alongside some potential mitigating strategies present in the literature. We will stress in particular the need to take into account the ethical principle of fairness when assessing the economic and recreational value of invasive species, especially concerning the unfair distribution of costs. Moreover, we will assert the importance of conservation of A. pallipes both for its existence value and for its role as an umbrella and keystone species. Beyond its focus on A. pallipes, the Ethical Matrix here discussed might also provide insights on the value conflicts relative to analogous in situ conservation efforts involving a native species threatened by invasive alien competitors. Graphic abstract

The Ethical Matrix as a Tool for Decision-Making Process in Conservation

Decision making-process in conservation can be very complex, having to deal with various value dimensions and potential conflicts. In fact, conflicts and competing interests between stakeholders are among the most quoted reasons for failure of projects. Ethical analysis can be helpful in this regard. In this paper we present a revision of the Ethical Matrix specifically tailored to decision-making processes in conservation. The Ethical Matrix is a conceptual tool devised to help decision-makers by supplying them with a framework of the ethically relevant aspects involved in decision-making process. It was originally developed for the ethical assessment of agri-food biotechnologies and later has been applied to other fields. The revised version we propose here has been designed for the ethical analysis of conservation priority-setting and impact. As conservation can raise many ethical relevant controversies, conceptual tools like the one presented here can be of help for conservationists, providing a map of the value demands involved. This map can be used to question the reasonableness of the value judgments, estimate the impact of different courses of actions, anticipate conflicts, and rank their severeness.

Hexa-Dimension Metric, Ethical Matrix, and Cybersecurity

Exorbitant spending on cybersecurity continues; hacking proliferates and continues with the aftermath getting more and more damaging, yet data protection must helplessly continue. This is attributable to a vicious circle and culminates in something akin to a chronic disease, aptly called a “chronic problem of data protection.” The situation is complicated by a tripartite relationship, called the “Law-Security-Ethics Connection,” and exacerbated by a muddled view of the key concepts, notably ethics, privacy, and risk, which hinders a wholesome appreciation of the problem. Given the status quo, an ethics-based framework was perceived and developed aiming to lessen the incidence of hacking or make hacking exasperate to mitigate rather than eradicate because hacker-free cyberspace is unrealistic and impossible. This chapter aims to introduce a remedy successively through an exposition of the symptom and cause of the problem, clearing the muddle, and an illustration of the tools: Ethical Matrix and Hexa-Dimension Metric using the Octopus Saga.

Online Proctoring: Adding Human Values to the Equation

The COVID-19 pandemic led to an accelerated implementation of digital solutions, such as online proctoring. In this paper we discuss how the use of an ethical matrix may influence the way in which digital solutions are applied. To initiate an ethical discussion, we conducted an online workshop with educators, examiners, controllers, and students to identify risks and opportunities of online proctoring for various stakeholders. We used the Ethical Matrix to structure the meeting. We compared the outcome of the workshop with the outcomes of a proctoring software pilot by examiners. We found that the two approaches led to complementary implementation criteria. The ethical session was less focused on making things work and more on transparency about conditions, processes, and rights. The ethical session also concentrated more on the values of all involved rather than on fraud detection effectiveness.

Near-Term Artificial Intelligence and the Ethical Matrix

This chapter takes up the issue of near-term artificial intelligence, or the algorithms that are already in place in a variety of public and private sectors, guiding decisions from advertising and to credit ratings to sentencing in the justice system. There is a pressing need to recognize and evaluate the ways that structural racism, sexism, classism, and ableism may be embedded in and amplified by these systems. The chapter proposes a framework for ethical analysis that can be used to facilitate more robust ethical reflection in AI development and implementation. It presents an ethical matrix that incorporates the language of data science as a tool that data scientists can build themselves in order to integrate ethical analysis into the design process, addressing the need for immediate analysis and accountability over the design and deployment of near-term AI.

Integrative Nursing and Caring Science: Universals of Human Caring and Healing

This chapter uses a disciplinary ontological-ethical matrix analysis to explore the convergence of caring science and integrative nursing. A comprehensive Caring-Healing Praxis Model, consistent with the unitary-transformative perspective and informed by the moral-ethical foundation and language of caring science as well as the universals of healing offered by the principles of integrative nursing, is presented. Informed by a deep moral-ethical philosophical consciousness, the intersection of the universals of healing, made manifest through the principles of integrative nursing and the universals of caring, made manifest through the Caritas Processes, create a unifying language for the ethical, philosophical, ontological foundational structure of nursing praxis.