The world is out of joint, so much so that disobeying should be an urgent question for everyone. In this provocative essay, Frédéric Gros explores the roots of political obedience. Social conformity, economic subjection, respect for authorities, constitutional consensus? Examining the various styles of obedience provides tools to study, invent and induce new forms of civic disobedience and lyrical protest. Nothing can be taken for granted: neither supposed certainties nor social conventions, economic injustice or moral conviction. Thinking philosophically requires us (...) never to accept truths and generalities that seem obvious. It restores a sense of political responsibility. At a time when the decisions of experts are presented as the result of icy statistics and anonymous calculations, disobeying becomes an assertion of humanity. To philosophize is to disobey. This book is a call for critical democracy and ethical resistance. (shrink)

This article considers the challenges faced by social workers struggling to act ethically in what we characterise as the ‘unethical climate’ of neoliberalism. We offer a brief account of the current context, including the increasing managerialism and marketisation of welfare services, exacerbated by cuts in welfare provision following the 2008 financial crisis. We discuss the concepts of ‘ethical resistance’ and ‘ethics work’. We illustrate this with three case examples drawn from accounts given by social workers in Canada and England (...) in the context of two research studies. These accounts feature social workers struggling to be ethically good and to do what they consider to be the right actions in difficult circumstances. We interpret their accounts of their actions largely in terms of everyday ethical resistance to organisational pressures of regulation of practice and rationing of resources. We conclude that everyday ethical resistance is not enough to ‘make good’ the unethical climate, but is an important precursor to social and political resistance. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper reviews the dynamics behind, and ethical issues associated with, the phenomenon of drug resistance. Drug resistance is an important ethical issue partly because of the severe consequences likely to result from the increase in drug resistant pathogens if more is not done to control them. Drug resistance is also an ethical issue because, rather than being a mere quirk of nature, the problem is largely a product of drug distribution. Drug resistance results from the (...) over‐consumption of antibiotics by the wealthy; and it, ironically, results from the under‐consumption of antibiotics, usually by the poor or otherwise marginalized. In both kinds of cases the phenomenon of drug resistance illustrates why health (care) – at least in the context of infectious disease – should be treated as a (global) public good. The point is that drug resistance involves ‘externalities’ affecting third parties. When one patient develops a resistant strain of disease because of her over‐ or under‐consumption of medication, this more dangerous malady poses increased risk to others. The propriety of free‐market distribution of goods subject to externalities is famously dubious – given that the ‘efficiency’ rationale behind markets assumes an absence of externalities. Market failure in the context of drug resistance is partly revealed by the fact that no new classes of antibiotics have been developed since 1970. I conclude by arguing that the case of drug resistance reveals additional reasons – to those traditionally appealed to by bioethicists – for treating health care as something special when making policy decisions about its distribution. (shrink)

본 논문은 푸코의 통치성 논의의 철학적 의의를 밝힘으로써 그의 후기 논의의 중심테제인 윤리적 저항의 가능성이 결코 정치적 저항과 분리될 수 없다는 점을 다시금 환기시키고자 한다. 이를 위해 근대 국가의 통치성의 역사가 상세히 다루어지는 『안전, 영토, 인구』의 사목 권력(pastoral power) 중심으로 논의를 다듬어 갈 것이다. 이러한 접근은 크게 두 가지 맥락으로부터 기인한다. 첫째, 방법론적인 측면에서 이것은 푸코가 철학자 칸트로부터 받았던 유산이라고 말할 수 있을 것이다. 푸코는 칸트의 비판의 정신을 이어받아 오늘날의 비판은 자신을 구성하는 사건들을 역사적으로 탐구하는 방법으로 실행될 것이라고 단언했기 때문이다. (...) 내용적 측면에서는 영혼을 통치하는 사목 권력의 효과와 기법이 근대 국가의 통치 이성으로 유입된 정황적 분석이 구원과 법, 진실을 중심으로 전개되었을 때에만 푸코가 의도하는 이중의 저항, 정치적 저항은 윤리적 저항과 필연적으로 관계한다는 사실을 명시적으로 드러내주기 때문이다. 영혼을 통치하는 사목 권력이 인간을 통치하는 통치이성으로 유입되는 과정을 계보학적으로 분석함으로써 푸코가 제기하려는 문제는 구원과 진실, 법을 통해 주체가 구성되는 서구 주체화의 역사를 폭로하고 이에 대한 저항, 대항 담론의 구성과 실천의 긴급함이라고 보인다. 그리하여 영혼의 통치로부터 인간의 통치로의 역사를 추적했던 푸코의 기획을 통해 그가 주장하려는 윤리적 저항이 결코 정치적 저항과의 분리가 아니라 동일시를 통해 가능하다는 점을 강조하면서 그의 윤리적 저항의 의의에 주목할 것이다. (shrink)

This study suggests a conceptual proposal to analyse the ethics of resistance in organisations, drawing on Foucault’s practising self as a refusal and Schaffer’s ethics of freedom in opposition to the legitimacy of managerial control and the ethics of compliance. We argue that ethics is already part of such politics in the form of ethico-politics on the basis of participation in political action in organisations. Hence, the practising self as resistance in the face of the status quo of managerial power (...) in an ongoing dialectical process with others and for others comprises our conceptual proposal as an ethics of resistance. Acknowledging dialectics as the driver of the continuous reconstruction and co-construction of politics and praxis, we propose an ethics from the bottom up with a critical and radical perspective. Our contribution is based on opening up an ethico-political space for those who are ignored or suppressed in the ethics and organisations literature. (shrink)

Many countries have implemented infection control measures directed at carriers of multidrug-resistant organisms. To explore the ethical implications of these measures, we analyzed 227 consultations about multidrug resistance and compared them with the literature on communicable disease in general. We found that control measures aimed at carriers have a range of negative implications. Although moral dilemmas seem similar to those encountered while implementing control measures for other infectious diseases, 4 distinct features stand out for carriage of multidrug-resistant organisms: carriage (...) presents itself as a state of being; carriage has limited relevance for the health of the carrier; carriage has little relevance outside healthcare settings; and antimicrobial resistance is a slowly evolving threat on which individual carriers have limited effect. These features are of ethical relevance because they influence the way we traditionally think about infectious disease control and urge us to pay more attention to the personal experience of the individual carrier. (shrink)

Mosquito-borne diseases take a tremendous toll on human populations, especially in developing nations. In the last decade, scientists have developed mosquitoes that have been genetically modified to prevent transmission of mosquito-borne diseases, and field trials have been conducted. Some mosquitoes have been rendered infertile, some have been equipped with a vaccine they transmit to humans, and some have been designed to resist diseases. This article focuses on ethical issues raised by field trials of disease-resistant, genetically modified mosquitoes. Some of (...) these issues include: protecting the public and the environment from harm, balancing benefits and risks, collaborating with the local community, avoiding exploitation, and safeguarding the rights and welfare of research subjects. One of the most difficult problems involves protecting the welfare of community members who will be impacted by the release of mosquitoes but who are not enrolled in the study as research subjects. To address this concern, field trials should take place only when the targeted disease is a significant public health problem in an isolated area, the benefits of the trial for the community are likely to outweigh the risks, community leaders approve of the trial, and there are measures in place to protect the welfare of un-enrolled community members, such as informing the community about the study and offering free treatment to people who contract mosquito-borne diseases. Since the justification of any field trial depends on a careful examination of the scientific and ethical issues, proposed studies should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. (shrink)

Background: Situations where patients resist necessary help can be professionally and ethically challenging for health professionals, and the risk of paternalism, abuse and coercion are present. Research question: The purpose of this study was to examine ethical challenges in situations where the patient resists healthcare. Research design: The method used was clinical application research. Academic staff and clinical co-researchers collaborated in a hermeneutical process to shed light on situations and create a basis for new action. Participants and research context: (...) Four research groups were established. Each group consisted of six to eight clinical co-researchers, all employees with different health profession backgrounds and from different parts of the municipal healthcare services, and two scientific researchers. Ethical considerations: The study was conducted in compliance with ethical guidelines and principles. Participants were informed that participation was voluntary and that confidentiality would be maintained. They signed a consent form. Findings: The findings showed that the situations where patients opposed help related to personal hygiene, detention in an institution and medication associated with dental treatment. The situations were perceived as demanding and emotionally stressful for the clinicians. Discussion: The situations can be described as everyday ethics and are more characterised by moral uncertainty and moral distress than by being classic ethical dilemmas. Conclusion: Norwegian legislation governing the use of force seems to provide decision guidance with the potential to reduce uncertainty and moral stress if the clinicians’ legal competence had been greater. (shrink)

To the extent that antibiotic resistance (ABR) is accelerated by antibiotic consumption and that it represents a serious public health emergency, it is imperative to drastically reduce antibiotic consumption, particularly in high‐income countries. I present the problem of ABR as an instance of the collective action problem known as ‘tragedy of the commons’. I propose that there is a strong ethical justification for taxing certain uses of antibiotics, namely when antibiotics are required to treat minor and self‐limiting infections, such (...) as respiratory tract infections, in otherwise healthy individuals. Taxation would allow a reduction in consumption (given certain behavioural economics assumptions) and/or ensure that individuals internalize or compensate for their contribution to the erosion of the common good of antibiotic effectiveness. I suggest that revenue from the tax could be used to fund conservation and innovation strategies. Taxation might be a coercive policy, especially for certain individuals, but the ethical case for coercive policies is very strong when the good to be preserved is important enough and when they force individuals to do something they have a moral obligation to do anyway. I argue that, in the case of mild and self‐limiting infections, individuals have a moral duty of easy rescue and a moral duty of fairness to make their contribution to the preservation of the common good of antibiotic effectiveness by foregoing antibiotics. I also suggest that taxing antibiotics in such cases is an all things considered ethically justified policy even if it would introduce inequalities in access to healthcare. (shrink)

Civil disobedience is a conscientious, unlawful, and broadly nonviolent form of protest, which most political philosophers and many non-philosophers are inclined to treat as potentially defensible in democratic societies. In recent years, philosophers have become more receptive to long-standing complaints from activists that civil disobedience is an unduly restrictive framework for considering the ethics of dissent. Candice Delmas and Jason Brennan have written important books that illustrate and strengthen this trend, both defending forms of “uncivil” resistance that go beyond the (...) narrow confines of civil disobedience. Their books offer contrasting but complementary philosophical defences of incivility as a tactic of resistance, but it is nonetheless a mistake to conclude that the rich tradition associated with civil disobedience no longer has any relevance for resistance in national, transnational, and global contexts. (shrink)

The unprecedented outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa has raised several novel ethical issues for global outbreak preparedness. It has also illustrated that familiar ethical issues in infectious disease management endure despite considerable efforts to understand and mitigate such issues in the wake of past outbreaks. To improve future global outbreak preparedness and response, we must examine these shortcomings and reflect upon the current state of ethical preparedness. To this end, we focus our efforts in (...) this article on the examination of one substantial area: ethical guidance in pandemic plans. We argue that, due in part to their focus on considerations arising specifically in relation to pandemics of influenza origin, pandemic plans and their existing ethical guidance are ill-equipped to anticipate and facilitate the navigation of unique ethical challenges that may arise in other infectious disease pandemics. We proceed by outlining three reasons why this is so, and situate our analysis in the context of the EVD outbreak and the threat posed by drug-resistant tuberculosis: different infectious diseases have distinct characteristics that challenge anticipated or existing modes of pandemic prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery, clear, transparent, context-specific ethical reasoning and justification within current influenza pandemic plans are lacking, and current plans neglect the context of how other significant pandemics may manifest. We conclude the article with several options for reflecting upon and ultimately addressing ethical issues that may emerge with different infectious disease pandemics. (shrink)

Lockdowns and quarantines have been implemented widely in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has been accompanied by a rise in interest in the ethics of ‘passport’ systems that allow low-risk individuals greater freedoms during lockdowns and exemptions to quarantines. Immunity and vaccination passports have been suggested to facilitate the greater movement of those with acquired immunity and who have been vaccinated. Another group of individuals who pose a low risk to others during pandemics are those with genetically mediated resistances (...) to pathogens. In this paper, we introduce the concept of genomic passports, which so far have not been explored in the bioethics literature. Using COVID-19 as an illustrative example, we explore the ethical issues raised by genomic passports and highlight differences and similarities to immunity passports. We conclude that, although there remain significant practical and ethical challenges to the implementation of genomic passports, there will be ways to ethically use them in the future. (shrink)

The recent push to extend physician-aid-in-dying (PAD) to psychiatric conditions has significantly altered the ethical landscape surrounding psychiatric judgments concerning treatment-refractory il...

In this article, I will argue that ethical veganism can be understood as a form of quietism, as a quiet retreat from a world burdened by human moral failings and animal suffering. I will also show how this retreat, although quiet in nature, is both a legitimate and valuable form of genuine resistance to animal oppression. Positing ethical veganism as a form of sociopolitical resistance to animal exploitation is not new, but thinking of it as a quietist retreat (...) and a legitimate and valuable form of quiet resistance is a different matter. (shrink)

A new ontology that forms the groundwork for ethical practices of resistance What and how should individuals resist in political situations? While these questions recur regularly within Western political philosophy, answers to them have often relied on dogmatically held ideals, such as the distinction between truth and doxa or the privilege of thought over sense. In particular, the strain of idealist political philosophy, inaugurated by Plato and finding contemporary expression in the work of Alain Badiou, employs dualities that reduce (...) the complexities of practices of resistance to concepts of commitment. (shrink)

This paper examines one strand of the ‘turn to ethics’ in recent political theory by engaging with Michel Foucault's late work on ‘the care of the self.’ For contemporary thinkers interested in how democratic politics might be guided, informed, or vivified by particular ethical orientations, Foucault's inquiry into ancient ethics has proved intriguing. Might concentrated ‘work on the self’ contribute to efforts to resist and remake present-day power relations? This paper endeavors to raise doubts about the Foucauldian inspired view, (...) which regards a reflexive relation of the self to itself as a privileged site for critically engaging with existing configurations of power. To do so, I offer a close reading of Foucault's scholarship that examines his work on ethics together with his well-known theory of power. I demonstrate that Foucault's distinctive theory of power, if read carefully, alerts us to the limits of the care of the self as a strategy for making power relations more equitable, open, and responsive to democratic constituencies. As I show, disciplinary power and biopower target collectivities by ‘individualizing’ and ‘massifying,’ respectively, and thereby diminishing the potential ‘counter-power’ generated by pluralistic association. If this dimension of Foucault's thought is appreciated, the ‘care of the self’ appears as a very limited resource for challenging these de-politicizing effects. Yet this paper also draws on Foucault's thought in order to stress the importance of re-orienting debates concerning the relationship between ethics and politics toward associative rather than reflexive practices of freedom. (shrink)

In recent times, it has become increasingly common that elected parties and leaders systematically undermine democracy and the rule of law. This phenomenon is often framed with the term democratic backsliding or democratic regression. This article deals with the relatively little-studied topic of resistance to democratic regressions. Chief amongst the things it discusses is the rather central ethical issue of whether resisters may themselves, in their attempts to prevent a further erosion of democracy, transgress democratic norms. But the (...) argument advanced in the article is not merely about the ethics of resistance. It begins, perhaps unconventionally, by addressing the affective dimension of resistance to democratic regressions, looking in particular at the powerful feelings of anger and despair that pro-democratic citizens living under a regressive government are likely to experience. As the article argues, these feelings have not only motivational but also epistemic potential, which must be adequately theorized in order to understand how resisters can respond to the ethical challenges facing them. (shrink)

Healthcare-associated infections due to multidrug-resistant organisms continue to increase in incidence. To control the transmission of these pathogens, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus , some have advocated active surveillance cultures of all hospitalized patients, followed by institution of contact precautions. While there has been extensive debate about the effectiveness of this approach in reducing infections, little attention has been given to the ethical issues raised by the intervention. Active surveillance for multidrug-resistant organisms is a quality improvement measure and (...) class='Hi'>ethical implications arise through the potential to inadvertently cause harm. Unintended adverse effects may include decreased contact with healthcare workers, increased depression and anxiety, and increased rates of noninfectious adverse events among patients placed in contact precautions. The potential risks and benefits are not distributed fairly; patients placed in contact precautions are exposed to the risks, while those not isolated experience the benefit. Ethical challenges involve a conflict between the interests of the individual patient and the patient population not already colonized with the organism. For healthcare systems, active surveillance increases the complexity of bed management, exacerbating problems with patient placement, patient throughput, emergency department overcrowding and ambulance diversion for some hospitals. It also poses ethical dilemmas regarding societal resource allocation. Investing in an unproven or marginally beneficial quality improvement activity such as this must be balanced against other public health priorities competing for scarce resources. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The paper employs a pragmatist perspective on ethics to address the problem of empathy bias, an empirically documented phenomenon in which one’s ability to empathize with another is diminished simply because of that other’s membership in a perceived out-group. I first argue that the philosophical commitments that I take to be distinctive of pragmatism, specifically fallibilism, anti-absolutism, and democracy, require proactive empathetic engagement as a central component of moral inquiry. While this may initially seem to leave pragmatism vulnerable to concerns (...) about empathy bias, I argue that the pragmatist is uniquely equipped to provide a particular sort of response to the problem: a response that does not jettison empathy from moral judgment, but rather seeks to utilize awareness of bias to appropriately correct empathetic engagement when addressing moral problems. (shrink)

States heavily restrict immigration, and many people violate these restrictions. For example, unauthorized immigrants cross borders without official permission, and other actors, such as people smugglers, assist them in doing so. How should we evaluate resistance to immigration law from a moral perspective? In this article, I survey recent work on the ethics of resisting immigration law. In particular, I examine three categories of resistance to immigration law as the following: unauthorized immigration, people smuggling, and citizens' resistance to laws that (...) prohibit them from assisting or interacting with unauthorized immigrants. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide a state-of-the-art overview of the ethical challenges that arise in the context of antimicrobial resistance, which includes an introduction to the contributions to the symposium in this issue. We begin by discussing why AMR is a distinct ethical issue, and should not be viewed purely as a technical or medical problem. In the second section, we expand on some of these arguments and argue that AMR presents us with a broad range of (...) class='Hi'>ethical problems that must be addressed as part of a successful policy response to emerging drug resistance. In the third section, we discuss how some of these ethical challenges should be addressed, and we argue that this requires contributions from citizens, ethicists, policy makers, practitioners and industry. We conclude with an overview of steps that should be taken in moving forward and addressing the ethical problems of AMR. (shrink)

_Principled Resistance: How Teachers Resolve Ethical Dilemmas_ brings together senior scholars and activist teachers to explore the concept of resistance as a necessary response to mandates that conflict with their understanding of quality teaching. The book provides vivid examples of the pedagogical, professional, and democratic principles undergirding resistance, as well as the distinct perspective of each of its contributors: teachers who reflect on their acts of principled resistance; teacher educators who study teachers and support their professional growth; and historians (...) who demonstrate that a tradition of teachers’ principled resistance has had a significant impact on American society, not only on schools and teaching. They also show the steps teachers take, in their reasoning and in their actions, to resist policies and mandates they are expected to enact. This volume offers a critical and unique resource for teacher educators who are preparing prospective teachers to navigate the contentious terrain of education politics, teachers who are interested in leading change, and others interested in educational ethics. (shrink)

Taking its direction from references to Black and Indigenous struggles present in Leonard Harris’ oeuvre, this chapter turns to politicized acts of resistance among Black and Indigenous communities. More specifically, the essay traces the functions of cultural pluralism, value relativism, and representative heuristics within solidarity work that enact logics of resistance to settler colonization and anti-Black racism, among other forms of oppression. Through this analysis, we see that Harris’ views about insurrection and normativity entail that both oppression and resistance are (...) the result of multiplicitous forms of agency. (shrink)

David A. J. Richards's Resisting Injustice and The Feminist Ethics of Care in The Age of Obama: Suddenly,...All The Truth Was Coming Out examines the roots of the resistance movements of the 1960s, the political psychology behind contemporary conservatism, and President Obama's present-day appeal as well as the reasons for the reactionary politics against him. This book positions recent American political development in a broad analysis of the role of patriarchy in human oppression throughout history, and argues that a feminist-based (...) ethics of care is necessary to form a more humane and inclusive democratic politics. (shrink)

Resisting Ethics is a new contribution to an ongoing debate on how the world can be improved. Starting with the notion that resistance and ethics are theoretically and practically intertwined, Scott Schaffer develops a new socially oriented ethics based on the practical experience of resistance and ethics. Borrowing from and extending the ideas of Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Bourdieu, and using case studies of the Algerian Revolution and the Zapatista rebellion, Schaffer argues that existentialism can give us new insights into how (...) we can and should act ethically in the world. Resisting Ethics is a wide-ranging work and represents a new kind of intervention into issues of social justice and resistance. (shrink)

In this paper, we tackle the widely held view that practice-oriented approaches to ethics are conservative, preserving the moral status quo, and, in particular, that they do not promote any (fundamental) change in our dealings with animals or formulate clear principles that help us to achieve such change. We shall challenge this view with reference to Wittgensteinian ethics. As a first step, we show that moral thought and action rest on basic moral certainties like: equals are to be treated equally (...) and unequals unequally. We then explore the relations between this insight and the notion of the difficulty of reality elaborated by Cora Diamond. Our goal is to show that a Wittgensteinian-Diamondian approach to animal ethics is not necessarily morally conservative. Indeed, it offers a profound practice-oriented approach to animal ethics that is capable of promoting change in human dealings with animals because it is compatible with radical critique. (shrink)

Drawing on the relation between disciplinary power and aesthetics, Honi Fern Haber argues that the muscled woman’s “revolting” body undermines patriarchy and empowers women. Consequently, female bodybuilding can be a Foucauldian and feminist practice of resistance. I will argue that Haber’s insistence on the visibility of embodied resistance is flawed. By positing a static goal and failing to sufficiently consider non-visible aspects of normalization, namely pleasure and pain, Haber risks reinscribing the muscled woman into yet another normalizing scheme. In the (...) light of recent work on Foucault's ethics and embodied resistance, I suggest that weight lifting may be more successfully recommended as a practice of resistance when undertaken to increase capacities and for the pleasure of the activity itself. (shrink)

How should feminists view acts of self-sacrifice performed by women? According to a long-standing critique of care ethics such acts ought to be viewed with scepticism. Care ethics, it is claimed, celebrates acts of self-sacrifice on the part of carers and in doing so encourages women to choose caring for others over their own self-development. In doing so, care ethics frustrates attempts to liberate women from the oppression of patriarchy. Care ethicists have responded to this critique by noting limits on (...) the level, form, or scope of self-sacrifice that work to restrict its role in their theories. While we do not here take issue with the initial feminist critiques of self-sacrifice, we suspect that the strategies offered by Care ethicists in response are importantly flawed. Specifically, these responses undervalue the positive roles that self-sacrifice can play in fighting patriarchal oppression. As a result, in attempting to restrict an oppressive norm, these responses risk foreclosing on valuable means of resistance. Our aim is to explore these positive roles for self-sacrifice and thereby rehabilitate its standing with feminists. (shrink)

In this essay, we will argue that acts of resistance within "attention economies" take the form of a wager isomorphic to the one delineated by Blaise Pascal in his Pensées. First, we examine the role of relevance in communication, interpretation, and understanding. Second, we turn to Cécile Malaspina's conception of noise, which allows us to grasp the intricate relation between judgment and uncertainty. Next, we exemplify our claim by analyzing David Foster Wallace's The Pale King and J.J. Voskuil's seven-volume series (...) Het Bureau. In both texts, noise as an epistemic and aesthetic technique operates on a diegetic and metatextual level. Rather than warranting efficiency and optimization through the filter model of attention, we will develop an ethics of noise that opens up the possibility to re-individuate the subject of "attention economies.". (shrink)

This essay uses Foucault’s views on time and ethics in order to reconceptualize the domination of nature in terms of the imposition of an inflexible order upon a place rather than in the more conventional sense in environmental studies of reducing nature to a use object for humanity. I then propose a means of resisting that domination by examining how friendship might be employed as an ethical ideal in our relationship to nature.

Recent advances in molecular genetics, plant physiology, and biochemistry have opened up the new biotechnology of herbicide resistant crops (HRCs). Herbicide resistant crops have been characterized as the solution for many environmental problems associated with modern crop production, being described as powerful tools for farmers that may increase production options. We are concerned that these releases are occurring in the absence of forethought about their impact on agroecosystems, the broader landscape, and the rural and urban economies and cultures. Many of (...) the benefits and risks associated with HRCs are not apparent to either the public, farmers, policy makers, or the scientific community. HRC technology raises moral issues in three areas: our duties toward the natural environment; our political and economic responsibilities to each other; and our communal character as one generation among many. We also need a rational basis on which to make evaluations of this new biotechnology. The technical aspects of their release require a logical guide to the ecological, environmental, and biological effects the release might have in sustainable agroecosystems. The initial step should include an assessment of the intrinsic qualities of the crop, the herbicide, and the resistance mechanisms. The second step should include an assessment of effects associated with population ecology, population genetics, environmental degradation, consumer health, and farm economic viability due to the resistant crop-herbicide pair. Herbicides have been used in crop production for nearly a half a century. There has been a tremendous increase in the use of these chemicals in that time. Society has seen the use of these chemicals not only help to feed many people, but also to bring costs not anticipated before the introduction of the chemicals. We need to draw on that long history of use and learn the lessons it can provide us as we approach the introduction and commercialization of the next generation of weed control technology, herbicide resistant crops. We also need to reflect on the lessons we missed during that half century because we spend more time imagining the possible benefits that would come from the technology than scrutinizing the possible harm. (shrink)

The issue of regularly feeding low levels of antibiotics to farm animals in order to increase productivity is often portrayed as a dilemma. On the one hand, such antibiotic use is depicted as a necessary condition for producing cheap and plentiful food, such that were such use to stop, food prices would rise significantly and our ability to feed people in developing nations would decrease. On the other hand, such antibiotic use seems to breed antibiotic resistance into pathogens affecting human (...) health. Resolving this dilemma, it is alleged, will require great amounts of research into risk/benefit assessment. Contrary to this claim, we will argue that society has all the data it needs to make a reasonable ethical decision, which would be curtailing such use. Such curtailment will not harm consumers significantly, will not harm developing nations'' evolving agriculture, and could produce hitherto unnoticed benefits, namely restoring the possibility of a more husbandry-based, sustainable agriculture to replace the high-tech agriculture that has hurt animals, the environment, small farms, and sustainability. (shrink)

In 2017 and 2018 [Name of research project] organized two transnational youth resistance art workshops. These workshops addressed online social justice issues and placed emphasis on pushing back against technology-facilitated violence and surveillance in networked spaces. Our engagement with these workshops raised three dilemmas associated with these sorts of resistive social justice art projects. This article explores these dilemmas, which include how to enable the production of digital art in a manner that is attentive to intersectional issues of digital literacy (...) and access; artistic appropriations of sexually explicit, discriminatory or hateful speech and their relation to cultural appropriation; and defamation, privacy, copyright and trademark considerations relating to artistic appropriations. In addressing these dilemmas, examples of regulatory frameworks shaping resistance opportunities and social justice initiatives are highlighted, along with suggestions for addressing these dilemmas for those who may wish to facilitate or engage in youth resistance art workshops in future. (shrink)

Contact investigation is an evidence-based intervention of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) to protect public health by interrupting the chain of transmission. In pursuit of contact investigation, patients’ MDR-TB status has to be disclosed to third parties (to the minimum necessary) for tracing the contacts. Nevertheless, disclosure to third parties often unintentionally leads the MDR-TB patients suffered from social discrimination and stigma. For this reason, patients are less inclined to reveal their MDR-TB status and becomes a significant issue in contact investigation. This (...) issue certainly turns into a negative impact on the public interest. Tension between keeping MDR-TB status confidential and safeguarding public health arises in relation to this issue. Regarding MDR-TB management, patient compliance with treatment and contact investigation are equally important. Patients might fail to comply with anti-TB therapy and be reluctant to seek healthcare due to disclosure concerns. In order to have treatment adherence, MDRTB patients should not live through social discrimination and stigma arising from disclosure and TB team has a duty to support them as a mean of reciprocity. However, implementation of contact investigation as a public health policy can still be challenging even with promising reciprocal support to the patients because MDR-TB patients are living in different contexts and situations. There can be no straight forward settlement but an appropriate justification for each distinct context is needed to strike a balance between individual confidentiality and public interest. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) describes the evolution of treatment‐resistant pathogens, with potentially catastrophic consequences for human medicine. AMR is driven by the over‐prescription of antibiotics, and could be reduced through consideration of the ethical dimensions of the dilemma faced by doctors. This dilemma involves balancing apparently opposed interests of current and future patients, and unique contextual factors in different countries, which may modify the core dilemma. We describe three example countries with different economic backgrounds and cultures—South Africa, Sri Lanka and (...) the United Kingdom. Then we discuss how country‐specific factors impact on the prominence of various ethical dimensions of the dilemma (visibility and moral equality of future generations; Rule of Rescue; prescribing autonomy and conflicts of interest; consensus on collective action). We conclude that a nuanced understanding of national prescribing dilemmas is critical to inform the design of effective stewardship approaches. (shrink)

The most common tectonic quality of modern structures, such as frame systems, is their flexibility; they are open for change. Although this characteristic is a big advantage in comparison to the inflexible masonry structures of the past, it might also create some serious problems, such as e.g. the lack of safety in the event of an earthquake, if the flexibility is not used consciously by architects and interior designers. This article attempts to define and establish some rules for the interior (...) design of buildings with reinforced concrete frame systems. The rules for making subtractions from these structures and extending them by making additions to them are contained within this article. The main objective of this article is to derive some ethical values from these rules. Thus, the conclusion of the article focuses on the derivation of some ethical values for achieving earthquake resistant interior design of buildings with reinforced concrete frame systems. (shrink)

Since the Nuremberg trials (1947–1949), informed consent has become central for ethical practice in patient care and biomedical research. Codes of ethics emanating from the Nuremberg Code (1947) recognize the importance of protecting patients and research subjects from abuses, manipulation and deception. Informed consent empowers individuals to autonomously and voluntarily accept or reject participation in either clinical treatment or research. In some cases, however, the underlying mental or physical condition of the individual may alter his or her cognitive abilities (...) and compromise the informed consent process. This is particularly true in chronic psychiatric conditions such as Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD), where individuals may fail to respond to traditional antidepressant treatments (e.g., psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy). Moreover, it may raise further concerns for an individual’s motivation to consent and the level of understanding of the treatment or research procedure. This paper focuses on the informed consent process for Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) in the treatment of individuals diagnosed with TRD. Specifically, the paper addresses how depression may affect the decision-making capacity of an individual and the potential ethical and legal impact of failure to appreciate the seven elements of the consenting process (competence, voluntariness, disclosure, recommendation, understanding, decision, and authorization). To ensure the protection of vulnerable individuals with psychiatric disorders such as TRD and promote ethical behavior in biomedical research and patient care while avoiding potential legal pitfalls, we propose a paradigm that requires a stringent evaluation process of decision-making capacity for informed consent. (shrink)

Opening a new debate on ethical reasoning after Kant, Drew Dalton addresses the problem of the absolute in ethical and political thought. Attacking the foundation of European philosophical morality, he critiques the idea that in order for ethical judgement to have any real power, it must attempt to discover and affirm some conception of the absolute good. Without rejecting the essential role the absolute plays within ethical reasoning, Dalton interrogates the assumed value of the absolute. -/- (...) Dalton brings some of the most influential contemporary philosophical traditions into dialogue with each other: speculative realists like Badiou and Meillassoux; phenomenologists, including Husserl, Heidegger, and Levinas; German Idealists, especially Kant and Schelling; psychoanalysts Freud and Lacan; and finally, post-structuralists, specifically Foucault, Deleuze, and Ranciere. The relevance of these thinkers to concrete socio-political problems is shown through reflections on the Holocaust, suicide bombings, the rise of neo-liberalism and neo-nationalism, as well as rampant consumerism and racism. -/- This book re-defines ethical reasoning as that which refuses absolutes and resists what Milton's devil in Paradise Lost called the “tyranny of heaven.” Against traditional ethical reasoning, Dalton sees evil not as a moral failure, but as the result of an all too easy assent to the absolute; an assent which can only be countered through active resistance. For Dalton, resistance to the absolute is the sole channel through which the good can be defined. (shrink)

This text's objective is to teach business ethics in a manner very different from the conceptual/legal frameworks which dominate graduate schools. The book offers 25 case studies that cover a full range of business practice, controls and ethics issues. The cases are framed to instruct students in early identification of ethics issues, and how to work such problems effectively within corporate organizations. By pursuing these case studies, students should emerge with a "practical toolkit" that better enables them to follow their (...) moral compass. The cases provide examples of how executives can embed more ethical approaches inside alternative business strategies, redirect pressure and intimidation to parties better positioned to resist, and use the firm's controls structure to counteract corrupt practices. Specific cases take up the circumstances of whistleblowers and the changing protections afforded by recent laws. Fourteen case studies examine Enron's crossing of various ethical lines from 1987-2001. Eleven new cases examine key financial crisis moments at Countrywide, Fannie Mae, Citibank, Goldman Sachs and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Interpretive essays discuss the nature of sound financial controls systems, the lessons of Enron, and the extent to which the financial crisis shows Enron's issues to be unresolved. (shrink)

This is a book about hope in the midst of a polarized culture. Camosy begins with a hopeful starting point in the midst of a crumbling US political culture: two of every three Americans constitute an exhausted majority who reject right/left polarization and are open to alternative viewpoints. Especially at this time of realignment, we have been given a unique moment to put aside the frothy, angsty political debates and think harder about our deepest values. A Consistent Life Ethic, especially (...) one which embraces Pope Francis' challenge to resist throwaway culture, has the capacity to unite people who for the last several decades imagined themselves in a polarized culture war. On issues ranging from hook-up culture, reproductive technology, abortion, euthanasia, poverty, immigration, treatment of animals, and mass incarceration, this book articulates a new moral vision in which a culture of encounter and hospitality replaces a consumer culture in which the most vulnerable get used and discarded as so much trash. At bottom, Camosy offers readers a golden opportunity to dialogue about what kinds of values should serve as the foundation for a new political culture. (shrink)

Can anti-deportation resistance be justified, and if so how and by whom may, or perhaps should, unjust deportations be resisted? In this paper, I seek to provide an answer to these questions. The paper starts by describing the main forms and agents of anti-deportation action in the contemporary context. Subsequently, I examine how different justifications for principled resistance and disobedience may each be invoked in the case of deportation resistance. I then explore how worries about the resister’s motivation for engaging (...) in the action and their epistemic position apply in the specific context of anti-deportation action and consider in what circumstances there is not merely a right but a duty to resist deportation. The upshot of this argument, I conclude, is that the liberal state ought to respond to anti-deportation action not by criminalising disobedience and resistance in this field, but rather by creating legal avenues for such actors to influence deportation decision-making. DOI 10.17879/95189423213. (shrink)

Agonistic theories of democratic practice lack an explicit model for ethical cultivation. Even as these theorists advocate sensibilities of “ethical open-ness and receptivity,” so as to engage in the political work of “maintenance, repair, and amendment,” they lack an account of how individuals ought be motivated to this task or how it should unfold. Toward theorizing such a model, I turn to Freud and clinical psychoanalytic practice. I argue that Freud’s “second-education” (Nacherziehung) offers an ethical cultivation framed (...) around a “combative collaboration” between analyst and patient that teaches tolerance of discomfort; endurance of uncertainty; and narrative capacity. This second-education suggests two lessons for politics. First, that we might do well to reproduce its relational form more broadly across politics. And second, that we cultivate those “sacral spaces” capable of challenging the conditions for symbolic meaning as it stretches between personal and collective practices. (shrink)

This paper examines the support for diversity from a moral perspective. Combining business ethics theory with a lens of critical discourse analysis, it reconstructs the debates on the ethicality of three disability inclusion practices—positive discrimination, job adaptations, and voluntary disclosure—drawn from multi-stakeholder interviews in disability-friendly organizations. Discursive resistance to disability inclusion practices, otherwise known to work, arises out of moral beliefs characteristic of an ethic of justice, whereas support is more often informed by an ethic of care. This study contributes (...) to the literature by laying bare how ethics fuel ‘resistance to’ rather than ‘support for’ diversity and inclusion. Like prior studies, it links such resistance to the myth of individual merit, noting that some re-appropriation of an ethic of justice becomes possible when legal awareness around issues of disability is raised in the context of work. In addition, it identifies an ethic of care as holding the greatest potential for fostering workplace inclusion yet cautions for two adverse side effects that may arise when promoting corporate care: the potential of paternalism and the inclination to individualise inherent to wellbeing initiatives. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Just Revolution: A Christian Ethic of Political Resistance and Social Transformation by Anna Floerke ScheidRamon LuzarragaJust Revolution: A Christian Ethic of Political Resistance and Social Transformation Anna Floerke Scheid lanham, md: lexington books, 2015. 208 pp. $84.00Anna Floerke Scheid argues that the Christian just war and just peacemaking ethical traditions lack a comprehensive ethic for revolutionary nonviolent activity and warfare. She proposes to fill this lacuna through (...) a theological exploration of what constitutes a just revolution. While Scheid maintains a consistent [End Page 212] preference for nonviolent resistance against tyranny, she remains open to the possibility of revolutionary warfare.The author articulates four stages of a just revolution. The first stage is jus ante, nonviolent resistance against a tyrannical government. Here the opposition develops a democratic and revolutionary vision of society that respects human rights, models that vision within its organizations, and resists through nonviolent acts. Second is jus ad, the stage where a tyrannical government eliminates all avenues for negotiation and represses peaceful resistance. This forces the revolutionary opposition to consider armed resistance as a last resort. Here Scheid grapples with two limitations of traditional just war theory. The first reserves the authority to start a war with governments. She argues that the legitimacy for a just revolution comes from a revolutionary organization's ability to envision and model a just society. Because a tyrannical government's authority is illegitimate, a revolutionary movement's just vision and practices gain for it a de facto legitimate authority. This legitimacy is reinforced by a revolutionary movement's ultimate intention to effect reconciliation with their oppressors postwar. The second limitation is the reasonable hope of success. Scheid analyzes the history of this criterion and demonstrates how it supports defensive wars despite the uncertainty of success. Oppressed persons, as the subjects of their own hope of liberation, ought to decide what constitutes the probability for success in fighting tyranny. Throughout this stage, revolutionary warfare must be practiced in tandem with continuing nonviolent resistance.The third stage is jus in, the justice practiced during armed revolutionary resistance. Fighting is deemed necessary to force a tyrannical government to negotiations. Meanwhile, revolutionary military units would work to minimize violence and loss of life. The last stage is jus post, the reconciliation needed to prevent revolutionary warfare from spiraling into revenge. Here the exercise of restorative justice—where responsibility for past injustices is assumed by all sides and a just resolution developed for social reconciliation and the development of a new, democratic society that respects human rights—is all important. Throughout the book, Scheid uses the African National Congress's revolutionary struggle against the South African apartheid government as a successful example of her theory in practice.Scheid's well-argued proposal deserves careful consideration by ethicists. Students will profit from her excellent summary of just war theory, where she brilliantly recovers some of its forgotten features. On the other hand, her concluding chapter considering the Arab Spring's potential for just revolution would have been stronger if she extended beyond a comparison to South Africa to incorporate similar features found in other successful revolutions. The 1986 Philippine People Power Revolution, the 1989 collapse of Eastern European Communist regimes, and the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal come to mind. Moreover, important for South Africa's success was the durability of the [End Page 213] political institutions the British left behind. These institutions provided the framework that handled the transition of power from the pro-apartheid National Party to the post-apartheid African National Congress government. This feature could have been brought to light, as many recognize this structure as contributive to the peaceful transition of power in other countries that won independence through revolution, from the United States in the eighteenth century to India and the Caribbean in the twentieth.Ramon LuzarragaBenedictine University at MesaCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)