Exploring the ethics of treatments for depression: The ethics of care perspective

This article explores the ethics of current treatments for depression through the lenses of social work values and ethics. As a vehicle for analysis, the approach associated with ethics of care will be utilized. Particular attention is paid to ethical dilemmas in the treatment of depression under the auspices of managed care companies. A case example is presented to help social workers understand these dilemmas in the context of practice. Adopting an ethics of care perspective would mandate that social workers become more politically active, and work toward integrating direct and indirect practice approaches in treating people who suffer from depression and similar problems.     

生产伦理的理性分析

在经济运行中的生产领域里,解决人的生产活动与生态保护矛盾的出路在于用道德和科学、伦理与文化相统一的观点,建立人与自然协调发展的关系,运用道德与法律的手段调节和控制人对自然界的行为,在生产伦理中强调要有职业道德,这是进一步达到提高生产效率的首要前提。     

形上之维--一个伦理学不可或缺的维度

现代西方伦理学的困境及现代道德危机源于西方伦理学在其自身的发展过程中逐渐丧失了形而上的维度,因此,现代伦理学要想走出危机,必须恢复其形上之维.麦金太尔的德性论对伦理学形上之维的重建指出了方向,他认为,"整体生活的善"的确立是拯救现代道德危机和现代伦理困境的立足点.     

The parameters of prejudice: knowledge of ethics and age bias

This study examined two matters pertinent to social work practice: professional ethics and age bias among practicing social workers. Because social work ethics demand competent practice within one's area of proficiency, and because bias toward any segment of social work clientele impedes competent practice, prejudicial attitudes toward older people are problematic. This study found that age bias exists among practicing social workers (N = 367), with no discernible association between knowledge of professional ethical standards and age bias. The findings suggest a subtle and pervasive bias associated with work with older people. Positive bias was more prevalent than negative bias.     

Person-oriented research ethics: integrating relational and everyday ethics in research

Research ethics is often understood by researchers primarily through the regulatory framework reflected in the research ethics review process. This regulatory understanding does not encompass the range of ethical considerations in research, notably those associated with the relational and everyday aspects of human subject research. In order to support researchers in their effort to adopt a broader lens, this article presents a “person-oriented research ethics” approach. Five practical guideposts of person-oriented research ethics are identified, as follows: (1) respect for holistic personhood; (2) acknowledgement of lived world; (3) individualization; (4) focus on researcher-participant relationships; and (5) empowerment in decision-making. These guideposts are defined and illustrated with respect to different aspects of the research process (e.g., research design, recruitment, data collection). The person-oriented research ethics approach provides a toolkit to individual researchers, research groups, and research institutions in both biomedical and social science research wishing to expand their commitment to ethics in research.     

The ethics of human reproductive cloning: when world views collide

Two camps in bioethics with seemingly opposing world views have staked out conflicting positions regarding the ethics of human reproductive cloning. These camps do not appear to share common concepts or ways of reasoning through which to exchange views and come to a meeting of minds about uses of this technology. Yet analysis of their respective approaches to several issues surrounding reproductive cloning, such as where the ethical limits of individual reproductive choice lie, whether the use of this technology would violate human dignity, whether it would create risks to the resulting fetuses and children that would make its use intolerable, and whether it would challenge certain core social values, reveals that they are not wholly opposed to one another. Indeed, it displays that they hold certain beliefs, values, and concerns in common. Moreover, it indicates that the different world views that they each presuppose, while flawed in certain respects, do not collide in every respect, but can be reconciled in significant ways that provide fertile ground for agreement about several issues related to human reproductive cloning.     

Guinea Pigs on the payroll: The ethics of paying research subjects

Regulatory bodies and scholars have traditionally conceptualized biomedical research on healthy subjects in the same way as research on patients. Guidelines and regulations have portrayed payment to a healthy subject as a potential constraint, or “undue influence,”; on the subject's free consent. In this essay we suggest an alternative way of conceptualizing research on healthy subjects, which sees the basic issue not as one of undue influence but as one of justice. Healthy subjects generally enroll in research protocols not for humanitarian reasons but for the money they will receive. Many of these protocols are conducted by profit‐driven corporations. Yet current guidelines and regulations prohibit subjects from negotiating for fair payment for the risks, discomforts and inconveniences they undergo, and IRBs are not staffed adequately to monitor the subject's safety. We propose to remedy the situation by regulating payment to healthy subjects as a labor relation.     

The problem of defining nature first: A philosophical critique of environmental ethics

What is nature? Perhaps it is something of our own invention, perhaps not; but before we can begin researching the proper way to conserve it, we must come up with an accurate notion of what it is. Unless we examine the values we place on the environment and the resulting conflicts in which we trap ourselves, we will never be able to employ our definitions of nature, nor argue for our reactions toward it. Without a unified concept, perceptions of nature will create conflicting methodologies in terms of the environment—most of all, in terms of how we see it. Without a perception of the natural world, we aren't quite sure what it is we are trying to save. An accurate and focused perception of nature as a concept is the key. Until we understand the methodologies which influence our value placing systems, how we regard nature and how we develop ethics toward it will not be joined into a common consensus of practice.     

Limitations of methodological experiments

The extent to which empirical results can lead to methodological conclusions is investigated. No specific limitations are found to be involved in drawing conclusions on the plausibility of an artifact (Campbell).Two other types of meta-research do appear to be problematic: (a) empirically based inferences on the kind of roles adopted by subjects with respect to the experiment (Weber and Cook) are tenuous, since the role-playing may well enter into the meta-research itself; (b) a similar intricacy arises with research on experimenter expectancy effects (Rosenthal). Possible ways of correcting for artifacts in meta-research, and the potential threat to scientific discourse that is associated with these corrections, are discussed.     

Experts in experiments

An ever increasing number of experiments attempts to elicit risk preferences of a population of interest with the aim of calibrating parameters used in economic models. We are concerned with two types of selection effects, which may affect the external validity of standard experiments: Sampling from a narrowly defined population of students (??experimenter-induced selection??) and self-selection due to non-response or incomplete response of participants in a random sample from a broad population. We find that both types of selection lead to a sample of experts: Participants perform significantly better than the general population, in the sense of fewer violations of revealed preference conditions. Self-selection within a broad population does not seem to matter for average preferences. In contrast, sampling from a student population leads to lower estimates of average risk aversion and loss aversion parameters. Furthermore, it dramatically reduces the amount of heterogeneity in all parameters.     

高职院校学生职业道德教育研究——以江西为例

针对当前江西省高职院校学生的职业道德教育现状,本文从江西省高职院校学生教育中探析根源上的问题及原因,寻找“治本”的基本手段,以期能够为江西省高职院校学生职业道德教育改革提供有益的参考和现实依据,并为该领域的研究特别是对中部地区的高职院校学生职业道德教育研究提供现实和理论的启示。     

发展伦理学是关于发展善的学问

发展伦理学以发展善为主要研究对象,而发展伦理学视野中的发展善包含两层含义:一是发展价值;二是发展道德,因而发展伦理学实际上是研究发展价值和发展道德及其相互关系问题的科学。构建发展伦理学的出发点和落脚点,是追求社会发展人本性价值目标的实现和对人的发展行为的有效伦理约束。