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949Innovation and Nanotechnology: Converging Technologies and the End of Intellectual PropertyBloomsbury Academic. 2011.This book defines 'nanowares' as the ideas and products arising out of nanotechnology. Koepsell argues that these rapidly developing new technologies demand a new approach to scientific discovery and innovation in our society. He takes established ideas from social philosophy and applies them to the nanoparticle world. In doing so he breaks down the subject into its elemental form and from there we are better able to understand how these elements fit into the construction of a more complex syste…Read more
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530Creating a Controlled Vocabulary for the Ethics of Human Research: Towards a biomedical ethics ontologyJournal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics 4 (1): 43-58. 2009.Ontologies describe reality in specific domains in ways that can bridge various disciplines and languages. They allow easier access and integration of information that is collected by different groups. Ontologies are currently used in the biomedical sciences, geography, and law. A Biomedical Ethics Ontology would benefit members of ethics committees who deal with protocols and consent forms spanning numerous fields of inquiry. There already exists the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI)…Read more
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459Beyond PaperThe Monist 97 (2). 2014.The authors outline the way in which documents as social objects have evolved from their earliest forms to the electronic documents of the present day. They note that while certain features have remained consistent, processes regarding document authentication are seriously complicated by the easy reproducibility of digital entities. The authors argue that electronic documents also raise significant questions concerning the theory of ‘documentality’ advanced by Maurizio Ferraris, especially given…Read more
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184Peter Hare and the problem of evilTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 46 (1): 53-59. 2010.Peter Hare and Edward Madden's collaborative book Evil and the Concept of God (968) has become a staple in literature about the problem of evil and remains frequently cited by supporters and critics alike. The major concepts of the work arose out of earlier papers in which they first began to formulate their arguments about the problem of evil. Their article "Evil and Unlimited Power" embodies many of their arguments against quasi-theist attempts to resolve the problem of evil.1 Assembled from t…Read more
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176Letter to the Editor: Dealing with socially constructed concepts in an ontologyJournal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics 4 (2): 75-76. 2009.Response to the paper “The Biomedical Ethics Ontology Proposal: Excellent Aims, Questionable Methods" by James DuBois, published in the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics
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155Social Reality, Law, and JusticeIn Leonardo Zaibert (ed.), The Theory and Practice of Ontology, . pp. 79-94. 2016.Reality is composed of many layers, including what John Searle calls “brute facts” and, superimposed on these, what he calls “social reality”. Ontology is the study of reality in its various layers, and involves attempts to describe that reality in ways that are useful and logically consistent. Philosophers and others who attempt to “build” ontologies, must examine the manners in which we can best describe objects, and devise structured vocabularies that can be used consistently, often across di…Read more
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112Human Participants in Engineering Research: Notes from a Fledgling Ethics CommitteeScience and Engineering Ethics 21 (4): 1033-1048. 2015.For the past half-century, issues relating to the ethical conduct of human research have focused largely on the domain of medical, and more recently social–psychological research. The modern regime of applied ethics, emerging as it has from the Nuremberg trials and certain other historical antecedents, applies the key principles of: autonomy, respect for persons, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice to human beings who enter trials of experimental drugs and devices :168–175, 2001). Institut…Read more
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91An emerging ontology of jurisdiction in cyberspaceEthics and Information Technology 2 (2): 99-104. 2000.The emergence of the new information economy hascomplicated jurisdictional issues in commerce andcrime. Many of these difficulties are simplyextensions of problems that arose due to other media.Telephones and fax machines had already complicatedjurists'' determinations of applicable laws. Evenbefore the Internet, contracts were often negotiatedwithout any face-to-face contact – entirely bytelephone and fax. Where is such a contractnegotiated? The answer to this question is critical toany litigat…Read more
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52On genies and bottles: Scientists' moral responsibility and dangerous technology r&dScience and Engineering Ethics 16 (1): 119-133. 2010.The age-old maxim of scientists whose work has resulted in deadly or dangerous technologies is: scientists are not to blame, but rather technologists and politicians must be morally culpable for the uses of science. As new technologies threaten not just populations but species and biospheres, scientists should reassess their moral culpability when researching fields whose impact may be catastrophic. Looking at real-world examples such as smallpox research and the Australian “mousepox trick”, and…Read more
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51Back to Basics: How Technology and the Open Source Movement Can Save ScienceSocial Epistemology 24 (3): 181-190. 2010.The recent debate arising from leaked emails from a UK-based research group working on the issue of climate change is another in a long string of historical lapses that periodically threatens public confidence in the institutions and methods of science. As with other similar events, it did not have to happen. What should concern us is that the accepted methods and practices of science have once again to be shown to be too easily set aside, ignored, or broken due to human frailties. Years of rese…Read more
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50Peter Ludlow, ed., high noon on the electronic frontier: Conceptual issues in cyberspace (review)Minds and Machines 7 (3): 468-471. 1997.
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49Breaking bad and philosophy (edited book)Open Court. 2012.Breaking Bad, hailed by Stephen King, Chuck Klosterman, and many others as the best of all TV dramas, tells the story of a man whose life changes because of the medical death sentence of an advanced cancer diagnosis. The show depicts his metamorphosis from inoffensive chemistry teacher to feared drug lord and remorseless killer. Driven at first by the desire to save his family from destitution, he risks losing his family altogether because of his new life of crime. In defiance of the tradition t…Read more
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41Let’s Get Small: An Introduction to Transitional Issues in Nanotech and Intellectual Property (review)NanoEthics 3 (2): 157-166. 2009.Much of the discussion regarding nanotechnology centers around perceived and prosphesied harms and risks. While there are real risks that could emerge from futuristic nanotechnology, there are other current risks involved with its development, not involving physical harms, that could prevent its full promise from being realized. Transitional forms of the technology, involving “microfab,” or localized, sometimes desk-top, manufacture, pose a good opportunity for case study. How can we develop leg…Read more
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36Breaking Bad as PhilosophyIn David Kyle Johnson (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Popular Culture as Philosophy, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 1-21. 2022.Breaking Bad has been lauded as the best series ever on television by numerous critics and polls. It follows the “Breaking Bad” (i.e., the moral degradation) of Walter White, a middle-class, middle-aged high school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Presented in the form of a literary epic employing satire, it provides us with a way to look at complex issues of justice, the good, and meaning, all while imparting a sense of aesthetics of justice and morality. The aesthetics of justice …Read more
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27Science and ethics: can science help us make wise moral judgments? (edited book)Prometheus Books. 2007.This volume presents a unique collection of authors who generally maintain that science can help us make wise choices and that an increase in scientific knowledge can help modify our ethical values and bring new ethical principles into social awareness.
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23John Searle's Ideas About Social Reality: Extensions, Criticisms, and ReconstructionsWiley-Blackwell. 2003.John R. Searle’s 1995 publication The Construction of Social Reality is the foundation of this collection of scholarly papers examining Searle's philosophical theories. Searle’s book sets out to reconstruct the ontology of the social sciences through an analysis of linguistic practices in the context of his celebrated work on intentionality. His book provided a stimulating account of institutional facts such as money and marriage and how they are created and replicated in everyday social life. T…Read more
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20This book is an easy to read, yet comprehensive introduction to practical issues in research ethics and scientific integrity. It addresses questions about what constitutes appropriate academic and scientific behaviors from the point of view of what Robert Merton called the “ethos of science.” In other words, without getting into tricky questions about the nature of the good or right (as philosophers often do), Koepsell’s concise book provides an approach to behaving according to the norms of sci…Read more
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19Individual and Collective Rights in Genomic Data: Preliminary QuestionsJournal of Evolution and Technology 16 (1): 151. 2007.
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17Ownership of Information TechnologyIn Michael Boylan (ed.), Ethics in the AI, Technology, and Information Age. pp. 103-115. 2022.Modern information technologies rely on electronic and optical signals transmitting data, expressions, and other signals around the world. Digital networks account for trillions of dollars worth of worldwide commerce, but the nature of their objects is complicated and has proven to be a challenge for customary and legal modes of ownership for expressions. Intellectual property law governed expressions and inventions for the past couple hundred years, but software and other digital objects, due t…Read more
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17Philosophy and Breaking Bad (edited book)Palgrave Macmillan. 2016.This volume considers the numerous philosophical ideas and arguments found in and inspired by the critically acclaimed series Breaking Bad. This show garnered both critical and popular attention for its portrayal of a cancer-stricken, middle-aged, middle-class, high school chemistry teacher’s drift into the dark world of selling methamphetamine to support his family. Its characters, situations, and aesthetic raise serious and familiar philosophical issues, especially related to ethics and morali…Read more
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16Who Owns You?: The Corporate Gold Rush to Patent Your GenesWiley-Blackwell. 2009.You quite rightly need not fear being owned in the most traditional and reprehensible sense by which humans ... New and more subtle forms of ownership have emerged in the past hundred years that now impact on essential qualities and ...
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14Copyright Genes, EmbryosIn Arthur L. Caplan & Robert Arp (eds.), Contemporary debates in bioethics, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 25--152. 2014.
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10Gaius Baltar and the Transhuman TemptationIn Jason T. Eberl (ed.), Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Knowledge Here Begins Out There, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 241--252. 2008.
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10DNA, Species, Individuals, and PersonsIn Michael Boylan (ed.), Who Owns You?, Wiley. 2015-03-19.This chapter contains sections titled: Individuals and Species Commonalities among Species Individuals within Species Individual Histories and Individual Genomes The Social and Legal Importance of Individuality Human Individuals, Persons, and Rights Implications for Justice.
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9Individual and Collective Rights in Genomic DataIn Michael Boylan (ed.), Who Owns You?, Wiley. 2015-03-19.This chapter contains sections titled: The Current Conundrum The Objects of Our Study The Legal Framework So Far Special Challenges of DNA Property and Parts Autonomy, Individuality, and Personhood Economics and the Marketplace for Genes Ethics and Method An Outline for the Investigation The Challenge Ahead.
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7DNA and The CommonsIn Michael Boylan (ed.), Who Owns You?, Wiley. 2015-03-19.For nearly two decades, nonengineered human DNA was patented without challenge. The US Supreme Court recently agreed that many of those patents do not fit accurately into any currently accepted scheme of intellectual property protection. One should consider: whether DNA fits into other forms of property protection (land, moveables, chattels, etc.); whether DNA warrants a new and unique form of property protection, or whether DNA belongs to the class of objects generally considered to be as “the …Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |