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22How Applied Should Applied Ethics Be?Journal of Applied Ethics and Philosophy 9 1-9. 2017.How applied should applied ethics be? I take up that question not because it belongs to the past of applied ethics (though it does), but because, given the present, it seems likely to be a part of the future of applied ethics as well. Consider, for example, a recent debate in the journal Bioethics: One of the four papers was titled, “Why Moral Philosophers Are Not and Should Not Be Moral Experts”; another, “Moral Philosophers Are Moral Experts!” In that debate, a “moral expert” was a philosopher…Read more
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Thinking like an engineerIn Nicholas Sakellariou & Rania Milleron (eds.), Ethics, Politics, and Whistleblowing in Engineering, Crc Press. 2018.
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8Engineering as a Global Profession: Technical and Ethical StandardsRowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2021.This book looks to establish worldwide technical and ethical standards of engineering as an occupation. The author is the most senior thinker in this field and has spent much of his career developing this thesis.
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15Recidivist Punishments: The Philosopher's View (edited book)Lexington Books. 2011.Much has been written about recidivist punishments, particularly within the area of criminology. However there is a notorious lack of penal philosophical reflection on this issue. This book attempts to fill that gap by presenting the philosopher’s view on this matter as a way of furthering the debate on recidivist punishments
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81What’s philosophically interesting about engineering ethics?Science and Engineering Ethics 9 (3): 353-361. 2003.What makes a subject philosophically interesting is hard-to-resolve confusion about fundamental concepts. Engineering ethics suffers from at least three such fundamental confusions. First, there is confusion about what the “ethics” in engineering ethics is (ordinary morality, philosophical ethics, special standards, or something else?) Second, there is confusion about what the profession of engineering is (a function, discipline, occupation, kind of organization, or something else?) Third, there…Read more
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47Why journalism is a professionIn Christopher Meyers (ed.), Journalism ethics: a philosophical approach, Oxford University Press. pp. 91--102. 2010.
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WhistleblowingIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The Oxford handbook of practical ethics, Oxford University Press. 2003.
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30The Special Role of Professionals in Business EthicsBusiness and Professional Ethics Journal 7 (2): 51-62. 1988.
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31The Price of a PersonInternational Journal of Applied Philosophy 30 (1): 105-114. 2016.While we’re inclined to think that a person is “above all price,” we in fact make a lot of decisions that seem to set a price on persons—or, at least, on their life. For example, I was recently involved with setting standards for buildings in areas susceptible to earthquakes. The consensus seemed to be $3/sq. ft. increase in construction cost was reasonable, more than that was not, even though lives could be saved if the standard were higher, assuring the survival of more buildings. Though the F…Read more
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34Torturing ProfessionsInternational Journal of Applied Philosophy 22 (2): 243-263. 2008.What are the conceptual connections between torture and profession? Exploring this question requires exploring at least two others. Before we can work out the conceptual connections between profession and torture, we must have a suitable conception of both profession and torture. We seem to have several conceptions of each. So, I first identify several alternative conceptions of profession, explaining why one should be preferred over the others. Next, I do the same for torture; and then, I argue…Read more
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5The One-Sided Obligations of JournalismJournal of Mass Media Ethics 19 (3-4): 207-222. 2004.Barger and Barney (2004/this issue) offered a number of reasons for the public, the news media, and journalism to develop special, mutually supportive standards of conduct. However, they imbedded these reasonable suggestions in an argument that claims far more than can be delivered. In explaining what is wrong with their argument, I place journalistic ethics within a general theory of professional ethics.
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7Teaching Moral Responsibility within OrganizationsBusiness and Professional Ethics Journal 23 (3): 77-91. 2004.
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319The Moral Justifiability of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading TreatmentInternational Journal of Applied Philosophy 19 (2): 161-178. 2005.Since Henry Shue’s classic 1978 paper on torture, the “ticking-bomb case” has seemed to demonstrate that torture is morally justified in some moral emergencies (even if not as an institution). After presenting an analysis of torture as such and an explanation of why it, and anything much like it, is morally wrong, I argue that the ticking-bomb case demonstrates nothing at all—for at least three reasons. First, it is an appeal to intuition. The intuition is not as widely shared as necessary to co…Read more
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5The Ethics of ResearchIn Randall Curren (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Education, Wiley-blackwell. 2003.This chapter contains sections titled: Ethics and Research Topics What We Know Responses.
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20Trumping Conflicts of InterestInternational Journal of Applied Philosophy 31 (1): 9-20. 2017.As President, Donald Trumps faces two sorts of conflict of interest. The first are conflicts of interest other Presidents also faced, though Trump’s are “writ large.” These seem—as a practical matter—unavoidable now, hard to escape, not to be much changed by disclosure, and not even much subject to management. The other sort of conflict of interest seems to be without resolution even in principle while Trump remains both President and the person he is. These conflicts of interest are the product…Read more
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6Trumping Conflicts of InterestInternational Journal of Applied Philosophy 31 (1): 9-20. 2017.As President, Donald Trumps faces two sorts of conflict of interest. The first are conflicts of interest other Presidents also faced, though Trump’s are “writ large.” These seem—as a practical matter—unavoidable now, hard to escape, not to be much changed by disclosure, and not even much subject to management. The other sort of conflict of interest seems to be without resolution even in principle while Trump remains both President and the person he is. These conflicts of interest are the product…Read more
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49Rhetoric, technical writing, and ethicsScience and Engineering Ethics 5 (4): 463-478. 1999.Many outside science and engineering, especially social scientists and “rhetoricians”, claim that rhetoric, “the art of persuasion”, is an important part of technical communication. This claim is either trivial or false. If “persuasion” simply means “effective communication”, then, of course, rhetoric is an important part of technical communication. But, if “persuasion” has anything like its traditional meaning (a specific art of winning conviction), rhetoric is not an important part of technica…Read more
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30Replacement as a Problem for the Justification of Preventive DetentionCriminal Justice Ethics 30 (1): 90-97. 2011.What makes Don E. Scheid's article on indefinite detention interesting is that he thinks through many of the moral issues inherent in attempting to prevent certain k...
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13Report CardsJournal of Mass Media Ethics 19 (3-4): 161-165. 2004.This Article does not have an abstract
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118Punishment Theory’s Golden Half Century: A Survey of Developments from 1957 to 2007 (review)The Journal of Ethics 13 (1). 2009.This paper describes developments in punishment theory since the middle of the twentieth century. After the mid–1960s, what Stanley I. Benn called “preventive theories of punishment”—whether strictly utilitarian or more loosely consequentialist like his—entered a long and steep decline, beginning with the virtual disappearance of reform theory in the 1970s. Crowding out preventive theories were various alternatives generally (but, as I shall argue, misleadingly) categorized as “retributive”. The…Read more
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31Professional AutonomyBusiness Ethics Quarterly 6 (4): 441-460. 1996.Employed professionals (e.g., accountants or engineers)-and those who study them-sometimes claim that their status as employeesdenies them the “autonomy” necessary to be “true professionals.” Is this a conceptual claim or an empirical claim? How might it be proved or disproved? This paper draws on recent work on autonomy to try to answer these questions. In the course of doing that, it identifies three literatures concerned with autonomy and suggests an approach bringing them together in a way l…Read more
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27Professional AutonomyBusiness Ethics Quarterly 6 (4): 441-460. 1996.Employed professionals (e.g., accountants or engineers)-and those who study them-sometimes claim that their status as employeesdenies them the “autonomy” necessary to be “true professionals.” Is this a conceptual claim or an empirical claim? How might it be proved or disproved? This paper draws on recent work on autonomy to try to answer these questions. In the course of doing that, it identifies three literatures concerned with autonomy and suggests an approach bringing them together in a way l…Read more
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2Justifying torture as an act of warIn Larry May (ed.), War: Essays in Political Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. 2008.
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