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354Bridging East-West Differences in Ethics Guidance for AI and RobotsAI 3 (3): 764-777. 2022.Societies of the East are often contrasted with those of the West in their stances toward technology. This paper explores these perceived differences in the context of international ethics guidance for artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. Japan serves as an example of the East, while Europe and North America serve as examples of the West. The paper’s principal aim is to demonstrate that Western values predominate in international ethics guidance and that Japanese values serve as a much-nee…Read more
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289Cash Incentives, Ethics, and COVID-19 VaccinationScience 6569 (374): 819-820. 2021.Monetary incentives to increase COVID-19 vaccinations are widely used. Even if they work, whether such payments are ethical is contested. This paper reviews ethical arguments for and against using monetary incentives that appeal to utility, liberty, civic responsibility, equity, exploitation, and autonomy. It concludes that in low-income nations and nations with meagre safety nets and income inequality, policy-makers should proceed with caution.
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262What We Have Reason to Value: Human Capabilities and Public ReasonIn Hon-Lam Li & Michael Campbell (eds.), Public Reason and Bioethics: Three Perspectives, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 337-357. 2021.This chapter sets forth an interpretation of public reason that appeals to our central capabilities as human beings. I argue that appealing to central human capabilities and to the related idea of respect for threshold capabilities is the best way to understand public reason. My defense of this position advances stepwise: first, I consider a central alternative to a capability account, which regards public reason as a matter of contracting; next, I describe central concerns with contract views a…Read more
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163Sociable Robots for Later Life: Carebots, Friendbots and SexbotsIn Ruiping Fan & Mark J. Cherry (eds.), Sex Robots: Social Impact and the Future of Human Relations, Springer. pp. 25-40. 2021.This chapter discusses three types of sociable robots for older adults: robotic caregivers ; robotic friends ; and sex robots. The central argument holds that society ought to make reasonable efforts to provide these types of robots and that under certain conditions, omitting such support not only harms older adults but poses threats to their dignity. The argument proceeds stepwise. First, the chapter establishes that assisting care-dependent older adults to perform activities of daily living is…Read more
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152Two Steps Forward: An African Relational Account of Moral StandingPhilosophy and Technology 35 (2): 38. 2022.This paper replies to a commentary by John-Stewart Gordon on our paper, “The Moral Standing of Social Robots: Untapped Insights from Africa.” In the original paper, we set forth an African relational view of personhood and show its implica- tions for the moral standing of social robots. This reply clarifies our position and answers three objections. The objections concern (1) the ethical significance of intelligence, (2) the meaning of ‘pro-social,’ and (3) the justification for prioritizing hum…Read more
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127Taking care of one's own: Justice and family caregivingTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 23 (2): 117-133. 2002.This paper asks whether adult children have aduty of justice to act as caregivers for theirfrail, elderly parents. I begin (Sections I.and II.) by locating the historical reasons whyrelationships within families were not thoughtto raise issues of justice. I argue that thesereasons are misguided. The paper next presentsspecific examples showing the relevance ofjustice to family relationships. I point outthat in the United States today, the burden ofcaregiving for dependent parents fallsdisproport…Read more
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121An Ethical Framework for Rationing Health CareJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 17 (1): 79-96. 1992.This paper proposes an ethical framework for rationing publicly financed health care. We begin by classifying alternative rationing criteria according to their ethical basis. We then examine the ethical arguments for four rationing criteria. These alternatives include rationing high technology services, non-basic services, services to patients who receive the least medical benefit, and services that are not equally available to all. We submit that a just health care system will not limit basic h…Read more
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120The Moral Standing of Social Robots: Untapped Insights from AfricaPhilosophy and Technology 35 (2): 1-22. 2022.This paper presents an African relational view of social robots’ moral standing which draws on the philosophy of ubuntu. The introduction places the question of moral standing in historical and cultural contexts. Section 2 demonstrates an ubuntu framework by applying it to the fictional case of a social robot named Klara, taken from Ishiguro’s novel, Klara and the Sun. We argue that an ubuntu ethic assigns moral standing to Klara, based on her relational qualities and pro-social virtues. Section…Read more
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118Medical Futility: The Duty Not to TreatCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2 (2): 151. 1993.Partly because physicians can “never say never,” partly because of the seduction of modern technology, and partly out of misplaced fear of litigation, physicians have increasingly shown a tendency to undertake treatments that have no realistic expectation of success. For this reason, we have articulated common sense criteria for medical futility. If a treatment can be shown not to have worked in the last 100 cases, we propose that it be regarded as medically futile. Also, if the treatment fails …Read more
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109Separating Care and Cure: An Analysis of Historical and Contemporary Images of Nursing and MedicineJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 16 (3): 285-306. 1991.This paper provides a philosophical critique of professional stereotypes in medicine. In the course of this critique, we also offer a detailed analysis of the concept of care in health care. The paper first considers possible explanations for the traditional stereotype that caring is a province of nurses and women, while curing is an arena suited for physicians and men. It then dispels this stereotype and fine tunes the concept of care. A distinction between ‘caring for’ and ‘caring about’ is ma…Read more
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108Life's Dominion: An Argument about Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom, Ronald Dworkin. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993. 273 pp (review)Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 3 (2): 303. 1994.
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106Vaccine ethics: an ethical framework for global distribution of COVID-19 vaccinesJournal of Medical Ethics. forthcoming.This paper addresses the just distribution of vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus and sets forth an ethical framework that prioritises frontline and essential workers, people at high risk of severe disease or death, and people at high risk of infection. Section I makes the case that vaccine distribution should occur at a global level in order to accelerate development and fair, efficient vaccine allocation. Section II puts forth ethical values to guide vaccine distribution including helping pe…Read more
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104The ascription of rights in wrongful life suitsLaw and Philosophy 6 (2): 149-165. 1987.Wrongful life is an action brought by a defective child who sues to recover for pecuniary or emotional damages suffered as a result of being conceived or born with deformities. In such cases, plaintiff alleges that the negligence of a responsible third party,1 such as physician, hospital, or medical laboratory, is the proximate cause of plaintiff's being born or conceived and thus being compelled to suffer the debilitating effects of a deformity. The child does not sue to recover for the deformi…Read more
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102When Families Request That 'Everything Possible' Be DoneJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 20 (2): 145-163. 1995.The paper explores the ethical and psychological issues that arise when family members request that “everything possible” be done for a particular patient. The paper first illustrates this phenomenon by reviewing the well known case of Helga Wanglie. We proceed to argue that in Wanglie and similar cases family members may request futile treatments as a means of conveying that (1) the loss of the patient is tantamount to losing a part of themselves; (2) the patient should not be abandoned or disv…Read more
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97Health Care Reform: What History Doesn’t TeachTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 26 (4): 277-305. 2005.The paper begins by tracing the historical development of American medicine as practice, profession, and industry from the eighteenth century to the present. This historical outline emphasizes shifting conceptions of physicians and physician ethics. It lays the basis for showing, in the second section, how contemporary controversies about the physician’s role in managed care take root in medicine’s past. In the final two sections, I revisit both the historical analysis and its application to con…Read more
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97You’ve got a friend in me: sociable robots for older adults in an age of global pandemicsEthics and Information Technology 23 (S1): 35-43. 2020.Social isolation and loneliness are ongoing threats to health made worse by the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. During the pandemic, half the globe's population have been placed under strict physical distancing orders and many long-term care facilities serving older adults went into lockdown mode, restricting access to all visitors, including family members. Before the pandemic emerged, a 2020 National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report warned of the underappreciated adverse…Read more
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94The Ethics of Human Gene Therapy, by LeRoy Walters and Julie Gage Palmer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 209 pp (review)Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 6 (4): 494. 1997.
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90Caring for “Socially Undesirable” PatientsCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 5 (4): 500. 1996.Mr. Bernard was a homeless man, aged 58. His medical history revealed alcohol abuse, seizure disorder, and two suicide attempts. Brought to the emergency room at a local hospital after being found “semi-comatose,” his respiratory distress led to his being intubated and placed on a ventilator. The healthcare team suspected the patient ingested antifreeze. Transferred from that hospital to the intensive care unit of the university hospital, his diagnosis was “high osmolar gap with high-anion gap m…Read more
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82Judging Medical Futility: An Ethical Analysis of Medical Power and ResponsibilityCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 4 (1): 23. 1995.In situations where experience shows that a particular intervention will not benefit a patient, common sense seems to suggest that the intervention should not be used. Yet it is precisely in these situations that a peculiar ethic begins to operate, an ethic that Eddy calls “the criterion of potential benefit.” According to this ethic, “a treatment is appropriate if it might have some benefit.” Thus, the various maxims learned in medical school instruct physicians that “‘an error of commission is…Read more
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78Medical Futility and the Death of a ChildJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 8 (2): 133-139. 2011.Our response to death may differ depending on the patient’s age. We may feel that death is a sad, but acceptable event in an elderly patient, yet feel that death in a very young patient is somehow unfair. This paper explores whether there is any ethical basis for our different responses. It examines in particular whether a patient’s age should be relevant to the determination that an intervention is medically futile. It also considers the responsibilities of health professionals and the rights o…Read more
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74Should a criminal receive a heart transplant? Medical justice vs. societal justiceTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 17 (1). 1996.Should the nation provide expensive care and scarce organs to convicted felons? We distinguish between two fields of justice: Medical Justice and Societal Justice. Although there is general acceptance within the medical profession that physicians may distribute limited treatments based solely on potential medical benefits without regard to nonmedical factors, that does not mean that society cannot impose limits based on societal factors. If a society considers the convicted felon to be a full me…Read more
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74Justice between Age GoupsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 14 (10). 2018.A society is said to age when its number of older members increases in relation to its number of younger members. The societies in most of the world’s industrialized nations have been aging since at least 1800. In 1800 the demographic makeup of developed countries was similar to that of many Third World countries in the early 1990s with roughly half the population under the age of 16 and very few people living beyond age of 60. Since that time, increases in life expectancy, combined with decline…Read more
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74Nothing to be ashamed of: sex robots for older adults with disabilitiesJournal of Medical Ethics 47 (1): 26-32. 2021.This paper spotlights ways in which sexual capacities relate to central human capabilities, such as the ability to generate a personally meaningful story of one’s life; be physically, mentally and emotionally healthy; experience bodily integrity; affiliate and bond with others; feel and express a range of human emotions; and choose a plan of life. It sets forth a dignity-based argument for affording older people access to sex robots as part of reasonable efforts to support their central human ca…Read more
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73Caring for Patients in Cross‐Cultural SettingsHastings Center Report 25 (1): 6-14. 1995.A caregiver from the dominant U.S. culture and a patient from a very different culture can resolve cross‐cultural disputes about treatment, not by compromising important values, but by focusing on the patient's goals.
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70Is the Treatment Beneficial, Experimental, or Futile?Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 5 (2): 248. 1996.D.T. a 35-year-old woman, was found to have breast cancer. At the time of mastectomy axillary lymph nodes were positive and the cancer was classified as adenocarcinoma, grade 4. The patient underwent conventional chemotherapy. When it became apparent the disease was metastatic, the patient's oncologist contacted a well-known cancer center regarding the possibility of treating the patient with high dose chemotherapy and autologous bone marrow transplantation. The patient's health insurance provid…Read more
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65A broader view of justiceAmerican Journal of Bioethics 8 (10). 2008.In this paper I argue that a narrow view of justice dominates the bioethics literature. I urge a broader view. As bioethicists, we often conceive of justice using a medical model. This model focuses attention at a particular point in time, namely, when someone who is already sick seeks access to scarce or expensive services. A medical model asks how we can fairly distribute those services. The broader view I endorse requires looking upstream, and asking how disease and suffering came about. In c…Read more
APA Western Division
Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong
Areas of Specialization
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Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
African/Africana Philosophy |
Asian Philosophy |
Philosophy of Computing and Information |