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Today's lawyers must be technologically competent, per Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.1. Law schools and law firms were keenly aware of this expectation and summarily responded. While law firms offered more professional development opportunities, law schools began offering various courses focusing on technology skills. These courses have increased and evolved over time as the curriculum has changed with the technology. First, we present the evolution of ethical requirements surrounding legal technology competency and offer a description of the lawyering competency models most discussed today. We then review data about technology trends at the most innovative law firms and examine curricular offerings in technology or technology-related fields at American Bar Association-accredited law schools. Next, we offer a comparative analysis of multiple empirical studies to determine whether key areas of technology training were reflected in the legal education curriculum and were sufficient to meet ABA ethical expectations. Finally, we recommend solutions law schools may implement to increase technology instruction, services, and infrastructure to meet ethical standards. ABA-accredited schools should implement these recommendations in light of ABA Standard 301(a), the forecasted changes planned by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, and the new virtual practice landscape set by the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we develop and extend the above analogy by means of a thought experiment in which a vaccine for the pandemic of aging is developed. We ask first, whether the concept of a vaccine for the pandemic of aging is conceptually coherent, and second whether such a vaccine (or similar aging preventive) is ethically desirable. This chapter makes the case that, while there are some clear disanalogies between aging and typical pandemics like the COVID-19 pandemic, there are some striking similarities that advocate for similar degrees of urgency. Moreover, the comparison throws important light on some of the flawed objections to healthy life-extending technologies. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.
ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the significance of sociocultural and ethical limitations of non-science-based approaches toward effectively containing, managing, and ending global health emergencies. It refers to the 2013-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa and the current COVID-19 global pandemic to underscore the limits of science-based approaches in tackling infectious disease outbreaks. Against this background, it points to the significance of measures rooted in the humanities that have been (or are being) used to demonstrate the values of social, cultural, and ethical approaches in addressing global health emergencies. This chapter shows that while science-based approaches are essential, they are not sufficient toward addressing the varied challenges of global health emergencies. The experiences of Ebola epidemics in Africa and the COVID-19 global pandemic have shown that science-based approaches need to be buttressed by sociocultural and ethical measures to be successful. It has become self-evident that global health emergencies can be addressed sooner if non-science-based approaches are incorporated into the core responses. The successful approaches toward addressing global health emergencies will be ones that adequately harmonized science-based approaches with sociocultural and ethical measures. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
At a time when a global pandemic has disrupted lives to a large extent across the globe, doing research has become ever more complex, challenging and uncertain. Such unexpected shifts in the dynamics of research, resulting in unpredictable consequences, have prompted the author to further reflect on her positionality as a researcher writing LGBTQI history. In this paper, the author joins scholars who propose self-reflexivity as both an analytical and ethical tool in understanding volatile research contexts. In gender and sexuality studies much has been written about the importance of self-reflexivity in understanding the impact of researchers' social and epistemic locations in knowledge production. The paper argues that self-reflexive practice is especially important in studying the histories of gender and sexual identities in a multiply colonised society such as the Philippines. The author reflects on her own identity and its continuing impact on her research process. Through a decolonial lens, she uses the Filipino psychological concept of pagkatao and unpacks its multi-layered meanings as selfhood, humanness and human dignity – three crucial elements in writing the history of identities. © 2023, Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute. All rights reserved.
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This chapter examines the phenomenon of pandemics, particularly COVID-19, and attempts to conceptualize the excesses, surprises, and ruptures which epidemics introduce into the human lifeworld. The notion of a pandemic as an event on the personal and social levels requires a twofold investigation, and this chapter uses Merleau-Ponty's philosophy to look at the event structure of the body, and Deleuze's philosophy to think about the event structure of the socio-political world. The event as it unfolds in the body attunes us to the anonymity and generality of the body, its contingency, and the excess of its biological processes beyond human control-an awareness that induces vertigo, nausea, and a pervasive anxiety. The chapter ends with a reflection on what kind of ethics is implied in the COVID-19 pandemic and how we can be changed when we take the moral step and decide "not to be unworthy of what happens to us” (Deleuze G, Logic of sense. Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2004, 174). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
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This piece describes how the faculty of City-As-School used Descriptive Inquiry to generate shared educational principles during the 2020-21 school year during the coronavirus pandemic. City-As-School is a public experiential learning school in New York City serving older adolescents seeking an alternative to traditional high school. Descriptive Inquiry is an inquiry process developed by Patricia Carini and faculty at the Prospect School in Bennington, Vermont, that supports educators in understanding children and their own educational practice to teach for human dignity, ethical well-being, and holistic growth. The piece provides an introduction to City-As-School and briefly describes how faculty members have used Descriptive Inquiry to foster whole school professional learning and growth. The piece then details how the faculty used Descriptive Inquiry to surface and concretize shared educational principles during the 2020-21 school year, a poignant example of Patricia Carini's notion of "making and doing philosophy in a school."
ABSTRACT
Background:The emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic has required a rapid acceleration of policy decision making, and raised a wide range of ethical issues worldwide, ranging from vaccine prioritisation, welfare and public health ‘trade-offs', inequalities in policy impacts, and the legitimacy of scientific expertise.Aims and objectives:This paper explores the legacy of the pandemic for future science-advice-policy relationships by investigating how the UK government's engagement with ethical advice is organised institutionally. We provide an analysis of some key ethical moments in the UK Government response to the pandemic, and institutions and national frameworks which exist to provide ethical advice on policy strategies.Methods:We draw on literature review, documentary analysis of scientific advisory group reports, and a stakeholder workshop with government ethics advisors and researchers in England.Findings:We identify how particular types of ethical advice and expertise are sought to support decision making. Contrary to a prominent assumption in the extensive literature on ‘governing by expertise', ethical decisions in times of crisis are highly contingent.Discussion and conclusions:The paper raises an important set of questions for how best to equip policymakers to navigate decisions about values in situations characterised by knowledge deficits, complexity and uncertainty. We conclude that a clearer pathway is needed between advisory institutions and decision makers to ensure ethically-informed debate.
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The National Health Service (NHS) in the UK is currently facing a significant waiting list backlog following the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, with millions of patients waiting for elective surgical procedures. Effective treatment prioritisation has been identified as a key element of addressing this backlog, with NHS England's delivery plan highlighting the importance of ensuring that those with ‘the clinically most urgent conditions are diagnosed and treated most rapidly'. Indeed, we describe how the current clinical guidance on prioritisation issued by The Federation of Surgical Specialty Associations serves this aim. However, whilst there are strong reasons to prioritise elective surgery in accordance with clinical need, we argue that it would be a mistake to assume that prioritisation in accordance with clinical need requires only a clinical or scientific judgement. The understanding of clinical need that we choose to employ in a prioritisation system will be grounded by some key ethical judgements. Moreover, we may also have to make trade-offs between addressing clinical need, safeguarding equality, and achieving other benefits. As the UK faces up to the backlog, it is important that surgical prioritisation guidelines enshrine a broad range of values that we believe ought to determine access to care in non-emergency circumstances. Our analysis suggests that the current approach to prioritisation is not a sufficiently nuanced way of balancing the different moral values that are operative in this context. © The Author(s) 2023.
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Since its inception, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected health care as a whole. Cancer patients in general and those suffering from lung cancer in particular are a vulnerable group because of their many intrinsic characteristics and care needs. How SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) infection affects these patients regarding their risk of infection and outcome in this patient cohort is still to be determined. In this review, we tried to summarize our main concerns regarding COVID-19 in the context of cancer patients from a clinical and multidisciplinary approach. Different types of lung cancer treatments (chemotherapy, radiation therapy and immunotherapy) may also influence the risk of infection and condition the patient's risk of having a worse outcome. Lung cancer patients require frequent radiologic study follow-ups, which may be affected by COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 related incidental radiologic findings can appear in routinely scheduled radiology tests, which may be difficult to interpret. Also cancer treatment induced pneumonitis may have similar radiologic features similar to those in acute SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia and lead to a wrong diagnosis. The different health care needs, the requirement for continuous health care access and follow-ups, and the clinical traials in which this patient population might be enrrolled are all being affected by the current COVID-19 health crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has put health care providers and institutions in difficult situations and obliged them to face challenging ethical scenarios. These issues, in turn, have also affected the psychological well-being of health care workers.Copyright © The Author(s) 2021.
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This paper describes a hybrid (virtual and online) workshop held as part of the EU STAMINA project that aimed to engage project partners to explore ethics and simulation modelling in the context of pandemic preparedness and response. The purpose of the workshop was to consider how the model's design and use in specific pandemic decision-making contexts could have broader implications for issues like transparency, explainability, representativeness, bias, trust, equality, and social injustices. Its outputs will be used as evidence to produce a series of measures that could help mitigate ethical harms and support the greater possible benefit from the use of the models. These include recommendations for policy, data-gathering, training, potential protocols to support end-user engagement, as well as guidelines for designing and using simulation models for pandemic decision-making. This paper presents the methodological approaches taken when designing the workshop, practical concerns raised, initial insights gained, and considers future steps. © SW 2023.All rights reserved
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Friedrich Nietzsche discusses epidemics and plagues (Seuchen) both in the medical sense and in an existential sense. For Nietzsche, plagues and pandemics, as a medical concern, point to a much deeper phenomenon in human psychology. In plagues, we both pity and are repulsed by those who are sick;we are disgusted. We fail to attain true compassion because we dehumanize and blame the sick. However, this reaction points to the more primordial existential phenomenon we are avoiding: disgust with human finitude itself. Nietzsche suggests that epidemics and plagues reveal our characters and can provide the possibility to change them. The coronavirus crisis today provides us the rare opportunity to prepare for what Nietzsche saw as true compassion. Nietzsche argues we cannot have this kind of compassion before coming to terms with our finitude. Coronavirus, therefore, offers us not only an existential wake-up call, but also the opportunity to foster a deep compassion that may leave a habitable planet to future generations. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
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This chapter attempts an interrogation of the political and ethical dimensions of foreign medical aid during a pandemic. One of the moral conundrums that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic presents to governments of developing countries in the Global South with poor health infrastructure is seeking much needed foreign medical aid without compromising sovereignty, safety, and national integrity, especially from the Global North. In the context of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, medical supplies and personnel were offered by China as emergency philanthropy. This chapter provides a novel ethical evaluation of foreign medical aid in a pandemic, using principles of the African ethic of communion. It exposes the values both at play and absent in choosing foreign medics as a complementary strategy, as opposed to full reliance on the competence and initiatives of local medical personnel in tackling the challenges of COVID-19 in Nigeria. The chapter argues that while the values of transparency, consultation, dialogue, and trust building are lacking in the decision-making process that brought the Chinese foreign medics' aid to Nigeria, the act is morally justified by virtue of its potentials to save lives that would otherwise be lost without it. This chapter posits further, however, that China's politicization of its philanthropy undercuts the moral justification of the gesture. It concludes by explicating how the principles of relationality, equity, and harmony embedded within an African moral worldview can provide moral validation for medical philanthropy at a time of pandemic without compromising China's responsibility and Nigeria's national integrity. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Objectives: The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 resulted in a global pandemic. Vaccine mandates were implemented in several countries, including in Taiwan, and often targeted health-care workers in particular. This study investigated attitudes among Taiwanese physicians toward such policies and how ethical beliefs and logic influenced attitudes. Methods: A total of 16 physicians were recruited by using the snowball method from hospitals in northern Taiwan. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Results: Physicians tended not to support mandatory vaccination. Five themes emerged: (1) Individual rights, including violation of autonomy and labor rights;(2) vaccine performance, including safety and efficacy;(3) institutional norms, including the degree of relevancy of the policy-issuing unit and the employment relationship between physicians and institutions;(4) social and workplace stigma resulting from coercive policies in different job categories or departments;and (5) professional ethics of physicians. Conclusions: Autonomy and professional ethics among physicians influence attitudes toward vaccine mandates. Vaccine performance, institutional norms, and stigma also influence attitudes toward vaccine mandates and decision-making. Even with high ethical awareness, the study participants tended not to support vaccine mandates. The government should formulate mandatory vaccination policy means for healthcare workers that can be used by hospitals. Each hospital should assess their unique risks and implement policies that best suit their needs. (Taiwan J Public Health. 2023;42(1):75-87)
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The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a crisis that has had not only far-reaching consequences on our health and economy but also on education systems around the world. It has prompted educational institutions to take measures to continue to teach and support students at a distance, as well as to prepare for the long-term impact of the crisis on teaching. As institutions continue to create and implement solutions for distance learning, new ethical issues and challenges arise as major points of consideration. Building ethical frameworks to facilitate learning systems that support both students and educators is becoming a top priority around the world. As we move through the COVID-19 crisis, the values and professional competences of teachers must be critically examined. Serious ethical dilemmas face educational institutions now and in the future. A successful response and adaptation to the ongoing crisis with a focus on ethical concerns will result in institutions of learning that are more robust and resilient, and that will continue to effectively educate future generations of students. This chapter focuses on values and professional competence, the education system during the pandemic, and new ethical challenges after the pandemic. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.
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Amid the heated COVID-driven controversies over vaccination that are ruffling Europe, a specialized European advisory group on ethics has just issued a cautious opinion on the use of gene editing-including a call for a global guarantee that heritable human genome editing is not prematurely clinically applied. The European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE) is tasked with advising the European Commission with "high quality, independent advice on all aspects of EU legislation and policies, where ethical, societal and fundamental rights issues intersect with the development of science and new technologies." With a view to promoting broad alignment, the group has asked the European Commission to engage in global discussions on regulation of this emerging field with the World Health Organization and the World Medical Association, covering universal adoption of standards on the ethical use of genome editing in human beings. [...]within Europe it wants to see the creation of a specifically European platform to exchange information and promote "a broad and open public debate" on the ethical and social implications of germline genome editing in human beings.
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This article starts with a case outlining ethical challenges encountered in participatory action research (PAR) on vaccine hesitancy in rural India during Covid-19. Community researchers were recruited by a not-for-profit organisation, with the aim of both discovering the reasons for vaccine hesitancy and encouraging take-up. This raised issues about the roles and responsibilities of local researchers in their own communities, where they might be blamed for adverse reactions to vaccination. They and their mentor struggled with balancing societal protection against individual rights to make choices. These themes are explored in two commentaries discussing the difficulties in balancing ethics in public health (prioritising societal benefits), social research (protecting participants from harm and respecting their rights not to be involved) and participatory research practices (maximising democratic participation and decision-making). As discussed in the first commentary, often these cohere, but tensions can arise. The second commentary also raises the issue of epistemic justice, questioning the extent to which the villagers could have a say in the design, implementation and interpretation of the research, and the dangers of not hearing the voices and arguments of people who reject vaccination. The case and commentaries highlight the complexities of PAR and additional challenges in a public health context.
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The idea of self-care has been a central theme more recently with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people are seeking ways of existing that are about caring for self and others. As drama therapists and artists, the need for us to practise this care with and for others is even more important as we carry the burdens of stories and trauma of our clients. Drama therapy as a mental health modality is suited to address and offer strategies of what care and self-care especially for practitioners might look like. But what exactly are the traits of self-care and how does it link to our ethical caring practice of therapy and theatre-making? In this article, we argue that self-care needs to be redeemed from the individual focus and to be more about community. We offer recipes as performances of communal creation and a model of self-care that occurs with and for others. These recipes are meditations inspired by encounters with ourselves, our loved ones and our past. The article is presented in recipes and conversation form to emphasize the idea that caring cannot occur in isolation outside of others. We look at the moral imperative of rituals of care that have existed in our lives and how these can be brought to the fore to become shared knowledge. We share our experiences of growing up in a community of women who also practise kindness and love. We hope the techniques suggested deepen the existing conversation on centralizing Black women's knowledge systems and healing practices within the drama therapy canon. We do not assume to speak for all Black women everywhere in the world;we write to centre our experiences as Black women who are drama therapists who are accountable to other women. We encourage readers to create their own recipes of what community-centred self-care practices might look like. © 2023 Intellect Ltd Article. English language.
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The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the pressure on organizations to ensure health and safety in the workplace. An increasing number of organizations are considering wearables and physiolytics devices as part of their safe return to work programs so as to comply with governments' accountability rules. As with other technologies with ambivalent use (i.e., simultaneously beneficial and harmful), the introduction of these devices in work settings is met with skepticism. In this context, nudging strategies as a way of using design, information, and other ways to manipulate behaviors (system 1 nudge) and choices (system 2 nudge) has gained traction and is often applied alongside the introduction of ambivalent technologies with the aim to "nudge” their use. While the feasibility of different nudge strategies is often studied from only a managerial perspective, where employees' volitional autonomy and dignity is often treated as secondary, we explore which nudges are acceptable from the perspectives of ordinary workers. Using Q-methodology as a more evolutionary and participatory way to design nudges, we describe five basic strategies that are (to varying degrees) acceptable to them: (a) positive reinforcement and fun, (b) controlling the organizational environment, (c) self-responsibility, (d) collective responsibility, and (e) adapting the individual environment. Our findings show that there is a wide range of viewpoints on what is being considered an acceptable nudge and stress the importance of a transparent, equal dialogue between those who design nudges and potential nudgees. © Association for Information Technology Trust 2023.