This article considers how global ethical matters might be approached differently in the English-speaking literature if values salient in sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia were taken seriously. Specifically, after pointing out how indigenous values in both of these major parts of the world tend to prescribe honouring harmonious relationships, the article brings out what such an approach to morality entails for political power, foreign relations and criminal justice. For each major issue, it suggests that harmony likely has implications that (...) differ from approaches that currently dominate Western thought, namely those of utility, autonomy and capability. Lacking the space to systematically defend harmony as a fundamental value, it nonetheless urges theorists not to neglect it in future work. (shrink)

Global ethics is no ordinary subject. It includes some of the most urgent and momentous issues the world faces, such as extreme poverty and climate change. Given this, any adequate review of that subject should, I suggest, ask some questions about the relation between what those working in that subject do and the real-world phenomena that are the object of their study. The main question I focus on in this essay is this: should academics and others working in (...) the field of global ethics take new measures aimed at having more real-world positive impact on the phenomena they study? Should they take new measures, that is, aimed at bringing about more improvements in those phenomena, improvements such as reductions in extreme poverty and in emissions of greenhouse gases? I defend a positive answer to this question against some objections, and also discuss some of the kinds of measure we might take in an attempt to have more positive impact. (shrink)

Drawing on the work of Enrique Dussel, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, and other scholars of colonialism, this essay traces colonialist legacies in the popular global-ethics literature. I argue that colonialist elements implicit in prominent global-ethics anthologies can foster attitudes of superiority over and aloofness toward economically struggling communities, even when the texts argue for aid to “the global poor.” Finally, I offer suggestions for how those of us who study and teach global ethics in (...) the affluent world might begin to unsettle colonialist baggage and cultivate skills more conducive to democratic global communities. (shrink)

This paper traces the ethnocentric structure of U.S.-published anthologies in global ethics and related fields and it examines the ethical and philosophical implications of such ethnocentrism. The author argues that the ethnocentric structure of prominent work in global ethics not only impairs the field's ability to prepare students for global citizenship but contributes to the ideological processes that maintain global inequities. In conclusion, the author makes a case that fuller engagement with global-South and (...) indigenous writers on global issues can encourage U.S. students and scholars to examine more closely the ideologies that order our lives and to risk the kind of selfexamination that is necessary in order to build effective relationships with diverse global communities. (shrink)

A second look at a global ethics forum of several years ago can be a good start for examination of ethics of countries we deal with today. This global ethics forum had been financed by the United Kingdom’s DFID, The World Bank, USAID and AusAid to enable delegates from seventy countries to meet and discuss ethics policies.

This article addresses two issues. First, it critiques a prominent position regarding how affluent states should balance their national interest on the one hand and their duty to aid developing states on the other. Second, it suggests that absent a principled way to balance national interest with international aid, a state’s more immediate concern is to comply with its negative duty to not harm other states. To support this position, the article constructs a conception of harm that may be applied (...) to questions regarding a state’s negative duties, focusing upon the example of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS). (shrink)

The need for global values in a globalised world is combined with the need for contextual identity. New nationalisms, protectionisms and fundamentalisms are mixed with a globalised pluralistic relativism. Are global values threatened by particular values? Find answers within the 32 articles of this book. In each of the articles the authors, who are all in one way or another linked to Globethics.net, writing from one of four continents, focus and develop on a particular value or virtue in (...) a specific geographic, cultural or religious context. Many of them also give an input to the understanding of the value-basis of the UN-Sustainable Development Goals SDGs and give orientation for “values-driven leadership”, a key vision and mission of Globethics.net. (shrink)

Well-Being in African Philosophy: Insights for a Global Ethics of Development, edited by Bolaji Bateye, Mahmoud Masaeli, Louise Müller, and Angela Roothaan, explores the notion of well-being in African and intercultural philosophy and its insights into global ethics of development. Drawing from longstanding debates on communitarianism in the context of personhood in African philosophy, as well as those in intercultural philosophy, the diverse contributors present manifold ways to philosophize about well-being from African contexts. Hailing from sub-Saharan (...) Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, they address questions of human well-being related to the major global challenges of our time, such as climate change and socio-economic, gender, and racial inequality in society, education, and organization. This collection, building on the work of African independence philosophers as well as oral traditions from a critical development studies perspective, offers fresh views on well-being, development, and morality, thus contributing to global ethics from an African vantage point. (shrink)

An account of two sources of the "minimal global ethic," one interpretive and the other creative. Humour, more specifically slapstick, is the interpretive source, while "revelation" as present in both Rabbinic Judaism and Modernism is the creative source. The question of the ethic and conflict is then briefly discussed. This version, posted 22 January 2023, is a revised form of the chapter from the book published in 2009.

One of the most popular concepts in recent times is globalization. Globalization is a complex and multifaceted concept that has generated controversy from its meaning, its tenets, and its future as well as whether it is serving the interest of all or it is benefiting just a few countries or individuals in the world. Throughout the process of human development, philosophers have constantly worked to clarify the meaning of right and wrong, justice and injustice, of fairness and basic human rights. (...) These had won philosophical concepts that can be very useful in reasoning about globalization in praxis to Africa values. Globalization has also produced benefits and harms. Globalization is a process integrating not just the economy but, culture, technology, and governance. This paper examines some of the ethical problems of globalization in this 21st century. (shrink)

Peter Millican and Branden Thornhill-Miller have recently argued that contradictions between different religious belief systems, in conjunction with the host of defeaters based on empirical research concerning alleged sources of evidence for ‘perceived supernatural agency’, render all ‘first-order’, that is actual, religious traditions positively irrational, and a source of discord on a global scale. However, since the authors recognise that the ‘secularisation thesis’ appears to be incorrect, and that empirical research provides evidence that religious belief also has beneficial individual (...) and social effects, they put forward a hypothesis of a ‘second-order religious belief ’, with Universalist overtones and thus free of intergroup conflict, and free of irrationality, since supported (solely) by the Fine-Tuning Argument. While granting most of their arguments based on empirical research and embracing the new paradigm of the atheism/religion debate implicit in their paper, I contend that Millican’s and Thornhill-Miller’s proposal is unlikely to appeal to religious believers, because it misconstrues the nature and grounds of religious belief. I suggest that their hypothesis may be refined by taking into account a view of axiologically grounded religious belief that I refer to as ‘agatheism’, since it identifies God or the Ultimate Reality with the ultimate good (to agathon). (shrink)

This paper describes Wittgenstein's pre-theoretical transcendentalist conception of ethics and the challenge it presents for the kind of global cosmopolitan perspective required of any multinational social responsibility strategy. It is argued that this challenge can be overcome through establishing a sense of solidarity with all stakeholders via a corporate social compact rooted in what Wittgenstein refers to as spontaneous agreement and sympathy. Contemporary examples of successful strategies are provided.

Citizens of liberal, affluent societies are regularly encouraged to support reforms meant to improve conditions for badly-off people in the developing world. Our economic and political support is solicited for causes such as: banning child labor, implementing universal primary education, closing down sweatshops and brothels, etc. But what if the relevant populations or individuals in the developing world do not support these particular reforms or aid programs? What if they would strongly prefer other reforms and programs, or would rank the (...) various benefits that might be offered differently than seems reasonable to the Western, liberal supporters of these campaigns and organizations? What is the proper liberal response here? I argue that the proper liberal response is to support those programs and reforms that the global poor most value. The bulk of the paper is devoted to arguing against the popular liberal argument which states that we can safely disregard the preferences of the oppressed when they seem very unreasonable because these individuals suffer from “adaptive preferences.” This typically is taken to mean that their preferences are “not their own” in an important sense. I put forward various different proposals for why adaptive preferences can be safely dismissed, but ultimately argue that they are not persuasive. And if it is no longer legitimate to appeal to adaptive preferences as a basis for disregarding what oppressed people want, then I argue that to do so is straightforward paternalism, and so is unjustifiable in all but the most extreme cases. Finally, I argue for the following concrete recommendations: Given that resources are not infinite, we should (1) Support programs that give oppressed people increased access to information, such as access to technology, (2) support those reforms and aid programs that the oppressed themselves regard as most important, with special emphasis on those opportunities for education that they deem valuable, and (3) refrain from supporting coercive policies intended to thwart adaptive preferences. (shrink)

The debate about justice in immigration seems somehow stagnated given that it seems justice requires both further exclusion and more porous borders. In the face of this, I propose to take a step back and to realize that the general problem of borders—to determine what kind of borders liberal democracies ought to have—gives rise to two particular problems: first, to justify exclusive control over the administration of borders (the problem of legitimacy of borders) and, second, to specify how this control (...) ought to be exercised (the problem of justice of borders). The literature has explored the second but ignored the first. Therefore, I propose a different approach to the ethics of immigration by focusing on concerns of legitimacy in a three-step framework: first, identifying the kind of authority or power that immigration controls exercise; second, redefining borders as international and domestic institutions that issue that kind of power; and finally, considering supranational institutions that redistribute the right to exclude among legitimate borders. (shrink)

In this article, we propose the Fair Priority Model for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and emphasize three fundamental values we believe should be considered when distributing a COVID-19 vaccine among countries: Benefiting people and limiting harm, prioritizing the disadvantaged, and equal moral concern for all individuals. The Priority Model addresses these values by focusing on mitigating three types of harms caused by COVID-19: death and permanent organ damage, indirect health consequences, such as health care system strain and stress, as well as (...) economic destruction. It proposes proceeding in three phases: the first addresses premature death, the second long-term health issues and economic harms, and the third aims to contain viral transmission fully and restore pre-pandemic activity. -/- To those who may deem an ethical framework irrelevant because of the belief that many countries will pursue "vaccine nationalism," we argue such a framework still has broad relevance. Reasonable national partiality would permit countries to focus on vaccine distribution within their borders up until the rate of transmission is below 1, at which point there would not be sufficient vaccine-preventable harm to justify retaining a vaccine. When a government reaches the limit of national partiality, it should release vaccines for other countries. -/- We also argue against two other recent proposals. Distributing a vaccine proportional to a country's population mistakenly assumes that equality requires treating differently situated countries identically. Prioritizing countries according to the number of front-line health care workers, the proportion of the population over 65, and the number of people with comorbidities within each country may exacerbate disadvantage and end up giving the vaccine in large part to wealthy nations. (shrink)

This article explains and examines the ethical implications of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy for human development and global peace. The article addresses the problem of whether Kant’s philosophy advances human development and global peace. I argue that Kant’s philosophy promotes human development and global peace. The argument is based on the following premises: Kant’s moral philosophy supports reverence for humanity. Reverence for humanity promotes the cultivation of human potential, such as rationality. Kant considers rationality a property par excellence (...) in human persons, making them superior to other animals; so, rationality is a guiding principle that makes human persons worthy of reverence. Rationality helps resolve conflicts among people in a society. Moreover, Kant’s political philosophy promotes cooperation among states, eventually leading to global peace. Peace and human development depend on each other: human development develops positive peace, and negative peace augments human development. Kant’s ethics of reverence for humanity promotes positive peace, while his politics of cosmopolitan rights creates negative peace among states. Negative peace is the absence of violence, while positive peace refers to activities affirming life. In general, Kant’s moral and political philosophy is characteristically rational and cosmopolitan, which strives to cultivate natural capacities among human persons across the states, which enhances human development and global peace. In the arena of qualitative research, this article uses the method of empirically informed philosophical analysis to examine journal papers, scholarly books, proceedings of conferences, and congresses. (shrink)

This paper examines visual representation from a distinctive, interdisciplinary perspective that draws on ethics, visual studies and critical race theory. Suggests ways to clarify complex issues of representational ethics in marketing communications and marketing representations, suggesting an analysis that makes identity creation central to societal marketing concerns. Analyzes representations of the exotic Other in disparate marketing campaigns, drawing upon tourist promotions, advertisements, and mundane objects in material culture. Moreover, music is an important force in marketing communication: visual representations (...) in music promotions are also explored as data for inquiry. Offers an alternative to phenomenologically based approaches in marketing and consumer research scholarship that use consumer responses to generate data. Contributes additional insight into societal marketing and places global marketing processes within the intersection of ethics, aesthetics and representation. (shrink)

This paper considers the obligation higher income countries have to lower and middle income countries during a global pandemic. Further considers which reforms are needed to the global supply-chain of medical resources. The short-comings in distribution and medical infrastructure have exacerbated the health crisis in developing countries. Global justice demands radical redistribution of medical resources in order to prevent mass casualties. This is argued first by highlighting that the COVID-19 pandemic should be acknowledged as an issue of (...) global justice, secondly, higher income countries ought to account for distribution inequity as a matter of rectifying past injustices, and thirdly argue for reform in distribution while considering the vaccine rollout as a prime example. We aim to show how the differences from country to country in response capabilities are a result of the economic foundation colonialism established and a direct result of cyclical poverty, which wealthy countries perpetuate to this day. (shrink)

The paper argues that Information Ethics (IE) can provide a successful approach for coping with the challenges posed by our increasingly globalized reality. After a brief review of some of the most fundamental transformations brought about by the phenomenon of globalization, the article distinguishes between two ways of understanding Global Information Ethics, as an ethics of global communication or as a global-information ethics. It is then argued that cross-cultural, successful interactions among micro and (...) macro agents call for a high level of successful communication, that the latter requires a shared ontology friendly towards the implementation of moral actions, and that this is provided by IE. There follows a brief account of IE and of the ontic trust, the hypothetical pact between all agents and patients presupposed by IE. (shrink)

Both philosophical and practical analyses of global justice issues have been vitiated by two errors: a too-high emphasis on the supposed duties of collectives to act, and a too-low emphasis on the analysis of causes and risks. Concentrating instead on the duties of individual actors and analysing what they can really achieve reconfigures the field. It diverts attention from individual problems such as poverty or refugees or questions on what states should do. Instead it shows that there are different (...) duties for political leaders, intelligence operatives, opinion leaders and citizens in devising, urging and implementing such plans as transfers of aid with accountability, military interventions in rogue states and limited intakes of refugees. With collectivist excuses for inaction such as sovereignty out of the way, it is possible to take a cautiously optimistic view of the possibility of forceful and morally responsible interventions in the range of major global problems. (shrink)

This paper asks what should be the basis of a global environmental ethics. As Gao Shan has argued, the environmental ethics of Western philosophers such as Holmes Rolston and Paul Taylor is based on extending the notion of intrinsic value to that of objects of nature, and as such it is not very compatible with Chinese ethics. This is related to Gao’s rejection of most—if not all—Western “rationalist” environmental ethics, a stance that I grant her (...) for pragmatic reasons (though I remain neutral about it theoretically). Gao argues that the Daoist notion of living in harmony with nature can instead become the basis of a Chinese environmental ethics. However, the involved Daoist conception of living in harmony with nature is, in my view, based on an aesthetic property. The paper argues that despite the appeal of the Daoist view for a Chinese environmental ethics, an aesthetic property cannot provide the basis for a global environmental ethics. The paper also considers another version of Daoist environmental ethics, which does not rely on an aesthetic notion, but I argue that it too fails as such a candidate. As an alternative, the paper considers and applies contemporary Western thinkers on gratitude (such as Robert Emmons and Elizabeth Loder), proposing that gratitude to nature (environmental gratitude) can indeed provide the needed basis. (shrink)

The context of international health research involving human subjects, and this should appear obvious, is the human community. As such, basic questions of how human beings should be treated by other human beings, particularly in situations of unequal power – e.g., in the form of control, choice, or opportunity – lay at the foundations of related ethical discourse when ethics are discussed at all. I trace a narrative that follows upon a recent revision process of international guidelines for biomedical (...) research involving human subjects. I focus in particular upon the issue of a standard of care. In the second section, I draw upon philosophers John Rawls, Claudia Card, and Allen Buchanan to discuss concerns regarding the 'least advantaged members of society' in the context of global inequality. The paper includes reflections upon pedagogy in courses focused upon international health research involving human subjects. (shrink)

COVID-19 vaccination of children has begun in various high-income countries with regulatory approval and general public support, but largely without careful ethical consideration. This trend is expected to extend to other COVID-19 vaccines and lower ages as clinical trials progress. This paper provides an ethical analysis of COVID-19 vaccination of healthy children. Specifically, we argue that it is currently unclear whether routine COVID-19 vaccination of healthy children is ethically justified in most contexts, given the minimal direct benefit that COVID-19 vaccination (...) provides to children, the potential for rare risks to outweigh these benefits and undermine vaccine confidence, and substantial evidence that COVID-19 vaccination confers adequate protection to risk groups, such as older adults, without the need to vaccinate healthy children. We conclude that child COVID-19 vaccination in wealthy communities before adults in poor communities worldwide is ethically unacceptable and consider how policy deliberations might evolve in light of future developments. (shrink)

Kant divides moral duties into duties of virtue and duties of justice. Duties of virtue are imperfect duties, the fulfillment of which is left to agent discretion and so cannot be externally demanded of one. Duties of justice, while perfect, seem to be restricted to negative duties (of nondeception and noncoercion). It may seem then that Kant's moral philosophy cannot meet the demands of global justice. I argue, however, that Kantian justice when applied to the social and historical realities (...) of the world can generate positive duties to promote and provide for the well being of others. (shrink)

Scientific literacy is built on critical thinking. The postbaccalaureate workforce enhances our economies and societies by contributing a wealth of knowledge and skill sets to local communities, respective industries, and beyond as our world becomes increasingly interconnected. Education in scientific literacy should teach students how to learn about science and how to cultivate and communicate a positive attitude about science. Learners in a 200-level nonmajors biotechnology course engaged with a series of ethical dilemmas after mastering the basic elements of argument (...) structure and advanced tools in argument evaluation. To introduce collaboration as a constructive process in undergraduate education, student interactions with peers require guidance, flexibility, and compassion to learn from each other. Students gain critical thinking mastery from two modules addressing how we argue and evaluate claims. Students apply these critical thinking skills to various ethical arguments involving responsible conduct of research training. Using our structured and interdisciplinary approach, new scholars learn through practice how to read, analyze, and evaluate research scenarios and respond to potential ethical situations. This strategy allows students to develop important scholarly skills, including a systematic approach to evaluating credibility and applying generosity to theirs and others' understanding of their circumstances. (shrink)

We consider an ethical dilemma in global health: is it ethically acceptable to provide some patients cheaper treatments that are less effective or more toxic than the treatments other patients receive? We argue that it is ethical to consider local resource constraints when deciding what interventions to provide. The provision of cheaper, less effective health care is frequently the most effective way of promoting health and realizing the ethical values of utility, equality, and priority to the worst off.

This article fosters the significance of Muhammad Iqbal’s pacifist ethics in the post-9/11 world. In the post-9/11, there emerged a new world order in which violence emerged in many guises, including terrorism and war, which has devastated global peace since the advent of the twenty-first century. Undeniably, the threat of a nuclear war has been constantly harassing the world. Under these atrocious conditions, the question is whether Iqbal’s pacifist ethics could help achieve and sustain global peace. (...) Iqbal was an empirically informed and trained philosopher in the early twentieth century in the Western and Islamic traditions. He witnessed the First World War and identified the factors of the Second World War, which had started just a year after his death. Iqbal identified that materialistic interests and colonial and imperial exploitations cause conflicts, eventually leading to violence and war. The recurrent problem is how we avoid the Third World War to sustain global peace. Iqbal’s ethics offer two ideas for achieving global peace: reverence for humanity and human fraternity. Reverence for humanity helps develop human potential, which promotes creative activities vital for positive peace. Human fraternity is the only dependable unity among human beings, despite their particular races, colours, cultures, or languages, for acquiring global peace. The article thus demonstrates the relevance and significance of Iqbal’s ethics in achieving and sustaining a peaceful co- existence in the world. (shrink)

Ethics dumping is an ongoing practice in collaborative research. Despite the existence of ethical review boards, some notable discrepancy in governance and integration persists. This paper is a chronological book review of a 15-chapter book titled, "Ethics Dumping: Case Studies from North-South Research Collaborations," compiled from individual authors and edited by Schroeder, Cook, Hirch, Fenet, and Muthuswami in 2018. This book review aims to ensure ever-increasing attention to the numerous ways of ethics dumping and incite further research (...) into the matter. The book is a must-read for researchers, ethicists, policymakers in research institutions, and students (especially graduate students). (shrink)

The idea of geoengineering, or the intentional modification of the Earth's atmosphere to reverse the global warming trend, has entered a working theory stage, finding expression in a variety of proposed projects, such as launching reflective materials into the Earth's atmosphere, positioning sunshades over the planet's surface, depositing iron filings into the oceans to encourage phytoplankton blooms, and planting more trees, to name only a few.

Introduction: There is currently no binding, internationally accepted and successful approach to ensure global equitable access to healthcare during a pandemic. The aim of this ethical analysis is to bring into the discussion a legally regulated vaccine allocation as a possible strategy for equitable global access to vaccines. We focus our analysis on COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access) and an existing EU regulation that, after adjustment, could promote global vaccine allocation. -/- Methods: The main documents discussing (...) the two strategies are examined with a qualitative content analysis. The ethical values reasonableness, openness and transparency, inclusiveness, responsiveness and accountability serve as categories for our ethical analysis. -/- Results: We observed that the decision-making processes in a legal solution to expand access to vaccines would be more transparent than in COVAX initiative, would be more inclusive, especially of nation states, and the values responsiveness and accountability could be easily incorporated in the development of a new regulation. -/- Discussion: A legal strategy that offers incentives to the pharmaceutical industry in return for global distribution of vaccines according to the Fair Priority Model is an innovative way to achieve global and equitable access to vaccines. However, in the long term, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals will require from all nations to work in solidarity to find durable solutions for global vaccine research and development. Interim solutions, such as our proposed legal strategy for equitable access to vaccines, and efforts to find long-term solutions must be advanced in parallel. (shrink)

The large number of hungry people in a global economy based on industrialization, privatization, and free trade raises the question of the ethical dimensions of the worsening food crisis in the world in general and in developing countries in particular. Who bears the moral responsibility for the tragic situation in Africa and Asia where people are starving due to poverty? Who is morally responsible for their poverty - the hungry people themselves? the international community? any particular agency or institution? (...) In the context of Article 3 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security" (UNDHR, 1948), the ethical question of poverty and hunger becomes a major human concern that should be discussed publicly and resolved by whatever means available. But how can the poor and hungry realize their right to life and security if their very survival is at stake? This paper maintains that responsibility for global poverty at present lies in recent neo-liberal trends in the global economy and with those individuals and organizations who, though small in number, have acquired a disproportionate share of the world's assets and financial resources. That being the case, it is suggested that our monetary and financial policies are in need of drastic changes with regard to global responsibility towards the hungry and impoverished. (shrink)

Moral expressivists think that moral thoughts and sentences don’t represent or describe the world, at least not in any interesting sense. Global expressivists think that _no_ thoughts or sentences represent the world; local expressivists think that some do and others don’t. Huw Price has influentially argued that local expressivism collapses into global expressivism, due both to the effects of minimalist theories of representation and similar concepts, and to an unappreciated consequence of the success of specific expressivist theories like (...) moral expressivism. In this paper I argue that Price’s arguments don’t succeed. While they can be fixed, doing so makes them miss their intended target. Local expressivists should therefore not be worried by Price’s arguments. (shrink)

This chapter explores global debunking arguments, debunking arguments that aim to give one a global defeater. I defend Alvin Plantinga’s view that global defeaters are possible and, once gained, are impossible to escape by reasoning. They thereby must be extinguished by other means: epistemically propitious actions, luck, or grace. I then distinguish between three types of global defeater—pure-undercutters, undercutters-because-rebutters, and undercutters-while-rebutters—and systematically consider how one can deflect such defeaters. Lastly, since I draw insights from the literature (...) on perhaps the most widely discussed global debunking argument in the literature, Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism, I end up responding to many potential problems for it. This includes the so-called conditionalization problem, as well as those raised by Bergmann (2002), Law (2012), Deem (2018), Hendricks and Anderson (2020), and Wielenberg (in Craig and Wielenberg (2021)). (shrink)

Analysing the demands of global justice for the distribution of resources is a complex task and requires consideration of a broad range of issues. Of particular relevance is the effect that different distributions will have on global population growth and individual welfare. Since changes in the consumption and distribution of resources can have major effects on the welfare of the global population, and the rate at which it increases, it is important to establish meaningful principles to ensure (...) a just distribution of resources. In order to establish such principles we must consider the scope of any reproductive rights, and rights to other goods, such as food and health care, as well as examine the extent of duties correlating to those rights. In addition to the impact that distributions of global goods have on the welfare of current generations, it is also important to consider what duties we have, if any, to future generations. -/- The final version of this paper is available to download here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470015902.a0024140. (shrink)

The Global Forum on Bioethics in Research (GFBR) served as a global platform for debate on ethical issues in international health research between 1999 and 2008, bringing together research ethics experts, researchers, policy makers and community members from developing and developed countries. In total, nine GFBR meetings were held on six continents. Work is currently underway to revive the GFBR. This paper describes the purpose and history of the GFBR and presents key elements for its reinstatement, future (...) functioning and sustainability. Potential participants and sponsors are encouraged to contribute actively to the future of this unique international research ethics event. (shrink)

We have two goals in this paper: first, to provide a diagnosis of global health and underline some of its blockages; second, to offer an alternative interpretation of what the demands for those in global health may be. The assumption that health is a good that requires no further explanation, and that per se it can serve as an actual modus operandi, lays the foundations of the problem. Related blockages ensue and are described using HIV prevention with a (...) focus on vaginal microbicides as a case study. Taking health as a self-evident, and self-explanatory “good” limits other possible goods; and prevents inquiry into the actual practices of creating good. We propose that to create conditions under which global health could be reconstructed, problematization be taken up as a practice, around a series of questions asked in conjunction with those ever-urgent ones of how to ameliorate the condition of living beings. (shrink)

As global business operations expand, managers need more knowledge of foreign cultures, in particular, information on the ethics of doing business across borders. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to share the Islamic perspective on business ethics, little known in the west, which may stimulate further thinking and debate on the relationships between ethics and business, and to provide some knowledge of Islamic philosophy in order to help managers do business in Muslim cultures. The case (...) of Egypt illustrates some divergence between Islamic philosophy and practice in economic life. The paper concludes with managerial implications and suggestions for further research. (shrink)

This open-access issue aims to highlight views about justice in a pandemic context from Latin American countries and to contribute to the dialogue between them as well as with the global scientific community. It explores the global challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, relevant differences between public health measures and their impact on high-income countries versus low- or middle-income countries, and how global injustice deepened because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also draws attention to experiences, outcomes, and responses (...) to the pandemic from the global north regarding vulnerable populations and exposure paths that are also present in Latin America. (shrink)

Surveillance programs supporting the management of One Health issues such as antibiotic resistance are complex systems in themselves. Designing ethical surveillance systems is thus a complex task (retroactive and iterative), yet one that is also complicated to implement and evaluate (e.g., sharing, collaboration, and governance). The governance of health surveillance requires attention to ethical concerns about data and knowledge (e.g., performance, trust, accountability, and transparency) and empowerment ethics, also referred to as a form of responsible self-governance. Ethics in (...) reflexive governance operates as a systematic critical-thinking procedure that aims to define its value: What are the “right” criteria to justify how to govern “good” actions for a “better” future? The objective is to lay the foundations for a methodological framework in empirical bioethics, the rudiments of which have been applied to a case study to building reflexive governance in One Health. This ongoing critical thinking process involves “mapping, framing, and shaping” the dynamics of interests and perspectives that could jeopardize a “better” future. This paper proposes to hybridize methods to combine insights from collective deliberation and expert evaluation through a reflexive governance functioning as a community-based action-ethics methodology. The intention is to empower individuals and associations in a dialogue with society, which operation is carried out using a case study approach on data sharing systems. We based our reasoning on a feasibility study conducted in Québec, Canada (2018–2021), envisioning an antibiotic use surveillance program in animal health for 2023. Using the adaptive cycle and governance techniques and perspectives, we synthesize an alternative governance model rooted in the value of empowerment. The framework, depicted as a new “research and design (R&D)” practice, is linking operation and innovation by bridging the gap between Reflexive, Evaluative, and Deliberative reasonings and by intellectualizing the management of democratizing critical thinking locally (collective ethics) by recognizing its context (social ethics). Drawing on the literature in One Health and sustainable development studies, this article describes how a communitarian and pragmatic approach can broaden the vision of feasibility studies to ease collaboration through public-private-academic partnerships. The result is a process that “reassembles” the One Health paradigm under the perspective of global bioethics to create bridges between the person and the ecosystem through pragmatic ethics. (shrink)

Technologies to rapidly alert people when they have been in contact with someone carrying the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 are part of a strategy to bring the pandemic under control. Currently, at least 47 contact-tracing apps are available globally. They are already in use in Australia, South Korea and Singapore, for instance. And many other governments are testing or considering them. Here we set out 16 questions to assess whether — and to what extent — a contact-tracing app is ethically justifiable.

It is natural to think of political philosophy as being concerned with reflection on some of the ways in which groups of human beings come together to confront together the problems that they face together: in other words, as the domain, par excellence, of collective action. From this point of view it might seem surprising that the notion of collective obligation rarely assumes centre-stage within the subject. If there are, or can be, collective obligations, then these must surely constrain the (...) ways in which we can act collectively. Indeed, one might even suspect that considerations about collective obligations ought to play a central role in demarcating the form that any legitimate form of political organization ought to take. -/- Elsewhere I have argued that we have good reasons for accepting the existence of global collective obligations - in other words, collective obligations which fall on the world’s population as a whole.(Wringe 2006, 2010, forthcoming, under review) For example, the existence of such obligations provides a plausible solution to a problem which is sometimes thought to arise if we think that individuals have a right to have their basic needs satisfied. In this paper, I shall argue that in many situations, forward-looking global obligations give rise to an obligation on individuals to work towards bringing into existence and support an institutional system which will enable their obligations to be met. Call such an obligation the ‘Obligation to Promote Satisfactory Global Institutions.’ I shall also examine a significant challenge to this line of argument, which I call the ‘Pluralist Challenge’ One might suppose that the ‘Obligation to Promote Satisfactory Global Institutions’ could be met by providing strategic support to attempts to modify and extend existing international institutions. After all, creating new institutions is a difficult matter: perhaps it would be better, especially where stringent obligations are concerned, to concentrate on those institutions which we already have. On the other hand, existing international institutions are subject to a range of significant moral and ethical criticisms. It would simply be naïve to suppose that their existence of such institutions is based on an international consensus about what justice requires; and it is not clear how we could motivate individuals who have severe ethical reservations about the existence of such institutions, or why we should wish to. This suggests that those who think that there are global collective obligations, and that such obligations should play an important role in shaping how we think of international distributive justice are faced with a significant dilemma: either support a program of extending and strengthening existing institutions in a way which risks entrenching some existing forms of injustice; or commit oneself to a program of attempting to build new institutions which will have to compete with those institutions we have already and which are unlikely to be in a position to meet help us to discharge our collective obligations at any point in the near future. Neither option seems satisfactory. I shall argue that our response should be to look for plausible ethical constraints on how international institutions should be developed, and suggest that these constraints are likely to take a cosmopolitan form. (shrink)

Our aim in this paper is to suggest that most current theories of global justice fail to adequately recognise the importance of global public goods. Broadly speaking, this failing can be attributed at least in part to the complexity of the global context, the individualistic focus of most theories of justice, and the localised nature of the theoretical foundations of most theories of global justice. We argue ? using examples (particularly that of protecting antibiotic efficacy) ? (...) that any truly effective theory of global justice must recognise the importance of global public goods. Global public goods confer significant benefits to individuals yet can only be effectively promoted and preserved through collective action and the restriction of individual choice; something which most theories of justice are structurally unequipped to sufficiently promote. (shrink)

Rights-based approaches and consequentialist approaches to ethics are often seen as being diametrically opposed to one another. In one sense, they are. In another sense, however, they can be reconciled: a ‘global’ form of consequentialism might supply consequentialist foundations for a derivative morality that is non-consequentialist, and perhaps rights-based, in content. By way of case study to illustrate how this might work, I survey what a global consequentialist should think about a recent dispute between Jeff McMahan and (...) Henry Shue on the morality and laws of war. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of speculative anticipation in ethics during the COVID-19 pandemic and provides a structure to think about ethical decision-making in times of extreme uncertainty. We identify three different but interwoven domains within which speculative anticipation can be found: global, local, and projective anticipation. Our analysis aims to open possibilities of seeing the situatedness of others both locally and globally in order to address larger social issues that have been laid bare by the presence of (...) SARS-CoV-2. Our account of speculative anticipation builds on the analyses of the gendered impact of anticipation in technoscience by Vincanne Adams, Michelle Murphy and Adele Clarke; studies in cultural anthropology by Ann Laura Stoler; and the recent research on speculative fiction by Esther Jones. Like theirs, ours is intended to be useful. We offer it as a tool to recast questions and revisit assumptions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is hoped that by using the frame of the ethics of speculative anticipation, one might be able to consider how to avoid those futures that reproduce inequity, and instead actively and responsibly envision those futures that are informed by equity and sustainability. (shrink)

The COVID-19 global pandemic has shone a light on several important ethical questions, ranging from fairness in resource allocation to the ethical justification of government mandates. In addition to these institutional issues, there are also several ethical questions that arise at the interpersonal level. This essay focuses on several of these issues. In particular, I argue that, despite the insistence in public health messaging that avoiding infecting others constitutes ‘saving lives’, virus transmission that results in death constitutes an act (...) of killing. Whether this killing is wrongful depends on several factors. I consider one intuitively plausible view—namely, that in many cases, killing via unintentional transmission is not wrongful, because the parties in question have implicitly waived their rights against this harm, often via reciprocal risk imposition. I argue that this view is mistaken, but that its central insight can be better captured by identifying the appropriate standards of blame that we ought to apply during a pandemic. I conclude by showing how these conclusions can be fruitfully applied to certain institutional questions, such as helping to justify restricting government mandates. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Drawing upon John Rawls's framework inThe Law of Peoples,this paper argues that MNEs have a responsibility to promote well-ordered social and political institutions in host countries that lack them. This responsibility is grounded in a negative duty not to cause harm. In addition to addressing the objection that promoting well-ordered institutions represents unjustified interference by MNEs, the paper provides guidance for managers of MNEs operating in host countries that lack just institutions. The paper argues for understanding corporate responsibility in relation (...) to the specific institutional environment in which MNEs operate. (shrink)