Practical Ethics

Life Ethics

Everyone has his set of rules governing the important decisions in life (OK, almost everyone). One interesting question is how does one build this set of rules and what does ultimately influences the course of his or her life. It's well known that the environment is an important factor, usually the family values, education, life meaning. But is there also something else, something you're born with?

Contrary, to popular belief, a recent study featured recently on the free link directory found that age of death is most influenced by one single factor: your genes. Whether you smoke, drink alcohool, eat right so on and so forth, play a smaller role that the genetic material you're born with. The correlation is not completly clear but one day you may know accurately how much you have left to live (factoring out accidents and WWIII).

Is it the same with ethics? Do you have innate ethics and acquired ethics? Could you screen a child at birth and see whether he's going to be a decent man or a criminal? Eventually yes, but don't worry about it. Not in this lifetime!

Congress, courts, and commerce: upholding the individual mandate to protect the public's health.

The discussion on Congress, courts, and commerce from the latest edition of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics ask a hard question: is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in violation of the constitution? The PPACA is a relatively new law (signed by president Barack Obama in 2010) which, among many others, requires American citizens to obtain health insurance by 2014 orface civil penalties ($95 of 1% of income, whichever is greater).

The PPACA, despite numerous overall improvements in the US health system, encountered many problems so far in court, over its status relative to the constitution. Essentially,  the act allegedly violates the constitution, or more exactly the Congress' interstate commerce powers, because Congress lacks the power to regulate commercial "inactivity." While many courts initially dismissed the argument, federal courts in Florida and Virginia have sustained it, giving birth to what might be a long story.

The legal challenges surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act set the stage for a long battle in courts across America, harming ultimately the average Joe. To quote from the Journal

Despite historic efforts to enact the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) (1) in 2010, national health reform is threatened by multiple legal challenges grounded in constitutional law. Premier among these claims is the premise that PPACA's "individual mandate" (requiring all individuals to obtain health insurance by 2014 or face civil penalties (2)) is constitutionally infirm. (3) Attorneys General in Virginia and Florida (joined by 25 other states) allege that Congress' interstate commerce powers do not authorize federal imposition of the individual mandate because Congress lacks the power to regulate commercial "inactivity" (4) Stated simply, Congress cannot regulate individuals who choose not to obtain health insurance because they are not engaged in a commercial venture. Several courts initially considering this argument have rejected it, but two federal district courts in Virginia and Florida have concurred, leading to numerous appeals (5) and the near promise of United States Supreme Court review. (6)

In what continues, the authors offer a different interpretation, that would not have any constitutional problem. In a nutshell, the act does not refer to commercial activity per se (i.e., obtaining health insurance), but it attempts to solve the greater problem of healthcare accessibillity. More details are available in the Law & Politcs Directory. Under this interpretation, the question turns to whether:

Congress' interstate commerce power extends to commercial inactivity, but rather whether it authorizes Congress to regulate individual decisions with significant economic ramifications in the interests of protecting and promoting the public's health. 

As of today, this is an open topic, to be resolved in federal courts over the next few months or years. We invite you to read the entire intepretation in the Sep 22 issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics.

Ethical Dilemmas: How Much to Help the Students

The idea that teachers should be available to students needing extra help with assignments or related problems in understanding course material is not new. However, opportunities to actually get that help under the traditional "teacher-tell" model of education were limited. Some teachers included office hours in the course syllabus, but were sometimes not there. Not all teachers arrived early or stayed a few minutes after class to make themselves available to answer questions or provide additional guidance.

Today we know that understanding the unique needs of students promotes better learning. Contemporary teachers offer multiple ways students in need of assistance can contact them. Many trainers now arrive early and stay late when possible. Internet technology supplements office hours and some teachers even go so far as to provide home telephone numbers to students in need.

Does this pose a potential problem for teachers?

The truth is, as hard as we try to make ourselves readily available, some students have a difficult time asking for help, no matter how easy we make it for them to do so. In this sense, increased availability does not absolve the contemporary teacher of the responsibility to be on the alert for students who do need extra help, but are reluctant to ask for it.

In theory, perceived special treatment is another ethical dilemma some teachers and trainers feel they face when confronted with repeated requests for help from certain students.

One concern is that the majority of the class that manages to get along fine without extra help will resent the time spent with slower learners who need more help. Such resentment can then get in the way of their own efforts if these students feel they are not being treated fairly. In practice, however, the perception of special treatment often exists only in the mind of the worried teacher.

Another concern is the incremental creep that can happen when we provide help to one student over time. The student who asks a question today, and then another tomorrow, and then another - there is nothing obviously wrong with this. But, what happens when each question is part of a larger whole, such as an assignment or project? When does answering their questions reduce the integrity of the assessment process: will we end up judging their competency by our own work?

Students are often more in tune to each other than we think. They know who in a class the truly slower students are that are in genuine need of a significant amount of extra help. So long as a teacher makes himself or herself equally available to everyone, there is rarely a favoritism issue with giving too much help to selected students. On the contrary, the perception that a teacher really cares enough to provide needed help can have a positive impact on the entire class.

But there is another issue to consider. And that is the potential for robbing students of the opportunity to figure things out on their own. Once you open the door, some students will never stop knocking, even if they could find their own way. Giving help to students might be more of an art than a science.

The art is knowing how much help to give while still ensuring the chance for students to solve issues on their own. Too much help can breed an unhealthy dependence. One wonders if employees in the workplace who need someone to be constantly looking over their shoulder might have had teachers in the past all too eager to help them without question.

Dr Bryan A. West is the owner and manager of Fortress Learning http://www.fortresslearning.com.au, an Australian Registered Training Organisation who consistently generates greater than 90% student satisfaction ratings with their range of online courses. Learn more by visiting http://www.fortresslearning.com.au.

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Ethical Dilemmas: The Right to Education

In the distant past formal education was reserved for the privileged. Today it is universally recognized as a basic human right. Shortly after its birth in 1945, the United Nations created The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Originally adopted by 58 countries in 1948, the number grew to 170 countries by 1993.

Article 26 of the Declaration spells out the parameters of education as a human right, as follows:

(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

In subsequent years, the United Nations established nine more human rights proclamations, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. The CRC added the following conditions to the definition of education as a human right:

• Development of respect for the child's parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values.

• Preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance.

• Development of respect for the natural environment.

What is interesting to note about these statements is the fact that buried within the issues of access are ethical concerns regarding education. With the exception of formal ethics classes, few think of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms as classroom subject matter. Indeed, in many educational environments, the prevailing practice is to leave the development of individual ethics up to parents, society as a whole, or religious institutions.

In some circles, the imposition of one's own ethical principles on students of varying backgrounds is viewed as an intrusion. Ethics is not within the province of the educational system, they feel. Yet the UDHR clearly has something to say not only about the right of everyone to get an education, but also about the values education should seek to foster.

In a country such as Australia where heated debates over global warming and climate change are still raging, the notion that education should seek to develop a respect for the natural environment might be seen by some as imposing a particular point of view regarding the validity or fallacy of the global warming and climate change controversy.

What then is the modern teacher to do? Do teachers have some sort of moral obligation to pepper their content presentations with the occasional reference to ethical considerations of the topic at hand? If so, do those obligations apply even in instances where local authority strongly believes ethics training belongs at home, not in the classroom? In industrial educational environments, should ethical and unethical business practices be avoided?

There are no easy answers to these questions. The broader dilemma is this - access to an education without ethics may not be enough to prepare students for living in an increasingly complex world.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bryan_West_Ph.D.

Ethical Dilemmas: Teacher - Student as Friends

In the strict "teacher-tell" model of traditional educational approaches, teachers who sought to become friends with their students were outside the norm. In some cases, this kind of behavior was actually seen as a breach of ethics. Teachers were the experts and students were the novices and the gap between them was to be maintained to preserve both order in the class and the respect for authority needed for learning to occur.

Recent research on how the brain learns has turned that view upside down in many educational environments. Although there is still some disagreement about brain-based research, it does appear to indicate students learn best that which is relevant to their lives.

How can teachers structure their content and presentation methods to reflect relevance if they have little, if any, understanding of their individual students and the way contemporary students live their lives?

And what better way to learn than to make efforts to be on friendly terms with as many students as possible? Hours spent searching the Internet might provide insight as to the likes and dislikes of students in your educational environment, but they cannot give you an understanding of the needs and wants of the specific individuals for whom you are responsible.

For some teachers, befriending students is a simple matter of being available to them as often as possible and sharing experiences. Teachers arrive early and remain after class to chat with students as frequently as possible. Attendance at all school extracurricular activities and formal functions provides additional opportunities to engage in life-centered conversations with students.

There are many things to talk about that bridge the age gap. Students may be surprised to learn teachers were equally enthralled by the musical stars of their day. Tales of struggling with homework and final examinations humanizes a teacher, and makes students feel like he or she is "one of them." Anything that narrows the perception gap where students see teachers as out of touch with their world promotes friendship.

Befriending students is not a problem.

However, given the fact we are only human, it is possible to become friendlier with some students than others. Indeed, it is possible that attempts to befriend students may lead to the discovery that some are simply hard to like at all! And those positive and negative preferences can begin to influence classroom behavior on the part of both teacher and student.

Fairness is critical in teaching and if your behavior towards certain students with whom you are especially friendly even hints at favored treatment in any way, the other students will sense the favoritism and react accordingly.

The fairness principle applies to all educational environments - elementary education, graduate education, and industrial education. If the trainer is on a company sponsored athletic team with a few participants and appears partial to them in the class setting, that can cause problems.

This presents a real ethical dilemma for many modern teachers. Ethics is about principles of right and wrong. Certainly it is not wrong to befriend students and in fact can be beneficial. But how far can one go before friendship extends to favoritism in the class?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bryan_West_Ph.D. 

It’s unethical for general practitioners to be commissioners

Published in the British Medical Journal at http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d1430

Ethics in Education

John Dewey, the father of progressive education, promoted the revolutionary notion for his time that formal education should be about more than the acquisition of bodies of content knowledge. He strongly believed education should go beyond the mastery of knowledge and skill to include learning to use classroom content in daily living. Not only that, the practical application should be towards promoting the "greater good."

Buried in his approach was the belief that there are in the world actions that can be deemed to be "good" and some that can be deemed to be "not good." A sense of what is right and what is wrong, or what is fair and what is unfair is the underpinning of ethical or unethical behavior.

Daily living can be thought of as a series of choices made, many involving discriminating between things that might be considered "right" and things that might be considered "wrong." A set of principles allowing one to make these judgments forms the ethical core of the individual. Dewey disciples believed ethical considerations should permeate the classroom.

However, this view was not universally accepted and even today there are educational environments where those in control believe education should be about knowledge acquisition with the ethical considerations of using or abusing knowledge reserved for other venues.

Other environments, particularly those seeking to incorporate student-centered teaching approaches into educational practice, take the opposite view. In either case, teachers can play a role in raising ethical issues with their students.

The most pragmatic role might be to serve as "devil's advocate", constantly introducing alternative choices into class discussion. Posing a contrarian view followed by questioning the class or allowing group discussion on the "rightness" or "wrongness" of both the original assertion and the contrarian point provides students the opportunity to express and test their own ethical positions.

There are some who believe ethical formation stems from religious beliefs. This, however, cannot be; as the world is filled with individuals with no religious affiliation of any kind who still manage to develop a well defined set of ethical principles.

While religion, legal prohibitions, and societal norms might contribute to the ethical development of some, the process that applies to everyone is self-discovery. Think of it as the kind of informal education or learning that has been taking place for centuries. A young child pushes another child in a playground setting, evoking a punch in response. The child begins to learn that pushing is not good. In the future, faced with a similar situation, the child experiments with a different approach.

The teacher as devils advocate is merely presenting students with alternative choices. The cycle needs to be completed with a discussion of the consequences, positive and negative, of each choice.

In theory, there is no reason teachers cannot play a role in influencing the individual ethics of their students. In practice, the question is not whether teachers could play a role, but rather should teachers play a role. Introducing ethical dilemmas is consistent with the requirements of an active learning or student centered learning environment, as long as the dilemmas represent issues relevant to the student.

Today more and more educational environments are moving towards more student involvement and alternative teaching methods where ethical concerns should be a welcome addition. Teachers in settings that still emphasize traditional approaches may face a tough choice.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bryan_West_Ph.D.

Death Clock

The 'death clock' is a (not so) subtle perspective on a deep ethical problem: should we know how much left we have of our lives? The implications of having this knowledge could be huge and could have a great impact on our life. The idea came while browsing Pro Link Directory, a SEO-helping machine (but now I'm digressing...).

We're not going to discuss the religious aspects of predestination. Instead we assume a more pragmatic approach: would it be ethical to disclose the death date to a person, given that you would have the means of obtaining it (call it an oracle for now). Even further, would you ask the oracle for your death date?

The fundamental question here is whether the effect of having access to your 'death clock' would be beneficial or not and quite possibly there is no one answer to this question. People may react positively and use the time left to enjoy more their life and friends, plan and finish all projects (see the Bucket List). Other may be left paralyzed in face of fatality.

The five stages of grief would likely characterize a person's state after finding that he is running out of time. Wheter they can accept, deny or remain depressed by the ticking clock fundamentally influences the effect of the news.

People rarely think they will eventually die and still this is the only fact of life. And most likely, this is essential for a healthy, fulfilling life.

Public Health

This article attempts to give a definition to the notion of 'public health', which we use increasingly often in our analysis. There is no universally approved definition and opinions vary widely, ranging from the utopian conception of the WHO of an ideal state of physical and mental health to a more concrete listing of public health practices. Charles-Edward A. Winslow, for example, defined public health in 1920 as:

the science and the art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical health and efficiency through organized community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, the control of community infections, the education of the individual in principles of personal hygiene, [and] the organization of medical and nursing service for the early diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease.

More recent definitions focus on the concept of positive health, including not only objective factors but also the subject's personal perception of its own health into the picture. There are four elements, generally agreed upon, that take part in a person's health: high quality personal relationships,  a sense of purpose in life, self-regard and resilience and a healthy body. This reflects the change in perspective on health, switching from a focus on physical health to more subtle issues affecting social behavior and social integration.

We give for now a general definition and discuss the itchier aspects as the story unfolds.

Public health.

Definition:

Society's obligation to assure the conditions for people's health.

Mission:

Promote physical and mental health by preventing disease, injury, and disability.