Academic literature on the topic 'Moral and ethical aspects of Law'

At the law side of the creation, the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea distinguishes between natural laws, values and norms. Natural laws are coercive both for human beings and for any other subject or object. Like natural laws, values or normative principles belong to the creation, being universal and invariable. Both people and associations are subject to values, which they can obey or disobey. Values characterize the relation frames (modal aspects) following the natural ones. Norms are man-made realizations of values, historically and culturally different. Philosophical ethics investigates the normativity of human acts. This paper argues that ethics cannot be related to a single relation frame and that the designation ‘ethical’ or ‘moral’ modal aspect is a misnomer.

Background: Most undergraduate midwifery curricula comprise ethics courses to strengthen the moral competences of future midwives. By contrast, surprisingly little is known about the specific moral competences considered to be relevant for midwifery practice. Describing these competences not only depends on generic assumptions about the moral nature of midwifery practice but also reflects which issues practitioners themselves classify as moral. Objective: The goal of this study was to gain insight into the ethical issues midwives encounter in their daily work, the key competences and resources they consider indispensable to understand and deal with them, and to assess phenomena linked to moral distress. Methods: We conducted individual semi-structured interviews with eight midwives and two other health professionals, varying in terms of years of experience and work setting. Interview transcripts were analyzed in an interdisciplinary research group, following thematic analysis. Ethical considerations: This study was not subject to approval according to the Swiss Law on Research with Humans. Participants were informed about the study goals and gave written informed consent prior to participation. Results: External constraints limiting the midwife’s and the patient’s autonomy and resulting interpersonal conflicts were found to be the most relevant ethical issues encountered in clinical practice and were most often associated with moral distress. These conflicts often arise in the context of medical interventions midwives consider as not appropriate and situations in which less experienced midwives in particular observe a lack of both interprofessional communication and trust in their professional competence. Ethical issues related to late abortions or prenatal diagnostics and selective abortions were also frequently addressed, but many midwives involved had learned to cope with them. Discussion: In the light of the ethical issues and factors contributing to phenomena of moral distress, an empirically grounded profile of moral competences is drafted. Curricular implications in the light of possible adaptations within undergraduate midwifery education are critically discussed.

Based on the concept adopted by the Russian legislator in the field of bioethics, the articleanalyzes aspects of the formation of moral and ethical regulations as a subject of legal regulation, a historical review of the features of the perception by the individual and society of ethical norms as criteria for self-restraint of the possibility of choosing options for lawful or unlawful behavioris given. The transformation of law from the age of enlightenment to the era of return to ethical institutions is shown both in the historical periods of the outgoing era and in the examples of negative law-making of contemporaries, in order to leave the norms of ethics outside the national order.The traditional explanation of the dominance of such an approach to the legal regulation of ethical institutions is reduced to the absence of objects of legal support due to the fact that ethics is not a legal, but a moral one. De facto ethical norms are introduced into the modern legal order of the Russian Federation at the level of law enforcement activities, for example, through the adoption of Codes of Professional Ethics. The expediency of formation in Russia of the National Council on Bioethics and Biosafety is substantiated.

This library research aims to: 1) explore the ethical aspects of the environment in climate change events, 2) map the moral values and philosophy of religion in climate change actions, 3) integrate the ethical, moral and philosophical aspects of religion by presenting new knowledge in sustainability actions. In this study, there are three concepts of environmental ethics, namely, the anthropocentric view, ecocentrism view, and religious, moral view. The anthropocentric view makes humans own and control natural resources exploitatively. The ecocentrism view places humans and the universe connected in a web of life. Moral religion sees problems born from human consciousness caused by sin and holiness. The way to solve the problems is to follow the “middle way,” which advocates simplicity in consumption and the fulfillment of basic human needs. This approach builds a new order by combining the application of technology, law, and global ethics from an anthropocentric perspective—the ecocentrism view with everything having an intrinsic value. For example, the practice of intelligence and meditation uses religious, moral values for sustainable actions. Such as with the experience of various Islamic religion-based organizations in Indonesia.

A large number of works are devoted to the problem of medical ethics and deontology. They mainly consider the relationship between a medical worker and a patient, a medical worker and society. The issue of adherence to medical deontology and ethics between doctors is not often raised in the professional literature. We considered issues of relationship of the health worker and patient, the personal qualities of the doctor and moral installations defining his behavior; relations with colleagues and rationing the vocational and ethical field of medicine in the form of a vocational and ethical code. The key principles of bioethics are the following: the principle of humanism, professionalism, the scientific nature of medical interventions, self-criticism. Modern successes in the field of science and technology, the transfer of their results to medical practice have determined the relevance of the relationship between the doctor and the patient from the point of view of law, morality and religious beliefs. This problem area is the subject of biomedical ethics, the task of which is to solve ethical problems closely related to medical practice and biomedical research. We defined modern medical ethics through correlation with the bioethical model.

In the continuing debate about the role of the Clinical Ethics Consultant in performing clinical ethics consultations, it is often assumed that consultants should operate within ethical and legal standards. Recent scholarship has focused primarily on clarifying the consultant's role with respect to the ethical standards that serve as parameters of consulting. In the following, however, I wish to address the question of how the ethics consultant should weigh legal standards and, more broadly, how consultants might weigh authoritative directives, whether legal, institutional, or professional, against other normative considerations. I argue that consultants should reject the view that authoritative directives carry exclusionary reason for actions and, further, ethicists should interpret directives as lacking any moral weight qua authoritative directive. I then identify both implications and limitations of this view with respect to the evolving role of the ethics consultant in an institutional setting, and in doing so propose the kinds of considerations the ethicist should weigh when presented with an authoritative directive.

The term duty is used in philosophy and law to de scribe the obligation one person owes to another. Yet what these two disciplines mean by duty often differs. Perhaps even more important, a determination by the law that a duty exists has different social consequences than does a similar assessment by philosophy Moral or ethical obligations between individuals make living in society possible, but breach of these obligations usually results only in social opprobrium, personal guilt, or shame. A legal duty, by contrast, enables a person to use the power of the state to enforce claims against another, either by injunction to make the duty-ower fulfill his/her responsibilities or more commonly by award of damages in the event the duty-ower fails to meet these obligations. In some cases, society itself chooses to impose criminal penalties on those who fail to meet certain important obligations.The use of the term duty in both disciplines creates the temptation to extend a definition formulated in one setting to the other discourse. Ronald Green does not bite this apple, but his efforts to draw on the law to support his moral arguments, while not clearly identifying the distinctions between legal and moral obligations, may make it easier for others to see moral and legal duties as the same. Yielding to the enticement to equate moral and legal duties can lead to a host of difficulties. My purpose here is to demonstrate why the duties and privileges proposed by Professor Green are not and should not be adopted and enforced by the law.

The empirical literature exploring lawyers and their moral decision making is limited despite the “crisis” of unethical and unprofessional behavior in the bar that has been well documented for over a decade. In particular we are unaware of any empirical studies that investigate the moral landscape of the health lawyer’s practice. In an effort to address this gap in the literature, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at Vanderbilt University designed an empirical study to gather preliminary evidence regarding the moral reasoning of health care attorneys. The primary research question was how health lawyers respond when they encounter ethical or moral dilemmas in their practice for which the law fails to offer a bright-line solution. In exploring this question, we sought to understand better what motivations or influences guide action when health lawyers confront ethical quandaries, and whether there are specific differences, e.g., gender, experience, or religiosity, that are associated with specific responses to situations testing ethical or moral boundaries.

Moral stress is a major concern in veterinary practice. Often, it is associated with the challenges in end-of-life situations. Euthanasia, however, is also meant to bring relief to animal patients and their owners. The reasons for the moral strain euthanizing animals causes to professional veterinarians need to be further clarified. This article investigates “euthanasia” from a philosophical, legal, and practical perspective. After introducing relevant aspects of euthanasia in small animal practice, the term is analyzed from an ethical point of view. That includes both a broad and a narrow definition of “euthanasia” and underlying assumptions regarding different accounts of animal death and well-being. Then, legal and soft regulations are discussed with regard to the theoretical aspects and practical challenges, also including questions of personal morality. It is argued that the importance of ethical definitions and assumptions concerning euthanasia and their intertwinement with both law and practical challenges should not be neglected. The conclusion is that veterinarians should clarify the reasons for their potential discomfort and that they should be supported by improved decision-making tools, by implementation of theoretical and practical ethics in veterinary education, and by updated animal welfare legislation.

Transplantation of body parts has long provoked debates in Egypt among various community leaders who most notably represent the institutions of medical care, the law, religion and politics. The debates include diverse issues stretching most significantly from the practical benefits of these advanced surgeries, to their contribution of preserving the overall integrity of society as a whole as they provide solutions to purely medical problems while simultaneously solving larger moral, social and ethical challenges. I consider these debates to be representations constituted by a discourse of power over the body, which I suggest to should be viewed not only as a skin-bound physical entity but more significantly as a space incarnating the moral, ethical and spiritual aspects of society at large. Furthermore, I suggest that this conceptualization, in which religion, the law and ethics play the most significant roles, throws doubt over materialist perspectives of embodiment and calls for further attention to the notion of ensoulment.

The purpose of this study to investigate the morality of persons in organisations and especially the effect of organisations on the moral autonomy of persons. In addition to reviewing the literature of moral autonomy in philosophy, psychology, sociology and organisation studies and management, the thesis also examines the ontology of organisations, moral agency and the organisation as a context. Based on this knowledge, a model is developed that addresses the relations of the organisation to society and the person to the organisation in ethical decision making. From this model the thesis develops three moral decision making categories. These are: moral autonomy. Where persons are allowed to use their moral values, moral heteronomy, where the organisation provides such values and moral anomy, where there is a lack of moral deliberation and moral values. Four research propositions are developed from this model. The propositions are that people are more likely to make morally autonomous decisions in personal life dilemmas than in organisational life dilemmas. In organisational dilemmas it is proposed that the organisation will affect the morality of its members. In bureaucratic organisations, people are expected to make more anomous organisational decisions when faced with an easy and simple dilemma and more heteronomous decisions when faced with complex and difficult dilemmas. In clan organisations, people are expected to make more autonomous organisational decisions. In a market organisation, people are expected to make more anomous organisational decisions. An exploratory primary research project is undertaken to test the model and the propositions developed. People from three Australian organisations that approximate Ouchi's (1980) typology of bureaucracy, clan and market organisations participated in the research. Managers and supervisors from each organisation were asked to assess the ethical climate of their organisation using Victor and Cullen's (1987, 1988) Ethical Climate Questionnaire. They also responded to Forsyth's (1980) Ethics Position Questionnaire and resolved and justified their resolutions six organisational and six personal ethical dilemmas. These dilemmas had been assessed by two groups of MBA students for relevancy, complexity and difficulty. The analysis of the primary data reveals that the three organisations have different ethical climates. It also reveals that the respondents from the three organisations do not differ insofar as they share similarly idealistic end relativistic ethical ideologies. They do however differ in the reasoning they use to resolve organisational and in some cases personal ethical dilemmas. People In organisation Alpha, the bureaucratic organisation, are more likely to make heteronomous decisions. People from organisation Beta, the clan organisation, are more likely to make autonomous moral decisions, and people from organisation Gamma, the market organisation, are more likely to make anomous moral decisions. These findings support the research propositions developed. More importantly, some people in organisations Alpha and Gamma did not perceive some organisational dilemmas as ethical issues but only as business issues that are void of ethics. In addition, people from organisation Alpha in particular were more likely to try to avoid making a decision and suggest that someone else in the organisation should make the decision not the person facing the dilemma. The findings suggest that organisations that rely on rules and regulations are more likely to remove the responsibility from ethical decision-making, and lead to avoidance of such decisions. The implications of these findings are discussed and opportunities for further research are identified.

Discourse ethics relates to an argumentative discussion about our moral norms and their foundations. The purpose of my research is to describe and evaluate the functioning of several institutions of discourse ethics as sources of normativity for the regulation of new medical technologies and to propose some possible interactions between law and these institutions.
The institutions of discourse ethics I will look at are: national commissions of experts, national ethics committees, technology assessment committees and consensus conferences. Used in these institutions, argumentative discussion has the capacity to influence the meaning we give to our moral norms as well as the context and the conditions for their application. These discussions generate a special kind of normativity, which ought to be recognised by our legal system. Law itself would benefit from an interaction with such normativity.

The dramatic improvement of neonatal intensive care has produced vexing ethical and legal questions. One of the most striking issues is to determine whether the most defective neonates should be provided with intensive care and to what extent they should be treated. This thesis demonstrates that an attempt to answer this question and an analysis of the demands and limitations of a duty to treat defective neonates cannot properly occur without first considering the legal concerns and ethical issues surrounding the notion of "person". The author examines germane ethical theories and North-American jurisprudence to see what approaches and standards commentators and courts have adopted in this respect. This thesis demonstrates that in the context of the cessation or non-initiation of intensive care, the legal and moral status of very defective neonates remain ambiguous. In particular, the author suggests that a legal best interests analysis that includes quality of life considerations may actually involve the use of criteria similar to those supported by the authors of the controversial moral theories that negate the personhood of seriously handicapped newborns. The author ultimately concludes that a clear divide between the legal definition of the "person" and the moral and social perceptions of that term is misleading.

The goal of this work is to explore the role of theological bioethics in influencing the formulation of existing or proposed policies dealing with treatment decisions for seriously disabled newborns in our pluralist society. Part I of the paper attempts to determine as precisely as possible what bioethics is, particularly Judeo-Christian bioethics. After comparing the latter to the Hippocratic tradition and to secular bioethics, the distinctive characteristics and potential contribution of theological bioethics are identified. The policies then examined in Part II are: medical policies formulated by physicians, bioethical policies proposed by bioethicists and legal policies enunciated by court decisions and legal writers. In each case they are evaluated in the light of a number of specific ethical tests proposed as central to Judeo-Christian bioethics. The paper concludes that Judeo-Christian bioethics has not been particularly influential in our pluralist society. A final section proposes a model treatment policy.

Over the past few years, embryo research has been a widely discussed topic. New techniques such as embryo stem cell research or therapeutic cloning are considered by scientists to be very promising. Nevertheless, opponents of these experimentations warn against the commodification of human life forms and argue that the moral status of embryos should protect them from being destroyed purely for research.
Legislations on this topic have been enacted in most Western countries, though they are still much criticised. Is there an adequate way of regulating embryo research? Our argument suggests that consensus can only be procedurally obtained. That is, we believe that only legislative assemblies should have authority to take a position on this controversial topic, which is subject to moral disagreement, and as such, judges should only have a minor role.

Given the considerable advances in the field of biotechnology in the last decades, new issues of scientific, social, legal and ethical nature have been raised, particularly concerning inventions making use of living material, and their patentability.
Notwithstanding some reluctance at the outset, most of patent offices as well as courts and tribunals in the United States, Canada and Europe have finally accepted patentability of living organisms. Oppositions are however numerous and, more than a criticism towards the patent system itself, it is genetic engineering that is put into question.
Europe has recently regulated the legal protection of biotechnological inventions. Being a text of compromise, the Directive is already subject of controversies. The United States and Canada have not yet decided to explicitly legislate in this field. Some decisions taken in particular cases allow to determine the state of the question in these two countries. It is however not certain that they can be satisfied with an unregulated technology that raises so many moral questions.
The question of the foremost importance concerns the research branch, as well as the use that will be done with inventions emerging from the biotechnology industry. Patent law being unable to prevent technological creations, it is above all the utilisation of it that will allow to retain the most beneficial inventions for humankind and its environment.

This thesis discusses the prohibition of human cloning in contemporary Islamic legal discourse, which relies on two distinct doctrines: the first seeks support in the Qur'anic text, while the second depends on method of utilitarian legal hermeneutics (al-istiṣlaḥ ). These doctrines are examined by comparing them to the method that contemporary Islamic legal discourse adopts, namely, uṣul al-fiqh. When this is done, a discrepancy emerges in the first doctrine that traces this prohibition back to the text of revelation, which in turn requires further clarification of the foundations of hermeneutics in uṣul al-fiqh---identified here as textual and legislative consistency. For this, Shaṭibi's theory of maqaṣid al-sharī'ah offers one of the most reliable bases for the hermeneutics to evaluate the second doctrine. The methodological venture in this thesis aims at criticizing the current methodology while at the same time offering a justified approach to hermeneutics in contemporary Islamic legal discourse and in the case of human cloning.

Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2001.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Perhaps one of the most talked about subjects worldwide and in South Africa these days is the abortion issue. A growing number of women admit to having had one. Basically there are two opposing views and values on the question of abortion. We normally hear people referring to the 'abortion issue'; my understanding of this is that there is a dialogue going on at the moment concerning abortion. In South Africa before the current Choice of Termination of Pregnancy (TOP) Bill, some activists' women and the ever-growing 'feminists' movements were lobbying and demanding that abortion be decriminalised. As we may all be aware, up until 1 February 1997, abortion or termination of pregnancy (TOP) in South Africa was conceivable under very restrictive atmosphere. Before the introduction of the current Termination of Pregnancy Bill, a majority of women had no access to abortion services in the country, hence the growing number of back-street job. By implication this means that most women given the choice, would not seek the experience of abortion, but if they do, it would be available to the in safe, legal, accessible and affordable service. Not only does the Act conceal that terminating pregnancy that occurred through criminal acts such as rape and incest is justifiable. The current liberal Termination of Pregnancy Bill also gives pregnant women the 'right' or 'freedom' to abort whenever and for whatever reason they deem fit. Part of the ethical dilemma of the abortion issue is that there are those who holds a view that always where there is a conflict of rights and interests, the foetus' rights must give way to, or that the foetus' rights must be overridden by those of a pregnant women. Pro-choice advocates maintain that a woman's choice to terminate her pregnancy is her own business and hers alone, in other words, this for them is a private decision. Well, I argue that this is not necessarily the case, ethically, the father of the unborn child should also be considered in such a decision. Given that virtually every abortion has risks, the parents of the aborting woman and to some extent the society at large are involved. Therefore, to solely talk of the 'mother's right to choose' is basically suggest that morality is "relative" and such relativism is conceived from the idea of privatisation of abortion and life in general. In the following pages I will look at the arguments in support of abortion and against it, and these are criticised. Also discussed are the ethical implications of the new South African Termination of Pregnancy Act. Broadly speaking, technology advancement has made it possible to detect the unborn baby's physical condition (sometimes even its mental state) while the mother is still pregnant. The ethical implications of this medical intervention are used to decide whether the unborn child should live or die. Given this, if the purpose of these prenatal diagnosis were for the destruction of the unborn, therefore, advocates of the movements such as 'the right to life', and 'pro-lifers' would argue that because of particularly twisted purpose, prenatal diagnosis must be abolished. Furthermore, I will acknowledge that the Termination of Pregnancy Bill as we have it, is appraised by feminists movements and others who are not necessarily feminists as allowing increased and unrestricted access to 'free' and 'safe' abortion in the government hospitals and clinics. However, I argue that this was rather prematurely introduced. I argue that a number of pregnant women claiming to be poor still present themselves to private doctors and private clinics for abortion and they pay anything between R 600- 800 or more depending where these services are provided. On the other hand, for one reason or another, other women still choose to terminate their pregnancies back street way although the risks are high in such servicing stations. In the light of these facts, one wonders whether it is appropriate to legislate for the termination of pregnancy or would it have been a worthwhile decision to delay the legislation of abortion for a while and thoroughly make a research and relevant preparation for it. I also argue that ideology plays an important part in the abortion debates. Besides, the abortion debate is also characterised by indoctrination, the purpose of which is to leave other confused. In both cases facts are misrepresented or false statements are made, and this for me is ethically unacceptable. I will also comment on the importance of linguistics, that is, the proper understanding of normal English terms and what I refer to as 'deceptive language' used by campaigners. Inthe last part of this thesis, I will outline some basic approaches to ethics and which belong to what is referred to as postmodernism. The Postmodern worldview deconstructs metanarratives so that no one particular belief is more believable than another. This worldview bring with it ethical relativism, which is a theory which holds that morality is relative to the individual. Three movements are given as an example of this move toward ethical relativism, they are: (a) Emotivism, (b) Subjectivism, and (c) Situationalism While I will argue that rape and incest are evil acts, and support abortion in cases involving such acts, however, I also believe that abortion is not the answer to the problem of rape and incest. I will propose a number of recommendations the South African government should have made before legislating for abortion. For instance, by creating separate abortion service facilities even in the hospital premises, with properly trained staff; so that people who came to seek advice for abortion are not intimidated by those who go to full terms with their pregnancy. Included in this thesis is a case study to demonstrate the complexity of the abortion issue to everyone involved. Some psychological and emotional symptoms following abortion will be outlined and this according to women who do share their abortion story is a reality they have to live with every day of their lives.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Aborsie is moontlik een van die mees veelbesproke kwessies van ons tyd, sowel in Suid- Afrika as wêreldwyd. 'n Groeiende aantal vroue erken dat hulle al een gehad het. Basies is daar twee opponerende gesigspunte en waardes betrokke by die twispunt rondom aborsie. Aborsie was voor die aanvaarding van die jongste wetgewing (d.w.s. voor 1 Februarie 1997) in Suid-Afrika slegs moontlik onder streng beperkings. Voor die huidige wet ( die "Termination of Pregnancy Bill") in werking gekom het, het die meerderheid vroue geen toegang tot aborsie gehad in Suid-Afrika nie, wat gelei het tot 'n toename in agterstraat aborsies. Die nuwe wet gee nie slegs die reg om te aborteer aan vroue wat swanger is as gevolg van kriminele optrede soos verkragting of bloedskande nie. Die huidige, buitengewooon liberale wet gee ook vir alle praktiese doeleindes aan die vroue die reg om aborsie op versoek te ondergaan tot op 20 weke van swangerskap. Die doel van hierdie werkstuk is om hierdie nuwe liberale wet aan 'n krities ondersoek te onderwerp. Deel van die etiese dilemma rondom die kwessie van aborsie spruit voort uit die feit dat daar diegene is wat reken dat, indien daar enige konflik tussen regte en belange is, die regte van die fetus ondergeskik is aan die regte van die swanger vrou. Diegene ten gunste van aborsie voer aan dat die keuse gemaak moet word deur die betrokke vrou, en dat so 'n keuse uitsluitlik haar eie is. Ek argumenteer dat dit nie noodwendig die geval is nie. Die vader van die ongebore kind behoort ook 'n sê te hê in hierdie saak. Gegee dat elke aborsie sekere risiko's insluit, het die ouers van die betrokke vrou en die samelewing ook 'n belang by so ,'n situasie. Dus is om slegs te praat van die 'vrou se reg om te Ides' om te suggereer dat moraliteit "relatief' is, en sulke relativisme word afgelei van die idee van die privatisering van aborsie en die lewe in die algemeen. In die volgende bladsye sal ek die argumente vir en teen aborsie analiseer en kritiseer. Die etiese implikasies van die nuwe Termination of Pregnancy Act word veral bespreek. Tegnologiese vooruitgang het dit moontlik gemaak dat die ongebore baba se fisiese (en soms selfs mentale) kondisie bepaal kan word voor geboorte. Die etiese implikasies van die mediese intervensie word gebruik om te besluit of die ongebore baba moet lewe of sterf Dus, indien die doel van prenatale diagnose die moontlike vernietiging van die ongeborene insluit, sal diegene wat teen aborsie is, argumenteer dat so 'n verwronge doel veroorsaak dat sulke ondersoeke gestaak behoort te word. Ek sal erken dat die nuwe wet waardeer word deur feministe, en andere wat nie noodwendig feministe is nie, as 'n wet wat dit moontlik maak dat daar toenemende en onbeperkte toegang is tot 'gratis' en 'veilige' aborsies in regeringshospitale en klinieke. Maar ek wil argumenteer dat die wet te vroeg aangeneem is. Ek argumenteer dat 'n groot aantal verwagtende vroue voorgee dat hulle arm is en poog om 'n aborsie te kry by private dokters en klinieke, en dan tussen R600 - R800 of meer betaal vir so 'n diens, afhangende van waar dit geskied. Aan die ander kant, om een of ander rede, kies sommige vroue steeds om hulle swangerskappe te termineer deur agterstraat-aborsies, ten spyte van die risiko's. Gegewe hierdie feit, wonder mens of dit gepas was on 'n wet in te stel aangaande die terminasie van swangerskap, en of dit nie beter sou wees om die wetgewing uit te stel tot volledige navorsing gedoen is en voorbereiding getref is nie. Ek argumenteer ook dat ideologie 'n belangrike rol speel in die aborsie-debat. Die aborsie-debat word ook gekenmerk deur indoktrinasie ten einde mense te verwar. In beide gevalle is daar die wanvoorstelling van feite of word valse stellings gemaak, wat eties onaanvaarbaar is. Ek salook kommentaar lewer oor die belangrikheid van taal, dws die korrekte verstaan van normale (Engelse) terme en wat ek na verwys as die 'misleidende taal' wat gebruik word deur sekere kampvegters betrokke by die debat. In die laaste deel van die werkstuk sal ek sekere basiese benaderings tot etiek ondersoek, veral dié wat na verwys word as "postmodernisme". Die Postmoderne gesigspunt dekonstrueer metanarratiewe sodat geen spesifieke oordeel langer meer geloofwaardig is as 'n ander nie. Hierdie gesigspunt word dan ook vergesel deur etiese relativisme, wat huldig dat moraliteit relatief is tot die individu. Drie bewegings word genoem as voorbeelde van hierdie beweging na etiese relativisme, nl: (a) Emotivisme, (b) Subjektivisme, en (c) Situasie-etiek Alhoewel ek argumenteer dat verkragting en bloedskande morele verkeerd is, en alhoewel ek aborsie in sulke gevalle voorstaan, glo ek nie dat aborsie 'n antwoord bied op die probleem van verkragting en bloedskande nie. Ek sal 'n aantal voorstelle maak aangaande wat eintlik moes gebeur het voor die regering die huidige aborsiewet aanvaar het. Byvoorbeeld, dat aparte aborsie-fasiliteite, selfs by die hospitaal en met opgeleide personeel, geskep moes word ten einde te voorkom dat diegene wat advies vra aangaande aborsie nie geïntimideer word deur persone wat nie wil aborteer nie. Ingesluit in hierdie studie is 'n gevallestudie wat die kompleksiteit van die kwessie rondom aborsie, vir al die rolspelers, demonstreer. Sekere emosionele en sielkundige simptome, veroorsaak deurdat 'n persoon besluit het om te aborteer, sal geskets word. Vir vroue wat 'n aborsie ondergaan het is hierdie 'n realiteit waarmee hulle elke dag moet saamleef

AbstractIn the late nineteenth century, it became understood that the patterns on the skin of the fingers were unique and could be used for identification purposes, leading to the development of biometric identification (Smith M, Mann M, Urbas G. Biometrics, crime and security. Routledge, 2018). The ease with which fingerprints can be accessed and recorded, and the ease with which they transfer to surfaces and objects, made them ideal for law enforcement purposes. Today, in digital form, fingerprints and other biometric identification techniques, notably DNA profiles and facial recognition technology, are a widely used means of identification across a range of applications, from accessing personal devices, to banking, border security and law enforcement. However, these uses have raised a raft of ethical or moral (we use these terms interchangeably) concerns, some of the more important of which we discuss in this work.In the first chapter, we discuss general aspects of biometric identification, before focusing on fingerprint identification, including its reliability as form of evidence. Secondly, we provide an overview of applied ethics; and outline a key theoretical notion, relevant to many of the issues discussed throughout the later chapters: collective responsibility. Finally, we analyse the ethical risks and benefits associated with the technique of fingerprint identification.

Virtue ethics is not typically invoked by academics today for the evaluation of political systems or political action. We could, however, recognize its potential role in this regard, turning to the history of its use as illustration. Interpreters who have attempted to theorize about political rights apart from moral psychology fail to recognize the support the underlying moral psychology provides to the notion of rights. Contemporary objections to the use of ethical theory in justifying rights may assume political theory is adequate enough when kept in terms that abstract away from any particular aspects of moral psychology. Yet a virtue-based approach to political system recognizes the desires for freedom, the risk of preferences being subsumed into a consequentialist assessment, and more readily enables agents themselves to assess what is necessary to condemn political systems as well as political efforts, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Key words: Rights, Law, Moral Psychology, Cicero, Virtue, Rawls, Virtue Ethics

Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents many ethical dilemmas, such as explainability, bias, military uses, surveillance capitalism, employment, and jobs. In the scientific context, AI can lead us to a crisis of reproducibility spread across several areas of knowledge and guide mathematicians to solve high complexity problems. Both companies and government forward their guidelines, recommendations, and materials combining Ethics and AI. In this paper, we investigate the involvement of the Brazilian academic-scientific community with moral or ethical aspects through its publications, covering the Brazilian Conference on Intelligent Systems (BRACIS) as the most prominent Brazilian AI conference. Through a Literature Systematic Review method, we answer the main research question: what is the panorama of the explicit occurrence of ethical aspects in the BRACIS, ENIAC, and STIL conference papers? The results indicate a low occurrence of ethical aspects and increasing behavior over the years. Ethical deliberation was fruitful, constructive, and critical among these few occurrences. Whether in the Brazilian or international context, there are spaces to be filled and open opportunities for exploration along this path.

We are witnesses and participants of Copernican changes in the world which result in major crises/challenges (economic, political, social, climate, demographic, migratory, MORAL) that significantly change “normal” circumstances. The law, as a large regulatory system, must find answers to these challenges. Primarily, these circumstances relate to (i) the pandemic - Corona 19, which requires ensuring economic development with a significant encroachment on human freedoms and rights; (ii) globalization, which fundamentally changes the concept of liberal capitalism as the most efficient system of production of goods and services and democracy as a desirable form of government; (iii) automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, and big data are changing the ways we work, live, communicate, and learn in a Copernican manner. The law should serve to shape the relationship between people in order to realize a life of love and freedom. This is done to the greatest extent through the constitutional engineering of selected institutions. The legal system focuses on institutions that have a raison d'etre in their mission, which is read as “ratio legis”, as a desirable normative and real action in the range of causal and teleological aspect. Crisis situations narrow social cohesion and weaken trust in institutions. It is imperative to seek constitutional engineering that finds a way out in autopoietic institutions in allopoietic environment. We believe that the most current definition of law is that = law is the negation of the negation of morality. It follows that morality is the most important category of social development. Legitimacy, and then legality, relies on morality. In other words, the rules of conduct must be highly correlated with morality - legitimacy - legality. What is legal follows the rules, what is lawful follows the moral substance and ethical permissibility. Therefore, only a fair and intelligent mastery of a highly professional and ethical teleological interpretation of law is a conditio sine qua non for overcoming current anomalies of social development. The juridical code of legal and illegal is a transformation of moral, legitimate and legal into YES, and immoral, illegitimate and illegal into NO. The future of education aims to generate a program for global action and a discussion on learning and knowledge for the future of humanity and the planet in a world of increasing complexity, uncertainty and insecurity.

The article is devoted to the study of problematic aspects of the implementation of the mediation procedure in Russia. The author noted that mediation on the path of its development in the country encountered a number of obstacles of a moral, ethical, psychological, economic and legislative nature, the solution and settlement of which requires certain efforts both from the side of society and public organizations, and from the state. Using the method of analytical review of theoretical and practical developments of domestic researchers and legislative documents, the article identifies the following problems of mediation: low legal culture of the population; lack of confidence in this service; lack of awareness of society as a whole, and of citizens in particular, about mediation, its advantages as an alternative to the trial method; the position of the parties that do not want to compromise; the difficulty of choosing a mediator - as a highly professional person; mainly the social foundations for the development of mediation and insufficient state support. These problems are interrelated, therefore, their solution requires an integrated approach.

The paper examines two main and interconnected aspects of the life of a person - personal and professional. The topic has both - his life and moral side, as well as a legal regulation in the sphere of Family and Labour Law. This question is relatively rarely examined in the national legal doctrine, which along with the new digital challenges is the ground for the interest of the authors. The complex examination puts some accents, directed to the clarification of the borders and the needed balance between the two spheres with the idea of guaranteeing the subjective personal rights. With view of achieving the set aim the authors make actual normative as well as retrospective analysis, as a result of which tendencies are marked, proposals with theoretical and practical direction are made.