Ethics

Analysis and Comment (37)

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There is mounting evidence that babies might have more of a moral compass than we once thought. Baby image from www.shutterstock.com

Young morals: can infants tell right from wrong?

By Evan Westra, University of Maryland

Psychologists from Yale and the University of British Columbia think they have found a way to show that infants in their first year of life possess the psychological building blocks of a moral sense…
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Every day around three Australian families face an end-of-life decision for their child. Image from shutterstock.com

Navigating the grey zone in end-of-life care for children

By Dominic Wilkinson

Recently on The Conversation, legal academic Neera Bhatia drew attention to two recent Australian court cases of withdrawing of life-saving medical treatment from infants with severe brain damage. She…
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Doctors and sports scientists have to negotiate the goals of their employers with the expectations of their profession. Quinn Dombrowski

Embedded sports scientists and doctors walk an ethical tightrope

By Michael Burke, Victoria University

The Australian Crime Commission (ACC) findings about the actions of “specific coaches, sports scientists and high-performance staff” in condoning or orchestrating the administration of prohibited substances…
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Researchers decoded the whole mitochondrial DNA of five Neanderthal men, one of whom belonged to the El Sidron site (pictured) in Asturias, northern Spain, in 2009. EPA/CSIC

Caveman ethics? The rights and wrongs of cloning Neanderthals

By Neil Levy, The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health

It now appears that the scientist who seemed to be advocating that we clone Neanderthals was suggesting only that “we need to start talking about it.” Ethics is an essential part of such a conversation…
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Drugs treat symptoms but do nothing to help people navigate depression. Shutterstock

Treating depression ethically requires more than drugs

By Paul Biegler, Monash University

Spot the problem in this scenario. Richard* is stressed. While he’s a high-flyer (a Rhodes Scholar no less), he’s under the pump at work and has just moved his family across nations. The job is taking…
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Embryos matter because of what they mean to those for whom they were generated. UTS

Frozen in time: clarifying laws on IVF embryo use and destruction

By Jenni Millbank, University of Technology, Sydney

Over the past two decades, the frozen preservation of embryos has become routine practice in IVF. What currently happens to embryos next is controlled by overlapping and complicated rules that confuse…
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Unequal access to technology and technological literacy are the biggest challenges to open health. Stethoscope image from www.shutterstock.com

Diagnosing the inequality problems of open health

By Adam Henschke and Nick Evans

Open health programs create a range of ethical concerns. Some of these are old, and some are new; some need action now, and some need a longer view. Responding to these concerns requires the use of a…
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Southern Cross Austereo CEO Rys Holleran has expressed “sorrow” at the death of Jacintha Saldanha, but who is to blame? AAP/Joe Castro

Between guilt and innocence: 2Day FM and the moral blame game

By Patrick Stokes, Deakin University

This past weekend, we saw the media – old, new, and social – trying to digest the indigestible. The death of Jacintha Saldanha, the British nurse who apparently took her own life after being caught up…
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What are our ethical responsibilities for racing greyhounds? Jo Anne McArthur

The unbearable lightness of being a greyhound

By Alexandra McEwan

Background Briefing’s program The Quick and the Dead exposed one of the key animal welfare issues facing the greyhound racing industry: the high rates of euthanasia of healthy dogs. During an interview…
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How does Australia measure up morally? Are we in a moral decline? Compass image from www.shutterstock.com

Moral compass: is Australia a kind nation?

By Nicholas Hookway, University of Tasmania

We’re in a state of moral decline in the West – or so we’re told. From sky-rocketing divorce rates and the shrinking of life-long commitments to an excessive concern with self and consumerism. Morality…
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How much is enough to compensate someone who is about to die for allowing someone else to financially benefit from their death? leiris202/Flickr

Death and the market: the peculiar dealings of Joseph Caramadre

By Mike Pottenger, University of Melbourne

Is profiting from the deaths of others wrong? In an interview on This American Life, Joseph Caramadre maintains it’s not. At least, he says, “Not if it’s done morally, ethically, and legally.” This month…
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A human egg being worked on in an IVF clinic. Adrian Wiggins

IVF treatment for older women: is age the greatest concern?

By Mianna Lotz

Considerable public controversy exists around the question of access to in-vitro fertilisation treatment (IVF) for older women. Some support unlimited, publicly-funded access for all infertile women and…
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Peter Singer is awarded for ideas for which we shun others. Joel Travis Sage

Cory Bernardi is right, in Peter Singer’s anti-human world

By Clive Hamilton

Senator Cory Bernardi has been reviled for associating homosexuality with something repugnant, bestiality. Yet Australia has just awarded its highest civilian honour to a philosopher who provides a moral…
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Plagiarism is happening at universities, but technology is not the way to solve the problem. Computer image from www.shutterstock.com

Delusions of candour: why technology won’t stop plagiarism

By Robert Nelson, Monash University

Plagiarism at university is a time-old scourge. Some would have us believe it can be sought out with ever-improving technology, and with more consistent vetting of student essays with the latest detection…
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Soy might seem simply better, but what do the figures say? mc5556/Flickr

Soy versus dairy: what’s the footprint of milk?

By Judith Friedlander, University of Technology, Sydney

Are soy milk’s environmental attributes based on substance or froth? Is soy a sustainable solution in the dairy debate? Comparative environmental analysis of different food groups is like comparing, well…
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Animals are not just an incidental first choice of research method. usda/Wikimedia Commons

Animal-based research is still relevant and necessary

By Swetha Srinivasa Murali

Drug development is a slow process involving years, even decades, of research and animal models have always been integral to this work. But progress in translating animal work into human benefits has been…
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The dead soldier’s funeral holds an important place in our society. (AAP Image/Australian Department of Defence, LS Andrew Dakin)

From religion to patriotism: how we see the death of a soldier

By Matthew Beard

Another Australian soldier has tragically lost his life while on his seventh tour in Afghanistan. The 40 year-old special forces soldier from Perth was shot while on a counter-insurgency operation in the…
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Jeannie Blackburn was the victim of horrific domestic violence from a man commended for heroism. AAP/Julian Smith

The ethics of bravery: why a Black Saturday ‘hero’ lost his award

By Patrick Stokes, Deakin University

Last week, I received an email with the subject line: “Bravery award for baby killer.” It urged readers to sign a Change.org petition calling on the Royal Humane Society of Australia to rescind a bravery…
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Can ethical markets solve the problems of persistent poverty and global income inequality? Michelle Brea

Challenge 7: The market, morals, ethics, and poverty

By Adrian Walsh

In part seven of our multi-disciplinary Millennium Project series, Adrian Walsh argues that a humane market asks something of us that we may not want to give. Global challenge 7: How can ethical market…
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We’ve had a glimpse into the world of Craig Thomson, but he’s trying to justify a view that no one outside the political game can understand. AAP Image/Lukas Coch

All in the game: shining a light into the weird world of Craig Thomson

By Mark Rolfe

The ALP and the union movement have never liked scabs. But yesterday we witnessed a labour scab of a different sort as The Wound Formally Known As Craig Thomson continued to be bleed rather than heal…
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Encouraging GPs to “on-sell” products to patients is likely to produce unnecessary or inappropriate prescribing. fuzzirella/Flickr

Swisse Vitamins highlights the failure of industry self-regulation

By Ken Harvey, La Trobe University

Swisse Vitamins Pty Ltd has been in the news recently over their Federal Court action to suppress a determination of the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Complaint Resolution Panel (CRP) about a number of…
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Intellectually disabled children who undergo the “Ashley procedure” are stunted to prevent the onset of puberty. flickr/visions by vicky

Ashley’s treatment: the arrested development of a disabled child

By Karen Soldatic and Jo Milner, University of Salford

A growing number of parents are seeking the “Ashley Treatment,” a highly experimental medical intervention designed to arrest the physical and sexual development of severely disabled children. This invasive…
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On the ninth anniversary of the US-led Iraqi invasion, suicide attacks were used against civilians in Iraq. EPA/Mohammed Jalil

Good and bad deaths: why we react to suicide bombers the way we do

By Riaz Hassan, Flinders University

Suicide attacks and car bombings across Iraq this week have killed at least 43 people and left 255 wounded. We are sadly now very familiar with the phenomenon of the suicide bomber, but the particular…
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The Coalition’s election promise controversy highlights the fraught nature of accountancy. AAP

Do accountants act in the public interest? Not always

By Robert Walker

According to the profession’s code of ethics, “a distinguishing mark of the accountancy profession is its acceptance of the responsibility to act in the public interest.” That is, not exclusively to satisfy…
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Former rugby league player and convicted match-fixer, Ryan Tandy will likely not play the game again, but who’s really to blame? AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy

Business or pleasure? Ryan Tandy and the NRL take the fun out of rugby league

By Matthew Beard

I’m a relatively well-disciplined guy. In my brief time in this world, I’ve managed to complete a degree, quit smoking, and exercise thirty-odd kilos of self-indulgence away. But if there’s a TV on in…
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Universities need to remember why they research: to advance knowledge. Flickr/Gates Foundation

Forget profits. Universities need morals.

By Nick Evans

Steven Schwartz, vice-chancellor of Macquarie University, recently claimed that universities should break from being treated as businesses and recapture their moral purpose. He used the example of Jonas…
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Rupert Murdoch holding a copy of The Times, a News International paper. AAP

The perils of trying to regulate for ethical behaviour

By David Maguire, Murdoch University

In little more than two weeks, the long simmering issue of illegal phone hacking at News Corporation’s British newspaper News of the World has developed into a cascading crisis, with fatal results for…
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Appearing before a parliamentary committee was “my humblest day” according to Rupert Murdoch. AFP PHOTO/PARBUL

Murdochs' defence strategy: ‘Sorry, we had no idea what was going on’

By Ivor Gaber, City University London

So, after a day of drama at Westminster, what have we learnt, other than the fact that Rupert Murdoch’s wife Wendi packs a mean left hook (future pranksters beware)? For the best part of six hours we…
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An ethical journalistic culture cannot be imposed from above but must develop within a news gathering organisation. AAP

Ethical reporting after NotW phone hacking: it isn’t black and white

By Bill Birnbauer, Monash University

The handwritten sign hanging on the bereaved family’s door says: “No media". As a reporter, do you knock? Most journalism students yell back a resounding “No". Okay then, what if the family has a high…
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The phones of victims of the London bombings were allegedly hacked by staff at the News of the World. AFP/Dylan Martine/WPA pool

‘Deplorable and indefensible’: the ethics of the News of the World

By Denis Muller, University of Melbourne

The British newspaper The News of the World is being investigated over allegations of hacking into the phones of relatives of the victims of the bombings in London in July 2005. It’s also thought those…

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Research Briefs (2)

The upper class: liars and cheaters?

University of California, Berkeley

Rich people are more likely to engage in unethical activity, a new study has found. Researchers at the University of California…

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