In a discussion of ideas and ideologies from Nietzsche to Gail Sheehy, from Allan Bloom to Michel Foucault, the author sorts out the good from the harmful in the modern cultivation of an authentic self. He sets forth the entire network of thought and morals that link our quest for self-creation with our impulse toward self-fashioning, and shows how such efforts must be conducted against an existing set of rules, or a gridwork of moral measurement. Seen against this network, our modern preoccupations with expression, rights, and the subjectivity of human thought reveal themselves as assets, not liabilities.
The speed of development in Big Data and associated phenomena, such as social media, has surpassed the capacity of the average consumer to understand his or her actions and their knock-on effects. We are moving towards changes in how ethics has to be perceived: away from individual decisions with specific and knowable outcomes, towards actions by many unaware that they may have taken actions with unintended consequences for anyone. Responses will require a rethinking of ethical choices, the lack thereof and how this will guide scientists, governments, and corporate agencies in handling Big Data. This essay elaborates on the ways Big Data impacts on ethical conceptions.
Background: As large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used in healthcare and medical consultation settings, a growing concern is whether these models can respond to medical inquiries in a manner that is ethically compliant--particularly in accordance with local ethical standards. To address the pressing need for comprehensive research on reliability and safety, this study systematically evaluates LLM performance in answering questions related to reproductive ethics, specifically assessing their alignment with Chinese ethical regulations. Methods: We evaluated eight prominent LLMs (e.g., GPT-4, Claude-3.7) on a custom test set of 986 questions (906 subjective, 80 objective) derived from 168 articles within Chinese reproductive ethics regulations. Subjective responses were evaluated using a novel six-dimensional scoring rubric assessing Safety (Normative Compliance, Guidance Safety) and Quality of the Answer (Problem Identification, Citation, Suggestion, Empathy). Results: Significant safety issues were prevalent, with risk rates for unsafe or misleading advice reaching 29.91%. A systemic weakness was observed across all models: universally poor performance in citing normative sources and expressing empathy. We also identified instances of anomalous moral reasoning, including logical self-contradictions and responses violating fundamental moral intuitions. Conclusions: Current LLMs are unreliable and unsafe for autonomous reproductive ethics counseling. Despite knowledge recall, they exhibit critical deficiencies in safety, logical consistency, and essential humanistic skills. These findings serve as a critical cautionary note against premature deployment, urging future development to prioritize robust reasoning, regulatory justification, and empathy.
Incorporating ethics into the requirement elicitation process is essential for creating ethically aligned systems. Although eliciting manual ethics requirements is effective, it requires diverse input from multiple stakeholders, which can be challenging due to time and resource constraints. Moreover, it is often given a low priority in the requirements elicitation process. This study proposes a framework for generating ethics requirements drafts by introducing an ethics advocate agent in a multi-agent LLM setting. This agent critiques and provides input on ethical issues based on the system description. The proposed framework is evaluated through two case studies from different contexts, demonstrating that it captures the majority of ethics requirements identified by researchers during 30-minute interviews and introduces several additional relevant requirements. However, it also highlights reliability issues in generating ethics requirements, emphasizing the need for human feedback in this sensitive domain. We believe this work can facilitate the broader adoption of ethics in the requirements engineering process, ultimately leading to more ethically aligned products.
In this work, we propose JETHICS, a Japanese dataset for evaluating ethics understanding of AI models. JETHICS contains 78K examples and is built by following the construction methods of the existing English ETHICS dataset. It includes four categories based normative theories and concepts from ethics and political philosophy; and one representing commonsense morality. Our evaluation experiments on non-proprietary large language models (LLMs) and on GPT-4o reveal that even GPT-4o achieves only an average score of about 0.7, while the best-performing Japanese LLM attains around 0.5, indicating a relatively large room for improvement in current LLMs.
Julia Barnett, Patrick O'Reilly, Jason Brent Smith
et al.
While research in AI methods for music generation and analysis has grown in scope and impact, AI researchers' engagement with the ethical consequences of this work has not kept pace. To encourage such engagement, many publication venues have introduced optional or required ethics statements for AI research papers. Though some authors use these ethics statements to critically engage with the broader implications of their research, we find that the majority of ethics statements in the AI music literature do not appear to be effectively utilized for this purpose. In this work, we conduct a review of ethics statements across ISMIR, NIME, and selected prominent works in AI music from the past five years. We then offer suggestions for both audio conferences and researchers for engaging with ethics statements in ways that foster meaningful reflection rather than formulaic compliance.
The metaphor of the Church as the “bride of Christ” holds profound theological significance, offering insights into the identity, purpose, and eschatological hope of the Christian community. Despite its richness, this metaphor has received limited scholarly engagement within African theological discourse, leading to a gap in its contextual application. This article addresses that gap by critically examining the implications of bridal ecclesiology for the African Church. Using conceptual analysis and a comprehensive review of existing literature, the study demonstrates that the bridal imagery not only illuminates the Church’s participatory role in Christ’s redemptive mission but also inspires a deeper communal spirituality, ethical commitment, and missional consciousness. The paper argues that integrating this metaphor into African ecclesiology can promote the church’s qualitative growth, enhance communal engagement, and invigorate its spiritual and missional vitality. In doing so, the article contributes to a more robust and contextually relevant African ecclesiological framework.
This study aims to examine the relationship between the Qur'an as a source of Islamic law and positive Indonesian law from a philosophical perspective. Specifically, this study aims to understand the position of legal values in the Qur'an towards the formation of positive law, as well as to examine the philosophical implications of the differences in the normative basis of the two. This title is important to study because in the practice of the national legal system, there is often a tug-of-war between legal values derived from religion and the modern legal system rooted in the secular Western tradition. Given that Indonesia is a country with a Muslim majority population, the relevance of the Qur'an in the formation of law cannot be ignored, both in terms of legal ethics, justice values, and the formation of written legal norms. This study is formulated through two main questions: (1) What is the position of the Qur'an as a source of legal values in the construction of positive law in Indonesia? and (2) What are the philosophical implications of the differences in the normative basis between the Qur'an and positive law towards the formation of legislation? To answer these questions, the method used is the normative legal research method with a legal philosophy approach and a legislative approach. The main data sources consist of primary legal materials in the form of laws and regulations and interpretations of legal verses in the Qur'an, as well as secondary legal materials such as Islamic legal literature and legal philosophy theories. The results of the study indicate that the Qur'an contains universal justice values that are in line with the basic principles of positive law, such as justice, welfare, and legal certainty. Although there are differences in the form and structure of law, philosophically, both can complement each other within the framework of developing a just national law. This study recommends an integrative approach in formulating positive law that is not only based on legal-formal rationality, but also considers transcendental values that originate from revelation.
Olga Czeranowska, Izabela Grabowska, Iga Wermińska-Wiśnicka
Since the 2004 European Union enlargement, the United Kingdom has seen a significant influx of Polish migrants, many of whom initially found employment in low-skilled roles due to their immediate availability and low entry barriers. This study explores the career changes of young adult Polish migrants in the UK over the past two decades. Using data from British public statistics – the Annual Population Survey (APS) and in-depth interviews – we comprehensively analyse their labour market positionalities in the UK. Our findings reveal a shift from initial deskilling and confinement to the secondary labour market to diverse, upwardly mobile career changes. This study emphasises the critical role of practical skills, work ethics, experience, and social networks in migrants’ professional development. This research contributes to the broader discourse on post-EU enlargement of Central and Eastern European migration, providing a nuanced understanding of young adult Polish migrants’ labour market experiences in the UK.
Rachelle Buchbinder, Paul Glare, Claire Ashton-James
et al.
Introduction The efficacy and safety of SMS text message-delivered interventions for providing pain self-management education and improving clinical pain outcomes have been demonstrated in several randomised controlled trials. However, little is known about the feasibility and effectiveness of these interventions within Australian hospital settings. The current protocol describes a trial designed to evaluate the effectiveness and implementation of an SMS text message-delivered intervention designed to support patients’ engagement with pain self-management strategies and improve clinical pain outcomes after total knee replacement surgery.Methods and analysis A hybrid, type 1 effectiveness-implementation trial will be conducted at a private hospital in Australia. Participants (n=130) will be randomised to either the intervention group (receiving a pain self-management educational video prior to surgery, plus daily SMS text message reminders for 3 weeks after surgery) or an active control group (receiving the pre-surgery video alone, without text message reminders) in addition to usual care. Effectiveness outcomes will be pain intensity (primary), opioid dose, knee function and pain-related distress and will be recorded at baseline, 3 days, 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months after surgery using self-reported surveys. Pain self-efficacy and health-related quality of life will be measured at 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months post-surgery. Implementation outcomes (Reach, Experience, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance) will be evaluated using mixed (qualitative and quantitative) methods. This trial represents a first step towards the translation of digitally delivered postoperative support for engaging with pain self-management in the Australian healthcare system.Ethics and dissemination The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Austin Health Human Ethics Research Committee (Australia, HREC/110142/Austin-2024). Study results will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at scientific and professional meetings.Trial registration number ACTRN12624001060538