This chapter discusses the ethics of generative AI. It provides a technical primer to show how generative AI affords experiencing technology as if it were human, and this affordance provides a fruitful focus for the philosophical ethics of generative AI. It then shows how generative AI can both aggravate and alleviate familiar ethical concerns in AI ethics, including responsibility, privacy, bias and fairness, and forms of alienation and exploitation. Finally, the chapter examines ethical questions that arise specifically from generative AI's mimetic generativity, such as debates about authorship and credit, the emergence of as-if social relationships with machines, and new forms of influence, persuasion, and manipulation.
Misinformation is a growing concern in a decade involving critical global events. While social media regulation is mainly dedicated towards the detection and prevention of fake news and political misinformation, there is limited research about religious misinformation which has only been addressed through qualitative approaches. In this work, we study the spread of fabricated quotes (Hadith) that are claimed to belong to Prophet Muhammad (the prophet of Islam) as a case study demonstrating one of the most common religious misinformation forms on Arabic social media. We attempt through quantitative methods to understand the characteristics of social media users who interact with fabricated Hadith. We spotted users who frequently circulate fabricated Hadith and others who frequently debunk it to understand the main differences between the two groups. We used Logistic Regression to automatically predict their behaviors and analyzed its weights to gain insights about the characteristics and interests of each group. We find that both fabricated Hadith circulators and debunkers have generally a lot of ties to religious accounts. However, circulators are identified by many accounts that follow the Shia branch of Islam, Sunni Islamic public figures from the gulf countries, and many Sunni non-professional pages posting Islamic content. On the other hand, debunkers are identified by following academic Islamic scholars from multiple countries and by having more intellectual non-religious interests like charity, politics, and activism.
Laurynas Adomaitis, Vincent Israel-Jost, Alexei Grinbaum
We present Ethics Readiness Levels (ERLs), a four-level, iterative method to track how ethical reflection is implemented in the design of AI systems. ERLs bridge high-level ethical principles and everyday engineering by turning ethical values into concrete prompts, checks, and controls within real use cases. The evaluation is conducted using a dynamic, tree-like questionnaire built from context-specific indicators, ensuring relevance to the technology and application domain. Beyond being a managerial tool, ERLs help facilitate a structured dialogue between ethics experts and technical teams, while our scoring system helps track progress over time. We demonstrate the methodology through two case studies: an AI facial sketch generator for law enforcement and a collaborative industrial robot. The ERL tool effectively catalyzes concrete design changes and promotes a shift from narrow technological solutionism to a more reflective, ethics-by-design mindset.
Current challenges in the Islamic banking sector highlight the urgent need to understand the factors influencing ethical and informed investment decisions. This study aims to analyze the impact of financial literacy and Islamic business ethics on investment in Islamic financial instruments, focusing on the mediating role of risk attitude and the moderating role of religious knowledge. Data were collected through a primary method by distributing questionnaires to 300 bank customers and students in Aceh, Indonesia. The model employed is Structural Equation Modeling-Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) using Smart PLS software. The findings reveal that financial literacy significantly positively impacts investment decisions and risk attitudes. Islamic business ethics also significantly influence both investment decisions and risk attitudes. Religious knowledge positively affects investment decisions, while risk attitude has a positive impact on investments. However, the moderating effects of risk attitude and religious knowledge on investment are not significant. Risk attitude serves as a crucial mediator in the relationship between financial literacy and investment, as well as between Islamic business ethics and investment. The study underscores the importance of financial literacy, Islamic business ethics, religious knowledge, and risk attitude in shaping investment behavior in the Islamic finance sector, and highlights the need for integrating ethical practices to enhance investment outcomes.
Penelitian ini dilakukan bertujuan untuk mengetahui upaya peningkatan hasil belajar peserta didik melalui media quiziz di SMA Negeri 6 Palembang. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian Tindakan kelas (PTK), dengan 4 tahap yang harus dilakukan yaitu tahap perencanaan, tindakan, pengamatan dan refleksi. Kegiatan dilakukan dengan 3 siklus yaitu pra siklus, siklus 1 dan siklus 2. Subyek pada penelitian ini berjumlah 38 peserta didik. Instrumen yang digunakan untuk mengetahui hasil belajar peserta didik yaitu menggunakan tes pilihan ganda. Pada pra siklus didapatkan hasil rata-rata nilai nya 6,1 dan persentase ketuntasan hanya 37% dengan jumlah 14 peserta didik yang tuntas. Pada siklus I didapatkan hasil rata-rata 7,1 dengan persentase ketuntasan naik menjadi 66% dan jumlah peserta didik mengalami kenaikan menjadi 25 peserta didik. Pada siklus II didapatkan hasil rata-rata nilai 8,0 dan 35 peserta didik medapatkan nilai tuntas dengan persentase ketuntasan naik menjadi 92%. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian tersebut dapat disimpulkan bahwa penggunaan quiziz dapat meningkatkan hasil belajar peserta didik pada mata pelajaran PPKn.
Eline W. Dalmijn, Merel A. Visse, Inge van Nistelrooij
Introduction: Unintended pregnancies are a worldwide health issue, faced each year by one in 16 people, and experienced in various ways. In this study we focus on unintended pregnancies that are, at some point, experienced as unwanted because they present the pregnant person with a decision to continue or terminate the pregnancy. The aim of this study is to learn more about the decision-making process, as there is a lack of insights into how people with an unintended pregnancy reach a decision. This is caused by 1) assumptions of rationality in reproductive autonomy and decision-making, 2) the focus on pregnancy outcomes, e.g. decision-certainty and reasons and, 3) the focus on abortion in existing research, excluding 40% of people with an unintended pregnancy who continue the pregnancy. Method: We conducted a narrative literature review to examine what is known about the decision-making process and aim to provide a deeper understanding of how persons with unintended pregnancy come to a decision.Results: Our analysis demonstrates that the decision-making process regarding unintended pregnancy consists of navigating entangled layers, rather than weighing separable elements or factors. The layers that are navigated are both internal and external to the person, in which a ‘sense of knowing’ is essential in the decision-making process. Conclusion: The layers involved and complexity of the decision-making regarding unintended pregnancy show that a rational decision-making frame is inadequate and a more holistic frame is needed to capture this dynamic and personal experience.
This study examined how cross-cultural methodological approach can improve research on environmental sustainability in Africa. What is considered as the traditional methodological approaches to environmental sustainability in the continent are based on siloed traditions and revelation/intuition, and therefore low in creativity. Worse still, whereas ideas from other cultures could infuse new perspectives, creativity, and innovation, many scholars in areas studies insist on methodological monism because of a deeper interest in preserving cultural identity of the regions they study. This approach negatively affects area studies in general and African studies in particular. Thus, two questions guided this study: (i) how can cross-cultural approach to the study of the environment improve its sustainability in Africa; and (ii) to what degree do traditional approaches to knowledge enhance creativity and innovation to environmental sustainability in Africa? To answer these questions, this study adopted, qualitative research methods. Data for the study were generated from secondary sources and analysed using phenomenological, hermeneutic, and critical philosophical approaches. This study argues that insistence on methodological monism is a disservice to environmental sustainability around the world. The study also demonstrates that exploring and incorporating ideas from non-African – particularly modern scientific frameworks – will be beneficial to the continent.
Ali akbar Hoseyni ramandi, Mohammad Mahdi Firoozmehr
The discussion about the Moral Absolutism and Moral relativity begins with this question: do moral rules change with the change of conditions, time, place, people and societies, or are they always fixed and without any restriction and allocation, including all people, in all times and places?Some schools consider moral rules to be a relative matter, whose rules will change with the change of conditions, time, place, people and societies; but a number of schools consider moral laws to be fixed, eternal and independent of time, place, conditions and people.The present research is an exploration about the application and moral relativity in the scope of the Quranic revelation. Quranic teachings shows that the moral system of Islam is based on fixed and absolute laws and rulings, and numerous Quranic reasons and evidences support the Moral Absolutism principles and do not reflect moral relativism.
This paper reports on one part of a larger longitudinal empirical study (2021–2023) that responds to the call for Religious Education (RE) to address religious plurality in the context of senior Catholic schooling within an Australian Archdiocese where students represent multiple faith traditions or no traditions. The research focuses on the level of satisfaction by students across Topics, Pedagogies, and Outcomes within a new and innovative senior school curriculum, Religion Meaning and Life (RML) based on national RE guidelines. Participants included 276 students across 17 schools who completed an online survey with 32 of these students participating in focus group interviews. Data analysis of quantitative data was both descriptive and inferential, and qualitative data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Topics of most interest were Ethics and Other World Religions; pedagogies entailing dialogue and use of media and technologies were rated highly; and learning outcomes entailed awareness of school mission, the religious dimension of the school, and pastoral care. Inferential statistical analyses confirm four core topics, pedagogies, and outcomes as significant to levels of satisfaction and in combination accounted for 42% of the variance of satisfaction with RML. Theoretical propositions for what matters most in senior secondary RE were advanced through four integrating principles (educational, formative, social, communitarian) and practice implications that preference Catholic tradition, and reference religious plurality.
The rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in scientific research, particularly large language models (LLMs), has outpaced the development of ethical guidelines, leading to a "Triple-Too" problem: too many high-level ethical initiatives, too abstract principles lacking contextual and practical relevance, and too much focus on restrictions and risks over benefits and utilities. Existing approaches--principlism (reliance on abstract ethical principles), formalism (rigid application of rules), and technological solutionism (overemphasis on technological fixes)--offer little practical guidance for addressing ethical challenges of AI in scientific research practices. To bridge the gap between abstract principles and day-to-day research practices, a user-centered, realism-inspired approach is proposed here. It outlines five specific goals for ethical AI use: 1) understanding model training and output, including bias mitigation strategies; 2) respecting privacy, confidentiality, and copyright; 3) avoiding plagiarism and policy violations; 4) applying AI beneficially compared to alternatives; and 5) using AI transparently and reproducibly. Each goal is accompanied by actionable strategies and realistic cases of misuse and corrective measures. I argue that ethical AI application requires evaluating its utility against existing alternatives rather than isolated performance metrics. Additionally, I propose documentation guidelines to enhance transparency and reproducibility in AI-assisted research. Moving forward, we need targeted professional development, training programs, and balanced enforcement mechanisms to promote responsible AI use while fostering innovation. By refining these ethical guidelines and adapting them to emerging AI capabilities, we can accelerate scientific progress without compromising research integrity.
Eddie L. Ungless, Nikolas Vitsakis, Zeerak Talat
et al.
There is a significant body of work looking at the ethical considerations of large language models (LLMs): critiquing tools to measure performance and harms; proposing toolkits to aid in ideation; discussing the risks to workers; considering legislation around privacy and security etc. As yet there is no work that integrates these resources into a single practical guide that focuses on LLMs; we attempt this ambitious goal. We introduce 'LLM Ethics Whitepaper', which we provide as an open and living resource for NLP practitioners, and those tasked with evaluating the ethical implications of others' work. Our goal is to translate ethics literature into concrete recommendations and provocations for thinking with clear first steps, aimed at computer scientists. 'LLM Ethics Whitepaper' distils a thorough literature review into clear Do's and Don'ts, which we present also in this paper. We likewise identify useful toolkits to support ethical work. We refer the interested reader to the full LLM Ethics Whitepaper, which provides a succinct discussion of ethical considerations at each stage in a project lifecycle, as well as citations for the hundreds of papers from which we drew our recommendations. The present paper can be thought of as a pocket guide to conducting ethical research with LLMs.
We consider the question of what properties a Machine Ethics system should have. This question is complicated by the existence of ethical dilemmas with no agreed upon solution. We provide an example to motivate why we do not believe falling back on the elicitation of values from stakeholders is sufficient to guarantee correctness of such systems. We go on to define two broad categories of ethical property that have arisen in our own work and present a challenge to the community to approach this question in a more systematic way.
The world has many problems, economic interests, chaos, and wars. Man needs a binder to prevent man (countries) from being able to do something that only benefits himself and harms others. Thus, global ethics as a minimalist ethic is needed in this world. The goal is that there be peace and order. This article aims to construct an idea of creating peaceful education through Islamic Religious Education with a global ethical perspective. This research confirms that the main points of global ethics are relevant to Islamic religious education in Indonesia regarding Islamic teachings and Government Regulations. The integration of global ethics in Islamic Religious Education can be implemented in Indonesia. On the other hand, there are challenges to integrating global ethics in learning; how can teachers provide students with an understanding of the universal values of global ethics in Indonesia context of a plural society? The leading global ethics precepts must be included in the Islamic religious education curriculum at the basic, secondary, and higher levels. This study is devoted to developing a rudimentary idea of Islamic religious education from a global ethical standpoint. As a result, additional research on Islamic religious education from a global ethical viewpoint is required.
S. Navarro-Prado, M. A. Sánchez-Ojeda, Ángel Fernández-Aparicio
et al.
Sexuality is still perceived by some cultures as a taboo subject. Although there is now a more open attitude towards sexuality, the maintenance of virginity is one of the most concerning issues in some religions. The aim of this research is to investigate the sexual behavior of university students and analyze how culture and religion influence the beliefs and maintenance of virginity in women and men. A mixed methodology was used, involving 355 students in the quantitative design and 18 informants for the qualitative study who took part in two focus groups. The results indicate that religion and the degree of religious practice are predictor variables for the decision to have penetrative sex, with Muslim women and men giving more importance to the maintenance of a woman’s virginity. However, this hymen-centric view does not prevent other sexual practices, such as oral and/or anal sex, among young people who wish to maintain their virginity until marriage. Religious ethics continue to influence the sexual behavior of young people today. Therefore, nursing education must address these issues to improve the affective sexual health of the population.
ABSTRACTThis essay addresses the questions, “what good is religious ethics for?” and “what justification exists for the field?” in three steps. First, it canvases how religious ethicists have offered reasons for carrying out work in the field to identify anAnti‐Reductive Paradigmthat is guided by anEgalitarian Imperative. That imperative functions as a thin, minimal morality of inclusivity and equal respect that guides work in the field. Second, the essay considers the field's ends. Here the focus shifts from values that shape the field'smethodsto values that can describe the field'spurposes. That shift requires us to think in terms of a thick rather than a thin morality, one with substantive rather than procedural virtues in mind. The essay offers a constructive, substantive proposal under the rubric ofCritical Humanism. Critical Humanism justifies the study of religious ethics as an enterprise that can expand the moral imagination through its encounter with difference. It is shaped by four values: post‐critical reasoning, social criticism, cross‐cultural fluency, and environmental responsibility. Third, the essay brings the two parts of the argument together by explaining how to connect such purposes to the thin morality of inclusivity and equal respect. One upshot of the essay is to have us think not only about values, but also about power as it pertains to scholarship in the guild; hence the attention to the ethics and politics of religious ethics.
Human dignity, even when analyzed through the lens of human rights, has received surprisingly little attention in the Journal of Religious Ethics, in contrast to a resurgent global interest in it. This article examines some possible reasons for this diminutive interest and makes a case for dignity's integration into the mainstream of religious ethics scholarship. A social conception of human dignity understands it as a conferment that entitles its holder to certain respectful treatments unavailable to those without it. As a naturalistic conception, human dignity assumes certain features to be inherent in human nature. An emancipatory theory of dignity offers a fuller accounting of the concept as it is informed by a grassroots human rights praxis and social movements across a spectrum of historical periods and cultural and political contexts.
ABSTRACTIn this essay, I argue that Christian ethicists should not think of themselves as religious ethicists. I defend this claim by arguing that the concept of religious ethics, as it has come to be understood as a discipline that is distinct from secular ethics, is incoherent. In part one, I describe the fraught attempts by theologians in the 20th century to identify the distinctiveness of Christian ethics. In part two, I argue that certain accounts of natural law unwittingly reinforce a problematic conception of secular ethics. Part three examines some trends in religious studies and comparative religious ethics to highlight problematic conceptions of religion. Drawing together these strands of inquiry, I contend that that the secular‐religious dichotomy in contemporary ethics should be rejected, but by the same token, I suggest that comparative ethics remains a worthwhile enterprise.
ABSTRACTPast discussions of the public role of religious ethics scholarship have tended to focus on the propriety of religious argumentation in the public square. Rather than critiquing or vindicating such public engagement by explicitly religious thinkers, this essay recommends broader public engagement by scholars of comparatively oriented religious ethics, exploring why this goal is worthwhile, some possible objections, and various models of how it might be accomplished.
The cultural rituals of any society are the birth certificates of that society’s culture, history, religion, and ethics. These rites and rituals are an important factor in fostering cohesion and unity among the people of a society who gather together in various ceremonies. Mourning ceremonies and rituals vary in different provinces, cities, and villages across the country, particularly during the first decade of Muharram. Iran is considered one of the inheritors of world culture due to its diverse and rich cultural rituals. The purpose of this research is to do a comparative and documented study of Muharram rituals in these two provinces so that by revealing the manifestations of cultural rituals and their differences and similarities, we can reach the deep and rich layers of the culture of these two provinces. This research intends to investigate the differences and similarities between the rituals of the first decade of Muharram and their cultural differences in the two provinces of East Azarbaijan and Khuzestan, using a descriptive-comparative study method. These two provinces have a deep cultural and religious background and an ancient civilization. The results of this research show that despite the great similarity in the performance of Muharram rituals in the two provinces in question, the diversity of mourning rituals is also visible in these two provinces. The varieties and differences are closely related to cultural, climatic, and linguistic differences in these two provinces. These two provinces’ people have chosen to mourn in accordance with their religion, vegetation, culture, and language. The results of this research show that, in addition to these differences, the common points of this cultural ritual in the two provinces are the love of the Prophet’s family and devotion to Ashura culture.
Economic growth, development, planning, Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology