G. K. D. Crozier

Towards Improving the Ethics of Ecological Research

We argue that the ecological research community should develop a plan for improving the ethical consistency and moral robustness of the field. We propose a particular ethics strategy—specifically, an ongoing process of collective ethical reflection that the community of ecological researchers, with the cooperation of applied ethicists and philosophers of biology, can use to address the needs we identify. We suggest a particular set of conceptual (in the form of six core values—freedom, fairness, well being, replacement, reduction, and refinement) and analytic (in the forms of decision theoretic software, 1000Minds) tools that, we argue, collectively have the resources to provide an empirically grounded and conceptually complete foundation for an ethics strategy for ecological research. We illustrate our argument with information gathered from a survey of ecologists conducted at the 2013 meeting of the Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution.

Reconsidering Cultural Selection Theory

This paper examines conceptual issues that arise in applications of Darwinian natural selection to cultural systems. I argue that many criticisms of cultural selectionist models have been based on an over-detailed reading of the analogy between biological and cultural units of selection. I identify five of the most powerful objections to cultural selection theory and argue that none cuts to its heart. Some objections are based on mistaken assumptions about the simplicity of the mechanisms of biological heredity. Other objections are attributable, rather, to mistaken inferences from observations of biological subject matter to what is essential in natural selection. I argue that such features are idiosyncratic of biological systems, but not essential for natural selection. My arguments throughout are illustrated by examples from biological and cultural evolution, and counter-factual illustrations from the history of theoretical biology. 1. Introduction2. Cultural Selection Theory3. First Objection: Lamarckianism4. Second Objection: Genotype–Phenotype Distinction5. Third Objection: Common Hereditary Architecture6. Fourth Objection: Biological Analogue for Cultural Units6.1. Regarding strict analogues6.2. Regarding the trait analogue6.3. Regarding the virus analogue7. Fifth Objection: Environmental Interaction8. Conclusion Introduction Cultural Selection Theory First Objection: Lamarckianism Second Objection: Genotype–Phenotype Distinction Third Objection: Common Hereditary Architecture Fourth Objection: Biological Analogue for Cultural Units6.1. Regarding strict analogues6.2. Regarding the trait analogue6.3. Regarding the virus analogue Regarding strict analogues Regarding the trait analogue Regarding the virus analogue Fifth Objection: Environmental Interaction Conclusion

The ethics of moral compromise for stem cell research policy.

In the US, stem cell research is at a moral impasse—many see this research as ethically mandated due to its potential for ameliorating major diseases, while others see this research as ethically impermissible because it typically involves the destruction of embryos and use of ova from women. Because their creation does not require embryos or ova, induced pluripotent stem cells offer the most promising path for addressing the main ethical objections to stem cell research; however, this technology is still in development. In order for scientists to advance induced pluripotent stem cell research to a point of translational readiness, they must continue to use ova and embryos in the interim. How then are we to ethically move forward with stem cell research? We argue that there is personal integrity and value in adopting a ‘moral compromise’ as a means for moving past the moral impasse in stem cell research. In a moral compromise, each party concedes part of their desired outcome in order to engage in a process that respects the values and desires of all parties equitably. Whereas some contend that moral compromise in stem cell research necessarily involves self-contradiction or loss of personal integrity, we argue that in the US context, stem cell research satisfies many of the key pre-conditions of an effective moral compromise. To illustrate our point, we offer a model solution wherein eggs and embryos are temporarily used until non-egg and non-embryonic sources of pluripotent stem cells are developed to a state of translational readiness.

Stem Cell Tourism and The Role of Health Professional Organizations

advantage of desperate patients will go unchecked. While we agree with Murdoch and Scott that hope has incredible power to benefit patients, the creation of false hope can have an equally devastating impact, and it is the responsibility of scientists, medical professionals, ethicists, and governments to help set out the boundaries of new medical technologies with carefully thought-out policies and regulations.

The ethical dimensions of wildlife disease management in an evolutionary context

Best practices in wildlife disease management require robust evolutionary ecological research (EER). This means not only basing management decisions on evolutionarily sound reasoning, but also conducting management in a way that actively contributes to the on‐going development of that research. Because good management requires good science, and good science is ‘good’ science (i.e., effective science is often science conducted ethically), good management therefore also requires practices that accord with sound ethical reasoning. To that end, we propose a two‐part framework to assist decision makers to identify ethical pitfalls of wildlife disease management. The first part consists of six values – freedom, fairness, well‐being, replacement, reduction, and refinement; these values, developed for the ethical evaluation of EER practices, are also well suited for evaluating the ethics of wildlife disease management. The second part consists of a decision tree to help identify the ethically salient dimensions of wildlife disease management and to guide managers toward ethically responsible practices in complex situations. While ethical reasoning cannot be used to deduce from first principles what practices should be undertaken in every given set of circumstances, it can establish parameters that bound what sorts of practices will be acceptable or unacceptable in certain types of scenarios.

Market Stimulus and Genomic Justice: Evaluating the Effects of Market Access to Human Germ-Line Enhancement

The concept of “market stimulus”—the idea that free markets can play a role in widening access to new technologies—may help support the view that parents should be permitted to purchase germ-line enhancements. However, a critical examination of the topic shows that market stimulus, even if it applies to human genomic interventions, does not provide sufficient reason for deregulating germ-line enhancements because: (1) it could widen the gap between the rich and the poor; (2) even if it does not widen the gap, it might not sufficiently benefit the poor; and (3) it could have harmful effects for future generations.

NIMBY Claims, Free Riders and Universalisability

In ‘Why not NIMBY?’, Simon Feldman and Derek Turner mount a compelling case that NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) claims are not intrinsically morally unjustified, despite the fact that NIMBY-claimants may be pursuing selfish or self-serving ends. To illustrate their argument, they focus on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s petition against building a wind farm off the coast of Nantucket Sound. The authors characterise NIMBY claims as arguments given in support of the following type of preference ordering: (1) The wind farm goes in someone else’s back yard; (2) The wind farm goes in nobody’s back yard; (3) The wind farm goes in my back yard. This commentary serves to elaborate on Feldman and Turner’s arguments by outlining one set of criteria under which NIMBY claims do not hold moral or political force. We concur with the authors that NIMBY claims are not intrinsically morally unjustified—particularly insofar as they represent statements of preferenceordering. Such statements are rarely immoral. However, neither are they necessarily all that politically persuasive. For a variety of reasons (outlined in Crozier, 2009), we do not focus our analysis on the moral justifiability of NIMBY claims per se (for example, whether Kennedy is morally culpable for having made a NIMBY claim), but on the degree to which such claims are legitimately morally persuasive to others in the formulation of policies (whether policy makers and community members have a duty to respect Kennedy’s NIMBY claim). Feldman and Turner evaluate three categories of reasons that might be given for rejecting all or a subset of NIMBY claims: first, that NIMBY claims are motivated by partiality; second, that respecting everyone’s NIMBY claims would be inconsistent with the public good; and, third, that NIMBY claims entrench environmental injustice. The authors argue that each of these objections to NIMBY claims is open to exceptions—that is, they offer cases where a NIMBY claim meets the criteria of the category but nevertheless is an ethically compelling argument. While we are quite sympathetic to this view, we are less inclined to conclude that there is no systematic or principled way of discriminating ‘good’ from ‘bad’

Why Training in Ecological Research Must Incorporate Ethics Education

Like other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, ecological research needs ethics. Given the rapid pace of technological developments and social change, it is important for scientists to have the vocabulary and critical-thinking skills necessary to identify, analyze, and communicate the ethical issues generated by the research and practices within their fields of specialization. The goal of introducing ethics education for ecological researchers would be to promote a discipline in which scientists are willing and able to engage in ethical questions and problem solving, even if they do so inadequately at first. Practicing ecologists ought to be able to identify and critically evaluate the ethical dimensions of their field studies because ecologists are at the forefront of important interfaces between humans and other-than-human organisms and natural systems. They are among the first to identify the impact of anthropogenic changes to the environments. Rapidly changing local and global environments mean that ecologists will be on the front line of any efforts to create a sustainable lifestyle for humans on this planet.

Juvenile ovarian tissue cryopreservation and social justice: an imperative to broaden the discussion.

While “Preserving the Right to Future Children” presents a fair and systematic evaluation of the narrow question of whether Ms. Jones was justified in her decision to have ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC) performed on her daughter Daisy, it falls short with respect to the broader sociopolitical moral issues raised by this case. Although the article considers the implications of OTC on distributional justice, it does not address larger questions of social justice; these broader social considerations include whether it is appropriate to place such a high value on genetically related offspring (GRO) that it serves as a metric for human flourishing. Thus, in order to address these broader implications of this case study for equity, we require a richer concept of social justice than the one that the authors adopt from Beauchamp and Childress. The decision to subject an ill toddler to elective yet invasive medical procedures requires substantial justification. The act itself is arguably a violation of the child’s right to “security of the person,” by which we refer to the right to be free from all forms of violence, including nonintentional harms (such as when third parties are negatively effected by interactions between two other parties—as in the case of “collateral damage” during times of conflict). Given that the OTC procedure is invasive, painful, and not medically necessary, it is possible to view this therapy on very young children as a potential violation of their security. We do not agree with the authors’ contention that the harms of OTC for Daisy are negligible because she will already be undergoing a barrage of even more painful and invasive procedures throughout her treatment regimen. This “one more won’t matter” rationale is puzzling, given the fact that, if anything, a child who is already ill deserves an even greater degree of gentleness in her care than otherwise. The harms of OTC have extra significance in Daisy’s case since they are compounded by her illness and treatment regimen. The authors cite Daisy’s right to future procreation as justification for the subjecting her to the harms of OTC, but it is worth scrutinizing this right and its applicability to cases of the type in question. To illustrate, compare Daisy’s case to cases of female genital modification (FGM), known