Building on our previous achievements in machine ethics (Anderson et al. 2006a-b, 2007, 2008), we are developing and implementing a general interactive approach to analyzing ethical dilemmas with the goal to apply it toward the end of codifying the ethical principles that will help resolve ethical dilemmas that intelligent systems will encounter in their interactions with human beings. Making a...

Review boards responsible for vetting the ethical conduct of research have been criticised for their costliness, unreliability and inappropriate standards when evaluating some non-medical research, but the basic value of mandatory ethical review has not been questioned. When the standards that review boards use to evaluate research proposals are applied to review board practices, it is clear th...

The National Bioethics Advisory Commission has proposed that regulatory oversight for research with human subjects be extended beyond the protection of individual research participants to include the protection of social groups. To accomplish this, the commission recommends that investigators and ethics review boards a) work directly with community representatives to develop study methods that ...

or decades, worries about undue inducement have pervaded clinical research, and are especially comF mon when research is accompanied by payment or conducted in developing countries.’ Few ethical judgments carry as much moral opprobrium or are thought to undermine the ethical soundness of a clinical trial as thoroughly as undue inducement. Indeed, the admonition to prevent undue inducement is on...

Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of economic decision-making. Ethical decision-making has been comparatively neglected. Since ethical decisions often involve very high individual as well as collective stakes, analyzing how cognitive biases affect them can be expected to yield important results. In this theoretical article, we consider...

This paper starts from the premise that radioactive material, generated as a by-product of the British nuclear industry, already exists in significant quantity. The question of what should be done with this material therefore needs to be answered, even if no more of it is created. Whether the industry should continue producing radioactive waste is a legitimate question, and one which raises sig...

This paper starts from the premise that radioactive material, generated as a by-product of the British nuclear industry, already exists in significant quantity. The question of what should be done with this material therefore needs to be answered, even if no more of it is created. Whether the industry should continue producing radioactive waste is a legitimate question, and one which raises sig...

Eight research protocols which had previously been approved by Ethical Research Committees (ERCs) were reviewed in simulated review committees set up during a symposium on medical ethics. Only three protocols were considered to provide fully adequate information to allow ethical review and only one protocol was thought to provide sufficient guarantees on the ethical issues raised by the propose...

The present commentary is based on the following considerations: 1) for the purposes of authorisation, a distinction is drawn between "research" and "intervention". The procedures for authorising the former are more complex, the relevant controls are stricter and approval has to be granted by a Research Ethics Committee (REC); 2) although the debate is still open, it is barely credible to claim...