Ethics

Dr. Goodman: the study of concepts used in reasoning about human action (e.g., “good,” “wrong,” “duty,” etc.

Dr. Husted: A system of standards to motivate, determine, and justify actions taken in the pursuit of vital and fundamental goals (Husted & Husted, 2001).

Dilemma

Dr. Goodman: A moral dilemma (to distinguish it from the formal dilemmas that arise in logic), is a situation in which equally obligatory actions are in conflict; such that no matter what one does, one does wrong. The term is overused in contemporary bioethics, where it is sometimes taken to mean merely “challenge” or “conflict” or “problem” or even  “issue.”      

Dr. Husted: A situation in which one is faced with a conflict of purposes or with purposes whose value is not clear (Husted & Husted, 2001).

Bioethics

Dr. Goodman: that branch of ethics concerned with health care, but broader than “healthcare ethics” in that it includes human subjects and animal research, genetics, etc.

Dr. Husted: A system of standards arising with the professional agreement to determine, sanction, and justify the interactions of biomedical professionals and patients (Husted & Husted, 2001).

Information Science

Dr. Husted: Information science is the science that is concerned with the gathering, manipulation, classification, and retrieval of recorded knowledge (American Heritage Dictionary, 1997).

Bioinformaticethics

Dr. Brown: A system of standards arising from the professional agreement to determine, sanction, and justify the interaction of biomedical professional and patient, particularly in the areas concerning the collection, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of data.

Dr. Goodman: I would not willingly use such a word, but if pressed would say it refers to the ethical issues that arise in bioinformatics, which is the domain shaped by computers and genomics.

Dr. Husted: Information, therefore informatics, is an undefined term.  Information begins with the objects that inform us, it proceeds through the physical events that affect the senses and through which we form our first level process, and ends in the forming of concepts.  Each level is, customarily, signified by the term “information”.

                Ethics, like every basic branch of philosophy, is distorted by the opinions of the source from which ethical information proceeds.  There are several dozen systems of ethics.  Each, for one reason or another, is in conflict with the others.  The way information concerning ethics is obtained through these systems is controversial and ambiguous in the extreme, e.g.:

               Deontology – natural law/innate ideas.

                Utilitarianism – a mathematical equation applied to sources and beneficiaries of pleasure.

               Emotivism – objective information is impossible, therefore ethics is a free creation of the imagination.

                       Relativism – the mores of society or culture

Health Care Ethics

Dr. Husted: A system of standards to motivate, determine, and justify actions taken in the realization of professional obligations.

Dr. Goodman: The investigation of questions of right/wrong, praiseworthyness/blameworthyness, etc. that arise in the provision of healthcare. Generally related to clinical issues

Ethical Informatics

Dr. Husted: We will define as ethical information gathered, manipulated, classified, and retrieved as applied to ethical dilemmas.

Dr. Goodman: ?? Informatics conducted ethically?? Not sure why this term is here, it not being a term or art or otherwise having any currency.

Dr. Goodman's References

Gert B.  Morality: A New Justification of the Moral Rules.. New York, Oxford, 1989.

Gert B, Culver CM, Clouser KD. Bioethics: A Return to Fundamentals. New York, Oxford, 1997.