Etikk i praksis - Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics

Lykke og tid

Espen Lauritzen — 2024-06-10

Bridging the Gap Between Implementing Ethical Ideals and Practice Through Knowledge Translation

Allen Alvarez — 2024-06-10

Public spirit and compassion fatigue

Trine Lykkegaard Sønderkær — 2024-06-10

This paper discusses the concept of compassion fatigue in light of the importance that political decisions, especially the application of the concept of public spirit, have had on care and nursing in a Danish hospital context during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper is based on recent research literature in the field as well as the author’s own participatory observation study. The paper suggests that nurses already show a sense of public spirit due to their authorization and professional ethics, but at the same time they must balance the ambiguity of nursing care. A linguistic-philosophical study of public spirit shows that the concept can have a discursive, double-binding and interpellative effect on nurses, who may therefore have an experience of inadequacy and compassion fatigue. In this context, compassion fatigue must be understood as the fact that nurses cannot provide the care they want or that is expected of them. Public spirit can be said to have had a renaissance and linguistic and moral supremacy during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper views the concept of waywardness¹ as a possible response for how to prevent or completely avoid compassion fatigue, so that nurses instead have an experience of compassion / self-compassion. This could in the end be important for encouraging more nursing students and nurses who have the desire and opportunity to stay in the profession.

Keywords: Nursing care, compassion fatigue, public spirit, compassion, COVID-19 pandemic

Compromises and Fairness

Juha Räikkä — 2024-05-29

Many philosophers have pointed out that a compromise that is fair in one sense can be unfair in another. In this paper, I will briefly introduce different ways in which compromises can be “fair” and then analyze them. In particular, I compare the importance of what I call (a) split-the-difference fairness and (b) end-state fairness. I will defend split-the-difference fairness against an important objection—that a person’s false belief about her fair share does not change what her fair share actually is. To allow such a notion would be rather like allowing her false belief to alter what is actually true. Nevertheless, I aim to provide support for the idea that sometimes it may make sense to consider people’s actual beliefs, even if they are false. However, I do not take a strong position on the question of what the most important sense of fairness is with regard to compromises.

Keywords: Compromise, fairness, distribution, agreement, false beliefs

Aesthetic-Epistemological Contradiction in the Concept of Water

Alicia Macías Recio — 2024-05-26

The following paper highlights the contradictions that exist in the understanding of water: it is considered a marketable resource over which one can exert power and, at the same time, a common good used by the planet’s species and ecosystems. Based on this, and after an analysis of several widespread ideas, the paper proceeds to describe the paradox in the perception of water as a product of an alienated aesthetics that makes it impossible to experience the after-effects of the Westernised world. This lack of perception will be called aesthetic omission, corresponding to Eaton’s “nonperceivables” (2000). The text urges us to be aware that these kinds of aesthetics exclusions around water have global effects and ultimately determine the fate of life on Earth itself. Therefore, a complex revision of the established ontology of water is proposed in response.

Keywords: water; nonperceivables; aesthetics; epistemology; Earth

Privacy in a Smart City

Martin Peterson — 2024-05-28

An increasing number of cities around the globe aim to become Smart Cities through the implementation of a range of Information and Communication technologies (ICT), AI applications and cloud-based IoT solutions. While the underlying motivations vary, all such transitions require large amounts of data. In this paper, we articulate and defend two claims about privacy in a Smart City. Our first claim is that some level of systematic data collection and processing is ethically permissible. However, there is an upper limit for what is permissible: We suggest that it is never permissible to collect and process data that significantly undermine people’s autonomy. Our second claim specifies when such minor privacy infringements that do not significantly undermine people’s autonomy are permissible: We suggest that the only policies legitimized by the first claim are those that promote the collective good.

Keywords: smart city, privacy, autonomy, natural right, collective good

Cobalt mining and responsibility

Teppo Eskelinen — 2024-05-30

The article discusses the meaning of “ethical” in the context of ethical goods. Terms like “ethical” or “responsible” have assumed new meanings when used to indicate the quality of a product or material. In the article, we analyse the transformed notion of “ethical”, its limits and extensions, using the case of cobalt mining and electronics as an illustrative example. As a non-substitutable material needed by the booming electronics industry and mined in horrendous conditions, the use of cobalt brings forth difficult questions about responsibility. We approach this question from the perspective of the meaning of “ethical” cobalt, and thereby ethical laptops. We use data collected in the context of a CSO project focused on “ethical laptops” and a literature review, and place this in the context of applied ethics. In conclusion, we show how the notion of “ethical products” is complicated by the various possible meanings of responsibility and difficult choices between disengagement from unethical practices and deeper engagement for changing these practices.

Keywords: Ethical trade, Global value chains; Ethical theory; Developing countries; Electronics; Stakeholders