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Introduction to Philosophy

Summary

Introduction to PhilosophySummary

Summary

10.1 The Challenge of Bioethics

Bioethics studies ethical issues that emerge with advances in biology, technology, and medicine. Important contemporary ethical issues in bioethics include abortion, euthanasia, and clinical trials. Different philosophers view these issues in different ways, resulting in various ethical or moral positions, each privileging certain social obligations, individual rights, and/or ideas about personhood.

10.2 Environmental Ethics

Environmental ethics is an area of applied ethics that attempts to rethink our relationship to the natural world and identify right conduct in our dealings with the nonhuman world. This section explores important aspects of environmental ethics like the political and legal dimensions, the value of nature, deep ecology, social ecology, and inequalities in environmental impact globally.

10.3 Business Ethics and Emerging Technology

Although business and information technology (IT) ethics raise broad issues such as corporate responsibility and the potential dangers of artificial intelligence, a great deal of work in these subfields serves to support the development and implementation of codes of ethics that organizations use to guide the conduct of their members. The relationships between firms and their employees and between firms and shareholders is an important area of focus in business ethics. This section also explores important issues related to equality with a discussion of the important ethical issues related to affirmative action in university admissions and the hiring process. Finally, ethical issues pertaining to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence are considered.

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