The modern moral paradigm champions a codified format, where ethics is conceived of as and conveyed by means of law. Among the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible, the book of Proverbs offers an alternative to modern codified morality. I consider a concern shared by ancient and modern societies—communication ethics—to argue that through Proverbs’ focus on character, wisdom, and the Lord, the ...

I believe that most philosophers agree that ethics has no absolute standard. There is no ultimate appeal or norm beside which a system or detail of ethics can be compared, and therefore we must begin the moral consideration of this subject, abortion, as of all other problems of morality, by remembering that what is rightness or wrongness is the result of the public opinion of the race, epoch, a...

The question of whether ethical theories appealing to human morality can serve as a means of protection against information system security breaches has been recognized by several authors. The existing views concerning the role of ethics in information systems security can be divided into two categories. These are (1) expressions about the use of human morality and (2) arguments claiming that t...

If explicit reasoning about morality promotes moral behavior, as Kohlberg and many ethicists have suggested, then one might expect ethics professors to behave particularly well. However, professional ethicists’ behavior has never been empirically studied. The present research examined the rates at which ethics books are missing from leading academic libraries, compared to other philosophy books...

This paper engages with the question of what it is to 'do good medical ethics' in two ways. It begins with an exploration of what it might mean to say that health professionals practise good medical ethics as part of practising good ethical medicine. Using the example of the Genethics Club, a well-established national ethics forum for genetics professionals in the UK, the paper develops an acco...

In discussing bioethics and the formulation of neuroethics, the question has arisen as to whether secular humanism should be the sole philosophical guiding light, to the exclusion of any discussion (or even mention) of religious morality, in professional medical ethics. In addition, the question has arisen as to whether freedom or censorship should be part of medical (and neuroscience) journali...

Biomedical ethicists often assume that common morality constitutes a largely consistent normative system. This premise is not taken for granted in general normative ethics. This paper entertains the possibility of inconsistency within common morality and explores methodological implications. Assuming common morality to be inconsistent casts new light on the debate between principlists and descr...

Given intractable secular moral pluralism, the force and significance of the four principles (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice) of Tom Beauchamp and James Childress must be critically re-considered. This essay examines the history of the articulation of these four principles of bioethics, showing why initially there was an illusion of a common morality that led many to hold t...

This section of the Code of Ethics does not mention abortion, but that was the principle area of concern when this revised section was approved by General Council, the governing body of the Association, in June 1977. The Code of Ethics does not require a physician whose personal morality prohibits him from counselling, recommending or arranging an abortion to refer a patient seeking that servic...