Recent years have seen a massive growth in ethical and legal frameworks to govern data science practices. Yet one of the core questions associated with ethical and legal frameworks is the extent to which they are implemented in practice. A particularly interesting case in this context comes to public officials, for whom higher standards typically exist. We are thus trying to understand how ethical and legal frameworks influence the everyday practices on data and algorithms of public sector data professionals. The following paper looks at two cases: public sector data professionals (1) at municipalities in the Netherlands and (2) at the Netherlands Police. We compare these two cases based on an analytical research framework we develop in this article to help understanding of everyday professional practices. We conclude that there is a wide gap between legal and ethical governance rules and the everyday practices.
MULTIFILE
Legal departments play a pivotal role in the quality of contracts and contracting processes within an organization. This article reflects on current developments and innovations in contracting practice and their impact on the role of legal professionals and legal departments within organizations. Based on empirical research among legal professionals and legal departments in Dutch legal practice, the article positions contracts and contracting within the legal function of an organization and discusses developments in contract management, automated contract assembly and legal design and their potential impact on the role of legal professionals and legal departments. Finally, areas for future research are identified. Throughout the article, the focus is on large commercial organizations.
MULTIFILE
In this paper, we analyse the development of the term “legal capabilities”. More specifically, we do three things. First, we track the emergence and development of the notion of legal capabilities. The term legal capabilities was used in legal research long before the capability approach was introduced in that field. Early on, its conceptualisation mainly reflected elements of legal literacy. In more recent writings, it is claimed that the notion is based on the capability approach. Second, we critically analyse the current use of the term legal capabilities and show that there is no proper theoretical grounding of this term in the capability approach. This is problematic, because it might give rise to misunderstandings and flawed policy recommendations. Third, we suggest some first steps towards a revision of the notion of legal capabilities. Starting from the concept of “access to justice”, legal capabilities have to be understood as the real opportunities someone has to get access to justice, rather than merely as formal opportunities or internal capabilities.
MULTIFILE
This thesis is about dilemmas, discretionary space and ethics in public welfare. In my position as a lecturer of ethics in socio-legal practices I am concerned with the way in which these practices open up to an ethical development of their professionals. Thus, this thesis is a search for the most fundamental themes and issues in understanding and judging public welfare as a, perhaps, ethical socio-legal practice. In the field of public services professionals function as the intermediary between government and citizen. In their daily work public welfare professionals take care of the important societal task and goal of poverty alleviation. During the last decades, public welfare has developed into a civil right that involves many obligations on the part of the client in return. The requirement to see to it that the client fulfils these obligations has complicated the public welfare professional’s task of helping citizens in need.
DOCUMENT
The idea that technologies influence society—both positively and negatively—is not new. This is mainly the terrain of the philosophy and the ethics of technolo-gy research. Similarly, design research aims to help create new technologies in line with individual, social, and societal needs and values. Against this backdrop, it seems essential to expose relations between design and philosophy of tech-nology research, particularly from a methodological perspective. The main goal of this paper is to suggest a preliminary overview of methods and approaches that can inspire and inform interdisciplinary collaboration and, with that, sys-tematic engagement with ethics in design processes. Through interdisciplinary exchange, we propose a preliminary typology of ethics-informed methods and approaches based on two main dimensions, namely theory-grounded approaches to theoretically-flexible techniques and assessment to accompaniment. This mapping intends to help navigate the ethical qualities of selected methods from both disciplines, and it aims to create a platform for fruitful interdisciplinary conversations.
MULTIFILE
The idea that technologies influence society—both positively and negatively—is not new. This is mainly the terrain of the philosophy and the ethics of technolo-gy research. Similarly, design research aims to help create new technologies in line with individual, social, and societal needs and values. Against this backdrop, it seems essential to expose relations between design and philosophy of tech-nology research, particularly from a methodological perspective. The main goal of this paper is to suggest a preliminary overview of methods and approaches that can inspire and inform interdisciplinary collaboration and, with that, sys-tematic engagement with ethics in design processes. Through interdisciplinary exchange, we propose a preliminary typology of ethics-informed methods and approaches based on two main dimensions, namely theory-grounded approaches to theoretically-flexible techniques and assessment to accompaniment. This mapping intends to help navigate the ethical qualities of selected methods from both disciplines, and it aims to create a platform for fruitful interdisciplinary conversations.
MULTIFILE
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology which is increasingly being utilised in society and the economy worldwide, but there is much disquiet over problematic and dangerous implementations of AI, or indeed even AI itself deciding to do dangerous and problematic actions. These developments have led to concerns about whether and how AI systems currently adhere to and will adhere to ethical standards, stimulating a global and multistakeholder conversation on AI ethics and the production of AI governance initiatives. Such developments form the basis for this chapter, where we give an insight into what is happening in Australia, China, the European Union, India and the United States. We commence with some background to the AI ethics and regulation debates, before proceedings to give an overview of what is happening in different countries and regions, namely Australia, China, the European Union (including national level activities in Germany), India and the United States. We provide an analysis of these country profiles, with particular emphasis on the relationship between ethics and law in each location. Overall we find that AI governance and ethics initiatives are most developed in China and the European Union, but the United States has been catching up in the last eighteen months.
DOCUMENT
Aim: Midwives are expected to identify and help resolve ethics problems that arise in practice, skills that are presumed to be taught in midwifery educational programs. In this study, we explore how midwives recognize ethical dilemmas in clinical practice and examine the sources of their ethics education. Methods: We conducted semi-structured, individual interviews with midwives from throughout the United States (U.S.) (n = 15). Transcripts of the interviews were analysed using an iterative process to identify themes and subthemes. Findings: Midwives described a range of professional ethical dilemmas, including challenges related to negotiating strained interprofessional relationships and protecting or promoting autonomy for women. Ethical dilemmas were identified by the theme of unease, a sense of distress that was expressed in three subthemes: uncertainty of action, compromise in action, and reflecting on action. Learning about ethics and ethical dilemmas occurred, for the most part, outside of the classroom, with the majority of participants reporting that their midwifery program did not confer the skills to identify and resolve ethical challenges. Conclusion: Midwives in this study reported a range of ethical challenges and minimal classroom education related to ethics. Midwifery educators should consider the purposeful and explicit inclusion of midwifery-specific ethics content in their curricula and in interprofessional ethics education. Reflection and self-awareness of bias were identified as key components of understanding ethical frameworks. As clinical preceptors were identified as a key source of ethics learning, midwifery educators should consider ways to support preceptors in building their skills as role models and ethics educators.
DOCUMENT
This study explores legal consciousness of social workers within the framework of the 2015 Social Support Act (SSA) in the Netherlands. The aim of this law is to provide social support and care to citizens with impairments or chronic psychological or psychosocial problems, with the goal of enabling people to live independently and actively participate in society. The SSA grants entitlement to a needs assessment to applicants, essential for accessing personalized provisions. This assessment is a pivotal legal evaluation for persons with disabilities to ultimately exercise their rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), ratified by the Netherlands in 2016. With the use of the concept of legal consciousness, this study aims to contribute to understanding social workers’ experiences, understandings, and actions in relation to law in the context of legal decision-making on behalf of the council.
MULTIFILE
Moral food lab: Transforming the food system with crowd-sourced ethics
LINK
