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Information environment: collecting, storing, and transferring information
Information Environment (1,1) Description (1,2) Examples (1,3) Frameworks (1,4) Frameworks (1,5)
(2,1) How data and informaiton is collected, stored, and transmitted along with ethical issues such as informed consent and privacy that accompany information management (2,2) Informed Consent : Obtaining consent from information holder when collecting, storing, and transferring personal identifying information or transaction generated information.(2,3) Privacy in Context (2,4) Data Transfer and Informed Consent (2,5)
(3,1) (3,2) Belmont Report : (a) Principles: Respect for persons, beneficence, and justice; (b) Application 1: Informed consent as "subjects to the degree that they are capable be given the opportunity to choose what shall or shall not happen to them;" (c) Application 2: assessment of risks and benefits; (d) Application 3: Selection of subjects for experiment.(3,3) (a) Identify individuals in groups in a context; (b) Identify the roles played by these individuals and groups.(3,4) Opt-in : Information is not transferred unless data-holder expressly consents; Opt-out : Data will be transferred unless holder expressly refuses or withdraws consent.(3,5)
(4,1) (4,2) Conditions of Informed Consent Information, Comprehension, Voluntariness.(4,3) (c) Identify context-relative norms that guide activities within context and between one context and another. (Materials on privacy in context are taken from Helen Nissembaum in her book, Privacy in Context (4,4) Fair Information Practices : (a) Notice: full disclusure and redress (way to resolve problems); (b) Choice: Choice about how informaitn is to be used; (c) Access: access to stored and about to be disclosed information; (d) Security: ways that information will be kept secure and unauthorized access prevented incollection, storage, and transfer of information.(4,5)
System of the natural environment
Natural Environment (1,1) Description (1,2) Examples (1,3) Frameworks (1,4) Frameworks (1,5)
(2,1) Wicked Problems (2,2) Principles of Systainability according to B. Norton (2,3) Four Theoretical Approaches to Environmental Ethics (2,4) Environmental Value as determined by shadow markets (2,5)
(3,1) (a) Difficulties in formulating and structuring problem; (b) Non-compatibility of solutions (several ways of stating solutions).(3,2) Precautionary Principle : "in situations of high risk and high uncertainty,always choose the lowest risk option." (Cass Sunstein distinguishes several senses of the PP including one which makes it impossible to deviate from the status quo) (Norton 348)(3,3) (a) Extensionism : Peter Singer's extension of Utilitarianism to cover sentient beings; (b) Tom Regan's ascription of rights to select animals. Biocentrism : Taylor's attribution of moral consideration to all teleological centers of a life.(3,4) Willingness-to-pay : Resource in question would go to the highest bidder, that is, value is dependent on most intense preference and the disposable income to assert that preference(3,5)
(4,1) (c) Wicked problems are "non-repeatable" in that they are context-dependent. This renders learning from previous problems and solutions much more difficult; (d) Wicked problems involve "competing values" that cannot be realized at the same time and that cannot be homogenized or plotted on a single scale; (e) Wicked problems exhibit "open-ended inter-temporal effects". Closely paraphrased from Norton, Systainability, 133-5 (4,2) Safe Minimum Standard : "save the resource, provided the costs of doing so are bearable" (Norton 346)(4,3) Land Ethics : A thing has value or is good insofar as it promotes the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. Biotic community includes humans, non-humans, species, and ecosystems all interacting as a system. From Aldo Leopole, Sand County Almanac; Virtue Environmental Ethics : Approach centers on virtues as habits that promote sustainable transactions with the natural environment. Hursthouse provides a provocative example with the virtue, respect for nature.(4,4) Willingness-to-sell : Resource is owned by the public so its value is determined by its selling rather than buying price. This frees bid fromdisposable income. Now value becomes more reflective of the identity-conferring beliefs and attitudes of a community and its members.(4,5)

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Source:  OpenStax, Professional ethics in engineering. OpenStax CNX. Aug 29, 2013 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col10399/1.4
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