Papers by Chris MacDonald
Healthcare Management Forum, 2002
Organizational ethics is an emerging field concerned with the study and practice of the ethical b... more Organizational ethics is an emerging field concerned with the study and practice of the ethical behaviour of organizations. For effective application to healthcare settings, we argue that organizational ethics requires attention to organizations' special characteristics combined with tools borrowed from the fields of business ethics and bioethics. We identify and discuss several implications of this burgeoning field to healthcare organizations, showing how organizational ethics can facilitate policy making, accountability, self-evaluation, and patient and business perspectives. In our conclusion, we suggest an action plan for healthcare organizations to help them respond appropriately to their ethical responsibilities.
Nursing Ethics, 2002
This article seeks an improved understanding of nurse autonomy by looking at nursing through the ... more This article seeks an improved understanding of nurse autonomy by looking at nursing through the lens of what recent feminist scholars have called ‘relational’ autonomy. A relational understanding of autonomy means a shift away from older views focused on individuals achieving independence, towards a view that seeks meaningful self-direction within a context of interdependency. The main claim made here is that nurse autonomy is, indeed, relational. The article begins with an explanation of the notion of relational autonomy. It then explains both the collective and the individual application of the term ‘professional autonomy’. Finally, it argues that both senses of professional autonomy are best understood as relational, and suggests some implications of this conclusion.
"Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself."-Miles Davis The skills... more "Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself."-Miles Davis The skills involved in ethical decision-making, particularly in times of corporate crisis, bear remarkable similarities to the skills involved in musical improvisation. We gain important perspective on the ways in which organizations, in particular, handle crises if we frame the challenge in terms of the freedoms and constraints to which the improvising jazz or blues musician, for example, is subject. On the face of it, ethics is fundamentally about rules. As a field of study, ethics is about engaging in critical, structured examination of the rules that ought to govern human behaviour and, in particular, human interaction. From the point of view of individual and institutional behaviour, ethics is about deciding which rules to follow and just what those rules require of us under what circumstances. The problem, of course, is that human life is complicated in a way that far exceeds the level of detail achieved by even the most complex and subtly nuanced set of rules we can imagine. And so even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that the rules of ethics are themselves relatively obvious and straightforward, the task of determining, from a practical point of view, how to apply those rules to real life is a nontrivial challenge. Add to this the challenge posed by human progress, and by technological and cultural evolution. The ethical rules that made sense a hundred years ago, or even in some cases ten years ago, may not seem to fit modern needs. Just consider the change in scale our business corporations have seen over the last hundred years, or the vast acceleration in online commerce over the last decade. At the very least, the way old rules are applied may require considerable adaptation. But the process of interpreting the demands of ethical rules, and indeed of adapting them to novel circumstances, is fraught with peril. In seeking to apply ethical rules, the individual or organization faces two serious challenges. One is a challenge to our capacity to reason: namely the challenge of figuring out, analytically, just what a particular rule or set of rules demands in a particular situation. To take a simple example, if one rule forbids lying, and another forbids hurting people's feelings, what should I do when telling the truth would be hurtful? That in itself is a hard intellectual problem. The second challenge lies in avoiding the temptation to allow self-interest to warp our reasoning. Ethical decision-making very often involves tension between our own interests and the interests of others. It is a challenge, in such situations, to avoid putting an unjustifiably high premium on our own preferences and needs. In interpreting and adapting rules to a particular situation, in other words, we all face the temptation to interpret the rules in ways that are friendly to our own interests. Such skewed interpretation is particularly common when it comes to making exceptions to rules. All sorts of mischief results when individuals and institutions engage in self-serving rationalization.
Reinventing the Wheel: Honesty versus Advocacy in the Professions
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 15265160490906763, Aug 17, 2010
1. Am J Bioeth. 2004 Fall;4(4):78-9. Reinventing the wheel: honesty versus advocacy in the profes... more 1. Am J Bioeth. 2004 Fall;4(4):78-9. Reinventing the wheel: honesty versus advocacy in the professions. MacDonald C, Lidstone F. Saint Mary's University. Comment on: Am J Bioeth. 2004 Fall;4(4):53-9. PMID: 16192218 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]. Publication Types: ...
DTC Genomics & Leading-Edge Ethics
Evolutionaire ethiek. Psychologie en conventies
Managing for Stakeholders
Business Ethics Quarterly, 2009
PDC Homepage Home » Products » Purchase. LOGIN; PRODUCTS: All Products; Online Resources; Journal... more PDC Homepage Home » Products » Purchase. LOGIN; PRODUCTS: All Products; Online Resources; Journals & Series; Digital Media; Books & Reference Works. MEMBERSHIPS: Societies & Associations; Conference Registrations. E-COLLECTION: About; Alphabetically; By Category; By Type; Price Lists; Terms and Conditions. SERVICES: Conference Exhibits; Conference Registrations; Electronic Publishing; Journal Advertising; Mailing Lists; Marketing ...
Crisis Management as Ethical Improvisation
Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, 2013
Deep Disagreement and Rawlsian “Public Reasons”
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 15265160500320486, Aug 20, 2006
As Nelson and Meyer point out, the key point of disagreement within the PCB concerns the treatmen... more As Nelson and Meyer point out, the key point of disagreement within the PCB concerns the treatment deserved by extracorporeal human embryo's (EHEs). This is no small matter: indeed, it extends far beyond the current debate over human cloning, and even beyond the abortion debate to which it is so readily linked. Advances in technology (including most importantly information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and bionanotechnology) are almost sure to bring further options, and hence ethical questions, regarding the ways we treat various entities ...
Ethical Issues in the Biotechnology Industry: Introduction to the Special Issue
Journal of Business Ethics, 2008
First, this Special Issue responds to a need on the part of Business Ethics to engage further wit... more First, this Special Issue responds to a need on the part of Business Ethics to engage further with what is, by many accounts, the most exciting and controversial industry on the planet today. Biotechnology is an industry into which millions of venture capital and tax dollars are being poured, and an industry that has drawn significant public attention and generated considerable controversy. It is an industry that has promised nothing less than revolution in health-care, in agriculture and in a range of industrial processes. Given both the public ...
Call For Papers: Special Issue of the Journal of Business Ethics
J Bus Ethics, 2005
Vigilance is vital to avoid conflicts of interest
Nature, Apr 3, 2003
Nature is the international weekly journal of science: a magazine style journal that publishes fu... more Nature is the international weekly journal of science: a magazine style journal that publishes full-length research papers in all disciplines of science, as well as News and Views, reviews, news, features, commentaries, web focuses and more, covering all branches of science and how science impacts upon all aspects of society and life.
Commercialisation of genetic services: the role of genetic counsellors
Human reproduction and genetic ethics, 2002
1. Hum Reprod Genet Ethics. 2002;8(1):1-3. Commercialisation of genetic services: the role of gen... more 1. Hum Reprod Genet Ethics. 2002;8(1):1-3. Commercialisation of genetic services: the role of genetic counsellors. MacDonald C. Department of Bioethics, Dalhousie University, 5849 University Ave., Halifax, NS, B3H 4H7, Canada. PMID: 11962522 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]. MeSH Terms. Commerce; Genetic Counseling/economics*; Genetic Counseling/standards; Genetic Services*; Genetic Testing/economics; Genetic Testing/standards; Government Regulation; Humans; Laboratories/standards; Private Sector; Social Control, Formal*.
Rising above sweatshops: Innovative approaches to global labor challenges
Workers have basic rights that should not be violated, notwithstanding the geographical locale of... more Workers have basic rights that should not be violated, notwithstanding the geographical locale of their work. But those rights often appear to conflict with the economic and commercial needs of both developing nations and multinational enterprises. Creative approaches are necessary if workers' rights are to coexist with commercial success, or even survival. This book introduces the current global labor milieu and showcases innovative solutions via original case studies (eg, Nike, Levi Strauss), which demonstrate how ...
Recent debates about corporate political speech have focused on the question of corporate personh... more Recent debates about corporate political speech have focused on the question of corporate personhood and the rights and obligations it implies. But even for those of us for whom the notion of corporate personhood is a crucial concept, it may make sense to think of corporations, in their lobbying activities, as tools of humans with interests, rather than as the holders of interests themselves. This paper examines the corporation not as a lobbying agent, but as a lobbying instrument, and asks whether framing lobbying in terms of the appropriate use of technology can enlighten on a vexed topic.
Draft discussion paper: Working conditions for bioethics in Canada
Greenwashing: What is Greenwashing, and Why is it a problem?
Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie, 2002
Clinical efforts to treat anorexia nervosa (AN) are constantly resisted by patients. Although the... more Clinical efforts to treat anorexia nervosa (AN) are constantly resisted by patients. Although the primacy of patient autonomy is a cornerstone of modern medical ethics, clinicians will nonetheless often be justified in pursuing particular interventions despite such resistance, give the reduced competency of patients suffering from this multifactorial psychiatric illness. While a literature exists on the ethical justification for imposing treatment, that literature has focused exclusively on situations in which patients refuse treatment outright. When patients resist rather than refuse treatment, clinicians are faced with the ethical challenge of deciding whether particular interventions constitute justified infringements upon patient autonomy. Given the fact that treatment resistance is endemic to AN, we see that ethical decision making must also be a continual part of the disorder's treatment. This paper argues that the treatment of AN merely constitutes a particularly clear ex...
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Papers by Chris MacDonald