Annual Meeting

The Seventeenth Annual Meeting will convene at the St. Anthony Hotel, 300 East Travis Street, San Antonio, Texas 78205 USA.

Association's Annual Meeting

The Seventeenth Annual Meeting, open to Association members and nonmembers, welcomes persons from various disciplines and professions for discussion of common concerns in practical and professional ethics. The meeting provides an opportunity to meet practitioners, professionals and scholars who share your interests.

Hotel Information

The Seventeenth Annual Meeting will convene at the St. Anthony Hotel, 300 East Travis Street, San Antonio, Texas 78205 USA. For Reservations, call (210) 227-4392. Identify yourself as with the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics to receive the meeting guest room rate of $130 for a single room or $150 for a double room plus tax per night. Note: The deadline for hotel reservations at the meeting guest room rate is January 30, 2008.

Transportation Information
San Antonio International Airport is a Southwest Airlines hub. Ground transportation is available at the airport through the local shuttle company, SATRANS to downtown hotels for a rate of $14 one-way or $24 round trip. Make reservations by calling 210-281-9900, toll free 800-868-7707, or via the web at http://saairportshuttle.com.

Call for Papers

Submission Guidelines

Seventeenth Annual Meeting, February 21-24, 2008

You do not need to be a member of the Association to make a submission. You may submit materials in more than one category. All submissions must include:

Your submission will not be considered for review until these items have been received.

Please send three copies of your paper and three copies of a 250-word abstract, plus an abstract sent by e-mail (appe@indiana.edu), for review. Normally, previously published papers will not be accepted. To be considered, your submission must be the actual paper you intend to present – not an abstract and not a longer paper you intend to trim. Presentations are limited to 25 minutes. If you are proposing a panel, the completed Submission and Registration Form, including audiovisual needs, for all panelists must be submitted before the proposal will be considered.

Please send three copies of a 1-2 page description of your presentation. Include content and goals; format (e.g., demonstration of teaching materials, role play); target audience; and value of your presentation for teaching ethics.

Please do not submit cases unless you have permission from the copyright holder to use them for this meeting . Please send three copies of your case study or set of related cases (10 pages maximum) and a 1-2 page description of how the case can be used – what points it raises; what makes it interesting; disciplines, professions and settings to which it is relevant.

Association members are invited to nominate their own books. Books must be related to the Association’s interests and goals, and published within the last two years. Please submit three copies of a 1-2 page description of your book, and supply a copy of your book. Send a one-paragraph abstract by e-mail to appe@indiana.edu with no attachments. The deadline for submission of a book is October 5, 2007. Annual Meeting attendees will have the opportunity to sign up to attend Lunch with an Author with the author of their choice on Friday and/or Saturday. Please note that authors pay for their own meals.

Please follow the same guidelines for submission as for the Formal Papers. Be sure to indicate on the Submission and Registration Form that you are submitting a paper for the undergraduate competition. Deadline for undergraduate paper submissions is October 26, 2007.

We require that you indicate your audiovisual needs on the Submission and Registration Form. Please note that cost prohibits provision of PowerPoint and other computer projection equipment.

Registration fees are not required with submissions, but are due two weeks after you have received notification of acceptance of your submission. Please note that persons on the program are expected to pay the registration fee. The registration fee will be waived for full-time graduate and undergraduate students whose papers are formally reviewed and accepted for presentation. On-Time registration ends January 24, 2008. Persons paying after January 24, 2008 will pay the late registration fee. (Early Bird registration rates are available before November 26, 2007 for those already planning to attend the Annual Meeting.)

Submission and Registration Form

Registration

If you would like a hard copy of the registration forms, please let us know, and we will be happy to mail or fax a copy to you. Please call our office at (812) 855-6450 or send an e-mail message to appe@indiana.edu.

Keynote Speaker

The keynote speaker for the Seventeenth Annual Meeting will be Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, Chair, Department of Clinical Bioethics , The NIH Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health. He will speak on Ethical Issues in Universal Health Care Reform.

Ezekiel J. Emanuel is an internationally known bioethicist and a breast oncologist. After completing Amherst College, he received his M.Sc. from Oxford University in Biochemistry. He received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in political philosophy from Harvard University. His dissertation received the Toppan Award for the finest political science dissertation of the year. In 1987-88, he was a fellow in the Program in Ethics and the Professions at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

After completing his internship and residency in internal medicine at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital and his oncology fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, he joined the faculty at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and was an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School.

He has published widely on the ethics of clinical research, advance care directives, end of life care issues, euthanasia, health care reform, the ethics of managed care, and the physician-patient relationship in The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, JAMA, and many other medical journals. His book on medical ethics, The Ends of Human Life, has been widely praised and received honorable mention for the Rosenhaupt Memorial Book Award by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. He has also published No Margin, No Mission: Health-Care Organizations and the Quest for Ethical Excellence and co-edited Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Clinical Research: Readings and Commentary. He has received numerous awards including the election to the Association of American Physicians, the AMA-Burroughs Welcome Leadership Award, the Public Service Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the 2 nd Annual John Mendelsohn Award from the MD Anderson Cancer Center, and a Fulbright Scholarship (which he declined). In 2004, Dr. Emanuel was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Science.

Dr. Emanuel served on President Clinton's Health Care Task Force, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC), and on the bioethics panel of the Pan-American Healthcare Organization. Dr. Emanuel has been a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Brin Professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School.

Abstracts

Special Undergraduate Paper Competition

Undergraduate students are invited to submit papers on any topic in practical and professional ethics. The papers will be reviewed, and the authors of the best papers will be invited to present their papers during a special concurrent session of the Annual Meeting. To submit a paper, students are asked to follow all guidelines for paper submissions for the Annual Meeting. The deadline for undergraduate papers is October 26, 2007. Be sure to indicate on the Submission and Registration Form that you are submitting a paper for the undergraduate competition. Be sure to complete the audiovisual information as well. The Annual Meeting registration fee will be paid by the Association for those students whose papers have been accepted.

Graduate Seminar on Teaching Practical and Professional Ethics

A special four-hour seminar on the teaching of ethics, open only to graduate students in all disciplines, will be offered during the Annual Meeting on Thursday, February 21, 2008. The seminar will be taught by Richard Momeyer, Miami University of Ohio. The seminar will focus on the problems, pitfalls and resources for teaching practical and professional ethics. Enrollment will be limited to a first come basis. Participants need not register for the Annual Meeting. There will be a $25 registration fee for the seminar.

Ethics Center Colloquium

The Ethics Center Colloquium will convene on Thursday, February 21, 2008, from 1:00-5:30 p.m. The Ethics Center Colloquium is designed to appeal to ethics center directors or their representatives, those considering establishing an ethics center, and other interested persons. It provides a wonderful opportunity to share common experiences, typical problems, and new program ideas. Past colloquia have drawn up to 100 participants.

Day-long Workshop on Research Ethics Instruction at Annual Meeting

2nd Annual Workshop on Research Ethics Instruction

Research Ethics Instruction: Effective Education and Evaluation for the 21st Century

Goals and Audience
The goal of the Responsible Conduct of Research Education Committee (RCREC), and this workshop in particular, is to promote education in the ethical dimensions of research. This educational need is, in itself, an ethical obligation for the research community, but it is now increasingly required by research institutions, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation. The primary audience for this workshop includes anyone currently teaching or planning to teach a course in research ethics or RCR. Participants will be introduced to the tools and resources necessary for developing new programs for teaching RCR. This workshop is structured to provide a clear understanding of the elements necessary for developing, implementing, and improving programs for RCR education.

Learning Objectives
On successful completion of the workshop participants will be able to:

Content
The program will include an overview of the goals, content, and tools for education in scientific integrity. In addition, the use of tools to promote discussion and active learning will be demonstrated in the context of four areas of increasing importance to research ethics education: social responsibility, stem cells, dual use technology, and authorship. The workshop will include a working lunch with an opportunity for networking with other participants and consultation with the instructors.

Instructors and Agenda
Drs. Michael Kalichman and Francis Macrina, co-chairs of APPE's RCR Education Committee. Drs. Macrina and Kalichman each have over 17 years experience in teaching, consulting, and speaking about education in research ethics.

Agenda
The program is scheduled from 9 – 5, Thursday, February 21, 2008. A box lunch will be included for a working lunch.

Registration
This workshop is being delivered as a satellite event for the 17th annual meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. The meeting will be held at the St. Anthony Hotel in San Antonio, Texas, from February 21-24, 2008. For more information, please call (812) 855-6450, send an e-mail message to appe@indiana.edu or review the information at the top of this page.

Cost to participants (including lunch):
$250 for non-RCREC organizational members
$200 for RCREC organizational members

Mini Conference

Ethics, Public Health and the Environment

APPE’s Annual Meeting will feature a mini conference on Ethics and Public Health. The conference will address ethical issues concerning health promotion and disease prevention in the health of populations and communities. The Keynote Presentation is open to all Annual Meeting attendees, however the remainder of the sessions will be open only to those who registered to attend the the mini conference. The registration fee for the mini conference is $35 for those registered to attend the Seventeenth Annual Meeting and $60 for those interested in attending only the Mini Conference.

Robin N. Fiore, Ph.D., Adelaide R. Snyder Professor of Ethics, Florida Atlantic University
Kenneth Goodman, Ph.D., University of Miami Ethics Programs
Robert Hood, Ph.D., Ethics and Human Research Protections Program, Assistant Director, Office of Public Health Research, Florida Department of Health
David Smith, Ph.D., Director, Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale University
Bruce Jennings, Director, Center for Humans and Nature, New York

Saturday

Madison Powers, J.D., D.Phil., Director and Senior Research Scholar, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University

Case Study Panel: Mobile Contagion: Balancing Rights and Protecting Public Health in "The Case of the TB Traveler"

Moderator and Rapporteur: Robin N. Fiore, Ph.D., Adelaide R. Snyder Professor of Ethics, Florida Atlantic University

Sunday

Moderator and Rapporteur: Bruce Jennings, Director, Center for Humans and Nature, New York

Moderator and Rapporteur: Robert Hood, Ph.D., Ethics and Human Research Protections Program, Assistant Director, Office of Public Health Research, Florida Department of Health

Lunch with an Author

Annual Meeting participants are invited to have lunch Friday and Saturday with authors who have recently published books. Space is available by reservation on a first come, first served basis.

See the separate Lunch with an Author registration form in the back of Ethically Speaking or

Friday February 22, 2008

Research holds a key to preventing and effectively treating mental disorders, including ADHD, depression, schizophrenia, and substance abuse. Yet even as research holds out promise, mental health researchers face numerous ethical challenges. Responsible for ensuring participants are able and willing to grant consent, researchers must also constantly protect privacy and confidentiality. But for so many situations, the appropriate decisions are not so clear. An individual with cognitive deficits may have difficulty understanding a research study and granting informed consent, but nevertheless want to participate. Many studies gather private information about medical records or illegal behaviors that could lead to emotional, social, or legal harm if shared, yet state laws and institutional review boards may require researchers to breach confidentiality in specific situations.

At the same time, researchers are often frustrated when they feel that advocates or institutional review boards erect barriers to research, even while failing to enhance the ethical treatment of participants. Ethical research is rarely simply about avoiding bad activities, and more frequently about how to pursue good research when multiple values and commitments conflict.

Ethics in Mental Health Research explores how ethical issues arise in mental health research, and offers concrete guidance to researchers who seek to comply with federal regulations while conducting research that is at once ethical and scientifically credible. Case studies used throughout illustrate a variety of situations and effective problem-solving strategies. This book is essential reading for mental health researchers, IRB members, and research advocates.

Ethics, Crime, and Criminal Justice
Christopher R. Williams and Bruce A. Arrigo
Prentice Hall (2007)

Ethics, Crime, and Criminal Justice explores, in an accessible, stimulating, and practical way, a range of value-based concepts and perspectives designed to familiarize students with their importance both within the complex world of crime and justice and outside of it.

The Last Days of Democracy: How Big Media and Power-Hungry Government Are Turning America into a Dictatorship
Elliot D. Cohen and Bruce W. Fraser
Prometheus (2007)

The authors detail how mainstream media have failed us in covering issues crucial to the survival of American democracy--the Bush administration's domestic spying program; the facts about the September 11 attacks; presidential election fraud; the events leading up to the Iraq war; and the selling out of Internet freedom, to name just some. They reveal how corporate media have systematically attempted to dumb down and distract us from reality with sex and violence; how government has used corporate media to "shock and awe" Americans into surrendering their constitutional rights in the name of the "War on Terrorism"; and how media personalities have been complicit in the mass deception.

The final chapter points out important ways in which Americans can counter the erosion of democracy by relying less on mainstream media and more on independent news sources, through grassroots activism, peaceful assembly, and exercising their free speech, and by using critical thinking to expose the dangers we face.

Ethics in Action: Case Studies in Archaeological Dilemmas Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Dru McGill, and Julie Hollowell
The SAA Press, (2007)

The volume will benefit undergraduate and graduate students who can either use these cases as a classroom activity or as preparation for the Ethics Bowl, as well as those who are seeking to better understand the ethical predicaments that face the discipline.

For new and seasoned professionals, professors and students alike, this volume will engage the reader with a range of topics, including looting, fakes, access to data, public accountability, collaboration, intellectual property, illicit collections, sexual harassment, manipulated data, conflicts of interest, and still much more.

A Practical Guide to Clinical Ethics
Consulting: Expertise, Ethos, and Power
Christopher Meyers
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (2007)

The philosophical method is critical to ethics consulting. To be truly effective, ethicists need grounding in ethics theory, abstract reasoning and conceptual analysis. A Practical Guide to Clinical Ethics Consulting allows ethicists to understand problems from practitioners' points-of-view, and allows for a genuine appreciation of the working life of practitioners.

Doubting Darwin? Creationist Designs on Evolution
Sahotra Sarkar
Blackwell Publishing (2007)

Noted biologist and philosopher Sahotra Sarkar exposes the frauds and fallacies of Intelligent Design Theory, and its claim to be ‘good science’.

The Debate over Corporate Social Responsibility
Steven K. May , George Cheney,Juliet Roper
(Editors)
Oxford University Press (2007)

Should business strive to be socially responsible, and if so, how? The Debate over Corporate Social Responsibility updates and broadens the discussion of these questions by bringing together in one volume a variety of practical and theoretical perspectives on corporate social responsibility.

It is perhaps the single most comprehensive volume available on the question of just how "social" business ought to be. The volume includes contributions from the fields of communication, business, law, sociology, political science, economics, accounting, and environmental studies. Moreover, it draws from experiences and examples from around the world, including but not limited to of recent corporate scandals and controversies in the U.S. and Europe.

A number of the chapters examine closely the basic assumptions underlying the philosophy of socially responsible business. Other chapters speak to the practical challenges and possibilities for corporate social responsibility in the twenty-first century. One of the most distinctive features of the book is its coverage of the very ways that the issue of corporate social responsibility has been defined, shaped, and discussed in the past four decades. That is, the editors and many of the authors are attuned to the persuasive strategies and formulations used to talk about socially responsible business, and demonstrate why the talk matters. For example, the book offers a careful analysis of how certain values have become associated with the business enterprise and how particular economic and political positions have been established by and for business. This book will be of great interest to scholars, business leaders, graduate students, and others interested in the contours of the debate over what role large-scale corporate commerce should take in the future of the industrialized world.

Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: An Applied Philosophical Approach
Seumas Miller
Blackwell (2008)

This book seeks to set out the arguments concerning why people would choose this form of political expression. It also sets out criteria to separate good and bad reasons for the same. Finally, it discusses the moral constraints upon responses to terrorism.

Journalism as Practice: MacIntyre, Virtue Ethics and the Press
Sandra L. Borden
Ashgate (2007)

The process of turning the news into just another product has been going on since at least the nineteenth century. But this process of commodification has accelerated since a few, publicly owned conglomerates have come to dominate the global media market. The emphasis on the bottom line has resulted in newsroom budget cuts and other business strategies that seriously endanger good journalism. Meanwhile, the growing influence of the Internet and partisan commentary has led even journalists themselves to question their role.

In this book, Sandra L. Borden analyzes the ethical bind of public-minded journalists using Alasdair MacIntyre's account of a 'practice'. She suggests that MacIntyre's framework helps us to see how journalism is normatively defined by the pursuit of goods appropriate to its purpose – and how money and other 'external' goods threaten that pursuit. Borden argues that developing and promoting the kind of robust group identity implied by the idea of a practice can help journalism better withstand the moral challenges posed by commodification.

This book applies MacIntyre's virtue theory to journalism with philosophical rigor, and at the same time is informed by the most current thinking from communication and other disciplines, including organizational studies and sociology. Part of the Ashgate Studies in Applied Ethics series.

Saturday February 23, 2008 Schedule

The Price of Truth: How Money Affects the Norms of Science
David B. Resnik, JD, PhD
Oxford University Press (2007)

Modern science is big business. Governments, universities, and corporations have invested billions of dollars in scientific and technological research in the hope of obtaining power and profit. For the most part, this investment has benefited science and society, leading to new discoveries, inventions, disciplines, specialties, jobs, and career opportunities. However, there is a dark side to the influx of money into science. Unbridled pursuit of financial gain in science can undermine scientific norms, such as objectivity, honesty, openness, respect for research participants, and social responsibility.

In The Price of Truth, David B. Resnik examines some of the important and difficult questions resulting from the financial and economic aspects of modern science. How does money affect scientific research? Have scientists become entrepreneurs bent on making money instead of investigators searching for the truth? How does the commercialization of research affect the public’s perception of science? Can scientists prevent money from corrupting the research enterprise? What types of rules, policies, and guidelines should scientists adopt to prevent financial interests from adversely affecting research and the public’s opinion of science?

Resnik investigates and analyzes the relationship between the pursuit of financial gain and the pursuit of knowledge. He considers how money can affect the conduct of scientists, universities, government agencies, and corporations. He also explores how moral, social, and political values affect public and private funding of research. Finally, he proposes some policies for controlling, regulating, and monitoring financial interests in research and for counteracting money’s corrupting effects on science.

The Ethics of Coercion in Mass Casualty Medicine
Griffin Trotter
The Johns Hopkins University Press (2007)

Disasters, both natural and manufactured, provide ample opportunities for official coercion. Authorities may enact quarantines, force evacuations, and commandeer people and supplies -- all in the name of the public's health. When might such extreme actions be justified, and how does a democratic society ensure that public officials exercise care and forethought to avoid running roughshod over human rights?

In The Ethics of Coercion in Mass Casualty Medicine, Griffin Trotter explores these fundamental questions with skepticism, debunking myths in pursuit of an elusive ethical balance between individual liberties and public security.

Through real-life and hypothetical case studies, Trotter discusses when forced compliance is justified and when it is not, how legitimate force should be exercised and implemented, and what societies can do to protect themselves against excessive coercion. The guidelines that emerge are both practical and practicable.

Drawing on core concepts from bioethics, political philosophy, public health, sociology, and medicine, this timely book lays the groundwork for a new vision of official disaster response based on preventing and minimizing the need for coercive action.

In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier
Thomas I. White
Blackwell Publishing (2007)

Have humans been sharing the planet with other intelligent life for millions of years without realizing it? This timely and important book considers the answers and implications, and encourages humans to reconsider our treatment of the species with whom we share the earth.

In this thought-provoking account, Dr. Thomas I. White relies on his more than fifteen year journey to understand the true nature of dolphins, an odyssey that took him from the classroom to the center of the ocean.

Responsibility at Work: How Leading Professionals Act (or Don’t Act)
Howard Gardner (Editor)
Jossey-Bass (2007)

Filled with original essays by Howard Gardner, William Damon, Mihaly Csikszenthmihalyi, and Jeanne Nakamura and based on a large-scale research project, the GoodWork® Project, Responsibility at Work reflects the information gleaned from in-depth interviews with more than 1,200 people from nine different professions—journalism, genetics, theatre, higher education, philanthropy, law, medicine, business, and pre-collegiate education. The book reveals how motivation, culture, and professional norms can intersect to produce work that is personally, socially, and economically beneficial. At the heart of the study is the revelation that the key to good work is responsibility—taking ownership for one’s work and its wider impact.

The Extinction of Desire: A Tale of Enlightenment
Michael Boylan
Blackwell (2007)

The Extinction of Desire is a novel that seeks to portray a philosophical depiction of the author’s worldview theory. The use of narrative situates a worldview stance that is rich in empirical detail that contrasts to the abstract depiction of a traditional monograph in philosophy. The aim of this situated presentation is to employ indirect discourse that will appeal to a wider audience than a traditional philosophical presentation. As such, the work belongs in the Blackwell Public Philosophy series that seeks to present thoughtful philosophy to a wider audience.

What would you do if you suddenly became rich? Michael O’Meara had never asked himself this question. A high school history teacher in Maryland, Michael is content to not ask too many questions - until, after a freak accident, he unexpectedly finds himself the beneficiary of a million dollars. As friends, adversaries, and a greedy ex-wife emerge from the background to lay claim to the fortune, Michael finds himself caught up in a number of troubling situations that disrupt his life and leave him questioning everything he had and everything he thought he wanted. Haplessly swept from the United States and Europe, among international jet setters, the IRA, the Mob, and everyday people, Michael slowly begins to uncover what is truly valuable in life through the teachings of Buddhist philosophy. The Extinction of Desire maps the course of his voyage, blending philosophy and fiction to discover fundamental truths.

Drawing on philosophical arguments, criminological evidence, and the legal literature on prisoners' rights, Rethinking Imprisonment defends a normative theory of imprisonment. Such a theory provides an account of the justified conditions of prison confinement - the restrictions and deprivations that can be legitimately imposed on serious offenders in the name of punishment.
The theory of legal punishment upon which this account builds combines retributive and crime reduction elements, with the former accorded priority on both moral and epistemic grounds. Contrary to its formidable reputation, retributivism is shown to place important and substantial limits on the character of imprisonment, its appropriate use, and duration. Much of the contemporary use of imprisonment as a legal sanction is arguably unjustified on all three counts.

Rethinking Imprisonment urges the adoption of prison conditions at or near the 'minimum conditions of confinement' which severely curtail the freedom of movement, freedom of association, and privacy of prisoners, yet are still consistent with ensuring the basic physical and psychological welfare of prisoners, and provide them with access to paid labor, visitation, entertainment, recreation, and retained civic and political rights. This book argues that firstly the punishment of serious offenders generally requires no more than the imposition of 'minimum conditions of confinement' and secondly that moral constraints on punishment derived from retributivism in conjunction with the available evidence about the prison regimes most likely to reduce crime point towards more humane and less restrictive prisons. ( Oxford Monographs on Criminal Law and Justice)

Critical Conversations: A Theory of Press Criticism
Wendy N. Wyatt
Hampton Press (2007)

This volume provides work toward developing a theory of criticism. Beginning from the perspective that a theory of press criticism should be grounded in a theory of the press itself, the book builds a foundation for the press that rests of the ideals of a discursive democracy. The discursive paradigm is then used to develop a model for criticism that makes the relationship between critics and the press analogous to the one that occurs between the citizenry and state in a discursive democracy.

Media, Markets, and Morals
Edward H. Spence, Andrew Alexandra, Anne Dunn and Aaron Quinn
Blackwell (2008)

The primary aim of the book is the exploration and critical analysis and evaluation of the ways in which the business of running large national and international media organisations in a free market economy affects, for better or worse, the integrity of the communication of information to the public. If information, understood broadly, as “well-formed meaningful data that is truthful” (Luciano Floridi) or as an “objective commodity capable of yielding knowledge” (Fred Dreske) then information must be true to qualify as information since truth is a necessary condition for knowledge (instances of misinformation or disinformation do not qualify as information since they are essentially false). As such, the selling of information as another consumer product on the market may in some circumstances be both epistemologically and ethically problematic.

One of the main objectives of the book is to enquire into and analyse how and in what ways, if at all, the commercial and market interests of media organisations, especially as concerns news, may be undermining and in some instances corrupting both the process and the product of the communication of information to the public.

Some of the factors that are investigated as possibly affecting the integrity of information communicated to the public by the media are convergence of the mediums of communication and the related issue of cross-media ownership, concentration of media ownership in the hands of a few powerful moguls, such as for example, News Limited’s Rupert Murdoch and the ex-Prime Minister of Italy and media mogul, Berlusconi, as well as the perceived ‘unholy alliance’ between journalism on the one hand and advertising and public relations on the other.

A close conceptual analysis of the notions of information and persuasion in the book demonstrates some of the theoretical and practical inherent inconsistencies that underlie those two concepts and shows how those inconsistencies are manifested in media practice. Moreover, the book investigates how these inherent inconsistencies when allowed to covertly undermine the integrity of media communication may constitute the corruption of the communication of information by the media, either unintentionally as in the case of misinformation or intentionally as in the case of disinformation, either by commission or omission. Infomercials and advertorials, product-placements within news content as well as the phenomenon of media release journalism (Spence and Simmons 2006), which involves the deceptive presentation of media releases generated by public relations companies as “news” or “journalistic opinion” for their paying clients, all count as instances of such corruption.

The book also enquires into how, if at all, the aims and methods of business markets generally and media markets specifically can be reconciled with the media’s aims and methods of communicating information on matters of public interest. Can the fourth estate be trusted to tell people the truth all the time or even some of the time? Should the public adopt a more sceptical attitude towards the media?

Finally, the book examines the concept and practice of self-regulation and whether it provides effective ethical if not legal regulation over the media. If the market constrains on the media are such that the media’s ability to communicate information to the public truthfully and reliably comes under question, then more regulation of the media may be required. Opposed to that suggestion, considerations of censorship come into play. Theoretically, however, insofar as the media’s freedom of communication of information to the public is based on the public’s right to receive such information, then the media’s freedom is constrained and overridden by the public interest. And the argument can be put forward that the public interest opposes information that is tainted by commercial and other interests which are not in the public interest with regard to an informed citizenry.

The book includes relevant cases in each chapter which illustrate and contextualise the issues examined within a practical and professional setting.

Foundations in the Law: Classic Cases in Medical Ethics
K. Waugh Zucker, Tracy L. Allen, Marin J. Boyle, Amy R. Burton, Vito S. Smyth
US Army – Baylor University (2006)

A summation of legal cases viewed as fundamental to the study of medical ethics discussed in a special study called Classic Cases in Medical Ethics.

This monograph has been prepared for use by ethicists, individuals in programs of clinical pastoral educations, students of medical ethics, and others interested in the field.

Ethics Bowl

Ethics Bowl is a team competition that combines the excitement and fun of a competitive game with an innovative approach to education in practical and professional ethics. On Thursday, February 21, 2008, 32 teams of undergraduates from the ten regional competitions will participate in the Fourteenth Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl Competition. See Ethics Bowl for more information about the February 21 competition, for information about the regional competitions in the fall, and for information about registering Ethics Bowl competitors to attend the Annual Meeting.

Media Ethics Division Meeting

The Media Ethics Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication will hold its mid-year meeting in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics in San Antonio, Friday, February 22-Sunday, February 24, 2008.

The Division invites papers and panel proposals on all topics related to ethics in the media (journalism, public relations, advertising, entertainment media and the Internet.) Interdisciplinary submissions are encouraged. Collaborations involving scholars from other fields are especially welcome. Possible topics for collaboration across disciplinary and professional lines include ethics codes across the professions, teaching across the curriculum, media coverage of ethical issues in medicine and other fields, the business organization culture and its impact on corporate media, ethical issues in public information campaigns, and adequacy of coverage of political elections . For information about interdisciplinary submissions, including possible collaborators, please contact David Boeyink, School of Journalism, Indiana University, Ernie Pyle Hall 200, Bloomington, IN 47405 (812) 855-9821, David Boeyink

Papers should be submitted to the Association under the guidelines for paper submissions for the Association’s Annual Meeting, as indicated elsewhere in this Call for Papers. That includes submission of a completed Submission and Registration Form with the paper; papers will not be reviewed without a completed form. Authors should indicate on the title page if they wish to be reviewed as part of the Media Ethics Division paper competition; papers must be postmarked by October 12, 2007 . All papers submitted to this competition will be reviewed by members of the Media Ethics Division. Presenters of accepted papers and other Media Ethics division attendees at the Annual Meeting will be expected to register and pay registration fees at the regular announced rates for the Annual Meeting.

Information for Publishers

If you are interested in buying space in the exhibition room or if you are interested in advertising space in the Annual Meeting program, please contact: Cameron Buckner, cbuckner@indiana.edu , or the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics at appe@indiana.edu, attention, Cameron Buckner.

Program Schedule for Seventeenth Annual Meeting in 2008

Updated February 19, 2008

Click here for a current version of the Program Schedule for the Seventeenth Annual Meeting in 2008 , which requires Adobe's free Acrobat Reader.

Please call our office at (812) 855-6450 or send an e-mail message to appe@ indiana.edu with any questions or for more information about the program..

Program for Seventeenth Annual Meeting in 2008

The complete Seventeenth Annual Meeting Program will be included in registrant's folders or available for purchase at the conference.

If you are not able to attend the conference please contact our office at (812) 855-6450 or send an e-mail message to appe@ indiana.edu to purchase a program.

Association for Practical and Professional Ethics
Indiana University
618 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405-3602
Telephone (812) 855-6450; FAX (812) 855-3315
Questions pertaining to this web site can be sent to appe@ indiana.edu

updated January 25, 2008

Association for Practical and Professional Ethics

Seventeenth Annual Meeting

February 21-24, 2008

St. Anthony Hotel, San Antonio, Texas

Meeting Information

Association's Annual Meeting

Hotel Information

Call for Papers

Submission Guidelines

Seventeenth Annual Meeting, February 21-24, 2008

Submission and Registration Form

Registration

Keynote Speaker

Abstracts

Special Undergraduate Paper Competition

Graduate Seminar on Teaching Practical and Professional Ethics

Ethics Center Colloquium

Back to top

Day-long Workshop on Research Ethics Instruction at Annual Meeting

2nd Annual Workshop on Research Ethics Instruction

Mini Conference

Ethics, Public Health and the Environment

Saturday

Sunday

Lunch with an Author

Friday February 22, 2008

Saturday February 23, 2008 Schedule

Ethics Bowl

Media Ethics Division Meeting

Information for Publishers

Program Schedule for Seventeenth Annual Meeting in 2008

Program for Seventeenth Annual Meeting in 2008

The complete Seventeenth Annual Meeting Program will be included in registrant's folders or available for purchase at the conference.