Bert Gordijn

Dublin City University | DCU · Institute of Ethics

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform many aspects of scholarly publishing. Authors, peer reviewers, and editors might use AI in a variety of ways, and those uses might augment their existing work or might instead be intended to replace it. We are editors of bioethics and humanities journals who have been contemplat...

Contributor Role Ontologies and Taxonomies (CROTs) provide a standard list of roles to specify individual contributions to research. CROTs most common application has been their inclusion alongside author bylines in scholarly publications. With the recent uptake of CROTs among publishers -particularly the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT)- some ha...

This paper presents a literature review on the ethics of self-tracking technologies which are utilized by users to monitor parameters related to their activity and bodily parameters. By examining a total of 65 works extracted through a systematic database search and backwards snowballing, the authors of this review discuss three categories of oppor...

This paper analyzes the ethics of social science research (SSR) employing big data. We begin by highlighting the research gap found on the intersection between big data ethics, SSR and research ethics. We then discuss three aspects of big data SSR which make it warrant special attention from a research ethics angle: (1) the interpretative character...

This editorial discusses the notion of vulnerability in the Covid pandemic

The use of Assistive Technologies (ATs) in the provision of healthcare promises to provide novel opportunities to protect, empower and extend the autonomy of persons with dementia (PwDs). However, it also poses autonomy-related challenges, especially regarding informed consent. Traditional informed consent procedures, aimed at the protection of the...

Empathy is a central concept in healthcare ethics. It is commonly regarded as the necessary basis for good healthcare. Quality care cannot be provided if providers lack empathy. They may deliver excellent and top-notch technical assistance or interventions but without attention to the person who is attended to, something essential is missing. Since...

After an examination of research integrity in China, the journal Science concluded that there is a flourishing black market in publications (Hvistendahl 2013). For fees ranging from $1600 to $26,300 authorship in science citation index (SCI) journals is for sale. Shady companies are trading in SCI papers. Chinese regulatory agencies are concerned a...

The rapid evolution of information, communication and entertainment technologies will transform the lives of citizens and ultimately transform society. This paper focuses on ethical issues associated with the likely convergence of virtual realities (VR) and social networks (SNs), hereafter VRSNs. We examine a scenario in which a significant segment...

Ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies can provide as- sistance and support to vulnerable persons, including people with dementia (PwD). They might allow these persons the possibility of living at home for longer whilst still main- taining their comfort, safety and security. AAL technologies also trigger serious ethical issues. This presentatio...

One of the first disasters to thoroughly stir the intellectual world was the Great Lisbon Earthquake in 1755. It had an in-depth effect on Enlightenment intellectuals, triggering a wide array of theological, philosophical and scientific debates. Today we definitely have better scientific theories about disasters. Also our theological and philosophi...

Autonomy seems to be a core issue for lifelogging technology as it can influence our understanding as well as our personal freedom but a comprehensive discussion on the effect of it on the autonomy of the lifelogger and others affected seems still missing in the current academic debate. In this article we provide a preliminary inquiry into this top...

Ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies can provide assistance and support to persons with dementia. They might allow them the possibility of living at home for longer whilst maintaining their comfort and security as well as offering a way towards reducing the huge economic and personal costs forecast as the incidence of dementia increases world...

The discipline of historiography, understood as the scientific exploration of the past, has developed much earlier in time than that of futurology, i.e. the methodologically rigorous examination of the future. Yet anticipating the future has arguably always had more practical importance than knowing and understanding the past. Hence anticipation is...

In a lifelog, data from various sources are combined to form a record from which one can retrieve information about oneself and the environment in which one is situated. It could be considered similar to an automated biography. Lifelog technology is still at an early stage of development. However, the history of lifelogs so far shows a clear academ...

An underexposed ethical issue raised by tissue engineering is the use of laboratory animals in tissue engineering research. Even though this research results in suffering and loss of life in animals, tissue engineering also has great potential for the development of alternatives to animal experiments. With the objective of promoting a joint effort...

The use of laboratory animals in tissue engineering research is an important underexposed ethical issue. Several ethical questions may be raised about this use of animals. This article focuses on the possibilities of reducing the number of animals used. Given that there is considerable debate about the adequacy of the current animal models in tissu...

This article focuses on three scenarios in which residual biological materials are turned into research collections during the procedure of procuring these materials for diagnostic, therapeutic or other non-research purposes. These three scenarios differ from each other primarily because they employ different models of consent: (a) precautionary co...

Would it not be wonderful, if we could always provideeverybody with all the medical interventions they mightrequire or fancy? Not in this world—neither in developingnor in developed nations. We are witnessing speedilymounting costs of emerging medical technologies andnovel drugs. At the same time changing demographicsimply that more and more elderl...

The Republic of Ireland (Ireland) and the United Kingdom (UK) share a common language, legal system, and membership of the European Union (EU) and Council of Europe (COE). However, there are also considerable cultural, social, economic, political, legal, religious, and moral differences between Ireland and the UK. These differences are reflected in...

Solidarity belongs to the basic principles of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and is part of the ethical repertoire of European moral traditions and European healthcare systems. This paper discusses how leaders of Catholic healthcare organizations (HCOs) can understand their institutional moral responsibility with regard to the preservation of solid...

Croatia is a transitional society in that it is a country emerging from a socialist command economy toward a market-based economy with ensuing structural changes of a social and political naturesome extending into the healthcare system. A legacy from our past is that, until now, Croatian healthcare institutions have had no real experience with clin...

This paper analyses the concept of empirical ethics as well as three meta-ethical fallacies that empirical ethics is said to face: the is-ought problem, the naturalistic fallacy and violation of the fact-value distinction. Moreover, it answers the question of whether empirical ethics (necessarily) commits these three basic meta-ethical fallacies.

Studies in Ethics, Law and Technology (SELT) differs from similar journals in the field in the following way: it is broader both in terms of focusing on a wide range of technologies as well as giving equal attention to ethical and regulatory questions. Besides, being an electronic medium, SELT has no limited word count, which characterizes hard cop...

This editorial explores the concept of ethics, law and technology within the context of policymaking. It draws upon the concepts of argument, concern and risk, alongside a presentation of the importance of utilizing a broad range of methods and perspectives in research in order to ensure good quality governance.

In a recent article, Steinkamp, Gordijn, and ten Have discussed a new way of thinking about the ethics consultant's ethical expertise. After critiquing their model of ethical expertise, along with the notion that discourse can and will enable ethicists to consult without over-reaching, this essay suggests that the debate about ethical expertise is...

Tissue engineering (TE) is a promising new field of medical technology. However, like other new technologies, it is not free of ethical challenges. Identifying these ethical questions at an early stage is not only part of science's responsibility toward society, but also in the interest of the field itself. In this review, we map which ethical issu...

This paper explores the relevance of the debate about ethical expertise for the practice of clinical ethics. We present definitions, explain three theories of ethical expertise, and identify arguments that have been brought up to either support the concept of ethical expertise or call it into question. Finally, we discuss four theses: the debate is...

The status of knowledge, skills and virtues in morality has been discussed since the days of Socrates. However, in the last few decades, ethicists have become involved in healthcare, business, industry, journalism as never before. This development has triggered a modern debate about whether bestowing a specific authority in morals upon specialists...

This paper deals with the question whether, and if yes, why it is relevant for contemporary Catholic healthcare organizations (HCOs) to articulate their Catholic identity. This question relates to a more encompassing issue: the meaning of institutional Catholic identity against the contemporary backdrop of scientific and rational approaches to heal...

To analyse legislation and medical professional positions concerning the doctor's role in assisted dying in western Europe, and to discuss their implications for doctors. This paper is based on country-specific reports by experts from European countries where assisted dying is legalised (Belgium, The Netherlands), or openly practiced (Switzerland),...

Introducing a special issue of a journal is a difficult, but pleasurable task for any editor. One must chose what to say about the themes of the issue, and how to introduce the papers presented. However, this task becomes still more complex when the special issue in question forms the inaugural issue of a new journal. This is the case here as we fi...

When we founded Studies in Ethics, Law and Technology we wondered if we might, like Icarus, be trying to fly too close to the sun. Had we set ourselves an impossible task in seeking to create a new community of interdisciplinary scholars under the umbrella of the words ethics, law and technology? Would expert scholars in biotechnologies, nanotechno...

In this article, the question is discussed if and how Healthcare Ethics Committees (HECs) should be regulated. The paper consists of two parts. First, authors from eight EC member countries describe the status quo in their respective countries, and give reasons as to the form of regulation they consider most adequate. In the second part, the countr...

In genomic research the ideal standard of free, informed, prior and explicit consent is sometimes difficult to apply. This has raised concern that important genomic research will be restricted. Different consent procedures have therefore been proposed. This paper explicitly examines the question how, in genomic research, the principles of solidarit...