Influential Ethics For January

In the blocks below, please find your weekly bio-politics articles in a blog-style layout. If you have any questions or concerns about the research or writing, please reach out to me! I post one bio-ethics blogacle a week followed by an international relations/propaganda piece the following week. These topics are either about current issues or issues I find important yet not discussed enough.

Questions to consider

Week One:

What Is Pain? Is this A Human Condition? (Final Part)

Were they wrong? In my previous post, I stated that pain is something we all experience and scientists have now come to realize that animals, babies, and all humans experience pain. As a result of this, the question as the title is far more complicated than we can understand. One way of helping us understand the title question is to look at different ways humans, babies, and animals experience pain. We know that humans and animals experience physical and emotional pain, even if animals don’t understand this as ‘pain’ as in the way we see it. They react to their surroundings because they that’s all they can do; the same is true for babies.

Grown humans, on the other hand, have other options regarding how they react to their pain. We don’t have to simply accept our painful environment. We can go to the doctor to find out why we are in pain and there, the doctor could run tests and counsel us regarding our treatment. This isn’t an option for animals and babies. These entities have no choice but to trust us, the humans in their lives, to understand what type of pain they experience and trust us enough to seek medical help; help they can’t do this on their own.

Does this mean pain has a different meaning for adult humans, babies, and animals? There is one demographic not discussed here: Those who are unable to think and act rationally by themselves: Humans with severe physical and psychological disabilities. Do they experience pain the same way we do? Would they register pain as pain if they didn’t know what ‘normal’ feels like? What if their whole life was them in pain but they didn’t have the capacity to tell others?

Would normal (no pain) feel like pain to them? If these individuals experience pain differently, sometimes completely inwardly, but they present as normal human beings, there is a possibility that their pain is overlooked and as a result, not dealt with in they ways it should be. This in itself is pain, and for these individuals, this might be the only type of pain they are aware of.

This brings us back to the question posed in Part One. What is a human? I stated anything that has “a torso, two arms, two legs, and a head, with varying races, features, and body hair covering their bodies”. This would include those who have severe disabilities, but that’s not what the questions asked. The question wasn’t “What constitutes a human?” With this question, the humanness of the severely disabled could be contested: These individuals might not even know or understand that they are human.

This doesn’t mean they should be called animals, it simply means that the general personality traits of a human don’t apply to them so they can’t be called ‘human’. One major difference is that adult humans who aren’t severely physically or psychologically disabled have autonomy. Does this mean pain is autonomy? Or at least a way for humans to express their autonomous decisions: By choosing how to handle their pain?

If autonomy equals pain, this means those who don’t have autonomy should be exempt from experiencing pain. They don’t have a means to deal with their pain, so why should they experience it? In reality, these individuals and animals do experience pain so in theory, autonomy has very little to do with pain. Instead, we can argue that pain is a condition where those who have the capacity to do something about it can seek to change their pain–ridden environment.

In this case, their search can lead to addiction because of their need to relieve themselves of the physical or emotional pain they feel on a daily basis. With addiction comes something else: A lack of autonomous decision making. Does this mean autonomy only equals pain when it’s the autonomy making the decisions without relying on pain and its affects to guide the medical buying power of the person in pain?

With all of this, it should be clear what pain is: Pain is personal and affects individuals and animals differently. How people understand and handle their pain is woven into their autonomy, how they seek to relieve their pain, and in the case of babies, the disabled, and animals, pain is understood by those closest to them. If the personal environment of the babies, the disabled, and animals understood the pain of those in their charge (the babies, etc.) pain could be handled in a humane way, fit for everyone. If the personal environment believes that pain can only bee seen in the physical sense, the environment of those without a voice and without autonomy will be pain personified for the rest of their life.

Questions from Piece:

As an autonomous person, is it/should it be your responsibility to care for those in pain but who can’t care for themselves? Why or why not?
Do you think a family’s values should change based on current research or does culture trump conscience?
Do you think research has the right to change data whenever it pleases? What outcome do you think this has on the world around you?
How familiar are you with the rights of the disabled?
What is a human?
What is pain, in your opinion?
What is the most painful thing you have experienced?
When did you first learn about animal rights?
Why is pain for humans and animals a bioethical concern?

Please let me know what you thought of this blogacle using this direct [ link ] to the optional forum in the header. Alternatively, you can use any of the email links from the contact [ page ]. If you want to answer the Questions to Consider (not required but you are welcome to!), you can also discuss these questions and answers here.

References:

Broom, D.M. (2016). Considering Animals’ feelings: Précis of Sentience and Animal Welfare. Animal Sentience, 1(5). Available at: doi:https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1015.
Nagasaka, K., Takashima, I., Matsuda, K. and Higo, N. (2021). Brain Activity Changes in a Monkey Model of Central post-stroke pain. - International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). [online] International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). Available at: https://www.iasp-pain.org/publications/pain-research-forum/papers-of-the-week/paper/127473-brain-activity-changes-monkey-model-central-post-stroke-pain/.
Nociceptive Specific Neurons. (2006). Springer Nature Link, pp.1379–1379. doi Available at: :https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-29805-2_2770.
Pearson, S.J. (2007). For the Prevention of Cruelty: tThe History and Legacy of Animal Rights Activism in the United States. Journal of American History, 94(1), pp.246–247. doi: Available at:https://doi.org/10.2307/25094811.
Regan, T. (1983). The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University Of California Press.
Sarfas, A.J. (2022). Women in Animal Activism through History. [online] Thehumaneleague.org.uk. Available at: https://thehumaneleague.org.uk/article/women-in-animal-activism-through-history?.
SEJ. (2021). A Look Back at the Birth of the Animal Rights Movement. [online] Available at: https://www.sej.org/publications/bookshelf/look-back-birth-animal-rights-movement?.
Zhang, X., Ding, J., Li, Y., Song, Q., Li, S., Hayat, M.A., Zhang, J. and Wang, H. (2020). The Changes of Inflammatory Mediators and Vasoactive Substances in Dairy Cows’ Plasma with pasture-associated Laminitis. BMC Veterinary Research, 16(1). doi: Available at:https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-020-02319-1.

In this context, what is right and wrong? Why do you think this?

Questions to consider

What do you understand as pain? Why do you feel this way?

Do you think people who experience chronic and debilitating pain should receive additional support at the doctor? What about the animals? Why do you think this?

What do you think? Do animals and babies experience pain differently from adult humans or is this just a way of them expressing their pain differently? Why do you think this?

What do you understand by completely inwardly? Does this mean that these individuals experience pain inwardly, or do they express their reaction to pain inwardly?

What is the difference between "What is a human?" and "What constitutes a human?" Why do you feel this way?

Do you think handling pain is an external (medication, pain therapy) or internal (state of mind, perseverance) concept? Is it both? Neither? Why do you think like this?

What do you understand by capacity?

Do you think a lack of autonomous decision making reduces the importance of pain management for those involved? How could the person know they are in pain if they don't have autonomy of their thoughts?

What do you understand by this? Do you have the right to tell someone they aren't in pain because you don't experience the same type of pain? What about animals? Do you have the right to make decisions about their pain management based on how you manage your own pain?

What is the 'personal environment' discussed here? Is it the people around the individual, the personal decisions made by those in charge, or something else entirely?

Questions to consider

Week Two:

Who Is Responsible for Our Political Views?

This begs another question: Are your political views your own? This can be seen as a loaded question because views and opinions are rarely seen in a vacuum. These views all start at home; from before we understand what ‘politics’, ‘international relations’ and ‘propaganda’ mean. In a way, the question of “Who Is Responsible for Your Political Views?” could be seen as a bioethical question: This question is closely tied t0 the ethical views of our family (biological or not). What we hold dear regarding who we vote for and how we handle political inequalities in our own countries could be seen as an extension of our ethical and moral code.

If we go into the research behind these decisions, things get a little more complicated. The first thing discussed is usually the concept of a global responsibility: Who is responsible for our actions in general and how do these actions influence others? The media, as discussed before, has a large impact on influence and actions towards others, but not all of these media outlets influence our views—political or otherwise—through propaganda.

Specifically, what is shown on the television screen from young and old can be seen as a litmus test of how the viewers and family members view their political stance. Another factor to consider is the type of content young children are allowed to watch and, more importantly, whether what they see on the screen is explained to them.

Local or regional broadcasting companies are responsible for what is shown but not how these images and videos are interpreted. These broadcasting companies vary greatly regarding what is shown depending on where we come from (our countries) and each individual company is also usually state (as in regional territory/country) owned, or at least an independent organisation who is responsible for ensuring the government is seen in a positive light—even if the government in question demands obedience through tyranny and violence. This practice, naturally, shapes what is shown as television programmes and this also shapes news broadcasts plus journalistic freedom. What does this have to do with the title question? More than we realize.

From the start of our media–filled lives, we are told by the television and those around us who the ‘bad people’ are; who the victims are; who saved us; who refused to save us; and who we should believe in (apart from our religions, which is an entirely different topic, or is it?).

The problem is that these factors are vastly different compared to the broadcasting country, and the political responsibility changes as a result.

As a result, the question of political responsibility and political accountability is a group effort. Who we vote for and who we follow in the political and social sphere can’t be seen in isolation. The programmes and news coverage we saw as a child and teen have shaped our understanding of our political sphere whether we are aware of it or not.

If we allow our children to watch the news, it’s equally important for us to allow them to watch what happens when news outlets don’t support and broadcast a specific idea. These ideas are usually the opposing views of the state and because of this, they are equally (or more) as important as the state–sanctioned idea of whatever is being peddled on the screen.

These views are often completely void of the commonly accepted dichotomy of what is accepted, but this makes them a guiding force in our political journey: How can we make informed decisions about our political future if we only have one side? The responsibility of our political views then, falls on ourselves and those around us, or at least who was around us when our political identity was being formed. These passive decisions (made by our family community instead of ourselves) both shape and deny our political views.

As children, we are bound and expected to follow the political views of our immediate family. This provides a safe space for like–minded family members to live in harmony for as long as possible, but at some point, these views could change. These changes could be gradual over long–term exposure to outside influence, or it could be a fast acting change of mind when we experience something out of the ordinary and don’t know how to cope with the alternative: The possibility of continuing the political decisions of our community.

Questions from piece:

As a family unit, are political ideas shared?
At what point should children and teens break away from their familial political views if they disagree with them?
What happens when breaking away from these views isn’t safe from a financial independence/physical safety perspective?
Should children be allowed to watch the news because it’s news and could teach them something?
If you have/had a child who asked a lot of questions, how would you respond if they saw a victor in a position that you understand as the victim?

References:

Iyengar, S. (1991). Is Anyone Responsible? [online] Google Books, The University of Chicago, pp.vii–5. Available at: https://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Ca6VaTItqi4C&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=+Who+Is+Responsible+for+Our+Political+Views%3F&ots=KQsQbF9O1e&sig=rkXDAeZKGP_TQk6vQAcInFfodSA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Questions to consider

What do you understand by 'political inequalities'?

Do you think any views and opinions could be seen in a vacuum? How do you know your views are truly your own?

What do you understand by this? Does it mean "global" as in the world or "global" as in everyone you know?

Do you these should be age–appropriate discussions or are all explanations valid because of the context?

Is this a form of obedience or is this a form of fear–based decision making? Is there a difference?

When did this start for you? Were you aware of your media consumption from an early age? How did/do you know?

Do you think responsibility is a factor when you and those around you aren't aware of all the factors? If not, is it your responsibility to educate yourself on these matters?

Do you think state–sanctioned ideas should be prioritized? Why or why not? What is the altenative?

Do you agree with this? Were you bound and expected to follow the political views of your family as a child (and/or now)? If you have/had differing opinions, is/was this a point of contention in your relationship? Have you resolved any of these issues?

Do you think an independent political responsibility is possible? Why or why not?

What happens when these decisions are in contrast with your own? Do you think it would be easier to change communities or to convince others of your opinion?

There are spaces without written content on either side of the page. This is by design and to avoid me waffling instead of adding thought–out pieces of writing.

These spaces can also be used to rest your eyes between blocks of text and give you, the reader, time to process and analyze what has been said on the page so far.

Not everything needs to be jam–packed with writing and an opportunity to respond. Sometimes we need the quiet moments and empty spaces to reflect and prepare ourselves for what comes next.

This is a website for reflection and asking questions! What type of writer would I be if I made readers like you tired on purpose, just so you can finish sooner and miss the opportunity to think about what you have read?

Questions to consider

Week Three:

Criminals and Healthcare: Should They Receive the Same Treatment? (Part One of Five)

This question boils down to a number of factors or questions that may or may not rely on definitions of the following:

Criminality
Healthcare
Treatment
Rights

What is criminality? Does this mean all criminals are viewed the same in the eyes of the law? There are many definitions of crimes; some are quite obvious—don’t kill anyone—while others are less obvious and rely on external factors to be considered a crime. An example of this could be theft, more specifically, theft from a family member. On paper, theft is a crime, but if the affected family member could choose not to report their mother/father/siblings/ aunt/uncle etc. to the police when they find money or items missing from their home. In theory, a crime was committed, but without persecution or accountability, these crimes may as well not have happened.

There are also different definitions of crimes based on where you live; these crimes or definitions usually center around the social structure of the government and members of the community. For example, in Germany, jaywalking is seen as a serious offense in most towns and cities because the repercussions of this crime could lead to the death or injury of the jaywalker or the death or injury of the person who drove into them.

If found guilty, the jaywalker could be fined if someone reports them (they usually do), and if a jaywalker is responsible for an accident, they will be 100% liable and will be responsible for any damage to any cars damaged as a result of their jaywalking. In other countries like the United States or South Africa, jaywalking is seen as the norm, and many people aren’t aware that this is a crime.

There are also crimes that act as staples in some areas or countries, whereas in other countries, it isn’t a crime at all. One example is pre–marital sex. While most religious countries frown upon this behavior, it isn’t illegal in the sense of punitive measures being taken by the government to rectify this behavior. A church or community can still ostracize those who engage in pre–marital sex, but from a legal standpoint, there isn’t anything the accusers can do.

This isn’t the case in the United Arab Emirates: This is true for people who are married and engage in extra–marital affairs with anyone who isn’t their marital partner and those who are not/have not been married yet and engage in sexual activities. These laws are in stark contrast to other countries where pre–marital sex is seen as normal and, in some areas, encouraged. Iceland, for example, doesn’t put as much stock into the importance of marriage and family as the end goal of a fulfilled life.

Naturally, people still have children and start families, but a large proportion of these families are started out of wedlock. When 80% of children are born out of wedlock, pre–marital sex is the norm, not the exception. In countries like South Africa with an equally high number of children born out of wedlock (70%), it becomes clear that the criminality of pre–marital sex is a societal issue, not a global one.

Could it be that other forms of criminality can be seen in this light as well? If this is the case, the definitions of criminality can change within a 20 mile/32 km radius and who decides what punishment goes to whom is even more complicated. The bottom line is this: Criminality has different definitions from all over the world, and it’s important to consider criminality from a regional perspective rather than a global one.

I will post the Questions to Consider and the reference list in the final part.

Questions to consider

What do you understand by 'criminality'?

Do you believe a crime can be committed even though the person committing the crime isn't held responsible?

Do you think there should be/could be a wide range of differing opinions between a government and their people? Why or why not? How do you think medical advancement can change if there are large differences?

What do you understand as the a medical responsibilty?

How is pre–marital sex seen in your community or country?

What do you understand by the UAE laws on pre–marital sex?

What do you consider as a fulfilled life?

Do you think exceptions can become the norm if there are enough of them? Has this happened in your community or country regarding a law/s?

What regional laws do you know of regarding medical laws and ethics that are different to what you have in your hometown?

Questions to consider

Week Four:

The Danger of Lying; or Endangered Lying? (Part One of Four)

Within the political sphere, lying is part and parcel of the job and in some cases, how the political combatants got there in the first place. Why was the term ‘combatants’ used? Combatants is usually a word for people who are in active combat regardless of who they fight for, but those in the political world deal with their own wars.

The nature of these wars differ greatly depending on who they fight for and how extensive their training was, but those within the political sphere need additional training. The course of “How to spot bullshit” isn’t covered in the usual courses; politicians need to find out the hard way. Is this why lying has become synonymous with politics? Those who can’t spot the bullshit create their own bullshit to throw the others off.

What happens when these bullshit–spotters create policies and papers for those who can’t spot the bullshit? Lying is what happens, but not outright lying. The type of lying where the person being lied to only realizes after they have signed their life and loyalty away. Those who support these life–draining policies are often in the metaphorical (or literal) bed of those who could use these policies to line the pockets of, let’s call them Politician A or Pola for short.

If Pola has a candidate to run for mayor or senator (depending on their respective country) and this candidate, let’s call them Politician B, or Polab for short, isn’t as well versed in politics and the art of lying as the rest, they (Polab) could fail without even trying. Polab could have good intentions for these policies and what they plan to do, even if these policies and policymakers weren’t honest in their written policies.

In politics, lies within these signed policies need to be upheld when Pola comes into office, particularly if they came into office with a promise and a helping hand from those who supported them. If, however, Polab didn’t read a specific section well enough, they could go against this policy for the sake of their citizens which would give them the public vote. On paper, they could be bound by law to uphold the unfavorable policy.

Do they tell their citizens the truth: That the policy makers deliberately choose municipal policies that would benefit Pola and their friends before the municipality is seen to, or should Polab tell their citizens that this policy was the same policy discussed previously and they (the citizens) just didn’t read the fine print, thereby shifting the blame from their mentor to the assumed naiive citizens? How would their citizens know if Polab doesn’t tell them?

If Polab started their campaign with good intentions and those around them knew his goal was harmony and not hatred, the most likely outcome could still be distrust. Is it Polab’s responsibility to ensure they have a just and ethical team behind them, or do their followers understand that not all people in a single campaign have exactly the same mindset? To understand this, we have to look at the nature of lying within a political construct. For a statement to become a lie, it must have two things: Intention to deceive and a false claim. Let’s look at the following statements and determine which is true and which is a lie.

Statement 1:

The government has a right to control their citizens’ spending and consumer habits.

Statement 2:

The government watches everything you do in real time but they do it for your benefit.

Statement 3:

The government has a right to control your actions if this monitoring benefits you.

I will post the Questions to Consider and the reference list in the final part.

Questions to consider

Do you think lying and subterfuge is required in all political cases?

What else is synonymous with politics in your country?

Can you think of any examples of these policies?

Do you think policymakers believe they are doing the right thing or are they just as dishonest with themselves?

What would need to be in place for Polab to recognize problematic texts? Higher education, personal experience, both, something else?

Would you tell the citizens the truth in this position? Why or why not?

If it is their responsibility, how should they exercise this responsibility?

What do you understand as 'intention' in this context?

Do you think the government has the right to control your habits? Why or why not? Does your government control your habits?

How would your government understand all the things that benefit you? Did/would they ask each person individually? Would they? Why do you think this?

How would your government monitor your life to decide what benefits you? Does this imply the government needs permanent surveillance on their citizens?

What else is synonymous with politics in your country?