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Keywords: Ethics

  • ENVIRONMENT

    Push for boycott ban reveals economic double standard

    • Fatima Measham
    • 16 April 2014
    6 Comments

    A review of competition laws is allowing the Government and industry groups to push for a ban on environmental boycotts. It is a strange protectionism that portrays industries as victims, defenceless against the barrage of readily available information. It appears the free flow of information cannot be so free as to disrupt capital, and the only legitimate choices within a free market are ones unimpeded by ethics or conscience.

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  • RELIGION

    Asylum seeker ethics is simple

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 20 March 2014
    28 Comments

    Asked whether they think the government's treatment of asylum seekers is right, some people will withhold judgment, arguing that the question is ethically complex; asylum seeker policy must take into account many issues, and an ethical judgment must await consideration of all these factors. This position is mistaken. The ethical questions are quite simple. The complexities and confusions arise only after we have answered them.

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  • MEDIA

    Journalistic ethics in transgender tragedy

    • Ellena Savage
    • 24 January 2014
    4 Comments

    Last week a troubling story broke on sports journalism site Grantland. While investigating the background of Dr V., an avowed physicist who had invented a revolutionary golf putter, journalist Caleb Hannan discovered that Dr V. was a trans-woman. In the course of the investigation, Dr V. committed suicide. This tragic case raises questions about journalistic ethics, not least of which is if journalism is, by its very nature, unethical.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Abbott should not punish the ABC

    • Michael Mullins
    • 25 November 2013
    14 Comments

    The prime minister said he 'sincerely regrets any embarrassment that recent media reports have caused' Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Did he mean the media was doing its job and that the embarrassment was collateral damage? Or was he regretting that the media was out of line? Outspoken monarchist Professor David Flint says the government should retaliate against the ABC by reviewing the its overseas broadcasting contract.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The ethics of spying

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 25 November 2013
    12 Comments

    A minor diversion in the disruption of Australia's relations with Indonesia has been the entanglement of political commentators. Many have wriggled on the hook of their conviction that international relations are an ethics free zone in which the only guiding star is national self interest. But that does not stop them from launching a raft of ethical judgments. It is worth considering on what ethical principles international and national politics might rest.

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  • MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

    The ethics of giving service

    • Alice Johnson
    • 09 October 2013
    3 Comments

    In a contemporary society where the focus lies amid a whirlpool of egocentricity, self-gain and self-improvement, one must question where the true motive for giving service lies. While the 'ethic of duty' is the ethic of the social gospel movements, Kant believed religion was only valuable because it caused one to lead a good moral life. Thus it is possible to argue that the habit of giving true service lies in the 'ethic of love'.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Getting serious about asylum seeker ethics

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 04 October 2013
    16 Comments

    In his recent article my Jesuit colleague Frank Brennan asked whether there is any ethical discussion to be had about stopping the boats. He proposed seven points that would give greater ethical coherence to the Government's 'shock and awe response'. The corollary of this position is that pressing for legal and practical changes to policy will not redeem the policy but will be a necessary and worthwhile exercise in harm minimisation.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Seven pointers for stopping the boats ethically

    • Frank Brennan
    • 01 October 2013
    35 Comments

    Last Tuesday, seven West Papuan asylum seekers reached Boigu Island in the Torres Strait. Without any determination of their refugee claims, they were removed to PNG. They were not engaged in secondary movement, they were in direct flight from persecution. The Abbott Government should recommit to our obligation under the Refugees Convention to grant asylum to refugees who have entered Australia in direct flight from persecution.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    School sport's level playing field under threat

    • Michael Mullins
    • 30 September 2013
    14 Comments

    Five of Sydney's prestigious GPS schools have boycotted competition with another member of their association, The Scots College, because it is accused of undermining the spirit of competition in school sport by offering inducements to lure students with sports star potential. This undermines what the GPS code of ethics calls 'the spirit of the amateur' that promotes character, resilience and teamwork ahead of winning.

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  • MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

    The ethics of paternalism in Aboriginal policy

    • Callum Denness
    • 25 September 2013
    3 Comments

    Following the abuse received by Adam Goodes from a teenage spectator in the AFL's Indigenous round, and the subsequent remarks made by Eddie McGuire, the country became embroiled in a debate about racism in modern Australia. Meanwhile, the Northern Territory introduced its Mandatory Alcohol Treatment Bill which, if passed, will see more Aboriginal people incarcerated. We were too busy describing the modern face of racism to notice.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Funny mummy slaps patriarchal Australia

    • Barry Gittins and Jen Vuk
    • 20 September 2013
    5 Comments

    As a parent of a boy, I was concerned by Thomas' experiences doing 'sexual ethics theatre performances'. She recounts negative responses from teenage boys to one scenario dealing with pubic hair — the lads assuming that 'any girl with pubes would be so self-conscious about them that she'd avoid sex altogether', and that malekind is disgusted by non-exfoliated women.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Angelina Jolie's pain is a gain for all of us

    • Michael Mullins
    • 20 May 2013
    12 Comments

    Angelina Jolie's rational choice to undergo a pre-emptive double mastectomy has shown that science can improve human wellbeing with the use of highly specialised surgical techniques. But other rational choices we might make, in favour of techniques that involve therapeutic cloning, would do more to undermine human civilisation.

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