Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection

In this thesis, I delve into the complex ethical issue of deception and coercion as external factors that can undermine consent. Countless theorists have debated the moral permissibility of different forms of deception and coercion, and in this thesis, I propose my own solution to this challenging problem in the ethics of consent. Narrow in scope, my investigation focuses on the morally transformative power of consent and how deception and coercion hinder consent from performing this morally transformative "magic." I argue that certain features of sex are essential to the act of consent, and that deception about these features fundamentally undermines the validity of consent. Furthermore, I support David Boonin's distinction between threats and offers in the coercion literature as the most compelling distinction thus far. Through rigorous analysis and critical engagement with existing literature, my thesis contributes to the ongoing philosophical discourse on consent, deception, and coercion, shedding light on the intricacies of these issues and advancing our understanding of this complex ethical landscape.

This thesis focuses on ethics and explains some of its features, specifically the concept of moral consideration, rights, and interests, through three leading ethical theories in the field, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and duty ethics. In this framework, environmental ethics is explored through three popular theories in the community, anthropocentrism, non-anthropocentrism, and holism. Furthermore, organisational ethics is discussed in the context of environmental ethics through a case study of America’s famous coffee giant Starbucks. The coffee company is used to discuss business ethics and explores some of the practices already implemented, what works, what does not, what can be done, and the critical role its members play. Moreover, the thesis argues that environmental ethics is necessary to address and mitigate sustainability challenges and create models of business that consider the natural world in its entirety.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan passed the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) to create an organ national registry and prohibit the purchase and selling of specific organs. Despite the enactment, the kidney shortage remains. This leaves 13 people on the waiting list dying prematurely every day while waiting for a kidney donation. This revision of the amendment permits the selling and purchase of kidneys in order to decrease kidney organ trafficking and help alleviate the kidney shortage. An argument on why this amendment should be considered is explained through statistics, ethics, socioeconomic, market fundamentalism, and legislative history. These sections find ample support for amending the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 to include the sale and purchase of kidneys.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine usage in America has experienced extreme peaks as a method of maintaining social distancing for medical staff and patients. While there have been numerous significant positive effects from increasing this practice, there are also significant risks to be explored. Patients and physicians have been navigating new technology, new protocols, and new dynamics at a high rate. Doctors using telemedicine are required to rely more heavily on their judgment with less data than usual to support their hypotheses. This results in a wide variety of potential complications that can be detrimental to patients and physicians alike. Though negative outcomes are not nearly the majority, it is clear that for telemedicine to function at its fullest capacity, the limitations of its technology must be defined and communicated. A survey was distributed to physicians currently practicing telemedicine to understand more about the usage increase in telemedicine and the incidence rates of telemedicine-related complications. The results showed that although the impact of telemedicine has been largely positive, there certainly are risks that must be considered and prepared for. Thus, it is the responsibility of healthcare systems to ensure that their policies are current and appropriate in proportion to their usage of telemedicine to better protect and prepare patients and doctors for this new frontier of medicine.

Animal agriculture is a growing industry worldwide as the global demand for animal products increases. This has resulted in many harmful unintended consequences for human health, the environment, and animal welfare. This paper aims to uncover the hidden costs of negative externalities by answering the question: What types of subsidies is the US government distributing to the animal agriculture industry and in what amount? This paper will begin with some background on a few of the externalities created by the animal agriculture industry focusing specifically on environmental issues of water, air, and deforestation. Once this background is established, this will show that animal agriculture is in fact a negative-externality-generating industry. Next, subsidies will be defined and the principal findings of the research will reveal the different forms of support that the US government provides to animal agriculture. Lastly, these subsidies, both direct and indirect, will be quantified.

This thesis seeks to investigate the use of Artificial Intelligence when reviewing STEM job applications and the human biases that are present in AI system training datasets. Further, it proposes to gender neutralize training dataset terms to evaluate job applications based on merit and qualifications, promoting the inclusivity of women in STEM jobs and seeking to eliminate job application system bias from a Utilitarian perspective.

The ground for the ethics of lockdown policies has radically shifted in the past three years. Libertarians started to be convinced that it is morally justifiable to impose constraints on liberties, including forced quarantine and social isolation. On September 7, according to the World Health Orignaztion, the mortality rate for COVID reached its lowest since March 9, 2020. I will take September 7 as the turning point for the ethics of the pandemic in this work. If we accept utilitarianism, deontology, or moral relativism, then, prior to the turning point, China’s Zero-COVID Policy was morally justified. Although China’s Zero-COVID Policy has remained controversial, I will propose that (1) the policy was justified on utilitarianism because it maximized utility, (2) the policy was justified on deontology because the policy is the Nash Equilibrium, and (3) the policy was justified on moral relativism because the policy was in accordance with the norms of the Chinese people.

I conduct a thorough ethical analysis of the legalization of sports gambling and make suggestions as to how the statutes surrounding the act need revision in order to promote the most ethical form of mobile sports gambling, based upon concerns of addiction, Native American revenue streams, and the metaphysics of sport and integrity of the game.