Matching Items (15)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: ethics
- All Subjects: HIV
- Creators: Creviston, Christopher
- Creators: Hurlbut, Ben
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
Joseph Rotblat (1908-2005) was the only physicist to leave the Manhattan Project for moral reasons before its completion. He would spend the rest of his life advocating for nuclear disarmament. His activities for disarmament resulted in the formation, in 1957, of the Pugwash conferences, which emerged as the leading global forum to advance limits on nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Rotblat's efforts, and the activities of Pugwash, resulted in both being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995. Rotblat is a central figure in the global history of resistance to the spread of nuclear weapons. He also was an important figure in the emergence, after World War II, of a counter-movement to introduce new social justifications for scientific research and new models for ethics and professionalism among scientists. Rotblat embodies the power of the individual scientist to say "no" and thus, at least individually, put limits of conscience on his or her scientific activity. This paper explores the political and ethical choices scientists make as part of their effort to behave responsibly and to influence the outcomes of their work. By analyzing three phases of Rotblat's life, I demonstrate how he pursued his ideal of beneficial science, or science that appears to benefit humanity. The three phases are: (1) his decision to leave the Manhattan Project in 1944, (2) his role in the creation of Pugwash in 1957 and his role in the rise of the organization into international prominence and (3) his winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995. These three phases of Rotblat's life provide a singular window of the history of nuclear weapons and the international movement for scientific responsibility in the 50 years since the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. While this paper does not provide a complete picture of Rotblat's life and times, I argue that his experiences shed important light on the difficult question of the individual responsibility of scientists.
ContributorsEvans, Alison Dawn (Author) / Zachary, Gregg (Thesis director) / Hurlbut, Ben (Committee member) / Francis, Sybil (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The HIV pandemic spawned a global biomedical research effort which continues today. Because of multinational clinical studies, doctors and health officials possess more tools than ever before for the effective prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. The relationship between the United States and Sub-Saharan African nations features prominently within this global research effort. More specifically, many of the most significant HIV-related research findings emanate from clinical trials with a unique multinational configuration: the study protocol is largely designed and funded by American sources but executed at clinical research sites in Sub-Saharan African countries like South Africa and Zimbabwe. This thesis investigates the context and ethics of this configuration, with a focus on US-backed trials conducted in South Africa specifically. Using data collected from semi-structured interviews conducted at South African HIV clinical research sites, this thesis uncovers two significant ethical problems: insufficient benefits delivered to South African clinical trial participants, and informal processes occurring alongside formal protocol. By examining scope, effects, and implications of these problems, it becomes clear that although this research system delivers powerful results, there exists room for improvement.
ContributorsGill, Kohinoor Singh (Author) / Hurlbut, Ben (Thesis director) / Ripley, Charles (Committee member) / Vanig, Thanes (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Since the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) crisis began in the early 1980s, there has been a significant amount of stigma attached to the disease and the virus that causes it, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). At the time, HIV/AIDS was viewed as a death sentence. A large part of the stigma came from the fact that in the early days of the crisis, AIDS patients were predominantly part of the LGBTQ+ community. With the discovery of effective antiretroviral therapies, today HIV can be thought of as a preventable, yet manageable, chronic illness, although it remains a huge public health concern (About HIV/AIDS, 2018). While the virus is now rarely viewed as a death sentence, there is still considerable stigma that surrounds people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Research shows that the shows and movies people watch can affect their attitudes on a variety of issues, and HIV is no exception. Because HIV is such a big threat to public health, and because people often adopt views they see in media, analyzing the ways shows and movies portray PLWHA is an important aspect in understanding where stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS comes from. The writers behind today's HIV+ characters on television and in movies all seemingly made an effort to decrease stigma, but they went about it in different ways, and with varying amounts of success. A common method to dispel stigma was to use the entertainment-education method (Singhal & Rogers, 1999), which in these cases means characters had discussions about topics like safe sex, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), and the importance of getting tested. A few shows showed serodiscordant couples, which was also effective at fighting stigma. In contrast, by trying to be representative of PLWHA, some shows actually contributed to the stereotypes behind the stigma, or had characters be openly stigmatizing towards PLWHA. After analyzing what I found the shows and movies did well and what they did poorly, I'll analyze why it is important that shows maintained historical accuracy, and how doing so appeared to fight the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS. I will also evaluate what's missing \u2014 such as which high-risk groups are not represented. Ultimately, this thesis will argue that shows and movies made in the last 12 years all aimed to decrease stigma, through a variety of techniques.
ContributorsEvans, Celia Grace (Author) / Hurlbut, Ben (Thesis director) / Berkel, Cady (Committee member) / Blattman, Joseph (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
Reproductive cloning is the duplication of genetic material to reproduce a living organism. The sheep Dolly was the first adult mammal to be cloned and her birth unveiled a multitude of questions about the potential for cloning humans and how that might threaten human individuality. Given those questions, my project delves into how reproductive cloning relates to the idea of individuality across three subgroups: humans, utility animals such as those used for research or agriculture, and pets.
ContributorsO'Connell, Lindsey Marie (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis director) / Ellison, Karin (Committee member) / Hurlbut, Ben (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
In 1996, President Clinton ordered the formation of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE), which undertook to evaluate the morality of a myriad of secret and publicized radiation experiments ranging from 1944 to 1974. The goal of this thesis is to analyze the ways in which that committee formed moral evaluations and the extent to which its strategies related to a broader historical and philosophical discourse. Here I attempt to describe two specific techniques of simplification the committee deploys in order to make a retrospective moral analysis possible. Although the techniques comprise specific problems, frameworks, subjective perspectives, and conceptual links, their unifying principle is the field of choices the techniques produce. In the first technique I outline, I argue that by focusing on the problem of historical relativism, the committee gains a platform through which it would be granted flexibility in making a distinction between moral wrongdoing and blameworthiness. In the second technique of simplification I outline, I argue that the committee's incorporation of a principle to reduce uncertainty as an ethical aim allow it to establish new ways to reconcile scientific aims with moral responsibility. In addition to describing the structure of these techniques, I also demonstrate how they relate to the specific experiments the analysts aim to evaluate, using both the ACHRE experiments as well as the Nuremberg Trial experiments as my examples. My hope is not to show why a given committee made a particular moral evaluation, or to say whether a decision was right or wrong, but rather to illustrate how certain techniques open up a field of choices that allow moral analysts to form retrospective moral judgments.
ContributorsCirjan, Cristian (Author) / Hurlbut, Ben (Thesis director) / Humphrey, Ted (Committee member) / Zachary, Gregg (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-05
ContributorsSimpson, Taylor (Author) / Shea, Nicholas (Thesis director) / Creviston, Christopher (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music, Dance and Theatre (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
This project presents an article “Considerations for Transcribing Classical Solo Works, A Resource for Fellow Saxophonists” and audio recordings of three new transcriptions for tenor saxophone: Serenade by Adrienne Albert, originally written for bassoon; Ackerbatics by Rebecca Burkhardt, originally written for clarinet; and Sonata voor violoncel en piano by Henriette Bosmans.
ContributorsSimpson, Taylor (Author) / Shea, Nicholas (Thesis director) / Creviston, Christopher (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music, Dance and Theatre (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
2023 has been a record-breaking year for legislation aimed at restricting and even criminalizing access to gender affirming care for minors. In response to these legislative efforts, many advocates rely on invocations of medical authority to defend the right of individuals to access gender affirming care. However, this reliance on the pathologization of transgender identity both reaffirms stigmatization of transgender identity as mental illness as well as forecloses on opportunities to affirm access to gender affirming care otherwise. The purpose of this research is to use disability justice scholarship, predominantly crip theory, to analyze these legislative efforts in-depth beyond the predominant critique offered by the medical-model. I demonstrate that these legislative moves to ban access to gender affirming care are part of a larger effort to prevent a trans future more broadly. Trans childhood has become a particularly fruitful site for this political action due to the ways in which normativities relating to time, biological plasticity, and capacity shape the way that their bodies are understood. I term those individual bodies which have such characteristics of non-normative temporalities, plasticity, and capacity/incapacity grafted onto them become “bodies of normative intervention” and explore how they become the laboratory sites for producing population-wide normative interventions. This legislative effort to restrict access to gender affirming care for minors represents a broader effort to legislate a trans future out of existence through the strategic targeting of trans children. This robs society of valuable trans knowledge and experience.
ContributorsMills, Raegan Lenore (Author) / Hurlbut, Ben (Thesis advisor) / Brian, Jennifer (Thesis advisor) / Hlava, Terri (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Birth control promised to curb growing human populations while liberating women individually and socially. Instead, these technologies reinforce a feedback loop associating only women’s bodies with family-planning responsibilities. As a result, many diverse female contraceptives have reached markets while few male contraceptives have. Cis-men’s attitudes are commonly offered as explanation for why novel male contraceptives have not reached markets at the same pace, but little research has investigated this. I address this gap through thematic analysis of focus group interviews exploring cis-men’s attitudes on existing and novel male contraceptives. Focus group findings suggest cis-men experience less urgency to contracept due to differences in physiological burdens of pregnancy and childbirth. Decreased urgency does not mean that cis-men are uninterested in contracepting or in novel contraception options, but that cis-men express boundaries to what they will endure when contracepting. Knowing men’s articulated boundaries can help male contraceptive research and development (R&D) efforts moving forward. Additionally, these findings call into question current clinical risk assessment systems wherein risk of the medication is compared to how the individual experiences (unintended) pregnancy in a purely physical sense. Lastly, these data crucially demonstrate cis-men’s interest in contracepting and having a complete clinical risk assessment system for developing, novel male contraceptives is still not enough. Systemic changes must occur for male contraceptive technologies to be accessible and utilized by cis-male populations. Because interviews were conducted before the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 decision that overturned federal abortion protections, I expanded my research to include a follow-up survey gauging how participants’ attitudes from the focus groups were impacted, if at all. The follow-up survey demonstrated increased urgency for novel male contraceptives as a result of the Dobbs decision, for example, can increase cis-men’s urgency/interest in trying the interventions regardless of their lack of familiarity with the method or its potential side effects. Follow-up survey findings also demonstrate how cis-men’s urgency/interest for novel male contraceptives is highly influenced by the current socio-political context surrounding reproductive justice issues. This finding affirms that the focus group data finding that the current FDA (Food and Drug Administration) clinical risk assessment is incomplete.
ContributorsGardner, Kara Diane (Author) / Hurlbut, Ben (Thesis advisor) / Brian, Jennifer (Thesis advisor) / Gur-Arie, Rachel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
ContributorsSimpson, Taylor (Author) / Shea, Nicholas (Thesis director) / Creviston, Christopher (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music, Dance and Theatre (Contributor)
Created2023-05