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Joseph Rotblat, the Physicist Who Left the Manhattan Project: a Biography of Scientific Responsibility

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…

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

International Ethics/Customs and Supply Chain Management

Description

The following paper examines the current international code of ethics and customs accompanying global supply chain management. It specifically addresses the legal aspects that contemporary supply chains must consider when conducting business internationally as well as the customary traditions associated with major regions of current trade. In particular, it describes…

The following paper examines the current international code of ethics and customs accompanying global supply chain management. It specifically addresses the legal aspects that contemporary supply chains must consider when conducting business internationally as well as the customary traditions associated with major regions of current trade. In particular, it describes the simultaneously growing and tepid interest in conducting business with the B.R.I.C. (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries to supplement the aforementioned topic with a contemporary issue. In particular, it details the amount, if any, of corruption occurring in each country and describes the influence that these practices have and the complications they create on international trade with the United States.

ContributorsChakkera, Shawn Vinay (Author) / Koretz, Lora (Thesis director) / Carter, Craig (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor)

Created2014-05

The Ethics and Implications of Using Real Earnings Management to Beat Financial Targets on the Buyer-Supplier Relationship

Description

This paper seeks to provide a comprehensive consideration of the full implications of engaging in real earnings management through 1.) an in-depth literature review of selected studies concerning real earnings management, 2.) supplemental interviews to consider real earnings management from various perspectives including supply chain management, accounting and management, as…

This paper seeks to provide a comprehensive consideration of the full implications of engaging in real earnings management through 1.) an in-depth literature review of selected studies concerning real earnings management, 2.) supplemental interviews to consider real earnings management from various perspectives including supply chain management, accounting and management, as well as 3.) a final framework of the considerations that must be made to fully understand the implications of real earnings management. Though the ethics of real earnings management will be discussed, no determination will be made to support or discredit its use. The methods of real earnings management are plentiful and would benefit most from being judged on a case-by-case basis before coming to any firm conclusions.

ContributorsWestgard, Kristy Kayan (Author) / Maltz, Arnold (Thesis director) / Leckey, Andrew (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)

Created2016-12

Reproductive Cloning and the Perception of Individuality

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…

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

Morality of the Past: How Two Committees Judged Past Human Subject Experiments

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…

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

Cripping Trans Childhood: A Critical Examination into the Legislating of the Trans Child

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…

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

Cis-men’s Perspectives on Male Birth Control

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…

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

The Responsibility to Protect in Business: Human Rights in the Private Sector

Description

In response to the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides of the 1990’s, the United Nations created the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine as part of its 2005 World Summit Outcome document. The goal of R2P is to promote the idea that the international community should act to protect populations from mass…

In response to the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides of the 1990’s, the United Nations created the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine as part of its 2005 World Summit Outcome document. The goal of R2P is to promote the idea that the international community should act to protect populations from mass atrocity crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing) in the case a State fails to meet their responsibility. This report seeks to examine the Responsibility to Protect principle and see how its concepts are perceived and implemented in the private sector, given the sector’s significant influence in the world today. Using R2P as a frame of reference, I explored the concept that private sector organizations, through their actions and operations, have a responsibility to not profit from or enable systems that perpetuate mass atrocity crimes against populations. This was done through an analysis of private sector firms, regulatory frameworks, industry norms, organization initiatives, and perspectives of actors engaging with the subject matter, in addition to a modern case study regarding the experience of Uighurs and Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, China. The scope of this project was focused on select American companies that are multinational publicly traded companies with a market capitalization of over $200 billion. This report is meant to serve as a guide for into the concepts of R2P in the private sector and provides access to resources for further exploration.

ContributorsBhat, Shakki (Author) / Moore, Roderick (Thesis director) / Calhoun, Craig (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)

Created2021-05

The Impact of Technology on Transparency within Supply Chains

Description

The purpose of this thesis was to understand the importance of supply chain visibility (SCV) and to provide an analysis of the technology available for achieving SCV. Historical events where companies lacked efficient SCV were assessed to understand how errors in the supply chain can have detrimental effects on a…

The purpose of this thesis was to understand the importance of supply chain visibility (SCV) and to provide an analysis of the technology available for achieving SCV. Historical events where companies lacked efficient SCV were assessed to understand how errors in the supply chain can have detrimental effects on a company and their reputation. Environmental, social, and governance standards within the supply chain were defined along with the importance of meeting the legal and consumer expectations of a supply chain. There are many different organizations dedicated to helping companies meet ESG standards to achieve ethical, sustainable supply chains. Examples such as the Responsible Business Association and the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development were considered. A government solution to SCV, called the Freight Logistics Optimization Works Initiative, considered the importance of data sharing for large companies with complex supply chains, and this solution was assessed for understanding. Current companies and technologies available to achieve SCV were examined for understanding as to how the issue of SCV is currently addressed in the industry. A case study on the company Moses Lake Industries looked at how their complicated chemical manufacturing supply chain has adapted to achieve SCV. This included understanding supplier location, manufacturing processes, and risks. Future technologies that are currently being developed which could further benefit the supply chain industry were considered. Other future considerations, such as the movement of manufacturing out of high risk areas and the need for centralization of SCV solution, were also discussed.

ContributorsWhite, Lily (Author) / Bronowitz, Jason (Thesis director) / Grumbach, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor)

Created2023-05

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