![[A person holding up a heart on one side and a brain on the other side of their head.]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2024/02/decision-4083469_1280-8935575295c9adbd.jpg)
How do we separate right from wrong in moral decision making? Some moral decisions, like whether or not to commit murder, seem like easy and intuitive moral decisions. However, we are often caught in moral dilemmas in our lives where the “right” thing to do is not as clear…
Tag: Ethics
Philosophy and moral decision making
![[An arrow pointing left labeled “Wrong Way” and an arrow pointing right labeled “Right Way.”]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2024/02/arrows-6268063_1280-ce9c129a163bf619.jpg)
Should you cheat on your exam to get a good final grade in your class? When is it okay to lie? If your child is going for an internship at your company, is it morally permissible to give them a leg up over other applicants? We make moral decisions every day, forming a moral personality from the choices we make about right and wrong…
Makeup: The ugly truth
![[Close-up image of a multi-colored eyeshadow palette.]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2024/02/Screenshot-2024-02-19-181043-804435531cc19087.png)
Waking up and applying makeup has become one of the most relaxing parts of my daily routine. While my music blares and I sing along, I go through the motions: concealer, blush, bronzer, mascara, lip gloss. Though applying each product symmetrically, in the right proportions, and with intentional brush strokes takes on a meditative quality, I rarely reflect on the ‘makeup’ of what I am putting on my skin…
Science with Nemo: Ethics of Care in Animal Research
![[animated GIF of seven tropical fish of various kinds, who are all in plastic bags, floating in the ocean. The image captions one fish, speaking, who asks the group, “Now what?”]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2020/12/nemo-end.gif)
We are all familiar with the plot of Finding Nemo: a scuba-diving dentist takes a small clownfish, Nemo, from a reef, keeps him in a fish tank in his office, and Marlin (Nemo’s father) goes on a whirlwind adventure to rescue his son. Obviously, Disney’s creative fiction is just that — fiction. However, many millions of fish are kept in tanks in the real world, for both recreation and research. Although we cannot know the fate of home-kept fish, for fish used in scientific research, there are specific rules for ethical treatment and proper care for fish of all kinds. How and why do scientists use fish in research anyways?
Ethics in Research: What is the IACUC?
![[Picture is Kanzi, a male bonobo, participating in a touchscreen research task investigating syntax processing in great apes]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2020/04/Kanzi-touchscreen.png)
The Animal Welfare Act of 1966 was brought about by two major media publications. In Sports Illustrated, Pepper, the Dalmatian, had disappeared from her family’s front yard, only to have been found at an east coast hospital and after having been euthanized, following an experimental medical research study involving an early model of a pacemaker. Pepper had been snatched from her owner’s front yard, and then sold for use in medical research, all without their knowledge…
Ethics in Research: What is the IRB?
![[A human silhouette made of small data points.]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2020/04/data.png)
Across many fields, scientific research involving humans has a dark history, and many studies conducted in the past are completely unethical both in their original contexts and now. In America, examples include the Tuskegee Study on syphilis, which ran for over 40 years, and Henrietta Lacks’ ovarian cancer cells which were used in scientific research for decades without her or her family’s knowledge…