13:40-15:20 | Room 708 Saturday Onsite Presentation Session 3

Ethics

Session Chair: David Matas

13:40-14:05

69046 | Personal Perspective on the Problem of Moral Objectivity: The Conception of Ontological Moral Certainty

Aiste Noreikaite, Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania

Paper focuses on a problem of moral objectivity which is dominating in contemporary academic discourse of moral philosophy and pressing in today’s post-pandemic world tormented by moral and political conflicts. Such contemporary philosophers as Nagel, Dworkin, Korsgaard have been trying to develop a conception of moral objectivity that would stay adequate to the first-person perspective of an agent. This paper argues that it is only possible to do that while invoking personal ontology. Relying on Robert Spaemann’s ontology of a person and elaborating its structural elements, the paper develops an alternative to contemporary analytic understanding of moral objectivity. This alternative is a conception of ontological moral certainty found within the moral experience of a person. The paper shows how transcending such traditional distinctions as subjective vs objective and fact vs value, the conception of ontological moral certainty grasps and clarifies the experience of moral objectivity better than the dominating analytic understanding of moral objectivity.

14:05-14:30

69048 | Transcending Time and Space: The Social Practice of Weixin Shengjiao in Facing Global Ethical Responsibility

Chen-Mei Li, Weixin Shengjiao College, Taiwan

Li-Yueh Chen Andy, Weixin Shengjiao College, Taiwan

Kuo-Chin Shih, Weixin Shengjiao College, Taiwan

The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitudes of Weixin Shengjiao in Taiwan toward the issue of global ethical responsibility for social suffering, how Weixin Shengjiao learns the root causes of the current social suffering issues, and how Weixin Shengjiao undertakes the social practice of global ethical responsibility. The findings of the study indicate that Weixin Shengjiao's attitude toward the issue of social suffering stems not only from the imbalance between people and other people, people and objects, and people and nature caused by human factors in the phenomenal world but also from the suffering caused by the influence of the consciousness realm beyond time and space on the phenomenal realm. Weixin Shengjiao is dedicated to the advancement of Chinese cultural orthodoxy, I Ching Feng Shui, and the heart method. "Use I" to identify the cause of present social suffering issues, to further solve current social suffering issues through religious practices and religious education, and to fulfill Weixin Shengjiao's social practice of global ethical responsibilities. The contribution of this study includes Weixin Shengjiao's worldwide social anguish issues, which have covered Knitter's four faces of global suffering. Weixin Shengjiao's social practice encompasses a wide range of global care and has its origins in the resolution of disputes and sufferings dating back thousands of years. Its social practice of global ethical duty transcends various combinations of time and space.

14:30-14:55

67784 | Impact of Islamic Ethics in Criminal Justice and Peace-making

Mohamed Elamin Elnasri, E mirates Academy for Identity & Citizenship, United Arab Emirates

Islamic law does not set forth any detailed system of criminal justice procedures, and there is no mandate in any source of Islamic Law emphasizing the existence of an investigation and prosecution stages in the Islamic criminal justice system. The historical precedents do not indicate clearly that the stage of criminal investigation was available in solving criminal cases. Methods of the criminal justice administration in Islam are a matter of politics and not of sharia. Consequently, Islamic countries have the right to organize and maintain criminal procedural systems congruent with the particular circumstances of time and place. Therefore, Islamic criminal justice system functions, component and procedures are almost similar to the contemporary criminal justice system. Islamic countries have adopted criminal justice systems following rules and guidelines adopted by the United Nations. This paper attempts to highlight Islamic justice theory, system, rules and values governing evidence and proof through three chapters: 1. Islamic criminal Justice 2. Islamic criminal justice system 3. Sharia Rules and values governing evidence and proof. 4. Impact of Islamic values on criminal justice Such rules and Islamic values governing evidence and proof may be a point of critical debate for contemporary criminal justice scholars, because each type of crime in Islamic law requires certain amount of proof. There are three categories of crimes defined by Sharia, known as Hudood, Quissas and Taazir. Evidence in Islamic criminal justice system is of seven types: 1. Testimony (Shahada) 2. Confession (iqurrar) 3. Circumstantial evidence (Qarina) 4. Oath by 50

14:55-15:20

67455 | Developments in Organ Transplant Ethics to Address Chinese Transplant Abuse

David Matas, University of Manitoba, Canada

The Board of Directors of The International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation on 26 April 2022 approved an updated Statement on Transplant Ethics which addressed specifically transplant abuse in China. The statement asserts that, in light of the evidence of transplant abuse in China, submission of data related to clinical transplantation or the use of tissue from human donors in China would not be accepted for presentation at a Society sponsored meeting, to the Society Registry or for publication in a Society sponsored journal. This presentation would address this updated Society ethics statement as it relates to China. The presentation would a) consider the research on which the statement was based, b) compare the updated statement with previous Society ethic statements, c) compare ethics statements from other components of the transplant profession with that developed by the Society, d) examine the relevance of the distinction to the Society ethics statement between sourcing organs from prisoners sentenced to death, something the Government of China admits having occurred but claims no longer occurs, and sourcing organs from prisoners of conscience, something about which there is substantial evidence, but which the Government of China denies ever to have occurred, and e) consider what improvements, if any, there should be to the Society ethics statement.

The general conclusion of the presentation would be that the updated ethics statement of the Society is a positive development and should be emulated by other components of the transplant profession.