What is the EthicsLAB?
From the island state of Tasmania to the world.
"From little things, big things grow"
— Kev Carmody & Paul Kelly
In the face of profound societal, technological, economic, and scientific transformations, the EthicsLAB will advance research and advocacy to address fundamental ethical questions, which are not only central to philosophy but also crucial for the wider society. The EthicsLab is concerned to address emerging ethical issues, and to engage beyond into the digital, globalised world. Under the auspices of the EthicsLAB, we aim to inform, guide and offer research-based teaching, consultancy and research-led advocacy for our University of Tasmania partners, Tasmanian communities, industry and inter/national collaborators.
The EthicsLab is dedicated to addressing nascent ethical concerns, and so we welcome opportunities to contribute to discussions beyond academia through involvement in public forums, policy design, community events, and with the media.
Our Services
Our core team has a diverse set of expertise. We can offer conceptual tools and effective strategies for a range of ethical interventions, including:
Dedicated research
Teaching, training, education, and in-house workshops
Consultancy
Mission statements development for businesses and institutions
Contributions to research-led debates and advocacy
Our Vision
- Inform, guide, and offer research-based teaching, consultancy, and advocacy
- Deliver for our University of Tasmania partners, Tasmanian communities, industry, and collaborators
- Concerned with Tasmanian and national issues, and engaged globally
- Provide ethically informed teaching, debate, advocacy, and guidance
- Support people and organisations to recognise and galvanise their own ethical values and commitments
- Brings together local, national, and international researchers from the domains of the human sciences, the natural sciences, the medical humanities, and politics
- Contribute to the discipline of philosophy and the public understanding of ethics
- Train the next generation of ethicists to deliver justice for the future
Current projects
The application of VR to mental health issues is increasingly seen as an effective non-invasive treatment. At the heart of mental health issues are difficulties with self-identification, self-esteem, difficulties interacting with others and fitting into the world. In severe cases, this may lead to compete withdrawal from the world, panic attacks, anxiety, paranoia, body dysmorphia, hallucinations or crippling lack of self-confidence. With VR, individuals get to rehearse the difficult situation without real-world consequences; and so, while they know this is a VR simulation, their minds and bodies behave as if it is real. This current project aims to offer a reappraisal of the underpinning conceptions of subjectivity and world on which VR depends, and to examine the ethical implications of such uses.
“Australia is facing a perfect storm of factors driving increased homelessness, with rents skyrocketing, a tight rental market …. the continuing scourge of domestic and family violence driving victims into homelessness. Australia is also experiencing more frequent and severe fires, floods, other extreme weather events and natural disasters, causing mass homelessness in affected communities”. (Homelessness Australia, 2022). This project seeks to contribute to understanding the impact of homelessness from an ethical perspective, including but not limited to a consideration of the issues of moral injury and moral motivation.
From analysing affirmative action to tackling xenophobia, social ethics asks: What can make our diverse societies flourish? Who faces harm today, and what can be done to help them?
Many ethical concerns are linked with the usage invasive neural device target human neurological and psychiatric conditions. The raise of novel AI capacities introduces moral questions in many domains. The genesis of cerebral organoids endowed with cognitive capabilities engenders an array of ethical considerations. Central to these deliberations are the fundamental inquiries surrounding the hypothetical emergence of consciousness and the capacity for experiencing pain by these entities. Additionally, the matter of granting rights to those individuals whose biological materials were utilised in the manufacturing of these cerebral constructs remains a pressing ethical concern.
This project seeks to understand the human capacity for moral intuition (understood as the capacity for non-deliberative moral judgement) in terms of a contemporary understanding of the human brain.
Mental disorders are increasingly being understood as 'disorders of self'. In this project we draw on the conceptions of 'self' articulated in phenomenology, that foreground the multidimensionality and dynamic relations of self. How can such an account reconfigure our understandings of mental disorders and offer an alternative to reductive categorial diagnosis?
The application of A.I technology in the realms of policing and security, arguably more than in any other domain, brings forth some of the most complex ethical and legal challenges for public policy. This project aims to examine these challenges through examining the use of technologies like facial recognition software and predictive policing algorithms, with a focus on fairness and the authorising environment for these technologies.
This project engages philosophically with the concept ‘sustainability’ (including the concept's ethical dimensions). The concept 'sustainable' is common in everyday discourse and politics. However, it is often used without critical reflection upon the assumptions, implications, and indeed, the actual meaning of the concept itself.
The project addresses the philosophy of sustainability (including real world ethical issues surrounding the concept).
Recent publications
- Concerns with the promotion of deep brain stimulation for obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Not-so-straightforward decisions to keep or explant a device: when does neural device removal become patient coercion
- Restoring vision using optogenetics without being blind to the risks
- Investigating the feasibility and ethical implications of phenotypic screening using stem cell-derived tissue models to detect and manage disease
- Examination of Self Patterns: Framing an alternative phenomenological interview for use in mental health research and clinical practice
- Ontology and attention: addressing the challenge of the amoralist through Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and care ethics
- Ontology and politics: interdependence and radical contingency in Merleau-Ponty's political interworld
- Sentience and the primordial we
