Petryfikacja i zakotwiczenie. O legalizacji etyki prawniczej

The title of this essay relates to two features that are unique to legal ethics and, as one might say, set legal ethics apart from law itself. Each particular ethical norm is genetically and praxeologically rooted in the so-called prime directive, i.e. in an abstract understanding of what is moral in a universal (common) sense and in one’s understanding what role lawyers play in society. This rooting is dynamic in its nature. The idea of petrification, however, appears to work in the opposite direction: legal ethics practitioners note a certain tendency to perceive legal ethics as if it was law, albeit a specific portion of it and the one addressed to specific (non-general) audience. This idea is manifested in the silent incorporation of legal concepts (substantive and procedural) – originally existing in criminal law – into legal ethics, thus ‘petrifying’ it and altering its original dynamic nature. However, such ‘legalisation’ of legal ethics cannot succeed as long as the rooting mechanism remains active.

From Interstellar Imperialism to Celestial Wayfinding: Prime Directives and Colonial Time-Knots in SETI

This article traces parallels between James Cook’s 1768 Endeavour voyage to measure the transit of Venus and current initiatives searching for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). While separated by vast time and space, both are united in their appeal to celestial frontier science in the service of all humanity, and contain discrepancies between their ethical protocols and probable outcomes. Past, present, and future colonial projects are interwoven by drawing on Dipesh Chakrabarty’s “time-knot,” Star Trek’s “prime directive,” and firsthand experience in SETI’s Indigenous studies working group. This analysis cautions against the current trend toward unabated interstellar imperialism and suggests alternative approaches for engaging outer spaces and beings through celestial wayfinding.

Hazard control for communicable disease transport at Ornge

Transporting patients with communicable diseases is common in critical care transport operations. At Ornge, Ontario's critical care transport provider, 13.7% of patients required contact, droplet, or airborne precautions during transport in 2019–2020. Ensuring that staff are protected while transporting patients with communicable diseases must remain a prime directive for medical transport administrators and operators. Success in safety requires a robust system of hazard identification and adherence to generally accepted methods of hazard control. This commentary will discuss some of the administrative and engineering controls, as well as the personal protective equipment (PPE) strategies deployed at Ornge.

What if Cyberspace Were for Fighting?

This essay explores the ethical and legal implications of prioritizing the militarization of cyberspace as part of a roundtable on “Competing Visions for Cyberspace.” Our essay uses an ideal type—a world that accepts warfighting as the prime directive for the construction and use of cyberspace—and examines the ethical and legal consequences that follow for (i) who will have authority to regulate cyberspace; (ii) what vehicles they will most likely use to do so; and (iii) what the rules of behavior for states and stakeholders will be. We envision a world where states would take on a greater role in governance but remain constrained by law, includingjus ad bellumandjus in bellocriteria, but also sovereignty, nonintervention, and self-determination. We ask if the net result would mean states causing less harm than they do in kinetic conflicts. Ultimately, our essay takes no position on whether cyberspace should be a militarized domain (let alone one where warfighting is the prime directive). Rather, our goal is to situate a warfighting cyber domain within the reality of a pluralist cyberspace, where ethical imperatives compete or coalesce to support specific governance mechanisms.

Introduction

Following on from the preceding chapter, the question of the relativity of cultural values is seen as animating much of the work of the author Jack Vance. The Prime Directive of the Star Trek series states that interfering with the normal development of any culture is unacceptable, for all cultures are of equal value, and the loss of any one of them is irreparable. Vance probes the costs and consequences of this belief in a way well beyond the daring of mass media fiction, such as Star Trek, in a series of highly original and problematic scenarios, with results which cannot be reduced to a single or simple solution.