About Information Ethics Regarding Pain and Human Suffering – The Research Center on Values in Emerging Science and Technology

Panel discussion: a collective questioning about quantum ethics

Click here to hear a recording (podcast) of the event! Event time: Thursday, September 26, 2024 – 4:00pm to 5:00pm Audience: Faculty, students, staff, researchers, community members, general public. Location: Southern Connecticut State University – Engleman Hall – Room A120 See map Panelists Colleen Bielitz Assoc. VP for Strategic Initiatives & Outreach, SCSU Florian Carle Managing Director, Yale Quantum Institute Matthew Enjalran Professor of Physics, SCSU Rye Howard-Stone Lecturer of Contemporary Issues in Computer Science and Engineering, UConn Sarah M. Roe (moderator) Director, Research Center on Values in Emerging Science and Technology, SCSU The panel will be followed by a reception to continue the conversation. As quantum technology advances rapidly, it is crucial to consider its ethical implications. While quantum applications hold the potential to transform industries, they also pose significant moral challenges. Quantum computers, for instance, could dismantle current encryption methods, jeopardizing data privacy and cybersecurity. Their ability to solve complex problems at unprecedented speeds might create unfair advantages in sectors like finance or defense, further deepening existing inequalities. By addressing these ethical concerns early, we can ensure that quantum technology develops in ways that uphold fairness, privacy, and security for all. Join us for a discussion hosted by the Research Center on Values in Emerging Science and Technology and the Yale Quantum Institute, with co-sponsorship Details

RC-VEST Discussion: Race & Medicine

April 10th 1:10-1:50pm EN C008 Free lunch bring your friends! Discuss and reflect about how race, medicine, and healthcare coverage are connected. A panel of students, staff and faculty will start the conversation! Please email Dr. Roe (roes1@southernct.edu) if you have any questions. Thank you to our panel and all who attended!

RC-VEST Documentary Screening “The Color of Care”

April 3rd 1-2:20pm (pop in any time) EN 121 A&B Free lunch! Bring your friends! Learn about race, medicine, and healthcare coverage in our communities. Contact Dr. Roe (roes1@southernct.edu) if you have any questions.

AUTHOR
Mª del Mar López and Porfirio Barroso

ABSTRACT

Human suffering and pain in the media appear as front-page news. Sometimes, journalists deliberately select situations of suffering and pain, not for the so-called informative interest, but because they are images that speak for themselves: these images put tremendous emotional strain on the audience.

The main drive behind this research goes wide and deep: on the one hand, this study pretends to facilitate an explanation to the treatment that the media provides regarding such delicate topics, where there should even be a guarantee covering the maximum protection of the fundamental human rights of those who are suffering. On the other hand, the effects that they have on the receiver of traumatic information dealing with pain and suffering are analyzed. Lastly, a double analysis approach is being sought: an ethical dimension and a legal dimension directly connected with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 of the UDHR devoted to the rights of freedom of expression and freedom to hold opinions. In the writing of the UDHR and in the later work of internationalization of these Rights and Freedom, a very outstanding jurist was involved: René Samuel Cassin (1887-1976), Nobel Peace Prize winner for these contributions in the year 1968. The reason of connecting him with this research is because R. Cassin ended up being a grateful jurist due to the strong impression that the Dreyfus Affair was to have on him together with an article by Emile Zola “J’accuse.” The said case has great importance for its relationship with the history of journalism, and with the origin of the necessity of editing the UDHR in 1948. Also, this case has a connection with the right to legal information and special protection for those who are presumably guilty.

Some of the premature conclusions are the following ones:

The information on facts that involve pain deserves a special treatment, with accuracy and wisdom, so not to damage the sensibility of the audience or to increase more the pain of the victims and of its families. Consequently, this news generates many ethical problems related with the characteristic expression of the pain and the rising capacity of engaging the audience
Media, mainly the audiovisual ones, trivialize in many occasions the deepest feelings in suffering and they also commercialize the human pain. They use the sensationalism when treating these topics to capture audience, mainly if through this sensationalism they can appeal to the most insane and latent curiosity in the human being.
One of the reasons that took R. Cassin to participate in the elaboration of the UDHR was the great impression that the journalistic treatment of the Dreyfus Case caused on him: a clear case that damaged fundamental human rights, mainly the right to the presumption of innocence of who will be judged.