Using the expression "human dignity" in public documents discussing genetics: A theological contribution to the discussion of its meaning in light of the work of Richard A McCormick
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This thesis is directed towards the goal of advancing ethical discourse in public policy development. It examines a piece of the public policy process in a specific instance---public documents discussing genetics and the use of genetic technologies. The documents considered are examples of a part of the process that raises values questions and issues in the public domain as an explicit part of a decision process. This project is about one value in particular---human dignity---which is used as one of the core values in virtually all public policy documents discussing genetics. Human dignity is an example which focuses our discussion on how the term is used, what is the content of its expression, and what is its meaning for those who make decisions. The thesis is not an exhaustive inquiry into the meanings attached to human dignity. In addition, the thesis will explore the meaning of the expression human dignity from a theological perspective. It will be argued that the theological perspective may serve to be illustrative of insights not noticeably present in the public discourse. This thesis is presented in four chapters. Chapter 1 presents a brief overview of the rapidly evolving science of genetics and the issues it raises in the public forum. Chapter 2 is a more detailed examination of some of the public documents noted in passing in Chapter 1. It works with their presentations of human dignity and its importance in their presentations. Documents chosen are from public bodies in Canada, France, and the United States. We have chosen three documents from each country: one that deals with research involving human subjects, in that much of the technology in the field of genetics is presently at the level of research; one that deals with genetic testing; and one that deals with reproductive cloning. Chapter 3 attempts to bring some clarity in the use of human dignity through a brief sketch of the meanings attached to it, as well as its relationship with the term autonomy. Kant and Rawls are discussed and a perspective on their work from the point of view of Habermas, Virtue Ethics, Feminist philosophy, and the law as found in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is included. Further efforts to bring clarity to the discussion of the content and meaning of the term human dignity is sought via a theological perspective represented by Richard A. McCormick. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.029 | 0.038 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.018 | 0.101 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.022 | 0.023 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.010 | 0.016 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".