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Ethical Values and Human Rights (Saibeth German Musse) - Coggle Diagram
Ethical Values and Human Rights (Saibeth German Musse)
Civil Liberties and Human Rights
The post-war development of many international human rights instruments include the European Convention on Human Rights and stimulated a new rights-consciousness. This led to a growing body of equality and human rights legislation, now known as the Human Rights Act 1998.
The Human Rights Act 1998 came into operation in 2000 and made most of the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights.
One of the Convention rights that is relevant to the forensic use of bioinformation is the right to a fair trial, meaning that, protection of the innocent from wrongful conviction has the status of a constitutional principle.
A second Convention right of relevance is the right to respect for private and family life. The Act and Convention reflect the notion that rights are rarely absolute, and that a search for a balance of interests is what is important.
Ethical Values
Liberty
It has two senses
The first is freedom from legal restraint or negative liberty. In this sense, liberty is reduced by police powers to take and retain fingerprints and DNA profiles and samples without consent.
The second sense it is used is to describe the necessary conditions for the freedom which we believe people ought to be able to enjoy in modern liberal societies. Not every constraint on people to act as they might wish is an interference with liberty, and in fact, those constraints may indeed promote liberty in the second sense.
Autonomy
For Kant, autonomy is the human capacity for rational thought and action in accordance with the moral law. Therefore, human capacity for autonomy and the value we place on it underpin the moral requirement to treat all human beings with dignity.
John Stuart Mill places great weight on the ‘free development of individuality’ as being one of the leading essentials of well-being.
Frankfurt puts more emphasis on the idea of self-governance, describing autonomy as the ability to live our lives in the way we ‘truly’ wish them to be.
Privacy
This can be seen as derived from a more basic right to autonomy, or as a precondition for the exercise of autonomy, or as an independent moral principle.
There are two concepts: spatial privacy and informational privacy. Spatial privacy is “a state of non-access to the individual’s physical or psychological self" while Informational privacy refers to personal information about an individual that is ordinarily “in a state of non-access to others”.
One importante aspect of privacy is anonymity.
Informed Consent
This removes any ethical objection based on liberty or autonomy to the taking, processing and retention of biological samples for DNA analysis and of fingerprints.
Issues arise as a result of the irrevocability of any consent given: if consent to the taking and retaining of samples is to be regarded as a free decision to surrender a certain degree of privacy, the justification for that invasion of privacy will be lost if the consent is withdrawn.
Equality
Police powers to take and retain biological samples and the resulting DNA profiles may aggravate social tensions by discriminating against those who live in police ‘hot-spots’ or belong to groups more likely than others to be targeted by police.
Social goods should in principle be distributed among everyone without distinction unless differences can be justified.
Justifications for Invasion of Liberty, Autonomy and Privacy
Invasions can be justified in various ways; by invoking the public interest in general, invoking a more specific interest in the efficient investigation of crime, or one may claim that someone who has committed a crime has forfeited the full extent of their rights to protection of liberty, autonomy and privacy.
There are three main theories.
Utilitarianism holds that there is just one moral principle: to seek the greatest benefit of the greatest number. In the morality of any action is judged solely in terms of its consequences.
A rights-based theory holds that certain personal rights are so important that they should not be sacrificed for the greater good, nor be subject to coercive interference.
A duty-based approach holds that we are subject to certain moral obligations irrespective of the rights of others, and irrespective of the consequences of our actions.
The 'no reason to fear if you are innocent' argument
The argument is fallacious because it assumes that the justice system is perfect and that no one who is innocent of a crime is ever convicted.
Reason #1 why this argument is fallacious: If a person is really innocent, simply being the subject of a criminal investigation by the police can cause harm and distress.
Reason #2 why this argument is fallacious: erroneous implications concerning ‘criminality’ may be drawn from the mere fact that a person’s profile is on the NDNAD, even if inclusion signifies only that they have once been arrested.
Proportionality
It is a method of analysis in which the ends, means and effects of a particular policy are subjected to a detailed assessment, based on sound evidence.
Three main formulations of the proportionality principle.
Second necessity test: states that if a particular objective can be achieved by more than one means, the least harmful of those means should be adopted, that is, one that causes minimum harm to the individual or community.
Third suitability test: asks whether the means used are appropriate to the accomplishment of a particular aim.
First balancing test: balancing between the end that a law or policy aims to achieve against the means used to achieve that end, including the impact on affected persons.