What ethical challenges to the social order could arise from Essay

What ethical challenges to the social order could arise from technological advances - Essay Example Technology issues are contemporary business issues in the context of their outcome on society, particularly the biotechnology companies that are confronted with issues related to the use of embryonic stem cells, genetic engineering, and cloning. All of these dilemmas have life-long societal and ethical significances. Recurrent technological advancement is likely to heighten the role of businesses in ethical fields all-of-a-sudden (Barnett, 2011). The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has outlined the significance of ethics in the field of Information Systems, as is visible from its straight-forward effect on the functions of IS professionals. There is sufficient literature on ethical issues covering computing and information technology in the concurrent context but not all of the work has been made available for discussion in the leading IS literature. There is need to recognise the contribution of Hagerman’s discourse ethics, which can be an instance of normative ethics as it offers process es for figuring out moral norms. The three routine kinds of ethical approaches are: consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics and communitarianism. Each kind of ethic has a range of its own although other ethical approaches such as the ethics of care exist but consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics and communitarianism are the leading approaches, attending to all fields of business ethics (Mingers & Walsham, 2010). Discourse ethics is distinct from other approaches to ethics as it is based on actual debates between those impressed by decisions and propositions. Considering that the theory could be abstract, the need to find practicality of the discourse ethics for the IS area by employing current techniques like soft systems methodology is important. Application of the theory carries practical potential via analysing its application to particular IS topic areas including Web 2.0, open source software, the digital divide and the UK biometric identity card scheme (Minger s & Walsham, 2010). An interdisciplinary area named bioethics came into existence in the early 1970s, integrating various professions such as clinicians, lawyers, philosophers, theologians, and other humanists amid technological advances in medicine and increasing regard for people in society. This was the time when haemodialysis and mechanical ventilation, abortion reform and the first human heart transplant was done. Technological innovations cut across individuals values. In brief, bioethics was the outcome of dispute (Parker and Gettig, 2000). Dispute arose over individuals' rights of self-determination confronting with some social values and with the medical profession's past non-confronting paternalistic regard for patient welfare, as the medical profession and individual professionals decided on their own, irrespective of the viewpoints of patients. Such medical cases where the patients challenged the medical fraternity for not fully informing the consequences of an operation or such legal issues started raging such as Karen Quinlan's parents' right to remove her from her respirator. Bioethics developed to offer a legal and ethical mechanism under which issues could be settled between the physician and patient and between social