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In this essay we examine a fundamental question in biosemiotic ethics: why think that semiosis is a morally relevant property, or a property that supports the moral value of living beings or systems that possess it? We argue that biosemiotic particularism, the view that normative assessment should be based on the particular fulfillment of an organism's or other biological entity's specific semiosic capacity, offers a justifiable normative position for the biosemiotic ethicist. If what justifies offering moral standing to all living beings and systems is that these entities are semiosic, then there must be something ethically motivating about semiosis. We examine several arguments in answer to this question. These include arguments for semiotic agency, the claim that all living entities are agential as a result of their semiosic capacities; arguments for subjective or quasi-subjective experience, that all living beings have it and that it matters morally; and arguments for the moral relevance of meaning-making as sufficient for moral considerability. We also address the negative argument that semiosis is at least as defensible as sentience, an alternative candidate capacity for grounding moral relevance, and other cognition-related capacities. Finally, we push further to ask: even if semiosis is a morally relevant capacity of living organisms, is it the morally relevant property? That is, is semiosis the least common denominator for attribution of moral worth, to the effect that sentience-based approaches, among others, could build on biosemiotic ethics as a foundational meta-ethical theory?

The Covid‐19 crisis has underscored the importance of the collection and analysis of clinical and research data and specimens for ongoing work. The federal government recently completed a related revision of the human subjects research regulations, founded in the traditional principles of research ethics, but in this commentary, we argue that the analysis underpinning this revision overemphasized the importance of informed consent, given the low risks of secondary research. Governing the interests of a community is different from governing the interests of individuals, and here we suggest that, moving forward, the analyses of the risks of secondary research protocols be assessed from the perspective of the former.

"Rapid changes in technology and the growing use of electronic media signals a need for understanding both clear and subtle ethical and social implications of the digital, and of specific digital technologies. Understanding Digital Ethics: Cases and Contexts is the first book to offer a philosophically grounded examination of digital ethics and its moral implications. Divided into three clear parts, the authors discuss and explain the following key topics : Becoming Literate in Digital Ethics Moral Viewpoints in Digital Contexts Motivating Action in Digital Ethics Speed and Scope of Digital Information Moral Algorithms and Ethical Machines The Digital and the Human Digital Relations and Empathy Machines Agents, Autonomy, and Action Digital and Ethical Activism. The book includes cases and examples that explore the ethical implications of digital hardware and software including videogames, social media platforms, autonomous vehicles, robots, voice enabled personal assistants, smartphones, artificially intelligent chatbots, military drones, and more. Understanding Digital Ethics is essential reading for students and scholars of philosophical ethics, those working on topics related to digital technology and digital/moral literacy, and practitioners in related fields"--

In this introduction to the special issue on Biosemiotic Ethics, we introduce major concepts and themes corresponding to the topic. With reference to Ivar Puura's notion of "semiocide", we ask: what are the ethical responsibilities that attention to semiotics carries? We argue that if life is fundamentally semiotic, then biosemiotics and moral theory should be explored in conjunction, rather than separately. Biosemiotic ethics becomes relevant whenever one complex of signs impinges on another; particularly whenever human sign usage impinges on the wellbeing or sustainable functioning of human or non-human semiotic agents. Stable coexistence of sign systems is far from inevitable, but it is a meaningful goal that can be pursued. In complex ecosystems, for example, certain types of coexistent relationships have evolved to share space despite competitive needs and expressions. We describe the ways in which authors in this volume articulate various justifications for the view that what is morally relevant is semiosis. Given these perspectives in a growing approach to understanding moral relationships, biosemiotic ethics has the decisive advantage of drawing on contemporary biosemiotics' empirically-informed biological acuity within a rich semiotic framework.

Obituary for the American philosopher and semiotician John Deely (1942–2017).

In this interview, Wendy Wheeler, London Metropolitan University Emerita Professor of English Literature and Cultural Inquiry, discusses her thoughts on biosemiotics and its relevance for ethics. In Wheeler's perspective, biosemiotics can ground ethics because it offers an alternative and fitting ontology of relations. She shares her thoughts on Peirce as a foundational figure for biosemiotics, and explains why she doubts that an ecological ethics can be framed in terms of laws. Further, she discusses her views on moral agency in nonhumans, and warns against ideas based on human exceptionalism, sentimentalism and puritanism. Wheeler thinks that a biosemiotic ethics can posit a more located, or systemically nested, sense of semiotic value. Her moral question, she explains, would always be something like: Is this growing? Is this lively?