We present an instrument developed to explain to students the concept of the personal ethical threshold (PET). The PET represents an individual’s susceptibility to situational pressure in his or her organization that makes moral behavior more personally difficult. Further, the PET varies according to the moral intensity of the issue at hand, such that individuals are less vulnerable to situational pressure for issues of high moral intensity, i.e., those with greater consequences for others. A higher PET reflects an individual’s greater (...) likelihood of adhering to the morally correct path, even in the face of high situational pressures (personal costs) and low moral intensity (collective importance). PET questionnaires were completed by 506 students representing eight business schools throughout the United States. Relationships between respondents’ PET and their gender, age, and major field of study, as well as the geographical location of their school, are explored. Results indicate that older students have higher PETs and that students attending schools in the northeastern part of the United States have lower PETs. These findings are discussed. It is argued that the PET instrument can be used to help students identify organizational pressures and intrapersonal processes that can impede their moral behavior in organizations. (shrink)

We present an instrument developed to explain to students the concept of the personal ethical threshold. The PET represents an individual's susceptibility to situational pressure in his or her organization that makes moral behavior more personally difficult. Further, the PET varies according to the moral intensity of the issue at hand, such that individuals are less vulnerable to situational pressure for issues of high moral intensity, i.e., those with greater consequences for others. A higher PET reflects an individual's greater likelihood (...) of adhering to the morally correct path, even in the face of high situational pressures and low moral intensity. PET questionnaires were completed by 506 students representing eight business schools throughout the United States. Relationships between respondents' PET and their gender, age, and major field of study, as well as the geographical location of their school, are explored. Results indicate that older students have higher PETs and that students attending schools in the northeastern part of the United States have lower PETs. These findings are discussed. It is argued that the PET instrument can be used to help students identify organizational pressures and intrapersonal processes that can impede their moral behavior in organizations. (shrink)

This paper examines the problem of vituperative feedback from peer reviewers. We argue that such feedback is morally unacceptable, insofar as it humiliates authors and damages their dignity. We draw from social-psychological research to explore those aspects of the peer-review process in general and the anonymity of blind reviewing in particular that contribute to reviewers’ humiliating comments. We then apply Iris Murdoch's ideas about a virtuous consciousness and humility to make the case that peer referees have a moral obligation not (...) to humiliate the authors whose work they review. (shrink)

At the end of their article in the September 2014 issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, Douglas R. May, Matthew T. Luth, and Catherine E. Schwoerer state that they are “hopeful in outlook” about the “evidence that business ethics instructors are….able to encourage students…to develop the courage to come forward even when pressures in organizations dictate otherwise”. We agree with May et al. that it is essential to augment students’ moral courage. However, it seems overly optimistic to believe that (...) this improvement will result from any course in business ethics. Indeed, we question the appropriateness of their measure of moral courage and assert that business ethics educators must purposely design their courses to develop students’ moral courage. In particular, we advocate introducing business ethics students to works of literature featuring protagonists who exercise moral courage in organizations. Fiction provides rich accessible narratives that show students worlds beyond their experience, awaken their imaginations, and evoke their emotions. Further, we highlight morally courageous exemplars because they inspire the cultivation of character. Joining those who underscore the role of virtue in business ethics education, we argue that exposure to moral exemplars in fiction will help students to build the moral courage they need to carry out ethical decisions in the workplace. Results from 46 students at the end of an MBA ethics course featuring moral courage provide preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of our approach. (shrink)

Workplace bullying has a well-established body of research internationally, but the United States has lagged behind the rest of the world in the identification and investigation of this phenomenon. This paper presents a managerial perspective on bullying in organizations. The lack of attention to the concept of workplace dignity in American organizational structures has supported and even encouraged both casual and more severe forms of harassment that our workplace laws do not currently cover. The demoralization victims suffer can create toxic (...) working environments and impair organizational productivity. Some methods of protecting your organization from this blight of bullying are proposed. Bullying has always been part of the human condition; history is rife with references to abuse of power and unnecessary or excessive force. The classic bully story is of Joseph and his brothers, a tale of envy and hostility. The refinement of bullying to include various forms of legally defined social harassment is a relatively late phenomenon, however, dating to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the United States, bullying is not illegal, whereas it is illegal in many other countries. Bullying is not about benign teasing, nor does it include the off-color jokes, racial slurs, or unwelcome advances that are the hallmarks of legally defined harassment. Workplace bullying is the pattern of destructive and generally deliberate demeaning of co-workers or subordinates that reminds us of the activities of the schoolyard bully. Unlike the schoolyard bully, however, the workplace bully is an adult, usually (but not always) aware of the impact of his or her behavior on others. Bullying in the workplace, often tacitly accepted by the organizational leadership, can create an environment of psychological threat that diminishes corporate productivity and inhibits individual and group commitment. The two examples that follow will help to clarify the difference between harassment and bullying. (shrink)

This paper presents an experiential exercise introducing the concept of the personal ethical threshold (PET) to help explain why moral behavior does not always follow moral intention. An individual’s PET represents the individual’s vulnerability to situational factors, i.e., how little or much it takes for members of organizations to cross their proverbial line to act in a way they deem unethical. The PET reflects the interplay among the situation, the particular ethical issue, and the individual. Exploring the PET can help (...) account for why some people are sometimes able to withstand substantial organizational pressures to behave in congruence with their ethical intentions, whereas others crumble in the face of apparently minimal situational forces. We hope that students’ exposure to and subsequent reflection upon their PET, by means of the exercise we present, will foster the development of their moral courage. (shrink)

Business ethics educators have been encouraged to cultivate students’ character, but have received meager instructions for doing so. Additionally, there has been insufficient focus on equipping students with the tools they need to foster their ethical development after completing our courses. In this paper, it is argued that the Jewish spiritual practice of Mussar, whose premise is that individuals can become better versions of themselves by repairing their character traits, can inform business ethics instruction. After presenting the tenets and historical (...) background of Mussar, we provide specific information that will enable business ethics instructors to adapt its tools and techniques in order to put their students on a personalized path of lifelong character improvement. (shrink)

The latest volume of Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations examines a range of contemporary issues in applied and professional ethics and explores the unique role of organizational ethics in creating and sustaining a pluralistic, free enterprise economy.

We present this special issue on positive organizational ethics (POE) to highlight those pursuing positive subjective experiences, positive attributes of individuals and groups, and positive practices that contribute to ethical and virtuous behavior in organizations. Although prior research has offered some insight in this area, there is still much to be learned about how to cultivate and sustain ethical strength in different types of organizations and how goodness can emerge from and in spite of human failings. After describing the positive (...) movement, we position POE as a discrete area of inquiry within the broader positive behavioral sciences, at the intersection of positive behavioral studies and business ethics. After defining our terms and purpose for creating the POE domain, we introduce the articles in this special issue. The introduction concludes with suggested topics for future research. (shrink)

This article considers the implications of jus in bello for jus post bellum by exploring the relevant differences between victims of different sides in World War II: the Jewish Holocaust victims and the German civilians bombed by the Allied air forces. Some assert a moral equivalence between the catastrophes these two groups endured [Appleyard, Bryan. (2017). “I’m a Holocaust Sleuth.” The Weekend Australian Magazine, April 8–9: 27–28]. Although we do not dispute that German civilians suffered as victims of Allied aerial (...) bombings, we do question the depiction of their suffering as morally equivalent to the Holocaust of European Jewry. Much of the German war effort was directed at exterminating Jews. Likewise, much of the Allied war effort was directed at bombing German civilians. Both were wicked acts. But they embody very different goals, which were achieved by employing very different means. We present three factors that consider those different goals and means, thereby demonstrating that the Nazis’ victimisation of Jews was far worse than the Allies’ victimisation of German civilians. We conclude by urging military ethicists to learn from the past and to recognise that the treatment of the victims of war has implications for later generations. (shrink)

We consider in this article how the largest corporations in Apartheid South Africa used an in‐house magazine to manipulate their shareholders' perceptions of the current political scenario. We argue that in that era, business felt compelled to respond to the portrayal of events in South Africa presented by the international media. Furthermore, we examine the motivation of business for doing so and why that motivation does not exist in post‐apartheid South Africa.

This volume looks at the role of organizations in society, the international and multidisciplinary scope of business ethics, and the importance of narrative.

This volume includes works by authors from the global South and contributions about ethical issues in the global South, including the responses to famine in East Africa, India and Indonesia, and the applicability of international guidelines and ethical frameworks in South Africa.

This article is concerned with the complex role of assessment in the character development of graduate students in seminary education. It presents the current curricular approach of Denver Seminary to mentored, contextual formation and the variety of assessment strategies that support the growth of individual students and a culture of integrated learning in the institution. Rather than directing assessment strategies on individual character qualities, we argue for the efficacy of assessing the enabling conditions for character growth expressed in the andragogic (...) elements of adult learning skills. Within this model, learning proves to be expansive enough for the contemporary seminary student who has a sense that it is up to them to prepare for and create the work they dream of within a changing culture. (shrink)

Biomedical devices and biotechnological treatments are different types of health intervention. In general, biomedical devices, such as deep brain stimulators implanted for treatment of movement disorders, can help patients without imposing moral burdens. Biotechnological interventions, on the other hand, require the use of biological substances, which are often obtained by the destruction of human life or unusual tampering with it, as in embryonic stem cell research, cloning, and fetal tissue transplantation. Biotechnology imposes a moral burden on patients, who may not (...) fully understand what it involves and the effects its use might have on them later. This essay is a reflection on the serious losses patients experience before they consider biotechnological options and on their sense of moral burden after they have consented to their use. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.4 (Winter 2009): 671–679. (shrink)

A key focus for agri-food scholars today pertains to emerging “alternative food movements,” particularly their long-term viability, and their potential to induce transitions in our prevailing conventional global agri-food systems. One under-studied element in recent research on sustainability transitions more broadly is the role of disruptive events in the emergence or expansion of these movements. We present the findings of a case study of the effect of a sudden acute food safety crisis—bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease—on alternative beef (...) production in the Province of Alberta, Canada. Employing the conceptual lens of Sustainability Transition Theory, we explore the perspectives of conventional and alternative beef producers, treating alternative beef production as a niche operating within the dominant regime of global industrial agri-business. Three key findings are presented here. First, food safety risks and disruptive events can emerge as a direct consequence of the socio-ecological contradictions embedded in industrial agriculture, representing an opportunity for expansion of agricultural niches. Second, certain features of socio-economic regimes can also contribute to niche emergence, such as an economic system that disenfranchises beef-producing families. Finally, our study highlights the high level of diversity among niche agents and the complex and nuanced nature of their support for the niche. (shrink)

Pragmatic clinical trials offer important benefits, such as generating evidence that is suited to inform real-world health care decisions and increasing research efficiency. However, PCTs also present ethical challenges. One such challenge involves the management of information that emerges in a PCT that is unrelated to the primary research question, yet may have implications for the individual patients, clinicians, or health care systems from whom or within which research data were collected. We term these findings as?pragmatic clinical trial collateral findings,? (...) or?PCT-CFs?. In this article, we explore the ethical considerations associated with the identification, assessment, and management of PCT-CFs, and how these considerations may vary based upon the attributes of a specific PCT. Our purpose is to map the terrain of PCT-CFs to serve as a foundation for future scholarship as well as policy-making and to facilitate careful deliberation about actual cases as they occur in practice. (shrink)

: Catholic teaching has no moral difficulties with research on stem cells derived from adult stem cells or fetal cord blood. The ethical problem comes with embryonic stem cells since their genesis involves the destruction of a human embryo. However, there seems to be significant promise of health benefits from such research. Although Catholic teaching does not permit any destruction of human embryos, the question remains whether researchers in a Catholic institution, or any researchers opposed to destruction of human embryos, (...) could participate in research on cultured embryonic stem cells, or whether a Catholic institution could use any therapy that ultimately results from such research. This position paper examines how such research could be conducted legitimately in a Catholic institution by using an ethical analysis involving a narrative context, the nature of the moral act, and the principle of material cooperation, along with references to significant ethical assessments. It also offers tentative guidelines that could be used by a Catholic institution in implementing such research. (shrink)

Since publication of the 1986 Carnegie Commission report, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, the professional teaching standards movement has gained noticeable momentum. The professional standards movement in teaching has been fueled by national organizations such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, and by close collaboration among these four entities. Further, nearly all (...) of the fifty states are embracing the professional standards movement through formal participation in the work of one or more of these organizations. Although the professional standards movement in teaching is strong and growing stronger, its implications are not clear for instructional programs in social foundations of education, either at the teacher preparation or the advanced graduate levels. In response to the standards movement, social foundations educators have a number of options before them, three of which are to (1) largely ignore these developments, as "this too shall pass"; (2) critically interpret and resist these developments through scholarship and collective professional action, as social foundations scholars did with Competency Based Teacher Education in the 1970s; and (3) critically interpret these developments while working to strengthen the potential of the professional teaching standards movement to achieve its stated goal of providing caring and qualified teachers for every classroom in the nation. Of these three options, the last is most advisable, but it presents a considerable challenge to social foundations educators. Although the absence of social foundations skills, perspectives, and understanding should make it very difficult for teacher candidates and teachers to perform well on standards-based teaching assessments, there is no guarantee that these assessments will hold candidates accountable for social foundations learning. Implications for social foundations educators and activists are significant. (shrink)

This book applies Augustine's thought to current questions of teaching and learning. The essays are written in an accessible style and is not intended just for experts on Augustine or church history.

Research in which participants report potentially dangerous health-related behaviors raises ethical and professional questions about what to do with that information. Policies and laws regarding reportable behaviors vary across states and Institutional Review Boards (IRB). In alcohol research, IRBs often require researchers to respond to participants who report dangerous drinking practices. Researchers have little guidance regarding how best to respond in such cases. Personalized feedback or general nonpersonalized information may prove differentially effective as a function of gender and/or level of (...) self-determination. This study evaluated response strategies for reducing peak blood alcohol concentration (BAC) among participants reporting dangerous BACs (≥ .35%) in the context of a two-year longitudinal intervention trial with 818 heavy drinking college students. After each assessment, participants who reported drinking to estimated BACs at or greater than .35% were sent either a personalized letter expressing concern and indicating their reported BAC or a nonpersonalized pamphlet that included general information about alcohol and other substances, referral information, and a BAC handout. Hierarchical linear modeling results revealed that both strategies were associated with reduced peak BAC when controlling for previous BAC. The personalized letter was more effective for women and for students who tend to regulate their behavior based on others' expectations and contingencies in the environment. This research provides some guidance for researchers considering appropriate responses to participants who report dangerous health behavior in the context of a research trial. (shrink)

Although tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is the only medication approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for acute ischemic stroke, there is no consensus about the need for informed consent for its use. As a result, hospitals throughout the U.S. have varying requirements regarding obtaining informed consent from patients for the use of tPA, ranging from no requirement for informed consent to a requirement for verbal or written informed consent. We conducted a study to (1) determine current (...) beliefs about obtaining patients’ informed consent for tPA among a large group of stroke clinicians and (2) identify the ethical, clinical, and organizational factors that influence tPA consent practices. Semi-structured interviews were conducted by trained and experienced investigators and research staff to identify key barriers to implementing acute stroke services. Part of the interview explored current beliefs and practices around informed consent for tPA.This was a multicenter study that included 38 Veterans Health Administration (VHA) hospital locations. Participants were 68 stroke team clinicians, serving primarily on the neurology (35 percent) or emergency medicine (41 percent) service. We conducted thematic analysis based on principles of grounded theory to identify codes about consent for tPA. We used interpretive convergence to ensure consistency among the individual investigators’ codes and to ensure that all of the investigators agreed on coding and themes.We found that 38 percent of the stroke clinicians did not believe any form of consent was necessary for tPA, 47 percent thought that some form of consent was necessary, and 15 percent were unsure. Clinicians who believed tPA required informed consent were divided on whether consent should be written (40 percent) or verbal (60 percent). We identified three factors describing clinicians’ attitudes about consent: (1) legal and policy factors, (2) ethical factors, and (3) medical factors.The lack of consensus regarding consent for tPA creates the potential for delays in treatment, uneasiness among clinicians, and legal liability. The identified factors provide a potential framework to guide discussions about developing a standard of care for acquiring the informed consent of patients for the administration of tPA. (shrink)

Using a survey of 393 employees who were natives and residents of China, Japan, and South Korea, we examined the extent to which employees from different countries within East Asia experience distributive justice when they perceived that their work outcomes relative to a referent other were equally poor, equally favorable, more poor, or more favorable. As predicted, we found that when employees perceived themselves relative to a referent other to be recipients of more favorable outcomes, Chinese and Korean employees were (...) less likely than Japanese employees to experience distributive injustice. We also found that these differences were partially mediated by employees’ level of materialism. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed. (shrink)

Research on bilingualism has grown exponentially in recent years. However, the comprehension of speech in noise, given the ubiquity of both bilingualism and noisy environments, has seen only limited focus. Electroencephalogram studies in monolinguals show an increase in alpha power when listening to speech in noise, which, in the theoretical context where alpha power indexes attentional control, is thought to reflect an increase in attentional demands. In the current study, English/French bilinguals with similar second language proficiency and who varied in (...) terms of age of L2 acquisition from 0 to 15 years completed a speech perception in noise task. Participants were required to identify the final word of high and low semantically constrained auditory sentences such as “Stir your coffee with a spoon” vs. “Bob could have known about the spoon” in both of their languages and in both noise and quiet during electrophysiological recording. We examined the effects of language, AoA, semantic constraint, and listening condition on participants’ induced alpha power during speech comprehension. Our results show an increase in alpha power when participants were listening in their L2, suggesting that listening in an L2 requires additional attentional control compared to the first language, particularly early in processing during word identification. Additionally, despite similar proficiency across participants, our results suggest that under difficult processing demands, AoA modulates the amount of attention required to process the second language. (shrink)

Isolated neutron stars undergoing non-radial oscillations are expected to emit gravitational waves in the kilohertz frequency range. To date, radio astronomers have located about 1,300 pulsars, and can estimate that there are about 2×108 neutron stars in the galaxy. Many of these are surely old and cold enough that their interiors will contain matter in the superfluid or superconducting state. In fact, the so-called glitch phenomenon in pulsars (a sudden spin-up of the pulsar's crust) is best described by assuming the (...) presence of superfluid neutrons and superconducting protons in the inner crusts and cores of the pulsars. Recently there has been much progress on modelling the dynamics of superfluid neutron stars in both the Newtonian and general relativistic regimes. We will discuss some of the main results of this recent work, perhaps the most important being that superfluidity should affect the gravitational waves from neutron stars (emitted, for instance, during a glitch) by modifying both the rotational properties of the background star and the modes of oscillation of the perturbed configuration. Finally, we present an analysis of the so-called zero-frequency subspace (i.e., the space of time-independent perturbations) and determine that it is spanned by two sets of polar (or spheroidal) and two sets of axial (or toroidal) degenerate perturbations for the general relativistic system. As in the Newtonian case, the polar perturbations are the g-modes which are missing from the pulsation spectrum of a non-rotating configuration, and the axial perturbations should lead to two sets of r-modes when the degeneracy of the frequencies is broken by having the background rotate. (shrink)

This note considers the recent House of Lordsdecision in Royal Bank of Scotland plc. v.Etridge (No. 2). It concerns the familiarscenario of a wife jointly mortgaging (orproviding a guarantee for a mortgage of) thefamily home in order to secure financialsupport for a business run by her husband. Ina landmark judgement, Lord Nicholls set out newand specific procedures to be followed bylenders and solicitors who are providingindependent advice, in order to counter anyargument by the wife that the charge should beset aside (...) because her signature on the lender'scharge has been obtained by the undue influenceof her husband. This note considers the impactof the decision upon the parties involved insuch transactions. Special consideration isgiven to the surety wife and her chances ofdefending possession proceedings brought bylenders in the post Etridge era. (shrink)

This case note considers the Court of Appeal decision in Royal Bank of Scotland v. Etridge (No. 2) and other appeals [1998] 4 All E.R. 705. It concerns the familiar scenario of a wife jointly mortgaging (or providing a guarantee for a mortgage of) the family home in order to secure financial support for a business run by her husband. The House of Lords decision in Barclays Bank v O'Brien [1994] A.C. 180 has given rise to a range of litigation (...) in this area, and the spotlight has now moved from the banks to an examination of the quality of advice given by solicitors. The banks have heeded the warnings in O'Brien and now insist that wives are told to obtain independent legal advice. It will be seen that, following Etridge, if the bank tells the solicitor to give the wife legal advice upon undertaking the transaction, that will be sufficient to protect the bank, notwithstanding that the advice was either inadequate or even not actually given. The onus to ensure that proper advice is given is shifted squarely on to the solicitor. The note concludes that the decision is indicative of the shift of judicial opinion against wives seeking to avoid charges over matrimonial homes and in favour of banks. (shrink)

This note considers the recent House of Lordsdecision in Royal Bank of Scotland plc. v.Etridge (No. 2). It concerns the familiarscenario of a wife jointly mortgaging (orproviding a guarantee for a mortgage of) thefamily home in order to secure financialsupport for a business run by her husband. Ina landmark judgement, Lord Nicholls set out newand specific procedures to be followed bylenders and solicitors who are providingindependent advice, in order to counter anyargument by the wife that the charge should beset aside (...) because her signature on the lender'scharge has been obtained by the undue influenceof her husband. This note considers the impactof the decision upon the parties involved insuch transactions. Special consideration isgiven to the surety wife and her chances ofdefending possession proceedings brought bylenders in the post Etridge era. (shrink)

Reimagining “humanity” is a powerful aim of the educational philosophy of Zak Stein. A relative new-comer to the field of Education and philosophy, Stein has in the last decade or so shown himself to be a potent “developmentalist,” and visionary of a “metamodern metaphysics” for reconfiguring how societies understand learning, new forms of education, and most interestingly he situates his work within a metaphysics of Love. Stein poignantly calls for a “return” to important past wisdom in transforming learning but (...) he does so from a critical integral perspective in ways that are unique in educational writing today. The author appreciates and demonstrates Stein’s awareness of the meta-context of the Anthropocene and “crises” as a critical basis for any design of future education. He particularly focuses this introductory technical paper on Stein’s views on fear and its essential core role in shaping human evolution and thus our ways of learning and designing curriculum. The author adds a brief critique of how Stein’s work could be improved in terms of a holistic-integral fear management/education in this discussion of a new metaphysics of love for education in general. (shrink)

Eu estava no campinho de futebol da casa dos meus pais, os quero-queros tinham feito ninho e seus três filhotes pequenos estavam aprendendo a comer bicando lá sei eu o quê numa parte mais úmida, onde nas chuvas corria uma fonte. Quando os quero-queros faziam ninho, cessavam todas as peladas. Não havia nem discussão, afinal eles moravam aí antes de chegarem os humanos, o terreno era deles, nós éramos os invasores. Um gato espreitava os filhotes, pronto para dar o (...) bote. Em vez de dar de ombros e dizer “é a lei da natureza”, espantei o gato. (shrink)

The ontological argument has run for a long time, regularly refuted, regularly re-appearing in a new form. Something can be learnt from its longevity. Its proponents must be on to something, or it would not have survived its many refutations. But equally, it must have been much misformulated, or it would not have seemed evidently fallacious to its many critics. Perhaps it does express a deep philosophical intimation. Certainly it has been taken to prove more than it really can establish. (...) Like many other philosophical arguments it has suffered by being made out to be more rigorous than in the nature of the case it can be. For some philosophers addressing some questions it may have been decisive in leading them to adopt one of the few options open to them: but it is quite inconclusive for others, with different presuppositions or different problems, and cannot be reduced into a valid proof cogent for all comers and compelling them to accept the conclusion it claims to demonstrate. (shrink)

When opinion polls are conducted on some urgent matter of the day those polled are permitted to declare themselves ‘Don't Knows’. It is usually a minority who are so ill-disposed as to forget their civic duty to have an opinion on each and every subject, and they can usually expect to be rebuked as fence-sitters or slugabeds. People confronted by the demand that they take sides can generally produce a ‘view’ which they maintain against all-comers without the slightest attempt to (...) seek out confirmation or counter-evidence. Sometimes, no doubt, this view ‘bubbles up’ from the speaker's entrenched evaluations and opinions; sometimes it has simply been selected, off the cuff, from the available alternatives and entered in the speaker's ‘axiom set’, the things she'll say when asked, or which she may even ‘act on’ in some more material way—without any implication that the alternative opinion would not once have done as well. (shrink)

When opinion polls are conducted on some urgent matter of the day those polled are permitted to declare themselves ‘Don't Knows’. It is usually a minority who are so ill-disposed as to forget their civic duty to have an opinion on each and every subject, and they can usually expect to be rebuked as fence-sitters or slugabeds. People confronted by the demand that they take sides can generally produce a ‘view’ which they maintain against all-comers without the slightest attempt to (...) seek out confirmation or counter-evidence. Sometimes, no doubt, this view ‘bubbles up’ from the speaker's entrenched evaluations and opinions; sometimes it has simply been selected, off the cuff, from the available alternatives and entered in the speaker's ‘axiom set’, the things she'll say when asked, or which she may even ‘act on’ in some more material way—without any implication that the alternative opinion would not once have done as well. (shrink)

What happens when an entire group of human beings is excluded from the definition of humanity? How is the power of language used to distort reality? What happens when a comprehensive economic plan is based on theft, brainwashing, slave labor, and murder? These and other philosophical questions about the Holocaust are contemplated in Contemporary Portraits of Auschwitz. In 1988, a group of philosophers who had survived the Holocaust, or had known people at the Auschwitz death camp, decided to found an (...) organization that would examine the philosophical implications of Shoah: the Society for the Philosophic Study of Genocide and the Holocaust. Noting that the history and the personal horror stories had been told and retold, SPSGH's founders Sander Lee, Berel Lang, and Alan Rosenberg argued that too little study had been so far devoted to the philosophy of Hitler's final solution and other genocides. Auschwitz problematized the Enlightenment concept of humanity, and other concepts. The perfection of state-sponsored and -administered mass death issued in new forms of language, moral indifference, and forgetting. Philosophy often even fails to mention the Holocaust in discussions of National Socialism. And the disaster of Auschwitz has been largely neutralized by the normalization of a "ruined" language. This volume includes essays in several areas: Witnesses and Testimonies; Morality and Ethics; Art and Poetry; History and Memory; and The Crisis of Representation. Contributors are Karyn Ball, Eve Bannet, Debra Bergoffen, James Bernauer, Klaus Dorner, Jennifer N. Fink, Roger Fjellstrom, Ruth Liberman, Burkhard Liebsch, Alan Milchman, Raj Sampath, Paul Sars, Hans Seigfried, Thomas W. Simon, Dan Stone, Peter Strasser, Frans van Peperstratten, Erik M. Vogt, Andrew Weinstein, and others. (shrink)

Le présent article se propose de revenir sur le projet national CoMeRe (Communication Médiée par les Réseaux) en insistant sur la complexité du corpus développé. Constitué de quatorze sous-corpus variés, le corpus CoMeRe est un corpus de référence de la communication médiée par les réseaux en français. Quatorze enseignants-chercheurs de huit laboratoires différents se sont impliqués dans le projet et ont été guidés par trois mots clés lors de leurs collaborations : variété, standards et accès ouvert.Le corpus CoMeRe a ainsi (...) été construit sur une hypothèse de variété et contient une gamme étendue d’interactions de la CMR dont nous restituons les différences et les caractéristiques principales (courriels, clavardage, SMS, forums de discussion Internet, blogs, tweets, discussions Wikipédia, interactions provenant de mondes synthétiques). Nous détaillons ensuite comme le corpus CoMeRe a été rendu interopérable : les quatorze sous-corpus ont été standardisés, suivant le modèle de l’espace d’interaction élaboré lors du projet (Chanier & Jin, 2013) d’une part et suivant les propositions de représentation standardisée des corpus de la CMR en TEI (Text Encoding Initiative, 2019) élaborées en lien avec les partenaires européens. Enfin, les collègues tenaient à diffuser le corpus en accès ouvert pour permettre son utilisation par la communauté scientifique. Nous revenons sur les retombées du projet liées à la diffusion du corpus dans la conclusion de notre article. (shrink)

Abstract In this paper, we explore how the application of technological tools has reshaped food production systems in ways that foster large-scale outbreaks of foodborne illness. Outbreaks of foodborne illness have received increasing attention in recent years, resulting in a growing awareness of the negative impacts associated with industrial food production. These trends indicate a need to examine systemic causes of outbreaks and how they are being addressed. In this paper, we analyze outbreaks linked to ground beef and salad greens. (...) These case studies are informed by personal interviews, site visits, and an extensive review of government documents and peer-reviewed literature. To explore these cases, we draw from actor-network theory and political economy to analyze the relationships between technological tools, the design of industrial production systems, and the emergence and spread of pathogenic bacteria. We also examine if current responses to outbreaks represent reflexive change. Lastly, we use the myth of Prometheus to discuss ethical issues regarding the use of technology in food production. Our findings indicate that current tools and systems were designed with a narrow focus on economic efficiency, while overlooking relationships with pathogenic bacteria and negative social impacts. In addition, we find that current responses to outbreaks do not represent reflexive change and a continued reliance on technological fixes to systemic problems may result in greater problems in the future. We argue that much can be learned from the myth of Prometheus. In particular, justice and reverence need to play a more significant role in guiding production decisions. Content Type Journal Article Category Articles Pages 1-26 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9357-8 Authors Diana Stuart, Kellogg Biological Station and Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, 3700 East Gull Lake Drive, Hickory Corners, MI 49060, USA Michelle R. Woroosz, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Auburn University, 306A Comer Hall, Auburn, AL 36849, USA Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863. (shrink)

The need for informed analyses of health policy is now greater than ever. The twelve essays in this volume show that public debates routinely bypass complex ethical, sociocultural, historical, and political questions about how we should address ideals of justice and equality in health care. Integrating perspectives from the humanities, social sciences, medicine, and public health, this volume illuminates the relationships between justice and health inequalities to enrich debates. Understanding Health Inequalities and Justice explores three questions: How do scholars approach (...) relations between health inequalities and ideals of justice? When do justice considerations inform solutions to health inequalities, and how do specific health inequalities affect perceptions of injustice? And how can diverse scholarly approaches contribute to better health policy? From addressing patient agency in an inequitable health care environment to examining how scholars of social justice and health care amass evidence, this volume promotes a richer understanding of health and justice and how to achieve both. -/- The contributors are Judith C. Barker, Paula Braveman, Paul Brodwin, Jami Suki Chang, Debra DeBruin, Leslie A. Dubbin, Sarah Horton, Carla C. Keirns, J. Paul Kelleher, Nicholas B. King, Eva Feder Kittay, Joan Liaschenko, Anne Drapkin Lyerly, Mary Faith Marshall, Carolyn Moxley Rouse, Jennifer Prah Ruger, and Janet K. Shim. (shrink)

The understanding of value in moral naturalism as a descriptivist endeavor will be analized through an application of the naturalistic fallacy on an evolutive perspective of moral psychology. From a brief analysis of the naturalistic fallacy as proposed by Dall’Agnol, I’ll criticize the author’s application of such on what he refers to as moral naturalism. Contrasting E. Wilson’s sociobiology with R. Triver’s theory of reciprocal altruism I will procure a definition of naturalized ethics by investigating the psychological roots of moral (...) motivation. Once identified the descriptive and non-reductionist aspects of contemporary moral naturalism, the naturalistic fallacy presents itself as unbecoming of its hallmark and metaethical importance, and it becomes clear that a naturalized comprehension of human moral behavior is vital to the understanding of the motivations for action and the conception of value; though weak under a normative perspective. (shrink)

This book brings together some of the best minds in neurology and philosophy to discuss the concept of personal identity and the moral dimensions of treating ...

When the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia convicted the Bosnian Serb soldiers who used rape as a weapon of war of violating the human right to sexual self determination and of crimes against humanity, it transformed vulnerability from a mark of feminine weakness to a shared human condition. The court's judgment directs us to note the ways in which the exploitation of our bodied vulnerability is an assault on our dignity. It alerts us to the ways in which (...) the body of human rights law is a law of bodies; to the ways in which our desire for intimacy creates communal ties that ground our personal and social identities; to the ways in which the symbolic meanings of our bodies are integral to our sense of integrity and worth; and to the ways in which gender structures which position men as protectors of women make it possible for rape to be used as an effective and criminal weapon of war. (shrink)