Online research in philosophy

Ethics training is commonly cited as a primary method for increasing employees ethical decision making and conduct. However, little is known about how the presence of ethics training can enhance other components of an organization's ethical environment such as employees perception of company ethical values. Using a national sample of 313 business professionals employed in the United States, the relationship between ethics training and perceived organizational ethics was explored. The results of the analysis provide significant statistical support for the notion that businesspersons employed in organizations that have formalized ethics training programs have more positive perceptions of their companies ethical context than do individuals employed in organizations that do not. The analysis also indicated that job satisfaction was related to employees attitudes about their ethical context. The managerial implications of the results are outlined, along with the limitations of the study and recommendations for future research.

The state's commitment to educating all children can be framed as a matter of human capital development, or the economic benefits accrued to individuals and society as a result of educational attainment; it can be framed as a matter of capabilities, or the development of functionings that enable human flourishing; and it can be framed as a matter of rights. In this essay Sigal Ben-Porath considers the relative merits of the three approaches, elaborating the implications each of these different frameworks has for the education of children with disabilities. While the capabilities approach, which arises from and relates to the rights approach, is sensitive to the needs of individuals with disabilities (more than the human capital approach is, in any case), Ben-Porath concludes that a rights framework can best express through educational policy the state's commitment to the education of all children, regardless of ability.

To some students with disabilities who take philosophy classes, and even to some professors with disabilities who teach philosophy, the discipline is not welcoming. Philosophical theory traditionally recognizes so-called normal people and common modes of functioning but seems to ignore or disparage biologically anomalous individuals. The adequacy of our epistemological and ethical philosophies is a pressing reason for us to acknowledge disability in philosophical theorizing. And there are equally pressing reasons to acknowledge that students with various kinds of disabilities are members of our classes. In this special issue of Teaching Philosophy the authors reflect on how disability is engaged with in their philosophy classrooms for and by their students, and in the philosophy they teach.

While electronic mail has enjoyed rapid growth in the workplace, many companies have failed to establish clear expectations among employees about their e-mail privacy rights. This has resulted in controversy and even lawsuits against employers where employees later learned that management personnel monitored or read their electronic communications. It has been speculated that most employees underestimate the legal right of their employer to engage in e-mail monitoring activities. However, this issue has been virtually unexplored from a research perspective. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to assess individuals'' ethical beliefs and perceptions about electronic mail privacy. This study of more than 200 e-mail users reveals that there is significant resistance to e-mail monitoring, and that many individuals have a relatively poor understanding of their e-mail privacy rights. The results also suggest that companies need to develop and communicate a policy to employees that addresses this issue. Finally, this study suggests several possibilities for further research. Building a greater body of knowledge of this domain should assist business leaders and lawmakers as they work to formulate an effective response to this workplace challenge that will equitably balance the rights of employees and employers.

Research providing consistent evidence of pervasive discrimination against overweight job applicants and employees in the American workplace raises important questions for organizational stakeholders. To what extent is the disparate treatment of job applicants or employees based on their weight ethically justified? Are there aspects of weight discrimination that make it more acceptable than discrimination based on other characteristics, such as race or gender? What operational steps can employers take to address concerns regarding the ethical treatment of overweight individuals in the workplace? This article investigates these and related questions. Its purpose is to provide information and analysis that will assist organizations in formulating ethical responses to a widespread phenomenon: weight discrimination in the workplace. Although its focus is the American workplace, the proposed employer ethical obligations and the practical guidance that is provided are viewed as generalizing across countries and cultures.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is about more than making sure that existing human rights are applied to persons with disability. It also subtly reformulates and extends existing human rights to take into account the specific rights experience of persons with disability. In fact, the argument can be made that the Convention comes close to creating new rights, or at least very new ways of seeing common rights. This suggests a deeper point about the fragmentation of international human rights law and the increasingly recognized need to take into account the irreducibility of the experience of certain categories of persons. The Disabilities Convention has some interesting lessons to teach about human rights more generally.

Children and individuals with developmental disabilities (DD) compared to typical participants are disadvantaged not only by virtue of being vulnerable to risks inherent in research participation but also by the higher likelihood of exclusion from research altogether. Current regulatory and ethical guidelines although necessary for their protection do not sufficiently ensure fair distributive justice. Yet, in view of disproportionately higher burdens of co-occurring physical and mental disorders in individuals with DD, they are better positioned to benefit from research by equitable participation. Greater elucidation of this ethical dilemma is called for by researchers, institutional review boards, and funding agencies to urgently redress the imbalance. This article discusses many of the regulatory principles to ensure better research participation of children and individuals with DD: human rights, validity, distributive justice, beneficence/nonmaleficence, and autonomy.

The narrative of Donald Perkl's employment discrimination experience involves two tightly linked threads. First, is the overt bigotry animating Creasy's statement that Perkl was inherently inferior and undeserving of equal treatment. This form of prejudice drives Mark C. Weber's powerful book, Disability Harassment.[1] Second, is the equally harmful preconception that influenced Chuck E. Cheese's contention that people with cognitive disabilities cannot feel emotional anguish;[2] and by implication, that the legal and social standing of people with disabilities are not the same as that of other citizens. This second theme of unconscious prejudice animates the field of antidiscrimination law, but is an area less explored in Weber's latest book. We therefore address invidious unconscious discrimination in this Review Essay by making the case for why people with psycho-social (also called, mental) disabilities,[3] who are largely considered to be among the most stigmatized individuals, should and can be integrated into the workplace. In doing so, our assertions go beyond legal protections to argue that occupationally integrating individuals with mental disabilities is also beneficial for their co-workers without disabilities.

Recent analyses of disability oppression have focused on the historical exclusion of people with disabilities from employment in capitalist societies. There is, however, little systematic research on recent efforts, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), to break down barriers to employment for people with disabilities. In-depth personal interviews with employees with disabilities in large, public-sector organizations reveals the varieties of alienation and harassment experienced by employees with disabilities in the implementation phase of the ADA. Truly overcoming disability oppression in the contemporary capitalist workplace would require a continuing, militant and national movement. Demands for equality and accommodation for employees with disabilities deserve an important role in any struggle for humane and democratically controlled workplaces.