This article presents evidence supporting the claim that ethical reasoning is a skill that can be taught and assessed. We propose a working definition of ethical reasoning as 1) the ability to identify, analyze, and weigh moral aspects of a particular situation, and 2) to make decisions that are informed and warranted by the moral investigation. The evidence consists of a description of an ethical reasoning education program—Ethical Reasoning in Action —designed to increase ethical reasoning skills in a variety of (...) situations and areas of life. ERiA is housed at a public, major comprehensive U.S. university—James Madison University—and assessment of the program focuses on interventions delivered prior to and during orientation for incoming first-year students. Findings indicate that the interventions measurably enhance the ability of undergraduate students to reason ethically. ERiA’s competency-targeted program and positive student learning outcomes offers a promising model for higher education ethics programs seeking to connect classroom learning in ethics to decision-making in everyday life. (shrink)

This hermeneutic phenomenological study of how remote workers in global corporations experience and interpret local place is based on Heidegger’sthinking about space, place, and dwelling, Giddens’ conception of globalization as “time-space distanciation,” and recent research and theory related to remote work and architecture. Study participants are knowledge workers in the United States and Europe who work full time from home as employees of large global corporations. The analysis reveals several insights about remote workers’ lived experience of place, including the importance (...) of managing the threshold between work and home and the need to create spaces for interaction at work. Some remote workers learn to shape, choose, or create places that better suit them, while others prefer to remain in place. Some become more involved in their local communities, helping these communities become more globally-connected while retaining their unique local qualities. The analysis reveals five themes that suggest that place is both spatial and temporal. A place is a specific location within physical space that acquires personal meaning, arising from a person’s past history and evolving with ongoing or repeated experience. Individuals make meaning of place as Center (groundedness or rootedness), Setting (activity, convenience or purpose), and Source (generativity, inspiration or transcendence). We shape and respond to places; places shape us as our lives take place within them. (shrink)

This hermeneutic phenomenological study of how remote workers in global corporations experience and interpret local place is based on Heidegger’sthinking about space, place, and dwelling, Giddens’ conception of globalization as “time-space distanciation,” and recent research and theory related to remote work and architecture. Study participants are knowledge workers in the United States and Europe who work full time from home as employees of large global corporations. The analysis reveals several insights about remote workers’ lived experience of place, including the importance (...) of managing the threshold between work and home and the need to create spaces for interaction at work. Some remote workers learn to shape, choose, or create places that better suit them, while others prefer to remain in place. Some become more involved in their local communities, helping these communities become more globally-connected while retaining their unique local qualities. The analysis reveals five themes that suggest that place is both spatial and temporal. A place is a specific location within physical space that acquires personal meaning, arising from a person’s past history and evolving with ongoing or repeated experience. Individuals make meaning of place as Center (groundedness or rootedness), Setting (activity, convenience or purpose), and Source (generativity, inspiration or transcendence). We shape and respond to places; places shape us as our lives take place within them. (shrink)

Corporate governance and finance are dynamic academic fields that offer myriad opportunities for business ethics analysis. Within the corporate governance triad in recent years, shareholders have increased their power over boards of directors and executives through both regulation and movements to change corporate by-laws. The impact of board characteristics on firm performance has proven elusive, leading to questions concerning board processes and individual director beliefs and behaviors. At the same time, CEOs have lost considerable power, leaving many struggling to regain (...) their control and maintain their compensation levels, while others adopt a stewardship approach to their posts. In the field of finance, the recent financial debacle has led to a reexamination of financial regulation and of the fundamental nature and purpose of the industry. All of these issues provide business ethicists fodder for investigation and analysis. (shrink)

This study examines the theory of planned behavior and the multidimensional ethics scale. Variables from both are included to determine which ones significantly correlate with student ethical behavioral intention in an academic setting. Using a survey, responses are collected from undergraduate business students from two southwestern universities in the United States using a scenario-based approach, looking at individual situations and group situations. SmartPLS was used to assess the results for four scenarios. From the theory of planned behavior, attitude was a (...) significant predictor of behavioral intention across all four scenarios while subjective norm was significant in one scenario. From the multidimensional ethics scale, moral equity and relativism were significant in one group scenario while moral equity and utilitarianism were each significant in an individual scenario. The findings indicate support for the use of the TPB and the MES when exploring ethics in an academic setting and for the need to study both individual and group situations. A discussion of the findings and implications is given. (shrink)

Abstract:Shareholders’ relationship to the firm is a central theme in corporate governance, yet the investors’ perspective has been virtually ignored in governance research. This paper attempts to explain the previously unexplored role of trust in the investor decision-making process. The proposed model suggests that trust acts as the antecedent of the risk variable in existing investor decision-making models. Stock ownership involves both financial and ethical risk, which by definition requires some level of implicit trust in management and the market.

Robin et al. (1996) suggested a new construct when studying ethical behavioral intention which they entitled PIE (perceived importance). They empirically tested the PIE construct and found it to significantly impact both ethical judgment and behavioral intention. The present study extends and validates Robin et al.s work on PIE using a different context, different scenarios and a different sample. The findings indicate strong support for the validity of Robin et al.s PIE instrument and show PIE to significantly influence ethical judgment (...) (attitude) and behavioral intention. This study also indicates the sex of the individual affects the individuals perception of importance and is a significant influence of ethical judgment and behavioral intention. Future ethical models and studies should include PIE as a possible influence on behavioral intention. (shrink)

This study examines business students’ ethical awareness for two virtues needed to maintain academic integrity, respect, and responsibility. Using the multidimensional ethics survey, five dimensions were measured for six scenarios representing student behaviors using Information Technology . The results indicate that students are ethically aware in respect situations, but are more neutral in responsibility situations. Of the five ethical dimensions, moral equity and relativism appear to be the strongest influences in academic integrity scenarios utilizing IT. This study provides guidance for (...) business professors in their pursuit of ethical excellence in the classroom and for researchers in search of greater understanding of ethical judgments of students. (shrink)

Lists of species underpin many fields of human endeavour, but there are currently no universally accepted principles for deciding which biological species should be accepted when there are alternative taxonomic treatments (and, by extension, which scientific names should be applied to those species). As improvements in information technology make it easier to communicate, access, and aggregate biodiversity information, there is a need for a framework that helps taxonomists and the users of taxonomy decide which taxa and names should be used (...) by society whilst continuing to encourage taxonomic research that leads to new species discoveries, new knowledge of species relationships, and the refinement of existing species concepts. Here, we present 10 principles that can underpin such a governance framework, namely (i) the species list must be based on science and free from nontaxonomic considerations and interference, (ii) governance of the species list must aim for community support and use, (iii) all decisions about list composition must be transparent, (iv) the governance of validated lists of species is separate from the governance of the names of taxa, (v) governance of lists of accepted species must not constrain academic freedom, (vi) the set of criteria considered sufficient to recognise species boundaries may appropriately vary between different taxonomic groups but should be consistent when possible, (vii) a global list must balance conflicting needs for currency and stability by having archived versions, (viii) contributors need appropriate recognition, (ix) list content should be traceable, and (x) a global listing process needs both to encompass global diversity and to accommodate local knowledge of that diversity. We conclude by outlining issues that must be resolved if such a system of taxonomic list governance and a unified list of accepted scientific names generated are to be universally adopted. (shrink)

v. 1. A-C -- v. 2. D-J -- v. 3. K-Q -- v. 4. R-Z.

Monkeys and apes, inhabiting variable environments and subjected to K-selection, exhibit cultural behavior transmitted horizontally and vertically, like cetaceans. Behaviors enhancing better health and nutrition, predator avoidance, or mate selection, can affect differential reproduction.Furthermore, dominance hierarchies and social status not only affect the transmission and acceptance of new behaviors but they may also affect genetic inheritance.

When information grows abundant, attention becomes a scarce resource. As a result, agents must plan wisely how to allocate their attention in order to achieve epistemic efficiency. Here, we present a framework for multi-agent epistemic planning with attention, based on Dynamic Epistemic Logic. We identify the framework as a fragment of standard DEL, and consider its plan existence problem. While it is undecidable in the general case, we show that when attention is required for learning, all instances of the problem (...) are decidable. (shrink)

The paper analyzes dynamic epistemic logic from a topological perspective. The main contribution consists of a framework in which dynamic epistemic logic satisfies the requirements for being a topological dynamical system thus interfacing discrete dynamic logics with continuous mappings of dynamical systems. The setting is based on a notion of logical convergence, demonstratively equivalent with convergence in Stone topology. Presented is a flexible, parametrized family of metrics inducing the latter, used as an analytical aid. We show maps induced by action (...) model transformations continuous with respect to the Stone topology and present results on the recurrent behavior of said maps. (shrink)

Nicolas Malebranche is one of the most important philosophers of the 17th Century after Descartes. A pioneer of Rationalism, he was one of the first to champion and to further Cartesian ideas. Andrew Pyle places Malebranche's work in the context of Descartes and other philosophers, and also in its relation to ideas about faith and reason. He examines the entirety of Malebranche's writings, including the famous The Search After Truth , which was admired and criticized by both Leibniz and (...) Locke. Pyle presents an integrated account of Malebranche's central theses, occasionalism and 'vision in God', before exploring and assessing Malebranche's contribution to debates on physics and biology, and his views on the soul, self-knowledge, grace, and the freedom of the will. This penetrating and wide-ranging study will be of interest to not only philosophers, but also to historians of science and philosophy, theologians, and students of the Enlightenment or 17th Century thought. (shrink)

This volume presents twenty of the most important interviews the journal, Cogito conducted between 1987 and 1996. Covering a wide spectrum of intellectual inquiry, from logic to metaphysics to philosophy of mind, the interviews provide an excellent introduction to philosophy in the English speaking world at the end of the century. Interviews with: Michael Dummett Peter Strawson Alasdair MacIntyre David Gauthier Nancy Cartwright Mary Warnock Hilary Putnam Daniel Dennett Bernard Williams John Cottingham Willard Quine Stephen Korner Hugh Mellor Adam Morton (...) Jean Hampton Roger Scruton Richard Dawkins Richard Sorabji Derek Parfit Martha Nussbaum. (shrink)

This article provides an overview of the key philosophical themes and debates in discussions of pornography. In particular, I consider the major positions on how pornography ought to be defined, when (and if ) it should be regulated, whether it is best understood as speech (or action), whether there is evidence that is it harmful. I argue in favor of what is known as the civil rights approach to pornography, as reflected in the work of Catharine MacKinnon.

We have a thriving biotechnology industry in the United States. There are over 1,450 biotechnology companies developing diagnostic and treatment technologies in medicine, creating more nutritional foods, and innovating new industrial processes. Yet this $28.5 billion sector of the economy is not without controversy. The “bio” in biotechnology comes from living, biological entities - people, plants, animals, and even bacteria. In the realm of biobanking, people are the source of the raw material for the discovery of genes for research, diagnosis, (...) and therapy, raising a host of issues about rights and responsibilities, fiduciary duties and societal obligations. (shrink)

New Jersey's Baby M case has thrust the issue of surrogate motherhood on state legislatures throughout the country. Like artificial insemination in the 1950s and 1960s, this new reproductive technology is evoking legislative responses ranging from horrified prohibition to cautious facilitation.

Capability approach pioneers Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum both recognize empowerment as an important aspect of human development. They seem to disagree, however, about how empowerment should be represented within the capability approach (CA). This essay is concerned with the analysis of the foundational concepts at work within Sen and Nussbaum’s CAs. Part One concerns the key concepts of empowerment at work in Sen’s CA and has three goals. 1) Clarify Sen’s various empowerment concepts. 2) Argue that Sen’s concept of (...) Realize Agency Success is flawed. 3) Make clear that empowerment in Sen’s approach can be helpfully understood in terms of agency and capability set expansion. Part Two considers Nussbaum’s CA and the debate over whether it can account for empowerment. I conclude that not only can Nussbaum’s CA account for empowerment, but that the role of empowerment in both Sen’s and Nussbaum’s CAs can be understood in terms of agency and capability set expansion. In other words, Sen and Nussbaum actually agree about empowerment at the foundational level. (shrink)

Two recent cases raise the question: Should the body be considered a form of property? Patients generally do not share in the profits derived from the applications of research on their body parts and products. Nor is their consent for research required so long as the body part is unidentified and is removed in the course of treatment. A market in body parts and products would require consent to all categories of research and ensure that patients are protected from coercion (...) and given the chance to be paid fairly for their contributions. Such a market might force us to rethink our policies prohibiting organ sales. Donors, recipients, and society will benefit from a market in body parts so long as owners—and no one else—retain control over their bodies. (shrink)

Unconsented intimate exams on men and women are known to occur for training purposes and diagnostic reasons, mostly during gynecological surgeries but also during prostate examinations and abdominal surgeries. UIEs most often occur on anesthetized patients but have also been reported on conscious patients. Over the last 30 years, several parties—both within and external to medicine—have increasingly voiced opposition to these exams. Arguments from medical associations, legal scholars, ethicists, nurses, and some physicians have not compelled meaningful institutional change. Opposition is (...) escalating in the form of legislative bans and whistleblower reports. Aspiring to professional and scientific detachment, institutional consent policies make no distinction between intimate exams and exams on any other body part, but patients do not think of their intimate regions in a detached or neutral way and believe intimate exams call for special protections. UIEs are found to contribute to moral erosion and moral distress of medical students and compromise the sacred trust between the medical community and the general public. This paper refutes the main arguments in favor of the status quo, identifies a series of harms related to continuing the current practice, and proposes an explicit consent policy for intimate exams along with specific changes to medical school curriculum and institutional culture. Because patients are the rights-holders of their bodies, consent practices should reflect and uphold patient values which call for explicit consent for intimate exams. (shrink)

Agro-ecological innovations aim at promoting sustainable agricultural practices that have long term benefits. However, farmers rarely adopt beneficial innovations in agro-ecology despite expressing an understanding of the benefits and a desire to do so. It has been argued that the farmers lack sufficient knowledge to implement complex innovations. We believe that in many cases such knowledge is necessary, but is ultimately insufficient for complex innovation adoption. We argue that in addition to knowledge and a desire to adopt an innovation, many (...) farmers require a collaborative relation with an ally. We call this method the Alliance Approach to innovation. This approach is modeled after the therapeutic Alliance Approach at work in cognitive and behavioral sciences. We argue that using the Alliance Approach will not only prove effective in helping farmers adopt complex agro-ecology innovations, but also a better fit for the human centered development of capability approach human development, as it is likely to enhance both the well-being and agency of the farmers. (shrink)

Personal Versus Political Affairs in Churchill's This is a Chair There are plenty of issues in the world to petition and fight for, yet each individual also has "battles" at home to contend with. Which is of more importance? We often separate the two indefinitely. In studying Caryl Churchill's work This Is a Chair, however, I would suggest the personal and political to be intimately related and possibly each even a causation of the other. To take care of one may (...) be eliminating the problem of the other as well. Might political problems stem from petty, personal qualms? Even more specifically might jeopardizing moral norms affect the greater social order? If so, this would be a revelation and fresh pursuit in solving many of the monumental political issues which are faced today. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 2, Page 7-9, March‐April 2022.

Some bioethicists argue that conscientious objectors in health care should have to justify themselves, just as objectors in the military do. They should have to provide reasons that explain why they should be exempt from offering the services that they find offensive. There are two versions of this view in the literature, each giving different standards of justification. We show these views are each either too permissive (i.e. would result in problematic exemptions based on conscience) or too restrictive (i.e. would (...) produce problematic denials of exemption). We then develop a middle ground position that we believe better combines respect for the conscience of healthcare professionals with concern for the duties that they owe to patients. Our claim, in short, is that insofar as objectors should have to justify themselves, they should have to do it according to the standard that we defend rather than according to the standards that others have developed. (shrink)

ITC technologies have come to comprehensively represent images and expectations of the future. Hopes of ongoing progress, economic growth, skill upgrading and possibly also democratisation are attached to new ICTs as well as fears of totalitarian control, alienation, job loss and insecurity. Currently, with the terms "Industry 4.0." and ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution”, public institutions, private institutions, and literature refer to the inchoate transformation of production of goods and services resulting from the application of a new wave of technological innovations: interconnected (...) collaborative robots; machine learning; Artificial Intelligence; 3D printers connected to digital development software; simulation of interconnected machines; integration of the information flow along the value chain; multidirectional communication between manufacturing processes and products. According to the main representations of Industry 4.0. by private and public institutions, its effects are expected to be mainly positive, for what regards productivity, economic opportunities and the future of work. The positive potentials now attributed to the new cycle of innovation evoke and expand those attributed to the previous waves of innovation linked to ITC technologies, and, even before, to the transition from Fordism to Post-Fordism. However, these transformations have so far not achieved any of the promises they raised. Improvements for workers in terms of work conditions, work performance and work relationships cannot be determined by any technical innovation in itself, being technological innovation always socially shaped. (shrink)

Abstract:To date, our understanding of ethical decision making and behavior in organizations has been concentrated in the area of moral judgment, largely because of the hundreds of studies done involving cognitive moral development. This paper addresses the problem of our relative lack of understanding in other areas of human morality by applying a recently developed construct—moral approbation—to illuminate the link between moral judgment and moral action. This recent work is extended here by exploring the effect that organizations have on ethical (...) behavior in terms of the moral approbation construct. (shrink)

The UN Security Council adopted sanctions as a means of addressing unrest in Haiti, Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, and Somalia. Damrosch examines this shift from unilateral to collective enforcement and assesses the moral legitimacy and conclusive results of this policy.

BackgroundMedical aid in dying was introduced in Quebec in 2015. Quebec clinical guidelines recommend that MAiD be approached as a last resort when other care options are insufficient; however, the law sets no such requirement. To date, little is known about when and how requests for MAiD are situated in the broader context of decision-making in end-of-life care; the timing of MAiD raises potential ethical issues.MethodsA retrospective chart review of all MAiD requests between December 2015 and June 2017 at two (...) Quebec hospitals and one long-term care centre was conducted to explore the relationship between routine end-of-life care practices and the timing of MAiD requests.ResultsOf 80 patients requesting MAiD, 54% received the intervention. The median number of days between the request for MAiD and the patient’s death was 6 days. The majority of palliative care consults came less than 7 days prior to the MAiD request and in another 25% of cases occurred the day of or after MAiD was requested. 35% of patients had no level of intervention form, or it was documented as 1 or 2 at the time of the MAiD request and 19% were receiving life-prolonging interventions.InterpretationWe highlight ethical considerations relating to the timing of MAiD requests within the broader context of end-of-life care. Whether or not MAiD is conceptualised as morally distinct from other end-of-life options is likely to influence clinicians’ approach to requests for MAiD as well as the ethical importance of our findings. We suggest that in the wake of the 2015 legislation, requests for MAiD have not always appeared to come after an exploration of other options as professional practice guidelines recommend. (shrink)

A historical investigation of the exclusion of Africa and Asia from modern histories of philosophy.