The morality of tendering practices is an issue of economic and social significance, especially when large government contracts are involved. Criticisms are mostly concentrated around collusive tendering: illegal agreements between tenderers that result in seemingly competitive bids, price fixing or market distribution schemes that circumvent the spirit of free competition and defraud clients. Although collusion has been identified as an endemic malaise of tendering, its behavioural and moral dimensions have not been systematically studied before. The paper addresses this knowledge gap (...) and describes part of an exploratory empirical investigation of the decision-making patterns utilised by estimators in Australia'slargest construction organisations. (shrink)

Arriving at a moral judgment is not a straightforward or linear process in which ethical theories are simply applied to cases. Instead it is a process in which the formulation of the moral problem, the formulation of possible “solutions”, and the ethical judging of these solutions go hand in hand. This messy character of moral problems, however, does not rule out a systematic approach. In this article, we describe a systematic approach to problem solving that does justice to the complex (...) nature of moral problems and ethical judgment: the ethical cycle. Our goal is to provide a structured and disciplined method of addressing moral problems, which helps to guide a sound analysis of these problems. We will illustrate the usefulness of this cycle with an example. Further, we will discuss two general issues in applied ethics in relation to the proposed ethical cycle: the role of ethical theories and the place of individual judgment versus collective deliberation. (shrink)

Many contemporary human rights theorists argue that we can establish the normative universality of human rights despite extensive cultural and moral diversity by appealing to the notion of overlapping consensus. In this paper I argue that proposals to ground the universality of human rights in overlapping consensus on the list of rights are unsuccessful. I consider an example from Islamic comprehensive doctrine in order to demonstrate that apparent consensus on the list of rights may not in fact constitute meaningful agreement (...) and may not be sufficient to ground the universality of human rights. I conclude with some general suggestions for establishing the universality of human rights. Instead of presuming the universality of human rights based on apparent overlapping consensus we need to construct universality through actual dialogue both within and between communities. (shrink)

An illustrative comparison of human rights in 1948 and the contemporary period, attempting to gauge the impact of globalization on changes in the content of human rights (e.g., collective rights, women's rights, right to a healthy environment), major abusers and guarantors of human rights (e.g., state actors, transnational corporations, social movements), and alternative justifications of human rights (e.g., pragmatic agreement, moral intuitionism, overlapping consensus, cross-cultural dialogue).

In his book A Theory of Justice, John Rawls introduces and employs the concept of “reflective equilibrium” as a method of testing which of rival moral theories is to be preferred. The introduction of this concept is plainly a significant event for moral philosophy. The criterion by which we decide to reject, say, utilitarianism in favour of a contractual theory of justice is, if anything, even more fundamental than the choice of theory itself, since our choice of moral theory may (...) well be determined by the criterion we use. (shrink)

Despite an increase in international business ethics research in recent years, the number of studies focused on Latin America and China has been deficient. As trade among Pacific Rim nations increases, an understanding of the ethical beliefs of the people in this region of the world will become increasingly important. In the current study 208 respondents from Peru and China are queried about their ethical ideologies, firm practices, and commitment to organizational performance. The empirical results reveal that Chinese workers are (...) more relativistic and less idealistic than their Peruvian counterparts. One explanation for the disparity between these two groups is likely the variation in collectivism that can be traced to different levels of importance across ingroups and outgroups. In addition to a summary of the results, future research directions and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

Interactive technology assessment (iTA) provides an answer to the ethical problem of normative bias in evaluation research. This normative bias develops when relevant perspectives on the evaluand (the thing being evaluated) are neglected. In iTA this bias is overcome by incorporating different perspectives into the assessment. As a consequence, justification of decisions based on the assessment is provided by stakeholders having achieved agreement. In this article, agreement is identified with wide reflective equilibrium to show that it indeed has the potential (...) of justifying decisions. We work out several conditions for this agreement to be achievable and just. (shrink)

This book originated as lectures for a course on political philosophy that Rawls taught regularly at Harvard in the 1980s.

While an environmental ethic is not explicitly developed in A Theory of Justice, or Political Liberalism, it is possible to extrapolate some principles dealing with non-human nature, and thereby some environmental protections, with what Rawls provides. However, his inability to provide a non-anthropocentric environmental ethic might threaten the stability of a 'well-ordered' society, and this possibility gestures to the potential 'problem' of pluralism in general. Certain environmentalists will be dissatisfied with the status of their environmental values in a Rawlsian society. (...) If the group is 'unreasonable', then while they are not technically threats to 'stability' (in that they are not part of the 'overlapping consensus' to begin with), they might instead be threats to the well-orderedness of the society. If the group is 'reasonable', Rawls must hope that they will also agree with enough of the political conception of justice, and be swayed by appeals to reasonableness, that they will join in the overlapping consensus despite their environmental concerns. There appear to be reasons to believe that, at least given a well-ordered society, this will often be the case. (shrink)

Arriving at a moral judgment is not a straightforward or linear process in which ethical theories are simply applied to cases. Instead it is a process in which the formulation of the moral problem, the formulation of possible "solutions", and the ethical judging of these solutions go hand in hand. This messy character of moral problems, however, does not rule out a systematic approach. In this article, we describe a systematic approach to problem solving that does justice to the complex (...) nature of moral problems and ethical judgment: the ethical cycle. Our goal is to provide a structured and disciplined method of addressing moral problems, which helps to guide a sound analysis of these problems. We will illustrate the usefulness of this cycle with an example. Further, we will discuss two general issues in applied ethics in relation to the proposed ethical cycle: the role of ethical theories and the place of individual judgment versus collective deliberation. (shrink)

This review summarizes and critiques the empirical ethical decision-making literature from 1996-2003. One hundred and seventy-four articles were published in top business journals during this period. Tables are included that summarize the findings by dependent variable - awareness, judgment, intent, and behavior. We compare this review with past reviews in order to draw conclusions regarding trends in the ethical decision-making literature and to surface directions for future research.

This review summarizes and critiques the empirical ethical decision-making literature from 1996–2003. One hundred and seventy-four articles were published in top business journals during this period. Tables are included that summarize the findings by dependent variable – awareness, judgment, intent, and behavior. We compare this review with past reviews in order to draw conclusions regarding trends in the ethical decision-making literature and to surface directions for future research.

In "Evangelium Vitae" Pope John Paul II calls for a renewal of culture to combat the culture of death. He criticizes various aspects of a pluralistic, liberal society--a type of society that he claims is based on moral relativism and a view of democracy that becomes a substitute for moral law. He maintains that such a view trivializes moral choice. In this essay I argue that John Rawls's notion of a liberal society as an overlapping consensus of comprehensive doctrines can (...) avoid relativism while allowing for reasonable debate among opposed positions. While Rawls maintains that comprehensive doctrines, including religions, should employ a form of public reason that is not a unique feature of any one comprehensive doctrine, I argue that this requirement is too strong. One is often justified in appealing to features of comprehensive doctrines other than one's own, features that are unique to the doctrines themselves. Such an appeal does not pretend to be neutral as public reason would seem to be. In the final section of the paper I discuss some suggestions made by the Pope regarding actions in civil society that are independent of debates about legal change and suggest some ways in which they might contribute to desired cultural transformation. (shrink)

Questions of political identity and citizenship, raised by thecreation of the `new Europe', pose new questions that politicaltheorists need to consider. Reflection upon the circumstances ofthe new Europe could help them in their task of delineatingconceptual structures and investigating the character ofpolitical argument.Does it make sense to use concepts as `citizenship' and`identity' beyond the borders of the nation-state? What does itmean when we speak about `European Citizenship' and `EuropeanIdentity'?

After the Maastricht and Amsterdam Conferences the European Union can no longer be conceived as an intergovernmental arrangement: It is a polity founded on an “overlapping consensus.” Consequently, to reconstruct the relations between national and Community law, legal monism does not work, neither in its statist, nor in its international version: Legal pluralism is needed, not in a sociological‐descriptive sense, but as a normative criterion by which a judge (and a citizen) must refer to many and various sources of law (...) to settle a dispute. Legal pluralism, however, can operate only under a rule of recognition: a common normative framework within which a reasonable number of sources can be handled. What Europe needs, therefore, is an interactionist constitution, which should emerge through an “open‐ended”discursive process. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory has gained currency in the business and society literature in recent years in light␣of its practicality from the perspective of managers and scholars. In accounting for the recent ascendancy of␣stakeholder theory, this article presents an overview of␣two traditional conceptualizations of corporate social␣responsibility (CSR) (Carroll: 1979, ‹A Three-Dimensional Conceptual Model of Corporate Performance', The Academy of Management Review 4(4), 497–505 and Wood: 1991, ‹Corporate Social Performance Revisited', The Academy of Management Review 16(4), 691–717), highlighting their predominant inclination toward providing (...) static taxonomic CSR descriptions. The article then makes the case for a stakeholder approach to CSR, reviewing its rationale and outlining how it has␣been integrated into recent empirical studies. In light of this review, the article adopts a stakeholder framework – the Ethical Performance Scorecard (EPS) proposed by Spiller (2000, ‹Ethical Business and Investment: A Model For Business and Society', Journal of Business Ethics 27, 149–160) – to examine the CSR approach of a sample of␣Lebanese and Syrian firms with an interest in CSR␣and␣test relevant hypotheses derived from the CSR/stakeholder literature. The findings are analyzed and implications drawn regarding the usefulness of a stakeholder approach to CSR. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with Rawls's (1993) account of an overlapping consensus and recent proposals to introduce citizenship education in parts of the UK. It is argued that both Rawls and the proposals mistake the significance and nature of such a consensus. Partly as a result of this mistake the proposals are insufficiently radical.

The discussions of these past twenty years have significantly improved our knowledge about the foundation of bioethics and the meaning of the four bioethical principles with concern to at least three different points: that they are organised hierarchically, and therefore not “prima facie” of the same level; that they have exceptions, and consequently lack of absolute character; and that they are neither strictly deontological nor purely teleological. The only absolute principle of moral life can be the abstract and unconcrete respect (...) of human beings. But when determining the material content of this respect, principles become contingent and relative. Therefore, moral reasoning must have necessarily no less than three moments, one absolute but merely formal, namely respect for all human beings, and the other two relative and material. The first material moment is comprised of the four bioethical principles, divided into two levels, one private, including the principles of autonomy and beneficence, and the other one public, including those of nonmaleficence and justice. The second material moment deals with specific cases, and requires analysis of their context, including their circumstances and consequences. Only when following these steps, and therefore balancing principlism and contextualism, can moral reasoning be correct and complete. (shrink)

The discussions of these past twenty years have significantly improved our knowledge about the foundation of bioethics and the meaning of the four bioethical principles with concern to at least three different points: that they are organised hierarchically, and therefore not “prima facie” of the same level; that they have exceptions, and consequently lack of absolute character; and that they are neither strictly deontological nor purely teleological. The only absolute principle of moral life can be the abstract and unconcrete respect (...) of human beings. But when determining the material content of this respect, principles become contingent and relative. Therefore, moral reasoning must have necessarily no less than three moments, one absolute but merely formal, namely respect for all human beings, and the other two relative and material. The first material moment is comprised of the four bioethical principles, divided into two levels, one private, including the principles of autonomy and beneficence, and the other one public, including those of nonmaleficence and justice. The second material moment deals with specific cases, and requires analysis of their context, including their circumstances and consequences. Only when following these steps, and therefore balancing principlism and contextualism, can moral reasoning be correct and complete. (shrink)

Research on positive psychology demonstrates that specific individual dispositions are associated with more desirable outcomes. The relationship of positive psychological constructs, however, has not been applied to the areas of business ethics and social responsibility. Using four constructs in two independent studies (hope and gratitude in Study 1, spirituality and generativity in Study 2), the relationship of these constructs to sensitivity to corporate social performance (CSCSP) were assessed. Results indicate that all four constructs significantly predicted CSCSP, though only hope and (...) gratitude interacted to impact CSCSP. Discussion focuses upon these findings, limitations of the study, and future avenues for research. (shrink)

This article reports the results of research aimed at developing and validating a multi-item scale to measure consumers’ agreement with three main justifications for not engaging in socially responsible consumption (SRC) behaviours, namely the ‘economic rationalist argument’ founded on the idea that the costs of SRC are greater than its benefits, the ‘economic development reality argument’ based on the idea that ethical and moral aspirations are less important than the economic development of countries, and the ‘government dependency argument’ grounded in (...) the premise that government inaction demonstrates the legal character and the banality of unethical consumption behaviours. The scale items were generated on the basis of a multi-country qualitative study of consumers (Eckhardt et al., 2006, ‘Why Don’t Consumers Behave Ethically’. DVD Document, AGSM). The content validity of the scale was assessed in the first study. The second study was a survey of 157 Canadian adult consumers in which the three-dimensional scale and other scales measuring relevant concepts were administered. The survey results showed that the 28-item resulting scale is reliable and generally behaves as one would theoretically expect. Implications for consumption ethics researchers and policy makers are proposed. (shrink)

This article reports the results of research aimed at developing and validating a multi-item scale to measure consumers' agreement with three main justifications for not engaging in socially responsible consumption behaviours, namely the 'economic rationalist argument' founded on the idea that the costs of SRC are greater than its benefits, the 'economic development reality argument' based on the idea that ethical and moral aspirations are less important than the economic development of countries, and the 'government dependency argument' grounded in the (...) premise that government inaction demonstrates the legal character and the banality of unethical consumption behaviours. The scale items were generated on the basis of a multi-country qualitative study of consumers. The content validity of the scale was assessed in the first study. The second study was a survey of 157 Canadian adult consumers in which the threedimensional scale and other scales measuring relevant concepts were administered. The survey results showed that the 28-item resulting scale is reliable and generally behaves as one would theoretically expect. Implications for consumption ethics researchers and policy makers are proposed. (shrink)

The shift in corporate strategy, from vertical integration to strategic alliances, has developed hand in hand with the evolution of organizational structure, from the vertically integrated firm to the network organization. The result has been the elimination of boundaries, more flexible organizations, and a greater interaction among individuals and organizations. On the negative side, the specialization of firms on single areas of competence has resulted in the disaggregation of the value chain and in the disaggregation of ethical and legal responsibility. (...) To illustrate this point, the paper considers some cases, such as the case of the "beer girls" of Southeast Asia, who are used unethically by distributors to sell beer and liquor. To deal with the problem of the disaggregation of ethical responsibility, managers can use organizational culture and ethical values to control the performance of employees and of other organizations. Contemporary developments in business ethics also offer tools for dealing with the problem. For example, "global corporate citizenship," integrated social contracting theory, and stakeholder learning dialogues provide ways of integrating the interests of all stakeholders. The task is now to use these new approaches to create a governance process that incorporates the voices of all stakeholders, especially the voices of those stakeholders that have legitimate and urgent moral claims, but lack the power to establish those claims. (shrink)

The resolution of ethical dilemmas often requires individuals to search for reasonable justifications to support their choices. Occasionally, such justifications must be made explicit to stakeholders inside or outside the organization. Other times, the justification for a decision will be known only by the decision-maker. In either case, the organizational code of conduct that governs the individual can play a vital role in providing guidelines about appropriate and inappropriate justifications. The present paper discusses the connections between organizational codes and employee (...) justifications. (shrink)

: Biomedical ethicists often assume that common morality constitutes a largely consistent normative system. This premise is not taken for granted in general normative ethics. This paper entertains the possibility of inconsistency within common morality and explores methodological implications. Assuming common morality to be inconsistent casts new light on the debate between principlists and descriptivists. One can view the two approaches as complementary attempts to evade or transcend that inconsistency. If common morality proves to be inconsistent, then principlists might have (...) reason to prefer a less pluralistic theory, thereby moving closer to descriptivism. Descriptivists, by contrast, might want to qualify their claim to accommodate all of people's basic moral convictions. Finally, both camps might wish to adopt a more revisionist posture, accepting that an adequate ethical theory occasionally will contradict some of people's deepest moral convictions. Proper application of the method of reflective equilibrium, to which both descriptivists and principlists claim allegiance, may entail greater openness to revisionism than either camp admits. (shrink)

The relation between ethics and social science is often conceived as complementary, both disciplines cooperating in the solution of concrete moral problems. Against this, the paper argues that not only applied ethics but even certain parts of general ethics have to incorporate sociological and psychological data and theories from the start. Applied ethics depends on social science in order to asses the impact of its own principles on the concrete realities which these principles are to regulate as well as in (...) order to propose practice rules suited to adapt these principles to their respective contexts of application. Examples from medical ethics (embryo research) and ecological ethics (Leopold's land ethic) illustrate both the contingence of practice rules in relation to their underlying basic principles and the corresponding need for a co-operation between philosophy and empirical disciplines in judging their functional merits and demerits. In conclusion, the relevance of empirical hypotheses even for some of the perennial problems of ethics is shown by clarifying the role played by empirical theories in the controversies about the ethical differentiation between positive and negative responsibility and the relation between utility maximisation and (seemingly) independent criteria of distributive justice in the context of social distributions. (shrink)

Ethicists differ considerably in their reasons for using empirical data. This paper presents a brief overview of four traditional approaches to the use of empirical data: “the prescriptive applied ethicists,” “the theorists,” “the critical applied ethicists,” and “the particularists.” The main aim of this paper is to introduce a fifth approach of more recent date (i.e. “integrated empirical ethics”) and to offer some methodological directives for research in integrated empirical ethics. All five approaches are presented in a table for heuristic (...) purposes. The table consists of eight columns: “view on distinction descriptive-prescriptive sciences,” “location of moral authority,” “central goal(s),” “types of normativity,” “use of empirical data,” “method,” “interaction empirical data and moral theory,” and “cooperation with descriptive sciences.” Ethicists can use the table in order to identify their own approach. Reflection on these issues prior to starting research in empirical ethics should lead to harmonization of the different scientific disciplines and effective planning of the final research design. Integrated empirical ethics (IEE) refers to studies in which ethicists and descriptive scientists cooperate together continuously and intensively. Both disciplines try to integrate moral theory and empirical data in order to reach a normative conclusion with respect to a specific social practice. IEE is not wholly prescriptive or wholly descriptive since IEE assumes an interdepence between facts and values and between the empirical and the normative. The paper ends with three suggestions for consideration on some of the future challenges of integrated empirical ethics. (shrink)

Some of these essays articulate views of justice and liberalism distinct from those found in the two books.

We all have beliefs, even strong convictions, about what is just and fair in our social arrangements. How should these beliefs and the theories of justice that incorporate them guide our thinking about practical matters of justice? This wide-ranging collection of essays by one of the foremost medical ethicists in the USA explores the claim that justification in ethics, whether of matters of theory or practice, involves achieving coherence between our moral and non-moral beliefs. Amongst the practical issues addressed in (...) the volume are the design of health-care institutions, the distribution of goods between the old and the young, and fairness in hiring and firing. In combining ethical theory and practical ethics this volume will prove especially valuable to philosophers concerned with ethics and applied ethics, political theorists, bioethicists, and others involved in the study of public policy. (shrink)

Many contemporary human rights theorists argue that we can establish the normative universality of human rights despite extensive cultural and moral diversity by appealing to the notion of overlapping consensus. In this paper I argue that proposals to ground the universality of human rights in overlapping consensus on the list of rights are unsuccessful. I consider an example from Islamic comprehensive doctrine in order to demonstrate that apparent consensus on the list of rights may not in fact constitute meaningful agreement (...) and may not be sufficient to ground the universality of human rights. I conclude with some general suggestions for establishing the universality of human rights. Instead of presuming the universality of human rights based on apparent overlapping consensus we need to construct universality through actual dialogue both within and between communities. (shrink)