Over the last few years, there has been an exaggeratedly widespread and frequently confused use of the concepts of 'stakeholder' and 'corporate social responsibility'. However, some interesting insights of both these notions can be found in traditional European business administration studies. In this article, the Italian view will be examined. In particular, this paper investigates the teachings of some of the historical masters of the Italian "Economia Aziendale" (EA), with particular attention to the concept of the azienda, its finalism and (...) its essential characteristics, in order to verify some consistencies with the more recent Stakeholder Management Theory (SMT). Principles and considerations seem to emerge from EA scholars' seminal works that unequivocally connect ethics with business decisions. EA fits in with SMT in many ways, and the former (EA) seems, moreover, to suggest a specific normative point of view from which the role of ethics in business activities can be approached. (shrink)

Over the last few years, there has been an exaggeratedly widespread and frequently confused use of the concepts of 'stakeholder' and 'corporate social responsibility'. However, some interesting insights of both these notions can be found in traditional European business administration studies. In this article, the Italian view will be examined. In particular, this paper investigates the teachings of some of the historical masters of the Italian "Economia Aziendale", with particular attention to the concept of the azienda, its finalism and its (...) essential characteristics, in order to verify some consistencies with the more recent Stakeholder Management Theory. Principles and considerations seem to emerge from EA scholars' seminal works that unequivocally connect ethics with business decisions. EA fits in with SMT in many ways, and the former seems, moreover, to suggest a specific normative point of view from which the role of ethics in business activities can be approached. (shrink)

Report on the international conference Ethical Thinking: Past and Present entitled Ethics in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

A normatively adequate public health ethics needs to be anchored in political philosophy rather than in ethics. Its central ethical concerns are likely to include trust and justice, rather than autonomy and informed consent.

In democratic Switzerland, each of its 26 cantons (states) has its own government and its own laws. Thus there are 26 ministries of health and as many different laws regulating medical and health care practice. The Swiss Nurses' Association likewise has 13 regional chapters and a central organization that works on the national level. Medicine is private and practically all of the Swiss population is privately insured. High technology has led to high specialization with, among other results, a reduced number (...) of premature deaths, longer life span but also rising costs of health. Health professionals are also becoming much more aware of ethical issues such as cost versus quality, high technology versus compassionate care, etc. A multilingual (four national languages) and multicultural country, Switzerland's health care system relies heavily on foreign nurses, many of whom come from neighbouring France and Germany but also from England, Yugoslavia, Canada and other countries. Regulation of nursing practice is still poor. Nursing or nurses are hardly mentioned in the state laws and, when mentioned, are often put in a dependent relation to the physician. Basic nurse training is regulated nationally by cantonal delegations to the Swiss Red Cross. Although there is a good postbasic training scheme, nurses are still striving for access to the university. Meanwhile, they go abroad to acquire degrees. Research in nursing is being developed mainly by the efforts of individuals and the Swiss Nurses' Association. (shrink)

Most books about ethics focus either on the origins of ethics, or on the application of ethical thinking to a single form of therapy. This book sets out to span a range of very different forms of therapy and explores the similarities and the differences between the ethical thinking of the practitioners concerned. By looking at ethical issues in different therapeutic settings the reader is challenged to reconsider the working assumptions which underpin familiar therapeutic practice. (...) Readers of Forms of Ethical Thinking in Therapeutic Practice are offered the unique opportunity to gain insights into the ethical thinking of experienced practitioners offering strikingly different services to their clients and working in contrasting contexts. Essential reading for all practitioners in counselling and the therapies, students, trainers, supervisors and providers of therapeutic services. (shrink)

This article is dealt with at a historical-strategic level. Historical processes can be functionally divided into two sections: the social-material-directed Power-organizing part and the cultural-spiritual Ethic-thinking part. Thus there exist two corresponding dynamic-operative functions in history, which are guided and impelled by different motivations, methods, and destinations involved in the two functions. The Ethic-practicing praxis has been always performed through the empirical-humanist-rational ways, which today can be more effectively embodied in human sciences to be reorganized by the general-semiotic strategy. (...) So there are two kinds of human historical courses: the one as the materialist-directed power-organizing part and the other as spiritual-theoretical-directed ethic-reflecting part. From a historical-philosophical point of view, the former is to prepare the material-conditions/means for supporting the latter as the ethic-spiritual mission that is directed towards exploring the meaning/value foundation for human existence. Lacking in the internal link between the two historical-pragmatic functions the ethic-spiritual praxes should manage to find a separate strategy for actively continuing its independent ethic task by dint of wisely/bravely shunning the materialist-determinism issued from the technical/commercialized globalization era. (shrink)

The notion of a community of inquiry has been treated by many of its proponents as being an exemplar of democracy in action. We argue that the assumptions underlying this view present some practical and theoretical difficulties, particularly in relation to distribution of power among the members of a community of inquiry. We identify two presuppositions in relation to distribution of power that require attention in developing an educational model that is committed to deliberative democracy: (1) openness to inquiry and (...) readiness to reason, and (2) mutual respect of students and teachers towards one another. Our contention is that these presuppositions, presented as preconditions necessary to the creation of a community of inquiry, are not without ideological commitments and dependent upon the ability of participants to share power. Using group dynamic theories and the ideas of Hannah Arendt, we argue that behaviours commonly interpreted as obstacles to dialogue or reflective inquiry could provide opportunities for growth. (shrink)

The teaching of professional rules, procedures and standards, as well as the existence of ethics committees and legal advisers to achieve desired behaviours for a given profession, produces an unforeseen by-product of altering the way individuals relate to ethics. The institutionalization of a moral voice, a kind of artificial conscience for the legally defined ‘artificial person’, tends to do the ethical thinking for the individual who thinks being moral means methodically following the professionally approved rules. Professionalism and the (...) type of methodological reason it requires are becoming a substitute for internal moral reasoning and personal responsibility, despite the belief that we are becoming more morally responsibly through professional behaviour. (shrink)

Introduction: Adorno and Barthes on the question of the right (di)stance -- The pathos of distances in "a world of banished people" -- George Orwell's critique of sincerity and the obligation of tactlessness -- The inferno of saviors: notes in the margin of Elias Canetti's lifework -- A socialism of distances, or on the difficulties of wise love: Iris Murdoch's secular community -- "The world in me": the distantiality of everyday life -- In search of a whole self: Benjamin's childhood (...) fragments -- Annie Ernaux's diaries of the outside -- Gunter Grass's century -- Damon Galgut on emptying oneself for sleep -- Conclusion. (shrink)

This lecture examines Alexander Pope's depictions of passion and sentiment in a range of early writings, including his ‘Prologue’ to Addison's Cato, Eloisa to Abelard and An Essay on Man. It then shows how often Pope belittled his own forays into affectivity and relates that tendency to a wider interest in ‘sceptical perspectivism’. The presence of the latter is traced in other works such as John Gay's Trivia, Bernard Mandeville's Fable of the Bees and the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury's Characteristics, (...) all of which – the last especially – are invoked to explain the dialogic methods employed in Pope's Rape of the Lock and his Dunciad Variorum. Finally, the argument suggests that, despite suffering a loss of self-confidence in the mid-1730s, Pope was able to recover his satirical idiom precisely by fusing his passionate and dialogic concerns in the Epilogue to the Satires of 1738. (shrink)

Background: Noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) is a new prenatal screening technology that became commercially available in the United States in 2011. NIPT's increased accuracy and low false positive rate compared to previous screening methods enable many women to avoid invasive diagnostic testing and receive much desired reassurance. NIPT has received much attention for both its benefits and drawbacks. Methods: Observation of genetic counseling sessions and qualitative interviews with women offered NIPT at a large academic medical center were conducted. Two ethnographic (...) cases studies derived from the overall data set are used to illustrate the study findings. Results: Many fundamental ethical questions about prenatal screening, such as abortion or the value of disabled children, often do not emerge during clinical sessions, enabling most women to defer thinking about these issues until the future, when and if the need should arise. It may only be in the rare case when a woman receives a positive test result that she may be forced to confront ethical issues that she had up until then been able to avoid. Conclusions: Women want, and are grateful to have, access to NIPT, which offers much desired reassurance. This desire for reassurance may come at the expense of having contemplated the potential negative outcomes and limitations of testing. In the rare circumstance where women do not receive reassuring results, they may be unprepared and shocked by what NIPT can and cannot reveal. The routinization of NIPT as the latest and best available prenatal screening test does not necessarily create new ethical issues, but this study highlights ethical continuities following its arrival. However, the continued expansion of NIPT to include more conditions and women will increase the number of women who receive positive results, including false positives, and who may be shocked and unprepared as a result. (shrink)

Ethics and rationality -- Moral frameworks -- Experience in context -- Aesthetic aspects of ethical thought -- Morals and metaphors -- Ethics and pluralism -- Moral thinking -- Afterword: diversity, relativism, and nonviolence.

This article is based on a qualitative empirical project about a distinct kinship group who were among the first identified internationally as having a genetic susceptibility to cancer. 50 were invited to participate. 15, who had all accepted testing, were interviewed. They form a unique case study. This study aimed to explore interviewees’ experiences of genetic testing and how these influenced their family relationships. A key finding was that participants framed the decision to be tested as ‘common sense’; the idea (...) of choice around the decision was negated and replaced by a moral imperative to be tested. Those who did not follow ‘common sense’ were judged to be imprudent. Family members who declined testing were discussed negatively by participants. The article addresses what is ethically problematic about how test decliners were discussed and whether these ethical concerns extend to others who are offered genetic testing. Discussions showed that genetic testing was viewed as both an autonomous choice and a responsibility. Yet the apparent conflict between the right to autonomy and the moral imperative of responsibility allowed participants to defend test decliners’ decisions by expressing a preference for or defending choice over responsibility. The ‘right not to know’ seemed an important moral construct to help ethically manage unpopular decisions made by close family who declined testing. In light of this research, the erosion of the ‘right not to know’ in the genomic age could have subtle yet profound consequences for family relationships. (shrink)

Ethics has become a particularly relevant topic for discussion and a subject for serious study. It has a very long tradition, of course; but nowadays one hears frequently of the need, because of abuses or concerns, to formulate and adopt ethical codes in various areas or professions. This book aims to make a philosophical contribution to the discussions and debates on the topic. Compared to the traditional approach to the philosophical study of ethics, however, this book adopts a different (...) strategy. It shows that such ethical thinking, in the concrete particulars, originates in various academic and professional contexts, among others. But inasmuch as theoretical issues require wider and more intensive attention, it argues that ethical thinking needs to be pursued further and that it can be aided by philosophical investigations. In its concluding chapters the book presents an alternative foundation for ethical decision-making. Philosophically grounded, it moves away from an individualistic ethical perspective to a relational one that has been shaped through dialogue with the various contexts in which ethical think-ing arises. (shrink)

Miscreants, in the form of deviants and dark personalities, impact organizations more than we realize. Most management instruction on ethics issues focuses on helping students to understand how to evaluate difficult situations, make ethical decisions, and engage in ethical actions. While this approach works well for the individual decision maker, it fails to help students learn how to anticipate and proactively prevent the unethical actions of others. Using ethical codes as a backdrop, “Thinking Like a Bad (...) Guy” is a provocative classroom activity to elicit critical and creative thinking among business students. The goal of this exercise is to facilitate student learning so they can anticipate the behaviors of bad actors and alter organizational processes and procedures to mitigate the ability of others to violate organizational ethical standards. (shrink)

Given the current business environment, business managers and accountants are more likely to encounter situations with ethical implications. Hence, business and accounting education should prioritize ethical skills such as critical thinking. However, significant pedagogical challenges await those who wish to venture down this path. Despite new educational tools in business and accounting ethics, we believe that new activities are needed to improve the acquisition of skills in professional ethics among students. Thus, we developed experiential simulations of (...) class='Hi'>ethical dilemmas inspired from what business managers and accountants typically encounter in their practice. More specifically, we created online simulations in the form of videos and interactive content. The purpose of these simulations is to help students experience the emotions that can be felt when faced with an ethical dilemma. They also provide a means of understanding the emotions of other characters and of thinking about how their actions affect others. (shrink)

How do managers think about the relationship between the pursuit of economic success and ethical demands? This paper presents the main results of a qualitative-empirical study (Ulrich and Thielemann, 1992). The range of thinking patterns displayed by Swiss managers in this field of tension is elucidated and typologized. The results are then compared with those yielded by other studies on managerial ethics. Although the comparisons reveal essential parallels, the findings of previous investigations are interpreted in a considerably different (...) manner. In particular it is shown that, on the strength of a systematic conception of the fundamental problem of business ethics, the frequently heard assertion that the vast majority of managers are ethical opportunists must be revised. The internationally prevailing thinking pattern among managers does not prove to be ethical opportunism or even cynicism buteconomism, i.e. theethical conviction that economically appropriate actionin itself is ethically good as such. (shrink)

We examined the direct and indirect (via relational social capital) relationship between ethical leadership and knowledge hiding. We also tested the moderating role of instrumental thinking in the relationship between ethical leadership and knowledge hiding and the relationship between ethical leadership and relational social capital. Data were collected from 245 employees in different firms spanning different manufacturing and service sectors. The results showed that ethical leadership was negatively related to knowledge hiding, both directly and via (...) relational social capital. The results revealed that instrumental thinking moderated the positive relationship between ethical leadership and relational social capital, such that the relationship was weak when instrumental thinking was high. The results also showed that instrumental thinking moderated both direct and indirect relationships between ethical leadership and knowledge hiding, such that the relationships were weak when instrumental thinking was high. The study carries important practical implications for managers concerned about the destructive consequences of knowledge hiding. (shrink)

Religion, defined as ‘the idea of a state that transcends ourselves and our world and the working out of the consequences of that idea’, may influence the ethical thinking of scientists and engineers in two ways. The first is at the level of the individual and how personal beliefs affect the choice of research, design or development projects, relationships with other researchers and the understandings of the consequences of research on other aspects of life. The second level is (...) that of the social and cultural setting in which scientists and engineers work; how society decides which research to sponsor, how to apply the results of scientific discovery and which technology it chooses to develop and for what purposes. In neither of these areas is religious belief a necessary condition for scientists and engineers to pursue one course of action rather than another. The existence of religious belief within the individual and society is, though, part of the ethical framework in which scientist and engineers work and therefore something to which attention should be paid. Religion provides a particular perspective on what should be. Conversely science and technology provide information on the nature of the person and the universe in which we live, which must be taken into account when theologians and religious moralists apply their ethical norms and principles. (shrink)

The further development of public health ethics will be assisted by a more direct engagement with political theory. In this way, the moral vocabulary of the liberal tradition should be supplemented—but not supplanted—by different conceptual and normative resources available from other traditions of political and social thought. This article discusses four lines of further development that the normative conceptual discourse of public health ethics might take. The relational turn. The implications for public health ethics of the new ‘ecological’ or ‘relational’ (...) interpretation that is emerging for concepts such as agency, self-identity, autonomy, liberty and justice. Governing the health commons. The framework of collective action problems is giving way to notions of democratic governance and management of common resources. The concept of membership. Membership is specified by the notions of equal respect and parity of voice and agency. The concept of mutuality. Mutuality is specified by the notions of interdependent concern and care. (shrink)

Michael Davis, a leading figure in the study of professional ethics, offers here both a compelling exploration of engineering ethics and a philosophical analysis of engineering as a profession. After putting engineering in historical perspective, Davis turns to the Challenger space shuttle disaster to consider the complex relationship between engineering ideals and contemporary engineering practice. Here, Davis examines how social organization and technical requirements define how engineers should (and presumably do) think. Later chapters test his analysis of engineering judgement and (...) autonomy empirically, engaging a range of social science research including a study of how engineers and managers work together in ten different companies. (shrink)

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Bringing together ecology, evolutionary moral psychology, and environmental ethics, J. Baird Callicott counters the narrative of blame and despair that prevails in contemporary discussions of climate ethics and offers a fresh, more optimistic approach.

The author describes Heller’s concept of ethics as a “quasi-sphere” intersecting with various fields relating to human relationships. Special attention is paid to the axiological aspects of her concept of ethics and the relationship between virtues and responsibility. The author also seeks to show how Heller integrated a traditional philosophical question—the relationship between “is” and “ought to be”—into her concept of “radical philosophy” at an earlier stage in the development of her philosophy. She initially considered the relationship between “is” and (...) “ought to be” to be contrasting. Later, when she had come to accept the political model of liberal capitalist society, the ideal of all-compassing equality became the ideal of “equality of opportunities”. The author interprets this shift as one in which the relationship becomes continual. He is also critical of Heller’s underestimation of the effect the “social a priori” has on the possibilities of human life. (shrink)

Abstract:While the medical ethics literature has well explored the harm to patients, families, and the integrity of the profession in failing to disclose medical errors once they occur, less often addressed are the moral and professional obligations to take all available steps to prevent errors and harm in the first instance. As an expanding body of scholarship further elucidates the causes of medical error, including the considerable extent to which medical errors, particularly in diagnostics, may be attributable to cognitive sources, (...) insufficient progress in systematically evaluating and implementing suggested strategies for improving critical thinking skills and medical judgment is of mounting concern. Continued failure to address pervasive thinking errors in medical decisionmaking imperils patient safety and professionalism, as well as beneficence and nonmaleficence, fairness and justice. We maintain that self-reflective and metacognitive refinement of critical thinking should not be construed as optional but rather should be considered an integral part of medical education, a codified tenet of professionalism, and by extension, a moral and professional duty. (shrink)

This paper offers a brief comment on Jennings’ preceding paper, focusing on the capacity of a republican approach to public health ethics to facilitate reconceptualization of the right to health in situations of limited resources through a relational reading.

In this study, Clare Palmer challenges the belief that the process thinking of writers like A.N. Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne has offered an unambiguously positive contribution to environmental ethics. She compares process ethics to a variety of other forms of environmental ethics, as well as deep ecology, and reveals a number of difficulties associated with process thinking about the environment.