This study investigated effects of codes of ethics on perceptions of ethical behavior. Respondents from companies with codes of ethics (n = 465) rated role set members (top management, supervisors, peers, subordinates, self) as more ethical and felt more encouraged and supported for ethical behavior than respondents from companies without codes (n = 301). Key aspects of the organizational climate, such as supportiveness for ethical behavior, freedom to act ethically, and satisfaction with the outcome of ethical problems were impacted by (...) the presence of an ethics code. The mere presence of a code of ethics appears to have a positive impact on perceptions of ethical behavior in organizations, even when respondents cannot recall specific content of the code. (shrink)

This study investigated effects of codes of ethics on perceptions of ethical behavior. Respondents from companies with codes of ethics (n = 465) rated role set members (top management, supervisors, peers, subordinates, self) as more ethical and felt more encouraged and supported for ethical behavior than respondents from companies without codes (n = 301). Key aspects of the organizational climate, such as supportiveness for ethical behavior, freedom to act ethically, and satisfaction with the outcome of ethical problems were impacted by (...) the presence of an ethics code. The mere presence of a code of ethics appears to have a positive impact on perceptions of ethical behavior in organizations, even when respondents cannot recall specific content of the code. (shrink)

This article reports the results of an exploratory investigation of a particular area of moral tension experienced by MBA students in a graduate school of business. During the first phase of the study, MBA students'' own perceptions about the moral climate and culture of the business school were examined. The data gathered in this first part of the study indicate that the students recognize that a central part of this culture is constituted by a shared familiarity with a set of (...) institutionally reinforced premises about human behavior and motivation including the ideas that: 1) people are self-interested utility-maximizers, 2) individuals should be unimpeded in their pursuit of their own self-interest through economic transactions, and 3) virtually all human interactionsare economic transactions. The data further indicated that the business students experience a degree of tension between this ethic of self-maximizing and the everyday ethics prevalent in our broader culture, in which altruism and selflessness are central elements. The final section of the study was an effort to see whether and how these institutionally sanctioned premises were integrated into the students'' arguments about the relationship between self-interest and social responsibility. (shrink)

We applaud Wood, Kressel, Joshi, and Louie’s careful, nuanced meta-analysis. The evolutionary hypotheses designed to explain menstrual cycle fluctuations in mate preferences are convoluted and, based on this new meta-analysis, unnecessary because the existence of the fluctuations is not supported by the data. Evolutionary explanations are still possible if they predict women’s mate preferences rather than cyclic fluctuations in those preferences. The biosocial model provides a plausible alternative account. We emphasize the importance of improved methods in future research, focusing especially (...) on ascertainment of cycle phase. (shrink)

Emphasis in business ethics texts and courses has generally focused on corporate and other relatively high-level ethical issues. However, business school graduates in early career stages report ethical dilemmas involving individual-level decisions, often including influence attempts from one or more members of their work role sets. This paper proposes the use of role set analysis as a pedagogical technique for helping individuals to anticipate and deal with early-career ethical issues.

Often, knowledge engineers become so involved in the development process of the expert system that they fail to look further down the road toward the expert system's institutionalization within the organization. Institutionalization is an important component of the expert system planning process. More specifically, the legal issues associated with expert systems development and deployment are critical institutionalization factors. This paper looks at some expert system institutionalization guidelines, and then focuses on legal considerations.

Sixty-five undergraduates participating in a wide range of psychological research experiments were interviewed in depth about their research experiences and their views on the process of informed consent. Overall, 32% of research experiences were characterized positively and 41 % were characterized negatively. One major theme of the negative experiences was that experiments were perceived as too invasive, suggesting incomplete explication of negative aspects of research during the informed consent process. Informed consent experiences were viewed positively 80% of the time. However, (...) most of the participants had a limited view of the purpose of informed consent: Less than 20% viewed the process as a decision point. Results suggest a number of common pitfalls to standard informed consent practices that have not generally been recognized. Results are discussed in terms of both ethical and methodological implications. Suggestions for improving the informed consent process are also provided. (shrink)

This article takes issue with the formalism problem arguably pertaining to Habermas's conception of communicative rationality and discursive justification. Beginning with the Hegelian premises of Habermas's theory of mutual understanding and communicative rationality, the article proceeds to make Kant's doctrine of reflective judgement fruitful for a critique of Habermas's restriction of reasons to discursively articulated endorsements, the 'force of the better reasons'. The argument consists in showing that discursive justification must rely upon endorsements of particulars exhibited in right judgements, and (...) that such endorsements must be expressed or articulated to yield public manifestations of discursive orientations and commitments, constituting what is referred to as 'communicative experience'. On the account presented here, the rational significance of particulars is revealed in the expressive attitude that allows or admits non-discursive constraints to the conception of rational justification. The promise of such an account - as premised upon Kant's insights in his third Critique - consists in its capability to avoid the one-sided formalism of discursive rationality, incorporating ethical, expressive and aesthetic dimensions to our rational self-conception. Key Words: aesthetic experience • communicative experience • concrete other • discourse-ethics • ethical life • feminism • Habermas • Hegel • Kant • morality • rational justification • reflective judgement • world-disclosure. (shrink)

Is a phenomenal pain a conscious primitive or composed of more primitive phenomenal states? Are pain experiences necessarily or only contingently unpleasant? Here, I sketch how to answer such questions concerning intra-phenomenal metaphysics using the example of pain and unpleasantness. Arguments for a symmetrical metaphysical independence of phenomenal pain and unpleasant affect are presented, rejecting a composite view like the IASP definition and dimensional views. The motivating intuition of these views is explained by common binding mechanisms in consciousness and characterized (...) as fallacious if generalized. There are, however, underlying commonalities between pain perception and unpleasant affect, e.g. formal content or evolutionary ancestry. (shrink)

It is possible to defend the Church’s teaching that contraception is incompatible with God’s plan for sexuality in many different ways. This essay sketches the fundamental views of reality common to all the defenses and the main lines of the most prominent defenses, some based on natural law, on the theology of the body, and on the physical, psychological, and social consequences of the use of contraception. While all the defenses have merit, the argument based on the recognition that sexual (...) intercourse is meant to be a complete self-gift has a special power of its own. (shrink)

Groups are only real, and only serve as a basis for collective action, when their members perceive them to be real. For a computational model to have analytic fidelity and predictive validity it, therefore, needs to engage with the psychological reality of groups, their internal structure, and their structuring by the social context in which they function.

Overdose deaths involving prescription opioids killed more than 17,000 Americans in 2017, marking a five-fold increase since 1999. High prescribing rates of opioid analgesics have been a substantial contributor to prescription opioid misuse, dependence, overdose and heroin use. There was recognition approximately ten years ago that opioid prescribing patterns were contributing to this startling increase in negative opioid-related outcomes, and federal actions, including Medicare reimbursement reform and regulatory actions, were initiated to restrict opioid prescribing. The current manuscript is a description (...) of those actions, the effect of those actions on opioid prescribing and related patient outcomes. We also describe our proposal of methods of expanding these efforts as an important piece to further reduce opioid-related misuse, dependence, and overdose death. (shrink)

Can we find necessary and sufficient conditions for a mental state to be a pain state? That is, does pain have a nature? Or is the term ‘pain’ ambiguous? I argue here that our expression ‘pain’ lacks necessary use conditions if one considers a range of contexts. As use conditions constrain the reference class, I argue that ‘pain’ does not refer to a natural category, but binds together a bunch of loosely resembling phenomena. This leads to problems for scientific and (...) clinical discourse. To solve these, a method of explication is suggested, based on a discursive combination between analysis of first-person reports and theories of natural science. Lastly, I consider the ethical implications of this ambiguity that lead to a reformulation of the goal of pain science: Not alleviation of all pains ought to be our goal, but only manipulation of conscious and negatively emotionally charged pains. (shrink)

Historically, entities with a vested interest in a product that critics have suggested is harmful have consistently used research to back their claims that the product is safe. Prominent examples are: tobacco, lead, bisphenol A, and atrazine. Research literature indicates that about 80–90 % of studies with industry affiliation found no harm from the product, while only about 10–20 % of studies without industry affiliation found no harm. In parallel to other historical debates, recent studies examining a possible relationship between (...) mercury exposure and autism spectrum disorder show a similar dichotomy. Studies sponsored and supported by industry or entities with an apparent conflict of interest have most often shown no evidence of harm or no “consistent” evidence of harm, while studies without such affiliations report positive evidence of a Hg/autism association. The potentially causal relationship between Hg exposure and ASD differs from other toxic products since there is a broad coalition of entities for whom a conflict of interest arises. These include influential governmental public health entities, the pharmaceutical industry, and even the coal burning industry. This review includes a systematic literature search of original studies on the potential relationship between Hg and ASD from 1999 to date, finding that of the studies with public health and/or industry affiliation, 86 % reported no relationship between Hg and ASD. However, among studies without public health and/or industry affiliation, only 19 % find no relationship between Hg and ASD. The discrepancy in these results suggests a bias indicative of a conflict of interest. (shrink)

Over the last 20+ years, globalization has made international trade and investment more efficient and productive. In the absence of coordinated global regulatory regimes, it has also made multinational corporations (MNCs) impervious to social concerns in the countries where they operate. There is considerable debate in the academic, political, and business arena as to the causes of the apparently inequitable distribution of benefits between labor and capital. Notwithstanding, the relative merits of this debate, and facing tremendous societal pressure, companies have (...) adopted voluntary codes of conduct to ensure that workers making products for them in poor and developing countries are protected from hazardous working conditions and receive wages that meet local laws and market conditions. These codes, however, suffer from a lack of credibility and proof of substantive compliance. A new type of nongovernmental organization (NGO) has emerged that monitors a company's compliance with prespecified standards and provides assurance to the external stakeholders that the company has fulfilled its voluntary obligations. From an historical perspective, this has been an innovative phenomenon where the monitoring organization purports to act as an honest broker to ensure all concerned that the company/industry has fulfilled its obligations. In this article, we undertake a thorough examination of two such organizations, that is, Fair Labor Association, and Social Accountability International, that have played a pioneering role in bridging the gap between societal expectations and corporate performance. We examine their governance structures, operating procedures, monitoring standards, and public disclosure of findings, and above all, their success in improving the level of corporate compliance with their self‐created codes or standards. Unfortunately, our findings and conclusions are disappointing. In our view, the two groups have mostly failed to meet their avowed goals. Rather than using their NGO status to help companies improve their code compliance, they have suffered from managerial capture and have been reduced to corporate apologists. (shrink)

This article considers the treatment of intersubjectivity as the core of Husserl's transcendental phenomenology. From this standpoint it identifies the problematic of Husserl's theory of the "experience of the Other", which Husserl exposes in his commentaries on Descartes V Meditation. The paper draws a parallel between Husserl and Kant in order to clarify the Husserlian notions, and finally shows the difficulties of Husserl's approach due to his assumption of the premises of the "Subjektsphilosophie".

These and other related concerns are crucial in this volume's lively debate over the nature of the missing cognitive link, and whether gorillas, chimps, or...

I argue that the understanding of "pain" as presented in the official medical definition by the IASP is ambiguous and likely a cluster concept.

In this article, I focus on what is we know when we know pain or that someone is in pain. I argue that claims of knowledge about pains are problematic because of the complex nature of the phenomenon and because of "pain" is a cluster concept.

Historically, entities with a vested interest in a product that critics have suggested is harmful have consistently used research to back their claims that the product is safe. Prominent examples are: tobacco, lead, bisphenol A, and atrazine. Research literature indicates that about 80–90% of studies with industry affiliation found no harm from the product, while only about 10–20% of studies without industry affiliation found no harm. In parallel to other historical debates, recent studies examining a possible relationship between mercury exposure (...) and autism spectrum disorder show a similar dichotomy. Studies sponsored and supported by industry or entities with an apparent conflict of interest have most often shown no evidence of harm or no “consistent” evidence of harm, while studies without such affiliations report positive evidence of a Hg/autism association. The potentially causal relationship between Hg exposure and ASD differs from other toxic products since there is a broad coalition of entities for whom a conflict of interest arises. These include influential governmental public health entities, the pharmaceutical industry, and even the coal burning industry. This review includes a systematic literature search of original studies on the potential relationship between Hg and ASD from 1999 to August 2015, finding that of the studies with public health and/or industry affiliation, 86% reported no relationship between Hg and ASD. However, among studies without public health and/or industry affiliation, only 21% find no relationship between Hg and ASD. The discrepancy in these results suggests a bias indicative of a conflict of interest. (shrink)

Scholars and professional organizations in bioethics describe various approaches to “quality assessment” in clinical ethics. Although much of this work represents significant contributions to the literature, it is not clear that there is a robust and shared understanding of what constitutes “quality” in clinical ethics, what activities should be measured when tracking clinical ethics work, and what metrics should be used when measuring those activities. Further, even the most robust quality assessment efforts to date are idiosyncratic, in that they represent (...) evaluation of single activities or domains of clinical ethics activities, or a range of activities at a single hospital or healthcare system. Countering this trend, in this article we propose a framework for moving beyond our current ways of understanding clinical ethics quality, toward comprehensive quality assessment. We first describe a way to conceptualize quality assessment as a process of measuring disparate, isolated work activities; then, we describe quality assessment in terms of tracking interconnected work activities holistically, across different levels of assessment. We conclude by inviting future efforts in quality improvement to adopt a comprehensive approach to quality assessment into their improvement practices, and offer recommendations for how the field might move in this direction. (shrink)

Book reviews: Adorno, Theodor W., Metaphysik. Begriff und Probleme (reviewed by Ståle R.S. Finke).

Experiments with young infants provide evidence for early-developing capacities to represent physical objects and to reason about object motion. Early physical reasoning accords with 2 constraints at the center of mature physical conceptions: continuity and solidity. It fails to accord with 2 constraints that may be peripheral to mature conceptions: gravity and inertia. These experiments suggest that cognition develops concurrently with perception and action and that development leads to the enrichment of conceptions around an unchanging core. The experiments challenge claims (...) that cognition develops on a foundation of perceptual or motor experience, that initial conceptions are inappropriate to the world, and that initial conceptions are abandoned or radically.. (shrink)

Eugen Fink is considered one of the clearest interpreters of phenomenology and was the preferred conversational partner of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. In Play as Symbol of the World, Fink offers an original phenomenology of play as he attempts to understand the world through the experience of play. He affirms the philosophical significance of play, why it is more than idle amusement, and reflects on the movement from "child's play" to "cosmic play." Well-known for its non-technical, literary (...) style, this skillful translation by Ian Alexander Moore and Christopher Turner invites engagement with Fink's philosophy of play and related writings on sports, festivals, and ancient cult practices. (shrink)