This article takes a novel approach to explaining the causes of unethical behavior in organizations. Instead of explaining the unethical behavior of employees in terms of their bad organization, this article examines how a good organization can lead to employees’ unethical behavior. The main idea is that the more ethical an organization becomes, the higher, in some respects, is the likelihood of unethical behavior. This is due to four threatening forces that become stronger when an organization becomes more ethical. These (...) forces are the upward, downward, backward, and forward forces. Each of these forces is illustrated with two effects and each effect is explained by a specific theory. The effects are the effects of the gold digger, high-jump bar, retreating-cat, forbidden-fruit, cheese slicer, moving-spotlight, repeat-prescription, and keeping-up appearances. This paradox of ethics, when goodness breeds badness, opens new research directions. (shrink)

In this contribution, I take Nicholas Adams’ discussion of the paradox of ethics as an occasion to further explore our present moral situation and the possibilities of ethics in it. This situation is characterised by pluralism of moral views, which gives rise to relativist and cynical reactions as well as to strong, polarising expressions. These tendencies feed a suspicion towards ethical reflection. In light of the paradox of ethics as discussed by Adams this may seem (...) justified. I will argue, however, for a more constructive role for ethics. This can be elaborated by focusing on the transcendent character of the good, which is implied in the paradox. I will explore this transcendent character by turning to a Christian perspective on morality that elaborates this transcendence in a specific constructive way. From this perspective, the experience of the loss of self-evidence around which the paradox of ethics revolves may be seen as beneficial. It opens human beings to a transcendent good to which they can entrust themselves for a renewal of life. Thus, the good can be seen as something that makes an appeal to us that can liberate to a love that transcends doing good as a human project. (shrink)

Ethics consultation at the bedside has been hailed as a better way than courts and ethics committees to empower patients and make explicit the value components of treatment decisions. But close examination of the practice of ethics consultation reveals that it in fact risks subverting those ends by interpolating a third (expert) party into the doctor-patient encounter. In addition, the practice of bioethics through consultation does the broader cultural work of fashioning a shared moral order in the (...) face of manifestly plural individual commitments. In doing so, however, bioethics furthers medicine's position as a privileged domain of public moral discourse in contemporary American society. (shrink)

Nobody interested in philosophy need be deterred by Kant's reputation for difficulty from familiarizing himself with his ethics. While the Critique of Pure Reason and his other non-ethical works are very hard to follow, the first two chapters of the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals at least are clear and straightforward and presuppose little previous acquaintance with philosophy. The third chapter is not about ethics as such but about the metaphysical problem of freedom and should be (...) omitted by anyone who is not familiar with Kant's general philosophy, but the first two. (shrink)

How do the hard facts of political responsibility shape and constrain the demands of ethical life? That question lies at the heart of the problem of 'dirty hands' in public life. Those who exercise political power often feel they must act in ways that would otherwise be considered immoral: indeed, paradoxically, they sometimes feel that it would be immoral of them not to perform or condone such acts as killing or lying. John Parrish offers a wide-ranging account of how this (...) important philosophical problem emerged and developed, tracing it - and its proposed solutions - from ancient Greece through the Enlightenment. His central argument is that many of our most familiar concepts and institutions - from Augustine's interiorised ethics, to Hobbes's sovereign state, to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand', understanding of the modern commercial economy - were designed partly as responses to the ethical problem of dirty hands in public life. (shrink)

This paper connects the question of the rationality of voting to the question of what it is morally permissible for elected representatives to do. In particular, the paper argues that it is rational to vote to increase the strength of the manifest normative mandate of one's favored candidate. I argue that, due to norms of political legitimacy, how representatives ought to act while in office is tied to how much support they have from their constituents, where a representative’s “support” is (...) a function of the percentage of adults living in the political jurisdiction who voted for her. In a representative system, whether a particular law or policy is legitimate is in part a function of how much support the particular representative government has, rather than simply being a function of the governmental structure or the normative content of the law or policy. Representatives with more support can permissibly act more like trustees (doing what they think is best) and less like delegates (doing what their constituents presently prefer). I argue that this fact provides a reason for individuals to vote, even given the incredibly small chance an individual voter has of casting a pivotal vote. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the cause of morally self-defeating acts at the collective level is greed and, at the individual level, an unrestrained impulse for pleasure beyond Innocent Asouzu’s primordial instinct for self-preservation and ignorance. In investigating why humans act in self-defeating ways, Asouzu came up with two possible factors responsible for self-defeating acts: The primordial instinct for selfpreservation and ignorance. Besides Asouzu’s explanation, I here argue that the problem of self-defeating acts goes beyond the primordial instinct for (...) selfpreservation and ignorance to reveal a flaw characteristic of the human condition. At the collective level, the flaw responsible for self-defeating acts is greed and the unrestrained impulse for pleasure at the individual level. I employ the conversational method to interrogate the different views on self-defeating acts from Socrates to Asouzu and show why my explanation offers a better understanding of the problem. (shrink)

The pursuit of social goals and ethics in business creates challenges. Sustained efforts to address poverty, environmental degradation or health/wellbeing require meaningful and transformative responses that impact across multiple levels—individual, community and the global collective. Shifting predominant paradigms to facilitate change entails a renegotiation of business strategy—between organizations, their purpose(s), individual and collective stakeholders and ultimately with society at large. Hybrid organizations such as social enterprises are positioned to affect such change. However, in balancing divergent goals such organizations encounter (...) tensions and paradox, creating a duality of ethics. Utilizing in-depth interviews to develop a case within the sustainable fashion industry, we identify tensions and paradox within women-oriented hybrid organizations. Significantly, managing these tensions and paradox results in multiple dualities of ethics, often with a wider impact on organizational founders/managers. We find three interrelated ethical dualities: business strategy and personal values; financial sustainability and holistic sustainability; and business, employee, societal wellbeing, and personal wellbeing. This insight is noteworthy when looked at within the broader context of sustainability and highlights the importance of sustainability in women-oriented hybrid organizations. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a systematic inquiry into the significance of Nietzsche’s philosophy to environmental ethics. Nietzsche’s philosophy of nature is, I believe, relevant today because it makes explicit a fundamental ambiguity that is also characteristic of our current understanding of nature. I show how the current debate between traditional environmental ethics and postmodern environmental philosophycan be interpreted as a symptom of this ambiguity. I argue that, in light of Nietzsche’s critique of morality, environmental ethics is (...) a highly paradoxical project. According to Nietzsche, each moral interpretation of nature implies a conceptual seizure of power over nature. On the other hand, Nietzsche argues, the concept of nature is indispensable in ethics because we have to interpret nature in order to have a meaningful relation with reality. I show that awareness of this paradox opens a way for a form of respect for nature as radical otherness. (shrink)

9th and 10th Nov. 2013 at Kyoto University. Organizers: Takeshi Sato and Shunsuke Sugimoto.

In this paper, I offer a systematic inquiry into the significance of Nietzsche’s philosophy to environmental ethics. Nietzsche’s philosophy of nature is, I believe, relevant today because it makes explicit a fundamental ambiguity that is also characteristic of our current understanding of nature. I show how the current debate between traditional environmental ethics and postmodern environmental philosophycan be interpreted as a symptom of this ambiguity. I argue that, in light of Nietzsche’s critique of morality, environmental ethics is (...) a highly paradoxical project. According to Nietzsche, each moral interpretation of nature implies a conceptual seizure of power over nature. On the other hand, Nietzsche argues, the concept of nature is indispensable in ethics because we have to interpret nature in order to have a meaningful relation with reality. I show that awareness of this paradox opens a way for a form of respect for nature as radical otherness. (shrink)

The use of decision-making capacity assessments in clinical medicine is an underdeveloped yet quickly growing practice. Despite the ethical and clinical importance of these assessments as a means of protecting patient autonomy, clinicians, philosophers, and ethicists have identified a number of practical and theoretical hurdles which remain unresolved. One ethically important yet largely unaddressed issue is whether, and to what extent physicians ought to inform and obtain consent from patients prior to initiating a capacity assessment. In what follows, I address (...) the following question: Must, or should, physicians obtain consent for capacity assessments? I argue that physicians have an ethical obligation to obtain express patient consent for capacity assessments, and in doing so, I challenge the predominant view which requires physicians to merely inform patients without obtaining consent. I then identify an underlying philosophical paradox that complicates the clinician's duty to obtain consent: in short, consent is needed for an assessment of one's ability to consent. Finally, I recommend a practical solution to this paradox of consent for capacity assessments by proposing a model of double consent from both the patient and health care representative. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:We analyze corporate ethics programs as control systems, arguing that how control is exercised may have pernicious consequences and be morally problematic. In particular, the control cultivated by ethics programs may weaken employees’ ability and motivation to exercise their own moral judgment, especially in novel situations. We develop this argument first by examining how organization theorists analyze control as an instrument of management coordination, and by addressing the political implications of control. We discuss coercive and enabling control as (...) variations that help account for the distinction between compliance-based ethics programs and values-based ethics programs. We then explore three potential drawbacks of ethics programs: the specter of indoctrination, a politicization of ethics, and an atrophy of competence. Ethics programs that rely on coercive control may undermine their own effectiveness at stemming misbehavior. (shrink)

We live in a time of human paradoxes. Scientific knowledge has reached a level of sophistication that permits understanding of the most arcane phenomena and yet religious fundamentalism dominates in many parts of the world. We witness the emergence of a civil, liberal constitutionalism in many regions of the world and yet ethnic violence threatens.

Women are underrepresented in the upper echelons of management in most countries. Despite the effectiveness of identity conscious initiatives for increasing the proportion of women, many organizations have been reluctant to implement such initiatives because potential employees may perceive them negatively. Given the increasing competition for labor, attracting talent is relevant for the long-term success of organizations. In this study, we used an experimental design to examine the effects of identity blind and identity conscious gender diversity initiatives on people’s pursuit (...) intentions toward organizations using them. We used counterfactual thinking, derived from fairness theory, as a guiding framework for our hypothesis development and investigated the moderating influence of a forthcoming government-mandated gender quota as well as individual characteristics. Participants reviewed statements regarding workplace diversity initiatives and rated either the initiatives’ effectiveness or indicated their intentions to pursue employment with organizations using them. Of those rating pursuit intentions, half were informed that the country in which they were conducting their job search was about to implement gender quotas. Results indicated a diversity management paradox such that initiatives perceived as more effective made organizations using them less attractive as employers. However, these negative perceptions were mitigated by a government-mandated quota, and also lower among women. Implications for the study and practice of diversity are discussed. (shrink)

The Paradox of Transgression in Games looks at transgressive games as an aesthetic experience, tackling how players respond to game content that shocks, disturbs, and distresses, and how contemporary video games can evoke intense emotional reactions. The book delves into the commercial success of many controversial videogames: although such games may appear shocking for the observing bystander, playing them is experienced as deeply rewarding for the player. Drawing on qualitative player studies and approaches from media aesthetics theory, the book (...) challenges the perception of games as innocent entertainment, and examines the range of emotional, moral, and intellectual experiences of players. As they explore what players consider transgressive, the authors ask whether there is something about the gameplay situation that works to mitigate the sense of transgression, stressing gameplay as an aesthetic experience. Anchoring the aesthetic game experience both in play studies as well as in aesthetic theory, this book will be an essential resource for scholars and students of game studies, aesthetics, media studies, philosophy of art, and emotions. (shrink)

The carbon emissions of global healthcare activities make up 4%–5% of total world emissions, with the majority coming from industrialised countries. The solution to healthcare carbon reduction in these countries, ostensibly, would be preventive healthcare, which is less resource intensive than corrective healthcare in itself and, as a double benefit, reduces carbon by preventing diseases which may require higher healthcare carbon to treat. This leads to a paradox: preventive healthcare is designed to give humans longer, healthier lives. But, by (...) extending life spans, the carbon emissions of a person increase both over a lifetime and in the medical industry overall. At the same time, the need for higher carbon end-of-life care does not disappear, particularly in resource intensive countries. This article will first identify sources of healthcare carbon, focusing on the industrialised world, and explain various efforts towards healthcare carbon reduction, which include preventive healthcare. Second, it will develop the ‘paradox of prevention’—that preventive healthcare may save healthcare carbon by proximally reducing the need for medical treatments, but also, paradoxically, result in more healthcare carbon both in an individual’s life and in the medical industry. The third section will offer ethical principles for approaching the paradox of prevention. The conclusion will emphasise the need for institutional approaches to healthcare carbon reduction in the industrialised world, which will relieve some of the tensions of healthcare industry decarbonisation and individual healthcare carbon use. (shrink)

For good reasons we often think about ethics and strategy as two opposing categories. But as surfaces in which we see social practices reflected, as abstract planes in which social consciousness resides and which subjectivities reinvent, they share some deep and perhaps uncomfortable similarities. In this paper, we question whether they are irreconcilable categories and, through a discussion of the paradoxes of strategy and the antinomies of ethics, we examine their fraught relationship in current economic responses to the (...) crisis. First, we outline the discursive topographies of strategy and ethics in respect to their abstract relations, and examine their integument in business ethics and strategy in context. Then, we show how there cannot be a simple coexistence of these two categories in organisational practice: one must in fact be subordinate to the other, although this subordination can produce the persistence of the other, even in its negation. Finally, we conclude that the asymmetrical nature of ethics and strategy entails that whereas ethics can immanently give rise to strategy, strategic questions on their own can only produce anti-systemic ethical responses. (shrink)

This article examines the issue of the paradoxicality of institution, de-institutionalization, or the counter-institutionalization in classical Chan thought by focusing on the texts of Hongzhou School. It first analyzes the problem of 20th century scholars in characterizing the Chan attitude toward institution as iconoclasts, and the problem of the recent tendency to return to images of the Chan masters as traditionalists, as opposed to iconoclasts. Both problems are examples of imposing an oppositional way of thinking on the Chan masters. The (...) essay then introduces a new paradigm for interpreting the Chan attitude toward institution, the model of de-institutionalization, which borrows certain insights from Derrida’s idea of the counter-institutional. However, the new model is supported by the Chan heritage of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. This model can more consistently construe the Chan understanding of the paradoxicality of institution, the subtle Chan relationship of being “with and against” institution, and the Chan “middle way” to make institution remain open to its outside and to transformation. (shrink)

Many ethical systems hold that agents earn merit and demerit through their good and bad deeds. Some of these ethical systems also accept merit transference, allowing merit to be transferred, in certain circumstances, from one agent to another. In this article, I argue that there is a previously unrecognized paradox for merit transference involving a phenomenon I call “merit inflation”. With a particular focus on Buddhist ethics, I then look at the options available for resolving this paradox. (...) I conclude that merit inflation poses a serious challenge for any ethical system that broadly permits the transfer of merit. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a systematic inquiry into the significance of Nietzsche’s philosophy to environmental ethics. Nietzsche’s philosophy of nature is, I believe, relevant today because it makes explicit a fundamental ambiguity that is also characteristic for our current understanding of nature. I will show how the current debate between traditional environmental ethics and postmodern environmental philosophy can be interpreted as a symptom of this ambiguity. I argue that, in light of Nietzsche’s critique of morality, environmental (...) class='Hi'>ethics is a highly paradoxical project. According to Nietzsche, each moral interpretation of nature implies a conceptual seizure of power over nature. On the other hand, Nietzsche argues, the concept of nature is indispensable in ethics because we have to interpret nature in order to have a meaningful relation with reality. I argue that awareness of this paradox opens a way for a form of respect for nature as radical otherness. (shrink)

Persistent public distrust of food additives is often explained in terms of safety and health issues. The broad variety of ethical, aesthetic, and cultural concerns tends to be structurally ignored by food engineers and occasionally even by consumers themselves. The public controversy of food additives—commonly known as “E-numbers”—in the Netherlands is a case in point. Two discursive mechanisms prevent these concerns from becoming legitimate public issues: irrationalization and privatization. But these consumer concerns may not be as unreasonable as they seem, (...) and they may even turn out to be not that private. As long as ethical, aesthetic and cultural concerns are not recognized by food engineers as legitimate issues, the controversy of food additives is not likely to find closure. Moreover, this lack of recognition blocks the opportunity for meaningful dialogue and trust building between food technology developers, policy makers, citizens and consumers. (shrink)

How social workers do construct what is ‘ethical’ in their work, especially when they are positioned at the intersection of multiple paradoxes, including that of two opposing responsibilities in society: namely, to care for others but also to prevent others from harm? Paradoxes in practice are especially complicated to manage in the neoliberalism of the Global North where the priority of efficiency has been heightened and the obligation towards the most vulnerable has been weakened. Taking data from a Canadian study, (...) this paper delineates the structural paradoxes of practice and elaborates on the concept of ethical trespass, especially in times of austerity. Ideas are illustrated with case material from participants who were practitioners working with a population of young single impoverished mothers. Impacts of the discourses on single mothers, resource inadequacies, and increased surveillance on clients are discussed, and the effects on workers such as individualization and burnout will be outlined. Despite the challenges, practitioners in the study found ways to minimize trespass and act ethically. The strategies employed included problematizing the helping relationship, being a responsible traitor, dissident speech, and the use of contextualized practice. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a systematic inquiry into the significance of Nietzsche's philosophy to environmental ethics. Nietzsche's philosophy of nature is, I believe, relevant today because it makes explicit a fundamental ambiguity that is also characteristic of our current understanding of nature. I show how the current debate between traditional environmental ethics and postmodern environmental philosophy can be interpreted as a symptom of this ambiguity. I argue that, in light of Nietzsche's critique of morality, environmental ethics (...) is a highly paradoxical project. According to Nietzsche, each moral interpretation of nature implies a conceptual seizure of power over nature. On the other hand, Nietzsche argues, the concept of nature is indispensable in ethics because we have to interpret nature in order to have a meaningful relation with real ity. I show that awareness of this paradox opens a way for a form of respect for nature as radical otherness. (shrink)

The repugnant conclusion is acceptable from the point of view of total utilitarianism. Total utilitarians do not seem to be bothered with it. They feel that it is in no way repugnant. To me, a hard-nosed total utilitarian, this settles the case. However, if, sometimes, I doubt that total utilitarianism has the final say in ethics, and tend to think that there may be something to some objection to it or another, it is the objection to it brought forward (...) from egalitarian thought that first comes to mind. But if my argument in this article is correct, then it is clear that the repugnant conclusion should be equally acceptable to egalitarians of various different bents as it is to total utilitarians. (shrink)

Conscientious objection in health care is a form of compromise whereby health care practitioners can refuse to take part in safe, legal, and beneficial medical procedures to which they have a moral opposition (for instance abortion). Arguments in defense of conscientious objection in medicine are usually based on the value of respect for the moral integrity of practitioners. I will show that philosophical arguments in defense of conscientious objection based on respect for such moral integrity are extremely weak and, if (...) taken seriously, lead to consequences that we would not (and should not) accept. I then propose that the best philosophical argument that defenders of conscientious objection in medicine can consistently deploy is one that appeals to (some form of) either moral relativism or subjectivism. I suggest that, unless either moral relativism or subjectivism is a valid theory—which is exactly what many defenders of conscientious objection (as well as many others) do not think—the role of moral integrity and conscientious objection in health care should be significantly downplayed and left out of the range of ethically relevant considerations. (shrink)

This paper seeks to discern the Kierkegaardian echoes present in the writings of the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard. While these thinkers share a number of commonalities such as their resistance to categorisation and their imaginative and complex writing styles, Lyotard’s engagement with Kierkegaard has been largely dismissed as inconsequential. However, a modest yet consistent device invoked by Lyotard is Kierkegaard’s paradox of faith from Fear and Trembling. While these references to Kierkegaard read as terse blips in Lyotard’s texts, this (...) paper argues that the Kierkegaardian echoes that can be heard in Lyotard’s writings are crucial for a deeper understanding of Lyotard’s ethical turn. Rather than being insignificant, Lyotard’s direct as well as second-hand engagement with Kierkegaard has profound effects on his philosophy of the differend. By exploring Lyotard’s enigmatic, yet brief appeals to the paradox of faith, this paper shows that Lyotard strikes a chord with Kierkegaard by using the paradox of faith as an intertextual reference to a critique of Hegelian mediation and for discussing the ethical dilemmas inherent to one of the most shocking and incomprehensible events of the twentieth century, Auschwitz. (shrink)

It appears to be a feature of our ordinary understanding of morality that we ought not to act in certain ways at all. We ought not to kill, torture, deceive, break our promises (say)—exceptional circumstances apart. Many moral duties are thought of in this way. Killing another person would be wrong even if it achieved a great good, and even if it led to preventing the deaths of several others. This feature of moral thinking is at the core of deontological (...) ethics. But while it is also part and parcel of ordinary moral thought, it seems puzzling, because it requires an agent to act (or to abstain from acting) in certain ways, even if by violating the duty she could achieve a better outcome in terms of the very restriction that she is required to heed. If the explanation of the duty not to kill were that it preserves human life it would be hard to understand why killing is not morally permitted when it leads to preserving a greater number of lives. Moreover, why should we not violate a restriction if doing so leads to fewer violations of that very restriction? There are two questions here. (1) Why not violate a restriction whose point it is to preserve lives, if doing so leads to preserving a greater number of lives? (2) Why not violate a restriction if doing so minimizes the violation of that very restriction? The latter question concerns what is sometimes called ‘the paradox of deontology’ or the problem of ‘minimizing violations’. The former may concern the so-called trolley cases, for instance. After all, a trolley hurtling towards a number of innocent people is not about to violate the moral restriction on killing innocent people, as it is not the kind of thing that can be subject to such a restriction. In this paper I am concerned only with (2): the paradox of deontology. To put it in Nozick’s terms: ‘How can a concern for the nonviolation of C [i.e. some deontological constraint] lead to refusal to violate C even when this would prevent other more extensive violations of C? -/- Samuel Scheffler, puzzled by the same idea, put it in terms of ‘agent-centred restrictions’ (ACR), because the restriction requires an agent (not) to act in certain ways, contrasting thereby with a requirement that certain actions not be done. The restriction is thus an agent-relative rather than an agent-neutral one. Scheffler ended up rejecting the idea of agent-centred restrictions, as even on close investigation the puzzle would not dissolve. Scheffler maintains that ACRs have ‘an air of paradox’ to them, as they violate what he calls maximizing rationality. ACRs appear to clash with the idea of maximizing rationality, because they require an agent to choose the option that worse achieves her goal of not harming people. I call this, following common parlance, the paradox of deontology, even though it is not strictly speaking a paradox. Exploring whether there is really a problem here, and how it might be solved, is the main objective of this paper. I begin by explaining the puzzlement about agent-centred restrictions in more detail. I then discuss promising as an example of a kind of action which is thought to be subject to agent-centred restrictions. It turns out that they are surprisingly easy to explain. The difficult case is killing—and that should put us on guard. I argue that the problem is not with the very idea of deontological restrictions, but with puzzling aspects of the ethics of killing. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that there is what has been called a non-hypocrisy norm on the appropriateness of moral blame; roughly, one has standing to blame only if one is not guilty of the very offence one seeks to criticize. Our acceptance of this norm is embodied in the common retort to criticism, “Who are you to blame me?”. But there is a paradox lurking behind this commonplace norm. If it is always inappropriate for x to blame y for (...) a wrong that x has committed, then all cases in which x blames x (i.e. cases of self-blame) are rendered inappropriate. But it seems to be ethical common-sense that we are often, sadly, in position (indeed, excellent, privileged position) to blame ourselves for our own moral failings. And thus we have a paradox: a conflict between the inappropriateness of hypocritical blame, and the appropriateness of self-blame. We consider several ways of resolving the paradox, and contend none is as defensible as a position that simply accepts it: we should never blame ourselves. In defending this startling position, we defend a crucial distinction between self-blame and guilt. (shrink)

Roman Catholic bioethics seems to be caught in a paradox. One the one hand it is committed to the natural law tradition and the power of reason to understand the structures of creation and the moral law. On the other hand there is a greater and greater appeal to Scripture and revelation. The tradition maintains that reason is capable of understanding the rational structures of reality and that ethics is properly built on metaphysics. In this way ethics, (...) bioethics, is non-sectarian. However, the tradition also recognizes the effects of Original Sin on the will and intellect and the broad cultural changes that have affected our understanding of metaphysics. The appeal to Revelation is a corrective to many contemporary trends in ethics and bioethics. This article will examine the interplay of reason and revelation in the Church's teaching on sexuality, (particularly contraception and in vitro fertilization), suffering, and death. Catholic bioethics is in the end prophetic and ecumenical and not gnostic and non-ecumenical. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide a constructive criticism of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) standards. After pointing out a number of benefits and limitations in the effectiveness of CSR standards, both from a theoretical point of view and in the light of empirical evidence, we formulate and discuss a Paradox of CSR standards: despite being well-intended, CSR standards can favor the emergence of a thoughtless, blind and blinkered mindset which is counterproductive of their aim of enhancing the (...) social responsibility of the organization. We analyze three problems that might underlie the Paradox—namely the problem of deceptive measurements; the problem of responsibility erosion and the problem of blinkered culture. We apply the philosophical tradition of American Pragmatism to reflect on these issues in relation to different types of existing standards, and conclude by suggesting a number of considerations that could help both CSR standards developers and users to address the Paradox. (shrink)

This article discusses the paradox of exclusion/inclusion: U.S. health policy prohibits Latinos who fall under certain classifications from accessing health services and insurance yet permits them to be human subjects in health research. We aim to advance the discussion of health research ethics post the Tuskegee syphilis experiment in Latinos by (a) tracing the impacts of policy exclusion and the social context of anti-Latino sentiment on Latinos' low participation rates in health research and inequitable access to treatment modalities; (...) (b) challenging researchers to address social sources of vulnerabilities; and (c) offering recommendations on adapting a social justice ethical stance to address these challenges, which are part of the Tuskegee Study legacy. (shrink)

Based on a reading of chapter 38 of the Daodejing, this article examines the relationship between the virtues and moral motivation. Laozi puts forward a view which might be termed a "paradox of virtue"--the phenomenon that a conscious pursuit of virtue can lead to a diminishing of virtue. It aims to show that Laozi's criticisms on the focus on the virtues and characters of agents, and his overall view on morality, pose challenges to a way of moral thinking that (...) is common in modern moral philosophy, including virtue ethics. (shrink)

Any religion has an ethical component. Thus, the examination of ethical problems is very important for religious studies. Consequentialism is an ethical doctrine according to which a fact is good only if it has good consequences. In order to avoid infinite regression, there is the need for a moral foundation in conformity with the criterion of goodness. The consequentialists proposed various criteria for goodness, such as pleasure, happiness or utility. Any fact will be judged as good only if its consequences (...) belong to the moral basis. The correctness of ethical judgments depends on the analysis of consequence relations. This study takes into account material and strict implication as representations of consequence. Both of them generate ethical paradoxes. If consequence is represented by material implication, according to the Manichean ethics, a fact is either good or bad; there are no neutral ethical facts. If consequence is analyzed by strict implication, the necessary facts will not have a moral value. The present study is to suggest an original solution to these paradoxes. (shrink)

Consider the following argument written on the board in room 227: 1 = 1. So, the argument on the board in room 227 is not valid. This argument generates a paradox. The aim of this paper is to present a resolution of this paradox and related paradoxes of validity, including a version of the Curry paradox. The proposal stresses the close connections between these validity paradoxes and paradoxes of truth and paradoxes of denotation. So a more general (...) aim is to provide a unified response to semantic paradox. The positive proposal is in part inspired by a brief, tantalizing suggestion of Gödel’s, that the paradoxes might appear “as something analogous to dividing by zero”—so that the concept of validity, for example, is everywhere applicable except for certain singular points or singularities. A second central claim is that ‘valid’ is a context-sensitive predicate. The key notions of this contextual-singularity theory are presented and applied to a variety of cases. Any purported solution to paradox must deal with the phenomenon of revenge, and a response to revenge is outlined. The paper closes with remarks about the accommodation of Tarski’s claim that natural languages are universal. (shrink)

As the title of this paper indicates, I’m going to discuss what we ought to do in situations where our actions affect future generations. More specifically, I shall focus on the moral problems raised by cases where our actions affect who’s going to live, their number and their well being. I’ll start, however, with population axiology. Most discussion in population ethics has concentrated on how to evaluate populations in regard to their goodness, that is, how to order populations by (...) the relations “is better than” and “is as good as”. This field has been riddled with “paradoxes” which purport to show that our considered beliefs are inconsistent in cases where the number of people and their welfare varies. Derek Parfit’s Mere Addition Paradox is a case in point. The main question of my paper concerns the implication of such axiological paradoxes for normative theories. Do the axiological paradoxes translate into paradoxes for normative theories or will they, as some believe, disappear if we switch to a normative framework? (shrink)

In his 1987 book _Conditionals, Frank Jackson presents an argument to the effect that the indicative conditionals of natural language have the same truth conditions as the material conditional of truth-functional logic. This Jackson refers to as the "paradox of indicative conditionals." I offer a solution to this paradox by arguing that some conditionals that appear to be in the indicative mood are actually subjunctives, to which the paradox does not apply. I support this proposed solution with (...) some historical observations on the evolution of the English verb phrase. (edited). (shrink)

There is considerable support for the idea that an atmosphere of safety can foster learning in groups, especially during ethics training courses. However, the question how safety dynamics works during ethics courses is still understudied. This article aims to investigate safety dynamics by examining a critical incident during a military ethics train-the trainer course during which safety was threatened. We examine this incident by means of a four-factor analysis model from the field of Theme-Centered Interaction (TCI). We (...) show that during ethics training courses a safety paradox can occur, involving a tension between honesty and openness to other perspectives and values. Finally, we discuss how trainers can foster safety during ethics training. (shrink)

Public health nursing is grounded in public health ideologies and fundamental nursing values. Researchers have argued that ethical responsibility from the perspective of the nurse is an understudied phenomenon. This meta-ethnography provides in-depth knowledge of how public health nurses (PHNs) experience ethical responsibility when working to prevent injury and disease, and promote health and well-being in children, young people and their families. There are reciprocal findings across the 10 included studies. The findings reveal that these nurses often feel alone, have (...) worries and uncertainties and are afraid of doing wrong. They describe unclear boundaries in their work, creating a heightened sense of responsibility. PHNs fight lonely battles. Yet they show courage and commitment and are ready to stand up and fight for children and families who do not receive adequate care. A line of argument is developed and the metaphorical phrase Chivalrous knights in moral armour is used to express the authors’ overall interpretations of the findings. Reflection on the findings shows how the different dimensions of ethical responsibility are interconnected. The nurses’ ethical sensitivity enables them to feel compassion for others and they show indignation when vulnerable others are not treated with dignity and respect. Indignation and compassion are interrelated, and when human life and dignity are threatened, the ethical demand to respond emerges. Indignation is a precursor to moral courage, and the nurses’ moral sensitivity and respect for their clients emboldens them to stand up for vulnerable others. The findings also illustrate the paradoxical nature of freedom. Freedom of choice due to unclear boundaries heightens the nurses' sense of responsibility. This research is an important step in theory development and has implications for further research, education and practice. (shrink)