Exploration of the fundamental motivations for attributing moral responsibility to various kinds of collectives serves as the basis for understanding the meaning of such attributions. Such attributions have a mid-range, limited justification. The analysis has broad implications for a wide variety of writings on aspects of collective moral responsibility, revealing serious deficiencies of any theory of corporate moral personhood.

Peter French has argued that conglomerate collectivities such as business corporations are moral persons and that aggregate collectivities such as lynch mobs are not. Two arguments are advanced to show that French's claim is flawed. First, the distinction between aggregates and conglomerates is, at best, a distinction of degree, not kind. Moreover, some aggregates show evidence of moral personhood. Second, French's criterion for distinguishing aggregates and conglomerates is based on inadequate grounds. Application of the criterion to specific cases requires an (...) additional judgment of a pragmatic nature which undermines any attempt to demonstrate French's thesis that actual conglomerates are moral persons and aggregates are not. Thus, French's theory is seriously lacking both empirical basis and empirical relevance. (shrink)

Neither employer expectations of loyalty, nor good treatment of employees by employers, nor employee appreciation of employers, nor the duty of nonmaleficence, nor the intention to be loyal, nor the duty not to act disloyally provide a basis for a moral or ethical duty of employee loyalty. However, in addition to the law, a pledge to be loyal can obligate one to be loyal. But if the specific content of such a pledge is unstated, the conduct required by the pledge (...) may be indefinite. Moreover, the content and implications of loyalty are fluid, varying from context to context. Consequently, there is only a limited basis for the thesis that employees owe loyalty to their employers. (shrink)

The Argument from Uncertainty in the abortion debate is the argument that because the moral status of the fetus is uncertain, abortion policies should afford it maximum protection in order to avoid doing very great evil. Three versions of the argument are developed, and each is based upon an unfounded assumption of a burden of proof in the abortion debate. Each is found to make an unwarranted assumption, or to beg the question, and each fails to provide reasonable support for (...) its conclusion. (shrink)

There can be little sense to claims that living men are responsible for the oppression of women in the past, or that men who have not oppressed women still bear responsibility for such oppression.

Often viewed as the deep common core of all religions, spirituality has been addressed in a direct philosophical manner only occasionally. After noting some recent philosophical literature, a questionnaire for evaluating a person’s spirituality is described, and a general theory of spirituality is advanced. Spirituality is, generally, the yearning for, quest for, experience of or belief in a great reality that is largely beyond ordinary experience and that inspires one’s interior, private life and one’s behavior and ultimate values. This idea (...) illuminates the main questions of the philosophy of religion, and also questions of the consistency of thought and action, essentialism, naturalism, religious liberalism, and the reproductive fallacy. (shrink)

This little textbook of 146 pages clarifies the basic concepts of ethics, introduces basic ethical principles, explains a strategy for ethical decision-making in difficult cases, and offers forty-five case descriptions for students to apply the RESOLVEDD strategy.

ETHICS ON THE JOB guides the reader through a step-by-step analysis to help them make good decisions in the face of ethical conflict. With the RESOLVEDD strategy, the authors have devised a powerful system for ethical decision-making in the workplace, which they teach students to implement through timely case studies and detailed analyses. Students develop a working grasp of important philosophical principles and their application in ethical conflicts, and learn to apply the RESOLVEDD strategy to ethical issues in their own (...) lives. A classic text in ethical decision-making, ETHICS ON THE JOB is widely used in business ethics classes and corporate training programs across the country. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

This is a book for practical, ethical decision-makers. The first half of the book presents a strategy for making ethical decisions in the presence of a conflict of values. The main theories of ethics are presented, along with strategies for applying and evaluating their import. Two cases are described and analyzed in full, following the RESOLVEDD strategy. The second half presents detailed descriptions of 45 ethical conflicts that are found in contemporary workplaces, and that can be addressed using the RESOLVEDD (...) strategy. (shrink)