I review a tentative list of the examples of ethical (or spiritual) exercises that have been proposed as Epictetan by contemporary commentators. Based on a minimal definition of the notion of ethical exercises, I suggest that some practices have been misidentified and propose some revisions to that repertoire.

Spaulding vs. Zimmerman is a lawsuit that raised the issue of the extent of how much information a negotiator can withhold from the other side and still remain within the bounds of ethical propriety. The author took the case and fashioned it into an exercise an organization can use as a vehicle for members to analyze their personal ethical choices under difficult, real world circumstances. The exercise is powerful and may be administered at any level of management training. (...) It is disguised as a negotiation, so the ethical issues are obscured by the parties’ negotiation goals and tactics. The debriefing will lead to productive discussions about personal ethics/values decisions. The exercise can be as simple or complex as the moderator chooses. The general fact sheet, the employee’s facts, and the employer’s facts are attached in the Appendix. The user is encouraged to copy them (or modify them) for their specific needs. (shrink)

This essay argues for a formative, and not simply abstract, aspect to the philosophy of religion by attending to the practices of writing employed in Søren Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous work Repetition . By locating this text within an ethical tradition that focuses upon the practices that form subjects, rather than simply the formulation of a theory, its seemingly literary performances can be viewed as exercises. In particular, this text deploys and transforms the Stoic practices of self writing, in the (...) form of keeping notebooks and letter writing, so as to cultivate capabilities. This indirect ethical instruction does not, however, lead to the formation of autonomous ethical subjects, but to the cultivation of capabilities that are only possible in the relational space of vulnerability, service and dependence. (shrink)

A content analysis of 253 Great Ideas for Teachers (GIFTs) found that most of the 18 activities suitable for ethics courses relied on traditional methods of teaching, mainly discussions, teamwork, and case studies. Few used online technology, games, or simulations, compared with activities in other areas of journalism education. While most ethics ideas were designed to stimulate higher order learning, they were less likely than other GIFTs to incorporate varied elements that might improve student engagement. The authors make suggestions, based (...) on the education literature and GIFT analysis, for incorporating dynamic, interactive activities in ethics courses. (shrink)

To be effective ethical business leaders, students need experience identifying ethical dilemmas. Textbooks provide models and guidelines to categorize ethical challenges, yet students need practice applying these tools in the real world. The exercise described in this study is designed to do just that by helping students learn to identify ethical challenges in marketing. Using the marketing mix as a framework, this scavenger hunt-like exercise provides significant learning experiences by emphasizing teamwork, out of classroom learning, and (...) meeting students where they are with technology. The exercise may be used at either an undergraduate or graduate level in business ethics classes. Learning themes tapped in this exercise can be realized in the on-site classroom or the virtual classroom. Further variations on these themes conclude the article. (shrink)

Through a witty and engaging style, this book is for anyone who has a job (employees, managers, and leaders), and who wants to do the right thing, but aren't always sure what that means, how to go about it, or how to withstand the forces that push all of us away from being ethical. By poking fun at the ironies and hypocrisies of human behavior, Exercising Your Ethics prompts readers to leverage techniques that can help us become more deliberate (...) about choosing value-driven actions. In a world that seems to reward winning, regardless of how it is achieved, we need a clearer reason for wanting to be and become our best selves. This approach to business ethics is innovative, fresh, and evocative in that the serious subject is treated in an informal and adventurous manner, poking fun at the ironies and hypocrisies of human behavior. Readers will see how our race to achieve quarterly profits, combined with a self-indulgent consumption-based economy, has shaped our entire lives. Readers will delight in the book's humor, as the ironies of human interaction prompt introspection to consider how to better equip oneself with the knowledge, tools, and techniques to engage in and support others in the path to moral action at work. Bringing Ethics to Work explains business ethics in a way that is engaging, understandable and enables the reader to recognise behaviors in themselves and others. It is ideal for adult education (students in undergraduate, Masters, or professional degree programs) and training within organizational settings (employees, management, and future leaders). HR professionals, team leaders, professional coaches, and organizational ethics trainers will find the book particularly insightful and useful. (shrink)

The book offers an accessible account of EDs and closely examines the concept of addiction, Drawing on a wide range of medical, psychological, physiological, sociological and philosophical sources, the book examines the benefits and risks of exercise for the ED population, explores the links between EDs and other abuses of the body in the sports environment and addresses the issue of athletes with disordered eating behaviour. Importantly, the book also surveys current legislation and professional codes of conduct that guide the (...) work of fitness professionals and clinicians in this area and I presents a clear and thorough set of case histories and action points to help professionals better understand, and care for, their clients with EDs. --. (shrink)

The research assessment exercise forms the basis for determining the funding of higher education institutions in the UK. Monies are distributed according to a range of performance criteria, the most important of which is “research outputs”. Problems to do with publication misconduct, and in particular, issues of justice in attributing authorship, are endemic within the research community. It is here argued that the research assessment exercise currently makes no explicit attempt to address these concerns, and indeed, by focusing attention on (...) research outputs, may actually be fostering such ethical problems. (shrink)

Exercise psychology encompasses the disciplines of psychiatry, clinical and counseling psychology, health promotion, and the movement sciences. This emerging field involves diverse mental health issues, theories, and general information related to physical activity and exercise. Numerous research investigations across the past 20 years have shown both physical and psychological benefits from physical activity and exercise. Exercise psychology offers many opportunities for growth while positively influencing the mental and physical health of individuals, communities, and society. However, the exercise psychology literature has (...) not addressed ethical issues or dilemmas faced by mental health professionals providing exercise psychology services. This initial discussion of ethical issues in exercise psychology is an important step in continuing to move the field forward. Specifically, this article will address the emergence of exercise psychology and current health behaviors and offer an overview of ethics and ethical issues, education/training and professional competency, cultural and ethnic diversity, multiple-role relationships and conflicts of interest, dependency issues, confidentiality and recording keeping, and advertisement and self-promotion. (shrink)

In this article, we describe an assignment undertaken by our third-year students at a University Business School in the United Arab Emirates. The assignment serves to introduce corporate social responsibility and ethics in the undergraduate curriculum and to raise student awareness of how corporate activity together with corporate social responsibility can impact a country’s social, political, and cultural landscapes. We outline the assignment, student response to it, and its contribution to student intellectual development in terms of ethical perspective, philanthropy (...) versus ethics, economic development, and cultural diversity. We discuss the implications of this learning experience for our students and their greater understanding of items within the United Arab Emirates government’s strategic directions, namely, creating a cohesive society and a sustainable environment. (shrink)

The guiding premise of this chapter is that we, as teachers in higher education, must consider how the content and form of our teaching can foster inclusivity through a responsiveness to neurodiverse learning styles. A narrow pedagogical focus on lectures, textual engagement, and essay-writing threatens to exclude neurodivergent students whose ways of learning and making sense of the world may not be best supported through these traditional forms of pedagogy. As we discuss in this chapter, we, as engineering ethics educators, (...) designed and implemented a new engineering ethics exercise with which we aimed to promote inclusivity at the levels of form and content. At the content level, students were invited to critically engage with inclusivity-undermining ableist assumptions in technology development. This took shape, at the formal level, through a hands-on ‘material tinkering’ workshop in which students collaboratively and creatively altered (or ‘hacked’) artifacts used in contexts of disability and healthcare, so as to operationalize values of inclusivity and accessibility. Our hunch was that this hands-on tinkering workshop would simultaneously encourage a meaningful way of engagement with these ethical issues and values, while also enacting a more inclusive learning environment by enriching the range of pedagogical activities and learning formats available to our students. As we aim to show in this chapter, we believe this hunch largely panned out - though there are clear areas for future improvement pertaining to the pilot exercise itself and the research we conducted on the exercise. We begin by offering a description of our tinkering exercise. We discuss the exercise’s source of inspiration (2.1) and its implementation (2.2), which is visually captured via photographic documentation. We then discuss (3) how we utilized a triangulated research method to assess the pedagogical value of the exercise. After we discuss our findings, we conclude by identifying areas for future improvement (4). (shrink)

This paper engages with two contrasting approaches to conceptualising and studying consumer behaviour that appear to dominate existing research on consumption. On one hand, agency-focused perspectives take an individual consumer to be the primary author of practice and a basic unit of analysis. On the other hand, socio-centric paradigms focus on the social roots of consumption activities and the wider societal contexts in which they take place. The need to provide a more balanced view of consumption phenomena has been acknowledged, (...) yet not adequately acted upon. This paper begins to fill this gap through relevant theoretical and empirical contributions. First, we provide a critical review of the dominant theoretical perspectives on consumption in general and ethical consumption in particular, highlight their key ontological assumptions and explain how they preclude a fuller understanding of the ways in which consumer practices are moulded and shaped. Taking a critical realist approach, we then present the findings from qualitative analysis of consumers' ethical food practices to empirically demonstrate the role of human agency and social structure in creating and shaping ethical consumption. Thus, by means of theoretical analysis and empirical research this paper responds to the call for a more comprehensive understanding of consumption and provides a consolidated account of consumer behaviour which acknowledges and explains the complex ensemble of individual and systemic powers in which consumer practices are contained. (shrink)

Despite the important role of physical activity in population health and well-being, it has received less focus in public health ethics as compared to other modifiable lifestyle factors such as smoking and diet. However, when considering the current and potential role of physical activity within public health—including interventions and policies to encourage physical activity in schools and workplaces, changes to the built environment and the equity issues associated with access to physical activity—it is a ripe territory for ethical analysis. (...) This paper makes a case for a more sustained focus on physical activity within public health ethics by reviewing two ethical issues within physical activity and public health: physical activity inequity as a structural injustice issue, and stigma in physical activity promotion. While the benefits of physical activity for every age group and demographic are numerous, ethics oversight is encouraged to ensure that these efforts do not impose unnecessary risks or stigmatize marginalized populations. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the present state of business ethics. The question has become more complex in an era of globalisation: cross‐border activities make it particularly difficult for companies to formulate effective ethical programmes which are true to core corporate values. The author presents his reflection in terms of a SWOT analysis, examining the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats likely to be experienced by business ethics in the new millennium. He concludes that the challenge for business ethics is to (...) work for global agreement on common values and common approaches to issues of integrity and trust in global business. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the present state of business ethics. The question has become more complex in an era of globalisation: cross‐border activities make it particularly difficult for companies to formulate effective ethical programmes which are true to core corporate values. The author presents his reflection in terms of a SWOT analysis, examining the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats likely to be experienced by business ethics in the new millennium. He concludes that the challenge for business ethics is to (...) work for global agreement on common values and common approaches to issues of integrity and trust in global business. (shrink)

Manuscript based on address delivered February, 1998 at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Practical and Professional Ethics, Dallas, Texas.

In his ethical treatises Aristotle offers a rich account of those conditions that render people’s behaviour involuntary, and defines voluntariness on the basis of the absence of these conditions. This dissertation has two aims. One is to offer an account of the significance of the notions of involuntariness and voluntariness for Aristotle’s ethical project that satisfactorily explains why he deems it necessary to discuss these notions in his Ethics. My own account of the significance of these notions for (...) Aristotle’s Ethics emerges from my arguments against the two most influential views concerning this significance: I argue that Aristotle’s concern with voluntariness in his Ethics is not shaped by a concern with accountability, i.e. with those conditions under which fully mature and healthy rational agents are held accountable or answerable for their actions; nor is it shaped by a concern with the conditioning of pain-responsive agents for the sake of socially useful ends that are not, intrinsically, their own. Rather, his concern is with reason-responsive agents and the conditions for attributing ethically significant behaviour to them. This is what I call ‘ethical ascription’. The second aim of this dissertation is to provide a comprehensive account of those conditions that defeat the ascription of ethically significant pieces of behaviour to reason-responsive agents, and to show the distinctiveness of Aristotle’s views on the nature of these conditions. The conclusions I arrive at in this respect are shaped by the notion of ethical ascription that I develop as a way of reaching the first aim. (shrink)

This study examines the effectiveness of teaching business ethics. It fills an important gap in the literature by utilizing students’ own personal reflections and reassessments involving an actual workplace ethical dilemma they have already faced. After submitting a personal ethical dilemma at the beginning of a business ethics course, students are later asked following the course whether they believe they would behave in a similar manner if they faced the same ethical dilemma again, and for what reasons. (...) The paper is organized as follows. Part one briefly summarizes the normative and descriptive research that has been conducted on the effectiveness of teaching business ethics. Part two outlines the qualitative research methodology used in the study followed by a discussion of the results and implications. The study finds that nearly one third of students would now act differently if they faced the same ethical dilemma again in the future. (shrink)

(2004). From an Exercise in Professional Etiquette to Society's Wish List? Review of American Medical Association, Code of Medical Ethics: Current Opinions with Annotations. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 69-70. doi: 10.1162/152651604323097907.

Sport and physical activity is an area that remains relatively unexplored by contemporary bioethics. It is, however, an area in which important ethical issues arise. This paper explores the case of the participation of people with anorexia nervosa in exercise. Exercise is one of the central features of anorexia. The presence of anorexics in exercise classes is becoming an increasingly sensitive issue for instructors and fitness professionals. The ethics of teaching exercise to anorexics has, however, seldom, if ever, been (...) addressed. Codes of ethics and legislation do not offer guidelines pertinent to the case and it is left unclear whether anorexics should be allowed to participate in exercise classes. It is shown by this paper that there are strong ethical reasons to let anorexics participate in exercise classes. However, the paper also explains why, despite these apparently cogent ethical reasons, there is no moral obligation to allow a person with anorexia to take part in exercise/sports activities. (shrink)

There has been an increase in recent years in the use of empirical methods in healthcare ethics. Appeals to empirical data cannot answer moral questions, but insights into the knowledge, attitudes, experience, preferences and practice of interested parties can play an important part in the development of healthcare ethics. In particular, while we may establish a general ethical principle to provide explanatory and normative guidance for healthcare professionals, the interpretation and application of such general principles to actual practice still (...) requires interpretation and judgement. And many situations in healthcare practice are complex and may involve a variety of principles, each of which may conflict with the others. Simple surveys or interview studies may not be sufficient if we wish to develop a nuanced approach to ethical practice that can be set out in guidelines, codes or directives. We do not resolve moral questions by plebiscite. In this paper, the authors argue for the use of consensus methods to develop shared understanding of ethical practice, and they argue further for the combination of the Delphi method with the use of vignettes to illustrate the kind of situations that may occur in practice. They develop their argument in part by reference to their experience of using this approach in their recent research. (shrink)

The seventh edition of this pragmatic guide to determining right and wrong in the workplace is updated with new case studies and ancillary materials to combine stakeholder perspectives with a deep dive on workplace ethics issues. Using a unique stakeholder-based approach, this book takes business ethics out of the theory realm and provides practical ways to analyze any business decision. Including dozens of cases, Joseph Weiss looks beyond the impacts of ethical lapses on share price and profit to focus (...) on relationships between stakeholders, including individuals, groups, corporations, and governments. The new seventh edition includes seven new cases and ten new Point/Counterpoint exercises, which challenge students to argue both sides of a contemporary issue. It incorporates the latest research as well as updated cases dealing with recent scandals at organizations such as Boeing, Facebook, and Uber. Professors will have access to online support, including teaching notes, PowerPoint slides, and sample tests. The book is equipped with a step-by-step guide to implementing stakeholder analysis, tips to help students apply ethical principles in their personal and professional lives, and comprehensive coverage of employee workplace issues. Addressing relevant topics such as risk management, preferential hiring, and sexual harassment in conjunction with the digital divide, bribery, the environment, and more, Business Ethics, seventh edition explores ethical implications in today's increasingly interconnected global business environment. (shrink)

There are no moral cookbooks—no algorithms for whipping up moral confections to suit every occasion. But more modest and flexible tools might still be useful for practical ethics. One team describes how professionals can be taught to use a framework for understanding moral problems.

We examine the Spiritual Exercises developed by St. Ignatius Loyola for the purpose of informing the structure of reflection as a tool in business ethics. At present, reflection in business is used to clarify moods, expectations, theories of use, and defining moments. We suggest here that Ignatius' Exercises, which focus on ends, engage the emotions and imagination, use role modeling, and require a response, might be useful as a model for reflection in business.

Prior to any research data collection a proposal outlining methods and protocols is required to undergo ethical scrutiny. The issues surrounding a research ethics review process within sport and exercise science departments are not dissimilar to other subject areas. In particular, the ethical review process may be unclear to the researcher and can either present a difficult and time-consuming challenge or be merely perceived as a tick-box exercise. The aim of this study was to explore and compare research (...) ethics processes and decisions within sport and exercise science departments and institutions across the UK. Participants were asked to provide decisions and justification of those decisions on ten typical sports and exercise science proposals. Results found that all respondents cited evidence of informed consent and subject information sheets, detailed methodology and data protection procedures as highly important across all scenarios. Additionally it was found that similar processes occur regarding research ethical scrutiny and similar decisions are made at the departmental level. However, confidence fluctuates for individuals when reviewing in non-specialist subject areas and qualitative data collected calls for more research ethics training. (shrink)

The paper describes two practical exercises (and their learning outcomes) requiring students to consider certain concrete decisions made by managers in business and professional life. The first exercise requires students to consider that competitive economic exchange inevitably puts managers in situations where they cannot accurately predict the outcomes of their decisions, and often results in harm to innocent people. In this practical exercise, seven discussion situations are described and students are asked to make decisions that take into account the (...) individuals affected by these managerial decisions. Students are asked to consider various ethical theories and devise creative solutions so as to avoid unnecessary harm. The second exercise places students in roles that represent shareholders and stakeholders and asks them to consider the relocation of a manufacturing company to their community. (shrink)

This paper presents an experiential exercise introducing the concept of the personal ethical threshold (PET) to help explain why moral behavior does not always follow moral intention. An individual’s PET represents the individual’s vulnerability to situational factors, i.e., how little or much it takes for members of organizations to cross their proverbial line to act in a way they deem unethical. The PET reflects the interplay among the situation, the particular ethical issue, and the individual. Exploring the PET (...) can help account for why some people are sometimes able to withstand substantial organizational pressures to behave in congruence with their ethical intentions, whereas others crumble in the face of apparently minimal situational forces. We hope that students’ exposure to and subsequent reflection upon their PET, by means of the exercise we present, will foster the development of their moral courage. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics 1.8, Aristotle seems to argue that certain external goods are needed for happiness because, in the first place, they are needed for virtuous activity. This has puzzled scholars. After all, it seems possible for a virtuous agent to exercise her virtuous character even under conditions of extreme hardship or deprivation. Indeed, it is natural to think these are precisely the conditions under which one's virtue shines through most clearly. Why then does Aristotle think that a wide range (...) of external goods is required for virtuous activity, and therefore, for happiness? -/- I argue that there is good sense to be made of Aristotle's stance on external goods. Specifically, I explain how, on this view, a range of external goods is required for the full exercise of virtue, and I show that it is only this full exercise that is constitutive of eudaimonia. Drawing on passages in Politics 7.13 and Nicomachean Ethics 3.1, I develop and defend a distinction between the "mere" exercise of virtue, and the full or complete exercise of virtue. I argue that, for Aristotle, the distinguishing feature of this distinction is the value of the virtuous action's ends. An action that fully expresses virtue aims at an end that is unqualifiedly good, while an action that merely exercises virtue does not. I argue that the external goods Aristotle mentions in NE 1.8 are necessary for performing actions with unqualifiedly good ends, and so necessary for the complete exercise of virtue. In addition to providing a more satisfactory account than existing proposals of the role of external goods in Aristotelian happiness, my interpretation has two additional upshots. First, it brings to light an under-appreciated and independently compelling feature of Aristotle's ethical thought: the value of virtuous actions depends in part on the value of the ends they aim to realize. Second, it finds in Aristotle a distinct and powerful way of thinking about the badness of certain kinds of misfortune and deprivation: they are bad in part because they prevent us from fully realizing our capacity for moral agency, from fully engaging with value in the world. (shrink)

Despite revisions to curriculum in ethics education in business schools, there continues to be high profile examples of unethical decision making regularly spotlighted in the media. Rather than simply teaching about behaviors and how they might impact decision makers and stakeholders, we describe a suite of activities used to highlight various behaviors and biases that impact the decisions individuals might make. These activities are intertwined with course materials regarding ethics and corporate governance to remind and help students better understand how (...) decision making can be influenced and challenged by personal ethics. We provide lesson planning suggestions including adapting to remote delivery, and student handouts. This suite of activities can be incorporated into any undergraduate or graduate level course that has content dealing with ethical decision making. (shrink)

This paper investigates qualitatively the significance of different dimensions of ethical organisation culture for the exercise of middle managers’ moral agency in ethical problems. The research draws on the social cognitive theory of morality and on the corporate ethical virtues model. This study broadens understanding of the factors which enable or constrain managers’ potential for moral agency in organisations, and shows that an insufficient ethical organisational culture may contribute to indifference towards ethical issues, the experiencing (...) of moral conflicts, lack of self-efficacy and morally disengaged reasoning. In contrast, a healthy ethical culture can contribute to motivation to tackle ethical problems, an increased capacity for self-regulation and ultimately ethical behaviour. (shrink)

Mindfulness exercises are presented as being compatible with almost any spiritual, religious or philosophical beliefs. In this paper, we argue that they in fact involve imagining and conceptualising rather striking and controversial claims about the self, and the self’s relationship to thoughts and feelings. For this reason, practising mindfulness exercises is likely to be in tension with many people’s core beliefs and values, a tension that should be treated as a downside of therapeutic interventions involving mindfulness exercises, (...) not unlike a side effect. Clients ought to be informed of these metaphysical aspects of the exercises, and mental health providers ought to take them into account in assessing which course of treatment to recommend. Given these concerns, the casual way in which mindfulness exercises are presently distributed by mental health providers to the general public is inappropriate. (shrink)

Taking a refreshingly hands-on approach to introductory ethics, A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox provides students with a set of tools to help them understand and make a constructive difference in real-life moral controversies. Thoroughly optimistic, it invites students to approach ethical issues with a reconstructive intent, making room for more and better options than the traditional "pro" and "con" positions that have grown up around tough problems like abortion and animal rights. Ideal for introductory and applied ethics courses, (...) this unique text does not treat ethics as a purely academic, historical, or theoretical subject, but as a wide-ranging and ongoing set of challenges that calls for multiple and interwoven kinds of intelligence. It covers the skills that are most vital to making real progress in ethics, including paying careful attention to the values at stake on all sides of an issue; looking for creative opportunities within difficult problems; critical-thinking skills such as defining key terms and making sure to judge similar cases alike; and learning how to engage in constructive dialogue. Instructors can readily use the experiential and applied activities inspired by this "toolbox" of practical skills to design an interactive and collaborative ethics course. Students can carry these essential skills directly from this book into such projects as campaigning for environmental awareness and staffing local homeless shelters. In addition to his own discussion, Weston includes gripping and provocative short selections from essayists, activists, and philosophers, and also cites his own students. Extensive "Exercises and Notes" sections end each chapter, and a detailed appendix offers instructors advice on how to use the Toolbox in the classroom. (shrink)

An abundance of data unequivocally shows that exercise can be an effective tool in the fight against obesity and its associated co-morbidities. Indeed, physical activity can be more effective than widely-used pharmaceutical interventions. Whilst metformin reduces the incidence of diabetes by 31% (as compared with a placebo) in both men and women across different racial and ethnic groups, lifestyle intervention (including exercise) reduces the incidence by 58%. In this context, it is notable that a group of prominent medics and exercise (...) scientists recently sent a well-publicised letter to the General Medical Council and Medical Schools Council calling for the introduction of evidence-based lifestyle education into all medical curricula. The letter warns that there is a lack of understanding of the impact that exercise and nutrition can have on physical health amongst doctors. In the absence of an educational overhaul, the signatories warn that the government is likely to fail to reach its goal of preventing tens of thousands of premature deaths from heart disease and cancer by 2020. Whilst we agree with the need to address this apparent lack of understanding, we argue that the ethical justification of doing so is not limited to this broadly beneficence-based justification. There is also a justification grounded in the duty of non-maleficence, that is, the duty to avoid unreasonably harming patients. This duty requires that doctors refrain from (i) preventing patients from undergoing beneficial treatment without good reason, (ii) exposing patients to unreasonable risks and (iii) reducing the therapeutic effect of an effective medical intervention. This requires an understanding of the physical impact of exercise. (shrink)

As practicing clinicians, physicians are expected to uphold the ethical norms of their profession, including fidelity to patients and respect for patients’ self-determination. At the same time, as individuals, physicians are moral agents in their own right and, like their patients, are informed by and committed to diverse cultural, religious, and philosophical traditions and beliefs. In some circumstances, the expectation that physicians will put patients’ needs and preferences first may be in tension with the need to sustain the sense (...) of moral integrity and continuity that grounds a physician’s personal and professional life. This article examines the implications for patients, physicians, and the medical profession when tensions arise between a physician’s professional commitments and his or her deeply held personal moral beliefs. It offers guidance on when a physician’s professional commitments should outweigh personal beliefs as well as when physicians should have freedom to act according to the dictates of conscience while still protecting patients’ interests. (shrink)

The World Medical Association (WMA), the global representation of the medical profession, first adopted the International Code of Medical Ethics (ICoME) in 1949 to outline the professional duties of physicians to patients, other physicians and health professionals, themselves and society as a whole. The ICoME recently underwent a major 4-year revision process, culminating in its unanimous adoption by the WMA General Assembly in October 2022 in Berlin. This article describes and discusses the ICoME, its revision process, the controversial and uncontroversial (...) issues, and the broad consensus achieved among WMA constituent members, representing over 10 million physicians worldwide. The authors analyse the ICoME, including its response to contemporary changes and challenges like ethical plurality and globalisation, in light of ethical theories and approaches, reaching the conclusion that the document is a good example of international ethical professional self-regulation. (shrink)

Ethics education in higher education often uses a model that allows students to apply ethical theories to a hypothetical dilemma in order to make a decision. However, it is rare that students directly experience the effects of unethical decision making by others. This paper presents an in-class exercise that provides a concrete experience. The exercise gives students the experience of being the victim of unethical behavior, and subsequently allows them to apply basic ethicaltheories to a real life situation. It (...) is suitable for courses in legal environment of business, ethics, and organizational behavior, at the undergraduate or graduate level. When used in a business ethics class, more emphasis can be placed on developing various ethical constructs. A narrative for how this exercise was used in an undergraduate Legal Environment of Business class is provided, along with a list of other experiential exercises that are available to teach ethics. (shrink)

Concerns over the carbon footprint resulting from the manufacturing, usage and disposal of hardware have been growing. The right-to-repair legislation was introduced to promote sustainable utilisation of hardware by encouraging stakeholders to prolong the lifetime of products, such as electronic devices. As there is little empirical evidence from a consumer perspective on exercising the right to repair, this study aims firstly to examine the factors that underpin consumers’ intention to repair their hardware and secondly to investigate the perceived outcomes of (...) repair practices. Based on 510 responses, the results showed that intention to repair is dependent on three groups of factors, namely the facilitators of pro-environmental behaviour, repair-related factors and beliefs about legislation. If consumers have a stronger intention to repair, they have a stronger feeling of emotional self-assurance, satisfaction with the repair decision and the technology manufacturer, an intention to engage with the manufacturer and a positive perception of a repaired device’s performance. The findings contribute to the literature on sustainable behaviour and the right to repair, offering insight for policymakers and manufacturers about the strategies facilitating the wider adoption of repair practices. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss how a Working group on ethics dealt with the question whether the collapse of the Icelandic banks and related financial setbacks can to some extent be explained by morality and work practice. I describe how the Working group delineated its subject matter by evaluating practice in the financial sector, the administration, the political sector and the social or cultural sector. I demonstrate the approach used by the Working group by discussing some important examples which throw (...) light on some aspects of its manifold analyses. The examples show how different aspects of morality are of importance in an analysis of the events that took place. (shrink)

While Buddhism focuses on the same ethical concerns as Western ethical traditions, it provides a distinct perspective and method for dealing with them. This paper outlines the basic Buddhist perspective and then provides some experiential exercises which offer insight for self-understanding and ethical practices in business. Implications for business and ethics research are provided.

New physiological and pharmacological research points to the possibility of a pill that produces the complete physiological effects of exercise. Is replacement of exercise with a pill a good idea? And if so, under what circumstances? To explore answers, I have examined three approaches to the understanding exercise. From a dualist point of view, exercise is explained mechanistically in terms of physiological cause and effect relationships. From this perspective, and in particular for reluctant exercisers, there seems to be no strong (...) argument against the use of a pill. From a phenomenological point of view, exercise is understood from a first person perspective focusing on experiential qualities. It is argued that a pill can never replace the embodied, experiential values of exercising and their potential ethical significance. In other words, the use of a pill is rejected. From a critical social constructivist point of view, exercise is understood as an expression of sociocultural values. Exercise can be a source of both bodily alienation and embodied self-realization and meaning. It is argued that in settings of alienating exercise malpractice, an exercise pill can be a temporary lesser evil approach. It is pointed out, however, that the long-term solution to malpractice is not a pill but a change of practice. In a final section, the possibility of the exercise pill is contextualized in the larger, bio-ethical debate on human enhancement. (shrink)