Naturalized moral epistemology eschews practices of assuming to know a priori the nature of situations and experiences that require moral deliberation. Thus it promises to close a gap between formal ethical theories and circumstances where people need guidelines for action. Yet according experience so central a place in inquiry risks "naturalizing" it, treating it as incontestable, separating its moral and political dimensions. This essay discusses these issues with reference to Margaret Walker's Moral understandings.

This paper begins to develop a conception of ecological subjectivity and hence of social-political practice that can promote social justice across diverse populations and situations. It urges a provocative posing of the question “who do we think we are?” to direct attention to often unspoken assumptions about subjectivity and agency that tend silently to inform current philosophical inquiry. Drawing attention to the often-unconscious processes of “we-saying.” it aims to highlight and to prompt contestation of the silent assumptions that tend (...) to inform that “we.” In so doing, it appeals to humility as an epistemic and moral virtue. (shrink)

This essay extends my engagements with questions of epistemic agency and the politics of epistemic location, in Epistemic Responsibility and in Ecological Thinking to consider how questions of understanding and of certainty play diversely into human and other ecological circumstances. In so doing, it opens lines of inquiry not immediately available in standard western-northern approaches to epistemology with their concentration on medium-sized physical objects in their presupposed neutrality and replicability. Working from a tacit assumption that knowing and knowers are (...) always situated, and that they are enabled or restricted in so being, the book engages with specific epistemic situations in order to show how “situatedness” indeed makes knowledge possible, while regarding it as an enabling rather than a constraining modality. (shrink)

Relational agency is pivotal for understanding how language teachers seek and utilize relational resources in different contexts and grow to be agents of change amid various educational challenges. This study explored how three university teachers of Chinese as a second language enacted their relational agency to enhance their research capacity and sustain their professional development. Data on their personal network development was collected through concentric circle interviews, life-history interviews and written reflections over three months. Thematic analysis was adopted (...) for iterative coding and interpretation of the data. The findings revealed that teachers’ personal networks provided them with value guidance, emotional support and academic support, which exerted differential levels of impact on them to make agentic choices and actions. The study suggests that personal network analysis may serve as a suitable theoretical lens to achieve a multi-layered understanding of relational agency. The study also calls for more efforts to create learning opportunities and spaces in the relational context for teachers to build their career as agentic academics in language teacher education and development programs. (shrink)

This article reports the findings from a study that investigates the relationship between ethical climates and police whistle-blowing on five forms of misconduct in the State of Georgia. The results indicate that a friendship or team climate generally explains willingness to blow the whistle, but not the actual frequency of blowing the whistle. Instead, supervisory status, a control variable investigated in previous studies, is the most consistent predictor of both willingness to blow the whistle and frequency of blowing the whistle. (...) Contrary to popular belief, the results also generally indicate that police are more inclined than civilian employees to blow the whistle in Georgia - in other words, they are less inclined to maintain a code of silence. (shrink)

This paper is about the phenomenon of encoding, more specifically about the encoded extension of agency. The question of code most often emerges from contemporary concerns about the way digital encoding is seen to be transforming our lives in fundamental ways, yet seems to operate ‘under the surface’ as it were. In this essay I suggest that the performative outcomes of digital encoding are best understood within a more general horizon of the phenomenon of encoding – that is (...) to say as norm- or rule-governed material enactments accepted (or taken for granted) as the necessary conditions for becoming. Encoded material enactments translate/extend agency, but never exactly. I argue that such encoded extensions are insecure, come at a cost and are performative. To illustrate this I present a brief discussion of some specific historical transitions in the encoding of human agency: from speech to writing, to mechanical writing, and finally to electronic writing. In each of these translations I aim to show that agency is translated/extended in ways that have many unexpected performative outcomes. Specifically, through a discussion of the digital encoding of writing, as reuse, I want to suggest the proposition that all agency is always borrowed (or ‘plagiarized’) – i.e. it is never originally human. As encoded beings we are never authors, we are rather more or less skilful reusers. To extend agency we have to submit to the demands of encoding and kidnap that encoding simultaneously – enabling constraints in Butler’s language. Our originality, if there is any, is in our skill at kidnapping the code and turning it into an extension of our agency, that is to say, our skill at resignification – to be original we need to be skilful ‘parasites’, as suggested by Serres. (shrink)

The paper introduces mathematical encoding for subjective experience and meaning in natural cognition. The code is based on a quantum-theoretic qubit structure supplementing classical bit with circular dimension, functioning as a process-causal template for representation of contexts relative to the basis decision. The qubit state space is demarcated in categories of emotional experience of animals and humans. Features of the resulting spherical map align with major theoreties in cognitive and emotion science, modeling of natural language, and semiotics, suggesting several (...) generalizations and improvements. The developed model bridges psychological, quantum-theoretic, and semiotic perspectives, allowing for an integrative account of subjectivity, agency, and meaning in living Nature.Graphical abstract. (shrink)

This study examines the social impacts of labor-related corporate social responsibility policies or corporate codes of conduct on upholding labor standards through a case study of CSR discourses and codes implementation of Reebok - a leading branded company enjoying a high-profiled image for its human rights achievement - in a large Taiwanese-invested athletic footwear factory located in South China. I find although implementation of Reebok labor-related codes has resulted in a "race to ethical and legal minimum" labor standards when notoriously (...) inhumane and seriously illegal labor rights abuses were curbed, Chinese workers were forced to work harder and faster but, earned less payment and the employee-elected trade union installed through codes implementation operated more like a "company union" rather than an autonomous workers' organization representing worker' interests. In order to explain the paradoxical effects of Reebok labor-related codes on labor standards, I argue the result is determined by both structural forces and agency-related factors embedded in industrial, national and local contexts. To put it shortly, I find the effectiveness of Reebok labor-related codes is constrained not only by unsolved tension between Reebok's impetus for profit maximization and commitment to workers' human rights, but also by hard-nosed competition realities at marketplace, and Chinese government's insufficient protection of labor rights. Despite drawing merely from a single case study, these findings illuminate key determinants inhibiting the effectiveness of labor-related CSR policies or codes in upholding labor standards, and hence two possible way-outs of the deadlock: sharing cost for improving labor standards among key players in global supply chain; and combining regulatory power of voluntary codes and compulsory state legislations. (shrink)

This article examines the connections between employment agencies, ethics and migrant workers. The article identifies three approaches adopted by agencies towards ethics and migrant workers, namely, ‘business case’, ‘minimal compliance’ and ‘social justice’ approaches. Through case studies of three agencies in the UK, the article explores the potential and limitations of each of these approaches for meeting the needs of migrant workers. The article points to the limitations of both the business case and ‘minimal compliance’ approaches, stemming from tensions between (...) the attempt to put in place ethical approaches towards the employment of migrant workers and the imperatives of the competitive strategies being pursued by agencies. The article points to the potential for social enterprise agencies to effectively meet the needs of migrants. These agencies can focus on more than just the first transition of migrants into the labour market; can formalize transitions within the labour market and link people to jobs that are more appropriate to their skills and experience, as a means of preventing the perpetuation of skill underutilisation. (shrink)

In a national survey, members of 4As agencies were contrasted with non-member agencies to determine awareness and influence of the 4As Standards of Practice, the Professional Code of Ethics for 4As members. The 4As Code was selected because the 4As represents the principle professional association of the support service industry, advertising.

The phenomenology of agency and perception is probably underpinned by a common cognitive system based on generative models and predictive coding. I defend the hypothesis that this cognitive system explains core aspects of the sense of having a self in agency and perception. In particular, this cognitive model explains the phenomenological notion of a minimal self as well as a notion of the narrative self. The proposal is related to some influential studies of overall brain function, and to (...) psychopathology. These elusive notions of the self are shown to be the natural upshots of general cognitive mechanisms whose fundamental purpose is to enable agents to represent the world and act in it. (shrink)

Live coding is an embodied, sensorial and live technological–human relationship that is recursively iterated through sonic and visual outputs based on what we argue are kinship relations between and through bodies and technology. At the same time, and in a familiar moment of déjà vu for feminist scholars, live coding is most often discussed not in relation to the lived and sensory human–technology kinship, but in terms of fetishised code or software, output and agency. As feminist scholars have (...) long argued, emphasising and fetishising code or software, and celebrating output and agency are normatively masculine, white and Western conceptions of technology that feed into the growing valorisation of accelerationist logic whilst also negating embodied, not to mention other (non-white, Western, masculine) bodies, expertise or histories per se. In this article, we want to redress this by drawing on our empirical material on live coding to focus on human–technology kinship and, in so doing, think about failure, slowness and embodiment and about human–technology relations that are more akin to what Alison Kafer (drawing on the work of Donna Haraway) has termed ‘becoming with’ or ‘making kin’. This, we argue, has the potential to shift the focus from the potentialities of technologies on or through the body, towards the generative capacities of mediation (including failure), which are caught up in lived experiences. The question is not only about how the relations of bodies and technologies are played out in certain circumstances but about what might be played out if we reconceptualise these relations in these terms. (shrink)

This book analyzes the implementation of CSR reporting and codes of business conduct and ethics in the legal systems of the USA, Austria and China and their enforcement in international supply chain arbitrations. The book demonstrates that long-term profit maximization is increasingly intertwined with corporate ethics and CSR policies. In order to prevent window-dressing and greenwashing, certain control mechanisms and legal standards are required along the entire supply chain. This book introduces an ethics and CSR system recommending a reward-based whistleblowing (...) mechanism, internal oversight by a CSR and Ethics Committee comprised of independent board members and at least one sustainability expert, and an external, independent and comprehensive assurance of CSR reports provided by auditing firms or newly formed governmental agencies consisting of certified CSR experts. The author emphasizes the significance for supply chain leaders to ensure contractual enforcement of their codes of business ethics and conduct along the supply chain. Against this background, the author created a comprehensive fictitious case scenario covering a supply chain dispute arising from the breach of the supply chain leader’s code of business conduct and ethics by a lower-tier supply chain member. The author acknowledges the fact that in most of the cases the governing law of international supply chain contracts is English law or law based on English law. Thus, the author discusses potential contractual claims for damages arising from a loss of profits caused by a loss of reputation resulting from violations of core provisions of the chain leader’s supplier code of conduct pursuant to English law. As international supply chain disputes usually involve more than two parties, and international arbitration is the ideal means for the resolution of these disputes, the book compares the arbitration rules for consolidations and joinders of some of the most significant international arbitration institutions: SIAC, ICC, AIAC, ICDR, VIAC, CIETAC and HKIAC. The book is directed at legal practitioners, legislators of various jurisdictions, board members of corporations, ethics and compliance officers, academics, researchers and students. It is the author’s main goal that the book serves as an inspirational source for the establishment or the improvement of a corporate ethics and CSR system preventing window-dressing and greenwashing and covering the entire supply chain. Furthermore, it is intended that students develop a deeper understanding for the enforcement of corporate ethics and CSR policies. (shrink)

We reflect on the nature of corporate codes of conduct is this article. Based on John Austin’s speech act theory, four characteristics of a performative concept of corporate codes will be introduced: 1) the existential self-performative of the firm identity, 2) which is demanded by and responsive to their stakeholders; 3) Because corporate codes are structurally threatened by the possibility of failure, 4) embracing the code not only consists in actual corporate responsible behaviour in light of the code, (...) but in the incessant recapturing of the code in the struggle of firms against the possible incongruence between their ethical principles and their actual responsible behaviour. A performative concept of corporate codes helps to bridge classical dichotomies like individualist versus collectivist approaches of moral agency and restrictive versus empowering ethics, and opens a new perspective on the interaction between individual ethical behaviour and the corporate institutionalisation of codes. (shrink)

Teaching research activities in China are practical and reflective research of teachers on teaching. These required activities are meant to ensure quality education and facilitate the professional development of teachers. However, in TRA, teachers encounter many challenges such as low efficiency and weak team collaboration. These problems make it hard to achieve the expected outcomes. W Primary School reformed its activities using Change Laboratory, a formative intervention approach to workplace learning and development based on activity theory. The data collected included (...) seven recorded meetings in the Change Laboratory. The conversations in the meetings were then transcribed into texts. A deductive method of content analysis was used to code the data, focusing on categorizing comments of teachers about the transformative agency. The findings showed the following: There were five types of transformative agencies, namely, resisting, criticizing, explicating, envisioning, and committing to actions. Resisting and criticizing were represented less frequently, and taking action did not emerge as a type of transformative agency. The comments about transformative agency about tools were more frequent than comments about other elements in the activity system. There were some differences in the expression of transformative agency across participants. At the end of this study, the implications for the development of TRA are discussed. (shrink)

Abstract: The following is an outline of an emerging foundation for science that begins to explain living forms and their patterns of movement beyond the sphere of mechanistic interactions. Employing an event ontology based on a convergence of quantum physics and Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy, coupled with the controversial yet promising theory of formative causation, this development will explore possible influences on the outcomes of events beyond any combination of external forces, laws of Nature, and chance. If it turns (...) out there are no such additional influences--beyond mechanistic causes--it is difficult to see how agency or free will could exist. Assuming agency exists, as Whitehead apparently does, while committing to an event ontology in which process is fundamental leads to interesting questions about the natures of any entities that might participate in events. Furthermore, what might the purposes and agendas of such entities be based upon, beyond memory traces or DNA code? This ontological model, recognizing processes as fundamental, leads to a revised cosmology where the trajectory of a series of events may be due to more than rearrangement of material bits according to external forces and where goal-directed, recurring processes and the emergence of mind are not so surprising. Just as special relativity reduces to classical treatment when speeds slow down, this scientific model for a living world reduces to mechanistic materialism whenever conditions are more limited. Though this development is based on a philosophy of process, there are some dissimilarities with respect to Whitehead’s particular version. (shrink)

A large part of the explainable AI literature focuses on what explanations are in general, what algorithmic explainability is more specifically, and how to code these principles of explainability into AI systems. Much less attention has been devoted to the question of why algorithmic decisions and systems should be explainable and whether there ought to be a right to explanation and why. We therefore explore the normative landscape of the need for AI to be explainable and individuals having a (...) right to such explanation. This exploration is particularly relevant to the medical domain where the (im)possibility of explainable AI is high on both the research and practitioners’ agenda. The dominant intuition overall is that explainability has and should play a key role in the health context. Notwithstanding the strong normative intuition for having a right to explanation, intuitions can be wrong. So, we need more than an appeal to intuitions when it comes to explaining the normative significance of having a right to explanation when being subject to AI-based decision-making. The aim of the paper is therefore to provide an account of what might underlie the normative intuition. We defend the ‘symmetry thesis’ according to which there is no special normative reason to have a right to explanation when ‘machines’ in the broad sense, make decisions, recommend treatment, discover tumors, and so on. Instead, we argue that we have a right to explanation in cases that involve automated processing that significantly affect our core deliberative agency and which we do not understand, because we have a general moral right to explanation when choices are made which significantly affect us but which we do not understand. (shrink)

The article reconciles contentious issues between code biology and biosemiotics. The framework of semantic biology and molecular meaning woven around organic codes by Marcello Barbieri defied classical informational conceptualizations of meaning in the biological realm while the discourse on meaning and agency and their respective (in)dependency on interpretation continues. Whereas the role of codes in agency is often secondary to other aspects, I present here a more consistent picture– integrating codes and artifacts to smoothly transcend from the (...) world of mechanistic molecular meaning to organismic agency. Interpretation is presented as a call-to-action based on intraindividual states, and sense-making as call-to-change based on interindividual communication. (shrink)

For any profession, establishing codes of ethics that are both practically relevant and up to date is an ongoing challenge. Law enforcement is no exception to this as agencies are faced with an evolving modern environment. With changes in technology, types of policing, and sources of societal conflict there is a potential array of new or evolving ethical considerations that confront the profession. Attempts to distill and prescribe law enforcement ethics at the international level have resulted in the creation of (...) the “Law Enforcement Code of Conduct” of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the “Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials” of the United Nations. However, both these codes were created decades ago, so they do not cover some of the more contemporary ethical issues that have arisen. This article compares the content of the IACP and UN codes and identifies a range of ethical issues either absent or insufficiently addressed. Normative themes and issues are organized around the following topics: difficulties in applying the codes, human rights and the use of force, misconduct and integrity, and enforcement and accountability. (shrink)

Background Nurses tasked with providing care which they perceive as increasing suffering often experience moral distress. Response to moral distress in nurse wellbeing has been widely studied. Less research exists that probes practicing nurses’ foundations of moral beliefs. Aims The purpose of this phenomenological study was to gain understanding of nurse meaning-making of morally distressing situations, with particular attention to ethical norms, moral agency and resiliency, and nurse religious/spiritual orientation. Design This exploratory study employed semi-structured interviews using open-ended questions. (...) Qualitative data analysis was assisted by MAXQDA software. Participants and research context Nine pulmonary care nurses during COVID-19 in a tertiary care teaching hospital in the northeastern United States. Ethical considerations The study was approved by the IRB. Participants were consented before the study and confidentiality was preserved. Findings/results The study revealed three main themes of meaning-making, rooted in the identity of the “good nurse”: Being true to one’s own values, pursuing ideal patient care (“doing good”), and conforming to/challenging values of the system and culture. Tensions were found between (a) nurse’s own values (b) duty to institutional norms and duty to nurse’s personal code of ethics, and (c) perceptions of institutional support in response to nurse moral distress. Religion was described as a remote source of nurse moral values, among other sources. Spiritual practices were not experienced as sufficient in coping with moral distress at the bedside. Conclusions The study suggests nurses need more opportunities to engage in reflection on their practice and values. The findings also indicate need for accessible institutional supports for nurses experiencing moral distress and strategic use of chaplains in helping with moral distress. Further research is needed on the interplay of nurse spirituality, moral agency, and reflective practice in the face of morally challenging situations. (shrink)

In Australia as is the case elsewhere, ethics is a developing aspect of business behaviour. Many educational institutions and business enterprises have a strong interest in the subject, particularly from the practical viewpoint of creating an ethical culture in business that has substantial practical effects. In this paper, the codes of ethics of five large enterprises are examined. They were selected as being typical of a collection of corporate codes used in Australia held by the Ethics Research Group at the (...) University of Technology, Sydney. Two codes were from international companies: a chemical manufacturing company and a health, beauty and medical manufacturer. The other codes were from an Australian bank, an Australian federal government business agency, and an Australian mining company.Corporate codes of ethics rarely contain operational definitions to direct their addressees on situations of moral hazard and the required response, to achieve a particular desired ethical corporate culture. Consequently, addressees constitute the locus of ethical decision making in enterprises. By contrast, the language used in the corporate codes examined construct an authoritarian position in the writer/reader relationship from the overuse of grammatical structures such as relational clauses, the passive, nominalisation, grammatical metaphor and modality. Collectively, these structures communicate a strong sense of obligation and even powerlessness since a strong authoritarian tone is established which does not give the addressees the possibility of discretionary decision making. (shrink)

As a key constituent of China's approach to fighting COVID-19, Health Code apps (HCAs) not only serve the pandemic control imperatives but also exercise the agency of digital surveillance. As such, HCAs pave a new avenue for ongoing discussions on contact tracing solutions and privacy amid the global pandemic. This article attends to the perceived privacy protection among HCA users via the lens of the contextual integrity theory. Drawing on an online survey of adult HCA users in Wuhan (...) and Hangzhou (N = 1551), we find users’ perceived convenience, attention towards privacy policy, trust in government, and acceptance of government purposes regarding HCA data management are significant contributors to users’ perceived privacy protection in using the apps. By contrast, users’ frequency of mobile privacy protection behaviors has limited influence, and their degrees of perceived protection do not vary by sociodemographic status. These findings shed new light on China's distinctive approach to pandemic control with respect to the state's expansion of big data-driven surveillance capacity. Also, the findings foreground the heuristic value of contextual integrity theory to examine controversial digital surveillance in non-Western contexts. Put tougher, our findings contribute to the thriving scholarly conversations around digital privacy and surveillance in China, as well as contact tracing solutions and privacy amid the global pandemic. (shrink)

Over its entire life, the Internal Revenue Code (like other tax systems) has never tried to tax economic income as such, because of the administrative and liquidity problems that arise from taxing any combination of values consumed and from appreciation (or depreciation) of capital stocks. Instead, the common practice limits tax occasions to a realization of income from sale or other disposition of property. Even then, if the proceeds of the transaction are not cash or marketable securities, as with (...) many corporation reorganizations, taxation is deferred until these assets are converted in cash or marketable securities.Any effort to eliminate these twin filters by taxing income—and income regardless of realization—will overburden government agencies and private taxpayers, while reducing economic activity. A wealth tax scores even worse by these welfare measures, creating massive problems of evasion and enforcement that will reduce capital formation across the board in the effort to transfer wealth from the ultra-rich to everyone else. A simple tax structure with affordable rates is the only path to economic prosperity. (shrink)

Given the multiplicity of codes designed to regulate different stakeholders in terms of promoting good corporate governance, this paper examines areas of conflicts among the various codes and the associated implications for corporate governance practices and regulatory compliances by public-listed Nigerian firms. Using the conflict-signalling theory for developing the conceptual framework, this study examines the proliferation of codes in Nigeria, through a mixed method approach to provide an exploratory account of the implications of corporate governance regulatory multiplicity. Evidence suggests the (...) presence of conflict among the various codes which contributes to reduced compliance by firms and ineffective enforceability by regulatory agencies, which both impede good corporate governance in Nigeria. The findings advance conflict-signalling theory as an important framework for understanding the implications of the conflicts arising from the multiplicity of codes. (shrink)

In the face of criticisms that professional codes of ethics are not effective in promoting ethical behaviour, this article explores a methodology developed in a major Western Australian youth work agency for applying a Youth Work Code of Ethics in practical, real-time situations. The experience resulted in workers being conscious of the clause-by-clause content of the code across a range of situations, and being able to use it as a resource in their day-to-day work.

Typical hermeneutical approaches to the Deuteronomic Code, and to scriptural legal codes more generally, attend to genre either for the sake of historical-critical concerns as an end in themselves, or as a gateway to abstracted content. This article argues, conversely, that the genre of the code is not disconnected from its content, and that its form—imaginative, pragmatic propositions based on communal hope—can and should be imitated in the practice of theological ethics. As best seen in Deuteronomy 15, the (...) communicative genius of the code is that it (1) imagines a specific, viable future, (2) empowers moral agency, (3) forges communal identity, and (4) addresses unique historical situations. Appropriating the genre, rather than the content, thus has unique potential to give traction to modern ethical scholarship through conscious, kerygmatic contingency. (shrink)

This article aims to apply the model of change agent to the interpretation of Colossians. Presuming a continuity between Jesus and Paul, the article introduces the concept of ‘by faith alone’ from the Pauline letters. By this expression is meant an undivided fidelity to an inclusive approach to understanding God’s work, with concrete historical roots in Jesus’ crossing of gender, ethnic and cultural boundaries. Living in this manner requires reformation, transformation and change. The study spells out in fuller detail what (...) is understood ‘by faith alone’ by discussing the meaning of ‘faith’ within its semantic domain embedded in the codes of 1st-century Mediterranean culture. Living in faith is both a change of one’s inner convictions and about a life in faith. (shrink)

The Principles of European Law on Commercial Agency, Franchise and Distribution Contracts are an academic proposal of the Study Group on a European Civil Code for the European-wide regulation of the contents of these three types of agreements. The academic analysis "Franchising in European Contract Law" focuses on the harmonised Principles on Franchising. At present all member states of the EU have their own regulation on franchising. This situation might change in the light of the political process of (...) Europeanization of contract law that was initiated by the European Commission in 2001. As a result of that process the Principles on Franchising could be declared a set of rules which might be opted for by the parties to franchising contracts Europe-wide to govern their relationship. In this analysis the main obligations in franchising in PEL CAFDC are compared with those under French and Spanish law. The main conclusion of this thesis research has been that the main obligations of parties in franchising under the PEL CAFDC resemble those under French and Spanish law. Eventually, differences will arise depending on how national courts weigh the interests of the parties in each case. A second conclusion has been that a choice for the PEL CAFDC instead of for French and Spanish law could be considered a rational alternative concerning the applicable system of remedies and legal certainty. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to understand the value of data and to call for efforts to explore improved data sharing and collection among local, state, and federal agencies. It discusses the data available and existing barriers to sharing it. It also looks at examples of data sharing initiatives and analysis, such as mapping and visualization tools. The article then examines relevant regulations and calls for reforms. Finally, the article considers objections, including privacy interests, data security, and the costs (...) and benefits of data sharing initiatives. (shrink)

I here present some doubts about whether Mandik’s (2010) proposed intermediacy and recurrence constraints are necessary and sufficient for agentive experience. I also argue that in order to vindicate the conclusion that agentive experience is an exclusively perceptual phenomenon (Prinz, 2007), it is not enough to show that the predictions produced by forward models of planned motor actions are conveyed by mock sensory signals. Rather, it must also be shown that the outputs of “comparator” mechanisms that compare these predictions against (...) actual sensory feedback are also coded in a perceptual representational format. (shrink)

This reply to criticism of Questioning Technology by Gerald Doppeltaddresses differences between political philosophy and philosophy oftechnology. While political philosophers such as Doppelt emphasize procedural aspects of democracy and equal rights, many philosophers of technologyimplicitly assume a substantive criterion of the good centered on thedevelopment of human capacities. Questioning Technology alsoemphasizes the diminishing agency of individuals in technologically advanced societies dominated by large scale organizations and themass media. These themes of social critique complement the main focusof political philosophy. Political (...) philosophy must learn to addresstechnical issues as it has learned to address other social issuessuch as race and gender. (shrink)

In their insatiable thirst for funding, contemporary universities eagerly cast themselves as important agents of economic well-being. While the particular contexts and forms for this agency may be novel, such a role is not. Historians have long identified the significance of academic institutions to economic development at a number of levels. At the national level, the importance of the Technische Hochschulen and the Land Grant colleges to German and American leadership in the Second Industrial Revolution is well known while (...) the significance of its system of higher education to a putative British industrial decline is more controversial. At the sub-national level, taking the example of Ontario, Canada, McKillop observes that “an adjustment of universities to the conditions and requirements of industrial life was an essential ingredient in economic competition and development,” with no university “untouched by the province’s industrial revolution and the secular gospel of research.” At the municipal level, in their study of three US cities, Kargon and Knowles have seen local institutions of higher education “reacting quickly and creatively to unpredictable demands for expertise.” It is this function of universities, or rather of their professoriates, as sources of local expertise which forms the focus of this paper. (shrink)

This article employs Spinoza’s ideas as a springboard for developing a novel philosophical interpretation of today’s technologically enhanced world. As a starting point, today’s digitized and datafied world has brought about fundamental changes not only to the ways in which humans live their lives but also to our understanding of the role and place of the human person as such. As the conditions and, in many cases, the content of everyday life are shaped by data, code, devices and the (...) infrastructure necessary for connectivity and interoperability, anthropocentric notions of the human begin to fall apart. Hence, this article embraces the post-humanist displacement of the human by demonstrating human beings to be merely parts of hybrid agglomerations, united by the flows of affect. It is within these affective flows that agency and (true to Spinozist thinking) existence are seen to be located. Moreover, through appreciation of Spinozist monism, it becomes evident that today’s hybrid agglomerations, understood as manifestations of a single substance under the attributes of thought and extension, are not aberrations but merely manifestations of natural human embeddedness. (shrink)

Corruption within the private sector has often not been dealt with in Brazil. Organizations may find corrupt acts in its operations or practices, but specific concepts and programs to avoid them are neither concrete nor clear. Some Brazilian stockholders have become aware of the risks involved in unethical procedures and are adopting the Best Practices of Corporate Governance initiative. International agencies have intensively supported organizations and governments in an effort to define policies that inhibit illegal or corrupt cultural habits throughout (...) the world, but Brazilian practitioners show insufficient response. Skepticism may indicate a lack of understanding about how an ethical leadership can guide employees, setting high standards for the organizational culture and climate, clearly defining limits of correct behavior, and creating appropriate codes of ethics. Transparency still has to be discovered as a significant tool to encourage professionalism in performance and reporting of data in Brazilian companies. In this article, we analyze the ethical behavior of the purchasing department of a multinational company in its host country, Brazil. It focuses specifically on the supplier–buyer relationship. The results indicate that despite the negative reputation Brazilians have in business ethics, a company can still develop a positive and ethical relationship with its stakeholders. Communication, transparency, compliance with the company’s code of conduct as well as the supplier’s awareness of the buyer’s code of conduct are the factors which influence the supplier–buyer relationship. Transparency can be used as a tool to reduce corruption, thereby increasing ethical behavior and company image. Good ethical behavior can help to build up a company’s image. (shrink)

A central problem in the cognitive sciences is identifying the link between consciousness and neural computation. The key features of consciousness—including the emergence of representative information content and the initiation of volitional action—are correlated with neural activity in the cerebral cortex, but not computational processes in spinal reflex circuits or classical computing architecture. To take a new approach toward considering the problem of consciousness, it may be worth re‐examining some outstanding puzzles in neuroscience, focusing on differences between the cerebral cortex (...) and spinal reflex circuits. First, the mammalian cerebral cortex exhibits exascale computational power, a feature that is not strictly correlated with the number of binary computational units; second, individual computational units engage in noisy coding, allowing random electrical events to gate signaling outcomes; third, this noisy coding results in the synchronous firing of statistically random populations of cells across the neural network, at a range of nested frequencies; fourth, the system grows into a more ordered state over time, as it encodes the predictive value gained through observation; and finally, the cerebral cortex is extraordinarily energy efficient, with very little free energy lost to entropy during the work of information processing. Here, I argue that each of these five key features suggest the mammalian brain engages in probabilistic computation. Indeed, by modeling the physical mechanisms of probabilistic computation, we may find a better way to explain the unique emergent features arising from cortical neural networks. (shrink)

This study was designed to examine the prevalence of a code of ethics and to analyze its content among public relations agencies in the United States. Of the 1,562 public relations agencies reviewed, 605 (38.7%) provided an ethical statement. Among the ethical statements provided by these public relations agencies, ‹respect to clients,’ ‹service,’ ‹strategic,’ and ‹results’ were the values most frequently emphasized. On the other hand, ‹balance,’ ‹fairness,’ ‹honor,’ ‹social responsibility,’ and ‹independence’ were the least frequently mentioned in the (...) ethical codes. Also, none of the sampled agencies included any sanctions regarding enforcement of their particular codes of ethics. (shrink)

Pharmaceutical promotion is a negative influencing force for prescribing. However, very few regulatory initiatives are taken to overcome this unwarranted influence. The present research was conducted in such context with an attempt to review the regulatory documents related to pharmaceutical promotion in Bangladesh including Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (CPMP), and to compare CPMP with different global guidelines. The studied guidelines demonstrate effort to regulate promotion, though that varies to a great extent, particularly in enforcement aspects. Clearly defined ethical (...) and legal prohibitions, provisions of punishment for violations and entrusted agency with defined authority are crucial. (shrink)

International codes of ethics play an important role in guiding professional practice in developing countries. In the occupational health setting, codes developing by international agencies have substantial import on protecting working populations from harm. This is particularly so under globalisation which has transformed processes of production in fundamental ways across the globe. As part of the process of revising the Ethical Code of the International Commission on Occupational Health, an African Working Group addressed key challenges for the relevance and (...) cogency of an ethical code in occupational health for an African context through an iterative consultative process. (shrink)

Introduction Two ethical challenges of nursing home nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden are discussed in this paper. Background Historically, the nurse’s primary concern is for the person who is ill, which is the core of nurses’ moral responsibility and identity. In Sweden, person-centered care is generally deemed important in nursing older nursing home residents. Objective To chart moral responsibilities of nursing home nurses in two cases involving older residents during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden. Methods We used Margaret (...) Urban Walker’s framework for moral responsibilities and the International Council of Nurses (ICN) code of ethics for nurses (2021) for our normative analysis. Ethical considerations Written and verbal consent was obtained before the interviews, and information was given that participation was entirely voluntary and possible to cancel at any time before the work was published. The Swedish Ethical Review Agency gave an advisory opinion stating that there were no ethical objections to this research project (Dnr. 2020-05649). Findings Case #1: a palliative older nursing home resident who was coercively tested for COVID-19, and case #2: a COVID-19–infected resident with dementia who was isolated using sedation. The decision that was finally made in the respective case was analyzed in the light of either consequentialist/utilitarian or non-consequentialist/deontological reasons. Discussion Empowerment of nurses as moral agents is required for the application of practical wisdom in the balancing of different care relationships (responsibilities), moral identities (professional virtues), and competing moral values. This requires resources and opens possibilities for profound ethical reflection in nursing education and at work. Conclusion During the COVID-19 pandemic, the moral and professional responsibility of nursing home nurses to deliver person-centered care was sometimes problematically abandoned in favor of a more utilitarian manner of ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Formalizing shared ethical standards is an activity of scientific societies designed to achieve a collective goal of promoting ethical conduct. A scientist who is faced with the choice of becoming a “whistleblower” by exposing misconduct does so in the context of these ethical standards. Examination of ethics policies of scientific societies which are members of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) shows a breadth of purpose and scope in these policies. Among the CSSP member societies, some ethics policies chiefly (...) present the ethical culture of the community in an educational context and do not have enforcement procedures. Other policies are more comprehensive and include standards for certification, procedures for addressing ethical issues, and established sanctions. Of the 36 member societies of CSSP that have developed a code or adopted a code of another professional society, 18 specifically identified a responsibility to expose ethical misconduct, demonstrating an acknowledgment of the possible critical role of the whistleblower in addressing ethical issues. Scientific societies may revise their ethics codes based upon experience gained in addressing cases of ethical misconduct. In most cases, the action of a whistleblower is the initial step in addressing an ethics violation; the whistleblower may either be in the position of an observer or a victim, such as in the case of someone who discovers that his or her own work has been plagiarized. The ethics committee of a scientific society is one of several possible outlets through which the whistleblower can voice a complaint or concern. Ethical violations can include falsification, fabrication, plagiarism and other authorship disputes, conflict of interest and other serious violations. Commonly, some of these violations may involve publication in the scientific literature. Thus addressing ethical issues may be intertwined with a scientific society’s role in the dissemination of new scientific results. For a journal published by a scientific society, the editor can refer at some point to the ethics committee of the society. Whereas, in the case of a journal published by a commercial publisher, the editor may be without direct support of the associated scientific community in handling the case. The association of a journal with a scientific society may thus direct a whistleblower towards addressing the issue within the scientific community rather than involving the press or talking to colleagues who may gossip. A formal procedure for handling ethics cases may also discourage false accusers. Another advantage of handling complaints through ethics committees is that decisions to contact home institutions or funding agencies can be made by the ethics committee and are not the responsibility of the whistleblower or the editor of the journal. The general assessment is that the establishment of ethics policies, especially policies covering publication in society journals, will promote a culture supportive of whistleblowers and discouraging to false accusers. (shrink)

In the paper, the touchstone points of the project “Towards an agency-based philosophy of (advanced) technology” are outlined. The main plot of this elaboration concerns human-machine interactions and appropriate interpretation of reciprocal aligning, adapting within involved into such interactions agents; as well as the status as such of being an agent. Into the theoretical and historical background of the project such spheres as Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of Engineering and Design Technological Actions, STS (Science and Technology (...) Studies), Applied Ethics etc. could be invited. To treat agency as technology, reestablish the role of agency in technology is the most ambitious goal of the project: ‘activity as technology’ focuses on activities through technologies. The terms «agency» and «activity» are used in this paper synonymously with the basic Aristotelian meaning of agent’s potential capacity to act. The proposed by the author theory of action and agency (and correspondently defended in 2016 dissertation of Doctor of Philosophical Science) is to be applied into philosophical reflections about various problems of dealing with currently continually appearing flourishing fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning (including deep learning methods and simulation methods), inventing computers and codes, numerically controlled machines and robots, computer-chip equipped devices, smart objects etc. (shrink)

This article focuses on the cultural implications of biosemiotics, considering the extent to which biosemiotics constitutes an “epistemological break” with modern modes of conceptualizing the world. To some extent, the article offers a series of footnotes to points made in the work of Jesper Hoffmeyer. However, it is argued that the move towards ‘agency’ represented in biosemiotics needs to be approached with caution in light of problems of translation between the humanities and the sciences. Notwithstanding these problems, biosemiotics is (...) found to represent the potential for one of the most thoroughgoing shifts that cultural analysis has yet seen. (shrink)

In everyday conversations, professional codes, policy debates, and academic literature, the concept of respect is referred to frequently. Bioethical arguments in recent decades equate the idea of respect for persons with individuals who are capable of autonomous decision-making, with the focus being explicitly on ‘autonomy,’ ‘capacity,’ or ‘capability.’ In much of bioethics literature, respect for persons is replaced by respect for autonomy. Though the unconditional respect for persons and their autonomy (irrespective of actual decision-making capacity) is established in Kantian bioethics, (...) current argument and debates often revolve around a thin concept of autonomy, focusing on capacity and capability: persons are owed respect because they are ‘rational beings’ or with a focus on ‘agency’ and ‘decision-making abilities.’ However, these aspects alone are insufficient while engaging the concept of respect for persons, particularly in healthcare settings. This paper sets out to explore if the concept of respect for persons—as opposed to a thin concept of autonomy—could help us engage better in healthcare practices. We shall probe the practical value of the experiential aspect of respect—understood as the recognition of persons as respect-worthy through certain dispositions and deliberative acts—by reflecting on instances in clinical practice that tend to be dismissed as negligible or even unavoidable in a stressful environment such as a busy hospital. We shall argue that these instances are far from trivial but carry moral significance and express an unacceptable—disrespectful—attitude that can compromise the moral habitus in hospital settings. In our conclusion, we call for practicing recognition respect in the health professional–patient encounter by focussing on manners, attitudes, and behaviors. Furthermore, we call for continuous medical ethics education programs to address the moral significance of disrespectful behaviors and their manifestations in particular socio-cultural contexts. (shrink)

Background: The Clinical Ethics Residency for Nurses was offered selectively to nurses affiliated with two academic medical centers to increase confidence in ethical decision-making. Research Question/Aim: To discover how effective the participants perceived the program and if their goals of participation had been met. Research design: A total of 65 end-of-course essays (from three cohorts) were analyzed using modified directed content analysis. In-depth and recursive readings of the essays by faculty were guided by six questions that had been posed to (...) graduates. Ethical considerations: Institutional review board approval was granted for the duration of the program and its reporting period. Confidentiality was maintained via the use of codes for all evaluations including the essays and potentially identifying content redacted. Findings: An umbrella theme emerged: participants had developed ethical knowledge and skills that provided a “moral compass to navigate the many gray areas of decision-making that confront them in daily practice.” Six major themes corresponding to questions posed to the participants included the ability to advocate for good patient care; to support and empower colleagues, patients, and families; they experienced personal and professional transformation; they valued the multimodal nature of the program; and were using their new knowledge and skills in practice. However, they also recognized that their development as moral agents was an ongoing process. Discussion: Findings support that enhancing nurse confidence in their moral agency with a multimodal educational approach that includes mentored practice in ethical decision-making, enhancing communication skills and role-play can mitigate moral distress. A majority found the program personally and professionally transformative. However, they recognized that ongoing ethics discussion involvement and supportive environments would be important in their continued development of ethical agency. Conclusion: Multimodal ethics education programs have potential to be transformative and enhance nurse confidence in their ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Background: International codes of ethics play an important role in guiding professional practice in developing countries. In the occupational health setting, codes developed by international agencies have substantial import on protecting working populations from harm. This is particularly so under globalisation which has transformed processes of production in fundamental ways across the globe. As part of the process of revising the Ethical Code of the International Commission on Occupational Health, an Africa Working Group addressed key challenges for the relevance (...) and cogency of an ethical code in occupational health for an African context through an iterative consultative process. Discussion: Firstly, even in the absence of strong legal systems of enforcement, and notwithstanding the value of legal institutionalisation of ethical codes, guidelines alone may offer advantageous routes to enhancing ethical practice in occupational health. Secondly, globalisation has particularly impacted on health and safety at workplaces in Africa, challenging occupational health professionals to be sensitive to, and actively redress imbalance of power. Thirdly, the different ways in which vulnerability is exemplified in the workplace in Africa often places the occupational health professional in invidious positions of Dual Loyalty. Fourth, the particular cultural emphasis in traditional African societies on collective responsibilities within the community impacts directly on how consent should be sought in occupational health practice, and how stigma should be dealt with, balancing individual autonomy with ideas of personhood that are more collective as in the African philosophy of ubuntu. To address stigma, practitioners need to be additionally sensitive to how power imbalances at the workplace intersect with traditional cultural norms related to solidarity. Lastly, particularly in the African context, the inseparability of workplace and community means that efforts to address workplace hazards demand that actions for occupational health extend beyond just the workplace. Summary: A stronger articulation of occupational health practice with advocacy for prevention should be an ethical norm. Ethical codes should ideally harmonize and balance individual and community needs so as to provide stronger moral authority guidelines. There is a need to consider an African Charter on Bioethics as complementary and strengthening of existing codes for the region. (shrink)