Preface: help! my brainchild's been kidnapped! -- Intellectual misconduct: backwards, forward, and sideways -- The world of scholarship: rituals and rewards, norms and departures -- Structural and organizational causes of scholarly misconduct -- Cultural causes of scholarly misconduct -- Individual and situational causes of scholarly misconduct -- Scholarly misconduct as crime -- Criminological theory and scholarly crime -- Implications for theory and research -- Preventing and controlling scholarly crime -- Afterword: against all odds, a code is born.

Theories of distributive justice are most severely tested in the area of disability. In this book, Mark Stein argues that utilitarianism performs better than egalitarian theories in this area: whereas egalitarian theories help the disabled either too little or too much, utilitarianism achieves the proper balance by placing resources where they will do the most good. Stein offers what may be the broadest critique of egalitarian theory from a utilitarian perspective. He addresses the work of egalitarian theorists John Rawls, (...) Ronald Dworkin, Amartya Sen, Bruce Ackerman, Martha Nussbaum, Norman Daniels, Philippe Van Parijs, and others. Stein claims that egalitarians are often driven to borrow elements of utilitarianism in order to make their theories at all plausible. The book concludes with an acknowledgment that both utilitarians and egalitarians face problems in the distribution of life-saving medical resources. Stein advocates a version of utilitarianism that would distribute life-saving resources based on life expectancy, not quality of life. Egalitarian theories, he argues, ignore life expectancy and so are again found wanting. _Distributive Justice and Disability _is a powerful and engaging book that helps to reframe the debate between egalitarian and utilitarian thinkers. (shrink)

Can or should God be considered a managerial stakeholder? While at first glance such a proposition might seem beyond the norms of stakeholder management theory or traditional management practice, further investigation suggests that there might be both theoretical and practical support for such a notion. This paper will make the argument that God both is and should be considered a managerial stakeholder for those businesspeople and business firms that accept that God exists and can affect the world. In doing so, (...) part one of the paper first discusses the growth of religion and spirituality within the business and academic communities. Part two raises several arguments based on stakeholder theory and business reality to support the notion of God as a managerial stakeholder. Part three addresses the arguments against God as a managerial stakeholder. Part four discusses the managerial implications of considering God as a managerial stakeholder. The paper concludes with its limitations. (shrink)

In this article we examine the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm value. This line of research is important since firms continue to invest in CSR even though past studies reveal a limited linkage between financial value and CSR. However, the business case for CSR or “doing good while making a profit,” appears to be advancing within the business ethics literature as a preferred conception of CSR. We conjecture that the greater unification and refinement of both profit maximization (...) and stakeholder interests through corporate acts, not statements alone, will sustain the financial value of CSR in a less regulated global business environment. We study the triangle of what companies say, what companies do, and firm financial performance. We analyze Fortune 250 firms and find a positive association between what companies do based on KLD Research and Analytics, Inc. (KLD) ratings, and what companies state about ethics in their CSR statements. We then employ regression analysis and find that companies’ socially responsible acts are positively associated with overall firm value and financial performance. Yet we do not find a statistically significant association between what companies say regarding ethics in their CSR statements and their financial outcomes. These results suggest that firm value and financial performance is associated with what companies do and not what they say. Our results seem to be driven by multinational corporations (MNCs) and not by non‐MNCs. This is possibly because MNCs generally operate in a less regulated global business environment that often necessitates strong ethical corporate leadership to further stakeholder interests. Overall, these results help reconcile corporate and stakeholder objectives since evidence of a link between financial performance and doing good sustains global CSR. (shrink)

What is the relation between democracy and second nature? What, that is, is the relation between a form of government that places a premium on a people shaping their shared destiny and a people who have been shaped by their past inheritance—an assortment of traditions, customs, perspectives, and practices? Does democracy fundamentally seek to escape custom and practice—the oppressive yoke of tradition—or does it, in fact, depend on a cultural inheritance, a second nature?In many standard accounts, Romanticism frees itself from (...) the encumbrance of tradition and discipline and thereby soars, unshackled, to the lofty heights of subjective expression, unrestrained imagination, and self-creation.1 In this view... (shrink)

The article by Wiggins and Wilbanks in this issue (2019) provides an important overview of the some of the forms and challenges of citizen involvement in health and biomedical research. Many such r...

On April 20th, 2010, an incident was to take place 49 miles off the Louisiana coast at the Macondo Prospect location in the Gulf of Mexico that would potentially change the future of offshore oil drilling. On that day, 11 men would lose their lives when the 33,000 ton Deepwater Horizon rig, owned by Transocean but leased by BP PLC, exploded. As a result of the explosion, millions of barrels of oil would be released into the Gulf of Mexico, leading (...) to widespread environmental harm and devastation to the shoreline communities. To better examine the underlying reasons for how such an event could take place in 2010, this paper will unfold as follows. First, we provide context to the oil spill by discussing the history of BP, including its transformation into an “environmental” firm in 1995. Second, we explore and analyze the catastrophe through the lens of ethics. Finally, we analyze the disaster through a comparison with the U.S. 2008 financial crisis with a view to identify the root causes of the disaster and the string of ethical failures that have scarred the market economy over the past three or four decades. (shrink)

In this essay, I survey egalitarian and utilitarian approaches to the distribution of scarce life-saving medical resources. In my view, the major criterion for the distribution of scarce life-saving medical resources should be life expectancy: we should distribute life so as to maximize life-years. In Section II, I discuss the life-year maximization approach and situate it within utilitarian theory.

Are corporate codes of ethics necessarily ethical? To challenge this notion, an initial set of universal moral standards is proposed by which all corporate codes of ethics can be ethically evaluated. The set of universal moral standards includes: (1) trustworthiness; (2) respect; (3) responsibility; (4) fairness; (5) caring; and (6) citizenship. By applying the six moral standards to four different stages of code development (i.e., content, creation, implementation, administration), a code of ethics for corporate codes of ethics is constructed by (...) which companies can be ethically audited for compliance. The newly proposed code of ethics for corporate codes of ethics was then applied to four large Canadian companies representing a variety of industries: telecommunications; banking, manufacturing, and high technology. The ethical audit of the four companies' ethics programs based on the proposed code indicates that all four companies have room to improve the ethical nature of their codes of ethics (i.e., content, creation, implementation, administration). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rembrandt’s Art: A Paradigm for Critical Thinking and AestheticsMark S. Conn (bio)IntroductionThe purpose of art is to lay bare the questions, which have been hidden by the answers.—James BaldwinPhilosophers have asked, How do we know the world? Over centuries, many visual artists have responded to this question by provoking us to see the world differently—through their own eyes. Rembrandt, by no small measure, is one of those artists. While (...) many people have attempted to understand and interpret the art of this quintessential master, few have used his art as a tool to teach critical thinking. The challenge, then, is to set forth a paradigm, using Rembrandt’s art as the vehicle, to teach critical thinking skills. These skills can be applied across the curriculum without losing an appreciation for the aesthetic characteristics of his art.Several sections in this article begin with a foundational discussion of the connection between art and the general curriculum, including how the effectiveness of that curriculum may then be measured. Continuing with a working definition of critical thinking, I demonstrate how Rembrandt’s work relates particularly well to the social studies curriculum. Definitions of critical thinking skills are discussed just prior to introducing the paradigm. A discussion of the paradigm’s relationship to aesthetics and necessary concepts is followed by the conclusion, which contains the graphic illustration of the paradigm. [End Page 68]Foundational DiscussionIn order to create a paradigm that encompasses Rembrandt’s art, critical thinking, and aesthetics, it is important to understand the connection that art has to the curriculum. By examining the way in which this relationship has evolved and is measured, we discover its foundation. It also produces a rationale for the paradigm.For decades the educational community has debated the validity of including arts in the curriculum. There are those who believe that in order to justify inclusion in the curriculum, there needs to be evidence that art has a quantifiable impact upon learning. Others believe that there is a need to teach art for art’s sake.1 Elliot Eisner stated, “More often than we would like, arts educators receive requests to justify their professional existence or existence of the arts in our schools on the basis of their contribution to non-art outcomes.”2 According to Eisner’s research, there have been no studies that show a statistically significant relationship between the arts and academic success.3 Additionally, in their final report evaluators from Transforming Education Through the Arts Challenge (TETAC) concluded that “Analysis of site-specific data found no significant relationship between program implementation and performance on reading and math tests.”4 There are many sources that can be cited that report the same findings. In assessing these kinds of findings we find the conclusions to be approximately the same.If we look at the U.S. Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, which each year releases “The Nation’s Report Card,” we find a tremendous amount of data.5 However, most of what we find is data that is analyzed scientifically, with a long but incomplete list of incomplete variables. Therefore, it is difficult to come to any consensus about which programs, in which states, are successful and why. All we actually see is who is supposedly doing better in various curriculum areas based upon standardized tests that vary from state to state. Consider an example of current thinking regarding curriculum and testing from an article by Diane Ravitch, former assistant U.S. secretary of education, and Deborah Meir, senior scholar at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education:Both of us acknowledged that our choices involve risks. A national curriculum might be unwieldy and superficial (“a mile wide and an inch deep—ironically the charge directed at our current incoherent and fragmented curriculum”) as well as politically compromised, while a local one might reflect the low expectations of the local community as local foolishness and local biases (some schools, for example, might teach intelligent design). We agreed that the measurement of “results”—what constitutes intellectual achievement—has been badly distorted by current local and state tests, which undermine high-quality tasks and make... (shrink)

Editors’ Note: A major goal of Science and Engineering Ethics is to promote discussion of the ethical issues raised by various aspects of science and engineering, both within the pages of this journal and beyond. We are beginning a series of case presentations and discussions in the Educational Forum. We invite readers to respond to the case and accompanying commentaries, and to submit other cases and commentaries for future publication. We look forward to hearing from you. — S. J. Bird, (...) R. E. Spier. (shrink)

The study examines employee, managerial, and ethics officer perceptions regarding their companies codes of ethics. The study moves beyond examining the mere existence of a code of ethics to consider the role that code content and code process (i.e. creation, implementation, and administration) might play with respect to the effectiveness of codes in influencing behavior. Fifty-seven in-depth, semi-structured interviews of employees, managers, and ethics officers were conducted at four large Canadian companies. The factors viewed by respondents to be important with (...) respect to code effectiveness include: provisions of examples; readability; tone; relevance; realism; senior management support; training; reinforcement; living up to standards; reporting requirement; anonymous phone line; communicating violations; and enforcement. The factors found to be potentially important include: justification for provisions; employee involvement; and sign-off requirements. Factors found not to be important include: objectives for the code; prior distribution; testing; and relating ones performance review to compliance with the code. (shrink)

As public and private resources are increasingly being directed towards the elimination of food deserts in urban areas, proper measurement of food access is essential. Amelioration has been approached through the use of farmers markets, virtual grocery stores, and corner store programs, but properly situating these assets in neighborhoods in need requires localized data on both the location and content of food outlets and the populations served. This paper examines the reliability of current techniques for identifying food deserts, and identifies (...) some of the flaws in those approaches. Information derived from geographic information systems mapping is the predominant means of determining food availability. In this study, food access in Bridgeport, CT, is examined utilizing both computer-based GIS mapping and on-the-ground observations. While the GIS output indicates generalized food accessibility issues, supplementation by survey data reduces the geographic extent of the food desert problem. Still, nearly 60,000 people reside in neighborhoods served only by small retailers who provide few healthy food options, and those at inflated prices. The high opportunity cost of travelling by bus to a major grocery store may outweigh the direct cost savings, and residents choose to consume locally available but unhealthy foods. (shrink)

How can one establish if a corporate code of ethics is ethical in terms of its content? One important first step might be the establishment of core universal moral values by which corporate codes of ethics can be ethically constructed and evaluated. Following a review of normative research on corporate codes of ethics, a set of universal moral values is generated by considering three sources: (1) corporate codes of ethics; (2) global codes of ethics; and (3) the business ethics literature. (...) Based on the convergence of the three sources of standards, six universal moral values for corporate codes of ethics are proposed including: (1) trustworthiness; (2) respect; (3) responsibility; (4) fairness; (5) caring; and (6) citizenship. Relying on the proposed set of universal moral values, implications are discussed as to what the content of corporate codes of ethics should consist of. The paper concludes with its limitations. (shrink)

Nonprofits are a major part of the U.S. economy and they are not immune from corporate malfeasance controversies. Even Congress has expressed concern about the crisis in nonprofit governance. The nonprofit response to Congress has been a historic initiative recognizing critical challenges to nonprofit governance. In contrast to their for‐profit counterparts, nonprofits are committed to missions serving the public benefit and not to shareholder profits. Accordingly, their missions and financial resources are intrinsic to their very existence, which is built upon (...) the public trust. That trust is rooted in fiduciary responsibility and reflected in best practices. This article traces the history of the nonprofit public trust and fiduciary standards and examines principles of Sarbanes–Oxley and other best practices as they apply to nonprofits. The authors sampled 80 health‐care nonprofit corporation web sites from eight asset classes to determine compliance with Sarbanes–Oxley and identification of fiduciary duty, ethical values, and other best practices. Among the very largest health‐care nonprofits, many comply with Sarbanes–Oxley and identify fiduciary duty, ethical values, and other best practices. However, there are substantial deficiencies in such compliance and identification among all remaining seven asset classes ranging from 99.9 million to less than 100,000. The results appear to corroborate the urgent necessity for reform articulated by the Congress and the nonprofit sector. Nonprofit governance has entered a new era where best practices must be implemented to sustain the public trust. (shrink)

A research instrument is developed and preliminarily validated to formally measure the level of national business ethics activity for any country in the world. The seven dimensions measured include (a) academia, (b) business, (c) social or ethical investment, (d) business ethics organizations, (e) government activity, (f) social activist groups, and (g) media coverage. Results from the validation survey and examples are provided for each of the dimensions. The article concludes with future research directions for the instrument.

In this paper we examine Fehr’s notions of “altruism”, “strong reciprocity” and “altruistic punishment” and query his ascription of altruism. We suggest that, pace Fehr, altruism cannot be defined behaviourally because the definition of altruism must refer to the motives of actors. We also advert to certain inconsistencies in Fehr’s usage of his terms and we question his explanation of altruism in terms of ‘social preferences’.

The practice of clinical mental health counseling benefits from the integration of a Catholic Christian meta-model of the person. This paper will briefly define and describe a paradigm that guides the practice of clinical mental health counseling. It will then demonstrate how a Catholic Christian view of the person aligns with and extends the dimensions of the practice paradigm resulting in a deeper understanding for the conceptualization of both presenting clinical concerns and their respective treatment. After describing an integrated model (...) for professional practice, two brief case studies will illustrate its application. Finally, implications for clinical practice and recommendations for research are discussed. (shrink)

Whilst natural scientists have forged close links with industry, economists—in their capacity as consultants—with private enterprise, and psychologists with the burgeoning market for counselling services, philosophers have shown little eagerness to “ply their trade” in any commercial form whatsoever. Indeed, the very juxtaposition of concepts like “philosophy,” “money,” and “the marketplace” may already have raised eyebrows or induced mocking smirks. The image of this unworldly species assuming a commercial role comparable in scope or nature to that of practitioners of other (...) disciplines is scarcely imaginable. Thus, the peculiar nature of philosophy—its “subject matter,” “method,” or “corpus of knowledge”—provides one reason for prima facie scepticism. The advent of philosophical counselling in both Europe and America during the last decade may well shake such scepticism. It is primarily with this development that the authors in this volume of Philosophy in the Contemporary World deal. (shrink)

Despite its proliferation in technology studies, the concept of “path dependence” has scarcely been applied to epistemology. In this essay, I investigate path dependence in the production of scientific knowledge, first, by considering Kuhn's scattered remarks that lend support to a path-dependence thesis (Section I) and second by developing and criticising Kuhn's embryonic account (Sections II and III). I examine a case from high-energy physics that brings the path-dependent nature of scientific knowledge to the fore and I pay attention to (...) two sources of path dependence—“theoretical” and “instrumental”. The latter source is particularly important in “big science”. I ask in Section IV whether path dependence in scientific knowledge can lead to circumstances like those in the technological field, in which a theory can come to dominate a scientific speciality even though it is inferior to alternatives. In Section V, I ask what implications my thesis has for science policy. (shrink)

There appears to be an implicit assumption by those connected with the ethical investment movement (e.g., ethical investment firms, individual investors, social investment organizations, academia, and the media), that ethical investment is in fact ethical. This paper will attempt to challenge the notion that the ethical mutual fund industry, as currently taking place, is acting in an ethical manner. Ethical issues such as the transparency of the funds and advertising are discussed. Ethical mutual fund screens such as tobacco, alcohol, gambling, (...) and the military are preliminarily examined to better determine whether they can actually be defined as "ethical" screens as opposed to merely social, political, or religious screens. A code of ethics for ethical investment is constructed by which ethical mutual fund firms can be audited for ethical compliance. (shrink)

As nanotechnology emerges as an important public policy issue, the FDA's relationship with society is about to be tested. Most would agree that fostering public input will be critical to developing effective public policy for nanotechnology. Yet, it will not be easy. Low public confidence in the FDA, the general lack of knowledge about nanotechnology among ordinary Americans, and the way in which the “average” citizen obtains and evaluates knowledge about a public policy issue all pose serious challenges to any (...) public outreach by the FDA. It will be necessary for the FDA to be attentive to not only its own public messages, but also to who is listening and how those messages are being perceived. (shrink)

What makes inheritable genetic modification attractive is not its ability to treat disease, but its capacity, someday, to enhance human traits beyond what mere good health requires. But, these discoveries will not be imposed on us by government, as Huxley thought. If they take over our lives, it will be because they were sold to us on the open market, as commodities we cannot do without.

In this article, we use a corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework to analyze the payday loan industry by critically examining its practices from an economic, legal, and ethical perspective. Payday loans are essentially a very high cost, unsecured, short‐term personal loan. Given the inherent nature of the product being offered, the industry appears on the face of it to be in a position to potentially exploit vulnerable consumers in pursuit of profits. With this concern in mind, our analysis investigates the (...) following three issues: Can the payday loan industry currently be considered to be acting in a socially responsible manner? If the industry cannot be considered to be socially responsible, should it be further regulated? If the industry should be further regulated, how should it be regulated? To address these issues, we first provide a brief historical overview of payday loans. Second, we describe the important characteristics of payday loans and how the industry operates. Third, we draw on various sources of evidence to demonstrate that the payday loan industry, while fulfilling its basic economic obligations, falls outside of both the legal and ethical domains of the Three Domain Model of CSR. Based on our analysis, our conclusion is that the payday loan industry requires additional government legal regulation, particularly with respect to allowable fees, and we conclude that there is a strong ethical case for banning payday loans altogether. (shrink)