Behavioral economics is the latest trendy form of economics. Increasingly theorists are advocating using behavioral economics to do normative ethics or claiming that the behavioralists’ findings render normative claims otiose. I argue in this paper that we should be extremely wary when it comes to accepting any such normative pronouncements. I argue that behavioral economics: (a) minimizes and/or misunderstands the role that character and architectonic life goals play in accounting for the why of ethical behavior, (b) fundamentally misconceives human practical (...) rationality, (c) often unduly narrows the range of human action and choice, (d) misleadingly assumes that options are merely given to us rather than generated by us in accordance with our character, (e) is parasitic upon normative ethics, (f) results in an unhelpful ad hoc approach to ethical thinking, which is unlikely to prove all that useful and may even dangerously mislead ordinary agents or those who operate corporate compliance programs and who seek to improve corporate cultures, and (g) ignores the key role played in ethical behavior by meso‐ and macro‐factors. (shrink)

Rethinking Feminist Ethics bridges the gap between women theorists disenchanted with aspects of traditional theories that insist upon the need for some ethical principles. The book raises the question of whether the female conception of ethics based on care, trust and empathy can provide a realistic alternative to the male ethics based on duty and rule bound conception of ethics developed from Kant, Mill and Rawls. Koehn concludes that it cannot, showing how problems for respect of the individual arise also (...) in female ethics because it privileges the caregiver over the cared for. Drawing on Socrates' Crito , she shows how an ethic of dialogue can instill a critical respect for the view of the other and the ethical principles absent from the female ethic. (shrink)

In this review, I discuss Balibar’s ‘proposition of equaliberty’ with regard to its theoretical status and contribution, its relationship to other contemporary theories of radical democracy as well as to the problematic of bourgeois versus communist emancipation in Marx. The primary interest of this essay is to develop a detailed understanding of Balibar’s analytical schema, which draws a complex picture of our contemporary ‘human condition’, and to place it within his own theoretical development since his contribution toReading Capitalin the 60s. (...) On that basis, it will be possible to assess his contribution to thinking politics with and after Marx and place it more concretely within the generalised radical-democratic turn in post-Marxist theory. (shrink)

The long-term health of business ethics is suspect. In particular, there are some troubling trends within the discipline’s methodology that should be closely monitored and, in some cases, countered. Furthermore, business ethicists and management theorists should take some steps to make business ethics more robust and more relevant to actual business practice. Part 1 of this article argues that, while the dominance of the social science approach should be curtailed, relations between normative and empirical scholars need not be hostile; on (...) the contrary, there are some modest ways in which the two approaches could complement each other more than they have to date. Part 2 examines why business ethics needs more systems thinking. Part 3 explores why business ethicists in general should follow the lead of some of our colleagues who are engaging in powerful and influential research with direct and immediate practical applications. The article closes with a few modest suggestions for enhancing business ethics theorizing and provides some concrete ways for scholars to become more involved with business practitioners and business practice and to learn from the latter in ways that can productively feed research streams. (shrink)

Teachers and managers strive to be determining causes, leading those whom we instruct or supervise to act in some ways rather than others. If we are seeking to be causes, then we ought to admit our mission and monitor how well we are doing. Yet, instead of owning up to our failures, we hide behind claims such as “some students are unteachable because their habits are bad,” or “we have little time to affect our students who are being indoctrinated by (...) other business school professors to believe that narrow self-interest does and should rule the world.” Perhaps it is we who have failed our students, not the reverse. Examining our business ethics pedagogy is crucial because regulation is not by itself going to prevent future scandals. This paper presents three structures for teaching business ethics in a liberal arts, transformative way. While no pedagogy comes with a guarantee, these approaches at least have the potential to transform students because they force students to have “some skin in the game.”. (shrink)

The Tongan language has honorific registers, called a ‘language of respect’ (Churchward 1953). These are two limited sets of lexemes used to refer to people of chiefly and kingly rank and thus honour the societal stratification. Anthropological-linguistic research reveals that these honorifics are atapu-motivated linguistic practice. The Polynesian concept oftapu(source of the loanwordtaboo) means that entities with moremana(‘supernatural power’) such as persons of higher rank and their personal belongings are ‘sacred’, and it is ‘forbidden’ to get in physical touch with (...) them. The respectful terminology (hou‘eikiandtu‘i) is restricted to suchtapuentities (signifiers), and its generic character shows that direct verbal contact with the commonkakaisignifier is avoided. Thus, the honorific registers function as a verbal taboo in its emic sense. (shrink)

While Specific Informed Consent has been the established standard for obtaining consent for medical research for many years, it does not appear suitable for large-scale biobank and health data research. Thus, alternative forms of consent have been suggested, based on a variety of ethical background assumptions. This article identifies five main ethical perspectives at stake. Even though Tiered Consent, Dynamic Consent and Meta Consent are designed to the demands of the self-determination perspective as well as the perspective of research as (...) a public good, they are still also criticized from both perspectives. In addition, criticisms based on concerns of justice, participation and democratic deliberation, and relational concerns have been levelled at each of the models. As all of these perspectives have valid points to make, the task at hand lies in balancing these ethical perspectives. What constitutes an adequate balancing depends on contextual factors. These factors include digital infrastructure and digital literacy, data safety regulation, good scientific and clinical practice, transparent debates on ethically relevant features of research, social inequalities, anti-discrimination laws and practices, trust in health care institutions and recognition of patient preferences, and consensus on unethical research. We argue that the role of context in determining acceptable models of consent puts the ethical importance of models of consent into perspective. Since altering contextual factors can help to live up to the ethical concerns at stake in debates about models of consent, opting for such a shift of focus comes without ethical loss. (shrink)

What is humane work? What does such work look like in a business context? This paper articulates two ways of thinking about humane work using an Aristotelian and a Confucian virtue ethics approach. This approach reveals the need to think about (1) work’s connection not merely with autonomy but with self-refinement and self-perfection, with craft, and with the production of genuinely good goods; (2) possible dangers (e.g., the risk of generating envy) of focusing too much on pay issues in connection (...) with humane work; (3) the relation between humane work and political regimes; and (4) the role played by stakeholders other than managers in the humanizing of work. (shrink)

This article explores differences in the ways in which utilitarian, deontological and virtue/aretic ethics treat of act, outcome, and agent. I argue that virtue ethics offers important and distinctive insights into business practice, insights overlooked by utilitarian and deontological ethics.

Over the last years several European patents were opposed for protecting technology violating the morality requirement under Article 53(a) EPC. Attempts have been made by the Appeal Boards of the European Patent Office (EPO), as well as by amendments introduced into the Implementing Regulations of the European Patent Convention (EPC), to address this sensitive patentability requirement more precisely. The most recent hot topic coming up in this context is the patentability of stem cells. It is to be expected that this (...) discussion will still go on in the field of biotechnological inventions for the next several years. (shrink)

Der Beitrag befasst sich mit der Frage, ob eine Verantwortung ggü. zukünftigen Grundrechtsträgern/Generationen nicht nur moralisch, sondern auch rechtlich begründbar ist. Dazu wird auf ein grundrechtstheoretisches Konzept zurückgegriffen, das mit einem positivistischen Verständnis des Rechts kompatibel ist. Der Beitrag führt zu dem Ergebnis, dass eine Rechtfertigungslast gegenüber künftigen Grundrechtsträgern grundrechtlich begründbar ist und angesichts der positivrechtlichen Anerkennung von Menschenrechten auch bereits besteht. Die Pflichten der jeweils gegenwärtig Lebenden zugunsten künftiger Grundrechtsträger besteht allerdings grundrechtstheoretisch nicht in die ganz ferne Zukunft; hier (...) gibt es konzeptionelle Grenzen. Der Beitrag zeigt, dass sich die ontologische Ebene und die damit zusammenhängende normative Ebene konzeptionell von der epistemischen Problematik und dessen normativer Bewältigung trennen lässt. (shrink)

If we are to better understand and negotiate current and future problems in the food supply chain, it will be essential to pay more attention to the role and position of professionals involved. 'Professionals in food chains' addresses questions as: What are the main ethical challenges for professionals in the food supply chain? Who within this complex field holds responsibility for what? What does it mean for the food-related professions to operate in an atmosphere of immense social tension and high (...) expectations? Which virtues are required to do a 'good' job? In brief: What can be said about the roles, responsibilities, and ethics of professionals across this dynamic field? Topics covered include general issues on professional roles and responsibility, sustainable food supply chains, novel approaches in food production systems, current food politics, the ethics of consumption, veterinary ethics, pedagogical/educational and research ethics, as well as aquacultural, agricultural, animal, and food ethics. (shrink)

This paper examines the influence of service learning as a pragmatic skills-based teaching intervention. Conceptually, it builds on literature, legitimizing servicelearning in terms of four educational logics– civic engagement, practical relevance, skill development, and responsibility. We investigate whether service learning can always achieve this broad range of educational objectives, in view of students being increasingly exposed to a logic of ‘educational performance’, which they may perceive to be in conflict with the logics of 'civic engagement' and ‘responsibility’. The theoretical part (...) of this paper reviews the evolution of service learning literature and summarizes insights from experiential learning literature. We also report findings from a controlled field experiment with postgraduate management students. We find that service learning influences students’ self-assessment of management skills and awareness stakeholder needs. Surprisingly, our findings provide no evidence for its influence on attitudes to responsibility. (shrink)

The article discusses the impact different concepts of solidarity can have on debates on models of consent for non-interventional research. It introduces three concepts of solidarity that have been referenced in bioethical debates: a purely descriptive concept, a concept that claims some derivative value for most but not all practices of solidarity, as well as a clearly normative concept where solidarity is tied to justice and taken to ground moral duties. It shows that regarding the rivalling models of study-specific consent, (...) tiered consent and broad consent, the first two concepts can be taken to favour tiered consent while only normative solidarity supports a model of broad consent—or an argument to allow non-interventional research without requiring consent at all. As normative solidarity is tied to considerations of justice, however, the argument appears less straightforward than one might expect: It presupposes that the research contributes to overcoming existing social injustices. (shrink)

As each week beings more stories of doctors, lawyers and other professionals abusing their powers, while clients demand extra services as at a time of shrinking resources; it is imperative that all practising professionals have an understanding of professional ethics. In _The Ground of Profesional Ethics_, Daryl Koehn discusses the practical issues in depth, such as the level of service clients can justifiably expect from professionals, when service to a client may be legitimately terminated and circumstances in which client confidences (...) can be broken. She argues that, while clients may legitimately expect professionals to promote their interests, professionals are not morally bound to do whatever a client wants. _The Ground of Professional Ethics_ is important reading for all practising professionals, as well as those who study or have an interest in the subject of professional ethics. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Im Jahr 2003 gingen Jürgen Baur und Ulrike Burrmann der Frage nach, inwieweit sich Sportengagements von Jugendlichen individualisiert haben. Die meisten Annahmen mussten verworfen werden. Vor dem Hintergrund aktueller gesellschaftlicher Entwicklungen wird im vorliegenden Beitrag anhand von Zeitreihendaten dieser Frage erneut nachgegangen. Hinterfragt wird aber auch, ob sich der Einfluss vertikaler sozialstruktureller Merkmale auf die Beteiligung am Sport seit den 1970er Jahren abgeschwächt hat und ob dieser Zusammenhang in den letzten Jahren wieder enger geworden ist. Die Befunde werden diskutiert, (...) wobei zum einen auf methodische Probleme der Datenbasis und zum anderen auf Unschärfen der Individualisierungsthese eingegangen wird. (shrink)

Applied ethicists’ interest in narratives and narratives ethics has grown steadily. Some thinkers position narratives as supplements to ethics, while others see narratives as new form of ethics comparable to virtue or deontological ethics. In this paper, I analyze some of the main ethical claims being made on behalf of business and literary narratives from the perspective of Aristotelian virtue ethics. I argue that, while narratives can significantly contribute to the development of our character, to a better grasp of virtues (...) and vices, and to a clarification of a virtue ethics framework, this contribution is highly nuanced. In particular, Aristotelian virtue ethics enable us to sensibly and helpfully distinguish the ethical value of _narratives within business ethics_ from _narrative business ethics _per se. This paper has three parts. Part One offers a provisional definition of narrative and sketches some of the large claims that literary critics, philosophers, theologians, and others have made for narratives’ relevance to and value for ethics. In Part Two, using narratives drawn from business and literature, I take up each of these claims in turn and examine whether the claim makes sense and is compelling from an Aristotelian virtue ethics perspective. Part Three gathers together the threads of the arguments in Part Two to specify the modest, but nonetheless significant, legitimate roles narratives might play within Aristotle’s virtue ethics. I also point to some limitations inherent in an Aristotelian critique of narrative ethics and suggest some questions for future research. (shrink)

ContextIn many cases, informed consent of participants is considered a prerequisite even for exclusively data-based medical research. In this context, a model of broad consent is being discussed. In Germany, the Medizininformatik-Initiative (Medical Informatics Initiative) has developed a proposal for broad consent for German hospitals which suggests a validity period of 30 years.Definition of the problemAgainst this background, the article discusses how the claim of consent beinginformedhas to be regarded in a temporal perspective. The practice of consent is here understood (...) to be oriented towards the realization of well-being, personal sovereignty, and trust. In the context of medical research, an asymmetry of access to information between research participants, researchers, and data-storing institutions has to be assumed.Argument and conclusionThe article argues that in order to appropriately address this information asymmetry, a continuous dissemination of comprehensibly prepared information to research participants is necessary to enable personal sovereignty. (shrink)

Business ethicists have increasingly used Aristotelian “virtue ethics” to analyze the actions of business people and to explore the question of what the standard of ethical behavior is. These analyses have raised many important issues and opened up new avenuesfor research. But the time has come to examine in some detail possible limitations or weaknesses in virtue ethics. This paper arguesthat Aristotelian virtue ethics is subject to many objections because the psychology implicit within the ethic is not well-suited for analyzing (...) some problematic forms of behavior. Part One offers a brief overview of the firm and of the good life from a virtue ethics perspective. Part Two develops a number of criticisms of this perspective. (shrink)

This paper offers a neo-Aristotelian approach to PCSR aimed at enabling us to more systematically ascertain which sorts of corporate political activities, if any, might be politically acceptable. Part 1 sketches Aristotle’s account of the “political.” Aristotelian politics have at least four key dimensions. When we speak of PCSR, we should, from this Aristotelian perspective, evaluate how specific behaviors accord with or undermine these four aspects of political life. Part 2 of the paper explores which forms of activity by corporations (...) qualify as genuinely (and thus acceptably) political within a neo-Aristotelian framework. Part 3 highlights strengths and limitations of this approach to PCSR. (shrink)

In Probabilistic Knowledge Sarah Moss proposes that our credences and subjective probability judgments (SPJs) can constitute knowledge. Mossean probabilistic knowledge is grounded in probabilistic beliefs that are justified, true, and unGettiered. In this paper I aim to address and solve two challenges that arise in the vicinity of the factivity condition for probabilistic knowledge: the factivity challenge and the challenge from probabilistic arguments from ignorance (probabilistic AIs). I argue that while Moss's deflationary solution to the factivity challenge formally works, it (...) leaves us ill-equipped to handle probabilistic AIs. An account of probabilistic knowledge that cannot overcome probabilistic AIs makes knowledge of thoroughly probabilistic contents a rare and unstable phenomenon, at best, or, at worst, impossible. I hold that establishing a metaphysically enriched account of probabilistic truth is therefore mandatory. I go on to develop a truth-conditional approach on probabilistic factivity that is relativistic in its nature and centers on objective chances. I show that while the approach is still compatible with Moss's overall semantics for probabilistic knowledge, it provides us with a simple but forceful answer to probabilistic AIs. (shrink)

Aristotle's theory of a virtuous Mean, or mesotēs, has a range of application that is widely underestimated. A Mean, stripped of extraneous properties, is best thought of as a case of goal-oriented goodness. Contrary to what many commentators assume, it need not be objectionably quantitative. The theory of the Mean applies to both acts and dispositions. It is not restricted to intermediate states of feeling or emotion, and it can cover many cases of obligation. It deserves to be rehabilitated, since (...) the failure to grasp its structure leads to frequent confusions in everyday criticism. (shrink)

This paper examines what, if anything, "Eastern philosophy" can teach us about business ethics. The whole idea of "Eastern ethics" or so-called "Asian values" is suspect on a number of scores. The paper argues that It is better to refer to specific ideas of particular thinkers influential within one country or tradition. The paper concentrates on the philosophy of two such thinkers – Watsuji Tetsuro of Japan and Confucius. When this more "micro" approach is adopted, we can learn some important (...) lessons with respect to the meaning of trust, the longterm nature of relations, and ethics that extend far beyond the limited idea of rights. The paper considers these lessons in the business context. (shrink)

Conceiving legal obligations towards future generations is challenging—especially from a positivist stance and if obligations and claims are understood as being correlative in nature. Legal obligations towards future generations are often rejected from the outset if (and insofar as) there is no explicit acknowledgement or established doctrine. This neglects the power of sound legal interpretation. I argue that obligations towards future people and generations are grounded in the relational character of human rights and that their positivity is not a problem (...) in a legal order containing norm texts that can reasonably be interpreted as acknowledging human rights; no additional enactment is necessary for these obligations to be part of the positive law. This claim is based on a (novel) concept of fundamental rights which is compatible with legal positivism. (shrink)

-/- Policy regulations of ethically controversial genetic technologies should, on the one hand, be based on ethical principles. On the other hand, they should be socially acceptable to ensure implementation. In addition, they should align with ethical theory. Yet to date we lack a reliable and valid scale to measure the relevant ethical judgements in laypeople. We target this lacuna. -/- We developed a scale based on ethical principles to elicit lay judgments: the Genetic Technologies Questionnaire (GTQ). In two pilot (...) studies and a pre-registered main study, we validated the scale in a representative sample of the US population. -/- The final version of the scale contains 20 items but remains highly reliable even when reduced to five. It also predicts behaviour; for example, ethical judgments as measured by the GTQ predicted hypothetical donations and grocery shopping. In addition, the GTQ may be of interest to policymakers and ethicists because it reveals coherent and ethically justified judgments in laypeople. For instance, the GTQ indicates that ethical judgments are sensitive to possible benefits and harms (in line with utilitarian ethics), but also to ethical principles such as the value of consent-autonomy. -/- In conclusion, the GTQ can be recommended for research in both experimental psychology and applied ethics, as well as a tool for ethically and empirically informed policymaking. (shrink)

The paper addresses the highly controversial subject of the nature of law. It attempts to present a post-modern positivist concept of law that rejects objectivism and the postulation of a unified legal order entirely and merges elements of system and discourse theory.

Dignity is an important concept in ethics. Human rights organizations justify rights by appealing to human dignity. Prominent politicians have cited the need to protect human dignity and urged the founding of international institutions. The concept of human dignity is often used to evaluate and critique the ethics of select practices. In addition, the idea of dignity is used as a universal principle to ground universalist business ethics.This paper argues that there are substantial differences between the ways in which the (...) West and China construe human dignity. Having documented these major differences, we consider two cases to show how the differences might “cash out” in actual business practice. Instead of relying upon a nonexistent universal concept of human dignity, we suggest that it is respectful and sound to seek to identify the many goods (teamwork, initiative, autonomy, respect for elders) that differing parties see at play in the case at hand and then to try to come up with ways to realize as many of these goods as possible. (shrink)

This paper concerns the distinction between intrinsic and instrumental goodness, and the claim that intrinsic goodness is somehow prior to instrumental goodness. Although the idea is ancient, one version of it going back at least to Aristotle, and although it may initially seem obvious, I suggest that its truth is not obvious at all. In fact, I try to make out a case for thinking that all goodness is fundamentally goal-oriented and contributory. It is goodness for an objective, in the (...) sense of being adequate for, or such as to be successful at, realizing an end. Success in and of itself is an intrinsic good, but it is a rather special object of preference or desire: it is a second order case of goodness, having no content without actions which are directed at an end. The Aristotelian picture of intrinsic goodness being chosen for its own sake and more primary than instrumental good is a misleading picture of the situation. (shrink)

Although convergence in emotion expressions within small groups is well documented, the motives that explain why members converge are rarely explicated. We approach expressive convergence from a conformity perspective and introduce the Emotional Conformity Framework, in which we posit that members match their groupmates’ emotion expressions because they are motivated to gain an accurate understanding of reality (informational conformity motive) or to form and maintain social relationships (normative conformity motive). These motives determine members’ standards for correctness, social responses, and plausible (...) convergence mechanisms, while members’ personalities and situational properties shape the relative strength of the two motives. By explicating these motivational underpinnings, the Framework improves our capacity to understand, predict, and regulate expressive convergence and emphasizes its functionality. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Habermas’s method of rational reconstruction faces limitations when it comes to analysing newly emerging and contested political practices. As rational reconstruction aims to criticize existing practices by determining their normative meaning as reflected in the participants’ idealizing presuppositions, it reaches its limits where emerging and contested practices make it impossible to identify a shared self-understanding and a single participants’ perspective. Using the example of membership politics, I argue that this is often the case where (...) nationally constituted forms of politics become controversial or are fundamentally questioned. Building on the work of Benhabib and Fraser, I develop an alternative reconstructive method of plural reconstruction, which modifies the basic premises of rational reconstruction, adjusting it to emerging and contested political contexts. (shrink)

Preliminary definitions and distinctions -- Causes of unintended consequences -- The challenges unintended consequences pose for standard moral frameworks -- Possible ethical remedies.

Questions of political membership belong to the most controversial issues in political theory today. Most of the contributions to these debates, however, leave aside the procedural question of how and by whom membership boundaries can be legitimately redrawn. In this article, I argue that membership theory should move from dealing with legitimate boundaries to legitimate boundary-making. Highlighting the limits of two normative models – sovereign and cosmopolitan membership politics – and building on a new interpretation of Seyla Benhabib’s concept of (...) ‘democratic iterations’, I develop an alternative approach, which I describe as post-sovereign membership politics. Post-sovereign membership politics envisages differentiated participatory entitlements for members and non-members in boundary-making and aims to realize both members’ and non-members’ autonomy in decisions on controversial issues such as citizenship tests, prisoner disenfranchisement, or the selling of passports. (shrink)

While Socrates was in his own way a deeply religious man, the Euthyphro is often thought to provide a refutation of the divine command theory of morality: the theory that what is morally good is good because it is divinely approved. Socrates seems to suggest that what is holy or pious is pleasing to the gods because it is holy, and not holy because it pleases them. Thus the dialogue is sometimes presented as showing that what is morally good and (...) bad must be independent of the divine will. I argue that matters are not so simple, since there are several ways in which the gods could help determine which acts are good, for instance, by disposing certain human affairs which are relevant to moral decisions. Moreover, Socrates suggests that he has obligations to the gods themselves, and these obligations would have to depend in part on what pleases them. It follows that the dilemma which Socrates poses to Euthyphro does not offer two mutually exclusive alternatives. There are various ways for the preferences of such gods to help determine which acts are adequate for moral praise or blame. It could therefore hardly be the case that religious doctrines, if true, are irrelevant to the content of morality. Knowledge of the gods’ preferences, if such knowledge were available, would be of importance to moral theory. Socrates himself does not deny this, nor should we. (shrink)