Unemployment in Europe is currently a major challenge. Two models for solving the problem are frequently proposed: a work model, which in its radical version institutes a legally binding right to employment, and a basic income model, which in its radical form establishes a universal, unconditional right to income security. In practice, western democracies have experimented with mixed forms of both models, with a greater emphasis on guaranteeing work. This article examines the justifications of these two models in their radical (...) versions, with a special focus on the experience of self-respect. The conclusion is that the benefits that traditionally are associated with paid work function better in justifying a right to basic income than a right to work. (shrink)

Even though respect for integrity is hailed in several authoritative legal and ethical documents, and is typically presented as a complement to respect for autonomy, it is largely neglected in many leading works in ethics. Is such neglect warranted, or does it express a prejudice? This article argues that the latter is the case, and that this is due to misplaced conceptual concerns. It offers some proposals as regards the conceptualization of integrity in social ethics in general (...) and in biomedical ethics in particular. Five main directions of interpretation of “integrity” are discerned and shown to be relevant for different areas of biomedical ethics. The defense of respect for integrity is served by a softening of principlism and by greater attention to context among the initial critics of this principle. (shrink)

When and why do socially constructed norms—including the laws of the land, norms of etiquette, and informal customs—generate moral obligations? I argue that the answer lies in the duty to respect others, specifically to give them what I call “agency respect.” This is the kind of respect that people are owed in light of how they exercise their agency. My central thesis is this: To the extent that (i) existing norms are underpinned by people’s commitments as agents (...) and (ii) they do not conflict with morality, they place moral demands on us on agency-respect grounds. This view of the moral force of socially constructed norms, I suggest, is superior to views that deny the moral force of such norms, and it elegantly explains certain instances of wrongdoing that would otherwise remain unaccounted for. (shrink)

Rival causal and interpretive approaches to explaining social phenomena have important ethical differences. While human actions can be explained as a result of causal mechanisms, as a meaningful choice based on reasons, or as some combination of the two, it is morally important that social scientists respect others by recognizing them as persons. Interpretive explanations directly respect their subjects in this way, while purely causal explanations do not. Yet although causal explanations are not themselves expressions of (...) respect, they can be used in respectful ways if they are incorporated into subjects’ self-directed projects. This can occur when subjects correctly understand and freely adopt researchers’ goals through a process of informed consent. It can also occur when researchers correctly understand and adopt their subject’s goals, using their research to empower those they study. (shrink)

The concept of respect plays a central role in several recent attempts to re-actualise the programme of a critical social theory. In Axel Honneth's most prominent version of that concept, respect is closely tied to the sphere of law, and it is limited to the recognition of a Kantian-type moral autonomy of the individual. So interpreted, the concept of respect can only have a very limited application in the field of education, where concern for the particular (...) desires, intentions and beliefs of mostly immature persons is at stake.However, more than forty years ago R. S. Peters did develop an extended concept of respect as a central component in education. This concept focuses exactly on those desires, intentions and beliefs, instead of on the very demanding capability of practical reasoning orientated towards the Kantian Categorical Imperative. My task in this paper is to explore the potential of Peters' concept of respect for the identification and description of educational pathologies and ultimately for the founding of a critical theory of education. (shrink)

Book review of Auestad's Respect, Plurality, and Prejudice (2015).

This article illustrates the less-acknowledged social construction of the concept of ‘incompetency’ and draws attention to the moral concerns it raises in health care encounters in the south Indian city of Chennai. Based on data drawn from qualitative research, this study suggests that surgeons subjectively construct the idea of incompetency through their understanding of the perceived circumstantial characteristics of the patients and family members they serve. The findings indicate that surgeons often underestimate patients and family members’ capacity based on (...) constructed assessments, which leads to paternalistic practice. In this article, I illustrate how these assessments influence the surgeons’ practices and provide the moral and practical justifications for their actions. The constructed knowledge becomes a source for drawing normative justification for surgeons’ actions and, in conjunction with socially enforced power relationships, results in patients and family members to be on the receiving end of disrespectful attitudes. Based on the data analysis and by drawing on philosophical analysis, I emphasize the need to focus on ‘respect for persons,’ to rethink the framework of ‘capacity,’ and to practice respect in hospital settings. (shrink)

Despite advances in theory, often driven by feminist ethicists, research ethics struggles in practice to adequately account for and respond to the agency and autonomy of people considered vulnerable in the research context. We argue that shifts within feminist research ethics scholarship to better characterise and respond to autonomy and agency can be bolstered by further grounding in discourses from the social sciences, in work that confirms the complex nature of human agency in contexts of structural and other sources (...) of vulnerability. We discuss some of the core concepts and critiques emerging from the literature on women and children's agency in under‐resourced settings, highlighting calls to move from individualistic to relational models of agency, and to recognise the ambiguous, value‐laden, and heterogeneous nature of the concept. We then draw out what these conceptual shifts might mean for research ethics obligations and guidance, illustrating our analysis using a case vignette based on research ethics work conducted in South Africa. We conclude that if research practices are to be supportive of agency, it will be crucial to scrutinise the moral judgements which underpin accounts of agency, derive more situated definitions of and responses to agency, and enable people and participants to influence these based on their own experiences and self‐perceptions. (shrink)

This paper examines Laura Valentini’s attempt to explain political obligations through her account of social norms, her ‘Agency-Respect View’ (ARV). A great strength of ARV is preserving the ‘content-independence’ of political obligations. However, ARV does not mesh well with the moral phenomenology of political obligations. ARV is able to generate moral requirements that are strikingly weak. Accounting for the far stronger moral force of requirements to obey the law requires appealing to law-independent considerations. Valentini’s account of these factors (...) suggests greater explanatory force of an alternative view she dismisses, to which she refers as the ‘deflationary view.’ In addition, among alternative theories that Valentini rejects is one based on the principle of fair play. I respond to Valentini’s criticisms, thereby demonstrating the continuing applicability of fair play. (shrink)

The extensive use of digital platforms has presented considerable challenges to democracy, particularly in the realms of politics and ideology in Brazil. The emergence of digital echo chambers and the rise of extreme viewpoints pose threats to social cohesion, informed decision-making, and the development of individual identities. This analysis focuses specifically on identity formation, the creation and dissemination of information, emphasizing its repercussions on social identity and cultural diversity. Consequently, the influence of these echo chambers in promoting extremist (...) views in this context is just one facet of the broader ideological, racial, and class polarization facing the nation. To face these challenges, it is imperative to defend critical and reflective education on the role and use of social networks, both in the educational system and in the daily lives of young people and society. (shrink)

This simulating book gathers five lectures that ask questions of the broadest general intellectual interest: What is religion? Do other peoples have the same emotional states as we do? Why do humans make use of body imagery? In Circumstantial Deliveries, Rodney Needham shows that the comparative study of societies may furnish the answers. Circumstantial Deliveries challenges the methodology and substance of many conventional ideas about human nature and calls for more radical and comparative analyses. For instance, the author discredits the (...) notion that to primitive peoples the colors red, white, and black symbolize blood, semen, and feces, respectively, arguing that an extensive comparative study of primitive societies discovered no such relationship. These essays sound a common theme: "If a deeper appreciation of the value of life can be had from reading Crime and Punishment, or if a more acute assessment of the springs of action can be acquired from Hamlet, then in principle it should be conceded that like benefits may be derived from a sympathetic observation of other men engaged in their daily affairs.". (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on recognition respect as a component of Anderson’s democratic equality – specifically, how it places certain requirements on the way political institutions such as states treat both citizens and non-citizens. I argue for two claims: that recognition respect is a plausible political (as well as ethical) value, and that it should be understood in large part as a matter of an agent’s material relational standing rather than as their merely being regarded in a (...) certain way by others. In particular, I argue that the second-personal emphasis of recognition respect, the conceptual requirement that recognising somebody as an agent involves recognising them as somebody to whom you are in principle accountable, requires that agents actually be able to hold you to account rather than merely that you see them as being the right sort of being to do so. In turn, this implies that recognition respect requires non-vulnerability. Together, these claims go some way towards further fleshing out democratic equality as a philosophical ideal, and determining what implications this ideal has for matters of theory and policy. (shrink)

Many theories of social justice maintain that concern for the social bases of self-respect grounds demanding requirements of political and economic equality, as self-respect is supposed to be dependent on continuous just recognition by others. This paper argues that such views miss an important feature of self-respect, which accounts for much of its value: self-respect is a capacity for self-orientation that is robust under adversity. This does not mean that there are no social (...) bases of self-respect that such theories ought to incorporate. It means that they are different: they consist of the motivational and epistemic resources needed to develop and maintain such robustness. (shrink)

This essay first explains Polanyi’s theory of the evolutionary genesis of humanity’s distinctive calling to strive to be rational. It shows how Polanyi envisioned human rationality as necessarily entailing a natural respect for other people. Finally, the essay shows how Polanyi shapes a method for a critical social seience, which is consistent with his understanding of human rationality.

The impact of globalization on human rights has generated substantial debate. On the one hand, those making liberal, free-market arguments assert that globalization has a positive impact on developing countries through the increased generation of wealth (e.g., Garrett 1998; Richards et al. in International Studies Quarterly 45:219–239, 2001; Rodrik in Challenge 41:81–94, 1997). On the other hand, the critical perspective claims that globalization negatively impacts respect for human rights because trading arrangements, while open, are detrimentally uneven (e.g., Carleton 1989; (...) Haggard and Maxfield 1996; Stiglitz and Charlton 2005). However, few have looked at the relationship between globalization and respect for economic and social rights. In order to test this relationship, I examine non-OECD countries utilizing two-stage regression analysis to control for investment-selection factors. I find mixed results for the hypothesis that globalization negatively affects respect for economic and social rights. Consistent with Richards et al. (International Studies Quarterly 45:219–239, 2001), I conclude by arguing for the need to disaggregate globalization in order to determine its true effects. (shrink)

In contrast to educational policies in the U.S., which assume an individualistic path of success and promote the assimilation of students, this essay argues for pedagogies where teachers focus upon facilitating the development of strong relationships en route to creating exciting educational environments and fertile contexts for social justice movements. Powerful teachers model the process whereby a commitment to appreciating the perspectives of individual students is combined with the orchestration of a dynamic intersubjective context, because such contexts call out (...) the strongest performances of individuals. Viewing educational events in terms of the patterns and rhythms that transpire in a particular social fields allows educators ways to create powerful educational environments even in neocolonial contexts that pit students and teachers against one another. Viewing educational events as social fields also allows us to understand how the common classroom, which focuses each student on the material in front of them, creates impotent individuals who dissociate themselves from others. (shrink)

The principle of respect for autonomy in clinical ethics is frequently linked to bioethics’ neglect of community-level ethical considerations. I argue that the latter is not an inevitable consequence of the former; rather, that neglect results from a common interpretation of respect for autonomy in solely synchronic and individual terms. A relational understanding of autonomy reveals the way in which respect inescapably involves diachronic and social dimensions. When these are acknowledged, the association between respect for (...) autonomy and liberal individualism is weakened. Such respect has more in common with communitarian approaches, and it need not conflict with the incorporation of collective-level values into ethical deliberation. (shrink)

In Epistemic injustice, Miranda Fricker makes a tremendous contribution to theorizing the intersection of social epistemology with theories of justice. Theories of justice often take as their object of assessment either interpersonal transactions (specific exchanges between persons) or particular institutions. They may also take a more comprehensive perspective in assessing systems of institutions. This systemic perspective may enable control of the cumulative effects of millions of individual transactions that cannot be controlled at the individual or institutional levels. This is (...) true not only with respect to the overall distribution of such goods as income and wealth, but also with respect to the goods of testimonial and hermeneutical justice. Cognitive biases that may be difficult for even epistemically virtuous individuals to correct on their own may be more susceptible to correction if we focus on the principles that should govern our systems of testimonial gathering and assessment. Hence, while Fricker’s focus on individual epistemic virtue is important, we also need to consider what epistemic justice as a virtue of social systems would require. My paper will indicate some directions forward on this front, focusing on the need for integration of diverse institutions and persons engaged in inquiry. (shrink)

This work is to be understood from the systematic perspective as an extension of John Rawl's Theory of Justice. Constituting a normative vanishing-point, the individual's moral self-respect is placed at the centre of the theory's justification. Starting from the thesis that self-respect presents itself as the highestgood, the book defends a number of fundamental moral rights that need to be realized legally, economically, culturally, and politically so that a person can maintain her self-respect.

The book suggests a new perspective on the essence of human language. This enormous achievement of our species is best characterized as a communication technology - not unlike the social media on the Net today - that was collectively invented by ancient humans for a very particular communicative function: the instruction of imagination. All other systems of communication in the biological world target the interlocutors' senses; language allows speakers to systematically instruct their interlocutors in the process of imagining the (...) intended meaning - instead of directly experiencing it. This revolutionary function has changed human life forever, and in the book it operates as a unifying concept around which a new general theory of language gradually emerges. Dor identifies a set of fundamental problems in the linguistic sciences - the nature of words, the complexities of syntax, the interface between semantics and pragmatics, the causal relationship between language and thought, language processing, the dialectics of universality and variability, the intricacies of language and power, knowledge of language and its acquisition, the fragility of linguistic communication and the origins and evolution of language - and shows with respect to all of them how the theory provides fresh answers to the problems, resolves persistent difficulties in existing accounts, enhances the significance of empirical and theoretical achievements in the field, and identifies new directions for empirical research. The theory thus opens a new way towards the unification of the linguistic sciences, on both sides of the cognitive-social divide. (shrink)

While in agreement with Miranda Fricker’s context-sensitive approach to hermeneutical injustice, this paper argues that this contextualist approach has to be pluralized and rendered relational in more complex ways. In the first place, I argue that the normative assessment of social silences and the epistemic harms they generate cannot be properly carried out without a pluralistic analysis of the different interpretative communities and expressive practices that coexist in the social context in question. Social silences and hermeneutical gaps (...) are misrepresented if they are uniformly predicated of an entire social context, instead of being predicated of particular ways of inhabiting that context by particular people in relation to particular others. I contend that a more nuanced—polyphonic—contextualization offers a more adequate picture of what it means to break social silences and to repair the hermeneutical injustices associated with them. In the second place, I argue that the particular obligations with respect to hermeneutical justice that differently situated subjects and groups have are interactive and need to be determined relationally. That is, whether individuals and groups live up to their hermeneutical responsibilities has to be assessed by taking into account the forms of mutual positionality, relationality, and responsivity (or lack thereof) that these subjects and groups display with respect to one another. The central argument is developed through an examination of what in race theory and in contemporary epistemologies of ignorance has been termed “white ignorance”; that is, the kind of hermeneutical inability of privileged white subjects to recognize and make sense of their racial identities, experiences, and social positionality. (shrink)

The book is a contribution to the study of values, as they affect both our personal and our public life. It defends the view that values are necessarily universal, on the ground that that is a condition of their intelligibility. It does, however, reject most common conceptions of universality, like those embodied in the writings on human rights. It aims to reconcile the universality of value with the social dependence of value and the centrality to our life of deep (...) attachments to people and countries alike. Building from there, the book explores personal love, the value of life, and the fundamental duty of respect for people. (shrink)

The target article by Laacke et al. focuses on the specific context of identifying people in social media with a high risk of depression by using artificial intelligence technologies. I...

For some people, respect is due to people of particular standing and involves formality and deference. For others, respect is based on regard and attention. This approach is essentially informal. This article explores young people's interpretations of respect and shows how an understanding of its theory and practice may enhance relationships between adults, especially those employed in the social professions, and young people. Two frameworks are employed to assist in exploring the issues involved; one is located (...) in communication theory within educational contexts (Burbules, 1993) and the other in the politics of self-definition (Wilson, 1993). The discussion draws on three pieces of empirical research involving young people and professionals. The different interpretations of respect are shown to provide a means of understanding a source of conflict between professionals with positions of authority in young people's lives and the young people themselves. (shrink)

In a seminal book, Alvin I. Goldman outlines a theory for how to evaluate social practices with respect to their “veritistic value”, i.e., their tendency to promote the acquisition of true beliefs in society. In the same work, Goldman raises a number of serious worries for his account. Two of them concern the possibility of determining the veritistic value of a practice in a concrete case because we often don't know what beliefs are actually true, and even if (...) we did, the task of determining the veritistic value would be computationally extremely difficult. Neither problem is specific to Goldman's theory and both can be expected to arise for just about any account of veritistic value. It is argued here that the first problem does not pose a serious threat to large classes of interesting practices. The bulk of the paper is devoted to the computational problem, which, it is submitted, can be addressed in promising terms by means of computer simulation. In an attempt to add vividness to this proposal, an up-and-running simulation environment is presented and put to some preliminary tests. (shrink)

The social determinants of mental health with respect to the role of a person’s religiosity are examined in this paper, based on personal experience and a review of the literature. The objective is to hypothesize that religiosity can influence a person’s mental health through three factors: a sense of moral value, support from a community of faith, and exercise of spirituality. The Medline and SciElo databases were reviewed as of 1990, in English and Spanish, using the keywords: spirituality, (...) belief, religion and social determinants of mental health. The references related to the subject were taken into account as well. The article concludes that it is important in bioethics to incorporate the theme of religiosity as a factor in mental health, based on deliberative dialogue and considering the patient’s position as an interlocutor. It also is imperative to bear in mind the support provided by a community of faith that has embraced the virtues of solidarity and acceptance of others. (shrink)

The complexity approach to political economy suggests that radical uncertainty is a necessary feature of a complex and evolving socioeconomic landscape. Radical uncertainty raises various adaptive challenges that are likely to escalate in the coming decades under the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” It jeopardizes the wellbeing of ordinary citizens, whose welfare prospects, job opportunities, and income stream are rendered insecure. It also renders precarious the robust implementation of universal human rights, including the right to social security. In fact, it will (...) be argued that human rights cannot be institutionally secured unless they are implemented in a “complexity aware” way that takes account of the uncertainty of the socioeconomic order. In particular, in order to better protect the dignity of rights holders, and to allow them to survive and thrive in the face of radical uncertainty, governments ought to explore various institutional alternatives to existing schemes. It will be suggested that most existing conditional welfare policies systematically fall short of complexity-aware institutional implementation to the extent that they rely on unreasonable assumptions regarding the availability of salient technocratic control over the complex socioeconomic order. Some economists and philosophers have suggested that UBI (Universal Basic Income) might be a viable way to implement the right to social security today. I propose that some of UBI’s most ethically and economically controversial features, such as unconditionality and universality, appear relatively appealing in light of the complexity perspective. In the absence of better alternatives, UBI might even be a requirement of a robust implementation of the human right to social security – a right that welfare states are already committed to on the level of ideal theory but predictably fail to respect in practice due to policy incoherence. However, open questions remain about whether UBI can be transformed from an ideal model into a pragmatic policy. (shrink)

Respect, Pluralism, and Justice is a series of essays which sketches a broadly Kantian framework for moral deliberation, and then uses it to address important social and political issues. Hill shows how Kantian theory can be developed to deal with questions about cultural diversity, punishment, political violence, responsibility for the consequences of wrongdoing, and state coercion in a pluralistic society.

Liking and respect are postulated as two dimensions of interpersonal attitudes. Liking-disliking is an idiosyncratic response which depends mostly on how target persons influence interests and well-being of the attitude holder and is accompanied by beliefs in their communal traits. Respect-disrespect is a socially shared response which depends mostly on the social status of target persons and is accompanied by beliefs in their agency. This Self-interest /status Model of differences between liking and respect was tested in (...) two studies. It was predicted and found that respect responses are socially shared to higher extent than liking responses. (shrink)

Showing respect is a key value in society today. Readers will learn about its cultural origins, how it applies to rules and laws in our society today, and how democratic societies rely on it to function properly.

Smooth social interaction requires interindividual coordination. This Theory Section addresses the nature of the processes involved and the potential dangers of malfunctioning coordination. In her invited article, Butler provides a general overview of the processes involved, including interpersonal synchronisation, and advocates a dynamic systems framework for further research. In their commentary, Carré and Cornejo concur in principle but highlight the importance of the meaning attributed to the spontaneous expressive movements in naturally occurring interactions and the nature of the respective (...) social situations. Suhay, in her commentary from a political science perspective, highlights the need for synergy based on social coordination for successful democratic governing. In commenting on the problem of political polarisation because of malfunctioning social coordination, introduced by Butler, Suhay adds the important role played by social identity and emotion. Of particular importance are affective reactions based on “evaluative biases” in favour of information that bolsters one's views and rejection of information that challenges them. I conclude this editorial by referring to recent data on affective polarisation, pleading for more multidisciplinary research on the phenomenon, and arguing for a more substantial contribution from the cognitive and emotion sciences. In particular, I outline the “predictive coding” framework and the potential contributions from emotion science. (shrink)

This chapter examines whether solidarity can be understood as a form of mutual recognition; or possibly, as a social phenomenon, which combines different forms of mutual recognition. The emphasis is on the connection between the thin principle of universal mutual respect, and the thicker relations between people, more sensitive to their particular needs and contributions, which social solidarity involves.

The Moral Limits of Law analyzes the related debates concerning the moral obligation to obey the law, conscientious citizenship, and state legitimacy. Modern societies are drawn in a tension between the centripetal pull of the local and the centrifugal stress of the global. Boundaries that once appeared permanent are now permeable: transnational legal, economic, and trade institutions increasingly erode the autonomy of states. Nonetheless transnational principles are still typically effected through state law. For law's subjects, this tension brings into focus (...) the interaction of legal and moral obligations and the legitimacy of state authority. This volume incorporates a comprehensive critical analysis of the methodology and substance of the debates in recent legal, political, and moral philosophy, regarding political obligation and the moral obligation to obey the law. The author argues that traditional accounts of political obligation that assume a bounded conception of the polity are no longer tenable. Higgins therefore presents an original theory of the conscientious agent's attitude towards law that accommodates the contemporary social tension between local and global obligations. (shrink)

This chapter develops a theory of categorical normativity, of those principles that have authority over us regardless of our ends and interests. It argues that there is an intimate connection between these norms and the conditions of agency. In this respect, it offers a version of constitutivism. But the version of constitutivism defended is unique in a few respects. First, it is naturalistic: agency is an emergent property, like the properties of biology and economics. Second, it is social: (...) agency is something constructed by the complex interaction of agents. And third, it supports the normativity of a particular contractualist procedure: adhering to Kant’s Formula of the Realm of Ends is a condition on agency, and so a categorical requirement. (shrink)

This study compares 20 subjects, in each of three different settings, with serious psychotic disorder who hear voices, and compares their voice-hearing experience. We find that while there is much that is similar, there are notable differences in the kinds of voices that people seem to experience. In a California sample, people were more likely to describe their voices as intrusive unreal thoughts; in the South Indian sample, they were more likely to describe them as providing useful guidance; and in (...) our West African sample, they were more likely to describe them as morally good and causally powerful. What we think we may be observing is that people who fall ill with serious psychotic disorder pay selective attention to a constant stream of many different auditory and quasi-auditory events because of different “cultural invitations”—variations in ways of thinking about minds, persons, spirits and so forth. Such a process is consistent with processes described in the cognitive psychology and psychiatric anthropology literature, but not yet described or understood with respect to cultural variations in auditory hallucinations. We call this process “social kindling.”. (shrink)

This study empirically examines the relationship between wide-ranging board diversity and the quality of corporate social responsibility disclosure variables in Malaysia. We extend prior literature covering broader dimensions of board diversity and their impact on CSR after controlling for board and audit committee characteristics. Using 200 listed firms in Bursa Malaysia during 2009–2013 and applying both OLS and 2SLS instrumental variables approaches, we document significant positive effect of board education level and board tenure diversity on the quality of CSR (...) disclosure. Further analysis using robust regression also shows positive association between gender diversity and CSR disclosure. Our findings also demonstrate that the quality of CSR disclosure is significantly negatively associated with board age and nationality diversity. These results remain consistent with using alternative measures for board diversity, and characteristics for board of director and audit committees as well as split samples between large and small firms. Additional tests exhibit complementary relationship of education level and nationality with gender, while substitutive relationship of age and tenure with gender in influencing CSR. These findings provide useful insights into the policy makers in setting regulations in respect of board diversity in Malaysia and other emerging economies in the Asian region. Our evidence is also useful for listed companies in setting the criteria to identify directors who can support their strategic decisions. (shrink)

This article addresses the service of financial companies to society from the perspective of the Catholic Social Teaching (hereinafter CST), specifically regarding conflicts of interest between banks and their customers. The article begins with a case based on interviews with professionals in the financial sector, which provides the context for the CST’s contribution. The analysis of the aforementioned conflicts points to an apparent disconnect between service to society and service to customers. Thus, the bank would set aside the customer’s (...) interests in exchange for a better service to society through good results. This article presents the CST’s normative framework to analyze this matter through some of the CST’s principles: the centrality of the person, the respect for her dignity, and the orientation to the common good. These principles and the CST’s ethical concept of service provide guidance in assessing these conflicts of interest. From an ethical point of view and according to CST, there cannot be a true service to society if the dignity of the client is not respected. It is necessary to review the organization’s incentive policy and level of awareness about the importance of customer service. We end with recommendations related to conflicts of interest with clients. (shrink)

To effectively address ageing and develop adequate eldercare needs, among others, new ethical visions are much needed. One of the ways to formulate sound ethical visions for contemporary issues is to reclaim, reinterpret and revive old moral ideas and ideals rooted in different indigenous cultural traditions. Drawing thought, wisdom and inspirations from classical Confucianism, the article offers a Confucian ethical outlook on healthy ageing and social eldercare. The popular perception of ageing in the West as well as China regards (...) old age as a period of inevitable decline. However, Kong Zi (Confucius) treats human life as an ongoing moral pilgrimage, with old age the summit of the lifelong journey. This Confucian ethical view on ageing as the culmination of a lifelong moral cultivation has various important themes. They include the primary feature of learning in healthy ageing, the essential role of social eldercare embedded in the popular Confucian norm ‘filial piety’ ( xiao), intergenerational flourishing and the necessity to respect the rights and dignity of each old person. Such a Confucian socio-ethical vision can not only help identify contemporary failings in the area of eldercare but also generate novel ideas and frameworks to help China and the world to face population ageing and elderly care in a more positive way. (shrink)

The paper is one of the first empirical attempts that builds on the moral dilemmas and group rationality literature to explore the way in which group composition with respect to group members’ individual choices in moral dilemmas and social influence processes impact on group moral choices. First individually and then, in small groups, 221 participants were asked to decide on 10 moral dilemmas. Our results show that emergent group level utilitarianism is higher than the average individual utilitarianism, yet, (...) lower than the highest individual utilitarianism within groups. We also show that average individual utilitarianism positively predicts group utilitarianism while group fragmentation in individual utilitarianism has a negative effect on group utilitarianism. Next to group composition, minority influence processes explain additional variance in group utilitarianism, cognitive dissent having a positive influence, while normative deviance a negative influence on group utilitarianism. Majority influence has no significant influence on group utilitarianism. Finally, our results show that the relationship between group fragmentation in individual utilitarianism and emergent group utilitarianism is mediated by the two forms of minority influence. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary research within the field of sustainability studies often faces incompatible ontological assumptions deriving from natural and social sciences. The importance of this fact is often underrated and sometimes leads to the wrong strategies. We distinguish between two broad approaches in interdisciplinarity: unificationism and pluralism. Unificationism seeks unification and perceives disciplinary boundaries as conventional, representing no long-term obstacle to progress, whereas pluralism emphasizes more ephemeral and transient interdisciplinary connections and underscores the autonomy of the disciplines with respect to (...) one another. Both approaches have their merits and pitfalls. Unification runs the risk of scientific imperialism, while pluralism can result in insurmountable barriers between disciplines. We made a comparison of eight distinct interdisciplinary attempts at integration of knowledge across social and natural sciences. The comparison was carried out as four pairwise comparisons: environmental economics versus ecological economics, environmental history versus historical ecology, resilience theory versus political ecology, and socio-biology versus actor-network theory. We conclude by showing that none of these prominent eight interdisciplinary fields in and of itself manages to provide, in a satisfactory way, such an integrated understanding of sustainability. We argue for pluralism and advocate complex ways of articulating divergent ontological assumptions. This is not equivalent to pursuing knowledge unification either through scientific imperialism or by catering to the requirements of narrow practical utility. It means prioritizing interdisciplinary integration by simultaneously acknowledging the role of societal and natural factors in accounting for sustainability issues. (shrink)