Several areas of expanding corporate responsibilities are evident from current practices. This article penetrates one such field, economic compensation through litigation, and discusses the possibility and desirability of reversing the trend. In court, companies are fined increasing amounts for an ever wider range of faults, or they settle out of court under this legal threat. This is not a local American problem, but European companies are increasingly involved because of globalization. The development in Europe is also driven by the same (...) factors as in America – the mechanics of litigation and conventional ethics. The greed of plaintiffs and lawyers can mobilize the perceived virtue of sympathizing with a victim. Therefore it seems likely that a precondition for tort reform is an ethical reevaluation. Is it desirable and politically possible to make the individual more responsible for his own fate? (shrink)

The conception of responsibility for beliefs typically assumed in the literature mirrors the practices ofaccountabilityfor actions. In this paper, I argue that this trend leaves a part of what it is to be responsible unduly neglected, namely the practices ofattributability.After offering a diagnosis for this neglect, I bring these practices into focus and develop a virtue-theoretic framework to vindicate them. I then investigate the specificity of the belief case and conclude by resisting two challenges, namely that attributability cannot (...) class='Hi'>amount to genuine responsibility and that it can be reduced to a sort of accountability. (shrink)

AI as decision support supposedly helps human agents make ‘better’decisions more efficiently. However, research shows that it can, sometimes greatly, influence the decisions of its human users. While there has been a fair amount of research on intended AI influence, there seem to be great gaps within both theoretical and practical studies concerning unintended AI influence. In this paper I aim to address some of these gaps, and hope to shed some light on the ethical and moral concerns that (...) arise with unintended AI influence. I argue that unintended AI influence has important implications for the way we perceive and evaluate human-AI interaction. To make this point approachable from both the theoretical and practical side, and to avoid anthropocentricallyladen ambiguities, I introduce the notion of decision points. Based on this, the main argument of this paper will be presented in two consecutive steps: i) unintended AI influence doesn’t allow for an appropriate determination of decision points-this will be introduced as decision-point-dilemma, and ii) this has important implications for the ascription of responsibility. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that the qualities of nuptial gifts among nonhumans and marriage-related property transfers in human societies such as bridewealth and dowry covary with aspects of mate quality. This article explores this issue for another type of marriage-related property transfer: engagement rings. We obtained data on engagement ring costs and other variables through a mail survey sent to recently married individuals living in the American Midwest. This article focuses on survey responses regarding rings that were purchased by men (...) acting alone and using only their own funds who then presented the rings while making surprise proposals of marriage (n = 127). Men marrying younger women spent more on rings, as did men who earned more money and whose fiancées earned more money. These findings suggest that the amounts spent on engagement rings, like bridewealth and dowry payments in other societies, reflect aspects of both male and female mate quality. (shrink)

The relevance of smart speakers is steadily increasing, allowing users perform several daily tasks. From a commercial perspective, smart speakers also provide recommendations of products and services that may influence the consumer decision-making process. However, previous studies have mainly focused on the adoption of smart speakers, but there is a lack of proper guidelines that help design the way these devices should offer their consumption recommendations. Based on a stimulus-organism-response approach, we analyze how two features of smart speakers' recommendations influence (...) on the effectiveness of such recommendations through its impact on user engagement and attitude. Data was collected from a sample of undergrad students in Spain using an experiment design that focused on a restaurant recommendation, and analyzed using partial least squares. On the one hand, our results suggests that gender congruence generates user engagement with the smart speaker. On the other hand, message length is positively related to attitudes towards the restaurant, at a declining rate. In addition, while better attitudes lead to higher visiting intentions, the influence of engagement on visiting intentions is partially mediated via attitudes. Thus, our findings contribute to understand the antecedents of users' engagement with smart speakers, as well as its impact on the customers' willingness to follow smart speakers' recommendations, constituting a base to analyze the impact of artificial intelligence solutions aimed to smooth the transitions of a customer through the stages of purchase process. (shrink)

In virtue of what are we responsible for our beliefs? I argue that doxastic responsibility has a crucial social component: part of being responsible for our beliefs is being responsible to others. I suggest that this responsibility is a form of answerability with two distinct dimensions: an individual and an interpersonal dimension. While most views hold that the individual dimension is grounded in some form of control that we can exercise over our beliefs, I contend that we are (...) answerable for our beliefs as long as they reflect our evaluative commitments and dispositions, or are products of our reasoning, where this does not amount to a form of control. I next argue that answerability has a second, largely neglected dimension: the interpersonal dimension, which is grounded in what I call our relations of doxastic dependence. As social creatures, we depend on one another in our capacity as believers. We depend on one another as believers not only in epistemic ways, but also in practical ways, because our beliefs inform and motivate our actions, and allow us to participate in shared practical goals. Depending on one another in these ways is an unavoidable part of cooperating in the shared project of pursuing epistemic and practical success, and it makes us vulnerable to both epistemic and moral harm. It is because of this, I argue, that answerability has interpersonal normative force upon us: we are subject to legitimate expectations associated with participating in relations of doxastic dependence. (shrink)

The greatest diversity of butterflies and their host plants occurs in tropical regions. Some groups of butterflies in the tropics exhibit monophagous feeding in the larval stage, exploiting only one family of plants; others are polyphagous, feeding on plants in two or more distinct families. The two major types of tropical habitats for butterflies, namely primary and secondary forests, offer very different evolutionary opportunities for the exploitation of plants as larval food. Butterflies are faced with the major logistical problem, as (...) are many other herbivorous insects, of depositing eggs on the correct plant for successful larval feeding. This paper, using the concepts of phenotype set and spatial patchiness of resources, attemps to make some predictions as to the optimal phenotypic systems for monophagous and polyphagous feeding in tropical butterflies, as related to the spatial patchiness of larval host plants in primary and secondary forests. In addition to the secondary compound chemistry of larval host plants as playing a role in the evolution of monophagy and polyphagy, the assumption is made that the spatial patchiness of host plants within and among different families also acts as a major factor in determining optimal ranges of phenotypes for different patterns of larval feeding. Owing to the high spatial patchiness of primary forest species of canopy trees and vines, it is predicted that butterflies exploiting these will be mostly polyphagous, whereas secondary forests having stable formations of fewer plant species and larger patches of these plants, will have mostly monophagous species. Forest understories may have both monophagous and polyphagous species, depending upon the layer of forest and the general type of understory (i.e. palmaceous or dicotyledonous). Field data on some groups of butterflies from tropical America support these predictions. Polyphagous butterflies are predicted to possess a genetic system of mixed morphs with a population being polymorphic as a whole; monophagous butterflies are predicted to have individuals all more or less similar genetically, and with a high amount of genic variation within individuals. Other forms of monophagy may evolve in species that are essentially monomorphic but with various mechanisms (physiological, developmental, behavioral) of phenotypic flexibility at the individual level. Although the environment is essentially coarse-grained for larvae since most are sedentary and polymorphism is an optimal adaptive strategy, the oviposition strategy of the adult must also be considered and some situations (i.e. forest canopy) have resources (host plants) distributed in a fine-grained fashion. Other forms of limited polyphagy may result from monomorphic genetic systems in which there is considerable phenotypic flexibility. (shrink)

Contemporary egalitarian theories of justice constrain the demands of equality by responsibility, and do not view as unjust inequalities that are traceable to individuals' choices. This paper argues that, in order to make non-arbitrary determinate judgements of responsibility, any theory of justice needs a principle of stakes , that is, an account of what consequences choices should have. The paper also argues that the principles of stakes seemingly presupposed by egalitarians are implausible, and that adopting alternative principles of (...) stakes amounts to fleshing out the demands of responsibility rather than imposing limits on them. (shrink)

In essence firms or companies are usually thought to exist to make products for or provide services of some sort to third parties, other companies or individuals. The philosophical question which naturally arises then is ‘to the benefit of whom should a firm’s activities be aimed?’ Possible answers include the owners of the firm, the firm’s employees or wider society, the firm’s local community or their host nation. It is because of firms’ location within a wider society that the issue (...) of corporate social responsibility arises. The issue is do they contribute in a positive way to the fabric of society. In this paper we conduct an exploratory investigation whose research questions, broadly, are whether there is public evidence of corporate social responsibility activity by firms listed in the UK and to what extent, if any, such activities may amount to genuinely socially responsible management by the firms. We examined the most up to date annual reports of a split sample of 36 firms listed in the FTSE 350. The short answers to the two research questions above are: to some degree and no by some margin, based on data from the sample firms. (shrink)

The conditions of moral responsibility include having the right kind and amount of control over actions, events or states of affairs that are morally significant. Both metaphysical issues and normative concerns are relevant, and these are extensively intertwined. This dissertation proposes a framework for an original theory of moral responsibility. The idea that rational autonomy is required for moral responsibility is developed and defended. I clarify various aspects of rationality and the nature of autonomy in the (...) context of my topic. I also address the important but infrequently discussed relation between views about the nature of morality and one's claims about the conditions for moral responsibility. I describe a form of moral objectivism assumed in my arguments, and argue that this assumption is not a disadvantage. ;Considerations about moral responsibility are often overly influenced by Frankfurt-style examples , and I provide an analysis of FSEs. I defend the position that the ability to do otherwise is a necessary condition for moral responsibility, despite a pervasive denial of this claim. I argue that if we carefully specify the events for which agents are morally responsible, we find that FSE-based arguments fail to show that alternative possibilities are not required for moral responsibility. I contrast my theory with two recent theories of moral responsibility that I believe are the most successful: the Guidance Control Theory of John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza and the Reason View of Susan Wolf. ;Finally, I evaluate restrictivism, the position that something required for moral responsibility---the ability to do otherwise---is very rare. I argue that the best restrictivist argument is unsound and the most plausible revisions of the argument also fail. I conclude that people often have the ability to do otherwise if they have it at all, and there are no good reasons to adhere to restrictivism. (shrink)

Crowdfunding platforms have revolutionized entrepreneurial finance, with 200 billion dollars expected to be dispersed annually to entrepreneurs and small business owners by 2020. Despite the importance of this growing phenomenon, our knowledge of the dynamics of successful lending-based prosocial crowdfunding and its implications for the business ethics literature remain limited. We use a social responsibility lens to examine whether crowdfunders on a lending-based prosocial platform lend their money based on altruistic or strategic motives. Our results indicate that the dynamics (...) of prosocial lending-based crowdfunding are somewhat consistent with traditional forms of financing. Specifically, despite a prosocial setting in nature, crowdfunders tend to act strategically, positively responding to signals of quality and low risk. Notably, we also find that projects that are high on both financial and social appeal receive the highest average amount of funding. Furthermore, language on the lender’s profile indicating ability to pay is positively related to both funding success and funding amount. Our study contributes to filling the gap in the business ethics literature about the dynamics of lending-based prosocial crowdfunding, and the strategic and altruistic ethical motives that drive lenders in such endeavors. (shrink)

A field experiment examined how signs of social class influence compassionate responses to those in need. Pedestrians in two major cities in the United States were exposed to a confederate wearing symbols of relatively high or low social class who was requesting money to help the homeless. Compassionate responding was assessed by measuring the donation amount of the pedestrians walking past the target. Pedestrians gave more than twice as much money to the confederate wearing higher-class symbols than they did (...) to the one wearing lower-class symbols. A follow-up study exposed participants to images of the target wearing the same higher- or lower-class symbols and examined the antecedents of compassionate responding. Consistent with theorizing, higher-class symbols elicited perceptions of elevated competence, trustworthiness, similarity to the self, and perceived humanity compared to lower-class symbols. These results indicate that visible signs of social class influence judgments of others’ traits and attributes, as well as in decisions to respond compassionately to the needs of those who are suffering. (shrink)

It is often natural to compare two events by describing one as ‘more of a cause’ of some effect than the other. But what do such comparisons amount to, exactly? This paper aims to provide a guided tour of the recent literature on ‘degrees of causation’. Section 2 looks at what I call ‘dependence measures’, which arise from thinking of causes as difference‐makers. Section 3 looks at what I call ‘production measures’, which arise from thinking of causes as jointly (...) sufficient for their effects. Finally, section 4 examines the important question of whether there is any sense in which an agent is more responsible for an outcome in virtue of her action being more of a cause of it. I describe a puzzle that emerges from this question, and explore various strategies for resolving it. (shrink)

During the last decade and a half, Estonia has concentrated predominantly on economic development in its narrowest sense. Currently, the emphasis is gradually moving towards a broader approach, including an increasingly social agenda. The research question here concerns the awareness of corporate social responsibility among Estonian owners and managers. Empirical research in Estonia indicates that there has been a shift towards recognizing the importance of social responsibility, but this primarily concerns the “lower layers” of social responsibility, recognizing (...) the importance of economic responsibility and in some respects also public responsibility. Responses in interviews show a certain amount of personal initiative, but these are single examples rather than a general trend and are not enough to change the overall picture. Still, in any assessment of the current situation regarding social responsibility in Estonia, emphasis should be laid on the fact that changes are taking effect and will continue to do so. In transition economies, including Estonia, we should not overlook the fact that, at least in the early years of transition, the focus is on a rapid economic development where the social side will inevitably be left in the background and economic development will take place at the expense of social and environmental development. (shrink)

Much of our ordinary thought and talk about responsibility exhibits what I call the ‘pie fallacy’—the fallacy of thinking that there is a fixed amount of responsibility for every outcome, to be distributed among all those, if any, who are responsible for it. The pie fallacy is a fallacy, I argue, because how responsible an agent is for some outcome is fully grounded in facts about the agent, the outcome and the relationships between them; it does not (...) depend, in particular, on how responsible anyone else is for that same outcome. In this paper, I explore how the pie fallacy can arise by considering several different kinds of case in which two or more agents are responsible for the same outcome. I’ll end with some brief remarks on the potential consequences of my arguments for how to think about responsibility in war. (shrink)

This study investigated how decision-makers differ in processing their organizational environment, depending on the levels of their idealism and relativism. Focusing on socially responsible buying/sourcing issues, responses from buying/sourcing professionals from U.S. apparel and shoe companies were analyzed, using a series of regression analyses. The results generally supported the proposition that the degrees of idealism and relativism determine involvement levels that, in turn, result in varying levels of reactions to the organizational environment and corresponding amounts of information processing. Highly idealistic (...) individuals were influenced by only idealistic signals of organizational environment. Further analysis showed highly idealistic and relativistic individuals were more likely to evaluate the organizational environment in terms of its business merit. The results suggest that organizations need to carefully plan how to communicate underlying meanings of organizational initiatives with their employees, knowing that individuals who have strong ethical opinions will only react to what they believe and elaborate its value for business. Further theoretical and practical implications and suggestions are discussed. (shrink)

In my target article, I analyzed available information and policy options for the two of the most commonly used cognitive enhancement (CE) drugs: Adderall and Ritalin. I concluded that for all forms of amphetamine, including Adderall, and for instant-release forms of methylphenidate, any form of sale beyond prescription for therapeutic purposes needs to be prohibited, while some form of a taxation approach and the economic disincentives model (EDM) in particular could be an option for public policy on extended-release forms of (...) methylphenidate . However, there has been a considerable amount of constructive criticism regarding my proposal. Some neuroethicists objected to my favoring prohibitive policies to dangerous CE drugs such as amphetamine and argued for laissez-faire or even mandatory use of enhancements. Others took issue with the conclusion that the economic disincentives model (EDM) could be an option for public policy on extended release forms of methylphenidate. Furthermore, there are those that think my argument in general and EDM in particular are failing to address the relevant issues in regulation of CE, such as social justice and real autonomy. Finally, there are those who offer suggestions on how the argument and the model of public policy for CE drugs can be improved. These comments are greatly appreciated, and I hope that my responses have captured the issues they were concerned with. (shrink)

The approach of responsible research and innovation has been proposed to support the introduction of technologies that touch upon socially sensitive issues. RRI is intended to help designers and manufacturers of new technologies identify and accommodate public concerns when developing a new technology by engaging with a wide range of relevant actors in an interactive, transparent process. However what this approach amounts to exactly remains elusive as of yet, i.e. it is unclear what its contribution to the societal embedding of (...) new technologies should consists of exactly. The transition to a sustainable bio-economy that uses biomass as its main resource is a complicated trajectory involving many actors and touching upon societally sensitive issues such as the use of genetic modification. In this paper we pose the question in what way RRI can stimulate the development and diffusion of a sustainable bio-economy in The Netherlands and Europe. We claim that for the further development and diffusion of the bio-economy, trust among actors in the relevant value-chain is a prerequisite. RRI can play a pivotal part in the bio-economy by providing conditions for trustworthiness of actors and by enhancing trusting relationships. This can be achieved through instruments such as personal relationships, third person guarantors, institutions and the communication of values. From the application of RRI to the context of the bio-economy, lessons can be drawn for other socially intricate technological trajectories. (shrink)

Each year individuals are required to execute millions of authorizations for the release of their health records as a condition of employment, applying for various types of insurance, and submitting claims for benefits. Generally, there are no restrictions on the scope of information released pursuant to these compelled authorizations, and the development of a nationwide system of interoperable electronic health records will increase the amount of health information released. After quantifying the extent of these disclosures, this article discusses why (...) it is important to limit disclosures of health information for nonmedical purposes as well as how it may be possible to do so. (shrink)

The paper defends a neo-Lockean view of secondary qualities, in particular color, according to which the being of a given color amounts to having the disposition to produce in normal viewers under normal circumstances the response of seeing an objective manifest simple color. It also defends the view that the naïve color-concept, the simple color concept, so to speak, is a fully objective property. The defense of this view is carried against its nearest cousin , the view proposed and defended (...) by Philip Pettit and Frank Jackson, according to which the naive color concept is response dependent, whereas color itself is fully objective. It is argued that the neo-Lockean alternative better captures the phenomenology of color, and better predicts or accounts for the dramatic character of the historical scientific discoveries (of Newton and his followers). Against metaphysical response dependence, the paper proposes a brief positive argument from the unity of color properties, and a criticism of Jackson’s counter-argument against metaphysical response-dependence from the naïve intuitions about causal properties of color. (shrink)

Four experiments examined how accurately participants can report the times of their own decisions. Within an auditory reaction time task, participants reported the time at which the tone was presented, they decided on the response, or the response key was pressed. Decision time reports were checked for plausibility against the actual RTs, and we compared the effects of experimental manipulations on these two measures to see whether the reported decision times showed appropriate effects. In addition, we estimated the amount (...) of error associated with individual decision time reports by checking how often participants’ decision time reports were implausibly early or late , and by using several quantitative models. Overall, the results suggest that decision time reports are not very accurate but they may be usable for some purposes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Anthony J. Palmer, “Music Education for the Twenty-First Century: A Philosophical View of the General Education Core”Ana Lcuía FregaI would like to discuss three themes related to Tony Palmer's paper: (1) my agreement with the content of his paper in general, (2) some remarks on elements of what he deals with, including notions about the concept or a vision of what music education should be in the (...) USA and in the rest of the world and an approach to training music teachers at university level in the USA and in the rest of the world, and (3) my personal conclusions.Music is a particular medium of expression, irreplaceable, not interchangeable with any other. It is also a natural medium of human communication. We do not think or propose that schools should create musicians, but that they should aid in the improvement of all humankind.1This quotation of mine allows me to introduce my general agreement with the main content of the first part of Palmer's paper. Neither of us argues against the importance of teaching music within the general system of education. We both promote this and work to make this a fact in our different parts of the world.We both view the tasks known as "music education" as a part of the teaching of the humanities as a way to maintain a certain level of civilization and of a culture; that is, to keep alive the rich tradition in each culture, to develop skills, to listen to, perform, and create music, and to become acquainted with the wealth of masterpieces.Also, as I have said,"I can only give what I have," and "a teacher does not teach what he/she knows but what he/she is."2 I agree with Palmer on the relevance and importance of the task of music educators. There should be a correlation between the school's mission and the quality of the training for prospective teachers for them. This is consistent with Palmer's thinking about the university task when training future music teachers.George Steiner articulated some of the difficulties, limitations, and new possibilities brought into university classrooms by the technology of the global village when he wrote:[Those artifacts] determine a new way to organize human knowledge and to connect contemporary research with previous books. All taxonomies are essentially [End Page 194] philosophical, any library... represents a formalized vision of how the world is structured, and what are the optimum views about both the human mind and the phenomenological whole.3He also adds, "We will not be able to avoid the illusion-and so it is when talking about Humanities-that knowledge is cumulative, that there is an improvement and an unavoidable teleology needed when expressing sentiments and ideas."4By introducing Steiner's ideas, I am opening a line of critical thinking about a kind of "universalization" of both Palmer's concept of whatmusiceducationmeans as well as whether and then how there should be a world-wide dissemination of the training model that he describes for music teachers. I have doubts about the underlying assumptions of these notions and their feasibility.The examples Palmer gives of listening would require an inordinate amount of time and effort. Although this may be a valuable expenditure of resources in some parts of the world, in other parts the focus would be better directed elsewhere. In some places many people do not complete their basic education, do not have access to good nutrition, and have not acquired basic language and communication skills. The big question is, "What should we really teach them?"My point here is that if Michael Murphy's model is indeed an inspiring framework, it may be useful for people belonging to a part of the so-called First World only. Palmer's work should be understood with that consideration in mind. Africa, Latin America, and the Arab world are certainly not looking for these kinds of skills from the music taught at the general level if there happens to be any music taught at all in schools.Multiculturalism is another significant issue in Palmer's paper. I understand the... (shrink)

When software is written and then utilized in complex computer systems, problems often occur. Sometimes these problems cause a system to malfunction, and in some instances such malfunctions cause harm. Should any of the persons involved in creating the software be blamed and punished when a computer system failure leads to persons being harmed? In order to decide whether such blame and punishment are appropriate, we need to first consider if the people are “morally responsible”. Should any of the people (...) involved in creating the software be held morally responsible, as individuals, for the harm caused by a computer system failure?This article provides one view of moral responsibility and then discusses some barriers to holding people morally responsible. Next, it provides information about the Therac-25, a computer-controlled medical linear accelerator, and its computer systems failures that led to deaths and injuries. Finally it investigates whether two key people involved in the Therac-25 case could reasonably be considered to have some degree of moral responsibility for the deaths and injuries. The conclusions about whether or not these people were morally responsible necessarily rest upon a certain amount of speculation about what they knew and what they did. These limitations, however, should not cause us to conclude that discussions of moral responsibility are fruitless. In some cases, determinations of moral responsibility may be made and in others the investigation is still worthwhile, as the article demonstrates. (shrink)

Our main research question is how pliable Norwegian meat consumption practices are. However it is not any type of elasticity we are interested in. We are specifically interested in the scope for what we dub the “4Rs” of responsible meat consumption within existing food systems: 1. Reducing the amount of animal-based proteins used 2. Replacing animal-based protein with plant-based, or insect-based alternatives 3. Refining processes of utilization of animal-based protein to minimize emissions, loss and waste 4. Recognising animal-based protein (...) as precious –i.e. recognising the people and the animals involved in meat production. -/- These four principles are derived by analogy to ethical principles guiding the use of animals in research, the so-called “3Rs”, namely: the imperatives to reduce the number of animals needed to make a scientific inference, to replace animal experiments with other types of research, and where not possible to replace ‘more’ with ‘less’ sentient creatures, and to refine the experimental setup so it minimises the discomfort and/or distress inflicted upon the animals (Russell and Burch, 1959). There are no such principles guiding the use of animals in farming, given the farming industry intrinsically relies on increasing its resources, of which animals are one. The current profile of climate change however opens up a way to re-appreciate meat –indeed what we articulate as the fourth principle of recognizing the preciousness of meat, above, given planetary boundaries. We proceed to reflect on how these 4Rs can be modulated, from a cultural-social perspective, that is, we look at cultural factors that could stretch current food practices along the 4R aspects. (shrink)

Responsibility gaps arise when there is a mismatch between the amount of responsibility that can be attributed to any person or collection of persons on leading accounts of moral responsibility and the amount that robust intuitions suggest should be allocated to someone in a case. Claimed responsibility gaps arise in numerous philosophical debates, including those concerning government, corporate, and other forms of group agency and new technologies and those concerning theoretical issues in the philosophy (...) of responsibility. This work is an opinionated introduction to and overview of recent work on responsibility gaps. It outlines and evaluates paradigmatic responsibility gap cases and ways of understanding the phenomenon as well as the existence conditions and moral status of and possible responses to responsibility gaps. It thereby contributes to ongoing work in the philosophy of responsibility and several applied domains. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility has become a potential path to legitimacy and improved public relations for both companies that produce mainstream products and those that sell vice, such as the tobacco industry. Since the early 1990s, the tobacco industry has sought to bridge the gap between the public perception it has earned as a merchant of death and its goal of gaining corporate legitimacy and normality by promoting programs, positions, and policies it hopes the general public will believe are aimed (...) at preventing or mitigating some of the societal ills that smoking causes, such as youth smoking. There is, however, an intractable problem that corporate social responsibility efforts can mask but not resolve: the tobacco industry’s products are lethal when used as directed, and no amount of public relations or funding of ineffective youth smoking prevention programs can reconcile that fundamental contradiction with ethical corporate citizenship. The focus of this study is to better understand the tobacco industry’s corporate social responsibility efforts and to assess whether there has been any substantive change in the way it does business with regard to the issue of exposure to secondhand smoke. (shrink)

Corporations are spending a substantial and increasing amount of money on corporate social responsibility. However, little is known about the effects on key stakeholders of these activities. This study investigates if CSR activities have an effect on employees’ affective commitment. Two models test to what extent employees’ CSR perception, involvement in decision processes, and demographic variables are related to their AC relative to their perception of positive organizational support. The analysis is based on a sample of 512 employees (...) from 4 Scandinavian companies; 3 Norwegian and 1 Swedish, randomly selected from a population of 6,710 mostly Norwegian and Swedish employees in those 2 countries. The results indicate that CSR perception is a significant predictor of AC, although how employees feel that the company cares about them has stronger explanatory power on AC. Contrary to the few other studies addressing AC and CSR, gender was not found to be a significant variable in the model. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Suffering of Economic Injustice:A Response to Ulrich Duchrow and David LoyJoerg RiegerThat economic injustice is one of the central topics of our time is hard to dispute. Even those who seek to avoid the topic cannot escape the numbers and the stories of gross economic disparity. It affects life everywhere, as—using the language of the Occupy Wall Street movement—economic injustice pits the 99 percent against the 1 percent (...) even in the United States. More and more of us are not benefitting from capitalism anymore.Ulrich Duchrow’s presentation puts matters in stark relief when he reminds us that 60 million people are dying of hunger and its consequences every year. If we do the math based on this one number, this amounts to one Holocaust every two months. Nevertheless, even this large number shows only a tiny tip of the iceberg, as it does not include the countless millions who die from the consequences of malnourishment, from lack of resources like clean drinking water, employment opportunities, health care, and many other problems. In the United States alone, forty-five thousand people die annually simply because of the lack of affordable health care.1When we are dealing with economic injustice, we are dealing with what ultimately amounts to a matter of life and death. Here, all religion necessarily becomes engaged religion in one way or another: In the struggle between life and death caused by economic injustice, religion has the option of placing itself on the side of life. If it does not place itself on the side of life, I suspect that it places itself on the side of death by default. Neutral ground does not seem to exist here.Nevertheless, let us not forget that the topic of economic injustice is not just a matter of those who suffer from economic injustice; it is also a matter of those who impose the suffering of economic injustice on others. While people of religion often address the former topic, they often remain silent on the latter. Kwok Pui-lan and I have tried to deal with this problem in our recent book Occupy Religion.2 When we talk about economic injustice and the 99 percent, we must also talk about the 1 percent. I will return to this topic shortly.What I have presented so far amounts to a fairly dualistic picture. Given the current economic status quo, this dualism appears to be something that we have to contend [End Page 51] with, whether we like dualisms or not: As people are dying and lives are being destroyed, economic injustice confronts us with matters of life and death. While the dualisms of economic injustice are nothing to be celebrated, it may be necessary to fight back. It is significant to hear David Loy, who has consistently fought against dualisms in his work, admit that “there’s also a beneficial side” to dualism, for instance when Amos castigates those who “trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth” and “crush the needy” (Amos 2:7, 4:1). Loy further understands that our societies may be “becoming more unjust.” I wonder what would happen, though, if Loy were to take a closer look at what this injustice looks like and if he were to take into consideration actual people whose lives are being destroyed by it. What might this mean for his understanding of the Buddhist concept of dukkha (suffering)?Loy understands social justice as distributive justice, referring the Hebrew prophets’ frustration that the rich have so much and the poor have so little. While he does not dismiss this discourse of justice, he seeks to shift gears as a Buddhist, arguing that economic suffering (dukkha) is based on “our delusive sense of self.” This shift leads me to wonder who is included in this use of the first person plural; whose “delusive sense of self” is Loy talking about? At first sight it looks as if he refers to all of us, claiming that all human beings equally share in this delusion that causes suffering. Let me suggest, however, that we take a closer look and investigate more carefully whose delusive... (shrink)

This paper responds to Sven Bernecker’s argument that agent reliabilism cannot accommodate internalist intuitions about clarvoyance cases. In section 1 we clarify a version of agent reliabilism and Bernecker’s objections against it. In section 2 we say more about how the notion of cognitive integration helps to adjudicate clairvoyance cases and other proposed counterexamples to reliabilism. The central idea is that cognitive integration underwrites a kind of belief ownership, which in turn underwrites the sort of responsibility for belief required (...) for subjective justification. In section 3 we say more about what cognitive integration amounts to, drawing on some recent accounts of desire ownership from the literature on autonomy and moral responsibility. (shrink)

This article addresses three interrelated concerns: the pervasive nature of technologically induced impatience, a theological understanding of divine patience, and, finally, a suitable response to techno-impatience by way of engagement with the art and practice of holy habit. As we have experienced faster flows of information, and larger amounts of information through which we must sort, we have become less patient people. This loss of patience continues to produce a new kind of personal and communal disquiet on an impressive scale. (...) To address concerns with techno-impatience, arguments will be drawn from scriptural and theological concepts of divine patience. These concepts prompt us to rediscover, and reinvent, a richer understanding of patience as an individuated spiritual virtue. Accordingly, a corrective to the exacerbating effects of technologically induced impatience will be offered: namely, the explicit spiritual discipline of practicing holy patience. (shrink)

In this work of normative political philosophy, I consider the ethical status of the South African government's responses to the Marikana massacre, where police shot and killed more than 30 striking miners, in light of a moral principle grounded on values associated with ubuntu. I argue that there are several respects in which the government's reactions have been unethical from an ubuntu-oriented perspective, and also make positive suggestions about what it instead should have been doing. Much of what I recommend (...) amounts to contending that the government should have taken resolute steps towards seeking reconciliation of a specific sort that I show follows from ubuntu interpreted as an ethical theory. (shrink)

This paper discusses theological responses in the Church of England to the South African War as reflected in sermons by theologians and church leaders and the limited amount of theological writing on the subject during the period. Three points emerge: first is the strong sense in which the mission was to civilise and Christianize. The fact that the war was being fought against a white enemy led to a characterisation of the Boer as uncivilised and primitive. Secondly, the British (...) Empire was not understood simply as a means of promoting the British interest across the world. Instead it was regarded as at least potentially a Christian Empire which embodied higher universal values. The emphasis was on humility and judgement, whereby moral absolutes were relativised by the vision of a more universal goal. This undoubtedly helped lessen the strength of some of the imperialist rhetoric. Finally, the higher values of self-sacrifice created a sense of moral seriousness: the universal values displayed in love for the community were prioritized over those of a narrow patriotism or individualism. Like the early days of the First World War, the Boer War functioned as an “antidote to anomie”. All in all, the strong dose of Platonism injected into Anglicanism in the nineteenth century meant that it functioned as a modest check on unfettered jingoism. A limited degree of prophetic critique – albeit deeply ambiguous, compromised and sometimes racist – remained the dominant theological discourse of Anglicanism, even at the highest point of imperialism. (shrink)