The overarching question addressed in this article is whether there is something that might reasonably be called a Habermasian approach or perspective that bioethical enquiry might utilize.

Abstract:This article elaborates a normative Stakeholder Management Theory (SHMT) from a critical theory perspective. The paper argues that the normative theory elaborated by critical theorists such as Habermas exhibits important advantages over its rivals and that these advantages provide the basis for a theoretically more adequate version of SHMT. In the first section of the paper an account is given of normative theory from a critical theory perspective and its advantages over rival traditions. A key characteristic of the critical theory (...) approach is expressed as a distinction between three different normative realms, viz., legitimacy, morality, and ethics. In the second section, the outlines of a theory of stakeholder management are provided. First, three basic tasks of a theoretically adequate treatment of the normative analysis of stakeholder management are identified. This is followed by a discussion of how a critical theory approach to SHMT is able to fulfill these three tasks. (shrink)

Although the use of stakeholder analysis to investigate corporate responsibilities has burgeoned over the past two decades, there has been relatively little workon howcorporate responsibilities may change for firms with operations in developing countries. This article argues, from a critical theory perspective, that two sets of factors tend to come together to increase the responsibilities of corporations active in developing countries to a full range of stakeholder groups: (a) the different (economic, political, and sociocultural) circumstances under which corporations have to (...) operate in developing countries and (b) several key normative principles, which typically do not come into play in the context of developed countries. (shrink)

Slippery slope arguments appear regularly whenever morally contested social change is proposed. Such arguments assume that all or some consequences which could possibly flow from permitting a particular practice are morally unacceptable.Typically, “slippery slope” arguments claim that endorsing some premise, doing some action or adopting some policy will lead to some definite outcome that is generally judged to be wrong or bad. The “slope” is “slippery” because there are claimed to be no plausible halting points between the initial commitment to (...) a premise, action, or policy and the resultant bad outcome. The desire to avoid such projected future consequences provides adequate reasons for not taking the first step.Thus the legalization of abortion in limited circumstances is asserted to lead down the slippery slope towards abortion on demand and even infanticide; and the legalization of assisted suicide to lead inexorably to the acceptance of voluntary euthanasia and subsequently to the sanctioning of the practice of nonvoluntary euthanasia – even involuntary euthanasia of “undesirable” individuals. (shrink)

A central question of this chapter is how we can relate the unique ethos of Japan to the ways that influences of international bioethics, civil rights and legal reforms have shifted medical research in Japan from the legacy of the structured paternalism and impunity that allowed abuses to be committed by medical researchers in the World War II era, including in Unit 731 and in medical schools in Japan, to contemporary research agendas and policies. Throughout the twentieth century, Japan has (...) been a centre of research and innovation. The pro-technology attitudes still exist in current Japan, with the evolution of bioethics. Although we can trace the origins of bioethics in Japan back through millennia, with the Ainu indigenous practices and relationships to nature, the sophisticated hierarchical relationships expressed in the seventh century A.D. book the Kojiki, the conversion of forest to rice paddies, emergence of an integrated religious system including Shintoism and Buddhism, and the sophisticated class system supported by linguistics and social relationships, this chapter would argue that one of the most influential influence for this question is the Samurai tradition. This tradition values both autonomy and informed choice, while also allowing the legacy of tolerance of the elite classes to make decisions that may sacrifice some persons for the greater good. While principles of solidarity and social justice are a solid basis for universal health insurance they also allow sacrifices when necessary. Informed consent is now widely accepted, and bioethics is part of a transition which is transforming Japanese society from a paternalistic society to an individualistic one. Among the issues that will be used to illustrate the situation, are the functioning of research ethics committees, large gene bank and epidemiological projects, organ transplantation, truth telling, euthanasia and the public health measures such as mask wearing in the current COIVD-19 pandemic. (shrink)

There appears to be a significant difference between organized religion and spirituality. In this paper I will compare both and explore some impacts of these differences in terms of the way that people of faith have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, how people have been exposed to the virus through religious sites and festivals, and how religious institutions have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

1In 1972, nearly two decades before the emergence of what we today nebulously call “queer theory,” Guy Hocquenghem published his singular text Homosexual Desire. Despite its marginal position in cu...

The goal of our work is to explore and highlight factors that contribute to positive experiences of Black employees. To accomplish this, we integrate behavioral ethics research into the Black scholarship literature. Specifically, we focus on the role of ethical leadership. We leverage signaling theory to explain the Black cultural implications associated with ethical leadership and how ethical leaders create racially just workplaces. Across three studies (i.e., one cross-sectional field study and two experimental vignettes), we demonstrate that ethical leadership operates (...) as a welcoming signal for Black employees, which positively impacts Black employees’ evaluations of psychological diversity climate. By cultivating Black employees’ evaluations of psychological diversity climate, Black employees are more likely to be engaged and are less likely to be ostracized in the workplace, which are key indicators of a racially just workplace. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. We conclude with limitations and future research ideas. (shrink)

A Dealer of Old Clothes treats David Walker, an early nineteenth-century abolitionist, as a philosophical sage. In this text, Scriven poses philosophical questions to Walker via his Appeal and solicits philosophical answers on topics such as race, emancipatory struggle, and the problem of evil.

Over the last one hundred and fifty years, the extraction and processing of non-renewable resources has provided the basis for the three industrial revolutions that have led to the modern economies of the developed world. In the process, the nature of resource extraction firms has also changed dramatically, from small-scale operations exploiting easily accessible deposits to large, vertically integrated, capital intensive transnational corporations characterized by oligopolistic competition. In the last ten to fifteen years, coinciding with processes of economic globalization, another (...) major change has been occurring as resource extraction industries have been shifting their operations from developed to developing countries. This shift has greatly impacted the populations of these countries and raises a variety of ethical issues. This article investigates the nature of these changes and the ethical issues that arise, focusing in particular on the development impact of the activities of these industries and the potential adequacy of different policy approaches to regulating them. (shrink)

Procedures such as organ or tissue donation, elective ventilation and non‐therapeutic research can be said to be against the medical interests of the participant. Competent adults can consent to procedures such as these that are against their medical interests, but when, if ever, should incompetent persons participate in such procedures? Legal approaches to decision‐making in the area of the medical care of incompetent persons are generally based on respect for the patient's autonomy, or protection of her welfare, or some combination (...) of the two. The limitations of these approaches become apparent upon examination of their application in this context. Societal interests are also used to justify the participation of the incompetent in procedures which are against their medical interests, for example, the societal interest in pursuing non‐therapeutic research on incompetents in order to benefit future incompetents. These types of approaches are implicit in much current policy and reform proposals on non‐therapeutic research, contributing to the disrespect for incompetent persons that is implicit in many research projects and much argument on the categorization of risks, and the repeated failure to consider the burdens imposed on incompetent persons in the interests of society. (shrink)

The value of a company’s ethical reputation has become a focal point for management researchers. We seek to join this conversation and extend the research centered on a firm’s ethical reputation. We accomplish this by shifting our focus away from its impact on external stakeholders to its impact on internal stakeholders. To this end, we rely on signaling theory to explain why a firm’s ethical reputation matters to its employees in an effort to bridge the macro–micro research gap. Across two (...) studies, we propose and demonstrate that a firm’s ethical reputation impacts employee subjective career success in form of career opportunities and work–life balance. Given our signaling theory framework, we also identify and explain when two industry-level characteristics operate as boundary conditions that distort a firm’s ethical reputation signaling properties. Specifically, the results demonstrate that a firm’s ethical reputation is positively related to employees’ perceptions of career opportunities and work–life balance. The results of our studies also demonstrate that the relatively high levels of industry competition and industry regulation weaken the positive impact of a firm’s ethical reputation on career opportunities and work–life balance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

This paper argues that a number of medical professionals, medical authorities, governments and the World Health Organization, have acted unethically during the COVID-19 epidemic and pandemic by advising members of the public not to wear masks to protect their own health and the health of those around them. Although by April 2020 most authorities have changed their advice to recommend or even compel citizens to wear face coverings and masks when in public, we need to examine the question of failed (...) moral responsibility and the accountability for this erroneous advice. (shrink)

Corporate governance reforms are occurring in countries around the globe. In developing countries, such reforms occur in a context that is primarily defined by previous attempts at promoting "development" and recent processes of economic globalization. This context has resulted in the adoption of reforms that move developing countries in the direction of an Anglo-American model of governance. The most basic questions that arise with respect to these governance reforms are what prospects they entail for traditional development goals and whether alternatives (...) should be considered. This paper offers a framework for addressing these basic questions by providing an account of: 1) previous development strategies and efforts; 2) the nature and causes of the reform processes; 3) the development potential of the reforms and concerns associated with them; 4) the (potential) responsibilities of corporate governance, including the (possible) responsibilities to promote development, and; 5) different approaches to promoting governance reforms with an eye to promoting development. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 32.2 (2002) 3-19 [Access article in PDF] (Queer) Theory and the Universal Alternative James Penney Judith Butler. Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death. New York: Columbia UP, 2000. Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj Žižek. Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left. London: Verso, 2000. In October 2000, just a few weeks before the US presidential election, a young, fashionable, handsome man handed me a (...) political leaflet while I crossed Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. I didn't give it much thought at the time (apart from noticing that the boy was kind of cute): I was in transit toward the 4th Street subway station and the Port Authority where I would catch the bus back to Cornell. When I decided to write a review essay on the current state of poststructuralism, Marxism, and queer theory through the lens of the two books listed above, I discovered I had lost the pamphlet, certain that my hostile reaction to what I considered its fundamental conservatism and trendy political correctness had unconsciously caused its mysterious disappearance.When I rediscovered the leaflet in the chaos of my move away from Ithaca, I realized that my relation to it had been hysterical: I was reluctant to address its traumatic content, unwilling to excavate my multiple frustrations at the apparent impossibility of being a homosexual and a socialist in America. And yet I couldn't really forget about it either: though not an American citizen and therefore unable to vote, I found myself equally unable simply to dismiss the leaflet as a mere inconsequential symptom of the pseudo-democracy that America has always been, or unequivocally to endorse the snooty CBC/Queen Street condescension of my fellow Canadian Lefties toward the primitive, superficial, liberal (in the worst psychologistic sense), irremediably ideological, and thoroughly depressing state of American political discourse. "Those poor Americans," the far-from-irrelevant logic goes. "They either unquestioningly submit to the individualistic fantasy of the American Dream in order to participate in the 'political process,' or they become hermetically imprisoned in their pseudo-political anti-statist minoritarianism, too cool and too radical to condescend to the public sphere." After six years in the United States, I've now become aware that my inability to swallow much of contemporary queer theory—authored overwhelmingly by young, elite-educated Americans with relatively narrow political horizons—is mostly due to the manner in which it articulates numerous political assumptions fundamentally alien to my own socialization in a country whose political differences from the US are insufficiently appreciated in that nation, and in which extremes of climate and geography have engendered a collectivist ethos in many ways fundamentally hostile to the American-style extreme individualism with which I had lived for so many years.But the interest of this sort of political autobiography is in this context undoubtedly limited. What—you might now find yourself impatiently wondering if you don't already [End Page 3] know—were the contents of this famous pamphlet? And what exactly was my problem with it? Published by a coalition of queer voters in New York called the Empire State Pride Agenda, the pamphlet presented extremely selective profiles of the main candidates, both Democrat and Republican, running for the offices of President, US Senator, State Senator, and Member of the State Assembly. Each profile summarized the history of a candidate's positions with respect to rights issues of concern to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons. The profiles made no concerted effort to represent the candidates' perspectives on any other issue: gun control, education, foreign policy, the death penalty, taxation, health care (generally speaking, that is to say above and beyond the issues related to AIDS-related illness and reproductive rights); only policies directly concerning civil rights for nonheterosexual citizens were thoroughly broached.I should confess that once I got the general idea I threw the pamphlet away in disgust: "Am I supposed to feel interpellated," I asked myself in full hysterical Althusserian mode, "by this utterly pseudo-political claptrap?" Is this what it means to be gay and political in America... (shrink)

There are positive views towards use of science and technology in all Asian countries, and positive views towards use of enhancement in China, India and Thailand. After considering of the widespread use of cosmetic surgery and other body enhancements in Asian countries, and the generally positive views towards letting individuals make choices about improvement of themselves, the paper concludes that we can expect other enhancements to also be adopted rapidly in Asia. There will be future ethical dilemmas emerging from this (...) with concepts of preservation of nature, flow with nature, and definitions of human-ness, along with concepts of harmony and social justice. Japan is less willing to engage in genetic enhancement compared to China, India and Thailand, despite widespread cosmetic surgery across Asia. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

The literature concerning the possibility and desirability of using new pharmacological and possible future genetic techniques to enhance human characteristics is well-established and the debates follow some well-known argumentative patterns. However, one argument in particular stands out and demands attention. This is the attempt to tie the moral necessity of moral enhancement to the hypothesised risks that allowing cognitive enhancement will bring. According to Persson and Savulescu, cognitive enhancement should occur only if the risks they think it to poses are (...) mitigated by moral enhancement. By this they mean the compulsory and universal amplification of the disposition of altruism and the inflation of our sense of fairness, by chemical and/or genetic means. Their claim is important, intriguing and unsettling. This paper focuses on three central, but relatively neglected, features of their argument. First, there is a pernicious ambiguity in the language of ‘risk’ used by Persson and Savulescu where they tend to conflate ‘risk’ and ‘uncertainty’. Second, their use of the lottery analogy to render their position more plausible is unconvincing. It tends to distort rather than illuminate the relevant considerations. Third, Persson and Savulescu do not adequately take into account the social and individual benefits that enhancing cognition could have. If they did, it would be apparent that those benefits alone would outweigh the considerations used to justify accompanying CE with ME. (shrink)

The descriptive moment in ethical reflection is helpfully informed by a careful consideration of what religious bodies have said about moral issues such as climate change. As a case study, this article identifies and interprets primary documents of The United Methodist Church (UMC) and its predecessor institutions, providing a detailed examination of the historical development of this denomination’s environmental witness statements. Methodism's long‐standing engagement with environmental ethics, out of which a concern for anthropogenic climate change incrementally emerged, includes significant institutional (...) policies and practices. The history of Methodist environmental witness evidences a creative, faithful response by a religious denomination learning to grapple with the overwhelming problem of climate change. Describing and interpreting this history enables religious ethicists to engage Methodist environmental witness as they develop constructive models for addressing this problem. (shrink)

After briefly sketching an historical account of criminal law that emphasizes its longstanding reach into social, commercial and personal life outside the core areas of criminal offenses, this paper explores why criminal law theory has never succeeded in limiting the content of criminal codes to offenses that fit the criteria of dominant theories, particularly versions of the harm principle. Early American writers on criminal law endorsed no such limiting principles to criminal law, and early American criminal law consequently was substantively (...) broad. But even with the rise of theories in the mid-nineteenth century that sought to limit criminal law’s reach, codified offenses continued to widely and deeply regulate social life and exceed the limits of those normative arguments. This essay suggests that this practical failure of criminal law theory occurred because it was never adopted by an institutional actor that could limit offense definitions in accord with normative commitments. Legislatures are institutionally unsuited to having their policy actions limited by principled arguments, and courts passed on the opportunity to incorporate a limiting principle for criminal law once they began, in the Lochner era, actively regulating legislative decisions through Constitutional law. The one avenue through which criminal law theory has had some success in affecting criminal codes is through the influence of specialized bodies that influence legislation, especially the American Law Institute advocacy of the Model Penal Code. But the institutional structure of American criminal law policymaking permits an unusually small role for such specialized bodies, and without such an institutional mechanism, criminal law theory is likely to continue to have little effect on actual criminal codes. (shrink)

Este artículo profundiza en los debates históricos y actuales en Canadá sobre la historia nacional y la enseñanza de la historia en el complicado escenario de trece jurisdicciones educativas de Canadá. En este trabajo se analizan los debates sobre los contenidos en la enseñanza de la historia y en los libros de texto, así como los enfoques en la escuela. Se analizan las formas en que un enfoque de pensamiento histórico está consolidándose en todo el país en el período actual, (...) con una mayor atención a la investigación en la enseñanza de la historia y su difusión y su mayor presencia en los planes provinciales. Se considera el papel del gobierno federal en estos cambios, las organizaciones privadas sin fines de lucro, y los proyectos financiados por el gobierno nacional, tales como el Historical Thinking Project y The History Education Network. (shrink)

"Originally published in the U.K. in 2014 by Myriad Editions under the title Supercrash: how to hijack the global economy"--Title page verso.