It’s Time for Empirical Research in Business Ethics

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 233-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larue Tone Hosmer

Abstract:We have a very decent belief structure or general paradigm underlying Business Ethics as a formal field of study. It has an explicit moral base. It can be stated in simple and direct terms. It has been developed over a number of recent years by a group of respected scholars from a variety of academic disciplines. It is, however, subject to multiple interpretations and open to extensive conflicts. We can easily tolerate if not benefit from the differing interpretations. We must—at some point—moderate if not resolve the debilitating conflicts. The argument I wish to make in this paper is that we have reached that point. It is time to resolve the conflicts, and the way to do so is to generate awkward, undeniable facts through basic empirical research. Those facts will then have to be incorporated into acceptable—and eventually accepted—theory.

Author(s):  
Christopher Hanlon

Emerson’s Memory Loss is about an archive of texts documenting Emerson’s intellectual state during the final phase of his life, as he underwent dementia. It is also about the way these texts provoke a rereading of the more familiar canon of Emerson’s thinking. Emerson’s memory loss, Hanlon argues, contributed to the shaping of a line of thought in America that emphasizes the social over the solipsistic, the affective over the distant, the many over the one. Emerson regarded his output during the time when his patterns of cognition transformed profoundly as a regathering of focus on the nature of memory and of thinking itself. His late texts theorize Emerson’s experience of senescence even as they disrupt his prior valorizations of the independent mind teeming with self-sufficient conviction. But still, these late writings have succumbed to a process of critical forgetting—either ignored by scholars or denied inclusion in Emerson’s oeuvre. Attending to a manuscript archive that reveals the extent to which Emerson collaborated with others—especially his daughter, Ellen Tucker Emerson—to articulate what he considered his most important work even as his ability to do so independently waned, Hanlon measures the resonance of these late texts across the stretch of Emerson’s thinking, including his writing about Margaret Fuller and his meditations on streams of thought that verge unto those of his godson, William James. Such ventures bring us toward a self defined less by its anxiety of overinfluence than by its communality, its very connectedness with myriad others.


Author(s):  
Mathilde Skoie

This chapter introduces yet another European ‘repossession’ of Virgil that generally remains outside the scope of most volumes on translation and reception. Skoie focuses on three Norwegian translations of Virgil’s Eclogues and analyses the way they exhibit tendencies towards two complementary processes that have been labelled, in recent theories of translation, as ‘domestication’ and ‘foreignization’; and they do so as the language of translation becomes politicized and engaged in debates about Norwegian identity. Skoie explores the use of Virgilian pastoral idiom in a foreign language and the juxtaposition between rural and urban voices in the context of language politics.


2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
U Chit Hlaing

AbstractThis paper surveys the history of anthropological work on Burma, dealing both with Burman and other ethnic groups. It focuses upon the relations between anthropology and other disciplines, and upon the relationship of such work to the development of anthropological theory. It tries to show how anthropology has contributed to an overall understanding of Burma as a field of study and, conversely, how work on Burma has influenced the development of anthropology as a subject. It also tries to relate the way in which anthropology helps place Burma in the broader context of Southeast Asia.


KronoScope ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-184
Author(s):  
Nicolas Go

Abstract It is striking to note to what extent the time issue in education is commonly understood in terms of chronology. It is an institutional and linear time that is divided and then fitted back together like a Russian doll in an analytical approach. The conception of time is reversible and possesses the same characteristics as space. It is a paradox that this institutional rationalization of time by reversible chronological divisions barely conceals the whole concrete and living reality of human time, which is a continuous process of change that philosophers generally call duration. On the contrary, far from the above reduction, its specificity lies in its irreversibility. This article intends to present both the results of empirical research on cooperative pedagogy and its current theorization. The emergence of complexity in time is visible in the primacy given to processes in the educational relationship. The way the multiple scales of complexity are superposed is reflected in the cooperative organization of work, for a new educational temporality which results in an increase in joyful emergences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-183
Author(s):  
Chung-ying Cheng

Abstract This article is to argue that virtue is experienced and understood in Confucian ethics as power to act and as performance of a moral action, and that virtue (de 德) as such has to be onto-cosmologically explicated, not just teleologically explained. In other words, it is intended to construct an integrative theory of virtues based on both dao (the Way 道) and de. To do so, we will examine the two features of de, as the power that is derived from self-reflection and self-restraining, and as the motivated action for attaining its practical end in a community. Only by a self-integrated moral consciousness can one’s experience, action and ideal remain in consistency and coherence, which leads us to the Aristotelian notion of virtue as excellence (aretê) and enables us to see how virtue as aretê could be introduced as a second feature of de, namely as the power for effective action in the whole system of virtues, apart from the first feature of de as self-restraining power. We will conclude that reason and virtue are practically united and remain inseparable, and that taking into account the onto-cosmological foundation of virtues, reason and virtue are inevitably the moving and advancing forces for the formation and transformation of human morality just as they are motivating and prompting incentives for individual moral action.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (Suppl. 1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Horgan

With modern-day medicine going the way it is - new developments, great science, the advent of personalised medicine and more - there's little doubt that healthcare can move in the right direction if everything is put in place to allow it to do so. But in many areas progress is being halted. Or at the very least slowed. Like it or not, many front-line healthcare professionals still do things the way they did things three decades ago, and are reluctant to adapt to new methods (assuming they are aware of them). Evidence exists that today's rapidly developing new medicines and treatments can positively influence healthcare in modern-day Europe, but a gap in education (also applying to patients and politicians), often exacerbated by “fake news” on the internet, is hampering uptake of new and often better methods, while even causing doubts about vaccines. More understanding at every level will inevitably lead to swifter integration of innovation into the healthcare systems of Europe. The time to look, listen and learn has come.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siegwart Lindenberg ◽  
Linda Steg ◽  
Marko Milovanovic ◽  
Anita Schipper

The most investigated form of moral hypocrisy is pragmatic hypocrisy in which people fake moral commitment for their own advantage. Yet there is also a different form of hypocrisy in which people take a moral stance with regard to norms they endorse without thereby also expressing a commitment to act morally. Rather they do it in order to feel good. We call this hedonic moral hypocrisy. In our research, we posit that this kind of hypocrisy comes about when people’s overarching goals are shifted in a hedonic direction, that is, in the direction of focusing on the way one feels, rather than on moral obligation. Hedonic shifts come about by cues in the environment. People are sometimes sincere when expressing a moral stance (i.e. they mean it and also act on it), and sometimes, when they are subject to a hedonic shift, they express a moral stance just to make them feel good. This also implies that they then decline to do things that make them feel bad, such as behaving morally when it takes unrewarded effort to do so. In two experimental studies, we find that there is such a thing as hedonic moral hypocrisy and that it is indeed brought about by hedonic shifts from cues in the environment. This seriously undermines the meaning of a normative consensus for norm conformity. Seemingly, for norm conformity without close social control, it is not enough that people endorse the same norms, they also have to be exposed to situational cues that counteract hedonic shifts. In the discussion, it is suggested that societal arrangements that foster the focus on the way one feels and nurture a chronic wish to make oneself feel better (for example, in the fun direction through advertisements and entertainment opportunities, or in the fear direction by populist politicians, social media, economic uncertainties, crises, or wars and displacements) are likely to increase hedonic hypocrisy in society.


2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 674-692 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mareile Kaufmann ◽  
Simon Egbert ◽  
Matthias Leese

AbstractPatterns are the epistemological core of predictive policing. With the move towards digital prediction tools, the authority of the pattern is rearticulated and reinforced in police work. Based on empirical research about predictive policing software and practices, this article puts the authority of patterns into perspective. Introducing four ideal-typical styles of pattern identification, we illustrate that patterns are not based on a singular logic, but on varying rationalities that give form to and formalize different understandings about crime. Yet, patterns render such different modes of reasoning about crime, and the way in which they feed back into policing cultures, opaque. Ultimately, this invites a stronger reflection about the political nature of patterns.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-48
Author(s):  
Whitney K. Taylor

When do individuals choose to advance legal claims to social welfare goods? To explore this question, I turn to the case of South Africa, where, despite the adoption of a "transformative" constitution in 1996, access to social welfare goods remains sorely lacking. Drawing on an original 551-person survey, I examine patterns of legal claims-making, focusing on beliefs individuals hold about the law, rights, and the state, and how those beliefs relate to decisions about whether and how to make claims. I find striking differences between the factors that influence when people say they should file a legal claim and when they actually do so. The way that individuals interpret their own material conditions and neighborhood context are important, yet under-acknowledged, factors for explaining claims-making.


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