CSR and shared value in multi-stakeholder relationships in South African mining context

Purpose Mining is surrounded by controversy, in spite of corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects. This study aims to explore the theory on CSR and shared value (SV) and identified a gap in an approach to implementing CSR and SV. Perceptions of multi-stakeholder relationships in the South African mining context were elicited. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative research design included 17 semi-structured interviews with 3 stakeholder groups, including members of the community, government representatives and mining management and secondary data of company documents on CSR. Findings The qualitative research revealed important gaps between CSR and SV theoretical frameworks, normative ethical approaches and operationalizing of these at the mine to the detriment of effective multi-stakeholder relationships. Practical implications Mines have to engage with the community and government stakeholders proactively and build relationships. Social implications Ethical normative approaches have to be considered. Government has to take note of this study’s findings with regards to negative consequences of institutionalized CSR for trust between mines and communities. Originality/value The literature review differentiates theoretically between normative and instrumental stakeholder theory, philanthropic and business case CSR, SV and their implicit normative ethical approaches. The semi-structured interviews revealed legacy issues and lack of engagement between mine and community as main barriers to multi-stakeholder relationships and raised important questions on normative ethical approaches to CSR and SV. The direct and indirect barriers by government, community and mine management are identified and differentiated.

Ethics and Values in the Digital Environment: by the Example of Parody Videos on TikTok

The ethics of the comic is a relatively new interdisciplinary field of knowledge that is gaining new relevance with the development of a variety of social media. The purpose of this article is to review the existing research and show by examples how ethics and values are closely related to the specific functions of social media, such as distributing parody content and commenting on it. The main focus of our study is a parody which can be defined as communicative behavior in the form of a text, movement, or even a song, imitating the characteristics or behavior of the object being ridiculed. Unlike a literal quotation, a parody reproduces the original in a distorted form for the purpose of mockery. Within this article modern ethical approaches to the evaluation of parody as well as the main functions of parody in the digital environment are considered. Based on the examples of parody videos on TikTok the particular ways of expressing social problems and cultural traumas by using the comic strategies are identified. Furthermore, the issues of algorithmic censorship concerning such videos as well as the problem of the moral autonomy of users are discussed.

Opening the Public Accessibility to the Wreckage of the RMS Titanic: Some Ethical Reflections

In 2021, Ocean Gate Expeditions allowed people to visit the remains of the RMS Titanic. While this is not the first time that the site has been accessed for touristic aims, this case has, once again, opened the debate about the ethics of such experiences. The key dilemma is if permitting the public access to a natural graveyard, such as the wreck of the Titanic, should be considered as an acceptable practice or an immoral act that must be banned. Notwithstanding the sensitive arguments raised against the organization of similar initiatives, the visit to the RMS Titanic seems to be a valuable and legitimate practice according to diverse ethical approaches.

Understanding responsibility in Responsible AI. Dianoetic virtues and the hard problem of context

During the last decade there has been burgeoning research concerning the ways in which we should think of and apply the concept of responsibility for Artificial Intelligence. Despite this conceptual richness, there is still a lack of consensus regarding what Responsible AI entails on both conceptual and practical levels. The aim of this paper is to connect the ethical dimension of responsibility in Responsible AI with Aristotelian virtue ethics, where notions of context and dianoetic virtues play a grounding role for the concept of moral responsibility. The paper starts by highlighting the important difficulties in assigning responsibility to either technologies themselves or to their developers. Top-down and bottom-up approaches to moral responsibility are then contrasted, as we explore how they could inform debates about Responsible AI. We highlight the limits of the former ethical approaches and build the case for classical Aristotelian virtue ethics. We show that two building blocks of Aristotle’s ethics, dianoetic virtues and the context of actions, although largely ignored in the literature, can shed light on how we could think of moral responsibility for both AI and humans. We end by exploring the practical implications of this particular understanding of moral responsibility along the triadic dimensions of ethics by design, ethics in design and ethics for designers.

Faith Embodied in Attitudes: Ethics of Dialogue and Brotherhood of All People in the ‘Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together’ in Abu Dhabi and the Encyclical Fratelli Tutti

This text is concerned with the ethical approach of inter-faith relations and the dialogue of culture in two documents of Pope Francis: ‘On Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together’ and the encyclical Fratelli Tutti. This ethical approach refers to God the Creator of all and the call to brotherhood of all human beings and refers to faith as a response to Revelation. Faith also forms ethical approaches for interreligious dialogue. Pope Francis’ approach in the documents is that the theological truth and values of religious traditions are embodied in attitudes of social friendship. Francis challenges us to build a specific environment that he calls a ‘new culture of dialogue’, having frequently called for the growth of a culture of encounter that is capable of transcending political and social barriers and encourages creating a specific culture of social and ‘political love’.

Abay's teaching "Tolyk adam" and modern tendencies in solving the problem of the whole man

The relevance of this study lies in the fact that under the conditions of the need for accelerated modernization of almost all spheres of activity for countries in transition, which includes the Republic of Kazakhstan, the factor of consolidation of the people of Kazakhstan is of great importance. An important factor of consolidation in the countries of the catch-up type, in which all types of initiatives come mainly from the power elites, is the factor of spiritual leaders, national samples-ideals uniting the citizens of Kazakhstan. The great Kazakh poet, thinker, philosopher Abay Kunanbayev can be such a spiritual leader, a national example-ideal, uniting the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional people of Kazakhstan. The purpose and novelty of this study is to identify the relevance, modernity and relevance of the philosophical content of Abay's teaching "tolyk adam" (whole man) to modern trends in addressing the fundamental philosophical problem of wholeness, the wholeness principle and based on these trends the new understanding of the phenomenon of spirituality, which is the essence of the modern understanding of the whole man. The author, based on the thesis that the basis of the Kazakh type of philosophizing are ethical approaches to solving the problems of the essence of man, the essence of being, defines the ethical basis of Abay's teachings "tolyk adam" on the example of his poems and prose ("Words of Edification"). The author shows that, according to Abay, the whole man is a man realized in intersubjective being, the object of which is intersubjective being, it is a man aspiring to knowledge, moral and purposeful in his cognitive and spiritual intensions. Strong intensions to the problems of spirituality, according to Abai, constitute in his ideas the core of the whole man. And this approach is very modern and relevant in the context of the problems of globalization and modernization in the spiritual sphere. Abay's teaching "tolyk adam" is not only the quintessence of Abay's grasp of the thought of his modern era, but also a philosophical teaching that is relevant to modern new approaches to the fundamental problems of modernity.

Antropo-etica della vulnerabilità al tempo del Covid-19

Concern for human vulnerability seems to be at the heart of the recent sanitary emergency. The aim of this article is to show why actual reflections on Covid-19 need an adequately theorized conception of vulnerability. We first review anthropological and ethical approaches to vulnerability in two of the main authors of the classical-medieval tradition: Aristoteles and Thomas Aquinas, proving that they include the vulnerability in their reflections. The thought of these authors is then combined with the ethical reflections of the contemporary philosophers Alasdair MacIntyre and Marta Nussbaum, identifying some of the challenges emerging from these authors. In particular, we wonder how to reconcile constitutive human vulnerability, which reappears manifestly after Covid-19, with the general tendency to be scared from or to avoid it. We then briefly propose theoretical concepts, such as humility, care and creativity, available within the philosophical literature, to address these challenges.

‘Good to know’: An Exploration of the role and Influence of Professional Ethics in ICT Bodies of Knowledge (BoKs)

As our dependency on ever-more complex, opaque, and ubiquitous information and communication technologies (ICTs) increases, ethical concerns about the development of those technologies are also rising. One approach to mitigate these concerns is to improve the maturity of the ICT profession through codification of its knowledge base and professional ethics. In this paper, some key theoretical approaches to ethics with a long-established tradition within Philosophy are explored and how these approaches may manifest in the codification of knowledge within ICT Bodies of Knowledge (BoKs) is discussed. BoKs provide a common vocabulary and knowledge inventory to aid communication and encourage shared values and practices, particularly in emerging professional areas such as the ICT profession. Thus, identifying and understanding how ethics are codified in ICT BoKs is important for maturing ICT professional practice in general, and more specifically, for the resolution of ethical concerns. This paper 1) explores considerations and approaches to how ethics are incorporated within ICT BoKs, and 2) conducts content analysis on how ethics are codified within the content structure of ICT Boks. It is found that theoretical ethical approaches are rarely explicated cited in BoKS though, in the more mature BoKs, the discussion of ethics does include consideration of most of the major philosophical approaches. The implications of how knowledge about ethics is described and integrated into the wider knowledge infrastructure of the ICT profession including curriculum guidelines and accreditation processes is discussed. In a wider contribution to the Knowledge Management discipline, potential lessons to increase maturity for other emerging professions through the development of BoKs are also outlined.