The realities of human agency and decision making pose serious challenges for research ethics. This article explores six major challenges that require more attention in the ethics education of students and scientists and in the research on ethical conduct in science. The first of them is the routinization of action, which makes the detection of ethical issues difficult. The social governance of action creates ethical problems related to power. The heuristic nature of human decision making implies the risk of ethical (...) bias. The moral disengagement mechanisms represent a human tendency to evade personal responsibility. The greatest challenge of all might be the situational variation in people’s ethical behaviour. Even minor situational factors have a surprisingly strong influence on our actions. Furthermore, finally, the nature of ethics itself also causes problems: instead of clear answers, we receive a multitude of theories and intuitions that may sometimes be contradictory. All these features of action and ethics represent significant risks for ethical conduct in science. I claim that they have to be managed within the everyday practices of science and addressed explicitly in research ethics education. I analyse them and suggest some ways in which their risks can be alleviated. (shrink)

This essay discusses the origins, biases, and effects on contemporary discussions of economics and ethics of the unexamined use of the metaphor an economy is a machine. Both neoliberal economics and many critiques of capitalist systems take this metaphor as their starting point. The belief that economies run according to universal laws of motion, however, is shown to be based on a variety of rationalist thinking that – while widely held – is inadequate for explaining lived human experience. Feminist scholarship (...) in the philosophy of science and economics has brought to light some of the biases that have supported the mechanistic worldview. Possible alternatives to the an economy is a machine include an economy is a creative process and an economy is an organism. Such metaphors are intellectually defensible as guides to scientific inquiry and provide a richer ground for moral imagination. (shrink)

An increasing number of studies indicate that virtues affect brain structure. These studies might shed new light on some neuroethical perspectives suggesting that our brain network activity determines the acquisition and permanence of virtues. According to these perspectives, virtuous behavior could be interpreted as the product of a brain mechanism supervised by genes and environment and not as the result of free choice. In this respect, the neural correlates of virtues would confirm the deterministic theory. In contrast, I maintain that (...) these findings do not undermine the role of willpower and freedom while reinforcing an interactionist view of free will. If virtues affect our neural system, then the predictability of the virtuous behavior follows. The likelihood of our future actions is primarily virtue-dependent; therefore, the acquired naturality of virtuous behavior is a source of predictable behavioral patterns outlining expected actions, which I propose to call Hypotheses of Action. However, the predictability of an action indicates its likeliness and not its certainty or necessity. The neural traces of virtues can be interpreted as major indicators of HAs. It is always possible for the agents to depart from their more likely, virtue-induced actions, but their deviations from the virtuous behavioral pattern are rare, as it is rare for the vicious/non-virtuous person to behave well systematically. This implies a reaffirmation of the notions of veto and consent as they provide a universal practical power affecting the subject’s use of moral virtues. (shrink)

To claim that there is a politics to or expressed within media technology is of course by no means new, but it remains controversial and not always well understood. Walter Benjamin’s (1986b) essay from 1936 on the political import of media technology is often regarded as the starting point of such discussions, since it foregrounds a key theme in critical theory, namely the politics of perception. In what follows, I would like to review the importance of the politics of perception (...) by first outlining Benjamin’s political analysis of cinema and then engaging with a critique of Benjamin by recent American cognitivist philosophy. This will allow a consideration of the competing phenomenological cognitive science of embodied cognition that I argue offers a better account of the mind and cognition than cognitivism. As a result of this analysis of cognition, I conclude that the philosophy of embodied cognition supports Benjamin's political theory of media technology. (shrink)

The essay deals with the mechanism of interpretation for legal metaphorical expressions. Firstly, it points out the perspective the cognitive approach induced about legal metaphors; then it suggests that this perspective gains in plausibility when a new bilateral model of language understanding is endorsed. A possible sketch of the meaning-making procedure for legal metaphors, compatible with this new model, is then proposed, and illustrated with some examples built on concepts belonging to the Italian Civil Code. The insights the bilateral model (...) of understanding provides are compared with the practice followed by legal communities for dealing with the metaphorical expressions they coin and use. (shrink)

Mentoring is a natural setting for senior employees to render ethics advice and consultation to junior employees. Two studies examined the question of whether those who mentor are more practically wise than those who do not. Although four different measures of practical wisdom were used, no differences were detected. However, mentors were shown to be more politically skilled than non-mentors.

Moral imagination is a process that involves a thorough consideration of the ethical elements of a decision. We sought to explore what might distinguish moral imagination from other ethical approaches within a complex business simulation. Using a three-component model of moral imagination, we sought to discover whether organization cultures with a salient ethics theme activate moral imagination. Finding an effect, we sought an answer to whether some individuals were more prone to being influenced in this way by ethical cultures. We (...) found that employees with strong moral identities are less influenced by such cultures than employees whose sense of self is not defined in moral terms. (shrink)

The ethical tension over whether countries have differentiated responsibilities for climate change mitigation evokes the tale of a master and a man. The one who thinks she is the master is analogous to the wealthier, industrialized nations and their market actors, and the human is the rest of humanity, particularly those citizens of less developed countries. Since 1992, there has been formal, stated agreement that there should be differentiated responsibilities for climate change mitigation between developed and developing nations, but differentiation (...) remained a sticking point in negotiations over implementation at Copenhagen in 2009. Putting the parties in the climate change differentiation debate in analogy with the characters of Tolstoy’s story, “Master and Man,” this paper seeks to advance the common appreciation for the moral foundations of differentiation. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyse the role of metaphors for the infertile body in the context of assisted reproduction, using conceptual metaphor theory as a framework, and to evaluate the moral significance of these metaphors. This sub-study is part of a larger study examining the biosafety practices of new biotechnologies in Latvia. In the sub-study, special attention was paid to metaphors used by assisted reproductive technology users, egg donors and experts. It can be concluded that not only (...) does the infertility experience influence the choice of metaphors, but the use of certain metaphors can also change the infertility experience. In this process the practice of infertility treatment and the meaning of the body are socially and culturally shaped. The main groups of metaphors for the infertile body discovered through interview analysis are: order/disorder, the body as a resource, the body as a container, the body as a project, and anthropomorphization of gametes. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyse the role of metaphors for the infertile body in the context of assisted reproduction, using conceptual metaphor theory as a framework, and to evaluate the moral significance of these metaphors. This sub-study is part of a larger study examining the biosafety practices of new biotechnologies in Latvia. In the sub-study, special attention was paid to metaphors used by assisted reproductive technology users, egg donors and experts. It can be concluded that not only (...) does the infertility experience influence the choice of metaphors, but the use of certain metaphors can also change the infertility experience. In this process the practice of infertility treatment and the meaning of the body are socially and culturally shaped. The main groups of metaphors for the infertile body discovered through interview analysis are: order/disorder, the body as a resource, the body as a container, the body as a project, and anthropomorphization of gametes. (shrink)

On January, 27, 2017, U.S. President Donald J. Trump issued Executive Order 13769 on immigration and travel, which restricted entry into the U.S. of the citizens of seven primarily Muslim countries. Many academics reacted with outrage, including me and other members of the Academy of Management, of which I was President at the time. Some scholarly associations condemned EO 13769 as immoral, but the AOM did not immediately issue such a condemnation because the AOM’s Constitution included a policy of no-political-stands (...) and a principle that nobody, including the AOM President, could represent personal views as those of the organization. Within a few weeks, the AOM Constitution was changed, and in October, 2017, the AOM joined other associations in issuing a condemnation. An article was published in this journal on this situation that was subsequently amended through a published Correction, but the Correction only partially addressed the problems in the original. The main contribution of this commentary is to take up the invitation in Tsoukas to examine the case for insights on theoretical and conceptual questions raised in the literature on prototypicality and moral imagination. It also briefly outlines the most significant omitted errors of fact in Tsoukas that were not corrected in Tsoukas, and describes the most important methodological problems in Tsoukas. The conclusion suggests that the complex, nuanced, and evolving interactions that unfolded at the AOM are not fully addressed theoretically or conceptually in this literature. (shrink)

This article addresses the world's contemporary crisis of care, despite the abundance of information about distant others, by exploring motivations for caring and the rok of imagination. The ethical significance of caring is found in performance. Applying Victor Vroom's expectancy theory, caring performances are viewed as extensions of rational expectations regarding the efficacy of actions. The imagination creates these positive or negative expectations regarding the ability to effectively care. William James s notion of the will to believe offers a unique (...) twist on rational expectations in that he regards humans as having the capacity to work within uncertainty to take decisive action. Applying this idea to caring performance is, this artick argues that peopk can have the will to care, beyond strict rational calculations or limits of social norms. Historically, caring has been associated with the imagination s ability to empathize, but the will to care offers another rok for the imagination in envisioning effective action. Given the significance of the imagination for ethical behavior, this artick explores the implications for cultivating care in terms of what educating for care might hok like. The work of feminist care ethicists, particularly Nel Noddings, is discussed, and contemporary case examples of caring performances are investigated. (shrink)

Over the past years, various accounts of ethical consumption have been produced which identify certain concepts as central to mediating the ethical relationship between the consumer and the consumed. Scholars across disciplinary fields have explored how individuals construe their ethical consumption responsibilities and commitments through the notions of identity, taking care and doing good, proximity and distance, suggesting the centrality of these themes to consumer engagement in ethical practices. This paper contributes to the body of research concerned with unravelling consumers’ (...) conceptually mediated relationship to moral and ethical issues in the sphere of consumption by revealing a new set of ideas through which people interpret and relate to consumption ethics. Drawing upon findings from an empirical study on self-perceived ethical food consumers, I demonstrate that people’s perceptions and views of ethical problems around consumption are bound up with notions of vulnerability, suffering, and harm, and that these notions permeate and impact all aspects of ethical consumer behaviour. The paper concludes by arguing that we need to further explore the conceptual underpinnings of ethical consumer commitments and practices, and expand the conceptual toolkit of research on ethical consumption to account for a wider range of ideas and notions that shape individual as well as collective motivations, intentions, and actions throughout the process of becoming and being an ethical consumer. Finally, the paper suggests a specific analytical framework to facilitate such research. (shrink)

Technology moves us to a better world. We contend that through technology people can simplify and solve moral tasks when they are in presence of incomplete information and possess a diminished capacity to act morally. Many external things, usually inert from the moral point of view, can be transformed into the so-called moral mediators. Hence, not all of the moral tools are inside the head, many of them are shared and distributed in “external” objects and structures which function as ethical (...) devices. (shrink)

We understand responsible leadership as a social-relational and ethical phenomenon, which occurs in social processes of interaction. While the prevailing leadership literature has for the most part focussed on the relationship between leaders and followers in the organization and defined followers as subordinates, we show in this article that leadership takes place in interaction with a multitude of followers as stakeholders inside and outside the corporation. Using an ethical lens, we discuss leadership responsibilities in a stakeholder society, thereby following Bass (...) and Steidelmeier’s suggestion to discuss “leadership in the context of contemporary stakeholder theory” (1999: 200). Moreover, from a relational and stakeholder perspective we approach the questions: What is responsible leadership? What makes a responsible leader? What qualities are needed? Finally, we propose a so-called “roles model” of responsible leadership, which gives a gestalt to a responsible leader and describes the different roles he or she takes in leading stakeholders and business in society. (shrink)

This paper describes a teaching methodology whereby students can gain practical experience of ethical decision-making in the engineering design process. We first argue for the necessity to teach a ‘practical’ understanding of ethical issues in engineering education along with the usual theoretical or hypothetical approaches. We then show how this practical understanding can be achieved by using a collaborative design game, describing how, for example, the concept of responsibility can be explored from this practical basis. We conclude that the use (...) of games in design education can provide an excellent basis for discussing practical and ethical reasoning during the process of design. (shrink)

Next SectionThe present investigation looks for a solution to the problem of the influence of feelings and emotions on our ethical decisions. This problem can be formulated in the following way. On the one hand, emotions (fear, pity and so on) can alter our sense of discrimination and lead us to make our wrong decisions. On the other hand, it is known that lack of sensitivity can alter our judgment and lead us to sacrifice basic ethical principles such as autonomy, (...) beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. Only emotions can turn a decision into an ethical one, but they can also turn it into an unreasonable one. To avoid this contradiction, suggest integrating emotions with the decisional factors of the process of “retrospective thinking”. During this thinking, doctors usually try to identify the nature and impact of feelings on the decision they have just made. In this retrospective moment of analysis of the decision, doctors also question themselves on the feelings they did not experience. They do this to estimate the consequences of this lack of feeling on the way they behaved with the patient. (shrink)

En este trabajo admito como hipótesis de trabajo filosófico que el pluralismo moral podría ser una mejor opción frente al monismo moral . A partir de esta hipótesis de trabajo, caracterizo cuáles son las notas principales que definen un pluralismo —especialmente moral— de carácter «razonable». Sostengo que estas notas definitorias, que forman parte de las premisas de partida del pluralismo razonable, podrían comportar consecuencias que el propio pluralista no estaría fácilmente dispuesto a aceptar: en particular, un fuerte relativismo moral, un (...) particularismo moral fuerte y una fragmentación de valores que podría derivar en desintegración moral. El seguimiento de estas posibles consecuencias, a su vez, depende de cuánta presión conceptual sobre las notas definitorias del pluralismo razonable ejerza el análisis conceptual preferido por el filósofo. (shrink)

The article uses embodiment and the experiential basis of conceptual metaphor to argue for the metaphorical essence of abstract legal thought.concepts like ‘law’ and ‘justice’ need to borrow from a spatial, bodily, or physical prototype in order to be conceptualised, seen, for example, in the fact that justice preferably is found ‘under’ law. Three conceptual categories of how law is conceptualised is examined: law as an object, law as a vertical relation, and law as an area. The Google Ngram Viewer, (...) based on the massive library of books that Google has scanned, has been used to study legally relevant conceptions over time within each of these three categories, from 1800 to 2000. In addition, the article suggests a type of analytical method of ‘metaphor triangulation,’ that is, the replacement of prevailing metaphors with unusual ones in order to increase the level of awareness of what conceptual content the prevailing metaphors involve. (shrink)

From the late 1950s until 1975, cognition was understood mainly as disembodied symbol manipulation in cognitive psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and the nascent field of Cognitive Science. The idea of embodied cognition entered the field of Cognitive Linguistics at its beginning in 1975. Since then, cognitive linguists, working with neuroscientists, computer scientists, and experimental psychologists, have been developing a neural theory of thought and language (NTTL). Central to NTTL are the following ideas: (a) we think with our brains, that is, (...) thought is physical and is carried out by functional neural circuitry; (b) what makes thought meaningful are the ways those neural circuits are connected to the body and characterize embodied experience; (c) so-called abstract ideas are embodied in this way as well, as is language. Experimental results in embodied cognition are seen not only as confirming NTTL but also explained via NTTL, mostly via the neural theory of conceptual metaphor. Left behind more than three decades ago is the old idea that cognition uses the abstract manipulation of disembodied symbols that are meaningless in themselves but that somehow constitute internal “representations of external reality” without serious mediation by the body and brain. This article uniquely explains the connections between embodied cognition results since that time and results from cognitive linguistics, experimental psychology, computational modeling, and neuroscience. (shrink)

The article clarifies the way in which ‘the aesthetic’ is conceptualised in relation to business ethics in order to assess its potential to inform theory building and developmental practices within the business ethics field. A systematic review of relevant literature is undertaken which identifies three ontologically based accounts of the relationship between the aesthetic and business ethics: ‘positive’ ones, ‘negative’ accounts and ‘Postmodern’ renderings. Five epistemologically based approaches are also made explicit: those in which the aesthetic is thought to develop (...) enhanced perceptual discernment, those in which the aesthetic catalyses emotional sensitivity, those in which the aesthetic contributes to imaginative capacity, those in which the aesthetic prompts integrative apprehension and those in which the aesthetic is seen to foster critical reflexivity. The review reveals two key findings: firstly, the dearth of empirically based research to substantiate claims made about the aesthetic’s ability to foster ethical capabilities, which leads to proposals for further research; secondly, the analysis indicates the significance of critical reflexivity both in resolving the apparent dichotomy between ontologically based perspectives asserting the aesthetic’s ability to lead to ethically sound or egregious behaviour, and in underpinning the capacities of perceptual discernment, emotional connectivity, imagination and integrative apprehension which epistemologically based approaches assert the aesthetic can foster. (shrink)

This article introduces _the Ethics Laboratory_ as an inter-sectorial and cross-disciplinary dialogical forum which can be viewed as an educational tool for moral learning. _The Ethics Laboratory_ represents a platform for the informal, collaborative investigation, in strict confidentiality, of ethical questions that have social consequences and/or legal concerns and bridges boundaries between research communities, institutions and patients. Its methodological structure proposes an experimental, open-ended way of unpacking implied assumptions, underlying values, comparable notions and observations from different professional fields. In connection (...) with a large social science project on precision medicine, we conducted four Ethics Laboratories followed by eight interviews with a selected number of participants. Through these interviews we learnt how this exploratory dialogical forum heighten moral awareness on issues that are shared among stakeholders who work to implement precision medicine in Denmark. Though the framework was developed specifically to foster ethical reflection within precision medicine, its dialogical structure lends itself to other professional areas and can easily be adopted and carried out. (shrink)

Ethical choice and action in the built environment are complicated by the fact that moral agents often get stuck as they pursue their goals. A common way of getting stuck has its roots in human cognition: the failure of moral imagination, which shows most clearly when moral agents stand on either side of a sharp cultural divide, like the traditional divide between city and suburb. Being stuck is akin to bad moral luck: it is a situation beyond the control of (...) the moral agent for which that agent might nevertheless be held responsible. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to introduce a multidimensional framework based on the concept of moral imagination for analysing and capturing diverse virtues in contemporary Turkish organizations. Based on qualitative interviews with 58 managers in Turkey, this article develops an inventory of Turkish organizational virtues each of which can be associated with a different form of virtuous organizing. The inventory consists of nine forms of moral imagination, which map the multitude of virtues and moral emotions in organizations. Nine emergent (...) forms of moral imagination are based on: integrity, affection, diligence, inspiration, wisdom, trust, gratefulness, justice, and harmony. The findings have made a contribution to the expanding literature on how Islamic organizations develop their business ethics through a repertoire of virtues. An empirical account of the range of virtues in organizational contexts that have emerged as a result of the hybridization of Islamic virtue/aesthetics and neoliberal capitalism in contemporary Turkey is provided. A theoretical contribution is made to business ethics literature through a phenomenology of virtues that provides unique insights on diverse forms of moral imagination in contemporary Turkey where Islam and neoliberal capitalism dynamically co-exist. (shrink)

At the heart of the uniqueness debate is the possibility that the computer revolution may demand more in the way of ethical analysis than our traditional (that is, modern) ethical edification has prepared us for. In short, it may present new and unique problems and therefore demand new and unique solutions. In this article I argue that the solution is in fact an old and not‐so‐unique one: casuistry. Appealing to Jonsen and Toulmin's analysis of casuistry (1988), I argue that a (...) casuistic methodology is a more accurate description of the moral reasoning used by contemporary computer ethicists than are other accounts. In addition, I argue that the strengths that enabled casuistry to deal successfully with radical social, economic, and religious changes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries render casuistry well suited to the task of dealing with radically new situations like those found in twentieth‐ and twenty‐first‐century computer technology. Before concluding, I briefly explore Pascal's fatal critique of casuistry and its relevance for contemporary computer ethics. (shrink)

This article engages the considerations of imagination in Kierkegaard and Ricoeur to argue for a moral dimension of the imagination and its objects. Imaginary objects are taken to be mental representations in images and narratives of people or courses of action that are not real in the sense that they are not actual, or have not yet happened. Three claims are made in the article. First, by drawing on the category of possibility, a conceptual distinction is established between imagination and (...) fantasy, (1) I claim that imagination has a moral dimension because it is engaged in considering real-life possibilities. Second, (2) drawing on Kierkegaard and Ricoeur, it is argued that mental representations of selfhood in imagination have a moral dimension because they essentially allow people to understand the development of agency in human selfhood by means of representations of would-be selves and narrative figurations of the self. Third, (3) mental representations of human selves have a moral dimension because they form important points of reference for moral orientations in the field of human praxis (moral pointers). (shrink)

Taking a Sartrean existentialist viewpoint towards business ethics, in particular, concerning the question of the nature of businesspersons’ moral character, provides for a dramatically distinct set of reflections from those afforded by the received view on character, namely that of Aristotelian-based virtue ethics. Insofar as Sartre’s philosophy places human freedom at center stage, I argue that the authenticity with which a businessperson approaches moral situations depends on the degree of consciousness he or she has of the various choices at stake. (...) Finally, I consider some practical changes in business ethics education, managerial decision-making, and business organizations that Sartrean reflections might prompt. (shrink)

I argue that John Dewey’s analysis of imagination enables an account of learning from imaginary cases consistent with Jonathan Dancy’s moral particularism. Moreover, this account provides a more robust account of learning from cases than Dancy’s own. Particularism is the position that there are no, or at most few, true moral principles, and that competent reasoning and judgment do not require them. On a particularist framework, one cannot infer from an imaginary case that because a feature has a particular moral (...) importance there, that it must have that import in an actual case. Instead, for Dancy, cases can yield “reminders,” and a person with a lot of experience (real or imagined) brings a “checklist” of features that can matter to a situation. Using the Nathan-David exchange from 2 Samuel and Martha Nussbaum’s “Steerforth’s Arm” from Love’s Knowledge, I show that this account does not explain all instances of learning from cases. Drawing on recent work on cases, I argue that cases can be educative by serving an exploratory function, probing what one takes to be known and provoking change in the background one uses in evaluating a situation. I then argue that Dewey’s work on imagination in his comments on sympathy and in A Common Faith and Art as Experience enables such a role for cases on a particularist framework. Mark Johnson’s recent work on metaphor further illuminates how Dewey’s account of art can be exploratory. I contend that this account affords an exploratory role for cases consistent with Dancy’s particularism. (shrink)

Online science and engineering ethics (SEE) education can support appropriate goals for SEE and the highly interactive pedagogy that attains those goals. Recent work in moral psychology suggests pedagogical goals for SEE education that are surprisingly similar to goals enunciated by several panels in SEE. Classroom-based interactive study of SEE cases is a suitable method to achieve these goals. Well-designed cases, with appropriate goals and structure can be easily adapted to courses that have online components. It is less clear that (...) exclusively online methods can support the wide range of goals necessary to good moral pedagogy in SEE, though there seems no a priori reason to rule this out. Only careful, goal-based assessment of online case study SEE teaching can resolve this question. (shrink)

Much has been said about the need for improving the current definitions of scientific authorship, but an aspect that is often overlooked is how to formulate and communicate these definitions to ensure that they are comprehensible and useful for researchers, notably researchers active in international research consortia. In light of a rapid increase in international collaborations within natural sciences, this article uses authorship of this branch of sciences as an example and provides suggestions to improve the comprehensibility of the definitions (...) of authorship in natural sciences. It assesses whether the definition of authorship provided by the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity can deal with current issues and problems of scientific authorship. Notably, problems that are experienced in project groups with researchers coming from multiple countries. Using theories developed by Jürgen Habermas and Robert Merton, a normative framework is developed to articulate ethical authorship in natural sciences. Accordingly, enriching the current definition of authorship with normative elements and using discipline-specific metaphors to communicate them are introduced as possible ways of improving the comprehensibility of the definition of authorship in international environments. Finally, this article provides a proposal to be considered in the future revisions of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. (shrink)

This article uses the life stories approach to leadership and leadership development. Using exploratory, qualitative data from a Forbes Global 2000 and FTSE 100 company, we discuss the role of the turning point as an important antecedent of leadership in corporate social responsibility. We argue that TPs are causally efficacious, linking them to the development of life narratives concerned with an evolving sense of personal identity. Using both a multi-disciplinary perspective and a multi-level focus on CSR leadership, we identify four (...) narrative cases. We propose that they helped to re-define individuals’ sense of self and in some extreme cases completely transformed their self-identity as leaders of CSR. Hence, we also distinguish the momentous turning point that created a seismic shift in personality, through re-evaluation of the individuals’ personal values. We argue that whilst TPs are developmental experiences that can produce responsible leadership, the MTP changes the individuals’ personal priorities in life to produce responsible leadership that perhaps did not exist previously. Thus, we appropriate Maslow’s metaphorical phrase ‘A falling of the veils’ from his discussion of peak and desolation experiences that produce personal growth. Using a multi-disciplinary literature from social theory moral psychology Personality, identity and character: explorations in moral psychology, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2009) and social psychology Prosocial motives, emotions, and behaviour: the better angels of our nature, American Psychological Association, Washington, 2010), we present a theoretical model that illustrates the psychological process of the TP, thus contributing to the growing literature on the microfoundations of CSR. (shrink)

The business ethics field contains a number of explanations for the imagination’s influence on decision-making. This has benefited moral theorizing because approaches that utilize the imagination tend to acknowledge important biological and psychological forces that influence the way we understand situations, develop strategies for problem-solving, and choose courses of action. But, I argue, the broad range of approaches has also served as an obstacle to theory development in the field. Given the variety of theoretical and disciplinary approaches, coupled with the (...) diversity of applications, it would be fair to judge the current state of theory as fractured. To bring focus to theory development, this conceptual study of the moral imagination is grounded in the work of one discipline, one theorist, one text: Plato’s Republic. The primary outcome of this study is the demonstration of the conditions under which the imagination serves to augment and support rationality rather than serving as an impediment. The systematic nature of Plato’s theory aids in the formation of more coherent conceptual grounding than currently available in the field. A final contribution of this study is the positioning of Plato as a proper beginning or foundation to any further theory development in the moral imagination. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 95-97.

The existing literature on moral imagination proposes that actors can best respond to ethical dilemmas by tailoring their actions to the practical demands of the situation. It has done little to develop this insight, however. To address this gap, I used institutional theory to identify six ideal type approaches to moral imagination. I proposed that in addressing ethical dilemmas, the morally imaginative actor takes account of two situational factors: first, the social construction of the unmet ethical claim or obligation which (...) constitutes the ethical dilemma, and in particular whether or not it is broadly perceived to be legitimate; and second, its own degree of power. The framework presented represents the first attempt to systematically enumerate approaches to moral imagination and identify their boundary conditions. (shrink)

The paper focuses on metaphorical representation of military activities of the US-led international coalition and of ISIL which are construed on the basis of systematic metaphors drawn from the com...

This article explores the integration of the seemingly disparate notions of care ethics and design thinking. The business community has adapted “design thinking” from engineering and architecture to facilitate innovation and problem solving through participatory processes. “Care ethics” is a relational approach to morality characterized by a concern for context, empathy, and action. Although design thinking is receiving significant attention and application in business practices, care ethics has only achieved limited traction among business ethicists in academia. “Caring design” is offered (...) as a mutually beneficial integration of the two ideas. Care ethics and design thinking have much in common. For example, the relational and responsive dimension of design thinking is analogous in some important ways, namely empathy and inquiry, to the relational and responsive approach of care ethics. The shared themes in care ethics and design thinking make the integration of the two plausible and reciprocal advantages make the combination compelling. Explicit ethical language can shape design thinking as more than a tool of productivity while the participatory processes of design thinking can aid in expanding the circle of care ethics as a social and political ethic. Furthermore, caring design may provide a palatable path for greater acceptance of care ethics among business professionals. An overview of design thinking and care ethics is offered prior to exploring how the synergies are mutually beneficial. The article concludes with a focus on how to educate the next generation of business students for caring design. (shrink)

Sport and game metaphors are ubiquitous in the culture and language of business. As evocative linguistic devices, such metaphors are morally neutral; however, if they are indicative of a deep structure of understanding that filters experience, then they have the potential to be ethically problematic. This article argues that there exists a danger for those who forget or confuse metaphor with definition: the metaphoric fallacy. Accordingly, business is like a game, but it is not the equivalent of a game. If (...) business is equated to a game, then the potentially negative implications for ethical content and the application of ethical theories are numerous. This article suggests a fresh approach to issues of contemporary business ethics discourse, by attending to the business-as-game metaphor. (shrink)

This study examines the processes ofdecision-making used by intensive care(critical care) specialists. Ninety-ninespecialists completed a questionnaire involvingthree clinical cases, using a novel methodologyinvestigating the role of uncertainty andtemporal-related factors, and exploring a rangeof ethical issues. Validation and triangulationof the results was done via a comparison studywith a medically lay, but highly informed groupof 37 law students. For both study groups,constructing reasons for a decision was largelyan interpretative and imaginative exercise thatwent beyond the data (as presented), commonlyresulting in different reasons supporting (...) thesame conclusions and similar reasons supportingopposite conclusions. The skills of ethicalimagination and interpretation were related toan individual''s prior lived experience,construed in the broadest sense. Application ofthese skills of ethical imagination andinterpretation always occurred, to some degree,in a state of uncertainty and almost alwaysinvolved temporal relationships.Using these results, a theory of ethicaldecision-making is proffered. Three levels ortypes of reasoning processes may be present.Type I decision-making involves the applicationof rules, usually in a deductive fashion. TypeII decision-making is characterised by aprocess where a plurality of reasons arebalanced, weighed and sifted with each other.Type III decision-making is intimately linkedwith respondents lived experiences and `crafts''the content of type I and II reasoningprocesses, via the application of ethicalimagination and interpretation. Relationshipsbetween these three types of reasoningprocesses, and with narrative ethics, are alsodiscussed. (shrink)

the term as used by sunstein seeks to bring together various traditions. however, there are significant differences between uses of the term in the cognitive and the social psychological research, and these differences are accompanied by very distinct evidential criteria. we suggest the term should refer to processes, which means that further evidence is required.

This paper seeks to show that human cognition cannot be characterised purely in mentalistic term. It has a bodily basis and cognition is thus the product of the interplay between mind, body, and brain. This is how the idea of embodiment and its importance is realised and gets its foothold in both philosophy and cognitive science. This brings a radical change introducing a new framework for philosophy and cognitive science. In this new change philosophy and cognitive science have a special (...) role to play which this paper seeks to explore. Philosophy in its capacity as a conceptual inquiry provides justification for human embodiment on a conceptual ground whereas cognitive science provides the same on an empirical and experimental ground. This brings the two disciplines closer resulting into a new field of inquiry which can be best described as the interface between philosophy and cognitive science. An important consequence that follows from this alignment is that the traditional epistemological distinction between the a priori and the empirical can no longer be rigidly maintained. (shrink)

Work on analogy has been done from a number of disciplinary perspectives throughout the history of Western thought. This work is a multidisciplinary guide to theorizing about analogy. It contains 1,406 references, primarily to journal articles and monographs, and primarily to English language material. classical through to contemporary sources are included. The work is classified into eight different sections (with a number of subsections). A brief introduction to each section is provided. Keywords and key expressions of importance to research on (...) analogy are discussed in the introductory material. Electronic resources for conducting research on analogy are listed as well. (shrink)

This paper examines the different conceptions of personal renewal offered in the writings of John Dewey and Stanley Cavell. Both conceptions, I suggest, can be seen as attempting to reconcile the quest for self-realization with democratic life through a poetic, essentially Emersonian vision of the self as a continual work-in-progress. Accordingly, the kinds of selves that Dewey and Cavell seek are in the end highly compatible. Yet it seems clear too that Dewey and Cavell also stand in a somewhat different (...) relation to the Emersonian tradition, and thus diverge in important ways as to the most preferable means of personal renewal. While Dewey tends to focus on the extensive workings of embodied habit, Cavell's ``Emersonian Perfectionism'' takes a more distinctively linguistic turn. After showing the strengths and weaknesses of each approach to personal renewal, I prevail upon the need for educational environments that recognize both the discursive and nondiscursive dimensions of reconstructing the self. (shrink)

As computating technologies become ubiquitous and at least partly autonomous, they will have increasing impact on societies, both in the developed and developing worlds. This article outlines a framework for guiding emerging technologies in directions that promise social as well as technical progress. Multiple stakeholders will have to be engaged in dialogues over new technological directions, forming trading zones in which knowledge and resources are exchanged. Such discussions will have to incorporate cultural and individual values.

The societal and ethical impacts of emerging technological and business systems cannot entirely be foreseen; therefore, management of these innovations will require at least some ethicists to work closely with researchers. This is particularly critical in the development of new systems because the maximum degrees of freedom for changing technological direction occurs at or just after the point of breakthrough; that is also the point where the long-term implications are hardest to visualize. Recent work on shared expertise in Science & (...) Technology Studies (STS) can help create productive collaborations among scientists, engineers, ethicists and other stakeholders as these new systems are designed and implemented. But collaboration across these disciplines will be successful only if scientists, engineers, and ethicists can communicate meaningfully with each other. The establishment of a trading zone coupled with moral imagination present one method for such collaborative communication. (shrink)

This article presents a framework for practitioners who may be interested in maintaining adaptive stability of sociotechnical networks. The framework is developed from assembling several concepts that are useful for assessing and for drawing on appropriate moral reasoning strategies as sociotechnical networks are designed, constructed, and adapted. One such strategy involves the ability to assess degrees of perspective sharing and trading relationships in networks using moral imagination. The article uses the case of the design of an environmentally sustainable fabric to (...) illustrate these strategic concepts. The framework also draws on other examples of cases in which sociotechnical networks have become destabilized to illustrate instances in which the framework may have been useful for decreasing a tendency for destabilization. (shrink)