Focusing on the virtue-ethics tradition, this article analyzes the practice of networking within the business context. First, it distinguishes three types of networking: utilitarian, emotional, and virtuous. Virtuous networking does not exclude utilitarian and emotional networking, but these latter forms should be practiced with reciprocity. It is argued that virtuous networking requires (1) acting with good faith, sharing honest goals, and participating in licit activities; (2) sharing information, knowledge, and resources with reciprocity and even with gratuity; (3) serving with justice (...) in asymmetrical power relationships; and (4) exercising a positive ethical influence within the network. Specific forms of unethical behavior in the practice of networking include (1) bad faith or abuse of trust, (2) opportunism, (3) abuse and misuse of power, (4) network cronyism, (5) networking as disguised bribery, and (6) cooperating in the wrongdoing of other actors of the network. The article concludes with some remarks about the role of ethics in social networks. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Amidst trends that emphasize languishing patterns in teen mental health, there is a bright spot: social science research indicates that adolescents who develop relationships with adult mentors demonstrate increased signs of flourishing. This social science research on mentors, though limited to school performance outcome goals, offers a lifeline to character educators. I offer a theoretical framework based on Aristotelian principles, informed by anecdotal case studies of authentic moral dilemmas that emerged from the direct experiences of mentees, to suggest a (...) framework to explain why adolescents with adult mentors have an advantage. Patterns of conversation in trusted mentoring relationships developed over time, and in a school context that provides sufficient professional development for mentors, support the youth: (1) to advance in practical wisdom (phronesis) by honing skills for emotional regulation as well as cognitive skills to recognize goods in conflict and (2) to learn how to engage in civic friendship through these friendships of inequality with mentors. (shrink)

Philosophers have not paid much attention to the impact of remote work on the nature of work and the workplace. The overall aim of this paper is to contribute to further debate over the value of remote work by focusing on one important dimension of it – the effect on collegial relationships.I distinguish two types of collegial relationships. On the one hand, there are what I call “Kantian collegial relationships”, which have been outlined in a recent account by Betzler & (...) Löschke. These are colleagues who acknowledge and respect each other as equals, and provide relationship goods in a fair and distributive manner. On the other hand, there are what I call “collegial friendships”. In contrast to Kantian colleagues, collegial friends are emotionally supportive and show appreciation for each other for who they are, not just because they are equals. Both types of collegial relationship must be taken into consideration if we want to fully understand why we value our colleagues.I then show that there are reasons to believe that remote work will have a chilling effect on collegial friendships. Remote workers must interact online, which undermines forms of self-disclosure that are necessary for intimate relationships to form, like collegial friendship. Conversely, I suggest that remote work, for exactly the same reasons, will have a positive effect on Kantian collegial relationships. The proliferation of remote work forces us to consider whether this tradeoff is acceptable. (shrink)

This paper explores the ethics of networking as a means of competition, specifically networking to improve one’s prospects of prevailing in formal competitive processes for jobs or university placements. There are broadly two ways that networking might be used to influence the outcome of some such process: through the “exchange of affect” between networker and selector, and through the demonstration of merit by networker to selector. Both raise ethical problems that have been overlooked but need to be addressed.