The main purpose of this paper is to defend traditional ethical theory (utilitarianism and deontology) for its application in business against a more recent model consisting of utility, rights, and justice. This is done in three parts: First, we provide a conceptual argument for the superiority of the traditional model; second, we demonstrate these points through an examination of three short cases; and third, we argue for the capability of the traditional model to account for universals and particulars in ethics.

Can concepts such as loyalty and integrity remain intrinsically valuable personal traits even as we devote ourselves to that which requires the loyalty in the first place (the greater good)? Does utilitarian deliberation rest on too extreme a notion of impartiality - one that focuses exclusively on the consequences of actions, leaving people, in the words of Bernard Williams, "mere faceless numbers"? Using the film Casablanca as an extended analogy, this article attempts to reconcile the concept of loyalty to a (...) cause, as described by Josiah Royce, with Williams's argument that personal integrity can remain part of even utilitarian thought processes. (shrink)

In this article I argue both that an understanding of sport’s general character as competitive play can help us to read Homer more insightfully and that this reading can boomerang back to us to further illuminate the sport as competitive play thesis. My overall method is that of (Rawlsian) reflective equilibrium. The three sections of Homer that I examine are the Phaiacian games in Book 8 of the ‘Odyssey’, the Patroclos games in Book 23 of the ‘Iliad’, and the Penelope (...) games in Books 21–22 of the ‘Odyssey’. (shrink)

This study will answer the question, what do students expect to learn from philosophy teachers in the 21st century. by framing a response based on the following: The researcher’s teaching philosophy developed over 30 years, a survey conducted of UAEU students, and a discussion of the changing role and purpose of philosophy in the academy and current pedagogical philosophy in teaching. The study has focused on how philosophical questions have been changed over time, using new technology to teach philosophy, what (...) are the characteristics of philosophy teachers and students, the new direction for teaching philosophy, and career opportunities. The practical frame of this research will be analyzed students survey conducted on female students from United Arab Emirates University. I will use the method of content analysis to investigate and trace this phenomenon to determine its meaning, developing philosophical questions, and the new direction for teaching philosophy. Then I will examine the data taken from the theoretical and practical sources for the purpose of diagnosing and reaching conclusions a process which is called in philosophy synthesis, therefore the approach of the research would be analysis and synthesis. (shrink)

This article proposes an eclectic and holistic model of ethics and ethical thinking. It uses this tripart model to show how partialities can be integrated into impartial moral reasoning. Ethical reasoning is divided into three problem areas or "levels" - cases, frameworks, and ultimate ethical goals. Each level employs its own form of reasoning. For evaluating cases, the author advocates an eclectic application of principles; for evaluating frameworks of principles, the author advocates contractualism; for evaluating ethical theory as a whole, (...) the author advocates a notion of the human good inspired by Aristotelian perfectionism. This article argues that utilitarianism, which is one part of eclectic deliberation, is hampered by the idea that ethical reasoning must be based on a single moral criterion or "master" principle. The article concludes by showing how this eclectic model, supplemented by "mitigated impartialism," provides a systematic method for assessing partialities, with reference to the problem of patriotism in journalism. (shrink)

Advocates of dialogic communication have promoted two-way symmetrical communication as the most effective and ethical model for public relations. This article uses John Durham Peters's critique of dialogic communication to reconsider this infatuation with dialogue. In this article, we argue that dialogue's potential for selectivity and tyranny poses moral problems for public relations. Dialogue's emphasis on reciprocal communication also saddles public relations with ethically questionable quid pro quo relationships. We contend that dissemination can be more just than dialogue because it (...) demands more integrity of the source and recognizes the freedom and individuality of the source. The type of communication, such as dialogue or dissemination, is less important than the mutual discovery of truth. Reconciliation, a new model of public relations, is proposed as an alternative to pure dialogue. Reconciliation recognizes and values individuality and differences, and integrity is no longer sacrificed at the altar of agreement. (shrink)

Public relations practitioners place a premium on loyalty - particularly in terms of cultivating relationships. However, little scholarly research has been done on the subject. This essay analyzes loyalty in terms of organizational deterioration and decline. The ethical dimensions of Hirschman's concept of "exit, voice, and loyalty, " and Royce's notion about loyalty, are explored, as is the concept of "loyalty to loyalty. " The essay concludes with a 7-step model intended to help practitioners determine the demands of ethical loyalty.

Contemporary ‘Fitting Attitude’ axiological frameworks – defining value in terms of having properties that provide reasons for pro-attitudes – struggle with the so-called Wrong Kind of Reasons problem. That is, they fail to offer a coherent account as to what reasons are fitted to enter our evaluative endeavors in the first place. Furthermore, WKR opens FA to charges regarding intransitivity of value ordering. I argue that revisiting Josiah Royce’s ‘plan of life’ mediating principle offers a promising reasons’ aggregation recipe, and (...) thus safeguards the transitivity axiom under FA. (shrink)

Expectations and possibilities for employee loyalty are shifting rapidly, particularly in the for-profit sector. I explore the natureof employee loyalty to the organization, in particular, those elements of loyalty beyond the notion of the ethical demands of employeeloyalty. I consider the moral significance of loyalty for the employee and whether the development of ties of loyalty to the workorganization is in fact a good thing for the employee or for the employer. I argue that employees have a natural inclination to (...) extendloyalty to the organization and that organizations consequently have an obligation to make clear to employees the degree to which theorganization will recognize and reward employee loyalty. (shrink)

Some recent discussions of corporate loyalty have found it misguided, while others see it as crucial for financial success. Thereis also disagreement over the nature of loyalty. This article analyzes the concept of loyalty, arguing that it is neither a duty nor a virtue(although it has overlaps with those categories), but a passion related to various virtues (and vices). Contrary to standard accounts ofcapitalism, loyalty does not necessarily oppose self-interest. Furthermore, corporations can and should be communities, andinsofar as they are, (...) they are proper objects for loyalty. If corporations are not communities, then loyalty to them cannot exist. (shrink)

Professors of media ethics are open in a unique position to help a plaint i f i n a libel trial, and under certain circumstances they may even have a moral duty to do so. But the decision to testifyfor a plaintlfcomes with certain problems built i n for professors who depend on local media outlets for student practicum experiences and employment ofgraduates. In the end, professors who decide to testify both for and against the media depending on the facts (...) of the case are involved in a teaching process that is a natural extension of what they do in the classroom. (shrink)

Few American thinkers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were acquainted with Eastern traditions of thought. Early Transcendentalists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, were happy exceptions to this, with each showing passing familiarity of and an approving attitude toward the Bhagavad-Gita and other early Vedic texts. Other thinkers of the period, including Walt Whitman and Bronson Alcott, were influenced to varying degrees by Indian thought. Despite this limited fascination with the intellectual traditions of the East, rare (...) was the thinker who made an effort to encounter these texts on their own terms by learning the languages in which they were written. One notable exception .. (shrink)

Loyalty within the firm, though praised by some, is criticized by others. An analysis of the historical and current significance of theconcept of loyalty can aid in both understanding its critics and responding to them. Loyalty in the business world is generallyunderstood in three ways: i) transactional retention, ii) sentimental attraction, and iii) willingness to commit oneself. In the third type,the commitment to adhere to a person, cause, or institution may contribute to human flourishing and therefore generate the humanvirtue of (...) loyalty. The human virtue of loyalty is as far from fanaticism as it is from the betrayal of legitimate commitments freely undertaken. As with all virtues, its content must be rationally determined. Loyalty thus understood enhances the humanity of both persons and business firms and contributes to heightened cohesion and cooperation within the firm. Moreover, according to some recent research, managing a business on the basis of loyalty can enhance economic results. (shrink)

The popular mind is deep and means a thousand times more than it knows.It is fitting that the Royal Institute of Philosophy series on American philosophy include a session on the thought of Josiah Royce, for his most formidable philosophical work, The World and the Individual, was a result of his Gifford lectures in the not too distant city of Aberdeen in 1899 and 1900. The invitation to offer the Gifford lectures was somewhat happenstance, for it was extended originally to (...) William James, who pleaded, as he often did in his convenient neurasthenic way, to postpone for a year on behalf of his unsettled nerves. James repaired himself to the Swiss home of Theodore Flournoy, with its treasure of books in religion and psychology, so as to write his Gifford lectures, now famous as The Varieties of Religious Experience. In so doing, however, James was able to solicit an invitation for Royce to occupy the year of his postponement. Royce accepted with alacrity, although this generosity of James displeased his wife Alice, who ranted, ‘Royce!! He will not refuse, but over he will go with his Infinite under his arm, and he will not even do honour to William's recommendation.’ Alice was partially correct in that Royce, indeed, did carry the Infinite across the ocean to the home of his intellectual forebears, although on that occasion as on many others, he acknowledged the support of his personal and philosophical mentor, colleague and friend, William James. (shrink)

When philosophers undertake to say what it is that makes life worth living, they generally display a procrustean habit of thought which the practice of philosophy itself does much to encourage. As a result, they arrive at an image of the human good that is far more controversial than they suspect. The canonical view among philosophers ancient and modern has been, in essence, that the life lived well is the life lived in accord with a rational plan. To me this (...) conception of the human good seems manifestly wrong. The idea that life should be the object of a plan is false to the human condition. It misses the important truth which Proust, by contrast, discerned and made into one of the organizing themes of his great meditation on disappointment and revelation, A la recherche du temps perdu : The happiness that life affords is less often the good we have reason to pursue than the good that befalls us unexpectedly. (shrink)

This case study applies ethics theories and codes to the mainstream news media's response to the CBS News-National Guard forged documents fiasco of 2004. It finds that 177 newspaper editorials applied truth telling, accountability, independence, and stewardship principles in their criticism of CBS, but only in a limited way. While the editorials dealt well with the specific issues of the case, they missed an opportunity to discuss the broader ethical principles involved.

The essay considers what respect demands and what trust demands when one person trusts another. What respect requires in responding to trust is substantial but limited, ranging from the sharply proscriptive to the mildly prescriptive. What trust requires is, in a sense, unlimited, its content depending on the extent to which the person who trusts, and more importantly the person who is trusted, seek to build a relationship characterised by trust and trustworthiness.

Terrence Deacon has described three orders of emergence; Arthur Peacocke and others have suggested four levels of human systems and sciences; and Philip Clayton has postulated an additional, transcendent, level. Orders and levels describe distinct aspects of emergence, with orders characterizing topological complexity and levels characterizing theoretical knowledge and causal power. By using Deacon's orders to analyze and relate each of the four "lower" levels one can project that analysis on the transcendent level to gain insight into the teleodynamic emergence (...) of transcendent-level systems. I argue that cross-cultural interactions among human cultural-level systems results in the emergence of the "universal" transcendental norms historically characterized as the Greek Good, Beauty, and Truth. These norms require a dynamic existence that I characterize as the emergence of Spirit, using Josiah Royce's community of interpretation, and that I suggest provides a pragmatic clarification of Clayton's transcendent level. An understanding of those emergent norms clarifies ethical systems, highlights the importance of aesthetics in understanding scientific systems, and suggests the necessity of community in fruitful science-and-religion dialogue on human systems. (shrink)

Teamwork in sport presents a variety of special challenges and satisfactions. It requires an integration of talents and contributions from individual team members, which is a practical achievement, and it represents a shared pursuit, which is a moral achievement. In its best instances team sport allows members to transform individual interests into a common interest, and in the process discover of part of their own identities. Teamwork is made intelligible by the collective pursuit of victory, but moral requirements importantly condition (...) that activity. To some extent, the dynamic of team sport instantiates a basic experience of human sociality. (shrink)

In this paper, I accompany William James and Mary Whiton Calkins in the steps each takes toward his or her respective proposal of a moral equivalent of war. I demonstrate the influence of James upon Calkins, suggesting that the two share overlapping formulations of the problem and offer closely related—but significantly different—solutions. I suggest that Calkins's pacifistic proposal is an extension of that of her teacher—a feminist interpretation of his psychological and moral thought as brought to bear on the problem (...) of war. Calkins's brand of pacifism widens the scope of James's “moral equivalent of war” in a way that is consonant with feminist ideals of inclusiveness and social justice. I conclude by commenting on how James's and Calkins's pacifism can continue to be extended fruitfully in contemporary feminist pacifist theory and practice. (shrink)