Envisioning Profit-Seeking as a Practice: On the Possibility of Managing the For-Profit Corporation with Virtue

Aristotle and Plato were the chief architects of virtue ethics, but their own formulation of virtue ethics was mostly subdued with the appearance of consequentialism as well as Kantian deontology. However, modem thinkers have attempted to revive virtue ethics in its new form and in this regard the name which is popularly known is G.E.M. Anscombe. In fact Anscombe clearly indicates in what sense virtue ethics can be revived and what was wrong with the traditional virtue ethics as expounded by Aristotle and Plato. Anscombe points out three important issues for which traditional virtue ethics perhaps lost its glory. First, moral philosophy in general cannot survive without an adequate philosophy of psychology and this thing was absent in the traditional virtue ethics. Secondly, without psychological possibility the concepts of moral obligation and moral duty, the moral sense of ought to be jeopardized. Thirdly and importantly, the differences between the well-known English writers on moral philosophy from Sidgwick to the present day are of little importance. This task of this paper is to review the revival of virtue ethics.

<span lang="EN-US">Aristotle and Plato were the chief architects of virtue ethics, but their own formulation of virtue ethics was mostly subdued with the appearance of consequentialism as well as Kantian deontology. However, modem thinkers have attempted to revive virtue ethics in its new form and in this regard the name which is popularly known is G.E.M. Anscombe. In fact Anscombe clearly indicates in what sense virtue ethics can be revived and what was wrong with the traditional virtue ethics as expounded by Aristotle and Plato. Anscombe points out three important issues for which traditional virtue ethics perhaps lost its glory. First, moral philosophy in general cannot survive without an adequate philosophy of psychology and this thing was absent in the traditional virtue ethics. Secondly, without psychological possibility the concepts of moral obligation and moral duty, the moral sense of ought to be jeopardized. Thirdly and importantly, the differences between the well-known English writers on moral philosophy from Sidgwick to the present day are of little importance. This task of this paper is to review the revival of virtue ethics</span>

Digital asset management in for-profit corporations could benefit from greater consideration for digital curation activities, which are a significant concern in not-for-profits. Digital curation need not be central to the operations of digital asset management in a for-profit environment, but its activities can still be beneficial to the organisation. This paper will present a general introduction to the topic of digital curation, with an argument for its relevance to the corporate world and a call for greater attention to this subject.

This chapter introduces the concept of Ọmọlúàbí as an example of the traditional virtue ethics system to business ethics literature. It gives a nuanced appreciation of possible implications of the Ọmọlúàbí system by drawing on some of its key virtues and its past applications among the Yoruba peoples. The chapter explores the concept of Ọmọlúàbí as a form of virtue ethics and shows its similarities with the Aristotelian virtue ethics and other Western-oriented ethical theories. It also maps out the key dimensions of Ọmọlúàbí virtue ethics, which the authors suggest is directly applicable to the Nigerian business context. A case analysis is used to show how the Ọmọlúàbí virtue ethics system works in practice, drawing on the history and modern practice of GTBank Plc. Finally, the authors critically reflect on some of the challenges associated with the practice of the Ọmọlúàbí virtue ethics in GTBank Plc.

Reviewed by: Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting by Shannon Vallor Wessel Reijers Shannon Vallor, Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting, Oxford University Press, 2016. Some books can be said to represent ‘new beginnings’, opening up new spaces for academic discourse and new methods and perspectives. Shannon Vallor’s Technology and the Virtues can rightfully be claimed to be one of those books. There is much about this book that is not only laudable but also urgent. First, it has managed to firmly establish virtue ethics as a tradition worthy of consideration in the field of ethics of technology. Other authors have suggested such a turning (Ess 2009; Coeckelbergh 2012), but none have done it so far in a manner that can live up to the comprehensiveness of Technology and the Virtues. Second, the book has served the virtue ethics tradition well in convincingly arguing for its continuing relevance in a time of serious sociotechnical challenges. As our moral critiques of technologies are increasingly entangled in discussions of existential threats that are claimed to be too complex to be handled by common human beings and call for an enhancement of our species, Vallor’s urgent call back to earth, back to our own human capabilities, will be welcomed by many. Third, it establishes a way of approaching matters in moral philosophy that is quite uncommon today, namely drawing from not only the ‘Western’ perspective but also systematic moral philosophies from other cultures: Buddhist and Confucian ethics. This echoes the increasing need in a multipolar world to build bridges between moral traditions, to construct a global dialogue (insofar possible) concerning the good life and the kind of societies we want to live in. Vallor’s book is structured in a convincing way and guides the reader from foundational questions to a framework of the ‘technomoral’ virtues, and to a series of in-depth case studies of contemporary technologies: social media, surveillance technologies, robots, and human enhancement technologies. In the introduction and Part I of the book, Vallor has three main objectives. The first is to argue for the existence of a so-called state [End Page E-17] of “acute sociotechnical opacity” (6) in the 21st century, which means that the practical circumstances of our everyday lives are changing so rapidly due to technological innovations that we cannot reasonably anticipate the impact of future states of affairs on our morality. This notion provides Vallor with the resources to argue against the use of utilitarian ethics, due to its false reliance on transparent choices based on the rational calculation of their outcomes, and against Kantian ethics, due to the impossibility of any categorical rule to respond to highly contingent future states of affairs. Virtue ethics is presented as a modest but viable alternative, in that enables us to acknowledge the existence of sociotechnical opacity and at the same time offers us a strategy for self-cultivation that empowers us to manage it prudently. The second objective is to introduce the revival of the virtue ethics tradition, to connect it to contemporary philosophy of technology, and to make the claim that both should be wary of their Western provincialism and engage in a global dialogue because the problems they address (e.g. climate change) are of a global character. The third objective is to lay down the fundamentals of the three virtue ethics traditions used in the book (Aristotelian, Buddhist, and Confucian) and to argue for their convergence on four major issues: a conception of the highest human good, of virtues as cultivated states of character, of a practical path for moral self-cultivation, and of a the existence of an essence of human beings (44). In Part II of the book, Vallor presents seven “core elements” (64) or perhaps rather conditions of the practices that mediate the cultivation of technomoral virtues. These conditions pertain to the ‘how’ of the cultivation of technomoral virtue, indicating according to what kinds of standards we could for instance evaluate our educational, mentoring, and training practices. Vallor painstakingly discusses the details of the accounts of cultivation of virtue in the three virtue ethics traditions she...

Abstract: In his book Lack of Character (2002 Cambridge University Press) John Doris argues that both virtue ethics and common sense or folk psychology are committed to the claim that the attribution of character to persons is predictive, explanatory, and determinative of behaviour. Doris contends however that this claim is empirically false. Citing the results of experiments in the situationist research tradition in experimental social psychology, Doris argues that it is a person’s situation, and not his or her character, that determines how a person will behave in a given situation. Doris concludes that virtue ethics in particular is in need of radical revision, since the attribution of character to persons is thereby shown to be otiose at best, and empirically misleading at worst. In this essay I defend traditional virtue ethics against Doris’ situationist critique. My discussion falls into four parts. In Section 1 I set out the key claims that Doris makes about the empirical inadequacy of traditional virtue ethics. In Section 2 I describe three of the most important experiments which Doris adduces in his argument for situationism. In Section 3 I offer alternative interpretations of all three experiments, largely, but not exclusively, from an Aristotelian perspective. In Section 4 I respond to Doris’ positive account of moral character, viz., his ‘fragmentation hypothesis’ and his theory of ‘local traits’. Here I argue that Doris’ positive account is lacking in explanatory power; I suggest as well that his positive account is poorly motivated, since he has largely misunderstood the traditional concept of a moral disposition. In particular, it is crucial to Doris’ critique of virtue ethics that virtues and traits of character are cross-situationally consistent (or ‘robust’); since according to Doris, it will only be attributions of character so conceived that are shown to be empirically inadequate by the situationist experiments he discusses. Doris’ notion of a robust disposition is however alien to Aristotle and the virtue ethicists who are inspired by him. I demonstrate that the virtue ethicist conceives of a virtue as a rational disposition. A virtue is a disposition to act and feel in an appropriate way as a result of and in response to rational considerations about the good in particular circumstances. The acquisition of virtue is a difficult moral achievement because it involves the complex and interdependent development of both the intellectual and emotional capacities of a human being. It is precisely because the virtues are not robust traits in Doris’ sense that the deliverances of practical reason, even when it is operating in its fullest capacity, will issue in decisions in particular circumstances that cannot be captured by the notion of ‘cross-situational consistency’. I conclude that insofar as that is the case Doris has managed to make very little dialectical contact with the concept of virtue as that has been conceived in the virtue ethics tradition.

Health educators increasingly need to have an awareness and appreciation for various ethical traditions as they develop and implement interventions that serve disparate populations, representing different cultural, racial, and faith traditions. Informed consent, right of privacy, confidentiality, anonymity, beneficence, nonmaleficence, respect/autonomy, justice, and others are often cited as principles in health education practice (Beauchamp & Childress, 1994; McDermott & Sarvella, 1999). Perhaps as important for the practice of health education is the need to understand the ethical traditions from which these principles are derived. Ethics is a systematic body of knowledge whose subject matter is human conduct. An ethical theory provides a framework whereby an agent is able to evaluate whether human actions are acceptable. Whereas health education curricula emphasize the social sciences, which describes human behavior as it is, ethics reflects on what ought to be done. Well-known types of ethical theories include natural law, utilitarianism, Kantianism, liberal rights, cultural relativism, and others. In addition, evolving out of the metaethical project initiated by G. E. Moore, are intuitionism, emotivism, prescriptivism, descriptivism, and contextualism. Metaethics concentrates on the language of moral discourse and has moved away from normative ethics, which focuses on the action and the agent. Adherence to any of these ethical theories has implications for health education practice. Health education necessarily entails engagement in controversial areas, where proposed solutions to perceived health problems, consciously or unconsciously, originate from an ethical tradition. Health educators have ethical frameworks that guide their behaviors and what they think is right or wrong, good or bad, normal or not normal. The Health Education Code of Ethics can further assist in serving as a guideline. Dissonance may occur, however, when a health educator encounters someone from a different ethical tradition, which, if not resolved, may lead to ineffective health promotion endeavors. Ethical traditions include normative and relativistic ethics. Relativistic theories assume that ethical rules are formed by each community and are relevant and authoritative only for people in that community, that moral rules are unnatural and obedience to them is only the result of public opinion, and that might makes right. In contrast to this relativistic position are the normative ethical theories, such as the natural law theory, which assume that principles are universal. This tradition, which originated with the Greeks and is the foundation for many mainstream religious traditions, is based on a teleology or final cause. Everything in nature has a distinct end to achieve or a function to fulfill. Aristotle thought that every art and every inquiry and similarly every action and pursuit aimed at some good, which was the special function of a thing (Stumpf, 1983). For example, apple trees have a certain nature. To have good apple trees, a person must act toward these trees in accord with their nature. The person must give them water, good soil with proper nutrients, and sunlight in order to produce good apple trees. If trees fail to produce apples, then the cultivator is doing something wrong and, if good apples are produced, something right. Humans similarly have a distinctive nature. As the proper function of an apple tree is not revealed by opinion but by analysis of the tree’s nature, appropriate human behavior is discovered by analysis of human nature. What implications does the interaction between ethical traditions have for health education practice? Usually there is agreement on what constitutes a problem despite the pluralism of American society. Differences most often occur in etiological descriptions and proposed solutions. Ethical competency is most crucial here. For example, some of the most controversial topics relate to sex and sexuality. Most people coming from various ethical traditions can agree that teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease

James Drane's More Humane Medicine: A Liberal Catholic Bioethics is an outstanding contribution to the study of bioethics in our day. Catholics and others who are interested in the issues discussed here will benefit from this masterful treatment. The author opens with a set of definitions, starting with what he means by a "more humane medicine." Drane contends that a more humane medicine has become necessary and desired, but not because the traditional medical ethic as "a self-declared and self-imposed ethic, outlining what noble service to others entails" is no longer valid. Rather he defines it as an advance on the traditional ethic; a "new foundation" based on a "lived set of obligations derived from a felt commitment to other persons ... an ethics based on the relationship between doctors and patients and essentially an ethics of virtue." Drane's work is a "liberal Catholic Bioethics" in which he challenges his own faith tradition, the Roman Catholic Church, on such topics as sexuality, birth control, abortion, cloning, stem cell research, aging and dying, and euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. The present article is a critical essay that analyzes the author's statements and conclusions.

Medical research ethics in China

This column describes an initiative to reform the public behavioral health system in New Mexico, which has placed publicly funded services under the management of a single for-profit private corporation. The authors discuss problems that they attribute to the state's "top-down model of planning and implementation": complex documentation requirements that increase administrative burden on providers, unrealistically high expectations for a comprehensive information technology system, inadequate monitoring that hampers assessment of reform, and insufficient attention to the rural safety net. They call on other states to better incorporate experiences of those delivering and receiving services into the design and timing of reform initiatives.

This column describes an initiative to reform the public behavioral health system in New Mexico, which has placed publicly funded services under the management of a single for-profit private corporation. The authors discuss problems that they attribute to the state’s “top-down model of planning and implementation”: complex documentation requirements that increase administrative burden on providers, unrealistically high expectations for a comprehensive information technology system, inadequate monitoring that hampers assessment of reform, and insufficient attention to the rural safety net. They call on other states to better incorporate experiences of those delivering and receiving services into the design and timing of reform initiatives. (Psychiatric Services 61:646–648, 2010)

This article examines the patterns of interaction between the for-profit corporation and the natural environment and its protectors. It traces the history of concern about the environment and evaluates corporate responses to environmental regulation and other environmental initiatives. It discusses the new ethical frameworks in which the natural environment must be included and the emerging environmental agenda to be addressed in the twenty-first century.

The article substantiates the relevance of the study of corporate value-oriented management, the concept of which is based on the need to take into account the interests of all market participants and is the basic identifier of sustainable and efficient functioning of organizations. The essence and main approaches to the interpretation of the concept of "corporate management" are defined, the basic principles and advantages of corporate management as one of the factors of enterprise development are identified. It is proved that corporate management in the modern world is an integral part of any organization and includes a heterogeneous system, which can be used to predict possible scenarios in organizations operating in national and international markets, taking into account specific industry and mental nuances. It is substantiated that the effectiveness of the applied methods and management techniques depends on the model of corporate governance of the company used by the company's management. The features and correlation of the concepts of "corporate administration" and "corporate management" are characterized. A comparative analysis of corporate management models is presented and a national model of corporate management is built, which takes into account the national peculiarities of the development of market relations in Ukraine and the mental traits of the population. The key aspects of implementing a value-oriented approach in the activities of an enterprise are analyzed, its main elements are identified, and the key principles and criteria for effective corporate governance are described. The asset, liability and balance sheet of enterprises operating in the field of crude oil and natural gas production for 2013-2022 are analyzed. It is proved that effective corporate management opens up fundamentally new business development opportunities for the company: improving the financial performance of the company due to higher productivity or profitability, invested capital and its development. The factors that influence the formation and functioning of the national model of corporate management are determined.

Emerson's doctrine of self-reliance arguably fits within the tradition of virtue ethics that concerns itself with answering questions about cultivating those excellences conducive to leading a good life as defined by a certain conception of human perfection. Emerson's doctrine of self-reliance, at its core, enjoins everyone to pursue his or her own unique excellence, even in the face of social disapproval. Emerson is more concerned to provoke individuals to value their own excellence than he is with detailing some specific conception of the good life to which all ought to aspire. Self-reliance is more a way of pursuing one's excellence than it is a substantive ideal or good.1 Many in the virtue tradition maintain that the cultivation of excellence re quires the development of affective and perceptual capacities for ethical response. Virtuous people cultivate a direct appreciation for the occasions of virtuous action. This concern with appreciative response, instead of the application of rules, ties naturally to virtue ethics' emphasis on the importance of concrete exemplars for those who train in virtue. If I am unsure of how to act, I can try to vividly imagine how some moral hero would handle the situation. On the face of it, Emerson's doctrine of self-reliance would appear to advocate appreciation of one's own excellence, as more important than appre ciatively regarding moral heroes. Whatever else it might be, self-reliance is an individualistic ideal wary of the all-too-human tendency to worship greatness in others and thereby denigrate one's self. While not altogether false, taking self reliance to be about self-assertion misses the fact that self-reliance is a method of thinking in impersonal terms more than it is the bold assertion of one's own particular virtues.2 Second, it would be wrong to think of self-reliance as involving social isolation. Emerson maintains that friendship is vital for sustaining self-reli ant living. While Emerson is lukewarm about the use of heroic exemplars in his version of perfectionism, he whole-heartedly celebrates friends as exemplars that inspire excellence in each other. Nevertheless, Emerson's celebration of friendship sits uneasily with the idea that self-reliant living involves an impersonal attitude that overlooks particulars in favor of transcendent ideals. To put the tension bluntly, how can I love my friends as these particular others when I appreciate them primarily as exemplars

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a critique of value sensitive design (VSD) and to propose an alternative approach that does not depart from a heuristic of value(s), but from virtue ethics, called virtuous practice design (VPD).Design/methodology/approachThis paper develops a philosophical argument, draws from a philosophical method (i.e. virtue ethics) and applies this method to a particular case study that draws from a narrative interview.FindingsIn this paper, authors show how an approach that takes virtue instead of value as the central notion for aiming at a design that is sensitive to ethical concerns can be fruitful both in theory and in practice.Originality/valueThis paper presents the first attempt to ground an approach aimed at ethical technology design on the tradition of virtue ethics. As such, it presents VPD as a potentially fruitful alternative to VSD.