Ethical Prescriptions Research Articles

Climate-Friendly Ethics Prescribed by Top World Airlines: Empirical Evidence

The aviation industry contributes substantially to the global climate change, and, thus, airline companies need development of climate-friendly ethics. The content of the codes of conduct of 16 airline companies boasting either the greatest number of daily departures or the largest air fleet (or both) are analyzed. It is established that 25% of these companies prescribe climate-friendly behavior often focusing on emissions. Moreover, many other companies prescribe pro-environmental behavior. The situation seems to be promising, although improvements of the existing corporate ethical prescriptions are necessary. Despite its tentative character and certain limitations, this study permits putting the climate-friendly ethics of airlines on the international agenda. Practically, it is important to add climate-related notions to those codes of conduct where these do not exist and to use successful examples as ethical templates for the entire aviation industry.

Alcohol withdrawal management during the Covid-19 lockdown in Kerala.

The lockdown declared to prevent the spread of Covid 19 in India created unforeseen problems, including severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms and the need to manage them. The state of Kerala in India saw suicide deaths by six affected individuals, prompting the state government to instruct government doctors to prescribe alcohol to addicts. The local medical association approached the courts against this. These events raise interesting ethical issues discussed here. Keywords: alcohol withdrawal, prescribing alcohol, Covid 19, ethics of alcohol prescription.

Responsible Firm Behaviour in Political Markets: Judging the Ethicality of Corporate Political Activity in Weak Institutional Environments

While support for corporate political activity (CPA) is well echoed in the literature, little has been done to empirically examine its ethicality. Moreover, existing ethical CPA frameworks assume normative and rational leanings that are insufficient to provide a comprehensive account of CPA ethicality. Utilizing the Ghanaian context, adopting a multiple case study design involving 28 Directors from 22 firms, and employing a grounded theory approach, I explore how the ethicality of CPA is determined in weak institutional environments. The findings reveal that business executives evaluate ethics at three levels (i.e. context, organizational and strategy) using three principles (i.e. utilitarianism, justice and institutions). Leveraging this knowledge, I present an eclectic framework that bridges the long-standing gap between normative ethical prescriptions and lived ethical realities. In doing so, I move away from abstraction to give “voice” to the actors involved in CPA. I also present a model that shows how the ethical judgement process is influenced by managerial intuition and interactive personal and organizational experiences. This article has important theoretical and practical implications for ethical business-government relations in developing countries.

Redeeming the ‘ordinary working class’

Critical responses to the rise of right-wing populism in the Western world have done much to draw attention to the racialization of moral economies. However, it is not only remarkable that class has returned to the grammar of politics as an intractably racialized category – the white-working-class; it is just as remarkable that the racialized moral opprobrium of the underclass has given way rhetorically and ideologically to a racialized moral commitment to social justice for the ordinary working class. More critical reflection is needed to understand the way in which the imagined constituency of populist lore is worthy of redemption not just by virtue of their whiteness but of their white-ordinary-working-classness. This article presents a series of key comparative moments in debates over social security and welfare provision – past and present – that demonstrate the centrality of labour’s ‘cooperative spirit’ for political-philosophical debates over social security and welfare. To this end, the author methodologically sketches out a set of political ‘grammars’ that through these debates frame ethical quandaries and policy prescriptions. The author argues that such political grammars have variously apprehended the orderly or disorderly nature of labour’s cooperative spirit by reference to patriarchal and eugenic filiations. While the debates interrogated here have no doubt utilized different terms and categories, their grammars resonate strongly. This gives cause to consider that the redemption of the ‘ordinary’ working class requires the segregation of that class along imperial – and postimperial – lines of heredity.

I Want to Tell You a Story: How Narrative Water Ethics Contributes to Re-theorizing Water Politics

This paper explores potential contributions of narrative ethics to the re-theorization of the political in water governance, particularly seeking to rectify concerns regarding when water is excluded from cultural contexts and issues of power and dominance are ignored. Against this background, this paper argues for a re-theorization of the political in water governance, understood as the way in which diverse ideas about possible and desirable human-water relationships and just configurations for their institutionalization are negotiated in society. Theorization is conceived as the concretization of reality rather than its abstraction. Narrative ethics deals with the narrative structure of moral action and the significance of narrations for moral action. It occupies a middle ground and mediates between descriptive ethics that describe moral practices, and prescriptive ethics that substantiate binding norms. A distinguishing feature is its focus on people’s experiences and their praxis. Narrative water ethics is thus able to recognize the multitude of real and possible human-water relationships, to grasp people’s entanglement in their water stories, to examine moral issues in their cultural contexts, and, finally, to develop locally adapted notions of good water governance.

Food Security in the Context of Paternal Incarceration: Family Impact Perspectives.

Although research about the unintended consequences of paternal incarceration for family well-being has grown in recent years, there has been minimal exploration of food insecurity. Using qualitative methods, we aimed to understand the relationships between paternal incarceration and family food insecurity in Canada. An ethnographic study (24 months) was conducted that included naturalistic observation and in-depth interviews with formerly incarcerated fathers, their partners, and societal reintegration-focused stakeholders (n = 63). Interpretive thematic analysis based on family impact and intersectional theories, indicated that family food insecurity was elucidated by pre-incarceration, economic, social, health, and relationship factors; stigma and social/structural constraints; and intersections among individual, correctional system, community, and macro-level (i.e., economic, social, policy, physical contexts) factors. Participatory approaches and collaborative action among diverse stakeholders that include practitioners, policy makers, researchers, as well as health, social, and criminal justice agencies can guide best practices in creating supportive food environments for families impacted by adversities of incarceration. In particular, interventions aimed at prescriptive ethics, social justice, and meaningful rehabilitation show promise at mitigating the collateral consequences of incarceration-related food insecurity.

Reflections concerning ethnographic ethical decisions and neo-liberal monitoring

Hypothetical, speculative ethical concerns are no match for real situations. As such, this paper argues that there is an unsurpassable gap between planned, prescriptive ethics and real-time, relational, ethnographic decision making. The enforcement of procedural ethics may actually prevent the development of ethnographic work. Also, we critically assess procedural ethics as being not really about ethics, but rather about the risk management embedded in contemporary academia. We organize ethical issues in three political vectors (the ethnographer him/herself, the relationships with the people in the field, and the ethnographic texts), and then offer suggestions for a humanistic research ethics that involves reclaiming the researchers’ ethical power, enlarging the notion of what is ethical, and accepting that there is a darker side to ethnography. The account offered here is based on the ethnographic experience of Portuguese and Scotland-based researchers.

The ethical significance of Michael DiBiase v. City of Vaughan

AbstractIn academia, ethics is usually divided into three areas: 1) descriptive ethics, 2) prescriptive ethics, and 3) meta‐ethics. This article argues that Michael DiBiase v. City of Vaughan is significant in terms of all three areas of ethics. It is important for the following three reasons. a) It articulates a “statutory scheme” (Part V.1 of the Municipal Act, 2001, the code of conduct of the relevant municipality (Vaughan), and the complaint protocol or rules or any other guidelines or documents for receiving, investigating, and reporting the findings of a complaint to a municipal council) that governs an Integrity Commissioner. b) It confirms that an Integrity Commissioner who exercises the powers conferred upon her and applies the relevant municipal code of conduct and complaint protocol in a manner which passes the test of reasonableness is acting rightfully when she interprets and reformulates complaints submitted by the public. c) It clarifies what it means to be an “Integrity Commissioner” by specifying the purpose, role, and function of those who hold this position.

A Broken Fast

“The gift of bread from my mouth” serves as a byword for “Levinasian ethics,” the precise meaning of which is often taken for granted. It is not at all clear that a prescriptive ethics could ever be derived from these passages; it is also a hyperbole for responsibility. Discussion of this figure almost universally ignores the parallel, and explicitly ethical, discussion of Isaiah 58, where the breaking of bread represents the perplexity of hunger, the rejection of oppression, and the proximity of God. The breaking of bread is not a self-standing account of ethics but is paralleled by the ethics of the broken fast. The “gift of bread from my mouth” helps to explain the repeated references to fasting throughout Levinas’s authorship. The varying figures of the broken bread frame an ontological drama: sensibility, separation, proximity, and diachrony—and presses the sense that possession and the ego are ethically futile, as the alterity of hunger is proximal or “at the core” of the subject.

Authenticity as (post-) modern ethics: An analysis of the New York Times’ Ethicist column

As (post-) modern institutions multiply and become more abstract and fractured in their ethical prescriptions, individuals must learn navigate ethical ambiguity on their own. One way that this appears to be accomplished is through the pursuit of ‘authenticity’ within and across specific contexts. Based on a sample of 600 letters published between 2002 and 2014, this article explores the New York Times’ Ethicist column as a site where individuals grapple with personal responsibility to engage in ethical behavior, often doing so in the name of authenticity. Instead of relying on external institutions, to dictate ethical choices, such ethical trade-offs become the bones of one’s identity. This can result in tension between within-context authenticity that is derived from specific roles and relationships and across-context authenticity that transcends people and places. This tension is a defining feature of ethical action in the (post-) modern era.

Research ethics and ethical research: some observations from the Global South

This paper aims to achieve two objectives. Firstly, it elicits some of the concerns for universal research ethics. It is argued that ethical codes are never universal; they are geographically sensitive. As such, it is important to “develop authentic individual responses to potentially unique circumstances” . Secondly, in going beyond a universal notion of ethics, it is observed that there is a dearth of analysis on post-research ethics. Majority of the existing literature focuses on ethical issues before and during a research; limited attention has been given to ethical decisions beyond its completion. Relationship with the researched community stretches beyond the boundaries of the research process, and should be incorporated into the researcher’s “ethics of care”. It is suggested that by reciprocating kindness in humble but practical ways, one may also contribute to an ethical research. In all, by highlighting the limitations of prescriptive and universal research ethics and advocating for pluralism in defining an ethical research, it is hoped that this paper contributes to a “geographically sensitive ethics and an ethically sensitive geography”.

Carl Schmitt as a Subject and Object of International Criminal Law: Ethical Judgment in Extremis

Since the Nuremberg trials in the ‘Justice case’ (United States v. Josef Alstötter, et al.) lawyers utilising the emptied forms of legal process to commit international crimes have been legally punishable. This self-reflexive approach to law by law distinguishes legal and illegal – ‘real’ law and ‘simulated’ law. Why then was the ‘Nazi crown jurist’ Carl Schmitt not prosecuted? Aspects of his work expressed avowedly anti-Semitic sentiments while some of his intellectual concepts could be deployed to support National Socialist territorial expansion or Lebensraum. This illustrates the difficulties of judging ethical behaviour in extreme situations where definitions of the legal/illegal are themselves disputed. Schmitt’s life and work (the two are inseparable as his lifework) cross both legal and prescriptive ethics and are consequently more of a meta-ethical dilemma. The law resolves this meta-ethical dilemma through introducing a split in the legal subject between the office they hold and their person.

Daoism and Liberal Eugenics: Response to Chai

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in EnglishIn this paper, I respond to David Chai’s attempt to buttress Jürgen Habermas’s critique of genetic enhancement with Daoist metaphysics. I argue that this attempt is unsuccessful because Habermas’s position begins with the conviction that ethical prescriptions cannot be derived from metaphysical truths. I then consider whether Daoist metaphysics on its own might provide grounds for rejecting enhancement. I suggest not. To support this, I present a dilemma for Daoist critiques of enhancement: either Daoism rules out both therapy and enhancement, in which case it is too demanding, or it rules out neither therapy nor enhancement, in which case it is too permissive.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 70 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.

Does Gender Raise the Ethical Bar? Exploring the Punishment of Ethical Violations at Work

We investigate whether women are targets of more severe punishment than men following ethical violations at work. Using a large sample of working adults, Study 1 finds that ethical behavior is more strongly prescribed for women than for men. Women face intensified ethical prescriptions, relative to a gender-neutral person. Study 2 experimentally tests whether women are punished more severely than men. Study 2 also tests the scope of our theory by asking whether women are punished more for errors in general, or only for ethical violations. Study 3 examines our effect in the field by examining how severely attorneys are punished for violating the American Bar Association’s ethical rules. Female attorneys are punished more severely than male attorneys, after accounting for a variety of factors. Study 3 also provides evidence that the gender make-up of the decision-making group that allots punishment serves to moderate the extent of discriminatory punishments. When a larger percentage of women sat on the judges’ panels overseeing attorney disciplinary hearings, disparities in allotted punishment between men and women were smaller. Our research documents a new prescriptive stereotype faced by women and helps to explain gender disparities in organizations. It highlights punishment severity as a novel mechanism by which institutions derail women’s careers more than men’s.

Who Counts as Filipino? Philosophical Issues of Identity and the Chinese Filipino

This article examines some recent philosophical attempts to make sense of “identity” in light of the intersecting categories of race, ethnicity, and culture. It addresses a perennial issue brought up recently with regard to Filipino Chinese: Who counts as “Filipino?” Behind this question are assumptions that I scrutinize philosophically: that there is a “Filipino” and it is possible to identify who counts as such and who does not. I begin with a survey of existing paradigms of identity which I then apply to a critical analysis of recent public discourse spawned by anti-Chinese statements made by a prominent Filipino novelist. I conclude with ethical prescriptions for conceptualizing Filipino identity in light of the complex fissures revealed by the aforementioned issue.

Oppression, Privilege, Bias, Prejudice, and Stereotyping: Problems in the APA Code of Ethics

The American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct places ethical obligations upon psychologists based on another’s “age, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language or socioeconomic status.” This article explores 18 major problems with ethical prescriptions contained in the Ethical Code involving this phrase, including problems in clarity, inconsistency, comprehensiveness, its epistemic assumptions, and its impossibility for adherence, among others.

Accounting for Proscriptive and Prescriptive Morality in the Workplace: The Double-Edged Sword Effect of Mood on Managerial Ethical Decision Making

This article provides a conceptual framework for studying the influence of mood on managerial ethical decision making. We draw on mood-congruency theory and the affect infusion model to propose that mood influences managerial ethical decision making through deliberate and conscious assessments of the moral intensity of an ethical issue. By accounting for proscriptive and prescriptive morality—i.e., harmful and prosocial behavior, respectively—we demonstrate that positive and negative mood may have asymmetrical and paradoxical effects on ethical decision making. Specifically, our analysis suggests that individuals in a positive mood will be more likely to engage in prosocial behavior but less likely to refrain from activities that have harmful consequences for others, whereas individuals in a negative mood will be more likely to avoid activities that put others at risk or harm but at the same time less prone to engaging in activities that have positive consequences for others. Importantly, we account for the context within which managers make their decisions by examining how situational strength may moderate the influence of mood on managerial ethical decision making. Finally, we discuss how organizations can leverage the double-edged sword effect of mood on ethical decision making and prevent, control and manage the risk of unethical decision making on the part of managers.

The ethics of prescription of placebos to patients with major depressive disorder.

A placebo is usually defined as a pharmacologically inert preparation prescribed more for the mental relief of the patient than for its actual effect on a disorder.[1] Placebos have been shown to be effective for patient treatment in surgery,[2] cardiology,[3] psychiatry,[4] primary care.[5] In recent years, it has also been considered for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD)[6] as well. This is because anti-depressants used to optimize outcomes[7] in MDD have numerous adverse side effects and can be financially expensive for use while placebos have been reported to help patients with MDD without the high costs. However, the use of placebos faces ethical challenges which may limit its use. This article hopes to illustrate these challenges using the ethical model which consists of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice[8] to allow clinicians to inform the decision of using placebos for the treatment of MDD in patients.

Whose Truth? Objective and Subjective Perspectives on Truthfulness in Advocacy

A lawyer confronts many features of the world that are given, inflexible, and must simply be dealt with; at the same time she has latitude for creativity, for the exercise of skill and judgment toward the realization of the client’s ends. Although in law school it may seem that the law that is open-textured, manipulable, and the wellspring of creative lawyering, in practice the facts do not come pre-packaged and accepted as true for the purposes of an appellate court’s review, but are highly contingent and the product of the interaction between a lawyer and witnesses, documents, and other sources of information. It is exactly in this respect, however, that the theory of legal ethics is relatively under-developed. In recent years, legal ethics scholarship has changed its emphasis from ordinary first-order morality to a consideration of issues in democratic theory and legal philosophy. Focusing on the legitimacy of norms established through democratic political processes has yielded a robust theory of ethics with respect to the content of law: Ethical lawyering requires understanding the content of legal rules not from the Holmesian bad man perspective of “what can I get away with,” but from the point of view of the law as it would be understood by an impartial member of an interpretive community. The question to be considered in this paper is, if one believes that being an ethical lawyer has something to do with democratic legitimacy and the authority of law, what practical stance must a lawyer take with respect to facts? The answer to this question depends on the perspective one takes on the relationship between the role of lawyers as advocate and the contribution made by advocacy to legal legitimacy. Almost every scholar who has considered the problem of connecting ethical prescriptions for lawyers with considerations of political legitimacy, including Geoffrey Hazard and Dana Remus, Daniel Markovits, William Simon, and David Luban, has argued for a subjective perspective, so that the most important criterion for legitimacy is whether the legal system has taken into account the story the client wishes to tell. Using several case studies, I argue in this paper for the unpopular, unloved objective perspective, with the central criterion of legal legitimacy being what is the case, based on both law and facts – i.e. whether the client does or does not have a legal entitlement to do what is in her interests. Political legitimacy depends on adhering to ideals of truthfulness in politics. The alternative, subjective perspective on the relationship between legitimacy and advocacy, although emphasizing the extremely important value of human dignity, ultimately leads to a cynical, bullshitty (in Harry Frankfurt’s sense ) style of advocacy that undermines its own claim to political legitimacy.My argument is not that lawyers have a direct obligation to seek the truth. Our adversarial system of litigation presupposes that each party and her advocate will have their own perspective on the truth and be permitted to argue for it, and introduce evidence in support of it, at trial. The general theoretical orientation of the adversarial system toward partisan perspectives on the truth has, however, tended to make lawyers forget that they have some responsibility with respect to the truthfulness of litigated matters. Following Bernard Williams, I distinguish between truth with respect to some belief (“it is true that P,” where P would be something like “the defendant robbed the victim,” or “the plaintiff was standing right here when the accident occurred”) and truthfulness as an ideal that may apply to a process or institution of government. This emphasis on truth as a propositional matter has obscured the ethical analysis that should apply to practices, such as evidence gathering, the conduct of civil discovery, witness preparation, and the examination of witnesses at trial. The legitimacy of the civil justice system depends on its being a process of reason-giving, which in turn depends on the reasons having something to do with what actually is the case, as a matter of fact.

Senza rabbia. La virtù stoica contro il sentimento tragico della vita

This essay aims to explain, starting from Socrates, the firm opposition of the ancient philosophers to the tragic feeling of life and to lamentation about the evils of existence. The analysis uses some references to Plato and Aristotle to show aspects of continuity in their ethical prescriptions: the call to take responsibility of our own lives; the prohibition of complaining for the bad luck; the invitation to cultivate virtue. Finally we analyze the extreme case of the Stoic ethics, which on one hand offers the unique value of virtue, on the other a rational and benevolent image of Fate. With prescription to accept the offer of the destiny voluntarily, with the commitment to perform well the task assigned.