Ethical Claims Research Articles

Ghosts in the Machine: Possessive Selves, Inert Kinship, and the Potential Whiteness of “Genealogical” Indigeneity

This article explores the recent rise in the use of self-identification as a key element of legitimacy in contemporary claims to Indigeneity. Emphasizing self-identification as a central dynamic of all identity-making in contemporary nation-states, the article argues nonetheless that this element of identity is insufficient for making ethical claims to Indigeneity. Emphasizing instead the importance of ongoing Indigenous relationality (i.e., kinship), it argues that genealogical databases potentially exacerbate the potential to engage in non-relational forms of belonging that undermine Indigenous communities’ and nations’ autonomy in defining the boundaries and contours of their citizenship. I undertake this argument in three broad parts. Part one undertakes a selective discussion of sociologist Stuart Hall’s conceptualization of identity, highlighting what I regard as two relevant elements key to his identity-making framework. Part two then undertakes a brief discussion of Geonpul scholar Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s discussion of white possessiveness as a useful lens for framing the growing self-Indigenization/Pretendianism literature as variegated examples of analyzing its practice; and finally, part three explores the potential of genealogical databases to encourage possessive/non-relational forms of identity-making, what I term here “inert kinship”. The article then concludes with a brief discussion regarding how genealogical databases might be used ethically with respect to claiming Indigenous belonging, and why this is key to the upholding of Indigenous sovereignty.

Wang Yangming’s Concept of Oneness from the Perspective of Mysticism

Wang Yangming’s emphasis on the concept of oneness establishes a significant connection between his philosophy and mysticism. This comparative study draws upon his mystical encounters and conceptual framework. Although “all things form one body” appears to be a typical formula of extrovertive mysticism, his doctrine is more inclined to be classified as a type of introvertive mysticism because of the special definition of “thing” and the deep involvement of heart–mind. The realm of oneness is based on the mode of a heart–mind pervading the entirety of the universe and all things, with the core concept of liangzhi as both pure consciousness and the base of the world. The adoption of a mystical philosophical perspective highlights Wang’s theory of oneness as a spiritual philosophy, transcending general ethical claims, thus enriching our understanding of Wang’s philosophy of mind.

Focus groups exploring American consumer perspectives on contemporary poultry production reveal critical insights to educate sustainable practices for producers

Ensuring sustainability in poultry production is complex and requires a multifaceted approach that considers human health and food security, bird health, the environment, and society. Consumers are critical stakeholders, yet their growing disconnection from agriculture production practices complicates efforts to achieve more sustainable systems. This study aims to gain insights into consumers' attitudes toward poultry and perceptions of contemporary production methods. Exploration of consumer perspectives would offer valuable insights that could educate producers on the priorities of the target market and make informed decisions about embracing practices to increase the sustainability of their operations. In this context, eight focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with 54 multicultural participants who consume chicken and reside in Minnesota, USA. The major themes that emerged from the FGDs include (1) purchasing and consumption habits, (2) concerns regarding production methods, (3) the impact of social, religious, and cultural factors, (4) familiarity with poultry production practices, and (5) the importance of educating consumers. The study revealed that convenience, affordability, and health benefits are positive drivers of poultry consumption. While participants exhibited a greater preference for the flavor of dark (leg and thigh) meat, they often chose breast meat for its ease of preparation and perceived health benefits. Concern for human health tended to take precedence over ethical claims associated with animal welfare. Furthermore, misconceptions emerging from skepticism and unfamiliarity with regulations and the labeling of poultry products may deter the acceptability of higher costs. Many participants identified knowledge gaps and sought science-based information from reliable sources. They conveyed the necessity of outreach and education for consumers in more engaging and accessible forms of communication. The well-established reputation of poultry as a healthy, convenient, and affordable source of protein is the main driver for its consumption. Learning the attributes they believe are significant and underlying motivations or obstacles to consumption can be beneficial in developing effective strategies to promote the adoption of sustainable practices. Enhancing consumer understanding of sustainable poultry production could influence their acceptance and readiness to absorb the additional costs associated with it.

Extended peer communities: Creating good and fair knowledges

This conceptual paper reconstructs an implicit ethical claim of post-normal science, namely that knowledge produced in extended peer communities (EPCs) is both epistemically better and fairer. Post-normal science introduced EPCs to operationalise better quality knowledge for decision-making in conditions when facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent. In such contexts, traditional forms of quality assurance in science are bound to fail and even risk becoming the source of harm to people, their social and natural environment. Consequently, the community of peers assessing the quality of knowledge needs to be broadened to include a plurality of perspectives and epistemic communities. To date, post-normal scholarship has focused primarily on the epistemological side of EPCs. Building on this, this paper addresses the ethical side of EPCs. In doing so, it aims to make explicit a claim that has always been at the heart of post-normal scholarship, namely that the knowledge produced in EPCs is also more just. In doing so, the paper builds on the literature on epistemic (in)justice and in particular on work done by Kristie Dotson.

A discursive field of contested ethics: Reporting the UK’s blue economy in the making

This paper analyses newspaper coverage of ‘blue economy’ in the UK 2012–2020. It elaborates on Germond-Duret and Germond’s (2022) finding that UK media published a dominant development discourse concerning the UK’s marine space without reflecting on the risks of growth agendas. Articles from UK print media featuring ‘blue economy’ were compiled from LexisNexis then analysed to establish patterns of publishing, the investors, investments and projects reported, the experts cited and their statements on blue economy. Analysis reveals no sustained coverage, little that communicated with a national audience, little investigative reporting, and no predominance of London-based newspapers in news production. Reporting on blue economy was sporadic until a surge in 2020 that coincided with efforts to secure investments through local growth plans. Newspapers registered this buzz of activity, collecting statements from actors who used business ethics to express the legitimacy of their planning to build what they called a ‘blue economy’ even though this looked more like ‘blue growth’. A second group of actors including the Scottish Government announced plans to build a ‘sustainable blue economy’. These actors used the ethics of regional development, achieving net zero and protecting, enhancing or restoring ocean environments. Journalists reported critical views on these plans: inadequate attention to environmental protection, investment in activities seen as environmentally unsustainable or investments with limited regional development. Thus, analysis of statements on ‘blue economy’ reveals a discursive field featuring a confusion of contested ethical claims. This paper identifies the UK’s fragmented newspaper landscape and new architecture of public–private enterprise partnerships as important contexts shaping media engagement with blue economy.

Are ethical explanations explanatory? Meta-ethical beliefs shape judgments about explanations for social change

Why were women given the right to vote? “Because it is morally wrong to deny women the right to vote.” This explanation does not seem to fit the typical pattern for explaining an event: rather than citing a cause, it appeals to an ethical claim. Do people judge ethical claims to be genuinely explanatory? And if so, why? In Studies 1 (N = 220) and 2 (N = 293), we find that many participants accept ethical explanations for social change and that this is predicted by their meta-ethical beliefs in moral progress and moral principles, suggesting that these participants treat morality as a directional feature of the world, somewhat akin to a causal force. In Studies 3 (N = 513) and 4 (N = 328), we find that participants recognize this relationship between ethical explanations and meta-ethical commitments, using the former to make inferences about individuals' beliefs in moral progress and moral principles. Together these studies demonstrate that our beliefs about the nature of morality shape our judgments of explanations and that explanations shape our inferences about others' moral commitments.

In Search of Rules for a Critical Study of Religion

Abstract This article builds on critical engagements with a 2022 essay that appeared in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. At the centre of this essay was a concern with the influence of ‘Critical Religion’ (CR) on the academic study of religion, including the idea that CR is crypto-normative, inconsistent when applying its critiques, is overly deconstructive, and is unable to address ethical claims. Taking issue with some of the arguments in this essay, this article aims to push the conversation in a different direction by asking, are their rules for a critical study of religion? If so, then what do various ‘critical’ camps share in common? Where do they differ, and what kind of work is being done to move beyond some of these impasses today?

Is it ethically permissible for GPs to promote non-directed altruistic kidney donation to healthy adults?

Doctors hold coexisting ethical duties to avoid causing deliberate harm to their patients (non-maleficence), to act in patients’ best interests (beneficence), to respect patients’ right to self-determination (autonomy) and to...

Самоцитирование в комедиях Мольера: оригинал и переводы

The article is devoted to autoreferentiality in Molière’s comedies, namely, his selfquoting. It is found in plays of a theoretical nature — Critique of the School for Wives (1663) and The Versailles Impromptu (1663). These comedies were the playwright’s response to the so-called Dispute over the School for Wives (1662). Cases of selfquoting are considered in the context of the aesthetic and ethical claims that were put forward by Moliere’s opponents, and also his idea of laughter, the comic potential of images, and the peculiarities of stage language. The article argues that self-citations are metatheatrical since they reflect Molière’s reflection on the tasks of comedy. The analysis of self-quoting is carried out taking into account the most authoritative translations of the three plays into Russian (they were performed by eight translators in total), included in the Complete Works of Molière, published in the 20th century. The research shows that in Russian translations, the author’s self-quotations are not always preserved; the translations also contain semantic inaccuracies due to the differences in cultural context. It inevitably influences the understanding of Molière’s plays. The largest number of discrepancies is contained in pre-revolutionary publications. From the point of view of recognizability of self-quoting, the translations of the Soviet period seem to be more successful. The study shows the importance of self-quoting in Molière’s plays and testifies to the need for new Complete Works in which all the elements of autoreferentiality will be made clear to the Russian reader and commented on.

Mrs. Columbo's antipolitics machine: Quantitative data in responsible finance

AbstractMetrics and other forms of quantification as technologies for rendering knowledge as measurable, usually quantitative “data,” in simplified, legible, and portable ways, have become increasingly central within discussions of the economy, and these quantitative tools have equally become the subject of anthropological discussion and critique. The motivations behind and effects of numbers in the field of “responsible finance,” already a space where the “ethical claims” of the economy are made explicit, have themselves become the center of ethical discussion, both within the field of responsible finance and among those anthropologists studying that field. The authors of this article (one an academic, one a practitioner in impact investing, and one a hybrid academic‐practitioner in climate finance) respond to the argument that we suggest is implicitly or explicitly present in most of the work around quantification and metrics, namely, that quantification acts as a kind of “antipolitics machine,” rendering political problems as technical ones and simplifying complex realities.

"Balancing the books"

Strongly emerging Indigenous methodologies have attracted researchers to employ diverse research paradigms within a moral commitment to conducting research based on ethical sensitivities and appropriate research protocols, as informed by research work with marginalized and unfamiliar groups including Indigenous Communities. However, adopting Indigenous methodological approaches may raise additional ethical considerations requiring a nuanced examination of what these may entail and competing ethical claims regarding research funding, research processes, outcomes and output. In this article, we draw sociological insights from Bourdieusian theory, as well as feminist epistemology, to explore the ethical implications arising from qualitative research the authors recently completed with Indigenous communities in equatorial Malaysia and Costa Rica, where Indigenous land rights and access issues form the contextualizing and comparative backdrop to the study, with reference to relevant international UN policies such as the Sustainable Development Goals.

How should we decide how to treat the child: harm versus best interests in cases of disagreement.

Where parents seek treatment for their young child that healthcare professionals cannot agree to, the High Court can determine what is in the child's best interests. Some activists and academics seek change to impose threshold criteria that would bolster the decision-making rights of parents and reduce deference to clinicians and the courts. We defend the best interests standard against arguments that a higher threshold of 'significant harm' should apply. We do so from ethical, legal, and clinical perspectives. The matter is of significant moral and practical importance, especially in light of the divergence of academic opinion, the burgeoning number of cases coming before the courts and recent case law and statutory attempts to effect change. We begin by disputing ethical claims that a significant harm threshold is preferable to the best interests standard, and then we set out jurisprudential and practical arguments that demonstrate the imprudence of a significant harm threshold and defend the established yardstick of best interests.

Understanding how ethical claims in advertising affect subjective ambivalence toward buying ethical products

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of subjective ambivalence on ethical consumption behaviors and the role of ethical claims in reducing feelings of ambivalence toward buying ethical products.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted two studies. In study 1, the authors carried out an online survey with a sample of 230 French consumers. The authors applied structural equation modeling with Amos to test the relationships among skepticism, ambivalence and ethical consumption behaviors. Study 2 is an experimental design in which the authors manipulated ethical claims (low – few ethical arguments vs. high – many ethical arguments) in advertising (176 French panelists). The authors tested the relationships among consumer ethical sensitivity, perceived brand ethicality, skepticism, ambivalence and intention to purchase an ethical product, depending on ethical claims in advertising.FindingsStudy 1 shows that skepticism toward advertising of ethical products amplifies feelings of ambivalence and that ambivalence reduces consumers’ willingness to adopt ethical consumption behaviors. Study 2 shows that strong claims in advertising of ethical products reduce skepticism toward advertising of ethical products and feelings of ambivalence toward buying an ethical product through perceived brand ethicality, with consumers’ ethical sensitivity positively moderating these relationships.Research limitations/implicationsThe two studies explore only one form of ambivalence (i.e. subjective), and the experimental study focuses on a single category of products.Practical implicationsThe findings highlight the difficulties in promoting ethical products. Consumers need to know if a product is “really” ethical, as they may feel ambivalent toward that product. This paper shows that strong ethical claims in advertising ethical products significantly help to overcome this barrier.Originality/valueBased on attribution theory and persuasion models, this research reveals how ethical claims in advertising affect feelings of ambivalence, which negatively influence consumers’ willingness to adopt ethical consumption. In addition, it follows a holistic approach to ethical consumption behaviors to explore consumers’ ambivalence.

The Unbecoming of Being

Like the Copernican revolution which initiated the Modern project, there has been a thermodynamic revolution in the empirical sciences in the last two centuries. The aim of this paper is to show how we might draw from this revolution to make new and startling metaphysical and ethical claims concerning the nature and value of reality. To this end, this paper employs Aristotle’s account of the relation of the various philosophies and sciences to one another to show how we might assert a new theory of being, moral value, and practical action from the primacy of entropic decay asserted in the contemporary mathematical sciences. This paper proceeds to show how, from what the contemporary sciences have concluded concerning the primacy of entropic decay within reality, unbecoming might be forwarded as a new account of the essence of existence: i.e., the first cause and motivating principle of reality’s formal, material, efficient, and final nature. The paper concludes by arguing that a new and surprising account of universal ethical value and normative duty can be deduced from such a metaphysics of decay.

The Ethics of Imitation in Meat Alternatives

The consumption of traditional meat is currently being challenged by the rise of meat alternatives claimed to be more beneficial for the environment and non-human animals. One of the peculiarities of these products lies in their attempt to replace meat through the close imitation of its sensory qualities, which poses relevant philosophical questions: What are the purported reasons that motivate this imitation, instead of the promotion of different but sustainable foods that break with the imagery of meat eating? And, if eating meat is considered morally wrong, what is the moral status of the simulation of a wrong act? Our aim is to address these questions to shed new light on the ethical claims that constitute, in fact, one of the major advantages of these products. Firstly, we introduce the aims and functions of simulating meat sensory qualities. Subsequently, we investigate whether the imitation of meat can be found morally acceptable on consequentialist grounds. Lastly, we raise the question of whether there is room for claiming that imitating meat is morally wrong even if its consequences are overall better, from the point of view of non-consequentialist ethical frameworks. We conclude that there are not compelling reasons for considering meat imitation as morally undesirable.

Leveraging Ethical Claims for Nonethical Purposes

Leveraging Ethical Claims for Nonethical Purposes

Crisis management and ethical expertise: The role of ethics advice during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Germany

AbstractThe COVID‐19 crisis posed challenges for policy‐makers, experts, and citizens alike. Current research often focuses on the interlinkage between scientific expertise and political decision‐making, but ethical expertise remains largely overlooked. This paper argues that multiple logics of science‐policy interaction and ethics advice exist, especially in times of crisis. It contributes to the debate on crisis management by explaining why ethical expertise is sometimes described as a technocratic development and other times as a political instrumentalization of science. We argue that these seemingly diametrically opposed claims are not necessarily a contradiction but that they can be explained by understanding the underlying logics of how ethics advice is formulated and used to advise policy‐makers. The paper focuses on the role of ethics and expertise in pandemic governance in Germany, based on an analysis of policy documents and workshops with ethical experts and members of organizations relevant to the German COVID response. The aim is to understand how epistemic and ethical claims are linked, reconstruct the underlying political and temporal logics, and identify when ethical dilemmas and controversies arise and become (in)visible. A clearer understanding of these logics is needed to improve national crisis response and governance during future crises.

Argument analysis of the ethical claims made by the pharmaceutical industry regarding drug pricing

Background: Extreme pharmaceutical prices in the United States, their causes, and their ethical implications have been the subject of extensive research and criticism. What has often been overlooked, however, is that the pharmaceutical industry itself often uses ethics language and concepts when offering explanations for their prices, a framing that has not yet been adequately assessed in the context of industry actions. Methods: We conducted an argument analysis of publicly available pharmaceutical industry reports and U.S. Congressional testimony to extract commonly occurring claims regarding their pricing. Results: Starting with the argument that drug research and development are costly, the claims and justifications made in these reports and testimony often invoke common ethical concepts such as benefit, harm, fairness, and autonomy. The arguments and associated rhetoric are, however, often self-contradictory or poorly reflected in the reality of pharmaceutical companies’ actions and experiences in the marketplace. Conclusions: By delineating companies’ public-facing ethics language and identifying hypocritical discrepancies between industry rhetoric and actions.

Civility as collective self-care in Nablus (Palestine): face-to-face interactions in the shadow of war

ABSTRACT The inhabitants of the Palestinian city of Nablus in the West Bank, which has been under Israeli military rule since 1967, practice bottom-up civility to shape public life in spite of political rights being denied to them. As most institutional forms of ‘civil society’ are deeply distrusted, everyday civility among Palestinians dynamically reacts to occurrences of political violence. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Nablus in 2013 and 2014, this article argues that bottom-up civility constitutes a medium for addressing ethical and political questions about how to live together in dignity in the midst of a repressive and opaque political landscape. As such, civility can be understood as form of collective ethical self-care. People laterally discipline one another to embody dignity and piety in their face-to-face interactions and to express respect for victims by hiding signs of consumption and market transacions. In an enclosed community facing repression, ethical claims about dignity and civility in public interactions are a form of political agency that calls for decentering common understandings of civil society.

Дискуссия А.З. Валидова и В.В. Бартольда об академическом востоковедении и империи

Abstract This article analyses the correspondence between Ahmed Z. Validov (Validi), a historian and school tutor from the Volga region, and Vasiliy V. Barthold, a Russian historian and orientalist, a professor at the Petrograd University. The modern-day scholars primarily concentrate on Validov and Barthold’s academic legacy, their writings on manuscripts, archeology and ethnography. Apparently, the historians describe them as associates by using «mentor and student» metaphor. However, this position is far from revealing the true nature of this complicated relationship. What was the reason behind the communication between these two individuals? What did they discuss? Apart from the listing of manuscripts and archeological sites, both scholars were involved in the conversation about ethics and methods of Asian studies. They discussed the connections between the orientalists and local communities. To be specific, Barthold’s position was a widespread liberal positioning of a multinational and rightful empire as an ultimate good. Despite his indicative claim to support this position, Validov found multiple ruptures in Barthold’s thought. Validov criticised the Russian orientalists in anxiety and unreasonable hate towards the Muslim polymaths. He emphasised the insoluble contradictions in the Orientalists’ behaviour that hindered them from realising their ethical claims. This critical attitude is decisive in revealing the rationale behind the hostility between the knowledge-makers in the late Russian empire.