Ethical Claims Research Articles

The Ethics of Risk in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South : The Role of Capital in an Industrial Romance

The Ethics of Risk in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South:The Role of Capital in an Industrial Romance Eleanor Reeds (bio) The cultural shift in attitudes toward risk in the 1850s—specifically, the emergent need to avoid risk—is marked by the passage of limited-liability legislation such as the Joint Stock Companies Act of 1856 and the continuing rise of the insurance industry.1 Individual investors were no longer required to bear the losses of corporate failure, while insurance companies relied on the aggregation of both capital and information to calculate and compensate risk for the individual. Risk was to be managed by an impersonal collective in order to protect the individual from bearing any of its damaging consequences. Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel North and South (published serially in Household Words from September 1854 to January 1855) enters the discourse of mid-Victorian risk by articulating a vision of economic activity that takes the acceptance of risk rather than risk management as its central ethical precept. Margaret Hale’s and John Thornton’s decisions regarding whether or not to invest their capital in particular enterprises demonstrate the persistence of an older understanding of ethical financial practice in which individuals must be willing to risk loss and bear the responsibility for such risk rather than asking others to do so for them. Influential critical readings of North and South from the 1980s and 1990s do not consider Margaret’s and Thornton’s attitudes toward investment capital to be important in understanding how Gaskell presents her social critique. Such readings argue that Gaskell’s critique fails due to her inability to reconcile the private and public spheres of action in both her plot and choice of generic conventions. More recently, readers of the novel (Dredge; Longmuir) have addressed this perceived failure by focusing on women’s potential to traverse the public and private spheres in the novel. However, while critics such as Mary Poovey have begun to draw the scholarly community’s attention to finance in the Victorian novel, there has not yet been an extended examination of finance in North and South. This essay argues that the distinct and competing ethical claims of industry and capital meaningfully structure the ethical system of Gaskell’s novel and thus help to explain and define the generic contours of what I call, following Jerome Meckier’s coinage, the industrial romance.2 Such a term replaces the categorization of North and South, and potentially other novels, as social problem novels in order [End Page 55] to demonstrate—by looking at questions raised by financial risk—how a realistic depiction of industrial society can be reconciled with a romantic presentation of its impact on domestic, private, and individual concerns. Margaret’s and Thornton’s idiosyncratic choices when deploying financial capital reject the science of probability and its dependence on the aggregate. Whereas political economists in the mid-nineteenth century proposed a model of human behaviour governed by self-interest, Gaskell offers her readers a hero and heroine who embrace the intimate and affective aspects of economic decision-making, and thus asks them to recognize the significance of traditionally feminine sentiments in the pursuit of ethical financial action. ethics and finance: from anti-usury tracts to the precepts of political economy The significance of risk in articulating an ethics of economics has a long and distinguished intellectual genealogy.3 For Martin Luther in 1524, “lending without risk” was one of the “sinful faults of trade” (260). His treatise “Trade and Usury” notes, “it is decreed according to Scripture that no one shall become surety for another, unless he is able and entirely willing to assume the debt and pay it himself” (253). In a later British context, Robert Bolton’s A Short and Private Discourse betweene Mr. Bolton and one M.S. concerning Usury (1637) presents the usurer as unethical because he undertakes a “covenant for certaine gaine, where it is uncertaine, whether the Borrower shall gaine at all or loose” (61). This early Protestant resistance to the economic practice of risk avoidance filters down to the Victorian period through such figures as John Ruskin, who, as Daniel Wong argues, “created a counter-politico...

Comprehensive Review on Main Technology of Exoskeletal Robot System for Upper Limb Rehabilitation

Major function of exoskeletal robot system for upper limbs rehabilitation is to assist patient to carry out upper limbs’ rehabilitation training. Main technology of exoskeletal robot system for upper limbs rehabilitation includes design of mechanical structure of exoskeletal robot, design of control system of exoskeletal robot and implemention of data and information transmission between exoskeletal robot and upper limbs of human body. Reviewing and analyzing the specific technical development and deficiency in field of exoskeletal robot system for upper limbs rehabilitation will be important way in improving and upgrading the technology in future. Current development trend of main technology is to advance degree of comfort, accuracy and effect in rehabilitation training. Further development trend of main technology henceforth is people-oriented, strengthening effect, improving efficiency, optimizing structure and reducing energy consumption that follow science-technology ethical claims.

Defending the Jurisdiction of the Clinical Ethicist

In this essay I suggest that the bioethics profession's jurisdiction over healthcare ethics consultation is in need of reinforcement. I argue that as the profession becomes more successful, competitors will challenge the profession to justify its ethical claims and ask whose ethics the profession represents. This challenge will come more quickly as the profession tries to influence the ethics of healthcare organizations. I propose a method of bolstering jurisdiction that will make the profession less vulnerable to challenge in the future.

Politics of Representation: Americanization of Korean Comfort Women and Camptown Sex Worker Discourses

Politics of Representation: Americanization of Korean Comfort Women and Camptown Sex Worker Discourses examines the phenomenon of Americanization process of literary representations dealing with Korean comfort women and camptown sex workers. Examining various Asian/American writers` interviews and scholarly articles, the paper interrogates continuous publication of these discourses in relation to US Eurocentrism and Orientalism which have produced fascinated Western gaze toward the oppression of Asian women in general. Started with mostly Korean American female writers` works on comfort women, representational efforts on Korean comfort women and also US military camptown sex workers have been expanded to American writers with different ethnic and gender identities. The paper examines the fallacy found in the repetitive ethical claims appeared in the interviews of those American writers, who highlight political objectives of such narratives. Instead, the paper urges for a critical intervention on the part of Asian/American scholars to frame a new mode of discussion that enables to first fully recognize Korean comfort women and camptown sex workers as a cherished American topic and then to provide tools for critical readings of those discourses on the topic.

Anthropocenic Ecoauthority: The Winds of Oaxaca

This article analyzes the development of wind parks across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Oaxaca, Mexico) and, in turn, how a politics of resistance and local perceptions of environmental peril have challenged renewable energy transitions. In the fraught debates surrounding the massive Mareña Renovables wind park, dramatic distinctions have emerged between local perceptions of ecological conditions and forms of environmental knowledge calibrated to global climate remediation. These divergences indicate distinct ways of imagining and articulating “anthropocenic ecoauthority”—a series of experiential, scientific, and managerial truth-claims regarding ecological knowledge and future forecasting in an era of global anthropogenic change. Whether enunciated by resident communities, state officials, corporate representatives, or environmental experts, ecoauthority gains its particular traction by asserting ethical claims on behalf of, and in regards to, the anthropogenically altered future of the biosphere, human and nonhuman. The article concludes with a discussion of how biopolitical and ecoauthoritative positions coincide, suggesting that although the original sites of biopolitical intervention have been population and the human species, the energic, atmospheric, aquaspheric, and lithospheric shifts that have been dubbed the Anthropocene demand that we account for life in its local dimensions as well as on the scale of the greater planetary bios.

Allegories of the Bioethical: Reading J.M. Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year

This essay reads J.M. Coetzee's novel, Diary of a Bad Year, as an occasion to problematize contemporary bioethical (and neoliberal) paradigms. Coetzee's rhetorical strategies are analyzed to better understand the "scene of address" within which ethical claims can be voiced. Drawing on Foucault's Socratic understanding of ethics as the self's relation to itself, self-relation is explored through the rhetorical figure of catachresis. The essay ultimately argues that the ethical voice emerges when the terms--terms by which I relate to myself, to others, to my own body, and to the bodies of others--are themselves subject to catachrestic refiguration.

Wordplay in the World of CMS: Ethics and/or Success in Conducting Field Research

In the world of Critical Management Studies, some words are used by scholars with a specific political purpose: two of these are ethics and emancipation. The second is used to recall the social purpose of the CMS community, which can be done from several perspectives (for example, that of Critical Theory). Regarding ethics, CMS researchers often use this word to denounce managerial practices. Their research commonly reports the ideological orientation of such management practices as imply unethical behaviour. In this sense, the unethical orientation of managers has been seen as something masked by a manipulative discourse, which has built the false impression that management practices are ethically oriented. But the CMS community says almost nothing about their own demagogic ethical discourse, even though their silence has led to the criticism of CMS academics for ‘lack of ethics’. This paper deals with the problem of ethics as it relates to the research practices of CMS itself, showing some aspects of the ways in which ethics is handled by researchers in their fieldwork. To this end, it adopts Habermas’ view of discursive ethics, in particular, his conception of strategic action. In this sense, strategic action ignores ethical claims, because it is oriented to performative and utilitarian interests. Thus, when a speaker performs a strategic action, s/he distorts communicative interaction by omitting or manipulating information (distorting truthfulness), being insincere about her/his actual intentions and/or claiming feelings which s/he lacks (distorting sincerity), adopting illegitimate or subverting legitimate moral claims (distortion of legitimacy) and/or being confused or ambiguous about what s/he is saying (distorting comprehensibility). My argument is presented in the form of three different research examples, which reveal how strategic action emerges in critical research enterprises and how ethical claims are disregarded. In the end, I explore my own research experience, telling a confessional story which illustrates strategic action in the critical organizational research field. The exemplary cases show that, in addition to the absence of ethical consciousness, researchers are pressurized to supply opportunistic reports of research findings and ‘discoveries,’ in order to merit further qualifications. To be successful, researchers are prepared to be opportunistic and hence unethical.

George Eliot's Vagueness

This essay examines George Eliot’s preoccupation with the logical problem of vagueness: the idea that our language is riddled with blurry concepts and fuzzy truth-conditions that are impossible to circumscribe with the rigorous precision required by our binary logic. By reading Middlemarch (1872–73) alongside nineteenth-and twentieth-century work in logic and the philosophy of language (George Boole, John Venn, Gottlob Frege, and Ludwig Wittgenstein), I argue that Eliot links the problem of vagueness to both the difficulty and the importance of reasoning about erotic desire and its ethical claims. In the end, the “bad logic” of vagueness provides for Eliot a model of clarity that is ordinary rather than ideal.

Hermeneutic photography. An innovative intervention in psychiatric rehabilitation founded on concepts from Ricoeur.

This article is about an intervention or approach in mental health care that has been developed from hermeneutics, more specifically the hermeneutics of Ricoeur. In this intervention photography is used as a means to assist patients in a process of meaning making from experiences in their life world. It aims at empowerment and strengthening the agency of patients. It does so by facilitating storytelling. Mimesis, as interpreted by Ricoeur, was found to be a central concept with which we could explain the therapeutic working of the approach and legitimize its ethical claims of empowerment and recovery. Another aspect is the concordance between narrative and action, as described by Ricoeur, which has a pendant in the goal orientation of the photography intervention. At the same time demonstrations and experiences from professional practice (nurses applying the intervention) will give us feedback on the theory and enrich it with new insights, e.g. on ‘iconic representation’.

Éthique et développement durable dans les PME camerounaises

Cet article questionne les rapports entre éthique et développement durable dans les petites et moyennes entreprises (PME) camerounaises. Pour ce faire, une étude de cas a été menée auprès de trois PME pour faire ressortir les relations et interrelations entre les deux concepts. L’étude en profondeur réalisée a mis en évidence la définition des deux concepts par les praticiens, puis montré le cheminement des revendications éthiques au développement durable. En effet, l’intention progressive du rôle de l’éthique, la vocation éthique de l’entreprise, et la pratique éthique à travers certaines vertus renforcent la mise en place et la validation des préoccupations du développement durable. Il en ressort que les deux concepts s’influencent réciproquement et contribuent à améliorer non seulement la gouvernance dans les PME par le développement des structures, procédures et comportements, mais aussi leur perspective compétitive.

Learning to argue as a biotechnologist: disprivileging opposition to genetically modified food

In the public discussion of genetically modified (GM) food the representations of science as a social good, conducted in the public interest to solve major problems are being subjected to intense scrutiny and questioning. Scientists working in these areas have been seen to struggle for the position of science in society. However few in situ studies of how the debate about science appears in learning situations at the university level have been undertaken. In the present study an introductory course in biotechnology was observed during one semester, lectures and small group supervision concerning GM food were videotaped and student’s reports on the issue were collected. The ethnographic approach to Discourse analysis was conducted by means of a set of carefully selected and representative observations of how a group of students learn to argue and appropriate views held in the Discourse they are enculturated into. While socio-scientific issues (SSIs) are often associated with achieving scientific literacy in terms of “informed decisions” involving “rational thought and Discourse” this study shows that SSI in practice, in the context studied here, is primarily concerned with using scientific language to privilege professional understandings of GMOs and discredit public worries and concerns. Scientific claims were privileged over ethical, economical and political claims which were either made irrelevant or rebutted. The students were seen to appropriate a Discourse model held in the biotechnological community that public opposition towards GMO is due to “insufficient knowledge”. The present study offers insights into biotechnology students’ decision making regarding socio-scientific issues, while also demonstrating the utility of Discourse analysis for understanding learning in this university context. Implications for reflection on the institutional Discourse of science and teaching of controversial issues in science are drawn and the study contributes to the investigation of claims of scientific literacy coupled to SSIs and argumentation

The “Integrative Justice Model” as Transformative Justice for Base-of-the-Pyramid Marketing

Writing in the Business and Politics, Santos and Laczniak (Business and Politics 14(1) 2012) formulated a normative, ethical approach to be followed when marketers e ngage impoverished market segments. It is labeled the integrative justice model (IJM). As noted below, that approach called for authentic engagement, co-creation, and customer interest representation, among other elements, when transacting with vulnerable market segments. Basically, the IJM derived certain operational virtues, implied by moral philosophy, to be used when marketing to the poor. But this well-intentioned approach raises a significant “So what?” question. Are such sentiments anything but lofty aspirations for idealists or are there steps to be taken by society and business managers of goodwill to make the adaptation of the IJM by corporations more likely and pragmatic? This paper begins to layout a roadmap that shows “how and why” the IJM might more likely be vitalized. The crux, as described below, is found in the transformational justice dimensions that are embedded in institutions (and supporting institutional arrangements); such external institutions provide a “power” impetus to assure the ethical rights claims that impoverished consumers have owed to them. In this way, the ideal exchange characteristics for bottom (or base) of the pyramid (BoP) markets argued for in the IJM can become actively transformational. The main contribution of this paper is that it begins to chart out the institutional system elements that need to exercise power in order to deliver a “fairer” marketplace for BoP consumers.

Development as Dignity: Dissensus, Equality and Contentious Politics in Bihar, India

This paper makes an analytical case for the understanding of development as a process that enables people to reclaim their dignity and interrogate inegalitarian social relations. It is motivated by the ongoing debate within development studies between those who propound a teleological view of development and those who adopt the opposing view that the process must not obliterate historical and cultural difference. The former view is informed by an assumption that the human condition can and should be improved, and the trajectory of such improvement is predetermined and predictable. The latter view is ambivalent, not only about the possibility of improvement, but also about its desirability. Against this dichotomy, this paper urges scholars of development to consider that people might envisage that the social inequalities they experience could be reduced, irrespective of “improvement”. The ethnography on which the paper draws cover show the way in which a group of agricultural labourer households stigmatised as “untouchable” — and alleged to be illegally squatting on public property—stand their ground violent opposition by local elites. While servility to and quiescence with elite opinion would allow them to “improve” their lives by relocating to a less contentious space, community members assert their ethical claims on the disputed property without flinching. They do this not because they like to live in squalid conditions, but because complying with elite diktats is an affront to their dignity.

Literary remains: death, trauma, and Lu Xun's refusal to mourn

Lu Xun (1881-1936), arguably twentieth-century China's leading writer, is often depicted as the quintessential representative of May Fourth iconoclastic spirit. Yet his work reflects the ambivalence and contradictions of the larger questions that preoccupied him as a writer and intellectual: How can a culture estranged from its traditions come to terms with its past? How can a culture, severed from its customs and beliefs and alienated from the foreign conventions it attempts to appropriate, conceptualise its own present and future? Challenging conventional depictions, Eileen Cheng demonstrates how Lu Xun's aesthetic experiments are at once much more traditional and revolutionary than previously recognised. Literary Remains reveals how Lu Xun's own literary encounter with the modern involved a sustained engagement with the past. Filled with images of death and decay, his creative writing simultaneously represents and mirrors the trauma of cultural disintegration in content and form. His wide range of literary experiments actively engage the conventions of traditional literature, while his narratives--contradictory, uncertain, and at times incoherent--refuse to apprehend the world through canonised precepts or teleological notions of history, opening up imaginative possibilities of comprehending the past and present without necessarily reifying them. Behind Lu Xun's refusal to mourn, that is, his insistence on keeping the past and the dead alive in his work, lies an ethical claim: a bid to recover the redemptive meaning of loss. Like a solitary wanderer keeping vigil at a site of destruction, he sifts through the debris, composing epitaphs to mark both the presence and absence of that which has gone before and will soon come to pass. In the rubble of what remains, he recovers gems of illumination through which to assess, critique, and transform the moment of the present. Lu Xun's literary enterprise was driven by a radical hope that his writings might capture glimmers of the past and the present and illuminate a future yet to unfold. Literary Remains will appeal to a wide audience of scholars interested in Lu Xun, modern China, and world literature.| Lu Xun (1881-1936), arguably twentieth-century China's leading writer, is often depicted as the quintessential representative of May Fourth iconoclastic spirit. Yet his work reflects the ambivalence and contradictions of the larger questions that preoccupied him as a writer and intellectual: How can a culture estranged from its traditions come to terms with its past? How can a culture, severed from its customs and beliefs and alienated from the foreign conventions it attempts to appropriate, conceptualise its own present and future? Challenging conventional depictions, Eileen Cheng demonstrates how Lu Xun's aesthetic experiments are at once much more traditional and revolutionary than previously recognised. Literary Remains reveals how Lu Xun's own literary encounter with the modern involved a sustained engagement with the past. Filled with images of death and decay, his creative writing simultaneously represents and mirrors the trauma of cultural disintegration in content and form. His wide range of literary experiments actively engage the conventions of traditional literature, while his narratives--contradictory, uncertain, and at times incoherent--refuse to apprehend the world through canonised precepts or teleological notions of history, opening up imaginative possibilities of comprehending the past and present without necessarily reifying them. Behind Lu Xun's refusal to mourn, that is, his insistence on keeping the past and the dead alive in his work, lies an ethical claim: a bid to recover the redemptive meaning of loss. Like a solitary wanderer keeping vigil at a site of destruction, he sifts through the debris, composing epitaphs to mark both the presence and absence of that which has gone before and will soon come to pass. In the rubble of what remains, he recovers gems of illumination through which to assess, critique, and transform the moment of the present. Lu Xun's literary enterprise was driven by a radical hope that his writings might capture glimmers of the past and the present and illuminate a future yet to unfold. Literary Remains will appeal to a wide audience of scholars interested in Lu Xun, modern China, and world literature.

Consumers' willingness to buy products with environmental and ethical claims: the roles of social representations and social identity

AbstractThis study investigates how social representations and consumers' identification with organic food consumers affects intentions to buy products that make environmental and ethical claims. For the purposes of the study, an online panel study was conducted on a representative sample of consumers (n = 1006) in the United Kingdom. The results demonstrate that consumers who are adherent to natural foods or technology and do not perceive food as a necessity are more willing to buy environmentally friendly and ethical products. There seems to be no relationship between perceptions of food as a source of enjoyment and intentions to buy sustainable products. Finally, social identification with the organic consumer is positively related with the intentions to buy products that make environmental and ethical claims. The current research demonstrates that both individual perceptions of food and consumers' perceptions of the social environment play an important role in promoting environmentally friendly and ethical behaviour.

Framing Classroom Discussion of Same‐Sex Marriage

AbstractAssuming that the issue of same‐sex marriage should be discussed in schools, how should the discussion be framed? Michael Hand first distinguishes this question from the related but distinct question of whether discussion on this topic should be steered. He then examines three possible frames for discussion of same‐sex marriage: the perfectionist frame, the antiperfectionist frame, and the practical accommodation frame. He defends the perfectionist frame over the two alternatives: the purpose of state involvement in marriage is to promote valuable forms of intimate relationship, so the case for enabling same‐sex couples to marry turns on the ethical claim that same‐sex and opposite‐sex intimate relationships are similarly valuable. Interrogation of this ethical claim must be central to classroom discussion of same‐sex marriage.

Ethical Consumerism: A View From the Food Industry in Morocco

Both consumers and firms are now more concerned about ethics as a way to make business transactions a win–win deal. As consumers ensure profitability to businesses, they expect fair practices and honest behaviors toward society. The study reported here attempts to investigate Moroccans’ perceptions and attitudes toward ethical consumerism of food. Consumers’ willingness to buy those products and their motives for such purchases as well as factors preventing ethical purchases is investigated. Besides price, which drives most their decision to buy a food or not, Moroccans are driven by ethical claims such as “healthy,” “no fat,” “pasteurized,” etc. It was shown that consumers trust information on the labels of products besides information provided by consumer authorities. In relation to ethical aspects, Moroccans are mostly concerned about the environment and religion. Older men with high income are shown to be a good target for the ethical food market.

Social reporting by Islamic banks: does social justice matter?

Purpose– This study examines social reporting by Islamic banks with special emphasis on themes related to social justice. By using critical theory and “immanent critique”, the study attempts to explain and delineate reasons for disclosures and silences in Islamic banks ' annual reports and web sitesvis-à-vissocial justice.Design/methodology/approach– The approach taken was a content analysis of annual reports and web sites of 19 Islamic banks.Findings– Islamic banks ' disclosures emphasise their religious character through claims that they adhere to Sharia ' s teachings. Their disclosures, however, lack specific or detailed information regarding schemes or initiativesvis-à-vispoverty eradication or enhancing social justice.Research limitations/implications– Limitations associated with content analysis of annual reports and internet web sites apply. This study focuses on Islamic banks ' social roles. Further studies of banks ' social roles in society in general are of interest.Practical implications– Drawing attention of Islamic banks and other stakeholders to the gap between the rhetorical religious and ethical claims of Islamic banks and their activities (as depicted through their disclosures) opens up the possibility of a positive change in Islamic banks ' actual social roles.Originality/value– The study fills a gap in both social accounting and Islamic accounting literatures with its emphasis on social justice and poverty eradication. The study contributes to the very scarce literature linking religion (especially Islam), critical theory, social accounting and Islamic accounting. It goes beyond previous research in Islamic accounting literature by exposing contradictions in the Islamic banking industry ' s rhetoric regarding their social role in society.

Varieties of Expressivism

AbstractAfter offering a characterization of what unites versions of ‘expressivism’, we highlight a number of dimensions along which expressivist views should be distinguished. We then separate four theses often associated with expressivism – a positive expressivist thesis, a positive constitutivist thesis, a negative ontological thesis, and a negative semantic thesis – and describe how traditional expressivists have attempted to incorporate them. We argue that expressivism in its traditional form may be fatally flawed, but that expressivists nonetheless have the resources for preserving what is essential to their view. These resources comprise a re‐configuring of expressivism, the result of which is the view we call ‘neo‐expressivism’. After illustrating how the neo‐expressivist model works in the case of avowals and ethical claims, we explain how it avoids the problems of traditional expressivism.

The ecosystem: research and practice in North America

Abstract. Since the early 1940s, the ecosystem approach has been developed in a variety of forms by North American ecologists. Lindeman established its foundation, with his focus on functional components and energy transfers between trophic levels; this view was developed further by several ecologists, including G. Evelyn Hutchinson, and H. T. and E. P. Odum. Ecosystem ecology eventually became closely associated with powerful American institutions, such as the Atomic Energy Commission, receiving ample support; in association with the International Biological Program it became known as "big ecology''. More recently, ecosystem ecology has exhibited strengthened interest in spatial patterns, the role of species in ecosystems, and global change. This history has encompassed various ontological, methodological, ethical and political claims regarding the place of this approach in the discipline of ecology and in environmental governance.