The purpose of this paper is to draw out and make explicit the assumptions made in the treatment of technology within business ethics. Drawing on the work of Freeman (1994, 2000) on the assumed separation between business and ethics, we propose a similar separation exists in the current analysis of technology and ethics. After first identifying and describing the separation thesis assumed in the analysis of technology, we will explore how this assumption manifests itself in the current literature. A different (...) stream of analysis, that of science and technology studies (STS), provides a starting point in understanding the interconnectedness of technology and society. As we will demonstrate, business ethicists are uniquely positioned to analyze the relationship between business, technology, and society. The implications of a more complex and rich definition of lsquotechnologyrsquo ripple through the analysis of business ethics. Finally, we propose a pragmatic approach to understanding technology and explore the implications of such an approach to technology. This new approach captures the broader understanding of technology advocated by those in STS and allows business ethicists to analyze a broader array of dilemmas and decisions. (shrink)

Within Science and Technology Studies, much work has been accomplished to identify the moral importance of technology in order to clarify the influence of scientists, technologists, and managers. However, similar studies within business ethics have not kept pace with the nuanced and contextualized study of technology within Science and Technology Studies. In this article, I analyze current arguments within business ethics as limiting both the moral importance of technology and the influence of managers. As I argue, such assumptions serve to (...) narrow the scope of business ethics in the examination of technology. To reinforce the practical implications of these assumptions and to further illustrated the current arguments, I leverage the recent dialog around U.S. Internet technologies in China. The goal of this article is to broaden that which is morally salient and relevant to business managers and business ethicists in the analysis of technology by highlighting key lessons from seminal STS scholars. This article should be viewed as part of a nascent yet burgeoning dialog between business ethics and Science and Technology Studies - a dialog that benefits both fields of study. (shrink)

Organizations have a vested interest in customers, employees, and users to disclose information within existing expectations of privacy. This empirical examination uses theoretical sampling and experimental design to identify the factors individuals consider when disclosing information within privacy expectations. The findings from a factorial vignette survey are theoretically generalizable and show that an individual’s relationship to the recipient (familiarity) and the degree to which the information is protected from being easily transferred to others (friction) positively influence the odds that disclosure (...) is judged to be withinprivacy expectations. The results have implications for data gathering and management of customer, user, and employee information, and suggest a two pronged strategy for organizations targeting the disclosure of information by individuals inside and outside the organization: (1) taking into consideration the familiarity of the recipient and (2) increasing the information friction of the environment. (shrink)

Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackle...

ObjectiveIn this study we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate whether motor imagery of handwriting and circle drawing activates a similar handwriting network as writing and drawing itself.MethodsEighteen healthy right-handed participants wrote the German word “Wellen” and drew continuously circles in a sitting and lying position to capture kinematic handwriting parameters such as velocity, pressure and regularity of hand movements. Afterward, they performed the same tasks during fMRI in a MI and an executed condition.ResultsThe kinematic analysis revealed a general (...) correlation of handwriting parameters during sitting and lying except of pen pressure during drawing. Writing compared to imagined writing was accompanied by an increased activity of the ipsilateral cerebellum and the contralateral sensorimotor cortex. Executed compared to imagined drawing revealed elevated activity of a fronto–parieto-temporal network. By contrasting writing and drawing directly, executed writing induced an enhanced activation of the left somatosensory and premotor area. The comparison of the MI of these tasks revealed a higher involvement of occipital activation during imagined writing.ConclusionThe kinematic results pointed to a high comparability of writing in a vertical and horizontal position. Overall, we observed highly overlapping cortical activity except of a higher involvement of motor control areas during motor execution. The sparse difference between writing and drawing can be explained by highly automatized writing in healthy individuals. (shrink)

Organizations have a vested interest in customers, employees, and users to disclose information within existing expectations of privacy. This empirical examination uses theoretical sampling and experimental design to identify the factors individuals consider when disclosing information within privacy expectations. The findings from a factorial vignette survey are theoretically generalizable and show that an individual’s relationship to the recipient (familiarity) and the degree to which the information is protected from being easily transferred to others (friction) positively influence the odds that disclosure (...) is judged to be withinprivacy expectations. The results have implications for data gathering and management of customer, user, and employee information, and suggest a two pronged strategy for organizations targeting the disclosure of information by individuals inside and outside the organization: (1) taking into consideration the familiarity of the recipient and (2) increasing the information friction of the environment. (shrink)

Soon after the discovery of insulin in the early 1920s, the popular press celebrated the miraculous discovery. Although insulin had no curative effect on the chronic state of diabetes, it was frequently heralded as a “cure.” This paper examines how the discovery of insulin intersected with the rise of diabetic technology and the transfer of medical technology to the home setting. By analyzing diabetic manuals written for patients and physicians, letters exchanged between patient and physician, medical journals, magazines and newspapers, (...) I trace how patients learned about insulin and more significantly how patients adopted measurement technologies designed to allow better home administration of insulin. This included acquiring knowledge about nutritional content and scales, maintaining sterile glass syringes, sharpening needles, using chemistry to measure sugar in the urine, and recording various measurements into meaningful text for patient-physician dialogue. As diabetes was re-imagined as a chronic and controllable illness, patients and physicians alike grappled with the promises and limitations of new medical technologies. This historical perspective offers a lens for better understanding the process of implementing diabetic treatment plans that required home testing, measurement, and recording of medical data. Such processes centered the importance of patient-centered work and the value of diabetic technologies. Much of this discourse is outlined in diabetic manuals of the 1920s. (shrink)

Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognize that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackle...

Video ethics in educational research involving children is a recent topic that has arisen since the increase in the use of visual mediums in research especially with the development of new and ubiquitous internet technologies and social media. This paper emerged as an expressed concerned by a group of scholars associated with the new Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy that was established in 2016. The paper is the result of a collective writing process over a period of a few (...) months that discusses visual studies in education and visual ethics in relation to qualitative research in education, and as it applies to children. The article also uses the newly established convention of open review, publishing the results with the paper. (shrink)

Video ethics in educational research involving children is a recent topic that has arisen since the increase in the use of visual mediums in research (such as photovoice and video) especially with the development of new and ubiquitous internet technologies and social media. This paper emerged as an expressed concerned by a group of scholars associated with the new Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy (Brill) that was established in 2016. The paper is the result of a collective writing process (...) over a period of a few months that discusses visual studies in education and visual ethics in relation to qualitative research in education, and as it applies to children. The article also uses the newly established convention of open review, publishing the results with the paper. (shrink)

The lateralized ERP N2pc component has been shown to be an effective marker of attentional object selection when elicited in a visual search task, specifically reflecting the selection of a target item among distractors. Moreover, when targets are known in advance, the visual search process is guided by representations of target features held in working memory at the time of search, thus guiding attention to objects with target-matching features. Previous studies have shown that manipulating working memory availability via concurrent tasks (...) or within task manipulations influences visual search performance and the N2pc. Other studies have indicated that visual vs. spatial working memory manipulations have differential contributions to visual search. To investigate this the current study assesses participants' visual and spatial working memory ability independent of the visual search task to determine whether such individual differences in working memory affect task performance and the N2pc. Participants completed a visual search task to elicit the N2pc and separate visual working memory and spatial working memory assessments. Greater SPWM, but not VWM, ability is correlated with and predicts higher visual search accuracy and greater N2pc amplitudes. Neither VWM nor SPWM was related to N2pc latency. These results provide additional support to prior behavioral and neural visual search findings that spatial WM availability, whether as an ability of the participant's processing system or based on task demands, plays an important role in efficient visual search. (shrink)

While research on meaningfulnesss in life is becoming increasingly popular in analytic philosophy, there is still a dearth of literature on the topic of meaninglessness. This is surprising, given that a better understanding of the nature of meaninglessness may help to illuminate features of meaningfulness previously unobserved or misunderstood. Additionally, the topic of meaninglessness is interesting in its own right - independent of what it can tell us about meaningfulness. In my dissertation, I construct and defend my own conception of (...) meaninglessness. -/- I adopt Thaddeus Metz's (2013) analysis of meaninglessness presented in his new book, Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study. For Metz, meaninglessness is not the absence of meaningfulness but a positively bad state to be in - one that can detract from the overall meaningfulness of a life. I distinguish between the following: negative meaning (i.e., meaninglessness as a dis-value), positive meaning (i.e., meaningfulness), and lives that lack positive meaning. I defend a conception of negative meaning. In contrast, most conceptions of meaninglessness are conceptions of lives where positive meaning is absent. Philosophers defending these conceptions have yet to acknowledge the existence of negative meaning. I explain why conceptions of meaninglessness (as the absence of positive meaning) are inadequate and I provide support for the existence of negative meaning. (shrink)

Though “dwelling” is more commonly associated with Heidegger’s philosophy than with that of Merleau-Ponty, “being-at-home” is in fact integral to Merleau-Ponty’s thinking. I consider the notion of home as it relates to Merleau-Ponty’s more familiar notions of the “lived body” and the “level,” and, in particular, I consider how the unique intertwining of activity and passivity that characterizes our being-at-home is essential to our nature as free beings. I argue that while being-at-home is essentially an experience of passivity—i.e., one that (...) rests in the background of our experience and provides a support and structure for our life that goes largely unnoticed and that is significantly beyond our “conscious” control—being-at-home is also a way of being to which we attain . This analysis of home reveals important psychological insights into the nature of our freedom as well as into the nature of the development of our adult ways of coping and behaving. (shrink)

ArgumentThe deficit model of science communication assumes that the creation and dissemination of knowledge is limited to researchers with formal credentials. Recent challenges to this model have emerged among “e-patients” who develop extensive online activist communities, demand access to their own health data, conduct crowd-sourced experiments, and “hack” health problems that traditional medical experts have failed to solve. This article explores the aesthetics of medical media that enact the transition from a deficit model to a patient-driven model of visual representation (...) and health communication. I present a framework for understanding the role of film and video in patient movements by analyzing the historical transition from researchers filming patients as nameless, voiceless human research subjects to patients recording their own health narratives through activist cinematography. By comparing several approaches to patient-centered video, I argue that imperfect production aesthetics play a critically important role in establishing the credibility of health communications. (shrink)

In this article the predominant, purely theoretical perspectives on animal ethics are questioned and two important sources for empirical data in the context of animal ethics are discussed: methods of the social and methods of the natural sciences. Including these methods can lead to an empirical animal ethics approach that is far more adapted to the needs of humans and nonhuman animals and more appropriate in different circumstances than a purely theoretical concept solely premised on rational arguments. However, the potential (...) tension between lay people’s moral judgements and ethical theory must be handled with care. The thorough analysis of qualitative data can lead to a deep insight into e.g. ethical problems with the application of laws and guidelines, practicality issues with ethical theories, personal ambivalence, and cognitive biases. The interaction between animal ethics theory and empirical findings can lead to both a more context-sensitive and applicable ethical theory and a less arbitrary folk moral system. Findings from the natural sciences can also contribute valuable information to animal ethics theory—the more we know about the properties and preferences of nonhuman animals the better we can respect them. Here, however, it is vital not to justify invasive procedures for the sake of “ethical progress”. It might be ethically required to forego some scientific findings about nonhuman animals if it is not clear how much a procedure would harm them. Only with robust empirical methods will light ultimately be shed on the nature of our moral relationship with animals. (shrink)

A growing body of theory has focused on privacy as being contextually defined, where individuals have highly particularized judgments about the appropriateness of what, why, how, and to whom information flows within a specific context. Such a social contract understanding of privacy could produce more practical guidance for organizations and managers who have employees, users, and future customers all with possibly different conceptions of privacy across contexts. However, this theoretical suggestion, while intuitively appealing, has not been empirically examined. This study (...) validates a social contract approach to privacy by examining whether and how privacy norms vary across communities and contractors. The findings from this theoretical examination support the use of contractual business ethics to understand privacy in research and in practice. As predicted, insiders to a community had significantly different understandings of privacy norms as compared to outsiders. In addition, all respondents held different privacy norms across hypothetical contexts, thereby suggesting privacy norms are contextually understood within a particular community of individuals. The findings support two conclusions. First, individuals hold different privacy norms without necessarily having diminished expectations of privacy. Individuals differed on the factors they considered important in calculating privacy expectations, yet all groups had robust privacy expectations across contexts. Second, outsiders have difficulty in understanding the privacy norms of a particular community. For managers and scholars, this renders privacy expectations more difficult to identify at a distance or in deductive research. The findings speak directly to the needs of organizations to manage a diverse set of privacy issues across stakeholder groups. (shrink)

Discourse analysis has been introduced into nursing research as an approach which has the potential to offer new perspectives and to pose new questions to taken‐for‐granted assumptions. However, critique has arisen that when applied to nursing studies, the epistemological foundation of the discourse analysis is often overlooked. It is furthermore claimed that the methodological inspiration does not lead to any new insights and that these studies can hardly be differentiated from more traditional studies. This study supports this critique, arguing that (...) the challenges of implementing discourse analysis in nursing research reflect a dominant pattern of thought in the discourse of the nursing profession that have held sway throughout the last century. We argue that this pattern of thought stems from the Western philosophy of consciousness and the conception of the sovereign subject. By applying a discourse analytical perspective to the discourse of the nursing profession itself, this study elucidates the challenges of applying discourse analysis in nursing research. (shrink)

In their target article, Conley et al. (2023) appropriately highlight the ongoing conceptual and practical opacity of public engagement (PE) in the translation of human gene editing (HGE) (Conley e...

This paper consists of two parts. In the first, we discuss the neuropsychological correlates of belief in a 'paranormal' or magical causation of coincidences. In particular, we review experimental evidence demonstrating that believers in ESP and kindred forms of paranormal phenomena differ from disbelievers with respect to indices of sequential response production and semantic-associative processing. Not only do believers judge artificial coincidences as more 'meaningful' than disbelievers, they also more strongly suppress coincidental productions (i.e. repetitions) in their generation of random (...) sequences. These findings illuminate the cognitive mechanisms underlying the formation and maintenance of paranormal beliefs for which the right cerebral hemisphere is hypothesized to play a central role. These same right hemispheric semantic-associative processing characteristics are centrally implicated in the creative thought process as well as the genesis of delusional (pathological) beliefs (e.g. ideas of reference). (shrink)

The Commentary on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties provides an in-depth article-by-article analysis of all of the Vienna Convention's provisions. Each provision's analysis consists of (I) Purpose and Function of the Article, (II) Historical Background with Negotiating History, (III) Elements of the Article and finally (IV) Treaties of International Organizations. In short, the present Commentary contains a comprehensive legal analysis of all aspects of the international law of treaties. Furthermore, where the law of treaties reaches into other (...) fields of international law, e.g. the law of state responsibility, the relevant interfaces are discussed and contextualized. With its focus on international practice, the Commentary is an invaluable reference for both academia and practitioners of international law. (shrink)

O presente estudo tem por objetivo demonstrar uma via de interpretação na qual o conceito de Reconhecimento, como abordado por Axel Honneth a partir da obra hegeliana, é uma engrenagem fundamental no processo de determinação da Liberdade na obra de Hegel. Para isso, é necessário que se caminhe para além da fronteira erigida na tradição, a qual liga o conceito de Reconhecimento à dialética do senhor e do escravo na Fenomenologia. Dado que os trabalhos de Honneth se fundam nos escritos (...) do jovem Hegel, anteriores a esta, é possível ir além de tais fronteiras. A conexão de Reconhecimento e Liberdade torna-se possível por meio da tentativa de reatualização da Filosofia do Direito honnethiana, a qual tem por objeto lançar as bases de uma teoria da justiça. (shrink)

Background: Studies have found that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are more likely to make errors in appropriately producing referring expressions (‘the dog’ vs. ‘the black dog’) than are controls but comprehend them with equal facility. We tested whether this anomaly arises because comprehension studies have focused on manipulating perspective-taking at a ‘generic speaker’ level. Method: We compared 24 autistic eight- to eleven-year-olds with 24 well-matched neuro-typical controls. Children interpreted requests (e.g. ‘Can I have that ball?’) in contexts which (...) would be ambiguous (i.e. because the child can see two balls) if perspective-taking were not utilized. In the interlocutor-specific perspective-taking condition, the target was the particular object which was new for the speaker. Children needed to take into account what the speaker had played with before and the fact that they were now expressing excitement about something new. In two control ‘speaker-generic’ conditions we tested children’s ability to take the visual perspective of the speaker (where any speaker who stood behind a particular barrier would have the same perspective). Results: The autistic group were significantly less likely to select the target and significantly more likely to request clarification in the ‘interlocutor-specific’ condition. Performance in the ‘interlocutor-generic’ (visual) perspective taking conditions did not differ between groups. Conclusion: Autistic children, even those who are not intellectually-impaired, tend to have more difficulty than neuro-typical peers in comprehending referring expressions when this requires understanding that people comment on what is new for them. (shrink)

Cultural norms may dictate how grief is displayed. The present study explores the display behaviours and rules in the bereavement context from a cross-cultural perspective. 86 German-speaking Swiss and 99 Chinese bereaved people who lost their first-degree relative completed the adapted bereavement version of the Display Rules Assessment Inventory. Results indicated that the German-speaking Swiss bereaved displayed more emotions than the Chinese bereaved. The Chinese bereaved, but not the German-speaking Swiss bereaved, thought that bereaved people should display more emotions than (...) they actually did when they were with their close others (but not when they were alone). Bereaved people endorsed more emotional expression “when alone” than “when with close others”, demonstrating a social disconnection tendency, which was more evident in the Chinese sample. Bereaved people endorsed more expression of positive emotions (e.g. affection/love) and less expression of powerful negative emotions (e.g. blame/guilt, anger) across cultures. Compared to their Chinese counterparts, the German-speaking Swiss sample indicated more actual expressions for most emotion types (i.e. joy/happiness, affection/love, sadness, anger, and denial) but thought bereaved people should express more joy/happiness and less blame/guilt. The results suggest that bereaved people’s display behaviours and rules are influenced by culture, situation, and type of emotion. (shrink)

Many human cultural traits become increasingly beneficial as they are repeatedly transmitted, thanks to an accumulation of modifications made by successive generations. But how do later generations typically avoid modifications which revert traits to less beneficial forms already sampled and rejected by earlier generations? And how can later generations do so without direct exposure to their predecessors' behavior? One possibility is that learners are sensitive to cues of non‐random production in others' behavior, and that particular variants (e.g., those containing structural (...) regularities unlikely to occur spontaneously) have been produced deliberately and with some effort. If this non‐random behavior is attributed to an informed strategy, then the learner may infer that apparent avoidance of certain possibilities indicates that these have already been sampled and rejected. This could potentially prevent performance plateaus resulting from learners modifying inherited behaviors randomly. We test this hypothesis in four experiments in which participants, either individually or in interacting dyads, attempt to locate rewards in a search grid, guided by partial information about another individual's experience of the task. We find that in some contexts, valid inferences about another's behavior can be made from partial information, and these inferences can be used in a way which facilitates trait adaptation. However, the benefit of these inferences appears to be limited, and in many contexts—including some which have the potential to make inferring the experience of another individual easier—there appears to be no benefit at all. We suggest that inferring previous behavior from partial social information plays a minimal role in the adaptation of cultural traits. (shrink)

Depression experienced by older adults is proving an increasing global health burden, with rates generally 7% and as high as 27% in the USA. This is likely to significantly increase in coming years as the number and proportion of older adults in the population rises all around the world. Therefore, it is imperative that the effectiveness of approaches to the prevention and treatment of depression are understood. Creative arts interventions, including art, dance movement, drama and music modalities, are utilised internationally (...) to target depression and depressive symptoms in older adults. This includes interventions led by trained arts therapists as well as other health and arts professionals. However, to date there has not been a systematic review that reports effects and examines the processes (why) and mechanisms (how) of creative arts interventions are used to address depression in this older age group. This systematic review of studies on creative arts interventions for older adults experiencing depression examined: outcomes of four creative arts modalities (art, dance movement, drama, and music); with particular attention paid to processes documented as contributing to change in each modality; and mechanisms considered to result from these processes. Our analysis of 75 articles (17 art, 13 dance, 4 drama and 41 music) indicates mostly significant quantitative or positive qualitative findings, particularly for interventions led by creative arts therapists. Mechanisms of change gleaned from the studies that were common across modalities include physical (e.g. increased muscle strength; neurochemical effects, such as endorphin release), intra-personal (e.g. enhanced self-concept, strengthened agency and mastery; processing and communication of emotions), cultural (e.g. creative expression, aesthetic pleasure), cognitive (e.g. stimulation of memory) and social (e.g. increased social skills and connection), that were all considered to contribute to reduced depression and symptoms. Recommendations for future research include a stronger focus on testing of processes and mechanisms. (shrink)

The feeling of error (FOE) is the subjective experience that something went wrong during a reasoning or calculation task. The main goal of the present study was to assess the accuracy of the FOE in the context of mental mathematical calculation. We used the number bisection task (NBT) to evoke this metacognitive feeling and assessed it by asking participants if they felt they have committed an error after solving the task. In the NBT participants have to determine whether the number (...) presented in the middle of a triplet corresponds to the arithmetic mean of the two outer numbers (e.g., 07_16_25) with a Yes/No answer. Our results show that FOE reports were strongly correlated with arithmetic errors and numerical properties of the NBT, suggesting that the FOE accurately represents the error. This finding indicates that even very fast metacognitive feelings are reliable when it comes to evaluating one’s own mental performance. Moreover, our results suggest that the occurrence of FOEs is determined by the fluency with which each triplet was solved and the post-decision evaluation processes that occurred after the NBT was solved. Additionally, we asked participants to report their confidence in the given answer for the cases where they did not report FOEs. Participants reported less confidence for the (objectively) incorrect answers than for the (objectively) correct ones, suggesting that in cases where they did not have a conscious FOE they still were able to implicitly detect their errors. Remarkably, confidence was also determined by the fluency of the NBT. (shrink)

Kirsten Walsh has criticized my interpretation of Newton’s view on the certainty of his new science of color, namely, that it shifted through his long career from one of certainty to probabilism. I...

Newton’s famous pronouncement, Hypotheses non fingo, first appeared in 1713, but his anti-hypothetical stance was present as early as 1672. For example, in his first paper on optics, Newton claims that his doctrine of light and colours is a theory, not a hypothesis, for three reasons (1) It is certainly true, because it supported by (or deduced from) experiment; (2) It concerns the physical properties of light, rather than the nature of light; and (3) It has testable consequences. Despite his (...) clear anti-hypothetical statements, a corpuscular hypothesis lies beneath Newton’s theory of colours. What are we to make of this? Is Newton guilty of feigning a hypothesis? Some writers, such as Sabre and Dear, argue that Newton’s Hypotheses non fingo is merely ‘lip-service’ to the dominant methodological tradition. Others, such as Janiak, argue that Newton’s anti-hypotheticalism is a polemic device, designed specifically to oppose his Cartesian and Leibnizian critics. I argue that, despite his corpuscular hypothesis, we should take Newton’s pronouncement as a genuine account of his methodology. I take a fresh look at Newton’s first optical papers in light of the role of hypotheses in the Baconian-experimental tradition in which Newton’s early research was conducted. I argue that Newton is working with a rough but genuine distinction between hypothesis and theory. This distinction is consistent with both the Baconian-experimental method and with his later anti-hypothetical pronouncements. I conclude that Newton did not ‘feign’ the corpuscular hypothesis. (shrink)

How can firms mitigate the impact of moral violations on consumer evaluations? This question has pervaded the business ethics literature. Though prior research has identified decoupling as a moral reasoning strategy where consumers separate moral judgments from evaluations, it is unclear what motivates individuals to decouple. It is the objective of this research to explore regulatory focus theory as a motivating factor for moral decoupling. Three experiments are undertaken. Study one demonstrates that with a prevention mindset as opposed to promotion (...) mindset, moral decoupling can be achieved. Specifically, those in a prevention mindset report more favorable evaluations when information about a violation explicitly lowers consequences of moral violations. However, when the violation is related to the business functionality of the brand, those in a prevention mindset report less favorable evaluations, except when consequences are lowered. This indicates an inability to decouple, and results in negative emotions. The research shows that inability to decouple for those in a prevention mindset leads to negative emotions, lowering evaluations. These results contribute to the moral reasoning literature by linking regulatory focus to decoupling strategies. Further, the research bridges literature on norm activation, moral foundation, regulatory focus, and moral decoupling to reconcile theoretical differences in judgment styles. Implications for businesses and brands are discussed. (shrink)

When animal ethicists deal with welfare they seem to face a dilemma: On the one hand, they recognize the necessity of welfare concepts for their ethical approaches. On the other hand, many animal ethicists do not want to be considered reformist welfarists. Moreover, animal welfare scientists may feel pressed by moral demands for a fundamental change in our attitude towards animals. The analysis of this conflict from the perspective of animal ethics shows that animal welfare science and animal ethics highly (...) depend on each other. Welfare concepts are indispensable in the whole field of animal ethics. Evidence for this can be found by analyzing the structure of theories of animal ethics and the different ways in which these theories employ welfare concepts. Furthermore, the background of values underneath every welfare theory is essential to pursue animal welfare science. Animal ethics can make important contributions to the clarification of underlying normative assumptions with regard to the value of the animal, with regard to ideas about what is valuable for the animal, and with regard to the actions that should follow from the results of animal welfare science. (shrink)

While the ethics of technology is analyzed across disciplines from science and technology studies, engineering, computer science, critical management studies, and law, less attention is paid to the role that firms and managers play in the design, development, and dissemination of technology across communities and within their firm. Although firms play an important role in the development of technology, and make associated value judgments around its use, it remains open how we should understand the contours of what firms owe society (...) as the rate of technological development accelerates. We focus here on digital technologies: devices that rely on rapidly accelerating digital sensing, storage, and transmission capabilities to intervene in human processes. This symposium focuses on how firms should engage ethical choices in developing and deploying these technologies. In this introduction, we, first, identify themes the symposium articles share and discuss how the set of articles illuminate diverse facets of the intersection of technology and business ethics. Second, we use these themes to explore what business ethics offers to the study of technology and, third, what technology studies offers to the field of business ethics. Each field brings expertise that, together, improves our understanding of the ethical implications of technology. Finally we introduce each of the five papers, suggest future research directions, and interpret their implications for business ethics. (shrink)

Firms use algorithms to make important business decisions. To date, the algorithmic accountability literature has elided a fundamentally empirical question important to business ethics and management: Under what circumstances, if any, are algorithmic decision-making systems considered legitimate? The present study begins to answer this question. Using factorial vignette survey methodology, we explore the impact of decision importance, governance, outcomes, and data inputs on perceptions of the legitimacy of algorithmic decisions made by firms. We find that many of the procedural governance (...) mechanisms in practice today, such as notices and impact statements, do not lead to algorithmic decisions being perceived as more legitimate in general, and, consistent with legitimacy theory, that algorithmic decisions with good outcomes are perceived as more legitimate than bad outcomes. Yet, robust governance, such as offering an appeal process, can create a legitimacy dividend for decisions with bad outcomes. However, when arbitrary or morally dubious factors are used to make decisions, most legitimacy dividends are erased. In other words, companies cannot overcome the legitimacy penalty of using arbitrary or morally dubious factors, such as race or the day of the week, with a good outcome or an appeal process for individuals. These findings add new perspectives to both the literature on legitimacy and policy discussions on algorithmic decision-making in firms. (shrink)

Newton’s earliest publications contained scandalous epistemological claims: not only did he aim for certainty; he also claimed success. Some commentators argue that Newton ultimately gave up claims of certainty in favor of a high degree of probability. I argue that no such shift occurred. I examine the evidence of a probabilistic shift: a passage from query 23/31 of the Opticks and rule 4 of the Principia. Neither passage supports a probabilistic approach to natural philosophy. The aim of certainty, then, was (...) an enduring feature of Newton’s methodology. (shrink)

For any subset $Z \subseteq {\mathbb {Q}}$, consider the set $S_Z$ of subfields $L\subseteq {\overline {\mathbb {Q}}}$ which contain a co-infinite subset $C \subseteq L$ that is universally definable in L such that $C \cap {\mathbb {Q}}=Z$. Placing a natural topology on the set ${\operatorname {Sub}({\overline {\mathbb {Q}}})}$ of subfields of ${\overline {\mathbb {Q}}}$, we show that if Z is not thin in ${\mathbb {Q}}$, then $S_Z$ is meager in ${\operatorname {Sub}({\overline {\mathbb {Q}}})}$. Here, thin and meager both mean “small”, (...) in terms of arithmetic geometry and topology, respectively. For example, this implies that only a meager set of fields L have the property that the ring of algebraic integers $\mathcal {O}_L$ is universally definable in L. The main tools are Hilbert’s Irreducibility Theorem and a new normal form theorem for existential definitions. The normal form theorem, which may be of independent interest, says roughly that every $\exists $-definable subset of an algebraic extension of ${\mathbb Q}$ is a finite union of single points and projections of hypersurfaces defined by absolutely irreducible polynomials. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The oft-cited privacy paradox is the perceived disconnect between individuals’ stated privacy expectations, as captured in surveys, and consumer market behavior in going online: individuals purport to value privacy yet still disclose information to firms. The goal of this paper is to empirically examine the conceptualization of privacy postdisclosure assumed in the privacy paradox. Contrary to the privacy paradox, the results here suggest consumers retain strong privacy expectations even after disclosing information. Privacy violations are valued akin to security violations in (...) creating distrust in firms and in consumer willingness to engage with firms. This paper broadens the scope of corporate responsibility to suggest firms have a positive obligation to identify reasonable expectations of privacy of consumers. In addition, research perpetuating the privacy paradox, through the mistaken framing of disclosure as proof of anti-privacy behavior, gives license to firms to act contrary to the interests of consumers. (shrink)