The study of business ethics has led to the development of various principles that are the foundation of good and ethical business practices. A corresponding study of Information Technology (IT) professionals’ ethics has led to the conclusion that good ethics in the development and uses of information technology correspond to the basic business principle that good ethics is good business. Ergo, good business ethics practiced by IT professionals is good IT ethics and vice versa. IT professionals are professionals in businesses; (...) a difficulty presented to these professionals, however, is the number and diversity of codes of ethics to which they may be held. Considering the existence of several formalized codes of ethics prepared by various IT professionals’ associations, a more harmonized approach seems more reasonable. This paper attempts to present a review of the purpose of codes of ethics, the persons who should be covered by such codes and to organize codes of ethics for business in general and IT professionals in particular and to make the argument that, once again, good ethics is good business practice, regardless of the profession or occupation concerned. (shrink)

Experiences of moral distress encountered in psychiatric practice were explored in a hermeneutic phenomenological study. Moral distress is the state experienced when moral choices and actions are thwarted by constraints. Psychiatrists describe struggling ‘to do the right thing’ for individual patients within a societal system that places unrealistic demands on psychiatric expertise. Certainty on the part of the psychiatrist is an expectation when judgments of dangerousness and/or the need for coercive treatments are made. This assumption, however, ignores the uncertainty and (...) complexity of reality. Society entrusts psychiatrists to care for and treat those among its most vulnerable members: persons deemed to have a severely diminished capacity for autonomy due to a mental disorder. Simultaneously, psychiatrists are held accountable by society for the protection of the public. Moral distress arose for psychiatrists in their efforts to fulfill both roles. They described an ‘outsider/insider’ status and the ways in which they attempted to cope with moral distress. (shrink)

The field of emotion regulation has developed rapidly, and a number of emotion regulatory strategies have been identified. To date, empirical attention has focused on contrasting specific regulatio...

In the United States, hate speech sits at the intersection of ethical and legal debates and has a complex relationship with journalism. The First Amendment provides broad legal protections for hate...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities have become increasingly prevalent in retail settings. In franchised organizations, franchisors typically design and coordinate these activities, leaving operational execution to franchisees. Meanwhile, franchisors may introduce new corporate-led CSR activities over time. Even though changes to CSR activities may refocus outlets’ attention on a CSR initiative, they may also disrupt an outlet’s ongoing CSR routines. Using a longitudinal, secondary dataset consisting of an eight-year panel for a national, franchised restaurant chain, we examine CSR performance dynamics (...) in the presence of two distinct types of CSR activities: an ongoing CSR routine and a distinct, temporary CSR campaign. We find that, when resuming the CSR routine after a temporary CSR campaign, outlets’ performance in CSR routines drops significantly (i.e., immediate decay), then improves gradually (i.e., protracted recovery). We also consider the moderating role of an outlet’s experience, finding that experience stabilizes these decay and recovery cycles. Our findings represent a first step in developing a longitudinal understanding of how a firm’s short-term CSR campaigns may impact ongoing CSR routines, thus contributing to the knowledge of CSR activity development and routinization. (shrink)

The authors demonstrate that ethical judgments can be biased when previous judgments serve as a point of reference against which a current situation is judged. Scenarios describing ethical or unethical sales practices were used in an experiment to prime subjects who subsequently rated the ethics of an ethically ambiguous target scenario. The target tended to be rated as more ethical by subjects primed with unethical scenarios, and less ethical by subjects primed with ethical scenarios. This "contrast effect," however, is contingent (...) upon individual differences. Specifically, subjects with high (versus low) needs for cognition are more likely to process and use the information presented in the priming scenarios as a point of reference against which to judge the target situation, and hence more prone to the contrastive bias. Implications for avoiding unintentional moral relativism in business decision-making are discussed. (shrink)

The extent to which we generalize a novel property from a sample of familiar instances to novel instances depends on the sample composition. Previous property induction experiments have only used samples consisting of novel types (unique entities). Because real‐world evidence samples often contain redundant tokens (repetitions of the same entity), we studied the effects on property induction of adding types and tokens to an observed sample. In Experiments 1–3, we presented participants with a sample of birds or flowers known to (...) have a novel property and probed whether this property generalized to novel items varying in similarity to the initial sample. Increasing the number of novel types (e.g., new birds with the target property) in a sample produced tightening, promoting property generalization to highly similar stimuli but decreasing generalization to less similar stimuli. On the other hand, increasing the number of tokens (e.g., repeated presentations of the same bird with the target property) had little effect on generalization. Experiment 4 showed that repeated tokens are encoded and can benefit recognition, but appear to be given little weight when inferring property generalization. We modified an existing Bayesian model of induction (Navarro, Dry, & Lee, 2012) to account for both the information added by new types and the discounting of information conveyed by tokens. (shrink)

Reappraisal is a frequently used and often successful emotion regulation strategy. However, its underlying cognitive mechanisms are not well understood. In this paper, we seek to clarify these mechanisms by expanding upon our recently proposed reAppraisal framework. According to this framework, reappraisal consists of appraisal shifts that arise from changes to the mental construal of a situation (reconstrual) or from changes to the goals that are used to evaluate the construal (repurposing). Here we propose that reappraisal can target both object-level (...) construals and goals representing states in the environment as well as meta-level construals and goals about different states in the mind. We also propose that reappraisal can operate by facilitating decommitment from a dominant construal or goal as well as by facilitating commitment to alternative construals or goals. We demonstrate that the 2 × 2 × 2 matrix formed by crossing the three distinctions between reconstrual and repurposing, between object-level and meta-level representations, and between decommitment and commitment operations forms a useful map of different reappraisal tactics. We draw examples of each of the 8 reappraisal tactics from basic and clinical research. We conclude by considering future research inspired by the expanded reAppraisal framework. (shrink)

BackgroundMulti-centre studies generally cost more than single-centre studies because of larger sample sizes and the need for multiple ethical approvals. Multi-centre studies include clinical trials, clinical quality registries, observational studies and implementation studies. We examined the costs of two large Australian multi-centre studies in obtaining ethical and site-specific approvals.MethodsWe collected data on staff time spent on approvals and expressed the overall cost as a percent of the total budget.ResultsThe total costs of gaining approval were 38 % of the budget for (...) a study of 50 centres (mean cost AUD $6960 per site) and 2 % for a study of 11 centres (mean cost AUD $2300 per site). Seventy-five and 90 % of time was spent on repeated tasks, respectively, and many time-consuming tasks, such as reformatting documents, did nothing to improve the study design or participant safety.ConclusionsImprovements have been made to the ethical approval application system, but more gains could be made without increasing risks of harm to research participants. We propose that ethical review bodies and individual sites publish statistics on how long they take to process approvals which could then be nationally benchmarked. (shrink)

Western Political Thought in Dialogue with Asia is a unique collection of essays that examines the exchange of political ideas between Western Europe and Asia from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century. The contributors to the volume call for globalizing the scope of research and teaching in the history of political thought.

Recovering Reason: Essays in Honor of Thomas L. Pangle is a collection of essays composed by students and friends of Thomas L. Pangle to honor his seminal work and outstanding guidance in the study of political philosophy. These essays examine both Socrates' and modern political philosophers' attempts to answer the question of the right life for human beings, as those attempts are introduced and elaborated in the work of thinkers from Homer and Thucydides to Nietzsche and Charles Taylor.

"In 2003 the Getty Museum, which holds a collection of about 240 Weston prints, hosted a colloquium on the photographer. This volume in the In Focus series records remarks by the author, Brett Abbott, along with those of six other participants: William Clift, Amy Conger, David Featherstone, Weston Naef, David Travis, and Jennifer Watts. Context for their conversation is provided by the author's introduction, plate texts, and chronology. Approximately fifty of Weston's images demonstrate why his work continues to resonate (...) with a contemporary public and serves as a model for a host of photographers active today."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

Despite the growing body of literature on training in the responsible conduct of research, few studies have examined the effectiveness of delivery formats used in ethics courses. The present effort sought to address this gap in the literature through a meta-analytic review of 66 empirical studies, representing 106 ethics courses and 10,069 participants. The frequency and effectiveness of 67 instructional and process-based content areas were also assessed for each delivery format. Process-based contents were best delivered face-to-face, whereas contents delivered online (...) were most effective when restricted to compliance-based instructional contents. Overall, hybrid courses were found to be most effective, suggesting that ethics courses are best delivered using a blend of formats and content areas. Implications and recommendations for future development of ethics education courses in the sciences are discussed. (shrink)

Answering important public health questions often requires collection of sensitive information about individuals. For example, our understanding of how HIV is transmitted and how to prevent it only came about with people's willingness to share information about their sexual and drug-using behaviors. Given the scientific need for sensitive, personal information, researchers have a corresponding ethical and legal obligation to maintain the confidentiality of data they collect and typically promise in consent forms to restrict access to it and not to publish (...) identifying data.The interests of others, however, can threaten researchers' promises of confidentiality when legal demands are made to access research data. In some cases, the subject of the litigation is tightly connected to the research questions, and litigants' interest in the data is not surprising. Researchers conducting studies on tobacco or occupational or other chemical exposures, for example, are relatively frequent targets of subpoenas. (shrink)

Transient receptor potential vanilloid 4 (TRPV4), a member of the TRP superfamily, is a broadly expressed, cell surface‐localized cation channel that is activated by a variety of environmental stimuli. Importantly, TRPV4 has been increasingly implicated in the regulation of cellular morphology. Here we propose that TRPV4 and the cytoskeletal remodeling small GTPase RhoA together constitute an environmentally sensitive signaling complex that contributes to pathological cell cytoskeletal alterations during neurological injury and disease. Supporting this hypothesis is our recent work demonstrating direct (...) physical and bidirectional functional interactions of TRPV4 with RhoA, which can lead to activation of RhoA and reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton. Furthermore, a confluence of evidence implicates TRPV4 and/or RhoA in pathological responses triggered by a range of acute neurological insults ranging from stroke to traumatic injury. While initiated by a variety of insults, TRPV4–RhoA signaling may represent a common pathway that disrupts axonal regeneration and blood–brain barrier integrity. These insights also suggest that TRPV4 inhibition may represent a safe, feasible, and precise therapeutic strategy for limiting pathological TRPV4–RhoA activation in a range of neurological diseases. (shrink)

Recent findings regarding the cellular biology and immunology of BST‐2 (also known as tetherin) indicate that its function could be exploited as a universal replication inhibitor of enveloped respiratory viruses (e.g., influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, etc.). BST‐2 inhibits viral replication by preventing virus budding from the plasma membrane and by inducing an antiviral state in cells adjacent to infection via unique inflammatory signaling mechanisms. This review presents the first comprehensive summary of what is currently known about BST‐2 anti‐viral function against (...) respiratory viruses, how these viruses construct countermeasures to antagonize BST‐2, and how BST‐2 function might be targeted to develop therapies to treat respiratory virus infections. The authors address the current gaps in knowledge, including the need for mechanistic understanding of BST‐2 antagonism by respiratory viruses, that should be bridged to achieve that goal. (shrink)

J. JUDD OWEN AND JEFFREY STOUT SUGGEST THE NEED TO RETHINK OUR understanding of the normative commitments of liberal democracy in response to recent challenges from its "cultured despisers". In this essay I argue that Owen and Stout fail to redeem liberal democracy against these critics because they reject the possibility of constitutional neutrality with respect to an indeterminate plurality of religions. As a result, a religious test on citizenship is inevitable under any democratic constitution expressed in their terms, and (...) this test lays liberal democracy open to the despisers' main line of attack. As an alternative, I offer a defense of constitutional neutrality that is based on the work of Franklin I. Gamwell, who has developed a compound conception of justice for this purpose. Gamwell systematically distinguishes between formative and substantive conceptions of justice and the role they play in a theory of constitutional democracy. On Gamwell's account, a democratic constitution expressed as a formative conception of justice will be neutral with respect to all substantive moral disagreement. As such, it can be consistently affirmed by the adherents of an indeterminate plurality of religions. This account of liberal democracy avoids a religious test on citizenship and therefore can overcome the core objection raised against it by its contemporary critics. (shrink)

Ethics courses are most commonly evaluated using reaction measures. However, little is known about the specific types of reaction data being collected and how these reaction data relate to improvements in trainee performance. Using a sample of 381 ethics training sessions, major reaction data categories were identified. Content and course satisfaction were the most frequently collected types of reaction criteria. Furthermore, content relevance and course satisfaction showed strong, positive relationships with performance criteria, whereas content satisfaction demonstrated a moderate, negative relationship. (...) These results and future directions for ethics training evaluation are discussed. (shrink)

"Accompanies the exhibition Engaged Observers: Documentary Photography since the Sixties, held at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, June 29-November 17, 2010.".

In “Descartes’s Theodicy of Error,” Michael J. Latzer argues that the Fourth Meditation has “general significance for the project of theodicy” and offers “asolution to the problem of evil as complete, in its own succinct way, as Leibniz’s is on a grander scale.” I do not think that anyone has accurately understood the complex theodicy offered there, however. Commentators disagree about the argument(s) and have not carefully explained exactly what Descartes says that applies to the problem of evil. The purpose (...) of my paper is three-fold. I (1) explain the theodicy that Descartes offers to explain philosophical error in the Fourth Meditation; (2) argue that although we are justified in understanding this theodicy as concerning the problem of evil, the advice Descartes offers for avoiding philosophical error does not apply to avoiding sin (an example of evil); and (3) argue that the theodicy may actually be no theodicy at all. (shrink)

Bayesian accounts are currently popular in the field of inductive reasoning. This commentary briefly reviews the limitations of one such account, the Rational Model (Anderson 1991b), in explaining how inferences are made about objects whose category membership is uncertain. These shortcomings are symptomatic of what Jones & Love (J&L) refer to as Bayesian approaches.

In “Descartes’s Theodicy of Error,” Michael J. Latzer argues that the Fourth Meditation has “general significance for the project of theodicy” and offers “asolution to the problem of evil as complete, in its own succinct way, as Leibniz’s is on a grander scale.” I do not think that anyone has accurately understood the complex theodicy offered there, however. Commentators disagree about the argument(s) and have not carefully explained exactly what Descartes says that applies to the problem of evil. The purpose (...) of my paper is three-fold. I (1) explain the theodicy that Descartes offers to explain philosophical error in the Fourth Meditation; (2) argue that although we are justified in understanding this theodicy as concerning the problem of evil, the advice Descartes offers for avoiding philosophical error does not apply to avoiding sin (an example of evil); and (3) argue that the theodicy may actually be no theodicy at all. (shrink)

For many centuries now, those considering themselves civilized have carried out numerous atrocities—from abductions to dispossession to massacres—against those thought to be less civilized, all in the name of civilization. This has particularly been the case in the last 500 years when Europeans came into contact with indigenous peoples in their voyages of discovery and subsequent settlement. One of the justifications for these offences was often couched in terms of the self-appointed duty of “civilized” Europeans to bring the blessings of (...) civilization to the “savage” and “barbarian” hordes, also called the “white man's burden” or the “burden of civilization.” Many nations took up this sacred trust of civilization and the challenge of bringing enlightenment and salvation to the uncivilized peoples of the world, during which the latter were either subjugated or perished. In this article I trace the intellectual heritage of the sacred trust and note its inherent contradictions, ranging from debates between Sepúlveda and Las Casas over Spain's rights of conquest in the New World to the musings of key Enlightenment thinkers such as Locke, Hegel, Kant, and J. S. Mill. As some of its advocates acknowledge the sacred trust and concomitant civilizing missions were inevitably and invariably violent and went against the very idea of civilization. And as Las Casas deftly highlighted, much of the reasoning underpinning the sacred trust was in the form of “poisons disguised with honey.”. (shrink)

This article examines allusions to Greek poetry in two Greek verse inscriptions carved on public monuments for Lycian dynasts of the late fifth and early fourth centuriesb.c.(CEG177, 888). Scholarship on these epigrams celebrating the rule, achievements and outstanding qualities of the dynasts Gergis (LycianKheriga) and Arbinas (Erbinna) has largely focussed on the evidence they provide for Lycian history, dynastic ideology and Lycia's relationship to Greece. Less attention has been paid to the possible significance of their long-noted echoes of Greek poetry. (...) Literary analysis of these epigrams has been sidelined, it seems, owing to a prevailing assumption that they were composed and inscribed primarily for Greeks visiting or resident in Xanthus, the Lycian ‘capital’ where they were inscribed, and so their literariness, unheard by Lycian ears, cannot add to our understanding of Lycia and Lycians. Yet, a recent observation of Peter Thonemann suggests that the appropriation and manipulation of Greek poetry is in fact central to the dynastic intent of the epigrams: to assert Lycia's non-Greek, ‘Asiatic’ identity. (shrink)

This chapter presents the advantages of the use of functional regions of interest along with its specific concerns, and provides a reference to Karl J. Friston related to the subject. Functionally defined ROI help to test hypotheses about the cognitive functions of particular regions of the brain. fROI are useful for specifying brain locations and investigating separable components of the mind. The chapter provides an overview of the common and uncommon misconceptions about fROI related to assumptions of homogeneity, factorial designs (...) versus independent localizers, a summary measure, and the naming of fROI. (shrink)

Ben Rich, J.D., Ph.D., presents a scholarly, passionate view of the ethics of the “barriers to effective pain management.” His manuscript is detailed, analytical, and compassionate. No reasonable sensitive person, especially a physician committed to caring for patients, can disagree with the proposal that human beings should have their physical, emotional, and spiritual pain tended to aggressively, meticulously, and compassionately. Similarly, the same individuals advocating for such pain management would agree that no one should go to jail unless he or (...) she is guilty of a serious crime, that decent people should not be robbed or murdered, that children should not be hungry or homeless, and that all citizens of the United States deserve healthcare. Our society attempts to achieve these goals. Laws are written, discussed, and approved by state and federal congresses, voted on by citizens, and theoretically upheld by the courts, churches, and decent individuals. But, unless the world suddenly becomes inhabited by virtuous, ethical humans who can unfailingly differentiate “good” from “bad,” then, in spite of an abundance of laws and lawyers, doctors, and nurses, this world will continue to have pain and suffering. And, although we want to hold our doctors, politicians, educators, champion athletes, and others to “higher standards” than the average citizen, it is best to remind ourselves frequently that all humans can be weak and are bound to make imprecise judgments, that there is not a homogenous definition of “good,” that values and religious beliefs are variable. (shrink)

Ben Rich, J.D., Ph.D., presents a scholarly, passionate view of the ethics of the His manuscript is detailed, analytical, and compassionate. No reasonable sensitive person, especially a physician committed to caring for patients, can disagree with the proposal that human beings should have their physical, emotional, and spiritual pain tended to aggressively, meticulously, and compassionately. Similarly, the same individuals advocating for such pain management would agree that no one should go to jail unless he or she is guilty of a (...) serious crime, that decent people should not be robbed or murdered, that children should not be hungry or homeless, and that all citizens of the United States deserve healthcare. Our society attempts to achieve these goals. Laws are written, discussed, and approved by state and federal congresses, voted on by citizens, and theoretically upheld by the courts, churches, and decent individuals. But, unless the world suddenly becomes inhabited by virtuous, ethical humans who can unfailingly differentiate from then, in spite of an abundance of laws and lawyers, doctors, and nurses, this world will continue to have pain and suffering. And, although we want to hold our doctors, politicians, educators, champion athletes, and others to than the average citizen, it is best to remind ourselves frequently that all humans can be weak and are bound to make imprecise judgments, that there is not a homogenous definition of that values and religious beliefs are variable. (shrink)