Charles Fourier propounded a socialist and, at the same time, libertarian utopia: a harmonious project of living together in solidarity, of cooperative work and sexual freedom. Historians interested in its reception in Spain have underlined the lack of thinkers capable of developing Fourier’s thinking along original lines or from a certain theoretical level. Moreover, it has been affirmed that Fourier’s original doctrine was impoverished in Spain because it was stripped of a large part of its utopian aspects and reduced to (...) a doctrinaire framework for social criticism and reform.1 Nonetheless, the evolution of Spanish Fourierism is comparable to that which the movement underwent in other countries, including France.. (shrink)

Utopianism has found expression in several ways throughout history and has reflected the peculiarities of the cultural, political, social, and economic settings in which it has come about. Spain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been no exception, because while the country has not occupied a significant place in the dominant historical narrative of utopias, recent research has begun to show that it was indeed where many tracts with utopian—and, by way of correlation, dystopian—content came on the scene. Whether (...) we look at the concept of utopia from a formal standpoint, in the sense of a specific literary genre, or we demand certain content features to discuss true utopias, we find that they thrived in.. (shrink)

Crowdfunding is regarded a financing mechanism that could improve the funding opportunities of businesses with a pro-social orientation. Indeed, it is assumed that on digital platforms, citizens are inclined to provide more support to projects with a social benefit than to those without such an orientation, with significant ethical implications for the common good. Yet, extant empirical evidence regarding such a claim is still inconclusive. To advance this discussion, the present paper analyzes the conditions that influence crowd support for projects (...) displaying a pro-social orientation on a reward-based crowdfunding platform. To build our hypotheses, we adopt the lens of framing theory, and we relate it to the digital context. Beginning from the premise that, on crowdfunding platforms, information about projects has a hierarchical structure, we argue that a project’s success crucially depends on how much its proponent emphasizes the pro-social cues within this structure. Moreover, we propose that because pro-social cues demarcate a project over others, the effectiveness of pro-social framing is enhanced when the number of projects on the platform, i.e., its crowdedness, increases. Logit estimates on 8631 Kickstarter projects indicate that pro-social framing is positively associated with success as we expected, yet only when it is moderately emphasized. Further, we find that crowdedness on the platform positively moderates the effect of pro-social orientation on success. (shrink)

The cognitive purpose of the research presented in the article is to identify the propensity for pro-social and altruistic behavior among first-year military students in three simulated situations of need for help to other people. It raised the question contained in the main research problem: to what extent do military students at universities tend to behave in a pro-social and altruistic way in situations that pose a threat to the other people’s life and health, and what is the relationship between (...) these behaviors and socialization in the civil environment? At the outset, the hypothesis was adopted that the candidates for professional soldiers show a higher propensity for this type of behavior. For its verification, the population of the first-year military students during their basic training was assumed as a research area. The study covered 246 people selected randomly from among military students in the first year of studies of the command profile of all military specialties and the medical profile. The selection of the research sample based on first-year students during the basic training aimed to identify the impact of environmental factors on the tendency to altruistic and pro-social behavior in two different groups of candidates for professional soldiers. (shrink)

There is converging evidence that over the course of the second year children become good at various fairly sophisticated forms of pro-social activities, such as helping, informing and comforting. Not only are toddlers able to do these things, they appear to do them routinely and almost reliably. A striking feature of these interventions, emphasized in the recent literature, is that they show precocious abilities in two different domains: they reflect complex ‘ theory of mind’ abilities as well as ‘altruistic motivation’. (...) Our aim in this paper is to present a theoretical hypothesis that bears on both kinds of developments. The suggestion is that children’s ‘instrumental helping’ reflects their budding understanding of practical reasons. We can put the basic idea in the familiar terminology of common coding : toddlers conceive of the goals of others’ actions in the same format as the goals of their own actions: in terms of features of their situation that provide us with reasons to act. (shrink)

This study aimed to explain the development of tourists’ pro-social intentions during heritage tourism within the pandemic context by combining the norm activation model and two significant variables in the theory of planned behavior. The quantitative data analysis results indicated that the proposed hypotheses have been partially supported, which resonated and enriched the existing studies on COVID-19-related pro-social tourism and tourist behaviors from a theoretical angle. Based on the research outcomes, the corresponding managerial implications for heritage tourism practitioners and meaningful (...) references for future researchers to promote sustainable and pro-social heritage tourism products have been discussed. (shrink)

Pro-social basic human values and civic involvement. The moderating role of survival vs self-expression cultural context The present study investigated a hypothesis that the pro-social values differentiated by S. Schwartz's model of basic human values - universalism and benevolence - would positively predict civic involvement. Most importantly, authors expected that the type of pro-social value that would play a dominant motivational role would depend on moderating role of the level of self-expression and benevolence - cultural value dimension developed by R. (...) Inglehart. Based on discriminant function analyses performed on the data gathered in 17 European countries through the European Social Survey conducted in 2002, authors found that universalism predicts civic involvement only in self-expression countries, whereas the role of benevolence is rather neglectable and independent of the cultural context. The results are discussed with reference to cross-cultural differences in Europe. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Organizations constitute morally-complex environments, requiring organization members to possess levels of moral courage sufficient to promote their ethical action, while refraining from unethical actions when faced with temptations or pressures. Using a sample drawn from a military context, we explored the antecedents and consequences of moral courage. Results from this four-month field study demonstrated that authentic leadership was positively related to followers’ displays of moral courage. Further, followers’ moral courage fully mediated the effects of authentic leadership on followers’ ethical and (...) pro-social behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications for further integrating the work on moral courage, authentic leadership and ethics are discussed. (shrink)

We are moving towards a future where Artificial Intelligence (AI) based agents make many decisions on behalf of humans. From healthcare decision-making to social media censoring, these agents face problems, and make decisions with ethical and societal implications. Ethical behaviour is a critical characteristic that we would like in a human-centric AI. A common observation in human-centric industries, like the service industry and healthcare, is that their professionals tend to break rules, if necessary, for pro-social reasons. This behaviour among humans (...) is defined as pro-social rule breaking. To make AI agents more human-centric, we argue that there is a need for a mechanism that helps AI agents identify when to break rules set by their designers. To understand when AI agents need to break rules, we examine the conditions under which humans break rules for pro-social reasons. In this paper, we present a study that introduces a ‘vaccination strategy dilemma’ to human participants and analyzes their response. In this dilemma, one needs to decide whether they would distribute COVID-19 vaccines only to members of a high-risk group (follow the enforced rule) or, in selected cases, administer the vaccine to a few social influencers (break the rule), which might yield an overall greater benefit to society. The results of the empirical study suggest a relationship between stakeholder utilities and pro-social rule breaking (PSRB), which neither deontological nor utilitarian ethics completely explain. Finally, the paper discusses the design characteristics of an ethical agent capable of PSRB and the future research directions on PSRB in the AI realm. We hope that this will inform the design of future AI agents, and their decision-making behaviour. (shrink)

Being imitated has a wide range of pro-social effects, but it is not clear how these effects are mediated. Naturalistic studies of the effects of being imitated have not established whether pro-social outcomes are due to the similarity and/or the contingency between the movements performed by the actor and those of the imitator. Similarity is often assumed to be the active ingredient, but we hypothesized that contingency might also be important, as it produces positive affect in infants and can be (...) detected by phylogenetically ancient mechanisms of associative learning. We manipulated similarity and contingency between performed and observed actions in a computerized task. Similarity had no positive effects; however, contingency resulted in greater enjoyment of the task, reported closeness to others, and helping behavior. These results suggest that the pro-social effects of being imitated may rely on associative mechanisms. (shrink)

Moral enhancement is a topic that has sparked much current interest in the world of bioethics. The possibility of making people ‘better,’ not just in the conventional enhancement sense of improving health and other desirable qualities and capacities, but by making them somehow more moral, more decent, altogether better people, has attracted attention from both advocates 1 2 and sceptics 3 alike. The concept of moral enhancement, however, is fraught with difficult questions, theoretical and practical. What does it actually mean (...) to be ‘more moral’? How would moral enhancement be defined and would it necessarily, as some have claimed, make the world a better or safer place? How would or could such enhancement be achieved safely and without undue constraint on personal liberty and autonomy? On this subject, a recent paper by Crockett et al 4 investigating the effects of the neurotransmitter serotonin on moral decision-making provides an intriguing scientific basis for examining what might or might not constitute moral enhancement. The study involved treatment with citalopram, a drug that increases the action of serotonin in the brain, and subsequent analysis of participants' decision-making behaviour in two different situations involving moral dilemmas: the well-known ‘Trolley Problem’ 5 and the ‘Ultimatum Game’. 6 The researchers found that citalopram promoted what they call ‘prosocial behaviour’, increasing the participants' aversion to causing direct harm to others: in the first scenario, they were less likely to select the option that required killing one in order to save five, and in the second, less likely to reject unfair offers at the expense of others. The Crockett study is fascinating both for its insight into human behaviour and because it appears to demonstrate that, at least on some accounts of moral behaviour, serotonin may in fact be a …. (shrink)

If the classic history of events is written in the spirit of winners, the approaches of collective mental reveal that wars are disasters and collective traumas for all of the involved communities. In the following pages we will present the decantation in long term memory of a relevant fact – the deportation of German ethnics from Romania to forced labor in the Soviet Union. On the base of a secret directive, sent by Stalin, approximately 75 000 Romanian citizens of German (...) ethnicity were forced to work three-four years, some even more, at the reconstruction of the “Soviet country”. The source of the decision, its place and extent, and also the way to atone for the “collective guilt” was hidden from the deportees. At the end of the punishment, they were forbidden to speak about the deportation in the public and private space. When they returned home, all of their material evidence of the years spent in the Soviet Union was confiscated and destroyed. In a project financed by the European Union, 50 interviews with survivors of deportation and their descendants were published. The resulting accounts allowed this psycho-sociological analysis of the memory of deportation, centered on ethical and religious aspects of the behaviors and attitudes of victims and their descendants. (shrink)

The rural-migrant protagonist in Knut Hamsun’s Hunger fails to adapt to the urban environment because the moral algorithm that informs his collaborative choices is unfit for the city. He often responds poorly when overwhelmed by pride, shame, or other sensations that he struggles to make sense of. Such emotions are hypothesized to be neuro­computational adaptations crafted by natural selection to help us get ahead as collabora­tors. But with societal transformation, these feelings can become a poor match for a new reality. (...) Reprogramming oneself can be challenging; Hunger’s protagonist must suffer months of emotional and physical pain before he adapts. His journey, and Hamsun’s mod­ernist project, can be illuminated by recent research on status management and morality as cooperation. As literature, Hunger could fulfill several adaptive functions by mapping mor­als for urban pro-sociality at a time of great disruption. Similar moral adaptation could become necessary in our present era, too. (shrink)

This article addresses the growing industry of retail socially responsible investment (SRI) profiled mutual funds. Very few previous studies have examined the final consumer of SRI profiled mutual funds. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to, in an exploratory manner, examine the impact of a number of pro-social, financial performance, and socio-demographic variables on SRI behavior in order to explain why investors choose to invest different proportions of their investment portfolio in SRI profiled funds. An ordinal logistic regression analysis (...) on 528 private investors revealed that two of the three pro-social variables had a positive impact on how much the consumer invested in SRI profiled funds. Moreover, there was proof of a non-altruistic motive for investing in SRI as consumers who perceive that financial return of SRI is equal or better than "regular" mutual funds, invested a greater proportion of their portfolio in SRI profiled mutual funds. Furthermore, the results showed that women and better-educated investors were more likely to invest a greater proportion of their investment portfolio in SRI. Overall, the findings indicate that both financial perceptions and pro-social attitudes are connected to consumer investment in SRI. (shrink)

First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The objective of the study was to develop a structural model that explores the relationship between Mathematics Performance and students’ self-regulated learning skills, grit, and expectancy-value towards science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The research collected survey data from 664 senior high school students from 17 STEM high schools, and conducted a covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. The results of the SEM analysis indicate that the Re-specified Self-Regulated Learning Skill – Expectancy-Value towards STEM – Grit – Mathematics Performance (Re-specified (...) SRL-EV-GR-MP) model is the most parsimonious fit, offering the best empirical support for the theoretical model of the study. The research findings suggest that the mathematics performance of senior high school students in STEM curriculum is attributed to their high expectancies for success and perceived values of the STEM tasks, high grit, and high self-regulated learning skills. Moreover, the research also observed evidence of mediating and moderating grit effects in the concurrent effects of expectancy-values towards STEM and self-regulated learning skills towards students’ mathematics performance. (shrink)

Workers with involuntary clients influence the behaviour of their clients. One of the methods by which workers influence their clients relates to the way they model, encourage or reinforce their comments and behaviours. Practitioners may be aware or unaware of this process and of the extent to which it can impact on clients. This paper describes the process of modelling and reinforcement and discusses some of the ethical issues it raises. It suggests some guidelines by which the process may be (...) undertaken in an ethical manner and recommends the use of the ethics of care and concept of human dignity as additional theoretical resources to assist in working with this client group. (shrink)

Experiences of contact with nature in school education might be beneficial for promoting ecological lifestyles and the wellbeing of children, families, and teachers. Many theories and empirical evidence on restorative environments, as well as on the foundations of classical pedagogical approaches, recognize the value of the direct experience with natural elements, and the related psychological and educational outcomes. In this work we present two studies focusing on the contact with nature in outdoor education interventions with primary and secondary school students (...) in Italy. A questionnaire measuring connectedness to nature, psycho-physical wellbeing, pro-environmental attitudes, students’ life satisfaction, pro-social behavior, empathy and anxiety was completed before and after the education program by the participants to the intervention group and by students of a control group. The students in the intervention groups participated in environmental education programs consisting in guided activities in contact with the nature during four visits in one of two natural protected areas. The students in the control groups attended the same schools as the intervention group but they were not involved in the environmental education program. The students in both the groups completed the questionnaire in the same weeks of the year. Findings show that taking part to the outdoor education program has positive outcomes on psycho-physical wellbeing, on connectedness to nature and on pro-social behavior of students in the intervention group, compared to the control group. The implications related to the effectiveness of outdoor education interventions and future directions of research and practice in environmental psychology and education are discussed. (shrink)

The article analyses experimental “solidarity games” with two benefactors and one beneficiary. Depending on their motive for giving—e.g., warm glow, altruism, or guilt—the benefactors’ response functions are either constant, decreasing, or increasing. If motives interact, or if envy is a concern, then more complex (unimodal) shapes may emerge. Controlling for random utility perturbations, we determine which and how many motives affect individual decision making. The main findings are that the motives of about 75% of the subjects can be identified fairly (...) sharply, that all of the motives discussed in the literature co-exist in the population, and that for any given individual no more than two motives (out of six motives considered overall) are identified. We conclude that a unifying motive for solidarity cannot be derived even when we allow for individually heterogeneous parameterization: different subjects give for different reasons and all existing social preference theories are partially correct. (shrink)

The authors provide this addendum to the following article to provide corrections to the results reported and further explanation of the structural equation modeling techniques utilized: Sean T. Hannah, Bruce J. Avolio, and Fred O. Walumbwa, “The Relationships between Authentic Leadership, Moral Courage, and Ethical and Pro-Social Behaviors,” Business Ethics Quarterly 21:4 : 555–78.

Introduction - This paper is aimed at gaining more insight into the effects of camera-surveillance on behavior. This study investigates the effects of three different ways of ‘framing’ camera presence on cheating behavior and pro-social behavior. First, we explore the effect of presenting the camera as the medium through which an intimidating authority watches the participant. Second, we test the effect of presenting the camera as being a neutral, non-intimidating viewer. Third, we investigate whether a participant watching themselves via a (...) camera has an effect on their behavior. In contrast to most studies of camera surveillance, we will conduct our experiments in an indoor setting, enabling us to investigate behavior to a much greater detail. We will also explore possible moderating effects of personality traits. Methods - 86 students participated in this experiment, distributed over four conditions: three different ways of framing the camera presence, plus a control condition. Our main dependent variables were various kinds of cheating and pro-social behavior. We established the participant’s relevant personality traits in a separate session. Results - For cheating behavior, findings showed that the ‘authorative’ way of framing camera presence and the situation in which participants viewed themselves, differed significantly from a situation without camera-surveillance. We did not find significant effects of camera surveillance on pro-social behavior during the experiment. Looking at personality traits, we found an indication that people with an internal locus of control are more inclined to cheat when there is no camera present compared to people with an external locus of control. However, the effects of our manipulations were stronger. Conclusion - These results support the idea that the framing of a camera’s presence does indeed influence cheating behavior, adding to the preventive effects of camera-surveillance. Additionally, this study provides some valuable insights into the influence of camera presence on behavior in general. (shrink)

This article explores the notions of a good life as understood in religion and psychology. The markers of altruism and empathy are identified. The effect the use of social media has on brain chemistry is then explored and used in trying to answer the question as to whether technology is hampering our ability to live a good life. The notions of the rise of narcissism and the decline in empathy are also discussed.

“Das Adam Smith Problem” is the name given by eighteenth-century German scholars to the question of how to reconcile the role of self-interest in the Wealth of Nations with Smith’s advocacy of sympathy in Theory of Moral Sentiments. As the discipline of economics developed, it focused on the interaction of selfish agents, pursuing their private interests. However, behavioral economists have rediscovered the existence and importance of multiple motivations, and a new Das Adam Smith Problem has arisen, of how to accommodate (...) self-regarding and pro-social motivations in a single system. This question is particularly important because of evidence of motivation crowding, where paying people can backfire, with payments achieving the opposite effects of those intended. Psychologists have proposed a mechanism for the crowding out of “intrinsic motivations” for doing a task, when payment is used to incentivize effort. However, they argue that pro-social motivations are different from these intrinsic motivations, implying that crowding out of pro-social motivations requires a different mechanism. In this essay I present an answer to the new Das Adam Smith problem, proposing a mechanism that can underpin the crowding out of both pro-social and intrinsic motivations, whereby motivations are prompted by frames and motivation crowding is underpinned by the crowding out of frames. I explore some of the implications of this mechanism for research and policy. (shrink)

The current study aimed to explore how family atmosphere influenced pro-social behavior among Chinese college students and to explore the mediation roles of gratitude and self-efficacy. We recruited 800 Chinese college students, and the participation rate was 89%. Participants completed the family atmosphere scale, the pro-social tendencies measure, the gratitude questionnaire, and the general self-efficacy scale. Results indicated that Family atmosphere, gratitude, self-efficacy, and pro-social behavior were positively correlated after controlling for the grade, gender, and age. The family atmosphere affected (...) pro-social behavior not only directly, but also indirectly through the partial mediating role of gratitude and self-efficacy. Moreover, gratitude and self-efficacy also played a full chained mediation role in the relationship between the family atmosphere and pro-social behavior of college students. Therefore, a supportive family atmosphere is conducive to promoting college students’ gratitude and self-efficacy, in turn affecting their pro-social behavior. (shrink)

We explore how risk preferences affect pro-social behavior under uncertainty. We analyze a modified dictator game in which the dictator can, by reducing her own sure payoff, increase the odds that an unknown recipient wins a lottery. We first augment a standard social preferences model with reference-dependent risk attitudes and then test the model’s predictions for the dictator’s giving behavior using a laboratory experiment. Consistent with the predictions of the model, we find that the relationship between giving behavior and a (...) giver’s loss aversion is mediated by the strength of the giver’s pro-social preferences. Among more pro-social dictators, an increase in loss aversion increases the likelihood that a dictator contributes to a recipient. (shrink)

Prior research has shown a pronounced self-orientation in students of business and economics. This article examines if self-orientation can be alleviated by a focus on prosocial values in business education. In a cross-sectional design, we test the prosocial behavior and values of bachelor students at the beginning and the end of a traditional 3-year business administration program. We compare their behavior with the behavior of two different groups: students from an ethically-oriented international management school and students from a social work (...) program of equal length. The results showed that students of business administration show less prosocial behavior in a dictator game than students in the other two groups. This difference is larger between final-year students than between first-year students. According to the results of the Schwartz Value Survey, the Inglehart Index, and a scale for preferences for distributive justice, students in the three disciplines differ substantially in prosocial values, but there is no significant difference between first and last semester students of the same discipline. We conclude that there is no transmission of self-oriented behavior through self-oriented values emended in traditional business education curricula. Instead, students seem to select academic programs according to their personal and preexisting social orientations. (shrink)

This paper looks at frameworks for the practice of moral and ethical values for children, drawn from Yoga and Buddhist Philosophies. Verily the purpose is to inculcate a repository of thought and behaviour through which they align moral and ethical behaviours by becoming important cogs in establishing harmony in the world that we exist. Harmony between one child and another child, harmony between children and their families, harmony between the families and larger society and harmony between society and other sentient (...) beings and life forms is what constitutes cosmic-harmony. In this sense, Confucius’ triadic cosmic-harmony and the timeless Vedic Ṛta are not merely a philosophical thought or idea envisaged in ivory towers but real-time experiencing or darsana. This is realized through disciplined individual behaviours in balancing of our purusharthas with our dharma; aligning these with a sense of universal responsibility out of care and concern for one another. This would ensure in connecting and building synergy with all that surrounds us since these practices fostering morals and ethics could also be befitting measures to counter the Anthropocene epoch’s negative geologic impact on our planet. This paper is being written from the perspective of human beings and their practice of humanism via moral and ethical behaviour. The point of departure being that humans are placed as a dominant species at the centre of our planet with unprecedented power to influence the fate of other species, the environment and the future of the quality of bio-diversity of life on earth. (shrink)

Prior research on employee–organization relationships has exclusively focused on the positive consequences of high-inducement EORs. Drawing from social exchange theory, we develop a model theorizing employee unethical pro-organizational behavior as one potential negative outcome of high-inducement EORs, as mediated by high-quality social exchange relationship between the employee and the employer. Empirical findings from two field studies provided convergent support to the mediation relationship between mutual-investment EORs and employee UPB via perceived social exchange. Moreover, the results in Study 2 further revealed (...) that the relationship was less significant among employees with higher levels of moral identity, because the positive relationship between perceived social exchange and employee UPB was weakened by high moral identity. The theoretical and managerial implications were discussed. (shrink)

Reciprocity theory (RT) and costly signaling theory (CST) provide different explanations for the high status of pro-community altruists: RT proposes that altruists are positively and negatively sanctioned by others, whereas CST proposes that altruists are attractive to others. Only RT, however, is beset by first- and higher-order free rider problems, which must be solved in order for RT to explain status allocations. In this paper, several solutions to RT’s free rider problems are proposed, and data about status allocations to Ecuadorian (...) Shuar pro-community altruists are analyzed in light of RT and CST. These data confirm that perceived pro-community altruists are indeed high status and suggest that (1) community residents skillfully monitor the altruism of coresidents, (2) residents who engage in opportunities to broadcast desirable qualities are high status only to the extent that they are considered altruistic, and (3) individuals who sanction coresidents based on coresidents’ contributions to the community are themselves relatively high status. To a greater extent than CST, RT straightforwardly predicts all of these results. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Consistently Pro-Life: The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity by Rob Arner, and: Christ at the Checkpoint: Theology in the Service of Justice and Peace ed. by Paul Alexander, and: Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers: A Virtue Ethic for Catholic Social Teaching and US Policy by Eli Sarasan McCarthyBrian D. BerryReview of Consistently Pro-Life: The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity ROB ARNER Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2010. 136 pp. $15.56Review (...) of Christ at the Checkpoint: Theology in the Service of Justice and Peace EDITED BY PAUL ALEXANDER Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012. 182 pp. $19.80Review of Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers: A Virtue Ethic for Catholic Social Teaching and US Policy ELI SARASAN MCCARTHY Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012. 259 pp. $27.00In Consistently Pro-Life, Rob Arner (who teaches at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia) makes the case that Christians should not kill other human beings—regardless of the circumstances. Taking as his point of departure the vigilante killing of abortion doctor George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas, in 2009, he argues not only that abortion is always morally impermissible but so also is [End Page 217] the murder of abortion doctors and the use of the death penalty to punish those who murder them. In addition, he turns to the early church fathers to contend that, prior to Constantine, “without exception, the church strongly condemned the taking of human life in any form whatsoever”—thus rejecting abortion and infanticide, the blood sport of the Roman games, suicide, and killing in war (120). This was because the New Testament witness to Jesus and his death on the cross required early Christians to view “the means as just as important, if not more important, than the ends” (xiii).Arner supplements this deontological argument for Christian pacifism, which he learned from John Howard Yoder, with a brief consideration of the virtue of patience cultivated in the early churches, reflecting the influence of Stanley Hauerwas on his thought. This “cardinal virtue” connoting “longsuffering, forbearance, patient endurance”—as found in Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:38–48)—enabled early Christians to practice non-violent resistance “deferring personal revenge in favor of God’s vindicating justice” (98). If Christians were to adopt this same consistently pro-life ethic today, argues Arner, it would “lead to greater healing and peace in our blood-soaked world” (121). The book closes with three appendices—one of which is a chart of terminology that dehumanizes vulnerable victims, including unborn human beings. Unfortunately, the book does not have an index.Christ at the Checkpoint, edited by Paul Alexander (professor of Christian ethics and public policy at the Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University), includes thirteen plenary addresses delivered at a conference on the Arab-Israeli conflict organized by Palestinian Evangelical Christians at Bethlehem Bible College in March 2010. Almost all of the contributors to this volume—including biblical scholars, theologians, ethicists, pastors, activists, and others—criticize the ideology of Christian Zionism and its support of a theology of dispensationalism that, in their view, distorts the scriptures and fosters violence rather than reconciliation between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In his own presentation titled “What Can Pentecostals and Charismatics Do for Peace with Justice in Israel and Palestine?,” Alexander—who describes himself as a former “one-sided” Christian Zionist who later discovered the writings of Yoder and Hauerwas—appeals to Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and urges Pentecostals to create church communities “that cultivate persons of character and conviction, who through habits, practices, and action live out the core of our faith” (69). Along with being faithful to the “greater challenges” of love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness, he argues that they should publicly declare that Jesus does not want Israel to continue the occupation of Palestine, and they should engage in the “easier tasks” of promoting human rights, lending support to United Nations Resolutions, and working toward a two-state solution (72). “The time has come in human history,” writes Alexander, “for Pentecostals to speak and act prophetically regarding this present injustice … [End Page 218] and to use every nonviolent weapon in our arsenal—stories, preaching... (shrink)

El presente trabajo propone un acercamiento a la identificación de las adscripciones de clase de los integrantes del movimiento por los derechos humanos en Argentina. Luego de constatar una integración policlasista del movimiento social, se centra en el predominio en su dirigencia y composición de integrantes de las clases medias y en ocasiones más específicamente de las clases de servicio. Primero se desarrollan algunas dimensiones subyacentes al concepto de “clase social”, para luego esbozar mediante diversos relevamientos la composición de distintos (...) organismos de derechos humanos. Finalmente, se concluye que si bien la adscripción de clase no fue determinante para la composición del movimiento, sí sentó las bases para una cultura política compartida y para la adopción de repertorios discursivos y de acción. (shrink)

Drawing on social cognitive theory and social information processing theory, this study investigated how organizations' efforts to embody environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) shape consumer perception of a green corporate image through employees' environmental passion and pro-environmental behavior (PEB). To test our hypotheses, we collected multisource time-lagged data from 214 employee–customer dyads from hotel and banking sector organizations in Pakistan. The findings show that organizations' green corporate image is a function of their efforts to engage in ECSR activities as demonstrated (...) through employees' environmental passion and PEB. These findings have important implications in the environment and management domains because it can help organizations draft useful strategies to counter environmental degradation and generate a green corporate image in customers' minds through employees' green behavior. (shrink)

In the contemporary digital age, recommender systems (RSs) play a fundamental role in managing information on online platforms: from social media to e-commerce, from travels to cultural consumptions, automated recommendations influence the everyday choices of users at an unprecedented scale. RSs are trained on users’ data to make targeted suggestions to individuals according to their expected preference, but their ultimate impact concerns all the multiple stakeholders involved in the recommendation process. Therefore, whilst RSs are useful to reduce information overload, their (...) deployment comes with significant ethical challenges, which are still largely unaddressed because of proprietary constraints and regulatory gaps that limit the effects of standard approaches to explainability and transparency. In this context, I address the ethical and social implications of automated recommendations by proposing a pro-ethical design framework aimed at reorienting the influence of RSs towards societal interest. In particular, after highlighting the problem of explanation for RSs, I discuss the application of beneficent informational nudging to the case of conversational recommender systems (CRSs), which rely on user-system dialogic interactions. Subsequently, through a comparison with standard recommendations, I outline the incentives for platforms and providers in adopting this approach and its benefits for both individual users and society. (shrink)

Judicial activism is a contested phenomenon, with the liberals and even the conservatives championing it while denouncing its particular manifestations. In this article, I examine the recent judicial practice of one of the most activist judiciaries in the world, that of India, where progressive politics is often, and sometimes always, associated with an activist and benign court. Indeed, the Indian Supreme Court has a global reputation as a torchbearer on human rights. In this article, I adopt a social movement perspective (...) to understand the actual impact of the court on the struggles of the poor for livelihood, resources, values, and identity, enacted through struggles for the recognition and realization of economic, social, and cultural rights. After an analysis of the record of the Supreme Court of India, I conclude that the Court has increasingly shown a bias against the poor in its activist rulings and made judicial activism a more problematic device for social movements in India to rely upon. To explain why this is happening, the article introduces two ideas: first, the emergence of the judiciary as an organ of governance and its attendant problems, and second, the internally biased nature of the rights discourse which tends to reproduce binary arguments for either increasing State capacity or for increasing choice of goods in the marketplace. The article concludes by exploring lessons from the jurisprudence of other countries and international law and urges the Indian Supreme Court to reinvent a jurisprudence informed more by the social movements of the poor. (shrink)

In Japan, although various arguments exist regarding the appropriateness of the death penalty, nationwide public opinion polls regarding the death penalty revealed that 85.6% of respondents supported maintaining the death penalty in 2009. Under these circumstances, it is worthwhile to deliberate the ethical and social issues surrounding the death penalty as depicted in Japanese films from medical humanities perspectives. In the present paper, we discuss two recent films concerning the death penalty, 13 kaidan directed by Masahiro Nagasawa, 2005 and Kyuka (...) directed by Hajime Kadoi, 2007. The two films describe the impact of execution on the executioners, secrecy of executions, rehearsal of the execution, and voluntary participation in execution. They depict the current situation surrounding the death penalty and execution, as well as everyday life on death row, in detail. Serious concerns about current execution procedures were also described. The two films seem to try to tell the audience that there is something strange in killing people in perfect order with good will in the name of law and justice. They show the officer‘s instinctive aversion provoked by the execution and make us think about what it means to kill a human. (shrink)