Moral philosophy's moral risk

The growth of various forms of e-business, from Internet sales and marketing to online financial processing, has been exponential in recent years. It is no exaggeration to say that nearly all forms of business involve elements of e-business today. Internet technologies provide businesses with the potential to more effectively research, market and distribute products and services, to more efficiently manage operations, and to better facilitate the processing of business transactions. However, e-business activities can raise ethical issues, as the new forms of technology and business practices utilized in e-business have the potential to pose significant moral risk as well. As such, both scholars and business persons have a responsibility to be aware of the ethical implications of e-business and to endeavor to promote ethically appropriate forms of e-business. The aim of this chapter is to aid in those enterprises by mapping out some of the major ethical issues connected to e-business. In doing so, this chapter seeks both to serve as a general introduction to this volume and to provide a conceptual framework for understanding and responding to many of the ethical issues found in e-business.

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Moral Risk

A Wild West of the Mind ◽

10.1093/oso/9780197564677.003.0003 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 31-49

Author(s):

George Sher

Keyword(s):

Physical Damage ◽

Ex Ante ◽

Moral Risk ◽

Hurt Feelings ◽

Line P

This chapter examines the connections between thought and harm from an ex ante perspective. It asks whether the antecedent risk that a given belief, attitude, or fantasy will have a harmful impact on another is ever high enough to render that thought impermissible. The kinds of harms that are discussed include the frustration of others’ private desires, the infliction of offense and hurt feelings, and various forms of economic and physical damage. The chapter’s conclusion is that while the risks that are posed by some thoughts approach the permissibility threshold, none actually crosses the line.

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Self-Cultivation and Self-Absorption

Neither Heroes nor Saints ◽

10.1093/oso/9780197508459.003.0007 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 146-171

Author(s):

Rebecca Stangl

Keyword(s):

The Self ◽

Plausible Account ◽

Virtuous Agent ◽

Moral Risk

This chapter argues that self-cultivation, as a virtue, can be successfully distinguished from a morally problematic kind of self-absorption. Indeed, we need such a virtue in order to explain just those situations in which agents really should think about their own character, and not merely the goods that the traditional virtues are directed toward, when deciding what particular actions to undertake. In particular, we need such a virtue to give a plausible account of how an imperfectly virtuous agent should act when confronted with what I shall call a situation of moral risk. But while imperfectly virtuous agents confronting such a situation should think about their own character, that is not all they should think about. Introducing concerns about the character of the self at the level of explicit deliberation as the target of one virtue among others rightly captures this fact.

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