The Language of International Corporate Ethics

1992 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Donaldson

This paper identifies six basic languages of morals and shows that while in general it is impossible to say that one moral language is better, some languages are better for the purpose of characterizing international corporate responsibility. In particular, moral languages that imly minimum rather than perfectionist standards of behavior, and which are not overly dependent on analogy with human moral psychology, are better than ones ranging broadly over both minimum and maximum standards and requiring analogy to human beings. Languages based in rights and duties, avoidance of harm, and social contracts, are better for understanding international corporate ethics than ones based in virtues, self control, or the maximization of human happiness.

1993 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daryl Koehn

In "The language of International Corporate Ethics," Tom Donaldson largues that ethical languages focusing on avoidance of harm to human beings; on rights/duties: and on rules spelled out in a social contract are better for characterizing international corporate responsibility than languages promoting virtue; the mastering of the self; or the maximization of human welfare. While some of what Donaldson says about the strengths and weaknesses of individual theories is quite plausible and relatively noncontroversial, Donaldson does not, in my judgment, establish that the three theories he favors are indeed better equipped to cope with problems of corporate responsibility than the three he dismisses. I will focus upon four major problems with his analysis.


KUTTAB ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-112
Author(s):  
Rokim Rokim

As human beings God have given them the potential of emotion to do bad or good things. Totally eliminating emotion is also not good. Whereas on account of the emotion ones are eager to eat when they are hungry, they are sad, happy, have a sense of love and so on. So the most important thing is controlling and directing the emotion so that it becomes a guide toward good things. Fasting on Mondays and Thursdays  as part of refraining from any action contrary to the religious teachings will bring self-control, honesty, social awareness, the meaningfulness of life not do things that deviate from the teachings of Islam. Fasting could have a positive impact on a person's religiosity, but not all fasting could increase spiritual intelligence. Only fasting that is done with pure heart and soul will foster spiritual intelligence. Fasting that is done by involving conscience is the true one for being able to become an important instrument to purify the heart and soul. Fasting on Mondays and Thursdays will be able to improve the emotional and spiritual intelligence.


Author(s):  
T.J. Kasperbauer

This chapter applies the psychological account from chapter 3 on how we rank human beings above other animals, to the particular case of using mental states to assign animals moral status. Experiments on the psychology of mental state attribution are discussed, focusing on their implications for human moral psychology. The chapter argues that attributions of phenomenal states, like emotions, drive our assignments of moral status. It also describes how this is significantly impacted by the process of dehumanization. Psychological research on anthropocentrism and using animals as food and as companions is discussed in order to illuminate the relationship between dehumanization and mental state attribution.


Author(s):  
T.J. Kasperbauer

This chapter discusses why people often fail to meet their moral goals and identifies the main obstacles in achieving moral change. It shows how psychological processes specific to animals, as outlined in chapters 2–4, interact with broader components of moral psychology. Three main moral psychological factors are discussed: emotions, situational conditions, and self-control. These factors are used to illustrate the frequent failure of reason and higher-level cognition to modify our moral responses, including our treatment of animals. The discussion draws from a wide range of research within empirical moral psychology as well as recent critical discussion of this research among philosophers.


Author(s):  
Eleonore Stump

The doctrine that Christ has saved human beings from their sins, with all that that salvation entails, is the distinctive doctrine of Christianity. Over the course of many centuries of reflection on the doctrine, highly diverse understandings have been proposed, many of which have also raised strong positive or negative emotions in those who have reflected on them. In this book, in the context of this history of interpretation, Eleonore Stump considers this theological doctrine with philosophical care. The central question of the book is the nature of the atonement. That is, what is it that is accomplished by the passion and death of Christ (or the life, passion, and death, of Christ)? Whatever exactly it is, it is supposed to include a solution to the problem of the post-Fall human condition, with its guilt and shame. This volume canvasses major interpretations of the doctrine of the atonement that attempt to explain this solution, and it argues that all of them have serious shortcomings. In their place, Stump employs an extension of a Thomistic account of love and forgiveness to argue for a relatively novel interpretation of the doctrine, which she calls ‘the Marian interpretation.’ Stump argues that this Marian interpretation makes better sense of the doctrine of the atonement than other interpretations do, including Anselm’s well-known theory. In the process of constructing the Marian interpretation, she also discusses love, union, guilt, shame, forgiveness, retribution, punishment, shared attention, mind-reading, empathy, and various other issues in moral psychology and ethics.


2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 711-723 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Schudt

Abstract:Corporations are often considered as moral agents. Traditional ethical systems are directed toward human beings—how could human rules be expected to apply to corporations? In this paper an alternative system of ethics is proposed, tailored specifically for the corporate entity. I use the method of Aristotle, in which the character traits (virtues) that are conducive to the goal of human activity, happiness, are derived. For corporations, the goal is taken to be the traditional capitalist one of sustainable profit, and corresponding corporate virtues are derived. I argue that corporate virtues such as Efficient Production, Resource Management, Correct Pricing, and Right Relationship will be beneficial to human beings. It is profitable to consider the interests of human beings, because the corporation will avoid a costly war of offense and retaliation. A corporate ethics is developed that protects humans and has motivating force not based on human nature, but rather profit.


Author(s):  
Brad Inwood

Ethics is the part of the Stoics’ legacy that is most prominent and influential today. Their theory of the good life for human beings falls into the family of theories associated with Socrates and his followers. This tradition includes Plato and most Platonists, Xenophon, the Cynics, Aristotle, and later Aristotelians, all of whom share the view that virtue, the excellence of a human being, is the highest value and is its own reward. ‘Ethics’ discusses the Stoics’ views on human nature and rationality; the four basic virtues: justice, courage, wisdom, and moderation or self-control; and the doctrine that the fully rational and wise person will be free of passions.


Author(s):  
Michael Slote

Moral psychology as a discipline is centrally concerned with psychological issues that arise in connection with the moral evaluation of actions. It deals with the psychological presuppositions of valid morality, that is, with assumptions it seems necessary for us to make in order for there to be such a thing as objective or binding moral requirements: for example, if we lack free will or are all incapable of unselfishness, then it is not clear how morality can really apply to human beings. Moral psychology also deals with what one might call the psychological accompaniments of actual right, or wrong, action, for example, with questions about the nature and possibility of moral weakness or self-deception, and with questions about the kinds of motives that ought to motivate moral agents. Moreover, in the approach to ethics known as ‘virtue ethics’ questions about right and wrong action merge with questions about the motives, dispositions, and abilities of moral agents, and moral psychology plays a more central role than it does in other forms of ethical theory.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heyong Wang ◽  
Dehang Zeng

With the development of computer science and information science, text classification technology has been greatly developed and its application scenarios have been widened. In traditional process of text classification, the existing method will lose much logical relationship information of text. The logical relationship information of a text refers to the relationship information among different logical parts of the text, such as title, abstract, and body. When human beings are reading, they will take title as an important part to remind the central idea of the article, abstract as a brief summary of the content of the article, and body as a detailed description of the article. In most of the text classification studies, researchers concern more about the relationship among words (word frequency, semantics, etc.) and neglect the logical relationship information of text. It will lose information about the relationship among different parts (title, body, etc.) and have an influence on the performance of text classification. Therefore, we propose a text classification algorithm—fusing the logical relationship information of text in neural network (FLRIOTINN), which complements the logical relationship information into text classification algorithms. Experiments show that the effect of FLRIOTINN is better than the conventional backpropagation neural networks which does not consider the logical relationship information of text.


2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Patricia L. Vesely

Abstract In this article, I argue that Job 29 provides an eudaimonic depiction of human happiness whereby virtue, combined with a number of “external goods” is held up as the best possible life for human beings. I compare Job’s vision of the “good life” with an Aristotelian conception of εὐδαιμονία and conclude that there are numerous parallels between Job and Aristotle with respect to their understanding of the “good life.” While the intimate presence of God distinguishes Job’s expectation of happiness with that of Aristotle, Job is unique among other eudaimonic texts in the Hebrew Bible in that expectations of living well are expressed in terms of virtue, rather than Torah piety. In the second portion of the article, I assess Job’s conception of human flourishing from the perspective of the divine speeches, which enlarge Job’s vision of the “good life” by bringing Job face-to-face with the “wild inhabitants” of the cosmos.


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