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Displaying: 1-20 of 85 documents


1. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 10 > Issue: 5
Aaron Ancell

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The Radical Behavioral Challenge (RBC) contends that due to normal human cognitive biases, many standard prescriptions of business ethics run afoul of the principle that ‘ought implies can.’ Von Kriegstein responds to this challenge by arguing that those prescriptions are wide-scope obligations that can be fulfilled by recusing oneself or by establishing appropriate safeguards. I argue that this solution falls short of fully resolving the RBC because individuals will often be incapable of recognizing when they are biased and incapable of establishing appropriate safeguards.

2. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Tobey Scharding

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Scharding (2019) argues that Bitcoin is unethical on Fichte’s (2012/1800) view because its instability makes it unable to guarantee that users can afford what they need to live. She contrasts Bitcoin with currencies controlled by central authorities that can guarantee their stability. Allison (2021) objects that not all centrally controlled currencies are stable and not all non-centrally controlled currencies are unstable. I clarify that both stability and a means of securing stability (typically, a central authority) are necessary, but not sufficient, for a currency to be ethical.

3. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 10 > Issue: 3
Carson Young

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Abraham Singer defends the Market Failures Approach (MFA) to business ethics from the objection that the MFA cannot account for the moral value of disruptive innovation. Singer argues that critics who attack the MFA on these grounds face a dilemma: either accept the MFA, along with its general prohibition on disruptive innovation, or reject the very idea that business and market competition should be understood as rule-governed activities at all. This commentary argues that the dilemma Singer poses to MFA critics is a false one.

4. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 10 > Issue: 2
Huseyin S. Kuyumcuoglu

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Kates argues that ex ante contractualism fails to defend interference with sweatshops on moral grounds. In this commentary, I argue that Kates does not apply this approach correctly. Ex ante contractualism, indeed, successfully defends interference and thus should still be considered an appealing alternative to other moral approaches for evaluating when and how to interfere in sweatshop conditions to help workers.

5. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 10 > Issue: 1
Craig Reeves, Matthew Sinnicks

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Jaakko Nevasto has offered a number of thoughtful criticisms of our attempt to show that Adorno’s work can fruitfully be brought to bear on topics in business ethics. After welcoming his constructive clarifications, we attempt to defuse Nevasto’s main objections and defend our application of Adorno, focusing in particular on the topics of moral epistemology, needs, and the possibility of genuine activity – and thus good work – within capitalist society.

6. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 9 > Issue: 9
Anthony J. Evans

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Insider trading is widely reviled, and yet – as Smith and Block argue – it is consistent with the basic principles of a free market system. This article draws attention to an argument against insider trading that Smith and Block don’t address, namely the potential for sabotage. However, this issue still fails to justify insider-trading legislation, and thus ultimately supports Smith and Block’s view that regulatory attempts to prevent it are misplaced.

7. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 9 > Issue: 8
Andrew Allison

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Tobey Scharding claims that Bitcoin’s lack of a central regulator makes it open to price fluctuations. I argue that a currency not having a central regulator does not necessitate it being more volatile than centrally regulated currencies. First, I argue that Scharding’s reason for suggesting that Bitcoin is open to price fluctuations – its potential to face legal restrictions – is also faced by centrally regulated currencies. Second, I use silver in London as an example of a non-centrally regulated currency with relatively low price volatility when compared to other centrally regulated currencies showing that non-centrally regulated currencies are not necessarily more volatile.

8. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 9 > Issue: 7
Jaakko Nevasto

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Reeves and Sinnicks present Theodor Adorno as a philosopher with a sombre message to business ethics. Capitalist markets distort our needs and work in business organisations stultifies our moral capacities. Thus, the discipline's self-understanding must be revised, and supplemented with reflections on what would be good work: free creative activity. After raising some questions about their interpretation of Adorno's writings on human needs, I argue that the paper does not contain all the necessary resources to support its ferociously critical claims. Once such resources are made available, however, the appeal to a notion of good work is no longer viable.

9. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 9 > Issue: 6
Michael Kates

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Kuyumcuoglu argues that defenders of sweatshop regulations should reject consequentialism and accept an ex ante interpretation of contractualism instead. In this Commentary I show that Kuyumcuoglu’s argument doesn’t succeed. Defenders of sweatshops shouldn’t become ex ante contractualists because its advantages on this issue are more apparent than real.

10. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 9 > Issue: 5
David Silver

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This Commentary investigates ethical issues surrounding the US government’s attempt to partner with a private company to produce a new low-cost ventilator as part of its pandemic preparation plans. I argue that firms have distinct duties with respect to such public-private partnerships. In contrast to approaches that analyze these duties in terms of an “implicit morality” of the market, I analyze them in terms of democratically authorized plans regarding how to structure the market.

11. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 9 > Issue: 4
Mark S. Schwartz

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The author comments on two journal articles authored by his former PhD supervisor, Dr. Arthur Wesley Cragg.

12. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 9 > Issue: 3
Alexander P. Reese, Ingo Pies

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The Covid-19 pandemic reveals a new phenomenon, unaddressed by the existing literature on “price gouging” in times of emergency. While merchants – getting large(r) remuneration for providing desperately needed goods – evoke public moral outrage for assumed “price gouging”, employees – getting large(r) remuneration for providing desperately needed services – do not cause such outrage but rather experience moral appraisal for their valuable commitment. To address this inherent inconsistency of moral judgment, we propose to embrace insights from research on folk economics. By understanding the folk perception underlying public outrage at “price gougers,” business ethics might better enlighten the moral (il-)legitimacy of anti-“price gouging” measures.

13. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 9 > Issue: 2
Santiago Mejia

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Duties of beneficence are said to allow for leeway to discharge them. By distinguishing between two different types of leeway, Mejia (2020) identified three structurally different duties of beneficence. In this Commentary I deploy those distinctions to clarify the nature of a fourth type of duty of beneficence, one prompted by a global pandemic, a duty with a peculiar, and seldom recognized, conceptual logic. I provide some guidelines that should orient managers when they take themselves to be fulfilling such a duty on behalf of shareholders.

14. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 9 > Issue: 1
Kirk Mensch

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Herein, I clarify my concern regarding Raelin’s Leadership-as-Practice (L-AP) and argue that inconsistent moral philosophies undermine the veracity of leadership theory, especially more recent democratic, shared, collective, and practice oriented theories; that this problem seems to be proliferating in the social sciences, and that this is especially concerning in socio-psychologically oriented theories. I contend that the moral foundations of L-A-P remain philosophically disquieting, unless it is understood as excluding moral agents other than those of a genealogical tradition, and that such exclusionary consequences in practice may lead to moral disengagement, which might then lead to cognitive dissonance and even self-harm.

15. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 8 > Issue: 8
Alan Tomhave, Mark Vopat

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Jeremy Davis offered critical comments on our article that argued some boycotts are pro tanto morally wrong. We argued against organized boycotts over expressive acts where the actor is attempting to engage in the market place of ideas. Davis offered two versions of a direct objection to our position – one that boycotts are not attempts to silence and one that boycotts do not cause a chilling effect – and one objection based on reframing the goals of boycotts. In this Response, we argue that Davis’s direct objections are unsound and his reframing objection is consistent with our initial position.

16. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 8 > Issue: 7
Alan Strudler

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In this Response to Hasko von Kriegstein, I defend several claims, including that the publicly-traded corporation and its assets are unowned; that managers may stand in fiduciary relations to shareholders that do not require managers to maximize shareholder wealth; and that the rights of a shareholder and of the owner of a privately-held corporation may differ fundamentally.

17. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 8 > Issue: 6
Jennifer Forestal, Abraham Singer

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Johnson (2017) conceptualizes the social responsibilities of digital media platforms by describing two ethical approaches: one emphasizing the discursive freedom of platform-users, the other emphasizing protecting users from harmful posts. These competing concerns are on full display in the current debate over platforms’ obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic. While Johnson argues both approaches are grounded in democracy, we argue that democratic commitments transcend the freedom/harm dichotomy. Instead, a commitment to democracy points toward social media companies’ responsibilities to structure their platforms in ways that facilitate perspectival diversity and collective deliberation.

18. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 8 > Issue: 5
Joe Raelin

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Mensch and Barge in their interpretation of Alasdair MacIntyre’s critique of genealogical ethics as a basis of ethical weakness in the emerging field of “leadership-as-practice,” suggest that L-A-P is lacking in ethical grounding especially because of its relativist philosophy. I address this valid ethical concern in L-A-P theory by arguing that there is a form of realism in Nietzchean axiology and that the dialogic potentialities in material-social interactions may offer a greater capacity for ethical reflexivity than a reliance on rules.

19. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 8 > Issue: 4
Hasko von Kriegstein

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Strudler rejects shareholder primacy and argues that, once contractual obligations have been fulfilled and shareholders have received a reasonable return on investment, corporate executives may use corporate wealth for the general good. He seeks to establish this claim via an argument that, contrary to the received view, shareholders do not own corporations. After raising some questions about the latter argument, this commentary goes on to argue that the question of corporate ownership is a red herring. The argument for shareholder primacy that Strudler wants to reject does not rely on the premise that shareholders own the firm.

20. Business Ethics Journal Review: Volume > 8 > Issue: 3
Jeremy V. Davis

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Alan Tomhave and Mark Vopat have argued that organized boycotts against the expressive acts of companies and their leaders are pro tanto morally wrong because they constitute an attempt to silence voices in the marketplace of ideas. I argue that such boycotts are not best viewed as attempts to silence, but rather as a morally permissible form of withdrawal of support of certain expressive acts.