Radical moral encroachment: The moral stakes of racist beliefs

Historical patterns of discrimination seem to present us with conflicts between what morality requires and what we epistemically ought to believe. I will argue that these cases lend support to the following nagging suspicion: that the epistemic standards governing belief are not independent of moral considerations. We can resolve these seeming conflicts by adopting a framework wherein standards of evidence for our beliefs to count as justified can shift according to the moral stakes. On this account, believing a paradigmatically racist belief reflects a failure to not only attend to the epistemic risk of being wrong, but also a failure to attend to the distinctively moral risk of wronging others given what we believe

The exercise of moral imagination in stigmatized work groups.

This study introduces the concept of moral imagination in a work context to provide an ethical approach to the controversial relationships between dirty work and dirty workers. Moral imagination is assessed as an essential faculty to overcome the stigma associated with dirty work and facilitate the daily work lives of workers. The exercise of moral imagination helps dirty workers to face the moral conflicts inherent in their tasks and to build a personal stance toward their occupation. Finally, we argue that organizations with dirty work groups should actively adopt measures to encourage their employees’ exercise of moral imagination. This study investigates how organizations might create conditions that inspire moral imagination, particularly with regard to the importance of organizational culture as a means to enhance workers’ moral sensitivity. Furthermore, this investigation analyzes different company practices that may derive from a culture committed to moral imagination.Moral imagination; Dirty work; Moral conflicts; Stigma; Work groups;

Rights, Duties, and Moral Conflicts

In this paper I would like to make a contribution to the debate on rights-talk and duties-talk relationship and priority by addressing the problem from a peculiar angle: that of moral conflicts and dilemma. My working hypothesis is that it should be possible to identify some basic and relevant normative features of rights-talk and duties-talk by observing how they modify the description of moral conflicts. I will try to show that both rights and duties posses original and irreducible normative features, and that these latter can be employed in a general assessment of their pro and con. I will first show the conceptual relationship between rights and duties, analyzing in the process a deflationary argument for rights. Second, I will define the general features of moral conflict and dilemma. I will then analyze the different readings that can be given, taking rights or duties as standpoints, of two kinds of moral conflicts: «asymmetric» and «symmetric» conflicts

Corporate governance, moral hazard and conflict of interest in Italian universal banking, 1914-1933

Universal banking is widely held to enjoy comparative advantages in corporate finance. Recent theories of financial intermediation argue that 'insider systems' are better suited to effectively deal with long-term growth and moral hazard problems. However, little attention (if any) is usually paid to corporate governance problems that are specific to universal banking. How can banks' ownership structure and agency problems influence their ability to address longterm growth and moral hazard problems? Under which institutional arrangements, incentives and constraints can universal banking effectively realize its potential? The paper looks at such issues through the experience of interwar Italy. The evolution of universal banking in the 1920s emerges as heavily exposed to potentially serious problems of moral hazard and conflicts of interest, due to inefficient corporate governance, lack of external controls and a moral-hazard-enhancing institutional set-up. These factors may distort bank managers' incentives, affect strategic trade-offs and lead to unsound banking. The findings are consistent with that part of corporate governance literature which points to the potential for moral hazard and conflicts of interest inherent to universal banking and emphasise the conditional and historically-specific nature of its alleged benefits

Moral disengagement and the motivational gap in climate change

Although climate change jeopardizes the fundamental human rights of current as well as future people, current actions and ambitions to tackle it are inadequate. There are two prominent explanations for this motivational gap in the climate ethics literature. The first maintains that our conventional moral judgement system is not well equipped to identify a complex problem such as climate change as an important moral problem. The second explanation refers to people’s reluctance to change their behaviour and the temptation to shirk responsibility. We argue that both factors are at play in the motivational gap and that they are complemented by crucial moral psychological insights regarding moral disengagement, which enables emitters to dissociate self-condemnation from harmful conduct. In this way, emitters are able to maintain their profligate, consumptive lifestyle, even though this conflicts with their moral standards with respect to climate change. We provide some illustrations of how strategies of moral disengagement are deployed in climate change and discuss the relationship between the explanations for the motivational gap and moral disengagement. On the basis of this explanatory framework, we submit that there are three pathways to tackle the motivational gap and moral disengagement in climate change: making climate change more salient to emitters and affirming their self-efficacy; reconsidering the self-interested motives that necessitate moral disengagement; and tackling moral disengagement directly

Moral decision-making in real life: <br /> factors affecting moral orientation and behaviour justification

The study addresses two separate but related issues in connection with people"s real-life moral decisions and judgements. First, the notion of moral orientation is examined in terms of its consistency across varying contexts, its relation to gender and to gender role. Secondly, a new aspect of moral reasoning is explored—the influence on moral decision-making of considering the consequences of an action. Fifty-eight undergraduate students were asked to discuss two personal and two impersonal real-life moral dilemmas. The results reveal a significant interaction between gender role and type of dilemma. However, moral orientation was not consistent across various dilemmas and gender was not related to any particular orientation. Also the results indicate a significant difference between the reasoning of consequences of personal-antisocial conflicts and impersonal-antisocial conflicts. These findings suggest that different moral orientations may be embedded in life experience and connect with an individual"s sense of his or her moral identity in real-life situations

MORAL CONFLICTS OF ORGAN DONATION IN NICK CASSAVETES’ MY SISTER’S KEEPER MOVIE (2009): A PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH

This study investigates moral conflicts of organ donation reflected in My Sister’s Keeper movie viewed from psychological approach. This research is aimed to analyze moral conflicts of organ donation viewed in terms of moral based on psychoanalytic perspective and analyze the movie based on its structural elements. In achieving the objectives, the researcher uses descriptive qualitative method as the type of the research. The object of this study is My Sister’s Keeper movie by Nick Cassavetes. The data sources are the primary data and secondary data. The primary data is the movie itself and the secondary data are the other data which have relationship with the study, such as some biography of the author, the articles from internet, the books and other relevant information. In collecting the data, the researcher uses library research and documentation method, and the technique of the data analysis is descriptive analysis. This research consists of two conclusions. Firstly, based on the structural analysis, it is apparent that in this movie, Nick Cassavetes conveys a moral message that human body is something borrowed, but the owner also has the right to keep and maintain the integrity of their organs in order to survive. Secondly, based on the psychoanalytic analysis, it is evident that in this movie, the director illustrates a psychological phenomenon of moral conflicts because of the different perspectives

Sharing aggregate risks under moral hazard

This paper analyzes the efficient design of insurance schemes in the presence of aggregate shocks and moral hazard. The population is divided into groups, the labour force in different sectors for instance. In each group, individuals are ex ante identical but are subject to idiosyncratic shocks. Without moral hazard, optimality requires (1) full insurance against idiosyncratic shocks, which gives rise to a representative agent for each group and (2) optimal sharing of macro-economic risks between these representative agents. The paper investigates what remains of this analysis when the presence of moral hazard conflicts with the full insurance of idiosyncratic shocks. In particular, how is the sharing of macro-economic risks across groups affected by the partial insurance against idiosyncratic risks? The design of unemployment insurance schemes in different economic sectors, and the design of pension annuities in an unfunded social security system are two potential applications.moral hazard ; insurance ; mutuality principle ; macro-economic risk

Moral Distress in Critical Care Nursing: The State of the Science

Background: Moral distress is a complex phenomenon frequently experienced by critical care nurses. Ethical conflicts in this practice area are related to technological advancement, high intensity work environments, and end-of-life decisions. Objectives: An exploration of contemporary moral distress literature was undertaken to determine measurement, contributing factors, impact, and interventions. Review Methods: This state of the science review focused on moral distress research in critical care nursing from 2009 to 2015, and included 12 qualitative, 24 quantitative, and 6 mixed methods studies. Results: Synthesis of the scientific literature revealed inconsistencies in measurement, conflicting findings of moral distress and nurse demographics, problems with the professional practice environment, difficulties with communication during end-of-life decisions, compromised nursing care as a consequence of moral distress, and few effective interventions. Conclusion: Providing compassionate care is a professional nursing value and an inability to meet this goal due to moral distress may have devastating effects on care quality. Further study of patient and family outcomes related to nurse moral distress is recommended