Universalism and Utilitarianism: An Evaluation of Two Popular Moral Theories in Business Decision Making

Moral theories remain a topic of interest, not just to moral philosophers, but increasingly in business circles as well, thanks to a tainted reputation that urges more awareness in this regard. Based on the expressed preferences of 163 undergraduate and graduate students of business ethics, this article briefly examines the two most popular theories, Universalism (Kantian) and Utilitarianism (consequentialist), and presents a SWOT analysis of both. Some of the strengths and weaknesses that will be discussed for Universalism are consistency, intension basis, and universalizability, while some of the discussed strengths and weaknesses for Utilitarianism are flexibility, outcome-basis, and lack of consistency. Subsequently, some common factors and discrepancies between the two theories will be discussed. In the conclusive section, some suggestions and recommendations are presented

An app for personal searches:more-private, non-volatile searches with stigmergic inspiration

Web searching has long become a ubiquitous behavior amongst Internet users. Much has been changing: odds are that the thousands of results of yesterday have become millions of results today, but did that significant jump in quantity translate to an increase in the perceived results' quality and their applications? Some users might feel personalization efforts as stereotypification or even as inaccurate biases; they may also beware that every click on every search result may reinforce and contribute to (in)accurate representation of them - and would prefer searching without tracking. "Personal Searcher" is a work-in-progress app that makes it possible to search more anonymously. It also makes it possible to keep a private local-only history of one's searches and build personal ranking systems based on that history and other data. The goal is to benefit from local offline personalization, but search online as anonymously as possible.N/

Stigmergic hyperlink's contributes to web search

Stigmergic hyperlinks are hyperlinks with a "heart beat": if used they stay healthy and online; if neglected, they fade, eventually getting replaced. Their life attribute is a relative usage measure that regular hyperlinks do not provide, hence PageRank-like measures have historically been well informed about the structure of webs of documents, but unaware of what users effectively do with the links. This paper elaborates on how to input the users’ perspective into Google’s original, structure centric, PageRank metric. The discussion then bridges to the Deep Web, some search challenges, and how stigmergic hyperlinks could help decentralize the search experience, facilitating user generated search solutions and supporting new related business models.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

"Beasts in human form": How dangerous speech harms

Recent years have seen an upsurge of inflammatory speech around the world. Understanding the mechanisms that correlate speech with violence is a necessary step to explore the most effective forms of counterspeech. This paper starts with a review of the features of dangerous speech and ideology, as formulated by Jonathan Maynard and Susan Benesch. It then offers a conceptual framework to analyze some of the underlying linguistic mechanisms at play: derogatory language, code words, figleaves, and meaning perversions. It gives a hypothesis for assessing the moral responsibility of interlocutors in dangerous speech situations. The last section applies this framework to a case of demagogic discourse. The framework offered explains how public discourse has harmed social relations and institutions, and is an obstacle to rational resolutions to the political situation

On the evolution of hyperlinking

Across time, the hyperlink object has supported different applications and studies. This is one perspective on the evolution of the hyperlinking concept, its context and related behaviors. Through a spectrum of hyperlinking applications and practices, the article contrasts the status quo with its related, broader, conceptual roots; it also bridges to some theorized and prototyped hyperlink variations, namely "stigmergic hyperlinks", to make the case that the ubiquitousness of some objects and certain usage patterns can obfuscate opportunities to (re)think them. In trying to contribute an answer to "what has the common hyperlink (such an apparently simple object) done to society, and what has society done to it?", the article identifies situations that have become so embedded in the daily routine, that it is now hard to think of hyperlinking alternatives.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Amelioration vs. Perversion

Words change meaning, usually in unpredictable ways. But some words’ meanings are revised intentionally. Revisionary projects are normally put forward in the service of some purpose – some serve specific goals of inquiry, and others serve ethical, political or social aims. Revisionist projects can ameliorate meanings, but they can also pervert. In this paper, I want to draw attention to the dangers of meaning perversions, and argue that the self-declared goodness of a revisionist project doesn’t suffice to avoid meaning perversions. The road to Hell, or to horrors on Earth, is paved with good intentions. Finally and more importantly, I want to demarcate what meaning perversions are. This, I hope, can help us assess the moral and political legitimacy of revisionary projects