Kopy Luwak: a conservation strategy for global market

Subject area – Niche products and environmental ethics. Study level/applicability – The case is suitable for undergraduate students who have some understanding of competitive advantage in emerging economies, of niche products, the resource-based perspective and environmental ethics. Case overview – The case concerns the Indonesian coffee industry, specifically the production of Kopi Luwak, a coffee that involves a type of local wild animal as an essential part of the process. The case outlines a typical problem for a new leader who has to start his tenure with a creditable performance. The company is a resource-based one that has to manage a potential risk of violating environmental ethics. Expected learning outcomes – The case reveals the value of the international value chain for a cup of coffee. Through investigating the intersection between business feasibility and conservation issues, students should be able to understand what are appropriate business opportunities with environmental ethics considerations

Rational a priori or Emotional a priori? Husserl and Scheler’s Criticisms of Kant Regarding the Foundation of Ethics

Based on the dispute between Protagoras and Socrates on the origin of ethics, one can ask the question of whether the principle of ethics is reason orfeeling/emotion, or whether ethics is grounded on reason or feeling/emotion. The development of Kant’s thoughts on ethics shows the tension between reason and feeling/emotion. In Kant’s final critical ethics, he held to a principle of “rational a priori.” On the one hand, this is presented as the rational a priori principle being the binding principle of judgment. On the other hand, it is presented as the doctrine of “rational fact” as the ultimate argument of his ethics. Husserl believed that Kant’s doctrine of a rational a priori totally disregarded the a priori essential laws of feeling. Like Husserl, Scheler criticized Kant’s doctrine of a rational a priori, and therefore developed his own theory of an “emotional a priori”. Both of them focused their critiques on the grounding level of ethics. Scheler, however, did not follow Husserl all the way, but criticized him and reflected on his thoughts. At last, he revealed the primary status of a phenomenological material ethics of value

Kant and Consequentialism (Reflections on Cummiskey’s Kantian Consequentialism)

In his article, the author considers possible forms of relationship between Kant’s ethics and consequentialism. In this context, he analyses David Cummiskey’s views which are expressed in his book, Kantian Consequentialism (1996). He demonstrates the possibility of justifying the consequentialism on the basis of Kant’s ethics and its values. Likewise, several other authors (such as Scott Forschler, Philipp Stratton-Lake, Michael Ridge) are of the opinion of the possible compatibility of Kant’s ethics and consequentialism. On the other hand, however, Christine M. Korsgaard is an example of a strict rejection of the similarity between Kant and the consequentialist ethics. The author based on the ethics of social consequences as a form of non-utilitarian consequentialism claims (like Cummiskey), that there are similarities between Kant’s ethics and consequentialism. Unlike Cummiskey, however, he sees similarity in the Kant’s formula of humanity and the understanding of humanity in ethics of social consequences, especially in the form of additional moral value

Naturalizing ethics

In this essay we provide (1) an argument for why ethics should be naturalized, (2) an analysis of why it is not yet naturalized, (3) a defense of ethical naturalism against two fallacies—Hume’s and Moore’s—that ethical naturalism allegedly commits, and (4) a proposal that normative ethics is best conceived as part of human ecology committed to pluralistic relativism. We explain why naturalizing ethics both entails relativism and also constrains it, and why nihilism about value is not an especially worrisome for ethical naturalists. The substantive view we put forth constitutes the essence of Duke Naturalism

HREC members\u27 personal values influence decision making in contentious cases

This article identifies 14 contentious issues faced by Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs). The authors argue that HREC members will respond variably to these issues based on their own fundamental values and worldview. In particular, we propose that personal interpretations of current ethics regulations and HREC members’ attitudes to consequentialism, Kantianism, and utilitarianism in some cases affect their responses to contentious research issues. We seek to promote understanding of how personal and professional back­grounds of HREC reviewers influence their approaches to value-laden issues embedded in ethics applications. Taking the form of a literature review, our con­tribution highlights the need for further exploration of how HREC members make decisions, and what factors influence the outcomes of ethics applications

Population Ethics and the Value of Life

Public policies often involve choices of alternatives in which the size and the composition of the population may vary. Examples are the allocation of resources to prenatal care and the design of aid packages to developing countries. In order to assess the corresponding feasible choices on normative grounds, criteria for social evaluation that are capable of performing variable-population comparisons are required. We review several important axioms for welfarist population principles and discuss the link between individual well-being and the desirability of adding a new person to a given society.population ethics, neutrality, critical levels

CORPORATE ETHICAL IDENTITY AS DETERMINANT OF FIRM PERFORMANCE: A TEST OF THE MEDIATING ROLE OF STAKEHOLDER SATISFACTION

In this article, we empirically assess the impact of the Corporate Ethical Identity (CEI) on the firm’s financial performance. Drawing on formulation of both normative and instrumental stakeholder theory, we argue that firms with a strong ethical identity achieve greater degree of stakeholder satisfaction, which in turn, positively influence the firms’ financial performance. We further analyze two different dimensions of the CEI of firms: corporate revealed ethics and corporate applied ethics. Our results indicate that while revealed ethics has informational worth and enhance shareholder value, applied ethics has a positive impact through the improvement of stakeholder satisfaction. However, revealed ethics by itself (i.e. decoupled from ethical initiatives) is not sufficient to boost economic performance.

Naturalizing ethics

In this essay we provide (1) an argument for why ethics should be naturalized, (2) an analysis of why it is not yet naturalized, (3) a defense of ethical naturalism against two fallacies—Hume’s and Moore’s—that ethical naturalism allegedly commits, and (4) a proposal that normative ethics is best conceived as part of human ecology committed to pluralistic relativism. We explain why naturalizing ethics both entails relativism and also constrains it, and why nihilism about value is not an especially worrisome for ethical naturalists. The substantive view we put forth constitutes the essence of Duke Naturalism. (NOTE: This is a slightly modified reprint of Flangan et al 2007 of the same title.

Towards an Ethics of Distance: Representation, Free Production and Virtuality

This article takes it inspiration from a crisis between Deleuzian free production and representation in contemporary virtual and digital culture. The aim is to sketch a different ethics to the ethics of difference between free production and representation as described by Deleuze and Guattari and invoked by Michel Foucault in his preface to Anti-Oedipe. This article outlines the case for an ethical relationality between these two structures which reflects the socio-political and ethical exigencies of our virtual and digital cultures: specifically, an ethics of relationality derived paradoxically from the distance inscribed in ethical philosophy. Drawing on an amalgamation of Ricoeurean ethics and social constructionism in a definition of selfhood, I argue for the need to stand back from the distanciating effects of the virtual revolution – not with a view to approximating the cultural politics of specificity in the logic of representation – but to see in the gap in "distance from" specificity, a space of ethical and philosophical agency wherein lies the value-added of otherness