Topic
Value (ethics)
About: Value (ethics) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 21347 publications have been published within this topic receiving 461372 citations.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that social entrepreneurship can be assessed in terms of consumer surplus and producer surplus, where consumer surplus is comprised of financial, reputational, and ethical "residuals" while producer surplus derives both from potentially positive impacts on the transparency and effectiveness of governance and from direct action to address inequities.
Abstract: Does social entrepreneurship matter? A strong consensus is emerging that this question has an obvious answer. The disagreement comes over whether that answer is "yes" or "no." With reference to three cases (the Tata Group, the Aravind Eye Hospital, and Ben & Jerry's), I argue in this paper that entrepreneurs of various types create both private and social value. Private value can be assessed in terms of conventionally defined consumer surplus and producer surplus, where producer surplus is comprised of financial, reputational, and ethical "residuals." Social value derives both from potentially positive impacts on the transparency and effectiveness of governance, and from direct action to address inequities. The potential impact of social entrepreneurship, and its relevance in the context of global challenges, is enhanced by global trends toward networked production and service delivery.
100 citations
Book•
30 Nov 2000
TL;DR: The animal rights debate is also a divisive, enduring topic in normative ethical theory as discussed by the authors, and Regan, universally recognized as the intellectual leader of the animal rights movement, presents a historically important, multifaceted discussion of some responses to the question, "Do animals have rights?" More than a contest of wills representing professional and economic interests, the argument over animal rights has been a divisive and enduring topic.
Abstract: Tom Regan, universally recognized as the intellectual leader of the animal rights movement, presents a historically important, multifaceted discussion of some responses to the question, "Do animals have rights?" More than a contest of wills representing professional and economic interests, the animal rights debate is also a divisive, enduring topic in normative ethical theory. Addressing key issues in this sometimes acrimonious debate, Regan responds thoughtfully to his critics while dismantling the conception that "all and only" human beings are worthy of the moral status that is the basis of rights. In a set of essays that reflects his thinking on animal and human rights over the past decade, Regan sketches the philosophical positions espoused by those who want to abolish animal exploitation, reform it to minimize suffering, or maintain the status quo. He considers the moral grounds for limiting human freedom when it comes to human interactions with nonhuman animals. He puts the issue of animal rights in historical context, drawing parallels between animal rights activism and other social movements, including the antislavery movement in the nineteenth century and the gay-lesbian struggle today. He also outlines the challenges to animal rights posed by deep ecology and ecofeminism to using animals for human purposes and addresses the ethical dilemma of the animal rights advocate whose employer uses animals for research. Systematically unraveling claims that human beings are rational and therefore entitled to superior moral status, Regan defends the inherent value of all individuals who are "subjects of a life" and decries the speciesism that pretends to separate human from nonhuman animals. Independent of any benefits humans might derive from exploiting animals, Regan shows how, on a philosophical level, there is no sustainable defense for separating human and nonhuman animals as beings of absolute, as opposed to instrumental, value.
100 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss scavenging and dumping as alternative approaches to deriving value from rubbish at a large Michigan landfill and examine the different ways in which people become invested in the politics of value at the landfill, whether as part of expressions of gender and class or for personal enjoyment.
Abstract: This article discusses scavenging and dumping as alternative approaches to deriving value from rubbish at a large Michigan landfill. Both practices are attuned to the indeterminacy and power of abandoned things, but in different ways. Whereas scavenging relies on acquiring familiarity with an object by getting to know its particular qualities, landfilling and other forms of mass disposal make discards fungible and manipulable by stripping them of their former identities. By way of examining the different ways in which people become invested in the politics of value at the landfill, whether as part of expressions of gender and class or for personal enjoyment, different comportments toward materiality are revealed to have underlying social and moral implications. In particular, it is argued that different approaches to the evaluation of rubbish involve competing understandings of human and material potential.
100 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a multivariate model of political tolerance is estimated that demonstrates modern versus traditional values contribute most to variation in tolerant attitudes, followed by education, and the explanation of indirect effects of education on tolerance through its direct impact on values receives empirical support.
Abstract: Extensive research on political tolerance identifies numerous social, psychological, and political sources of attitudes toward political dissenters. Much of this research underscores the salutary influence of education on greater acceptance of diversity, although some sophisticated work questions the strength of the linkage between education and tolerance. This study has two principal goals. First, it attempts to point to an alternative source of tolerance that has been given very little attention in the extant literature. Specifically, it argues that increases in political tolerance may be tied to the broad-based value shift allegedly sweeping through advanced industrial society. Second, research reported in this paper provides more evidence for the robustness of the education-tolerance relationship and offers one possible explanation for why this relationship exists. It suggests that one of the reasons higher education tends to be linked with greater tolerance is because it leads to individual value priorities that are conducive to greater openness to political diversity. A multivariate model of political tolerance is estimated that demonstrates modern versus traditional values contribute most to variation in tolerant attitudes, followed by education. The explanation of indirect effects of education on tolerance through its direct impact on values receives empirical support as well. The endeavor concludes by outlining some tentative predictions concerning the attainment of a more tolerant polity that would fare well when evaluated by the liberal democratic theory yardstick.
100 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a positive model of integrity that, as they distinguish and define integrity, provides powerful access to increased performance for individuals, groups, organizations, and societies.
Abstract: We present a positive model of integrity that, as we distinguish and define integrity, provides powerful access to increased performance for individuals, groups, organizations, and societies. Our model reveals the causal link between integrity and increased performance, quality of life, and value-creation for all entities, and provides access to that causal link. Integrity is thus a factor of production as important as knowledge and technology, yet its major role in productivity and performance has been largely hidden or unnoticed, or even ignored by economists and others.The philosophical discourse, and common usage as reflected in dictionary definitions, leave an overlap and confusion among the four phenomena of integrity, morality, ethics, and legality. This overlap and confusion confound the four phenomena so that the efficacy and potential power of each is seriously diminished. In this new model, we distinguish all four phenomena - integrity, morality, ethics, and legality - as existing within two separate realms. Integrity exists in a positive realm devoid of normative content. Integrity is thus not about good or bad, or right or wrong, or what should or should not be. Morality, ethics and legality exist in a normative realm of virtues (that is, they are about good and bad, right and wrong, or what should or should not be). Furthermore, within their respective realms, each of the four phenomena is distinguished as belonging to a distinct and separate domain, and the definition of each as a term is made clear, unambiguous, and non-overlapping.We distinguish the domain of integrity as the objective state or condition of an object, system, person, group, or organizational entity, and, consistent with the first two of the three definitions in Webster's dictionary, define integrity as a state or condition of being whole, complete, unbroken, unimpaired, sound, perfect condition.We assert that integrity (the condition of being whole and complete) is a necessary condition for workability, and that the resultant level of workability determines the available opportunity for performance. Hence, the way we treat integrity in our model provides an unambiguous and actionable access to the opportunity for superior performance, no matter how one defines performance.For an individual we distinguish integrity as a matter of that person's word being whole and complete. For a group or organizational entity we define integrity as that group's or organization's word being whole and complete. A group's or organization's word consists of what is said between the people in that group or organization, and what is said by or on behalf of the group or organization. In that context, we define integrity for an individual, group, or organization as: honoring one's word.Oversimplifying somewhat, honoring your word, as we define it, means you either keep your word, or as soon as you know that you will not, you say that you will not be keeping your word to those who were counting on your word and clean up any mess you caused by not keeping your word. By keeping your word we mean doing what you said you would do and by the time you said you would do it.Honoring your word is also the route to creating whole and complete social and working relationships. In addition, it provides an actionable pathway to earning the trust of others.We demonstrate that the application of cost-benefit analysis to honoring your word guarantees that you will be untrustworthy. And that, with one exception, you will not be a person of integrity, thereby reducing both the workability of your life and your opportunity for performance. The one exception to this form of being out of integrity is, if when giving your word you have announced that you will apply cost-benefit analysis to honoring your word. In this case you have maintained your integrity, but you have also announced that you are an unmitigated opportunist. The virtually automatic application of cost-benefit analysis to one's integrity (an inherent tendency in most of us) lies at the heart of much out-of-integrity and untrustworthy behavior in modern life.Regarding the relationship between integrity, and the three virtue phenomena of morality, ethics and legality, this new model: 1) encompasses all four terms in one consistent theory, 2) makes clear and unambiguous the moral compasses potentially available in each of the three virtue phenomena, and 3) by revealing the relationship between honoring the standards of the three virtue phenomena and performance (including being complete as a person and the quality of life), raises the likelihood that the now clear moral compasses can actually shape human behavior. This all falls out primarily from the unique treatment of integrity in our model as a purely positive phenomenon, independent of normative value judgments.In summary, we show that defining integrity as honoring one's word (as we have defined honoring one's word): 1) provides an unambiguous and actionable access to the opportunity for superior performance and competitive advantage at both the individual and organizational level, and 2) empowers the three virtue phenomena of morality, ethics and legality.--------Note: This document, while still incomplete, is the most detailed of our various pieces on Integrity. It is 124 pages.See the following papers for more details on our work on integrity:"Integrity: Without It Nothing Works" (5 pages) an interview of Michael Jensen by Karen Christensen on the topic of integrity available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1511274) A shorter abridged version of the full paper is: “Integrity: A Positive Model that Incorporates the Normative Phenomena of Morality, Ethics and Legality -- Abridged” (39 pages, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1542759)For a full one-day workshop on integrity see: “A New Model of Integrity: The Missing Factor Of Production (PDF file of Keynote and PowerPoint Slides)” (152 pages) available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1559827)
100 citations