Ethics and Empowerment is a major contribution to the ongoing debate about the role of business in society. People expect more meaning and empowerment at work at a time when competitive pressures are seducing business into taking ethical short-cuts. How is this to be reconciled? Through a thorough examination of the issues of power, control and autonomy addressing such questions as empowerment being a matter of justice, through case-study based examinations of the organisational experiences of empowerment programmes and through looking at the ethics and empowerment debate from the wider perspective of business and social responsibility, this book seeks to make ethics more relevant and accessible to today's business world.
Ethics has long been burdened with a certain perplexity: Is self-interest or altruism the primary ethical imperative? When either perspective is blind to the legitimate interests of the other viewpoint, self-negating exceptions invariably emerge. Thus, philosophical arguments such as Ayn Rand's Objectivism or John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism, when applied to real issues, often become inadequate and dysfunctional. Ethical Empowerment: Virtue Beyond the Paradigms presents an ethical approach designed to encourage thinking from multiple perspectives that go beyond ideology and dogma. By so doing it develops an understanding of ethics and morality that transcends rigid or inapplicable rules by returning to the principle of universal love. The result is an ethical framework for unconventional ideas and research that challenges traditional beliefs that are vested in ideological, financial and political interests that--through various mechanisms, seek to maintain the status quo. The philosophical principles developed in this book make it possible to examine difficult moral conundrums and seemingly intractable social, economic and political issues from new perspectives. The limitations of classical ethics have never been more apparent than in today's dysfunctional world. Filled with controversial ideas, this is a book that is designed to engage the reader and spark healthy debate. Among the many issues that are discussed and critiqued--in light of the ethical theory developed, are the current monetary and economic systems, the meaning of social entitlements, the dubious virtue of political parties, and the potential abuse of scientific paradigms. Also discussed are the grounds for belief or disbelief in various claims concerning the suppression of technology and invention, and conspiracy theories. From the perspective of an ethics that is in harmony with the basic essence of morality, a long-term view of a peaceful and flourishing world is not merely possible but may, with time, become inevitable.
Universities teach courses in ethics, but do they teach students how to be ethical in practice? Lisa Kretz’s Ethics, Emotion, Education, and Empowerment explores the ways that philosophical ethics are currently taught and argues that dominant approaches fail to adequately support ethical action, in part because emotions are all too often ignored or repressed in university classrooms. In isolation, abstract theoretical content fails to motivate. The ability to reason through an ethical dilemma does not, by itself, of necessity impact ethical action. Empowered action requires intentional emotional engagement. Kretz argues that part of the reason affective pedagogy fails to get sufficient uptake is due to the operations of oppression. There is a long history of the reason-emotion dualism undermining recognition of the necessary and valuable epistemic roles emotions play in moral life, and serving as a political tactic to undermine the experience of oppressed groups. This impoverishes ethical pedagogy because it is to the detriment of their ability to teach ethics in a comprehensive way and strips the potential of supporting students to enact their own reflectively held ethical beliefs and values. Using the example of the environmental crisis, Kretz makes a case for supporting students as engaged activists aware of their capacity to ethically change the world.
Cheryl Sanders here sharpens the agenda of black liberation by offering both a fresh reading of historical black religion and a distinctive approach to Christian ethics. Arguing that the experience of oppression has been the catalyst for black moral life and thought, Sanders traces several paths or approaches that African American Christians have taken in moving from victimization to moral agency: testimony, protest, uplift, cooperation, achievement, remoralization, and ministry. Informative and engaging, earnest and constructive, Sanders's book envisions a new way of empowering people to take responsibility for their moral and spiritual development.
Andrew Youpa offers an original reading of Spinoza's moral philosophy, arguing it is fundamentally an ethics of joy. Unlike approaches to moral philosophy that center on praiseworthiness or blameworthiness, Youpa maintains that Spinoza's moral philosophy is about how to live lovingly and joyously. His reading expands to examinations of the centrality of education and friendship to Spinoza's moral framework, his theory of emotions, and the metaphysical foundation of his moral philosophy.
What does it mean to practice youth work ethically? How does ethical theory relate to the youth work profession? What are the moral dilemmas confronting youth workers today, and how should practitioners respond? This definitive text on youth work ethics examines these questions and more and should be on the reading lists of all youth work trainees and practitioners. A wide range of topics are covered, including: confidentiality; sexual propriety; dependence and empowerment; equity of provision; interprofessional working; managing dual relationships; working across cultures; working within an agency. Referencing professional codes of ethics in youth work, and the theories underpinning them, Howard Sercombe offers readers a framework for how to think about their practice ethically. Each chapter includes: -Narrative case studies to provide an insight into real life dilemmas. -Reflective questions and exercises to encourage critical thinking. -Chapter summaries and further reading. Youth Work Ethics is the ideal text for undergraduates and postgraduates studying on youth work, youth studies or youth & community work degrees, as well as youth work practitioners.
Social work ethics provide practitioners with guidance on how to promote social work values such as respect, social justice, human relationships, service, competence, and integrity. Students entering the profession need to develop a real-world understanding of how to apply these values in practice while also managing the dilemmas that arise when social workers, clients, and others encounter conflicting values and ethical obligations. Ethics and Values in Social Work offers a comprehensive set of teaching and learning materials to help students develop the knowledge, self-awareness, and critical thinking skills required to handle values and ethical issues in all levels of practice--individual, family, group, organization, community, and social policy. BSW and MSW students will particularly appreciate how complex ethical obligations and theories have been translated into plain language. Additionally, the comprehensive set of case examples and exercises provides realistic scenarios to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills across a range of practice situations.
Popular health apps are commercial services. Despite the promise of empowerment they offer, the tensions introduced by their data-driven, dynamically adjustable digital environments engender a potential for manipulation to which their designers and operators can easily succumb. In this important book, the author develops an ethical framework to evaluate the commercial practices of for-profit health apps, proceeding to a detailed proposal of how to legally address the exploitation, for financial gain, of users’ need for health. Focusing on the intricate tracking of users over time, coupled with the possibility to personalize the environment based on knowledge gained from tracking, the book’s in-depth analysis of popular for-profit health apps engages with such particulars as the following: the strategic framing of health in health apps; the cultural tendency to presume we are unhealthy until we have proven we are healthy; the key concepts of autonomy, vulnerability, trust, and manipulation; how health apps develop ongoing profitable relationships with users; and use of misleading and aggressive commercial practices. The author argues that the European Union’s Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, when informed by ethical considerations, offers promising legal solutions to the manipulation concerns raised by popular for-profit health apps. The book will be welcomed not only for its incisive scrutiny of the health app phenomenon but also for the light it sheds on the wider problems inherent in the digital society—what digital environments know about their users, how they use that knowledge, and for which purpose. Its progress from an ethical approach to legal solutions will recommend the book to lawyers concerned with business practices, human resources professionals, policymakers, and academics interested in the intersection of ethics and law.
Spinoza and Education offers a comprehensive investigation into the educational implications of Spinoza’s moral theory. Taking Spinoza’s naturalism as its point of departure, it constructs a considered account of education, taking special care to investigate the educational implications of Spinoza’s psychological egoism. What emerges is a counterintuitive form of education grounded in the egoistic striving of the teacher to persevere and to flourish in existence while still catering to the ethical demands of the students and the greater community. In providing an educational reading of Spinoza’s moral theory, this book sets up a critical dialogue between educational theory and recent studies which highlight the centrality of ethics in Spinoza’s overall philosophy. By placing his work in a contemporary educational context, chapters explore a counterintuitive conception of education as an ethical project, aimed at overcoming the desire to seek short-term satisfaction and troubling the influential concept of the student as consumer. This book also considers how education, from a Spinozistic point of view, may be approached in terms of a kind of cognitive therapy serving to further a more scientifically adequate understanding of the world and aimed at combating prejudices and superstition. Spinoza and Education demonstrates that Spinoza’s moral theory can further an educational ideal, where notions of freedom and self-preservation provide the conceptual core of a coherent philosophy of education. As such, it will appeal to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, theory of education, critical thinking, philosophy, ethics, and Spinoza studies.
