The Law Society recently published a practice note titled 'Prosecutions of victims of trafficking'. This practice note comes many years after many lawyers had highlighted the problem and after the government machinery had chuntered into action and passed the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 with explanatory notes and non-statutory guidelines for corporations. Since 2012 there had been issued warnings about the way defence lawyers, the Crown Prosecution Service and the UK police were dealing with trafficking and the (...) Criminal Cases Review Commission as far back as 2012 had note the severe failings by defence solicitors, prosecution and police, leading to many appeals and potential miscarriages of justice. Even in 2012 there were 946 known human trafficking victims, including 234 children. There was an attempt at a Human Trafficking Bill in 2010 which came to a halt and several reports including one by the Prison Reform Trust and Cambridge University Press, notwithstanding many books by notable academics for many years before today. This article examines the inadequacies of the Law Society practice note on defending victims and the jumble of high-ideals but short-sighted and impractical parts of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015. (shrink)

Low-level community based ethics committees staffed by teachers, parents and community representatives can readily review children’s science fair projects subject to the revision of two core assumptions currently governing children’s Science Fairs. The first part of the paper recasts the New Zealand Royal Society guidelines from its primary emphasis on risk to a new assumption, without benefit there can be no risk. Equally, this revision gives more prominence to the participant information sheet, allowing it to act as a quasi (...) application form which provides ethical transparency between student researchers, participants and a community based ethics committee. A second core assumption, more accurately labeled a cult of originality, produces a random, open-ended array of student topics taking ethics review beyond the confidence level of most community based ethics review committees. This paper reins in Science Fair coordinators recommending they make community level ethics review more manageable by providing a list of preapproved topics for those students wanting to conduct research involving human participants. These revised assumptions create a workable division of labour. Teachers’ preapproved topics involving human participants are more likely to be low risk, permitting community level ethics review to focus primarily on two aspects of the minimization of harm: first, for all participants, especially those with diminished autonomy, and second, for the child researchers themselves, as some participants may be unknown to the student. These revised assumptions make science and ethics more accessible to public education thus demonstrating how Science Fairs can lead students and the community into better understanding the role and function that ethics has in all scientific research human participants. (shrink)

Since the mid-1980s, internal corporate investigations have become commonplace in the U. S., with an upsurge occurring as a result of the corporate scandals of 2001-02 involving Adelphi Communications Corporation, Enron, Merck & Company, Riggs Bank, and other companies accused of financial malfeasance. After an introduction, this article first presents the U. S. public policy framework (as implemented through the U. S. Sentencing Commission, the U. S. Department of Justice, and the Securities and Exchange Commission) encouraging the use of corporate (...) internal investigations and self-reporting of these results to federal authorities; second, evaluates this framework, identifying the public policy issues inhibiting companies from using corporate internal investigations and self-reporting significant results; third, proposes a policy incentive regime which attempts to ameliorate these outstanding issues; and fourth, offer policy recommendations and suggestions for further research on this topic, including increasing the maximum deduction in the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines Culpability Score available to a firm for development of an Effective Compliance and Ethics Program (from 3 to 5 points), and self-reporting the results of an internal investigation (from 5 to 7 points); evaluating the effectiveness of these enhancements in legal incentives over a period of 5-7 years after implementation; instituting a formal federal government effort to educate the American business community on the corporate reputation (and financial) benefits of an effective compliance program; and protecting attorney-client privilege and work product protection, through legislative action, to encourage company executives and directors to utilize independent, outside attorneys to conduct fair, comprehensive, and impartial internal investigations. (shrink)

Corporate governance guidelines are a mechanism that a firm can enact which should reduce agency costs and better align the interests of boards and the suppliers of capital. This study examines stock price reactions primarily attributable to institutional investors occurring when corporations announce the enactment of corporate governance guidelines. A final sample of 77 firms was derived from the first announcement of corporate governance guidelines exclusive to the SEC-EDGAR database. The results indicate that good governance does matter. (...) Firms that announced the enactment of corporate governance guidelines experienced increased stock prices following the announcements. There was an immediate (days 1–4) reaction for firms that provided all or part of the guidelines’ substance; a delayed (days 8–10) reaction occurred for those firms that only referenced the guidelines’ enactment. Additionally, firms with either a potentially greater following or that had a previous history of acrimonious relations with stakeholders were rewarded by the announcement of the enactment of guidelines. (shrink)

Over the last decade, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been defined first as a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and cleaner environment and, second, as a process by which companies manage their relationship␣with stakeholders (European Commission, 2001. Nowadays, CSR has become a priority issue on governments’ agendas. This has changed governments’ capacity to act and impact on social and environmental issues in their relationship with companies, but has also affected the framework in which CSR (...) public policies are designed: governments are incorporating multi-stakeholder strategies. This article analyzes the CSR public policies in European advanced democracies, and more specifically the EU-15 countries, and provides explanatory keys on how governments have understood, designed and implemented their CSR public policies. The analysis has entailed the classification of CSR public policies taking into consideration the actor to which the governments’ policies were addressed. This approach to the analysis of CSR public policies in the EU-15 countries leads us to observe coinciding lines of action among the different countries analyzed, which has enabled us to propose a ‹four ideal’ typology model for governmental action on CSR in Europe: Partnership, Business in the Community, Sustainability, and Citizenship, and Agora. The main contribution of this article is to propose an analytical framework to analyze CSR public policies, which provide a perspective on the relationships between governments, businesses, and civil society stakeholders, and enable us to incorporate the analysis of CSR public policies into a broader approach focused on social governance. (shrink)

The theme of the 10th Annual Research Ethics Conference organized by the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (2018) was “Evolution of Research Ethics in Uganda and the Region: Past, Present and Future”. We were asked to address the topic: “The History of CIOMS and the recent changes in the international ethics guidelines: implications for local research”. The thrust of the conference was to track progress in ensuring ethical conduct of research, highlight challenges encountered, and to propose strategies (...) for effective and meaningful implementation of international ethical guidelines in local contexts. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to comment on the implications of the history of CIOMS ethical guidelines and suggest strategies for their effective and meaningful implementation in the East African region, and perhaps the whole of Sub‐Saharan Africa. Inferring from the ‘evolutionary’, ‘flexible’, and ‘general’ nature of the CIOMS guidelines, we proposed a six‐point strategy for ensuring their effective and meaningful implementation in local contexts. This strategy is in the form of obligations for local research regulators and researchers, the fulfillment of which will go a long way towards their smooth and meaningful implementation in local contexts. These obligations are: ensuring evidence‐based adaptation of each individual guideline; ensuring sufficiently judicious and motivated RECs membership; acting proactively to ensure harmony between bioethics and local legal regimes; cultivating a ‘bioethics culture’ among the public; moving towards regional bioethics governance; and playing an active and meaningful role in future revisions of these guidelines. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page W4-W7.

Although stakeholder theory is widely accepted in environmental disclosure research, empirical evidence about the role of stakeholders in firms’ disclosure is still scarce. The authors address this issue for a setting of carbon disclosure. Our international sample comprises the Carbon Disclosure Project Global 500, S&P 500, and FTSE 350 reports from 2008 to 2011, resulting in a total of 1,120 firms with 3,631 firm-year observations. The authors apply Tobit regressions to analyze the relationship between carbon disclosure and the relevance of (...) the following stakeholder groups: government, general public, media, employees, and customers. Our results confirm that in addition to carbon performance, all stakeholders are associated with carbon disclosure. Only one stakeholder group acts as a moderator for the relationship between carbon performance and carbon disclosure. Furthermore, the authors find that carbon performance but not the affiliation to a carbon-intensive industry acts as a moderator between stakeholder relevance and carbon disclosure. (shrink)

Many commentators suppose that morality, objectively construed, must possess a minimal sort of explanatory relevance if moral realism is to be plausible. To the extent that moral realists are unable to secure explanatory relevance for moral facts, moral realism faces a problem. Call this general objection an “explanatory objection” to moral realism. Despite the prevalence of explanatory objections in the literature, the connection between morality’s explanatory powers and moral realism’s truth is not clear. This paper (...) considers several different reasons for subjecting morality to explanatory scrutiny and concludes that none of them uncover a special or compelling explanatory problem for realism. In light of these difficulties, an alternative account of the connection between moral realism and moral explanation is developed. Not only does this account make sense of explanatory objections to realism, it turns out that realists may have the resources to defend themselves against this explanatory concern, properly understood. (shrink)

Much of the literature on impairment to self-governance focuses on cases in which a person either lacks the ability to protect herself from errant urges or cases in which a person lacks the capacity to initiate self-reflective agential processes. This has led to frameworks for thinking about self-governance designed with only the possibility of these sorts of impairments in mind. I challenge this orthodoxy using the case of melancholic depression to show that there is a third way that self-governance can (...) be undermined: an agent may fail to form the desire she most wants to act on. (shrink)

From a tradition of discourse ethics, human dignity can be defined as “being an equal member in the realm of subjects and authorities of justification.” Additionally, “to act with dignity means being able to justify oneself to others; to be treated in accordance with this dignity means being respected as such an equal member.” Conversely, “to treat others in ways that violate their dignity means regarding them as lacking any justification authority”. The guidelines found in Habermas’s “ideal speech situation” (...) are essential to guarantee this notion of human dignity. Based on aspects of Habermas’s, as well as Rainer Forst’s theory of justice, this study analyzes efforts made by the late speaker of Deutsche Bank, Dr. Alfred Herrhausen, and the former CEO of Alcoa and United States Secretary of the Treasury, Paul H. O’Neill, to challenge the way debt crises in the developing world were handled. Both leaders understood indebted countries, the livelihoods and dignity of its citizens, not as an external entity but as an integral part of their agendas. The two agents included underrepresented groups in their considerations and discussions through a proxy or surrogate participation, giving them a greater voice and acknowledging their dignity. (shrink)

My dissertation combines a historical case study with an argument derived from the philosophy of science. Why do states act the way they do, and how should foreign policy actions be explained? I begin by showing how existing explanations advanced both by historians and social scientists have problems incorporating intentional factors into the framework of their analyses. The historian will always be tempted to overwrite the meanings of the past with the meanings she constructs through her own narrative; the social (...) scientist is tempted to neglect intentions since they don't easily lend themselves to scientific manipulation. ;My own argument begins by trying to make sense of 'meaning.' We create meaning through metaphor and as we expand metaphors into narratives we come to see certain actions as required. Which stories that we do tell about ourselves, however, depends upon the audiences we address. Through our narratives we constantly seek support and recognition. Our narratives consequently perform two tasks. On the one hand they define what our interests are, but on the other hand, they also define our identities. On this basis I develop two different models for explaining action: one which explains action as undertaken in defense of interests, the other as undertaken in defense of an identity. ;The historical case study explains why Sweden went to war in 1630. Although historians traditionally have explained the action as undertaken for various economic, political or military reasons, I show that none of these factors can account for the intervention. 'Interests' were not at stake. Instead the action is best explained as a defense of a particular definition of a Swedish national identity. The country, and especially its king, was denied recognition as a legitimate actor in international politics, and it went to war in order to force the European powers to grant them the recognition that hadn't been granted freely. (shrink)

Scientists have the ability to influence policy in important ways through how they present their results. Surprisingly, existing codes of scientific ethics have little to say about such choices. I propose that we can arrive at a set of ethical guidelines to govern scientists’ presentation of information to policymakers by looking to bioethics: roughly, just as a clinician should aim to promote informed decision-making by patients, a scientist should aim to promote informed decision-making by policymakers. Though this may sound (...) like a natural proposal, I show it offers guidance that conflicts with standard scientific practices. I conclude by considering one cost of the proposal: that it would prevent scientists from acting as advocates in a way that is currently common in certain fields. I accept that the proposal would restrict scientists’ political advocacy rights, but argue that the benefits of adopting it — promoting democratic governance — justify the restriction. (shrink)

Although guidelines to regulate user involvement in research have been advocated and implemented for several years, literature still describes the process as challenging. In this qualitative study, we take a critical view on guidelines that are developed to regulate and govern the collaboration process of user involvement in research. We adapt a social constructivist view of guidelines and our aim is to explore how guidelines construct the perception of users and researchers and thus the process of (...) involvement. Twenty‐two guidelines published between 2006 and 2019 were analyzed iteratively. The analysis focuses on values which are emphasized in the guidelines on the distribution of entities, knowledge, and tasks between users and researchers. The analysis indicates that users and researchers are constructed differently; researchers are mainly constructed as responsible initiators and caretakers, while users are constructed as powerless and vulnerable. The guidelines portray the collaboration process as harmonious and assume a normative perspective. In doing so, challenges described in the literature related to power imbalances are not addressed. Based on these findings, we ask if these guidelines might function to maintain existing power imbalances between users and researchers. (shrink)

During his lifetime, Sir Ivor Jennings was well known as the author of several standard books on constitutional law. He acted as constitutional adviser to the governments of Ceylon and Pakistan and was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ceylon. This 1956 book followed in the tradition of his earlier The British Constitution and is a clear statement by an expert with a characteristically practical point of view. It is principally concerned with a practical problem: what constitution shall be given to (...) a new country about to govern itself for the first time? Published at a time when colonial empires were moving more or less peaceably towards self-government, it was based on a series of broadcast talks originally commissioned by the BBC in the belief that the experiences gained in Asia were in principle applicable to other countries approaching self-government. (shrink)

The inclusion of girls and women in sport at all levels depends on single sex categories for most sports from puberty onwards, because of the biological differences between the sexes. Most sport is, by definition, competitive; involving invasion games, teams, leagues, races, competitions and sometimes rankings, from foundation to excellence. Girls and women are underrepresented, particularly in traditional sport, as recognised by the UK Sports Councils and most governing bodies of sport. This paper uses feminist philosophy: Lister on androcentric citizenship, (...) and Fraser on justice as balance, framing, recognition, representation and redistribution. It investigates the impact on the inclusion of girls and women, of eligibility policies adopting ‘self-identification of gender’ guidelines for the inclusion of transgender people in sport, at participation rather than elite levels. It explores fairness and equality as incorporated in law in the 2010 Equality Act in Britain, and contributes to ‘equality evidence’ available to the UK Sports Councils and GBS. These bodies are charged with developing fair and inclusive evidence-based eligibility criteria, in sports participation settings, for both girls and women, and transgender people. (shrink)

The inclusion of girls and women in sport at all levels depends on single sex categories for most sports from puberty onwards, because of the biological differences between the sexes. Most sport is, by definition, competitive; involving invasion games, teams, leagues, races, competitions and sometimes rankings, from foundation to excellence. Girls and women are underrepresented, particularly in traditional sport, as recognised by the UK Sports Councils and most governing bodies of sport. This paper uses feminist philosophy: Lister on androcentric citizenship, (...) and Fraser on justice as balance, framing, recognition, representation and redistribution. It investigates the impact on the inclusion of girls and women, of eligibility policies adopting ‘self-identification of gender’ guidelines for the inclusion of transgender people in sport, at participation rather than elite levels. It explores fairness and equality as incorporated in law in the 2010 Equality Act in Britain, and contributes to ‘equality evidence’ available to the UK Sports Councils and GBS. These bodies are charged with developing fair and inclusive evidence-based eligibility criteria, in sports participation settings, for both girls and women, and transgender people. (shrink)

This commentary examines the incursion on the neutrality of medical personnel now taking place as part of the human rights crises in Bahrain and Syria, and the ethical dilemmas which these incursions place not only in front of physicians practicing in those nations, but in front of the international community as a whole.In Bahrain, physicians have recently received harsh prison terms, apparently for treating demonstrators who clashed with government forces. In Syria, physicians are under the same political pressure to (...) avoid treating political demonstrators or to act as informants against their own patients, turning them in to government authorities. This pressure has been severe, to the point that some physicians have become complicit in the abuse of patients who were also political demonstrators.This paper posits that physicians in certain countries in the Middle East during the “Arab Spring,” specifically Syria and Bahrain, are being used as both political pawns and political weapons in clear violation of Geneva Convention and World Medical Association guidelines, and that this puts them into the most extreme sort of “dual loyalty” dilemma. They are being forced to choose between their own safety and well-being and that of their patients – a negative sum scenario wherein there is no optimal choice. As such, an international call for a United Nations inquiry must be made in order to protect the neutrality of medical care and personnel during times of armed conflict. (shrink)

Nearly two decades of debate have not settled the definition of research misconduct. The literature provides four explanatory frameworks for misconduct. The paper examines these frameworks and maps them onto efforts by the U.S. Public Health Service to define research misconduct and subsequent responses to these efforts by the scientific community. The changing frameworks suggest that closure will not be achieved without an authoritative effort, which may occur through the Research Integrity Panel’s recent attempt to create a government-wide (...) definition. (shrink)

Through systematic case analyses of much-discussed social media cases, both negative aspects and best practices of social media use are revealed. Ethical theory is applied to these cases as a means of analysis to reveal the moral principles associated with each case. Four cases are analyzed, ranging from bad to arguably innovative. Based upon comparing the moral principles upheld or violated, descriptive ethics are used to infer normative ethical guidelines to govern the use of social media. Fifteen ethical (...) class='Hi'>guidelines derived from the cases and normative moral theory are offered as a way to begin a discussion that leads to a deeper understanding of ethics in the burgeoning realm of digital engagement. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cloning without Prior Approval:A Response to Recent Disclosures of NoncomplianceRuth Macklin (bio)Editor's note: In September 1994, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal published a special issue on the ethics of embryo splitting or "cloning," which included papers originally prepared for a workshop on embryo splitting sponsored by the National Advisory Board on Ethics in Reproduction (NABER) and NABER's report, Human Cloning through Embryo Splitting. The impetus for the project (...) was embryo-splitting research conducted by Drs. Jerry L. Hall, Robert J. Stillman, and others, at George Washington University and presented in October 1993 at a joint meeting of the American Fertility Society and the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society. Media coverage at the time reported that the research had been approved by the university's formal review committees. However, it came to light in December 1994 that the researchers had not obtained approval from the university's institutional review board prior to conducting the research. Following a university investigation, the researchers were disciplined and instructed to destroy their data. The university also voluntarily forwarded the records of the incident to the Office for Protection from Research Risks at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Hall resigned from George Washington University in September 1994.In the following postscript to her article on the ethics of embryo splitting (KIEJ, September 1994), Ruth Macklin discusses these events. The letters and memoranda that she cites were obtained from NIH through the Freedom of Information Act.My article, "Splitting Embryos on the Slippery Slope: Ethics and Public Policy" (KIEJ, September 1994), included a brief assessment of the ethics of the Hall-Stillman embryo-splitting experiment conducted at George Washington University (GWU). The article reviewed the researchers' stated purpose ("to help infertile couples by reproducing nature's ability to reproduce twins"), the features of the research itself (splitting embryos that never could become viable and with no plan to implant either the original or the split embryos), and the review procedures surrounding the experiment. I said that the researchers might be [End Page 57] faulted for not waiting until embryo research guidelines had been established at the national level; on the other hand, they surely could not fail to conform to such national guidelines when none existed.My conclusions were based on information that had been reported in the print media. Dr. Robert J. Stillman's statement that the experiment "had been approved by the university's formal review committees and peer reviewed by colleagues" was reported in the Washington Post on October 25, 1993, (Sawyer 1993). However, in light of the recent disclosure that the researchers had not obtained approval from George Washington University's IRB before proceeding with the research (Schwartz 1994), I now draw a sharply different conclusion about the ethics of the researchers' behavior.The most glaring flaw was the researchers' failure to submit a protocol to their institution's IRB in advance of embarking on the research. Following an investigation of the matter, the Office for Protection from Research Risks (OPRR) made the further determination that "the failure on the part of GWU research investigators and administrators to notify the IRB promptly about noncompliance in this research constitutes additional serious noncompliance" with research regulations (J. Thomas Puglisi, Chief of the Compliance Oversight Branch, Division of Human Subject Protections, OPRR, letter to Stephen J. Trachtenberg, President of George Washington University, 23 August 1994). Is it reasonable to suppose that these researchers were unaware of their obligations (a) to obtain prior review and approval from the IRB and (b) to notify the IRB promptly about their noncompliance? Regarding the latter item, Dr. Puglisi's letter to the President of GWU states that "the notification requirement has been a longstanding element of the GWU MPA [multiple project assurance], which should have been familiar to all members of the GWU research community." I shall concentrate on the researchers' more glaring ethical omission, failure to obtain prior review and approval from the IRB.Did either or both of these researchers contend that they were unaware of any review requirements for their research? Hall blames Stillman, Director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology, Fertility, and IVF Programs, for not making the requirement... (shrink)

. In this paper, we consider the nature of recent corporate abuses both in the U.S. and in Europe, and how globalization has had an impact on amplifying their consequences. We discuss the rules-based and principles-based remedies that have been proposed in each region, respectively. With a focus on the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOA), we examine the principles forwarded by this act, and how it addresses those principles with specific rules and governance mechanisms. Invoking Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT), we (...) conclude with a reconciliation of the principles and rules-based approaches to corporate governance as suggested by theory. (shrink)

Regulation is nothing without enforcement. This particularly holds for the dynamic field of emerging technologies. Hence, this article has two ambitions. First, it explains how the EU´s new Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) will be implemented and enforced by various institutional bodies, thus clarifying the governance framework of the AIA. Second, it proposes a normative model of governance, providing recommendations to ensure uniform and coordinated execution of the AIA and the fulfilment of the legislation. Taken together, the article explores how the (...) AIA may be implemented by national and EU institutional bodies, encompassing longstanding bodies, such as the European Commission, and those newly established under the AIA, such as the AI Office. It investigates their roles across supranational and national levels, emphasizing how EU regulations influence institutional structures and operations. These regulations may not only directly dictate the structural design of institutions but also indirectly request administrative capacities needed to enforce the AIA. (shrink)

The United States Government does not mandate that US based firms follow US social and environmental law in foreign markets. However, because many developing countries do not have strong human rights, labor, and environmental laws, many multinationals have adopted voluntary corporate responsibility initiatives to self-regulate their overseas social and environmental practices. This article argues that voluntary actions, while important, are insufficient to address the magnitude of problems companies confront as they operate in developing countries where governance is often inadequate. (...) The United States can do more to ensure that its multinationals act responsibly everywhere they operate. First, policymakers should define the social and environmental responsibilities of global companies. They must consistently make their expectations for global business clear – and underscore that this objective can often be accomplished without mandates. Second, the US should closely examine the policies that undermine global Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and address the many conflicting signals sent by policymakers. Third, the President should make the US government a CSR model by examining how to use its purchasing power to promote human rights. Finally, the US government should require pension funds to report on the social and environmental consequences of their investments. In these ways, Americans can mind our business – and thus make sure that US based firms do not undermine social and environmental progress when they operate in the developing world. (shrink)

Codes of governance have mushroomed in contexts operating under a single, dominant institutional logic, such as publicly listed corporations. These codes act as institutional prescriptions that help spread best practices throughout industries. More recently, in some countries, specific codes have been developed for hybrid organizations that integrate multiple, conflicting institutional logics simultaneously, such as cooperative enterprises. Drawing on an extensive set of qualitative data, we ask how such institutional prescriptions may (fail to) address governance challenges in organizations with multiple, conflicting (...) institutional demands. In doing so, we extend current literature on governance of hybrid organizations, which has so far focused on individual and organizational levels, to include institutional-level strategies. While governance codes are often inspired by deontological ethics to solve issues in a single institutional logic, we find that governance codes for hybrid organizations should not prioritize a single institutional logic, nor follow a deontological approach to improving governance, but should, on a more pragmatist take, remain open to continuous learning. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the evolution of Freedom of Information/Right to Information from an international perspective and analyse it as an indispensable tool for good governance through the use of information and communication technologies with special reference to India.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines the worldwide occurrence of Right to Information with reference to International Covenants, the genesis of RTI Act in India and the use of ICT in India as a tool for empowering the citizen's.FindingsThe study demonstrates that (...) RTI has far reaching impact and it clearly contributes to a better and informed citizenry however the use of ICT in India can further facilitate the access of such records.Research limitations/implicationsThe study focuses on the genesis of RTI from an international perspective but the use of ICT for further facilitating the use of RTI is limited to Indian context.Practical implicationsThe paper will outline a detailed analysis on the present usage of ICT and the initiatives taken for facilitating information dissemination and further provide suggestions for the benefit of civil society towards good governance.Originality/valueThe study is the first to address the issue of the implementation of right to information act through the use of ICT and also suggests methodology for its further improvement. Also, the study comprehends the genesis of RTI both from the international as well as Indian perspective. (shrink)

The concept of vulnerability has been subject to numerous different interpretations but accounts are still beset with significant problems as to their adequacy, such as their contentious application or the lack of genuine explanatory role for the concept. The constant failure to provide a compelling conceptual analysis and satisfactory definition leaves the concept open to an eliminativist move whereby we can question whether we need the concept at all. I highlight problems with various kinds of approach and explain why (...) a satisfactory account of vulnerability is unlikely ever to be offered if we wish the concept to play a genuinely explanatory role in bioethical contexts. I outline why an eliminativist position should be taken with regard to this concept in light of these concerns but mitigate some of the severity of this position by arguing that we can still make sense of retaining our widespread use of the term by viewing it as nothing more than a useful pragmatic linguistic device that acts as a marker to draw attention to certain kinds of issue. These issues will be entirely governed by other, better understood ethical concepts and theories. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:72. HAS HUME A THEORY OF SOCIAL JUSTICE? Toward the end of An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Hume asserts in a footnote that: In short, we must ever distinguish between the necessity of a separation and constancy in men's possession, and the rules, which assign particular objects to particular persons. The first necessity is obvious, strong, and invincible : the latter may depend on a public utility (...) more light and frivolous, on the sentiment of private humanity and aversion to private hardship, on positive laws, on precedents, analogies, and very fine connexions and. turns of the imagination. For one who draws the connection between the ideas of justice and possession as closely as he does, Hume's ambivalence here concerning the rules or principles governing the distribution of objects to be possessed is more than slightly surprising. In fact, for admirers of Hume interested in theories of social (or distributive) justice, his failure to state a preference among these various 'principles of distribution' is downright depressing. Is this all Hume has to say on the subject of how possessions are to be distributed within society? Does it not matter to him what the principles are upon which this distribution is accomplished — as long as it is accomplished? These are the questions with which this essay is concerned, questions which essentially reduce to that of whether Hume has a theoiy of social or distributive justice at all. To be sure;, the amount of space Hume devotes to the discussion of justice would seem to indicate that he is working from a particular theory of social justice, and authors such as Miller, Day, and Ardal ascribe one to him, yet Hume's apparent lack of concern for principles of distribution disputes this ascript- 73. 2 ion. For at the center of all such theories — from Aristotle to Rawls — lies a preference for a certain principle or set of principles which dictates how advantages (goods, wealth, benefits, etc.) should be distributed. In order to evaluate Hume's status as a theorist of social justice, two approaches recommend themselves. First, it is necessary to discover and examine in Hume's major works possible criteria which might dictate how possessions should be distributed in society. Three such criteria will be dealt with here: the principle of utility as Hume construes it, the formal principle of correct application of law, and the principles Hume entitles the laws of nature". If none of these emerge, singly or in combination, as the principle underlying a Humean theory of social justice, a second avenue for analyzing Hume's views of social justice will be explored. Here some of the critical psychological and moral characteristics which Hume attributes to human nature will be examined to determine whether Hume, though he seems to accept no specific principle of distribution, might arrive at a coherent theory of justice in a negative fashion; that is, through rejecting certain criteria of distribution, particularly merit and need. II. The half-heartedness of Hume's commitment to the principle of utility as either a standard of personal morality, a measure of the justness of particular actions, or as 4 an explanatory principle has been frequently documented, and, although the main purpose of this essay is to examine Hume's theory of social rather than personal justice, a few comments on the latter will form a useful preface for the subsequent argument that Hume is equally as luke-warm toward utilitarianism as an adequate basis of social justice. Three considerations indicate Hume's non-utilitarian approach to personal morality. First, unlike all advocates of utilitarianism, Hume is not a consequentialist on matters 74. of personal ethics. That is to say, when Hume speaks of what makes persons or their actions virtuous, he insists that the major criterion for such an evaluation is the motive upon which the agent acts. In the Treatise he states that a virtuous motive is requisite to render an action virtuous ; (T478), and maintains this view in the Enquiry as well. Hume therefore violates the consequentialist stance implicit in the utilitarian construal of personal morality, but just as seriously, is also left rather cold by the later utilitarian contention of Mill... (shrink)

Ethics and ethical behaviour are the fundamental pillars of a civilised society. The focus on ethical behaviour is indispensable in certain fields such as medicine, finance, or law. In fact, ethics gets precedence with anything that would include, affect, transform, or influence upon individuals, communities or any living creatures. Many institutions within Europe have set up their own committees to focus on or approve activities that have ethical impact. In contrast, lesser-developed countries are trying to set up these committees to (...) govern their academia and research. As the first European consortium established to assist academic integrity, European Network for Academic Integrity, we felt the importance of guiding those institutions and communities that are trying to conduct research with ethical principles. We have established an ethical advisory working group within ENAI with the aim to promote ethics within curriculum, research and institutional policies. We are constantly researching available data on this subject and committed to help the academia to convey and conduct ethical behaviour. Upon preliminary review and discussion, the group found a disparity in understanding, practice and teaching approaches to ethical applications of research projects among peers. Therefore, this short paper preliminarily aims to critically review the available information on ethics, the history behind establishing ethical principles and its international guidelines to govern research.The paper is based on the workshop conducted in the 5th International conference Plagiarism across Europe and Beyond, in Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania in 2019. During the workshop, we have detailed a) basic needs of an ethical committee within an institution; b) a typical ethical approval process ; and c) the ways to obtain informed consent with some examples. These are summarised in this paper with some example comparisons of ethical approval processes from different universities. We believe this paper will provide guidelines on preparing and training both researchers and research students in appropriately upholding ethical practices through ethical approval processes. (shrink)

The article proceeds from the concept of understanding local government in Russia as a projection of the potestar (pre-state) organization of public life, which transforms under the dominance of methods of state organization of public life, but retains its influence as the essential core of political and social interaction between people. The existing complex «state-municipal» mechanism for exercising power at the local level largely determines the forms and nature of political actors’ interaction at the regional level. State authorities, which (...) are focused on the totality of their own administrative influences, have not yet succeeded in fully integrating local self-government into the general public space of responsibility for powers, since local power is unbuilt initially on the principles of autogenesis, autochthony and autonomy. The current situation contributes to the archaicism of a part of social relations. For some time now, to work in the multidimensional reality of society, the authorities have begun to need analytical models to understand what is happening. As an explanatory theoretical basis for the modes of existence of local authorities developed and described by the author in the current stage of development of Russian statehood, a modal methodology is used, supplemented by the results of constructing model-oriented political ontologies, which reflect the aggregates of the layers and actors of the municipal sphere of sociopolitical reality at the regional level that are actually and actively present in the Russian society. The author is interested in searching the patterns that operate in the environment created and cultivated by the organizational and activity efforts of state structures against the background of sociocultural and other characteristics inherent in the regions. Possible working models for the needs of public administration arising from the modes offered by the author are still under development, since the reform of constitutional rules proposed by the country’s leadership raises the question of new forms of organizing the continuum of coexistence and interaction of local and state authorities in Russia. The article outlines the main research lines that indicate a number of features and reference points of the author’s approach in understanding the relationship between local government and municipal government, which may serve as an occasion for a new circle of discussions of specialists interested in the prospects for the development of political potential in the Russian municipal environment. (shrink)

[Opening sentences:]What business does the government have in sticking its nose into people’s private affairs? What affairs could be more legitimately private than relationships involving sex and love? LOCKEAN LIBERTARIANISM These questions resonate with many individuals across a wide range of ideologies and beliefs. For many of us these questions will strike us as rhetorical questions to which the obvious answers are “none” and “none.” These responses reflect a Lockean libertarian strain in the social thinking of many intelligent and (...) thoughtful people. But of course matters are more complex, even as viewed from a Lockean libertarian perspective.1 Sex and love tend to bring about new children, and causing a child to exist is a social act with wide consequences for other people who could not be supposed to consent to bear these consequences. Libertarians will regard with equanimity the showering of externalities in the form of benefits that typically accompany the creation and upbringing of a responsible competent person who becomes a useful member of society. The libertarian will insist that the receipt of such benefits does not generate any reciprocal obligations to benefit those who benefit us in these unconsented to ways.—at least, not obligations that are legitimately enforceable and that justify forcible imposition on people’s liberty to lead their lives as they choose. But bringing children into the world can and often does impose net costs on people who do not consent to bear these costs. The introduction of one extra person may strain scarce resources... (shrink)

The article presents artistic body interventions as tactics of minimal resistance to the governance over those bodies, i.e., resistance to the apparatuses that govern, control and manage our bodies, and those that also make our bodies sacred. This means the resistance to the apparatuses that separate my body from my own management. Giorgio Agamben calls for the strategy of profanation, for bringing back what was sacred to the use and property of humans. The author offers a thesis that the artistic (...) acts that resist to the power over the bodies do not construct counter-apparatuses to the apparatuses of power, but they do challenge or even sometimes subvert the machines of governance over the bodies. (shrink)

Rollback arguments focus on long sequences of actions with identical initial conditions in order to explicate the luck problem that indeterminism poses for libertarian free will theories (i.e. the problem that indeterministic actions appear arbitrary in a free-will undermining way). In this paper, I propose a rollback argument for probability incompatibilism, i.e. for the thesis that free will is incompatible with all world-states being governed by objective probabilities. Other than the most prominently discussed rollback arguments, this argument explicitly focusses on (...) the ability to act otherwise. It argues that the negligible probability of the relative frequencies in overall rollback patterns being relevantly different indicates that even the ability to act otherwise with regard to individual actions is not free-will enabling. My proposed argument provides probability incompatibilists with a tool to argue against a classical event-causal response to the luck problem, while it can still motivate an agent-causal response to it. (shrink)

Scepticism about ought simpliciter is the view that there is no such thing as what one ought simpliciter to do. Instead, practical deliberation is governed by a plurality of normative standpoints, each authoritative from their own perspective but none authoritative simpliciter. This paper aims to resist such scepticism. After setting out the challenge in general terms, I argue that scepticism can be resisted by rejecting a key assumption in the sceptic’s argument. This is the assumption that standpoint-relative ought judgments bring (...) with them a commitment to act in accordance with those judgments. Instead, I propose an alternative account of our normative concepts according to which only ought simpliciter judgments commit one to acting in accordance with those judgments. In addition to answering the sceptical challenge, the proposal offers an independently motivated account of what makes a concept normatively authoritative. (shrink)

The concept of explanation is central to scientific practice. However, scientists explain phenomena in very different ways. That is, there are many different kinds of explanation; e.g. causal, mechanistic, statistical, or equilibrium explanations. In light of the myriad kinds of explanation identified in the literature, most philosophers of science have adopted some kind of explanatory pluralism. While pluralism about explanation seems plausible, it faces a dilemma Explanation beyond causation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 39–56, 2018). Either there is nothing (...) that unifies all instances of scientific explanation that makes them count as explanations, or there is some set of unifying features, which seems incompatible with explanatory pluralism. Different philosophers have adopted different horns of this dilemma. Some argue that no unified account of explanation is possible. Others suggest that there is a set of necessary features that can unify all explanations under a single account Explanation beyond causation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 74–95, 2018; Strevens in Depth: an account of scientific explanation, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2008). In this paper, we argue that none of the features identified by existing accounts of explanation are necessary for all explanations. However, we argue that a unified account can still be provided that accommodates pluralism. This can be accomplished, we argue, by reconceiving of scientific explanation as a cluster concept: there are multiple subsets of features that are sufficient for providing an explanation, but no single feature is necessary for all explanations. Reconceiving of explanation as a cluster concept not only accounts for the diversity of kinds of explanations, but also accounts for the widespread disagreement in the explanation literature and enables explanatory pluralism to avoid Pincock’s dilemma. (shrink)

In 2016, the Colorado legislature passed an amendment to Colorado’s medical proxy law that established a process for the appointment of a physician to act as proxy decision maker of last resort for an unrepresented patient (Colorado HB 16-1101: Medical Decisions For Unrepresented Patients). The legislative process brought together a diverse set of stakeholders, not all of whom supported the legislation. Following passage of the statutory amendment, the Colorado Collaborative for Unrepresented Patients (CCUP), a group of advocates responsible for initiating (...) the legislative process, coordinated a unique effort to engage these stakeholders in the creation of a set of voluntary guidelines to assist facilities and individual careproviders in the implementation of policies and procedures enabled by the statute. This article delineates the questions and concerns of stakeholders, describes how those issues were addressed within the guidelines, and proposes additional opportunities for research to assess the impact of the legislation in Colorado. (shrink)

The attempt is made in this article to analyze and compare the religious policies of the two Safavid and Qajar dynasties’ governments with respect to Sunnite sect. In these eras the related policies differed although the official religion of both regimes was Shiism: The Safavid central government’s confronting policies against Sunnite, the Sunnite elites’ long-term appointments to high state ranks by Qajar Kings and these policies were more consistent in Qajar than Safavid era. Here the approaches of both the (...) dynasties are categorized in four parameters: confronting, excommunication, discrimination and moderation. In Safavid era the first three parameters were more apparent while the fourth parameter is more evident in Qajar era. (shrink)

This article discusses the manipulation and measurement of levels of situational self-focus, which is generally labeled ''self-awareness.'' A new scale was developed to quantify levels of public and private self-awareness. Five studies were conducted to assess the psychometric properties, reliability, and validity of the Situational Self-Awareness Scale (SSAS). The SSAS was found to have a reliable factor structure, to detect differences in public and private self-awareness produced by laboratory manipulations, and to be sensitive to changes in self-awareness within individuals over (...) time and across situations. The SSAS can be used as a manipulation check of laboratory self-awareness manipulations and as a means of assessing naturally occurring fluctuations in public and private self-awareness in order to clarify the relation between self-awareness and other variables (e.g., mood and memory). (shrink)

The mitigation of pandemics like that caused by the current COVID-19 virus is largely dependent on voluntary public adherence to government rules and regulations. Recent research has identified various individual covariates that account for some of the variance in compliance with COVID-19 behavioral guidelines. However, despite considerable research, our understanding of how and why these factors are related to adherence behavior is limited. Additionally, it is less clear whether disease-transmitting behaviors during a pandemic can be understood in terms (...) of more general behavioral tendencies. The current research has examined the utility of a behavioral-failure lens in predicting adherence to COVID-19 guidelines and in illuminating mechanisms underlying the previously established relationship between Conscientiousness and adherence. In the two studies reported here, individual variations in the predisposition to behavioral failures predicted adherence to COVID-19 measures, and mediated the relationships between Conscientiousness and adherence. The Failure Proneness questionnaire predicted compliance with COVID-19 guidelines, while the Cognitive Failure Questionnaire did not. The results of hierarchical regressions showed that COVID-19 behavior was predicted only through the intentional factors. Hence, our data lend support to the notion that noncompliance with official COVID-19 prevention guidelines is driven mainly by intentional factors related to violation of norms and rules. The theoretical and practical implications of this finding are discussed. (shrink)

Most views of agency take acting for reasons (whether explanatory or justifying) to be an important hallmark of the capacity for agency. The problem, however, is that the standard analysis of what it is to act in light of reasons is not sufficiently fine grained to accommodate what we will argue are the myriad types of ways that agents can do so. We suggest that a full account of acting for reasons must also recognize the relationship that agents have (...) with their reasons. We focus on two types of relationships. The first is the traditional case, where agents act in light of reasons that they take to be their own and that they endorse. We describe this as possessing an Endorsement Relationship with one's reasons. A second way of relating to reasons is what we will describe as possessing a Directed Relationship with one's reasons. This includes cases in which agents' actions are the product of reasons but toward which agents do not have an Endorsement Relationship. The Endorsement Relationship is uncontroversial. In this paper, we defend the existence and importance of the Directed Relationship. We show that it is a genuine but overlooked way of relating to, and thereby acting for, reasons. (shrink)

The American regulatory model of corporate governance rests on the theory of self-regulation as␣the most effective and efficient means to achieve corporate self-restraint in the marketplace. However, that model fails to achieve regular compliance with baseline ethical and legal behaviors as evidenced by a century of repeated corporate debacles, the most recent being Enron, WorldCom, and Refco. Seemingly impervious to its domestic failure, Congress imprinted the same self-regulation paradigm on legislation restraining global business behavior, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This (...) anti-bribery initiative prohibits unethical and illegal payments made to foreign public officials in an effort to eradicate bribery as a rational-choice global market entry strategy. However, this paper illustrates, using newly complied statistics from 1977 to 2008, that the FCPA has not had a dramatic impact on U.S. global corporate behavior despite its recent high profile coverage and the tough regulatory rhetoric about corporate compliance. The paper also extends the prior Cragg and Woof FCPA efficiency study and provides current empirical evidence to resolve several unanswered questions raised by that earlier study. (shrink)

In February 1975, a group of leading scientists, physicians, and policymakers convened at Asilomar, California, to consider the safety of proceeding with recombinant DNA research. The excitement generated by the promise of this new technology was counterbalanced by concerns regarding dangers that might arise from it, including the potential for accidental release of genetically modified organisms into the environment. Guidelines developed at the conference to direct future research endeavors had several consequences. They permitted research to resume, bringing to an (...) end the voluntary moratorium that the National Academy of Sciences had instituted several months earlier. They also served to illustrate that the scientific community was capable of self-governance, thereby securing public trust and persuading Congress not to institute legislative restrictions. Finally, they underscored the importance of weighing unforeseen risks inherent in some research against potential benefits that may arise from these same endeavors. (shrink)

I provide a new account of what it is for the laws of nature to govern the evolution of events. I locate the source of governance in the content of law propositions. As such, I do not appeal to primitive notions of ground, essence, or production to characterize governance. After introducing the account, I use it to outline previously unrecognized varieties of governance. I also specify that laws must govern to have two theoretical virtues: explanatory power as well as (...) a theoretical virtue I call expansiveness. A theory is expansive, roughly, when it can do more with less. (shrink)

Victoria’s Model Litigant Guidelines aim to regulate the conduct of government parties in civil disputes in a manner that goes beyond the ethical duties of ordinary litigants. Despite the sheer number of disputes involving the Victorian government to which the regime applies, little academic attention has been given to Victoria’s MLGs. The article explores the nature and extent of the regulatory force exerted by the MLGs by applying regulatory theory to the MLG regime. Particular attention is given (...) to applying Ayers and Braithwaite’s theory of Responsive Regulation that includes situating the guidelines within their regulatory pyramid. The analysis finds that in the absence of a distinct regulator, the MLG regime is predominantly self-regulatory. The responsiveness of the MLGs appears to be restricted owing to an absence of public involvement in the MLG regime. The article also highlights that likely challenges to the MLG regime as a mode of regulation include the nature of the regulatory context, the decentralisation of government services, the lack of publicly available information on the government’s adherence to the MLGs and the content of the MLGs themselves. (shrink)

Current models of speech motor control rely on either trajectory-based control (DIVA, GEPPETO, ACT) or a dynamical systems approach based on feedback control (Task Dynamics, FACTS). While both approaches have provided insights into the speech motor system, it is difficult to connect these findings across models given the distinct theoretical and computational bases of the two approaches. We propose a new extension of the most widely used dynamical systems approach, Task Dynamics, that incorporates many of the strengths of trajectory-based approaches, (...) providing a way to bridge the theoretical divide between what have been two separate approaches to understanding speech motor control. The Task Dynamics (TD) model posits that speech gestures are governed by point attractor dynamics consistent with a critically damped harmonic oscillator. Kinematic trajectories associated with such gestures should therefore be consistent with a second-order dynamical system, possibly modified by blending with temporally overlapping gestures or altering oscillator parameters. This account of observed kinematics is powerful and theoretically appealing, but may be insufficient to account for deviations from predicted kinematics – i.e., changes produced in response to some external perturbations to the jaw, changes in control during acquisition and development, or effects of word/syllable frequency. Optimization, such as would be needed to minimize articulatory effort, is also incompatible with the current TD model, though the idea that the speech production systems economizes effort has a long history and, importantly, also plays a critical role in current theories of domain-general human motor control. To address these issues, we use Dynamic Movement Primitives (DMPs) to expand a dynamical systems framework for speech motor control to allow modification of kinematic trajectories by incorporating a simple, learnable forcing term into existing point attractor dynamics. We show that integration of DMPs with task- based point-attractor dynamics enhances the potential explanatory power of TD in a number of critical ways, including the ability to account for external forces in planning and optimizing both kinematic and dynamic movement costs. At the same time, this approach preserves the successes of Task Dynamics in handling multi-gesture planning and coordination. (shrink)