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The virtuous character and the ethical agent represent mutually inclusive terms, neither of which independently, in the Aristotelian tradition, is considered an innate quality. Virtues, if not innate, are contingent; but what makes each instantiation recognisably general? Normative ethics in this sense is a dynamic process and similarly process philosophy is based on the principle that existence is dynamic and that it should be the primary focus of any philosophical account of reality. I argue that the transformative process is equally as important as the end result of realising the virtuous dispositional traits. An important criticism of virtue ethics is the focus on character and not rules such as industry practices and codes found in the professions. The criticism however is less worrisome than usually accepted. The reasoning herein developed to overcome this criticism rests on the presupposition that no one exists in isolation and virtues are developed in a social context and not simply given. Using process philosophy as a methodological approach to examine virtue ethical agency and the transformative process involved in its realisation elicits insights that allow the conceptual development of a more robust account of virtue ethics. I extend this nuanced rendition, in ways already commenced by others, into areas of organisational, environmental and intergenerational ethics.

This chapter is written in response to ‘The Quest for Generic Ethics Principles in Social Science Research’ by David Carpenter. It is also based on a response given at a workshop organised by the Academy of Social Sciences in March 2013 to help to formulate some generic ethics principles for social sciences. From an anthropologist’s perspective I argue that there is no way that ethics principles or procedures can ‘solve’ all dilemmas of conducting ethically sound research and that we need to acknowledge the difficulties and talk about them, and to build this into a reflexive research process, rather than try to protect ourselves from them through bureaucratic procedures.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

This chapter presents a virtue-based approach to research ethics which both complements and challenges dominant principle- and rule-based ethical codes and governance frameworks. Virtues are qualities of character that contribute to human and ecological flourishing, focussing on the dispositions and motivations of moral agents (in this case, researchers) as opposed to simply their actions. The chapter argues for the usefulness of ‘researcher integrity’, in the context of increasing interest internationally in ‘research integrity’ frameworks for regulating research practice. ‘Researcher integrity’ is analysed, including weak and strong versions of the concept (conduct according to current standards, versus reflexive commitment to ideals of what research should be at its best). Researcher integrity in its stronger sense is depicted as an overarching complex virtue, holding together and balancing other virtues such as courage, care, trustworthiness, respectfulness and practical wisdom. Consideration is given to educating researchers and university students as virtuous researchers, rather than simply ensuring that rules are followed and risks minimised. Several approaches are outlined, including Socratic dialogue, to develop attentiveness and respectfulness and participatory theatre to rehearse different responses to ethical challenges in research. Some limitations of virtue ethics are noted, including dangers of reinforcing a culture of blaming researchers for institutional failings, and its potential to be co-opted by those who wish to indoctrinate rather than cultivate virtues. Nevertheless, it is an important counter-weight to current trends that see research ethics as entailing learning sets of rules and how to implement them (to satisfy institutional research governance requirements), rather than processes of critical and responsible reflection.

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel mnemonic, ACTIVE, inspired by Mason's 1985 PAPA mnemonic, which will help researchers and IT professionals develop an understanding of the major issues in information ethics.

Theoretical foundations are developed for each element of the mnemonic by reference to philosophical definitions of the terms used and to virtue ethics, particularly MacIntyrean virtue ethics. The paper starts with a critique of the elements of the PAPA mnemonic and then proceeds to develop an understanding of each of the elements of ACTIVE ethics, via a discussion of the underpinning virtue ethics.

This paper identifies six issues, described by the mnemonic, ACTIVE. ACTIVE stands for: autonomy, the ability of the individual to manage their own information and make choice; community, the ethical effect of an information systems on the community which it supports; transparency, the extent to which the derivation of content and process in an information system is made clear; identity, the social and ethical effect of an information system on the definition and maintenance of the distinctive characteristics of a person; value, the value or moral worth placed on information associated with an individual and hence on the relationship with the individual; and empathy, the ability of the information systems professional to emotionally connect with the user and the extent to which the information system distances or connects.

The paper applies virtue ethics to developing a tool to help information professionals reflect on their ethical practice in developing and supporting information systems.

The idea of ‘identity politics’ has become quite prominent in news commentary. It has been referred to in explaining the 2016 US Presidential election result, the 2016 Brexit vote and a variety of other events in contemporary social life. The idea emerged under that title in the late twentieth century, and refers to political conflicts where groups unite and act on the basis of some shared identity. While the term initially referred to action by groups seeking to remedy past oppression, ‘identity politics’ may now refer to a wider range of cases where there is contestation based on recognition of some shared identity. Individuals’ identity is central to resurgent modern virtue ethics, but it has been suggested that virtue ethics is less relevant to political conflict than utilitarian views or theories of justice. However, an important distinction can be made between narrative identity, on the one hand, and social identity that emerges from individuals’ self-perceived group membership, on the other hand. It is narrative identity that figures in major accounts of virtue ethics. In many situations, narrative identity is importantly affected by group identity, but it is still only narrative identity that has intrinsic ethical weight. This suggests that virtue ethics has relevance to identity politics just because it urges attention to individuals’ narrative identity rather than to group identity.

The purpose of this paper is to determine if the failure of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to persecute Madoff is, in fact, an ethical failure. The authors turn to the extension of Aristotelian theory of moral values, virtue epistemology, to identify specific failures. The authors generalize this study’s conclusions to an overall responsibility of regulatory agencies to exercise epistemic virtues in their decision-making process. The authors explore how behavioral biases confound the execution of epistemic duty, and how awareness of behavioral biases can alleviate epistemic failures. The authors conclude this study with recommendations to prevent future frauds of Madoff proportions.

The authors rely on recent advances in virtue epistemology and behavioral finance. The authors combine these two theoretical approaches to better understand the duty of competence inherent in being a finance professional, and even more so in being a regulator entrusted with overseeing financial industry, and psychological biases that may prevent finance professionals and regulators from performing this duty.

The paper concludes that the SEC employees failed to exercise epistemic virtues in their handling of the complaints implicating Madoff’s firm of fraud. This failure reveals a consistent pattern of behavioral biases in decision-making. The authors posit that knowledge of ethical theory, specifically virtue epistemology, as well as awareness of behavioral biases, which inhibit epistemically virtuous cognitive process, can improve the functioning of both finance industry and its overseers. The authors suggest that future finance professionals and regulators need to acquire this knowledge while pursuing their undergraduate education: it is the duty of business schools to facilitate this progress.

This paper combines the theory of virtue epistemology with the current knowledge of behavioral biases, which distort rational decision-making, to explain the failures of regulators to analyze fraud reports. The authors extend this finding to recommend the inclusion of the theory of virtue epistemology in business schools’ ethics curriculum.

As interest in technology ethics is increasing, so is the interest in bringing schools of ethics from non-Western philosophical traditions to the field, particularly when it comes to information and communication technology. In light of this development and recent publications that result from it, this paper aims to present responds critically to recent work on Confucian virtue ethics (CVE) and technology.

Four critiques are presented as theoretical challenges to CVE in technology, claiming that current literature insufficiently addresses: overall applicability, collective ethics issues, epistemic overconfidence within technology corporations and amplification of epistemic overconfidence by the implementation of CVE. These challenges make use of general CVE literature and work on technology critique, political philosophy, epistemology and business ethics.

Implementing CVE in technology may yield some benefits, but these may be outweighed by other outcomes, include strengthening hierarchies, widening inequities, increasing, rather than limiting, predictive activity, personal data collection, misinformation, privacy violations and challenges to the democratic process.

Though not directly advocating against CVE, the paper reveals hitherto unidentified and serious issues that should be addressed before CVE are used to inform ethics guidelines or regulatory policies. It also serves as a foundation for further inquiry into how Eastern philosophy more broadly can inform technology ethics in the West.

In this chapter I build upon the case I argued in Volume 1 of this series (Carpenter, D. (2016). The quest for generic ethical principles in social science research. In R. Iphofen (Ed.), Advances in research ethics and integrity (Vol. 1, pp. 3–18). Bingley: Emerald). There I established arguments for eschewing principlism and other well-established theories of practical ethics, such as deontology and consequentialism, in favour of virtue ethics. I drew on the work of Macfarlane (2009, 2010) in making a case for virtuous researcher and virtuous research. In this chapter, I draw attention to the role and conduct of ethics committees in reviewing research. If we are to consider the ethics of research and researchers, then we might also consider the ethics of reviewing and reviewers. Whilst there is an abundance of codes and similar documents aimed at guiding research conduct, there is relatively little to guide ethics committees and their members. Given the argument that a virtue ethics approach might help committees evaluate the ethics of proposed research and researchers, it could equally be the case that virtue ethics could be useful when thinking about the work of committees and ethics review. In this chapter I attempt to relocate and develop Macfarlane’s work by examining its application to the work of ethics committees and the virtues of their members. In particular, I will consider the virtues that reviewers should exhibit or demonstrate when reviewing research, and what we might take as the telos of ethics committees.

This chapter explores the vital connection between ethics and community development, underlining the fundamental role of ethical considerations in shaping fair, just, and sustainable communities. It begins by emphasizing that community development is inherently ethical and delves into the concept of ethics, examining ethical theories like consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics in the context of community development. Real-world case studies from diverse countries, such as South Africa, Australia, and India, are interwoven throughout the chapter to provide practical insights. These case studies illustrate the complexities of ethical implementation in community development, from navigating power dynamics to addressing conflicts of interest and balancing immediate needs with long-term sustainability. The chapter also explores macro-level considerations, highlighting the need for systemic change to create a more just and equitable society. It guides practitioners on integrating ethics into their work, establishing a strong moral framework for community development. Continuous learning, reflective practice, and adaptability are underscored as essential in responding to evolving societal contexts, norms, and challenges.