No pain, no gain? Torture and ethics in the war on terror

Is the use of torture ever justified? This article argues that torture cannot be justified, even in so called ticking bomb cases, but that in such extreme situations it may be necessary. In those situations, judgements about whether the use of torture is legitimate must balance the imminence and gravity of the threat with the need to prevent future occurrences of torture and maintain a normative environment that is hostile to its use. The article begins by observing that the use of torture and/or cruel and degrading treatment has become a core component of the global war on terror. It tests the claim that the use of coercive interrogation techniques does not constitute torture, showing that similar arguments were levelled by both the British and French governments in relation to Northern Ireland and Algeria respectively and found wanting. It then evaluates and rejects Dershowitz's claim for the legalization of torture and the more limited claim that torture may be permissible in ticking bomb scenarios. In the final section, the article questions how we might maintain the prohibition on torture while acknowledging that it may be necessary in some hypothetical cases.

The ethics of paying drug users who participate in research: a review and practical recommendations

THE PAYMENT OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS raises ethical and empirical questions that have special importance in addictions research involving drug-dependent participants. Despite a now large literature on human subjects payment, what is still needed is practical guidance for investigators and ethics committees. This paper reviews the literature on: current payment practices and guidelines; defining features of undue and due incentives and fair reimbursement; and the significance of risks and harms that may arise from paying drug using participants. We conclude that research payments are ethically acceptable in most circumstances of addictions research, but should be closely scrutinized in situations where these may exacerbate existing harms or create additional risks for participants and investigators. General principles, key questions and procedural options are highlighted for an applied approach to ethical research payments. Future research directions are identified.

Teaching economic philosophy: Economics, ethics and the search for the right maximand

Economic philosophy is not often taught, and is not necessarily easily taught. It involves enquiry into implicit assumptions within orthodox economics and within alternatives to it. It seeks to highlight why it is that some critics object that neoclassical economics is too atomistic, hedonistic, and rationalistic, or why others lament that there is much hidden metaphysics in Friedman and his Chicago School colleagues. It addresses the issue of whether - in a reversal of the view that economics is the imperialistic social science - significant philosophical assumptions have been silently but inescapably imported into orthodox economics. This paper seeks to facilitate the presentation of such material with illustrations selected from social economics, development economics, and critiques of utilitarianism.

Levinasian ethics and the representation of the other in international and cross-cultural management

In this paper, we seek to further the discussion, problematization and critique of west/east identity relations in ICM studies by considering the ethics of the relationship – an issue never far beneath the surface in discussions of Orientalism. In particular we seek to both examine and question the ethics of representation in relation to a critique of what has come to be known as international and cross-cultural management (ICM). To pursue such a discussion, we draw specifically on the ethical elaborations of Emmanuel Levinas as well as his chief interlocutors Jacques Derrida and Zygmunt Bauman. The value of this discussion, we propose, is that Levinas offers a philosophy that holds as its central concept the relationship between the self and Other as the primary ethical and pre-ontological relation. Levinas’ philosophy provides a means of extending the post-colonial critique of ICM, and ICM provides a context in which the Levinasian ethics can be brought to bear on a significant issue on contemporary business and management.