Almost since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden has been criticised for doing too little to stop the spread of the virus. No lockdowns have been implemented and schools have stayed open throughout the pandemic. In his book Pandemic Ethics, Ben Bramble argues that lockdowns are necessary and that Swedes may become ”somewhat colder” and ”less able to flourish” as a result of Sweden’s pandemic response. In this essay I discuss whether or not the Swedish people are being failed as moral agents by Swedish authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic. I analyse two senses in which the people could be morally wronged: (1) by having too much moral responsibility placed upon them, and (2) by becoming less virtuous or less able to flourish as a result of actions and words of the authorities. In answering (1), I argue that an individual moral agent has little or no moral responsibility from a utilitarian point of view. From a virtue ethics point of view, the cause behind the action is more important than its consequences, so being handed the responsibility for stopping the spread of coronavirus would not be significantly different from other instances where citizens are free to act in a way that may lead to them causing harm to others. By analysing examples of how citizens can exercise their moral virtues in states with differing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, I show that citizens becoming more or less virtuous does not follow from the pandemic response of the country they live in, thereby refuting (2). I then briefly discuss two ways in which I believe authorities could fail its citizens as moral agents.

There is an increased public pressure on clothing brands to consider environmental and social issues when sourcing from suppliers in developing countries, and to ensure that their supply chain partners do the same. However, social, and environmental issues within the clothing industry are complex with many actors involved. Avoidance of compliance with social and environmental requirements are not uncommon and contributes to the continuing exploitation of humans and environment in the country of production, thus hindering the possibility of social change. This study investigates the perceived challenges with sustainability initiatives in supply chains within the global clothing industry and takes on a qualitative research approach with an interpretive basis. This study investigates the barriers to achieve social and environmental compliance through a content analysis of four global clothing brands supply chain governance strategies, and by interviews with two NGOs. The empirical findings shows that suppliers face increase compliance requirements with additional costs on their side, but with no financial support from clothing brands. Consequently, the perceived injustice between input costs and gains contribute to that suppliers avoid compliance to balance their additional costs.

Covering the issue of climate change is not always talking about what we as humans can do to save the planet. For many people in the Global South, it is about climate injustice – how the marginalized become the most affected people by climate crisis, yet they contribute to so much less emission compared to the people in the North / Western countries. Adding the concept of Anthropocene to that shows a larger problem of inequality. Applying postcolonialism perspective towards environmental issue means questioning the idea that the knowledge that Western countries produced are the absolute truth. This thesis builds on case studies of organizations in Jakarta and Bali and their grassroot approach, from experience and challenges to be in their line of work, to listen to the voice of the practitioners as it shapes the field of communication for development and social change. Postcolonial critique concepts from McEwan (2018) are used to analyze the practices of environmental communication towards their target and the public, but also to highlight structural and external challenges that they may face in doing their work. Result of the interviews identified the notions of 1) Indonesian postcolonial identity, 2) Neoliberalism tendency, 3) Power relations, 4) Knowledge produced in the ‘West’, and 5) Non-inclusive development practices / Representation issue. This thesis highlights several identified challenges, from how certain local and cultural practices are sometimes overlooked within sustainable development practices, how foreign concepts and the use of English poses problems within the communication process, international project-based development approach presented problems for the local environmental organization, and how the slogan ‘Think Globally, Act Locally’ that are popular within environmental discourses should be rethought to shift the paradigm that global environmental issues are not as global as certain people might think.

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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Social work has deep roots in and a commitment to social justice and eliminating and addressing the oppression of people of diverse backgrounds. This commitment is based on the National Association of Social Work 2021 Code of Ethics. In order for social workers to learn how to ethically challenge social injustice with cultural humility, they need to develop a high level of self-awareness, or critical consciousness (Freire, 2003) and commitment to marginalized groups. This makes the role of a social work educator a critical one. Social work educators have their own biases and experiences of oppression and privilege. In order to support and prepare social work students with the skills of self-awareness and cultural humility, the educator must analyze their pedagogy, such as the inclusion of Black, Indigenous, and People of color (BIPOC) authors, the use of open dialogue, and engagement in creating and supporting brave spaces, while accurately describing social work history. Specifically, social work educators need to be aware of their social positioning in which oppression and/or privilege shape their realities, since this impacts their sense of self and teaching practices. This proposal seeks to apply qualitative research methods to investigate whether social work educators' social positioning and the associated privilege or oppressive experiences are important to understand their pedagogical and instructional practices/strategies relative to antiracism.

Court use of web-based videoconferencing software like Zoom to host court hearings grew exponentially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shifting hearings online has had some benefits—it has reduced travel time for participants and allowed the courts to conduct hearings during government shutdown, for example. There is hope that these video hearings can help courts rectify longstanding access barriers that have made the courts less accessible than they should be to people with limited economic resources, those socially marginalized due to their racial, language, or other group membership, those without attorney representation, and/or those living with disabilities. Yet, prior court technologies like electronic filing have disproportionately benefited those with resources and legal training instead, and early empirical research on video hearings shows a similar trend. This dual-sided relationship between injustice and court communication technology creates a paradox: How can court communication technology support equal access when it creates its own injustices? Communication scholarship offers a fresh perspective to this intractable problem. Drawing on communication technology affordances, software design justice, and political philosopher Amartya Sen’s ideas on injustice-reduction, this dissertation proposes a normative, analytical framework—the Justice Enhancing Communication Technologies (JECT) Framework. The framework provides philosophical grounding for collaborative efforts aimed at re-imagining court technologies alongside the communities that have been harmed by them. The JECT framework consists of five analytical steps tailored towards discovering the just actions courts can take when using communication technologies:1) listening for the manifest injustice, 2) acknowledging and apologizing for the institution’s role in the injustice, 3) understanding the communicative aspects of the injustice, 4) committing to address the injustice, and 5) cooperatively planning, implementing, and evaluating with members of the public. These steps point those dedicated to enhancing court access towards injustice-reducing action. The framework can be used by communication scholars and others that study the courts, court information technology practitioners, judges and court staff that utilize the technologies, court program evaluators, and court diversity, equity, and inclusion consultants. To illustrate how the framework can be utilized, the dissertation applies it to an illustrative, empirical case study of video hearings. / Media & Communication

Counterproductive work behaviors are costly behaviors that individuals employ in retaliation to adverse stimuli in the workplace. This study specifically examined the relationship between perceived gender discrimination and counterproductive behaviors, using the variable of control as the mediator. This study also investigated the relationship between perceived gender discrimination and job turnover intentions as well as organizational commitment. Measures for perceived gender discrimination, control, counterproductive work behaviors, job turnover and organizational commitment were used to survey 97 participants on their workplace experiences and attitudes. It was found that perceived gender discrimination had a significant, positive correlation with counterproductive behaviors, as originally hypothesized. Perceived gender discrimination also had a significant negative correlation with organizational commitment. Control did not significantly correlate with counterproductive work behaviors, meaning it did not function as a mediator between counterproductive work behaviors and perceived gender discrimination, as hypothesized. The intent of this thesis was to examine perceived gender discrimination and control as antecedents of counterproductive behaviors. My findings suggest that perceived gender discrimination is correlated with these negative behaviors, thus promoting the importance of implementing programs to facilitate its reduction.

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Thesis advisor: Micah Lott / How do we rectify structural injustice? Iris Marion Young presents a Social Connection Model that states those who participate in social processes that produce injustice have a forward-looking responsibility to redress the resulting injustice. Within some philosophical discourse, however, there is a general consensus that SCM is not action-guiding and is overly demanding. To supplement Young’s ideas, I explore Robin Zheng’s Role-Ideal Model; Zheng fills some necessary gaps left by Young. My aim in this paper is to use Young's SCM and Zheng's RIM in tandem to create a more action-guiding and ameliorative project for structural injustice. I offer a structurally sensitive account of responsibility for disempowerment that avoids passively repeating domination. I establish a prefatory set of tasks that can be applied to all roles. These tasks are an expansion of the terms mentioned in Zheng Role-Ideal:“raised consciousness” and “boundary pushing.” / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Philosophy.