‘Ethics cannot be taught,’ asserted Plato in one of the first steps of Western philosophy, an argument that was reconfirmed also by Wittgenstein in the twentieth century. Against this background, this thesis argues for the prospect of acquiring Ethics in architectural design education. In doing so, it utilises two intertwined tactics of inquiry: a practice-led study and a philosophical exploration. The practice-led study examines three educational case studies: an architectural design studio, a music class and a dojo (the place of education in the traditional Japanese martial arts – here Aikido). Through the tactics of ethnomethodology the thesis investigates the way that participants in each practice produce situations of Ethics in each of the three cases. Simultaneously, the philosophical analysis divides the wider discourse of Ethics into two sub-themes: morality and ethics. Morality is characterised by normative evaluations, based on the application of external rules and rational reflection exercised by humans seen as ‘rational animals;’ while ethics is characterised by practical judgements, based on internal customs, habits and dispositions that reveal a notion of ‘human animality.’ The thesis argues against the privileging of the popular, and hegemonic sub-theme of morality, in support of the need to inhabit the largely neglected and underestimated area of ethics. The concept of ‘inhabitation’ deriving from habit, repetition and the every-day, proposes a dwelling in the inherently ineffable discourse of ethics, which can be acquired through habituation. In demonstrating this distinction between morality and ethics in the three educational case studies, human conduct (discussed as the trinity of theory, poesis, praxis by Aristotle) is analysed, and praxis is found to be the fundamental activity that inhabits ethics. There, in the mere doing of the most mundane and everyday educational activities, where means and ends conflate, ethics thrive. Furthermore, two complex terms are employed to analyse the production of morality and ethics in the case studies: reflective disruption as a generative mechanism of morality; and repetitive mimesis as a generator of ethics. The thesis concludes that the currently dominant quest for constant innovative reflection, needs to replaced by a focus on the repetition of mimetic actions; arguing that students are educated in ethics by inhabiting this largely unknown, but uncannily familiar area of Ethics.

<p> External auditors do not have the capacity to detect corporate fraud, even though accounting scholars have agreed on the perceived importance of fraud detection. There is a need to integrate fraud detection courses and forensic accounting topics into undergraduate training. This study addressed the problem of external auditors&rsquo; detection of less than 5% of fraud cases resulting from their lack of fraud detection topics and courses from their undergraduate studies. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory multiple-case study was to explore external auditors&rsquo; perspectives on expected competencies and fraud detection topics and courses from their undergraduate accounting programs and whether this education prepared them to detect corporate fraud. An exploratory, holistic, multiple-case study research methodology was utilized for the study. A purposive snowball criterion sampling was used to recruit 12 participants with bachelor&rsquo;s degree and at least 1 year of experience in the auditing field in Northern Illinois. The list of membership provided by professional accounting bodies was used to recruit the participants. The external auditors&rsquo; perspectives were captured as data using open-ended questions in a semi-structured face-to-face interview format. A five-phased research analysis was applied for qualitative data analysis with the help of NVivo 11 software to identify themes associated with the research questions. A total of sixteen themes, made of nine major themes and seven minor themes, emerged from the study and formed the basis of the findings. The results of the study indicated that external auditors have not detected corporate fraud in practice. Furthermore, fraud education received in the undergraduate accounting programs was not sufficient for corporate fraud detection. Competencies for corporate fraud detection in auditing practice were found to be low among external auditors and four strategies were suggested for integrating fraud education into college accounting programs. The outcome of this study supported recommendations for practical accounting application and future research was recommended for replication of study in other geographic locations to compare the perspectives of educators, management, and internal auditors with a focus on other frauds involving credit cards, payroll, fraudulent billing, inventory, and theft or stealing to build on, extend, confirm, or disconfirm them.</p>

Since Israel came into existence in 1948, the relationship between Washington and Tel Aviv has been unique and controversial. The conventional wisdom suggests that the relationship between the United States and Israel is driven by moral affinities and strategic reasoning. In March 2006, John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt suggested that Jewish interest groups and their persuasive tactics are the only reasons for continued U.S. support to Israel. This thesis described the different factors that promote close U.S.-Israel relations and identifies a competing explanation for U.S. support for Israel based on evangelical ideology. / US Army (USA) author.

<p> Leadership is a widely explored topic. Leadership within the nonprofit sector of the United States has become of interest. The problem is that nonprofit leadership garnered attention with increased reports of unethical acts by nonprofit leaders. This quantitative correlation study investigated the relationship between the leadership styles (authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire) and ethics positions (idealism and relativism) of senior nonprofits leaders within the United States whose organizations were listed in the GuideStar database. The GuideStar database is a database of 1.8 million nonprofit organizations in the United States. Survey participants (n=111) responded to a 40-question web survey that consisted of questions from the Leadership Styles Questionnaire and the Ethics Position Questionnaire. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the data to investigate the hypothesized relationship between the research variables. The results of the study indicated a statistically significant relationship between the laissez-faire leadership style and both ethics positions. An implication of the findings suggested that a leader may hold a strong ethics position (rather it be relativism or idealism), but act as a neutral leader. Based on the findings a recommendation to nonprofit board of directors is to administer the Leadership Styles Questionnaire and the Ethics Position Questionnaire to assess if the leaders&rsquo; leadership style and ethics position are congruent with the need of the organization. The boards of directors may choose to engage laissez-faire leaders as they have strong ethics positions. This study is one of few that endorse the use of the laissez-faire leadership style.</p>

<p> Nurses may share a commonality of issues which can affect their willingness and ability to respond as post-disaster emergency care providers. Guided by expectancy, locus of control, and chaos theory, a systematic literature review was conducted to identify the barriers which affect nurses&rsquo; willingness and ability to report to their unit after a disaster occurs. Briggs methodology guided this systematic review, and Fineout-Overholt&rsquo;s and Melnyk levels of evidence were used to evaluate the reliability of information and effectiveness of their interventions. Fifteen articles meeting the inclusion criteria (addressed nurses&rsquo; willingness to report to their unit or to contact the incident command center for mobilization, published in 2005 or after, and written in English) were reviewed. Twelve were systemic reviews of descriptive and qualitative studies (Level 5), one was a cohort study (Level 4), one was a report of expert committees (Level 7), and one reported findings from a pilot study. Five articles reported personal barriers related to the nurses&rsquo; home caregiver responsibilities and four articles reported personal barriers related to nurses&rsquo; concern for personal and family safety. Three articles reported institutional barriers related to unsure availability of necessary safety equipment and two articles reported lack of disaster preparedness. Developing a disaster plan that includes emergency phone numbers, a prepared backpack of basic survival gear, and a plan for emergency child and elder care arrangements, as well as providing disaster training for nurses was recommended. Understanding health provider needs and willingness to respond to emergency situations contributes to positive social change by contributing to disaster risk reduction and ensuring safer and more resilient communities.</p>

More now than ever, the status of war refugees and the standard of how certain global actors are obligated to treat them is of the utmost importance. Often, within a conventional sense of justice it is difficult to determine blame for the suffering of refugees because multiple actors play significant roles in the events leading up to displacement. This paper is an analysis of five prominent arguments regarding justice in migration for war refugees. I also present my own formulation of a principle that dictates how we should treat refugees. In conceiving this principle, I concentrated specifically on people displaced from Iraq and Syria. This focus came directly in response to the recent Executive Order 13769, titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” I examine the philosophical conceptions of moral repair, moral blame, and humanitarian obligation within the context of the executive order and the sociological factors and implications in its institution.

<p> This dissertation attempts to preserve the central tenets of a global moral theory called &ldquo;the capabilities approach&rdquo; as defended by Martha Nussbaum, but to do so in a way that better realizes its own goals of identifying gender injustices and gaining cross-cultural support by providing an alternative defense of it. Capabilities assess an individual&rsquo;s well-being based on what she is able to do (actions) and who she is able to be (states of existence). Nussbaum grounds her theory in the intuitive idea that each and every person is worthy of equal respect and dignity. The problem with grounding a theory in a version of intuitionism is that it runs the risk of authoritarian moral reasoning. I argue Nussbaum, in fact, is the final arbiter who decides which intuitions are mistaken, which are not, and how to interpret what people say to fit into her own framework. This method of justifying capabilities is most problematic in cases of social inequality whereby dominant group members do not feel they need to check their intuitions against non-dominant group members, and even if they did, they are not forced to take the non-dominant group&rsquo;s intuitions seriously. </p><p> I find capabilities as a global moral theory to be very promising, and I agree with Nussbaum that a list of capabilities is beneficial for identifying people who are not able to live a truly dignified human life. However, I am also sympathetic to the criticism of defending capabilities using a version of intuitionism. So, I offer an alternative method of justifying the capabilities rooted in the discourse ethics tradition. This method seeks all persons that are affected by the outcome to freely and equally share their opinion. This avoids the charge of authoritarian moral reasoning, because (1) it seeks perspectives other than simply one&rsquo;s own, but unlike traditional ethics, it (2) pays special attention to the ways in which power relations shape dialogue. Ultimately, I hope to have preserved the central tenets of the capabilities approach while better realizing Nussbaum&rsquo;s commitment to defending a theory that is gender sensitive and has gained cross-cultural support.</p>

<p> The need for cyber ethics continues to grow at a staggering pace within the federal government and the private industry&rsquo;s code of conduct. However, the practice of cyber ethics in these environments has presented many challenges for the organizations. A few of them include: cyber ethics training for IT professionals and employees, a lack of sharing information between the federal government and private sector; and the difficulty of creating applicable and legal standards concerning cyber ethics. These challenges prove there is a great need for further research to address these issues, and while the research presented in this paper is still in its infancy there have been documented methodologies which have shown promise. The limitations however include people are vulnerabilities of cybersecurity; a cyber-ethics training plan is critical for federal government and private sector employees and there is a lack of a global code of conduct on cybersecurity. The results of a more comprehensive study into these issues may help to better inform and influence decision making by the federal government, as well as by IT and cybersecurity professionals.</p>

The thesis is an examination of the familiar objection that Consequentialism is unreasonably demanding (hereafter the Demandingness Objection). The focus is on attempts to construct a moral theory which avoids making unreasonable demands, without departing too much from traditional Consequentialism. The thesis is in two parts. In Part ONE, a wide range of contemporary forms of Consequentialism are examined, particularly the theories of Parfit, Brandt, Hooker, Murphy, Slote and Scheffler. It is argued that none of these is able to provide an adequate response to the Demandingness Objection. In Part TWO, a new Consequentialist theory is sketched. The core of this theory is a theoretical innovation: nonproportional accounts of the relationships between the values of outcomes, the costs faced by agents, and the lightness or wrongness of actions. It is argued that such accounts can provide the basis for a response to the Demandingness Objection. It is also argued that nonproportional elements can be incorporated into the theories of Scheffler and Parfit, and that the resulting theories are superior to the originals. It is concluded that the notion of nonproportionality is worthy of further exploration, and that the best possible Consequentialist moral theory is very likely to incorporate some non-proportional elements. It is also concluded that it would be premature to assume that Consequentialists will never be able to put together an adequate response to the Demandingness Objection.

<p>The purpose of this study is to apply the qualitative research method of descriptive single-case study design to explore the phenomenon of fraud in companies in the state of Arkansas by conducting face-to-face interviews with mid-level officers, distributing questionnaires to upper-level officers, and reviewing company documentation in the retail, professional services, or manufacturing industries in Arkansas. The focus is to understand the phenomenon of fraud and company officers&rsquo; perceptions about tools for detecting and preventing fraud. Financial statement fraud tactics make up 9% of the fraud cases globally, which equates to a median loss of $1 million (Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, 2014). The research method involves the triangulation of data from interviewing mid-level company officers, distributing questionnaires to upper-level company officers, and reviewing organizational policy and procedure documents. Interviews will consist of at least 20&ndash;35 participants in a mid-level officer position to ascertain their perceptions about the fraud triangle as a tool and the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence (BCPE) as a framework, a questionnaire will be distributed to upper-level officers to confirm/disconfirm themes, and company historical documents will be reviewed. Because officers are accountable for the accuracy of financial reporting and the ethical conduct of employees, establishing methods for detecting and preventing fraud averts fraudulent acts such as the embezzlement, false reporting, or bribery. </p>