In The Ethics of Influence, Cass R. Sunstein investigates the ethical issues surrounding government nudges, choice architecture, and mandates.

How do leaders influence others? Although they sometimes appeal directly to good reasons, which we associate with rational persuasion, leaders also use guilt, pressure, flattery, bullying, and rewards and punishment—all to get the behaviors that they want. Even when leaders refrain from outright lying, they are nevertheless known to practice something approaching, perhaps reaching, the level of manipulation. Influence therefore presents a serious ethical problem across leadership contexts. Leadership and the Ethics of Influence argues that influence puts leaders at risk of using people. It is generally disrespectful of autonomy to figure out what makes people "tick" in an effort to "handle" them. In contrast with physical force, influence works through agency, not around it. Despite this feature of influence—and, to a large extent because of it—the everyday influence associated with leadership is often morally troublesome. What matters morally is not only whether agency is bypassed or overridden but also who is ultimately in control. This book uses philosophy and leadership studies to show how leaders across different contexts can be justified in getting followers to do things. Connecting moral theory to leadership theory, and especially to charismatic leadership, authentic leadership, transforming leadership, and ethical leadership, this book is essential reading for leadership scholars, students, and practitioners.

In Children, Religion and the Ethics of Influence, John Tillson develops a theory concerning which kinds of formative influence are morally permissible, impermissible or obligatory. Applying this theory to the case of religion, he argues that religious initiation in childhood is morally impermissible whether conducted by parents, teachers or others. Tillson addresses questions such as: how we come to have the ethical responsibilities we do, how we understand religion, how ethical and religious commitments can be justified, and what makes children ethically special.

Over the last few decades information and communication technology has come to play an increasingly prominent role in our dealings with other people. Computers, in particular, have made available a host of new ways of interacting, which we have increasingly made use of. In the wake of this development a number of ethical questions have been raised and debated. Ethics in Cyberspace focuses on the consequences for ethical agency of mediating interaction by means of computers, seeking to clarify how the conditions of certain kinds of interaction in cyberspace (for example, in chat-rooms and virtual worlds) differ from the conditions of interaction face-to-face and how these differences may come to affect the behaviour of interacting agents in terms of ethics.

A lively and entertaining guide to ethics in a technological age. Most people have a strong sense of right and wrong, and they aren't shy about expressing their opinions. But when we take a polarizing stand on something we regard as an eternal truth, we often forget that ethics evolve over time. Many shifts in the right versus wrong pendulum are driven by advances in technology. Our great-grandparents might be shocked by in vitro fertilization; our great-grandchildren might be shocked by the messiness of pregnancy, childbirth, and unedited genes. In Right/Wrong, Juan Enriquez reflects on what happens to our ethics as technology makes the once unimaginable a commonplace occurrence.

In recent years, 'Nudge Units' or 'Behavioral Insights Teams' have been created in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other nations. All over the world, public officials are using the behavioral sciences to protect the environment, promote employment and economic growth, reduce poverty, and increase national security. In this book, Cass R. Sunstein, the eminent legal scholar and best-selling co-author of Nudge, breaks new ground with a deep yet highly readable investigation into the ethical issues surrounding nudges, choice architecture, and mandates, addressing such issues as welfare, autonomy, self-government, dignity, manipulation, and the constraints and responsibilities of an ethical state. Complementing the ethical discussion, The Ethics of Influence: Government in the Age of Behavioral Science contains a wealth of new data on people's attitudes towards a broad range of nudges, choice architecture, and mandates.

Studies on humans have saved countless lives, but sometimes harm participants. Research ethics committees currently monitor scientists, but have been increasingly criticized for blocking important research. How these committees work, however, is largely unknown. This book uniquely illuminates this hidden world that ultimately affects us all.

Everywhere we hear talk of decline, of a world that was better once, maybe fifty years ago, maybe centuries ago, but certainly before modernity drew us along its dubious path. While some lament the slide of Western culture into relativism and nihilism and others celebrate the trend as a liberating sort of progress, Charles Taylor calls on us to face the moral and political crises of our time, and to make the most of modernity's challenges. "The great merit of Taylor's brief, non-technical, powerful book...is the vigor with which he restates the point which Hegel (and later Dewey) urged against Rousseau and Kant: that we are only individuals in so far as we are social... Being authentic, being faithful to ourselves, is being faithful to something which was produced in collaboration with a lot of other people... The core of Taylor's argument is a vigorous and entirely successful criticism of two intertwined bad ideas: that you are wonderful just because you are you, and that 'respect for difference' requires you to respect every human being, and every human culture--no matter how vicious or stupid." --Richard Rorty, London Review of Books

The essential guide for ethical decision-making in the 21st century, The Power of Ethics depicts “ethical decision-making not in a nebulous philosophical space, but at the point where the rubber meets the road” (Michael Schur, producer and creator of The Good Place). It’s not your imagination: we’re living in a time of moral decline. Publicly, we’re bombarded with reports of government leaders acting against the welfare of their constituents; companies prioritizing profits over health, safety, and our best interests; and technology posing risks to society with few or no repercussions for those responsible. Personally, we may be conflicted about how much privacy to afford our children on the internet; how to make informed choices about our purchases and the companies we buy from; or how to handle misconduct we witness at home and at work. How do we find a way forward? Today’s ethical challenges are increasingly gray, often without a clear right or wrong solution, causing us to teeter on the edge of effective decision-making. With concentrated power structures, rapid advances in technology, and insufficient regulation to protect citizens and consumers, ethics are harder to understand than ever. But in The Power of Ethics, Susan Liautaud shows how ethics can be used to create a sea change of positive decisions that can ripple outward to our families, communities, workplaces, and the wider world—offering unprecedented opportunity for good. Drawing on two decades as an ethics advisor guiding corporations and leaders, academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, and students in her Stanford University ethics courses, Susan Liautaud provides clarity to blurry ethical questions, walking you through a straightforward, four-step process for ethical decision-making you can use every day. Liautaud also explains the six forces driving virtually every ethical choice we face. Exploring some of today’s most challenging ethics dilemmas and showing you how to develop a clear point of view, speak out with authority, make effective decisions, and contribute to a more ethical world for yourself and others, The Power of Ethics is the must-have ethics guide for the 21st century.