Date & time
Friday, September 27, 2013
11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Conferences & lectures
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The Evolution of Sustainability Ethics: The Interplay Between Ecologizing Values and Technology
Speaker(s)
David M. Wasieleski
Cost
Free
Contact
David Lank
514-848-2424 ext. 5433
Where
John Molson School of Business Building
1450 Guy
Room MB 6.260 (sixth floor)
Accessible location
Yes
The David O'Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise at Concordia University's John Molson School of Business presents Associate Professor and Chair, Management Department, Duquesne University Research Chair in Ethics and Innovation, ICN Business School, Nancy, France.
There exist a set of universal sustainability ethic rooted in naturally derived ecologizing values that have remained unchanged in principle throughout evolutionary time. However, the needs and context of humans' relationship with nature have changed significantly throughout evolutionary history. Each society faced different sustainability challenges, influencing the ethics in place at each point in human development. One possible explanation for the transformation of ethics pertaining to sustainability is in the ever-changing, ubiquitous, and accelerating nature of technology. Humans innovated and developed technological tools through natural selection in response to survival pressures. These may be described as techno-symbolic values, another set of natural norms universal to all humans (regardless of culture). The presentation will highlight the evolution of a sustainability ethic from the inception of human organized society to the present day and the evolution of the rules and ethics in light of the interaction between ecologizing values and techno-symbolic values.
David M. Wasieleski
David M. Wasieleski is an Associate Professor in the Palumbo-Donahue School of Business at Duquesne University, and chair of the Management and Legal Studies Department. His academic research focuses on natural science approaches to understanding ethical decision-making, the formation of social contracts within organizational contexts and the effects of cognitive biases and moral intensity on perceptions of ethical issues. His article (with Sefa Hayibor), “Evolutionary Psychology and Business Ethics Research” won the Article of the Year in Business Ethics Quarterly for 2009. He is Associate Editor for the Ethics track for Business and Society and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Business Ethics and the Journal of Organizational Behavior. He holds the position of Book Review Editor for the Journal of Business Ethics Education, and sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Organizational Moral Psychology.