Abstract
The arrival of AI and socio-technological systems in management decision-making promises the possibilities for many enhancements, such as “objectification” and speed. However, the promises imply significant challenges, like ethical gaps to address. Hence, in this article, we propose the ethics of care as moral grounding for the AI era in management. The article’s structure is as follows: first, we present the context of the arrival of AI and its ethical implications. Second, we present the ethics of care, its main premises, and its application in business ethics and stakeholder theory. Finally, we approach ethical problems in management decision-making from a care ethics perspective, and then, we propose a principle for companies. We ended up with some conclusions and future research.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Alacovska, A., and Bissonnette, J. 2019. Careful work: An ethics of care approach to contingent labour in the creative industries. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04316-3.
Anderson, M., and Anderson, S. L. 2011. Machine ethics. Cambridge University Press.
Anderson, M., Anderson, S. L., and Berenz, V. 2019. A value-driven eldercare robot: Virtual and physical instantiations of a case supported principle-based behavior paradigm. Proceedings of the IEEE, 107(3): 526–540. https://doi.org/10.1109/JPROC.2018.2840045.
Aronowitz, S., and DiFazio, W. 1996. High technology and work tomorrow. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 544: 52–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716296544001005.
Awad, E., Dsouza, S., Kim, R., Schulz, J., Henrich, J., Shariff, A., and Rahwan, I. 2018. The moral machine experiment. Nature, 563(7729): 59. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0637-6.
Bell, D. 1973. The coming of post-Industrial society: A venture in social forecasting. New York: Basic Books.
Borgerson, J. 2007. On the harmony of feminist ethics and business ethics. Business and Society Review, 112(4): 477–509.
Buchholz, R. A., and Rosenthal, S. B. 2002. Technology and business: Rethinking and moral dilemma. Journal of Business Ethics, 41(1/2): 45–50.
Burton, B. K., and Dunn, C. P. 1996. Feminist ethics as moral grounding for stakeholder theory. Business Ethics Quarterly, 6(2): 133–147.
Cath, C., Wachter, S., Mittelstadt, B., Taddeo, M., and Floridi, L. 2018. Artificial intelligence and the ‘good society’: The US, EU, and UK approach. Science and Engineering Ethics, 24(2): 505–528. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-017-9901-7.
Cervantes, J., Rodriguez, L., Lopez, S., Ramos, F., and Robles, F. 2016. Autonomous agents and ethical decision-making. Cognitive Computation, 8(2): 278–296. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-015-9362-8.
Coeckelbergh, M. 2013. Drones, information technology, and distance: Mapping the moral epistemology of remote fighting. Ethics and Information Technology, 15(2): 87–98. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-013-9313-6.
Davies, P. W. 2002. Technology and business ethics theory. Business Ethics: A European Review, 6(2): 76–80.
Dodel, M., & Mesch, G. S. 2020. Perceptions about the impact of automation in the workplace. Information Communication & Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2020.1716043.
Engster, D. 2011. Care ethics and stakeholder theory. In M. Hamington and M. Sander-Staudt (Eds.), Applying care ethics to business(pp. 93–110). New York: Springer.
Engster, D. 2007. The heart of justice: Care ethics and political theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
European Commissión. 2020a. White Paper. On Artificial Intelligence—A European approach to excellence and trust. Retrieved from: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/commission-white-paper-artificial-intelligence-feb2020_en.pdf (May, 2020).
European Comission. 2020b. Ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI. Retrieved from: https://digitalstrategy. ec.europa.eu/en/library/ethics-guidelines-trustworthy-ai (July, 2021).
Freeman, R. E. 1984. Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. Boston, MA: Pitman.
Freeman, R. E., and Gilbert, Daniel R. 1989. Corporate strategy and the search for ethics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pretice-Hall.
Freeman, R. E., and Gilbert, Daniel R. 1992. Business ethics and society: A critical agenda. Business & Society, 31: 9–17.
Floridi, L. 2018. Soft ethics, the governance of the digital and the general data protection regulation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A-Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences, 376(2133), 20180081. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2018.0081.
Floridi, L., Cowls, J., King, T. C., and Taddeo, M. 2020. How to design AI for social good: Seven essential factors. Science and Engineering Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-020-00213-5.
Floridi, L., and Taddeo, M. 2016. What is data ethics? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A-Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences, 374(2083): 20160360. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2016.0360
French, W., and Weis, A. 2000. An ethics of care or an ethics of justice. Journal of Business Ethics, 27(1-2): 125–136. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006466520477
Ghobakhloo, M. 2020. Industry 4.0, digitization, and opportunities for sustainability. Journal of Cleaner Production, 252: 119869. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119869
Gilligan, C. 1982. In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
G20. 2019. G20 Ministerial statement on trade and digital economy. Retrieved from: https://www.mofa.go.jp/files/000486596.pdf (May, 2020).
Hamington, M., and Sander-Staudt, M. 2011. Applying care ethics to business. New York: Springer.
Heidegger, M. 1977. The question concerning technology and other essays. New York: Harper & Row.
Held, V. 2006. The ethics of care: Personal, political, global. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hill, C., and Rothaermel, F. T. 2003. The performance of incumbent firms in the face of radical technological innovation. Academy of Management Review, 28(2): 257–274.
Hooker, J. N., and Kim T.W. 2018. Toward non-intuition-based machine and artificial intelligence ethics: A deontological approach based on modal logic, AIES’ 18, February 2–3, New Orleans, LA, USA. (Conference Paper).
Huber, C., and Munro, I. 2014. “Moral distance” in organizations: An inquiry into ethical violence in the works of kafka. Journal of Business Ethics, 124(2): 259–269. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1865-1.
Jonas, H. 1984. The imperative of responsibility. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jonas, H. 1985. Technik, medizin und ethik — zur praxis des prinzips verantwortung . Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Kaplan, A., and Haenlein, M. 2020. Rulers of the world, unite! the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence. Business Horizons, 63(1): 37–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2019.09.003.
Kim, T. W., and Mejia, S. 2019. From artificial intelligence to artificial wisdom: What socrates teaches us. Computer, 52(10): 70–74. https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2019.2929723
Kim, T. W., and Scheller-Wolf, A. 2019. Technological unemployment, meaning in life, purpose of business, and the future of stakeholders. Journal of Business Ethics, 160(2): 319–337. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04205-9.
Kroll, J. A. 2018. The fallacy of inscrutability. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A-Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences, 376(2133), 20180084. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2018.0084.
Lahdesmaki, M., Siltaoja, M., and Spence, L. J. 2019. Stakeholder salience for small businesses: A social proximity perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 158(2): 373–385. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3707-z ER.
Liker, J. K., Haddad, C. J., and Karlin, J. 1999. Perspectives on technology and work organization. Annual Review of Sociology, 25: 575–596. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.25.1.575.
Ma, Z. 2009. The status of contemporary business ethics research: Present and future. Journal of Business Ethics, 90: 255–265. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0420-6.
Martin, K. 2019a. Designing ethical algorithms. MIS Quarterly Executive, 18(2): 129–142.
Martin, K. 2019b. Ethical implications and accountability of algorithms. Journal of Business Ethics, 160(4): 835–850. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-3921-3
Marx, K. 1932. The economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844 and the communist manifesto. New York: Prometheus Books.
Melé, D. 2009. Business ethics in action. seeking human excellence in organizations. New York: Palgrave-MacMillan.
Melé, D. 2014. “Human quality treatment”: Five organizational levels. Journal of Business Ethics, 120(4): 457–471. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1999-1 ER.
Misselhorn, C. 2020. Artificial systems with moral capacities? A research design and its implementation in a geriatric care system. Artificial Intelligence, 278, UNSP 103179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artint.2019.103179.
OECD. 2019. OECD principles on AI. Retrieved from: https://www.oecd.org/going-digital/ai/principles/ (May, 2020).
Paille, P., Mejia-Morelos, J. H., Marche-Paille, A., Chen, C. C., and Chen, Y. 2016. Corporate greening, exchange process among co-workers, and ethics of care: An empirical study on the determinants of pro-environmental behaviors at coworkers-level. Journal of Business Ethics, 136(3): 655–673. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2537-0 ER.
Peace, A. G., Weber, J., Hartzel, K. S., and Nightingale, J. 2002. Ethical issues in eBusiness: A proposal for creating the eBusiness principles. Business and Society Review, 107(1): 41–60.
Rachels, J. 2003. The elements of moral philosophy. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Reiter, S. A. 1996. The kohlberg–gilligan controversy: Lessons for accounting ethics education https://doi.org/10.1006/cpac.1996.0005.
Remenyi, D., and Williams, B. 1996. Some aspects of ethics and research into the silicon brain. International Journal of Information Management, 16(6): 401–411. https://doi.org/10.1016/0268-4012(96)00029-1
Robbins, R. W., and Wallace, W. A. 2007. Decision support for ethical problem solving: A multi-agent approach. Decision Support Systems, 43(4): 1571–1587. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2006.03.003
Sander-Staudt, M., and Hamington, M. 2011. Introduction: Care ethics and business ethics. Applying Care Ethics to Business, 34, VII-+. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9307-3
Sandin, P. 2009. Approaches to ethics for corporate crisis management. Journal of Business Ethics, 87(1): 109–116. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9873-2 ER.
Schwab, K. 2016. The fourth industrial revolution. Geneva: World Economic Forum.
Shank, D. B., Graves, C., Gott, A., Gamez, P., and Rodriguez, S. 2019. Feeling our way to machine minds: People's emotions when perceiving mind in artificial intelligence. Computers in Human Behavior, 98: 256–266. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.04.001 ER.
Van Cranenburgh, K. C., and Arenas, D. 2014. Strategic and moral dilemmas of corporate philanthropy in developing countries: Heineken in sub-saharan africa. Journal of Business Ethics, 122(3), 523–536. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1776-1.
Van de Poel, I. 2018. Design for value change, ethics and information technology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9461-9.
Van den Hoven, J., Vermaas, P. E., and Van de Poel, I. 2015. Handbook of ethics and values in technological design. Dordrecht: Springer.
Vidgen, R., Hindle, G., and Randolph, I. 2020. Exploring the ethical implications of business analytics with a business ethics canvas. European Journal of Operational Research, 281: 491–501.
Wiener, M., Saunders, C., and Marabelli, M. 2020. Big-data business models: A critical literature review and multiperspective research framework. Journal of Information Technology, 35(1): 66–91. https://doi.org/10.1177/0268396219896811
Wicks, A. C., Gilbert, D. R. Jr., & Freeman, R. E. 1994. A feminist reinterpretation of the stakeholder concept. Business Ethics Quarterly, 4(4): 475–497.
Wright, S. A., & Schultz, A. E. 2018. The rising tide of artificial intelligence and business automation: Developing an ethical framework. Business Horizons, 61(6): 823–832. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2018.07.001
Yuthas, K., and Dillard, J.F. 1999. Ethical development of advanced technology: A postmodern stakeholder perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 19(1): 35–49.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Villegas-Galaviz, C., Fernández-Fernández, JL. (2022). Care Ethics in the Era of Artificial Intelligence. In: Faldetta, G., Mollona, E., Pellegrini, M.M. (eds) Philosophy and Business Ethics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97106-9_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97106-9_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-97105-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-97106-9
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)