{"title":"A Necessary Ethics Definition for Conflicts of Interest","authors":"Franklin Ibáñez","doi":"10.5840/bpej20201218103","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The paper examines Villarán’s definition of conflicts of interest to improve it. Some clarifications are necessary but also some amendments. The basic difference consists of first distinguishing between interest and moral grounds, and, second, by emphasizing the voluntary nature of the commitment of the person facing a conflict of interest. Such a commitment arises within a work-related or professional context. It must be explicit with regard to individuals, public institutions, private organizations, whether for profit or nonprofit, or professional associations. To support this concept, a method is used that is similar to the recent tradition of the English-speaking world expressed by Rawls, instead of the search for universal or essentialist concepts of the Platonic tradition. The result is not a true definition of conflicts of interest, but a necessary one given our historical-social context.","PeriodicalId":53983,"journal":{"name":"BUSINESS & PROFESSIONAL ETHICS JOURNAL","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"BUSINESS & PROFESSIONAL ETHICS JOURNAL","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5840/bpej20201218103","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
The paper examines Villarán’s definition of conflicts of interest to improve it. Some clarifications are necessary but also some amendments. The basic difference consists of first distinguishing between interest and moral grounds, and, second, by emphasizing the voluntary nature of the commitment of the person facing a conflict of interest. Such a commitment arises within a work-related or professional context. It must be explicit with regard to individuals, public institutions, private organizations, whether for profit or nonprofit, or professional associations. To support this concept, a method is used that is similar to the recent tradition of the English-speaking world expressed by Rawls, instead of the search for universal or essentialist concepts of the Platonic tradition. The result is not a true definition of conflicts of interest, but a necessary one given our historical-social context.