In c.1330 the Antwerp public servant Jan van Boendale composed Der Leken Spieghel (The Layman's Mirror), a free adaption of several earlier Latin treatises on education. Van Boendale evidently wanted to ensure that a clear and reliable handbook was available to the laity, who lacked sufficient training in Latin to access the original texts. Der Leken Spieghel consists of four books, each divided into numerous smaller sections. This article presents a fresh translation of paragraph 113, which outlines the four characteristics needed to conduct an honourable life.
Artificial intelligence-driven technology increasingly shapes work practices and, accordingly, employees’ opportunities for meaningful work (MW). In our paper, we identify five dimensions of MW: pursuing a purpose, social relationships, exercising skills and self-development, autonomy, self-esteem and recognition. Because MW is an important good, lacking opportunities for MW is a serious disadvantage. Therefore, we need to know to what extent employers have a duty to provide this good to their employees. We hold that employers have a duty of beneficence to design for opportunities for MW when implementing AI-technology in the workplace. We argue that this duty of beneficence is supported by the three major ethical theories, namely, Kantian ethics, consequentialism, and virtue ethics. We defend this duty against two objections, including the view that it is incompatible with the shareholder theory of the firm. We then employ the five dimensions of MW as our analytical lens to investigate how AI-based technological innovation in logistic warehouses has an impact, both positively and negatively, on MW, and illustrate that design for MW is feasible. We further support this practical feasibility with the help of insights from organizational psychology. We end by discussing how AI-based technology has an impact both on meaningful work (often seen as an aspirational goal) and decent work (generally seen as a matter of justice). Accordingly, ethical reflection on meaningful and decent work should become more integrated to do justice to how AI-technology inevitably shapes both simultaneously.
A rational choice of partner would end in abandonment as soon as even a slightly 'better ' partner appears. As a result, nothing could be built together, while collaboration is exactly what people are good at, for better or for worse. Virtues such as love and loyalty and feelings such as passion and jealousy play a much more important and evolutionarily entrenched role than rationality. When trying to understand our world in exceptional crisis situations, we have to keep this in mind. However, this turns out to be extremely complicated and, paradoxically, requires well-implemented rationality.
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