Two environmental accidents in the mining industry provide the context for this study of the Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (1997, The Academy of Management Review 22, 853–886) analysis of stakeholder salience. I examine the reactions of two stakeholder groups: shareholder response is examined in terms of changing share returns and risk; management response through change in disclosure. I find the two decision-makers reacted at different times. Management responded to the first accident, though not the second. Shareholders responded to the second (...) accident alone. My findings support the Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (MAW) assertion that stakeholder status is impermanent, and determined through the eyes of the decision-maker. (shrink)

This book illustrates how postcolonial theory can be put to work in education. It offers an accessible and handy overview and comparison of postcolonial theory and other theoretical debates related to critiques of Western ethnocentrism and hegemony. It also offers examples that illustrate how a discursive strand of postcolonial theory has been applied successfully in the contexts of educational research/critique and in pioneering pedagogical projects. This book supports educators and researchers in education to engage with postcolonial theoretical frameworks and their (...) implications for research and educational practice. (shrink)

Depuis un peu plus de cinq ans, il existe dans le nord du Brésil des tensions sociales autour de la construction d’un projet de développement. La construction du barrage hydroélectrique de Belo Monte est un parfait exemple, à la fois pour illustrer la relation confuse entre le pouvoir public et les entreprises privées, durant la réalisation d’un ouvrage d’infrastructures et pour étudier comment cette relation influence l’« acceptabilité sociale » du projet. Pour Belo Monte, le gouvernement a mis en place (...) une politique d’investissements locaux par l’intermédiaire d’un plan de développement durable, parallèle à la construction de l’ouvrage civil. Le plan, pionnier dans son format, est financé par des ressources publiques et privées et distribue des financements pour divers projets proposés par la société civile et les gouvernements locaux. Il vise une meilleure insertion sociale du projet et son acceptation à l’échelle locale. Néanmoins, ce plan est aussi accusé, par les opposants au barrage, d’être une tentative de coopter la population locale. La situation que nous exposons vise à remettre en question le rôle de l’État dans l’acceptabilité sociale. Nous proposons d’aborder le croisement entre les sphères publiques et privées en ce qui concerne l’implémentation de services et de projets d’intérêts publics, en nous posant plusieurs questions : comment la gestion de l’acceptabilité sociale se fait-elle au Brésil, dans un cadre officiellement démocratique, mais où les pratiques sont historiquement populistes? Quelle place reste-t-il pour les populations locales et leurs représentants et comment survivent les mouvements sociaux désireux de faire entendre leur voix dans le débat et la gestion du projet? Les questions démontrent la nécessité d’inclure le rôle central de l’État et son influence dans les débats sur l’« acceptabilité sociale », élargissant la littérature, jusqu’alors trop souvent exclusivement centrée sur le binôme entreprise-population concernée. (shrink)

There is a persisting debate about what chemical bonds are and whether they exist. I argue that chemical bonds are real patterns of interactions between subatomic particles. This proposal resolves the problems raised in the context of existing understandings of the chemical bond and provides a novel way to defend the reality of chemical bonds.

One of the most plausible and widely discussed examples of strong emergence is molecular structure. The only detailed account of it, which has been very influential, is due to Robin Hendry and is formulated in terms of downward causation. This paper explains Hendry’s account of the strong emergence of molecular structure and argues that it is coherent only if one assumes a diachronic reflexive notion of downward causation. However, in the context of this notion of downward causation, the strong emergence (...) of molecular structure faces three challenges that have not been met and which have so far remained unnoticed. First, the putative empirical evidence presented for the strong emergence of molecular structure equally undermines supervenience, which is one of the main tenets of strong emergence. Secondly, it is ambiguous how the assumption of determinate nuclear positions is invoked for the support of strong emergence, as the role of this assumption in Hendry’s argument can be interpreted in more than one way. Lastly, there are understandings of causation which render the postulation of a downward causal relation between a molecule’s structure and its quantum mechanical entities, untenable. (shrink)

There has been an exponential rise in use of the term vulnerability across a number of political and policy arenas, including child protection, sexual offences, poverty, development, care for the elderly, patient autonomy, globalisation, war, public health and ecology. Yet despite its increasing deployment, the exact meaning and parameters of this concept remain somewhat elusive. In this article, we explore the interaction of two very different strategies—one in which vulnerability is relied upon by those seeking improved social justice as a (...) mechanism by which to identify, problematise and compel state responses to a universal condition of precarious dependency, and the other in which it is used as a category of neo-liberal governance which legitimates state encroachment whilst constructing ‘vulnerable’ individuals as ‘risk-managers’ who must behave ‘responsibly’ in the face of disadvantage. We suggest that the co-existence of these divergent approaches highlights the fluidity and malleability of the concept of vulnerability. Using sex work as a specific case study, we explore the ways in which vulnerability bears multiple meanings, and has been used in recent times in the furtherance of moralistic and regressive agendas, which collude with, rather than challenge, state power. Without seeking to reject the label or normative import of vulnerability, we call, therefore, for a more circumspect approach to its usage, and a more critical evaluation of recent claims which hail it as a mechanism, preferable to the conventional use of equality paradigms, by which to secure progressive feminist outcomes. (shrink)

S'opposant à la clôture hégélienne de la négativité, c'est-à-dire à l'esclavage intériorisé et affirmé par l'homme posthistorique, Bataille définit l'homme en tant que l'être ontologiquement déchiré, constitué par le conflit incontournable pouvant être enlevé non par un moment quelconque de l'histoire, mais uniquement par la mort. Contrairement à la prise de position hégélienne mystifiée l'homme n'est pas, selon Bataille, exclusivement une conscience tout à fait temporalisée, mais aussi un corps et une impulsion ou bien une emanation personifiée de l'énergie cosmique (...) et solaire. En tant que tel il est une négativité par excellence, une tension notoire entre l'interdit et le projet d'une part et la transgression et le dépense anarchique de l'autre, donc un être convulsif orienté non vers la plénitude positivement défini, mais vers la perte. Plus que par les avantages de la culture rejetant la violence et diminuant une existence devenant plus en plus utilisée et fonctionnalisée, l'homme est instigué, selon Bataille, par le sacré qui détermine originairement la dynamique de la vie. Attiré par le sacré en tant que le revers de l'homogénéité de la culture l'homme se dirige vers l'existence tragique souveraine, aspire à l'impossible. Aux système, savoir, possibilités, histoire et vie miasmatique excluant l'extase qui pour la raison n'est rien ou est par elle au moins tout à fait instrumentalisée dans la stratégie de sa ruse, Bataille oppose l'impossible athéologique et asystématique ou bien le non-savoir en tant que régions où se manifeste la souveraineté de l'homme. La souveraineté paradoxale du point de vue des codes pragmatiques, parce que fondée non sur le choix assidu et avare de l'accumulation et de la durée, mais sur le choix excessif de la perte, rudimentaire pour la vie traitée comme une explosion dionysiaque ou solaire. (shrink)

Pour autant que nous lisions Sade dans la perspective de la métaphysique platonicienne, il nous apparaít comme un scélérat psychopathe, dont l'oeuvre est digne de bûcher. Car si ses romans sont le reflet de la réalité, il n'у a pas de justification pour lui. Mais le monde sadique, prétend-il, en effet, à être une copie du monde réel, dont l'existence n'est encore que potentielle? Faut-il alors craindre Sade et le prendre pour un fou en le mettant sous le boisseau? L'analyse (...) de la conscience sadique enlève des doutes et des hésitations qui naissent en nous. Sade n'est pas aliené dans le sens que nous voulions imputer. D'un coté la perversion, de l'autre coté l'experience à laquelle il soumet, sous la pression des forces obscures, sa propre conscience, excluent les raisons de nos accusations. L'oeuvre de Sade est, en vérité, une manifestation de ce que G. Deleuze a nommé "renversement du platonisme". En tant que telle elle se développe en dehors de la distinction platonicienne fondamentale: Originel - Copie, en devenant une évocation du troisiéme "élément platonicien" - "faux prétendant", soit du Simulacre. С'ést en "faux" ou "simulé" qu elle retrouve sa vérité. Ce contexte permet de traiter Sade comme un grand precurseur de Nietzsche et de voir en lui un penseur anticipant beaucoup de problibnes actuels de la philosophie contemporaine, comme par exemple le problème du nihilisme. Le systeme sadique c'ést une singuliére synthése qui se compose, en outre de "motifs nietzschéennes", d'un mécanisme du siécle des lumiéres et d'une philosophie kantienne de volonté, alors de deux conceptions antinomiques de la pensée du XVIIIе siécle. Done on ne peut pas exagérer en disant que Sade est un penseur traversant son époque et ouvrant des horisons nouveaux devant la "philosophie de l'homme". II est très significatif que le dévoilement de ces horizons n'est pas pour Sade un effort exclusivemant théorique, mais qu'il est une tentative d'une dimension pratique. Ses solutions philosophiques, Sade les paye de la géhenne de sa propre conscience, qui, tourmenté par la nécessité d'une négation, culmine en anéantir un proche ainsi que soi-méme. (shrink)

Moral distress has been well reviewed in the literature with established deleterious side effects for all healthcare professionals, including nurses, physicians, and others. Yet, little is known about the quality and effectiveness of interventions directed to address moral distress. The aim of this integrative review is to analyze published intervention studies to determine their efficacy and applicability across hospital settings. Of the initial 1373 articles discovered in October 2020, 18 were appraised as relevant, with 1 study added by hand search (...) and 2 after a repeated search was completed in January and then in May of 2021, for a total of 22 reviewed articles. This review revealed data mostly from nurses, with some studies making efforts to include other healthcare professions who have experienced moral distress. Education-based interventions showed the most success, though many reported limited power and few revealed statistically lowered moral distress post intervention. This may point to the difficulty in adequately addressing moral distress in real time without adequate support systems. Ultimately, these studies suggest potential frameworks which, when bolstered by organization-wide support, may aid in moral distress interventions making a measurable impact. (shrink)

Here is something puzzling. Still Lifes can be expressive. Expression involves movement. Hence, (some) Still Lifes move. This seems odd. I consider a novel explanation to this ‘static-dynamic’ puzzle from Mitchell Green (2007). Green defends an analysis of artistic expressivity that is heavily indebted to work on intermodal perception. He says visual stimuli, like colours and shapes, can elicit experienced resemblances to sounds, smells and feelings. This enables viewers to know how an emotion feels by looking at the picture. The (...) hypothesis is intriguing, but I show that his suggestion that we empathize with the pictorial content is implausible and that this exposes a flaw in the way his argument moves from experiential mappings to experiential-affective mappings. Consequently, I register some reservations about the way Green supposes we detect these cross-modal qualities. (shrink)

This study tests how various kinds of trust impact attitudes toward euthanasia among the general public. The indication that trust might have an impact on euthanasia attitudes is based on the slippery slope argument, which asserts that allowing euthanasia might lead to abuses and involuntary deaths. Adopting this argument usually leads to less positive attitudes towards euthanasia. Tying in with this, it is assumed here that greater trust diminishes such slippery slope fears, and thereby increases euthanasia acceptance.

In this paper, I discuss Jenefer Robinson’s personalist account of pictorial expression. [1] According to personalism, a picture possesses the expressive properties we attribute to it because we take it that someone expresses E in the work. Robinson’s particular strategy exploits the concept of an implied persona who ‘unifies’ and ‘specifies’ what is expressed. [2] Dominic Lopes challenges this view by attacking what he takes to be a flawed assumption motivating the personalist account: the priority of figure expression. [3] Once (...) we acknowledge this flaw, he argues, there is no good reason to prefer personalism to an impersonalist theory. I will argue that Robinson qua personalist can pre-empt this strike by clarifying the relation between (a) what a picture expresses and (b) what is depicted as expressing in the picture. Rather than leading with the idea that personalism unifies or determines the meaning, I argue that impersonalism diminishes it and that, should it be accepted, we would be left with an impoverished view of what specific art pieces can mean. (shrink)

The emotional state of war-affected populations has become a central concern for international policy-makers in the last decade. Growing interest in war trauma is influenced by contemporary Anglo-American emotionology, or emotional norms, which tends to pathologize ordinary responses to distress, including anger related to survival strategies. The article critically analyses the ascendancy of a therapeutic security paradigm in international politics, which seeks to explain the prevailing political, economic and social conditions in terms of cycles of emotional dysfunctionalism. The article contends (...) that international therapeutic governance pathologizes waraffected populations as emotionally dysfunctional and problematizes their right to self-government, leading to extensive external intervention. However, international therapeutic governance may be detrimental to postwar recovery as well legitimizing a denial of self-government. (shrink)

Holobionts are symbiotic assemblages composed by a macrobe host plus its symbiotic microbiota. In recent years, the ontological status of holobionts has created a great amount of controversy among philosophers and biologists: are holobionts biological individuals or are they rather ecological communities of independent individuals that interact together? Chiu and Eberl have recently developed an eco-immunity account of the holobiont wherein holobionts are neither biological individuals nor ecological communities, but hybrids between a host and its microbiota. According to their account, (...) the microbiota is not a proper part of the holobiont. Yet, it should be regarded as a set of scaffolds that support the individuality of the host. In this paper, we approach Chiu and Eberl’s account from a metaphysical perspective and argue that, contrary to what the authors claim, the eco-immunity account entails that the microorganisms that compose the host’s microbiota are proper parts of the holobiont. Second, we argue that by claiming that holobionts are hybrids, and therefore, not biological individuals, the authors seem to be assuming a controversial position about the ontology of hybrids, which are conventionally characterized as a type of biological individual. In doing so, our paper aligns with the contemporary tendency to incorporate metaphysical resources to shed light on current biological debates and builds on that to provide additional support to the consideration of holobionts as biological individuals from an eco-immunity perspective. (shrink)

Nietzsche coins the enigmatic term homo natura to capture his understanding of the human being as a creature of nature and tasks philosophy with the renaturalisation of humanity. Following Foucault's critique of the human sciences, Vanessa Lemm discusses the reception of Nietzsche's naturalism in philosophical anthropology, psychoanalysis and gender studies. She offers an original reading of homo natura that brings back the ancient Greek idea of nature and sexuality as creative chaos and of the philosophical life as outspoken and (...) embodied truth, perhaps best exemplified by the Cynics' embrace of social and cultural transformation. (shrink)

Why do racist oppression and capitalist exploitation often seem so inescapable and intractable? To describe and explain adequately the persistence of racist ideology, to specify its role in the maintenance of racial capitalism, and to imagine the conditions of its abolition, we must understand racist ideology as a form of false consciousness. False consciousness gets things “right” at the level of appearance, but it mistakes that appearance for a “deep” or essential truth. This chapter articulates a novel, positive account of (...) first-order false consciousness, which occurs in the case of false beliefs about the world that are sustained and superficially justified by objective social arrangements, and of second-order false consciousness, which occurs in the case of false beliefs about how one has come to hold the beliefs that one does. To dismantle racist ideology requires political movements that craft theoretical interventions highlighting the inessentiality and contingency of despised racial groups’ oppressed status, as well as practical interventions aimed at directly undermining the oppressive conditions that are reflected in racist beliefs about the “naturalness” or “appropriateness” of these groups’ degraded status. (shrink)

If the traditional problem of demandingness is that a theory demands too much of all agents, for example by asking them to maximize utility in every decision, then we should ask whether there is a related problem of “differential demandingness”, when a theory places vastly different demands on different agents. I argue that even according to common-sense morality, the demands faced by particular agents depend on a variety of contingent factors. These include the general circumstances, the compliance of others, the (...) available resources, the agent’s relevant relationships, the agent’s psychological constitution, and the agent’s knowledge. Some agents, for instance, find themselves in a “sacrifice hazard”: a situation where morality calls for a huge unforeseen sacrifice. I argue that if moral demands are differential, it is harder than one might think to assess a theory’s general level of demandingness in the abstract. (shrink)

Abstract It would be puzzling if the morally best agents were not so good after all. Yet one prominent account of the morally best agents ascribes to them the exact motivational defect that has famously been called a “fetish.” The supposed defect is a desire to do the right thing, where this is read de dicto . If the morally best agents really are driven by this de dicto desire, and if this de dicto desire is really a fetish, then (...) the morally best agents are moral fetishists. This is puzzling. I resolve the puzzle by showing that on a proper understanding of the interaction between de dicto and de re moral motivation, it is not only not fetishistic, but quite possibly desirable, to be motivated by a de dicto desire to do the right thing. My argument relies partly on an appeal to a non-buck-passing account of moral rightness, according to which rightness is itself an additional reason-giving property over and above the right-making properties of an action. If this account of moral rightness is correct, then we would expect the morally best agents to exhibit de dicto moral motivation. However, since their de dicto desire acts in concert with de re desires, there is no reason to consider it a fetish. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-19 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9825-z Authors Vanessa Carbonell, Philosophy Department, University of Cincinnati, P.O. Box 210374, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0374, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116. (shrink)

In a 2010 paper published in this journal, Robinson responded to Smilansky’s argument that compatibilists do not have a principled reason to reject prepunishment. Smilansky argues that, due to the nature of a compatibilist universe, offenders will actually carry out their intended offences and are rightfully held responsible for them. As a result, there is no moral demand to wait for the offence to occur before punishing the offender. Smilansky has responded to a number of objections, but has not addressed (...) Robinson’s arguments. This paper will defend Smilansky’s position against Robinson’s claims and conclude that Smilansky’s position remains undefeated. (shrink)

We know that microbes contribute to the production of odors that some animals use to communicate, but how common is this phenomenon? Recent studies capitalizing on new molecular technologies are uncovering fascinating associations between microbes and odors of wild animals, but causality is difficult to ascertain. Fundamental questions about the nature of these unique host‐microbe interactions also remain unanswered. For instance, do microbes benefit from signaling associations with hosts? How does microbial community structure influence signal production? How do hosts regulate (...) microbes in order to generate appropriate signals? Here, we review the current state of knowledge on microbially produced signals in animals and discuss key research foci that can advance our understanding of microbial‐based signaling in the animal world. (shrink)

Resumo Neste artigo, vamos considerar o recente debate na metafísica da evolução, no que diz respeito tanto à persistência como à “mudança” em espécies biológicas, segundo a tese que considera a espécie como o agregado de indivíduos. Centrar-nos-emos na proposta de Thomas Reydon, que argumenta que em biologia, o termo “espécie” refere-se a duas entidades biológicas, por si denominadas evolverons e phylons, que desempenham vários papéis epistemológicos em pelo menos duas disciplinas diferentes, nomeadamente na biologia sistemática e na biologia evolutiva. (...) Em particular, analisamos criticamente a alegação de Reydon, que estas duas entidades biológicas geraram um problema para a tese que sustém a equivalência entre duas teorias de persistência, desenvolvidas pela metafísica analítica contemporânea: o tri–Dimensionalismo e tetra–Dimensionalismo. Neste artigo, pretende-se restaurar a tese da equivalência metafísica, recorrendo a uma tripla estratégia: promover a ideia de que os evolverons e os “phylons” são duas dimensões de uma mesma realidade; recorrer a uma noção menos problemática noção de endurantismo e, por último, destacar alguns problemas que surgem dos exemplos biológicos empregues por Reydon para basear o desenvolvimento dos seus argumentos. Palavras-chave : conceito de espécie, endurantismo, equivalência metafísica entre 3D e 4D, espécies biológicas sincrónicas e diacrónicas, persistênciaIn this paper we revise a recent debate on the metaphysics of evolution pertaining to both the persistence and change of biological species, and the species-as-individuals thesis. We focus on Thomas Reydon’s proposal that, in biology, the term “species” refers to two different biological entities, which he calls evolverons and phylons, and plays different epistemological roles in at least two different disciplines in which it is used, namely, evolutionary and systematic biology. In particular, we critically revise Reydon’s claim that these two biological entities raise a problem for the thesis of the equivalence between the two theories of persistence developed in contemporary analytic metaphysics: three–dimensionalism and four–dimensionalism. In this paper, we aim to reinstate the thesis of metaphysical equivalence by a threefold strategy: motivation of the idea that evolverons and phylons are two dimensions of the same entity, shifting to a less problematic notion of endurance, and an exploration of doubts about the particular biological examples upon which Reydon bases his arguments. Keywords : 3D / 4D metaphysical equivalence, endurantism, persistence, species concept, synchronic and diachronic biological species. (shrink)

I argue for the existence of a ‘ratcheting-up effect’: the behavior of moral saints serves to increase the level of moral obligation the rest of us face. What we are morally obligated to do is constrained by what it would be reasonable for us to believe we are morally obligated to do. Moral saints provide us with a special kind of evidence that bears on what we can reasonably believe about our obligations. They do this by modeling the level of (...) sacrifice a person can realistically bear. Exposure to moral saints thus ‘ratchets-up’ our obligations by combating a type of ignorance that would otherwise defeat those obligations. (shrink)

The moral community is a social community, and as such it is vulnerable to social problems and pathologies. In this essay I identify a particular way in which participation in the moral community can be constrained by social factors. I argue that features of the social world—including power imbalances, oppression, intergroup conflict, communication barriers, and stereotyping—can make it nearly impossible for some members of the moral community to hold others responsible for wrongdoing. Specifically, social circumstances prevent some marginalized people from (...) engaging in what Stephen Darwall calls “felicitous moral address” (Darwall 2006). We should think of some members of the moral community as having “second-class moral citizenship” in ways that parallel second-class political citizenship. The injustice of second-class moral citizenship can be understood by drawing an analogy with Miranda Fricker’s notion of “epistemic injustice” (Fricker 2007). Fricker’s account of how people can be undermined in their capacity as knowers can be extended to show how people can be undermined in their capacity as makers of moral claims, which can be called “claimant injustice”. (shrink)

The Enlightenment saw a critical engagement with the ancient idea that music carries certain powers - it heals and pacifies, civilizes and educates. Yet this interest in musical utility seems to conflict with larger notions of aesthetic autonomy that emerged at the same time. In Enlightenment Orpheus, Vanessa Agnew examines this apparent conflict, and provocatively questions the notion of an aesthetic-philosophical break between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

ABSTRACTHedonic deficits are linked to protracted dysphoric affect in depression, a disorder characterised by emotion context insensitivity. Recent findings from daily life studies contradict the ECI view. This study longitudinally investigated DA across laboratory and daily life contexts and the conditions associated with discrepancies in DA reactivity. Thirty-three healthy controls and 41 adults with major depressive disorder provided responses to neutral and positive films viewed in the laboratory and daily events recorded over the course of three days using ecological momentary (...) assessment methodology. The current study reports on participants’ appraisals of films and events and their subsequent DA, both rated individually after each task and daily event. Despite large group similarities in appraisals of the positive film and life events, MDDs appraised the neutral film and neutral life events as less important and less pleasant (film: d =... (shrink)

Marxism is a materialist theory that centers economic life in its analysis of the human social world. This materialist orientation manifests in explanations that take economic class to play a fundamental causal role in determining the emergence, character, and development of race-and sex-based oppression—indeed, of all forms of identity-based oppression within class societies. To say that labor is mediated by class in a class-based society is to say that, in such societies, the class-based division of that activity which produces and (...) reproduces the human species is the definite form in which labor appears, and that the human life which is the product of that self-making activity bears its stamp. Marxism’s emphasis on economic factors as central in the constitution and development of human life has been seized upon as evidence of its alleged “class reductionism”—its supposed tendency to think of all aspects of human life as direct and simple expressions of a class relation. No such thing follows; quite the opposite, a correct understanding of the relationships among capitalism, racism, and sexism only further highlights how central the struggle against each is to the struggles against any of the others. (shrink)

O artigo compreende o cerne da obra de Georges Canguilhem como um ponto de cruzamento entre problemáticas fundamentalmente médico biológicas e problemáticas sócio-políticas. A consideração histórica descontinuísta do desenvolvimento de conceitos científicos e a classificação da técnica enquanto prótese do organismo vivo, entre outras particularidades, situam o pensamento canguilhemeano na fronteira entre áreas do conhecimento demarcadas separadamente. O que integra e individualiza o seu trabalho filosófico é a ponderação do vital enquanto categoria de base para intelecção e reconstrução de problemas (...) interdisciplinares. Após indicar o posicionamento de Canguilhem dentro do quadro da filosofia francesa do século XX, o artigo procura demonstrar de que maneira a função de regulação é um dos pilares organizadores do pensamento do “vivo” em sua obra. (shrink)

Despite some progress in instilling ethics into business practice, businesses continue to make decisions that result in incredible harms to people and the environment around the world. Academics, the public, and the media have often singled out business leaders as unethical and responsible for the vast harms that their companies have done. As a result, some have looked to ethical business leadership as one avenue of approach to making businesses act more ethically. This thesis explores two leadership styles. The first (...) is Machiavellian leadership, which has a reputation for being one of the least ethical leadership styles, and the second is transformational leadership, which has a reputation for being one of the most ethical leadership styles. This thesis attempts to align the ethical components of transformational leadership with Machiavellian leadership so that Machiavellian leaders will have reason to behave more ethically. The hope is that some component of transformational leadership theory can inspire Machiavellian leaders to behave more ethically. However, I argue that transformational leadership is not as ethical as it seems, since transformational leadership can result in both ethical and unethical behaviours. Ultimately, I conclude that there is nothing in transformational leadership theory that can inspire Machiavellian leaders to behave more ethically. The frightening implications of this conclusion are discussed. (shrink)

The acquisition of expertise in formal problem solving has been assumed to involve either a shift from backwards to forwards inference, or a shift from unguided to guided forwards inference. In a longitudinal study, the acquisition of formal problem-solving expertise was investigated. Participants were tested as novices before undertaking controlled practice in the problem domain which involved transformation rule problems , and were finally tested as experts. The direction of inference in problem solutions was found to be inadequate to describe (...) the strategic differences between novices and experts. Therefore, a new solution coding system was applied, based on atomic components of problem solution. Analysis of novice and expert solutions revealed no systematic strategy in the novice stage solutions were confused and contained unproductive steps and backtracking. Several strategies were found in the expert solutions, but they did not agree with previously reported results. It was therefore proposed that the acquisition of expertise does not involve a change from one specific solution strategy to another, but rather the development of an efficient strategy, which can differ between participants. (shrink)

Susan Wolf famously claimed that the life of the moral saint is unattractive from the “point of view of individual perfection.” I argue, however, that the unattractive moral saints in Wolf’s account are self-defeating on two levels, are motivated in the wrong way, and are called into question by real-life counter-examples. By appealing to a real-life case study, I argue that the best life from the moral point of view is not necessarily unattractive from the individual point of view.

From the point of view of a theorist in ethics, the interest in public policy usually centres on the policy outcomes. But this point of view does not take much account of the roles and practices through which public policies are enacted. What additional ethical focuses for the policy agent might these entail? I outline four features of policy making, centred on the agent's performance of their role in the process, that raise ethical issues. These features are: the nature of (...) the policy process; the definition of the public; the treatment of policy agents; and accounting for public policy decisions. Brief examples are used to illustrate the nature of the issues and support the conclusion that these present additional ethical focuses for agents in public policy roles. (shrink)