Neoliberalism is invariably presented as a governing regime of market and competition-based systems rather than as a set of migratory practices that are re-setting the ethical standards of the academy. This article seeks to explore the way in which neoliberalism is shifting the prevailing values of the academy by drawing on two illustrations: the death of disinterestedness and the obfuscation of authorship. While there was never a golden age when norms such as disinterestedness were universally practiced they represented widely accepted (...) aesthetic ideals associated with academic life. By contrast, neoliberal academics embrace a new set of assumptions and norms that stand in sharp relief to many of the values that were previously espoused. Practices that might have been regarded as ethically dubious by earlier generations of academics, such as grantsmanship, self-justificatory expressions of interestedness and tangential claims to authorship, are now regarded as legitimate and positive virtues in a more aggressive age of hyper-performativity. (shrink)

Neoliberalism is invariably presented as a governing regime of market and competition-based systems rather than as a set of migratory practices that are re-setting the ethical standards of the academy. This article seeks to explore the way in which neoliberalism is shifting the prevailing values of the academy by drawing on two illustrations: the death of disinterestedness and the obfuscation of authorship. While there was never a golden age when norms such as disinterestedness were universally practiced they represented widely accepted (...) aesthetic ideals associated with academic life. By contrast, neoliberal academics embrace a new set of assumptions and norms that stand in sharp relief to many of the values that were previously espoused. Practices that might have been regarded as ethically dubious by earlier generations of academics, such as grantsmanship, self-justificatory expressions of interestedness and tangential claims to authorship, are now regarded as legitimate and positive virtues in a more aggressive age of hyper-performativity. (shrink)

The growth of U.K. business ethics education has been charted at the course or micro level by Mahoney (1990) and Cummins (1999) using postal questionnaires. These surveys, normally restricted to elite providers, have not revealed the relative importance of business ethics in the business school curriculum. In the 2000–2001 subject review of business and management programmes conducted by the U.K. Quality Assurance Agency for higher education (QAA), 164 business and management programmes were required to summarise their aims and objectives. Examination (...) of this data using QSR-N6 software shows that only 14 made explicit reference to ethics. Church Colleges of Higher Education were disproportionately represented, indicating the importance of institutional context to curriculum development. An analysis of espoused aims in relation to business ethics suggests that cognition in business ethics is largely conceived as part of a broad contextual comprehension of the business environment rather than an understanding of theoretical constructs. The expression of aims in business ethics is more frequently characterised by affective or attitudinal verbs/nouns with a close link to the promotion of value positions, such as multiculturalism and environmentalism. It is concluded that business ethics occupies a more marginal position within the curriculum than previous studies have suggested. (shrink)

The growth of U.K. business ethics education has been charted at the course or 'micro' level by Mahoney and Cummins using postal questionnaires. These surveys, normally restricted to elite providers, have not revealed the relative importance of business ethics in the business school curriculum. In the 2000-2001 subject review of business and management programmes conducted by the U.K. Quality Assurance Agency for higher education, 164 business and management programmes were required to summarise their aims and objectives. Examination of this data (...) using QSR-N6 software shows that only 14 made explicit reference to ethics. Church Colleges of Higher Education were disproportionately represented, indicating the importance of institutional context to curriculum development. An analysis of espoused aims in relation to business ethics suggests that cognition in business ethics is largely conceived as part of a broad contextual comprehension of the business environment rather than an understanding of theoretical constructs. The expression of aims in business ethics is more frequently characterised by affective or attitudinal verbs/nouns with a close link to the promotion of value positions, such as multiculturalism and environmentalism. It is concluded that business ethics occupies a more marginal position within the curriculum than previous studies have suggested. (shrink)

While many books focus on the broader socially ethical topics of widening participation and promoting equal opportunities, this unique book concentrates specifically on the lecturer's professional responsibilities. Bruce Macfarlane analyzes the pros and cons of prescriptive professional codes of practice employed by many universities and proposes the active development of professional virtues over bureaucratic recommendations. The material is presented in a scholarly yet accessible style and case examples are used throughout to encourage a practical, reflective approach.

The right to teach at university is a distinctive philosophical and legal conundrum but a largely unexplored question. Drawing on Humboltdian principles, the legitimacy of the university teacher stems from their continuing engagement in research rather than possession of academic and teaching qualifications alone. This means that the right to teach needs to be understood as a privilege and implies that it is always provisional, requiring an ongoing commitment to research. Yet, massification of higher education systems internationally has led to (...) the disaggregation of the academic profession with teaching-only positions now increasingly common. University teachers employed to both teach and research face a narrowing set of performative expectations with respect to how ‘research-active’ is defined. This paper challenges these contemporary understandings and, drawing on historical evidence, argues that a broader definition of research and scholarship needs to underpin the basis of the right to teach. (shrink)

This paper takes the form of a reflective dialogue between three teachers of business ethics working in different continents. Originating as a conference debate, it takes as its theme the notion of ideological ‘neutrality’ and the role of the business ethics teacher. A position statement outlines an argument for ‘restraint’ as a modern day Aristotleian mean to protect student academic freedom. Two responses follow. The first of these provides a moderate advocacy position based on Socratic principles. The second response outlines (...) the notion of teaching as a relational process necessitating delayed disclosure and moral courage on the part of the teacher. The paper concludes with a brief reflection by the author of the position statement. (shrink)

This paper re-examines the relevance of three academic norms to contemporary academic life – communism, universalism and disinterestedness – based on the work of Robert Merton. The results of a web-based survey elicited responses to a series of value statements and were analysed using the weighted average method and through cross-tabulation. Results indicate strong support for communism as an academic norm defined in relation to sharing research results and teaching materials as opposed to protecting intellectual copyright and withholding access. There (...) is more limited support for universalism based on the belief that academic knowledge should transcend national, political, or religious boundaries. Disinterestedness, defined in terms of personal detachment from truth claims, is the least popular contemporary academic norm. Here, the impact of a performative culture is linked to the need for a large number of academics to align their research interests with funding opportunities. The paper concludes by considering the claims of an alternate set of contemporary academic norms including capitalism, particularism and interestedness. (shrink)

Principles of research ethics, derived largely from Western philosophical thought, are spreading across the world of higher education. Since 2006 the Japanese Ministry of Education has required universities in Japan to establish codes of ethical conduct and ensure that procedures are in place to punish research misconduct. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 13 academics in a research-intensive university in Japan, this paper considers how research ethics is interpreted in relation to their own practice. Interviewees articulated a range of ethical issues (...) connected with data gathering and interpretation, applying for and using research funds, relationships with peers and research subjects, and the dissemination of results. The paper also explores the effect of personal values and cultural norms on the Japanese interpretation of research ethics identifying the impact in terms of the treatment of graduate research students and decision-making processes. (shrink)

Traditionally, the term "scholarship" has been narrowly defined as discovery-based research. Teaching in higher education, by contrast, is perceived as an intellectually inferior activity. However, the teaching-research divide is a crude distinction which fails to capture the richness of scholarly endeavour in all disciplines. Drawing on Boyer''s four forms of scholarship, it is argued that academic work in business ethics needs to be reconceptualised in terms which honour and value all contributions. This special issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, (...) arising from an international conference on the teaching of business ethics, is illustrative of the scholarship of discovery, integration, application and teaching. (shrink)

Since the introduction of mathematical population genetics, its machinery has shaped our fundamental understanding of natural selection. Selection is taken to occur when differential fitnesses produce differential rates of reproductive success, where fitnesses are understood as parameters in a population genetics model. To understand selection is to understand what these parameter values measure and how differences in them lead to frequency changes. I argue that this traditional view is mistaken. The descriptions of natural selection rendered by population genetics models are (...) in general neither predictive nor explanatory and introduce avoidable conceptual confusions. I conclude that a correct understanding of natural selection requires explicitly causal models of reproductive success. *Received May 2006; revised December 2006. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Kansas State University, 201 Dickens Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506; e‐mail: [email protected] . (shrink)

Offers a compelling vision of how to achieve and conduct a liberal but democratic society through the ideal of Neutrality--between people and ideas of the good--and using the tool of Neutral dialogue.

Historical demographic research shows that the factors influencing mortality risk are labile across time and space. This is particularly true for datasets that span societal transitions. Here, we seek to understand how marriage, migration, and the local economy influenced mortality dynamics in a rapidly changing environment characterized by high in-migration and male-biased sex ratios. Mortality records were extracted from a compendium of historical vital records for the Baja California peninsula (Mexico). Our sample consists of 1,201 mortality records spanning AD 1835–1900. (...) Findings from Cox proportional hazard models indicate that (1) marriage was associated with a protective effect for both sexes; (2) residing in a mining town was associated with higher mortality for men, but not women; (3) migration was associated with decreased mortality risk for women, but not men; and (4) the risk of mortality increased in the face of infectious disease, but decreased over time. Despite the early initiation of reproduction for women, marriage had a protective effect, likely because marriage linked women to resources. Although mining boomtowns were associated with elevated risk factors generally, only men experienced greater mortality risk, likely due to dangerous working conditions that women did not experience. Last, female, but not male, migrants experienced greater longevity, possibly because exposure to harsh labor conditions eroded the protective effect of selection bias for men. Together, these results shed light on an understudied historical population and broaden our understanding of demographic dynamics in preindustrial settings. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.3 (2001) 454-456 [Access article in PDF] Michael Potter. Reason's Nearest Kin: Philosophies of Arithmetic from Kant to Carnap.New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. x + 305. Cloth, $45.00. This book tells the story of a remarkable series of answers to two related questions:(1) How can arithmetic be necessary and knowable a priori? [End Page 454](2) What accounts for the applicability of (...) arithmetic to matters of empirical fact?These are philosophical questions, part of a "wider puzzle of explaining the link between experience, language, thought, and the world" (18). But answers to them are heavily constrained by technical results in logic and mathematics, and most of Potter's protagonists are either mathematicians (Frege, Dedekind, Ramsey, Hilbert, Gödel) or mathematically trained philosophers (Kant, Russell, Carnap). (Only Wittgenstein fits neither category.) Potter, whose doctorate was in pure mathematics, is an able guide.It is not hard to think of answers to these questions taken singly; what is hard is answering both at the same time. Formalists can easily explain why arithmetic does not depend for its justification on empirical fact—it is just a game with symbols, not responsible to anything beyond its own rules—but they then have trouble explaining why the world of empirical fact is constrained by this game. Empiricists can explain the applicability of arithmetic in just the same way they explain the applicability of physics, but they then must then explain away the apparent a prioricity and necessity of arithmetic. Kant was the first to propose a plausible answer to both questions: arithmetic is both necessary and empirically applicable because it is grounded in the spatio-temporal form of any possible experience.What unites Frege, Dedekind, Russell, Ramsey, Hilbert, and Carnap is that they reject Kant's answer while continuing to seek an answer to his question: how can arithmetic's necessity be reconciled with its applicability? Potter helpfully classifies their projects by the surrogates they substitute for Kant's appeal to the form of spatio-temporal intuition: Frege and Dedekind appeal to thought, Russell to necessary features of the world, Wittgenstein, Ramsey, and Carnap to language, and Hilbert to the necessary structure of our experience of finitary combinations of objects. (Revealingly, the logicists are not grouped together in Potter's taxonomy.) A chapter (or two) is devoted to each of these thinkers, plus Kant and Gödel.This breadth of coverage does not come at the price of superficiality: Potter's chapters are (by and large) accurate, penetrating, and full of interesting insights. I cannot think of another book that offers such clear explanations of the many mathematical concepts and distinctions one must grasp in order to follow debates in the philosophy of arithmetic. The Russell chapters are enhanced by numerous quotations from archival material. The exposition of Hilbert's programme and the implications for it of Gödel's theorems is the best I have seen. The discussions of Wittgenstein's views on arithmetic and of Carnap's syntactical approach also shine. The chapters on Kant and Frege are somewhat weaker; the discussion of Kant, in particular, would have benefited from some engagement with Michael Friedman's views.But the real contribution of Potter's book is its integration of these nine thinkers into a single coherent story. No one will be surprised that Russell's motivations can only be understood in light of Frege's failures, or that many features of Wittgenstein's cryptic work become clearer when seen in light of the specific problems with Russell's system. But there are also some less obvious payoffs: for example, Hilbert's programme is usefully compared with Russell's regressive method (227-8), and Carnap and Russell are shown to face a common dilemma (269, 286).If there is a central theme to Potter's story, it is "how often we have had to reject an [End Page 455] account not for philosophical reasons but for technical ones" (278). Frege's program founders on Russell's paradox, Russell's... (shrink)

The Great Psychotherapy Debate: Models, Methods, and Findings comprehensively reviews the research on psychotherapy to dispute the commonly held view that the benefits of psychotherapy are derived from the specific ingredients contained in a given treatment (medical model). The author reviews the literature related to the absolute efficacy of psychotherapy, the relative efficacy of various treatments, the specificity of ingredients contained in established therapies, effects due to common factors, such as the working alliance, adherence and allegiance to the therapeutic protocol, (...) and effects that are produced by different therapists. In each case, the evidence convincingly corroborates the contextual model and disconfirms the prevailing medical model. (shrink)

We consider a paradox involving indicative conditionals (‘ifs’) and deontic modals (‘oughts’). After considering and rejecting several standard options for resolv- ing the paradox—including rejecting various premises, positing an ambiguity or hidden contextual sensitivity, and positing a non-obvious logical form—we offer a semantics for deontic modals and indicative conditionals that resolves the paradox by making modus ponens invalid. We argue that this is a result to be welcomed on independent grounds, and we show that rejecting the general validity of modus (...) ponens is compatible with vindicating most ordinary uses of modus ponens in reasoning. (shrink)

This highly original history of ideas considers the impact of Hegel on French philosophy from the 1920s to the present. As Baugh's lucid narrative makes clear, Hegel's influence on French philosophy has been profound, and can be traced through all the major intellectual movements and thinkers in France throughout the 20th Century from Jean Wahl, Sartre, and Bataille to Foucault, Deleuze, and Derrida. Baugh focuses on Hegel's idea of the "unhappy consciousness," and provides a bold new account of Hegel's early (...) reception in French intellectual history. (shrink)

Since its publication in 1982, _Beyond Positivism _has become established as one of the definitive statements on economic methodology. The book’s rejection of positivism and its advocacy of pluralism were to have a profound influence in the flowering of work methodology that has taken place in economics in the decade since its publication. This edition contains a new preface outlining the major developments in the area since the book’s first appearance. The book provides the first comprehensive treatment of twentieth century (...) philosophy of science which emphasizes the issues relevant to economics. It proceeds to demonstrate this relevance by reviewing some of the key debates in the area. Having concluded that positivism has to be rejected, the author examines possible alternative bases for economic methodology. Arguing that there is no best method, he advocates methodological pluralism. (shrink)

Ranging from Joseph Bellamy to Hilary Putnam, and from early New England Divinity Schools to contemporary university philosophy departments, historian Bruce Kuklick recounts the story of the growth of philosophical thinking in the United States. Readers will explore the thought of early American philosphers such as Jonathan Edwards and John Witherspoon and will see how the political ideas of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson influenced philosophy in colonial America. Kuklick discusses The Transcendental Club (members Henry David Thoreau, (...) Ralph Waldo Emerson) and describes the rise of pragmatism centered on Metaphysical Club of Cambridge (and members William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Charles Peirce). He examines the profound impact Darwinism had on American philosophy and looks at Idealists such as the Kantian Josiah Royce and the Hegelian John Dewey. The book shows how, in the twentieth century, the Nazi conquest of Europe unleashed a flood of European intellectuals onto these shores, including such major thinkers as Theodore Adorno, Erich Fromm, Rudolph Carnap, and Alfred Tarski. Finally, Kuklick examines the contributions of such contemporary philosophers as Sidney Hook and Willard Quine and such books as John Rawl's A Theory of Justice and Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man. Kuklick pulls no punches in portraying the state of American philosophy today and its contested role in the intellectual life of the nation and the world. The range of philosophical thought in our nation's history has been great, from Edwards's Religious Affections to Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and Bruce Kuklick has captured it all in a book that blends intricate details with sweeping vision. (shrink)

The most successful theory in all of science--and the basis of one third of our economy--says the strangest things about the world and about us. Can you believe that physical reality is created by our observation of it? Physicists were forced to this conclusion, the quantum enigma, by what they observed in their laboratories. Trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics and found, to their embarrassment, that their theory intimately connects consciousness with the physical world. Quantum Enigma explores (...) what that implies and why some founders of the theory became the foremost objectors to it. Schrodinger showed that it "absurdly" allowed a cat to be in a "superposition" simultaneously dead and alive. Einstein derided the theory's "spooky interactions." With Bell's Theorem, we now know Schrodinger's superpositions and Einstein's spooky interactions indeed exist. Authors Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain all of this in non-technical terms with help from some fanciful stories and bits about the theory's developers. They present the quantum mystery honestly, with an emphasis on what is and what is not speculation. Physics' encounter with consciousness is its skeleton in the closet. Because the authors open the closet and examine the skeleton, theirs is a controversial book. Quantum Enigma's description of the experimental quantum facts, and the quantum theory explaining them, is undisputed. Interpreting what it all means, however, is controversial. Every interpretation of quantum physics encounters consciousness. Rosenblum and Kuttner therefore turn to exploring consciousness itself--and encounter quantum physics. Free will and anthropic principles become crucial issues, and the connection of consciousness with the cosmos suggested by some leading quantum cosmologists is mind-blowing. Readers are brought to a boundary where the particular expertise of physicists is no longer a sure guide. They will find, instead, the facts and hints provided by quantum mechanics and the ability to speculate for themselves. (shrink)

Voting Institutions Justifications Notes.

William Simkulet has recently criticised Colgrove et al’s defence against what they have called inconsistency arguments—arguments that claim opponents of abortion (OAs) act in ways inconsistent with their underlying beliefs about human fetuses (eg, that human fetuses are persons at conception). Colgrove et al presented three objections to inconsistency arguments, which Simkulet argues are unconvincing. Further, he maintains that OAs who hold that the fetus is a person at conception fail to act on important issues such as the plight of (...) frozen embryos, poverty and spontaneous abortion. Thus, they are morally negligent. In response, we argue that Simkulet has targeted a very narrow group of OAs, and so his criticisms are inapplicable to most OAs. We then explain why his responses to each of Colgrove et al’s objections do not succeed, even for this restricted group. Finally, we note that Simkulet fails to provide evidence for his claims regarding OAs’ supposed failures to act, and we show that OAs veritably do invest resources into these important issues. We conclude that Colgrove et al’s reasons for rejecting inconsistency arguments (en masse) remain intact. (shrink)

In a book that is part memoir and part writing guide, the author discusses how he used a journal to enhance his experiences on the yoga mat and then explains how readers can best start and maintain their own yoga journal. Original.

An indispensable collection that re-examines what it means to belong in the world. "Where are you from?" The word cosmopolitan was first used as a way of evading exactly this question, when Diogenes the Cynic declared himself a “kosmo-polites,” or citizen of the world. Cosmopolitanism displays two impulses—on the one hand, a detachment from one’s place of origin, while on the other, an assertion of membership in some larger, more compelling collective. Cosmopolitanisms works from the premise that there is more (...) than one kind of cosmopolitanism, a plurality that insists cosmopolitanism can no longer stand as a single ideal against which all smaller loyalties and forms of belonging are judged. Rather, cosmopolitanism can be defined as one of many possible modes of life, thought, and sensibility that are produced when commitments and loyalties are multiple and overlapping. Featuring essays by major thinkers, including Homi Bhabha, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Thomas Bender, Leela Gandhi, Ato Quayson, and David Hollinger, among others, this collection asks what these plural cosmopolitanisms have in common, and how the cosmopolitanisms of the underprivileged might serve the ethical values and political causes that matter to their members. In addition to exploring the philosophy of Kant and the space of the city, this volume focuses on global justice, which asks what cosmopolitanism is good for, and on the global south, which has often been assumed to be an object of cosmopolitan scrutiny, not itself a source or origin of cosmopolitanism. This book gives a new meaning to belonging and its ground-breaking arguments call for deep and necessary discussion and discourse. (shrink)

Micheline Sauvage of the French National Scientific Research Centre traces for us the story of this great Athenian and great philosopher, as seen both by his contemporaries and by the European philosophers who followed after him.