Paul W. Taylor has defended a life-centered ethics that considers the inherent worth of all living things to be the same. l examine reasons for ascribing inherent worth to all living beings, but argue that there can be various levels of inherent worth. Differences in capacities among types of life are used to justify such levels. I argue that once levels of inherent worth are distinguished, it becomes reasonable torestrict rights to human beings.

We develop a vision of consumer responsibility in purchasing decisions in light of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ boycotts. These boycotts succeeded in convincing large fast food companies and national supermarket chains to pay tomato growers a penny more per pound, to improve working conditions and wages for pickers. The C.I.W. efforts to generate consumer support eschewed claims associated with rule-based obligations in favor of appeals more typically associated with virtue and caring ethics. The strategies encouraged consumers to understand the (...) plight of tomato pickers and to extend concern in an effort to improve the world. These strategies are associated more with encouragement to contribute to the social good rather than claims that in refusing to help, consumers would fail to fulfill an obligation. Insights from virtue ethics and caring ethics are offered as a model for a broader account of consumer social responsibility. (shrink)

The article examines the question of whether business ethics courses ought to have an impact. Despite the still common attitude among students and some business professionals that ethical considerations are less pressing in business, I argue that moral obligations are just as important there as elsewhere. The emphasis on profits in business is related to other realms (e.g., hobbies and seeking and education) in which, though private goals are dominant, moral limits remain in force. Business ethics courses can play a (...) crucial role in emphasizing the necessity of ethical analysis in business. (shrink)

This is an introductory text for an ethics course that provides the theoretical background for discussion of ethical problems.

The paper seeks to explain rights by first uncovering their specific place in the moral realm. Accounts of rights as claims or entitlements are criticized for attempting to explain the moral concept of rights in terms that are primarily non-moral. Rights are then described as a form ofprescriptive presumption, that is, as requirements on deliberations that yield justifiable expectations of certain types of treatment. Similarities and differences between rights and moral rules or principles are examined to uncover the specific role (...) of rights in moral analysis. (shrink)

The paper seeks to explain rights by first uncovering their specific place in the moral realm. Accounts of rights as claims or entitlements are criticized for attempting to explain the moral concept of rights in terms that are primarily non-moral. Rights are then described as a form ofprescriptive presumption, that is, as requirements on deliberations that yield justifiable expectations of certain types of treatment. Similarities and differences between rights and moral rules or principles are examined to uncover the specific role (...) of rights in moral analysis. (shrink)

Chow (1996) offers a reconceptualization of statistical significance that is reasoned and comprehensive. Despite a somewhat rough presentation, his arguments are compelling and deserve to be taken seriously by the scientific community. It is argued that his characterization of literal replication, types of research, effect size, and experimental control are in need of revision.

The major argument of this article is that failing to measure what is taking place in treatment and control conditions can lead to scientifically invalid conclusions. It is argued that researchers are ethically responsible for being aware that variables related to the therapist, client, and the therapeutic relationship might play a confounding role when treatment and control conditions are compared. As a consequence, they should either measure these variables or be tentative in their interpretation of their findings.

Animal welfare involves societal and human values, ethical concerns and moral considerations since it incorporates the belief of what is right or what is wrong in animal treatment and care. This paper aims to ascertain whether the different dimensions of individual attitudes toward animal welfare in food choices may be characterized by general human values, as identified by Schwartz. For this purpose, an EU-wide survey was carried out, covering almost 2500 nationally representative individuals from five European countries. Compared with the (...) previous literature this study shows a twofold novelty: it develops a general framework to link individual enduring beliefs and attitudes toward animal welfare attributes in food choices; the framework is analyzed within a broad-based cross-country study. Our empirical results prove that human values related to self-transcendence are strongly associated to overall animal welfare attitudes and especially to those explicitly related to food choices, while values related to the spheres of self-enhancement and conservatism are significantly associated to less sensitive attitudes to animal welfare. Moreover, our results appear to indicate that a determinant of animal welfarism in food choices is potentially associated to individual concerns regarding food safety issues. (shrink)

Reflecting Alan Robinson's fundamental contribution to computational logic, this book brings together seminal papers in inference, equality theories, and logic programming. It is an exceptional collection that ranges from surveys of major areas to new results in more specialized topics. Alan Robinson is currently the University Professor at Syracuse University. Jean-Louis Lassez is a Research Scientist at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. Gordon Plotkin is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh. Contents: Inference. Subsumption, A (...) Sometimes Undervalued Procedure, Larry Wos, Ross Overbeek, and Ewing Lusk. The Markgraf Karl Refutation Procedure, Hans Jurgen Ohlbach and Jorg H. Siekmann. Modal Logic Should Say More than it Does, Melvin Fitting. Interactive Proof Presentation, W. W. Bledsoe. Intelligent Backtracking Revisited, Maurice Bruynooghe. A Science of Reasoning, Alan Bundy. Inductive Inference of Theories from Facts, Ehud Y. Shapiro. Equality. Solving Equations in Abstract Algebras: A Rule-based Survey of Unification, Jean-Pierre Jouannaud and Claude Kirchner. Disunification: A Survey, Hubert Comon. A Case Study of the Completion Procedure: Proving Ring Commutativity Problems, Deepak Kapur and Hantao Zhang. Computations in Regular Rewriting Systems I and II, Girard Huet and JeanJacques Levy. Unification and ML Type Reconstruction, Paris Kanellakis, Harry Mairson, and John Mitchell. Automatic Dimensional Analysis, Mitchell Wand. Logic Programming. Logic Programming Schemes and Their Implementations, Keith Clark. A Near-Horn Prolog for Compilation, Donald Loveland and David Reed. Unfold/Fold Transformations of Logic Programs, P. A. Gardner and J. C. Shepherdson. An Algebraic Representation of Logic Program Computations, Andrea Corradini and Ugo Montanari. Theory of Disjunctive Logic Programs, Jack Minker, Arcot Rajasekar, and Jorge Lobo. Bottom-Up Evaluation of Logic Programs, Jeffrey Naughton and Raghu Ramakrishnan. Absys, the First Logic Programming Language: A View of the Inevitability of Logic Programming, E. W. Elcock. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In How to Be a Marxist in Philosophy one of the most famous Marxist philosophers of the 20th century shares his concept of what it means to function fruitfully as a political thinker within the discipline and environs of philosophy. This is the first English translation to Althusser's provocative and, often, controversial guide to being a true Marxist philosopher. Althusser argues that philosophy needs Marxism. It can't exist fully without it. Similarly, Marxism requires the rigour and structures of philosophy to (...) give it form and focus. He calls all thinking people to, 'Remember: a philosopher is a man who fights in theory, and when he understands the reasons for this fight, he joined the ranks of the struggle of workers and popular classes.' In short, this book comprises Althusser's elucidation of what praxis means and why it continues to matter. With a superb introduction from translator and Althusser archivist G.M. Goshgarian, this is a book that will re-inspire contemporary Marxist thought and reinvigorate our notions of what political activism can be. (shrink)