What is the relation of business ethics to politics? My answer has two parts. First, business ethics exists quite apart from politics in matters of simple, basic ethical norms like those prohibiting lying, wanton injury, sexual harrassment. One would be foolish to unsettlethis settled ethics as A. Z. Carr does in this article, “Is Business Bluffing Ethical?” For the business community thus loses the public’s trust and invites a government regulation of business smothering to business and burdensome to government.Second, there (...) are issues in business ethics which do not represent a settled and shared and common ethics because they represent a choice between competing, almost equally attractive, values. These problems in business ethics can only have a political solution. Politics here represents the commitment to different basic values and will represent liberal and conservative extremes or somecompromise in-between. The solution acceptable for these problems will change with the political climate and will be unstable. We should strive to keep the basic, simple, settled, ethical issues in business out of politics, and we should strive to be frank about our political differences as we needfully politicize the solutions to the more complex unsettled problems in business ethics. (shrink)

Bok defines lying in the same way as Augustine and Kant. But she wants to oppose their position that one cannot lie to save an innocent life. This position was successfully and consistently opposed by Constant and Grotius who did so by redefining lying so that the untruth one tells to save an innocent life does not count as a lie since it does not violate a right. Bok refuses to use this way. She instead uses her analogy of deception (...) and violence. But this analogy is not, as she believes it is, intuitively clear or a good a fortiori argument. Still, if one pays attention to the ordinary sense of the words Bok uses in her confused analogy, deception and lying, force and violence, one realizes that Bok's analogy has some persuasive power, not because violence and lying are right means to save a life, but because force and deception, or force or deception are. And to see why this is so requires that Constant and Grotius's way of opposing Kant, and their definition of lying, must be adopted. Bok's apparent success with her analogy of force and lying is due to the fact that it is a shadow of the more genuine success of the analogy of force and violence and deception and lying which requires Constant and Grotius's definition of deception and lying. Thus her way of opposing Augustine and Kant is weak in trying to do it in a new approach and demonstrates the advantages of Constant and Grotius's approach. (shrink)

Liberation theology's account of how Latin America's rich (the small upper class) exploited the poor (its majority lower class) described things perfectly in El Salvador. On behalf of the crucified majority, Ellacurfa prophetically denounced, for over twenty years, the oppression of the crucifying oligarchy of El Salvador. This paper concerns a part of that denunciation, the part of it for which I, as a North American, as a citizen of the United States, have some responsibility.

Lieutenant Bob Kerrey, later Governor and Senator Kerrey, revealed in the spring of 2001 that he was being accused by a former military subordinate that he had ordered a massacre during the Vietnamese War. Kerrey denied most parts of the charge. If guilty, however, he would be a war criminal of roughly the same kind that a court martial found Lieutenant Rusty Calley to be. I examine the available evidence and argue that a court martial would probably find Kerrey guilty (...) and I compare him in many ways to Calley. (shrink)

Lieutenant Bob Kerrey, later Governor and Senator Kerrey, revealed in the spring of 2001 that he was being accused by a former military subordinate that he had ordered a massacre during the Vietnamese War. Kerrey denied most parts of the charge. If guilty, however, he would be a war criminal of roughly the same kind that a court martial found Lieutenant Rusty Calley to be. I examine the available evidence and argue that a court martial would probably find Kerrey guilty (...) and I compare him in many ways to Calley. (shrink)

While rooted in careful study of Mead’s original writings and transcribed lectures and the historical context in which that work was carried out, the papers in this volume have brought Mead’s work to bear on contemporary issues in metaphysics, epistemology, cognitive science, and social and political philosophy.

Just war theory requires that a nation at war respect proportionality both before it goes to war, jus ad bellum, and in the way it fights a war, jus in bello. To respect proportionality is to know or estimate on good evidence that the whole war and the tactics used in the war will not generate more evil and harm and costs than they will generate good and help and benefits. This paper argues that the 2003–2004 U.S. war on Iraq (...) fails on both counts. It considers, in regard to jus ad bellum, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on the Iraqi military and civilians, the American military, and American and non-Iraqi civilians. It considers, under jus in bello, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on Iraqi civilians. On the proportionality standards for a just war, this war is a miserable failure. (shrink)

Just war theory requires that a nation at war respect proportionality both before it goes to war, jus ad bellum, and in the way it fights a war, jus in bello. To respect proportionality is to know or estimate on good evidence that the whole war and the tactics used in the war will not generate more evil and harm and costs than they will generate good and help and benefits. This paper argues that the 2003–2004 U.S. war on Iraq (...) fails on both counts. It considers, in regard to jus ad bellum, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on the Iraqi military and civilians, the American military, and American and non-Iraqi civilians. It considers, under jus in bello, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on Iraqi civilians. On the proportionality standards for a just war, this war is a miserable failure. (shrink)

The conventional dictionary definition of a term is important to the citizen and soldier obeying laws and judging actions that might fall under the term. The “Convention Against Torture” is both binding U.S. law and gives a clear, conventional definition of torture. But the Bush Administration’s standards for interrogating foreign detainees, originating from the Attorney General’s office, failed to respect the prohibitions of torture in the Convention and two other important international human rights documents. I criticize these standards on seven (...) grounds. The directives from President Bush and his Administration thus ordered or allowed most of the terrible recent tortures of Afghanis and Iraqis at Bagram Air Force Base, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons. (shrink)

Examining the reasons for the conventional application of the term 'massacre' to some sorts of killings but not others, I arrive at this definition of the term. A massacre is the mass murder and mutilation of innocent victims by an assailant or assailants immediately present at the scene. This is a conventional and not a stipulative definition. Many standard definitions are imprecise for several reasons. They might say the killing is unnecessary or indiscriminate or at a distance or they might (...) confuse it with terrorism. lmprecise definitions do not grasp the etymological connection to the slaughterhouse, the limited space at the scene, or the cruelty required of the assailants. The difference between weak and strong, descriptive and evaluative uses of the term 'massacre' allows for dishonesty and propagandistic uses of the term. (shrink)

Because of the recent meltdown in our capitalistic system, even former President Bush and conservative Republicans favor the government interference in free markets in which privately owned businesses were “bailed out.” This government action to save our economic system had long previously been denounced as “socialism.” However, this current acceptance of a sort of democratic socialism at home now would allow President Obama to respect and even promote democratic socialism abroad. In fact, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights demands respect (...) for democratic socialism in both a nation’s domestic and foreign affairs. I explain three differences this should mean in President Obama’s conduct of foreign affairs. These relate to 1. which nations are our enemies and which our friends, 2. helping foreign nations reduce their poverty by other than market means, and 3. no longer using our military abroad to promote capitalism and thus doing less to create anti-American terrorists. (shrink)

Because of the recent meltdown in our capitalistic system, even former President Bush and conservative Republicans favor the government interference in free markets in which privately owned businesses were “bailed out.” This government action to save our economic system had long previously been denounced as “socialism.” However, this current acceptance of a sort of democratic socialism at home now would allow President Obama to respect and even promote democratic socialism abroad. In fact, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights demands respect (...) for democratic socialism in both a nation’s domestic and foreign affairs. I explain three differences this should mean in President Obama’s conduct of foreign affairs. These relate to 1. which nations are our enemies and which our friends, 2. helping foreign nations reduce their poverty by other than market means, and 3. no longer using our military abroad to promote capitalism and thus doing less to create anti-American terrorists. (shrink)

Just war theory requires that a nation at war respect proportionality both before it goes to war, jus ad bellum, and in the way it fights a war, jus in bello. To respect proportionality is to know or estimate on good evidence that the whole war and the tactics used in the war will not generate more evil and harm and costs than they will generate good and help and benefits. This paper argues that the 2003–2004 U.S. war on Iraq (...) fails on both counts. It considers, in regard to jus ad bellum, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on the Iraqi military and civilians, the American military, and American and non-Iraqi civilians. It considers, under jus in bello, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on Iraqi civilians. On the proportionality standards for a just war, this war is a miserable failure. (shrink)

The conventional dictionary definition of a term is important to the citizen and soldier obeying laws and judging actions that might fall under the term. The “Convention Against Torture” is both binding U.S. law and gives a clear, conventional definition of torture. But the Bush Administration’s standards for interrogating foreign detainees, originating from the Attorney General’s office, failed to respect the prohibitions of torture in the Convention and two other important international human rights documents. I criticize these standards on seven (...) grounds. The directives from President Bush and his Administration thus ordered or allowed most of the terrible recent tortures of Afghanis and Iraqis at Bagram Air Force Base, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons. (shrink)

Examining the reasons for the conventional application of the term 'massacre' to some sorts of killings but not others, I arrive at this definition of the term. A massacre is the mass murder and mutilation of innocent victims by an assailant or assailants immediately present at the scene. This is a conventional and not a stipulative definition. Many standard definitions are imprecise for several reasons. They might say the killing is unnecessary or indiscriminate or at a distance or they might (...) confuse it with terrorism. lmprecise definitions do not grasp the etymological connection to the slaughterhouse, the limited space at the scene, or the cruelty required of the assailants. The difference between weak and strong, descriptive and evaluative uses of the term 'massacre' allows for dishonesty and propagandistic uses of the term. (shrink)

Josiah Royce saw no separation between his idealistic philosophy and his Protestant, Christian religion, so his reader in this book today learns Royce’s distinctive philosophical doctrines of interpretation, loyalty, evil and error, selfhood and community in a context in which he discusses Job, salvation, the Spirit, religious insight, love, Paul’s epistles and atonement. Here are almost 300 pages of selections from four of Royce’s books well-chosen to fulfill the aim of learning Royce’s philosophy of religious thought.

Josiah Royce saw no separation between his idealistic philosophy and his Protestant, Christian religion, so his reader in this book today learns Royce’s distinctive philosophical doctrines of interpretation, loyalty, evil and error, selfhood and community in a context in which he discusses Job, salvation, the Spirit, religious insight, love, Paul’s epistles and atonement. Here are almost 300 pages of selections from four of Royce’s books well-chosen to fulfill the aim of learning Royce’s philosophy of religious thought.