Introduction -- What is journalism for? -- Truth: the first and most confusing principle -- Who journalists work for -- Journalism of verification -- Independence from faction -- Monitor power and offer voice to the voiceless -- Journalism as a public forum -- Engagement and relevance -- Make the news comprehensive and proportional -- Journalists have a responsibility to conscience -- The rights and responsibilities of citizens.

The standard paradigm for mental causation is a person’s acting for a reason. Something happens - she intentionally φ’s - the occurrence of which we explain by citing a relevant belief or desire. In the present context, I simply take for granted the following two conditions on the appropriateness of this explanation. First, the agent φ’s _because_ she believes/desires what we say she does, where this is expressive of a _causal_ dependence.1 Second, her believing/desiring this gives her a _reason_ for (...) φ-ing: recognizing that she has this belief/desire makes her φ-ing intelligible as rational in the light of her other attitudes and circumstances. A further condition must be met, though, if this is to be a genuine psychological explanation, a case of her acting _for_ the reason in question. Consider the following example of Davidson’s (1973, p. 79). An exhausted climber is desperate to rid herself of the weight and danger of holding her partner on a rope; and her sudden realization that simply letting go would achieve this so unnerves her that her grip loosens slightly and he falls. Her releasing him causally depends upon her having this belief and desire, which provide _a_ reason for doing what she does. But this is not _why_ she does it: it would be at best misleading to say that she dropped him, intentionally, because she was fed up with holding his weight, or because she thought that she might otherwise fall. Her letting go does not depend upon her having these reasons in the right way. The reason-giving relation is causally irrelevant. If we are to explain a person’s acting _for_ a reason, then her doing. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that a well-known objection to subsistence rights developed by Onora O'Neill - namely, that such rights would generate obligations without an obligation-bearer, can be answered if we take such rights to impose an obligation on the world's population, taken collectively.

We perceive things in the external world as spatially located both with respect to each other and to ourselves, such that they are in principle accessible from where we seem to be. I hear the door bang behind me; I feel the pen on the desk over to my right; and I see you walking beneath the line of pictures, from left to right in front of me. By displaying these spatial relations between its objects and us, the perceivers, perception (...) places us in the perceived world: our world and the world we perceive are one. Clearly this is not achieved by our continually perceiving ourselves along with the things around us, and thus recovering our position with respect to them. Indeed I shall argue that there are serious difficulties with the suggestion that this might be the basic mechanism for perceptual self- location. Furthermore, I shall argue that our existence as an element of the objective order cannot be inferred from the raw given in sense perception. Hence it cannot even be on the right lines as an answer to the question 'What is it for perception to represent its objects as environmental to the subject?', that it should present these objects, along with the perceiving subject himself, or along with something from which his existence in the perceived world could be deduced, in the very same frame so to speak. Nevertheless it yields him an awareness of himself as there in the wings of that scene, genuinely located with respect to the action, yet somehow not normally quite getting onto the stage. And I shall argue here, that perceptual contents succeed in being self-locating in this way in.. (shrink)

We are creatures of habit. Familiar ways of doing things in familiar contexts become automatic for us. That is to say, when we acquire a habit we can act without thinking about it at all. Habits free our minds to think about other things. Without this capacity for habitual action our daily lives would be impossible. Our minds would be crowded with innumerable mundane considerations and decisions. Habitual actions are not always mundane. Aristotle famously said that acting morally is a (...) matter of exercising the right habits.2 For him, a lack of conscious thought is no bar on an action’s moral status. Habits are involved in our most prized activities. Of course our natural capacity for acquiring habits is sometimes a nuisance, and we acquire bad habits all too easily. But we nevertheless could not do without a vast array of habits which are not like this, and we can’t help but exercise them in our daily lives. It does not seem too strong to say that we spend much more of our time acting habitually than we do acting in the light of conscious thought. We are also rational creatures. It is because of our rationality that we naturally think that most human actions are different in kind from the behaviour of other animals. This difference is manifest in the fact that we hold rational creatures personally responsible for what they do, in ways that would make no sense for nonrational creatures. Our rationality, then, appears to give our actions a unique quality. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to show how an appeal to a particular kind of collective obligation - a collective obligation falling on an unstructured collective consisting of the world’s population as a whole – can be used to undermine recently influential objections to the idea that there is a human right to health which have been put forward by Gopal Sreenivasan and Onora O’Neill. -/- I take this result to be significant both for its own sake and because it (...) helps to answer a challenge often put to Those who argue for the existence of collective obligations: namely, to explain why the question of whether there are any such obligations might matter from a practical point of view. One way of introducing the objection is to focus on questions of agency. Here I'll argue both that there can be obligations on groups that are not themselves collective agents, and that these can play an important explanatory and clarifcatory role in accounting for obligations which fall on individuals. (shrink)

According to Wringe 2006 we have good reasons for accepting the existence of Global Collective Obligations - in other words, collective obligations which fall on the world’s population as a whole. One such reason is that the existence of such obligations provides a plausible solution a problem which is sometimes thought to arise if we think that individuals have a right to have their basic needs satisfied. However, obligations of this sort would be of little interest – either theoretical or (...) practical – if they did not give rise, either directly or indirectly, to any kinds of reasons for individuals to behave in certain ways. -/- In this paper, I shall argue that in many situations, forward-looking global obligations give rise to an obligation on individuals to work towards bringing into existence and support an institutional system which will enable their obligations to be met. My argument for this conclusion involves two steps. In the first step, I address a general question about how collective obligations can give rise to individual obligations without being reducible to them, and which obligations they give rise to. Here I give a Kant-inspired argument, based on the principles that ‘ought implies can’ and that the content of the moral law is given by reflecting on how agents should legislate in a kingdom of ends, which is designed to show that collective obligations can give rise to individual obligations. In the second step I apply this principle to the case of global forward-looking obligations. (shrink)

In Learner Agency: Building the Mindset and Skill Set of Hope in Our Classrooms, author Bill Zima clarifies what student agency looks and sounds like in the classroom. Zima introduces a framework that K-12 educators can use to organize their instructional practice to create opportunities and the right conditions that give learners control over their thinking. When teachers deliberately plan and structure lessons with the goal of developing student agency, they shift away from simply delivering content to encouraging students (...) to become active participants in their learning. By reading Learner Agency, teachers and leaders will discover research-based strategies for supporting and cultivating students' ability to build agency within themselves. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge has argued, famously, that ‘we’ are violating the rights of the global poor insofar as we uphold an unjust international order which provides a legal and economic framework within which individuals and groups can and do deprive such individuals of their lives, liberty and property. I argue here that Pogge’s claim that we are violating a negative duty can only be made good on the basis of a substantive theory of collective action; and that it can only (...) provide substantive ethical guidance when combined with an account of how collective action gives rise to forward-looking responsibility and/or accountability on an individual level. I consider accounts of these two topics given in work by Peter French and Christopher Kutz; and I argue that neither of them give Pogge what he needs. Although there is a sense in which 'we' can be said to be violating the rights of the worst off, the sense in which this is true does not generate any plausible action-guiding claims for individuals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 35-37 [Access article in PDF] Seeking Emancipation through Engagement:One Nichiren Buddhist's Approach to Practice Bill Aiken SGI-USA I was born and raised Roman Catholic, which meant attending Catholic schools, first in the local parish schools and later at a private academy in suburban Philadelphia. As a child I was serious about my religion. I served as an altar boy and had serious thoughts about (...) becoming a priest.That was until the mid-1960s, when my hormones took over, my voice changed, and I converted to hedonism. I hadn't so much turned against my Catholic upbringing as I was temporarily distracted from it.It was when I went away to college that the religious questions began to resurface. Friends and classmates wanted to know what I believed in, and I really didn't know. The old form of Catholicism, with its stern, patriarchal vision of God, didn't seem to fit anymore. But the mystery remained as a palpable presence, and it seemed to require an answer. Was I an atheist? That seemed so negative. How about an agnostic? Possibly. They seemed to believe in something, even if they didn't know what it was. That seemed about right for the moment.My first encounter with Buddhism came during that freshman year at Penn State University in the fall of 1968. While attending a rather psychedelic party, a friend asked me if I knew anything about Buddhism. Replying that I didn't, I asked what Buddhism had to say for itself. My friend said that it spoke of the oneness and interrelatedness of everything. All I can say is that at that particular moment this made sense to me and started me on what would at first be a pretty casual exploration of Buddhism.But it would be in the bedridden summer of 1970, while recovering from a lifestyle-inflicted illness, that I started to reflect on my life in earnest and began to read as though Buddhism had something to say directly to me. More books by Alan Watts led to D. T. Suzuki, which in turn led to collections of sutras and finally to Phillip Kapleau and the Three Pillars of Zen. This would be my guide for the next year as I struggled to bring focus to my mind and my life.Being the poor and struggling student that I was, I could not afford the cost of a [End Page 35] retreat or sesshin training. So I struggled as well as I could with a combination of self-instruction and whatever I could learn from those who did attend these sessions.I should say at this point that while I may have had a highly developed religious sense, I never wanted to become a religious virtuoso or a renunciate. From the depths of my adolescent angst and confusion, I longed for an awakening, but I had conditions. And chief among them was that I would not be pried apart from my life as I knew it. The quietude of the monastery and hours of prayer or meditation held absolutely no appeal for me. If I were going to attain enlightenment it would have to be in Times Square (before Disney took it over). And so, through my daily stumbling efforts at zazen, I began struggling to bring about this awakening.So this is where I was spiritually when on a late summer day in 1971, a pleasant though somewhat scattered young woman approached me on the streets of downtown Philadelphia, invited me to a Buddhist meeting, and introduced me to the chanting of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. The first meeting I attended was a rather large one on the campus of Columbia University in NewYork. Everyone seemed pleasant enough, but the meeting seemed more like a pep rally than a serious discussion about the profound teachings of the Buddha. When the main speaker finally took the stage, I found it nearly impossible to understand his broken English. So I'm afraid that I don't remember a single word he... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 114-116 [Access article in PDF] The Earth Charter: Buddhist and Christian Approaches Bill Aiken Soka Gakkai International Seattle, Washington, is well known as the home of the coffee renaissance that swept across America in the 1980s and 1990s. Its hometown favorite, The CoffeeBrand, first appeared in 1971 in an open-air farmers' market; the popular round, green logo now seems to appear on the streets (...) of every city and suburb of the world.But what really impresses the visitor to the Seattle-Tacoma area is not The Coffee; it's The Mountain. When you look to the southeast, it rises there, big and craggy and snow-covered, and alone. It dominates the horizon. Even when you're not looking at it, or when it's obscured by the morning haze, you feel its presence. The Mountain... that's what the locals call it, as if it were the only one in the world.Those of us from other parts of the country call it Mount Rainier, but it looms large just the same. And from August 5 through 12, it seemed to watch over us like an expectant teacher as we convened on the wooded campus of Pacific Lutheran University for the Sixth International Conference of the Society of Buddhist-Christian Studies (SBCS). More than 170 scholars, students, and practitioners (and scholar-practitioners and practitioner-students) joined in a week of dialogue, study, and reflection on the theme "Buddhism, Christianity, and Global Healing."The conference opened with blessings from both the Buddhist and Christian traditions and with musical performances representing the traditions of the West--the passionate resonance of the pipe organ; and East--the evocative sounds of the simple bamboo shakuhachi.Boston Research Center (BRC) founder and president of Soka Gakkai International, Daisaku Ikeda, sent a congratulatory message to the gathering praising their efforts and noting the key areas in which Christianity and Buddhism can make important complementary contributions to the issues facing the world.The theme of global healing provided an excellent opportunity to focus on the Earth Charter. Under the title "Spirituality and the Earth Charter: Buddhist and Christian Approaches," co-chairs Professor Jay McDaniel, of Hendrix College, and BRC Executive DirectorVirginia Straus assembled a rich program of presentation and dialogue, which included some of the most renowned scholars, activists, and scholar-activists of the Earth Charter movement. [End Page 114]Professor Mary Evelyn Tucker, of Bucknell University, began by introducing the Earth Charter not as a document but as a living movement, whose activities are inspired by the ideals and guidelines contained within the charter. Dr. Tucker, who played an active role in the shaping of the charter, spoke of how the input of various constituencies (indigenous peoples, developing economies, businessmen, political leaders, and yes, lawyers) was solicited, considered, and, where appropriate, given voice in the charter. She noted that we now have what will be--more or less--the final form of the charter. Our next step is to make it come alive in our behavior as individuals, communities, businesses, and nations.Virginia Straus spoke of the contributions of the global Buddhist community to the Earth Charter process. It began with Professor Steven Rockefeller's call for participation, which in turn led to contributions by prominent Buddhist leaders and scholars to the charter language, scholarly and grassroots consultations, publications by the Buddhist Peace Foundation (BPF) and the BRC, and the efforts of Buddhist organizations and engaged scholars to build grassroots support for the charter. Straus noted that the charter now reflects central Buddhist beliefs, with its clear recognition of interdependency and its emphasis on a change of mind or heart, and on "becoming more" rather than "acquiring more."Jay McDaniel rounded out the Earth Charter introduction by providing a very personal Christian perspective, giving special attention to those elements of the charter that speak to the human soul. As an example, he highlighted the broad spiritual and moral vision contained in Article 16(f) defining peace as "the wholeness created by right relationships with oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life, Earth, and the... (shrink)

Patients may show a more-or-less complete deviation of the head and eyes towards the right (ipsilesional) side [that is, to the same side of egocentric space as the brain lesion responsible for their disorder]. If addressed by the examiner from the left (contralesional) side [the opposite side to their lesion], patients with severe extrapersonal neglect may fail to respond or may look for the speaker in the right side of the room, turning head and eyes more and more to the (...) right. Frequently these patients will not pick up food from the left half of the plate. Given a crossword puzzle, they may complete only the squares to the right. If walking is not prevented by hemiparesis, neglect patients may lose their bearings, since they do not make use of left sided cues. (shrink)

This response to Robert Knox’s very kind and constructive review1 of my 2008 book The Degradation of the International Legal Order: The Rehabilitation of Law and the Possibility of Politics gives me the opportunity not only to answer some of his criticisms, but also, on the basis of my own reflections since 2008, to fill in some gaps. Indeed, to revise a number of my arguments. First, I restate my attempt at a materialist account of human rights. Next I (...) explain why, for me, the right of peoples to self-determination is absolutely central to a materialist understanding of human rights; and also fill a serious gap in my own account in the book. This leads me not only to a reply to Robert Knox on the question of ‘indeterminacy’ in international law, but also to a disagreement with him on the use or misuse of the language of self-determination. My fourth section returns to our very different evaluations of the significance and meaning of the work of Yevgeny Pashukanis, and what, for me, is Pashukanis’s misunderstanding, for reasons consistent with his general theoretical trajectory, of Marx and Lenin on the Irish question. Finally, I present an outline of a re-evaluation of Marx’s principled position on self-determination. (shrink)

In this article the authors discuss the decision of the House of Lords in Adam, Limbuela and Tesema, where the judges gave detailed scrutiny to the support duty s.55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 towards those who are seeking asylum and considered the approach to be adopted in determining whether there was an incompatibility with Art.3 of the European Convention on Human Rights if support was denied.

It is sometimes thought that the normative justification for responding to large-scale violations of human rights via the judicial appararatus of trial and punishment is undermined by the desirability of reconciliation between conflicting parties as part of the process of conflict resolution. I take there to be philosophical, as well as practical and psychological issues involved here: on some conceptions of punishment and reconciliation, the attitudes that they involve conflict with one another on rational grounds. But I shall argue (...) that there is a conception of political reconciliation available which does not involve forgiveness and this forms of reconciliation may be the best we can hope for in many conflicts. Reconciliation is nevertheless likely to require the expression of what Darrell Moellendorf has called 'political regret' and the denunciatory role aspect of punishment makes it particularly well-suited to this role. (shrink)

This short article starts with Alasdair MacIntyre’s famous critical remarks on human rights in After Virtue, and proceeds to ask whether in fact MacIntyre can be read against himself, taking a range of his own texts. This provides the basis for a sketch of a substantive account of human rights, more historicised and political than those for which MacIntyre has so little time. The article engages with some leading English Aristotelians-James Griffin and John Tasioulas in particular. MacIntyre has (...) been a Marxist: this article suggests that perhaps he still is and that a consistent Aristotelian is a Marxist, especially where human rights are concerned. (shrink)

In his “Why be Moral? A Different Rationale for Managers,” , La Rue Tone Hosmer argues that managers should be moral because “acting in ways that can be considered to be ‘right’ and ‘just’ and ‘fair’ is absolutely essential to the long-term competitive success of the firm.” According to Hosmer, moral behavior generates trust among stakeholders, which leads to stakeholder commitment, which leads to increased stakeholder effort, which ultimately leads to corporate success. Though we agree with Hosmer’s causal reasoning, we (...) are concerned about an ancient loophole, namely, cases where the mere appearance of morality will generate the same trust, and commitment, and so on, and will thus enable managers to reap the material benefits of morality while nevertheless engaging in immoral practices. We conclude that a virtue ethics perspective will strengthen Hosmer’s model so as to cover such cases. (shrink)

Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist, the civil rights advocate and the great rhetorician, has been the focus of much academic research. Only more recently is Douglass work on aesthetics beginning to receive its due, and even then its philosophical scope is rarely appreciated. Douglass’ aesthetic interest was notably not so much in art itself, but in understanding aesthetic presentation as an epistemological and psychological aspect of the human condition and thereby as a social and political tool. He was fascinated by (...) the power of images, and took particular interest in the emerging technologies of photography. He often returned to the themes of art, pictures and aesthetic perception in his speeches. He saw himself, also after the end of slavery, as first and foremost a human rights advocate, and he suggests that his work and thoughts as a public intellectual always in some way related to this end. In this regard, his interest in the power of photographic images to impact the human soul was a lifelong concern. His reflections accordingly center on the psychological and political potentials of images and the relationship between art, culture, and human dignity. In this chapter we discuss Douglass views and practical use of photography and other forms of imagery, and tease out his view about their transformational potential particularly in respect to combating racist attitudes. We propose that his views and actions suggest that he intuitively if not explicitly anticipated many later philosophical, pragmatist and ecological insights regarding the generative habits of mind and affordance perception : I.e. that we perceive the world through our values and habitual ways of engaging with it and thus that our perception is active and creative, not passive and objective. Our understanding of the world is simultaneously shaped by and shaping our perceptions. Douglass saw that in a racist and bigoted society this means that change through facts and rational arguments will be hard. A distorted lens distorts - and accordingly re-produces and perceives its own distortion. His interest in aesthetics is intimately connected to this conundrum of knowledge and change, perception and action. To some extent precisely due to his understanding of how stereotypical categories and dominant relations work on our minds, he sees a radical transformational potential in certain art and imagery. We see in his work a profound understanding of the value-laden and action-oriented nature of perception and what we today call the perception of affordances (that is, what our environment permits/invites us to do). Douglass is particularly interested in the social environment and the social affordances of how we perceive other humans, and he thinks that photographs can impact on the human intellect in a transformative manner. In terms of the very process of aesthetic perception his views interestingly cohere and supplement a recent theory about the conditions and consequences of being an aesthetic beholder. The main idea being that artworks typically invite an asymmetric engagement where one can behold them without being the object of reciprocal attention. This might allow for a kind of vulnerability and openness that holds transformational potentials not typically available in more strategic and goal-directed modes of perception. As mentioned, Douglass main interest is in social change and specifically in combating racist social structures and negative stereotypes of black people. He is fascinated by the potential of photography in particular as a means of correcting fallacious stereotypes, as it allows a more direct and less distorted image of the individuality and multidimensionality of black people. We end with a discussion of how, given this interpretation of aesthetic perception, we can understand the specific imagery used by Douglass himself. How he tried to use aesthetic modes to subvert and change the racist habitus in the individual and collective mind of his society. We suggest that Frederick Douglass, the human rights activist, had a sophisticated philosophy of aesthetics, mind, epistemology and particularly of the transformative and political power of images. His works in many ways anticipate and sometimes go beyond later scholars in these and other fields such as psychology & critical theory. Overall, we propose that our world could benefit from revisiting Douglass’ art and thought. (shrink)

How well the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are achieved will greatly influence the lives of today’s children and decisively shape the rest of the 21st century. Yet, children were largely excluded from opportunities to influence the selection of SDGs and their associated targets and indicators, and major barriers to meaningful child engagement remain. However, child-focused agencies have found that when children are intentionally enabled to participate in seeking accountability, they can influence their families, communities and governments to value their contributions (...) and increase their well-being. In furthering its strategy of building brighter futures for children, World Vision implements Citizen Voice and Action (CV&A), a strategic social accountability approach, into communities where children are severely impoverished. Drawing on empirical evidence from children’s CV&A experiences, this paper enquires into the circumstances under which children are empowered to seek accountability for SDGs. This article identifies shared processes which they and others use to strengthen children’s participation in seeking social justice through social accountability. This paper argues that children possess under-recognised research capabilities to think and reflect systemically, critique, understand, and pursue socially just and equitable outcomes conducive to the SDGs, which under the right circumstances, can influence practices, policies, laws and systems. (shrink)

In the New York Times bestseller Everything All at Once, Bill Nye shows you how thinking like a nerd is the key to changing yourself and the world around you. Everyone has an inner nerd just waiting to be awakened by the right passion. In Everything All at Once, Bill Nye will help you find yours. With his call to arms, he wants you to examine every detail of the most difficult problems that look unsolvable—that is, until you (...) find the solution. Bill shows you how to develop critical thinking skills and create change, using his “everything all at once” approach that leaves no stone unturned. Whether addressing climate change, the future of our society as a whole, or personal success, or stripping away the mystery of fire walking, there are certain strategies that get results: looking at the world with relentless curiosity, being driven by a desire for a better future, and being willing to take the actions needed to make change happen. He shares how he came to create this approach—starting with his Boy Scout training (it turns out that a practical understanding of science and engineering is immensely helpful in a capsizing canoe) and moving through the lessons he learned as a full-time engineer at Boeing, a stand-up comedian, CEO of The Planetary Society, and, of course, as Bill Nye The Science Guy. This is the story of how Bill Nye became Bill Nye and how he became a champion of change and an advocate of science. It’s how he became The Science Guy. Bill teaches us that we have the power to make real change. Join him in… dare we say it… changing the world. (shrink)

Ruling Passions is Simon Blackburn’s latest attempt to defend a theory of practical reason which he calls “expressivism”.2 In the first three chapters Blackburn outlines an account of how we should understand statements of right, good and virtue, as well as their negative counterparts (“the Ethical [or Moral] Proposition”, as he terms this amalgam). This he calls “quasi-realism”. I shall describe what this position entails in the first section. Secondly I shall consider the opposition to this view advanced by McDowell (...) (1987), who in turn takes his inspiration from Wiggins (1976a, 1976b). Finally I shall assess Blackburn’s reply to McDowell and Wiggins (found in Chapter 4 of RP), and argue that it is inadequate. (shrink)

The case outlined below will be the basis for the In That Case section in the next issue of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry (JBI). We invite interested readers to provide responses to the case for possible publication. Responses should be 500–700 words, and should be submitted as soon as possible after publication of this issue. The editors will select the responses to be published in the next issue of the JBI, and reserve the right to edit contributions to avoid (...) repetition. Editorial changes will be cleared with authors before going to press. Responses should be submitted on Editorial Manager. (shrink)

The U.S. civilian space program is focused on planning for a new round of human missions to the Moon and, later, perhaps, to Mars. These plans are intended to realize a “vision” for exploration articulated by President George W. Bush. It is important to examine this “vision” in the broader context of 21st-century space exploration, which is a truly global enterprise. Questions to be addressed include the following: How will extending human presence into the solar system affect society and culture (...) on Earth? What legal, ethical, and other value systems should govern human settlements and other activities in space? Do humans have rights to exploit extraterrestrial resources and alter extraterrestrial environments? Does space exploration need reinvention to meet social needs? This article describes the current environment for space policy making and a framework of space law, ethics, and culture within which these questions can be considered. (shrink)

People with learning disability sometimes display challenging behaviour. This can be managed by use of antipsychotic medication or behavioural therapy or both. There is no solid evidence, however, that these therapies are safe and effective. A randomised controlled trial of antipsychotic medication has been proposed to deliver such evidence. However, this presents difficult issues in the ethics of research with learning disabled people. In particular, is a trial the most efficient and fairest way to evaluate practice in this area? This (...) paper reviews the clinical situation, gives the rationale for the trial, and analyses the ethical arguments for and against such a trial. (shrink)

The challenge that confronts corporate decision-makers in connection with global labor conditions is often in identifying the standardsby which they should govern themselves. In an effort to provide greater direction in the face of possible global cultural conflicts, ethicistsThomas Donaldson and Thomas Dunfee draw on social contract theory to develop a method for identifying basic human rights: Integrated Social Contract Theory (ISCT). In this paper, we apply ISCT to the challenge of global labor standards, attempting to identify labor (...) class='Hi'>rights that could serve as guides for corporations producing or outsourcing outside of their home country. In addition to identifying areas of universal agreement, we also examine whether ISCT is, in fact, a sufficient basis for determining worker rights; we seek to define the parameters of the “sweatshop” problem; we include the application and results of our ISCT analysis as applied to labor standards: the global labor rights hypernorms; and conclude that ISCT is sufficient only for rights that are universal. We also discuss whether market-driven decisions can identify the boundaries of labor rights, or at least assure that market outcomes are compatible with maintaining labor rights, in order to respond to the shortcomings of ISCT. We conclude with some comments on directions of analysis for labor rights determination. (shrink)

It is natural to think of political philosophy as being concerned with reflection on some of the ways in which groups of human beings come together to confront together the problems that they face together: in other words, as the domain, par excellence, of collective action. From this point of view it might seem surprising that the notion of collective obligation rarely assumes centre-stage within the subject. If there are, or can be, collective obligations, then these must surely constrain the (...) ways in which we can act collectively. Indeed, one might even suspect that considerations about collective obligations ought to play a central role in demarcating the form that any legitimate form of political organization ought to take. -/- Elsewhere I have argued that we have good reasons for accepting the existence of global collective obligations - in other words, collective obligations which fall on the world’s population as a whole.(Wringe 2006, 2010, forthcoming, under review) For example, the existence of such obligations provides a plausible solution to a problem which is sometimes thought to arise if we think that individuals have a right to have their basic needs satisfied. In this paper, I shall argue that in many situations, forward-looking global obligations give rise to an obligation on individuals to work towards bringing into existence and support an institutional system which will enable their obligations to be met. Call such an obligation the ‘Obligation to Promote Satisfactory Global Institutions.’ I shall also examine a significant challenge to this line of argument, which I call the ‘Pluralist Challenge’ One might suppose that the ‘Obligation to Promote Satisfactory Global Institutions’ could be met by providing strategic support to attempts to modify and extend existing international institutions. After all, creating new institutions is a difficult matter: perhaps it would be better, especially where stringent obligations are concerned, to concentrate on those institutions which we already have. On the other hand, existing international institutions are subject to a range of significant moral and ethical criticisms. It would simply be naïve to suppose that their existence of such institutions is based on an international consensus about what justice requires; and it is not clear how we could motivate individuals who have severe ethical reservations about the existence of such institutions, or why we should wish to. This suggests that those who think that there are global collective obligations, and that such obligations should play an important role in shaping how we think of international distributive justice are faced with a significant dilemma: either support a program of extending and strengthening existing institutions in a way which risks entrenching some existing forms of injustice; or commit oneself to a program of attempting to build new institutions which will have to compete with those institutions we have already and which are unlikely to be in a position to meet help us to discharge our collective obligations at any point in the near future. Neither option seems satisfactory. I shall argue that our response should be to look for plausible ethical constraints on how international institutions should be developed, and suggest that these constraints are likely to take a cosmopolitan form. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Fragments TO THE UGHTHOUSE AND THE FEMINIST PATH TO POSTMODERNITY by Bill Martin Postmodernity is in part the existence of an unprecedented space for feminism. Already in this formulation, however, we encounter two major terms that require explication. I will argue in this essay that Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse provides the basis for productively understanding postmodernism and feminism in relation to each other.1 The question (...) of placing feminism temporally has of course been raised before; I will simply mention two occasions. In Sexual/Textual Politics, Toril Moi argues for a kind of natural affinity of feminism with literary modernism's implicit critique of notions of the unified self.2 Here the comparison of Woolf with Joyce is appropriate. Moi moves from this perceived affinity toward the notion of écriturefeminine. Practitioners of the latter have been much more interested in Joyce than Woolf. Joyce, especially in Finnegans Wake, thoroughly shatters the self, reaching the highest expression of modernism. Woolf does something different. In To tL· Lighthouse, she not only decenters the subject, she also reconstitutes the subject. If Woolf had only reinstated the subject, as a matter of simply returning to the previous paradigm, then obviously her writing would have to be considered anachronistic. Though the affinity posited by Moi is real and useful (if made problematic by what seem to be real affinities that also exist between modernism and misogyny ), the force of another affinity can also be felt: in her deconstruction /reconstitution, Woolf achieves a writing that is both postmodern and feminist. The both/and relation here is itself a cultural creation, 307 308PHrLOSOPHY and Literature however, which points to the elective affinity involved in joining a particular politics with a particular artistic practice. The question is whether a political argument that does not avoid questions of artistic integrity can be marshaled to the task of showing that the affinity of feminism and postmodernism is more viable in the contemporary context than the affinity posited by Moi.3 Elaine Showalter, in her formulation of "women's time," raises the possibility ofanother kind of temporalized feminism. In "Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness," Showalter pursues the idea that there might be a time and space which women occupy without their location being known or knowable to men, and perhaps without women fully knowing it themselves.4 In short, this "time" is conditional and predicated upon a possible future in which people will remember and be more fully aware of their spatial/temporal context. I would propose that this same conditional and uncertain sense of time applies to postmodernism. For the very terms "postmodernism" and "postmodernity" connote a transitional period in which it is not certain how elements which are for the time being in flux will ultimately setde down and congeal. The "aftereffect of the "post" in postmodernity will be truly understood only in the longer run, if even then. Showalter takes it that there is a sense in which "women's time," the "Age of Feminism," is occurring right now, but in a concealed way. Again, something like this may be said of postmodernism. In either case there is the sense of creating artifacts for a future which may or may not exist. There is also the sense of permanent postponement or deferral which is integral to the very notion of "possibility." Add to these references the by now familiar postmodern and feminist criticisms of grand narratives that crush difference, and I think we are in possession of a set of basic issues common to both feminism and postmodernism: the nature of the self and its possible recreation, the question of periodization and our "time," problems of difference and questions of doing something different (in the latter case feminism is much more explicit about doing something different that is also emancipatory, though some forms ofpostmodernism stress this as well). Given these common concerns I simply want to set the new affinity as follows: postmodernism is a social and cultural atmosphere in which feminism and other emancipatory trends might flourish. In this context, To tL· Lighthouse is a trailblazing feminist-postmodern artifact. The project here is not to generate or force a postmodern reading (any more... (shrink)

Over the past decade, corporate scandals have proliferated. These scandals, along with the emergence of the #MeToo movement and Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) mandates, have increased the scrutiny of corporations’ ethics culture. How have companies responded in terms of the language appearing in their public ethics documents? We compare the Code of Ethics in 2008 versus 2019 for a sample of S&P 500 firms. For the vast majority of firms, their Code of Ethics lengthened, with the average 2019 (...) code having 29% more words (about 1760 words) than the 2008 average. The language of the codes has also changed. Words such as _bribery, corruption, sustainability, speak up, bullying, slavery,_ and _human rights_ all saw significantly higher usage in the later period. We review possible reasons for the dramatic changes and suggest what questions remain about the motivations behind them. Whether the changes we observe are primarily intrinsically motivated or simply market responses to public pressures is yet to be determined. What is clear from our findings is that society seems to be entering a new age of increasingly moral—or, at least, moralized—corporate governance. (shrink)

The author examines the categories of bribes that are prohibited under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act from the perspective of three significant moral theories: utility, rights and justice. He concludes that the Act does not go too far in demanding ethical behaviors from U.S. business people doing business in foreign markets, therefore, it is not in need of a major revision. With regard to accounting provisions, movement from a reasonableness standard to one of materiality would be appropriate however.

This paper is a twenty-five year retrospective on the development of environmental consciousness in the US The Clean Air Act is taken as proxy for companion measures in water and other areas of the environment, and the emphasis on "efficiency" and "market compatibility" is noted with a mixture of caution and hope. The work of an eminent pragmatic ethicist, Ado Leopard, is re-visited. From the pages of A Sand County Almanac, his notion that right and wrong, good and bad, be (...) assessed in terms of the tendency to produce or preserve "the integrity, beauty, and stability of the biotic community" is explicitly adopted. Leopold''s ethical consciousness raises a question: what reasons do we have to believe that an efficient, booming economy can be made compatible with a finite natural system? Are there boundaries that the economy must respect, or can we "out run" those limits with our technology and expertise? (shrink)

Moral norms are the rules of morality, those that people actually follow, and those that we feel people ought to follow, even when they don’t. Historically, the social sciences have been primarily concerned with describing the many forms that moral norms take in various cultures, with the emerging implication that moral norms are mere arbitrary products of culture. Philosophers, on the other hand, have been more concerned with trying to understand the nature and source of rules that all cultures ought (...) to follow, with relatively little regard for what people actually do. The tension between the two approaches has to do with whether there are any standards higher than the whims of culture in determining right and wrong. Typically, the social sciences say “no”, pointing at the diversity of moral beliefs. Most philosophers (along with people of moral conviction) feel that there must be some deeper source of morality than the trends and fads of culture. Unfortunately, the nature and source of such standards has remained something of a mystery. Recent work on the evolution of norms has changed this picture dramatically. (shrink)

Barry Stroud begins his investigation into the metaphysics of colour with a discussion of the elusiveness of the genuinely philosophical quest for reality. He insists upon a distinction between two ways in which the idea of a correspondence between perceptions or beliefs and the facts may be understood: first, as equivalent to the plain truth of the perceptions/beliefs in question; second, as conveying the metaphysical reality of the corresponding features of the world. I begin by voicing some suspicion about this (...) distinction. Then I go on to consider various aspects of his central argument against the likelihood of any successful unmasking explanation in connection with colour. The final moves of this argument seem to me to be unstable. Either his conclusion that the unmasker’s overall strategy is self-defeating is stronger than is warranted, or his insistence that no conclusive result is established in connection with the fundamental quest for reality is unduly cautious, depending on how precisely the dependence, which he rightly insists upon, of the identification of perceptions of colour upon some identification of colour properties themselves, is to be taken. (shrink)

This volume addresses a wide variety of moral concerns regarding slavery as an institutionalized social practice. By considering the slave's critical appropriation of the natural rights doctrine, the ambiguous implications of various notions of consent and liberty are examined. The authors assume that, although slavery is undoubtedly an evil social practice, its moral assessment stands in need of a more nuanced treatment. They address the question of what is wrong with slavery by critically examining, and in some cases endorsing, (...) certain principles derived from communitarianism, paternalism, utilitarianism, and jurisprudence. (shrink)

Many of the reforms being required or recommended to ensure that for-profit companies achieve greater transparency and more effective governance are similarly being promoted for adoption by nonprofit health care organizations. The demands are coming from a variety of sources - government officials, donors, business partners, companies that provide directors and officers (D&O) liability insurance, the media, and directors themselves. To meet these demands, nonprofit health care boards and executives need to assess whether they have the right number, mix, and (...) caliber of board members, and to modify their recruitment and/or retention strategies where they don't. -/- The following discussion is another in an ongoing Inquiry series called "Dialogue," a collaboration with the Alliance for Advancing Nonprofit Health Care to provide a variety of voices on current, major issues in the nonprofit health care sector. (shrink)

The entrenchment of a bill of rights, and the consequent removal of the matters covered in the bill from the domain of the legislature, is commonly thought to constitute a transfer of power from the legislature to the courts. Yet the simple answer to this thought is that, strictly speaking, no such transfer takes place, for in acquiring power to determine the content of a bill of rights the courts do not acquire the power to (...) legislate that the bill denies to the legislature. The more complex response is that what the courts acquire when a bill of rights is entrenched is the power to set a constitutional agenda, a power that the legislature may never have had and so has not necessarily lost, a power the political significance of which depends on the form and content of what is entrenched and the value and character of the power it leaves in the hands of the legislature. In particular, the entrenchment of a project of governance (as typified by the positive duties conventionally associated with economic and social rights) raises concerns about the power exercised by courts that are not raised by the entrenchment of a project of non-governance (as typified by the negative duties conventionally associated with civil and political liberties). Non-governance may be objectionable, but not because the courts secure it. Governance, however, may be objectionable just because the courts secure it. (shrink)

In a recently published article, R. N. McLaughlin argues for what he calls an “open form” of bill of rights, in preference to the standard closed form. Such an open form would consist of a directive to the courts “to invalidate laws which offend fundamental morals by depriving citizens of basic rights, or by forcing them to deprive others of basic rights.” A standard form consists, of course, of a list of rights which are not (...) to be violated. His reason for making this proposal is that he does not think the standard form is capable of keeping pace with the changing moral codes which such a bill is supposed to reflect, whereas the open form would by its very nature do so. I should like, in what follows, to argue that the open form presents a number of serious problems which the standard form does not, and that a standard form is in the end to be preferred, both because it does not present these new problems and because it need not be as inflexible in the face of changing moral standards as McLaughlin thinks. (shrink)

Just last week (October 4, 2022), the U.S. White House released a blueprint for an A.I. Bill of Rights, consisting of “five principles and associated practices to help guide the design, use, and de...

Animals and War: Confronting the Military-Animal Industrial Complex is the first book to examine how nonhuman animals are used in war and the military. Animals and War contributes significantly to the fields of social justice, animal rights, and anti-war/peace activist communities. This book also will be read by peace, conflict, social justice, and critical animal studies scholars, students, and practitioners.