Probing semantic relations Exploration and identification in specialized texts Alain Auger and CarolineBarrière In recent years, several scientific ...
This collection of essays by leading patristic scholars of the U.K. and Germany illuminates aspects of the relation between Christian faith and Greek philosophy.
"Caroline Williams marks what is distinctive about 20th Century French philosophy's interrogation of the subject and demonstrates its historical continuity in a ...
Jake Kosek. Understories: The Political Life of Forests in Northern New Mexico Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9341-3 Authors Caroline Felix Oliveira, Iowa State University, 403 East Hall, Ames, IA 50011, USA Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863.
The aims of the study were to explore the awareness of and attitudes towards student academic dishonesty at a South African university, and to explore perceived personal and institutional barriers to taking action against such dishonesty. All full-time academic staff at the University of Johannesburg were anonymously surveyed during late 2009. The findings indicated a high level of awareness of student academic dishonesty, with few faculty members taking action against it. Four groups of barriers to preventing and acting on student (...) academic dishonesty were identified, with two of these barrier groups being significantly related to willingness to report student academic dishonesty. (shrink)
: Moral frameworks for evaluating non-donation strategies to increase the supply of cadaveric human organs for transplantation and ways to overcome barriers to organ donation are explored. Organ transplantation is a very complex area, because the human body evokes various beliefs, symbols, sentiments, and emotions as well as various rituals and social practices. From a rationalistic standpoint, some policies to increase the supply of transplantable organs may appear to be quite defensible but then turn out to be ineffective and perhaps (...) even counterproductive because of inadequate attention to these rich and complex features of human body parts. Excessively rationalistic policies neglect deep beliefs, symbols, sentiments, and emotions and the like, and that deficiency marks many actual and proposed policies. In addition, policies are often too individualistic and too legalistic. (shrink)
Could we plausibly believe in the fundamental tenets of classical liberalism and, at the same time, support the state’s raising of immigration barriers? The thesis of this paper is that if we accept the main tenets of classical liberalism as essentially correct, we should regard immigration barriers as essentially illegitimate. Considered under ideal conditions, immigration barriers constitute an unjustified infringement on individuals’ ownership rights, since it is difficult to identify a purpose that such an infringement could have that would outweigh (...) the disadvantages created by eliminating important competitive pressures on governments. Considered under nonideal conditions, the problem is, roughly, that immigration barriers cannot be seen as the choice of a lesser evil in the face of either an expected extension of the redistributive state or an expected threat on liberal institutions. On the contrary, since they relax the constraints faced by governments, immigration barriers should be seen as a major contributor in creating the conditions for the perpetuation of the sort of political arrangements that classical liberals resist. If individual sovereignty is to be protected, the sovereignty of the state over a particular territory should not include a prerogative to determine who is to inhabit it. (shrink)
Palmer's subjectivity barrier seems to be erected on a popular but highly suspect conception of visual experience, and his color room argument is invalid.
The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Greece and present the challenges that need to be met in order to further promote socially responsible business behaviour in the domestic economy. This is the first attempt to provide a systematic analysis of CSR in Greece and adds to the existing pool of knowledge of CSR embeddedness in countries where CSR awareness is still rather low, a literature field that is still quite limited. (...) Drawing from prior literature, the paper is built around three basic questions in relation to the Greek context: how is CSR perceived by Greek business professionals? How is CSR practised in Greece? And which issues evident in the modern domestic environment act as underlying barriers to the broader dissemination of CSR in Greece? The extant empirical work suggests that, while CSR in Greece appears to be developing, there is still scope for improvement and further diffusion of relevant practices. While some of the patterns shaping CSR in Greece have been analysed, much work still remains to be carried out in extending and deepening our knowledge in this part of Europe. (shrink)
In spite of its success, Neo-Darwinism is faced with major conceptual barriers to further progress, deriving directly from its metaphysical foundations. Most importantly, neo-Darwinism fails to recognize a fundamental cause of evolutionary change, “niche construction”. This failure restricts the generality of evolutionary theory, and introduces inaccuracies. It also hinders the integration of evolutionary biology with neighbouring disciplines, including ecosystem ecology, developmental biology, and the human sciences. Ecology is forced to become a divided discipline, developmental biology is stubbornly difficult to reconcile (...) with evolutionary theory, and the majority of biologists and social scientists are still unhappy with evolutionary accounts of human behaviour. The incorporation of niche construction as both a cause and a product of evolution removes these disciplinary boundaries while greatly generalizing the explanatory power of evolutionary theory. (shrink)
In spite of its success, Neo-Darwinism is faced with major conceptual barriers to further progress, deriving directly from its metaphysical foundations. Most importantly, neo-Darwinism fails to recognize a fundamental cause of evolutionary change, “niche construction”. This failure restricts the generality of evolutionary theory, and introduces inaccuracies. It also hinders the integration of evolutionary biology with neighbouring disciplines, including ecosystem ecology, developmental biology, and the human sciences. Ecology is forced to become a divided discipline, developmental biology is stubbornly difficult to reconcile (...) with evolutionary theory, and the majority of biologists and social scientists are still unhappy with evolutionary accounts of human behaviour. The incorporation of niche construction as both a cause and a product of evolution removes these disciplinary boundaries while greatly generalizing the explanatory power of evolutionary theory. (shrink)
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) transforms the U.S.'s public and private health care financing systems into vehicles for promoting public health by making evidence-based preventive services available nationwide through individual and group health plans, Medicare, and Medicaid. The ACA accomplishes this transformation by breaking down two barriers: (1) the public health-health care divide, which led to a dominance of curative medicine over preventive health measures and (2) ERISA preemption, which created an obstacle to the provision of a uniform set of (...) evidence-based preventive services that could be made available to the U.S. population through individual and group health plans. As a result, prevention measures with proven effectiveness will now be provided on a national and uniform basis to a majority of Americans, with the potential to improve health outcomes and reduce costs. (shrink)
Implication barrier theses deny that one can derive sentences of one type from sentences of another. Hume’s Law is an implication barrier thesis; it denies that one can derive an ‘ought’ (a normative sentence) from an ‘is’ (a descriptive sentence). Though Hume’s Law is controversial, some barrier theses are philosophical platitudes; in his Lectures on Logical Atomism, Bertrand Russell claims: You can never arrive at a general proposition by inference particular propositions alone. You will always have to have at least (...) one general proposition in your premises. (Russell, 1918, p. 206) We will refer to this claim—that one cannot derive general sentences from particular sentences—as Russell’s Law.1 A third barrier thesis claims that one cannot derive sentences about the future from sentences about the past or present. Hume’s endorsement of this barrier thesis is well-known: all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past . . . if there be any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless, and can give rise to no inference or conclusion. It is impossible, therefore, that any argument from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. (Hume, EHU 4.21/37) We will refer to this barrier thesis as Hume’s Second Law. A fourth barrier thesis says that one cannot derive a necessary sentence from one about the actual world and we will refer to this last thesis Kant’s Law. Such implication barrier theses present a problem. (shrink)
I was quite excited when I first read Restall and Russell’s (2010) paper. For two reasons. First, because the paper provides rigorous formulations and formal proofs of implication barrier theses, namely “theses [which] deny that one can derive sentences of one type from sentences of another”. Second (and primarily), because the paper proves a general theorem, the Barrier Construction Theorem, which unifies implication barrier theses concerning four topics: generality, necessity, time, and normativity. After thinking about the paper, I am satisfied (...) with its treatment of the first three topics, namely generality, necessity, and time. But I am not satisfied with its treatment of normativity, so my comments are exclusively on that topic. (shrink)
This paper explores the role of ethics in design. Traditionally, ethical questions have been seen as marginal issues in the design of technology. Part of the reason for this stems from the widely held notion of technology being “out of control.” This notion is a barrier to what I call “ethical design” because it implies that ethics has no role to play in the development of technology. This view, however, is challenged by recent work in the field of Science and (...) Technology Studies (STS). Looking into the dynamics of technological change, STS scholars argue that human choices are present at every stage of a technology’s development and, furthermore, that human values are reflected in the very design of artifacts. This alternative view suggests that ethics can and should be included in the design process. Drawing on examples from the privacy arena. I point to some of the potential advantages of addressing ethical concerns early on in the design of a technology. I conclude with some general strategies for bringing ethics back into design. (shrink)
Clinical ethics committees have recently been established in nearly all Norwegian hospital trusts. One important task for these committees is clinical ethics consultations. This qualitative study explores significant barriers confronting the ethics committees in providing such consultation services. The interviews with the committees indicate that there is a substantial need for clinical ethics support services and, in general, the committee members expressed a great deal of enthusiasm for the committee work. They also reported, however, that tendencies to evade moral disagreement, (...) conflict, and 'outsiders' are common in the hospitals. Sometimes even the committees comply with some of these tendencies. The committees agree that there is a need to improve their routines and procedures, clarify the committees' profile and field of responsibility, to make the committees well-known, to secure adequate operating conditions, and to develop organizational integration and support. Various strategies to meet these challenges on a local, regional or national level are also explored in this paper. (shrink)
This paper examines the influence of internal barriers on the relationship between the organizational capability of stakeholder integration and proactive environmental strategies. We adopt a moderate hierarchical regression model to test the hypotheses using data from a sample of 73 managers in the business education industry. The paper contributes to stakeholder theory by showing that stakeholder integration positively influences the development of proactive environmental strategies when managers perceive internal barriers to the development of such strategies. This article also explores an (...) ethical dilemma—managers may use the stakeholder integration capability to support their own interests rather than to benefit stakeholders. (shrink)
I was quite excited when I first read Restall and Russell’s (2010) paper. For two reasons. First, because the paper provides rigorous formulations and formal proofs of implication barrier the- ses, namely “theses [which] deny that one can derive sentences of one type from sentences of another”. Second (and primarily), because the paper proves a general theorem, the Barrier Con- struction Theorem, which unifies implication barrier theses concerning four topics: generality, necessity, time, and normativity. After thinking about the paper, I (...) am satisfied with its treatment of the first three topics, namely generality, necessity, and time. But I am not satisfied with its treatment of normativity, so my comments are exclusively on that topic. (shrink)
Aggregation methods allow one to replace a large scale dynamical system (micro-system) by a reduced dynamical system (macro-system) governing a small number of global variables. This aggregation of variables can be performed when two time scales exist, a fast time scale and a slow time scale. Perturbation theory allows to obtain an approximated aggregated dynamical system which describes the behaviour of a few number of slow time varying variables which are constants of motion of the fast part of the micro-system. (...) Aggregation methods are applied to the case of the devastation of the great barrier reef by the starfishes. We recall the Antonelli/Kazarinoff model which implies a stable limit cycle for the corals and starfish populations. This prey-predator model describes the interactions between two species of corals and the starfish. Then, we generalize the Antonelli/Kazarinoff model to the case of two spatial patches with a fast part describing the starfish migration on the patches and the human manipulation of the communities by divers and, a slow part describing the growth and the interactions between the populations. We obtain an aggregated model governing the total coral densities on the patches and the total starfish population. This model can exhibit stable limit cycle oscillations and a Hopf bifurcation. The critical value of the bifurcation parameter is expressed in terms of the proportions of coral species and starfish on the two patches. This implies for example that rather than random killing of starfish by the Australian military, it may be better to send teams of divers to outbreaking reefs when they first occur who will then manipulate the community structure to increase protection. (shrink)
In a forthcoming study I give an account of paradigm shifts as shifts in habits of mind. This paper summarizes the argument. Habits of mind, on this view, are what constitute a paradigm. Further, some particular habit of mind (the "barrier") is ordinarily critical for a Kuhnian revolution. A contrast is drawn between this view and the "gap" view that is ordinarily implicit in analysis of the nature of of paradigm shifts.
Introducción: la formación de profesionales competentes es una de las misiones esenciales de la Educación Médica Superior, esto exige que los tecnólogos posean habilidades comunicativas para un correcto desempeño laboral en aras del mejoramiento humano. Objetivo de la investigación: identificar las barreras que inciden en la comunicación tecnólogo - paciente en las carreras de Licenciatura en Traumatología, Podología, Terapia Física y Rehabilitación Social Ocupacional, en áreas de rehabilitación. Métodos: se presenta un estudio observacional, descriptivo longitudinal y retrospectivo entre junio de (...) 2008 y junio 2011 que consistió en la observación a exámenes estatales prácticos y a la educación en el trabajo, en las carreras de referencia, además se aplicó una encuesta a pacientes para la obtención de información acerca de las barreras que afectan el proceso de la comunicación entre tecnólogos y pacientes. Resultados: existen insuficiencias en la comunicación entre los futuros profesionales y pacientes. Conclusiones: se demuestra un insuficiente dominio de las habilidades comunicativas y por tanto barreras que interfieren en la comunicación como las semánticas y personales. Introduction: the training of competent professionals is one of the essential missions of higher medical education; this requires that technologists have communication skills in order to develop a proper job performance for the sake of human improvement. So the objective of the research is to identify barriers affecting technologist - patient communication in the careers of degree in Trauma, Podiatry, Physical Therapy, and Occupational Social Rehabilitation in areas of rehabilitation. Methods: an observational, longitudinal descriptive and retrospective study is presented between June 2008 and June 2011 that consisted on observation to practical state exams and training at work, in the reference degrees; in addition, a survey was applied to patients to obtain information about the barriers that affect the communication process between technologists and patients. Results: there are communication inadequacies between the future professionals and patients. Conclusions: An insufficient mastery of the communication skills is demonstrated and therefore barriers that interfere with communication as the semantic and personal barriers. (shrink)
The definition of the study population for a clinical trial via the criteria for trial eligibility has implications for the validity of the study and its applicability to clinical practice. Though issues of equity regarding the selection of subjects for research have long been a concern of ethicists, issues regarding the impact of subject selection on a trial's generalizability have only recently attracted ethical scrutiny. After a review of the history of the ethics of subject selection, I focus on three (...) empirical questions regarding the generalizability of clinical trials. (1) What proportion of diseased populations are studied in clinical trials? (2) How are subjects selected for clinical trial participation (and what are the main barriers to participation)? (3) Are clinical trial participants comparable to non-participants? Finally, the role of the Institutional Review Board--Research Ethics Board in Canada--in assessing the generalizability of clinical research is discussed. (shrink)
Research on career barriers has stressed the commonalities among women, and the ways in which women can develop the personal and professional skills they need to demonstrate their commitment to the organization. However, this individualistic focus is not appropriate for dealing with the problem of combining career and family responsibilities. Our research focus must now turn to the commonalities among organizations, and the ways in which different organizational structures and cultures are more or less responsive to women. A study of (...) Canadian National Sport Organizations illustrates some of the issues in this approach. (shrink)
This paper explores gender barriers to the formation of the female mentor – male protégé relationship. The authors consider both physiological as well as social gender as a way to help understand the scarcity of these relationships. A number of gender-related factors are considered, including organizational demographics, relational demography, sexual liaisons, gender stereotypes, gender behaviors, and power dynamics. The paper concludes with directions for future research that will help provide further insights into the development and success of the female mentor (...) – male protégé relationship. (shrink)
A profession's values - including its ethical values - are reflected in the degree to which its structures are accessible to people with disabilities. The profession expresses its values through the decisions of its members to effectively address barriers to access or to maintain those barriers through action or inaction. What barriers can block access to the field for psychologists and psychology students with disabilities? What barriers can block access for people with disabilities to the services that psychologists provide? This (...) brief editorial notes three major kinds of such barriers. (shrink)
This critique of nine service learning projects within schools of business is designed to encourage other educational institutions to add service learning requirements into business ethics and leadership courses. It champions the role of the faculty member teaching these courses while at the same time offering constructive analysis on pedagogy, a review of curriculum issues, identification of barriers to service learning, and guidelines for teaching service learning ventures. Challenges to all faculty involved in business ethics courses are made to better (...) manage their courses and careers from a broader context outside of university settings. (shrink)
There is a long-standing discussion on the positive interactions between enterprise value creation and business competitiveness. The corporate value can be seen as being created from three major sources within the cycle - from employees, from processes, and from customers or investors through reinvestment. To achieve competitive advantages, a firm must create more value than its competitors in the industry. Emphasizing that, firms should explore the positive drivers of customer value creation, allowing for a true value creation that will lead (...) to increments in competitiveness. In reality, however, there are also barriers that hinder customer value creation. Targeting the above issues that have not yet been explored or analyzed, we have collected related literature at the first stage. Based on these presumable assumptions, this paper then conducts an empirical study by surveying and analyzing the relevance given by the investigated leading machinery measuring equipment firms in Taiwan, regarding the concerns as drivers and barriers in relation to customer value creation. This paper expecially aims to answer several key questions: What drivers revolving around employees and processes can facilitate the organization to create more value for its customers? Conversely, what barriers block the organization from creating value for customers in examining the same dimensions? Does value creation direct an organization's profitability and competitiveness? Our questionnaire survey results show that the most recognized and agreed drivers of customer value creation in consideration of employees are "distinctive skills", "personal experience", "learning and training", and "team work"; and, in regard to the firm's processes, the key drivers are "innovation and evolution", "R&D capability", and "capability for differentiation". Conversely, the most recognized and agreed barriers to customer value creation in relation to employees are a "distrustful environment" and "inadequate knowledge"; and, in terms of processes, they are "short of core technology", "poor resource support", and "bad services and attitudes". Furthermore, our in-depth interview outcomes reveal that "capital sufficiency" and "mergers and acquisitions" are in practice considered to be other important customer value creation drivers; in contrast, "cultural and structural barriers" and "short of mechanisms to measure customer value creation effectively" are viewed as additional critical barriers to customer value creation. (shrink)
Background Non-therapeutic trials in which terminally ill cancer patients are asked to undergo procedures such as biopsies or venipunctures for research purposes, have become increasingly important to learn more about how cancer cells work and to realize the full potential of clinical research. Considering that implementing non-therapeutic studies is not likely to result in direct benefits for the patient, some authors are concerned that involving patients in such research may be exploitive of vulnerable patients and should not occur at all, (...) or should be greatly restricted, while some proponents doubt whether such restrictions are appropriate. Our objective was to explore clinician-researcher attitudes and concerns when recruiting patients who are in advanced stages of cancer into non-therapeutic research. Methods We conducted a qualitative exploratory study by carrying out open-ended interviews with health professionals, including physicians, research nurses, and study coordinators. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Analysis was carried out using grounded theory. Results The analysis of the interviews unveiled three prominent themes: 1) ethical considerations; 2) patient-centered issues; 3) health professional issues. Respondents identified ethical issues surrounding autonomy, respect for persons, beneficence, non-maleficence, discrimination, and confidentiality; bringing to light that patients contribute to science because of a sense of altruism and that they want reassurance before consenting. Several patient-centered and health professional issues are having an impact on the recruitment of patients for non-therapeutic research. Facilitators were most commonly associated with patient-centered issues enhancing communication, whereas barriers in non-therapeutic research were most often professionally based, including the doctor-patient relationship, time constraints, and a lack of education and training in research. Conclusions This paper aims to contribute to debates on the overall challenges of recruiting patients to non-therapeutic research. This exploratory study identified general awareness of key ethical issues, as well as key facilitators and barriers to the recruitment of patients to non-therapeutic studies. Due to the important role played by clinicians and clinician-researchers in the recruitment of patients, it is essential to facilitate a greater understanding of the challenges faced; to promote effective communication; and to encourage educational research training programs. (shrink)
This paper examines pain and pain relief in the Caribbean, where pain is widely perceived as an unavoidable part of life, and where unnecessary suffering results from untreated and under treated pain. Barriers to pain relief in the Caribbean include patient and family attitudes, inadequate knowledge among health professionals and unduly restrictive regulations on the medical use of opioids. Similar barriers exist all over the world. This paper urges medical, nursing and public health professionals, and educators to examine attitudes towards (...) pain and pain relief and to work towards making effective pain relief and palliation more accessible. It recommends that i) health professionals and officials be better educated about pain, palliation and opioids, ii) regulatory restrictions be updated in light of clinical and scientific evidence, iii) opioid procurement policies be adjusted to facilitate increased medical use, iv) medical charts and records be modified to routinely elicit and document patients levels of pain, and v) educational campaigns be developed to inform the public that moderate and severe pain can be safely relieved at the end of life and other stages of life. The professional, respectful, and beneficent response to patients in pain is to provide rapid and aggressive pain relief or to urgently consult a pain or palliative specialist. When a health system hinders such efforts the ethical response is to identify, facilitate and advocate for overcoming barriers to improvement. (shrink)
This is Part II of a reflection by Richard Paul on critical thinking, its theory and pedagogy, and on political and personal barriers to critical thinking education and practice. Part I of Paul’s reflection appeared in INQUIRY, Vol. 26 No. 3 (Fall 2011), pp. 5-24. In Part II Paul focuses on the concept of critical thinking, pointing out its unifying features as well as the many ways it can be contextualized in human thought and life. He lays out his basic (...) critical thinking theory and offers critical thinking polarities for use in assessing critical thinking approaches. He provides an overview of the work of the Foundation for Critical Thinking in advancing fairminded critical thought in education and in society. (shrink)
Cancer-related electronic support groups (ESGs) may be regarded as a complement to face-to-face groups when the latter are available, and as an alternative when they are not. Advantages over face-to-face groups include an absence of barriers imposed by geographic location, opportunities for anonymity that permit sensitive issues to be discussed, and opportunities to find peers online. ESGs can be especially valuable as navigation aids for those trying to find a way through the healthcare system and as a guide to the (...) cancer journey. Outcome indicators that could be used to evaluate the quality of ESGs as navigation aids need to be developed and tested. Conceptual models for the navigator role, such as the Facilitating Navigator Model, are appropriate for ESGs designed specifically for research purposes. A Shared or Tacit Model may be more appropriate for unmoderated ESGs. Both conceptual models raise issues in Internet research ethics that need to be address. (shrink)
This paper presents results from the analysis of business school dean responses to a survey designed to determine how sustainability, including sustainable business practices and climate change content, is being incorporated into business school curriculum. Information is also gathered on how schools and colleges of business are preparing instructors to incorporate sustainability-related content into their courses, the preferred programmatic approaches for offering content to students, and the barriers that impede modification of current curriculum to incorporate sustainability. It concludes with a (...) discussion of research that colleges and schools of business might conduct as part of their strategy to better understand how to bring their curriculum into alignment with new student demands for these topics. Background information on higher education commitment to sustainability is provided. (shrink)
Hume and Rousseau argue that “feeling with and/or for others” is natural and basic to us as human persons. but Royce claims that merely feeling the fleeting impulse of sympathy is not the moral insight itself. Compassion must be both felt and acted upon for it to play the role in morality ascribed by Hume and Rousseau. Why is it so often the case that we fail to feel compassion for others and, even when we do, why do we often (...) fail to act on this basis? There are multiple socially constructed barriers to feeling and acting on compassion, three of which are discussed: null curriculum. stereotyping and privileges. Finally, the Dalai Lama maintains that it is in every person’s own self-interest to develop compassion for others because it is the source of both inner and external peace. (shrink)
In this paper we introduce a distinct metaethical position, fictionalism about morality. We clarify and defend the position, showing that it is a way to save the 'moral phenomena' while agreeing that there is no genuine objective prescriptivity to be described by moral terms. In particular, we distinguish moral fictionalism from moral quasi-realism, and we show that fictionalism possesses the virtues of quasi-realism about morality, but avoids its vices.
Moral anti-realism comes in two forms – noncognitivism and the error theory. The noncognitivist says that when we make moral judgments we aren’t even trying to state moral facts. The error theorist says that when we make moral judgments we are making statements about what is objectively good, bad, right, or wrong but, since there are no moral facts, our moral judgments are uniformly false. This development of moral anti-realism was first seriously defended by John Mackie. In this paper I (...) explore a dispute among moral error theorists about how to deal with false moral judgments. The advice of the moral abolitionist is to stop making moral judgments, but the contrary advice of the moral fictionalist is to retain moral language and moral thinking. After clarifying the choice that arises for the moral error theorist, I argue that moral abolitionism has much to recommend it. I discuss Mackie’s defense of moral fictionalism as well as a recent version of the same position offered by Daniel Nolan, Greg Restall, and Caroline West. Then I second some remarks Ian Hinckfuss made in his defense of moral abolitionism and his criticism of “the moral society.” One of the worst things about moral fictionalism is that it undermines our epistemology by promoting a culture of deception. To deal with this problem Richard Joyce offers a “non-assertive” version of moral fictionalism as perhaps the last option for an error theorist who hopes to avoid moral abolitionism. I discuss some of the problems facing that form of moral fictionalism, offer some further reasons for adopting moral abolitionism in our personal lives, and conclude with reasons for thinking that abolishing morality may be an essential step in achieving the goals well-meaning moralists and moral fictionalists have always cherished. (shrink)
Often, when there is a reason for you to do something, it is the kind of thing to motivate you to do it. For example, if Max and Caroline are deciding whether to go to the Alcove for dinner, Caroline might mention as a reason in favor, the fact that the Alcove serves onion rings the size of doughnuts, and Max might mention as a reason against, the fact that it is so difficult to get parking there this (...) time of day. It is some sign—perhaps not a perfect sign, but some sign—that each of these really is a reason, that Max and Caroline feel the tug in each direction. Mention of the Alcove's onion rings makes them feel to at least some degree inclined to go, and mention of the parking arrangements makes them feel to at least some degree inclined not to. According to some philosophers, reasons for action always bear some relation like this to motivation. This idea is variously known as ‘reasons internalism’, ‘internalism about reasons’, or ‘the internal reasons theory’. According to other philosophers, not all reasons are related to motivation in any of the ways internalists say. This idea is known as ‘reasons externalism’ or ‘externalism about reasons’. (shrink)
Although the number of women in middle management has grown quite rapidly in the last two decades, the number of female CEOs in large corporations remains extremely low. This article examines many explanations for why women have not risen to the top, including lack of line experience, inadequate career opportunities, gender differences in linguistic styles and socialization, gender-based stereotypes, the old boy network at the top, and tokenism. Alternative explanations are also presented and analyzed, such as differences between female leadership (...) styles and the type of leadership style expected at the top of organizations, feminist explanations for the underrepresentation of women in top management positions, and the possibility that the most talented women in business often avoid corporate life in favor of entrepreneurial careers. (shrink)
What would morality have to be like in order to answer to our everyday moral concepts? What are we committed to when we make moral claims such as “female infibulation is wrong”; or “we ought give money to famine relief”; or “we have a duty to not to harm others”, and when we go on to argue about these sorts of claims? It has seemed to many—and it seems plausible to us—that when we assert and argue about things such as (...) these we presuppose at least the following. (shrink)
It is widely held that free speech is a distinctive and privileged social kind. But what is free speech? In particular, is there any unified phenomenon that is both free speech and which is worthy of the special value traditionally attached to free speech? We argue that a descendent of the classic Millian justification of free speech is in fact a justification of a more general social condition; and, via an argument that 'free speech' names whatever natural social kind is (...) justified by the best arguments, that free speech is therefore this more general condition. This condition involves not merely the orthodox freedom (in some sense) of speakers to distribute words, but also two less frequently acknowledged dimensions of free speech: audience understanding and consideration. We conclude with some discussion of the policy implications of this conception of free speech. (shrink)
It is widely held that free speech is a distinctive and privileged social kind. But what is free speech? In particular, is there any unified phenomenon that is both free speech and which is worthy of the special value traditionally attached to free speech? We argue that a descendent of the classic Millian justification of free speech is in fact a justification of a more general social condition; and, via an argument that 'free speech' names whatever natural social kind is (...) justified by the best arguments, that free speech is therefore this more general condition. This condition involves not merely the orthodox freedom (in some sense) of speakers to distribute words, but also two less frequently acknowledged dimensions of free speech: audience understanding and consideration. We conclude with some discussion of the policy implications of this conception of free speech. (shrink)
Up Against Foucault offers both a feminist critique of Foucauldian theories as well as an attempt to reconcile these seemingly irreconcilable perspectives. Feminists are often "up against Foucault" because he questions key conclusions in feminism regarding the nature of gender relations, and men's possession of power. This book, however, fills the gap in literature about Foucault by showing how his theories of sexuality and power relations are often applicable to the everyday realities of women's lives. Drawing upon their diverse backgrounds (...) in social theory and philosophy, the contributors discuss the ways in which Foucault provokes feminists into questioning their grasp of power relations, and examines the implications of his decision to overlook categories of gender in his discussion of sexuality and power relations. They also show that in spite of his lack of interest in gender, Foucault's ways of understanding the control of women and female sexuality ultimately have much to offer feminism. (shrink)
This question lies at the heart of a debate that raises fundamental issues about just when, and on what grounds, the state is justified in using its coercive powers to limit the freedom of individuals.
Numerous studies have documented the demand for information regarding corporations’ relationships to society. Much recent research has demonstrated why stakeholders need this information, and how it benefits both companies and the public. These studies suggest numerous methods by which companies can effectively disclose corporate social responsibility (CSR) information to the public, but in practice, reporting this type of information is fraught with legal and ethical uncertainty often unexplored in most literature. This article represents a fresh analysis of the numerous pragmatic (...) consequences and legal and ethical complications inherent in CSR reporting, using Nike Corporation as a case example. The article discusses the theoretical viewpoints surrounding the ethics of CSR disclosure, and presents the case of Nike and the complications it encountered while advertising CSR information. The article ends with an analysis of CSR auditing as a possible solution to companies seeking to improve the method and transparency of social responsibility reporting. (shrink)
This paper examines the way in which causal relations are understood in the dominant model in contemporary medicine. It argues that the causal relation is not definable in terms of the condition relation, but that in general for conditions of an occurrence to be among its causes they must answer instrumental interests in a certain way, and there are further criteria for distinguishing 'the' cause of a disease (i.e., its etiological agent) from other causal factors, which are based upon instrumental (...) interests peculiar to medicine. It also argues that diseases are complex processes of which both clinical and underlying patho-physiological manifestations are proper parts (as contrasted with effects). (shrink)
What would morality have to be like in order to answer to our everyday moral concepts'? What are we committed to when we make moral claims such as "female infibulation is wrong"; or "we ought give money to famine relief"; or "we have a duty to not to harm others", and when we go on to argue about these sorts of claims'? It has seemed to many ââ¬â and it seems plausible to us ââ¬â that when we assert and argue (...) about things such as these we presuppose at least the following. (shrink)
Research in the U. S. on fair trade consumption is sparse. Therefore, little is known as to what motivates U. S. consumers to buy fair trade products. This study sought to determine which values are salient to American fair trade consumption. The data were gathered via a Web-based version of the Schwartz Value Survey (SVS) and were gleaned from actual consumers who purchase fair trade products from a range of Internet-based fair trade retailers. This study established that indeed there are (...) significant interactions between personal values and fair trade consumption and that demographics proved to be useless in creating a profile of the American fair trade consumer. (shrink)
In Pregnant Embodiment: Subjectivity and Alienation, Iris Marion Young describes the lived bodily experience of women who have “chosen” their pregnancies. In this essay, Lundquist underscores the need for a more inclusive phenomenology of pregnancy. Drawing on sources in literature, psychology, and phenomenology, she offers descriptions of the cryptic phenomena of rejected and denied pregnancy, indicating the vast range of pregnancy experience and illustrating substantial phenomenological differences between “chosen” and unwanted pregnancies.
This article makes the case that place-based and environmental education theory and practice must be responsive to, while attempting to transform, the institutional dynamics of schooling. In the present climate of education in the USA two dynamics of schooling deserve particular attention with respect to the possibilities for place-based and environmental education: the discourse of accountability and the discourse of collaboration. Drawing especially on Foucault's analyses of disciplinary power and governmentality, I show how practices associated with accountability and collaboration limit (...) or preclude the deepening and spreading of place-based and environmental education. However, I also argue that even given the serious limitations imposed by current trends of collaboration and accountability, these trends offer place-based and environmental educators powerful entry points through which to initiate change within the formal school setting. The conclusion of the paper outlines three models of collaboration for place-conscious education through which accountability is redefined in the interest of places. (shrink)
Most books about ethics focus either on the origins of ethics, or on the application of ethical thinking to a single form of therapy. This book sets out to span a range of very different forms of therapy and explores the similarities and the differences between the ethical thinking of the practitioners concerned. By looking at ethical issues in different therapeutic settings the reader is challenged to reconsider the working assumptions which underpin familiar therapeutic practice. Readers of Forms of Ethical (...) Thinking in Therapeutic Practice are offered the unique opportunity to gain insights into the ethical thinking of experienced practitioners offering strikingly different services to their clients and working in contrasting contexts. Essential reading for all practitioners in counselling and the therapies, students, trainers, supervisors and providers of therapeutic services. (shrink)
Hypercomputation—the hypothesis that Turing-incomputable objects can be computed through infinitary means—is ineffective, as the unsolvability of the halting problem for Turing machines depends just on the absence of a definite value for some paradoxical construction; nature and quantity of computing resources are immaterial. The assumption that the halting problem is solved by oracles of higher Turing degree amounts just to postulation; infinite-time oracles are not actually solving paradoxes, but simply assigning them conventional values. Special values for non-terminating processes are likewise (...) irrelevant, since diagonalization can cover any amount of value assignments. This should not be construed as a restriction of computing power: Turing’s uncomputability is not a ‘barrier’ to be broken, but simply an effect of the expressive power of consistent programming systems. (shrink)
It is a commonplace in liberal circles that individual persons have a right to individual autonomy or self-determination. Each mentally competent adult has a right to be at liberty to live and shape their own life in accordance with their own view about what makes for a good life, free from undue coercion or interference by others, so long as they do not harm others. In the words of John Stuart Mill, mentally-competent persons should have the liberty of “framing the (...) plan of our life to suit our own character, of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow, without impediment from our fellow creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they may think our conduct foolish, perverse or wrong”. (shrink)
The view that properties have their causal powers essentially, which I will here call property essentialism, has advocates in Chris Swoyer,[1] Sydney Shoemaker [2], Alan Chalmers [3], Brian Ellis [4] and Caroline Lierse [5], among a few other authors in recent literature. I am partial to this view as well and I will shortly explain the grounds I find compelling in favor of it. However, we will also see that the essentialist view of properties and laws does not adequately (...) do quite so much as might be hoped. Property essentialism has the straightforward result that at least causal laws are metaphysically necessary. A natural view of such laws is that they are analyses of the essential nature of basic properties in terms of their essential causal powers. Brian Ellis proposes that conservation laws and other laws that may not be exactly causal are best thought of as characterizing the essential properties of worlds. But this further essentialist thesis is not directly relevant to the issues I want to address here. (shrink)
Let me tell you what philosophy is about, then about how Sydney does it in its own special way. Does life have a meaning, and if so what is it? What can I be certain of, and how should I act when I am not certain? Why are the established truths of my tribe better than the primitive superstitions of your tribe? Why should I do as I’m told? Those are questions it’s easy to avoid, in the rush to acquire (...) goods and prestige. Even for many of a more serious outlook, they are questions easy to dismiss with excuses like “it’s all a matter of opinion” or “let’s get on with practical matters” or “they’re too hard”. They are questions that may be ignored, but they do not go away. They’re philosophical questions. There’s a right way to approach them – you read the writings of the classical and recent philosophers and consider carefully their arguments back and forth. There are many wrong ways to approach them, such as choosing at random among the ideas your parents or friends or gurus have, or ideas that feel good. Or you can just not bother. Sydney has a certain reputation for superficiality in this regard. A character in David Williamson’s Emerald City says “No-one in Sydney ever wastes time debating the meaning of life — it’s getting yourself a water frontage”, says If you have a Writers Festival or a conference on Happiness in Sydney, you don’t normally expect philosophers to be invited. Caroline Jones’ radio series, ‘The Search for Meaning’. (shrink)
This article assesses the usefulness of Thomas Risse, Stephen Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink's spiral model as an explanation of the changes in the Chinese government's human rights practices from the time of the 'anti-rightist' campaign in 1957-1958 to the end of 2003. It is concluded that the spiral model has provided a valid explanation for many of the changes in the Chinese government's human rights practices, and its responses to its internal and external critics, over this time period. Many of (...) the responses of the transnational human rights network and the Chinese government by the end of this period indicate that the latter had progressed to phase three of the model. It is also concluded that the spiral model only conceptualises part of the constitutive relationship between the target state and international human rights norms - the influence of these norms on the identities, interests and behaviours of a target state. It does not conceptualise the influence of a target state on international human rights norms or the transnational human rights network. Therefore, the spiral model cannot explain why the Chinese government has had such a significant influence over the enforcement mechanisms of these norms. (shrink)
I explore the idea of language reaching its limits by distinguishing two kinds of limits language may have: The first are “Boundaries” which lie on the edges of language, and distinguish what makes sense from what does not. These, I claim, are suitable in making theoretical generalizations. The second are “Contours,” which lie within language, and allow for contrasting and comparing meanings and shades of meanings that we capture in language. These are more suitable for characterizations of particulars, and for (...) literary use. I claim that failure to draw this distinction is responsible for confusions in Sabina Lovibond’s and Richard Rorty’s views of moral thought and language. (shrink)
This essay interprets the controversy over Richard Serra's monumental sculpture, Tilted Arc , which was designed for a public plaza in downtown Manhattan in 1979 and then torn down five years later after intense public outcry. Levine reads this controversy as characteristic of contemporary debates over the arts, which continue the tradition of the nineteenth century avant-garde, pitting art against a wider public, and insisting that art must deliberately resist mainstream tastes and values in favor of marginality and innovation. This (...) definition of art has posed a lasting dilemma for democratic societies: how, after all, should a democracy deal with art that represents an intentional rejection of the majority? The problem becomes even more intractable when it comes to avant-garde art commissioned for public spaces, where the art object can challenge public tastes and movements in a way that is inescapable for those who must live and work in the space. Disturbed by the imposition of a massive and incomprehensible art object in a public plaza, Serra's opponents argued that Tilted Arc frustrated a whole range of socially beneficial activities, labor and leisure alike. And they claimed that Serra's supporters were dangerously anti-democratic. But despite the avant-garde's challenge to majority tastes, this essay makes the case that it remains a democratic value to continue to sponsor avant-garde art in public spaces. (shrink)
Engineers encounter difficult ethical problems in their practice and in research. In many ways, these problems are like design problems: they are complex, often ill-defined; resolving them involves an iterative process of analysis and synthesis; and there can be more than one acceptable solution. This book offers a real-world, problem-centered approach to engineering ethics, using a rich collection of open-ended scenarios and case studies to develop skill in recognizing and addressing ethical issues.
This essay examines several recent philosophical attempts to define ‘disease’. Two prominent ones are considered in detail, an objective approach by Christopher Boorse and a normative approach by Caroline Whitbeck. Both are found to be inadequate for a variety of reasons, though Whitbeck's is superior because of her careful preliminary distinctions and because of its normative approach which is more nearly in accord with medical and lay usage. The paper concludes with a discussion of the nature of such efforts (...) at definition and suggests that their limitations are due both to the nature of our language and concepts in general, and to the nature of medicine in particular. It is the practical and changing character of medicine and its language that frustrates the efforts of philosophers to formulate such definitions. Keywords: disease, definition CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)
Jacques Derrida returns relentlessly to the question of literature which is already a prominent concern in early texts such as Writing and Difference. The focus of this article is the conception of literature in ‘Literature in Secret: An Impossible Filiation’, in which Derrida discusses filiation with reference to Abraham and Isaac, the fundamental necessity of secrecy and the notion of the pardon. Above all, it is Kafka's Letter to His Father which perhaps provides a paradigm for defining literature. In this (...) specular address, the promise of a heritage is in the balance. Writing incessantly on Kafka, Maurice Blanchot also reflects on literature. The notion of literature put forward by Derrida in ‘Literature in Secret: An Impossible Filiation’ is considered in this article, as well as reflections by Blanchot, to show what might be at stake in Kafka's Letter to His Father. (shrink)
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed a change in the perception of the arts and of philosophy. In the arts this transition occurred around 1800, with, for instance, the breakdown of Vitruvianism in architecture, while in philosophy the foundationalism of which Descartes and Spinoza were paradigmatic representatives, which presumed that philosophy and the sciences possessed a method of ensuring the demonstration of truths, was undermined by the idea, asserted by Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, that there exist alternative styles of enquiry among (...) which a choice is open. The essays in this book examine the circumstances, features, and consequences of this historical transition, exploring in particular new aspects and instances of the inter-relatedness of content and its formal representation in both the arts and philosophy. (shrink)
Every human life has equal intrinsic value. This commitment is what stands between us, and the barbarism that has characterised so much of human history—or so runs the consensus in modern liberal societies. So strong is our conviction about this line between civilisation and barbarity that rarely is it subject to critical scrutiny.
This paper explores the question of whether there is a conceptual distinction between romantic love and friendship and whether such a distinction would support the normative conclusion that friends should not be lovers. Laurence Thomas has argued that, given an egalitarian conception of romantic love, there is no such distinction between romantic love and friendship. This paper shows that equally egalitarian alternatives to Thomas’s conceptions of love and friendship do suggest that friends should not be lovers. Moreover, the alternative view (...) of romantic love defended in the paper supports a link between romantic love and sexual exclusivity. (shrink)
It is argued that the common definition of diagnosis as the determination of the nature of a disease is misleading. Many diagnoses are not the names of disease entities. This finding reflects the integral relation of the diagnostic task to the rest of clinical reasoning. Diagnosis has no separate goal of its own, in particular it does not have the goal of determining the nature of a disease. Instead, diagnosis contributes to the general goals of clinical medicine. Any attempt to (...) model diagnostic reasoning abstracted from the rest of clinical reasoning will yield an inadequate representation of diagnosis. Such a distortion of medical reasoning will blind us to whatever implications an adequate epistemology of medicine may have for an understanding of the relation between theoretical and practical knowledge in other contexts. (shrink)
Historical geographies of black people in Britain are sorely lacking within the geographical discipline. This is, perhaps, partly because finding histories of black people is relatively difficult. Photography has proved to be an interesting and practical way of recovering such histories, but the use of photography as a research tool raises questions about the inscription of race in Victorian and contemporary society. In this paper I draw attention to the methodological questions that have arisen while undertaking research that appears simultaneously (...) to undermine and to reinforce the issues of racialisation it attempts to deconstruct. (shrink)
The greatest rhetorical challenge to developers of creative artificial intelligence systems is convincingly arguing that their software is more than just an extension of their own creativity. This paper suggests that “creative autonomy,” which exists when a system not only evaluates creations on its own, but also changes its standards without explicit direction, is a necessary condition for making this argument. Rather than requiring that the system be hermetically sealed to avoid perceptions of human influence, developing creative autonomy is argued (...) to be more plausible if the system is intimately embedded in a broader society of other creators and critics. Ideas are presented for constructing systems that might be able to achieve creative autonomy. (shrink)
