This article examines the practices of international business in the South Pacific island nation of Fiji. After an investigation of past practices of international businesses and the ways these have helped to shape the major social challenges confronting the nation today, the article turns to an exploration of those challenges, especially poverty and race relations. It is argued that there are two paramount responsibilities for international business operating in a context like Fiji: to conduct their business operations in ways that (...) genuinely add economic value locally; and to make a concerted and informed effort to avoid doing social harm. In order to meet these responsibilities, managers will have to do much better than their predecessors in terms of concern for and understanding of the unique social and cultural attributes of Fijian society. (shrink)
Recent and rapid technological developments on many fronts have created in our society some extremely difficult moral predicaments. Previous generations have not had to face the dilemmas posed by, for example, the availability of safe abortions, sperm banks and prostoglandins. They have not had to come to terms with an unchecked exploitation of natural resources heralding imminent ecological crisis, or, worst of all, with the recognition that only in this current generation have people the capacity to destroy themselves and their (...) environment. This book seeks to show how, and why, Seventh-day Adventism has addressed these moral issues, and that the ethical questions arising from these issues are especially relevant to the Adventist church and its development. Dr Pearson looks specifically at the moral decisions Adventists have made in the area of human sexuality, on such issues as contraception, abortion, the role and status of women, divorce and homosexuality, from the beginnings of the movement to 1985. He seeks to put such decision-making in perspective by providing the general social context in which it took place, and shows how Ellen White (whose charismatic leadership held the movement together in its first fifty years) has been a major source of moral authority in the Adventist church - her writings continuing to exercise authority in a contemporary society of turmoil and change. This important book, which conveys something of the general ethos of Adventism, is the first to investigate the ethics of the movement, ans so fill a notable gap in the literature. (shrink)
Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 One of the most important questions of moral philosophy is what makes a life a good life. A good way of approaching this issue is to watch the film Groundhog Day which can teach us a lot about what a good life consists in - and what not. While currently there are subjective and objective theories contending against each other about what a good life is, namely hedonism and desire satisfaction theories on the (...) one hand and objective list theories on the other, the film illustrates that at least one constituent of the good life can only be understood if we see it as having both an objective and a subjective side to it. Thus, the film shows that, in contrast to the beginning of the film, at the end the protagonist Phil has a good life insofar as that he finds something to do that suits him (the objective element), and comes to care deeply about it (the subjective element). (shrink)
In a study examining the effects of time of day on problem solving, participants solved insight and analytic problems at their optimal or non-optimal time of day. Given the presumed differences in the cognitive processes involved in solving these two types of problems, it was expected that the reduced inhibitory control associated with non-optimal times of the day would differentially impact performance on the two types of problems. In accordance with this expectation, results showed consistently greater insight problem solving performance (...) during non-optimal times of day compared to optimal times of day but no consistent time of day effects on analytic problem solving. The findings indicate that tasks involving creativity might benefit from a non-optimal time of day. (shrink)
1. The story of Sleeping Beauty is set forth as follows by Dorr (2002): Sleeping Beauty is a paradigm of rationality. On Sunday she learns for certain that she is to be the subject of an experiment. The experimenters will wake her up on Monday morning, and tell her some time later that it is Monday. When she goes back to sleep, they will toss a fair coin. If the outcome of the toss is Heads, they will do nothing. If (...) the outcome is Tails, they will administer a drug whose effect is to destroy all memories from the previous day, so that when she wakes up on Tuesday, she will be unable to tell [1] that it is not Monday. (2002: 292) Let HEADS be the hypothesis that the coin lands heads, and let TAILS be the hypothesis that it lands tails. The Sleeping Beauty Problem is this. When Sleeping Beauty finds herself awakened by the experimenters, with no memory of a prior awakening and with no ability to tell whether or not it is Monday, what probabilities should she assign to HEADS and TAILS respectively? Elga (2000) maintains that when she is awakened, P(HEADS) = 1/3 and P(TAILS) = 2/3. He offers the following intuitively plausible argument (2000: 143 4). If the experiment were performed many times, then over the long run about 1/3 of the awakenings would happen on trials in which the coin lands heads, and about 2/3 on trials in which it lands tails. So in the present circumstance in which the experiment is performed just once, P(HEADS) = 1/3 and.. (shrink)
Something out of the ordinary -- The interminable Shakespearean text -- Fred Astaire asserts the right to praise -- Henry James returns to America and to Shakespeare -- Philosophy the day after tomorrow -- What is the scandal of skepticism? -- Performative and passionate utterance -- The Wittgensteinian event -- Thoreau thinks of ponds, Heidegger of rivers -- The world as things.
Genetic engineering is often looked upon with disfavour on the grounds that it involves "tampering with nature". Most philosophers do not take this notion seriously. However, some do. Those who do tend to understand nature in an Aristotelian sense, as the essence or form which is the final end or telos for the sake of which individual organisms live, and which also explains why they are as they are. But is this really a tenable idea? In order to secure its (...) usage in present day ethics, I will first analyze the contexts in which it is applied today, then discuss the notion of telos as it was employed by Aristotle himself, and finally debate its merits and defend it, as far as possible, against common objections. (shrink)
When does a human being begin to exist? Barry Smith and Berit Brogaard have argued that it is possible, through a combination of biological fact and philosophical analysis, to provide a definitive answer to this question. In their view, a human individual begins to exist at gastrulation, i. e. at about sixteen days after fertilization. In this paper we argue that even granting Smith and Brogaard's ontological commitments and biological assumptions, the existence of a human being can be shown to (...) begin much earlier, viz., with fertilization. Their interpretative claim that a zygote divides immediately into two substances and therefore ceases to exist is highly implausible by their own standards, and their factual claim that there is no communication between the blastomeres has to be abandoned in light of recent embryological research. (shrink)
In 1945, the day after his famous public lecture on existentialism, Sartre gave an interview to a reporter at the café Le Flore; in it, he talks more about his novels The Age of Reason and The Reprieve than about Being and Nothingness , and he talks about the project for the future volume, The Last Chance . In this article I touch on how he reiterates points from the famous lecture in the interview, but especially on some of his (...) comments about Mathieu and Brunet in terms of freedom and 'bad faith'. I move on to discuss why the next volume, Death in the Soul (translated in the USA as Troubled Sleep ), was not the final one, and why The Last Chance was never completed. Then I turn to the largely unrecognized fact that the American translation of the third volume distorts Sartre's text for 150 pages by failing to show that he wrote the action of all of Part II in the present tense without paragraph breaks; I will offer an interpretation of this tense choice on Sartre's part. (shrink)
The recent Supreme Court decision upholding Roe v. Wade and in particular, the dissent by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, sheds new light on the issue of abortion. Let us consider any stage of a pregnancy when abortion is medically safe for the mother. If at that stage it is also medically viable to save the fetus, is an abortion performed at that stage of pregnancy morally justifiable? For example, if it is, or becomes, medically safe to perform abortions after first (...) trimester of pregnancy and at the same time saving a fetus is, or becomes, medically viable or not unusual during some stage of the second trimester, can abortions during and after that stage of pregnancy be justified? With a number of qualifications I shall argue the thesis that as a general rule, but not an absolute rule, abortion in these instances is not usually justifiable. For if it is, then one will also have to grant the moral justification for a number of other highly questionable medical practices. This thesis is not to be identified with the stronger claim that abortions of viable fetuses can never be performed. There are surely exceptions such as when the life or health of the mother is in danger. But, I shall argue, the justification for making such exceptions is on different grounds than is sometimes claimed because one must weigh the health of the mother against the life of another human being. (shrink)
This commentary presents indirect support for Corballis's claim that language evolved out of a gestural system in our evolutionary past. Specifically, it presents behavioral and neurological evidence that present-day speech and gesture continue to be tightly integrated in language production and comprehension.
A recent story in USA Today about the war in Afghanistan drew a direct parallel to the film Black Hawk Down : When the history of the war is written, the traumatic battle in the mountains around the Shah-e-Kot Valley will be remembered as a testament to heroism: A bloodied, outnumbered band of US servicemen held off a determined al-Qaeda force on frigid rocky terrain at least 8,000 feet above sea level. Call it Black Hawk Down in the snow. (Jonathan (...) Weisman, "Deadliest day for US", USA Today 3/6/02). Why would a reporter (Jonathan Weisman) interrupt his recitation of the facts of the battle, right near the start of his article, to suggest that readers should mimic the judgment of the film? Because the film seems to have a message, not only about history, but about the current US war on terrorism: support our troops, and don�t question a war�s intent or methods. (shrink)
On the publication of Robert Lowell’s Life Studies in 1959, some critics were shocked by the poet’s use of seemingly frank autobiographical material, in particular the portrayal of his hospitalizations for bipolar disorder. During the late fifties and throughout the sixties, a rich vein, influenced by Lowell , developed in American poetry. Also during this time, the nascent science of psychopharmacology competed with and complemented the more established somatic treatments, such as psychosurgery, shock treatments, and psychoanalytical therapies. The development of (...) Thorazine was a remarkable breakthrough allowing patients previously thought incurable to leave hospital. In 1955, the release of Miltown, the first ‘minor’ tranquilizer, was heralded with a media fanfare promising a new dawn of psychological cure-all. These two events blurred the boundary between ‘normality’ and madness by making treatment in the community more widely possible and by medicalizing more commonplace distress. Lowell’s early depictions of madness situate it as emblematic of the cultural malaise of ‘the tranquilized fifties. ’ By his final collection, Day by Day (1977), mental illness had lost its symbolic power. These late poems explore the power of art as a way of representing and remedying suffering in a culture where psychopharmacology has normalized madness. (shrink)
Rue, Charles Review(s) of: Sufficient for the day: Towards a sustainable culture, by Geoff Lacey, (Box Hill: Yarra Institute Press, 2011), pp.101, $20.00.
The doctrines and teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints support and even demand a strong environmental ethic. Such an ethic is grounded in the inherent value of all souls and in God’s commandment of stewardship. Latter-day Saint doctrine declares that all living organisms have souls and explicitly states that the ability of creatures to know some degree of satisfaction and happiness should be honored. God’s own concern for the well-being and progress of all life, and His (...) sacrifice through Jesus Christ, illustrate the generous way that He expects His children to exercise their brief stewardship of this world. In addition, the important role nature has played in the religious lives of Latter-day Saint members, from the Prophet Joseph Smith to the present day, argues strongly for wilderness preservation as a spiritual resource for future generations. (shrink)
The doctrines and teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints support and even demand a strong environmental ethic. Such an ethic is grounded in the inherent value of all souls and in God’s commandment of stewardship. Latter-day Saint doctrine declares that all living organisms have souls and explicitly states that the ability of creatures to know some degree of satisfaction and happiness should be honored. God’s own concern for the well-being and progress of all life, and His (...) sacrifice through Jesus Christ, illustrate the generous way that He expects His children to exercise their brief stewardship of this world. In addition, the important role nature has played in the religious lives of Latter-day Saint members, from the Prophet Joseph Smith to the present day, argues strongly for wilderness preservation as a spiritual resource for future generations. (shrink)
One of the most fascinating phenomena in the cultural and spiritual life of Russia in the last decade and a half has been the fact that, after seventy years of the official state-implanted materialistic atheism, the witness of the Bible about our world is openly and widely discussed by scholars and theologians. This paper will survey certain features of those debates in which Orthodox authors participate, and also aspects of the understanding of the Hexaemeron (The Six Days of Creation) that (...) are not reflected in those debates but which are brought to light by several eminent Russian theologians of the XIX century and which to my mind have a great significance. (shrink)
This paper is a reexamination of Two Dogmas in the light of Quine's ongoing debate with Carnap over analyticity. It shows, first, that analytic is a technical term within Carnap's epistemology. As such it is intelligible, and Carnap's position can meet Quine's objections. Second, it shows that the core of Quine's objection is that he (Quine) has an alternative epistemology to advance, one which appears to make no room for analyticity. Finally, the paper shows that Quine's alternative epistemology is (...) itself open to very serious objections. Quine is not thereby refuted, but neither can Carnap's analyticity be dismissed as dogma. (shrink)
When does a human being begin to exist? We argue that it is possible, through a combination of biological fact and philosophical analysis, to provide a definitive answer to this question. We lay down a set of conditions for being a human being, and we determine when, in the course of normal fetal development, these conditions are first satisfied. Issues dealt with along the way include: modes of substance-formation, twinning, the nature of the intra-uterine environment, and the nature of the (...) relation between fetus and mother (connection, parthood, dependence). (shrink)
What is the will? And what is its relation to human action? Throughout history, philosophers have been fascinated by the idea of "the will": the source of the drive that motivates human beings to act. However, there has never been a clear consensus as to what the will is and how it relates to human action. Some philosophers have taken the will to be based firmly in reason and rational choice, and some have seen it as purely self-determined. Others have (...) replaced the idea of the human will with a more general drive uniting humans and the rest of nature, living and non-living. This collection of nine specially commissioned papers traces the formulation and treatment of the problem of the will from ancient philosophy through the scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages, to modern philosophy and right up to contemporary theories. Philosophers discussed include Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Hobbes, Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. (shrink)
Upon its release in 1968, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead was attacked by many critics as an exploitative low budget film of questionable moral value. I argue in this paper that Night of the Living Dead is indeed nihilistic, but in a deeper philosophical sense than the critics had in mind.
Several recent accounts claim that imagination is a matter of simulating perceptual acts. Although this point of view receives support from both phenomenological and empirical research, I claim that Jean-Paul Sartre's worry formulated in L'imagination (1936) still holds. For a number of reasons, Sartre heavily criticizes theories in which the sensory material of imaginative acts consists in reviving sensory impressions. Based on empirical and philosophical insights, this article explains how simulation theories of imagination can overcome Sartre's critique by paying attention (...) to the motor dimension of imagination. Intending to clarify the status of the sensory in imagination, a motor theory of imagination is presented in which the sensory component of imagination is interpreted in terms of anticipated sensory consequences of preparation for motor action. (shrink)
The standard theory of computation excludes computations whose completion requires an infinite number of steps. Malament-Hogarth spacetimes admit observers whose pasts contain entire future-directed, timelike half-curves of infinite proper length. We investigate the physical properties of these spacetimes and ask whether they and other spacetimes allow the observer to know the outcome of a computation with infinitely many steps.
A comparison of Plato's "Phaedo" and the "Mahāparanibbāna Sutta" of the Pāli Canon juxtaposes the character and teachings of Socrates and the Buddha as revealed by both texts, set just before their deaths. Discussed at length are similarities in technique (dialogue), personality (open-mindedness and compassion), and doctrine (especially regarding the purification of the soul over numerous lifetimes), as well as the subsequent development of Platonism and Buddhism after the deaths of the masters.
Philosophy has been always received or bypassed for its resonance or aloofness with the spirit of the time. Should not philosophy/phenomenology of life be expected to do more to ascertain its validity? Should it not pass the pragmatic test, that is to respond directly to the life-concerns of its time? What is the role of the philosopher and philosophy today? Due to the ever-advancing scientific, technological, social and cultural changes that are shaping human life and the life-world-in-transformation, we are desperately (...) seeking a measure to estimate life's unfolding, a compass to stir the course between Scylla and Charibda to maintain human-hood and creative insight for laying the cornerstones for the unforeseeable unfolding of life dynamisms. It is this challenge which philosophy/phenomenology of life meets with underlying ontopoietic unraveling of the hidden logoic concatenations of beingness-in-becoming. The present collection of essays offers contributions to answer this challenge by focusing upon measure, sharing-in-life, intersubjectivity and communication, societal equilibrium, education, and more. It will be of great interest to those working in the fields of Phenomenology, Philosophy, History of Philosophy, and Contemporary Philosophy. (shrink)
The Scenic Imagination argues that the uniquely human phenomenon of representation, as manifested in language, art, and ritual, is a scenic event focused on a central object designated by a sign. The originary hypothesis posits the necessity of conceiving the origin of the human as such an event. In traditional societies, the scenic imagination through which this scene of origin is conceived manifests itself in sacred creation narratives. Modern thought is defined by the independent use of the scenic imagination to (...) create anthropological models of the origin of human institutions, beginning with the social contract scene in Hobbes’s Leviathan that puts an end to the reciprocal violence of the state of nature. Eric Gans follows the work of the scenic imagination in selected writings of twenty thinkers including Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Durkheim, Boas, and Freud and concludes his book with a critical examination of contemporary writing on the origins of religion and language. In the process, he demonstrates that the originary hypothesis offers the most cohesive explanation of the origin and function of these fundamental institutions. (shrink)
The Developmental Systems approach to evolution is defended against the alternative extended replicator approach of Sterelny, Smith and Dickison (1996). A precise definition is provided of the spatial and temporal boundaries of the life-cycle that DST claims is the unit of evolution. Pacé Sterelny et al., the extended replicator theory is not a bulwark against excessive holism. Everything which DST claims is replicated in evolution can be shown to be an extended replicator on Sterelny et al.s definition. Reasons are given (...) for scepticism about the heuristic value claimed for the extended replicator concept. For every competitive, individualistic insight the replicator theorist has a cooperative, systematic blindspot. (shrink)
Saint Francis's desire to follow the life of Jesus made him go to great lengths to dissociate himself from power, property and legal rights of any kind. The witness to Christian humility that his small group gave was so attractive to his contemporaries that soon his fellowship became a large organisation entrusted by the Church with a preaching mission throughout Europe and beyond. By 1300 there were Franciscans in Beijing.
The goal of our target article is to establish that electrophysiological data constrain models of short-term memory retention operations to schemes in which activated long-term memory is its representational basis. The temporary stores correspond to neural circuits involved in the perception and subsequent processing of the relevant information, and do not involve specialized neural circuits dedicated to the temporary holding of information outside of those embedded in long-term memory. The commentaries ranged from general agreement with the view that short-term memory (...) stores correspond to activated long-term memory (e.g., Abry, Sato, Schwartz, Loevenbruck & Cathiard [Abry etal.], Cowan, Fuster, Grote, Hickok & Buchsbaum, Keenan, Hyönä & Kaakinen [Keenan et al.], Martin, Morra), to taking a definite exception to this view (e.g., Baddeley, Düzel, Logie & Della Sala, Kroger, Majerus, Van der Linden, Colette & Salmon [Majerus et al.], Vallar). (shrink)
With the dismantling of Marxist-Leninist ideology, fresh inspiration has been discernible in recent Soviet philosophy. This article argues that a major area of concern is the nature of the human being, a theme formerly dominated by the "social" conceptions inscribed into official historical materialism. Soviet philosophers are examining such categories as culture, spirit, consciousness, and personality with an eye to their common characteristics. For many, the latter is grounded in the nature of the person, the specificity of which lies in (...) a morally qualified unity of action, sentiment, and reason. The author brings together evidence for this thesis and discusses the arguments of the Soviet philosophers with an eye to their conceptual resources and models. (shrink)
This commentary examines the ethics and law in the United States as they relate to the foregoing of life sustaining treatment when such treatment is deemed medically inappropriate. In particular the article highlights the procedural approach when there is disagreement between physicians and surrogates or patients as exemplified in Texas Law. This approach, although worthy in concept, may in practice invite opposition and dissatisfaction as it may be perceived as coercive and pitting the weak against powerful adversaries and interests, in (...) addition to discouraging the exercise of professional virtues. Too inflexible an approach erodes trust, and furthermore the Texas law allows hospital ethics committees to move from an advisory non judgmental role to a quasi legal court with real legal power but no credentialing or oversight. (shrink)
Venezuelan media present corruption as a major problem of the country and a research conducted by the author shows managers perceive it as business ethics' main issue. The corruption type addressed to in this article is the collusion between public officials and private managers for illegal or undue profits. Corruption in this form is related to the long-standing policy of State intervention and overregulation of the economy in order to industrialize the country. The issue analyzed is the perception of corruption (...) as a major political and social problem. Corruption is pervasive in many societies but it is not perceived as a central problem. The explanation for this perception in Venezuela is the increased impoverishment of people as a consequence of present economic crisis (the corrupt person is perceived as taking from my pocket) and the openness and pluralistic character of the political system. Moral indignation and scandal is the result of this new feature of Venezuelan society. Changes in the economic policies and the awareness of corruption seem to establish the basis to overcome the perception of corruption as the paramount problem it is now. (shrink)
In Reconstruction in Philosophy, John Dewey issued an eloquent call for contemporary philosophy to become more relevant to the pressing problems facing society. Historically, the philosophy of a period had been appropriate to social conditions (indeed, this is why it had developed as a discipline), but despite the vast changes in the contemporary world and the complex challenges confronting it philosophy had remained ossified. Karl Popper also was dissatisfied with contemporary philosophy, which he regarded as too often focusing upon “minute” (...) problems. Both Dewey and Popper, however, were optimistic that the situation could be turned around. In this essay D.C. Phillips argues that the resources they mustered give no basis for this optimism; in particular, Phillips emphasizes that philosophy cannot have traction with closed-minded or fanatical individuals. Dewey passed over cases where his ideas about democratic processes and free intellectual exchange faced intractable difficulties, according to Phillips, and he further suggests that Popper “waffled” over the so-called “myth of the framework.”. (shrink)
Introduction -- Waking up -- Getting ready -- Travelling to work -- Being at work -- Going to the doctor -- Having lunch with your parents -- Bunking off -- Shopping -- Booking a holiday -- Going to the gym -- Taking a bath -- Reading a book -- Watching TV -- Cooking and eating dinner -- Going to a party -- Arguing with your partner -- Having sex -- Falling asleep and dreaming.
Thanks to the kind cooperation of Mrs. Elise Harding-Davis, director of the North American Black Historical Museum and Cultural Centre, we are able to reproduce the score of this famous melody which features so prominently in Sartre's Nausea. This museum is located in Amherstburg, Ontario, some thirty kilometers southwest of the Ambassador Bridge which links Detroit, Michigan with Windsor, Ontario. Shelton Brooks, who composed the melody in 1910, was a descendent of black slaves who made their way to freedom by (...) way of "the underground railway" and settled in Southwestern Ontario. He was born in Amherstburg; toured widely in Canada, the United States and Europe and he finally settled in Fontana, California where he died in 1975 at age 86. In the conclusion of Nausea Roquentin identifies him incorrectly as a New York Jew and refers to the singer as black. In fact the composer was an Afro-Canadian while the singer was New Yorker Sophie Tucker, who was Jewish. (shrink)
This paper aims to situate Agamben’s treatment of the issue of community. It shows how Agamben departs from and supplements the French discourse on community through a critique of negativity; how the significance of community is measured against the society of the spectacle; and how the alienation from our linguistic being, which the spectacle effects, conditions a politics opposed to the State apparatus. Agamben’s coming community appropriates the dispossession and impropriety of contemporary human being in order to reconfigure the relation (...) of belonging and singularity. (shrink)
When aggression is conceptualised in terms of a cost-benefit ratio, sex differences are best understood by a consideration of female costs as well as male benefits. Benefits must be extremely high to outweigh the greater costs borne by females, and circumstances where this occurs are discussed. Achievement of dominance is not such a circumstance and evidence bearing upon women's egalitarian relationships is reviewed. Attempts to explain sex differences in terms of sexual dimorphism, sex-of-target effects, social control, and socialisation are found (...) to be inadequate. The suggestion that the stigmatisation of female aggreession arises not from patriarchal imposition but from statistical rarity (resulting from evolutionary pressures) is given serious consideration. Two hypotheses (“internal read-out” versus social/epidemiological representations) are described to explain the relationship between sex differences in behaviour and corresponding lay explanations. (shrink)
Hugh Tredennick's landmark 1954 translation has been revised by Harold Tarrant, reflecting changes in Platonic studies, with an introduction and expanded ...
Positing representations and operations on them as a way of explaining behavior was one of the major innovations of the cognitive revolution. Neuroscience and biology more generally also employ representations in explaining how organisms function and coordinate their behavior with the world around them. In discussions of the nature of representation, theorists commonly differentiate between the vehicles of representation and their content—what they denote. Many contentious debates in cognitive science, such as those pitting neural network models against symbol processing accounts, (...) have focused on the types of vehicles proposed for mental representation and whether they have the appropriate structure to succeed in bearing their contents. Philosophers, in contrast, have focused their debates on content and the particular way in which vehicles might bear content—that is, the process of representing rather than the format of representations. I will offer a novel answer to the question of how it is that a representation has content by focusing on the architecture of representation. My proposal is that representations occur in a particular type of mechanism—one in which a control system regulates a plant—and that we can gain traction on cognitive systems of representation by considering how this works in physical systems more generally. (shrink)
