Studies in marketing ethics often revealed that ethical gaps do exist between marketers and other groups in society. The existence of these ethical gaps could be extremely counterproductive for marketing management. In order to effectively narrow these gaps, a marketing manager must first have a better understanding of causes of these gaps. To this end, this study compares marketing professionals with consumers on some important determinants of the ethical decision-making process. In particular, the marketers and consumers were compared with respect (...) to their personal moral philosophies and ethical perceptions in marketing situations. The data were obtained from a national survey of the practitioner members of the American Marketing Association and members of a consumer panel of a major southern university in the United States. The results generally indicate that marketing professionals are different from consumers with respect to some of the determinants of ethical decisions investigated. Some important managerial implications based on these findings were discussed. (shrink)
We need to clarify “humanist” and “humanism,” terms that have been open to considerable philosophical definition-mongering. I wish to propose a minimal core definition. Although this is normative, it is continuous with common usage. First, humanism expresses a set of values and virtues. emphasizing human freedom and autonomy. This ethical theory contrasts with divine-command ethics. Second, humanism, particularly secular humanism, rejects supernaturalism. Humanism should not be simply equated with atheism; however. it proposes a reflective form of agnostic or skeptical atheism. (...) Third, secular humanism is committed to a key epistemological principle: amethod of inquiry that emphasizes reason and scientific objectivity. Fourth, it has a nonreductive naturalistic ontology drawn from the sciences. Last, humanist philosophers should not only be concerned with theoretical issues, but with the role of humanism in practical life as an alternative to theistic religion. (shrink)
The computational notion of “trading spaces” is highly relevant to the psychological domain of categorization. The “theory” view of concepts can be interpreted as a recoding view. A design principle for exploiting learned recodings in order to handle the type-2 problem of forming sophisticated concepts is outlined.
First encounters : Jesuit logica in the late Ming and early Qing -- Haphazard overtures : logic in nineteenth-century Protestant writings -- Great expectations : Yan Fu and the discovery of European logic -- Spreading the word : logic in late Qing education and popular discourse -- Heritage unearthed : the discovery of Chinese logic -- Textbooks on logic adapted from Japanese, 1902-1911 -- Logical terms in early-twentieth-century textbooks.
A set A is m-reducible (or Karp-reducible) to B if and only if there is a polynomial-time computable function f such that, for all x, x ∊ A if and only if f(x) ∊ B. Two sets are: • 1-equivalent if and only if each is m-reducible to the other by one-one reductions; • p-invertible equivalent if and only if each is m-reducible to the other by one-one, polynomial-time invertible reductions; and • p-isomorphic if and only if there is an (...) m-reduction from one set to the other that is one-one, onto, and polynomial-time invertible. In this paper we show the following characterization. THEOREM. The following are equivalent: (a) P = PSPACE. (b) Every two 1-equivalent sets are p-isomorphic. (c) Every two p-invertible equivalent sets are p-isomorphic. (shrink)
What is skepticism? -- Skepticism as selective doubt -- Scientific method and rational skepticism -- Skepticism and the new enlightenment -- The growth of antiscience -- Skepticism, science, and the paranormal -- Should skeptical inquiry be applied to religion? -- Skepticism and religion -- Are science and religion compatible? -- Skepticism and political inquiry -- Skepticism and ethical inquiry -- Moral faith and ethical skepticism reconsidered -- Skepticism and eupraxsophy -- The new skepticism: a worldwide movement -- Skeptical inquiry: my (...) personal involvement -- Science and the public: summing up thirty years of the skeptical inquirer -- The new skepticism: a statement of principles. (shrink)
The failure of theistic morality -- Ethical inquiry -- The common moral decencies -- Excelsior : the ethics of excellence -- Responsibilities -- Education for character and cognition -- Human rights -- Privacy -- The tree of life.
This paper builds on previous work by Sirgy, M. J. (1999), Journal of Business Ethics 19, 193–206, dealing with issues of code of conduct of marketing educators. Sirgy developed a discussion document outlining a semblance of what might be construed as a code of ethics for marketing educators. The discussion document was debated and accompanied by three commentaries (Ferrell, O. C.: 1999, Journal of Business Ethics 19, 225–228; Kurtz, D. L.: 1999, Journal of Business Ethics 19, 207–209; (...) Malhotra, N. and G. L. Miller: 1999, Journal of Business Ethics 19, 211–224). One conclusion derived from the discussion document and the commentaries is the need to develop a code of ethics involving behaviors that most marketing educators find morally unacceptable. The current paper reports on a descriptive study involving a survey of marketing educators in which survey respondents were asked to rate the extent to which certain behaviors are deemed acceptable or unacceptable. The results of the survey identified certain behaviors deemed unacceptable by the vast majority of survey respondents. This evidence of hypernorms (a concept derived from social contract theory) within the community of marketing educators was used to propose an initial code of ethics. (shrink)
