Using automated systems to avoid the need for human discretion in government contexts – a scenario we call ‘rule by automation’ – can help us achieve the ideal of a free and equal society. Drawing on relational theories of freedom and equality, we explain how rule by automation is a more complete realization of the rule of law and why thinkers in these traditions have strong reasons to support it. Relational theories are based on the absence of human domination and (...) hierarchy, which automation helps us achieve. Nevertheless, there is another understanding of relational theories where what matters is the presence of valuable relationships with those in power. Exploring this further might help us see when and why we should accept human discretion. (shrink)

In this article, I view the dynamic capabilities of a social venture by examining organizational spaces through the means of qualitative engagement. Through the explication of one such organizational space, the WCB Bank, dynamic capability is understood as inhering in the purpose, the constructed memory and selves of human actors in the organization, and the collective endeavours that make the organization through deliberative processes. Such a view of organizations, while transcending the nuance of resources, provides an idea of capability as (...) emerging from the varied meanings that human actors make in organizations. An understanding of these meanings leads to comprehending dynamic capabilities as epistemological elements which lead to accessing the knowledge of the organization for the moment. (shrink)

This book traces the evolution of Hindu theories of warfare in India from the dawn of civilization.

In this paper, I revisit the question of how and in what sense can individuals comprising a group be held responsible for morally reprehensible behaviour by that group. The question is tackled by posing a counterfactual: what would happen if selfish individuals became moral creatures? A game called the Samaritan’s Curse is developed, which sheds light on the dilemma of group moral responsibility, and raises new questions concerning ‘conferred morality’ and self-fulfilling morals, and also forces us to question some implicit (...) assumptions of game-theory. (shrink)

Drawing upon an exemplary case surrounding a patent on the anti-cancer drug Gleevec, I trace how intellectual property regimes drive the re-institutionalization of pharmaceutical development in India today in unsettled and contested ways. I am interested in how this case resolves, in an apparent purification, into technical and constitutional components; how the technical components are entirely unsettled; and how the constitutional components open up questions regarding the relationship between biocapital and issues of constitutionalism, rights, and corporate social responsibility.

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyse the developmental stages of non-financial reporting in corporations, by interpreting the views of interviewees from major ethical corporations on the six major dimensions of non-financial reporting (identified in the literature) within each stage of the five-stage model of non-financial reporting (developed in this paper). This study is part of a series of papers on Triple Bottom Line reporting (TBL), and its relevance to corporate reporting practices. The TBL is perhaps the (...) pioneer for getting corporations thinking about non-financial reporting. While literature has been done extensively on the TBL framework, empirical data linking TBL and how it has helped, or even hindered corporations progressing through different stages in their non-financial reporting processes is missing. In order to facilitate this analysis, 40 interviews were conducted over 1 year, with 40 corporations selected from various sustainability indexes, focusing on corporations that adopt best practices in this area, and also have a TBL approach to non-financial reporting. The results of the analysis show that TBL certainly got corporations started in the journey of non-financial reporting but has not pushed them far enough to develop a more integrated approach to reporting nor clearly aligning their non-financial reporting performance with their financial performance and business strategy. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-33 DOI 10.1007/s13520-011-0010-4 Authors Kaushik Sridhar, Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia Journal Asian Journal of Business Ethics Online ISSN 2210-6731 Print ISSN 2210-6723. (shrink)

In “Neutrality and Perfectionism in Public Health,” Hafez Ismaili M’hamdi poses a dilemma for defenders of “state neutrality” about political justification: either they must reject a wide ra...

Much of economics is built on the assumption that individuals are driven by self-interest and economic development is an outcome of the free play of such individuals. On the few occasions that the existence of altruism is recognized in economics, the tendency is to build this from the axiom of individual selfishness. The aim of this paper is to break from this tradition and to treat as a primitive that individuals are endowed with the ‘cooperative spirit’, which allows them to (...) work in their collective interest, even when that may not be in their self-interest. The paper tracks the interface between altruism and group identity. By using the basic structure of a Prisoner's Dilemma game among randomly picked individuals and building into it assumptions of general or in-group altruism, the paper demonstrates how our selfish rationality interacts with our innate sense of cooperation. The model is used to outline circumstances under which cooperation will occur and circumstances where it will break down. The paper also studies how sub-groups of a society can form cooperative blocks, whether to simply do better for themselves or exploit others. (shrink)

Recent research highlights the relationship between perceived brand ethicality (PBE), consumer purchase intention, and the consumer–brand relationship. Existing empirical studies offer mixed findings on whether these three relate positively, negatively, or not at all. Moreover, their relationships have not been the primary focus of existing meta-analytic reviews. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to provide an empirical consensus to this debate by studying the magnitude of the association between PBE and consumer responses (purchase intention, brand trust, and brand loyalty). Moreover, we (...) examined the moderating effects of self-accountability and brand experience to expand our understanding of this relationship. After a thorough literature review from major databases and cross-referencing of the relevant articles, we selected 31 peer-reviewed articles for this meta-analysis. The results reveal that consumer response to PBE positively influences attitude formation towards the brand and purchase intentions. Additionally, moderation analyses reveal the crucial roles of self-accountability and brand experience in influencing the effects of PBE on consumer–brand relationships and purchase intention. Crucial theoretical and practical implications are discussed regarding these relationships, followed by limitations and future research directions. (shrink)

Since John Rawls, public reason theorists have attempted to show how liberal political norms could be acceptable to people with diverse religious and ethical viewpoints. However, these theories overlook the importance of the distinction between acceptability to realistic people and acceptability to viewpoints, which matters because public reason theories are committed to the former, but only deliver the latter, thereby failing to justify liberal norms. Public reason theories therefore face a dilemma: abandon realistic people and lose normative appeal, or retain (...) realism and find a new way to justify liberalism. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 5, June 2020, Page 80-81.

Mainstream economics was founded on many strong assumptions. Institutions and politics were treated as irrelevant, government as exogenous, social norms as epiphenomena. As an initial gambit this was fine. But as the horizons of economic inquiry have broadened, these assumptions have become hindrances rather than aids. If we want to understand why some economies succeed and some fail, why some governments are effective and others not, why some communities prosper while others stagnate, it is essential to view economics as embedded (...) in politics and society. Prelude to Political Economy is a study of this embeddedness; it argues for an 'inclusive' approach to institutions and the state.Modern economics recognizes that individuals' pursuit of their own selfish ends can result in socially suboptimal outcomes -- the Prisoner's Dilemma being the stark example. It has been suggested that what we need in such an eventuality is 'third-party' intervention, which can take the form of imposing punishment on players. Kaushik Basu objects to this method of wishing third parties out of thin air. He argues that if a third party that could impose its will on others were available, then it should have been modeled as a player to start with.The adoption of such an inclusive approach has implications for our conception of the state and the law. It means that the law cannot be construed as a factor that changes the game that citizens play. It is instead simply a set of beliefs of citizens; and, as such, it is similar to social norms. What the law does for an economy, so can social norms. The book discusses how the nature of policy advice and our conception of state power are affected by this altered view of the state and the law.As corollaries, the book addresses a variety of important social and philosophical questions, such as whether the state should guarantee freedom of speech, whether determinism is compatible with free will, and whether the free market can lead to coercion. (shrink)

One of the central tenets of mainstream economics is Adam Smith's proposition that, given certain conditions, self-interested behavior by individuals leads them to the social good, almost as if orchestrated by an invisible hand. This deep insight has, over the past two centuries, been taken out of context, contorted, and used as the cornerstone of free-market orthodoxy. In Beyond the Invisible Hand, Kaushik Basu argues that mainstream economics and its conservative popularizers have misrepresented Smith's insight and hampered our understanding (...) of how economies function, why some economies fail and some succeed, and what the nature and role of state intervention might be. Comparing this view of the invisible hand with the vision described by Kafka--in which individuals pursuing their atomistic interests, devoid of moral compunction, end up creating a world that is mean and miserable--Basu argues for collective action and the need to shift our focus from the efficient society to one that is also fair. Using analytic tools from mainstream economics, the book challenges some of the precepts and propositions of mainstream economics. It maintains that, by ignoring the role of culture and custom, traditional economics promotes the view that the current system is the only viable one, thereby serving the interests of those who do well by this system. Beyond the Invisible Hand challenges readers to fundamentally rethink the assumptions underlying modern economic thought and proves that a more equitable society is both possible and sustainable, and hence worth striving for. By scrutinizing Adam Smith's theory, this impassioned critique of contemporary mainstream economics debunks traditional beliefs regarding best economic practices, self-interest, and the social good. (shrink)

In the beginning of the COVID pandemic, researchers and bioethicists called for human challenge trials to hasten the development of a vaccine for COVID. However, the fact that we lacked a specific, highly effective treatment for COVID led many to argue that a COVID challenge trial would be unethical and we ought to pursue traditional phase III testing instead. These ethical objections to challenge trials may have slowed the progress of a COVID vaccine, so it is important to evaluate their (...) merit. One common way of doing so is to make an analogy to other social practices that are relevantly similar and which we currently sanction. We submit that non-directed live organ donation (NDLOD) is a promising analogy. After arguing that the risks to volunteers for each activity appear similar, we explore potential disanalogies that would undermine the comparison. We note that there are differences in both the kind and certainty of benefit secured by NDLOD compared to challenge trials. We conclude these differences are insufficient to make NDLOD permissible and challenge trials impermissible. Ultimately, if we think the risks associated with NDLOD are ethically permissible, then we should think the same of the risks associated with COVID challenge trials. (shrink)

Conventions and leaders are believed to be the two pillars of justice and order in society. This paper evaluates this proposition and draws attention to two intriguing ways in which these pillars can malfunction. The argument is constructed by creating two new games, Greta’s Dilemma and the Incarceration Game. An awareness of these problems can help us use our ‘moral intention’ to reexamine our own collective behavior and to design prior conventions, which limit the power of the leader.

This volume of essays, written in honor of Amartya Sen, covers the range of contributions that Sen has made to knowledge. They are written by some of the world's leading economists, philosophers and social scientists, and address topics such as ethics, welfare economics, poverty, gender, human development, society, and politics.

This volume of essays, written in honor of Amartya Sen, covers the range of contributions that Sen has made to knowledge. They are written by some of the world's leading economists, philosophers and social scientists, and address topics such as ethics, welfare economics, poverty, gender, human development, society, and politics.

This two volume set of essays, written in honor of Amartya Sen, covers the range of contributions that Sen has made to knowledge. They are written by some of the world's leading economists, philosophers and social scientists, and address topics such as ethics, welfare economics, poverty, gender, human development, society, and politics.

The purpose of this paper was to determine whether the individual attributes of locus of control, gender, major in college and years of job experience affect the acceptability of certain workplace behaviors. A total of 198 college students of a mid-sized southeastern university formed the sample for this study. Locus of control, gender and years of job experience were found to have some affect on whether an individual considered a certain behavior acceptable or unacceptable.

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty is widely recognized as one of the major figures of twentieth-century philosophy. The recent publication of his lecture courses and posthumous working notes has opened new avenues for both the interpretation of his thought and philosophy in general. These works confirm that, with a surprising premonition, Merleau-Ponty addressed many of the issues that concern philosophy today. With the benefit of this fuller picture of his thought, Merleau-Ponty and Contemporary Philosophy undertakes an assessment of the philosopher's relevance for contemporary (...) thinking. Covering a diverse range of topics, including ontology, epistemology, anthropology, embodiment, animality, politics, language, aesthetics, and art, the editors gather representative voices from North America and Europe, including both Merleau-Ponty specialists and thinkers who have come to the philosopher's work through their own thematic interest. (shrink)

Concern for corporate influence on democratic decisions has mostly focused on campaign funding and access to legislators. While these are certainly worrisome, corporations have another tool to influence decisions, which they are increasingly using. They can threaten to move their operations or cancel expansion plans in a municipality unless its public officials pass (or kill) certain policies. In one sense, this is business as usual. Companies have the right to decide where to operate, and it is important for officials to (...) consider how policy will impact local businesses that provide jobs and tax revenue. On the other hand, companies can use these threats to get their way on any policy, whether or not it impacts them. How do we tell when this kind of corporate action is illegitimate? We argue that such actions are illegitimate when they violate democratic norms of reason-giving, which occurs when companies offer the public “created” rather than “natural” reasons for their proposed policy. (shrink)

. This paper illustrates the applications of various ensemble methods for enhanced classification accuracy. The case in point is the Pima Indian Diabetic Dataset. The computational model comprises of two stages. In the first stage, k-means clustering is employed to identify and eliminate wrongly classified instances. In the second stage, a fine tuning in the classification was effected. To do this, ensemble methods such as AdaBoost, bagging, dagging, stacking, decorate, rotation forest, random subspace, MultiBoost and grading were invoked along with (...) five chosen base classifiers, namely support vector machine, radial basis function network, decision tree J48, naïve Bayes and Bayesian network. The k-fold cross validation technique is adopted. Computational experiments with the proposed method showed an improvement of 16.14% to 22.49% in the classification accuracy compared to literature survey. Among the ensemble methods tried, MultiBoost ensemble with SVM classifier and grading ensemble with naïve Bayes showed the best performance followed by MultiBoost, stacking and grading ensemble with Bayesian classifier, rotation forest ensemble with RBF and grading and rotation forest ensemble with J48. This investigation conclusively proves the significance of cascading k-means clustering with ensemble methods in the enhanced accuracy in categorization of diabetic dataset. (shrink)

. Prediction of crop yield is significant in order to accurately meet market requirements and proper administration of agricultural activities directed towards enhancement in yield. Several parameters such as weather, pests, biophysical and physio morphological features merit their consideration while determining the yield. However, these parameters are uncertain in their nature, thus making the determined amount of yield to be approximate. It is exactly here that the fuzzy logic comes into play. This paper elaborates an attempt to develop fuzzy inference (...) systems for crop yield prediction. Physio morphological features of Sorghum were considered. A huge database of physio morphological features such as days of 50 percent flowering, dead heart percentage, plant height, panicle length, panicle weight and number of primaries and the corresponding yield were considered for the development of the model. In order to find out the sensitivity of parameters, one-to-one, two-to-one and three-to-one combinations of input and output were considered. The results have clearly shown that panicle length contributes for the yield as the lone parameter with almost one-to-one matching between predicted yield and actual value while panicle length and panicle weight in combination seemed to play a decisive role in contributing for the yield with the prediction accuracy reflected by very low RMS value. (shrink)

The “expressivist objection” argues that prenatal screening leading to termination of embryos or fetuses with disabilities sends a harmful message to people with disabilities, such as the message that their lives are not worth living. I first argue that whether it sends such a message depends on how a reasonable person would see the motives behind the screening. I then argue that a reasonable person would see a harmful message, not when individuals terminate embryos, and not for severe disabilities, but (...) when the state allows the screening and termination of embryos with less severe conditions, such as Down syndrome. This sends the message that it is permissible not to pay a higher cost to support people with disabilities, when there is an abled alternative. This attitude is harmful to the welfare, rights and self-worth of people with disabilities because it reinforces the refusal to provide them with equal opportunity. The state therefore has a strong pro tanto reason to ban prenatal screening for less severe disabilities. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 5, Page inside_front_cover-inside_front_cover, September–October 2022.

Abstract There is increasing evidence suggesting that environmental and social criteria are impacting the market in complex ways. The corporate world has demonstrated a willingness to respond to public pressure for improved performance on non–economic issues by embracing Triple Bottom Line (TBL) principles. TBL reporting has been institutionalized as a way of thinking for corporate sustainability. However, institutions are constantly changing and improving, while TBL has been fairly conservative in its approach to change. The more balanced focus on the economic, (...) the environmental and the social has provided a framework for institutions and markets around the world who want to focus indicators towards a sustainable future. This paper presents a criticism of the TBL approach that adds to the limited information on the pervasiveness of this approach. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-21 DOI 10.1007/s13520-012-0019-3 Authors Kaushik Sridhar, Net Balance Management Group, 332, Kent Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia Grant Jones, Australian Catholic University, 8/20 Napier Street, NR House, North Sydney, NSW, Australia 2060 Journal Asian Journal of Business Ethics Online ISSN 2210-6731 Print ISSN 2210-6723. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty states in his Institution and Passivity lectures that he wants to "consider criticism itself as a symbolic form" as opposed to doing "a philosophy of symbolic form." This statement seems counterintuitive for Merleau-Ponty, who has been called "the philosopher of the sensible." In this book, Kaushik investigates this question, arguing that Merleau-Ponty has raised the stakes of his ontology such that it is no longer a matter of finding a solution to the difference between "the real and the (...) fictive" but rather, of constellating and matrixing them. This ontological matrix amounts to a psychoanalysis of the philosophy of identity. Kaushik argues that philosophies of reflection, in which reflection seeks to coincide with its origins, are in fact uncritical because they miss the form of differentiation that limits them. His analyses of the matrices between space-imagination, light-dark, awake-asleep, repression-expression, etc., subvert these philosophies and reveal the symbolic form in terms of its lack of precise origin or destination. Drawing from recently published course materials of Merleau-Ponty's, and attentive to his reliance on literary phrases for phenomenological insights, Kaushik brings out the living force of Merleau-Ponty's thought and develops his radical insight of the primacy of the symbolic form, even in an ontology that claims to be about the sensible and its elements. (shrink)

Since the 1980s, developed countries, led by the United States and the countries of the European Union, have sought to incorporate intellectual property rights provisions into global trade agreements. These countries successfully negotiated the World Trade Organization's 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which required developing countries to adopt intellectual property provisions comparable to developed countries. In this manuscript, we review the policy controversy surrounding TRIPS and examine the two main ethical arguments articulated in its support (...) — a theory of natural rights and a utilitarian argument. We contend that these theories provide insufficient bases for an intellectual property rights regime that compromises access to essential medicines in the developing world. While the policy community has engaged in active debate around the policy effects of TRIPS, scholars have not thoroughly considered the full ethical underpinnings of those policy arguments. We believe that a more robust understanding of the ethical implications of the agreement should inform policy discussions in the future. (shrink)

In recent decades, advances in information technology have given rise to a post-industrial society in which emphasis on the manufacture of material goods has been supplanted by the creation of intellectual property. Indeed, this new “knowledge economy” can be tracked by the exponential growth in patented products across a range of sectors since the 1980s. According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the number of annual patent applications submitted grew from 112,379 to 520,277 over the past three decades, (...) a 464% increase.The transformation in the industrial markets has been accompanied by the rise of a new, global institution for coordinating intellectual property rights : the World Trade Organization. (shrink)

Introduction -- Matisse in slow motion -- Art and natural being -- Proust and the significant event -- Reversibility between the arts -- Concluding remarks.

Transplant centers and physicians in the United States have limited guidance on the information which they can and cannot provide to transplant candidates regarding donors of potential organs. Patients may refuse organs for a variety of reasons ranging from pernicious requests including racism to misinformation about emerging medicine as with the COVID-19 vaccine and infection. Patient autonomy, organ stewardship, and equity are often at odds in these cases, but precedent indeed exists to help address these challenges. This work uses such (...) cases to highlight the urgent need for uniform, national policy prohibiting informational requests unrelated to well-established risks. (shrink)

Complex systems can be characterized by classes of equivalency of their elements defined according to system specific rules. We propose a generalized preferential attachment model to describe the class size distribution. The model postulates preferential growth of the existing classes and the steady influx of new classes. According to the model, the distribution changes from a pure exponential form for zero influx of new classes to a power law with an exponential cut-off form when the influx of new classes is (...) substantial. Predictions of the model are tested through the analysis of a unique industrial database, which covers both elementary units (products) and classes (markets, firms) in a given industry (pharmaceuticals), covering the entire size distribution. The model's predictions are in good agreement with the data. The paper sheds light on the emergence of the exponent tau approximately 2 observed as a universal feature of many biological, social and economic problems. (shrink)

The Indian philosophy of warfare remains terra incognita. Most Western commentators emphasize the underdeveloped nature of military theory in ancient India, while two American political scientists...

In a Working Note to The Visible and the Invisible, Merleau-Ponty uses the fine phraseology of an “architectonic past” and a “mythical time” to describe Proust’s remembrances of things past. This paper first considers how this architectonic past sheds light on Merleau-Ponty’s ontology, and second how this results in a mythical time, which is an originary encounter with this past. Paying also attention to Merleau-Ponty’s final, completed reflections on “Swann’s Way,” Volume One of Remembrances of Things Past, I suggest that (...) by exposing the inner-connection between the two senses of time, Proust is highly significant for Merleau-Ponty’s thesis of “reversibility”. Proustian remembrances are used by Merleau-Ponty not to expose an inwardness, but something that is withdrawn and behind the sensible. The way in which these remembrances operate in myth time bespeaks of a memorial dimension of the past of being itself. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between Merleau-Ponty's lectures on institution and his lectures on passivity. I argue that the relationship depends on Merleau-Ponty's internal critique of institution as outlined in Husserl's ouevre. That is, institution is not only human institution, which rests on temporality and time-consciousness, but also animal, biological and even virological, which rests on a certain, non-euclidian space of the body. Merleau-Ponty's focus in the course is animal institution: animal morphology, menstruation, puberty, etc. These are what tie institution (...) and passivity together, and especially the passivity that Merleau-Ponty calls the "symbolic matrix," the touchstone of which is the "implex." While the paper discusses, Merleau-Ponty's critique of Husserl and the consequent understanding of a passivity in institution, it opens the possibility that the virological may be yet another kind of passivity that has instituted a new trajectory in human institution. This is highlighted in the very word "pandemic.". (shrink)