Dwellers in the Land focuses on the realistic development of these bioregionally focused communities and the places where they are established to create a ...
Challenging the assumption that the concept of divine action is necessarily paradoxical, on the grounds that God is radically transcendent of finitude, or can perform only a master act of creating and sustaining the universe, Frank Kirkpatrick defends as philosophically credible the Christian conviction that God is a personal Agent who also acts in particular historical moments to further the divine intention of fostering universal community. Kirkpatrick claims that God and the world are distinct realities "together bound" in (...) a mutual relationship of reciprocal historical action. In this relationship, God both acts upon and responds to human beings in specific moments in their history. The implications of this claim for understanding the biblical narrative, the problem of evil, cosmological theories, and the realism of Christian community are pursued. (shrink)
Atran & Norenzayan (A&N) are correct that religion is an evolutionary by-product, not an adaptation, but they do not go far enough. Once supernatural beliefs are enabled by processes they describe, numerous social-cognitive mechanisms related to attachment, social exchange, coalitional psychology, status and dominance, and kinship are crucial for explaining the specific forms religion takes and individual and cultural differences therein.
A broad evolutionary perspective is essential to fully reverse figure and ground in the rationality debate. Humans' evolved psychological architecture was designed to produce inferences that were adaptive, not normatively logical. This perspective points to several predictable sources of errors in modern laboratory reasoning tasks, including inherent, systematic biases in information-processing systems explained by Error Management Theory.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death amongst adult Americans and has recently become a top killer worldwide. The direct costs of cardiovascular disease are projected to triple in the next 20 years, from $272.5 billion to $818.1 billion (Heidenreich et al. 2011). Although there has been a decreased incidence and prevalence of ischemic heart disease over the past several decades in the United States, heart failure remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality. In the United States, approximately (...) 500,000 to 700,000 new cases are identified each year (Lloyd-Jones et al. 2009). Heart failure is now the number one diagnosis leading to hospitalization. As such, it is an increasingly heavy economic burden on .. (shrink)
This text provides an overview of debates in the sociology of technology, including definitions of the main terms and concepts and discussion of the dominant positions, especially in recent scholarship. At the same time, it develops a novel perspective on the subject based in critical theory, bridging work in the sociology of science and technology with wider debate in social theory. It integrates empirical and theoretical elements in well-themed chapters and draws on interesting contemporary examples such as mobile phones and (...) computer games to offer a distinctive sociological perspective on an important dimension of social life. (shrink)
The logic of mutual heterocentrism requires two radical changes in our traditional way of thinking. First, it requires that we accept ourselves as gifts received. Second, it requires that we take seriously the notion that God can and does act in history. Macmurray’s Persons in Relation provides not only an analysis of these claims, but also metaphysical support for them.
The current interest in bioregionalism, stimulated in part by KirkpatrickSale’s Dwellers in the Land, shows that people are looking for a form of political praxis which addresses the importance of region. In this paper, I argue that much of the bioregional literature written to date mystifies the concept of region, discounting the role of subjectivity and culture in shaping regional boundaries and veers toward asimplistic view of “nature knows best.” Bioregionalism can be rehabilitated, provided we treat it (...) not as a “revealed wisdom” for the reconstruction of human society, but as a sensibility and environmental ethic that can infuse our work even as we make use of the functional regionalisms that increasingly shape people’s consciousness. I conclude by citing Lewis Mumford’s concept of a region as capturing the dialectical interplay of natural and cultural elements. (shrink)
In this essay, I use a general argument about the evidential role of data in ongoing inquiry to show that it is fruitful for economic historians and historians of economics to collaborate more frequently. The shared aim of this collaboration should be to learn from past economic experience in order to improve the cutting edge of economic theory. Along the way, I attack a too rigorous distinction between the history of economics and economic history. By drawing on the history of (...) physics, I argue that the history of a discipline can be a source of important evidence in ongoing inquiry. My argument relies on the claim that it is a constitutive element of science that evidence is never discarded forever and is thus historical in nature. In the final section, I offer a case study by explaining a research proposal that turns on a long-running data-set Babylonian whole-sale prices of six commodities noted in pre-Hellenistic and Hellenistic times. To motivate my reading of this data-set, I critically discuss Aristotle's successful attempt to distinguish between astrology and political economy. (shrink)
: Gill and Sade, in the preceding article in this issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, argue that living individuals should be free from legal constraints against selling their organs. The present commentary responds to several of their claims. It explains why an analogy between kidneys and blood fails; why, as a matter of public policy, we prohibit the sale of human solid organs, yet allow the sale of blood; and why their attack on Kant's putative (...) argument against the sale of human body parts is misplaced. Finally, it rejects the claim that the state is entitled to interfere with the actions of individuals only if such actions would harm others. We draw certain lines grounded in what Rawls has termed "public reason" beyond which we do not give effect to the autonomous self-regarding decisions of individuals. Public resistance to the sale of human body parts, no matter how voluntary or well informed, is grounded in the conviction that such a practice would diminish human dignity and our sense of solidarity. A system of organ donation, in contrast, conveys our respect for persons and honors our common humanity. (shrink)
The commercial trading of human organs, along withvarious related activities (for example, advertising)was criminalised throughout Great Britain under theHuman Organ Transplants Act 1989.This paper critically assesses one type of argumentfor this, and similar, legal prohibitions:commodification arguments.Firstly, the term `commodification' is analysed. Thiscan be used to refer to either social practices or toattitudes. Commodification arguments rely on thesecond sense and are based on the idea that having acommodifying attitude to certain classes of thing(e.g. bodies or persons) is wrong. The commodifyingattitude consists (...) of three main elements: denial ofsubjectivity, instrumentality, and fungibility.Secondly, in the light of this analysis, the claimthat organ sale involves commodifying the human bodyis examined. This claim is found to be plausible butinsufficient to ground an argument against organ sale,because the very same commodifying attitude is likelyto be present in cases of (unpaid) organ donation. Itis also argued that commodifying bodies per semay not be wrong.Thirdly, the view that organ sale involvescommodifying persons is examined. Although this andthe claim that it is wrong to commodify persons areprobably true, there is â it is argued â littlereason to regard organ sale as worse in this respectthan other widely accepted practices, such as thebuying and selling of labour.The conclusion is that although commodification is auseful ethical concept and although commodificationarguments may sometimes be successful, thecommodification argument against organ sale is notpersuasive. This is not to say, though, that thereare no arguments for prohibition â simply that thisparticular justificatory strategy is flawed. (shrink)
What's wrong with markets in everything? Markets today are widely recognized as the most efficient way in general to organize production and distribution in a complex economy. And with the collapse of communism and rise of globalization, it's no surprise that markets and the political theories supporting them have seen a considerable resurgence. For many, markets are an all-purpose remedy for the deadening effects of bureaucracy and state control. But what about those markets we might label noxious-markets in addictive drugs, (...) say, or in sex, weapons, child labor, or human organs? Such markets arouse widespread discomfort and often revulsion. In Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale, philosopher Debra Satz takes a penetrating look at those commodity exchanges that strike most of us as problematic. What considerations, she asks, ought to guide the debates about such markets? What is it about a market involving prostitution or the sale of kidneys that makes it morally objectionable? How is a market in weapons or pollution different than a market in soybeans or automobiles? Are laws and social policies banning the more noxious markets necessarily the best responses to them? Satz contends that categories previously used by philosophers and economists are of limited utility in addressing such questions because they have assumed markets to be homogenous. Accordingly, she offers a broader and more nuanced view of markets-one that goes beyond the usual discussions of efficiency and distributional equality--to show how markets shape our culture, foster or thwart human development, and create and support structures of power. An accessibly written work that will engage not only philosophers but also political scientists, economists, legal scholars, and public policy experts, this book is a significant contribution to ongoing discussions about the place of markets in a democratic society. (shrink)
Sale of Sperm, Health Records, Minimally Conscious States, and Duties of Candour Content Type Journal Article Category Recent Developments Pages 7-14 DOI 10.1007/s11673-011-9347-6 Authors Cameron Stewart, Centre for Health Governance, Law and Ethics, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia 2006 Bernadette Richards, Law School, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia 5005 Richard Huxtable, Centre for Ethics in Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TH UK Bill Madden, School of Law, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia (...) Tina Cockburn, School of Law, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Journal Journal of Bioethical Inquiry Online ISSN 1872-4353 Print ISSN 1176-7529 Journal Volume Volume 9 Journal Issue Volume 9, Number 1. (shrink)
Over the past thirty years, academic debate over pornography in the discourses of feminism and cultural studies has foundered on questions of the performative and of the word's definition. In the polylogue of Droit de regards, pornography is defined as la mise en vente that is taking place in the act of exegesis in progress. (Wills's idiomatic English translation includes an ‘it’ that is absent in the French original). The definition in Droit de regards alludes to the word's etymology (writing (...) by or about prostitutes) but leaves the referent of the ‘sale’ suspended. Pornography as la mise en vente boldly restates the necessary iterability of the sign and anticipates two of Derrida's late arguments: that there is no ‘the’ body and that performatives may be powerless. Deriving a definition of pornography from a truncated etymology exemplifies the prosthesis of origin and challenges other critical discourses to explain how pornography can be understood as anything more than ‘putting (it) up for sale’. (shrink)
In his article "Markets and the Needy: Organ Sales or Aid?" T. L. Zutlevics briefly touches upon the conceptual link between the practice of living1 suppliers2 selling their kidneys and prostitutes selling sexual services. In an attempt to defuse Gerald Dworkin's (Dworkin 1993) appeals to autonomy that undergird his justification of establishing a controlled market in transplantable organs from living suppliers, Zutlevics writes:Whilst initially appealing, this argument is problematic in that it justifies a great deal more than allowing the poor (...) to sell their organs. The situations of the poor can be so desperate that even actions which cause extreme harm would constitute an improvement in their situation. . . . .. (shrink)
In recent decades, debates about exploitation have tended to be subsumed by debates about choice and autonomy. This phenomenon has affected international feminism adversely, creating polarized debates over such issues as prostitution. Equally grave is the more recent tendency, even among some feminists, to assume that a woman's free choice to accept payment for egg ``donation'' in somatic cell nuclear transfer stem cell research absolves researchers of any charge of exploitation or abuse of research subjects. This paper suggests that much (...) of this dissension among feminists is due to conflicting understandings of the crucial but neglected concept of exploitation. Analyzing two possible senses of exploitation -- a disparity between value ``in'' and value ``out'' versus an affront to dignity -- this paper argues that both are underpinned by what Carole Pateman identifies as gender subordination. In conclusion it is suggested that transnational feminism return to a more traditionally feminist stance, which explicitly focuses on opposing the subordination and exploitation of women. (shrink)
Stephen Wilkinson asks what is it that makes some commercial uses of the body controversial, whether such arguments stand up, and whether legislation outlawing ...
Discussion of marketing deception has mostly focused on two main areas: first are cases that involve the intentional deception of people who tend to have compromised intelligence, such as children or the elderly, and second are cases that involve intentional falsehoods or the withholding of vital information, such as Madoff’s exploits. This article will differ from most in the field by examining marketing practices that are generally truthful, but deceive almost everyone. These practices do not fool just small select groups, (...) but are fooling those usually assumed to be rational. For example, we love “free” merchandise so much that we are willing to irrationally settle for less to get the free product. Behavioral economists and psychologists are proving that, as Dan Ariely puts it, most all of us are “Predictably Irrational.” Is it wrong for marketers to take advantage of the mass’s foibles as it is wrong to take advantage of children? The article will look at some of the behavioral economists’ data, how that data affects the rational and ignorant person standards of marketing, and suggest the reflective rational person standard as a way to morally evaluate marketing techniques given this new data. (shrink)
This paper challenges the view that bans on kidney sales are unjustifiably paternalistic, that is, that they unduly deny people the freedom to make decisions about their own bodies in order to protect them from harm. I argue that not even principled anti-paternalists need to reject such bans. This is because their rationale is not hard paternalism, which anti-paternalists repudiate, but soft paternalism, which they in principle accept. More precisely, I suggest that their rationale is what Franklin Miller and Alan (...) Wertheimer call ‘group soft paternalism’. Group soft paternalistic policies restrict the freedom of autonomous individuals, not for their own good (hard paternalism), but as an unavoidable consequence of seeking to protect other, non-autonomous individuals from harms that they have not voluntarily chosen (soft paternalism). Group soft paternalism supports prohibiting kidney sales on three conditions: (1) that such sales are potentially harmful to vendors, (2) that many vendors would suffer impaired autonomy, and (3) that distinguishing between autonomous and non-autonomous vendors and interfering only with the latter is unfeasible. I provide reasons for thinking that these conditions will often hold. (shrink)
Increasingly the body is a possession that does not belong to us. It is bought and sold, bartered and stolen, marketed wholesale or in parts. The professions - especially reproductive medicine, transplant surgery, and bioethics but also journalism and other cultural specialists - have been pliant partners in this accelerating commodification of live and dead human organisms. Under the guise of healing or research, they have contributed to a new 'ethic of parts' for which the divisible body is severed from (...) the self, torn from the social fabric, and thrust into commercial transactions -- as organs, secretions, reproductive capacities, and tissues -- responding to the dictates of an incipiently global marketplace. Breaking with established approaches which prioritize the body as 'text', the chapters in this book examine not only images of the body-turned-merchandise but actually existing organisms considered at once as material entities, semi-magical tokens, symbolic vectors and founts of lived experience. The topics covered range from the cultural disposal and media treatment of corpses, the biopolitics of cells, sperm banks and eugenics, to the international trafficking of kidneys, the development of 'transplant tourism', to the idioms of corporeal exploitation among prizefighters as a limiting case of fleshly commodity. This insightful and arresting volume combines perspectives from anthropology, law, medicine, and sociology to offer compelling analyses of the concrete ways in which the body is made into a commodity and how its marketization in turn remakes social relations and cultural meanings. (shrink)
In many cases, claims that a transaction is exploitative will focus on the details of the transaction, such as the price paid or conditions. For example, in a claim that a worker is exploited, the grounds for the claim are usually that the pay is not sufficient or the working conditions too dangerous. In some cases, however, the claim that a transaction is exploitative is not seen to rely on these finer details. Many, for example, claim that organ sales would (...) be exploitative, in a way that doesn't seem to depend on the details. This article considers, but ultimately rejects, a number of arguments which could be used to defend this sort of claim. (shrink)
Legal codes, such as the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) examined in this article, are good points of entry for AI and ontology work because of their more straightforward adaptability to relationship linking and rules-based encoding. However, approaches relying on encoding solely on formal code structure are incomplete, missing the rich experience of practitioner expertise that identifies key relationships and decision criteria often supplied by experienced practitioners and process experts from various disciplines (e.g., sociology, political economics, logistics, operations research). This research (...) focuses on the UCC because it transcends the limitations of a formal code, functioning essentially as a composite. AI work can benefit from real-world codes like the UCC, which are essentially formal codes enlightened from a more realistic experience-base from centuries of development in international commercial transactions settings. This paper then describes our initial work in converting an expert system on the U.S. law governing the sale of goods from Article II of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), into a knowledge-based system using the Web Ontology Language OWL. (shrink)
I argue that women in traditional marriages are a vulnerable source for kidneys and this vulnerability gives rise to exploitative donation arrangements made within families. In so doing, I critique Alan Wertheimer’s account of the impact that emotional closeness between participants in an agreement has on the wrongfulness of exploitation. I propose a regulated market scheme that is not only less exploitative than our current donation scheme, but also resolves a variety of other moral problems that typically arise in real (...) and imagined kidney sale scenarios, problems that render markets “noxious,” according to Debra Satz. (shrink)
Ethical issues in sales are an important and neglected topic in business ethics. Roughly 9% of the U.S. work force is involved in sales of one sort or another. But very little has been written about ethical issues in sales.
This paper considers two arguments that are common in the literature on organ sales. First, organ sales are exploitative and therefore should not be permitted. Second, it doesn't matter whether organ sales are exploitative or not; the only thing that matters is that we do what is in the interests of those who need to be protected.In this paper, I argue that both of these arguments are too simplistic. My intention, however, is not to argue for or against organ sales. (...) My conclusion, rather, is simply that we cannot hope to address the issue of organ sales if we lack a good understanding of exploitation. We should not attempt to answer the question of whether or not organ sales should be banned on the grounds that they are exploitative without acknowledging and addressing the nuances involved in understanding exploitation. (shrink)
This research addresses the question of whether men and women in sales differ in their ethical attitudes and decision making. The study asked 209 subjects to respond to 20 ethical scenarios, half of which were "relational" and half "non-relational." The study concludes (1) that there are significant ethical differences between the sexes in situations that involve relational issues, but not in non-relational situations, and (2) that gender-based ethical differences change with age and years of experience. The implications of these finding (...) for sales organizations are discussed. (shrink)
Researchers have studied marketing ethics from several perspectives. Few studies, however, have analyzed supervisory reactions to unethical behavior by salespeople. The results of this study using a 2 × 3 factorial design showed that the performance level of the salesperson and the consequences of the salesperson''s actions influenced some types of discipline used by a sample of 246 sales managers. The findings both support and contradict prior research on how sales managers respond to unethical sales force behavior.
Most large companies and many smaller ones have adopted ethics codes, but the evidence is mixed as to whether they have a positive impact on the behavior of employees. We suggest that one way that ethics codes could contribute to ethical behavior is by influencing the perceptions that employees have about the ethical values of organizations. We examine whether a group of sales professionals in organizations with ethics codes perceive that their organizational context is more supportive of ethical behavior than (...) sales professionals in companies without codes. After accounting for the effect of several covariates, our results indicated that sales professionals employed in organizations with codes of ethics perceived their work environments to have more positive ethical values than did other sales professionals. (shrink)
A growing public concern regarding ethical business conduct has stimulated marketing research in the ethics area. This study is the first empirical research to investigate the relationship between a code of ethics and sales force behavior. The findings present preliminary evidence that a well communicated code of ethics may be related to ethical sales force behavior. Furthermore, it appears that a sales force that is employed in such an environment can be profiled as being relatively high in job performance and (...) receiving equally high satisfaction from their positions. Suggestions are made for future research and recommendations are offered for marketing practitioners. (shrink)
Research into the ethics of personal selling and sales management has continued to increase in volume and importance. Because there is now a diversity of opinions and findings in this literature, an assessment of the status of existing knowledge is needed to provide focus and clarity. There have been no comprehensive reviews of the studies of ethics and salespeople, sales managers or sales management, despite recent attention from researchers, practitioners and the general public. The purpose of this review is to (...) comment upon the more significant research in the sales ethics field with the objective of providing insight into the extent and direction of this knowledge, to evaluate the basis upon which it is founded, and to suggest areas of exploration that may be useful for increasing our understanding of it. (shrink)
Recent philosophical arguments in favor of legal markets in human organs such as kidneys claim that respect for autonomy justifies such markets. I argue that these arguments fail to establish the moral permissibility of commercialized organ sales because they do not show that those most likely to serve as vendors would choose to sell autonomously. Pro-market views utilize hierarchical theories of autonomy to demonstrate that potential organ vendors may autonomously consent to selling their organs even in the absence of any (...) practical alternative to doing so. But central to hierarchical accounts of autonomy is the idea that persons my experience volitional ambivalence, a condition in which the will is irreconcilably conflicted. Because commercialized organ sales would create volitional ambivalence in many of those who opt to sell an organ, the choice to sell an organ would not be an autonomous one. (shrink)
This essay explores a major ethical variable in personal sales: trust. By analyzing data drawn from life insurance sales, the essay supports the thesis that the role of the agent and the exigencies of personal sales create certain antinomies of trust that compromise the sales process. As a result, trust occupies a problematic and apparently paradoxical position in the sales process. On the one hand, success in personal sales is held to depend upon trust. On the other hand, because the (...) techniques required to form trust in personal sales nullify the conditions under which trust is possible, these instruments of trust formation are self-defeating. (shrink)
This study examines the relationship between salespeople's moral judgment and their job performance. Results indicate a positive relationship between moral judgment and job performance when certain characteristics are present. Implications for sales managers and sales researchers are provided. Additionally, directions for future research are given.
