Agency theory involves what is known as the principal-agent problem, a topic widely discussed in economics, management, and business ethics today. It is a characteristic of nearly all modern business firms that the principals (the owners and shareholders) are not the same people as the agents (the managers who run the firms for the principals). This creates situations in which the goals of the principals may not be the same as the agents--the principals will want growth in profits and stock (...) price, while agents may want growth in salaries and positions in the hierarchy. The fourth volume in the Ruffin Series in Business, this book explores the ethical consequences of agency theory through contributions by ethicists, economists, and management theorists. (shrink)

In the months preceding the writing of this review, bioethics has been in the news a great deal. In congressional and public policy debates surrounding stem cell research, human cloning, and the Human Genome Project, bioethics and bioethicists have gained national attention and been subject to public scrutiny. Commentators have asked who these self-appointed moral experts are to tell us what is right and wrong.

This book celebrates the work of Patricia Werhane, an iconic figure in business ethics. This festschrift is a collection of articles that build on Werhane’s contributions to business ethics in such areas as Employee Rights, the Legacy of Adam Smith, Moral Imagination, Women in Business, the development of the field of business ethics, and her contributions to such fields as Health Care, Education, Teaching, and Philosophy. All papers are new contributions to the management literature written by well-known business ethicists, such (...) as Norman Bowie, Richard De George, Ronald Duska, Edwin Hartman, Michael Hoffman, Mollie Painter-Morland, Mark Schwartz, Andrew Wicks, and others. The volume is comprised of articles that reflect on Werhane’s work as well as build on it as a way to advance further research. At the end of the festschrift, Pat Werhane provides responses to each chapter. The first chapter of the book also includes the overview of Patricia Werhane’s work and her academic career. The book is written to appeal to management scholars and graduate students interested in the areas of Business Ethics, Modern Capitalism, and Human Rights. Patricia Werhane is one of the most distinguished figures in the field of business ethics. She was a founder of the field, she is one of its leading scholars, and she has had a profound impact on the world of business practice. Among her many accomplishments, Pat is known for her original work on moral imagination, she is an acclaimed authority on employee rights in the workplace, and she is one of the leading scholars on Adam Smith. Having been active in Academia for over 50 years, Werhane is a prolific author of over a hundred articles and book chapters, and the author or editor of twenty-seven books, including Adam Smith and his Legacy for Modern Capitalism, Moral Imagination and Management Decision-Making, and co-authored books Organization Ethics in Health Care, Alleviating Poverty Through Profitable Partnerships, Obstacles to Ethical Decision-Making, Corporate Responsibility: The American Experience, and Research Approaches to Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:70 HUME'S LETTER TO STEWART A Note on a Paper by D. C. Stove In a recent paper, D. C. Stove raises an historical problem. There exists a letter, written in 1754 by Hume to John Stewart, then Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh, in which the following words occur:. „. J never asserted so absurd a Proposition, as that any thing might arise without a Cause: I only (...) maintained, that our Certainty of the Falsehood of that Proposition proceeded neither from Intuition nor Demonstration; but from another Source. Some commentators, most notably Norman Kemp-Smith, take this as telling strongly in favour of a non-sceptical reading of Hume. Stove undertakes to show beyond reasonable doubt that the claim made in the letter is in blatant contradiction with central theses of Hume's published philosophy, so that it has to be regarded as useless as evidence for the interpretation of the latter. There is a mystery as to how Hume came to say something so clearly false about what he himself had written; Stove offers certain conjectures, none of which he finds wholly satisfactory. As the conclusion of the first, exegetical, part of his article, Stove advances the thesis that Hume held the falsity of the Causal Principle to be possible in at least three senses of "possible". These senses he specifies accurately, but doesn't wish to rest anything on the detail of his specification of the third; it is important only that it be stronger than either of the preceding two. This done, he takes a look at the letter to Stewart, and says, with reference to the first part of the 71 passage quoted above: That something might begin to exist without a cause, is evidently equivalent to the proposition that it is possib Ie for something to begin to exist without a cause. That, in turn, is evidently equivalent to the proposition that the falsity of the Causal Principle is possible. (Stove's o underlining). It follows that what Hume says in the letter is simply false. It could be true only if the "might" referred to some sense of possibility even weaker than the weakest of Stove's three senses. But since that is mere self-consistency, there is no such sense. Now the argument to the contradiction relies on reading "might" as "it is possible", in some sense of those words. Stove says, as we have seen, that they are "evidently equivalent", but the equivalence is certainly not evident, and it may well be asked whether it exists at all. After all, there are English constructions with "might" which don't have modal force: "Do you think something might have happened to them without our knowing about it?" The hearer is not, of course, being asked whether it- is possible that something should have happened without their knowledge; he is being asked for his opinion on whether something actually has so happened. "Most unlikely", would be a perfectly natural and acceptable response. Again : "ïou stay here, to take care of any problem that might arise before we get back". Obviously it is not intended that the hearer should start taking precautions against all possibilities, only that he should cope with whatever actually arises, if anything. 72 This is quite normal modern usage, and I know no reason to think that it wasn't also norT.il usage in the 18th Century. Admittedly, it isn't modern philocophers ' usage - we would be very careful, in writing or; logical matters, not to use the word "might" unless it was definitely the modal proposition that we had in mind, but earlier times haven't always been so professional about their vocabulary. Certainly, if Hume, in the letter to Stewart, was denying that he had ever asserted the possibility of the falsehood of the Causal Principle it would be, as Stove shows, extremely hard to see what he could have been thinking of. But if what he meant could have been as well expressed by "I never asserted... that anything arises without a cause" then most of Stove's problems are over, for there is no 3 conflict with any of the theses (1) - (3) which he... (shrink)

This collection of ground-breaking essays considers the many dimensions of prayer: how prayer relates us to the divine; prayer's ability to reveal what is essential about our humanity; the power of prayer to transform human desire and action; and the relation of prayer to cognition. It takes up the meaning of prayer from within a uniquely phenomenological point of view, demonstrating that the phenomenology of prayer is as much about the character and boundaries of phenomenological analysis as it is about (...) the heart of religious life.The contributors: Michael F. Andrews, Bruce Ellis Benson, Mark Cauchi, Benjamin Crowe, Mark Gedney, Philip Goodchild, Christina M. Gschwandtner, Lissa McCullough, Cleo McNelly Kearns, Edward F. Mooney, B. Keith Putt, Jill Robbins, Brian Treanor, Merold Westphal, Norman Wirzba, Terence Wright and Terence and James R. Mensch. Bruce Ellis Benson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College. He is the author of Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida, and Marion on Modern Idolatry and The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music. Norman Wirzba is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Georgetown College, Kentucky. He is the author of The Paradise of God and editor of The Essential Agrarian Reader. (shrink)

This book adapts the Arabic term nafsiyya to trace the phenomenological contours of Edward Said’s analysis of the affective dimensions of colonial and imperial racism. Reflecting on what he called his “colonial education,” Said rendered his Palestinian/Arab background and experience of racism an enabling component of his academic work. The argument focuses on his “personal dimension” section in his introduction to his famous volume Orientalism, discussing key notions of Said’s oeuvre—such as ‘elaboration,’ ‘circumstance,’ ‘humanism,’ ‘worldliness,’ ‘inventory,’ and ‘critical consciousness.’ (...) Providing a lengthy study of his earlier and somewhat neglected Beginnings: Intention and Method, the book discusses the significance of the style of the essay as a key component of what the author calls Said’s interventionist brand of scholarship. The final chapter outlines how Said’s oeuvre can be situated in a genealogy of a radical phenomenology of racism that emerged from the colonies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:70 HUME'S LETTER TO STEWART A Note on a Paper by D. C. Stove In a recent paper, D. C. Stove raises an historical problem. There exists a letter, written in 1754 by Hume to John Stewart, then Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh, in which the following words occur:. „. J never asserted so absurd a Proposition, as that any thing might arise without a Cause: I only (...) maintained, that our Certainty of the Falsehood of that Proposition proceeded neither from Intuition nor Demonstration; but from another Source. Some commentators, most notably Norman Kemp-Smith, take this as telling strongly in favour of a non-sceptical reading of Hume. Stove undertakes to show beyond reasonable doubt that the claim made in the letter is in blatant contradiction with central theses of Hume's published philosophy, so that it has to be regarded as useless as evidence for the interpretation of the latter. There is a mystery as to how Hume came to say something so clearly false about what he himself had written; Stove offers certain conjectures, none of which he finds wholly satisfactory. As the conclusion of the first, exegetical, part of his article, Stove advances the thesis that Hume held the falsity of the Causal Principle to be possible in at least three senses of "possible". These senses he specifies accurately, but doesn't wish to rest anything on the detail of his specification of the third; it is important only that it be stronger than either of the preceding two. This done, he takes a look at the letter to Stewart, and says, with reference to the first part of the 71 passage quoted above: That something might begin to exist without a cause, is evidently equivalent to the proposition that it is possib Ie for something to begin to exist without a cause. That, in turn, is evidently equivalent to the proposition that the falsity of the Causal Principle is possible. (Stove's o underlining). It follows that what Hume says in the letter is simply false. It could be true only if the "might" referred to some sense of possibility even weaker than the weakest of Stove's three senses. But since that is mere self-consistency, there is no such sense. Now the argument to the contradiction relies on reading "might" as "it is possible", in some sense of those words. Stove says, as we have seen, that they are "evidently equivalent", but the equivalence is certainly not evident, and it may well be asked whether it exists at all. After all, there are English constructions with "might" which don't have modal force: "Do you think something might have happened to them without our knowing about it?" The hearer is not, of course, being asked whether it- is possible that something should have happened without their knowledge; he is being asked for his opinion on whether something actually has so happened. "Most unlikely", would be a perfectly natural and acceptable response. Again : "ïou stay here, to take care of any problem that might arise before we get back". Obviously it is not intended that the hearer should start taking precautions against all possibilities, only that he should cope with whatever actually arises, if anything. 72 This is quite normal modern usage, and I know no reason to think that it wasn't also norT.il usage in the 18th Century. Admittedly, it isn't modern philocophers ' usage - we would be very careful, in writing or; logical matters, not to use the word "might" unless it was definitely the modal proposition that we had in mind, but earlier times haven't always been so professional about their vocabulary. Certainly, if Hume, in the letter to Stewart, was denying that he had ever asserted the possibility of the falsehood of the Causal Principle it would be, as Stove shows, extremely hard to see what he could have been thinking of. But if what he meant could have been as well expressed by "I never asserted... that anything arises without a cause" then most of Stove's problems are over, for there is no 3 conflict with any of the theses (1) - (3) which he... (shrink)

This paper explores the deeply interwound histories of art and robots from their roots in the Greek myth of the sculptor-king Pygmalion to the work of contemporary artists, such as Norman White. By analyzing the myths of Pygmalion, the Golem, Frankenstein's monster, and other notable automata of legend, a framework emerges for understanding how various cultures have expressed desires and fears about technology and the future and defined values with respect to human. This context offers insight into the role (...) of artists in creating metaphors and working models of a posthuman, cyborgian future. (shrink)

This book is a unique collection of essays by the leading scholars in business ethics. The purpose of the volume is to examine the emergence of business ethics as an important element of managerial practice and as an integral area of scholarship. The four lead essays--by Norman Bowie, Kenneth Goodpaster, Thomas Donaldson, and Ezra Bowen--are examples of some of the best thinking about the role of ethics in business. These essays examine such issues as the nature of scholarship and (...) knowledge in business ethics, how ethics is a central factor in managerial leadership, the complexities of ethics in multinational and multicultural settings, and the problems of ethical literacy and moral debate in a free society. Each lead essay develops several themes which are then explored by other prominent thinkers, including Robert Solomon, Richard DeGeorge, and Joanne Cuilla. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The French Tradition and the Literature of Medieval EnglandEdward E. FosterThe French Tradition and the Literature of Medieval England, by William Calin; xvi & 587pp. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994, $75.00 cloth, $29.95 paper.Probably not many people will read all of this book, because it is very long. That is too bad, because it is also very good and its length is necessary for its double purpose: (...) to reconceptualize the connections between French and English literature in the Middle Ages and to provide sensitive interpretations both of familiar and of ignored Medieval narratives. The doubleness is neatly reciprocal: the readings grow into the revisionist definition of influence, and the notion of influence informs the individual readings.The innovative and persuasive argument that orders the whole book is that the impact of the French tradition has been too narrowly defined. Rather than simply retracing the influence of the classics of French fin amour, like Chrétien, on the corpus of Middle English literature, Calin sinuously argues the influence of Anglo-Norman and thirteenth and fourteenth century Central French works on the literature of the high English Middle Ages. From Anglo-Norman, Calin draws, predictably, on the lais of Marie de France. Less predictably, he draws on Beroul and Thomas of England and on romances like Ipomedon, Amadas et Ydione, and Gui de Warewic. Least predictably, he draws on the tradition of saints’ lives as formative of later Medieval moral narrative. From Central French, he draws, predictably, on the Roman de la Rose. Less predictably, but very convincingly, he draws on material frequently slighted even by French critics: Guillaume de Digulleville, the Prose Lancelot, Machaut, Froissart, and Chartier. But even more than influence, in the traditional sense, Calin persuasively demonstrates an enlivening intertextuality. He rescues Anglo-Norman classics from their stodgy reputation and late Central French texts from inattention and makes both relevant to the development of the English narrative tradition in court poetry and in popular romance.The power of Calin’s overarching argument depends heavily on the critiques of individual works. Without forgetting Chrétien and the earlier French tradition, he traces in Marie, Beroul, and Thomas, the formation and complication of fin amour which were present and available to English writers. He describes the narrative force of Anglo-Norman saints’ lives on the fictional techniques of English romance. His acute treatment of interlace in the Prose Lancelot reveals the treasure trove that English romancers could draw on, for technique as well as themes. In addition, he shows both how de Digulleville served up the “dream vision” and Machaut and Froissart served up the limited, even bumbling, narrator for fourteenth-century England.It could be argued that Calin’s method of doing very modern or postmodern analyses of early French poetry and prose is misleading. And it is true that some of the readings of French texts seem eccentric. For example, the relentless imposition of Freud on Marie is perplexing even when plausible. One wonders [End Page 400] whether this is the best way to approach the Lais. And Calin moves on to feminist, and old and new historicist readings of other texts. Each is well done, but it is sometimes hard to tell which way the winds of theory are blowing and why. While it must be granted that the interpretations of Middle English romances, like Ywain and Gawain, Amis and Amiloun, and William of Palerne, are not profoundly different from what other scholars have come to, there is no denying that embedding them in their French contexts gives them a richness they ordinarily lack. Even more laudable is the way in which influence is elaborated not just as a matter of themes but as a transformation of techniques and even sensibility.My greatest reservation is the treatment of Chaucer, especially “The Franklin’s Tale.” Calin does recognize Chaucer’s debts to the classics (though mostly through the Ovid Moralisé) and to the Italians. Yet Chaucer is the one author for whom the weight of French intertextuality seems less a determinant than a stimulant. In “The Franklin’s Tale,” the French burden leads to a reading that too easily dismisses both ironic... (shrink)

These twelve essays were published to honor Norman Malcolm on his seventy-second birthday. Malcolm, who taught at Cornell from 1948 to 1978, has been a notable presence in contemporary analytic philosophy, valued not only for his own strong voice but also because his work has extended the influence of his two great teachers at Cambridge, G. E. Moore and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The essays in this Festschrift canvass topics in the philosophy of mind and in epistemology; and, as one would (...) expect from admirers of Malcolm, they are written carefully, clearly, and with admirable attention to argument. If, however, Thomas Nagel is right to say that Malcolm's most significant influence on his students was a sense that "philosophical perplexity is our most important resource; that the greatest danger in philosophy is to lose the sense of what is really puzzling and so to become susceptible to answers that leave the real problems untouched", then several of these essays fall short of Malcolm's ideal. For all their lucidity and their workmanlike progress from point to point, they leave the reader with no great appreciation for the depth--what Wittgenstein called the Pathos--of philosophical problems. (shrink)