Great leaders are ethical stewards who generate high levels of commitment from followers. In this paper, we propose that perceptions about the trustworthiness of leader behaviors enable those leaders to be perceived as ethical stewards. We define ethical stewardship as the honoring of duties owed to employees, stakeholders, and society in the pursuit of long-term wealth creation. Our model of relationship between leadership behaviors, perceptions of trustworthiness, and the nature of ethical stewardship reinforces the importance of ethical governance in dealing (...) with employees and in creating organizational systems that are congruent with espoused organizational values. (shrink)
There is general agreement that from the first few months of life, our apprehension of physical objects accords, in some sense, with certain principles. In one philosopher's locution, we are 'perceptually sensitive' to physical principles describing the behavior of objects. But in what does this accordance or sensitivity consist? Are these principles explicitly represented or merely 'implemented'? And what sort of explanation do we accomplish in claiming that our object perception accords with these principles? My main goal here is to (...) suggest answers to these questions. I argue that the object principles are not explicitly represented, first addressing some confusion in the debate about what that means. On the positive side, I conclude that the principles supply a competence account, at Marr's computational level, and that they function like natural constraints in vision. These are among their considerable explanatory benefits - benefits endowed by rules and principles in other cognitive domains as well. Characterizing the explanatory role of the object principles is my main project here, but in pursuing certain sub-goals I am led to other conclusions of interest in their own right. I address an argument that the object principles are explicitly represented which assumes that object perception is substantially thought-like. This provokes a jaunt off the main path which leads to interesting territory: the boundary between thought and perception. I argue that object apprehension is much closer to perception than to thought on the spectrum between the two. (shrink)
The societal and ethical impacts of emerging technological and business systems cannot entirely be foreseen; therefore, management of these innovations will require at least some ethicists to work closely with researchers. This is particularly critical in the development of new systems because the maximum degrees of freedom for changing technological direction occurs at or just after the point of breakthrough; that is also the point where the long-term implications are hardest to visualize. Recent work on shared expertise in Science & (...) Technology Studies (STS) can help create productive collaborations among scientists, engineers, ethicists and other stakeholders as these new systems are designed and implemented. But collaboration across these disciplines will be successful only if scientists, engineers, and ethicists can communicate meaningfully with each other. The establishment of a trading zone coupled with moral imagination present one method for such collaborative communication. (shrink)
Advance directives are useful ways to express one's wishes about end of life care, but even now most people have not completed one of the documents. David Doukas and William Reichel strongly encourage planning for end of life care. Although Planning for Uncertainty is at times fairly abstract for the general reader, it does provide useful background and practical steps.
Hysterectomy (or hysterectomy with oophorectomy) is the most frequently performed major surgery in the United States, affecting approximately 700,000 women each year (Easterday, 1983). There has long been interest in the psychological effects of these surgeries. However, apart from the concern that some hysterectomies may be unnecessary (Pearse, 1976), there has been little attention to bioethical issues relating to hysterectomy. Physicians and nurses are ethically obligated to respect the woman who may have a hysterectomy by treating her as an autonomous (...) agent. Informed consent within the context of a decision for hysterectomy should include balanced information and supportive exploration of the woman's values, goals, and life plan. Care of the patient should assist her adjustment, thereby also promoting her autonomy. Physician attitudes toward hysterectomy and the hysterectomy patient can have a major influence on patient self-determination. (shrink)
This article is a philosophical and clinical investigation of the existential meaning of immobility which takes as its starting point Erwin Straus's writings on upright posture and movement. Physical restriction due to prolonged bed rest, traction, or confinement in an intensive care unit has long been recognized to have detrimental effects on the patient's overall physical well being (Asher, 1947; Olson, 1967; Pollard et al. , 1976: and Zubek et al. , 1969). Nevertheless, the adverse psychological and existential results of (...) immobilization for the hospitalized patient have received little attention until recent times (Hammer and Kenan, 1980, p. 124). Even today, more research has focused on psychological aspects of sensory deprivation than on those of immobilization. This essay is both a philosophical and clinical inquiry which will investigate the existential meaning of immobility; that is, perception of one's own body on the part of patients who are living through the experience of immobility due to traction. The "lived-body" is more than an "image" or "picture": it is also a means of perceiving the world, an instrument for action, a means of interacting with others, and a medium for expressing one's individuality (Shontz. 1974. p. 465). In short, as Straus observes, the body is that "here" which is the ground for our ability to act in the world which is "there" (Spicker, 1976, p. 149). These latter considerations will prove useful in an examination of the experience of immobility. This article is divided into four parts. First, currently held assumptions about movement and sensation will be outlined and their philosophical origins will be traced. Second, Straus's own definitive writings on upright posture and movement will be discussed. Third, a clinical study involving immobilized orthopedic patients is described and its findings reviewed. Fourth, some ways of alleviating some of the concerns of immobilized patients are suggested. Keywords: Disability, Self-World CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)
Great leaders are ethical stewards who generate high levels of commitment from followers. In this paper, we propose that perceptions about the trustworthiness of leader behaviors enable those leaders to be perceived as ethical stewards. We define ethical stewardship as the honoring of duties owed to employees, stakeholders, and society in the pursuit of long-term wealth creation. Our model of relationship between leadership behaviors, perceptions of trustworthiness, and the nature of ethical stewardship reinforces the importance of ethical governance in dealing (...) with employees and in creating organizational systems that are congruent with espoused organizational values. (shrink)
Voles are attracting attention because genetic variation at a single locus appears to have a profound impact on a complex social behavior, namely monogamy. After briefly reviewing the state of the most relevant scientific literature, I examine the way that this research gets taken up by the popular media, by scientists, and by the notable philosopher of neuroscience Patricia Churchland and interpreted as having deeply revisionary implications for how we ordinarily understand ourselves as persons. We have all these big (...) questions we would like to resolve about free will, consciousness, our understanding of persons, and the nature of morality and there is a tendency to ask more of neuroscience than it can yet answer. I do not deny that advances in neuroscience may eventually bear on important philosophical issues. However, it is not at all clear that this research has many of the sweeping implications being claimed for it and, in communicating science responsibly to the public, there is reason to be cautious about suggesting that it does. (shrink)
This review describes central difficulties in the interdisciplinary study of dreaming, summarizes Jouvet's account of his role in the history of modern dream science, queries his positive speculations on the semantics of dreaming, and suggests work for historians of neuroscience.
Are experience and stimulus necessarily alike? Wertheimer spoke of this as an “insidious and insistent belief”. By contrast, Watson devotes an entire book to the defense of the thesis that representation necessarily requires resemblance. I argue that this bold and important thesis is ambiguous between a historical and a systematic reading, and that in either one of these readings the thesis, for different reasons, will be found wanting. Second, a proper evaluation of it in either one of its possible interpretations (...) requires a careful analysis of the notion of resemblance. I proceed to supply some necessary distinctions and argue that, given such an analysis, Watson's thesis may be historically applicable only to ancient and medieval philosophy, while its systematic import is untenable. (shrink)
