Shareholders are sometimes considered to be, in moral terms, the owners of a company, they are after all the carriers of the residual liabilities and bear a higher proportion of the financial risk. However, in company law, the shareholders’ responsibility is limited, and in financial terms shareholders are only liable up to the fully paid value of the share certificate. Moreover, when the shares are sold, the responsibility and risk are transferred completely to the new bearer of the shares. Whether (...) this gap in moral and legal perceptions can be judged to be satisfactory in business ethics terms is a moot point and will be partly explored in this case study which seeks to analyse the shareholder’s responsibility towards a firm in which they own shares. The case study company chosen as a vehicle to explore these issues is that of Turner & Newall; a company that subjected its employees, communities and customers to a major health hazard – asbestosis. This paper will use the Turner & Newall archive materials to illustrate the moral hazards that can arise for shareholders. In particular it will examine the ethical responsibilities of shareholders towards those stakeholders who were exposed to the dangers of asbestos. This case is a significant test of the veracity of the legal system of company control, and exposes the ineffectiveness of that system in accountability terms. The case study also deals with specific issues that arose in the asbestos crisis, as well as with more general issues in our present system of corporate governance and shareholder responsibilities. (shrink)

A selection of speeches and essays from the author's second decade as president of Yale University.

"[This book] proposes new foundations for the Bayesian principle of rational action, and goes on to develop a new logic of desirability and probabtility."—Frederic Schick, _Journal of Philosophy_.

This brief paperback is designed for symbolic/formal logic courses. It features the tree method proof system developed by Jeffrey. The new edition contains many more examples and exercises and is reorganized for greater accessibility.

One of our most brilliant evolutionary biologists, Richard Lewontin has also been a leading critic of those--scientists and non-scientists alike--who would misuse the science to which he has contributed so much. In The Triple Helix, Lewontin the scientist and Lewontin the critic come together to provide a concise, accessible account of what his work has taught him about biology and about its relevance to human affairs. In the process, he exposes some of the common and troubling misconceptions that misdirect (...) and stall our understanding of biology and evolution.The central message of this book is that we will never fully understand living things if we continue to think of genes, organisms, and environments as separate entities, each with its distinct role to play in the history and operation of organic processes. Here Lewontin shows that an organism is a unique consequence of both genes and environment, of both internal and external features. Rejecting the notion that genes determine the organism, which then adapts to the environment, he explains that organisms, influenced in their development by their circumstances, in turn create, modify, and choose the environment in which they live.The Triple Helix is vintage Lewontin: brilliant, eloquent, passionate, and deeply critical. But it is neither a manifesto for a radical new methodology nor a brief for a new theory. It is instead a primer on the complexity of biological processes, a reminder to all of us that living things are never as simple as they may seem. (shrink)

Following in the fashion of Stephen Jay Gould and Peter Medawar, one of the world's leading scientists examines how "pure science" is in fact shaped and guided by social and political needs and assumptions.

Richard Jeffrey is beyond dispute one of the most distinguished and influential philosophers working in the field of decision theory and the theory of knowledge. His work is distinctive in showing the interplay of epistemological concerns with probability and utility theory. Not only has he made use of standard probabilistic and decision theoretic tools to clarify concepts of evidential support and informed choice, he has also proposed significant modifications of the standard Bayesian position in order that it provide a (...) better fit with actual human experience. Probability logic is viewed not as a source of judgment but as a framework for explaining the implications of probabilistic judgments and their mutual compatability. This collection of essays spans a period of some 35 years and includes what have become some of the classic works in the literature. There is also one completely new piece, while in many instances Jeffrey includes afterthoughts on the older essays. (shrink)

This book offers a concise survey of basic probability theory from a thoroughly subjective point of view whereby probability is a mode of judgment. Written by one of the greatest figures in the field of probability theory, the book is both a summation and synthesis of a lifetime of wrestling with these problems and issues. After an introduction to basic probability theory, there are chapters on scientific hypothesis-testing, on changing your mind in response to generally uncertain observations, on expectations of (...) the values of random variables, on de Finetti's dissolution of the so-called problem of induction, and on decision theory. (shrink)

In terminally ill individuals who would otherwise end their own lives, active voluntary euthanasia (AVE) can be seen as life-extending rather than life-shortening. Accordingly, AVE supports key pro-euthanasia arguments (appeals to autonomy and beneficence) and meets certain sanctity of life objections. This paper examines the extent to which a terminally ill individual’s wish to donate organs after death contributes to those life-extension arguments. It finds that, in a terminally ill individual who wishes to avoid experiencing life he considers to be (...) not worth living, and who also wishes to donate organs after death, AVE maximizes the likelihood that such donations will occur. The paper finds that the wish to donate organs strengthens the appeals to autonomy and beneficence, and fortifies the meeting of certain sanctity of life objections, achieved by life-extension arguments, and also generates appeals to justice that form novel life-extension arguments in favour of AVE in this context. (shrink)

This study of the interaction of the Aristotelian and Augustinian views of the soul traces the disarray of Latin concepts by 1240, the solutions of Bonaventure ...

The 65th year of a scholar who has devoted 40 years to editing and elucidating Robert Grosseteste provides us with a collection of essays. Not surprisingly, they emanate from colleagues and former students of Richard Dales and reflect his interest, among other concerns, in Grosseteste's aspectus et affectus - range of vision and disposition of mind - those twin peaks with which the 13th century thinker helped to get Christian thought through Aristotle without mutual destruction.

Then, in 1960, Carnap drew up a plan of articles for Studies in Inductive Logic and Probability — a surrogate for Volume II of the ...

This essay examines the ways narratives succeed or fail to provide a life with structure and direction, as exemplified in Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" and George Eliot's "Middlemarch". Whether a narrative can be a moral compass depends on the presence of what Eliot calls "a coherent social faith." The debate between Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine provides a framework for my analysis of the problematic status of such a social faith in the modern world. This analysis in turn sheds (...) light on contemporary work on narrative, community, and ethics by Hans Frei, Stanley Hauerwas, George Lindbeck, and Alasdair MacIntyre. (shrink)

This paper examines the lawsuits brought by state and local government entities against prescription opioid producers and sellers. It examines their potential liability as well as some of the defenses they might raise. The paper also discusses multidistrict litigation and government lawsuits in state court. It concludes that litigation is not the best solution to the opioid crisis.

Robert Grosseteste was one of the principal links between the thought of the twelfth century and the period of scholasticism. Born in or slightly before 1168 and educated at the cathedral school at Lincoln, whose bishop he later became, he was undoubtedly educated according to the curriculum which had been established during the earlier part of the twelfth century. His works show an intimate knowledge of the Timaeus and Calcidius's commentary, of Priscian, and of Martianus Capella's De nuptiis, writings which, (...) although they were sometimes cited, declined drastically in popularity in the thirteenth century. He also shows a better knowledge of the classical authors than one usually encounters in a scholastic theologian, and he knows and uses Eriugena's Periphyseon, although he does not cite it by name. (shrink)