At the heart of the debate between social role theorists and evolutionary psychologists is whether natural selection has designed the minds of the sexes differently to some interesting extent. In this commentary I describe the standards of evidence for both the positive and negative claims. In my opinion, Archer has met the standard for designed sex differences in intrasexual conflict.

'Where Christian apologetics are concerned, is Locke to be endorsed, modified or forsaken?' The diverse answers given to this question by the eighteenth-century divines form the complex subject of this book, which offers the first detailed account of his influence upon the religious thinkers of the eighteenth century. The work is based upon a thorough search of relevant materials, many of them scarce and widely dispersed. But the question is still relevant three centuries after Locke's death, and Professor Sell's objective (...) in this volume is not only historical. From this study of the reception of Locke by the divines there emerge pressing questions about method, reason, faith, revelation and authority which need to be addressed by those who would attempt Christian apologetics as Christianity's third millennium approaches. (shrink)

"More than any other public figure of the eighteenth century, Tom Paine strikes our times like a trumpet blast from a distant world." So begins John Keane's magnificent and award-winning (the Fraunces Tavern Book Award) biography of one of democracy's greatest champions. Among friends and enemies alike, Paine earned a reputation as a notorious pamphleteer, one of the greatest political figures of his day, and the author of three best-selling books, Common Sense, The Rights of Man, and The Age (...) of Reason. Setting his compelling narrative against a vivid social backdrop of prerevolutionary America and the French Revolution, John Keane melds together the public and the shadowy private sides of Paine's life in a remarkable piece of scholarship. This is the definitive biography of a man whose life and work profoundly shaped the modern age. "Provide[s] an engaging perspective on England, America, and France in the tumultuous years of the late eighteenth century." -- Pauline Maier, The New York Times Book Review "It is hard to imagine this magnificent biography ever being superceded.... It is a stylish, splendidly erudite work." -- Terry Eagleton, The Guardian. (shrink)

Literary-communicational theory offers a foundation for two types of literary criticism whose workings are basically ameliorative: mediating criticism, which seeks to bridge the gaps between writers and readers who are differently positioned; and communicational criticism, which offers an ethical assessment of literary writing as communication. The present article illustrates the processes of mediating criticism, by trying to help its own readers understand the religio-historical sitedness of the early-seventeenth-century English Catholic poet, Sir John Beaumont. More extensively, the article pays attention (...) to Beaumont’s use of cultural memory, as an illustration of communicational criticism. In some of his poems, Beaumont was communicationally exclusive, appealing to past history in a defensive spirit, as part of an effort to purify and strengthen a Catholic identity under threat. Elsewhere, he resorted to cultural memory in communicational gestures that were more inclusive, and of three different kinds. Sometimes his Catholicism went on to the offensive, and he arrogated a common memorial ground in a coercive, missionary spirit. Sometimes his inclusivity may strike a present-day reader as disingenuous, in that it involved a self-disguising, self-betraying acquiescence in the royal court’s dominant, non-Catholic discourse. Sometimes the play of cultural memory was altogether more dialogical in spirit: an inclusiveness which was neither aggressive not self-demeaning, but which invited readers to compare notes in the hope of viable co-existence. (shrink)

The publication of John Stuart Mill's Three Essays on Religion in 1873 prompted a remarkable diversity of responses. Anonymous authors in the prominent literary and theological reviews of the day joined philosophers, from empiricists to idealists, and theologians, from Anglicans to Unitarians, in commenting on the Essays . The judgements passed upon Mill himself ranged from 'honest' to 'impudent'. Dr Sell here gathers and introduces a representative selection of the reviews, essays and extracts that met this important work. The (...) writers, although diverse, are at least united in one view - that what Mill had written mattered - and their debate continued for many years - the contributions cover a quarter of a century of controversy. -- Three Essays on Religion is at the heart of the 19th-century challenge to Christianity - the responses gathered here show its enormous impact and influence --useful supplementary reading for a variety of philosophy and theology courses. (shrink)

Based upon a study of Mill's intellectual environment, life, critics contemporary and subsequent, and the relation of his religious writings to the rest of his corpus, Alan Sell presents an invaluable introduction to, and exploration of, Mill's religious thought.

Between 1860-1920 a number of distinguished Scottish theologians grappled with the problems of reconciling a biblical faith with current philosophical and theological trends. Alan Sell has selected eight of these: John Kennedy of Dingwall ; Robert Flint ; John Caird ; A. B. Bruce ; James Iverach ; James Orr ; D. W. Forrest ; and James Denney. The book is not only of historical interest; many of the issues confronted by these scholars are also of contemporary interest. (...) Professor James Torrance comments: 'This study is invaluable in keeping alive the authentic tradition that Scotland has produced great theologians,... but perhaps supremely in the period covered by this eminently readable book.'. (shrink)

Zwar wurde den Nonkonformisten 1689 religiöse Toleranz zugesichert, doch wurden sie von den Universitäten in Oxford und Cambridge ausgeschlossen. Daher rührt die Bedeutung ihrer eigenen Akademien, von denen einige eine allgemeinere Form der höheren Bildung anboten, andere dagegen speziell die Kandidaten für geistliche Ämter unterichteten. Die Mehrheit der hier besprochenen Theologen waren akademische Lehrer.Die nonkormistischen Theologen schrieben über viele Themen. Abgesehen von der Bibel lasen sie kontinentaleuropäische Theologen, Puritaner und auch Locke. Was die Moralphilosophie angeht, waren sie sich bewußt, daß (...) sie ihre Aufmerksamkeit sowohl dem moralischen Gesetz als auch der göttlichen Offenbarung zu widmen hatten, und einige von ihnen bezogen geradezu fanatische Gegenpositionen zu Hobbes. Während manche von Zeit zu Zeit an das moralische Gefühl appellierten, zogen andere einen rationalen Intuitionismus vor. In den Schriften der meisten zeigt sich ein gewisser Eklektizismus. In der Praxis der liberaleren Theologen wurde die Ethik mehr und mehr von der Dogmatik geschieden, obwohl die Autoren Gott nie gänzlich aus ihren Gedanken verbannten. Demgegenüber bietet John Gill, Puritaner in Gedanken wie in der Methode, ein konservatives Gegenbeispiel und illustriert die Verzögerung auf intellektuellem Gebiet.Die Beiträge zur Moralphilosophie von Isaac Watts, Henry Grove, John Taylor, Thomas Amory, Samuel Bourn III, Richard Price und Thomas Belsham werden vorgestellt, und die Positionen dieser Autoren, ebenso wie die Position von Joseph Priestley, zur Freiheit - Freiheit und Notwendigkeit, Freiheit des Gewissens und Freiheit des Gottesdienstes - werden untersucht.Themen, die für eine weitere Diskussion fruchtbar wären, werden vorgestellt. Außerdem werden abschließend einige kurze Betrachtungen zu den Versuchen einiger heutiger Philosophen angestellt, den Graben zwischen Moralphilosophie und Theologie, der seit dem achtzehnten Jahrhundert immer größer wird, zu schließen..Zwar wurde den Nonkonformisten 1689 religiöse Toleranz zugesichert, doch wurden sie von den Universitäten in Oxford und Cambridge ausgeschlossen. Daher rührt die Bedeutung ihrer eigenen Akademien, von denen einige eine allgemeinere Form der höheren Bildung anboten, andere dagegen speziell die Kandidaten für geistliche Ämter unterichteten. Die Mehrheit der hier besprochenen Theologen waren akademische Lehrer.Die nonkormistischen Theologen schrieben über viele Themen. Abgesehen von der Bibel lasen sie kontinentaleuropäische Theologen, Puritaner und auch Locke. Was die Moralphilosophie angeht, waren sie sich bewußt, daß sie ihre Aufmerksamkeit sowohl dem moralischen Gesetz als auch der göttlichen Offenbarung zu widmen hatten, und einige von ihnen bezogen geradezu fanatische Gegenpositionen zu Hobbes. Während manche von Zeit zu Zeit an das moralische Gefühl appellierten, zogen andere einen rationalen Intuitionismus vor. In den Schriften der meisten zeigt sich ein gewisser Eklektizismus. In der Praxis der liberaleren Theologen wurde die Ethik mehr und mehr von der Dogmatik geschieden, obwohl die Autoren Gott nie gänzlich aus ihren Gedanken verbannten. Demgegenüber bietet John Gill, Puritaner in Gedanken wie in der Methode, ein konservatives Gegenbeispiel und illustriert die Verzögerung auf intellektuellem Gebiet.Die Beiträge zur Moralphilosophie von Isaac Watts, Henry Grove, John Taylor, Thomas Amory, Samuel Bourn III, Richard Price und Thomas Belsham werden vorgestellt, und die Positionen dieser Autoren, ebenso wie die Position von Joseph Priestley, zur Freiheit - Freiheit und Notwendigkeit, Freiheit des Gewissens und Freiheit des Gottesdienstes - werden untersucht.Themen, die für eine weitere Diskussion fruchtbar wären, werden vorgestellt. Außerdem werden abschließend einige kurze Betrachtungen zu den Versuchen einiger heutiger Philosophen angestellt, den Graben zwischen Moralphilosophie und Theologie, der seit dem achtzehnten Jahrhundert immer größer wird, zu schließen. (shrink)

The Second Vatican Council called for a fundamental renewal of Catholic theological ethics. That project, however, has not been realized primarily because of the strong defence of a normative, act-centred understanding of morality defended by Pope Paul VI and his successor, Pope John Paul II. Reframing Theological Ethics aims to overcome that impasse by arguing for a change in the method of ethical reasoning, emphasizing the replacement of the norm of natural law with that of the human person, integrally (...) and adequately considered, and elaborating an innovative theory of virtue. The paradigm of complementary virtues presented in this book is developed for the first time and allows the ethicist to flesh out the meaning and contours of the ends or goals of ethical living and decision-making. The study concludes with suggestions about how this approach may converge with the insights of normative ethics and achieve the renewal called for fifty years ago. (shrink)

When I was an undergraduate in Oxford, we were taught economics almost as though it were a natural science. The subject matter of economics might be different from physics, but only in the way that the subject matter of chemistry or biology is different from physics. The actual results were presented to us as if they were scientific theories. So when we learned that savings equals investment, it was taught in the same tone of voice as one teaches that force (...) equals mass times acceleration. And we learned that rational entrepreneurs sell where marginal cost equals marginal revenue in the way that we once learned that bodies attract in a way that is directly proportional to the product of their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. At no point was it ever suggested that the reality described by economic theory was dependent on human beliefs and other attitudes in a way that was totally unlike the reality described by physics or chemistry. Some years ago, when I published The Construction of Social Reality, I was aware that it had implications for the ontology of economics, but I was not aware that there had already been an important revival of the tradition of institutional economics. It would be an understatement to say that I welcome this interest in institutions; I enthusiastically support it. But I think that in the institutional literature there is still an unclarity about what exactly an institution is. What is the ontology, the mode of existence, of institutional reality? This article tries to add to this discussion. Economics as a subject matter, unlike physics or chemistry, is largely concerned with institutional facts. Facts about money and interest rates, exchange and employment, corporations and the balance of payments, form the very heart of the subject of economics. When Lionel Robbins, in a classic work, tells us that “Economics is a study of the disposal of scarce commodities,”2 he takes for granted a huge invisible institutional.... (shrink)

The meaning of sustainability is the subject of intense debate among environmental and resource economists. Perhaps no other issue separates more clearly the traditional economic view from the views of most natural scientists. The debate currently focuses on the substitutability between the economy and the environment or between “natural capital” and “manufactured capital”—a debate captured in terms of weak versus strong sustainability. In this article, we examine the various interpretations of these concepts. We conclude that natural science and economic perspectives (...) on sustainability are inconsistent. The market-based Hartwick-Solow “weak sustainability” approach is far removed from both the ecosystem-based “Holling sustainability” and the “strong sustainability” approach of Daly and others. Each of these sustainability criteria implies a specific valuation approach, and thus an ethical position, to support monetary indicators of sustainability such as a green or sustainable Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The conflict between “weak sustainability” and “strong sustainability” is more evident in the context of centralized than decentralized decision making. In particular, firms selling “services” instead of material goods and regarding the latter as “capital” leads to decisions more or less consistent with either type of sustainability. Finally, we discuss the implications of global sustainability for such open systems as regions and countries. Open systems have not been dealt with systematically for any of the sustainability criteria. (shrink)

In a series of important papers, G.A. Cohen has developed a forceful argument for the claim that workers are rendered unfree by capitalist institutions. His argument poses a powerful challenge to those who think that capitalist institutions best promote freedom. Yet, formidable as it is, Cohen's argument can be shown to be flawed at several crucial points. It is not one argument, but three at least, and one of the goals of my criticism of Cohen on this question is to (...) distinguish and assess the various separate lines of reasoning that together make up his case for the unfreedom under capitalism of workers as a class. Cohen argues of workers that they are rendered unfree by the institution of private property on which the capitalist system depends, that they suffer a form of collective unfreedom under capitalism, and that they are forced to sell their labor power under capitalism. (shrink)

Reconnection between producers and consumers is often presented as an integral part of the local food narrative. However, questions can arise as to whether local food producers and their food purchasers align in mindset and the value proposition that underpins their involvement. This paper draws on interview data collected from producers and consumers participating in direct-sell meat operations to explore so-called value propositions between these two actors in local food initiatives in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. We suggest that because producers and (...) consumers value their participation and associated ‘reconnection’ for different reasons and experience practical limitations in satisfying diverse expectations, the ‘reconnection’ metaphor is complex and contingent—especially at the level of the individual. The findings suggest that new roles, realities and beliefs for each party in regard to marketing, customer relations, distribution, and convenience might predispose participants to be in favor of other arrangements if they became more readily available and were capable of guaranteeing both profitability for the producer and healthy foods for the consumer. (shrink)

Ethics and Finance: An Introduction provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the ethical issues raised by modern finance. Drawing carefully on ethical theory and with frequent use of case studies, it includes an analysis of the global financial system and its regulation and control, as well as a detailed analysis of the financial crisis. Chapters on specific areas of finance practice cover all the major financial scandals of recent times, from mis-selling to market manipulation and from insider trading to (...) bankers' bonuses, as well as much more positive developments. From micro finance to derivatives trading, the book provides a careful and balanced treatment designed to help finance students and practitioners approach this sensitive topic in a thoughtful and constructive way. No prior knowledge of ethics or finance is required, and the book will be invaluable to students, finance teachers, practitioners and regulators. (shrink)

In their review essay (published in this issue), Looren de Jong and Schouten take my 2003 book to task for (among other things) neglecting to keep up with the latest developments in my favorite scientific case study (memory consolidation). They claim that these developments have been guided by psychological theorizing and have replaced neurobiology's traditional 'static' view of consolidation with a 'dynamic' alternative. This shows that my 'essential but entirely heuristic' treatment of higher-level cognitive theorizing is a mistaken view of (...) actual scientific practice. In response I contend that, on the contrary, a closer look at the memory reconsolidation following reactivation experiments and data suggests (1) a less revolutionary judgment about the proposed alternative, and (2) a now-complete reliance on ruthlessly reductive experimental methods from cellular and molecular neuroscience. These conclusions save the heuristic status I propose for higher-level investigations of behavior and brain. I close with a brief comment on their further charge that I 'sell out' philosophy of science to factual developments in science itself. (shrink)

This paper explores research in educational psychology and learning theory in a search for insights to enhance business ethics training Useful educational principles uncovered are then applied to the development of an ethics training initiative for sales professionals. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research to help enrich business ethics training.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.3 (2001) 225-244 [Access article in PDF] Sophistic Travel: Inheriting the Simulacrum Through Plato's "The Sophist" John Muckelbauer Was it not Plato himself who pointed out the direction for the reversal of Platonism? ------Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense 1. Developing an itinerary: guides and lineages A single question marks our departure, a question that, while apparently straightforward, has assumed so many shapes and disguises (...) that it would not be unjust to claim it has infected all of Western history. In its current manifestation, however, we will take our cue from Plato in phrasing it thus: What is a Sophist? When Plato first formulated the question in these terms, he well understood that its self-evident simplicity could be deceptive and that its effects might proliferate uncontrollably. As Jacques Derrida comments, "The question of what the Sophists really were is an enormous question" (Olson 17). In Plato's case, attempting to "hunt down" the Sophist led from a disturbing journey through the world of images to an unsettling encounter with the existence of nonbeing.Of course, the issue of Plato's distaste for sophistry is well-covered ground, so well-covered, in fact, that nearly all contemporary rhetorical scholarship that attempts to assert the value of sophistic rhetoric does so by reproducing an antagonism between sophistry and Platonism (see, e.g., Poulokos, Jarratt, Vickers). 1 A particularly interesting example, simply because it is so persistently skeptical of most conventional assumptions about sophistry, is G. B. Kerford's The Sophistic Movement. It is an excellent and careful treatment of sophistry in which he insists on the importance of approaching the Sophists without prior assumptions as to their relationship to the history of thought or politics--something that he shows has been far too prevalent in previous appropriations. Nevertheless, in his treatment of Plato's dialogue the Sophist, he writes, "It is clear that [Plato's] characterizations [End Page 225] in the Sophist constitute an outright condemnation" (5). Given the wealth of readings of different dialogues that express sentiments similar to Kerford's, the antagonistic structure of Platonic-Sophistic relations is apparently quite certain; it is something we know.It is also true that as a result of the many forays across the terrain of this antagonism, we know a great many other things about the relationship between Plato and sophistry. We know, for instance, that Plato was an idealist who abhorred the Sophist's interest in practical discursive wisdom. We know, as well, that Plato was a reactionary aristocrat who resented the Sophists for selling speeches and encouraging democracy. Without question, the many trips across this oppositional territory have been important expeditions for both Philosophy and Rhetoric, providing each discourse with a sense of its own distinct identity. 2 At very least, the mutual suspicion that often characterizes contemporary relations between these two disciplines is symptomatic of our inheritance of this Platonic mantra.It is, of course, quite difficult to avoid repeating this mantra of opposition between Philosophy and Rhetoric. Any attempt to champion one of the terms--even the supposedly underprivileged one, Rhetoric--overtly reproduces this opposition. But so too do most efforts to reduce one term to the other (i.e., claims stating that Philosophy is inevitably rhetorical) insofar as they must begin with the assumption that they know what rhetoric is; in other words, they must begin with what may schematically be characterized as a philosophical relation to rhetoric and to philosophy. Said differently, the two common disciplinary strategies that generate the opposition between rhetoric and philosophy, (1) championing the Sophists over Plato and (2) claiming that Plato is rhetorical, both effectively privilege the very notion of philosophy that they are attempting to discredit, i.e., one that is based on the notion of a preexistent, recognizable, and knowable identity, a fundamental truth.Given the renewed scholarly interest in the Sophists as early rhetoricians, it is curious that very few and very brief rhetorical engagements exist with the Platonic dialogue the Sophist--largely, one suspects, either because everyone already "knows" that it contains yet another... (shrink)

This article examines the notorious mid-nineteenth-century American trial of Amelia Norman, who was acquitted - very much against the weight of the evidence - of attempting to kill the man who seduced her. In particular, we explore the role in the trial and its aftermath of the affective energies and cultural expectations set in motion by best-selling American sentimental novels like Hannah Foster's "The Coquette" and Susanna Rowson's "Charlotte Temple." In Norman's case, once newspapers, defense lawyers, and reformers such as (...) Lydia Maria Child recast the defendant as a sentimental heroine, the trial became about seduction, not attempted murder. The sentimental emplotment of Norman's life marshaled a powerful set of emotional responses and moral judgments on her behalf. For example, Norman claimed insanity. And since sentimental heroines are supposed to go mad when they are seduced and abandoned, the jury was prepared to interpret her symptoms according to her lawyers' very strategy for establishing her innocence. Ultimately, however, Norman embodied the plight of the sentimental heroine at the same time that she contested her fictional counterpart's fate. In this way, her trial spectacularized the disparity which the sentimental novel conjures up and displaces but never resolves. Going further, the common law theory of coverture, which severely limited the legal personhood of married women, has received a great deal of scholarly attention. Cases like Norman's remind us that unmarried women were also subject to draconian constraints on their legal personhood. The tort of seduction is a key example. Legal historians trace the development of the seduction tort from its common-law origins, when men's property interest in women's bodies formed the basis of the cause of action, to 1851, when Field Code authors (including Norman's lawyer, David Graham) persuaded several states to grant seduced women standing to bring their own cause of action. Consequently, courts were forced to reckon with the seduced woman as a moral agent capable of consenting to sex. As trials like Norman's demonstrate, sentimental novels helped lay the groundwork for this shift in the law by elucidating a subjectivity for the seduced woman. Yet the doctrinal implications of Norman's precedent-setting trial had a second, more ambiguous strain. Other women facing similar charges used the same legal strategy to gain acquittals in a substantial number of cases. Indeed, Norman's sentimental strategy proved so powerful that men on trial for killing their wives' seducers appropriated it to bring their own stories before juries and to reinforce male sexual norms through the so-called honor defense. In the end, then, Norman's trial fostered legal reform, but it also suggested - as Lydia Maria Child's fictionalization of the case in "Rosenglory" recognized - that only sustained and multifaceted efforts to change cultural as well as legal norms could improve the sexual status of women. In addition to its legal, literary, and historical insights that it provides, we also intend this article to contribute to debates on the nature of scholarship in law and literature. Scholars such as Wai Chee Dimock have argued for a focus on the historical and historically shifting relations between law and literature - a view we endorse. Where we differ from Dimock is in our diversion of attention away from abstract ideas of law laid out by treatise writers and philosophers in favor of law experienced and manipulated by individuals. So, too, we are interested less in representations of concepts such as justice in legal and literary texts than we are in the ways in which literature (broadly conceived) can create provisional and fragile opportunities for concrete instantiations of justice and even generate legal change (for good or ill). We would argue that to the extent legal change motivates rather than simply mirrors cultural change, it needs literature to be effective. This project, then, responds to Gregg Crane's call for attention to the complex and slippery historical interactions of law and literature that shape and are shaped by an ever changing cultural idiom of justice. The extended story of Amelia Norman, in short, not only constitutes a case study in the inescapable interaction between the overlapping and interdependent discourses of law and literature, but also reveals the literary and legal consequences of that interaction. (shrink)

Easy to understand philosophy papers in all areas. Table of contents: Three Short Philosophy Papers on Human Freedom The Paradox of Religions Institutions Different Perspectives on Religious Belief: O’Reilly v. Dawkins. v. James v. Clifford Schopenhauer on Suicide Schopenhauer’s Fractal Conception of Reality Theodore Roszak’s Views on Bicameral Consciousness Philosophy Exam Questions and Answers Locke, Aristotle and Kant on Virtue Logic Lecture for Erika Kant’s Ethics Van Cleve on Epistemic Circularity Plato’s Theory of Forms Can we trust our senses? Yes (...) we can Descartes on What He Believes Himself to Be The Role of Values in Science Modern Science Kant’s Moral Philosophy Plato’s Republic as Pol Potist Bureaucracy Schopenhauer on Human Suffering Bertrand Russell on the Value of Philosophy The Philosophical Value of Uncertainty Logic Homework: Theorems and Models Searle vs. Turing on the Imitation Game Hume, Frankfurt, and Holbach on Personal Freedom Manifesto of the University of Wisconsin, Madison Secular Society Michael’s Analysis of the Limits of Civil Protections Bentham and Mill on Different Types of Pleasure Set Theory Homework Aristotle on Virtue Nagel On the Hard Problem Wittgenstein on Language and Thought Camus and Schopenhauer on the Meaning of Life Camus’ Hero as Rebel without a Cause My Little Finger: Camus’ Absurdism Illustrated Are Late-term Abortions Ethical? Does Mathematics Assume the Truth of Platonism? The Self-defeating Nature of Utilitarianism and Consequentialism Generally What is The Good Life? Bentham and Mill regarding types of pleasures Kant’s Moral Philosophy Five Short Papers on Mind-body Dualism Tracy Latimer’s Father had the Right to Kill Her: Towards a doctrine of generalized self-defense Arguments Concerning God and Morality Goldman, Rousseau and von Hayek on the Ideal State J.S Mill on Liberty and Personal Freedom A Kantian Analysis of a Borderline Date-rape Situation Living Well as Flourishing: Aristotle’s Conception of the Good Life Three Essays on Medical Ethics: Answers to Exam Questions on Elective Amputation, Vaccination, and Informed Consent Hobbes, Marx, Rousseau, Nietzsche: Their Central Themes De Tocqueville on Egoism Mill vs. Hobbes on Liberty Exam-Essays on the Moral Systems of Mill, Bentham, and Kant Kant’s Moral System Aristotle on Virtue Plato’s Cave Allegory An Ethical Quandary Superorganisms The Tuskegee Experiment A Rawlsian Analysis Why Moore’s Proof of an External World Fails A Defense of Nagel’s Argument Against Materialism A Utilitarian Analysis of a Case of Theft The Paradox of the Self-aware Wretch: An Analysis of Pascal’s Moral Philosophy Jean-Paul Sartre: Decline and Fall of a Marxist Sell-out A One Page Proof of Plato’s Theory of Forms Plato’s Republic as Pol Potist Bureaucracy The problem of the one and the many Four Short Essays on Truth and Knowledge What is ‘the Good Life?’ The Ontological Argument Different Political Philosophies: Plato, Locke, Madison, Rousseau, Hayek, and Mill on the State What do I know with certainty? Skepticism about skepticism Neuroscience and Freewill Operant Conditioning What makes us special? Are Late-term Abortions Ethical? No Two Papers on Epistemology: Gettier and Bostrom Examination Nietzsche on Punishment God’s Foreknowledge and Moral Responsibility . (shrink)

There is a fine balance between civil liberties and protection of the public’s health.Legislators, especially those in the western United States, are concerned about selling the Model State Act because of the loss of civil liberties. State constitutions give governors broad powers, such as declaring martial law and giving public health leaders the authority to act. State laws should consider issues such as property rights; taking of businesses and supplies; quarantine and isolation; due process; coordination among states, counties and cities; (...) communication systems; conscription of doctors and nurses; and compensation. When two mock emergency response drills were held in New Mexico, concerns arose regarding opening records associated with dams, national laboratories, waste repositories, and three air force bases. (shrink)

The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics is a recent addition to anthologies in the field, joining The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics, and The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics. Edited by Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, the book boasts more than 30 contributors, many of them philosophers, but also including sociologists, scientists, theologians, lawyers, psychologists, and animal advocates. The editors were intentionally multidisciplinary in their approach, noting that “there is currently no book (...) series that is a focus for multidisciplinary research in the field,” and calling attention to the need not only for philosophical inquiry into what we owe animals, but also into the “social, legal, cultural, religious and political” influences that “legitimate animal abuse” (p. viii).The book is divided up into four sections: “The Ethics of Control,” “The Ethics of Captivity,” “The Ethics of Killing,” and “The Ethics of Causing Suffering.” Each of these sections includes an editorial introduction and multiple entries spanning diverse issues, including animal research, animal agriculture, hunting, fishing, zoos, the role of animals in religion, the role of language in structuring thought about nonhuman animals, and others. Similarly, the chapters span issues affecting many species, including farmed animals, fish, deer, elephants, whales and dolphins, rodents, companion animals (e.g., dogs and cats), and others.While the book is billed as a “practical” handbook of animal ethics, it does wade into some conceptual territory, tackling such issues as the ethical permissibility of confining and controlling animals, the question of whether (painless) death harms nonhuman animals, and the comparative wrongness of killing humans and nonhuman animals. This said, it largely stays away from more detailed discussion of normative ethical theory and the moral standing of nonhuman animals, focusing instead on the specific ways that humans treat nonhuman animals. In focusing more on practical than theoretical ethics, the Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics both complements and differentiates itself from some other anthologies in the field.The book has several strengths to recommend it, the first being the logic of its organization. The ethically problematic aspects of humans’ treatment of nonhuman animals frequently map onto one or more of the categories of causing suffering, killing, and confining. The organization of chapters under these section headings helps to provide a rational structure to the text, as well as an easy way for the reader to navigate which sections they would like to tackle first (although there is some overlap between sections). With this, the explicit and sustained focus on the ethics of control (section 1) is a welcome and differentiating feature of the text. Much prior work in animal ethics has addressed questions of harming and killing animals, but the ethical permissibility of control per se has received comparatively lesser attention.The multidisciplinary nature of the book is also a selling point. In any anthology on animal ethics, the reader can expect entries from academic philosophers, but the book's inclusion of empirical scientific reviews, sociological and legal analyses, and work in discourse analysis are strengths. One danger in focusing exclusively on what we ought to think and do is that it ignores the influences on how we actually think and act. Many of the book's entries address these influences and thus round out the normative analysis.The middle two sections of the book seem most successful to this reviewer. The section on the ethics of killing contains two well-argued conceptual chapters, coupled with practical analyses of fishing, deer hunting, and religious perspectives on killing nonhuman animals. While animal research and animal agriculture are not directly addressed in this section, the conceptual arguments can be applied to the killing of nonhuman animals in these contexts. The section on the ethics of captivity is not as conceptually strong but contains excellent empirical chapters on the welfare of elephants, whales, and dolphins in captivity. Prior work in normative ethics has established how confinement can be harmful to nonhuman animals by directly causing suffering or depriving them of opportunities for satisfaction (see, e.g., DeGrazia, 2002). However, it is important to complement such theoretical frameworks with substantiation of how captivity actually is harmful to nonhuman animals in virtue of the interests they have and how captivity infringes upon such interests. These chapters argue that captivity is fundamentally (and not conditionally) incompatible with the welfare of elephants, whales, and dolphins.If I have one criticism of the book, it is that it could be stronger on certain conceptual issues. Acknowledging its practical and not theoretical focus, it is nonetheless true that if controlling, confining, killing, and causing suffering to nonhuman animals is wrong, then it is important to say something about why it is wrong—even if that explanation amounts to a short synopsis of more theoretical work done elsewhere. While the question of killing is addressed well, the section on the ethics of causing suffering does not address directly why (or under what conditions) causing suffering is wrong. The chapters in this section are worthwhile reading and review practices causing animal suffering in a variety of contexts. Nonetheless, some additional conceptual front matter would have strengthened the section overall.From a conceptual standpoint, the sections on the ethics of control and captivity seem to hang together. Confinement is a form of control and might be argued against on the grounds that it deprives nonhuman animals of opportunities for satisfaction, directly causes physical injury, or causes psychological distress, anxiety, or boredom. These kinds of arguments fit into interest-based accounts of animal welfare, which in turn can be subsumed under a principle of nonmaleficence: We should not cause harm to animals under some specified set of conditions; confinement harms animals in ways x, y, or z; therefore, we should not confine animals in this way.While such interest-based arguments do make an appearance in the text, several of the book's authors also elaborate an autonomy-based argument against control and confinement: Nonhuman animals have their own kind of autonomy, and just as infringing upon the autonomy of paradigmatic persons is wrong, infringing upon nonhuman animals’ autonomy is also wrong. The problem with this argument is that different kinds of autonomy are likely to be at stake. The wrongness of infringing upon paradigmatic persons’ autonomy is often explained by the facts that we are self-conscious, capable of abstract thought (including language use), and capable of intentionally choosing the kind of life that we want to live (e.g., relating to long-term projects or schemes of personal ethics). It could be argued that because nonhuman animals are not capable of exercising this kind of autonomy, they therefore cannot be harmed by its infringement.Some of the book's authors chip away at this presumption, noting (inter alia) that nonhuman animals have desires to move around and do things that are thwarted by confinement or control, that these desires constitute a form of agency, and that (following previous scholarship) nonhuman animals possess some forms of self-awareness. Specifically, the chapters from Valéry Giroux and Carl Saucier-Bouffard, Lori Gruen, and Carlos Naconecy consider such arguments. Naconecy draws upon David DeGrazia's (2009) analysis of animal self-awareness in making his argument. Though the issue deserves more treatment than I can give it here, it seems that nonhuman animals’ autonomy and self-awareness, even if granted, are of a different sort than that possessed by paradigmatic persons. Specifically, (most) nonhuman animals cannot feel wronged by having their preferences overridden because they are not the kinds of beings who are capable of abstractly considering themselves as autonomous and worthy of self-direction. They may desire things, and thwarting these desires might sometimes harm them, but that is a different kind of argument.Infringing upon nonhuman animals’ (more limited kind of) autonomy might nonetheless be wrong, but if different sorts of autonomy are at stake, then moral arguments relating to paradigmatic persons cannot be directly transposed to nonhuman animals. Some additional argument(s) must be supplied, but (on my reading) the book's contributors stop short of this. Nonetheless, as stated above, the ethics of control and questions of nonhuman animals’ autonomy are not as well trod as other issues in animal ethics. Despite my taking issue with some of the details, the discussions contained in the book's first two sections are worthy reading and help to advance the field.Overall, the book's chapters are well written and cogently argued, and given its breadth, different readers will find different things to value in it. The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics is a welcome addition to the literature. (shrink)

In June 2018 the Supreme Court of the United States decided the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, in which baker Jack Phillips refused to provide a cake for a same-sex wedding. The Court decided the case on fairly narrow grounds; in particular, it set aside the question of whether Phillips illegally discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation by refusing to sell the same cake to a gay couple that he would sell to a heterosexual couple. Concurring opinions by Justices Kagan (...) and Gorsuch do address that question, however, and in this paper I explore the debate between them. By distinguishing between design-based and use-based refusals of service and then arguing that some use-based refusals are tantamount to discrimination on the basis of protected traits, I argue that Jack Phillips did indeed discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. I also argue that another baker, who refused to create a “Leviticus 18:22 ‘Homosexuality is a detestable sin’ ” cake, did not discriminate on the basis of religion. I thus side with Justice Kagan against Justice Gorsuch on the question of whether the Colorado commission treated the two bakers inconsistently. (shrink)

There is a fine balance between civil liberties and protection of the public’s health.Legislators, especially those in the western United States, are concerned about selling the Model State Act because of the loss of civil liberties. State constitutions give governors broad powers, such as declaring martial law and giving public health leaders the authority to act. State laws should consider issues such as property rights; taking of businesses and supplies; quarantine and isolation; due process; coordination among states, counties and cities; (...) communication systems; conscription of doctors and nurses; and compensation. When two mock emergency response drills were held in New Mexico, concerns arose regarding opening records associated with dams, national laboratories, waste repositories, and three air force bases. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Tackling AdversityJohn HermanekAs a very active and athletic 21–year–old I was involved in an accident that would change my life forever, but not necessarily for the worse. I was hit by a drunk driver in a pick–up truck while riding my motorcycle. Ironically, I was on my way to sell the motorcycle but never made it that far. I suffered a broken hand, femur, multiple lacerations and the most (...) severe injury of them all, the loss of my right leg just below the knee. I kept the fact that I owned a motorcycle from my parents by storing it at a friend’s house so I knew the news of my injury would be twice as surreal to them. I remember telling the ER nurse that I needed to be the one that called them to tell them what happened. She said she could not do that, but I told her that she did not know my mother and I was able to talk her into accommodating me.It was the summer between my junior and senior year of college and I had had just made Indiana University’s football team as a walk–on linebacker (without having played HS football) so life was good and there was pretty much nothing holding me back or anything I felt I could not do.In an instant the life I once knew would never be the same and I truly wanted to die but little did I know that life would get better, not worse. After keeping my lower leg attached with surgical tape for a week, the inevitable could not be avoided. It was devastating news. At first I refused to sign any papers authorizing the amputation surgery but I was told if I did not, I would surely die as gangrene had set in. I remember scribbling my signature and then throwing the pen—a doctor’s dream I’m sure but I have to believe they’ve seen it all before. I was in traction for the first six weeks and had lost 60 pounds. Two weeks after being removed from traction I was able to get upright but was extremely weak. The emaciated and ghostly white image of me was tough to look at in the mirror, especially with half my right leg missing. That really took some getting used to. At that point, it was like a bad dream and I wasn’t sure what to make of all of it but one thing for certain was that reality had sunk in. Surprisingly, it was at that point that I quit feeling sorry for myself and instantly knew what had to be done.I knew I needed help and I could not do it alone so with the help of my family and friends, I started to put goals in place for myself. First on the list was to gain some weight back so I resumed working out (mostly weightlifting) and turned to my mother’s [End Page 192] great cooking. There were some highs and lows during that process particularly with my first prosthetist (also an amputee) who told me my days of any type of sports activities “were over.” That was pretty devastating news to me but it didn’t take me long to realize he was only telling me things that he himself was never able to accomplish as an amputee and that just created more of an incentive for me because I knew deep down it was possible because I already had the drive and determination. Just under a year later I was back to a regular exercise program, my “pre–accident” weight and feeling healthy and in shape again.I have since become more appreciative of what I have. I used to box in college and in 1991, entered the Chicago Golden Gloves Super heavyweight (senior novice) division. Senior novice means you’ve had five or less fights at that time and that you were at least 21. I lost my first fight in 1991 on a controversial decision and came back in 1992 and had three fights. Just shy of 35 years old, my first opponent... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cause, Fault, NormJohn Z. Sadler (bio)Keywordscriminality, mental disorder, responsibilityThanks to the commentators for their fine work. In my brief comments I cannot address all that is raised, but can touch upon everyone’s discussion briefly.In her commentary, Gwen Adshead reflects on her experience as a forensic psychiatrist and therapist for violent offenders. Although Adshead discusses a number of important points, I found her insight into why some vices find their (...) way into psychiatric classification particularly compelling and thought provoking. I will here interpret these in my own terms. Dr. Adshead implies that a (perhaps) assumed folk psychology underlies our motivation to classify (as disorder) some, but not all vices. The contribution of this folk psychology does not depend on particular details, but rather, the folk psychology concerns the degree to which the vice–actor’s actions are amenable to explanation, or are transparently understandable or interpretable. We (think we) understand why prostitutes sell themselves and why tax evaders cheat; their folk psychologies are variously constituted by moralistic constructs like desperation, oppression, licentiousness, greed, opportunism, and indignation. In contrast, some offenses step outside our empathic realm: the pedophile, or the serial killer, or even the persistently acting-out child provoke onlookers to wonder, “There has to be something wrong with a person who does that!” “Loud” symptoms in themselves do not qualify; seemingly incomprehensible loud symptoms fit better into the “sick” category. Indeed, in a recent translation of Foucault’s lectures at the College de France, Foucault describes the “monster” as combining “the impossible and the forbidden.” (Foucault 1999, 56) When confronted with the impossible and forbidden, the lust for classification is irresistible.Adshead’s wonderment about the use of “really” to question the explanation of wrongful conduct (what’s “really” going on) leads naturally to Michael First’s discussion. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-IV really tries to make a firm distinction between vice and mental disorder, and First describes the DSM approach.Drawing on his experience as the DSM-IV Text Editor, Dr. First provides a particularly lucid presentation of the distinction between what I call “vice” and mental disorder. He supplies vivid examples to illustrate his points. The DSM key for distinguishing disorder from vice is whether “the deviance or conflict is a symptom of a dysfunction in the individual.” As other commentators point out later, First notes that the “vice action” (a term coined by Morse in his own commentary following) may disguise a number of possible explanations: the car thief may simply be seeking thrills and profit, or may be motivated by a delusion—leading to alternative explanations for the behavior. Sometimes the explanation for vice actions are transparent—as in the red Mustang example, but other times they are not so clear. The DSM approach requires the clinician to [End Page 51] make an explanatory claim in order to distinguish the appearance of vice versus the appearance of disorder. I think everyone would agree that an explanation of the phenomenon is required in distinguishing vice from disorder, so that much can be accepted.In my view, the problems with the DSM account are three: (1) The requirement for an internal psychological dysfunction is an easy claim to make for virtually any vice condition. The prostitute’s vice may be attributable to childhood trauma, deviant social learning, pathological desire to sexually control others, and so on. The tax evader may in turn have a pathological resentment of authority combined with a desperate financial situation and a pathological denial and avoidance of paying taxes. Every misbehavior has its psychology, and if we proclaim this psychology is abnormal or deviant, then we have an “internal dysfunction.” Indeed, it is easy to proclaim a psychology as abnormal if it is less than an ideal response to circumstances, or even an adequate response to circumstances; after all, not everyone who is exposed to sexual trauma becomes a prostitute nor does every financially desperate individual cheat on taxes. The DSM’s overinclusiveness on this account defaults to an arbitrariness about what counts as a legitimate (or not) internal dysfunction. Here there will be great argument.(2) First (and later, Wells) admits there... (shrink)

This work contains, perhaps, a larger amount of vigorous orthodoxy than can elsewhere be found in so small a compass. It is a plea for a laissez-faire policy, and is full of wisdom of a kind that is needed, in view of the drift of opinions toward “stateism.” Its effect on public policy will be like that of an anchor planted on a shoal on one side of a channel in order to warp a vessel off from an opposite shoal. (...) Yet in one way it brings economics and politics into close connection; it discusses government as an economic function, a process of creating and selling the product security. Though opposing governmental interference in industry, it emphasizes the action of economic law upon government. (shrink)

In 2012, baker Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop refused to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, citing religious beliefs. Colorado Public Accommodations law prohibits business owners from denying the “full and equal enjoyment” of their services on the basis of sexual orientation, and Phillips refused to sell the couple the very same items he would sell to a heterosexual couple. But Phillips, who fashions himself as a “cake artist,” argues that applying the law here would interfere with his (...) free-speech rights. Moreover, he argues that he is not actually discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation but on the basis of a particular understanding of marriage; he is happy to sell Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people a wide range of other items. In this chapter, I evaluate both arguments. In the postscript, I briefly explain the US Supreme Court's June 2018 ruling on the case. (shrink)

First published in 1994, this scholarly edition of a major Renaissance text is edited and introduced by John Henry Jones, a leading expert on the Faust legend. The English translation of the best-selling German Faust Book of 1587 has long been known as Marlowe's principal source for Dr Faustus. The earliest surviving edition of this translation, published in 1592, is here presented complete, in modern spelling and with a line register for reference, together with full details of all alterations (...) and omissions from the German source. Textual comparisons with Doctor Faustus and with later editions of the English Faust Book provide crucial information in the development of the Faust theme in England and Germany. In an introduction making full use of hitherto unpublished research, Dr Jones offers new arguments both on the dating of Marlowe's play, and on the personal history and probable identity of the original translator of the German Faust Book, known only as 'P. F. Gent'. (shrink)

This article focuses on the intimate relationship between German aesthetic theory, particularly the philosophies of Kant and Schiller, and the pragmatic tradition of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I argue that many aspects of Kantian aesthetic theory – his development of reflective judgement, genius, and common sense – are reflected in the thinking of C. S. Peirce. I conclude, however, that such a comparison risks selling short the way that German idealism influenced American thinkers and instead suggest that it (...) is more fruitful to concentrate on ‘aesthetic experience’. I argue that attending to the aesthetic dimensions of experience might re-orient contemporary approaches to pragmatism that continue to focus on the way that pragmatism might intervene in debates in epistemology and philosophy of language. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 525 "an awareness of its perfection in perfect sell-identity" stems from his own theological bias: if God is to be connected with the world, His thinking cannot be merely a thinking about itself; His mind must also contain the Ideas of the sensible world. The inconsistency is quite apparent in the concluding paragraph of the introductory chapter three on "SellKnowledge ": If we study chapters seven and (...) nine of Book Lambda against the background of these texts on the meaning of friendship, it becomes apparent that a fortiori God's thinking must concern his own being and that "the thinking of thinking" is the supreme form of self-knowledge. Far from being an objectless returning to oneself, this knowledge concerns the very being of the First Principle. It would also seem to fot|ow that iust as knowing a friend is a certain degree of self-knowledge because of the ontological kinship between the self and a friend, God, in knowing himself, also knows, to a certain degree, the essential principles of things in so far as he is the first being encompassing within himself the perfections which other beings possess. This would, however, not imply that the first being would know the world as distinct from himself or as dependent on himself (pp. 33-34). How can God (the Unmoved Mover) think only of Himself, and at the same time, to a certain degree (whatever this means) know also the essential principles of things, the perfections which other beings possess? And what textual justification is there for attributing this position to Aristotle? There are a number of errors in the text. Some of them are as follows: (1) On p. 21 Elders quotes from Laws 987b, in spite of the fact that the Laws ends on 969c. The passage referred to would have to be in Epinomis, but at 987b there is nothing of the text he quotes, to wit, vo~g ~v n0ooXQf3o0oa~E~0~tv 6006g 0~tv. (2) On p. 24, note 41, he correctly gives the text at 432a4 as ~ ~oggdSEo~xotg do0n~o~g x6 vo~x6 ~oxt but makes it mean: '~ere are phantasmata in which the intelligible things are contained." Evidently he confuses this with the passage at 431b1--4. (3) On p. 279, p~.~oxr should read p~i~.t~r (4) On p. 5, ~oo~v should read 6.~ao6v. K. W. Hsaa~oroN Emery University In Our Image and Likeness: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought. Two Volumes. By Charles Trinkaus. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970. Pp. 985. $22.50) I. Since the appearance of Burckhardt's classic essay more than a century ago, three schools of thought have grown up around the problem of the nature and extent of humanism 's relationship to Christianity. The classic position, represented by Burckhardt, Symends, Dilthey, Gentile, Cassirer, Saitta, and others, has interpreted humanism as an essentiaUy anti-Christian, anti-scholastic, rationatistic, and individualistic phenomenon caught up in an overwhelming concern for attaining to historical greatness in this world. If religion has been considered at all (and it is usually left to take care of itself), it has been so reinterpreted as to become consistent with the interests of emerging secularism, liberalism, and modern science. Opposing the Burckhardtian position, however, is one originally associated with the work of Giuseppe Toffanin and, more recently, Hiram Haydn. Here, Renaissance humanism is seen to be fundamentaUy Catholic, orthodox, and traditional---the two movements joined in perfect harmony by a common concern for antiquity and universaiism, for Latinity, faith, and corporate elitism, and by a common opposition to democratic particularism, heresy, individualism, modernity, and the vernaculars. What makes these two positions extreme, however, is the existence of the largest, most 526 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY moderate, and most diversified camp. Originating with Thode, Pastor, Olgiati, and Joachimsen, among a host of others, it has encompassed the general view that humanism and Christianity are separate yet interrelated. For some, medieval Catholicism is not the antithesis but the fountainhead of Renaissance humanism--the religious cause of a secular effect. For others, humanism is a novel intellectual movement, but one yet operating within a still... (shrink)

This paper provides both an overview of and a personal perspective on the field of ‘anti-ageing’. In the late 20th century, progress in the science of ageing re-invigorated activity designed to avoid biological ageing. For some the objective was to abolish the need to die of old age. This anti-ageing movement includes a diverse range of people: hard scientists working in well-funded and established university laboratories, slick corporate-marketing executives and new-age entrepreneurs selling herbal elixirs. The movement has attracted anti-anti-ageing critical (...) comment from three sources: moral critique located in philosophy and religion, scepticism from established scientists in the field of biology and gerontology, and challenge from critical social gerontology. Anti-ageing activists have labelled their critics as ‘conservative’ for opposing the inevitable progress of science. The paper argues that the alternative perspective, which sees the anti-ageing movement as a route by which a biologisation of old age inhibits people from achieving a culturally valued final part to life, is the progressive one. (shrink)

Selling “existences” for $25 a shot, hypnotists in 1950s America took their soul-searching clients back before birth to access memories from their previous lives. This brief “nationwide preoccupation” with past-life regression is one of eleven episodes richly documented in Alison Winter’s history of memory in the twentieth century. It followed reports from Morey Bernstein, a Colorado businessman, that when he hypnotized a local housewife, she remembered vivid details of her life as “Bridey Murphy” in nineteenth-century Ireland. A “giddy salon culture” (...) developed in the wake of public thrill at Bridey’s precise and emotional personal memories, transmitted across incarnations. While party invitations instructed guests to “come as you were”, one teenager’s suicide note announced his desire to explore reincarnation “in person”. (shrink)

The economics of search is a prominent component of economic theory, and it has a richness and elegance that underpins a host of practical applications. In this book Brian and John McCall present a comprehensive overview of the economic theory of search, from the classical model of job search formulated 40 years ago to the recent developments in equilibrium models of search. The book gives decision-theoretic foundations to seemingly slippery issues in labour market theory, estimation theory and economic dynamics (...) in general, and surveys the entire field of the economics of search, including its history, theory, and econometric applications. Theoretical models of the economics of search are covered as well as estimation methods used in search theory and topics covered include job search, turnover, unemployment, liquidity, house selling, real options and auctions. The mathematical methods used in search theory such as dynamic programming are reviewed as well as structural estimation methods and econometric methods for duration models. The authors also explore the classic sequential search model and its extensions in addition to recent advances in equilibrium search theory. (shrink)

In social interactions, it is common for individuals to possess different amounts of knowledge about a specific transaction, and those who are more knowledgeable might perform opportunistic behavior to others in their interest, which promotes their value but demotes others’ value. Such a typical social behavior is called opportunistic behavior. In this paper, we propose a formal account of opportunism based on the situation calculus. We first propose a model of opportunism that only considers a single action between two agents, (...) and then extend it to multiple actions and incorporate social context in the model. A simple example of selling a broken cup is used to illustrate our models. Through our models, we can have a thorough understanding of opportunism. (shrink)

We describe a first experiment on whether product complexity affects competition and consumers in retail markets. We are unable to detect a significant effect of product complexity on prices, except insofar as the demand elasticity for complex products is higher. However, there is qualified evidence that complex products have the potential to induce consumers to buy more than they would otherwise. In this sense, consumer exploitability in quantities cannot be ruled out. We also find evidence for shaping effects: consumers’ preferences (...) are shaped by past experience with prices, and firms may in principle exploit this to sell more. (shrink)

The Prudent Investor Rule creates a potential ethical dilemma for investment advisors selling over-the-counter financial products issued by their firms. The "opportunity" to defraud investors using complex, over-the-counter derivative securities designed for client-specific risk management is much higher than for exchange traded securities. This paper emphasizes the ethical responsibility held by trustees and their organizations to eliminate potential conflict of interests through internal control and monitoring. Independent evaluations of the performance of investment advisors and independent appraisals of complex over-the-counter securities (...) are important in reducing the risks of conflicts of interest. Recent lessons learned from the corporate ethics crisis and requirements of the 2002 Sarbanes Oxley Act would suggest that conflict of interest must be eliminated with third party validation of derivative pricing. By performing due diligence and validation, the trustee is able to satisfy the requirements under the Prudent Investor Rule. (shrink)