Abstract:Statutory approaches toward whistle-blowing currently appear to be based on the assumption that most observers of wrongdoing will report it unless deterred from doing so by fear of retaliation. Yet our review of research from studies of whistle-blowing behavior suggests that this assumption is unwarranted. We propose that an alternative legislative approach would prove more successful in encouraging valid whistle-blowing and describe a model for such legislation that would increase self-monitoring of ethical behavior by organizations, with obvious benefits to society (...) at large.A defense contractor’s inspectors used improper calibration standards when inspecting missile parts and other military products, used noncertified inspectors when inspecting such products, and used employees without top-secret clearance to work on classified projects. This created potentially life-threatening products as well as potential compromises of military secrets.Quality-control officials on the Trans Alaska Pipeline were threatened with physical harm, demoted, and spied on in an effort to force them not to turn in negative reports or report problems. As a result, the likelihood of damaging oil spills due to improperly built and maintained equipment is heightened.A major corporation allegedly initiated an analysis of the cost savings that would result from circumventing or reducing compliance with health, safety and environmental standards. Two officers who objected to this noncompliance cost/benefit analysis were subsequently fired. (shrink)

We conduct quantitative and qualitative analysis of 33 cases of internal and external whistleblowers wrongfully fired for reporting wrongdoing. Our results show external whistleblowers have less tenure with the organization, greater evidence of wrongdoing, and they tend to be more effective in changing organizational practices. External whistleblowers also experience more extensive retaliation than internal whistleblowers, and patterns of retaliation by management against the whistleblower vary depending on whether the whistleblower reports internally or externally. We discuss implications for organizations and whistleblowers, (...) and we conclude that researchers need to develop different theoretical explanations of internal and external whistleblowing processes. (shrink)

Survey responses from Fortune 1000 firms were examined to assess whether firms changed their whistleblowing policies to response to changes in state statutes concerning whistleblowing. We predicted that firms might have created internal channels for whistleblowing in response to new legislation that increased their vulnerability to whistleblowing claims by employees. In fact, very few firms indicated that they had created their policies in responses to legal changes.

When successful and ethical managers are alerted to possible organizational wrongdoing, they take corrective action before the problems become crises. However, recent research [e.g., Rynes et al. (2007, Academy of Management Journal50(5), 987–1008)] indicates that many organizations fail to implement evidence-based practices (i.e., practices that are consistent with research findings), in many aspects of human resource management. In this paper, we draw from years of research on whistle-blowing by social scientists and legal scholars and offer concrete suggestions to managers who (...) are interested in encouraging internal reporting of problems requiring attention, and to observers of questionable activity who are considering reporting it. We also identify ways that research suggests policy-makers can have a more positive influence. We hope that these suggestions will help foster evidence-based practice regarding whistle-blowing. (shrink)

Life's Dominion: An Argument about Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom. By Ronald Dworkin. Thought's Ego in Augustine and Descartse. By Gareth B. Matthews.

It has often been thought that our knowledge of ourselves is _different_ from, perhaps in some sense _better_ than, our knowledge of things other than ourselves. Indeed, there is a thriving research area in epistemology dedicated to seeking an account of self-knowledge that would articulate and explain its difference from, and superiority over, other knowledge. Such an account would thus illuminate the descriptive and normative difference between self-knowledge and other knowledge.¹ At the same time, self- knowledge has also encountered its (...) share of skeptics – philosophers who refuse to accord it any descriptive, let alone normative, distinction. In this paper, we argue that there is at least one _species_ of self-knowledge that is different from, and better than, other knowledge. It is a specific kind of knowledge of one’s concurrent phenomenal experiences. Call knowledge of one’s own phenomenal experiences _phenomenal knowledge_. Our claim is that some (though not all) phenomenal knowledge is different from, and better than, non-phenomenal knowledge. In other. (shrink)

Understanding Computers and Cognition presents an important and controversial new approach to understanding what computers do and how their functioning is related to human language, thought, and action. While it is a book about computers, Understanding Computers and Cognition goes beyond the specific issues of what computers can or can't do. It is a broad-ranging discussion exploring the background of understanding in which the discourse about computers and technology takes place. Understanding Computers and Cognition is written for a wide audience, (...) not just those professionals involved in computer design or artificial intelligence. It represents an important contribution to the ongoing discussion about what it means to be a machine, and what it means to be human. Book jacket. (shrink)

In this reprint of Law's Empire,Ronald Dworkin reflects on the nature of the law, its given authority, its application in democracy, the prominent role of interpretation in judgement, and the relations of lawmakers and lawgivers to the community on whose behalf they pronounce. For that community, Law's Empire provides a judicious and coherent introduction to the place of law in our lives.Previously Published by Harper Collins. Reprinted (1998) by Hart Publishing.

Few scholars have investigated the considerations of over-empowered teams from a non-consequential ethics approach. Leveraging a virtue-based ethics lens of team empowerment, we provide a framework of team ethical orientation and over-empowerment using highly influential market research teams as a basis for our analysis. The purpose of this research is to contrast how teams founded on virtue-based ethics can attenuate ethical dilemmas and negative organizational outcomes from team over-empowerment. We provide a framework of four conditions that include Sophisticated, Suppressed, Contagion, (...) and Impeded to discuss alignment between team ethical orientation and team empowerment. Through this framework, we aim to further our understanding of empowered team behavior between action that is virtuous, moral, and ethical and activity that threatens organizational values and goals. (shrink)

This important new book develops a new concept of autonomy. The notion of autonomy has emerged as central to contemporary moral and political philosophy, particularly in the area of applied ethics. professor Dworkin examines the nature and value of autonomy and uses the concept to analyse various practical moral issues such as proxy consent in the medical context, paternalism, and entrapment by law enforcement officials.

The phrase "the meaning of life" for many seems a quaint notion fit for satirical mauling by Monty Python or Douglas Adams. But in this spirited Very Short Introduction, famed critic Terry Eagleton takes a serious if often amusing look at the question and offers his own surprising answer. Eagleton first examines how centuries of thinkers and writers--from Marx and Schopenhauer to Shakespeare, Sartre, and Beckett--have responded to the ultimate question of meaning. He suggests, however, that it is only (...) in modern times that the question has become problematic. But instead of tackling it head-on, many of us cope with the feelings of meaninglessness in our lives by filling them with everything from football to sex, Kabbala, Scientology, "New Age softheadedness," or fundamentalism. On the other hand, Eagleton notes, many educated people believe that life is an evolutionary accident that has no intrinsic meaning. If our lives have meaning, it is something with which we manage to invest them, not something with which they come ready made. Eagleton probes this view of meaning as a kind of private enterprise, and concludes that it fails to holds up. He argues instead that the meaning of life is not a solution to a problem, but a matter of living in a certain way. It is not metaphysical but ethical. It is not something separate from life, but what makes it worth living--that is, a certain quality, depth, abundance and intensity of life. Here then is a brilliant discussion of the problem of meaning by a leading thinker, who writes with a light and often irreverent touch, but with a very serious end in mind. (shrink)

By reflecting on a variety of cartoon representations of teachers and their work, this paper outlines a semiotic approach to undertaking research on teachers' professional cultures.

Little is known about how and why corporate social responsibility (CSR) emerged in lesser developed countries. In order to address this knowledge gap, we used Chile as a test case and conducted a series of in-depth interviews with leaders of CSR initiatives. We also did an Internet and literature search to help provide support for the findings that emerged from our data. We discovered that while there are similarities in the drivers of CSR in developed countries, there are distinct differences (...) as well. In particular, we found that different sectors drive CSR in Chile. In contrast to other geographies where consumer demand and government regulation provided the impetus for CSR efforts, multinational companies (MNCs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are key actors in Chile. MNCs imported their CSR beliefs, skills, and processes into Chile. Their efforts resulted in a virtuous cycle. Once large domestic firms felt pressured by their MNC rivals, they too adopted CSR initiatives. The ability to manage relationships with multiple stakeholders and perceptions of authenticity were also critical to the success of CSR in Chile. Using network theory as a lens, we suggest that network density and centrality largely determine whether CSR efforts will be authentic. Based on these contentions, we suggest avenues for future research. (shrink)

America is driven by vengeance in Terry Aladjem's provocative account – a reactive, public anger that is a threat to democratic justice itself. From the return of the death penalty to the wars on terror and in Iraq, Americans demand retribution and moral certainty; they assert the 'rights of victims' and make pronouncements against 'evil'. Yet for Aladjem this dangerously authoritarian turn has its origins in the tradition of liberal justice itself – in theories of punishment that justify inflicting (...) pain and in the punitive practices that result. Exploring vengeance as the defining problem of our time, Aladjem returns to the theories of Locke, Hegel and Mill. He engages the ancient Greeks, Nietzsche, Paine and Foucault to challenge liberal assumptions about punishment. He interrogates American law, capital punishment and images of justice in the media. He envisions a democratic justice that is better able to contain its vengeance. (shrink)

In 1993, Professor of Jurisprudence, Ronald Dworkin of Oxford University and Professor of Law at New York University, delivered the Georgetown Law Center’s thirteenth Annual Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture: "Life’s Dominion: An Argument About Abortion and Euthanasia." Dworkin is Professor of Philosophy and Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at New York University. He received B.A. degrees from both Harvard College and Oxford University, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School and clerked for Judge Learned Hand. He (...) was associated with a law firm in New York (Sullivan and Cromwell) and was a professor of law at Yale University Law School from 1962-1969. He has been Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford and Fellow of University College since 1969. He has a joint appointment at Oxford and at NYU where he is a professor both in the Law School and the Philosophy Department. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Dworkin is the author of many articles in philosophical and legal journals as well as articles on legal and political topics in the New York Review of Books. He has written Taking Rights Seriously (1977), A Matter of Principle (1985), Law’s Empire (1986), Philosophical Issues in Senile Dementia (1987), A Bill of Rights for Britain (1990), Life’s Dominion (1993), and Freedom’s Law (1996). (shrink)

This article takes as its starting point the observation that neoliberalism is a concept that is ‘oft-invoked but ill-defined’. It provides a taxonomy of uses of the term neoliberalism to include: an all-purpose denunciatory category; ‘the way things are’; an institutional framework characterizing particular forms of national capitalism, most notably the Anglo-American ones; a dominant ideology of global capitalism; a form of governmentality and hegemony; and a variant within the broad framework of liberalism as both theory and policy discourse. It (...) is argued that this sprawling set of definitions are not mutually compatible, and that uses of the term need to be dramatically narrowed from its current association with anything and everything that a particular author may find objectionable. In particular, it is argued that the uses of the term by Michel Foucault in his 1978–9 lectures, found in The Birth of Biopolitics, are not particularly compatible with its more recent status as a variant of dominant ideology or hegemony theories. It instead proposes understanding neoliberalism in terms of historical institutionalism, with Foucault’s account of historical change complementing Max Weber’s work identifying the distinctive economic sociology of national capitalisms. (shrink)

The analysis of legal communication has almost exclusively been the domain of discourse analysts focusing on the ways that the linguistic system is used to realise legal meanings. Multimodal discourse analysis, where visual forms in combination with traditional linguistic expressions co-occur, is now also an area of expanding interest. Taking a Systemic Functional Linguistics “social semiotic” perspective, this paper applies and critiques an analytical framework that has been used for examining intersemiotic complementarity in various types of page-based multimodal texts by (...) analysing a cartoon satirizing the demands that verdict deliberations can make on a citizen jury seated in a Crown Court. While the multimodal analysis reveals that a straightforward application of this analytical framework is useful in and of itself, it is argued that the framework needs to be extended to also account for further and more complex layers of represented meaning. The analysis is also situated in the wider legal social semiotic, and draws attention to international debates on the efficacy of the jury system itself. (shrink)

In this book Macdonald elaborates a democratic framework based on the new theoretical concepts of 'public power', 'stakeholder communities' and 'non-electoral representation', and illustrates the practical implications of these proposals for projects of global institutional reform.

It is a mixed pleasure to see F. Matthias Alexander acknowledged in the fall 2007 issue of Education and Culture ("Dewey, women, and weirdoes: Or, the potential rewards for scholars who dialog across difference," 23[2], 27-62). As a professional descendant of Alexander who has been teaching the Alexander Technique (AT) for 30 years, I am glad to see Cunningham et al. including him in the list of positive influences in John Dewey's life. However, I believe Cunningham's contribution to this article, (...) "Shared explorations of body-mind: The reciprocal influences of Dewey and F. M. Alexander," falls short in its acknowledgement of Alexander and in one important aspect is incorrect. In this response, I hope to set the .. (shrink)

_Wild/lives_ draws on myth, popular culture and analytical psychology to trace the machinations of 'trickster' in contemporary film and television. This archetypal energy traditionally gravitates toward liminal spaces – physical locations and shifting states of mind. By focusing on productions set in remote or isolated spaces, Terrie Waddell explores how key trickster-infused sites of transition reflect the psychological fragility of their willing and unwilling occupants. In differing ways, the selected texts – _Deadwood, Grizzly Man, Lost, Solaris, The Biggest Loser, Amores (...) Perros and Repulsion_ – all play with inner and outer marginality. As this study demonstrates, the dramatic potential of transition is not always geared toward resolution. Prolonging the anxiety of change is an increasingly popular option. Trickster moves within this wildness and instability to agitate a form of dialogue between conscious and unconscious processes. Waddell's imaginative interpretation of screen material and her original positioning of trickster will inspire students of media, cinema, gender and Jungian studies, as well as academics with an interest in the application of Post-Jungian ideas to screen culture. (shrink)

The Phenomenology of Spirit is both one of Hegel's most widely read books and one of his most obscure. The book is the most detailed commentary on Hegel's work available. It develops an independent philosophical account of the general theory of knowledge, culture, and history presented in the Phenomenology. In a clear and straightforward style, Terry Pinkard reconstructs Hegel's theoretical philosophy and shows its connection to ethical and political theory. He sets the work in a historical context and shows (...) the contemporary relevance of Hegel's thought for European and Anglo-American philosophers. The principal audience for the book is teachers and students of philosophy, but the great interest in Hegel's work and the clarity of Pinkard's exposition ensure that historians of ideas, political scientists, and literary theorists will also read it. (shrink)