In her critique of ethical naturalism and ethical formalism as starting points for methods in comparative religious ethics, Francisca Cho correctly identifies formalism and naturalism as modern Western versions of moral rationality, and she shows us important commonalities that the debate between formalism and naturalism may obscure. Her proposal to treat the other as a "philosophical subject" does not, however, escape the limitations of naturalism and formalism. The antifoundationalist rejection of theory and generalization in favor of the particulars of moral (...) experience is yet another version of modern Western moral rationality, and it, too, is one of the models of moral rationality with which we begin our comparative work. (shrink)

This is a new assessment of the work of the twentieth century's best-known public theologian. Reinhold Niebuhr's ability to make sense of international politics, racial tension, labour unrest, and cultural transformations gained him a wide audience, but his responsiveness to changing times was grounded in a remarkably consistent theology. Today, Christian realism remains an important way to understand politics and society in theological terms, but the enduring themes of Niebuhr's work must also be related to new generations of thinkers in (...) theology, politics, law, and philosophy. Robin W. Lovin traces its key themes so as to identify the political, moral, and theological realisms on which Niebuhr's persuasive and subtle depiction of human nature rests. In that context, a complex, dialectical, Niebuhrian approach still appears as a vital and lively alternative to the oversimplified accounts of politics and justice that have dominated recent decades. (shrink)

Are religion and public life really separate spheres of human activity? Should they be? In this book, Robin W. Lovin criticizes contemporary political and theological views that separate religion from public life as though these areas were systematically opposed and makes the case for a more integrated understanding of modern society. Such an understanding can be underpinned by 'Christian realism', which encourages responsible engagement with social and political problems from a distinctive perspective. Drawing on the work of Rawls, Galston, (...) Niebuhr, and Bonhoeffer, Lovin argues that the responsibilities of everyday life are a form of politics. Political commitment is no longer confined to the sphere of law and government, and a global ethics arises from the decisions of individuals. This book will foster a better understanding of contemporary political thought among theologians and will introduce readers primarily interested in political thought to relevant developments in recent theology. (shrink)

In this introductory essay, the authors develop implications for ethical theory which relate to the three studies of cosmogony and ethics in the Focus articles by Guberman, Campany, and Read. They suggest that the dialogue between theory and description which Green and C. Reynolds urge in their Focus article should be understood as a search for adequate forms of ethical theory that must go on in both ethics and comparative studies, as well as in interdisciplinary conversations between them. In considering (...) the descriptive studies in this focus section, and in the collection "Cosmogony and Ethical Order," the authors conclude that the type of ethical theory which will prove most useful for further studies in comparative ethics will be a form of ethical naturalism. (shrink)

Comparative ethics raises theoretical and methodological problems important for all ethical studies. Five essays in this focus section provide introductions to the ethics of specific indigenous cultures and suggest implications for further comparative studies. In this introduction, we review these findings and discuss their relevance to the concept of ethical naturalism which we have previously offered as a basis for comparative work.

Intended for courses in sensation and perception, this book covers the anatomy, physiology and phenomenology of the way humans sense and perceive the world. It is grounded in physiology to explain perceptual phenomena, on the theory that understanding sensation and perception is based in the physiology of the sensory organs and the brain.

In spite of advances in medicine and public health, malaria and other mosquito‐borne diseases are on the rise worldwide. Although vaccines, genetically modified mosquitoes and safer insecticides are under development, herein we examine a promising new approach to malaria control through better repellents. Current repellents, usually based on DEET, inhibit host finding by impeding insect olfaction, but have significant drawbacks. We discuss how comparative genomics, using data from the Anopheles genome project, allows the rapid identification of members of three protein (...) classes critical to insect olfaction: odorant‐binding proteins, G‐protein‐coupled receptors, and odorant‐degrading enzymes. A rational design approach similar to that used by the pharmaceutical industry for drug development can then be applied to the development of products that interfere with mosquito olfaction. Such products have the potential to provide more complete, safer and longer lasting protection than conventional repellents, preventing disease transmission by interrupting the parasite life cycle. BioEssays 25:1011–1020, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Abstract:In this paper we develop a categorization scheme for stakeholder research based on differences in studies’ primary level of analysis (managerial agency, organizational, or societal) and use this scheme to review and critique genres of stakeholder-based accounting research. We draw three primary conclusions: 1) stakeholder research in accounting should more clearly incorporate the business ethics stakeholder literature, 2) ethical issues are much less likely to be considered in stakeholder-based accounting research when a managerial agency level of analysis is adopted, and (...) 3) the accounting discipline can learn from debates within the business ethics literature concerning shareholder dominance and stakeholder legitimacy. These conclusions, taken together, demonstrate the need for accounting researchers to become more focused on ethical considerations in the design of accounting information systems, performance measurement criteria, and financial reporting models. (shrink)

This essay traces Christian thinking about sacred and secular authority during the early centuries of the Roman Empire. Christian martyrdom, interpreted by apologists such as Tertullian, established a place for Christianity in Roman society and gave it authority against imperial power. From this confrontation there emerged a differentiation of religious and civil authority that provided a starting point for later constitutional ideas of separate and balanced powers and distinctions between state and civil society. A comparative perspective reminds us, however, that (...) at their beginnings, Islam and Christianity faced quite different questions about religious and political authority. (shrink)

Why is it that one feels as though they have to say that 9/11 was a ‘tragic’, ‘terrible’ or ‘horrific’ event? Why is this inclination intensified if one seeks to comment critically on U.S. politics? Is it not clear that death on that scale and in that manner is without exception horrific, terrible and tragic? Or, is it that as a critical scholar I feel compelled to clarify that I am not with the terrorists simply because I intend to critique (...) aspects of U.S. foreign policy? The point of this is not to argue that one should stop referring to 9/11 as ‘horrific’, ‘terrible’ or ‘tragic’, but rather to examine what causes individuals to monitor the way in which they act when they engage with a powerful foreign policy consensus. (shrink)

Why is it that one feels as though they have to say that 9/11 was a ‘tragic’, ‘terrible’ or ‘horrific’ event? Why is this inclination intensified if one seeks to comment critically on U.S. politics? Is it not clear that death on that scale and in that manner is without exception horrific, terrible and tragic? Or, is it that as a critical scholar I feel compelled to clarify that I am not with the terrorists simply because I intend to critique (...) aspects of U.S. foreign policy? The point of this is not to argue that one should stop referring to 9/11 as ‘horrific’, ‘terrible’ or ‘tragic’, but rather to examine what causes individuals to monitor the way in which they act when they engage with a powerful foreign policy consensus. (shrink)

"This work traces the development of social ethics in European Protestantism from Barth's early dialectical theology (ca. 1920) through Bonhoeffer's Ethics, written during World War II. In this development, two major approaches to social ethics emerge: a theological radicalism, championed by Barth, which emphasizes the difference between Christian action and ordinary moral reflection; and a theological realism, exemplified by Brunner and Bonhoeffer, which streses the possibilities for Christian cooperation in making and sustaining the social order. A final chaper traces the (...) continuing influence of these approaches in Christian ethics today." -- Book cover. (shrink)

Christian realism has provided a theological understanding of politics that identifies the limits within which all political choices are made. Those limits are set by a theological understanding of judgment, which reserves the ultimate meaning of history to divine judgment, and by a theological understanding of responsibility, which gives proximate meaning to the choices between greater and lesser goods that are available to human politics. The assessments of global politics offered by Reinhold Niebuhr and other Christian realists during the Second (...) World War and the Cold War which followed owe their influence partly to an astute and historically informed reading of events, but primarily, their influence is due to this basic theological understanding of politics. While the world has changed in ways that clearly reveal limitations in the original formulations of Christian realism, the theological principles of judgment and responsibility continue to provide an understanding of global politics adequate to the new realities of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

In recent years, public reason in the United States has narrowed to a focus on national security and economic stability. This marks the loss of an aspirational element that has been historically important in American public life, and it tends toward the privatization of all moral arguments, not just those that depend on theological claims. To maintain theological integrity, Christian public reasoning will have to become more distinctively Christian, simply because there will be less shared ground to occupy with others. (...) But the future of theological ethics also requires attention to the scope and quality of the public discussion itself. (shrink)

The works of H. Richard and Reinhold Niebuhr provide an appropriate starting point for renewed attention to the idea of responsibility in Christian ethics. While responsible choice and ‘the responsible society’ were important themes in ecumenical Protestant ethics in Britain and the US from the 1930s to the late 1950s, the idea has been neglected in recent decades. German theology, however, has considered Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s wartime writings on the ‘venture of responsibility’ and a biblical theology of judgment and responsibility in (...) light of a growing literature in philosophy and social thought that structures the moral life around a technological society’s responsibility for the human future. These different ways of thinking about responsibility invite further theological and ethical reflection on their history, their disagreements, and their possibilities for the future. (shrink)

This article provides a brief overview of scholarship on gender differences in emotion and emotional well-being among adults in the United States, highlighting major substantive findings, methodological innovations, and theoretical developments that have emerged in the sociologies of emotion and mental health. Sociological research consistently finds that men report more frequent positive and less frequent negative feelings than women as well as gender differences in both the experience and expression of emotional distress. Sociologists attribute these gendered patterns of emotion to (...) the larger social, economic, and cultural context surrounding women and men. Overall, by identifying macro- and meso-level social causes of microlevel emotional processes, sociologists have made significant contributions to knowledge about gender differences in emotion and emotional well-being in the US. (shrink)

By focusing on the importance of power relationships between states and emphasising the tendency to injustice and tyranny in any unchecked power, Christian realism in the middle of the twentieth century made sense of an international order structured by rivalry between nuclear superpowers. These lessons remain important for international politics, but a pluralistic Christian realism will have to give more attention in the future to relationships between the state and other primary social forces, especially business and religion. The classic political (...) problem of providing sufficient order without destroying freedom remains central, but it takes on different contours in a world no longer structured by rival superpowers. (shrink)

Critical analyses of the audit profession have become more common in recent years. Many of these analyses focus on the entire audit profession in developing their criticisms and concerns. In this paper, the scope of analysis is narrowed to examine in depth the auditing profession's use of the concepts of reasonable assurance and materiality in audit performance and audit communications. Reasonable assurance and materiality are the terms that auditors use to describe the scope of their responsibility to the public. Similarly, (...) reasonable assurance and materiality are the key determinants of audit effort. An overview of official guidance, practitioner reports, and academic research reveals that these two key concepts are not well specified nor are they consistently applied in audit practice. These findings are evaluated from two competing perspectives on professions – the traditional, functionalist perspective and the critical theorists' perspective. Evaluation from the latter perspective leads to a conclusion that the profession's use of these key terms to guide practice and communication leaves the profession open to charges of mystification and unjustified paternalism. (shrink)

In this study we analyze the overlapping perspectives of legitimacy theory, institutional theory, resource dependence theory, and stakeholder theory. Our purpose is to explore how these theories can inform and be built upon by one another. Through our analysis we provide a broader theoretical understanding of these theories that may support and promote social and environmental accounting research. This article starts with a detailed analysis of legitimacy theory by bringing some recent critical discussions on legitimacy and corporations in the management (...) literature into accounting research. The notion forwarded by legitimacy theory then serves as an overarching concept to examine the relationship between and among theories. We conclude that two theoretical considerations are important for future social and environmental accounting research. First, it must be acknowledged that some business entities initiate social activities based on direct interactions with stakeholders, whereas others may also undertake similar activities to manage their societal level of legitimacy. Second, from analyzing the perspectives of legitimacy theory, institutional theory, resource dependence theory, and stakeholder theory, it is possible to reach compatible interpretations of business social phenomena, and the selection and application of these theories should depend upon the focus of study. (shrink)

Tax compliance is a concern to governments around the world. Prior research (Alm, J. and I. Sanchez: 1995, KYKLOS 48, 3–19) has attributed unexplained inter-country differences in compliance rates to differences in social norms. Economics researchers studying tax compliance in the United States (U.S.) (see for example J. Andreoni et al.: 1998, Journal of Economic Literature 36, 818–860) have called for more attention to social (as opposed to economic) influences on tax compliance. In this study, we extend this prior research (...) by explicitly examining the role of social norms [Cialdini, R. and M. Trost: 1998, The Handbook of Social Psychology (Oxford University Press, New York)] on tax compliance in three different countries. We test our research hypotheses using a hypothetical compliance scenario, which was administered in Australia, Singapore, and the U.S. There were differences in compliance rates and social norms among the three countries. Factor analysis of the social norm questions identified three distinct social norm constructs. Two of these factors were significant in explaining tax compliance behavior. The first and most influential factor was taxpayers’ own personal moral beliefs, along with the beliefs of those close to them (e.g., friends and important others). The second significant factor represented societal views of proper behavior. We conclude that social norms help to explain tax compliance intentions and why tax compliance rates are higher than would be predicted by strictly economic models. (shrink)

Recent calls in the corporate social reporting (CSRep) literature have emphasized the importance of giving voice to non-managerial stakeholder groups in the social reporting process. The research, presented in this paper, employs recent work in stakeholder theory and CSRep to examine the perceptions of a diverse set of non-managerial stakeholders in the context of a developing country, Bangladesh. A series of semistructured interviews were conducted with individuals who identify with various non-managerial stakeholder groups. Interviewees generally believed that the motivation and (...) practice of CSRep in Bangladesh is developing in response to pressures from international markets and is producing largely cosmetic responses. Also, they expressed concerns that, given the economic, political, and social conditions in Bangladesh, premature adoption of strict CSRep standards may lead to increased corruption and other unintended consequences. Whilst some of the interviewees sharply criticized the current process of imposing social accounting codes/standards on developing countries which fail to consider the important local socio-economic context, the findings suggest that there is overwhelming support for mandatory externally verified CSRep based on the principles of peoples' right to know, full disclosure/completeness, and relevance, which are anchored in the broader principles of transparency and stakeholder accountability. (shrink)

Recent calls in the corporate social reporting literature have emphasized the importance of giving voice to non-managerial stakeholder groups in the social reporting process. The research, presented in this paper, employs recent work in stakeholder theory and CSRep to examine the perceptions of a diverse set of non-managerial stakeholders in the context of a developing country, Bangladesh. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals who identify with various non-managerial stakeholder groups. Interviewees generally believed that the motivation and practice (...) of CSRep in Bangladesh is developing in response to pressures from international markets and is producing largely cosmetic responses. Also, they expressed concerns that, given the economic, political, and social conditions in Bangladesh, premature adoption of strict CSRep standards may lead to increased corruption and other unintended consequences. Whilst some of the interviewees sharply criticized the current process of imposing social accounting codes/standards on developing countries which fail to consider the important local socio-economic context, the findings suggest that there is overwhelming support for mandatory externally verified CSRep based on the principles of peoples’ right to know, full disclosure/completeness, and relevance, which are anchored in the broader principles of transparency and stakeholder accountability. (shrink)

This study examines the relation between firms' corporate philanthropic giving and their performance in three other social domains - employee relations, environmental issues, and product safety. Based on a sample of 384 U.S. companies and using data pooled from 1998 through 2000, we find that worse performers in the other social areas are both more likely to make charitable contributions and that the extent of their giving is larger than for better performers. Analyses of each separate area of social performance, (...) however, indicate that the relation between giving and negative social performance only holds for the environmental issues and product safety areas. We find no significant association between corporate philanthropy and employee relations concerns. In general, these findings suggest that corporate philanthropy may be more a tool of legitimization than a measure of corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

Recent critics have called attention to the alienation of contemporary academics from broad currents of intellectual activity in public culture. The general complaint is that intellectuals are finding a professional home in institutions of higher learning, insulated from the concerns and interests of a wider reading audience. The demands of professional expertise do not encourage academics to work as public intellectuals or to take up social, literary, or political matters in imaginative and perspicuous ways. More problematic is the relative absence (...) of religion in the writings of those who aspire to work as public intellectuals. This essay reviews recent attempts by William Dean, Cornel West, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Stephen Carter, and Robin Lovin to remedy the problem of academic alienation and to address the place of religion in American life. (shrink)