In Ethics and Political Theory, Joseph Grcic explores the ways in which the ideas of John Rawls can be implemented to realize the ideals of liberal democracy. Many of the essays evaluate Rawls' discussion of the relationship between liberal democratic equality and economic liberty. Grcic argues that Rawls has not fully considered how differences in income and wealth restrict political equality in Western capitalist democracies. However, Grcic contends that a practical extension of Rawls' theory does suggest (...) ways to reform democratic societies. These include the public financing of all election campaigns and free legal representation. In an attempt to clarify the nature and foundations of political power, Grcic also advocates a new approach to ethics, which focuses on the social functions of moral values rather than individual agency. This book is unique in its attempt to deal with both theoretical and applied questions, making it an important resource for philosophers and those interested in actual political reform. (shrink)

The electoral college is inconsistent with the underlying principles of the US constitution and the basic ideas of John Rawls' theory of justice. The college introduces an undefined variable into the basic structure and violates the Rawlsian idea of a stable society and public reason. Public reason involves constitutional essentials of the basic structure and constitutive of the overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines. Since the electoral college need not respect the majority vote of the citizenry nor publicly justify its (...) vote, it violates the idea of public reason of citizens as free and equal since political discourse must be public and consistent with the principles implicit in the basic structure. (shrink)

I criticize Rawls’ coherentist methodology and argue using the ideas of Talcott Parsons and Karl Popper that social and political structures flow from and are founded on human nature and arise from human beings seeking to satisfy their needs. For societies to exist and function in an efficient manner, certain ethical and political structures must obtain and that these structures would, in general, be required by the key elements of Rawls’ theory of justice and, as such would provide some of (...) the necessary foundations for most components of his theory. (shrink)

The social contract tradition of political legitimacy has a long and complex history. John Rawls believed himself to be working in this tradition of Locke, Rousseau and Kant, but not that of Hobbes whose Leviathan, he remarks, “raises special problems.” Rawls never specifies what these problems are but there are indeed very serious problems with Hobbes’ political theory. I argue that Hobbes’ theory is an ideology fashioned in a chaotic social environment where self-preservation was precarious at best. His theory is (...) based on his belief that there were only two alternatives for political order given the human condition as he saw it at the time, chaos or absolute power. This false dichotomy was one that Rawls and most other theorists did not accept. Hobbes' theory conflicts with Rawls' conception of rights, the purpose of government, and the nature of the person. Hobbes' theory is a form of ethical foundationalism and is what Rawls calls a comprehensive doctrine unacceptable in Rawls' political liberalism. (shrink)

I argue that the common core of moral values found in the world religions can be understood in a pragmatic manner. I also argue that this can be used to argue against moral relativism.

Libertarianism is an ideology which reveals its contradictions when it is implemented. The libertarian denial of the right to what Rawls calls fair quality of opportunity, especially to the right to education, would negatively impact any libertarian society in adapting to its environment. Further, a libertarian society would lead to a caste society and the domination of the political system by an elite primarily interested in protecting its own privileges, not the freedom of the masses.

The article investigates the possibility that the concept of conscience can be attributed not only to human beings but to more abstract entities like corporations. For such an analysis we need to look closer at the idea of conscience and at what defines a corporation through the looking glass of notions like capitalism, socialism and democracy. Briefly, the conclusions of this investigation make us believe that conscience is not only a legitimate term when talking about corporations, but is a necessity (...) if such an organization aims to better fit today‟s world. (shrink)

The presidential pardon as it currently exists is a violation of the separation of powers, checks and balances, and rule of law. With the exception of impeachment, the pardon power of the president is not subject to judicial review. The court has no rights to deny a pardon even though it may violate many explicit laws and implicit values of the constitution. It seems clear that the current form of the presidential power is a usurpation of the role of the (...) judiciary making the president judge and jury combining as it does the legislative and judicial function in the presidency. This unilateral and essentially unchecked power of the presidency threatens the consistency and unity of the government for it is independent and beyond the scope of legal restraint of the other branches of government. (shrink)

Introduction. The trial; the right to a lawyer; double jeopardy; the electoral college; the senate; presidential pardon; judicial review; lifetime appointment; campaign finance reform; the right to political leave; the democratized corporation -- The right to a lawyer -- Abolish double jeopardy -- Empower the jury -- The electoral college -- Abolish presidential pardon -- Abolish the Senate -- Limit the power of the Supreme Court -- Abolish lifetime tenure of Supreme Court justices -- Reduce private money in election campaigns (...) -- Expand the right to run for political office -- Expand employee rights -- The contradictions of libertarianism. (shrink)

One way of ensuring that individual actions do not violate a group's moral norms is to develop within each individual a conscience. Conscience consists in the internalization or acceptance of a group's moral norms as correct and overriding one's self-interest when they conflict.Corporations as well as individuals need a conscience to monitor and control their behavior. The correlative of a personal conscience in a corporation consists in the representation of group interests in the running and managing of the firm. This (...) means consumer and employee representation on the board of directors and management is the most effective way to promote corporate moral behavior. (shrink)

I defend a new argument for causal finitism, the view that nothing can have an infinite causal history. I begin by defending a number of plausible metaphysical principles, after which I explore a host of novel variants of the Littlewood-Ross and Thomson’s Lamp paradoxes that violate such principles. I argue that causal finitism is the best solution to the paradoxes.

José Benardete developed a famous paradox involving a beginningless set of items each member of which satisfies some predicate just in case no earlier member satisfies it. The Grim Reaper version of this paradox has recently been employed in favor of various finitist metaphysical theses, ranging from temporal finitism to causal finitism to the discrete nature of time. Here, I examine a new challenge to these finitist arguments—namely, the challenge of implying that the future cannot be endless. In particular, I (...) develop future-oriented Benardete paradoxes and examine their epistemic symmetry with past-oriented paradoxes. (shrink)

Benardete paradoxes involve a beginningless set each member of which satisfies some predicate just in case no earlier member satisfies it. Such paradoxes have been wielded on behalf of arguments for the impossibility of an infinite past. These arguments often deploy patchwork principles in support of their key linking premise. Here I argue that patchwork principles fail to justify this key premise.

Does all conscious experience essentially involve self-consciousness? In his Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the First-Person, Dan Zahavi answers “yes”. I criticize three core arguments offered in support of this answer—a well-known regress argument, what I call the “interview argument,” and a phenomenological argument. Drawing on Sartre, I introduce a phenomenological contrast between plain experience and self-conscious experience. The contrast challenges the thesis that conscious experience entails self-consciousness.

The book is a contribution to the study of values, as they affect both our personal and our public life. It defends the view that values are necessarily universal, on the ground that that is a condition of their intelligibility. It does, however, reject most common conceptions of universality, like those embodied in the writings on human rights. It aims to reconcile the universality of value with the social dependence of value and the centrality to our life of deep attachments (...) to people and countries alike. Building from there, the book explores personal love, the value of life, and the fundamental duty of respect for people. (shrink)

Management Ethics: Integrity at Work redefines what it means for a manager to function with integrity in the private and public sectorsùdomestically and globally. It integrates the latest theoretical work in both descriptive and normative ethics, and incorporates legal, communication, quality, and organizational theories into a conceptual framework that improves managerial judgment in the handling of moral complexity at work. The authors use their organizational ethics consulting and academic research experience to provide practical assessment and decision-making tools that convert ethics (...) theories into sound action steps. The book examines three key dimensions of management integrityùjudgment, process, and developmental dimensionsùand applies them to individual chapters devoted to the subprocesses of ethical planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. The authors focus their theories and tools on 28 ethics minicases related to each management function in seven allied management application clusters: accounting, auditing management; finance, investment management; marketing, advertising management; business management, business law, human resource management; technology, quality operations, organizational behavior management; public, nonprofit, health care management; and international, environmental, public policy management. Management Ethics: Integrity at Work builds management integrity by linking and enhancing both ethics and management competence in responsible planning, organizing, leading, and controlling for use by professionals and students in the private and public sectorsùdomestically and globally. (shrink)

The paper argues that normative reasons are of two fundamental kinds, practical which are value related, and adaptive, which are not related to any value, but indicate how our beliefs and emotions should adjust to fit how things are in the world. The distinction is applied and defended, in part through an additional distinction between standard and non-standard reasons (for actions, intentions, emotions or belief).

In “Brain Data in Context: Are New Rights the Way to Mental and Brain Privacy?” Daniel Susser and Laura Cabrera (2024) make a compelling case as to why the greater availability of neural data itsel...

The seventh edition of this pragmatic guide to determining right and wrong in the workplace is updated with new case studies and ancillary materials to combine stakeholder perspectives with a deep dive on workplace ethics issues. Using a unique stakeholder-based approach, this book takes business ethics out of the theory realm and provides practical ways to analyze any business decision. Including dozens of cases, Joseph Weiss looks beyond the impacts of ethical lapses on share price and profit to focus (...) on relationships between stakeholders, including individuals, groups, corporations, and governments. The new seventh edition includes seven new cases and ten new Point/Counterpoint exercises, which challenge students to argue both sides of a contemporary issue. It incorporates the latest research as well as updated cases dealing with recent scandals at organizations such as Boeing, Facebook, and Uber. Professors will have access to online support, including teaching notes, PowerPoint slides, and sample tests. The book is equipped with a step-by-step guide to implementing stakeholder analysis, tips to help students apply ethical principles in their personal and professional lives, and comprehensive coverage of employee workplace issues. Addressing relevant topics such as risk management, preferential hiring, and sexual harassment in conjunction with the digital divide, bribery, the environment, and more, Business Ethics, seventh edition explores ethical implications in today's increasingly interconnected global business environment. (shrink)

Analytic debates about truth are wide-ranging, but certain key themes tend to crop up time and again. The three themes that we will examine in this paper are (i) the nature and behaviour of the ordinary concept of truth, (ii) the meaning of discourse about truth, and (iii) the nature of the property truth. We will start by offering a brief overview of the debates centring on these themes. We will then argue that cross-linguistic experimental philosophy has an indispensable yet (...) underappreciated role to play in all of these debates. Recognising the indispensability of cross-linguistic experimental philosophy should compel philosophers to significantly revise the ways in which they inquire about truth. It should also prompt analytic philosophers more generally to consider whether similar revisions might be necessary elsewhere in the field. (shrink)

Joseph Sauveur (1653-1716) fut mathématicien, physicien et théoricien de la musique. Souvent considéré comme le fondateur de l' acoustique moderne, on lui doit les premières mesures de la fréquence absolue d'un son, une théorie mathématique du tempérament, les premières explications convaincantes des phénomènes d'harmoniques et de battements, ainsi que l'application de ses recherches aux jeux d'orgue et à d'autres instruments de musique. Ce volume réunit l'ensemble des travaux de Sauveur sur le son et la musique, ainsi qu'un manuscrit de (...) cet auteur datant de 1697, publié ici pour la première fois. Les travaux de Sauveur sont accompagnés de textes d'introduction et de notes explicatives"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Consciousness, subjectivity, and the history of the organism -- Subjectivity considered as the first-person perspective -- Subjectivity and reference -- Unconscious subjectivity -- What subjectivity is not -- Subjectivity in the neurobiological image -- Subjectivity in the neurobiological image -- The science of subjectivity -- Putting the neuro in neurophenomenology -- Neural correlates of consciousness reconsidered -- Neurophilosophy, Darwinian naturalism, and subjectivity.