Philosopher Michael Boylan and theologian James A. Donahue provide a framework_compatible with humanist and theist beliefs_that will enable college and university professors to address a full range of ethical issues as they arise in classroom discussion, both in the academic disciplines and in professional education.

While the literature in business ethics abounds with philosophical analyses, perspectives from religious thinkers are curiously underrepresented. What religious analysis has occured has often been moralistic in tone, more fit to the pulpit than the classroom or the boardroom. In the three essays that follow, presented originally at a panel at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in 1989, ethicists from the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish traditions analyze a case study familiar to many who teach and (...) research in business ethics — the Consolidated Foods Case. Each author shows how a particular religious tradition might react to the case. The authors show how insights from their traditions would affect corporation's moral deliberations about policy. Specific policy recommendations are offered to CEO John Bryan. (shrink)

While the literature in business ethics abounds with philosophical analyses, perspectives from religious thinkers are curiously underrepresented. What religious analysis has occured has often been moralistic in tone, more fit to the pulpit than the classroom or the boardroom. In the three essays that follow, presented originally at a panel at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in 1989, ethicists from the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish traditions analyze a case study familiar to many who teach and (...) research in business ethics - the Consolidated Foods Case. Each author shows how a particular religious tradition might react to the case. The authors show how insights from their traditions would affect corporation's moral deliberations about policy. Specific policy recommendations are offered to CEO John Bryan. (shrink)

The essays in this book engage the original and controversial claims from Michael Boylan's A Just Society. Each essay discusses Boylan's claims from a particular chapter and offers a critical analysis of these claims. Boylan responds to the essays in his lengthy and philosophically rich reply.

This paper outlines and defends a processual theory of peoplehood. On our theory, a people is, roughly speaking, composed of two things. First, an unfolding series of events coordinated by the practices of constituting, governing, or changing a polity's authoritative institutions. Second, individual persons whose lives and interests are intensely affected by these events and institutions. We call this theory deep processualism. We outline the theory by showing how it would answer five questions: the questions of constituents, individuation, origination, termination, (...) and membership: What are the chief constituents of peoples? What individuates peoples? Under what conditions do peoples originate? Under what conditions do peoples cease to be? Under what conditions is a person a member of the people? We also consider alternative theories of the nature of peoples, theories due to Juergen Habermas, Bruce Ackerman, Philip Pettit, and James Fishkin. We defend our theory on the ground that it is not embarrassed by the difficulties that we pin on these alternative theories. (shrink)

Competing perspectives on the nature of emotion are illustrated with latent and emergent variable models. Latent variable models draw from classical test theory, assuming that the measured indicators of emotion covary by virtue of some common executive, organizing neural circuit or network in the brain. By contrast, emergent variable models draw from a theory-driven, operational definition tradition, positing that emotions do not cause, but rather are caused by, the measured indicators of emotion, assuming no executive neural circuit or network, and (...) requiring no covariation among indicators. I suggest that the emergent variable model may be more compatible with the extant literature on the nature of emotion, especially in the age of affective neuroscience. (shrink)

Life is short, and it can be sweet. Contemplating death is looking into a mirror that allows us to see these simple facts clearly, as if for the first time. We have every reason to believe that we have but one life to live--and no good reasons to believe otherwise--and death marks the termination of each life. Examining this reality opens doors to understanding ourselves, each other, connection, love, and life itself in an entirely new way. Life in Light of (...) Death is a short exploration on the sweetness available to every person and the importance of the opportunity that living is. By looking at life as reflected by death, we can see what really matters and how best to live. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical reconstruction of J. B. Erhard's account of recognition that locates it within the context of his revolutionary natural law theory. The first three sections lay out the foundations of Erhard's position. The fourth section outlines Erhard's response to the opponents of revolution and raises a problem for it. The fifth section argues that we can resolve this problem by drawing upon Erhard's account of failures of legal recognition. The sixth and final section considers the relevance (...) of that account for contemporary legal and political theory. (shrink)

Throughout history, many Christians have existed on the margins of society; deviants and strangers in lands they call home. To survive, they have had to construct alternate identities that not only make sense of their religious experiences and beliefs but also equip them to successfully negotiate their social worlds. In Thailand, a nation where social identities are thoroughly intertwined with Buddhist religious adherence, Christians must come to terms with such a marginalized existence. By leaving Buddhism and adopting what is considered (...) a foreign faith, Christian converts become deviants to "normal" Thai identity and belonging. In response, they have discovered creative solutions for traversing this complex terrain of marginalization. This book presents a deep exploration of the phenomenon of marginalization as experienced by Thai Christian converts. In it, readers will follow participants through the heights of transformative religious experience, the lows of severe social displacement, the tensions of managing two disparate lifeworlds and two conflicting selves, and the comfort and joy of finding a new place to call home. In the end, the reader will gain deep insight into what it is like to successfully navigate a minority religious identity on the margins of society."--Publisher. (shrink)

A proven classic, this anthology stimulates readers' interest in philosophy through an innovative ldquo;sides of the argumentrdquo; presentation, representing positions on each of the fundamental philosophical principles. Each reading contains a biographical sketch of the author, with a group of further readings for those wishing to pursue issues in further depth. Using debate and argument as a vehicle, the eleventh edition ofClassic Philosophical Questionssimultaneously gives readers the fundamentals of philosophy while demonstrating that philosophy is a discourse that has spanned centuries. (...) Topics covered include knowledge, metaphysics, religion, ethics, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and the meaning of life. This anthology offers both classic and contemporary selections that challenge readers with the basic inquiries that philosophers have discussed throughout the ages. (shrink)

David Hume, philosopher, historian, economist, librarian, and essayist, was one of the great figures of the European Enlightenment. Unlike some of his famous contemporaries, however, he was not dogmatically committed to idealised conceptions of reason, liberty, and progress. Instead, Hume was a sceptic whose arguments questioned the reach and authority of human rationality, and who put the rivalrous passions of commercial life at the centre of his theory of human -- -- itself. -- ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions (...) series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. (shrink)

Psychology, philosophy and common sense -- Psychological empiricism (part A): do non-empirical psychological phenomena exist? -- Psychological empiricism (part B): a critique -- The subject matter of psychology (part A): the conscious personal self -- The subject matter of psychology (part B): differing kinds of psychic phenomena -- Locating the empirical in psychology -- Human nature and rational psychology -- Psychology, truth and personalism -- The reality and psychological significance of freedom.

This paper provides a critical reconstruction of J. B. Erhard's account of recognition that locates it within the context of his revolutionary natural law theory. The first three sections lay out the foundations of Erhard's position. The fourth section outlines Erhard's response to the opponents of revolution and raises a problem for it. The fifth section argues that we can resolve this problem by drawing upon Erhard's account of failures of legal recognition. The sixth and final section considers the relevance (...) of that account for contemporary legal and political theory. (shrink)

Medicine is facing several significant challenges as the twenty-first century unfolds, which represent barriers or limitations that threaten to cripple the advancement of medicine and its practice. One of the responses to these challenges is the emergence of systems medicine. And one of the more pertinent challenges is identifying and clarifying systems medicine's conceptual and theoretical foundations. The present book represents a sustained effort to examine this challenge and to map the terrain by which to engage it and to pursue (...) possible solutions. This conceptual and theoretical challenge in particular needs to be addressed to ensure the future success of systems medicine. To that end the book explores the conceptual and theoretical foundations of systems medicine, including the major concepts of organicism, emergence, and robustness, and contrasts these concepts to those for biomedicine, including mechanism, resultant, and homeostasis. Moreover, this challenge is critical because its resolution provides the intellectual scaffolding necessary for structuring the concepts and theories required to understand and explain more adequately or completely biological, physiological, and pathological mechanisms and processes. Importantly, with a robust conceptual and theoretical scaffolding, systems medicine must be implemented interdisciplinary not only within the medical community but also within the social and political communities, which the COVID-19 pandemic made so painfully obvious. (shrink)

This book develops an original and comprehensive theory of political liberalism. It defends bold new accounts of the nature of autonomy and individual liberty, the content of distributive justice, and the justification for the authority of the State. The theory that emerges integrates contemporary progressive and pluralistic liberalism into a broadly Aristotelian intellectual tradition. The early chapters of the book challenge the traditional conservative idea of individual liberty-the liberty to dispose of one's property as one wishes-and replace it with a (...) new one, according to which liberty is of equal value to all persons, regardless of economic position. The middle chapters present an original theory of socio-economic justice, arguing that a society in which every citizen enjoys an equal share of liberty should be the distributive goal of the State. It is argued that this goal is incompatible with the existence of large disparities in wealth and economic power, and that (contra conservative and libertarian economic arguments) such disparities are harmful to the overall health of national and global economies. The final chapters provide an original argument that the State has both a moral duty and a moral right to pursue this program of socio-economic justice (contra conservative and libertarian moral arguments), and that only the measures necessary to implement this program lie within the morally justifiable limits on the State's authority. Though primarily a political work, it spans most areas of practical philosophy-including ethical, social, and legal theory; and meta-ethics, moral psychology, and action theory. And though fundamentally a philosophical work, it incorporates research from a number of fields-including decision theory, economics, political science, and jurisprudence; primatology, neuroscience, and psychology; and history, anthropology, sociology, and ecology-and is sure to be of interest to a wide range of scholars and students. (shrink)

An historical survey of Thomas Kuhn's 1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, charting the development of this influential work throughout Kuhn's career and exploring the continuing impact of Kuhn on the philosophy of science.

By highlighting relations between experimental and theoretical work, this volume explores new ways of addressing one of the central challenges in the study of language and cognition. The articles bring together work by leading scholars and younger researchers in psychology, linguistics and philosophy. An introductory chapter lays out the background on concept composition, a problem that is stimulating much new research in cognitive science. Researchers in this interdisciplinary domain aim to explain how meanings of complex expressions are derived from simple (...) lexical concepts and to show how these meanings connect to concept representations. Traditionally, much of the work on concept composition has been carried out within separate disciplines, where cognitive psychologists have concentrated on concept representations, and linguists and philosophers have focused on the meaning and use of logical operators. This volume demonstrates an important change in this situation, where convergence points between these three disciplines in cognitive science are emerging and are leading to new findings and theoretical insights. This book is open access under a CC BY license. (shrink)

To approach the many challenges involved in the notion of engineering concepts, it is important to have a clear idea of the starting point – the concepts that people use in their everyday lives, in conversations and in expressing beliefs, desires, intentions and so forth. The first Section of this chapter introduces evidence that I have accumulated over the last many years concerning the flexibility, context-dependence, and vagueness of such common concepts. The concept engineer needs to understand the structure of (...) the “raw material” with which she is working. In Section 2, I summarise some results concerning the amount of individual variation that exists within a single relatively homogenous population of individuals, both in what examples are considered most typical of a category, and in what properties are considered most central to a category (Hampton & Passanisi, 2016). The demonstration of a significant degree of reliable variation in responses to these questions, that is stable over time, illustrates the potential for conceptual engineering interventions to affect individuals’ concepts. Concepts are rarely fixed or uniformly understood in the same way. I then discuss the different ways in which concepts track the world, and I speculate about how different conceptual domains are governed by different criteria of validity or acceptability. This reflection will lead to Section 3 in which I summarise some results from recent research (Thorne, Quilty-Dunn, Smortchova, Shea, & Hampton, 2021), investigating for the first time how people view the value of different familiar concepts. Knowing how people appraise concepts will be a key to developing ideas for improving the reliability and validity of the concepts that they commonly use. A final section contains some (largely speculative) discussion about the implications of work in psychology of concepts for the project of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Examines key narratives animating the techno-progressive rhetoric of the human enhancement movement, arguing that enhancement and transhumanist discourse performs distinctly mythic functions. They cast a vision of a technological future involving enhanced posthumans, immortality, human merger with machines and space colonization.

A detailed account of certain traits of intellectual character—the epistemic virtues—and of their relation to the responsibility for one's beliefs.

What big questions and large‐scale narratives give coherence to the history of science? From the late 1970s onward, the field has been transformed through a stress on practice and fresh perspectives from gender studies, the sociology of knowledge, and work on a greatly expanded range of practitioners and cultures. Yet these developments, although long overdue and clearly beneficial, have been accompanied by fragmentation and loss of direction. This essay suggests that the narrative frameworks used by historians of science need to (...) come to terms with diversity by understanding science as a form of communication. The centrality of processes of movement, translation, and transmission is already emerging in studies of topics ranging from ethnographic encounters to the history of reading. Not only does this approach offer opportunities for crossing boundaries of nation, period, and discipline that are all too easily taken for granted; it also has the potential for creating a more effective dialogue with other historians and the wider public. (shrink)

What big questions and large‐scale narratives give coherence to the history of science? From the late 1970s onward, the field has been transformed through a stress on practice and fresh perspectives from gender studies, the sociology of knowledge, and work on a greatly expanded range of practitioners and cultures. Yet these developments, although long overdue and clearly beneficial, have been accompanied by fragmentation and loss of direction. This essay suggests that the narrative frameworks used by historians of science need to (...) come to terms with diversity by understanding science as a form of communication. The centrality of processes of movement, translation, and transmission is already emerging in studies of topics ranging from ethnographic encounters to the history of reading. Not only does this approach offer opportunities for crossing boundaries of nation, period, and discipline that are all too easily taken for granted; it also has the potential for creating a more effective dialogue with other historians and the wider public. (shrink)

It is now—at least loosely—acknowledged that most health and clinical outcomes are influenced by different interacting causes. Surprisingly, medical research studies are nearly universally designed to study—usually in a binary way—the effect of a single cause. Recent experiences during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic brought to the forefront that most of our challenges in medicine and healthcare deal with systemic, that is, interdependent and interconnected problems. Understanding these problems defy simplistic dichotomous research methodologies. These insights demand a shift in our (...) thinking from ‘cause and effect’ to ‘causes and effects’ since this transcends the classical way of Cartesian reductionist thinking. We require a shift to a ‘causes and effects’ frame so we can choose the research methodology that reflects the relationships between variables of interest—one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one or many-to-many. One-to-one (or cause and effect) relationships are amenable to the traditional randomized control trial design, while all others require systemic designs to understand ‘causes and effects’. Researchers urgently need to re-evaluate their science models and embrace research designs that allow an exploration of the clinically obvious multiple ‘causes and effects’ on health and disease. Clinical examples highlight the application of various systemic research methodologies and demonstrate how ‘causes and effects’ explain the heterogeneity of clinical outcomes. This shift in scientific thinking will allow us to find the necessary personalized or precise clinical interventions that address the underlying reasons for the variability of clinical outcomes and will contribute to greater health equity. (shrink)

In this work, McGilvray explains Noam Chomsky's rationalist view of human nature.