In situations where we ought to tolerate what we morally disapprove of we are faced with the following moral conflict: we ought to interfere with X, we ought to tolerate X, we can do either, but we cannot do both. And the aim of this paper is to clarify the relationship between toleration as a value commitment and value pluralist and value monist approaches to moral conflict. Firstly, value monists side-step the moral conflict at the heart of toleration. Nonetheless, secondly, (...) it is not the case that toleration as a value commitment is entailed by value pluralism. Rather, the value pluralist line of argument that can be defended is that toleration is simply one value among others, that there is no general rule showing that it has priority over other values, but also that it cannot be excluded altogether as a value. (shrink)

In modern democratic societies, the plurality of differing and conflicting moral doctrines stands alongside a commitment to resolve political disputes through the use of moral reasoning. Given the fact of moral pluralism, how can there be moral resolutions to political disputes? What type of moral reasoning is appropriate in the public sphere? These questions are explored through a close and critical analysis of the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Rawls. In this book it is argued that the anti-Enlightenment work of (...) Alasdair MacIntyre, along with post-modernists, fails on epistemological, ethical, and political grounds, while in contrast, Rawls's 'core conception of reasonableness,' which is a type of political reasoning carried out 'in the manner of' the Enlightenment, is better placed to successfully respond to the moral disputes of contemporary politics. The practical application of these ideas is also explored in discussions of civic education and global distributive justice. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes two ways in which to think about the freedom of extremists. Non-pluralists claim to have identified the general rule for resolving moral conflicts, and conceptualize freedom as liberty of action in accordance with that rule. It follows, if extremist violence breaks the rule in question, removing this option does not infringe the freedom of extremists. In contrast, for pluralists there is no one general rule to resolve moral conflicts, and freedom is simply the absence of interference. I (...) argue here that pluralism provides a principled defense of freedom, as it allows us to see that removing options from extremists is worse, on prima facie grounds, than not doing so. Also, non-pluralists cannot show that they have identified the general rule for resolving moral conflicts, and in particular, are forced to rely on quite different principles altogether when justifying paternalistic responses to extremism. (shrink)

RésuméSelon le scepticisme anarchiste d'A. John Simmons, il n'y a pas d'obligation d'obéir à la loi dans l’état actuel des choses, car les obligations légales n'ont de légitimité que lorsqu'elles sont volontairement contractées par la plupart ou de nombreux citoyens. Cependant, la sensibilité de Simmons à la diversité des raisons et à la possibilité d'un conflit non résolu suggère une position alternative pluraliste. Celle-ci montre que les fondements de l'autorité légitime sont pluriels et incluent la justice distributive. En outre, même (...) les obligations contractées volontairement peuvent être annulées par des raisons contradictoires, comme lorsque nous sommes liés par le devoir à un régime injuste. (shrink)

As a legitimate authoritative directive is a second-order reason, it defeats conflicting reasons by a process of exclusion. Nonetheless, a legitimate authoritative directive can be defeated by more weighty reasons, including, as I argue in this paper, the more weighty reasons it excludes. This is part of a value pluralist conception of authority, according to which there is no general rule for the resolution of conflicting reasons. And I advance this argument in response to the work of Joseph Raz. Although (...) Raz is a value pluralist, he posits a general rule for the resolution of some conflicts: namely, that an exclusionary reason cannot be defeated by a (more weighty) reason it excludes. This represents a weak version of value pluralism. My argument is that Raz does not succeed in his efforts to show that this general rule either better ensures conformity with reason or that it is justified by commitment to autonomy. (shrink)

Given his commitment to toleration, Edmund Burke is rightly seen as a moral pluralist. What has largely gone unnoticed, however, is his value pluralism. Whereas moral pluralism refers to normative...

Postmodernists reject what they call the universalist-rationalist framework of liberalism. When they do defend liberal democracy, they do so in a contextualist manner (within a ‘form of life’) and on the basis of contestation (‘agonism’). Liberals are right to charge postmodernism with self-contradiction, relativism, and immoralism. It is also argued in this article that liberalism and postmodernism are incompatible, and therefore, they cannot be joined together in response to the hegemonic construction of democratic debate. However, liberals are caught in a (...) bind as they insist on impartiality but also believe the exercise of virtue (reasonableness, mutual respect) is a requirement of rational dialogue. This article argues that perfectionism (objectivism) in value judgements is required both to insist that virtuousity is a requirement of rationality and to reject postmodernism. However, it must be possible to separate perfectionism from two features of Alasdair MacIntyre’s Aristotelianism: he is hostile to liberal rights and his contextualism results in relativism. (shrink)

Bernard Williams’ critique of _the morality system_, as illustrated in his reading of Aeschylus’ _Agamemnon_, is intended to show both that real moral conflicts can arise, and that a moral obligation is merely one reason among others and can be defeated by the thick concepts of a shared ethical life. In response, I want to advance two lines of argument. First, when Williams argues that a moral obligation can be the locus of moral conflict, a further step is required to (...) explain why one should feel regret for not acting on a defeated reason. Second, Williams presupposes that, when a conflict is resolved, the conclusive reason will be a thick ethical concept, but there is no compelling justification for that assumption. (shrink)

Judith Shklar’s liberalism of fear, a political and philosophical standpoint that emerges in her mature work, has ostensibly two defining characteristics. It is a sceptical approach that puts cruelty first among the vices. For that reason, it is considered to be both set apart from mainstream liberalism, in particular the liberalism of J. S. Mill and John Rawls, but also an important source of influence for political realists and nonideal theorists. However, I argue here that, in putting cruelty first among (...) the vices, Shklar also offers a value monist approach to political thought, one that she shares with Mill and Rawls as well. Each claims to have identified the general rule for the resolution of moral conflicts, although they disagree about what that rule is. Therefore, Shklar’s mature work combines scepticism with value monism. As such, it represents a radical departure from the value pluralist approach to moral conflict evident in her early work. Her commentators have not noticed either her mature monism or the move away from her earlier value pluralism, and this is explained by a tendency to see her mature work as offering simply a sceptical alternative to mainstream liberalism. (shrink)

What I refer to here as the dilemma of authority arises when one ought to defer to authority; one ought to act as the more weighty reason demands; one can do either; one cannot do both. For those who reject the possibility of legitimate authority, the dilemma does not arise. Among those who accept legitimate authority, some, including Joseph Raz, presume the conflict can be resolved without remainder. In this paper, I argue that, in a moral conflict of this kind, (...) when one of the reasons for action is defeated but not cancelled, it is rational to feel regret for failing to do what one ought to do. (shrink)

This article explores the values that should be promoted in civic education for democracy and also how the promotion of values can be non-coercive. It will be argued that civic education should promote the values of reasonableness, mutual respect and fairness, but also that only public, political reasons count in attempting to justify the content of civic education. It will also be argued that the content of civic education may legitimately be broader than this, including but not restricted to the (...) values of autonomy, integrity, magnanimity, truthfulness and generosity. At the same time, if civic education is seen merely as a means to shape and form future citizens, then the promotion of values in civic education will be a coercive imposition on children and young people. If the promotion of values instead is to be non-coercive it must be defended with reasons that children and young people should be able to accept. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:An Encounter with the Art and Science of MedicineAnonymous Five“Let Nothing Upset YouLet Nothing Frighten YouEverything is ChangingOnly God is Changeless”—St. Theresa of AvilaSt. Teresa’s prayer is on the front cover of each of four binders dedicated to storing insurance authorizations, studies, references, and reports about our daughter’s brain tumor treatment. They represent our experience, what we learned, the information we were given, and the information we sought out. (...) I kept them in case our daughter ever wanted to understand how my husband and I arrived at a decision for her treatment that was in direct opposition to the strong recommendation of her primary treatment team of physicians.On December 10, 2003, I received an urgent call from our daughter’s neurologist requesting that we meet with the doctor late that afternoon. For six months prior to that appointment, our daughter had been telling us about odd sensations with breathing, nausea, and balance. Sometimes she would seem extremely distressed for a short period of time or report that her friends told her about doing or saying things that didn’t make sense and that she didn’t remember. We consulted a series of physicians as her symptoms became steadily more intense and more prevalent. Our family practice physician referred us to an allergy specialist and a pulmonologist. There were a number of tests for allergies and lung problems. As the tests and treatments did not help, our daughter became increasingly unwilling to go to doctor’s appointments. My husband and I were confused and deeply concerned about the lack of progress. The next series of referrals included a gastroenterologist and a neurologist. The gastroenterologist suggested our daughter had partial–complex epilepsy, concurred with our plan to see a neurologist, and mentioned she should have an MRI.I remember the neurologist putting the MRI scans up, pointing to the large dark spot which he called a “large mass” (5 cm), that could be either a cluster of blood vessels or a neoplasm. He said his office had arranged for us to meet a neurosurgeon the following day. We all remember the same thing about that visit—the image of the large dark mass on the scan—and the neurologists flat, brisk tone. We met with the neuro-surgeon the next day. Her team was kind and sympathetic—she was positive, up beat and direct. She did not think this mass was blood vessels. She thought it was a large tumor that needed to be removed right away. Our daughters surgery was scheduled for the following Friday—December 19, 2003. She had turned 15 on November 5.Four and a half hours after our daughter was wheeled into the operating room, her surgeon told us they had removed 98% of the tumor. She said there was no cure, but there was a good prognosis based on the surgical outcome. Several days later, she called us and said she had more data, and it looked like the resection was closer to 90%. The first pathology report, a “first impression” directly after surgery, described our daughter’s tumor as an astrocytoma, probably high grade. Three weeks after surgery, we met with a panel of doctors—two oncologists and radiologist—who explained that based on the final pathology report, our daughter’s tumor was classified as an ependymoma, grade 2. We were dismayed. First, there had been the change in the estimated success of the resection and now a complete shift in both grade and tumor type.The team recommended radiation to follow her surgery, which they said was standard treatment. We began to try to inform ourselves about her tumor. Her father, an agronomist, did an extensive search in PubMed to evaluate and sort through the literature on low–grade gliomas and radiation. What he could find was inconclusive and grim. Most reports in the literature suggested at best delayed mortality at five years after radiation. [End Page E7] Meanwhile, our daughter went through a spinal MRI and the preparatory “fitting” of the mask to immobilize her head during radiation.E7I consulted with a friend who had worked as an EKG tech. She urged... (shrink)

Résumé Le problème moral de l'autorité peut s'exprimer ainsi : comment l'autorité, avec la déférence qu'elle implique, peut-elle être compatible avec la liberté et la rationalité? L'approche pluraliste sépare l'obligation politique de l'autorité. Pour les pluralistes, l'autorité est à la fois injustifiable et inutile, et donc l'obligation politique légitime, y compris le devoir d'obéir à la loi, n'implique pas de déférence. Je soutiens qu'il est possible de conserver l'engagement pluraliste envers des motifs de légitimité pluriels, tout en réfutant les objections (...) pluralistes à l'autorité. En conséquence, chaque fois que l'autorité a une légitimité, la question morale de l'autorité exigera une réponse. (shrink)

What do the victims of tyranny owe each other? In this paper, I examine whether they can be condemned for betraying their friends, and I do so through a novel interpretation of Judith Shklar’s political thought. Shklar is a widely acknowledged and significant influence on non-ideal theory and political realism. However, there is also a previously unnoticed transformation between her early and mature work, for although she remains a sceptic her approach to moral conflict changes from value pluralism to value (...) monism. In addition, it is only in her mature work, as a monist, she believes tyranny cancels obligations of justice. I argue here that Shklar’s monism fails, and this in turn has important implications for political realism and non-ideal theory. While attention has been focused on developing a sceptical critique of ideal theory, this interpretation of Shklar’s work illustrates that greater awareness is needed of the pitfalls of monist strands of scepticism. (shrink)

Existing social disparities in the United States are inconsistent with the promise of democracy; therefore, there was a need for critical conceptualization of the first principles that undergird American democracy and the genesis of democratic social change in America. This constructivist grounded theory study aimed to construct a grounded theory that provides an understanding of the process of American democratic social change as it emerged from the nation’s founding documents. A post hoc polytheoretical framework including Foucault’s, Bourdieu’s, and Marx and (...) Engels’s theories of power was used to understand power dynamics. The research question focused on understanding the process of democratic social change in America. The sample comprised the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and the U.S. Constitution. The documents were retrieved from the National Archives and Library of Congress. The data analysis plan incorporated successive comparison, situational and dramaturgical analysis, deconstruction, and perspective taking as strategies. The result was the construction of a democratic social change process theory preceded by five grounded theories: (a) first principles of democracy, (b) first principles of democracy conceptual framework, (c) socio-ethical principles of democracy, (d) demoralizing process, and (e) either-or approach to democracy. Positive social change implications include applying a democratic social change process to future social change endeavors across domains and levels of analysis, a normative framework for a republican form of government, and a tool to analyze and minimize the latent consequences of social justice policies. (shrink)

Do philosophers have a responsibility to their society that is distinct from their responsibility to it as citizens? This edited volume explores both what type of contribution philosophy can make and what type of reasoning is appropriate when addressing public matters now. These questions are posed by leading international scholars working in the fields of moral and political philosophy. Each contribution also investigates the central issue of how to combine critical, rational analysis with a commitment to politically relevant public engagement. (...) The contributions to this volume analyse issues raised in practical ethics, including abortion, embryology, and assisted suicide. They consider the role of ethical commitment in the philosophical analysis of contemporary political issues, and engage with matters of public policy such as poverty, the arts, meaningful work, as well as the evidence base for policy. They also examine the normative legitimacy of power, including the use of violence. (shrink)

This exciting new Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the contemporary state of the field. The editors' introduction and forty-five essays cover feminist critical engagements with philosophy and adjacent scholarly fields, as well as feminist approaches to current debates and crises across the world. Authors cover topics ranging from the ways in which feminist philosophy attends to other systems of oppression, and the gendered, racialized, and classed assumptions embedded in philosophical concepts, to feminist perspectives on prominent subfields of philosophy. The (...) first section contains chapters that explore feminist philosophical engagement with mainstream and marginalized histories and traditions, while the second section parses feminist philosophy's contributions to with numerous philosophical subfields, for example metaphysics and bioethics. A third section explores what feminist philosophy can illuminate about crucial moral and political issues of identity, gender, the body, autonomy, prisons, among numerous others. The Handbook concludes with the field's engagement with other theories and movements, including trans studies, queer theory, critical race, theory, postcolonial theory, and decolonial theory. The volume provides a rigorous but accessible resource for students and scholars who are interested in feminist philosophy, and how feminist philosophers situate their work in relation to the philosophical mainstream and other disciplines. Above all it aims to showcase the rich diversity of subject matter, approach, and method among feminist philosophers. (shrink)

It is common in philosophy of language to recognise two different kinds of linguistic meaning: literal or conventional meaning, on the one hand, versus communicated or conveyed meaning, on the other. However, once we recognise these two types of meaning, crucial questions immediately emerge; for instance, exactly which meanings should we treat as the literal (semantic) ones, and exactly which appeals to a context of utterance yield communicated (pragmatic), as opposed to semantic, content? It is these questions and, specifically, how (...) we should model the relationship between semantic content and utterance context, that is the topic of this chapter. We explore five contemporary answers to this modelling question, considering the benefits and challenges of each, before closing by examining some potential new directions for debates in this area. (shrink)

In 1947 America’s premier philosopher, educator, and public intellectual John Dewey purportedly lost his last manuscript on modern philosophy in the back of a taxicab. Now, sixty-five years later, Dewey’s fresh and unpretentious take on the history and theory of knowledge is finally available. Editor Phillip Deen has taken on the task of editing Dewey’s unfinished work, carefully compiling the fragments and multiple drafts of each chapter that he discovered in the folders of the Dewey Papers at the Special Collections (...) Research Center at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He has used Dewey’s last known outline for the manuscript, aiming to create a finished product that faithfully represents Dewey’s original intent. An introduction and editor’s notes by Deen and a foreword by Larry A. Hickman, director of the Center for Dewey Studies, frame this previously lost work. In Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy, Dewey argues that modern philosophy is anything but; instead, it retains the baggage of outdated and misguided philosophical traditions and dualisms carried forward from Greek and medieval traditions. Drawing on cultural anthropology, Dewey moves past the philosophical themes of the past, instead proposing a functional model of humanity as emotional, inquiring, purposive organisms embedded in a natural and cultural environment. Dewey begins by tracing the problematic history of philosophy, demonstrating how, from the time of the Greeks to the Empiricists and Rationalists, the subject has been mired in the search for immutable absolutes outside human experience and has relied on dualisms between mind and body, theory and practice, and the material and the ideal, ultimately dividing humanity from nature. The result, he posits, is the epistemological problem of how it is possible to have knowledge at all. In the second half of the volume, Dewey roots philosophy in the conflicting beliefs and cultural tensions of the human condition, maintaining that these issues are much more pertinent to philosophy and knowledge than the sharp dichotomies of the past and abstract questions of the body and mind. Ultimately, Dewey argues that the mind is not separate from the world, criticizes the denigration of practice in the name of theory, addresses the dualism between matter and ideals, and questions why the human and the natural were ever separated in philosophy. The result is a deeper understanding of the relationship among the scientific, the moral, and the aesthetic. More than just historically significant in its rediscovery, Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy provides an intriguing critique of the history of modern thought and a positive account of John Dewey’s naturalized theory of knowing. This volume marks a significant contribution to the history of American thought and finally resolves one of the mysteries of pragmatic philosophy. (shrink)

Part 1. Introduction -- Introduction: Navigating the Perfect Moral Storm in Light of a Thirty-Five Year Debate -- Thirty-Five Year Climate Change Policy Debate -- Part 2. Priority Ethical Issues -- Ethical Problems with Cost Arguments -- Ethics and Scientific Uncertainty Arguments -- Atmospheric Targets -- Allocating National Emissions Targets -- Climate Change Damages and Adaptation Costs -- Obligations of Sub-national Governments, Organizations, Businesses, and Individuals -- Independent Responsibility to Act -- Part 3. The Crucial Role of Ethics in Climate (...) Change Policy Making -- Why Has Ethics Failed to Achieve Traction? -- Conclusion: Navigating the Perfect Moral Storm. (shrink)

The present volume focuses on aspects of Islamic thought in Iran and Yemen, and other regions of the Middle East, ninth through fifteenth century CE, through a close study of manuscript materials. The book's sixteen chapters are arranged under five rubrics: Mu'tazilism, Zaydism in Iran and in Yemen, Twelver Shi'ism, Mysticism, and Bibliographical Traditions. The material included in the book has been published previously in a different version. The appearance of these studies together in a single volume makes this book (...) a significant and welcome contribution to the field of classical Islamic Studies. (shrink)

"Aptavani 5" is the fifth in a series of spiritual books titled "Aptavani". In this series, Gnani Purush (embodiment of Self knowledge) Dada Bhagwan addresses age-old unanswered questions of spiritual seekers. Dadashri offers in-depth answers to questions such as: "What is the meaning of karma?", "How can I master the law of karma?", "Who am I, and who is the 'Doer' (ego definition)?", and "What is prakruti (non-self complex)?"Dadashri also provides spiritual explanation on the topics of: "To attain the Self, (...) must one control the five sense organs?", "How does one define penance?", and "What would be the definition of repentance?For those wondering how to become more spiritual, Dadashri explains that the knowledge of Self is the beginning of true spirituality. With such spiritual development, and from understanding the law of karma, one can learn how to interact peacefully in worldly life. (shrink)

It is common in philosophy of language to recognise two different kinds of linguistic meaning: literal or conventional meaning, on the one hand, versus communicated or conveyed meaning, on the other. However, once we recognise these two types of meaning, crucial questions immediately emerge; for instance, exactly which meanings should we treat as the literal (semantic) ones, and exactly which appeals to a context of utterance yield communicated (pragmatic), as opposed to semantic, content? It is these questions and, specifically, how (...) we should model the relationship between semantic content and utterance context, that is the topic of this chapter. We explore five contemporary answers to this modelling question, considering the benefits and challenges of each, before closing by examining some potential new directions for debates in this area. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging and multidisciplinary volume, leading scholars, activists, journalists, and public figures deliberate about the creative and critical potential of public imagination in an era paradoxically marked by intensifying globalization and resurgent nationalism. Divided into five sections, these essays explore the social, political, and cultural role of imagination and civic engagement, offering cogent, ingenious reflections that stand in stark contrast to the often grim rhetoric of our era. Short and succinct, the essays engage with an interconnected ensemble of themes (...) and issues while also providing insights into the specific geographical and social dynamics of each author's national or regional context. Part 1 introduces the reader to theoretical reflections on imagination and the public sphere; Part 2 illustrates dynamics of public imagination in a diverse set of cultural contexts; Part 3 reflects in various ways on the urgent need for a radically transformed public and civic imagination in the face of worldwide ecological crisis; Part 4 suggests new societal possibilities that are related to spiritual as well as politically revolutionary sources of inspiration; Part 5 explores characteristics of present and potentially emerging global society and the existing transnational framework that could provide resources for a more humane global order. Erudite and thought-provoking, On Public Imagination makes a vital contribution to political thought, and is accessible to activists, students, and scholars alike. (shrink)

A critical appraisal of the theories founded on the theorem of the multiaxial flower , shows an evolution fromWettstein's original version of 1907 to various hypotheses founded on the the same theme and partly derived from the Wettsteinian doctrine. A number of circumstances such as semantic inconsistencies, but principally the choice of inadequate archetypes, prevented the success of the theory of a polystachyous floral region, because the deductions and interpretations emanating from this concept were not sufficiently convincing to defeat the (...) opposed theory of the uniaxial euanthous flower or anthostrobilus hypothesis. Only after the amendation of the theory of a multiaxial reproductive region on the basis of the anthocorm concept can one arrive at a plausible idea of the evolution of the angiospermous flower which is compatible with all aspects of the phylogeny of the Flowering Plants , and with the floral morphology and anatomy of the various kinds of flowers.Eine kritische Bewertung der Theorien die auf dem Theorem der mehrachsigen Blüte gegründet worden sind zeigt die Entwicklung von einer vonWettstein in 1907 vorgeschlagenen Originalversion zu mehreren, teilweise davon abgeleiteten, Theorien über das Thema der Entstehung der Angiospermenblüte. Verschiedene Umstände, wie z.B. semantische Widersprüche, aber in erster Stelle die Wahl eines inadäquaten Prototypus, verhinderten anfänglich den Erfolg der Hypothese eines mehrachsigen Blütenbereiches, weil es den hervorgehenden Schlussfolgerungen und Deutungen zu viel an Ueberzeugungskraft mangelte um die gegnerische Theorie der einachsigen Ranalesblüte oder Anthostrobilushypothese endgültig zu verdrängen. Erst die Ergänzung der Theorie einer vielachsigen Blüte ermöglichte die plausibele Darstellung der Evolution der Angiospermenblüte, welche Erörterung in befriedigender Weise in Uebereinstimmung ist mit allenA spekten der Phylogenie der Blütenpflanzen , und auch mit den morphologischen and anatomischen Verhältnissen bei Blüten jeder Art im Anklang ist.Une évaluation critique des différentes théories fondées sur le théorème de la fleur pluriaxiale montre une évolution qui commence avec une version originale proposée parWettstein en 1907 et qui mène à plusieurs théories, partiellement dérivées de l'idée wettsteinienne, sur le thème de l'origine de la fleur. Quelques circonstances, comme par exemple des contrariétés sémantiques, mais surtout la choix d'un prototype inadéquat, ont prévenu au début le triomphe de l'hypothèse d'une région florale pluriaxiale, puisque les conclusions et les interprétations qui provenaient de cette théorie étaient privées de toute conviction pour suppléer la théorie opposée de la fleur ranalienne et uniaxiale . Une explication recevable de l'évolution de la fleur angiospermique qui harmonise avec tous les aspects de la phylogénie des plantes floriales , et aussi avec les conditions morphologiques et anatomiques de toutes sortes de fleurs, ne gagnait de terrain qu'après le perfectionnement de la théorie de la fleur pluriaxiale. (shrink)

The Dodd‐Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, signed into law by President Obama in July 2010, included two significant corporate governance mandates: “say‐on‐pay” shareholder voting and the frequency of such votes among all publicly traded companies. The say‐on‐pay rule requires publicly traded companies subject to proxy rules to offer their shareholders an advisory, or nonbinding, vote at least once every three years on the compensation packages of the most highly compensated executives. The actual data for the first five (...) years of say‐on‐pay voting indicates one intractable conclusion: that shareholder say‐on‐pay voting has not verified what many shareholder activists originally believed, i.e., that the majority of shareholders held similar opinions about business executives being significantly overpaid for their managerial performances. During its first five years in effect, the results of say‐on‐pay voting indicate that shareholders are overwhelmingly satisfied with executive compensation packages, as a 92 percent average shareholder say‐on‐pay approval result (i.e., exceeding 70 percent) among companies listed in the Russell 3000 Index attests. (shrink)

Increasingly the business environment is tending toward a global economy. The current study compares the results of the Attitudes Towards Business Ethics Questionnaire (ATBEQ) reported in the literature for samples from the United States of America, Israel, Western Australia, and South Africa to a new sample (n = 125) from Turkey. The results indicate that while there are some shared views towards business ethics across countries, significant differences do exist between Turkey and each of the other countries in the study. (...) Similarities and differences are discussed in terms of the countries' ratings on the Corruption Perceptions Index (as reported by the Internet Center for Corruption Research) and Hofstede's Theory of International Cultures. Recommendations for managers interacting with employees from differing countries are provided. (shrink)

In this benchmark five-volume study, originally published between 1922 and 1955, Surendranath Dasgupta examines the principal schools of thought that define Indian philosophy. A unifying force greater than art, literature, religion, or science, Professor Dasgupta describes philosophy as the most important achievement of Indian thought, arguing that an understanding of its history is necessary to appreciate the significance and potentialities of India's complex culture. Volume I offers an examination of the Vedas and the Brahmanas, the earlier Upanisads, and the six (...) systems of Indian philosophy. (shrink)

Objectives: This study was designed to explore the prevalence and types of stipulations required of investigators by the institutional review board of one institution over a five year period.Design: Stipulations to research proposals were documented from the minutes of the IRB meetings.Setting: Community hospital.Participants: IRB submissions.Main measurements: Number and type of IRB stipulations.Results: Nineteen research submissions were approved without any stipulations. For the remainder, the majority of stipulations related to consent forms .Conclusions: Consent forms appear to be at highest risk (...) for IRB stipulations. Being aware of high risk areas before submission of research proposals may reduce the frequency of stipulations required of investigators. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue for the value of studying gender stereotypes at the subgroup level, combining insights from the stereotype content model, social role theory, and intersectional perspectives. Empirically, we investigate the stereotype content of gender subgroups in Norway, a cultural context for which a systematic description of stereotypes of gender subgroups is lacking. In a pilot study, we established salient subgroups within the Norwegian context. Employing the stereotype content model, these groups were rated on warmth and competence in (...) a main study. Combining social role and intersectional perspectives, we compared stereotypes of women and men in the same social roles and social categories across subgroups. Comparisons between subgroups of women and men occupying the same social role indicated that at the subgroup level, women are often viewed as warmer than men, whereas the reverse appears to be a rare exception. Competence ratings, however, did not show this consistency. Our results at the subgroup level are consistent with research indicating that current gender stereotypes converge on constructs related to the competence dimension and remain divergent for constructs related to warmth. (shrink)

Portraits of Wittgenstein is a major collection of memoirs and reflections on one of the most influential and yet elusive personalities in the history of modern philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Featuring a wealth of illuminating and profound insights into Wittgenstein's extraordinary life, this unique collection reveals Wittgenstein's character and power of personality more vividly and comprehensively than ever before. With portraits from more than seventy-five figures, Portraits of Wittgenstein brings together the personal recollections of philosophers, students, friends and acquaintances, including Bertrand (...) Russell, G. E. Moore, F. R. Leavis, A. J. Ayer, Karl Popper, Friedrich von Hayek, G. H. von Wright, Rush Rhees, Freeman Dyson, G. E. M. Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley and Mary Warnock. These authors testify to the life-long influence Wittgenstein had on the lives of those he met. Their fascinating memoirs, reflections and commentaries, often at odds with each other, reveal Wittgenstein's kindness, and how much genuine friendship meant to him, as well as his suffering and despair. They show too how the philosopher's ruthless honesty and uncompromising integrity often resulted in stern advice and harsh rebukes to friends and foes alike. Now available in a single, revised and updated volume, Portraits of Wittgenstein includes new selections, revised contributions, photographs, maps and introductory overviews that provide historical context to Wittgenstein's relationships with his intellectual and social circle. This collection of valuable and hard-to-find material is an indispensable resource for scholars and students of the life and work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. (shrink)

In the Middle Ages more than in other periods, eschatology informed the way people understood humankind and the world. The papers in the present volume are devoted to the complexity and interconnectivty of the eschatological orientation of the Middle Ages. Central topics are questions of the influence and formation of eschatological themes in philosophy and the significance of ideas of the final end in medieval political thought. In addition, there is a consideration of further themes from history, theology, art and (...) literature. The 29th volume of the Miscellanea Mediaevalia contains the papers delivered to the 32nd Cologne Medieval Studies Conference plus additional contributions. The volume includes five papers on the 50-year history of the Thomas Institute, which has been organising the Cologne Medieval Studies Conference for the last half century. (shrink)

Description from a book review by J. G. Beebe-Center: "Mr. Allen's book develops in detail the view that pleasure and unpleasure are essentially manifestations of the progression and thwarting of impulses. Part one is a brief summary of the principal theories of feeling. Part two is devoted to "sensory" or "bodily" pleasure and unpleasure. These forms of feeling, it is argued, 'depend on an analogue of conation existing in the organism, a nisus to maintain, or to carry out to the (...) full extent, the functioning proper to the bodily system.' Part three -- the piece de resistance (about half the book) -- deals with the relation of pleasure and unpleasure to the main instincts. Parts four, five and six take up a number of classical problems: the relation of pleasure and unpleasure to sensation, their relation to desire, the relativity of feelings, the qualitative variety of feelings, and the psychology of values. The author shows throughout a rare combination of historicophilosophical sophistication and of first-hand familiarity with the modern experimental literature.". (shrink)

Over the past decades the mortality rate in the United States has decreased and life expectancy has increased. Yet a number of recent studies have drawn Americans attention to the fact that racial and ethnic disparities persist in health care. It is clear that the U.S. health care system is not only flawed for many reasons including basic injustices, but may be the cause of both injury and death for members of racial and ethnic minorities.In 2002, an Institute of Medicine (...) report requested by Congress listed more than 100 studies documenting a wide range of disparities in the United States health care system. This report found that people belonging to racial and ethnic minorities often receive lower quality of health care than do people of European descent, even when their medical insurance coverage and income levels are the same as that of the latter. (shrink)

Well over five thousand languages are known to exist or to have existed in the world, but hundreds of these are no longer living languages used by speakers and speech communities in their day-to-day activities and lives. Some of them lead a pseudolife as revered monuments of the past which still have some restricted and specialised roles to play today, such as Latin, Ancient Greek, Church Slavonic and others, but most of them are of interest and concern only to a (...) small group of linguists, historians and some other experts who look at the past. Many languages have disappeared without being known to us in any great detail, with only some fragmentary materials in them - written or noted down by speakers or observers of them hundreds or even thousands of years ago - at our disposal to give us some idea as to what those languages were like. Others have disappeared without even that scanty information about their nature being available to us; only their names are known from historical records, or perhaps some remarks were written down by someone many years ago and were preserved over the ages to tell us something about some special features of such a language or such languages and who and what kind of people their speakers were. Many other languages, certainly a much larger number than the dead languages about which we know something, have disappeared without our knowing anything of or about them. (shrink)

Examples of hypotheses about the number of planets are frequently used to introduce the topic of (actual) truthlikeness but never analyzed in detail. In this paper we first deal with the truthlikeness of singular quantity hypotheses, with reference to several ‘the number of planets’ examples, such as ‘The number of planets is 10 _versus_ 10 billion (instead of 8).’ For the relevant ratio scale of quantities we will propose two, strongly related, normalized metrics, the proportional metric and the (simplest and (...) hence favorite) fractional metric, to express e.g. the distance from a hypothetical number to the true number of planets, i.e. the distance between quantities. We argue that they are, in view of the examples and plausible conditions of adequacy, much more appropriate, than the standardly suggested, normalized absolute difference, metric. Next we deal with disjunctive hypotheses, such as ‘The number of planets is between 7 and 10 inclusive is much more truthlike than between 1 and 10 billion inclusive.’ We compare three (clusters of) general ways of dealing with such hypotheses, one from Ilkka Niiniluoto, one from Pavel Tichý and Graham Oddie, and a trio of ways from Theo Kuipers. Using primarily the fractional metric, we conclude that all five measures can be used for expressing the distance of disjunctive hypotheses from the actual truth, that all of them have their strong and weak points, but that (the combined) one of the trio is, in view of principle and practical considerations, the most plausible measure. (shrink)

In his famous Wager, Blaise Pascal offers the reader an argument that it is rational to strive to believe in God. Philosophical debates about this classic argument have continued until our own times. This volume provides a comprehensive examination of Pascal's Wager, including its theological framework, its place in the history of philosophy, and its importance to contemporary decision theory. The volume starts with a valuable primer on infinity and decision theory for students and non-specialists. A sequence of chapters then (...) examines topics including the Wager's underlying theology, its influence on later philosophical figures, and contemporary analyses of the Wager including Alan Hájek's challenge to its validity, the many gods objection, and the ethics of belief. The final five chapters explore various ways in which the Wager has inspired contemporary decision theory, including questions related to infinite utility, imprecise probabilities, and infinitesimals. (shrink)

This volume presents a sketch of the Meaning-Text linguistic approach, richly illustrated by examples borrowed mainly, but not exclusively, from English. Chapter 1 expounds the basic idea that underlies this approach—that a natural language must be described as a correspondence between linguistic meanings and linguistic texts—and explains the organization of the book. Chapter 2 introduces the notion of linguistic functional model, the three postulates of the Meaning-Text approach (a language is a particular meaning-text correspondence, a language must be described by (...) a functional model and linguistic utterances must be treated at the level of the sentence and that of the word) and the perspective “from meaning to text” for linguistic descriptions. Chapter 3 contains a characterization of a particular Meaning-Text model: formal linguistic representations on the semantic, the syntactic and the morphological levels and the modules of a linguistic model that link these representations. Chapter 4 covers two central problems of the Meaning-Text approach: semantic decomposition and restricted lexical cooccurrence (≈ lexical functions); particular attention is paid to the correlation between semantic components in the definition of a lexical unit and the values of its lexical functions. Chapter 5 discusses five select issues: 1) the orientation of a linguistic description must be from meaning to text (using as data Spanish semivowels and Russian binominative constructions); 2) a system of notions and terms for linguistics (linguistic sign and the operation of linguistic union; notion of word; case, voice, and ergative construction); 3) formal description of meaning (strict semantic decomposition, standardization of semantemes, the adequacy of decomposition, the maximal block principle); 4) the Explanatory Combinatorial Dictionary (with a sample of complete lexical entries for Russian vocables); 5) dependencies in language, in particular—syntactic dependencies (the criteria for establishing a set of surface-syntactic relations for a language are formulated). Three appendices follow: a phonetic table, an inventory of surface-syntactic relations for English and an overview of all possible combinations of the three types of dependency (semantic, syntactic, and morphological). The book is supplied with a detailed index of notions and terms, which includes a linguistic glossary. (shrink)

This book explores the constitutional, legally binding dimension to legisprudence in the light of the German Federal Constitutional Court's approach to rational lawmaking. Over the last decades this court has been remarkably active in applying legisprudential criteria and standards when reviewing parliamentary laws. It has thus supplied observers with a unique material to analyse the lawmakers' duty to legislate rationally, and to assess the virtues and drawbacks of this strand of judicial control in a constitutional democracy. By bringing together legislation (...) experts and public law scholars to elaborate on 'legisprudence under review', this contributed volume aspires to shed light on the constitutionalisation of rational lawmaking as a controversial trend gaining ground in both national and international jurisdictions. The book is divided into five parts. Part I frames the two key issues pervading the whole collection: the intricate relationship between judicial review and democracy, on the one hand, and the possibility of improving and rationalizing the task of legislation under the current circumstances of politics, on the other. Part II provides an overview of the judicial review of rational lawmaking, laying special emphasis on the duty of legislative justification imposed on lawmakers by the German Constitutional Court. Part III is devoted to the review of the systemic rationality of legislation, in particular to the requirements of legislative consistence and coherence as developed by this court. Contributions in Part IV revolve around the judicial scrutiny of the socio-empirical elements of rational lawmaking, with the control of legislative facts and impacts and the problem of symbolic laws being the central topics. Finally, Part V draws on the German case law to discuss the links between rational lawmaking, balancing and proportionality, and the interdependence between process review and substantive review of legislation. (shrink)