In recent years, firms have greatly increased the amount of resources allocated to activities classified as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). While an increase in CSR expenditure may be consistent with firm value maximization if it is a response to changes in stakeholders' preferences, we argue that a firm's insiders (managers and large blockholders) may seek to overinvest in CSR for their private benefit to the extent that doing so improves their reputations as good global citizens and has a "warm-glow" effect. (...) We test this hypothesis by investigating the relation between firms' CSR ratings and their ownership and capital structures. Employing a unique data set that categorizes the largest 3000 U. S. corporations as either socially responsible (SR) or socially irresponsible (SI), we find that on average, insiders' ownership and leverage are negatively related to the firm's social rating, while institutional ownership is uncorrelated with it. Assuming that higher CSR ratings is associated with higher CSR expenditure level, these results support our hypothesis that insiders induce firms to over-invest in CSR when they bear little of the cost of doing so. (shrink)

Do psychotherapists' unethical practices influence how they are perceived? The 202 Israeli lay and professional psychology participants rated systematically varied descriptions of effective therapists and potential clients under conditions of no difficulties, practice without a license, and a previous sexual boundary violation on indexes of evaluation and willingness to refer. Participants completed a measure of important variables in therapist selection. Effective standard therapists were rated most favorably, unlicensed therapists were rated favorably, and therapists who violated sexual boundaries in the past (...) were rated least favorably. When results were analyzed by respondent characteristics, laypersons rated unlicensed professionals and sexual boundary violators more positively than did clinical psychologists. Men rated the violators more favorably than did women. Factor analysis of therapist selection measures identified professional and personal factors, but only the former were associated with ratings of "problem" therapists. The results underscore the gap between ethical standards and applied decisions made by professionals and laypersons. Further investigation is needed to ensure quality care in both professional and consumer approaches to psychotherapy. (shrink)

One of the deepest ideological divides in contemporary epistemology concerns the relative importance of belief versus credence. A prominent consideration in favor of credence-based epistemology is the ease with which it appears to account for rational action. In contrast, cases with risky payoff structures threaten to break the link between rational belief and rational action. This threat poses a challenge to traditional epistemology, which maintains the theoretical prominence of belief. The core problem, we suggest, is that belief may not be (...) enough to register all aspects of a subject’s epistemic position with respect to any given proposition. We claim this problem can be solved by introducing other doxastic attitudes—genuine representations—that differ in strength from belief. The resulting alternative picture, a kind of doxastic states pluralism, retains the central features of traditional epistemology—most saliently, an emphasis on truth as a kind of objective accuracy—while adequately accounting for rational action. (shrink)

> Wealthy nations must do much more, much faster. The United Nations General Assembly in September 2021 will bring countries together at a critical time for marshalling collective action to tackle the global environmental crisis. They will meet again at the biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, and the climate conference 26) in Glasgow, UK. Ahead of these pivotal meetings, we—the editors of health journals worldwide—call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5°C, halt the destruction of nature (...) and protect health. Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world, a state of affairs health professionals have been bringing attention to for decades.1 The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5°C above the preindustrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.2 3 Despite the world’s necessary preoccupation with COVID-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions. Reflecting the severity of the moment, this editorial appears in health journals across the world. We are united in recognising that only fundamental and equitable changes to societies will reverse our current trajectory. The risks to health of increases above 1.5°C are now well established.2 Indeed, no temperature rise is ‘safe’. In the past 20 years, heat-related mortality among people aged over 65 has increased by more than 50%.4 Higher temperatures have brought increased dehydration and renal function loss, dermatological malignancies, tropical infections, adverse mental health outcomes, pregnancy complications, allergies, and cardiovascular and pulmonary morbidity and mortality.5 6 Harms disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, including children, older populations, ethnic minorities, poorer communities and those with underlying health problems.2 4 Global heating is also contributing to the decline in …. (shrink)

We challenge a line of thinking at the fore of recent work on epistemic value: the line (suggested by Kvanvig in The value of knowledge and the pursuit of understanding, 2003 and others) that if the value of knowledge is “swamped” by the value of mere true belief, then we have good reason to doubt its theoretical importance in epistemology. We offer a value-driven argument for the theoretical importance of knowledge—one that stands even if the value of knowledge is “swamped” (...) by the value of true belief. Specifically, we contend that even if knowledge itself has no special epistemic value, its relationship to other items of value—cognitive abilities—gives ample reason to locate the concept at the very core of epistemology. (shrink)

Emotional arousal and negative affect enhance recall of central aspects of an event. However, the role of discrete emotions in selective memory processing is understudied. Undergraduates were asked to recall and rate autobiographical memories of eight emotional events. Details of each memory were rated as central or peripheral to the event. Significance of the event, vividness, reliving and other aspects of remembering were also rated for each memory. Positive affect enhanced recall of peripheral details. Furthermore, the impairment of peripheral recall (...) was greatest in memories of anger, not of fear. Reliving the experience at retrieval was negatively correlated with recall of peripheral details for some emotions (e.g., anger) but not others (e.g., fear), irrespective of similarities in affect and intensity. Within individuals, recall of peripheral details was correlated with less belief in the memory's accuracy and more likelihood to recall the memory from one's own eyes (i.e., a field perspective). (shrink)

Environmental ethicists have been arguing for decades that swift action to protect our natural environment is morally paramount, and that our concern for the environment should go beyond its importance for human welfare. It might be thought that the widespread acceptance of moral anti-realism would undermine the aims of environmental ethicists. One reason is that recent empirical studies purport to show that moral realists are more likely to act on the basis of their ethical convictions than anti-realists. In addition, it (...) is sometimes argued that only moral realists can countenance the claim that nature is intrinsically valuable. Against this, we argue that the acceptance of moral anti-realism is no threat to the environmentalist cause. We argue, further, that the acceptance of moral realism is potentially an obstacle to delivering on a third core environmental ethicist demand: namely, that successful action on climate change and environmental destruction requires us to change some of our commonly-held ethical views and to achieve a workable consensus. (shrink)

"Dr. Rubin has brought cognitive psychology into a wholly unprecedented dialogue with studies in oral tradition. The result is a truly new perspective on memory and the processes of oral tradition." --John Miles Foley, University of Missouri.

Humans are capable of extracting recurring patterns from their environment via statistical learning (SL), an ability thought to play an important role in language learning and learning more generally. While much work has examined statistical learning in infants and adults, less work has looked at the developmental trajectory of SL during childhood to see whether it is fully developed in infancy or improves with age, like many other cognitive abilities. A recent study showed modality‐based differences in the effect of age (...) during childhood: While visual SL improved with age, auditory SL did not. This finding was taken as evidence for modality‐based differences in SL. However, since that study used auditory linguistic stimuli (syllables), the differential effect of age may have been driven by stimulus type (linguistic vs. non‐linguistic) rather than modality. Here, we ask whether age will affect performance similarly in the two modalities when non‐linguistic auditory stimuli are used (familiar sounds instead of syllables). We conduct a large‐scale study of children's performance on visual and non‐linguistic auditory SL during childhood (ages 5–12 years). The results show a similar effect of age in both modalities: Unlike previous findings, both visual and non‐linguistic auditory SL improved with age. These findings highlight the stimuli‐sensitive nature of SL and suggest that modality‐based differences may be stimuli‐dependent, and that age‐invariance may be limited to linguistic stimuli. (shrink)

Background: Ethical conflict is a barrier to decision-making process and is a problem derived from ethical responsibilities that nurses assume with care. Intensive care unit nurses are potentially exposed to this phenomenon. A deep study of the phenomenon can help prevent and treat it. Objectives: This study was aimed at determining the frequency, degree, level of exposure, and type of ethical conflict among nurses working in the intensive care units. Research design: This was a descriptive cross-sectional research. Participants and research (...) context: In total, 382 nurses working in the intensive care units in Iranian hospitals were selected using the random sampling method. Data were collected using the Ethical Conflict in Nursing Questionnaire-Critical Care Version (Persian version). Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Medical Research Ethics Committee. Ethical considerations such as completing the informed consent form, ensuring confidentiality of information, and voluntary participation were observed. Findings: The results showed that the average level of exposure to ethical conflict was 164.39 ± 79.06. The most frequent conflict was related to “using resources despite believing in its futility,” with the frequency of at least once a week or a month (68.6%, n = 262). The most conflictive situation was violation of privacy (76.9%, n = 294). However, the level of exposure to ethical conflict according to the theoretical model followed was the situation of “working with incompetent staff.” The most frequently observed type of conflict was moral dilemma. Conclusion: The moderate level of exposure to ethical conflict was consistent with the results of previous studies. However, the frequency, degree, and type of ethical conflict were different compared to the results of other studies. Recognizing ethical conflict among intensive care unit nurses can be useful as it allows to consolidate those measures that favor low levels of ethical conflict, design appropriate strategies to prevent ethical conflicts, and improve the nursing work environment. (shrink)

Cells live in dynamic environments that necessitate perpetual adaptation. Since cells have limited resources to monitor external inputs, they are required to maximize the information content of perceived signals. This challenge is not unique to microscopic life: Animals use senses to perceive inputs and adequately respond. Research showed that sensory‐perception is actively shaped by learning and expectation allowing internal cognitive models to “fill in the blanks” in face of limited information. We propose that cells employ analogous strategies and use internal (...) models shaped through the long process of evolutionary adaptation. Given this perspective, we postulate that cells are prone to “misperceptions,” analogous to visual illusions, leading them to incorrectly decode patterns of inputs that lie outside of their evolutionary experience. Mapping cellular misperception can serve as a fundamental approach for dissecting regulatory networks and could be harnessed to modulate cell behavior, a potentially new avenue for therapy. (shrink)

The specialised vocabularies of lawyers, ethicists, and political scientists obscure the roots of many real disagreements. In this book, the distinguished American international lawyer Alfred Rubin provides a penetrating account of where these roots lie, and argues powerfully that disagreements which have existed for 3,000 years are unlikely to be resolved soon. Current attempts to make 'war crimes' or 'terrorism' criminal under international law seem doomed to fail for the same reasons that attempts failed in the early nineteenth century (...) to make piracy, war crimes, and the international traffic in slaves criminal under the law of nations. And for the same reasons, Professor Rubin argues, it is unlikely that an international criminal court can be instituted today to enforce ethicists' versions of 'international law'. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

_An exploration of philosophical and religious ideas about humor in modern philosophy and their secular implications._.

This study analyzed the content of questions in the quiz show Who Wants to be a Millionaire in the UK, the USA, Australia, Singapore, and India. A total of 1,823 questions were sampled. The topics of questions varied from country to country with programs in Australia and the UK over-representing language, the USA and Singapore over-representing light entertainment, and India over-representing history. The share of local themes was positively related to the country’s size of population. In all the countries, questions (...) that awarded higher prizes more frequently required academic knowledge, whereas pocket money questions more often called for popular everyday knowledge. Overall, the global quiz format appears to be sensitive to relatively small cultural differences. The hierarchy of knowledge it features is in line with western norms. (shrink)

Rational aesthetic deference becomes apparent when one person’s aesthetic belief gives another person a reason to move his own aesthetic belief in the direction of the other person. It occurs when one person’s aesthetic belief gives another person a normative reason to move your belief in the direction of mine, on epistemic grounds. In such a case, what the first person believes also provides a justification for the second person’s aesthetic belief. This kind of justification is an indirect justification because (...) it is based on reasons that merit deferring to someone else’s judgment, rather than on reasons that support.. (shrink)

One of the measures taken by states to relieve the burden of providing for asylum seekers and refugees is privatization and delegation of asylum regimes. I analyze the privatization and delegation of authority that is taking place within asylum systems and describe three tiers of privatization/delegation: 1. admission at points of entry or criminalization of undocumented entry, 2. status determination, 3. social integration and provision of social and economic rights and benefits. I then ask why states are privatizing and delegating (...) authority within the context of asylum systems and argue that privatization and delegation of authority are intended to be used to maintain control and reduce immigration and integration of asylum seekers. Governments are often helpless in their attempts to manage refugee migration and need to recruit other sectors to assist them in regaining control over immigration. This “tool” is particularly instrumental as it allows governments to maintain—to a large extent—control of immigrations and at the same time distance themselves from their responsibilities, from human rights violations, etc. Governments attempt to have private or other actors carry out acts that they cannot—whether because of practical reasoning or due to legal constraints. Finally, I argue that asylums systems are a special locus; thus, special care, great caution, much regulation, or complete refrain from privatizing at all, is paramount since privatization of asylums systems carries unique and severe consequences. (shrink)

Whether surrogate decisionmakers have the authority to refuse pain and symptom management measures on behalf of incapacitated patients is a particularly timely question to ask in this era of growing commitment to ensuring appropriate pain and symptom management measures for all patients.

In this essay, I will try to elaborate the fundamental postulates of transdifferential ontology, developed through the inscription of some basic concepts of poststructuralist philosophy within the realm of general system theory. In this manner, a system/being will be conceptualized as set of elements which is organized as a functional whole, whose goal is not to establish a homeostasis but to menage and organize disruptive forces of lack/surplus, that represents non-mediated kernel of any system. Therefore, any system is fundamentally grounded (...) on imbalance and radical incompleteness as inherent conditions of its possibility. Among different kind of systems, the complex self - organizing systems based on feedback loops are governed by the principle of syntropy and its transdifferential organization of reality. In order to explicate the syntropic movement of systems, the concept of signifier is expanded beyond the boundaries of language, and the process of writing, as a permanent invention of in-vent, is interpreted in the manner of never ending sublation of the system and subversion of the subject. The interconnection between the general system theory and poststructuralist philosophy will provide us with a conceptual apparatus which overcomes both linguistic and entropic limitations of above mentioned domains, in order to conceive, interpret, predict and govern processes of becoming on different levels of organization of systems. (shrink)

莊子為什麼不屬於道家？ 如果他不是道家人物，他的思想如何定位？ 一個新的莊子圖像對於我們今日了解儒家及中國哲學， 能夠提供什麼樣的新視野？ 莊子道家說始於漢代，但這種學派歸屬在歷代常受到修正，楊儒賓最新論著《儒門內的莊子》可視為第三波修正運動中的一環。繼承晚明王夫之、方以智的莊子觀，透過重新解讀莊子的語言、隱喻、技術、身體、氣化諸概念，主 張莊子提供一種新的主體範式，這種新的主體範式奠定了非定命論的氣化世界觀。本書指出，莊子和孔子有特殊的地理風土與文化風土的淵源，孔子是《莊子》內篇的典範人物，兩人在中國文化史上的軸心時代，有另類的人文精 神的傳承關係。.

This paper attempts to show how certain approaches in Values Based Practice duplicate key moves in liberal political theory.

There is increasing interest in determining what impact having women in management positions may have on corporate social responsibility initiatives. Various authors suggest that gender equality practices should be factored into the broader framework of CSR. This paper examines how the presence of women on corporate boards, in top and middle management and as heads of CSR departments, influences gender equality practices in the field of CSR. Using information collected from companies that have signed up to Women's Empowerment Principles in (...) Spain, we show that the presence of women in the aforesaid posts has a positive impact on CSR activities with gender equality objectives. We thus supplement the justice, business and moral arguments with further arguments in support of the incorporation of women into not only corporate boards but all management positions. Finally, we provide a view of how gender equality can be included in the broader framework of CSR. (shrink)

Who is not utopian? Only narrowly specialized prisoners working to order without the slightest critical examination of stipulated norms and constraints, only these not very interesting people escape utopianism. Utopian projects are rarely discussed in current official programs in urban design.1 The common perception about the conceptualization of utopia is that utopia is a code word synonymous with modernist urban design and architecture.2 The failure of modern urban planning and architecture, along with their attributed paternalist qualities, leads some critics to (...) be hostile toward utopia in disciplines related to architecture, and modernist architecture has been attributed with utopian impulses.3 In .. (shrink)

Originally published in 1971 Evolution - Revolution is an interdisciplinary volume examining inquiry around the central topic of evolution and revolution. Containing contributions from a number of eminent academics of the time, the book addresses the meaning and application of evolution and revolution in the context, not of what things are, or even how they behave, but how they become. The broad interdisciplinary range of essays explores this concept through the idea of development and change and argues that both change, (...) and development must be measured against concepts of flux and that which endures. The editors of the book suggest that these are the 'invariants' which contemporary thinkers are beginning to accept as the process-counterparts of Platonic 'immutables'. Thus this volume examines the two 'immutables' of evolution and revolution. The book covers the concept through essays in science, philosophic concepts of rationalism and existentialism, art and religion. P>. (shrink)