In this book, she offers a new way of addressing dilemmas of justice and equality in multiethnic, multicultural societies, intervening at this critical moment when so many Western countries are poised to abandon multiculturalism.

Democracy and democratization are now high on the political agenda, but there is growing indifference to the gap between rich and poor. Political equalities matter more than ever, while economic inequality is accepted almost as a fact of life. It is the separation between economic and political that lies at the heart of this book.

Reasoning well about risk is most challenging when a woman is pregnant, for patient and doctor alike. During pregnancy, we tend to note the risks of medical interventions without adequately noting those of failing to intervene, yet when it's time to give birth, interventions are seldom questioned, even when they don't work. Meanwhile, outside the clinic, advice given to pregnant women on how to stay healthy in everyday life can seem capricious and overly cautious. This kind of reasoning reflects fear, (...) not evidence. (shrink)

Background In 2001 a report on the provision of clinical ethics support in UK healthcare institutions identified 20 clinical ethics committees. Since then there has been no systematic evaluation or documentation of their work at a national level. Recent national surveys of clinical ethics services in other countries have identified wide variation in practice and scope of activities. Objective To describe the current provision of ethics support in the UK and its development since 2001. Method A postal/electronic questionnaire survey administered (...) to the chairs of all 82 clinical ethics services registered with the UK Clinical Ethics Network in July 2010. Results Response rate was 62% with the majority of responding services situated in acute trusts. All services included a clinical ethics committee with one service also having a clinical ethicist. Lay members were present in 72% of responding committees. Individual case consultation has increased since 2001 with 29% of chairs spending more than 50% of their time on this. Access to and involvement in the process of case consultation is less for patients and families than for clinical staff. There is wide variation in committee processes and levels of institutional support. Over half of the responding committees undertook some form of evaluation. Conclusion Clinical ethics services in the UK are increasing as is their involvement in case consultation. However, the significant variation in committee processes suggests that further qualitative research is needed to understand how these committees function and the role they play in their institution. (shrink)

Democracy and democratization are now high on the political agenda, but there is growing indifference to the gap between rich and poor. Political equalities matter more than ever, while economic inequality is accepted almost as a fact of life. It is the separation between economic and political that lies at the heart of this book.

Involuntary autobiographical memories are spontaneously arising memories of personal events, whereas voluntary memories are retrieved strategically. Voluntary remembering has been studied in numerous experiments while involuntary remembering has been largely ignored. It is generally assumed that voluntary recall is the standard way of remembering, whereas involuntary recall is the exception. However, little is known about the actual frequency of these two types of remembering in daily life. Here, 48 Danish undergraduates recorded their involuntary versus voluntary autobiographical memories during a day (...) using a mechanical counter. Involuntary memories were reported three times as frequently as voluntary memories. Compared to voluntary memories, they were associated less with problem solving and social sharing and more with day dreaming, periods of boredom, no reasons for remembering and predominantly came to mind during unfocused attention. The findings suggest that involuntary recall is a typical way of accessing the personal past. (shrink)

In recent years, an increasing number of theoretical biologists and philosophers of biology have been opposing reductionist research agendas by appealing to the concept of biological autonomy which draws on the older concept of autopoiesis. In my paper, I investigate some of the ontological implications of this approach. The emphasis on autonomy and autopoiesis, together with the associated idea of organisational closure, might evoke the impression that organisms are to be categorised ontologically as substances: ontologically independent, well-individuated, discrete particulars. However, (...) I argue that this is mistaken. Autopoiesis and biological autonomy, properly understood, require a rigorous commitment to a process ontological view of life. (shrink)

In this original and controversial book Professor Rawls argues that Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life is the crowning achievement of his sociological endeavour and that since its publication in English in 1915 it has been consistently misunderstood. Rather than a work on primitive religion or the sociology of knowledge, Rawls asserts that it is an attempt by Durkheim to establish a unique epistemological basis for the study of sociology and moral relations. By privileging social practice over beliefs and (...) ideas, it avoids the dilemmas inherent in philosophical approaches to knowledge and morality that are based on individualism and the tendency to privilege beliefs and ideas over practices, both tendencies that dominate western thought. Based on detailed textual analysis of the primary text, this book will be an important and original contribution to contemporary debates on social theory and philosophy. (shrink)

In recent years, an increasing number of theoretical biologists and philosophers of biology have been opposing reductionist research agendas by appealing to the concept of biological autonomy which draws on the older concept of autopoiesis. In my paper, I investigate some of the ontological implications of this approach. The emphasis on autonomy and autopoiesis, together with the associated idea of organisational closure, might evoke the impression that organisms are to be categorised ontologically as substances: ontologically independent, well-individuated, discrete particulars. However, (...) I argue that this is mistaken. Autopoiesis and biological autonomy, properly understood, require a rigorous commitment to a process ontological view of life. (shrink)

Is there a link between how a firm manages its internal and external stakeholders? More specifically, are firms that give employees stock ownership and more say in running the enterprise more likely to engage with external stakeholders? This study seeks to answer these questions by elaborating on mechanisms that link employees to external stakeholders, such as the community, suppliers, and the environment. It tests these relationships using a sample of 347 private, mostly small-to-medium size firms, which completed a stakeholder impact (...) assessment organized by the non-profit B Lab. The results support the hypotheses that both employee ownership and employee involvement are positively associated with external stakeholder engagement. Further, we found that certification plays a role, as employee ownership contributes to external stakeholder engagement only in certified B Corporations, and not in firms that merely completed the B Lab Impact assessment. Our findings have import for stakeholder engagement frameworks, as we show that there is interplay between internal employee stakeholders and external stakeholders that may be important to overall firm–stakeholder management. (shrink)

This book explores five Platonic dialogues: Lysis, Charmides, Protagoras, Euthydemus, and the Republic. This book uses Socrates’ narrative commentary as its primary interpretive framework. No one has engaged in a sustained attempt to explore the Platonic dialogues from this angle. As a result, it offers a unique contribution to Plato scholarship. The portrait of Socrates that emerges challenges the traditional view of Socrates as an intellectualist and offers a holistic vision of philosophical practice.

Social media platforms have been vested with hope for their potential to enable ‘ordinary citizens’ to make their judgments public and contribute to pluralized discussions about organizations and their perceived legitimacy :60–97, 2018). This raises questions about how ordinary citizens make judgements and voice them in online spaces. This paper addresses these questions by examining how Western citizens ascribe responsibility and action in relation to corporate misconduct. Empirically, it focuses on modern slavery and analyses online debates in Denmark on child (...) slavery in the cocoa industry. Conceptually, it introduces the notion of cosmopolitanism as a general disposition of care and responsibility towards distant others, conceived as a prerequisite for the critical evaluation of corporate responsibility in the Global South. The analysis of online debates shows that citizens debate child slavery in terms of individual consumer responsibility rather than corporate responsibility. Corporations are not considered potential agents of change. As a consequence, online citizen debates did not reflect a legitimacy crisis for the cocoa industry, as debates over responsibility were overwhelmingly concerned with the agency of the Western individual, the individual agency of the speakers themselves. Participants in debates understood their agency strictly as consumer agency. (shrink)

The United States National Preparedness System has evolved significantly in the recent past. These changes have affected the system structures and goals for disaster response. At the same time, actors such as private businesses have become increasingly involved in disaster efforts. In this paper, we begin to fill the gap in the cross-sector literature regarding interactions that have systemic impacts by investigating how the simultaneous processes of systemic change and intensifying cross-sector interaction worked and interacted in the context of the (...) preparedness system. We examine these inter-linkages through a qualitative study in the setting of Hurricane Sandy. Drawing from systems theory, we develop a grounded model that provides an explanation for the system change and highlights how cross-sector interaction relates to the changes observed in the system. (shrink)

In the course of our daily lives we make lots of evaluations of actions. We think that driving above the speed limit is dangerous, that giving up one’s bus seat to the elderly is polite, that stirring eggs with a plastic spoon is neither good nor bad. We understand too that we may be praised or blamed for actions performed on the basis of these evaluations. The same is true in the case of certain beliefs. Sometimes we blame people for (...) what they believe falsely or irrationally. On occasion, we praise them for their intellectual discoveries. The goal of the present study is to describe the foundations which allow for these kinds of judgments. If you think that people are not always forgivable for what they believe, you will find in this book the resources to defend this thought. (shrink)

This paper assesses great apes’ abilities for pantomime and action imitation, two communicative abilities proposed as key contributors to language evolution. Modern great apes, the only surviving nonhuman hominids, are important living models of the communicative platform upon which language evolved. This assessment is based on 62 great ape pantomimes identified via data mining plus published reports of great ape action imitation. Most pantomimes were simple, imperative, and scaffolded by partners’ relationship and scripts; some resemble declaratives, some were sequences of (...) several inter-related elements. Imitation research consistently shows great apes perform action imitation at low fidelity, but also that action imitation may not represent a distinct process or function. Discussion focuses on how findings may advance reconstruction of the evolution of language, including what great apes may contribute to understanding ‘primitive’ forms of pantomime and imitation and how to improve their study. (shrink)

Everett's main claim is that language is a “cultural tool“, created by hominids for communication and social cohesion. I examine the meaning of the expression “cultural tool“ in terms of the influence of language on culture (i.e. the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) or of the influence of culture on language (Everett's hypothesis). I show that these hypotheses are not well-supported by evidence and that language and languages, rather than being “cultural tools“ as wholes are rather collections of tools used in different language (...) games, some cultural or social, some cognitive. I conclude that the coincidence between language and culture is due to the fact that both originate from human nature. (shrink)

This paper seeks to analyse small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) managers' representations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and CSR communication in a corporate communication perspective. The basic question is: how strategic is CSR communication in SMEs? Corporate communication and CSR theories are used to establish an ideal typology of CSR concepts informing an analysis of qualitative data in the form of interviews with three middle managers in two Danish SMEs. A CSR communication model published earlier by the authors is challenged (...) from a SME perspective. Results from an Internet-based questionnaire survey of 1071 SMEs pave the way for the analysis. Our analysis shows that SME managers clearly have an inside-out approach to CSR, with a strong emphasis on the internal (corporate culture) dimension. However, SMEs and/or SME managers tend not to communicate externally about the CSR activities of the company. Based on these findings, the paper argues that CSR communication in SMEs is challenged by the global economy and is under revision. The contribution of the paper is to provide an insight into SMEs' present stage in relation to a possible future approach to strategic CSR communication. The paper also reminds us that SMEs have no interest in turning their local and authentic practice into a forced marketing and branding exercise, leaving them with an artificial picture of who they are and strive to be in the future. They should keep on acting locally but force themselves to think globally. (shrink)

Bishop is a professor of nursing; Scudder is a professor of philosophy.

Life has evolved; and so must have consciousness, or subjective experience, as found in living beings, Eva Jablonka and Simona Ginsburg contend. In their target article, which summarises the main theses of their seminal book The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul, the authors put forward an evolutionary account of consciousness that builds upon the intimate connection between consciousness and life without, however, equating the two. Instead, according to Jablonka & Ginsburg, there was life before there was consciousness, and there are (...) still living beings without consciousness. Here I offer some metaphysical considerations in favour of a more inclusive notion of consciousness than Jablonka & Ginsburg’s. These considerations turn on the role played by metabolism and agency in the processual constitution of living beings as well as on the continuum between sensation and perception. Rather than postulating a mindless inwardness in presumably non-conscious organisms, we ought to recognise the constitutive experiential nature of life, rooted in its intrinsic purposiveness. (shrink)

Medical issues affecting health care have become everyday media events. In response to mounting public concern, growing numbers of bioethicists are being appointed to medical school faculties and public policy panels. However the ideas voiced in these forums are seldom informed by feminist perspectives. In this important book, a distinguished group of feminist scholars and activists discuss crucial bioethics topics in a feminist light. Among the subjects explored are the care/justice debates, transforming bioethics, practice, and reproduction. The book also covers (...) less commonly discussed issues, such as culturally appropriate responses to reproductive health problems in developing countries. (shrink)

Until the mid-20th century, biomedical research centered on the study of specific diseases, concerned with short periods of time and small groups of living research participants. However, the growth of longitudinal population studies and long-term biobanking now forces the research community to examine the possibility of the death of their research participants.The death of a research participant raises numerous ethical and legal issues, including the return of deceased individuals’ research results to related family members. As with the return of individual (...) research results for living research participants, the question of the obligation to return a deceased person’s research results to family members has yet to be settled. This question is particularly acute in the context of genetic research since the research results from one individual may have health implications for all biological relatives. (shrink)

Reading and writing are increasingly performed with digital, screen-based technologies rather than with analogue technologies such as paper and pen. The current digitization is an occasion to “unpack,” theoretically and conceptually, what is entailed in reading and writing as embodied, multisensory processes involving audiovisual and ergonomic interaction with devices having particular affordances. Highlighting the sensorimotor contingencies of substrates and technologies — how movement and object manipulation affect perception, experience, and sensory “feel” — this article presents an embodied approach to reading, (...) writing, and literacy, using three cases of digitization as illustrations of some educational implications: beginning writing by hand or by keyboard; dialogic reading with iPads and print picture books in kindergarten; and deep reading of long, linear texts on paper and on screens. (shrink)

In this essay I aim to illuminate the nature of Christian hope by looking at the tradition’s answers to three philosophical questions and then comparing them to those of contemporary secular accounts. First, What are the possible objects of hope? Next, What are the psychological conditions a person must meet to have hope? Finally, What makes a hope rational and what makes it good for human life? I conclude by suggesting that the role of hope in bringing about social goods (...) (or evils) might be reconsidered in light of challenges presented by recent secular work on the social dimensions of hope. (shrink)

Although non-profit organisations typically have high representation of females on their boards, relatively little is known about the effects of gender diversity in these organisations particularly in relation to financial management. In this archival study, resource dependency theory and agency analysis are combined to provide theoretical insight and empirical analysis of gender diversity on effective financial management in member-governed, community financial institutions. The investigation is possible due to the unique characteristics of the organisational form and region being examined—credit unions in (...) Northern Ireland. The sector has not been subject to external regulation on board gender, yet a wide array of gender mix on boards ranging from 100 % male to 100 % female are in existence. In addition, effective financial management is crucial to their survival and their ability to meet member objectives. Boards with higher female representation exhibit superior financial management first, in respect of loan book quality in the period of austerity following the financial crisis and second when measured against return on assets. (shrink)

Le présent article vise à éclairer la nature des activités perceptives et cognitives attribuées au νοῦς d’Anaxagore, en particulier à lever les difficultés liées à l'évaluation de la part des dimensions mécaniques, cognitives et téléologiques dans l'activité du νοῦς cosmique, par une comparaison avec l'usage des verbes γιγνώσκω, νοέω et du substantif νοῦς dans le contexte du champ de bataille homérique. Les rangeurs d'hommes homériques partagent avec le νοῦς d'Anaxagore une description de leurs activités en termes de tri, d'extraction et (...) de mise en ordre, par l'usage commun des verbes διακρίνω, ἀποκρίνω, διακοσμέω. Or l'analyse des opérations perceptives et cognitives de ceux-là révèle un modèle d'action immanente, liant la perception des singularités au sein de touts complexes et mouvants à l'appréhension globale des positions passées, présentes et possibles des troupes en action. Pensé sur ce modèle, le νοῦς d'Anaxagore sera conçu selon un modèle de perception par immersion dont sa nature physique très particulière le rend capable : c'est en faisant intégralement corps avec le mélange matériel que le νοῦς se rend capable d'en faire le tri et d'en anticiper les états possibles. L'illimitation de sa connaissance et de son pouvoir a néanmoins une conséquence qui le différencie du chef homérique : n'avoir aucun choix du fait de la puissance de réaliser toutes les différenciations possibles. (shrink)

In this monograph, I systematically analyse the debate in recent analytic metaphysics, with a special focus on recent biologically inspired (so-called animalist) theories of personal identity. I argue that the debate is stuck in a dilemma which is neither harmless nor new: the modern antagonism between the reductionist elimination of personal identity on the one hand and its non-reductionist mystification on the other rather repeats the antagonism between rationalist dogmatism and empirical scepticism in the 18th century’s debates on the soul. (...) This latter antagonism has been extensively examined by Kant who also sought for ways to overcome the dilemma. The systematic analysis of the modern ‘analytic’ debate is therefore followed by a presentation and critical discussion of the constructive approaches taken by Kant and post-Kantian ‘continental’ philosophers. From a Kantian perspective, what we are confronted with is a fundamental dialectic, originating in the very structure of human reason and threatening to turn metaphysics altogether into an arena of fruitless battles. The possibility of a satisfactory metaphysical account of transtemporal personal identity reveals itself to be contingent on the possibility of a ‘good’ metaphysics able to overcome that dialectic. (shrink)

We all engage in the process of reasoning, but we don't always pay attention to whether we are doing it well. This book offers the opportunity to practise reasoning in a clear-headed and critical way, with the aims of developing an awareness of the importance of reasoning well and of improving the reader's skill in analyzing and evaluating arguments. In this third edition, Anne Thomson has updated and revised the book to include fresh and topical examples which will guide (...) students through the processes of critical reasoning in a clear and engaging way. In addition, two new chapters on evaluating the credibility of evidence and decision making and dilemmas will fully equip students to reason well. By the end of the book students should be able to: identify flaws in arguments analyze the reasoning in newspaper articles, books and speeches assess the credibilty of evidence and authorities make sound decisions and solve dilemmas approach any topic with the ability to reason and think critically. (shrink)

Demenageries, Thinking (of) Animals after Derrida is a collection of essays on animality following Jacques Derrida's work. The Western philosophical tradition separated animals from men by excluding the former from everything that was considered “proper to man”: laughing, suffering, mourning, and above all, thinking. The “animal” has traditionally been considered the absolute Other of humans. This radical otherness has served as the rationale for the domination, exploitation and slaughter of animals. What Derrida called “la pensée de l'animal” (which means both (...) thinking concerning the animal and “animal thinking”) may help us understand differently such apparently human features as language, thought and writing. It may also help us think anew about such highly philosophical concerns as differences, otherness, the end(s) of history and the world at large. Thanks to the ethical and epistemological crisis of Western humanism, “animality” has become an almost fashionable topic. However,Demenageries is the first collection to take Derrida's thinking on animal thinking as a starting point, a way of reflecting not only on animals but starting from them, in order to address a variety of issues from a vast range of theoretical perspectives: philosophy, literature, cultural theory, anthropology, ethics, politics, religion, feminism, postcolonialism and, of course, posthumanism. (shrink)

Voraussetzungen -- Carla Henius, Cathy Berberian und Roy Hart : drei vokale Fallbeispiele -- Interpretationen : Konklusionen -- Verzeichnis der Archive -- Abbildungsverzeichnis -- Literaturverzeichnis.

Studies associating interactions of 5-HTTLPR and life adversities with depression have yielded equivocal results. Studying endophenotypes may constitute a more powerful approach. In the current study, it was assessed whether interactions of 5-HTTLPR with childhood emotional abuse (CEA) and recent negative life events (RNLE) affect possible cognitive endophenotypes of depression, namely, attention-allocation bias and the ability to recognise others' mind states in 215 young adults of North-West European descent. The ability to classify others' negative mind states was found to be (...) increased with increasing RNLE in carriers of low-expressing Serotonin Transporter Linked Polymorphic Region (5-HTTLPR) alleles. Carriers of two low-expressing alleles also preferentially oriented attention towards negative information. Gene-environment interactions were not observed for attention allocation bias. No effects involving CEA were observed. These results suggest that low-expressing 5-HTTLPR alleles may confer increased risk for depression through enhanced recognition of negative facial expressions following RNLE. (shrink)