This article deals with nurses’ ethical concerns raised by the consequences of changes in governmental and institutional policies on nursing practice and patient care. The aims of this project were to explore perspectives of registered nurses who provide or manage direct patient care on policies that affect nursing and patient care, and to provide input to policy makers for the development of more patient-centred policies. Four focus groups were conducted with a total of 36 registered nurse participants. The project team (...) identified major themes that emerged in the analysis of transcripts of the focus group discussions. The four major themes were: effects of policy focused on cost containment, effects on quality of care, effects on patient education and access to needed services, and effects on nurses and nursing. The participants identified primarily negative effects of changes in national health policy and legislation that influence institutional policies on patient care and nursing practice. The effects of identified policy changes raised concerns about meeting nurses’ ethical obligations to patients and families. Participants specified key points for consideration by legislators and other policy makers. They viewed nurses who are involved in direct patient care as a critical resource for legislators and other policy makers in the development of public and institutional policies that affect nursing and patient care. (shrink)

Abstract:Alasdair Maclntyre (1984) asserts that the ethical systems of the Enlightenment (formalism and utilitarianism) have failed to provide a meaningful definition of “good.” Lacking such a definition, business managers have no internal standards by which they can morally evaluate their roles or acts. Maclntyre goes on to claim that managers have substituted external measures of “winning” or “effectiveness” for any internal concept of good. He supports a return to the Aristotelian notion of virtue or “excellence.” Such a system (...) of virtue ethics depends on an interrelationship of the community, one’s roles in that community, and the virtues one needs to perform that role well. This article develops Maclntyre’s concept of virtue ethics and shows how this paradigm fits well with existing theories about organizational behavior. (shrink)

Abstract:Alasdair Maclntyre (1984) asserts that the ethical systems of the Enlightenment (formalism and utilitarianism) have failed to provide a meaningful definition of “good.” Lacking such a definition, business managers have no internal standards by which they can morally evaluate their roles or acts. Maclntyre goes on to claim that managers have substituted external measures of “winning” or “effectiveness” for any internal concept of good. He supports a return to the Aristotelian notion of virtue or “excellence.” Such a system (...) of virtue ethics depends on an interrelationship of the community, one’s roles in that community, and the virtues one needs to perform that role well. This article develops Maclntyre’s concept of virtue ethics and shows how this paradigm fits well with existing theories about organizational behavior. (shrink)

Self-interest theories hold that rationality requires one always to choose what is best for oneself. Where these theories differ is in their accounts of what is best for one. Hedonism is a typical self-interest theory, distinguished from other versions by the claim that what is best for one is what gives one the greatest net balance of pleasure over pain. Gómez-Lobo thinks that Socrates is a self-interest theorist: Socrates believes that “a choice is rational if and only if it is (...) a choice of what is best for the agent”. Gómez-Lobo also thinks that Socrates holds that “something is good for an agent if and only if it is morally right” ; this distinguishes his theory from hedonism and other self-interest theories. Finally, Gómez-Lobo thinks that Plato defends Socrates’ in arguing at Gorgias 506c5-507a3 that “a being is good if and only if it has the order proper to it”: follows from and other Socratic principles. These three claims constitute the “foundations” of Socratic ethics mentioned in Gómez-Lobo’s title. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle’s Nicomachean EthicsCharles M. YoungGabriel Richardson Lear. Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. ix + 238. Cloth, $35.00.Suppose that you and I are friends. I need a ride to the airport; you offer to take me. You might do this for any of a number (...) of reasons: because you want to place me in your debt, because you want to impress bystanders, etc. But you might also do it for none of these reasons. You might do it, instead, because, understanding what resources are and what resources are for, you see taking me to the airport as an appropriate use of your resources (your time and your car), given our relationship and the circumstances in which we find ourselves.That's the Readers' Digest version of one story one might tell, on Aristotle's behalf, by way of connecting up friendship, virtuous action, practical and theoretical wisdom, action for its own sake, and action for the sake of the fine in the Nicomachean Ethics. I myself think it is a good story. It is also a story, I think, that Gabriel Richardson Lear tells, at least some of the time, in Happy Lives and the Highest Good, though she tells it with respect to courage, temperance, and magnanimity, not liberality and friendship.Most of the time, however, Lear tells another story. According to it, your taking me to the airport makes clear your commitment to make use of your resources to promote my good. Since we are friends, however, my good is bound up with yours, so in promoting my good you also promote your own good. But according to Aristotle the good for each of us is a life in which rationality is realized in thought and action. Hence your taking me to the airport counts as fine because it shows your commitment to that sort of life. But, again according to Aristotle, the centerpiece, and source of value, of that sort of life is contemplative activity, so you act for the sake of contemplation, whether you know this or not. And, in view of its expression of practical reason and truthfulness, your liberal activity is structurally similar to and so approximates to contemplative activity, and this allows us to say that you did what you did for the sake of contemplation.This is, so far as I know, an entirely new approach to the problems raised by Aristotle's identification of happiness with contemplation in NE X. Lear's story, and the arguments in its support, deserve and will repay serious attention. I limit myself here to four concerns about some of the details.First, our first story locates what is fine about virtuous action in the fit exhibited among the agent, her action, and her situation. Lear's story locates what is fine about virtuous action in its promotion of a certain kind of life. The first story thus sees what is fine about [End Page 118] virtuous action as something intrinsic to it, while Lear's story sees it as something external to it that it promotes. The first story seems to me to be looking in the right place.Second, the first story has it that virtuous activity is an expression of understanding, Lear's story that it is an expression of a commitment to understanding. Again, the first story seems to me to be looking in the right place.Third, Lear thinks that the liberal person can be said to act for the sake of contemplation when contemplation is the source of value for what she does, even when it is not the conscious aspiration of her action. That may be true, but I do not see that it is enough. What needs explanation is rather that she can be said to choose liberal activity for the sake of contemplation, and it is unclear how this could be unconscious.Finally, Lear's appeal to approximation may prove too much. The crafts, according to Aristotle, involve practical reason and truthfulness. But Aristotle doesn't believe that craft... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Politics of Aristotle by AristotleCharles M. YoungAristotle. The Politics of Aristotle. Translated by Peter L. Phillips Simpson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Pp. xliv + 274. Cloth, $39.95. Paper, $12.95.Peter Simpson’s attractively produced, readable, and generally accurate new translation offers much of assistance to the student of Aristotle’s Politics. In addition to providing [End Page 356] titles to books and chapters, Simpson has broken (...) chapters into sections, which he also titles and briefly summarizes. The summaries allow Simpson to give indications as to the flow of Aristotle’s thought without building them into the translation itself. The sections of the translation also correspond to the sections of Simpson’s still newer A Philosophical Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); notes to the translation also sometimes point to the line of argument in the commentary. Simpson also includes a translation of the last book of the Nicomachean Ethics, which many see as an introduction or transition to the Politics, a brief discussion of the translations of certain key terms, a glossary of significant terms, and an analytical outline of the argument of the Politics. The result is a welcome and useful translation and set of tools.Two of Simpson’s decisions in preparing his translation are regrettable. First, Simpson places the discussion of the best polis in books 7 and 8 between the discussion of the nature of the polis and its kinds in book 3 and the discussion of other sorts of polis in books 4–6, thus printing the books in the order 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 4, 5, 6. There are good reasons for believing that this is how Aristotle intended the Politics to be read. But in deciding the order in which to print the books, these reasons must be weighed against the inconvenience and confusion produced by departing from the normal, manuscript ordering of the books. In my view this is not even a close call. One can easily indicate one’s belief about the correct order of the books, as Simpson does (xvi–xx), and avoid all inconvenience by printing the books in their manuscript order.More to be regretted is Simpson’s decision (made, I imagine, for aesthetic reasons) not to follow the increasingly common and laudable practice of printing Bekker numbers in the margins of translations of Aristotle. These numbers are a great convenience to readers, for they make it easy to locate specific passages in different translations and in the Greek original. Simpson does give the Bekker number of the beginning of each of his sections, and he may think that this is enough to allow readers to locate specific passages easily (he says as much in his Commentary, xiii). But Simpson’s sections are sometimes as big as a Bekker page, and many of them are as many as ten to fifteen lines long; I speak from experience in reporting that it is more difficult and time-consuming to find one’s way around Simpson’s translation than it should be. [End Page 357]Charles M. YoungClaremont Graduate UniversityCopyright © 1999 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Politics of Aristotle by AristotleCharles M. YoungAristotle. The Politics of Aristotle. Translated by Peter L. Phillips Simpson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Pp. xliv + 274. Cloth, $39.95. Paper, $12.95.Peter Simpson’s attractively produced, readable, and generally accurate new translation offers much of assistance to the student of Aristotle’s Politics. In addition to providing [End Page 356] titles to books and chapters, Simpson has broken (...) chapters into sections, which he also titles and briefly summarizes. The summaries allow Simpson to give indications as to the flow of Aristotle’s thought without building them into the translation itself. The sections of the translation also correspond to the sections of Simpson’s still newer A Philosophical Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); notes to the translation also sometimes point to the line of argument in the commentary. Simpson also includes a translation of the last book of the Nicomachean Ethics, which many see as an introduction or transition to the Politics, a brief discussion of the translations of certain key terms, a glossary of significant terms, and an analytical outline of the argument of the Politics. The result is a welcome and useful translation and set of tools.Two of Simpson’s decisions in preparing his translation are regrettable. First, Simpson places the discussion of the best polis in books 7 and 8 between the discussion of the nature of the polis and its kinds in book 3 and the discussion of other sorts of polis in books 4–6, thus printing the books in the order 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 4, 5, 6. There are good reasons for believing that this is how Aristotle intended the Politics to be read. But in deciding the order in which to print the books, these reasons must be weighed against the inconvenience and confusion produced by departing from the normal, manuscript ordering of the books. In my view this is not even a close call. One can easily indicate one’s belief about the correct order of the books, as Simpson does (xvi–xx), and avoid all inconvenience by printing the books in their manuscript order.More to be regretted is Simpson’s decision (made, I imagine, for aesthetic reasons) not to follow the increasingly common and laudable practice of printing Bekker numbers in the margins of translations of Aristotle. These numbers are a great convenience to readers, for they make it easy to locate specific passages in different translations and in the Greek original. Simpson does give the Bekker number of the beginning of each of his sections, and he may think that this is enough to allow readers to locate specific passages easily (he says as much in his Commentary, xiii). But Simpson’s sections are sometimes as big as a Bekker page, and many of them are as many as ten to fifteen lines long; I speak from experience in reporting that it is more difficult and time-consuming to find one’s way around Simpson’s translation than it should be. [End Page 357]Charles M. YoungClaremont Graduate UniversityCopyright © 1999 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

We investigate and extend the notion of a good approximation with respect to the enumeration ${({\mathcal D}_{\rm e})}$ and singleton ${({\mathcal D}_{\rm s})}$ degrees. We refine two results by Griffith, on the inversion of the jump of sets with a good approximation, and we consider the relation between the double jump and index sets, in the context of enumeration reducibility. We study partial order embeddings ${\iota_s}$ and ${\hat{\iota}_s}$ of, respectively, ${{\mathcal D}_{\rm e}}$ and ${{\mathcal D}_{\rm T}}$ (the Turing (...) degrees) into ${{\mathcal D}_{\rm s}}$ , and we show that the image of ${{\mathcal D}_{\rm T}}$ under ${\hat{\iota}_s}$ is precisely the class of retraceable singleton degrees. We define the notion of a good enumeration, or singleton, degree to be the property of containing the set of good stages of some good approximation, and we show that ${\iota_s}$ preserves the latter, as also other naturally arising properties such as that of totality or of being ${\Gamma^0_n}$ , for ${\Gamma \in \{\Sigma,\Pi,\Delta\}}$ and n > 0. We prove that the good enumeration and singleton degrees are immune and that the good ${\Sigma^0_2}$ singleton degrees are hyperimmune. Finally we show that, for singleton degrees a s < b s such that b s is good, any countable partial order can be embedded in the interval (a s, b s). (shrink)

Sherover (philosophy, Hunter) constructs a theory of organized society, identifying three fundamental features of contemporary life: social membership, temporality, and freedom.

The summa of a distinguished philosopher's career, and full treatment of the temporal in philosophical terms, this volume shows us that by taking time seriously we can discover something essential to almost every question of human concern. Are we IN time? Charles Sherover asks, and in pursuing this question he considers time in conjunction with cognition, morality, action, physical nature, being, God, freedom, and politics. His essays, while drawing upon Royce, Heidegger, Kant, Leibniz, and even Hartshorne and Bergson, defy (...) categorization by method or school; instead, they reveal the diversity and divergence of thinking about time as well as the myriad features and values within the omnipresence of time and change. The volume begins with an overview of the history of thought on time and a clarification of some fundamental conceptual distinctions in temporal ideas. Sherover then offers a critique of Kant, the first thinker to recognize that all human experience has a temporal form. In a series of essays on metaphysics--a valuable corrective to the dominant metaphysical tradition of talking about being as if time does not matter--he pursues temporal responses to such problems as being, internal relations, individuation, mind, and free will. Finally, in essays on time, freedom, and the common good, Sherover argues that these three phenomena are intrinsically related to one another, the fulfillment of each involving the other two. Throughout, these essays brilliantly depict human life and thought thoroughly steeped in time and argue for the significance of the future for human activity. Portraying the openness of the future as the basis for purposiveness and freedom, knowledge and moral action, social life and religious hope, Sherover's work conveys a hopeful message of human finitude that nonetheless allows us a measure of control over events in our own time. (shrink)

In this study, Charles M. Sherover argues that there is a single, substantial line of development that can be traced from the work of Leibniz through Kant and Royce to Heidegger. Sherover traces a movement from deep within the roots of German idealism through Royce's insights into American pragmatism to the ethical ramifications of Heidegger's existential phenomenology, and then provides an analysis of the neglected ethical and political implications of Heidegger's Being and Time. The essays lead finally to Sherover's (...) own view of the self as a member of a moral and political community. Charles M. Sherover is Professor Emeritus of philosophy, Hunter College, City University of New York. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Heidegger, Kant and Time and Time, Freedom and the Common Good. Gregory R. Johnson is Visiting Assistant Professor at the Pacific School of Religion. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: "Sherover combines solid and original scholarship with well-argued conclusions of his own, seeking to lead us in the direction of a higher and fuller mode of authentic being in the world. This collection of essays is an excellent addition to the series, Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, edited by Jude P. Dougherty." -- Eugene Thomas Long, Review of Metaphysics. (shrink)

Abstract:Western business philosophy is rooted in the concepts of free enterprise, free markets, free choice. Yet freedom has its limits. Nature itself imposes constraints. In the state of nature each business must try to accomplish everything autonomously and ward off the attacks of rivals. These activities cost the business a great deal of freedom. The social contract emerges from such anarchy to increase the freedom available to all members of society. It does so by setting limits on individual freedom which (...) actually increase the overall amount of freedom available within the system. The Social Equation presents a relational model of this contract to show how overall freedom is increased in a state of society. In so doing, the obligations which society places on businesses to produce beneficial goods and services is developed. Next, the complex relationship between socially enforced constraints and social moral constraints is examined, showing that social moral constraints increase freedom more than do enforced constraints. This work concludes with proposed uses of the Social Equation as a heuristic for business ethics. (shrink)

Abstract:Western business philosophy is rooted in the concepts of free enterprise, free markets, free choice. Yet freedom has its limits. Nature itself imposes constraints. In the state of nature each business must try to accomplish everything autonomously and ward off the attacks of rivals. These activities cost the business a great deal of freedom. The social contract emerges from such anarchy to increase the freedom available to all members of society. It does so by setting limits on individual freedom which (...) actually increase the overall amount of freedom available within the system. The Social Equation presents a relational model of this contract to show how overall freedom is increased in a state of society. In so doing, the obligations which society places on businesses to produce beneficial goods and services is developed. Next, the complex relationship between socially enforced constraints and social moral constraints is examined, showing that social moral constraints increase freedom more than do enforced constraints. This work concludes with proposed uses of the Social Equation as a heuristic for business ethics. (shrink)

This paper continues the investigation into the relationship between good approximations and jump inversion initiated by Griffith. Firstly it is shown that there is a \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\Pi^{0}_{2}}$$\end{document} set A whose enumeration degree a is bad—i.e. such that no set \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${X \in a}$$\end{document} is good approximable—and whose complement \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\overline{A}}$$\end{document} has lowest possible jump, in (...) other words is low2. This also ensures that the degrees y ≤ a only contain \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\Delta^{0}_{3}}$$\end{document} sets and thus yields a tight lower bound for the complexity of both a set of bad enumeration degree, and of its complement, in terms of the high/low jump hierarchy. Extending the author’s previous characterisation of the double jump of good approximable sets, the triple jump of a \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\Sigma^{0}_{2}}$$\end{document} set A is characterised in terms of the index set of coinfinite sets enumeration reducible to A. The paper concludes by using Griffith’s jump interpolation technique to show that there exists a high quasiminimal \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\Delta^{0}_{2}}$$\end{document} enumeration degree. (shrink)

Rather than being a neutral phenomenon, the authors propose that medical school donations should be viewed as a social good for advancing education and improving healthcare. Seen in this light, they aim to offer a framework for analysis that will be useful to medical institutions and their stakeholders in addressing proposed donations from contentious or divisive sources, and in managing those donations that subsequently appear controversial.

This penetrating book sheds light on the psychology of fundamentalism, with a particular focus on those who become extremists and fanatics. What accounts for the violence that emerges among some fundamentalist groups? The contributors to this book identify several factors: a radical dualism, in which all aspects of life are bluntly categorized as either good or evil; a destructive inclination to interpret authoritative texts, laws, and teachings in the most literal of terms; an extreme and totalized conversion experience; paranoid (...) thinking; and an apocalyptic world view. After examining each of these concepts in detail, and showing the ways in which they lead to violence among widely disparate groups, these engrossing essays explore such areas as fundamentalism in the American experience and among jihadists, and they illuminate aspects of the same psychology that contributed to such historical crises as the French Revolution, the Nazi movement, and post-Partition Hindu religious practice. (shrink)

Medical research involving human subjects raises complex ethical, legal and social issues. Investigators sometimes find that their obligations with respect to a research project come into conflict with their obligations to individual patients. The ethical conduct of research rests on 3 guiding principles: respect for persons, beneficience, and justice. Respect for persons underlies the duty to obtain informed consent from study participants. Beneficence demands a favourable balance between the potential benefits and harms of participation. Justice requires that vulnerable people not (...) be exploited and that eligible candidates who may benefit from participation not be excluded without good cause. Studies must be designed in a way that ensures the validity of findings and must address questions of sufficient importance to justify the risks of participation. In any clinical trial there must be genuine uncertainty as to which treatment arm offers the most benefit, and placebo controls should not be used if effective standard therapies exist. Researchers have a responsibility to inform themselves about the ethical, legal and policy standards that govern their activities. When difficulties arise, they should consult the existing literature and seek the advice of experts in research ethics. (shrink)

I am an M.D/Ph.D. student and work as a research assistant for the director of a division of the school of medicine who is an M.D. He assigned me to research a certain topic and gave me no guidelines or guidance as to how to do it. Nevertheless, I did the research and wrote it up. My supervisor liked the report and said that he thought it was so good that “I would like to offer you the opportunity to (...) publish it and list you as the primary author.” Some bells went off when he so grandly offered to let me author the report for which I had done 100% of research and writing. I consulted some other people in the field and they said that, as long as I was the primary author, it was legitimate for him to list himself as secondary author if he did some editing later. After editing the abstract only, he e-mailed his revisions to me and in a note at the bottom he asked me what I thought of his revised author order. His name was first, mine second, and the name of his girlfriend was third. I was shocked by what seemed to be a case of unethical author attribution and confronted him asking why he changed the order when we had agreed that I was primary author. He said that he had put in several hours of work. (shrink)

In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology—examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world.

Writing about the intellectual development of a philosopher is a delicate business. My own endeavor to reinterpret the influence of Hegel on Dewey troubles some scholars because, they believe, I make Dewey seem less original.1 But if, like Dewey, we overcome Cartesian dualism, placing the development of the self firmly within a complex matrix of social processes, we are forced to reexamine, without necessarily surrendering, the notion of individual originality, or what Neil Gross calls “discourse[s] of creative genius.”2 To use (...) a mundane example, I can recall several conversations with Dewey scholars about his dislike for his home state of Vermont, all of which revolved around personal reasons he may.. (shrink)

Monetary Intelligence theory asserts that individuals apply their money attitude to frame critical concerns in the context and strategically select certain options to achieve financial goals and ultimate happiness. This study explores the bright side of Monetary Intelligence and behavioral economics, frames money attitude in the context of pay and life satisfaction, and controls money at the macro-level and micro-level. We theorize: Managers with low love of money motive but high stewardship behavior will have high subjective well-being: pay satisfaction and (...) quality of life. Data collected from 6586 managers in 32 cultures across six continents support our theory. Interestingly, GDP per capita is related to life satisfaction, but not to pay satisfaction. Individual income is related to both life and pay satisfaction. Neither GDP nor income is related to Happiness. Our theoretical model across three GDP groups offers new discoveries: In high GDP entities, “high income” not only reduces aspirations—“Rich, Motivator, and Power,” but also promotes stewardship behavior—“Budget, Give/Donate, and Contribute” and appreciation of “Achievement.” After controlling income, we demonstrate the bright side of Monetary Intelligence: Low love of money motive but high stewardship behavior define Monetary Intelligence. “Good apples enjoy good quality of life in good barrels.” This notion adds another explanation to managers’ low magnitude of dishonesty in entities with high Corruption Perceptions Index. In low GDP entities, high income is related to poor Budgeting skills and escalated Happiness. These managers experience equal satisfaction with pay and life. We add a new vocabulary to the conversation of monetary intelligence, income, GDP, happiness, subjective well-being, good and bad apples and barrels, corruption, and behavioral ethics. (shrink)

Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = (...) 13,579), as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

Monetary intelligence theory asserts that individuals apply their money attitude to frame critical concerns in the context and strategically select certain options to achieve financial goals and ultimate happiness. This study explores the dark side of monetary Intelligence and behavioral economics—dishonesty. Dishonesty, a risky prospect, involves cost–benefit analysis of self-interest. We frame good or bad barrels in the environmental context as a proxy of high or low probability of getting caught for dishonesty, respectively. We theorize: The magnitude and intensity (...) of the relationship between love of money and dishonest prospect may reveal how individuals frame dishonesty in the context of two levels of subjective norm—perceived corporate ethical values at the micro-level and Corruption Perceptions Index at the macro-level, collected from multiple sources. Based on 6382 managers in 31 geopolitical entities across six continents, our cross-level three-way interaction effect illustrates: As expected, managers in good barrels, mixed barrels, and bad barrels display low, medium, and high magnitude of dishonesty, respectively. With high CEV, the intensity is the same across cultures. With low CEV, the intensity of dishonesty is the highest in high CPI entities —the Enron Effect, but the lowest in low CPI entities. CPI has a strong impact on the magnitude of dishonesty, whereas CEV has a strong impact on the intensity of dishonesty. We demonstrate dishonesty in light of monetary values and two frames of social norm, revealing critical implications to the field of behavioral economics and business ethics. (shrink)

Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = (...) 13,579), as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

Little is known about how ethical organizational contexts influence employees’ perceived stress levels and well-being. This study used two theoretical lenses, ethical impact theory (Promislo et al. in Handbook of Unethical Work Behavior, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, 2013) and ethical decision-making theory (Schwartz in J Bus Ethics 139(4): 755–776, 2016), to investigate the relationships among perceived organizational ethics (comprised of ethical climate, leader/manager ethics, and corporate social responsibility), work-related stress, and employee well-being (comprised of vitality, life satisfaction, personal growth initiative, flourishing, (...) positive mental health, and self-actualization). Findings across two studies indicated that organizational ethics was negatively related to work-related stress, and that work-related stress was negatively related to employee well-being. Perceived organizational ethics is positively related to employee well-being, with post hoc mediation tests indicating that work-related stress partially mediates this relationship. Our findings suggest that organizations should be proactive in improving their ethical climate, such as choosing ethical leaders, developing a robust and well-communicated code of ethics, and actively practicing CSR. These measures should reduce excessive work-related stress and improve employee well-being. (shrink)

The contribution hermeneutic philosophy can make to reflection on issues in psychology is shown through a critique of the "positive psychology" movements inaugurated in the special issue of the American Psychologist edited by M. Seligman and M. Csikszentmihalyi in 2000. Drawing on the broad historical sense advocated by hermeneutics, it is shown that the conceptions of the good life defended by the contributors to the special issue might turn out to be limited to the rather narrow range of questionable (...) and shallow ideals of contemporary Western consumerist economy. In particular, the attempt made by S. E. Taylor, et al to show that "positive illusions" are conducive to a good life is shown to rest on dubious conceptions about what is genuinely worthwhile in life. As an alternative to the somewhat arid conception of human existence presupposed by the authors contributing to the special issue, M. Heidegger's conception of authentic existence is put forward as a hermeneutically inspired basis for rethinking what constitutes the richest and most fulfilling life for humans. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

A transnational enterprise is an information and decision system that directs the common strategy of business establishments operating under several jurisdictions; its objective is precise and concrete: it is to realize a profit by producing and selling goods or services, computers perhaps or hamburgers, or leisure, under such names as I.B.M. or VW, McDonald or Club Mediterranée.

Musing in Florence in June of 1858, Nathaniel Hawthorne said of himself, "I am sensible that a process is going on--and has been, ever since I came to Italy--that puts me in a state to see pictures with less toil, and more pleasure, and makes me more fastidious, yet more sensible of beauty where I saw none before." This is a book devoted to the reflective analysis of the enterprise in which many of us, like Hawthorne, find ourselves engaged: the (...) cultivation of our taste. Charles Wegener writes for and from the standpoint of thoughtful amateurs, those who, loving the beautiful and the sublime, wish to become more fully the sort of person to whom these goods reliably disclose themselves. Here traditional aesthetic analysis is redirected to a search for the norms that tell us how we use our intelligence, our imagination, and our senses in becoming "more fastidious, yet more sensible," exploring such concepts as disinterestedness, catholicity, communicability, austerity, objectivity, and authority. Finally, Wegener discusses questions about the relation of our aesthetic lives to other activities, norms, and human goods, arguing that taste, far from being a mere grace or luxury, is a necessary expression of that freedom which is at once the fruit and the condition of all culture. "This book should be required reading for anyone concerned with aesthetic education, for this is exactly what it is about, and I have come across no more searching investigation of the topic."--Hugo Meynell, Journal of Aesthetic Education "Using the analysis of aesthetic experience found in Kant's Critique of Judgment as a point of departure, Wegener has written a remarkably intelligent book which presents meaningful encounter with art as the "discipline of taste and feeling. The book reads not simply as an exposition but as a conversation in which the author thoughtfully and meticulously explores with the reader those norms that structure and define aesthetic experience. . . . The book occupies an important place in contemporary aesthetic discussion."--M. Feder-Marcus, Choice. (shrink)

Battle Hall Davies' brother Nick ran away from home when she was in high school. Now he has found her and she is going to stay with him for the summer before starting college. Battle discovers that neither she nor her brother is the person she thought they were.

The volumes in the Clarendon Aristotle Series seek to meet the needs of philosophically inclined readers who do not know Greek by providing accurate translations of selected Aristotelian texts accompanied by philosophical commentaries. To these ends, Trevor Saunders’s welcome addition to the series, a treatment of the first two books of Aristotle’s Politics, provides a number of useful tools. First there is a new translation of books I and II. Saunders numbers the paragraphs of the translation and the corresponding sections (...) of the commentary to facilitate reference to the text and commentary within the discussion of each chapter, though not across chapters. Saunders provides Greek-English and English-Greek glossaries. These will be especially useful to Greek-less readers, because Saunders is often traditional in his translation of key terms and thus, for example, obscures connections that have to be made explicit. So, for example, Saunders follows the very common practice of rendering the cognates polis, politês, and politeia as ‘state’, ‘citizen’, and ‘constitution’, respectively. Each section of the commentary begins with an introduction and proceeds to discuss each paragraph in turn, often including several recommendations for where to go next in the secondary literature. The book also has a guide to the translation and commentary, a brief but helpful introduction, a short appendix on the alleged oligarchic bias in Plato’s Laws, a list of departures from Ross’s Oxford Classical Text, a bibliography of works cited, and a selective index. Sadly, but in company with most of its companions in the Clarendon Aristotle Series, it lacks an index locorum. (shrink)