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.

One of the greatest merits of Dr. Sherover's excellent book is that it enables us to see Heidegger's thought- in one direction, at least- as an organic outgrowth from his reading of Kant. It thus helps to remove on common misapprehension that Heidegger's thought is odd, idiosyncratic, and not rooted- as in fact it is- in the mainstream of philosophy. Dr. Sherover is able to remove this misunderstanding in great part through the admirable clarity of his exposition; he has succeeded (...) in conveying Heidegger's most abstruse points into plain and understandable English, and so has overcome the formidable barrier of terminology that has blocked so many Heideggerian interpreters. This book is in fact the clearest exposition that I have read of Heidegger's thought at one states of its development. But beyond this valuable job of clarification, by bringing the light of Heidegger to bear upon Kant, this book is also a significant contribution to Kantian scholarship. And that means, of course, a contribution to philosophy itself. (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)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new collaboration between the Association of Internet Researchers and the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses historical, comparative and ethics-based approaches. Findings The collaboration is catalyzed by central interests shared between AoIR and JICES, namely, in the ethical and social impacts of the internet. The collaboration accordingly aims to bring research and reflection developed for the AoIR conferences to the JICES’ readership. Originality/value The value (...) of this collaboration is considerable, as it promises extensive new cross-fertilization between the two communities. The viewpoint begins with a brief overview of the collaboration’s initiation by Prof Simon Rogerson and its logistics over the next two years. Following a general review of Information and Computing Ethics and Intercultural Information Ethics, an overview of ethical considerations fostered by AoIR is offered, focusing on the development of internet research ethics, especially its most recent expression in an IRE 3.0. (shrink)

In Stig Hjarvard’s characterization, mediatization studies move beyond the positivist origins of the social sciences, as they must in order to avoid the fundamental contradiction between original commitments to classical determinism vis-à-vis human agency as acknowledged within mediatization studies. In order to sustain and enhance Hjarvard’s vision of the coherence between human agency and mediatization studies as a species of social science, I first sharpen these theoretical tensions by developing a robust account of human freedom as informed by Kant and (...) virtue ethics. I then adopt precise understandings of complementarity and epistemological pluralism as initially developed in Quantum Mechanics and subsequently by Karen Barad and Judith Simon as frameworks that can coherently conjoin contemporary social science with strong accounts of human freedom. The resulting coherency—or entanglement—between ethics and science implies new ethical responsibilities for social scientists as ‘virtuous agents’. (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)

This investigation examines several key factors believed to promote human flourishing, specifically: Factor 1: Age, Education, & Healthcare, Factor 2: Labor Force Participation, Factor 3: Crime, Factor 4: Income, Factor 5: Youth Unemployment and Factor 6: Voting Behavior. Data was examined at the county level, and collected from a variety of US government and non-governmental organizations. Our investigation into the conditions necessary to promote human flourishing uses internal migration within the United States as the indicator of “unhappy” communities. The findings (...) reveal that all factors are important in emigration somewhere, but the factors vary for different counties. As a result, attempts to address the ills of society require an appreciation of geography and context. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Horwich's metaphilosophical interpretation of Wittgenstein. Specifically, it focuses on Horwich's charge that all philosophy is irrational. First, I coordinate the various aspects of Horwich's metaphilosophical program to make sense of his charge of irrationality against philosophy. Second, I argue that this metaphilosophical program misfires in two distinct ways. However, third, I close by calling attention to what I posit to be a critical insight of Horwich's account.

This paper investigates Kit Fine's account of the nature of material objects – the theory of embodiments.1 This theory is custom-fitted to an intuitive distinction between ‘timeless’ and ‘temporary’ parthood. It incorporates these notions by postulating two operations by which objects can be generated from their (immediate) parts. The operation of ‘rigid embodiment’ generates objects which have their immediate parts timelessly. In contrast, any product of the alternative operation, ‘variable embodiment’, has only temporary material parts. I shall argue that Fine's (...) operations of embodiment cannot account for what I call ‘nucleated wholes’ – objects which have both timeless and temporary immediate parts. As such, the theory of embodiment does not account for a significant class of material things. Having explained the problem, I consider four ways in which Fine's theory might be defended. None of these responses is entirely satisfactory. I conclude by highlighting two ways in which one might continue – either proceeding within Fine's ‘operationalist’ framework, or dropping this and developing an alternative framework. (shrink)

This study provides a comparison of thinking style and ethical decision-making patterns between 386 U.S. students and 506 students from the People’s Republic of China enrolled in undergraduate business education in their respective countries. Contrary to our expectations, the Chinese students demonstrated a significantly greater linear thinking style compared to American students. As hypothesized, both Chinese and U.S. students possessing a balanced linear and nonlinear thinking style profile demonstrated greater ethical intent across a series of ethics vignettes. Chinese students also (...) were more likely to adopt an act utilitarian rationale, an ethical philosophy that in practice may violate government regulations or social rules to benefit one’s family instead of society for explaining their decisions across the vignettes. We conclude with a discussion of important theoretical as well as practical and potential future implications based on this comparative study. (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)

The notions of individual and collective ethics were first explicitly defined in the biostatistical literature in 1971 to motivate a mathematical solution to a posed ethical dilemma. This paper reviews key antecedents to these concepts and traces explicit references to them over time, primarily in the biostatistical literature. Following a historical exposition of these texts, a critical thematic analysis shows the following: the normative force of these concepts has not been adequately argued. Individual and collective ethics do not solve the (...) problem of how to use accumulating data to inform ethical action. The notions of the "individual" and the "collective" are too vague to prompt clear moral imperatives, especially in difficult cases. These concepts have not been successfully linked to a standard ethical framework. Finally, the paper concludes with the observation that a systematic, comprehensive ethical framework must be identified to fulfill the intuitions behind individual and collective ethics. (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)

(1997). Individuals confront tradition: Scholars in eleventh‐ and twelfth‐century Europe. The European Legacy: Vol. 2, The Individual in European Culture, pp. 1313-1324.

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)

What if you were to discover that you were only one half of a whole—that you had a divine double? In the second and third centuries CE, Charles Stang shows, this idea gripped the religious imagination of the Eastern Mediterranean, offering a distinctive understanding of the self that has survived in various forms down to the present.

This paper concerns the character of Emerson's philosophy, and his general attitude toward life, in relationship to the human tendency to become isolated or compartmentalized, in view and attitude, by the specifics of work, career and particular perspectives.