Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

In this paper I develop a framework for understanding ontic vagueness. The project of the paper is two-fold. I first outline a definitional account of ontic vagueness – one that I think is an improvement on previous attempts because it remains neutral on other, independent metaphysical issues. I then develop one potential manifestation of that basic definitional structure. This is a more robust (and much less neutral) account which gives a fully classical explication of ontic vagueness via modal concepts. The (...) overarching aim is to systematically investigate the puzzling question of what exactly it could be for the world itself to be vague. (shrink)

A distinctive feature of modern capitalist societies is the tendency of the market to take over the production, maintenance, and distribution of goods that were previously produced, maintained, and distributed by nonmarket means. Yet, there is a wide range of disagreement regarding the proper extent of the market in providing many goods. Labor has been treated as a commodity since the advent of capitalism, but not without significant and continuing challenges to this arrangement. Other goods whose production for and distribution (...) on the market are currently the subject of dispute include sexual intercourse, human blood, and human body parts such as kidneys. How can we determine which goods are properly subjects of market transactions and which are not? The purpose of this article is to propose a theory of what makes economic goods differ from other kinds of goods, which can help to answer this question. (shrink)

In his article ‘Saints and Heroes’, Urmson argues that traditional moral theories allow at most for a threefold classification of actions in terms of their worth, and that they are therefore unsatisfactory. Since the conclusion of his argument has led to the widespread use of the term ‘acts of supererogation’, and since I do not believe that such acts exist, I propose to argue that the actions with which he is concerned not only can, but should, be contained within the (...) traditional classification. (shrink)

In _On Paradox_ literary and legal scholar Elizabeth S. Anker contends that faith in the logic of paradox has been the cornerstone of left intellectualism since the second half of the twentieth century. She attributes the ubiquity of paradox in the humanities to its appeal as an incisive tool for exposing and dismantling hierarchies. Tracing the ascent of paradox in theories of modernity, in rights discourse, in the history of literary criticism and the linguistic turn, and in the transformation (...) of the liberal arts in higher education, Anker suggests that paradox not only generates the very exclusions it critiques but also creates a disempowering haze of indecision. She shows that reasoning through paradox has become deeply problematic: it engrains a startling homogeneity of thought while undercutting the commitment to social justice that remains a guiding imperative of theory. Rather than calling for a wholesale abandonment of such reasoning, Anker argues for an expanded, diversified theory toolkit that can help theorists escape the seductions and traps of paradox. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.3 (2000) 513-530 [Access article in PDF] Hans Blumenberg and Hannah Arendt on the "Unworldly Worldliness" of the Modern Age Elizabeth Brient Introduction In attempting to describe and respond to the dominant ethos of the modern age one is quickly confronted with a startling and seemingly intractable paradox: the age which has defined itself by the very intensity of its "this worldly" (...) orientation is at the same time haunted by an ever growing sense of world loss, of the Unheimlichkeit of modern reality.On the one hand the modern turn away from the transcendent contemplative and religious ideals and values of antiquity and the Middle Ages is evidenced by a profoundly new, active, and indeed constructive approach to the world. Modern science is predicated on an objective stance which demystifies the cosmos and allows for a technological mastery of nature which has improved human life in innumerable ways. The modern conception of the self is grounded in a new conception of the autonomy and dignity of the individual, and modern political theory begins with the notion that society is an artifact to be constructed in the service of the very individuals who constitute the body politic. We are made uneasy by the nagging suspicion that life in this world which we have remade for ourselves is somehow hollow, an artificial construction without depth or solidity, a merely superficial order which threatens to dissolve into meaninglessness. The technological advances made possible by modern science have also brought the atomic bomb, global warming, and acid rain. Power over nature has led to the power to destroy nature. The modern world has seen an unprecedented rise in individual freedom, and yet the autonomy of the individual has all too often given way to the anomie of the individual. Loss of community advances alongside failed experiments in social engineering, and the specter of totalitarianism haunts the modern dream of social and political emancipation. [End Page 513]Paradoxically, then, modern worldliness is attended by an uneasy sense of world alienation. It has become quite common in attempting to give an account for this perplexing state of affairs to speak of a process of secularization in the transition from the medieval to the modern world, a process in which many of the central ideas and principles of the modern age are taken to be secular variations on medieval theological themes. Thus, for example, faith in the progress of science or of history is taken to be a secularized version of belief in divine Providence, the political equality of all individuals under the law is said to be a secular reiteration of the understanding of the equality of all human beings before God, the transcendental subject is exposed as a secular version of the divine or angelic knower, and the communist state and other modern utopias marking the end of history are said to be secularizations of Christian eschatological expectations of the end of the world and the coming reign of God.This reading of the epochal transition explains the worldly character of modern reality in terms of the "immanentization" or secularization of religious attitudes and expectations. It also serves to explain the uncanny sense of worldlessness characteristic of much of modern life. This is because the new secular forms are now revealed either as distorted and impoverished versions of an originally meaningful world view (as for example in Neo-Scholasticism) or as the unfortunate perpetuation or unfolding of an inherently nihilistic tradition (as say Nietzsche, Heidegger, and many contemporary post modernists would have it). But does the secularization thesis as a tool of historical explanation really do justice either to the complex reality of the epochal transition in concrete historical terms or even, and more to the point, to the fundamental character of the supposedly secularized modern ideas?Hans Blumenberg and Hannah Arendt would both no doubt answer emphatically in the negative. Both insist on the genuine novelty of modernity, on the fundamentally unprecedented character of the modern orientation to and in the... (shrink)

La autora discute los antecedentes y consecuencias que tienen la construcción de nuestras categorías de conocimiento en la vida cotidiana y en la práctica científica. Mantiene que la elección de lo que es importante en el campo del conocimiento no es el resultado sólo de criterios metodológicos y científicos. Para mostrarlo, examina la tensión existente entre la metodología cuantitativa y la cualitativa como metodologías convencionales para obtener conocimiento.

This thesis is a systematic investigation of whether there might be conceptual room for the idea that the world itself might be vague, independently of how we describe it. This idea – the existence of so-called ontic vagueness – has generally been extremely unpopular in the literature; my thesis thus seeks to evaluate whether this ‘negative press’ is justified. I start by giving a working definition and semantics for ontic vagueness, and then attempt to show that there are no conclusive (...) arguments that rule out vagueness of this kind. I subsequently establish what type of arguments I think would be most effective in establishing ontic vagueness and provide some arguments of this form. I then highlight a potential worry for this type of argument, but argue that it can be circumvented. Finally, I consider the main ways that the opponent of ontic vagueness would be likely resist the arguments I have offered, and argue that these strategies of response are methodologically problematic. I conclude by claiming that ontic vagueness is a perfectly plausible ontological commitment. (shrink)

Kim (1998) has argued that a genuine robust physicalism does not leave any room for real, causally efficacious mental properties. Despite all of his concerns about the reality and causal efficacy of mental phenomena Kim does not eliminate all higher-level macro causation. Kim’s problem with the mental is that most current cognitive theories imply that the mind is not higher-level but higher-order. In this paper I argue that connectionism makes meaning higher-level and therefore by Kim’s own standards puts meaning on (...) the same footing as other real causally efficacious higher-level properties. The upshot is that we can side-step the current debate about mental causation by moving the mind to the shared uncontroversially real and physical common-ground. (shrink)

In Philosophy 51, October 1976, 471–472, Professor Tom Regan takes ud to task for our attack on Kant's theory concerning the moral status of animals. The ground of Regan's criticism is that ‘… it is clear that Kant does not suppose, as… Broadie and Pybus erroneously assume that he does, that the concept of maltreating an animal, on the one hand, and, on the other, the concept of using an animal as a means, are the same or logically equivalent concepts’ (...) . Regan argues that Kant does not say that we should avoid treating animals as a means. Rather, he claims, Kant's view is that we have an indirect duty not to maltreat animals, since in maltreating them we treat, or run the risk of treating, as a mere means rationality in ourselves or in others. (shrink)

In this paper I elaborate a notion of nurses’ professional self as one who is attracted towards intrinsic value. My previous work in 2003 has shown how nurses, who see intrinsic value in their work, experience self‐affirmation when they believe that they have made a difference to that which they see to have value. The aim of this work is to reveal a further aspect of nurses’ professional self. I argue that nurses’ desire towards that which they see to have (...) intrinsic value, is a necessary and self‐transcending aspect of a nurses’ professional self. I argue further that nurses’ desire towards intrinsic value inevitably involves their vulnerability. Nurses who see intrinsic value are shown to be vulnerable to self‐sacrifice in their inclination to work for the good of their patients, at the expense of themselves. Yet an ability to transcend their self in this way remains a necessary aspect of a nurse's professional self, which requires nurture and support through nurse education. (shrink)

This article describes a study carried out among 14-18-year-old nursing students in Hungary. The students were asked to consider an ethical problem. The parents of a sick child ask that she should not be told of a forthcoming operation. Are the nurses to agree to this demand or not? The author concluded from this study that nurses need more training in ethical decision-making, that they need to know about the rights of children in hospital, and that nursing training should start (...) when students are older. (shrink)

Thirty-six 1-year-old middle-class children with fathers who spent differential time with them at home were observed in two experimental contexts separated by 2 weeks. In the first, each infant was shown six to eight repetitions of three different nonsocial events followed by a change in..

European Journal of Political Theory, Volume 21, Issue 3, Page 585-586, July 2022. Ayelet Shachar's lead essay in The Shifting Border draws out dramatic transformations of bordering practices currently taking place worldwide. These have yielded spatial relocations for bordering, a privatization of enforcement, and legal innovations that tie the border to individual people as they move, among many other changes. Shachar argues in favor of a form of reciprocity, in which states that shape shift their borders are also compelled to (...) recognize rights for people who require humanitarian assistance. In response, Shachar's interlocutors offer an array of reflections and friendly amendments. (shrink)

Globalization is often seen as the final stage in the transition towards a market economy. It is argued that a side-effect of globalization is cultural homogeneity and loss of life world, or ‘McDonaldization’. McDonaldization represents the rationalization of society in the quest for extreme efficiency. More recently, Meštrović has argued that the rationalization of emotions has also occurred and that Western societies are entering a postemotional phase. In postemotional societies there has been a separation of emotion from action. The result (...) is synthetic, manufactured emotions manipulated and standardized for mass consumption. In this paper I explore what it means to nurse in a ‘postemotional society’ and what impact this dulling of the emotions has had on a profession that locates ‘care’ as its central defining concept. My aim is to generate critical discussion of the shape and direction of contemporary society and the role of nursing within it. (shrink)

Donald Schön’s theory of reflective practice has received unprecedented attention as an approach to professional development in nursing and other health and social care professions. This paper examines technical rationality in Schön’s theory of reflective practice and argues that its critique is a broad and often overlooked epistemological underpinning in this work. This paper suggests that the popularity of Schön’s theory is tied in part to his critique of technical rationality, and to his acknowledgement of the significance of practitioner experience (...) and indeterminate zones of practice in the development of expertise. Schön tapped into a growing disillusionment with technical rationality that coincided with a crisis of knowledge across a range of disciplines. The question is raised as to whether Schön’s critique sets up a dichotomy between technical rationality and experience, or overcomes it. The conclusions suggest that Schön is not discarding research‐based professional knowledge, but rather challenging conflated views of its practical significance. In this way, it is proposed that his critique of technical rationality can be interpreted as an attempt to overcome dualistic thinking as it pertains to professional knowledge. (shrink)

What happens when adjudication signals its own artifice? Or when jurisprudence is animated by what Maksymilian Del Mar calls ‘legal artifacts’ that invite us to suspend certain of our prevailing no...

This article provides an analysis of theories of metaphor, tracing how far those which have dominated Western thought until the past few decades are reflective of the definitions within which writers from Classical Greece were working. It is shown how, during the Middle Ages and beyond, in particular since the seventeenth century, definitions of metaphor which emphasised ‘literal’ and ‘figurative’ levels of meaning have led to serious misconceptions concerning its nature and function in the attempts of human beings to conceptualise (...) and make sense of their experiences. A discussion of these misconceptions is provided in some detail and traditional definitions are shown to have distorted the deeper insights held by classical writers, such as Aristotle, Demetrius and Longinus. The article continues with descriptive analyses of the mistaken nature of definitions of metaphor which confine it to creative, poetic forms of discussion. It is shown that conventional speech utterances comprise simple metaphors to a large extent and how these provide an immensely important base from which education could help pupils extend and enrich both their thought and language. This could be done by teaching them ways of interpreting the novel, poetic metaphors of others and how to create their own. (shrink)

Gangestad & Simpson present an evolutionary functional analysis of mating strategies. This commentary interprets their argument using a central concept from life history theory, return from investment. Incorporating return from investment allows further specification of costs and benefits from short-term mating in women as well as men and in ecological settings of high environmental variation in mortality and resource availability.

Of all moral conditions, innocence seems easily the best and most desirable, for it means the complete absence of error and regret and all the anxieties that go with these—anxieties about avoiding guilt and making amends for instance. Against the background of guilt and traffic with wrong, innocence is indisputably better, just as something clean is better than something soiled, something fresh better than something stale.

Baudelaire's response to Delacroix's art and theories provides a particularly fruitful focus for a study of the new rapport between the former sister arts. There is little similarity between Delacroix's action-filled exotic subjects and Baudelaire's more intimate and private poetry; their arts must therefore be related in some domain apart from content. We are aided in deciphering this domain by Baudelaire's extensive commentary on Delacroix. Moreover, perhaps because of its subtlety, the relationship between these arts has not received the attention (...) it deserves.1 Yet no sooner is the possibility for such a study recognized than the problems it entails become apparent. Without the focus of common subjects, where does one begin? The dangers of impressionistic comparisons of study are readily apparent in the tendency of Geistesgeschichte studies to transfer stylistic terms from one art form to another, creating such bizarre transpositions as "the visible chamber music of the bent furniture" or the "Titian style of the madrigal" in Spengler's Decline of the West or Wylie Sypher's suggestion that a Shakespearean play is like a Renaissance painting because it makes use of "perspective" to create a real and believable world.2 And indeed it would be misleading to look for particular stylistic similarities between Delacroix and Baudelaire. Delacroix's dissolution of solid color masses into separate strokes of different colors, for example, would appear to be closer to Rimbaud's disjointed language than to Baudelaire's carefully interwoven sentences. Only by viewing the two art forms as interconnected systems can we determine their relationship. If the new affiliation of poetry and painting in the Romantic period derives from the expression of imaginative unity, a critical approach to their relationship must be attuned to different ways of expressing unity. The theoretical framework that accounts most completely for the kind of relationship existing between Delacroix and Baudelaire is provided by the structuralists, although, as we shall see, even this approach has limitations. · 1. There are several studies of Baudelaire's aesthetics and criticism, such as André Ferran's L'Esthétique de Baudelaire , Margaret Gilman's Baudelaire the Critic , and Jean Prévost's Baudelaire: essai sur l'inspiration et la création poétiques , which contain sections on the influence of Delacroix but do not extend their analysis into Baudelaire's poetry as a whole. More specific works, such as Lucie Horner's Baudelaire critique de Delacroix , provides a detailed study of their relationship based on their correspondence and references to one another, but no analysis of the relationship between their two art forms. Some studies of Baudelaire's poetry, such as Lloyd James Austin's L'Univers poétique de Baudelaire: symbolisme et symbolique and Martin Turnell's Baudelaire: A Study of His Poetry , point out aspects of Baudelaire's poems that appear relevant to the relationship with Delacroix, but they do not make these connections themselves. Most commentary on the relationship of Delacroix to Baudelaire's poetry is limited to those few poems that Baudelaire wrote on Delacroix's paintings.· 2. Wellek and Warren quote the comments on Spengler in Theory of Literature, p. 131. Sypher's comments are in Four Ages of Renaissance Style: Transformations in Art and Literature 1400-1700 , pp. 79-80. Elizabeth Abel is an assistant professor of English at the University of Chicago. A coeditor of Critical Inquiry, she is currently writing a book on literary and psychoanalytic representation of female identity. (shrink)

My scholarly work on the problem of race relations began with a general inquiry into the theory of economic inequality. Specifically, my 1981 paper, "Intergenerational Transfers and the Distribution of Earnings," which appeared in the journal Econometrica, introduced a model of economic achievement in which a person's earnings depended on a random endowment of innate ability and on skills acquired from formal training. The key feature of this theory was that individuals had to rely on their families to pay for (...) their training. In this way, a person's economic opportunities were influenced by his inherited social position. I showed how, under these circumstances, the distribution of income in each generation could be determined by an examination of what had been obtained by the previous generation. My objective with the model was to illustrate how, in the long run, when people depend on resources available within families to finance their acquisition of skills, economic inequality comes to reflect the inherited advantages of birth. A disparity among persons in economic attainment would bear no necessary connection to differences in their innate abilities. (shrink)