Evidence from a growing number of studies suggests leader character as a means to advance leadership knowledge and practice. Based on this evidence, we propose a process model depicting how leader character manifests in ethical leadership that has positive psychological and performance outcomes for leaders, along with the moderating effect of leaders’ self-control on the character strength–ethical leadership–outcomes relationships. We tested this model using multisource data from 218 U.S. Air Force officers and their subordinates and superiors. Findings provide initial support (...) for leader character as a mechanism triggering positive outcomes such that only when officers reported a high level of self-control did their honesty/humility, empathy, and moral courage manifest in ethical leadership, associated with higher levels of psychological flourishing and in-role performance. We discuss the implications of these results for future theory development, research, and practice. (shrink)

Most research studying the corporate social performance –corporate financial performance link has utilized developed country samples. Also, this literature has generally focused on a wide variety of industries, ignoring the fact that certain sectors – such as controversial industries – have graver social and environmental issues. Hence, a gap exists in this tradition when it comes to emerging markets and controversial industries. This paper attempts to fill this void by providing preliminary evidence and insight on the matter. Based on an (...) exploration in six Latin American countries and five controversial industries, we find a negative bidirectional association between CSP and CFP. These results tend to contradict the mainstream conclusion of a positive bidirectional link, suggesting that institutional and market-level forces play a major role in shaping this relationship. (shrink)

Economics has developed into one of the most specialised social sciences. Yet at the same time, it shares its subject matter with other social sciences and humanities and its method of analysis has developed in close correspondence with the natural and life sciences. This book offers an up to date assessment of economics in relation to other disciplines. -/- This edited collection explores fields as diverse as mathematics, physics, biology, medicine, sociology, architecture, and literature, drawing from selected contributions to the (...) 2005 Annual Conference of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET). There is currently much discussion at the leading edges of modern economics about openness to other disciplines, such as psychology and sociology. But what we see here is that economics has drawn on (as well as contributed to) other disciplines throughout its history. In this sense, in spite of the increasing specialisation within all disciplines, economics has always been an open discipline and the chapters in this volume provide a vivid illustration for this. -/- Open Economics is a testament to the intellectual vibrancy of historical research in economics. It presents the reader with a historical introduction to the disciplinary context of economics that is the first of its kind, and will appeal to practising economists and students of the discipline alike, as well as to anybody interested in economics and its position in the scientific and social scientific landscape. -/- Table of Contents -/- Introduction: Economics in relation to other disciplines Richard Arena, Sheila Dow and Matthias Klaes Part I. Economics in relation to the humanities and social sciences 1. The social science of economics Brian J. Loasby 2. Economics and literature Bruna Ingrao 3. Happiness: what Kahneman could have learnt from Pietro Verri Pier Luigi Porta Part II. Economics in relation to the life and natural sciences 4. Newtonian physics, experimental moral philosophy and the shaping of political economy Sergio Cremaschi 5. Evolutionary biology and economic behaviour: re-visiting Veblen's instinct of workmanship Mark Harrison 6. Medicine and economics in pre-classical economics Alain Clément and Ludovic Desmedt Part III. Economics and mathematics 7. Mathematics as the role model for neoclassical economics Nicola Giocoli 8. The role of econometric method in economic analysis: A reassessment of the Keynes-Tinbergen debate, 1938-43 Giovanna Garrone and Roberto Marchionatti IV. Economics and architecture 9. Economics and architecture Maurice Lagueux 10. Economic policies and urban development in Latin America Michele Alacevich and Andrea Costa V. Economics and geography 11. ‘Space’ in economic thought Giovanna Vertova 12. Economics, geography and colonialism in the writings of William Petty Hugh Goodacre Part VI. Economics and sociology 13. Economics and sociology: Gustav Schmoller and Werner Sombart on social differentiation Joachim Zweynert 14. Is Homo Oeconomicus a 'bad guy'? Isabelle This Saint-Jean -/- . (shrink)

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs), are quite complex in terms of organizational structure, diversity at the workplace, as well as motivational mechanisms and values rationality. Nevertheless, from an Organizational Psychology perspective, the systematic analysis of this context is scarce in the literature, particularly regarding conflicts. This qualitative study analyzes types, prevalence and consequences of conflicts in a large NPO organization considering as theoretical framework several consolidated Organizational Psychology theories: Conflict Theory, Social Comparison Theory and the Equity Theory. Conflicts were analyzed taking into (...) account volunteers’ perspective, who has been consistently protagonist on NPOs research, but also considering paid staff’s perspective, as one of the main stakeholders in these organizations, whose relative power has increase in the past decade due the professionalization of the NPO’s sector. Results confirmed the existence of four types of conflicts: task, process, status and relationship conflicts. Relationship conflict is the least reported type, revealing the protection factor that values and engagement with a social aim have on this organizational context. The most relevant finding is the strong difference between paid staff and volunteers in conflict perceptions, showing paid staff, overall, higher levels of conflicts than volunteers. Findings also show stronger negative consequences for paid staff compared to volunteers. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Related to the research of working conditions, the link between organizational factors and health was traditionally analyzed using linear models. However, the literature analysis suggests inconsistencies in linear models predicting workers’ health levels. To clarify this issue, this exploratory research compares the linear and non-linear relationships between job demands-resources, and the psychological and physical symptoms of employees working in the main five service subsectors: commerce, horeca, public administration, education, and healthcare. With a final sample of 4,047 participants, our study data (...) were extracted from the II Andalusian Working Conditions Survey. Following the theoretical framework of JD-R Model and considering the Vitamin Model theoretical approach for non-linear relationships, our results showed that there were significant differences among the five subsectors analyzed regarding the linear and non-linear relationships between job demands-resources and psychological and physical symptoms of employees. Furthermore, task complexity generated non-linear relationships in higher proportion than time pressure and contact with users. Likewise, non-linear relationships found showed a U-shape. Moreover, the findings of non-linear relationships suggested that medium levels of task complexity should not be exceeded to avoid further negative impact on psychological and physical symptoms for service sector employees, preserving their health. Finally, some general practical implications of work environment interventions are suggested. (shrink)

Simulation software used for modeling has become as ubiquitous as computers themselves. Despite growing reliance on simulation in educational and workplace settings, users encounter frustration in using simulation software programs. The authors conducted a study with 26 engineering students and interviewed them about their experience learning the simulation software Arena for optimization modeling. These students experienced frustration with the process of learning to “think” like the simulation software. Students explained their difficulty with learning the software in a way that implied (...) human dialogue with a machine and negotiation with Arena in an attempt to overcome this frustration. Rather than being gender specific, frustrations were experienced by most male and female students equally, specifically those who held a perception of difference between human and machine “thinking.” The authors contend that communication difficulty with the embedded assumptions of the software is the source of frustration rather than deficiencies of users. (shrink)

The mathematical and physical aspects of the conformal symmetry of space-time and of physical laws are analyzed. In particular, the group classification of conformally flat space-times, the conformal compactifications of space-time, and the problem of imbedding of the flat space-time in global four-dimensional curved spaces with non-trivial topological and geometrical structure are discussed in detail. The wave equations on the compactified space-times are analyzed also, and the set of their elementary solutions constructed. Finally, the implications of global compactified space-times for (...) cosmology are discussed. It is argued that the recent discovery of periodic structure of matter distribution on large distances strongly suggests that the global cosmological space-time should be close. Next we analyze the inflation scalar field in the inflationary model of universe evolution considered on the spatially compact Robertson-Walker space-time. It is shown that the energy distribution in this model is periodic and the periods and density decrease with increasing distance, in striking agreement with experimental data. Our model of the universe also provides a definite predictions for the energy distribution, polar and azimuthal, considered as a function of angles θ and φ. These predictions should be tested with the new astronomical data. (shrink)

Whilst Edward Gibbon's Memoirs of My Life comprise a notoriously complex document of autobiographical artifice, there is no reason to question the honesty of its revelation of his attitudes to geography and its relationship to the historian's craft. Writing of his boyhood before going up to Oxford, Gibbon commented that his vague and multifarious reading could not teach me to think, to write, or to act; and the only principle, that darted a ray of light into the indigested chaos, was (...) an early and rational application of the order of time and place. The maps of Cellarius and Wells imprinted in my mind the picture of ancient geography: from Stranchius I imbibed the elements of chronology: the Tables of Helvicus and Anderson, the Annals of Usher [ sic ] and Prideaux, distinguished the connection of events. . . This seems a fairly direct comment on Gibbon's attitude to geography as a historian in that it is confirmed by various of his working documents and commonplace book comments not aimed at posterity and by the practice embodied in his great work that was thus targeted, the Decline and Fall. Taking Gibbon's private documents, the first manuscript we have in his English Essays, for example, is a tabulated chronology from circa 1751 when Gibbon was fourteen years old, which begins with the creation of the world in 6000 BC and runs up to 1590 BC, this being exactly the sort of material which could be commonplaced from the likes of Ussher and Prideaux. Matching this attention to chronology is a concern with geography, and indeed the two are coupled together as in his comment in the Memoirs. Thus in his Index Expurgatoris, Gibbon berates Sallust as “no very correct historian” on the grounds that his chronology is not credible and that “notwithstanding his laboured description of Africa, nothing can be more confused than his Geography without either division of provinces or fixing of towns”. In this regard, Gibbon the author of the Decline and Fall was a “correct” historian, in that he was careful to frame each arena in which historical events were narrated in the light of a prefatory description of the geography of the location under discussion. This is most readily apparent in the second half of the opening chapter of the work, where Gibbon proceeds on what his “Table of Contents” calls a “View of the Provinces of the Roman Empire”, starting in the West with Spain and then proceeding clockwise to reach Africa on the other side of the Pillars of Hercules, a pattern of geographical description directly mirroring ancient practice in Strabo's Geography and Pomponius Mela's De Situ Orbis. But this practice of prefacing a historical account with geographical description repeats itself at various points in the work, as when, approaching the end of his grand narrative, Gibbon reaches the impact of “Mahomet, with sword in one hand and the Koran in the other” on “the causes of the decline and fall of the Eastern empire”. Before discussing the birth of Islam, Gibbon treats his readers to a discussion of the geography of Arabia, beginning with its size and shape before moving on to its soils, climate and physical–geographic subdivisions. (shrink)

This article argues that considering cross-sector collaborations through the lens of indigenous-corporate engagements yields a more comprehensive understanding of the range of cross-sector engagement types, emphasizes the importance of cross-cultural bridge building which has received little attention in the literature (Selsky and Parker, J Manag 31(6):849-873, 2005), and highlights the potential for innovation via collaborations with fringe stakeholders. The study offers a more overarching typology of cross-sector collaborations and, building on an ethical approach to sustainable development with indigenous peoples (Lertzman (...) and Vredenburg, J Bus Ethics 56:239-254, 2005), proposes a theoretical framework for cross-cultural bridge building between businesses and fringe stakeholders. By incorporating this framework into the literature on value creation in cross-sector collaborations, we suggest a model for value creation in cross-sector collaborations with fringe stakeholders. Finally, using case studies to illustrate the article's theoretical arguments, we demonstrate the model's usefulness for the analysis and development of indigenous-corporate collaborations. (shrink)

A soteriological perspective is not altogether absent in the christological hymn of Phil 2:6-11, even though the salvific value of the death and resurrection of Jesus does not receive in it special emphasis. In fact, W. Kasper and J. Moltmann - who are considered critically in the article as examples of contemporary christological/soteriological reflection - find in the hymn some hints for a soteriological reflection, which sometimes stresses a paschal perspective, sometimes an incarnational one. Both Kasper and Moltmann, however, show (...) more interest in what they must make the hymn say than in the meaning which they may discover in the hymn or receive from it. While adopting either a paschal or an incarnational perspective, this article intends to take its starting point from the meaning offered by the scriptural text, following for this the «consensus exegeticus». Two elements are brought to light in view of an implicit soteriological reflection: 1. the salvific aspect of the mystery of Christ in its entirety, from the kenosis in the incarnation to the self-emptying of the death on the cross , in Phil 2:6-8; 2. the universal salvific Lordship of Christ in Phil 2: 9-11, understood in the sense of the Lordship of Yahweh, explicitly qualified as salvific in Is 45:20-25, which is the background of the second part of the christological hymn. (shrink)

This volume brings Cassirer s work into the arena of contemporary debates both within and outside of philosophy. All articles offer a fresh and contemporary look at one of the most prolific and important philosophers of the 20th century. The papers are authored by a wide array of scholars working in different areas, such as epistemology, philosophy of culture, sociology, psychopathology, philosophy of science and aesthetics.".

Introduction -- Part I: Starting points -- Some decisions are easier than others -- Easy decisions -- More difficult decisions -- Moral dilemmas -- The deep basis of the moral life -- Practical decision making -- Why ethics is ultimately religious -- Acceptable and unacceptable forms of revelation -- The useful incomplete ness of religious tradition -- Moral virtue and character -- Intuition and deliberation in moral decision-making -- The absolute and the relative in moral life -- Have we become (...) too relativistic? -- The natural law approach -- God as the absolute -- Facts and values -- Individual integrity and communal authority -- The transcendent absolute -- Rules and relationships -- The moral burden of proof -- The legal analogy -- Applying the idea of "presumption" to ethical decision-making -- Moral presumptions as a common starting point -- Basic moral presumptions -- Uses of scripture -- Positive Christian value presumptions -- The limits and flaws in human nature -- Presumptions that preserve balance -- A presumption for Scripture and tradition -- When presumptions are in conflict -- Part II: Applications and illustrations -- Difficult personal decisions -- Sexual intimacy and family life -- Contraception and abortion -- Choosing a spouse -- Divorce -- Vocational choices -- The uses of our money -- Political choices -- Hard choices in the public arena -- Abortion -- Homosexuality -- The dilemma of "affirmative action" -- Securing economic justice -- Environmental policies -- Criminal justice -- Uses of military power -- Hard choices at the global level -- International institution building -- International security and policing -- Nuclear disarmament -- Economic globalization -- Global warming -- Hard choices in communities of faith. (shrink)

There was once a leak from Hebdomadal Council. The Assessor told her husband, who told my wife, who told me that Monday afternoon had been spent discussing what Lucas would say if various courses of action were adopted, leading to the conclusion that it would be best to do nothing. I was flattered, but a bit surprised. The tide of philosophical scepticism had ebbed, and it was generally allowed that a reasonable way of discovering what someone would say was to (...) ask him. Dick Southwood did: he would quiz me in Common Room – sometimes ending "Thank you for letting me bounce these ideas off you" – and had reliable information about how one member of Congregation would react to various proposals. And not only me: he was a listening Vice-Chancellor, who used to bike from Wellington Square to Merton for lunch, greeting many as he passed them, and ready to stop if occasion warranted it. Of course, there are many other leaks. I remember once attending a meeting in the Town Hall to argue for cycle tracks, and someone coming up to me, and saying, "You’re having a tussle with Council, aren’t you? I think you ought to see the minutes of their latest meeting"; the next day there was a copy in my pigeon hole, giving me just the ammunition I needed. What members of Congregation tend the forget is the existence – the other side of the green baize door, so to speak – of a corps of bedells. (shrink)

Social networking sites (SNS) are of increasing importance for adolescents’ social life. As adolescents are prone to display risky health behavior in the offline world, it is likely that they use their online profiles and communications to report on unhealthy behaviors, too. This may in turn enhance the perceived attractiveness of risky behavior within the adolescent cohort. Drawing on the insights of impression management theory, we argue in this article that adolescents use a variety of impression management tactics in their (...) SNS profiles and communications. Following this assumption, our empirical analysis of 5851 Facebook posts (profile texts, comments, photographs, etc.) shows that the users tend to associate risky health behaviors with positive attributes, such as accomplishment or sociability, to present themselves in an attractive way to their online peer audience. We argue that this raises two ethical issues relevant to health promotion: Adolescents’ health may be challenged by interaction on SNS, as their engagement in online impression management blanks out any health problems or critical assessments of risky health behavior. At the same time, the semi-public nature of the communication arena re-enforces the tendency to value unhealthy behavior as more attractive than in offline social interactions. (shrink)

L'argumentation de Basile gravite tout entière, à travers l'exégèse biblique élaborée par la tradition, autour de la sémantique des prépositions doxologiques de la liturgie. C'est la seule clef de lecture, fournie par lui-même, qui garantisse l'homogénéité de structure de l'ensemble de l’œuvre. Sa « Théologie » ou doctrine de la Trinité, cautionnée par le Symbole de foi de Constantinople I, met en lumière « l'Économie » ou disposition trinitaire de l'histoire du salut, qui associe indissolublement l'Esprit Saint à la mission (...) du Fils, tout en « appropriant » à l'Esprit, « Don de Dieu », la mission sanctifiante et illuminatrice d'introduire dans la « familiarité » de Dieu.Basil's argument gravitates, in its entirety, around the semantics of doxological propositions in the liturgy. This is done by means of biblical exegesis elaborated by tradition. Il is the only key to an understanding, provided by himself, that guarantees the homogeneous structure of the work’s ensemble. His « Theology » or doctrine of the Trinity, supported by the Symbol of faith of Constanti- nople I, sheds light on the « Economy » or the Trinitarian disposition of salvation history, which indissolubly associates the Holy Spirit to the Son’s mission. At the same time it « appropriates » to the Spirit, « Gift of God », the sanctifying and illuminating mission that leads the way to « familiarity » of God. (shrink)

L'âpreté des débats qui eurent lieu, notamment en Cappadoce entre 360 et 378, en pleine crise arienne, autour de la nature et de la personne du Saint-Esprit, ainsi que la diversité des opinions à l'intérieur même des camps opposés sur cette question, rendent délicate l'identification exacte des adversaires combattus par Basile de Césarée en 375 dans son traité Sur le Saint-Esprit, l'un des premiers du genre, d'autant plus que lui-même trouva des contradicteurs dans les rangs de ses propres amis. Dédié (...) à son disciple Amphiloque d'Iconium, le traité vise essentiellement, au-delà d'Aèce, son compatriote Eunome, toujours vivant et virulent, que Basile avait déjà combattu vers 360-363, le théoricien arien radical de la « dissemblance » et de la « subordination » de l'Esprit au Fils et au Père, manifestement visé ici par le vocabulaire de la « connumération » et de la « coordination ». La critique contemporaine avait pensé que le principal adversaire de Basile serait son ancien maître en ascétisme Eustathe évêque de Sébaste, qui tenait sur l'Esprit une doctrine ambiguë, ne voulant le ranger « ni avec Dieu ni avec les créatures ». Sans l'exclure du nombre des adversaires, le vocabulaire et l'argumentation du traité, sans rapport avec ceux de la Lettre 125 de Basile à Eustathe, obligent à abandonner cette interprétation pour rendre la priorité à Eunome. The acrimonious debates that took place concerning the nature and person of the Holy Spirit, especialy during the Arian crisis in Cappadocia from 360 to 378, as well as the diversity of opinions within the opposing camps, makes it difficult to identify the adversaries of Basil of Caesarea in his treatise On the Holy Spirit , unique for his time. The problem is even greater because Basil found himself at odds with his own friends. Dedicated to his disciple Amphilocus of Iconium, the treatise was aimed, essentially, beyond Aëtios, at his virulent compatriot Eunomius. Basil had already engaged him around 360-363. A radical Arian theoretician of the “dissemblance” and of “subordination” of the Spirit to the Son and Father, Eunomius was clearly targeted by the vocabulary of the “connumeration” and “coordination”. Contemporary criticism thought that the principal adversary of Basil could have been his old master in asceticism, Eustathius , who held an ambiguous doctrine about the Spirit, not wishing to place it “either with God or with creatures”. Without excluding him from the number of adversaries, the vocabulary and argumentation of the treatise, which are unconnected to those of Basil's Letter 125 to Eustathius, oblige us to abandon this interpretation and give priority to Eunomius. (shrink)

Earth’s Insights is about more than indigenous North American environmental attitudes and values. The conclusions of Hester, McPherson, Booth, and Cheney about universal indigenous environmental attitudes and values, although pronounced with papal infallibility, are based on no evidence. The unstated authority of their pronouncements seems to be the indigenous identity of two of the authors. Two other self-identified indigenous authors, V. F. Cordova and Sandy Marie Anglás Grande, argue explicitly that indigenous identity is sufficient authority for declaring what pre-Columbian indigenous (...) environmental attitudes and values were. Exclusive knowledge claims based on essentialist racial-cultural identity, though politically motivated, are politically risky. They may inadvertently legitimate more noxious and dangerous racial-cultural identity politics and exclusion of those who identify themselves (or are identified by others) in oppositional racialcultural terms from full and equal participation in the political and economic arenas of the prevailing culture. Biologically, racial differences are entirely superficial; Homo sapiens is a single, homogeneous species. Contrary to Hester et al., ethnic conflict was common among pre-Columbian indigenous North American peoples. Other indigenous authors, among them McPherson, have found my comparison of pre-Columbian indigenous North American attitudes and values with the Aldo Leopold land ethic to be illuminating. I wish I had not said that pre-Columbian indigenous North American attitudes and values are “validated” by ecology, but rather that they and ecology are “mutually validating.”. (shrink)

L'A. se concentre sur la nouveauté radicale que constitue la révélation du Père et de sa personne. Pour cela, il analyse ce que le Fils dit de son Père. Il s'agit de saisir les difficultés que rencontre une théologie du Père, sa traduction dans le culte et la vie des chrétiens à une époque où le féminisme revendique en théologie la maternité de Dieu. La prière adressée au Père, qui nous vient de l'exemple et de l'enseignement du Christ, n'a pas (...) encore trouvé de formes d'expression appropriées. Il manque, d'après l'A., une fête du Père dans le calendrier liturgique catholique. (shrink)

Alors que l'eschatologie courante des religions archaïques se situe dans la croyance au retour éternel, au recommencement sans fin d'un monde sans issue, le Dieu d'Israël ouvre un avenir à la foi. Abraham découvre un commencement de l'histoire, un Dieu attentif et plus fort que la mort. Constamment menacé de périr, Israël apprend des prophètes à reconnaître le jugement de Dieu et à reprendre vie dans la foi. À l'horizon d'une histoire de violence, une espérance se profile. L'apocalyptique sera la (...) rencontre du prophétisme avec la sagesse, découverte de l'histoire et de l'univers, attente d'un accomplissement. En parlant ou en faisant parler de lui sous le nom de Fils de l'homme, Jésus définit sa mission d'incarner l'espérance d'Israël étendue à toute l'humanité : en lui l'eschatologie est actuellement présente dans la création de Dieu. While the common eschatology of archaic religions is based on the belief in an eternal return, and endless recommencement of a no-exit world, the God of Israel opens a future to faith. Abraham discovered a beginning to history, an attentive God who is stronger than death. Israel, constantly threatened by destruction, learned from the prophets to recognize the judgement of God and to take up life in faith again. On the horizon of a history of violence, a hope takes form. The apocalyptic will be the encounter of prophetism with wisdom, a discovery of history and the universe, an awaiting for fulfillment. In speaking or in seeing that he is spoken about as Son of Man, Jesus defined his mission to incarnate the hope of Israel, spread to all humanity : in him eschatology is now present in the creation of God. (shrink)

We sketch a group-theoretical framework, based on the Heisenberg–Weyl group, encompassing both quantum and classical statistical descriptions of unconstrained, non-relativistic mechanical systems. We redefine in group-theoretical terms a kinematical arena and a space of statistical states of a system, achieving a unified quantum-classical language and an elegant version of the quantum-to-classical transition. We briefly discuss the structure of observables and dynamics within our framework.

Needless to say, Coward has not only innovated the main ideas of Cowen, but has succeeded in going much further in suggesting how to implement them in a successful effort to consume exciting while inexpensive cuisine. Thus, while Cowen recommend seeking out low price outlets such as carts and cheap Chinese restaurants in obscure shopping malls with ugly women in them and awful décor, not to mention scowling and feuding members of the ethnic groups associated with the restaurants, Coward has (...) gone much further in this. One area he is still the master of is the expanding arena of restaurants that charge negative prices. They pay you to eat their food, how inexpensive can you get? This phenomenon is as it has been at Hole in the Stomach, generally tied to money laundering operations by underworld types from the country in the question. Now, quite aside from the low cost, this has other appealing aspects. (shrink)

African American distrust of medicine has consequences for treatment seeking and healthcare behaviour. Much work has been done to examine acute events that have contributed to this phenomenon and a sophisticated bioethics discipline keeps watch on current practices by medicine. But physicians and clinicians are not the only actors in the medical arena, particularly when it comes to health beliefs and distrust of medicine. The purpose of this paper is to call attention not just to ethical shortcomings of the past, (...) but to the structural contexts of those events and the contributions and responsibilities of popular media and academic disciplines in the production of knowledge. We argue that ignoring context and producing inaccurate work has real impacts on health and healthcare, particularly for African Americans, and thus engenders ethical obligations incumbent on disciplines traditionally recognised as purely academic. (shrink)

The philosophical debate surrounding the moral status of the embryo has reached the public arena. The author of this paper examines some of the common arguments against embryo experimentation, including an influential article by Professor Ian Kennedy. He concludes that these arguments do not succeed in demonstrating that the intentional creation of embryos for research purposes is wrong, unless they also succeed in demonstrating that contemporary liberal abortion laws are also wrong. The author also criticises the conclusions of the Warnock (...) Report, and suggests that the reasons for permitting embryo research must be given a wider public audience. (shrink)

In recent years, many scholars have suggested that the Baldwin effect may play an important role in the evolution of language. However, the Baldwin effect is a multifaceted and controversial process and the assessment of its connection with language is difficult without a formal model. This paper provides a first step in this direction. We examine a game-theoretic model of the interaction between plasticity and evolution in the context of a simple language game. Additionally, we describe three distinct aspects of (...) the Baldwin effect: the Simpson– Baldwin effect, the Baldwin expediting effect and the Baldwin optimizing effect. We find that a simple model of the evolution of language lends theoretical plausibility to the existence of the Simpson– Baldwin and the Baldwin optimizing effects in this arena, but not the Baldwin expediting effect. (shrink)

Even though integrity is widely considered to be an essential aspect of research, there is an ongoing debate on what actually constitutes research integrity. The understanding of integrity ranges from the minimal, only considering falsification, fabrication and plagiarism, to the maximum, blending into science ethics. Underneath these obvious contrasts, there are more subtle differences that are not as immediately evident. The debate about integrity is usually presented as a single, universal discussion, with shared concerns for researchers, policymakers and ‘the public’. (...) In this article, we show that it is not. There are substantial differences between the language of research integrity in the scientific arena and in the public domain. Notably, scientists and policymakers adopt different approaches to research integrity. Scientists tend to present integrity as a virtue that must be kindled, while policy documents and newspapers stress norm enforcement. Rather than performing a conceptual analysis through philosophical reasoning and discussion, we aimed to clarify the discourse of ‘scientific integrity’ by studying its usage in written documents. To this end, large numbers of scientific publications, policy documents and newspaper articles were analysed by means of scientometric and content analysis techniques. The texts were analysed on their usage of the term ‘integrity’ and of frequently co-occurring terms and concepts. A comparison was made between the usage in the various media, as well as between different periods in which they were published through co-word analysis, mapping co-occurrence networks of significant terms and themes. (shrink)

This book develops a philosophico-methodological analysis of prediction and its role in economics. Prediction plays a key role in economics in various ways. It can be seen as a basic science, as an applied science, and in the application of this science. First, it is used by economic theory in order to test the available knowledge. In this regard, prediction has been presented as the scientific test for economics as a science. Second, prediction provides a content regarding the possible future (...) that can be used for prescription in applied economics. Thus, it can be used as a guide for economic policy, id est, as knowledge concerning the future to be employed for the resolution of specific problems. Third, prediction also has a role in the application of this science in the public arena. This is through the decision-making of the agents - individuals or organizations - in quite different settings, both in the realm of microeconomics and macroeconomics. Within this context, the research is organized in five parts, which discuss relevant aspects of the role of prediction in economics: I) The problem of prediction as a test for a science; II) The general orientation in methodology of science and the problem of prediction as a scientific test; III) The methodological framework of social sciences and economics: Incidence for prediction as a test; IV) Epistemology and methodology of economic prediction: Rationality and empirical approaches; and V) Methodological aspects of economic prediction: From description to prescription. Thus, the book is of interest for philosophers and economists as well as policy-makers seeking to ascertain the roots of their performance. The style used lends itself to a wide audience.. (shrink)

The report of the President's Council on Bioethics, Human Cloning and Human Dignity, addresses the central ethical, political, and policy issue in human embryonic stem cell research: the moral status of extracorporeal human embryos. The Council members were in sharp disagreement on this issue and essentially failed to adequately engage and respectfully acknowledge each others' deepest moral concerns, despite their stated commitment to do so. This essay provides a detailed critique of the two extreme views on the Council (i.e., embryos (...) have full moral status or they have none at all) and then gives theoretical grounding for our judgment about the intermediate moral status of embryos. It also supplies an account of how to address profound moral disagreements in the public arena, especially by way of constructing a middle ground that deliberately pays sincere respect to the views of those with whom it has deep disagreements. (shrink)

The disconnect problem arises wherever there is ongoing and severe discordance between the scientific assessment of a politically relevant issue, and the politics and legislation of said issue. Here, we focus on the disconnect problem as it arises in the case of climate change, diagnosing a failure to respect the necessary tradeoff between authority and autonomy within a public institution like science. After assessing the problematic deployment of scientific authority in this arena, we offer suggestions for how to mitigate climate (...) change’s particular disconnect problem, as well as more general proposals for reforming science advising. (shrink)

The present research was guided by the important need for a diversion from an economistic to a humanistic management perspective of sustainability. It concentrates on the current importance of digital strategic communication, particularly regarding the concept of corporate sustainability in the context of the conflict arena of the oil industry. The focus is on the comparison of the persuasive effectiveness of the framings of corporate versus activist NGO website communications and their impacts on the perception of the triple pillars of (...) sustainability and, corporate greenwashing with respect to a proposed bituminous oil pipeline in Canada. The results of these pro and con messages were analyzed within the Elaboration Likelihood Model demonstrating a “non expert” peripheral route to a positive persuasion from exposure to the corporate communication versus an “expert” central route to a negative persuasion from the activist NGO communication. Subsequent exposure to the opposite website communication further emphasized the predominance of a negative persuasion based on both groups now being motivated as “expert” viewers of these strategic communications, leading to an important perception of greenwashing by participants resulting from vague claims, visual and linguistic contents of the corporate communication versus the mainly verifiable factual ones in that of the activist NGO. (shrink)

In spite of its commercial importance and signs of clear concern in public policy arenas, trade credit has not been subjected to systematic, extended analysis in the business ethics literature, even where suppliers as a stakeholder group have been considered. This paper makes the case for serious consideration of the ethics of trade credit and explores the issues surrounding slow payment of debts. It discusses trade debt as a kind of promise, but—noting that not all promises are good ones—goes (...) on to develop an analysis of the ethics of trade credit grounded in an understanding of its fundamental purpose. Making a distinction between “operating” trade credit and “financial” trade credit, the paper provides an account of the maximum period for which it is appropriate for one company to delay payment to another from which it has purchased goods or services. The concern of commentators and policy makers that companies should not take too long to pay their debts is affirmed, but the understanding of what timely payment means is significantly finessed, with one conclusion being that, if debts have not already been settled according to acceptable standard terms of trade, cash should pass quickly back along the supply chain once the customer in the final product market has paid. The analysis has implications not only for companies that take credit but also for external parties that seek to rate companies or set regulations according to speed of payment—an approach that is shown to be misleadingly simplistic, albeit well intentioned. A corresponding important responsibility for suppliers, not to extend excessive credit, also follows from the analysis developed. Having provided a novel analysis of an important business problem, the paper then discusses some of the related practical issues and makes suggestions for further research. (shrink)

What is the significance of that loose collective enterprise, sprung up in the aftermath of the sixties, known as L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Writing? To answer this question I will be taking, initially, a somewhat oblique route. And I shall assume an agreement on several important social and political matters: first, that the United States, following the Second World War, assumed definitive leadership of a capitalist empire; second, that its position of leadership generated a network of internal social contradictions which persist to this (...) day ; third, that this postwar period has been characterized, at the international level, by an extended cold war shadowed by the threat of a global catastrophe, whether deliberate or accidental. Whatever one’s political allegiances, these truths, surely, we hold as self-evident.Postwar American poetry is deployed within that general arena, and to the degree that it is “political” at all, it reflects and responds to that set of overriding circumstances.1 In my view the period ought to be seen as falling into two phases. The first phase stretches from about 1946 to 1973 . This period is dominated by a conflict between various lines of traditional poetry, on one hand, and the countering urgencies of the “New American Poetry” on the other. In the diversity of this last group Donald Allen argued for a unifying “characteristic”: “a total rejection of all those qualities typical of academic verse.”2Of course, this representation of the conflict between “tradition” and “innovation” obscures nearly as much as it clarifies. The New American poets were, in general, must moe inclined to experimentalism than were writers like Richard Wilbur, Anthony Hecht, Louis Simpson, or Donald Justice. But Allen’s declaration can easily conceal the academic and literary characteristics of the innovators. Robert Duncan and Charles Olson, for example, key figures in the New American Poetry, can hardly not be called “literary” or even “academic” poets. If they opened certain new areas in the field of poetic style, no less could and has been said of Lowell, even in his early work. And if Frank O’Hara seems the antithesis of academic work, John Ashbery is, in his own way, its epitome. Yet both appear in Allen’s New American Poetry anthology. Moreover, who can say, between O’Hara and Ashbery, which is the more innovative of the two—so different are their styles of experimentation? 1. Black and feminist writing in the United States often confines the focus of the political engagement to a more restricted national theater. Nevertheless, even in these cases engagement is necessarily carried out within the global framework I have sketched above.2. The New American Poetry: 1945-1960, ed. Donald M. Allen , p. xi. Jerome J. McGann is Commonwealth Professor of English, University of Virginia. His most recent critical work, Buildings of Loss: The Knowledge of Imaginative Texts, will appear in 1987. “Some Forms of Critics Discourse” and “The Religious Poetry of Christina Rosetti” are among his previous contributions to Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

In an age when "we are all multiculturalists now," as Nathan Glazer has said, the politics of identity has come to pose new challenges to our liberal polity and the presuppositions on which it is founded. Just what identity means, and what its role in the public sphere is, are questions that are being hotly debated. In this book Susan Hekman aims to bring greater theoretical clarity to the debate by exposing some basic misconceptions—about the constitution of the self that (...) defines personal identity, about the way liberalism conceals the importance of identity under the veil of the "abstract citizen," and about the difference and interrelationship between personal and public identity. Hekman’s use of object relations theory allows her to argue, against the postmodernist resort to a "fictive" subject, for a core self that is socially constructed in the early years of childhood but nevertheless provides a secure base for the adult subject. Such a self is social, particular, embedded, and connected—a stark contrast to the neutral and disembodied subject posited in liberal theory. This way of construing the self also opens up the possibility for distinguishing how personal identity functions in relation to public identity. Against those advocates of identity politics who seek reform through the institutionalization of group participation, Hekman espouses a vision of the politics of difference that eschews assigning individuals to fixed groups and emphasizes instead the fluidity of choice arising from the complex interaction between the individual’s private identity and the multiple opportunities for associating with different groups and the public identities they define. Inspired by Foucault’s argument that "power is everywhere," Hekman maps out a dual strategy of both political and social/cultural resistance for this new politics of identity, which recognizes that with significant advances already won in the political/legal arena, attitudinal change in civil society presents the greatest challenge for achieving more progress today in the struggle against racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression. (shrink)

Recently, due to a number of converging factors, there have been significant shifts in public policy regarding the legitimacy of treating chronic pain with opioids. Traditional tenets handed down in medical, dental, nursing, and pharmacy education created a distinct reluctance on the part of practitioners to prescribe opioids on a continual basis. Much has been written about the reasons for these attitudes. One of the barriers that is very consistently reported by prescribers is the fear of regulatory and legal repercussions (...) to ongoing prescription of this class of medications. It is in this arena that sentinel changes have occurred, the most recent of which is the promulgation of a document prepared by the Federation of State Medical Boards, which suggests a set of guidelines meant to be endorsed or adopted by individual medical licensing boards on how to approach this particular aspect of practice. These guidelines, representing a broad consensus from a wide constituency, were developed in a relatively open forum and detail a balanced approach to the prescription of opioids for chronic pain. (shrink)

This book offers a fresh perspective on Richard Rorty by situating his work in the arena of political theory. Reinterpreting Rorty's much-maligned antirepresentationalism as a Romantic affirmation of the power of imaginative writing, Voparil firmly grounds Rorty in an American tradition that includes not only James and Dewey, but Emerson, Whitman, and James Baldwin, and initiates an overdue reassessment of this important thinker's value to the political discourse of the 21st century.

A philosophical and narrative memoir, Ecology and Experience is a thoughtful, engaging recounting of author Richard J. Borden’s life entwined in an overview of the intellectual and institutional history of human ecology—a story of life wrapped in a life story. Borden shows that attempts to bridge the mental and environmental arenas are uncertain, but that rigid conventions and narrow views have their dangers too. Human experience and the natural world exist on many levels and gathering from both realms gives (...) rise to novel constellations. In a blend of themes and approaches based on a lifetime of interdisciplinary inquiry, the author wanders these intersections and invites us to exercise our capacities for ecological insight, to deepen the experience of being alive, and, most of all, to more fully enrich our lives. Contents Foreword by Darron Collins, president of the College of the Atlantic Preface Part I. Transects and Plots 1. The Arc of Life 2. Ecology 3. Experience 4. Human Ecology 5. Education Part II. Facets of Life 6. Time and Space 7. Death in Life 8. Personal Ecology 9. Context 10. Metaphor and Meaning Part III. Wider Points of View 11. Kinds of Minds 12. Insight 13. Imagination 14. Keyholes 15. Ecology and Identity 16. The Unfinished Course Part IV. Coda. (shrink)