This paper examines the relationship between CEO incentives and strong and weak corporate social performance. Using the KLD database we find that incentives have no significant relationship with strong social performance. Salary and long-term incentives have a positive association with weak social performance.

Descartes's works are often treated as a unified, unchanging whole. But in Descartes's Changing Mind, Peter Machamer and J. E. McGuire argue that the philosopher's views, particularly in natural philosophy, actually change radically between his early and later works--and that any interpretation of Descartes must take account of these changes. The first comprehensive study of the most significant of these shifts, this book also provides a new picture of the development of Cartesian science, epistemology, and metaphysics. No changes in Descartes's (...) thought are more significant than those that occur between the major works The World and Principles of Philosophy. Often seen as two versions of the same natural philosophy, these works are in fact profoundly different, containing distinct conceptions of causality and epistemology. Machamer and McGuire trace the implications of these changes and others that follow from them, including Descartes's rejection of the method of abstraction as a means of acquiring knowledge, his insistence on the infinitude of God's power, and his claim that human knowledge is limited to that which enables us to grasp the workings of the world and develop scientific theories. (shrink)

Manuscript Add. 3965, section 13, folios 541r–542r and 545r–546r is in the Portsmouth Collection of manuscripts and housed in the University Library, Cambridge. These drafts contain a careful account, in Newton's hand, of his views on place, time, and God. They are part of a large number of drafts relating to the three official editions of the Principia published in Newton's lifetime.

This study considers Newton's views on space and time with respect to some important ontologies of substance in his period. Specifically, it deals in a philosophico-historical manner with his conception of substance, attribute, existence, to actuality and necessity. I show how Newton links these “features” of things to his conception of God's existence with respect of infinite space and time. Moreover, I argue that his ontology of space and time cannot be understood without fully appreciating how it relates to the (...) nature of Divine existence. In order to establish this, the ontology embodied in Newton's theory of predication is analysed, and shown to be different from the presuppositions of the ontological argument. From the historical point of view Gassendi's influence is stressed, via the mediation of Walter Charleton. Furthermore, Newton's thought on these matters is contrasted with Descartes's and Spinoza's. In point of fact, in his earliest notebook Newton recorded observations on Descartes's version of the ontological argument. Soon, however, he was to oppose the Cartesian conception of the actuality of Divine existence by means of arguments similar to those of Gassendi. Lastly, I suggest that the nature and extent of Henry More's influence on Newton's conception of how God relates to absolute space and time bears further examination. (shrink)

Isaac Newton wrote the manuscript Questiones quaedam philosophicae at the very beginning of his scientific career. This small notebook thus affords rare insight into the beginnings of Newton's thought and the foundations of his subsequent intellectual development. The Questiones contains a series of entries in Newton's hand that range over many topics in science, philosophy, psychology, theology, and the foundations of mathematics. These notes, written in English, provide a very detailed picture of Newton's early interests, and record his critical appraisal (...) of contemporary issues in natural philosophy. Written predominantly in 1664-5, they give a significant perspective on Newton's thought just prior to his annus mirabilis, 1666. This volume provides a complete transcription of the Questiones, together with an 'expansion' into modern English, and a full editorial commentary on the content and significance of the notebook in the development of Newton's thought. It will be essential reading for all those interested in Newton and the intellectual foundations of science. (shrink)

Using the behavioral agency model, we analyze how two compensation design characteristics, pay-performance sensitivity and duration of CEO compensation, affect corporate social performance. We find that the performance sensitivity of CEO pay is negatively associated with poor social performance but also negatively affects strong social performance. These results suggest that pay-performance sensitivity increases the relevance of potential negative consequences of poor social performance. However, the ‘insurance’ benefits of strong social performance may also become less relevant. With respect to the duration (...) of CEO compensation, we find that it reduces poor social performance. This finding confirms arguments that a long-term compensation time horizon increases the perceived threat that the negative effects of poor social performance will become visible. With our findings, we integrate behavioral agency theory with the traditional stakeholder views. (shrink)

As a result, the works of Popper, Kuhn, Quine, and Lakatos, as well as Heidegger, Gadamer, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Feyerabend, are called into play.

According to the received view of practical decisions, ‘deciding to X’ is synonymous with ‘forming an intention to X’. In this article, I argue against the received view on the basis of both experimental evidence and theoretical considerations. The evidence concerns a case involving a side-effect action in which people tend to agree that an agent decided to X yet disagree that the agent had a corresponding intention to X. Additionally, I explain why one should expect decisions and intentions to (...) diverge in the case of certain side-effect actions. (shrink)

: This article is concerned with Newton's appropriation of Descartes' ontology of true and immutable natures in developing his theory of infinitely extended space. It contends that unless the part played by the Platonic distinction between "being a nature" and "having a nature" in Newton's thinking is properly appreciated the foundation of his doctrine of space in relation to God will not be fully understood. It also contends that Newton's Platonism is consistent with his empiricism once the mediating role is (...) made clear that the geometry of moving loci play in grounding his intuitions concerning infinite natures. (shrink)

This essay explores the role of God’s omnipresence in Newton’s natural philosophy, with special emphasis placed on how God is related to space. Unlike Descartes’ conception, which denies the spatiality of God, or Gassendi and Charleton’s view, which regards God as completely whole in every part of space, it is argued that Newton accepts spatial extension as a basic aspect of God’s omnipresence. The historical background to Newton’s spatial ontology assumes a large part of our investigation, but with attention also (...) focused on the details of Newton’s unique approach to these traditional Scholastic conceptions. (shrink)

Descartes is always concerned about knowledge. However, the Galileo affair in 1633, the reactions to his Discourse on method, and later his need to reply to objections to his Meditations provoked crises in Descartes’s intellectual development the import of which has not been sufficiently recognized. These events are the major reasons why Descartes’s philosophical position concerning how we know and what we may know is radically different at the end of his life from what it was when he began. We (...) call this later position Descartes’s epistemic stance and contrast it with his earlier methodological, metaphysical realism. Yet Descartes’s epistemic views cannot be separated from other aspects of his work, for example, his views concerning God, causality, metaphysics, and the nature of science. A further meta-implication is that serious errors await any scholar who cites early Cartesian texts in support of late Cartesian positions, or who uses later texts in conjunction with early ones to support a reading of Descartes’s philosophy.Keywords: René Descartes; Nature; Motion; Method; Knowledge. (shrink)

A contribution to ongoing debates in the philosophy of science, aiming to reconceptualize the orientation of the subject. Mobilizing the literature, the authors seek to transform their insights into a new epistemological and ontological basis for studying the enterprise of science.

One of the earliest and most influential treatises on the subject of this volume is Aristotle's Categories. Aristotle's title is a form of the Greek verb for speaking against or submitting an accusation in a legal proceeding. By the time of Aristotle, it also meant: to signify or to predicate. Surprisingly, the "predicates" Aristotle talks about include not only bits of language, but also such nonlinguistic items as the color white in a body and the knowledge of grammar in a (...) man's soul. (Categories I/ii) Equally surprising are such details as Aristotle's use of the terms 'homonymy' and 'synonymy' in connection with things talked about rather than words used to talk about them. Judging from the evidence in the Organon, the Metaphysics, and elsewhere, Aristotle was both aware of and able to mark the distinction between using and men tioning words; and so we must conclude that in the Categories, he was not greatly concerned with it. For our purposes, however, it is best to treat the term 'predication' as if it were ambiguous and introduce some jargon to disambiguate it. Code, Modrak, and other authors of the essays which follow use the terms 'linguistic predication' and 'metaphysical predication' for this. (shrink)

We argue that Isaac Newton really is best understood as being in the tradition of the Mechanical Philosophy and, further, that Newton saw himself as being in this tradition. But the tradition as Newton understands it is not that of Robert Boyle and many others, for whom the Mechanical Philosophy was defined by contact action and a corpuscularean theory of matter. Instead, as we argue in this paper, Newton interpreted and extended the Mechanical Philosophy's slogan “matter and motion” in reference (...) to the long and distinguished tradition of mixed mathematics and the study of simple machines. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article concerne le rejet controversé de la notion de signification métaphorique par Donald Davidson. Il a deux objectifs: d’abord, de montrer que l’argument de Davidson contre la signification métaphorique est vicié par une ambiguïté qui, une fois révélée, lui ôte toute portée; et deuxièmement, d’expliquer d’où vient cette ambiguïté. L’explication proposée rapporte l’erreur de Davidson au sujet de la signification métaphorique à sa négligence de la notion de signification du locuteur et, plus généralement, à une orientation théorique envers (...) le langage, qui ne s’intéresse, principalement, qu’aux aspects de la communication qui peuvent recevoir un traitement sémantique formel. (shrink)

The issue of trust has increasingly attracted attention in the business ethics literature. Our aim is to contribute further to this literature by examining how the use of the carbon copy function in email communication influences felt trust. We develop the argument that the use of cc enhances transparency—representing an important characteristic of workplace ethics—and hence promotes trust. We further argue that a downside of the cc option may be that it can also be experienced as a control mechanism, which (...) may therefore negatively affect trust. The results of our first study showed that the use of cc indeed enhances perceived transparency, but at the same time also leads to the experience of increased control. Building upon this insight, the findings of five subsequent studies consistently revealed that the use of cc negatively influences felt trust. More precisely, employees felt trusted the least when the supervisor was always included in cc. This effect on felt trust also negatively influenced how trustworthy the organizational climate was perceived. We further replicated these results in two field surveys, which showed that the negative effect of cc on felt trust lowered perceptions of psychological safety and contributed to a culture of fear. Taken together, our findings suggest that when transparency in email communications is experienced as a control mechanism, its use is perceived as unethical, rather than as ethical. Implications and recommendations for future business ethics research are discussed. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉCet article concerne le rejet controversé de la notion de signification métaphorique par Donald Davidson. Il a deux objectifs: d'abord, de montrer que l'argument de Davidson contre la signification mètaphorique est vicié par une ambiguîté qui, une fois révélée, lui ôte toute portée; et deuxièmement, d'expliquer d'où vient cette ambiguîté. L'explication proposée rapporte l'erreur de Davidson au sujet de la signification métaphorique à sa négligence de la notion de signification du locuteur et, plus généralement, à une orientation théorique envers le (...) langage, qui ne s'intéresse, principalement, qu'aux aspects de la communication qui peuvent recevoir un traitement sémantique formel. (shrink)

To better understand the influence of religiosity and spirituality on moral reasoning, 1,037 college students completed a survey including demographic questions, a religiosity measure, a spirituality measure, and Forsyth's Ethical Position Questionnaire. Religiosity and spirituality positively correlated with moral idealism, whereas spirituality negatively correlated with moral relativism. However, religiosity and spirituality accounted for a very little variability in moral reasoning, suggesting that they do not directly influence moral reasoning. In addition, female participants reported higher spirituality, but there were no gender (...) differences on a spirituality measure. Future research is needed to examine other factors that may influence moral reasoning. (shrink)

One of the most successful and influential contributions to examining the intersection between society and its effect on public action is Jurgen Habermas's landmark The structural transformation of the public space (1962). But as subsequent scholars pointed out, the Habermasian definition of “public sphere” needed to be expanded beyond its original historical context. This article contributes to that ongoing expansion by arguing that a social movement in the United States, social justice feminism, created an alternative public space in the United (...) States by 1907 to the mainstream discourse championed by patriarchal political and social leaders about the effects of the Second Industrial Revolution. The alternative social justice feminist public space differed from Habermas’s original conception in three important ways: it involved a more ideological viewpoint; it encompassed a myriad of cross-class and cross-gender coalitions; and the movement embraced direct political action, promoting and passing women’s labor legislation as an “entering wedge” for the eventual inclusion of all workers under state protection. (shrink)

The growing number of older adults in America will result in an increasing demand for psychotherapists familiar with their psychological needs. To treat this population in an ethical manner, practitioners need to be aware of the unique characteristics of the aging process, especially in regards to age-related vulnerabilities, such as cognitive decline. Unfortunately, recent research has shown that those currently in practice do not have sufficient knowledge of the aging process and age specific issues of older adults. To address these (...) deficits the American Psychological Association published a report outlining six general concepts: attitudes, general knowledge about adult development, clinical issues, assessment, intervention, and education. These concepts are described. Furthermore, this article extends the current thinking on ethical issues regarding older adults by addressing their vulnerabilities. In addition, ethical issues such as informed consent, confidentiality, and elder abuse are addressed as they apply to both clinical and research situations. In addition, methods of resolving these important issues are suggested throughout the article. A depiction of the ethical issues of psychologists working with older adults is provided and practical procedures to help psychologists perform with high ethical standards of care for this age group are offered. (shrink)

“Intention Cognitivism” (IC) refers to a family of theories concerning the relation between the concepts of intention and belief. While there are important differences between the various theories that belong to this family, each is committed to the idea that an agent intends to X only if they believe that they (probably) will X. In this article I argue against this core commitment of IC on the basis of recent experimental evidence concerning the ways in which ordinary speakers of English (...) use the concepts of intention and belief. After summarizing some of this evidence, I consider a possible defense of IC, one based on the distinction between full versus partial intentions and beliefs. I report on a new study that was conducted specifically to evaluate this defense of IC, the results of which indicate that this distinction fails to protect IC against the compelling empirical evidence against it. Additionally, I consider, and argue against, two recent arguments for IC. (shrink)

The concept of intention is widely thought to involve a confidence condition of some sort, a condition that specifies certain beliefs that one must either have or lack if one intends to do something. Two of the most common formulations of this condition are the following: (i) A intends to X only if A believes that they (probably) will X; and (ii) A intends to X only if A does not believe that they (probably) will not X. A third, much (...) weaker formulation can also be considered: (iii) A intends to X only if A does not believe that it is highly unlikely that they will X. In this article I report on a series of experiments that indicate that ordinary speakers of English do not apply the concepts of intention and belief in accordance with any of the foregoing hypotheses. These experimental results provide empirical evidence against the idea that there is a confidence condition in the concept of intention. (shrink)

This paper offers a detailed account of arguments in De Caelo I by which Aristotle tried to demonstrate the necessity of the perpetual existence and the perpetual rotation of the cosmos. On our interpretation, Aristotle’s arguments are naturalistic. Instead of being based (as many have thought) on rules of logic and language, they depend, we argue, on natural science theories about abilities (δυνάμεις), e.g., to move and to change, which things have by nature and about the conditions under which these (...) abilities can be exercised. Our interpretation locates the De Caelo arguments in the context of some central doctrines of the Organon, the Metaphysics, the Physics, and other texts. The De Caelo arguments fit a number of views developed in these texts. Aristotle’s treatments of local motion, of natural motion and change, of necessity and possibility, and of abilities and their exercises are examples. But, as we interpret them, the De Caelo arguments raise serious questions about the role of (and the need for) Metaphysics A’s soulful Unmoved Mover in Aristotle’s overall natural-scientific picture. (shrink)

This paper offers a detailed account of arguments in De Caelo I by which Aristotle tried to demonstrate the necessity of the perpetual existence and the perpetual rotation of the cosmos. On our interpretation, Aristotle’s arguments are naturalistic. Instead of being based (as many have thought) on rules of logic and language, they depend, we argue, on natural science theories about abilities (δυνάμεις), e.g., to move and to change, which things have by nature and about the conditions under which these (...) abilities can be exercised. Our interpretation locates the De Caelo arguments in the context of some central doctrines of the Organon, the Metaphysics, the Physics, and other texts. The De Caelo arguments fit a number of views developed in these texts. Aristotle’s treatments of local motion, of natural motion and change, of necessity and possibility, and of abilities and their exercises are examples. But, as we interpret them, the De Caelo arguments raise serious questions about the role of (and the need for) Metaphysics A’s soulful Unmoved Mover in Aristotle’s overall natural-scientific picture. (shrink)

This paper offers a detailed account of arguments in De Caelo I by which Aristotle tried to demonstrate the necessity of the perpetual existence and the perpetual rotation of the cosmos. On our interpretation, Aristotle’s arguments are naturalistic. Instead of being based (as many have thought) on rules of logic and language, they depend, we argue, on natural science theories about abilities (δυνάμεις), e.g., to move and to change, which things have by nature and about the conditions under which these (...) abilities can be exercised. Our interpretation locates the De Caelo arguments in the context of some central doctrines of the Organon, the Metaphysics, the Physics, and other texts. The De Caelo arguments fit a number of views developed in these texts. Aristotle’s treatments of local motion, of natural motion and change, of necessity and possibility, and of abilities and their exercises are examples. But, as we interpret them, the De Caelo arguments raise serious questions about the role of (and the need for) Metaphysics A’s soulful Unmoved Mover in Aristotle’s overall natural-scientific picture. (shrink)

Background: The proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation reciprocal contraction pattern has the potential to increase the maximum rate of torque development. However, it is a more complex resistive exercise task and may interfere with improvements in the maximum rate of torque development due to motor skill learning, as observed for unidirectional contractions. The purpose of this study was to examine the cost-benefit of using the PNF exercise technique to increase the maximum rate of torque development.Methods: Twenty-six participants completed isometric maximal extension-to-flexion or (...) flexion-only contractions at the wrist. Ten of the assigned contractions were performed on each of three sessions separated by 48-h for skill acquisition. Retention was assessed with 5 contractions performed 2-weeks after acquisition. Torque and surface electromyographic activity were analyzed for evidence of facilitated contractions between groups, as well as alterations in muscle coordination assessed across test sessions. The criterion measures were: mean maximal isometric wrist flexion toque; the maximal rate of torque development ; root-mean-square error variability of the rate of torque versus torque phase-plane; the rate of wrist flexion muscle activation ; a coactivation ratio for wrist flexor and extensor sEMG activity; and wrist flexor electromechanical delay.Results: There were no significant differences between groups with respect to maximal wrist flexion torque, dτ/dtmax or RMSE variability of torque trajectories. Both groups exhibited a progressive increase in maximal strength and in dτ/dtmax from the start of acquisition to retention. RMSE was lowest after a 2-week rest interval. There were no significant differences between groups in the rate of muscle activation or the coactivation ratio. There was a reduction in coactivation that was retained after a 2-week rest interval. Alternatively, EMD was significantly greater in the experimental group across all sessions. However, both groups had a similar pattern of improvement to the third consecutive day of testing, but returned close to baseline value after the 2-week rest interval.Discussion: The wrist extension-to-flexion contraction pattern did not result in a greater maximal rate of torque development than simple contractions of the wrist flexors. There was no difference between groups with respect to motor skill learning. The main adaptation in neuromotor control was a decrease in coactivation, not the maximal rate of muscle activation. (shrink)