As the issue of marketing's social responsibility grows in significance, the topic of materialism surfaces. While many marketing efforts encourage materialism, the materialism that is encouraged may have negative societal effects. An understanding of the effects of materialism on individuals, families, society, etc., is important in evaluating whether or not it is socially irresponsible for marketers to encourage materialism. However, the adequate empirical work has not yet been done on the overall effects of materialism. The current paper asks and addresses (...) one important empirical question in this area. Do consumers who are more materialistic have different ethical standards than those who are not? Empirical evidence is presented which would indicate that materialism is negatively correlated with people's higher ethical standards as consumers. The implications for this in understanding social responsibility are discussed. (shrink)

This study compares college students with other adults in terms of the Muncy–Vitell (1992) consumer ethics scale. Further, the study updates the Muncy–Vitell consumer ethics scale with modifications that include rewording and the addition of new items. These new items can be grouped into three distinct categories – (1) downloading/buying counterfeit goods, (2) recycling/environmental awareness and (3) doing the right thing/doing good. The study also compares these two groups in terms of their attitude toward business. Results show that (...) there is indeed a significant difference between these two groups in terms of ethical perceptions, but not in terms of the “recycling” items and the “doing good” items. There was also little difference between the groups in terms of their attitude toward business indicating that attitude toward business does not explain their different ethical perspectives. (shrink)

Business and marketing ethics have come to the forefront in recent years. While consumers have been surveyed regarding their perceptions of ethical business and marketing practices, research has been minimal with regard to their ethical beliefs and ideologies. This research investigates general attitudes of consumers relative to business, government and people in general, and compares these attitudes to their beliefs concerning various questionable consumer practices. The results show that consumers'' ethical beliefs are determined, in part, by who is at fault (...) in the unethical behavior (the seller or the buyer). The results also indicate that those with a more positive attitude toward business are less likely to engage in questionable consumer practices, but one''s attitudes toward salespeople, the government and people in general arenot related to the consumer''s ethical beliefs. (shrink)

The sounds that make up spoken words are heard in a series and must be mapped rapidly onto words in memory because their elements, unlike those of visual words, cannot simultaneously exist or persist in time. Although theories agree that the dynamics of spoken word recognition are important, they differ in how they treat the nature of the competitor set—precisely which words are activated as an auditory word form unfolds in real time. This study used eye tracking to measure the (...) impact over time of word frequency and 2 partially overlapping competitor set definitions: onset density and neighborhood density. Time course measures revealed early and continuous effects of frequency (facilitatory) and on set based similarity (inhibitory). Neighborhood density appears to have early facilitatory effects and late inhibitory effects. The late inhibitory effects are due to differences in the temporal distribution of similarity within neighborhoods. The early facilitatory effects are due to subphonemic cues that inform the listener about word length before the entire word is heard. The results support a new conception of lexical competition neighborhoods in which recognition occurs against a background of activated competitors that changes over time based on fine-grained goodness-of-fit and competition dynamics. (shrink)

Char and colleagues provide a useful conceptual framework for the proactive identification of ethical issues arising throughout the lifecycle of machine learning applications in healthcare. Th...

The commentaries by Rimé and Scherer underscore and extend many of the central themes discussed in our target article. This response filters the commentaries through the lens of our review article and highlights the core idea that relationships provide a vital context for the types of emotional responding outlined in the commentaries, including the social sharing of emotion as well as the link between emotional competence and physical health.

The modifier effect is the reduction in perceived likelihood of a generic property sentence, when the head noun is modified. We investigated the prediction that the modifier effect would be stronger for mutable than for central properties, without finding evidence for this predicted interaction over the course of five experiments. However Experiment 6, which provided a brief context for the modified concepts to lend them greater credibility, did reveal the predicted interaction. It is argued that the modifier effect arises primarily (...) from a general lack of confidence in generic statements about the typical properties of unfamiliar concepts. Neither prototype nor classical models of concept combination receive support from the phenomenon. 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of moral compunction among a sample of senior managers set against the background of their routine organizational participation. In considering what factors influence their moral sensibilities these managers were interviewed using an approach designed to elicit their perceptions concerning both the ethical and commercially imperative dimensions of their working lives. The qualitative data resulting from this inquiry, while tentative, indicates the primacy of the normative appeal of shareholder value, conditioned by the exigencies of engagement in (...) corporate bureaucracies, including the maintenance of career and livelihood responsibilities. These conclusions indicate the magnitude of the obstacle that the normative business ethics project requires to overcome in order to fulfil its promise. (shrink)

Competing perspectives on the nature of emotion are illustrated with latent and emergent variable models. Latent variable models draw from classical test theory, assuming that the measured indicators of emotion covary by virtue of some common executive, organizing neural circuit or network in the brain. By contrast, emergent variable models draw from a theory-driven, operational definition tradition, positing that emotions do not cause, but rather are caused by, the measured indicators of emotion, assuming no executive neural circuit or network, and (...) requiring no covariation among indicators. I suggest that the emergent variable model may be more compatible with the extant literature on the nature of emotion, especially in the age of affective neuroscience. (shrink)

Ekphrasis has been a popular topic in recent years among scholars of both classical and later literature. The latter have been particularly interested in the modern definition of ekphrasis as a description of artwork and the development of global definitions and theories. Ancient ekphrasis, however, was much broader in scope. By examining Hephaestus' automaton handmaids and the shield of Achilles in the Iliad, along with the Pandora stories in the works of Hesiod, we can illustrate the nature and character of (...) ancient ekphrasis in ways that call into question modern theories and demonstrate the vibrancy and complexity of even its earliest examples in Greek literature. (shrink)

Our understanding of the philosophers of the past is not always assisted by the attempt to fit them under one or other of the categories that we currently use to map the philosophical landscape. We have grown used to the idea that there are three principal kinds of moral theory—deontological and broadly Kantian, consequentialist and broadly Millian, virtue-theoretic and broadly Aristotelian—and so historical approaches to moral philosophy tend to orientate themselves by assuming that each and every object of study must (...) count as one or other of these kinds of moralist. This is unfortunate. It is particularly unfortunate in respect of the moral philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Philosophers. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of moral compunction among a sample of senior managers set against the background of their routine organizational participation. In considering what factors influence their moral sensibilities these managers were interviewed using an approach designed to elicit their perceptions concerning both the ethical and commercially imperative dimensions of their working lives. The qualitative data resulting from this inquiry, while tentative, indicates the primacy of the normative appeal of shareholder value, conditioned by the exigencies of engagement in (...) corporate bureaucracies, including the maintenance of career and livelihood responsibilities. These conclusions indicate the magnitude of the obstacle that the normative business ethics project requires to overcome in order to fulfil its promise. (shrink)

This chapter considers the extent to which David Hume is properly regarded as a Scottish philosopher at all. It begins by looking at A Treatise of Human Nature and argues that there is little, if any, discernible connection between it and either the education Hume received at Edinburgh or what was going on in Scottish letters in the 1720s and 1730s. It also explores ways in which Hume, like William Robertson, engaged with and subverted the usual tropes of Scottish history (...) writing. His writings on religious topics Scotland were never far from Hume’s mind. Hume repeatedly found himself involved in the struggle between ‘Moderate’ and ‘Orthodox’ wings of the Church of Scotland, and this had a significant impact on how he presented his philosophy of religion. (shrink)

As scientists target communities for research into the etiology, especially the genetic determinants of common diseases, there have been calls for the protection of communities. This paper identifies the distinct characteristics of aboriginal communities and their implications for research in these communities. It also contends that the framework in the Belmont Report is inadequate in this context and suggests a fourth principle of respect for communities. To explore how such a principle might be specified and operationalized, it reviews existing guidelines (...) for protecting aboriginal communities and points out problems with these guidelines and areas for further work. (shrink)

Distinct systems for representing concepts as prototypes, exemplars, and theories are closely integrated in the mind, and the notion of concept is required as a framework for exploring this integration. Eliminating the term from our theories will hinder rather than promote scientific progress.

Aerts et al. provide a valuable model to capture the interactive nature of conceptual combination in conjunctions and disjunctions. The commentary provides a brief review of the interpretation of these interactions that has been offered in the literature, and argues for a closer link between the more traditional account in terms of concept intensions, and the parameters that emerge from the fitting of the Quantum Probability model.

The disruptions to everyday life wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic include distortions in the experience of time, as reported widely by ordinary citizens and observed by journalists and social scientists. But how does this temporal disruption play out in different time scales—in the individual day as opposed to the medium- and long-term futures? And how might place influence how individuals experience and understand the pandemic's temporal transformations? This essay examines a range of temporal disruptions reported in day diaries and surveys (...) submitted to the Everyday Life in Middletown project, an online archive that has been documenting ordinary life in Muncie, Indiana, USA since 2016. Viewing these materials as instances of life writing, the essay probes the interactions between temporal disruptions and the local setting as they inflect the autobiographical selves our writers construct in their pandemic writings. It shows how living in Muncie—a postindustrial city with its particular combination of historical, demographic, economic, social, and political dynamics—structures the autobiographical stories available to our writers, and how the disruption of time produces new variations and problems for life writing. In the midst of a global crisis, we glimpse the pandemic's reshaping of a local structure of feeling in which a pervasive, local narrative of civic decline frames individual self-fashioning. (shrink)

Notwithstanding requirements for scientific/social value and risk/benefit proportionality in major research ethics policies, there are no widely accepted standards for these judgments in Phase 1 trials. This paper examines whether the principle of clinical equipoise can be used as a standard for assessing the ratio of risk to direct-benefit presented by drugs administered in one category of Phase 1 study—first-in-human trials involving patients. On the basis of the supporting evidence for, and architecture of, Phase 1 studies, the articles offers two (...) provisional conclusions: (1) the risks of drug administration in such trials cannot generally be justified on therapeutic grounds but by appeal to the social value of the research; and (2) a framework for adjudicating the ratio of risk/social-value must be developed. (shrink)

Evidence that confirms a scientific hypothesis is said to be ‘novel’ if it is not discovered until after the hypothesis isconstructed. The philosophical issues surrounding novel confirmation have been well summarized by Campbell and Vinci [1983]. They write that philosophers of science generally agree that when observational evidence supports a theory, the confirmation is much stronger when the evidence is ‘novel’... There are, nevertheless, reasons to be skeptical of this tradition... The notion of novel confirmation is beset with a theoretical (...) puzzle about how the degree of confirmation can change without any change in the evidence, hypothesis, or auxiliary assumptions... There have not yet appeared any obviously satisfactory solutions to these problems Much of the literature on novel confirmation relies on the Bayesian analysis of conditional probabilities. Let H represent a hypothesis, E an event that confirms the hypothesis, and B some relevant background information. Denote by Pr the conditional probability of x given y. There are various plausible measures of the degree of support that E lends to H. Among these are: Degree of support = Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pt In the work cited, Campbell and Vinci offer a somewhat more involved Bayesian interpretation. Formula is discussed by Gardner [1981] who points out that under this formulation there can be no role for novelty. 'The function Pr contains no third slot in which to insert a temporal relation between the invention of H and the inventor's learning E. Obviously, then, this relation could not possibly affect E's support of H.' Formula, on the other hand, suggests a role for novelty. Bayes's Theorem allows us to rewrite the formula as Degree of support = Pr x [Pr – 1] We can use 1/Pr as a measure of the novelty of E. Then shows that the degree of support increases with novelty of E. In the paper already cited, Campbell and Vinci discuss shortcomings of this analysis. Formula expresses an alternative offered by Howson [1984]. In that formula, Pr represents the probability of H assuming that only B – {E} is known. This allows for the possibility of non-novel facts generating support for hypotheses. Niiniluoto [1984] argues for a variant along the lines of, in which we account for the possibility that the theorist was unaware that his hypothesis entails E. One problem in deciding among these approaches is that the choice of a definition for the degree of support appears arbitrary. What kind of argument could justify the choice of one definition over another? It is our position that there can be no basis for addressing this question in the absence of an explicit model of the process by which hypotheses are generated. Only in the presence of such a model can the various conditional probabilities be given meaningful interpretations. We provide such models in Sections 1, 2 and 4. The simple model of Section 1, incorporating strong assumptions, yields the conclusion that novelty is irrelevant. When these assumptions are relaxed in the later sections, novelty becomes relevant for a variety of reasons. It is at least potentially the case that scientists have more information about their own abilities than is publicly available, and this information might influence their decisions about whether even to attempt novel prediction. If this is so, then it should be incorporated into the model of hypothesis generation. This requires an explicit discussion of how scientists respond to incentives and how the incentives themselves evolve, which in turn takes us into the realm of economic theory. We have addressed these issues in another paper, written for an audience of economists. The results of this research are summarized in Section 3. (shrink)

Participants were asked to carry out a series of simple tasks while following mental control instructions. In advance of each task, they either suppressed thoughts of their intention to perform the task, concentrated on such thoughts, or monitored their thoughts without trying to change them. Suppression resulted in reduced reports of intentionality as compared to monitoring, and as compared to concentration. There was a weak trend for suppression to enhance reported intentionality for a repetition of the action carried out after (...) suppression instructions had been discontinued. (shrink)

The chapter begins with early eighteenth-century descriptions of the use of reason, properly supplemented by faith and grace, in the government of the passions. Next the familiar figures of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson are presented, with emphasis laid upon their insistence that government of the passions is work that the individual has to do for himself. The question is then raised whether all people can be conceived as able to do the work necessary to self-government, and Mandeville is introduced as an (...) advocate of the view that the answer to this question is plainly No. The next section of the chapter provides examples of texts which give the faculty of conscience a governing role, as well texts which see in the formations of associations of ideas the possibility of gradual reform and correction of the passions. In conclusion the chapter makes brief mention of two trends that would prove important in the first decades of the next century: religious revivalism, and the advocacy of physiological cures to mental disorders. (shrink)

Semantic pathology is most widely recognized in the liar paradox, where an apparent inconsistency arises in ‘‘liar sentences’’ and their ilk. But the phenomenon of semantic pathology also manifests a sibling symptom—an apparent indeterminacy—which, while not largely discussed (save for the occasional nod to ‘‘truthteller sentences’’), is just as pervasive as, and exactly parallels, the symptom of inconsistency. Moreover, certain ‘‘dual symptom’’ cases, which we call naysayers, exhibit both inconsistency and indeterminacy and also manifest a higher-order indeterminacy between them. In (...) this paper, we explore and lay out the full, broader extent of semantic pathology. We then turn to the best-known attempts to diagnose and treat the phenomenon: consistentist approaches, proposed by Alfred Tarski and Saul Kripke, and an inconsistentist approach, originally presented by Graham Priest and dubbed ‘‘dialetheism’’. We explain the basic elements of each view and argue that each fails to provide an adequate way of dealing with the full extent of semantic pathology. We conclude that a new kind of approach is required and briefly sketch the pretense-based view that we favor. (shrink)

This article examines the role of similarity in the hybridization of concepts, focusing on hybrid products as an applied test case. Hybrid concepts found in natural language, such as singer songwriter, typically combine similar concepts, whereas dissimilar concepts rarely form hybrids. The hybridization of dissimilar concepts in products such as jogging shoe mp3 player and refrigerator TV thus poses a challenge for understanding the process of conceptual combination. It is proposed that models of conceptual combination can throw light on the (...) judged future success and desirability of hybrid products in general. The composite prototype model proposes two stages of conceptual combination. In the first stage, the concepts are aggregated into an additive hybrid, simply by forming the union of the two sets of attributes. In the second stage, any conflicting attributes are identified and resolved, often with the introduction of emergent attributes, resulting in an integrative hybrid. Across four studies that varied the similarity and type of hybrid products, similar and integrative hybrids were valued more than dissimilar and additive hybrids. Critically, though, dissimilar hybrids were also highly valued if they were integrative. Results supported the two stages proposed by the composite prototype model, and implications for other models of hybrid formation are discussed. (shrink)

Development is a process whereby a relatively unspecified system comprised of loosely connected lower level parts becomes organized into a coherent, higher-level agency. Its temporal corollaries are growth, increasingly deterministic behavior, and a progressive reduction of developmental potential. During immature stages with relatively low specification and high potential, development is largely controlled by local interactions from the “bottom-up,” whereas during more highly specified stages with reduced potential, emergent autocatalytic processes exert “top-down” control. Robert Ulanowicz has shown that this phenomenology of (...) ascendency follows thermodynamic principles and can be described quantitatively using information theory, providing a general theory of development. However, the theory has not found a wide audience among developmental biologists, as genetic determinism encourages the popular reductionistic perception that ontogeny is controlled entirely by molecular mechanisms that exert efficient causality from the bottom-up. Nonetheless, measurements of metabolic rates and mRNA complexity in developing embryos, as well as functional analyses of gene regulatory systems, indicate that ontogeny fits the paradigm of developmental ascendency. Beyond informing biomedical research and the interpretation of large datasets obtained by systems-biological approaches, developmental ascendency helps explain the origin of life, and, being independent of scale, provides an overarching explanation for phylogenetic change that contextualizes Darwinian evolution. (shrink)

While the literature in business ethics abounds with philosophical analyses, perspectives from religious thinkers are curiously underrepresented. What religious analysis has occured has often been moralistic in tone, more fit to the pulpit than the classroom or the boardroom. In the three essays that follow, presented originally at a panel at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in 1989, ethicists from the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish traditions analyze a case study familiar to many who teach and (...) research in business ethics — the Consolidated Foods Case. Each author shows how a particular religious tradition might react to the case. The authors show how insights from their traditions would affect corporation's moral deliberations about policy. Specific policy recommendations are offered to CEO John Bryan. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The subject of this paper is the place of Hume in Nicholas Phillipson's account of the Scottish Enlightenment. I begin with Phillipson's reading of Hume as ‘civic moralist’. I then turn to his account of Hume the author of The History of England. And from there I proceed to the place of Hume in his intellectual biography of Adam Smith. I conclude with a brief description of Phillipson's understanding of Hume's place in the history of the Scottish Enlightenment as (...) it mutated in the late eighteenth century and came to an end in the early nineteenth. I show how just as Phillipson's Hume cannot be understood apart from the Scottish Enlightenment, so also Phillipson's Scottish Enlightenment cannot be understood without Hume. (shrink)

My purpose in Hume: An Intellectual Biography was to write the first comprehensive account of Hume's career as an author, beginning with what we know about his education at Edinburgh, and ending with "My Own Life," the brief autobiography that Hume wrote shortly before he died. Where Ernest Mossner, in his classic The Life of David Hume, was explicitly concerned with the man rather than with the ideas, I was concerned with the ideas, and the arguments, rather than with the (...) man. Hume's biography was of interest to me insofar as, but no further than, it shed light on Hume's intellectual development. In many respects, Mossner's achievement as a biographer remains deeply impressive, and anyone wanting to gain a full... (shrink)

Three issues are raised in this commentary. First, the mapping of semantic information into the different layers could be done in a more realistic way by using the Context layer to represent situational contexts. Second, a way to differentiate category membership information from other property information needs to be considered. Finally, the issue of modal knowledge is raised.

Atran's thesis has strong implications for the doctrine of externalism in concepts (Fodor 1994). Beliefs about biological kinds may involve a degree of deference to scientific categories, but these categories are not truly scientific. They involve instead a folk view of science itself.

Consideration of color alone can give a misleading impression of the three approaches to category coordination: the nativist, empiricist and culturalist models. Empiricist models can benefit from a wider range of correlational information in the environment. Also, all three approaches may explain a set of perceptual categories within the human repertoire. Finally, a suggestion is offered for supplementing the naming game by varying the social status of agents.

This summary account of Hume’s life and works challenges the usual way of telling the story of Hume’s career. It is generally believed that what Hume most wanted to be was a philosopher and that Hume turned to politics and history because that desire was frustrated, principally by the reputation for atheism he had acquired as a result of his writings on religion. The author argues that, from the beginning, Hume was as interested in politics as he was in philosophy; (...) that a career as an independent man of letters, and not as a professional philosopher, was what he most wanted; and that that career was a success, with the History of England its triumphant culmination. Hume’s religious skepticism was no obstacle to his living the life that he most wanted to live, the life of a sophisticated and widely respected citizen of the European republic of letters. (shrink)

Three questions are raised: First, when did the eighteenth century in British philosophy begin and end? Secondly, is there a reason to talk in terms of British philosophy in this period, as different and distinct from English, Scottish, Welsh, and possibly also Irish and American philosophy? Thirdly, how should philosophy be defined in an eighteenth-century British context? The structure of the volume is then explained, and a brief indication given of the content of each chapter.

This brief essay reflects on my encounters with Polany, June and Rhine and tries to link some elements of their thought.

In this paper we explain our pretense account of truth-talk and apply it in a diagnosis and treatment of the Liar Paradox. We begin by assuming that some form of deflationism is the correct approach to the topic of truth. We then briefly motivate the idea that all T-deflationists should endorse a fictionalist view of truth-talk, and, after distinguishing pretense-involving fictionalism (PIF) from error- theoretic fictionalism (ETF), explain the merits of the former over the latter. After presenting the basic framework (...) of our PIF account of truth-talk, we demonstrate a few advantages it offers over T-deflationist accounts that do not explicitly acknowledge pretense at work in the discourse. In turning to the Liar Paradox, we explain how the quasi-anaphoric functioning that our account attributes to truth-talk provides a diagnosis of the Liar Paradox (and other instances of semantic pathology) as having no content—in the sense of not specifying any of what we call M-conditions. At the same time, however, we vindicate the intuition that we can understand liar sentences, thereby avoiding one standard objection to “meaningless strategy” responses to the Liar Paradox. With this diagnosis in place, we then, by way of treatment, introduce a new predicate, ‘semantically defective’, and show how the explanation we give for its application allows for a consistent, yet revenge-immune, (dis)solution of the Liar Paradox, and semantic pathology generally. (shrink)