This article makes first use of a set of databases that are authoritative, independent, and consistent to examine an old research question: do firms hurt their financial performance by damaging stakeholder interests? The databases are US government on-line listings of fines for environmental breaches, unsafe workplaces, fraudulent accounting standards, and product recalls. These measures are assumed to proxy for signals to stakeholders of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks in transacting with the firm and appear to have fewer biases (...) than conventional measures of stakeholder standards. Using a sample of all non-financial S& P 500 firms during the most recent 1998-2003 full cycle in the market, after controlling for firm-specific differences, sales margins of firms fell by 0.8% if they announced a product recall and by 0.4% if cited by OSHA for an unsafe workplace; and shareholder return was significantly reduced by an EPA or SEC prosecution. This study links the risk of transaction uncertainty, information signaling theory, and the resource-based view of the firm to company financial performance. Results support the normative assumption that a firm's sales margin will be damaged by unethical treatment of stakeholders as evidenced by ESG breaches, presumably because risk-averse customers and suppliers are alert to signals of counterparty risk. (shrink)

Cet entretien croisé propose un échange avec Pierre Lalart, président de la Fédération française de espaces de rencontre, et Phil Coleman, chargé de communication pour les centres de contact au Royaume-Uni. Il repose sur un rapport établi par les deux pays concernant les points de divergence et de convergence entre eux. L’interview comprend trois domaines d’investigation : le premier porte sur l’histoire et le fonctionnement de chaque structure, le deuxième précise l’évolution des pratiques cliniques et sociales en leur sein, (...) le troisième apporte un éclairage sur les enseignements tirés de ce regard croisé. (shrink)

« ... sans le sentiment de l’organe corporel, la vie serait la simple conscience de son existence, mais ne serait pas le sentiment du bien-être ou du malaise, c’est-à-dire le sentiment de la stimulation ou de l’inhibition des forces vitales. En effet, l’esprit n’est en lui-même que vie dans le rapport avec son corps. »Il m’est arrivé deux fois qu’un point de philosophie..

Dans le cadre des rencontres Contested Territories : Conversations in Practice qu’elle organise en partenariat avec la Chelsea School of Art and Design et la Naked Punch Review, la Tate Modern a réuni le 2 février 2006 Arthur Danto, Thierry de Duve et Richard Shusterman pour une table ronde portant sur le célèbre article publié par Danto en 1964, « Le monde de l’art 1 », et les questions qu’il continue de soulever. Voici la traduction de leurs exposés et de (...) leurs échanges. (shrink)

Indymedia is a network of activist media centers which appeared in Seattle in 1999. The free software let the technical experts of the beginning organize and teach a lot of new groups. The groups themselves become collective medias instead of asking mainstream medias to speak about them. For Indymedia free software technology enables free speech if it is used in a basic manner giving access to everybody. Still, Indymedia teaches its new members a common culture. A process of collective integration (...) is thus made possible, although leftist and progressive groups are very diverse. (shrink)

« La démocratie est de plus en plus une coquille vide. » Partant du malaise profond et de la violente crise de confiance que les peuples des démocraties modernes traversent vis-à-vis des institutions étatiques, Crouch avance que ces Etats sont entrés dans une phase « post-démocratique ». Explorant les forces sociales et économiques qui y sont à l'œuvre, il décortique les liens unissant aujourd'hui les conglomérats aux gouvernements et la perte de légitimité de ces derniers. Concis et subtilement argumenté, cet (...) essai offre une réponse cinglante aux chantres du néolibéralisme pour qui les sociétés dites avancées ont atteint le degré de démocratie le plus élevé possible ; et propose des pistes concrètes afin de redonner aux citoyens une réelle marge d’action. (shrink)

RésuméCet article offre une édition, une traduction et une analyse d'une préface adressée par Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq, traducteur de Galien, à un mécène chrétien syro-oriental, le médecin Salmawayh ibn Bunān. Ḥunayn a composé cette Épître à Salmawayh ibn Bunān en syriaque, mais seule en a survécu une traduction arabe par son neveu. Le texte n'a reçu que peu d'attention depuis sa découverte, il y a plus de quatre-vingts ans; il n'a jamais été publié entièrement. L’Épître donne un nouvel aperçu des (...) débuts de Ḥunayn et du milieu chrétien dans lequel il évoluait, en montrant ses attaches au passé littéraire syriaque, bien illustrées par les préfaces d'un autre traducteur de Galien, son prédécesseur Sergius de Rēšʿaynā ; mais l’Épître indique aussi des éléments qui distinguent de leur prédécesseur les traducteurs abbassides comme Ḥunayn. Cette étude soutient que la demande accrue des mécènes et la lecture attentive des commentaires hippocratiques de Galien ont suscité un nouveau discours, dans l’Épître, selon lequel des lecteurs de tout niveau peuvent et devraient avoir accès aux textes scientifiques grecs. Cette Épître montre ainsi comment Ḥunayn comprenait son propre projet littéraire et scientifique et sa relation à la tradition grecque de l'Antiquité. (shrink)

This book brings together international academics from a range of Social Science and Humanities disciplines to reflect on how Deleuze's philosophy is opening up and shaping methodologies and practices of empirical research.

New York, été 1942. Peu après la déclaration de la guerre, les Maritain ont quitté la France et se sont réfugiés aux Etats - Unis. Tout en poursuivant son oeuvre littéraire, Jacques donne des cours et des conférences à travers le pays. Raïssa publie Les grandes amitiés et achève la rédaction de ses souvenirs, souvent interrompue par la maladie et les souffrances qui l'accablent. L'arrachement à leur pays, le désastre en Europe et le sort des Juifs ne cessent de peser (...) sur le coeur et les pensées du couple. C'est dans ce contexte troublé que, le 22 août 1942, les Maritain reçoivent la lettre d'une inconnue. Celle qui leur écrit pour la première fois vient de lire Les grandes amitiés. C'est une Américaine de quarante-trois ans, écrivain, poète, dont la vie sera désormais liée à la leur. (shrink)

This review begins with a detailed focus on the Turnaway Study, which addresses associations among early abortion, later abortion, and denied abortion relative to various outcomes including mental health indicators. The Turnaway Study was comprised of 516 women; however, an exact percentage of the population is not discernable due to missing information. Extrapolating from what is known reveals a likely low of 0.32% to a maximum of 3.18% of participants sampled from the available the pool. Motivation for conducting the Turnaway (...) Study, methodological deficiencies (sampling issues and others), and bias are specifically addressed. Despite serious departures from accepted scientific practices, journals in psychology and medicine have published dozens of articles generated from the study’s data. The high volume of one-sided publications has stifled dialogue on potential adverse psychological consequences of this common procedure. Following a critical analysis of the Turnaway Study, an overview of the strongest studies on abortion and mental health is offered. This comprehensive literature comprised of numerous large-scale studies from across the globe has been largely overlooked by scientists and the public, while the Turnaway Study dominates the media, information provided to women, and legal challenges involving abortion restrictions. In the final section of this article, literature reviews by professional organizations are considered, demonstrating that the biased science characterizing the Turnaway Study is aligned with a pervasive and systemic phenomenon wherein deriving reliable and valid results via careful attention to methodology and scrutiny by the scientific community have been supplanted by politics. (shrink)

Parmi les nombreuses controverses qui affectent l’étude de la pensée économique naissante, la moindre n’est sans doute pas celle qui porte sur l’opportunité même du concept de « mercantilisme ». Les auteurs regroupés sous ce terme par les inventeurs de cette dénomination ne l’ont-ils pas été par leurs adversaires (Quesnay, Smith, E. F. Heckscher) ou par leurs défenseurs (G. Schmoller, W. Cunningham) qui, de surcroît, ne leur sont pas contemporains? Cette contribution se propose par conséquent de restituer la genèse du (...) concept polémique de « mercantilisme » et de présenter une synthèse des critiques qui lui ont été opposées (D. C. Coleman, J. Viner...). La question délicate de l’articulation entre théorie et pratique incitera à prendre la mesure des enjeux philosophiques soulevés par l’élaboration conceptuelle : ce sont alors les liens théoriques complexes entre machiavélisme et mercantilisme qui seront mis en lumière, afin de comprendre par quelles médiations la théorie politique de la raison d’État a pu trouver un champ d’application privilégié chez les auteurs et les acteurs dits mercantilistes. (shrink)

This article examines the (bio) ethical and professionalism issues that may arise in the context of medical practice in low and middle income countries (LAMIC), and the challenges this poses for medical regulatory bodies in the regions, in upholding ethics in professional practice. A quadrangle of source of the problems given rise to the breach of ethics in medical practice is identified, and suggested steps, based on ethical principles and concept, is proposed towards the resolution of the problems presented. As (...) LAMIC progress to improve the health of its population, this endeavour should occur hand in hand with contemporary medical ethics theories, taking in context the region’s ethnographic and cultural beliefs and practices. (shrink)

The first of its kind, this project is a collection of critical and interpretive essays on George Santayana’s seminal work in American philosophy, Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923), 100 years after its first edition. The reader will be guided through the intricacies of Scepticism and Animal Faith by expert scholars. This book is a companion to Scepticism and Animal Faith for both first-time readers and readers intimately familiar with this work.

An interdisciplinary study of the fundamental normative issues underpinning immigration policy.

Few figures of the Middle Ages command the attention of so many modern disciplines as Robert Grosseteste (c. 1170-1253). Theology, Philosophy, History, and Science are all areas which his life and thought continue to have significance and to inspire re-interpretation. Accompanied by a series of original commentaries, this new edition of Grosseteste's work, with English translation, draws together the perspectives of modern scientists and medieval specialists. Volume I of a six volume series, Knowing and Speaking presents two of the earliest (...) of Grosseteste's works, the treatises On the Liberal Arts and On the Generation of Sounds. These are accompanied by a significant Middle English treatise on the Seven Liberal Arts whose anonymous fifteenth-century author translated and excerpted passages from Grosseteste's treatises in a re-imagining of their structure and function.0Each work is treated separately within the volume, which is constructed in three parts. On the Liberal Arts sets Grosseteste's thoughts on the arts subjects and emphasises moral concerns about the purpose of learning. On the Generation of Sounds builds on the theories and statements of On the Liberal Arts in connection to the production of sound, elaborating the earlier position, relating the generation of sounds to human vocal and speech production. (shrink)

BackgroundCountries are increasingly devoting significant resources to creating or strengthening research ethics committees, but there has been insufficient attention to assessing whether these committees are actually improving the protection of human research participants.DiscussionResearch ethics committees face numerous obstacles to achieving their goal of improving research participant protection. These include the inherently amorphous nature of ethics review, the tendency of regulatory systems to encourage a focus on form over substance, financial and resource constraints, and conflicts of interest. Auditing and accreditation programs (...) can improve the quality of ethics review by encouraging the development of standardized policies and procedures, promoting a common base of knowledge, and enhancing the status of research ethics committees within their own institutions. However, these mechanisms focus largely on questions of structure and process and are therefore incapable of answering many critical questions about ethics committees' actual impact on research practices.The first step in determining whether research ethics committees are achieving their intended function is to identify what prospective research participants and their communities hope to get out of the ethics review process. Answers to this question can help guide the development of effective outcomes assessment measures. It is also important to determine whether research ethics committees' guidance to investigators is actually being followed. Finally, the information developed through outcomes assessment must be disseminated to key decision-makers and incorporated into practice. This article offers concrete suggestions for achieving these goals.ConclusionOutcomes assessment of research ethics committees should address the following questions: First, does research ethics committee review improve participants' understanding of the risks and potential benefits of studies? Second, does the process affect prospective participants' decisions about whether to participate in research? Third, does it change participants' subjective experiences in studies or their attitudes about research? Fourth, does it reduce the riskiness of research? Fifth, does it result in more research responsive to the local community's self-identified needs? Sixth, is research ethics committees' guidance to researchers actually being followed? (shrink)

Acknowledgements -- Introduction: transformation, potential, futures -- Screening affect : images, representational thinking and the actualization of the virtual -- Bringing the image to life : interactive mirrors and intensive experience -- Becoming different : makeover television, proximity and immediacy -- Immanent measure : interaction, attractors and the multiple temporalities of online dieting -- Pre-empting the future : obesity, prediction and change4life -- Conclusion : transforming images : sociology, the future and the virtual -- Bibliography -- Index.

Anthropology continues to develop both in terms of theory and in relation to the ways in which fieldwork is conducted. Dislocating Anthropology? seeks to capture and represent these developments through a collection of ethnographic essays that are cutting edge, but which do not represent a complete break with what has gone before. In recent years anthropologists have increasingly come to accept that fieldwork in bounded and discrete places is no longer tenable. People can no longer be represented in these static, (...) parochial terms. At the start of the 21st century, and with the possibility of internet connections almost anywhere, we have the potential to move even when we are stationary. Each of the contributors to this collection have identified and attempted to understand sets of relationships that are both temporally and spatially dynamic, that appear to flow into and out of 'the field.' Together, the chapters shed light on a number of methodological conundrums, or dislocations, relating, for example, to locality, identity, fieldwork, and reflexivity. The book is concerned with dislocation as both practice and process, and as such extends a theme that has arguably been central to Anthropology since Malinowski's Trobriand ethnography. (shrink)

Modern society has undergone a fundamental change to a society built around purposively established organizations. Social theory in this context can be a guide to social construction. Foundations of Social Theory is dedicated to this aim. Being oriented towards the design of social institutions it has to choose a voluntaristic, purposive theory of action and must make the behavior of social systems explainable in terms of the combination of individual actions. It has to deal with the emergence and maintenance of (...) norms and rights, the concepts of authority, trust, law and legitimacy, the viability of organizations and the efficiency of social systems. But more important than the specific points is the vision of a new role for social theory in an increasingly constructed social environment. This vision is the motivation behind Foundations of Social Theory. (shrink)

This paper examines the problems that may arise, particularly for military personnel, when the requirements of doing one's duty seem to come into conflict with the demands of loyalty. This conflict is especially problematic because loyalty is often seen, especially by serving military personnel, as the highest of military virtues. The paper introduces a categorisation of ethical issues into two main types, which are referred to as ‘ethical dilemmas’ and ‘tests of integrity’ which is then used to clarify the issues (...) involved when duty and loyalty come into conflict. It is argued that a true understanding of loyalty and disloyalty means that the demands of loyalty can never legitimately override a genuine duty to follow orders. (shrink)

Home care is one of the fastest‐growing industries in the United States, providing valuable opportunities for millions of older adults and people with disabilities to live at home rather than in institutional settings. Home care workers assist clients with essential activities of daily living, but their wages and working conditions generally fail to reflect the importance of their work. Drawing on the work of Eva Feder Kittay and other care ethicists, we argue that good care involves attending to the needs (...) of another out of a concern for their well‐being. Such care should be standard in the home care system. Yet, because of the pervasive racial, gender, and economic inequalities that the home care industry perpetuates, home care workers and their clients cannot reasonably be expected to care about each other. We endorse reforms aimed at enabling home care workers and their clients to form and maintain professional relationships that cultivate care.. (shrink)

This reply responds to four authors in this issue of Analyse & Kritik. I find disagreements with Peter Blau being of a lesser degree than he sees them, though I emphasize the micro-macro relation through which actions combine to produce systemic outcomes, while he emphasizes the effect of social structure upon individuals. Raimo Tuomela exposites a concept of group action which has some differences from my concept of corporate action, but many similarities. Andreas Diekmann examines in detail the problems of (...) collective action toward provision of a public good. From Foundations he makes use of the concept of social capital, showing how with further development it might prove analytically useful; I encourage this direction of work. Michael Baurmann wants to lay a foundation of norms in place of the rights foundation which I develop. While I reject this shift, I largely accept his critique of my position regarding normative theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 30.1 (2006) 299-309 [Access article in PDF] Conscious Fiction Mary Clayton Coleman Bard College Consciousness and the Novel: Connected Essays, by David Lodge; 320 pp. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002, $24.95 boards, $16.95 paper. Fictional Minds, by Alan Palmer; 275 pp. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2004, $45.00. Radiant Cool: A Novel Theory of Consciousness, by Dan Lloyd; 357 pp. Cambridge, Mass.: (...) The MIT Press, 2004, $24.95 boards, $14.95 paper. What contributions can fiction make to the representation and investigation of conscious experience? Might fiction help us to develop and advance new theories about the nature of consciousness? And might such theories, in turn, inform our understanding of the process of reading fiction? Three recent volumes—one by English critic and novelist, David Lodge; another by literary theorist, Alan Palmer; and a third by philosopher and (now) novelist, Dan Lloyd—raise these important, genre-bending questions, and they offer challenging if not always convincing answers to them. More generally, these volumes make valuable contributions to the fruitful cross-pollination that has developed between philosophers, scientists, literary theorists, and novelists who are interested in the nature of consciousness.Lodge's new collection of essays is called Consciousness and the Novel: Connected Essays, and like all of the criticism he has written since the late eighties, this volume is intended for a general audience, not for [End Page 299] literary theorists. The title essay, "Consciousness and the Novel," is a revised version of the Richard Ellman Lectures in Modern Literature that Lodge gave at Emory University in 2001, and the other nine essays, all previously published, cover such topics as Howards End; the novels of Evelyn Waugh; The Letters of Kingsley Amis; Martin Amis's memoir, Experience; and the relationship between literature and criticism. I will focus on "Consciousness and the Novel."Lodge's thesis in this essay is that novels play an essential role in our exploration of the nature of human consciousness. This thesis is certainly true, but it is also entirely banal. Much more interesting is what Lodge says in support of it. He argues that because of the unique representative possibilities of the novel, conscious experiences can be represented more effectively in novels than they can be in scientific writing. Taken literally, as an assertion about the relative representational power of novels and scientific discourse, this is extremely implausible. However, taken more loosely—as an invitation to those of us interested in consciousness to take a closer look at the ways conscious experiences are represented in novels—Lodge's claim is sensible and appealing. I will consider the literal reading of Lodge's claim first and then turn to the looser one.It is undoubtedly true that, as a whole, novelists devote more energy to representing conscious experiences than writers of scientific discourse do. However, science writers can use whatever techniques best serve their aims, including the aim of describing conscious experiences, so there is no reason to think that conscious experiences can, in principle, be represented more effectively in novels than in broadly scientific discourse. Given that Lodge discusses such creative science writers as Antonio Damasio, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker in the course of his essay, it is surprising and disappointing to find him caricature scientific writing in the following way: "science... is a third-person discourse. The first-person pronoun is not used in scientific papers. If there were any hint of qualia in a scientific paper... it would be edited out" (p. 11). Qualia are the supposedly subjective qualitative aspects of conscious experiences. How the plucked string of a cello sounds to you; how the rotting fish in the garbage smells to you; and how it feels for you to inch down into the smooth, almost-too-hot water of a perfect bubble bath—these are all (supposedly) examples of qualia. Lodge is simply mistaken when he says that there is no hint of qualia in scientific writing. There is no consensus about whether qualia can be explained scientifically. In fact, there is no consensus about whether they exist. [End Page... (shrink)

Some believe that it is immoral to harm animals, but it is not immoral to kill humanely raised domesticated animals. Implicit in this is the assumption that it is possible to raise and slaughter animals without harming them significantly. In recent years, a number of philosophers – DeGrazia, Harman, Bradley, and others – have claimed that slaughter harms an animal in proportion to the amount of valuable future life that an animal loses in dying, which seems to challenge this assumption. (...) But a question remains: how much are domesticated animals, particularly humanely raised ones, harmed by their slaughter? Here, I take up this question. My answer may be surprising: in ordinary circumstances, slaughter hardly deprives humanely raised animals of any good life, and so is not very harmful to them. This result may strengthen the case for humane slaughter – or it may give us reason to revise our understanding of the harmfulness of death. (shrink)

David Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, first published in 1779, is one of the most influential works in the philosophy of religion and the most artful instance of philosophical dialogue since the dialogues of Plato. It presents a fictional conversation between a sceptic, an orthodox Christian, and a Newtonian theist concerning evidence for the existence of an intelligent cause of nature based on observable features of the world. This new edition presents it together with several of Hume's other, shorter writings (...) about religion, and with brief selections from the work of Pierre Bayle, who influenced both Hume's views on religion and the dialectical style of the Dialogues. The volume is completed by an introduction which sets the Dialogues in its philosophical and historical contexts. (shrink)

Background Biobanking and genomic research requires collection and storage of human tissue from study participants. From participants’ perspectives within the African context, this can be associated with fears and misgivings due to a myriad of factors including myths and mistrust of researchers. From the researchers angle ethical dilemmas may arise especially with consenting and sample reuse during storage. The aim of this paper was to explore these ethical considerations in the establishment and conduct of biobanking and genomic studies in Africa. (...) Methods We conducted a narrative synthesis following a comprehensive search of nine (9) databases and grey literature. All primary research study designs were eligible for inclusion as well as both quantitative and qualitative evidence from peer reviewed journals, spanning a maximum of 20 years (2000–2020). It focused on research work conducted in Africa, even if data was stored or analysed outside the region. Results Of 2,663 title and abstracts screened, 94 full texts were retrieved and reviewed for eligibility. We included 12 studies (7 qualitative; 4 quantitative and one mixed methods). Ethical issues described in these papers related to community knowledge and understanding of biobanking and genomic research, regulation, and governance of same by research ethics committees, enrolment of participants, types of informed consents, data collection, storage, usage and sharing as well as material transfer, returning results and benefit sharing. ca. Biospecimen collection and storage is given in trust and participants expect confidentially of data and results generated. Most participants are comfortable with broad consent due to trust in researchers, though a few would like to be contacted for reconsenting in future studies, and this would depend on whether the new research is for good cause. Sharing data with external partners is welcome in some contexts but some research participants did not trust foreign researchers. Conclusion Biobanking and genomic studies are a real need in Africa. Linked to this are ethical considerations related to setting up and participation in biobanks as well as data storage, export, use and sharing. There is emerging or pre-existing consensus around the acceptability of broad consent as a suitable model of consent, the need for Africans to take the lead in international collaborative studies, with deliberate efforts to build capacity in local storage and analysis of samples and employ processes of sample collection and use that build trust of communities and potential study participants. Research ethics committees, researchers and communities need to work together to work together to adapt and use clearly defined ethical frameworks, guidelines, and policy documents to harmonize the establishment and running of biobanking and genomic research in Africa. (shrink)