ABSTRACT:In this address I argue that different perspectives on the normative foundations of corporate responsibility reflect underlying disagreements about the ideal arrangement of tasks between market and state. I initially recommend that scholars look back to the “division of moral labor” inspired by John Rawls’ seminal work on distributive justice in order to rethink why, and to what extent, corporations take on responsibilities normally within the purview of government. I then examine how this notion is related to recent theoretical work (...) in the field of business ethics. I thereafter turn to provide a brief outline of an alternative view that sees corporations as having responsibilities in so far as markets are sites of delegated oversight over the production of social goods that might otherwise be administered by the state. (shrink)

Although consumers are increasingly engaged with ethical factors when forming opinions about products and making purchase decisions, recent studies have highlighted significant differences between consumers' intentions to consume ethically, and their actual purchase behaviour. This article contributes to an understanding of this 'Ethical Purchasing Gap' through a review of existing literature, and the inductive analysis of focus group discussions. A model is suggested which includes exogenous variables such as moral maturity and age which have been well covered in the literature, (...) together with further impeding factors identified from the focus group discussions. For some consumers, inertia in purchasing behaviour was such that the decision-making process was devoid of ethical considerations. Several consumers manifested their ethical views through post-purchase dissonance and retrospective feelings of guilt. Others displayed a reluctance to consume ethically due to personal constraints, a perceived negative impact on image or quality, or an outright negation of responsibility. Those who expressed a desire to consume ethically often seemed deterred by cynicism, which caused them to question the impact they, as an individual, could achieve. These findings enhance the understanding of ethical consumption decisions and provide a platform for future research in this area. (shrink)

Abstract:This article theorizes the disruptive epistemic work performed by microcosms in recent eco-fiction. Contemporary fiction often explores large-scale ecological disruption through smaller organisms and environments, enabling readers to perceive the Earth through analogy, allegory and metaphor. Within and against this scale-free reading, I argue that the microcosm has become a fracturing trope that troubles relations between scales. Drawing on fiction by T. C. Boyle, A. S. Byatt, Amitav Ghosh, Ali Smith, and Karen Tei Yamashita, I read the microcosm as a (...) critical tool of Anthropocene awareness, because it foregrounds and questions scalar collapse–the epistemic projection of one scale onto another. (shrink)

One of the unique insights provided by the growing number of fully sequenced genomes is the pervasiveness of gene duplication and gene loss. Indeed, several metrics now suggest that rates of gene birth and death per gene are only 10–40% lower than nucleotide substitutions per site, and that per nucleotide, the consequent lineage‐specific expansion and contraction of gene families may play at least as large a role in adaptation as changes in orthologous sequences. While gene family evolution is pervasive, it (...) may be especially important in our own evolution since it appears that the “revolving door” of gene duplication and loss has undergone multiple accelerations in the lineage leading to humans. In this paper, we review current understanding of gene family evolution including: methods for inferring copy number change, evidence for adaptive expansion and adaptive contraction of gene families, the origins of new families and deaths of previously established ones, and finally we conclude with a perspective on challenges and promising directions for future research. (shrink)

Social contract theory has been criticized as a “theory in search of application.” We argue that incorporating the nano, or individual, level of analysis into social contract inquiry will yield more descriptive theory. We draw upon the psychological contract perspective to address two critiques of social contract theory: its rigid macro-orientation and inattention to the process of contract formation. We demonstrate how a psychological contract approach offers practical insight into the impact of social contracting on day-to-day human interaction. We then (...) articulate several potentially testable propositions that emerge from this nano-level perspective. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the difference between event‐conditionals and premise‐conditionals. An event‐conditional contributes to event structure: it modifies the main clause event; a premise‐conditional structures the discourse: it makes manifest a proposition that is the privileged context for the processing of the associated clause. The two types of conditional clauses will be shown to differ both in terms of their ‘external syntax’ and in terms of their ‘internal syntax’. The peripheral structure of event conditionals will be shown to lack the (...) functional head Force, which encodes illocutionary force. Event conditionals are merged inside the IP of the matrix clause. Premise‐conditionals contain the head Force and they are merged outside the associated CP. (shrink)

Should we conceive of corporations as entities to which moral responsibility can be attributed? This contribution presents what we will call a political account of corporate moral responsibility. We argue that in modern, liberal democratic societies, there is an underlying political need to attribute greater levels of moral responsibility to corporations. Corporate moral responsibility is essential to the maintenance of social coordination that both advances social welfare and protects citizens' moral entitlements. This political account posits a special capacity of self-governance (...) that corporations can intelligibly be said to possess. Corporations can be said to be "administrators of duty" in that they can voluntarily incorporate moral principles into their decision-making processes about how to conduct business. This account supplements and partly transforms earlier pragmatic accounts of corporate moral responsibility by disentangling responsibility from its conventional linkages with accountability, blame and punishment. It thereby represents a distinctive way to defend corporate moral responsibility and shows how Kantian thinking can be helpful in disentangling the problems surrounding the concept. (shrink)

Jeffery Aubin ,Marie Chantal ,Dianne Cole ,Julio Chaves ,Cathelyne Duchesne ,Christel Freu ,Steve Johnston ,Brice Jones ,Amaury Levillayer ,Stéphanie Machabée ,Paul-Hubert Poirier ,Philippe Therrien ,Jonathan von Kodar ,Martin Voyer ,Jennifer Wees ,Eric Crégheur.

Jeffery Aubin,Serge Cazelais,Marie Chantal,Julio Cesar Dias Chaves,Cathelyne Duchesne,Steve Johnston,Louis Painchaud,Paul-Hubert Poirier,Tuomas Rasimus,Gaëlle Rioual,Maryse Robert,Eric Crégheur.

A number of recent authors, most notably Joseph Heath, have persausively defended a market‐centered account of corporate responsibility that grounds standards of business conduct upon the normative presuppositions of the market. They have us focus on two important items: first, the value of welfare, or Pareto efficient outcomes, which underwrites the legitimacy of market arrangements; and second, the behavioral requirements needed to assure that corporations conduct business in a manner consistent with this value. This article critically examines the aspirations of (...) this literature by embracing its basic method but questioning how well it understands the aim of the market. It puts forth a limited case for corporate responsibility anchored in other dimensions of the public good, distinct from the value of efficiency, and argues that a plausible understanding of corporate responsibility arises from the notion that market arrangements are sites of delegated social authority to provision other aspects of the common good. (shrink)

One common justification for the pursuit of profit by business firms within a market economy is that profit is not an end in itself but a means to more efficiently produce and allocate resources. Profit, in short, is a mechanism that serves the market’s purpose of producing Pareto superior outcomes for society. This discussion examines whether such a justification, if correct, requires business managers to remain attentive to how their firm’s operation impacts the market’s purpose. In particular, it is argued (...) that the value of efficiency, despite views to the contrary, cannot be fully separated from the planning and intentions of business managers as long as those managers direct their firms in an ethically responsible fashion. This position is inspired by, and serves as a supportive clarification of Joseph Heath’s so-called “market failures approach” to business ethics. (shrink)

The success of the mission of the school based largely on teachers, it is important to understand exactly how they see their role in the actualization of this mission. So this article initiates a reflection on how secondary school teachers in Quebec think their educational mission. More specifically, we analyze how the educational mission takes shape in their professional practice. La réussite de la mission de l’école reposant en grande partie sur les enseignants, il importe de cerner avec précision comment (...) ces derniers conçoivent leur rôle dans l’actualisation de cette mission. Ainsi cet article amorce une réflexion sur la manière dont les enseignants du secondaire au Québec, pensent leur mission éducative. Plus particulièrement, nous analysons ici comment cette mission éducative prend forme dans leur pratique professionnelle. (shrink)

Caritas in Veritate leaves us with a question, Does Benedict XVI see politics as a practice or as an institution? How one answers this question has tremendous implications for how one should address the inequalities of contemporary society and the increasing globalization of the world. Alasdair MacIntyre, for instance, would consider politics to be primarily a practice with a good internal to its activities. This good consists in rational deliberation with others about the common good. If one considers politics an (...) institution, however, as seems to be the case with Jacques Maritain, then one pays less attention to the common good and more attention to the mechanics of the political institution. The difference in understanding goes a long way toward how one conceives of, determines, and achieves the common good, a central task for Catholic social teaching. It also prefigures whether and how one can justify self-sacrifice for the common good, demanded of police officers and soldiers, for instance, as well as whether and how one prioritizes the practices of a given political community. Caritas in Veritate (CIV) brings to the forefront issues of self-sacrifice and prioritization of practices at the global level. This paper shall address the position Benedict XVI lays out on globalization with reference to a global politics through the lens of the common good and the distinction between practice and institution. (shrink)

The thought of G. W. F. Hegel has had a deep and lasting influence on a wide range of philosophical, political, religious, aesthetic, cultural and scientific movements. But, despite the far-reaching importance of Hegel's thought, there is often a great deal of confusion about what he actually said or believed. This is an invaluable introduction for philosophical beginners and a useful reference source for more advanced scholars and researchers.

In this vast and ambitious tome, Michael Nylan aims to "trace the evolution of pleasure theories in early China over the course of a millennium and a half", roughly from 400 BCE to 1100 CE. This involves dissecting the discourse surrounding a single graph, le 樂, which Nylan translates as pleasure, and actively distinguishes from other states such as happiness and joy. Nylan understands such pleasure as "deeper satisfactions" realized in long-term commitments and often relational in nature. In texts, pleasure (...) is often associated with "objects of consequence" such as intimate friends, Heaven, graceful and charismatic acts and family profession or heritage (p.... (shrink)

George Ciccariello-Maher’sWe Created Chávezis the most important book available in English proposing an anti-capitalist framework for understanding the Bolivarian process in contemporary Venezuela, as well as its historical backdrop dating back to 1958. The book contains within it a laudable critique of Eurocentrism and a masterful combination of oral history, ethnography, and theoretical sophistication. It reveals with unusual clarity and insight the multiplicity of popular movements that allowed for Hugo Chávez’s eventual ascension to presidential office in the late 1990s.We Created (...) Chávezhas set a new scholarly bar for social histories of the Bolivarian process and demands serious engagement by Marxists. As a first attempt at such engagement, this paper reveals some critical theoretical and sociological flaws in the text and other areas of analytical imprecision. Divided into theoretical and historical parts, it unpacks some of the strengths and weaknesses by moving from the abstract to the concrete. The intervention begins with concepts – the mutually determining dialectic between Chávez and social movements; ‘the people’; and ‘dual power’. From here, it grounds these concepts, and Ciccariello-Maher’s use of them, in various themes and movements across specific historical periods of Venezuelan political development – the rural guerrillas of the 1960s, the urban guerrillas of the 1970s, the new urban socio-political formations of the 1980s, Afro-Indigenous struggles in the Bolivarian process, and formal and informal working-class transformations since the onset of neoliberalism and its present contestation in the Venezuelan context. (shrink)

Farmer participatory research (FPR) has generated many programmatic statements and few technologies. FPR has probably been of interest more because of dissatisfaction with the green revolution and agricultural establishment research than because of a proven ability of scientists and farmers to collaborate together. There are several barriers between farmers and scientists, not the least of which is social distance. The role of FPR should be critically examined; it may work best setting research agendas or in the case of researchers who (...) can dedicate themselves to FPR full-time for quite some time. (shrink)

Jeffery Aubin,Dianne Cole,Julio Cesar Dias Chaves,Jonathan von Kodar,Anne-France Morand,Timothy Pettipiece,Paul-Hubert Poirier,Martin Voyer,Eric Crégheur.

Jeffery Aubin,Julio Cesar Dias Chaves,Steve Johnston,Louis Painchaud,Anne Pasquier,Paul-Hubert Poirier,Jennifer Wees,Eric Crégheur.

This volume provides an updated examination of the role that moral and political philosophy can play in addressing problems in business ethics. The essays contained within its pages represent the work of new scholars and address a wide array of foundational issues such as distributive justice within firms, human rights, ethical challenges of international business, the role of virtue in business management, entrepreneurship and the relationship of markets and market actors with democratic institutions.

Indole is a key environmental cue that is used by many organisms. Based on its biochemistry, we suggest indole is used so universally, and by such different organisms, because it derives from the metabolism of tryptophan, a resource essential for many species yet rare in nature. These properties make it a valuable, environmental cue for resources almost universally important for promoting fitness. We then describe how indole is used to coordinate actions within organisms, to influence the behavior of conspecifics and (...) can even be used to change the behavior of species that belong to other kingdoms. Drawing on the evolutionary framework that has been developed for understanding animal communication, we show how this is diversely achieved by indole acting as a cue, a manipulative signal, and an honest signal, as well as how indole can be used synergistically to amplify information conveyed by other molecules. Clarifying these distinct functions of indole identifies patterns that transcend different kingdoms of organisms. (shrink)

As a thinker whose work proposes the recovery in Darwin of an innovative anthropology, which no specialist scholar has consistently refuted or has exposed as amounting to a forced or willful interpretation, Patrick Tort can enable us to arrive at a valid assessment of Darwin’s discourse on man and on civilization. In this regard, he underlines the unquestionably dialectical character of the passage from “nature” to “culture” in the project. As a consequence of their ignorance of this innovation, Marx, and (...) those who came after him, equated Darwinism with a Malthusian ideology and a doctrine of social selection, a position which Darwin precisely did not adopt, in his explanation of the origin and transformation of civilization, without however having to break with his selective biology. In the history of Marxism, the consequence of this epistemological faux-pas has been the interminable reiteration of “monist” problems in pursuit of a dialectical conceptualization of the links and the distinctions to be teased out between nature and civilization, materialism and morality. With a view to reestablishing a fruitful theoretical dialogue between the heritage of Marx and that of Darwin, a detour by way of Kant and his categorical moral imperative is certainly not desirable. The path leading to an overcoming of the contradictions is rather to be located by way of Marxism’s acknowledgement of the notion of “reversive continuity”, thus enabling us to conceptualize, in a unitary mode and from the perspective of materialism, the paradox of the extinction of struggle, within the horizon of the struggle of which nature constitutes the field of experimentation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Does effective moral judgment in business ethics rely upon the identification of a suitable set of moral principles? We address this question by examining a number of criticisms of the role that principles can play in moral judgment. Critics claim that reliance on principles requires moral agents to abstract themselves from actual circumstances, relationships and personal commitments in answering moral questions. This is said to enforce an artificial uniformity in moral judgment. We challenge these critics by developing an account of (...) principle-based moral judgment that has been widely discussed by contemporary Kantian scholars. In so doing we respond to some basic problems raised by so-called “moral particularists” who voice theoretical objections to the role of principles as well as to contemporary business ethicists who have criticized principle-based moral judgment along similar lines. We conclude with some future areas of research. (shrink)

Un concepto que solía pertenecer al mundo de la informática (hacking) ahora se combina con las ciencias de la vida (bio). Sin gran dificultad, hemos empezado a ver la vida como un conjunto de datos, el ADN como un código, el cuerpo como una máquina y la mente como un software... todos susceptibles de ser leídos, manipulados y ahora incluso hackeados. ¿Pero manipulados por quiénes? Las comunidades de biohackers y DYIbio (do-it-yourself biology) quieren la biotecnología disponible para todos y la (...) información compartida abiertamente. En este trabajo, propongo una reflexión sobre qué está pasando y el posible por qué. En la primera parte, presento el biohacking como un fenómeno social, dando algunos ejemplos de biohackers y diferenciando tipos de biohackers. En la segunda parte, hago un acercamiento al Transhumanismo. La existencia de biohackers sólo es posible gracias a la creciente disponibilidad de información y biotecnología combinada con una cierta mentalidad. El principal objetivo es profundizar en la reflexión sobre la relación entre biohacking y Transhumanismo. Analizo el biohacking como una de las expresiones de este movimiento y uno de los fenómenos que contribuyen a él. Al final, ofrezco una reflexión sobre la cultura, deseos y miedos de nuestra sociedad, reconociendo también algunas de las preguntas que ellos provocan. (shrink)

People who defend “pragmatic encroachment” about knowledge generally advocate two ideas: you can rationally act according to what you know; knowledge is harder to achieve when more is at stake. In their chapter in this volume, Charity Anderson and John Hawthorne argue that these two ideas may not fit together so well. This chapter extends Anderson and Hawthorne’s argument. By applying some standard decision theory, we can calculate a precise quantity of “how much is at stake” that does fit together (...) with knowledge and action. While this calculated quantity matches intuitions about how much is at stake in certain standard cases, in others it does not.Keywords. (shrink)

The article re-examines the relationship between the works of Alfred Schütz and Harold Garfinkel, focusing on their respective approaches to temporality in interaction. Although there are good reasons to emphasize the differences between Schütz’s notion of individual projects of action and Garfinkel’s interest in communicative sequencing, there is also an interesting historical connection. In order to elucidate this connection, the article provides a close reading of the steps that lead Schütz from his premise of ‘egological’ time consciousness to his understanding (...) of the reflexive and interactive process of meaning establishment and interpretation developed in his first book, _The Phenomenology of the Social World_ (1967 [1932]). The article reflects further upon which aspects of Schütz’s considerations resonated with Garfinkel in his formative years and how Garfinkel related to them variously in his later development of ethnomethodology. Hence, it appears that Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology successively departs from many of Schütz’s premises while simultaneously incorporating and further developing some of his notions on the sequential organization and temporal flux of interactive processes. (shrink)

Social contract theory has been criticized as a “theory in search of application.” We argue that incorporating the nano- or individual level of analysis into social contract inquiry will yield more descriptive theory. We draw upon the psychological contract perspective to address two critiques of social contract theory: its rigid macro orientation and inattention to the process of contract formation. We demonstrate how a psychological contract approach offers practical insight into the impact of social contracting on day-today human interaction.

This article focuses on scientific integrity and the identification of predisposing factors to scientific misconduct in Brazil. Brazilian scientific production has increased in the last ten years, but the quality of the articles has decreased. Pressure on researchers and students for increasing scientific production may contribute to scientific misconduct. Cases of misconduct in science have been recently denounced in the country. Brazil has important institutions for controlling ethical and safety aspects of human research, but there is a lack of specific (...) offices to investigate suspected cases of misconduct and policies to deal with scientific dishonesty. (shrink)

This introduction situates the work of Zavaleta in the field of Bolivian intellectual history, Latin American Studies, and Latin American Marxism. It also explains the objectives of the symposium and the logic underlying its constituent parts.

Este artigo apresenta um projeto de pesquisa clínica qualitativa, que busca compreender a função da família, seu caráter de transmissão, no que se refere à constituição subjetiva da criança, considerando as profundas transformações contemporâneas das instituições, inclusive da família. Propomos uma discussão sobre a temática em articulação com a educação, abordando-a no contexto social e avançando para perspectiva psicanalítica. Notamos que a noção de função da psicanálise pode nos fazer avançar teórica e clinicamente na tentativa de superar modelos parentais ou (...) de comportamentos que supostamente pudessem garantir um desenvolvimento adequado à criança, permitindo a problematização dos ideais de família marcantes em nosso imaginário social e a reflexão sobre seus possíveis impactos na saúde mental dos aprendentes, familiares e educadores nos contextos educativos. (shrink)

This article presents a broad analysis of the political economy and dynamics of social change during the first year of the Evo Morales government in Bolivia. It situates this analysis in the wider historical context of left-indigenous insurrection between 2000 and 2005, the changing character of contemporary capitalism imperialism, and the resurgence of anti-neoliberalism and anti-imperialism elsewhere in Latin America. It considers at a general level the overarching dilemmas of revolution and reform. Part III examines the complexities of the politics (...) of indigenous liberation and the political economy of the Movimiento al Socialismo government between January 2006 and January 2007. It pays special attention to the limits of reform in the hydrocarbons sector. Also explained in Part III is the formation of an autonomist right-wing movement in the eastern lowlands, and how the new Right has intervened in the process of the Constituent Assembly. The article shows how the actual Constituent Assembly set into motion by the Morales administration in 2006 differs in fundamental terms from the revolutionary assembly envisioned by leading left-indigenous forces during the cycle of revolt in the first five years of this century. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Pharmacogenetics is a rapidly expanding area of research exploring the relationship between inter‐individual genetic variation and drug response, with the goal of developing genetically optimised therapies. Slippery slope arguments claim that a particular action should be rejected (or supported) because it might be the first step onto a slippery slope leading to undesirable (or desirable) consequences. In this article, several slippery slope arguments relevant to the context of pharmacogenetics are evaluated under consideration of underlying reasons for their popularity. The (...) author concludes that although the examined arguments are unconvincing as slippery slope arguments, they do matter in this context. While positive slippery slope arguments serve as a driving force to fuel the development of pharmacogenetics, their negative counterparts play an important role to sensitise policy makers and the public to potential problems. (shrink)

Introduction: the question of reason -- The Frankfurt School critique of reason -- Habermas's communicative rationality -- Macintyre's tradition-constituted reason -- A substantive reason -- Beyond relativism: reasonable progress and learning from -- Conclusion: toward a Thomistic-Aristotelian critical theory of society.

What is it like to live with the label “Disability?” NIB editorial staff and narrative symposium editors, Jeffery Bishop and Naomi Sunderland developed a call for stories, which was sent to several list serves, shared with the 1000 Voices Project community and posted on Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics ’ website. The request for personal stories from people who identify with the label “disabled” asked them to: consider how the label “disability” interacts with other aspects of their life in health (...) care settings; does the term “disability” reflect their actual embodied experiences of impairment or does it fail to do justice to their particular experience of impairment; describe the kind of experiences that are possible because of the impairment(s); discuss how the label has affected their “authentic voice”; and many other concepts about what effects the label has on their lives. These authors share deeply personal experiences that will help readers understand their world, challenges, and joys. Thirteen stories are found in the print version of the journal and an additional five supplemental stories are published online only through Project MUSE. The stories are complemented by four commentary articles by Elizabeth R. Schiltz; Lorna Hallahan; Nicole Matthews, Kathleen Ellem, and Lesley Chenoweth; and Jeffery Bishop, Rachelle Barina, and Devan Stahl. These scholars come from the disciplines of law, social work, media studies, medicine, and bioethics from Australia and the United States. Together, the symposium’s storytellers and commentators offer striking and informative insights into the everydayness of living with disabilities. (shrink)

Notwithstanding the numerous critiques that have been leveled at the field of positive psychology over its short history, the field and its practitioners continue to enjoy substantial growth and popularity. Although several factors have no doubt contributed to their advancement, work in the field of science studies suggests that rhetorical demarcation in scientific writing, by which scientific fields establish their domains and distinguish themselves from other forms of intellectual activity, may be equally significant. Such “boundary work” is an important means (...) through which fields defeat their competitors, persuade their public, and compete for legitimacy. In light of this, I examine the discursive demarcation and legitimization of positive psychology as performed through historical narratives of its origins in its own writings. I offer an analysis of the ways in which these narratives exploit alternating and contradictory images of scientists, legitimate scientific activity, and in particular, images of American society, to perform the ideological and rhetorical work of describing, and making visible, the kinds of issues and problems for which positive psychology presents itself as the natural solution. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)