We propose that people typically reason about realistic situations using neither content-free syntactic inference rules nor representations of specific experiences. Rather, people reason using knowledge structures that we term pragmatic reasoning schemas, which are generalized sets of rules defined in relation to classes of goals. Three experiments examined the impact of a “permission schema” on deductive reasoning. Experiment 1 demonstrated that by evoking the permission schema it is possible to facilitate performance in Wason's selection paradigm for subjects who have had (...) no experience with the specific content of the problems. Experiment 2 showed that a selection problem worded in terms of an abstract permission elicited better performance than one worded in terms of a concrete but arbitrary situation, providing evidence for an abstract permission schema that is free of domain-specific content. Experiment 3 provided evidence that evocation of a permission schema affects not only tasks requiring procedural knowledge, but also a linguistic rephrasing task requiring declarative knowledge. In particular, statements in the form if p then q were rephrased into the form p only if q with greater frequency for permission than for arbitrary statements, and rephrasings of permission statements produced a pattern of introduction of modals totally unlike that observed for arbitrary conditional statements. Other pragmatic schemas, such as “causal” and “evidence” schemas can account for both linguistic and reasoning phenomena that alternative hypotheses fail to explain. (shrink)

In commerce, many moral failures are due to narrow mindsets that preclude taking into account the moral dimensions of a decision or action. In turn, sometimes these mindsets are caused by failing to question managerial decisions from a moral point of view, because of a perceived authority of management. In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram conducted controversial experiments to investigate just how far obedience to an authority figure could subvert his subjects' moral beliefs. In this thought-provoking work, the authors examine (...) the prevalence of narrow mental models and the phenomenon of obedience to an authority to analyse and understand the challenges which business professionals encounter in making ethical decisions. Obstacles to Ethical Decision-Making proposes processes - including collaborative input and critique - by which individuals may reduce or overcome these challenges. It provides decision-makers at all levels in an organisation with the means to place ethical considerations at the heart of managerial decision-making. (shrink)

This study developed and tested a model of culture’s effect on budgeting systems, and hypothesized that system variables and reactions to them are influenced by culture-specific work-related and ethical values. Most organizational and behavioral views of budgeting fail to acknowledge the ethical components of the problem, and have largely ignored the role of culture in shaping organizational and individual values. Cross-cultural differences in reactions to system design variables, and in the behaviors motivated or mitigated by those variables, has implications for (...) the design and effectiveness of budgeting systems. The data largely support our research model, demonstrating the hypothesized national cultural differences in system design variables (e.g., participation, standards tightness, budget emphasis, etc. which we characterized as the opportunity and incentives to create budgetary slack), and the expected relationship between incentives (but not opportunity) to create slack and slack creation behavior. The data demonstrate hypothesized cultural differences in ethical ideology but show ethical ideology related to slack creation behavior only for U.S. managers. A discussion of the results and their implications is included. (shrink)

Although the right to health is universal, many nations that honor it fail to do so in the case of non-citizen immigrants. In this essay, we argue that the reasons typically given for not extending the right to health to immigrants are without merit and that there are good reasons for nations to protect, respect and fulfill the health right of all immigrants. Contrary to the standard view, we argue that health can be understood as a global public good. Two (...) important points follow: because health is non-excludable and non-rivalrous, it is in the health interests of nations to respect, protect and fulfill immigrants’ right to health. Furthermore, meeting the health needs of immigrants is an important way for receiving nations to meet the duties that may be generated by the benefits they incur as a result of health’s global public good dimension, thus ensuring that receiving nations are not free riders. We then argue that because citizens and immigrants dwell together, nations have duties of solidarity to immigrants with respect to health. Using the insights of social psychology, we show that solidarity among diverse people is both a reasonable expectation and a morally desirable one. (shrink)

It is now a platitude that sexual objectification is wrong. As is often pointed out, however, some objectification seems morally permissible and even quite appealing—as when lovers are so inflamed by passion that they temporarily fail to attend to the complexity and humanity of their partners. Some, such as Nussbaum, have argued that what renders objectification benign is the right sort of relationship between the participants; symmetry, mutuality, and intimacy render objectification less troubling. On this line of thought, pornography, prostitution, (...) and some kinds of casual sex are inherently morally suspect. I argue against this view: what matters is simply respect for autonomy, and whether the objectification is consensual. Intimacy, I explain, can make objectification more morally worrisome rather than less, and symmetry and mutuality are not relevant. The proper political and social context, however, is crucial, since only in its presence can consent be genuine. I defend the consent account against the objection that there is something paradoxical in consenting to objectification, and I conclude that given the right background conditions, there is nothing wrong with anonymous, one-sided, or just-for-pleasure kinds of sexual objectification. (shrink)

We propose a semantic analysis of the particles afinal (European Portuguese) and alla fine (Italian) in terms of the notion of truth unpersistence, which combines both epistemic modality and constraints on discourse structure. We argue that the felicitous use of these modal particles requires that the truth of a proposition p* fail to persist through a temporal succession of epistemic states, where p* is incompatible with the proposition modified by afinal/alla fine, and that the interlocutors share knowledge of a previous (...) epistemic attitude toward p*. We analyze two main cases, that of plan-related propositions and that of propositions without plans. We also discuss the connections between truth unpersistence and evidentiality. (shrink)

This paper provides a semantic analysis of the particles afinal (European Portuguese) and alla fine (Italian) in terms of the notion of truth unpersistence, which can be situated at the intersection of epistemic modality and discourse structure. In the analysis proposed, the particles are propositional operators and require that the truth of a proposition p* fail to persist through a temporal succession of epistemic states, this proposition being incompatible with the prejacent, and that the interlocutors share knowledge of a previous (...) epistemic attitude toward p*. We analyze two main cases (plan-related and non plan-related propositions) and also show that these particles are indexical to one (or more) epistemic agent(s) and allow for shifts in perspective. (shrink)

This paper argues that corporate governance reformers in Anglo-American jurisdictions should consider a different approach in their quest for better corporate governance. Traditionally, corporate governance reform has taken a structural approach, tightening the rules around the number of independent directors required on boards and committees and fine-tuning the definition of independence. However, such an approach has failed to achieve effective corporate governance. Moreover, this approach is informed by the arguably discredited assumption that individuals are rational self-interest utility maximizers. This conceptual (...) paper questions why corporate governance scholars and regulators remain uncritical of this assumption and suggests an approach to reform inspired by a different view of human nature. Indeed, incorporating an actor-based approach to reform into existing structures may better achieve effective corporate governance while addressing an unjustified adherence to this flawed assumption. (shrink)

Much modern science and ethics debate is on high-profile problems such as animal organ transplantation, genetic engineering and fetal tissue research, in discourse that assumes technical tones. Other work, such as narrative ethics, expresses the failed promise of technology in the vivid detail of human experience. However, the essential nature of contemporary technology remains largely opaque to our present ethical lens on health care and on society. The limited controversies of modern science and ethics perpetuate ‘technics’, a technical, problem-solving mindset (...) that fails to grapple successfully with the complexity of technology. A critical dialectic between practice and scholarship widens the ethical conversation in nursing to consider technology as an ongoing set of daily and fundamental moral choices on how we live. Critical text on technology recovers ethics from the limits of technics, and assists nurses to develop an inherent knowedge of technology that is needed to provide ethical care in a technological world. (shrink)

Much modern science and ethics debate is on high-profile problems such as animal organ transplantation, genetic engineering and fetal tissue research, in discourse that assumes technical tones. Other work, such as narrative ethics, expresses the failed promise of technology in the vivid detail of human experience. However, the essential nature of contemporary technology remains largely opaque to our present ethical lens on health care and on society. The limited controversies of modern science and ethics perpetuate ‘technics’, a technical, problem-solving mindset (...) that fails to grapple successfully with the complexity of technology. A critical dialectic between practice and scholarship widens the ethical conversation in nursing to consider technology as an ongoing set of daily and fundamental moral choices on how we live. Critical text on technology recovers ethics from the limits of technics, and assists nurses to develop an inherent knowedge of technology that is needed to provide ethical care in a technological world. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Introduction Anti ‐ Realism and Meaning Two Types of Anti ‐ Realism What Functions Are “Language ‐ Games” Supposed to Serve? Realism and (Dummett's) Anti ‐ Realism Resisting Transcendentalism Wittgensteinian Realism References.

Although it is now fifteen years since G. Williams' thorough-going criticism of B. Axelson's Unpoetische Wörter, his discussion has failed to elicit the adverse response which might have been expected in view of the widespread influence exerted by the earlier work. The reason for this may be that Axelson's theory is so widely accepted that any refutation thereof may be disregarded. Yet surely Williams was right to point to the dangers of total reliance on statistics and to the necessity of (...) considering the contexts in which words occur in Latin poetry. In this respect, he was not so much rejecting Axelson's work as pointing to its inadequacies: whereas Axelson would be content to label a word that occurs only rarely in poetry as ‘unpoetisch’, it is necessary, as Williams demonstrates, to take the further step of determining the effect that such a word has in a given context. This approach will be particularly helpful, for example, in the case of parvulus at Virg. Aen. 4.328, where the heightened pathos achieved by Virgil's use of a diminutive is better appreciated by the reader who is aware of the scarcity of diminutive adjectives in poetry and in epic above all. To recognise parvulus as an ‘unpoetic word’, with Axelson, is the essential first step, but we should proceed a stage further to inquire what effect was intended by the employment of a form not normally found in elevated poetry. Of greater importance is Williams' rejection of the ‘hierarchy of genres’ theory, taken for granted by Axelson, that is, that Latin poetry may be divided into a number of higher- or lower-ranking genres and that the more elevated a genre the less unpoetic vocabulary it is liable to employ. (shrink)

This dissertation examines Locke's influence on moralists of the eighteenth century. I will show how Locke's moral theory and the problems it raises set the tenor of moral discussion for subsequent theorists. My analysis does not rely upon proving explicit and direct influences of Locke on the theorists I examine. Rather, I want to show that Locke's influence was more general and systemic than would be revealed through the search for explicit debts and appropriations. Locke's attempt to produce a moral (...) epistemology took for granted the assumptions of a traditional realist and rationalist natural law theory. In Locke we find an early and quite unique attempt to work out an epistemology of natural law that assumes neither innatism nor Hobbism. Locke endeavoured to find an account of natural law consistent with his own anti-innatist empiricism that might still support a realist conception of moral law. With this aim, he established the terms of moral theorizing for subsequent eighteenth century thinkers. As I will show, Locke's moral epistemology fails to fully cohere the presuppositions of his own realism and his commitment to natural law. In subsequent thinkers, we see attempts to solve this problem while maintaining Locke's basic moral assumptions. I look specifically at the works of Samuel Clarke, Francis Hutcheson, and Catharine Trotter Cockburn. What unites these theorists are the broad goals of establishing morality upon necessary and universal laws and of developing moral epistemologies that avoid both moral innatism and Hobbesian constructivism. More specifically, each is working to establish an epistemology that makes moral laws intuitively certain while maintaining a metaphysics of morality that relates moral law to the general teleological order of the universe. Despite the specific differences in their views, they can all seen to be working within a broadly Lockean frame of reference. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Truth Will Set You Free, or How a Troubled Philosophical Theory May Help to Understand How People Talk About Their AddictionPatricia A. Ross (bio)Keywordsveridicality of narrative, contingency of theories, belief-behavior, causal connectionConsider the following proposition: If one were to recognize the unsatisfactory implications of maintaining a certain theoretical position, one would thereby be motivated to accept a more adequate theory, which would alter one's beliefs and, in turn, (...) alter the behaviors that are based upon those beliefs. Faith in this proposition is what motivates many of us to teach. But, alas...Allison Mitchell's argument for rethinking addiction intervention—in particular, rethinking twelve-step programs—is premised on this proposition. According to her argument, addicts function with an impoverished sense of self that is reflective of a grossly simplified form of philosophical materialism. By recognizing the limitations of this philosophically unconvincing view, and by, in effect, accepting a better, more complete materialism, addicts can come to modify their self-conception. This modification is instrumental to recovery.A careful consideration of the chain of events being proposed, and the problems with it, is helpful for understanding the limitations of her argument. There are four points that I consider in turn: (1) considering narratives can tell us something about the self-conception of addicts, (2) philosophical materialism can help us to understand and explain something about an addict's self-conception and how it is inadequate, (3) this sense of self is distinct from nonusers and the way in which it is distinct helps to understand the problem of addiction, and (4) a change in self-conception with respect to materialism helps recovery and, thus, our best intervention is one based on having addicts accept a full materialist theory of the self and not a pretheoretic one. [End Page 227]With respect to the first point, it should be noted that Mitchell's overall argument does not depend on whether or not it is true that narratives of addiction tell us something veridical about the self-conception of addicts. Such narratives may simply provide us with a potential theory—a possible worlds scenario—of how addicts conceive of themselves. Mitchell points this out herself. The narratives and the interpretation that she provides of these narrative, "are meant only to highlight a certain pattern of self-expression and conception that may in fact be common in persons who use mind-altering substances; the readings do not establish any empirical matters of fact or philosophical truths, nor do they prove any conclusions about how such persons (must) express themselves or conceive their nature" (Mitchell 2006, 214).Thus, what the argument is actually concerned with are the theoretical claims about the self-conception of addicts that are garnered from these narratives. Nevertheless, because the narratives provide the starting point for Mitchell's argument, it is worth thinking carefully about the epistemic status of this body of literature. In particular, could a consideration of such literature lead us astray in our endeavors to understand how addicts might misconceive of themselves and, if so, in what way? What sort of epistemic status does this information hold?Mitchell is motivated by Wittgensteinian analyses of the relationship between thought and language. The particular idea that she employs from Wittgenstein is that every act of self-expression, whether it is verbal or written narrative, reveals something about the conceptual framework with which the author is working. Thus, one can learn about the author of a narrative—one can acquire a sense of how that individual conceives of him- or herself—by looking at the language that is employed to talk about and describe him- or herself.Mitchell enumerates some problems with this approach. She mentions that the author may fail to make his or her intended sense clear to readers; that the reader's narrative expectations determine the interpretation given to the narrative; that literary narrative may be less direct, less ordinary than everyday uses of language; and that interpreting such narrative via philosophical framework may ascribe to people positions that are more precise and sophisticated than they actually intend (p. 213).Aside from these quite serious problems, it is necessary to recognize... (shrink)

This paper is a critical discussion of Simon Blackburn’s recent work on lust. Blackburn develops a view on which lust is decent only when part of a pure mutuality in sex, and is best left alone—we ought not tamper with its “freedom of flow.” I argue that this treatment, which I believe reflects commonly held views, fails in several ways. First, it does not square with the fact that we pursue lust as a good in itself. Second, pure mutuality is (...) hard to come by and almost impossible to recognize, so Blackburn’s account is more restrictive than it may seem. Third, on such a view, masturbation is morally sanctioned only insofar as it mimics real sex; this doesn’t seem right. Finally, such a perspective fits ill with some recent research on the biology of lust in women. (shrink)

On an expressivist view, ethical claims are understood as expressions of our attitudes, desires, and feelings. A famous puzzle for this view concerns the use of logic in ethical reasoning, and two standard treatments try to solve the puzzle by explaining logical inconsistency in terms of conflicting attitudes. I argue, however, that this general strategy fails: because we can reason effectively even in the presence of conflicting moral attitudes – in cases of moral dilemmas – avoiding these conflicts cannot be (...) a ground for correct moral reasoning. The result is a dilemma for expressivists: if they take all kinds of attitudes to be under consideration, then conflict cannot play the required role, since attitudes can fail to be compatible in cases of moral conflict. If they restrict attention to ‘all-in attitudes’ or to intentions or plans, then there is an important notion of obligation, used in standard arguments – one for which conflicts are allowed – that they fail to capture. I explain why expressivists should be especially tolerant of conflicting attitudes, and I conclude that they should pursue a different strategy for grounding logical normativity. (shrink)

This paper is a critical discussion of Simon Blackburn’s recent work on lust. Blackburn develops a view on which lust is decent only when part of a pure mutuality in sex, and is best left alone—we ought not tamper with its “freedom of flow.” I argue that this treatment, which I believe reflects commonly held views, fails in several ways. First, it does not square with the fact that we pursue lust as a good in itself. Second, pure mutuality is (...) hard to come by and almost impossible to recognize, so Blackburn’s account is more restrictive than it may seem. Third, on such a view, masturbation is morally sanctioned only insofar as it mimics real sex; this doesn’t seem right. Finally, such a perspective fits ill with some recent research on the biology of lust in women. (shrink)

Within the domain of philosophy, it is not unusual to hear the claim that most questions about the nature of consciousness are essentially and absolutely beyond the scope of science, no matter how science may develop in the twenty-first century. Some things, it is pointed out, we shall never _ever_ understand, and consciousness is one of them (Vendler 1994, Swinburne 1994, McGinn 1989, Nagel 1994, Warner 1994). One line of reasoning assumes that consciousness is the manifestation of a distinctly nonphysical (...) thing, and hence has no physical properties that might be explored by techniques suitable to physical things. Dualism, as this view is known, is still to be found among those within the tradition of Kant and Hegel, as well as among some with religious convictions. Surprisingly, however, strenuous foot-dragging is evident even among philosophers of a materialist conviction. Indeed, one might say that it is the philosophical fashion of the 90's to pronounce consciousness unexplainable, and to find the explanatory aspirations of neurobiology to be faintly comic if not rather pitiful. The very word, "reductionism" has come to be used more or less synonymously with "benighted-scientism-run-amok", where scientistm apparently means "applying scientific techniques to domains where they are inapplicable." McGinn, perhaps the most unblushing of the naysayers, insists that we cannot expect even to make any headway on the problem. (p. 114) Ironically perhaps, here we are at a conference in honor of Dr. Herbert Jasper who was a great pioneer in moving neuroscience forward on this problem, and where results will be presented allegedly _showing_ additional progress on the problem. Because I am quite optimistic about future scientific progress on the nature of consciousness, my aim here, as a philosopher, is to address the most popular and influential of the skeptical arguments, and to explain why I find them unconvincing. Thus the overall form of the paper is negative, in the sense that I want to show why a set of naysaying arguments fail. (shrink)

My Back Is To A Life Passed. A year, maybe more, in liminal space. Waiting. For a vaccine. For better therapeutics. For a political climate to shift. All the while, the actual climate turns against us.The waters rise in the East. Fires rage in the West.My back is to a life passed. Retirement, just before the pandemic. Post-retirement and lockdown, simultaneous. A turn to a writing life—solitary, self-directed, coming at a time when my options are limited. My go-to places for (...) connection and inspiration—museums, coffeehouses, lectures, and readings—all off-limits. The natural world, my cathedral, also inaccessible. The fires rage, and the air is unbreathable.Over morning coffee, in our quiet house, the windows shut against dangerously high particulates and a darkened sky, I read an article by Julian Lucas in The New Yorker, “When a Virus Becomes a Muse.” He reviews the work of Hervé Guibert, the French writer who died from AIDS in 1991. Guibert focused on the body. His young, sexual body, with its confounding insistence. His failing body, ravaged by disease. AIDS was his muse, blasting him into a wildly creative few years, writing four books in the last three years of his life (Lucas).How will this virus, the novel coronavirus, serve as muse? The pandemic sets limits: Where can I go? Who can I see? I live within constructs and limitations imposed much like the rules of poetic form. Within those—the sonnet, the haiku—how is language wrought? How sharp, how bright, its expression? If I cannot hug you, how do I show my devotion? In my separate state, how do I live connection? I have a new expression. Mouth and nose covered, only my eyes showing, framed by glasses I need in order to see, I punctuate exchanges at the checkout counter, and with the health-check staff at the entrance to my daughter's physical therapy facility, by forcing my eyes into a warm, glad squint. I want them to beam. From people's responses—the moment of recognition, the tender mirroring, the body tilting to the side, eyes crinkled, head nodding—I can tell that the beam is working. It took time to develop this new way. I learned that I have to smile with my mouth, with my whole face, even when it can't be seen, for my feelings to show.Life, like art, requires structure, the boundaries of form. How to structure a day? It could be embodied. Filled. Wasted. Or used. My back is to a life where hours and minutes had a particular meaning. I am no longer expected at work by a certain hour, nor to put in three hours before my morning break. The collective future, where we tossed plans, goals, places we would see—again, or for the first time!—cannot be reached over the smoothed and worn stepping-stones of, say, weeks until a holiday. The broad swaths of the day become the new metric. The slow, mounting morning. A walk, or a longer one, before getting to the bulk of the day's writing. The noontime pivot, heat of the day rising, the birds quiet. Lunch, and a few chores. Essential errands. Medical appointments.The downslope of afternoon, with its nagging refrain, in the time you have left... The swirling, heated world. Greta Thunberg, 16 years old, sails from Europe to the United States to address a conference on climate change. She sails, rather than flies, so as not to add to her carbon footprint. It takes time, that voyage. She waits on deck while moving toward her future. The past recedes. The stormy Atlantic rises.Is it any clearer now that the food chain originates not in boardrooms but in hot fields, that the first essential worker drops from the back of a truck before sunup with a knife and a crate held in roughened, swollen hands?At night, sitting on the sofa, we watch television, the police procedurals that offer entertainment. Escape and relief. The day has passed. These are the rewards for getting through another day of uncertainty, managing the anxiety of risking exposure in order to get groceries and prescriptions and to bring my daughter to physical therapy. The TV detectives we favor work in teams as they interview suspects, talk to witnesses, confer with one another as they refine their theories and move photographs and bits of evidence around on the bulletin board. Our shows always tie up nicely in the end. In my life now, without the team or the interviews or the meetings that keep the detectives connected, I pretend that I am one of them, that my notebooks and plot maps and drawings and time lines are all clues to a mystery that I will solve. Despite my enervated state, I get up, I work, I look at and handle all the materials I have acquired. The day passes. Each night, a reward for getting through the day. Another day. Standing between worlds. Waiting. (shrink)

This paper examines Ronald Dworkin's claim that the right to free speech does not include a right to circumstances that encourage citizens to speak nor a right to competent and sympathetic understanding on the part of listeners. Drawing on familiar arguments for the existence of other human rights, the paper challenges Dworkin's claim. Even if, however, the challenge fails and it is not possible to show that there is such a right, that is not the end of the story. It (...) is argued that democratic societies should try to foster conditions in which citizens are encouraged to speak and are listened to sympathetically in the interests of the well-being and flourishing of the polity. The important role education has to play in this is explored. (shrink)

We can see from the analysis set out here that the two accounts that were the focus of consideration are complementary to one another. It has been my contention that a problem like specifying a concept such as ‘refrain’ is highly complex. One part of it is the problem of determining the relation between the action (or event) and the result. Another part of the problem is that of describing the event itself; what kind of an event is it? These (...) two projects are related and so it is clear that the results must be consistent. However, it is equally clear that the definition which is useful for one project is not the same as that which is helpful for another. The point is that it should not be assumed that an account that initially looks incompatible with one's own must be refuted. It is sometimes better to consider what is needed for a complete account, and whether many different approaches may contribute pieces to the puzzle.We have here one puzzle piece: an analysis of refraining. It should not be assumed that we have thereby completed the puzzle of omission, but omission can be approached the same way; that is, by coordinating parallel projects.Accordingly, the first benefit of the present analysis is that it sets up an approach which is modular in nature. It allows for parallel projects to be pursued separately and coordinated. This kind of approach is sorely needed in this area to counter unproductive dispute.To see how such an approach can be applied to further problems profitably consider the following persistent controversy. Many philosophers are at odds over the importance of the notion of duty, or more informally, reasonable expectation in the understanding of refraining. A number of them (e.g., Hart and Honore, John Casey, and Phillipa Foot) hold that the determining feature for the ascription of responsibility to an agent for not doing something to prevent a harm (say, a death) is the presence of a duty or reasonable expectation that the agent do something about the situation. For example, John Casey holds, “If a man does not do x, we cannot properly say that his not doing x is the cause of some result y, unless in the normal course of events he could have been expected to do x.” Casey, Actions and Consequences (1978).Other philosophers object that a person can cause a result by refraining from (causally) preventing it, and that such an event can be explained without any reference to duty. These two views appear to conflict, but in fact they are both right (but both incomplete). The reason that the above statements are generally thought to constitute a disagreement is that ‘refrain’ is generally taken as the fundamental term of analysis for omissions. Thus, if Casey says, “If a man does not do x...” he is taken to mean “...if a man refrains from doing x...” But he need not mean that. He may mean to say only that the man failed to do x. See my analysis in “Contemplating Failure,” supra note 10. Failing to do something can be, and ordinarily is, thought of as stronger than simple nonaction. But it is much weaker than refraining. For one thing, it has no awareness requirement. Thus, an account like Casey's can explain the ascription of responsibility and the presence of an omission where Green's account (or the account offered here) cannot, and vice versa. Casey's view can explain why we hold (or at least that we hold) responsible the night watchman who forgets to check one of the windows, the bookkeeper who (accidentally) omits an entry in the accounts, or the private duty nurse who fails to prevent a death by falling asleep on the job. No refraining is present in any of these cases. Consequently, any thesis based on refraining alone cannot explain them. But in many cases refraining is precisely what is important, and Green (and others of the same persuasion) are correct to point out that no reference to duty is necessarily required to account for these cases. Analysis based on refraining best explains intentional or conscious omission. Analysis based on duty or reasonable expectation is the only way to explain unconscious omission. More often than not, both elements are present. A complete account of omission needs both. So here again, the better way to view these putatively competing accounts is as parallel projects which work toward a common, but complex end. The approach taken here allows for this kind of much needed coordination. The second benefit of the present analysis is that it clarifies and focuses on the significance of the mental element of refraining. Refraining is conscious omission. Consciousness and omission are its distinguishing features. The effects of seeing the concept this way are pervasive. Here is one example. If I refrain from reporting my full income to the IRS, I have committed fraud, and punitive or even criminal sanctions may be reasonable. If I fail to report my full income through ignorance or mistake (say, I misunderstood the instructions) correcting the error and requiring payment is reasonable, but certainly criminal sanction is not. This oversimplifies the distinction, but it illustrates the focus of my pursuit.With regard to positive actions, law and philosophy have long recognized this important distinction as manifested in the difference between negligence and intentional tort, or manslaughter and murder. Due (I think) to the extraordinary flexibility of language and the weakness and variability of social conventions regarding omissions, this distinction has not been clearly articulated. I think such an analysis is worth pursuing. The present account is one step in that pursuit. (shrink)

To understand better why evidence of student cheating is often ignored, a national sample of psychology instructors was sampled for their opinions. The 127 respondents overwhelmingly agreed that dealing with instances of academic dishonesty was among the most onerous aspects of their profession. Respondents cited insufficient evidence that cheating has occurred as the most frequent reason for overlooking student behavior or writing that might be dishonest. A factor analysis revealed 4 other clusters of reasons as to why cheating may be (...) ignored. Emotional reasons included stress and lack of courage. Difficult reasons included the extensive time and effort required to deal with cheating students. Fear reasons included concern about retaliation or a legal challenge. Denial reasons included beliefs that cheating students would fail anyway and that the worst offenders do not get caught. The reasons why instances of academic dishonesty should be proactively confronted are presented. (shrink)

The key word in the title is 'otherness', since this book aims to show how even Hegel, the master of dialectic, fails to adequately explain the phenomenon of otherness. Desmond claims that the common experience of difference can be thought of from four basic perspectives of which dialectic is one. Dialectic has advantages over two of them, yet the last category, the metaxological, is best able to account for the intentional infinity that human beings have paradoxically within the finite boundaries (...) of the self. The problem is to maintain the self while allowing its driving force, infinite desire, to be open to the world. At the same time, this desire for wholeness must not negate or consume the other. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore loneliness as a primordial call to find accord with the self that, as Kierkegaard claims, is born of spirit. I put Kierkegaard’s Anti-Climacan formula, “the more consciousness, the more self,” to work by examining lamentation over loss of the innocent days of youth as symptomatic of primordial loneliness. In loneliness, I argue, we confound loss of naivete (a developmental change) with loss of innocence (a spiritual failing). While each person is fated to lose naivete, (...) no person loses innocence by developmental necessity. Each person loses innocence by his or her own hand in freedom. (shrink)

An ongoing argument often made by business ethicists is that a singular preoccupation on profitability, will lead, in the long run, to disvalue for all the stakeholders and the communities it affects, and often, economic challenges for the company. On the other hand, we argue, a preoccupation with ethics and CSR as the primary aims of a for-profit company, it is, on its own, like a preoccupation with profitability, unsustainable. Indeed, without economic viability, a company will fail. Both of these (...) contentions point to our conclusion that one must take care in changing habits and rethinking business models. We illustrate through case examples, that merely being ethical and socially responsible is insufficient for the long-term well-being of business just as a preoccupation with profits for their own sake also is insufficient. What is realistic, practical, pragmatic, sustainable and profitable for corporations, and what also serves the interests of multiple stakeholders including those in the communities they serve, is a true balance of ethics, CSR, and economic value-added. Expanding on the recent work of Husted and Allen, we call this a strategic global strategy approach. (shrink)

Samuel Beckett and Jorge Luis Borges have presented 20th century literature with a distinctive gallery of solitary figures who suffer from a series of physiological ailments: invalidism, decrepitude, infirmity and blindness, as well as neurological conditions such as amnesia and autism spectrum disorders. Beckett and Borges were concerned with the dynamics between illness and creativity, the literary representation of physical and mental disabilities, the processes of remembering and forgetting, and the inevitability of death. This article explores the depiction of physically (...) and mentally disabled characters in Borges' Funes the Memorious (1942)—a story about an Uruguayan gaucho who has been left paralysed after a fall from a horse which simultaneously endowed him with an infallible memory and perception—and Beckett's Trilogy: Molloy (1951), Malone Dies (1951) and The Unnamable (1953). It examines the prodigious memory of Funes and the forgetful minds of Molloy and Malone with reference to influential neuropsychological studies such as Alexander Luria's twofold exploration of memory and forgetfulness in The Mind of a Mnemonist (1968) and The Man with a Shattered World (1972). The article demonstrates that in contrast to Beckett's amnesiacs and Luria's brain-damaged patient, who are able to transcend their circumstances through cathartic writing, Borges' and Luria's mnemonic prodigies fail to achieve anything significant with their unlimited memories and remain imprisoned within their cognitive disabilities. It reveals that medical discourses can provide invaluable insights and lead to a deeper understanding of the minds and bodily afflictions of literary characters. (shrink)

Richards's theory, then, fails on three counts. By illegitimately importing a premise from outside of the theory of evolution in order to construct a valid argument, Richards has failed to achieve his objective of deriving a moral theory exclusively from biological facts. By sliding from a causal use of “ought” to a moral one, Richards commits the fallacy of ambiguity. And by insisting that action from the motive of altruism is moral while claiming that an ethical theory which justifies Hitler's (...) camps must be judged false, Richards has falsified his own ethical theory. (shrink)

A fact of life for farmers, hunter-gatherers, and fishermen in the rural parts of the world are that crops fail, wild resources become scarce, and winds discourage fishing. In this article we approach subsistence risk from the perspective of "coexistence thinking," the simultaneous application of natural and supernatural causal models to explain subsistence success and failure. In southwestern Madagascar, the ecological world is characterized by extreme variability and unpredictability, and the cosmological world is characterized by anxiety about supernatural dangers. Ecological (...) and cosmological causes seem to point to different risk minimizing strategies: to avoid losses from drought, flood, or heavy winds, one should diversify activities and be flexible; but to avoid losses caused by disrespected spirits one should narrow one's range of behaviors to follow the code of taboos and offerings. We address this paradox by investigating whether southwestern Malagasy understand natural and supernatural causes as occupying separate, contradictory explanatory systems (target dependence), whether they make no categorical distinction between natural and supernatural forces and combine them within a single explanatory system (synthetic thinking), or whether they have separate natural and supernatural categories of causes that are integrated into one explanatory system so that supernatural forces drive natural forces (integrative thinking). Results from three field studies suggest that (a) informants explain why crops, prey, and market activities succeed or fail with reference to natural causal forces like rainfall and pests, (b) they explain why individual persons experience success or failure primarily with supernatural factors like God and ancestors, and (c) they understand supernatural forces as driving natural forces, so that ecology and cosmology represent distinct sets of causes within a single explanatory framework. We expect that future cross-cultural analyses may find that this form of "integrative thinking" is common in unpredictable environments and is a cognitive strategy that accompanies economic diversification. (shrink)

American leaders in four realms were studied to assess their views on the helpfulness to workers with family obligations of employers' policies and services. The realms were corporate management, labor unions, the pro-family movement, and the feminist movement. The data were analyzed by leadership realm and gender in relation to policies of two types: scheduling and work arrangements and services and benefits. Gender accounted for the respondents' views better than class or social movement did. Except for feminist men, the men (...) held similar views regardless of leadership realm. The pro-family women differed from the other women in failing to view most services and benefits as particularly helpful to employees. Union and corporate women's favorable views on services and benefits suggest that fundamental change in workplace supports for workers' family obligations could develop if more women became leaders in unions and corporations. (shrink)

Bringing together the expertise of rhetoricians in English and communication as well as media studies scholars, Arguments about Animal Ethics delves into the rhetorical and discursive practices of participants in controversies over the use of nonhuman animals for meat, entertainment, fur, and vivisection. Both sides of the debate are carefully analyzed, as the contributors examine how stakeholders persuade or fail to persuade audiences about the ethics of animal rights or the value of using animals.

We review evidence regarding Tomasello et al.'s proposal that individuals with autism understand intentions but fail socially because of a lack of motivation to share intentions. We argue that they are often motivated to understand others but fail because they lack the perceptual integration skills that are needed to apply their basically intact theory of mind skills in complex social situations.

This is a unique book. It is excellently written, crammed with information, wise and a pleasure to read.' ---Daniel C. Dennett, Tufts University.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Legacy of Parmenides, Eleatic Monism and Later Presocratic Thought by Patricia CurdMitchell MillerPatricia Curd. The Legacy of Parmenides, Eleatic Monism and Later Presocratic Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Pp. xv + 280. Cloth, $45.00.Curd confronts a puzzle in early Greek philosophy. Parmenides’ teaching is traditionally understood as “numerical monism”: “there is only one thing or item in the universe” (66). But his successors, though accepting (...) his key claims that “what-is-not” is not to be thought and becoming must therefore be denied, begin straightaway, without argument, from a plurality of ultimate entities—Anaxagoras from the chremata, Empedocles from his four roots and Love and Strife, Leucippus and Democritus from atoms and the void. Did they peremptorily reject Parmenides’ monism? Did they simply fail to understand it? Curd proposes, instead, that Parmenides was not a “numerical monist” in the first place. Recasting Mourelatos’ notion of speculative predication, she offers accounts of the Aletheia- and the Doxa-sections of the poem in which Parmenides emerges as a “predicational monist.” In the Aletheia, Curd’s Parmenides subjects to critique the predications by which inquiry arrives at the “nature” of something; the “signs” of B8 are the criteria that, in accord with his rejection of negative predications as uninformative, each “nature” must meet. It is not the “universe” but rather each “nature” by itself that must be “a whole of a single kind” (B8.3), “all together one, cohesive” (B8.5–6), and “not divisible” (B8.22)—how many such “natures” a theory may posit is simply not at issue. In the Doxa, Curd’s Parmenides has a twofold purpose: by the “deceptive order of [the goddess’] words” Parmenides poses a test, challenging his hearers to recognize that since “Light” and “Night” are “enantiomorphic opposites” with each in its very “nature” not the other, they fail to meet the criteria of B8; at the same time, he provides a model that we can use to assess or construct cosmological theories. By this interpretation of Parmenides Curd clears the ground for her account of his “legacy.” In her final chapters she offers pointed readings of Anaxagoras, Empedocles, the Atomists, Philolaus, Diogenes of Apollonia, and early Plato, arguing that each adopts Parmenides’ “predicational monism,” affirming the indivisibly one and unchanging character of each of the “natures” fundamental to the sensible world.This major new proposal will be of compelling interest to all scholars of the presocratics. Some possible limitations and basic questions to consider:1. There are significant regions of the proem, of presocratic thought, and of modern commentary yet to be examined. B9, crucial to interpreting the error of mortals at B8.53–54, and the orienting symbolism in the proem are only cursorily treated. Hesiod gets barely a mention in Curd’s otherwise valuable survey of the appeals to opposites in pre-Parmenidean thought. In taking the early Owen’s existential reading of Parmenides’ [End Page 157] esti and her own notion of the “is” of “informative identity” as the two fundamental alternatives, she leaves undiscussed the so-called “fused” predicative-existential reading.2. How narrowly focused does Curd’s reading require us to keep Parmenides’ esti? When she discusses B8, she speaks of “what-is” and “what-is-not.” But if we approach B8 in light of her reading of B2 and read to eon in the context of a speculative predication of the form “x is F,” shouldn’t we speak of it as “what x is”—and of the corresponding negation as “what x is not”? Does Curd seek to preserve the veridical-existential implication of “x is F,” namely, that as the nature that defines x, it is F that truly or most fully exists? Clarification of this issue need not require an either/or choice between senses of “is.” It may well be that to appreciate fully Parmenides’ krisis, “is or is not,” and his paradoxical notion of “nothing,” we need to recover an interplay between speculative-predicative, existential, and veridical nuances—especially if, with Curd, we open ourselves to an unfolding history of perspectives extending all the way to Plato.3. To construe Parmenides as only a “predicational monist” requires... (shrink)

Philosopher, theologian, educational theorist, feminist and political pamphleteer, Mary Astell was an important figure in the history of ideas of the early modern period. Among the first systematic critics of John Locke's entire corpus, she is best known for the famous question which prefaces her Reflections on Marriage: 'If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?' She is claimed by modern Republican theorists and feminists alike but, as a Royalist High Church Tory, the (...) peculiar constellation of her views sits uneasily with modern commentators. Patricia Springborg's study addresses these apparent paradoxes, recovering the historical and philosophical contexts to her thought. She shows that Astell was not alone in her views; rather, she was part of a cohort of early modern women philosophers who were important for the reception of Descartes and who grappled with the existential problems of a new age. (shrink)

In the early years of the twentieth century, Gottlob Frege and David Hilbert, two titans of mathematical logic, engaged in a controversy regarding the correct understanding of the role of axioms in mathematical theories, and the correct way to demonstrate consistency and independence results for such axioms. The controversy touches on a number of difficult questions in logic and the philosophy of logic, and marks an important turning-point in the development of modern logic. This entry gives an overview of that (...) controversy and of its philosophical underpinnings. (shrink)

This essay contrasts Damaris Masham and Catharine Trotter Cockburn’s respective moral philosophies. It argues that their views are both remarkably innovative, yet strikingly similar. By focusing on Masham and Cockburn’s accounts of agency and virtue, it is demonstrated that both thinkers take human nature as a sort of guide to moral behavior – i.e., it shows that the moral agent operates under the perception of moral principles as arising from human nature. While both thinkers are known to have been directly (...) influenced by John Locke, it is also argued that both of their moral philosophies bear significant dissimilarities to Lockean morality. (shrink)

The history of the recovery movement began with a pushback against treatment, and the philosophies that it was founded upon still have relevant applications to contemporary social work practice. Financial aspects of service provision for people with serious mental illnesses have enabled other actors in the medical model of psychosis treatment to benefit, while disempowering and dehumanizing the consumers of those services. Since then, other movements like Psychopolitics and the Mad Movement have helped empower psychosis survivors to advocate for their (...) right to self-determination amid the epistemological pressure to identify as disabled. Social workers would like to believe that the field has moved beyond the philosophies that perpetuated institutionalization of people with serious mental illnesses. Contemporary examples, however, reveal how social services in the US maintain the status quo of sanism for psychosis survivors. (shrink)

The papers from the 2000 symposium of the Royal Society of Canada explore the crucial relationship between science and ethics.

Imagining Dewey' features productive (re)interpretations of 21st century experience using the lens of John Dewey's 'Art as Experience', through the doubled task of putting an array of international philosophers, educators, and artists-researchers in transactional dialogue and on equal footing in an academic text. This book is a pragmatic attempt to encourage application of aesthetic learning and living, ekphrasic interpretation, critical art and agonist pluralism.0There are two foci: (a) Deweyan philosophy and educational themes with (b) analysis and examples of how educators, (...) artists, and researchers envision and enact artful meaning making. This structure meets the needs of university and high school audiences, who are accustomed to learning about challenging ideas through multimedia and aesthetic experience.00Contributors are: James M. Albrecht, Adam I. Attwood, John Baldacchino, Carolyn L. Berenato, M. Cristina Di Gregori, Holly Fairbank, Jim Garrison, Amanda Gulla, Bethany Henning, Jessica Heybach, David L. Hildebrand, Ellyn Lyle, Livio Mattarollo, Christy McConnell Moroye, Maria-Isabel Moreno-Montoro, Maria Martinez Morales, Stephen M. Noonan, Louise G. Phillips, Scott L. Pratt, Joaquin Roldan, Leopoldo Rueda, Tadd Ruetenik, Leisa Sasso, Bruce Uhrmacher, David Vessey, Ricardo Marin Viadel, Sean Wiebe, Li Xu and Martha Patricia Espiritu Zavalza. (shrink)

Human Specialization in Design and Technology explores emerging trends in learning and training-standardization, customization, personalization-with a unique focus on human needs and conditions. Analyzing evidence from current academic research as well as the popular press, this concise volume defines and examines the trajectory of instructional design and technologies toward more human-centered and specialized products, services, processes, environments, and systems. Examples from education, healthcare, business, and other sectors offer real-world demonstrations for scholars and graduate students of educational technology, instructional design, ICT, (...) and business development. (shrink)

Biopolitics and Utopia explores the intersection of biopolitics and utopian thought. As an interdisciplinary work, it addresses many salient biopolitical issues (state and medical interventions in the body, fears over scientific progress, resistance to state biopower, and ethical concerns), while also engaging in the utopian drive behind biopolitical efforts. The book is structured into four main sections: Actions, Speculations, Reactions, and Reflections. The chapters in Actions examine the practices of direct, medical intervention to 'normalize' citizens' bodies. The next section, Speculations, (...) approaches the intersection of utopia and biopolitics through a literary lens, reviewing science fiction texts as expressions of cultural and social fears about scientific progress. Reactions outlines potential acts of resistance in the face of biopower. Finally, Reflections offers a more philosophical essay, which engages the reader in the potential for creating an ethics for scientific standards. (shrink)

One way to discuss personal identity is by distinguishing between specific and numerical types of similar things. Some of the ways in which the individuality of each clone comes out are found in the alterations they make to their alphanumeric designations, uniforms, and living environments. In his important article “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” Harry G. Frankfurt explains that what makes humans unique according to his concept of personhood is their “capacity for reflective self‐evaluation.” The (...) activation of the Fett clones' inhibitor chips with Order 66 represents the intention of the Empire to deprive all the chipped clones of their freedom of action and will. As Frankfurt states, “Suppose, however, that he enjoys both freedom of action and freedom of the will. Then he is not only free to do what he wants to do; he is also free to want what he wants to want.”. (shrink)

Zachariah's description of a wonderful fornicating life for Sam and Dean captures some truth but it also misses the importance women play in shaping the Winchesters' moral decisions. In general, important women in the lives of Sam and Dean fall into three broad categories: mothers, lovers, and monsters. Sam and Dean are all too familiar with this philosophy of utilitarianism. Many times they have sacrificed relationships with women for the sake of their mission. Throughout Supernatural the objectification of the Winchesters (...) is contrasted with a happy domestic life. Sam and Dean are mistaken in thinking that their only value resides in the roles they play in the larger battles of good and evil; if they looked deeper they would see that they both would prefer a loving relationship with a woman. (shrink)