Decades of empirical and theoretical research has produced an extensive literature on the ethical judgments construct. Given its importance to understanding people’s ethical choices, future research should explore the psychological processes that produce ethical judgments. In this paper, the authors discuss two steps needed to advance this effort. First, they note that the business ethics literature lacks a single, generally accepted definition of ethical judgments. After reviewing several extant definitions, the authors offer a definition of the construct and discuss its (...) advantages. Second, future ethical judgment research would benefit from greater integration between theories of ethical decision making and theories of social cognition. Drawing upon the Hunt–Vitell ( Journal of Macromarketing 6 (Spring), 5–15, 1986 ; In: N. C. Smith and J. A. Quelch (eds.), Ethics in Marketing . Irwin, Homewood, IL, pp. 775–784, 1992 ) model and the heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39 (November), 752–766, 1980 ), the authors present a brief research agenda intended to stimulate research on the psychological processes behind ethical judgments. (shrink)

Contrary to what might be expected given a religious or other motivation, Pierre Duhem's interest in mediaeval science was the result of his surprise encounter with Jordanus de Nemore while working on Les origines de la statique in the late autumn of 1903. Historical assumptions common among physicists at that time may explain this surprise, which occasioned a frantic search for more mediaeval precursors for Renaissance mechanics. It also raised serious historiographical problems that threatened even his methodological views, until they (...) were resolved in his To save the phenomena of 1908. (shrink)

This paper first appeared in Modern Theology, Vol. 6, No. 3, July 1989. Copyright (c) Basil Blackwell Publisher Ltd., Oxford. Reprinted by permission.

Writers on jurisprudence often stress that conflict between positive laws and morality does not invalidate the positive laws. A law which requires me to compensate another for an injury caused by a dangerous object kept on my property is not invalidated by the fact that I have not been negligent and have no moral obligation to compensate the injured person. And although I have a moral obligation to keep my promises, positive laws may validly imply that I need not keep (...) promises not made for a consideration or under seal. Thus positive law may permit acts not permitted by morals and may forbid acts permitted by morals. The lesson drawn from these thoughts is that to establish a positive law as valid we need not consider the relationships it bears to the rules of morals. A valid law is simply a law created in accordance with the constitutional conventions or ‘rules of recognition’ of the society in which it is to be applied. It is the manner of its establishment, not its relationship to morals, which makes a law valid. (shrink)

The aim of the essay is to devise a logic of conditionality which escapes the paradoxes which arise when the general conditional is identified with the universalization of the material conditional. The assumption I adopt is that the logic of one contingent form differs from that of another to the extent that the two forms have different confirmations and disconfirmations. The logic of conditionals is not, But that of their confirmations and disconfirmations is, At bottom truth-Functional; and the logical relations (...) between conditionals, And between conditionals and non-Conditionals, May be traced through the truth-Functional connections between their respective confirmations and disconfirmations. The approach necessitates the re-Definition of the notions of confirmation and entailment. A peculiarity of the system which emerges is that from it can be derived, Without existential assumptions, The twenty-Four valid forms of the syllogism, The relationships of the square of opposition and the other commonly accepted inferences of traditional logic. (shrink)

Is an ethical leader an oxymoron? Society demands and expects greater accountability from organizational leaders. The literature on leadership, especially business leadership, has neglected ethical issues by focusing only on those approaches and strategies that emphasize self-centred, individualistic concerns. How ever, true and effective leadership is one in which the leader's behaviour and the exercise of the leadership influence process are consistent with ethical and moral values. The authors argue that our understanding of leadership is incomplete, if not deformed, if (...) it does not include the three critical dimensions of ethical leadership. (shrink)

The nature of quantum waves, whether they are real physical waves or, on the contrary, mere probability waves, has been a very controversial theme since the beginning of quantum theory. Here we present some possible experiments that may clarify the problem.

SummaryEarly geological investigations in the St David's area (Pembrokeshire) are described, particularly the work of Murchison. In a reconnaissance survey in 1835, he regarded a ridge of rocks at St David's as intrusive in unfossiliferous Cambrian; and the early Survey mapping (chiefly the work of Aveline and Ramsay) was conducted on that assumption, leading to the publication of maps in 1845 and 1857. The latter represented the margins of the St David's ridge as ‘Altered Cambrian’. So the supposedly intrusive ‘syenite’ (...) was regarded as younger, and there was no Precambrian. These views were challenged by a local doctor, Henry Hicks, who developed an idea of the ex-Survey palaeontologist John Salter that the rocks of the ridge were stratified and had formed a Precambrian island, round which Cambrian sediments (now confirmed by fossil discoveries) had been deposited. Hicks subsequently proposed subdivision of his Precambrian into ‘Dimetian’, ‘Pebidian’, and (later) ‘Arvonian’, and he attempted correlations with rocks in Shropshire, North Wales, and even North America, seeking to develop the neo-Neptunist ideas of Sterry Hunt. The challenge to the Survey's work was countered in the 1880s by the Director General, Geikie, who showed that Hicks's idea of stratification in the Dimetian was mistaken. A heated controversy developed, several amateur geologists, supported by a group of Cambridge Sedgwickians, forming a coalition of ‘Archaeans’ against the Survey. Geikie was supported by Lloyd Morgan. Attention focused particularly on Ogof Lle-sugn Cave and St Non's Arch, with theory/controversy-ladenness of observations evident on both sides. Evidence from an eyewitness student record of a Geological Society meeting reveals the ‘sanit`ized’ nature of the official summary of the debate in QJGS. Field mapping early in the twentieth century by J. F. N. Green allowed a compromise consensus to be achieved, but Green's evidence for unconformity between the Cambrian and the Dimetian, obtained by excavation, can no longer be verified, and his consensual history of the area may need revision. Unconformity between the Cambrian and the Pebidian tuffs is not in doubt, however, and Precambrian at St David's is accepted. The study exhibits features of geological controversy and the British geological community in the nineteenth century. It also furnishes a further instance of the great influence of Murchison in nineteenth-century British geology and the side-effects of his controversy with Sedgwick. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.