Through an analysis and explication of William James’s writings, such as “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life” and The Varieties of Religious Experience, Michael Slater successfully defends the argument “that on James’s view morality cannot be finally separated from religion, because there are moral goods that only religious faith—and in some cases, only the objects of religious faith—can plausibly bring about” (7). Slater advances this argument by making two significant claims concerning James’s work. First, James’s ethics (...) require “the possession of a morally strenuous attitude” (7). By emphasizing our attitudes and dispositions, rather than the calculations or consequences of our moral actions, Slater .. (shrink)

Confucianism and Catholicism are among the most influential religious traditions and share a long and intricate relationship. Beginning with the work of Matteo Ricci, the nature of this relationship has sometimes generated great debate, which is still alive today. The ten essays in this volume continue and advance this long conversation. Written by specialists in both traditions, the essays are organized into two groups. Those in the first group focus primarily on the historical and cultural contexts in which Confucianism and (...) Catholicism encountered one another in the four major Confucian cultures of East Asia. These essays seek to understand specific figures, texts, and issues in light of those broader contexts. The essays in the second part offer comparative and constructive studies of specific figures, texts, and issues in the Confucian and Catholic traditions from both theological and philosophical perspectives. By bringing these historical and constructive perspectives together, this volume seeks not only to understand the past dialogue between these traditions, but also to renew and reinvigorate the conversation between them today. In light of the unprecedented expansion of Eastern Asian influence in recent decades, and considering the myriad of challenges and new opportunities faced by both the Confucian and Catholic traditions in a world that is rapidly becoming globalized, this volume could not be more timely. Confucianism and Catholicism: Reinvigorating the Dialogue will be of interest to professional theologians, historians, and scholars of religion, as well as those who work in interreligious dialogue. Contributors: Michael R. Slater, Erin M. Cline, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Vincent Shen, Anh Q. Tran, S.J., Donald L. Baker, Kevin M. Doak, Xueying Wang, Richard Kim, Victoria S. Harrison, and Lee H. Yearley. (shrink)

According to a dominant line of interpretation in recent Anglophone Xunzi scholarship, Xunzi conceived of Heaven along impersonal rather than personal lines, and regarded Heaven—together with Earth—roughly as the orderly and indifferent forces of Nature, as opposed to a deity who is aware of and takes an interest in the affairs of human beings; who rewards virtue and punishes vice; whose ways can be known through divination; and who can be propitiated through sacrifice.1 This general view of Xunzi's philosophy has (...) been espoused by a number of leading scholars of Chinese philosophy over the last three decades, including Angus Graham, Benjamin Schwartz, Henry Rosemont, Jr., Roger Ames, Robert Eno, P.J.... (shrink)

William Gavin’s William James in Focus: Willing to Believe is a brief and creative introduction to James’s philosophy aimed at students and non-specialists. As the subtitle of the book suggests, Gavin uses James’s will to believe doctrine as the organizing theme for his interpretation of James’s philosophy. One might initially think that this implies reading the latter in the light of James’s views on religion, but Gavin downplays the religious aspects of James’s will to believe doctrine and focuses instead on (...) its relevance for understanding what he terms the “latent image” of James’s personal life, which according to Gavin is primarily concerned with human mortality and the need to affirm philosophical positions.. (shrink)

This essay examines the textual evidence and arguments for two rival ways of interpreting Xunzi's accounts of the origins and normative bases of ritual and the Way: a human-centered line of interpretation which maintains that the moral order constituted by the Confucian Way and its ritual tradition was the artificial creation of a group of ancient sages, and a Heaven-centered line of interpretation which maintains, in contrast, that those same sages based the Confucian Way and its ritual tradition on a (...) cosmic moral order that they discovered already existing in the world. It argues that the weight of textual evidence best supports a version of the former view, and shows that three representative versions of the latter view do not withstand critical scrutiny. (shrink)

This essay examines one of the most important but understudied aspects of William James’s philosophy, his doctrine of pluralism. It aims to shed new light on the complex and sometimes ambiguous relationship between James’s pluralism and his doctrines of pragmatism and radical empiricism, and shows that his pluralism is a much more pervasive feature of his philosophy than has usually been thought. In particular, the essay shows that James was a pluralist not only in his metaphysical views, but also in (...) his epistemological, ethical, and religious views, and that these latter views are not always clearly dependent upon his pluralistic metaphysics. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a re-reading of "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life," William James's most well known work on ethics. I show that while James defends a naturalistic account of the basis of morality in the essay, he also makes a practical argument for religious faith, one that closely connects the piece to such works as "The Will to Believe" and The Varieties of Religious Experience. After discussing some of the strengths and weaknesses of James's moral theory (...) and metaethical views, I argue that the religious aspect of the essay—which has tended to be either ignored or downplayed by previous interpreters—is of crucial importance for understanding James's ethics, and that his practical argument is valid and worthy of serious consideration. (shrink)

Pragmatism is often thought to be incompatible with realism, the view that there are knowable mind-independent facts, objects, or properties. In this article, I show that there are, in fact, realist versions of pragmatism and argue that a realist pragmatism of the right sort can make important contributions to such fields as religious ethics and philosophy of religion. Using William James's pragmatism as my primary example, I show (1) that James defended realist and pluralist views in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and (...) philosophy of religion, and (2) that these views not only cohere with his pragmatism but indeed are basic to it. After arguing that James's pragmatism provides a credible and useful approach to a number of basic philosophical and religious issues, I conclude by reflecting on some ways in which we can apply and potentially improve James's views in the study of religion. (shrink)

: This essay seeks to contribute to our understanding of William James's ethics by reexamining a classic text—The Varieties of Religious Experience—that is not usually read in an ethical light. It shows that James develops an ethics of human flourishing in Varieties, which he grounds in a "piecemeal supernaturalist" cosmology and account of human nature. It also shows that, under the terms of James's view, religious and ethical issues are fundamentally interconnected, and leading a religious life is a necessary (though (...) not a sufficient) condition of maximal human flourishing. Overall, I show that for James the highest degree of human flourishing can be achieved only through the experience of metaphysical intimacy, or the self's harmonious relationship or unification with "a wider self.". (shrink)

This essay seeks to contribute to our understanding of William James's ethics by reexamining a classic text— The Varieties of Religious Experience—that is not usually read in an ethical light. It shows that James develops an ethics of human flourishing in Varieties, which he grounds in a "piecemeal supernaturalist" cosmology and account of human nature. It also shows that, under the terms of James's view, religious and ethical issues are fundamentally interconnected, and leading a religious life is a necessary (though (...) not a sufficient) condition of maximal human flourishing. Overall, I show that for James the highest degree of human flourishing can be achieved only through the experience of metaphysical intimacy, or the self's harmonious relationship or unification with "a wider self.". (shrink)

This new book by Michael Slater significantly extends the argument articulated in his earlier study of William James on Ethics and Faith, also published by Cambridge University Press. Slater was committed there as here to demonstrating the compatibility of pragmatism with some form of metaphysical realism. There as here he was interested in showing the affinities between James’s thought and certain ideas developed by contemporary analytical philosophers of religion. In Pragmatism and the Philosophy of Religion, however, the (...) scope of analysis is broadened from a focus on James to a consideration of pragmatism more generally conceived. Two early chapters on James are followed by chapters on Charles S. Peirce... (shrink)

Review of extant research on the corporate environmental performance (CEP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) link generally demonstrates a positive relationship. However, some arguments and empirical results have demonstrated otherwise. As a result, researchers have called for a contingency approach to this research stream, which moves beyond the basic question “does it pay to be green?” and instead asks “when does it pay to be green?” In answering this call, we provide a meta-analytic review of CEP–CFP literature in (...) which we identify potential moderators to the CEP–CFP relationship including environmental performance type (e.g., reactive vs. proactive performance), firm characteristics (e.g., large vs. small firms), and methodological issues (e.g., self-report measures). By analyzing these contingencies, this study attempts to provide a basis on which to draw conclusions regarding some inconsistencies and debates in the CEP–CFP research. Some of the results of the moderator analysis suggest that small firms benefit from environmental performance as much or more than large firms, US firms seem to benefit more than international counterparts, and environmental performance seems to have the strongest influence on market-measures of financial performance. (shrink)

Many popular business strategies, such as re-engineering, core competency, and value engineering, may achieve short-term profits by antagonizing workers and alienating customers. We contend that self-actualized companies must create an ethical business environment grounded in three ethical principles. To suggest these principles, which characterize all "volitionist companies", we first review two typical problems and the questionable ways that some companies resolved them. Then, we discuss these principles and compare "volitionism" to three well- known normative ethical theories. Finally, we show (...) that these principles form the core of at least four popular management theories. (shrink)

Individuals are at risk of acquiring untreatable agents of infection when they travel to countries where antibiotic-resistant agents of infection are prevalent, and particularly when they travel for healthcare. Uncertainty with respect to the overall political and economic consequences seems to underlie the reluctance of public health authorities to issue relevant travel advisories. The conditions of choice, the act of choice and the consequences of choice can each be a primary focus of ethical appraisal of public health policy. The ‘value (...) of choice’ account provided by Scanlon draws attention to the value of the choices that individuals are given, and the potential for reasonable rejection of policies that do not give adequate emphasis to the conditions of individual choice. There is both instrumental and symbolic value in informing people of the risk of acquisition of antibiotic-resistant microbes associated with health tourism. We cannot reasonably reject a principle of actively informing unless there are insurmountable countervailing reasons. These reasons should be explicit and subject to review. If health tourism is a concern then we might also consider how best to facilitate alternative choices. (shrink)

It has long been maintained that Descartes believed animals are nothing more than complex living machines. Throughout the centuries many have criticized Descartes for holding such a doctrine, for it has been used by others to justify a total disregard for the well-being of animals. However, a trend in Cartesian scholarship suggests that Descartes’s reputation for justifying cruelty to animals is undeserved because Descartes apparently lacked confidence in the truth of his own doctrine. This paper reviews the arguments calling for (...) a revision of the standard interpretation, examines Descartes’s statements about animal intelligence and consciousness, considers his treatment of animals, and reaffirms the standard interpretation. (shrink)

Ricoeur’s text divides into three parts corresponding to its title: the phenomenology of memory; the epistemology of history; and the hermeneutics of the human historical condition, its “emblem of vulnerability” being “forgetting”. That the words “memory” and “history” appear in the title proves unsurprising. But what of the title’s final word, “forgetting”? The putative “duty of memory” to “not forget” relegates forgetting to a via negativa, the “reverse side of memory”. Ricoeur, however, raises the prospect of a “right of forgetting”, (...) “a positive meaning” for forgetting that entails the “spirit of forgiveness” and “reconciliation”. By reconsidering forgetting, Ricoeur moves toward the praxis of forgiveness beyond epistemological reflections—including the phenomenology of memory and totalizing, Hegelian philosophies of history —and utilitarian ethico-politics, and redresses lacunae in Time and Narrative and Oneself as Another. (shrink)

Luz Seiberth's interpretation of Sellars as a transcendental philosopher promises to change the way we read Sellars. Nonetheless, I dispute two of his central claims: that by depicting ”picturing” as as a transcendental imposition we can see it as addressing a ”vertical” constraint that Kant does not detect; and that Sellars's transcendental philosophy commits him to a Kantian ”necessitarianism” about categorical strucure. Ultimately, I conclude, Seiberth's focus on Sellars's relationship to Kant in particular distorts his understanding of Sellars's peculiar version (...) of a transcendental methodology. (shrink)

It has long been maintained that Descartes believed animals are nothing more than complex living machines. Throughout the centuries many have criticized Descartes for holding such a doctrine, for it has been used by others to justify a total disregard for the well-being of animals. However, a trend in Cartesian scholarship suggests that Descartes’s reputation for justifying cruelty to animals is undeserved because Descartes apparently lacked confidence in the truth of his own doctrine. This paper reviews the arguments calling for (...) a revision of the standard interpretation, examines Descartes’s statements about animal intelligence and consciousness, considers his treatment of animals, and reaffirms the standard interpretation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Altars Where We Worship: The Religious Significance of Popular Culture eds. by Juan M. Floyd-Thomas, Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas, and Mark G. ToulouseMichael R. Fisher Jr.The Altars Where We Worship: The Religious Significance of Popular Culture Juan M. Floyd-Thomas, Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas, and Mark G. Toulouse LOUISVILLE: WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX PRESS, 2016. 250 pp. $25.00The Altars Where We Worship: The Religious Significance of Popular Culture is notable for (...) interested readers of religion and contemporary popular culture. The authors expand scholarly understandings of religion and the sacred, but [End Page 194] more important, the spaces where they appear in society by providing analysis of the religious nature of six aspects of American culture. These "meaning-making" aspects of popular culture function as "altars of worship." They are the body and sex, big business, entertainment, politics, sports, and science and technology. How religious devotion and worship are manifest in everyday life of Americans is fully examined. This book offers an alternative entry to classical secularization debates that have garnered the attention of religious scholars across fields of study. Resisting polarized battle lines in which secularization debates have positioned the death of religion on one hand, and its resilience in industrialized societies on the other hand, this book considers the idiosyncratic nature of secularization by foregrounding historical, national, and local differences that exist in various contexts.The authors argue that "religion is important to Americans. But the religion we practice is often not the religion we confess" (1, emphasis in the original). According to them, Americans basically believe in a serviceable, friendly "God" who meets their every desire and need. In contemporary American culture, the objects that are deemed to fulfill Americans' desires and passions become their God(s) and thus their religion(s). They support their argument by citing studies by the Pew Research Center on "America's Changing Religious Landscape" and "'Nones' on the Rise," which indicate a decrease in religious affiliation among adults and a notable tension between Americans' professed religious beliefs and their actual religious practices. Given these trends, they contend that Americans discover and produce religious meaning in places outside traditional or conventional sacred spaces. Consequently, they confess, Americans have "laid our fair share, if not our all" (186) on the six altars of American popular culture. Thus, though studies indicate a trending decline in traditional religious affiliations, for the authors, this does not "sound the death knell of religion" (185). Religion, they insist, exists in different shapes and practices.In The Religious Experience of Mankind (1969), the religious historian Ninian Smart offers a seven-dimensional scheme for the interpretation of religion: doctrinal, mythological, ethical, ritual, experiential, institutional, and material. This scheme is adopted in the book as a framing device for interpreting the religious nature of popular culture. The sevenfold scheme is paralleled in each of the six chapters dedicated to a particular altar. Making their case, the authors draw on and weave thinkers from across disciplines and over time as critical interlocutors—from Friedrich Nietzsche, Rudolf Otto, Paul Tillich, and Robert Bella to Cornel West, Audre Lord, and bell hooks, among many others—in examining the religious significance of popular culture.Although a truly engaging and provocative book, The Altars Where We Worship is not without challenges. Some readers may find certain categories of analysis underdeveloped. For example, what makes big business or politics sites of popular culture? This line of inquiry may raise questions for readers about what constitutes popular culture in general. Such challenges, however, do not [End Page 195] detract from the overall accomplishments and contributions this book offers the study of religion in the United States.Michael R. Fisher Jr.Vanderbilt UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Research on the nature of science and science education enjoys a longhistory, with its origins in Ernst Mach's work in the late nineteenthcentury and John Dewey's at the beginning of the twentieth century.As early as 1909 the Central Association for Science and MathematicsTeachers published an article – ‘A Consideration of the Principles thatShould Determine the Courses in Biology in Secondary Schools’ – inSchool Science and Mathematics that reflected foundational concernsabout science and how school curricula should be informed by them. Sincethen (...) a large body of literature has developed related to the teaching andlearning about nature of science – see, for example, the Lederman and Meichtry reviews cited below. As well there has been intensephilosophical, historical and philosophical debate about the nature of scienceitself, culminating in the much-publicised ‘Science Wars’ of recent time. Thereferences listed here primarily focus on the empirical research related to thenature of science as an educational goal; along with a few influential philosophicalworks by such authors as Kuhn, Popper, Laudan, Lakatos, and others. Whilenot exhaustive, the list should prove useful to educators, and scholars in otherfields, interested in the nature of science and how its understanding can berealised as a goal of science instruction. The authors welcome correspondenceregarding omissions from the list, and on-going additions that can be made to it. (shrink)

Following and extending the recent tradition of Kierkegaard–Levinas comparativists, this essay offers a Levinasian commentary on salient aspects of Kierkegaard’s ethico-religious deliberations in Works of Love, a text that we are unsure whether or not Levinas actually read. Against some post/modern interpreters, I argue that one should adopt both a Jewish and a Christian perspective (rather than an oversimplified either/or point of view) in exploring the sometimes “seamless passages” between Kierkegaard and Levinas’s thought. The first argument of this essay is (...) that interhuman ethical relationships, as seen by Kierkegaard and Levinas, are premised upon an original asymmetry or inequality. Ethical alterity requires more on the part of the responsible I for the destitute Other. However, this original ethical alterity is not at all the last word in loving and healthy human relationships. In the second section of this study, a dual asymmetry on the part of each participating human yields an “asymmetrical reciprocity,” or in Kierkegaard’s words, “infinity on both sides.” While they are of no concern␣to me, your ethical duties to me are revealed to you upon our face-to-face encounter.Here I offer a Kierkegaardian–Levinasian response to Hegel’s and Buber’s thoughts that humans essentially desire recognition, mutuality, and reciprocity from one another in intersubjective relationships. Hegel and Buber are more or less correct, but when seen from a Kierkegaardian and Levinasian perspective, we are offered resources for understanding more precisely how and why their accounts are accurate. Hegel and Buber offer us the second phase of the argument, whereas Kierkegaard and Levinas show us the first and primary phase of interhuman relationships – the revealed and infinite ethical responsibility to the Other person. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Not In Our Genes: Biology, Ideology, and Human Nature. By R. C. Lewontin, Steven Rose, and Leon J. Kamin.

Despite the presumed frequency of conflicts of interest in scientific peer review, there is a paucity of data in the literature reporting on the frequency and type of conflicts that occur, particularly with regard to the peer review of basic science applications. To address this gap, the American Institute of Biological Sciences conducted a retrospective analysis of conflict of interest data from the peer review of 282 biomedical research applications via several onsite review panels. The overall (...) conflicted-ness of these panels was significantly lower than that reported for regulatory review. In addition, the majority of identified conflicts were institutional or collaborative in nature. No direct financial conflicts were identified, although this is likely due to the relatively basic science nature of the research. It was also found that 65 % of identified conflicts were manually detected by AIBS staff searching reviewer CVs and application documents, with the remaining 35 % resulting from self-reporting. The lack of self-reporting may be in part attributed to a lack of perceived risk of the conflict. This result indicates that many potential conflicts go unreported in peer review, underscoring the importance of improving detection methods and standardizing the reporting of reviewer and applicant conflict of interest information. (shrink)

We consider in this article how the largest corporations in Apartheid South Africa used an in‐house magazine to manipulate their shareholders' perceptions of the current political scenario. We argue that in that era, business felt compelled to respond to the portrayal of events in South Africa presented by the international media. Furthermore, we examine the motivation of business for doing so and why that motivation does not exist in post‐apartheid South Africa.

Management theory and practice are facing unprecedented challenges. The lack of sustainability, the increasing inequity, and the continuous decline in societal trust pose a threat to ‘business as usual’. Capitalism is at a crossroad and scholars, practitioners, and policy makers are called to rethink business strategy in light of major external changes. In the following, we review an alternative view of human beings that is based on a renewed Darwinian theory developed by Lawrence and Nohria. We label this alternative (...) view ‘humanistic’ and draw distinctions to current ‘economistic’ conceptions. We then develop the consequences that this humanistic view has for business organizations, examining business strategy, governance structures, leadership forms, and organizational culture. Afterward, we outline the influences of humanism on management in the past and the present, and suggest options for humanism to shape the future of management. In this manner, we will contribute to the discussion of alternative management paradigms that help solve the current crises. (shrink)

This essay offers a re-assessment of William James’s methodological approach to religion and his theory of religion. It argues that, despite certain shortcomings, James’s views on these matters are both more complex and more credible than many of his critics allow. It also aims to shed new light on some neglected or poorly understood features of his views on religion.

Book reviewed in this article: The Needs of Strangers. By Michael Ignatieff. The Health Economy. By Victor Fuchs. Just Health Care. By Norman Daniels.

Like the ring of fire around the Pacific, conceptual fracture between everyday acceptance of mentality and allegiance to the physical arouses uneasy attention. Theorists have dedicated impressive ingenuity to domestication of belief/desire psychology within a physical worldview; they have enthusiastically welcomed its demise in the wake of inevitable falsification by future science. At least one philosopher has urged that we cross our fingers when attributing intentional states. Rejecting assumptions common to these responses, Scott Sehon proposes that the claims of commonsense (...) psychology cannot and therefore need not be vindicated by inclusion among the truths of physical science, nor can they be threatened by conflict with its findings. Facts about mind are in this sense “foundationless” but still “firm,” by virtue of making possible a view of each other as persons. Central to Sehon’s brief is his proposal that CSP explanations of human behavior are teleological rather than causal, answering questions about the purposes of agents rather than the antecedents of their actions. Sehon takes up a wide range of related issues—Jerry Fodor’s brand of functionalism, Lynne Rudder Baker’s nonreductive “Practical Realism,” relations between global supervenience and entailment, and between causal explanation and Humean moral theory. Sehon does not, however, discuss either consciousness or intentionality beyond noting briefly that the first is very likely apt for reduction, the second, almost certainly not. (shrink)

Memory should make more available things that are more likely to be needed. Across multiple environmental domains, it has been shown that such a system would match qualitatively the memory effects involving repetition, delay, and spacing (Schooler & Anderson, 2017). To obtain data of sufficient size to study how detailed patterns of past appearance predict probability of being needed again, we examined the patterns with which words appear in large two data sets: tweets from popular sources and comments on popular (...) subreddits. The two data sets show remarkably similar statistics, which are also consistent with earlier, smaller studies of environmental statistics. None of a candidate set of mathematical models of memory do well at predicting the observed patterns in these environments. A new model of human memory based on the environmental model proposed by Anderson and Milson (1989) did better at predicting the environmental data and a wide range of behavioral studies that measure memory availability by probability of recall and speed of retrieval. A critical variable in this model was range, the span of time over which an item occurs, which was discovered in mining the environmental data. These results suggest that theories of memory can be guided by mining of the statistical structure of the environment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This remarkable collection of period photographs details day-to-day life and changing times in the Deep South. Draffus Lamar Hightower, 1899-1993, spent most of his life in Barbour County, Alabama. For many years he was the owner of a Chevrolet dealership, but he had another occupation as well. From his youth, he was fascinated with photography, and for fifty years he experimented with the craft both technically and artistically. Hightower, while participating fully in the 20th century, was also acutely aware of (...) the passing of the heritage of the last one. From the early 1920s to the late 1960s, he made thousands of negatives of people, events, landscapes, objects, and buildings in Barbour County. His photographs are reminiscent of the documentary work of Walker Evans, Berenice Abbott, and other great 20th-century American photographers. Hightower created an incredibly complete and vivid record of the life of a rural Alabama county during a period of profound change-documenting everything from birthday parties and political rallies to farm scenes and the demolition of historic buildings so that future generations would not forget the world of their forebears. In 1990, Michael Thomason, historian and photographic archivist, began the long process of reviewing Hightower's collection of photographs, interviewing family and friends, and salvaging and printing the negatives, which by that time had begun to deteriorate. Thomason restored and printed 195 photographs and prepared accompanying essays that not only reveal the technical details of Hightower's labor of love but also tell the story of the human and economic changes in Barbour County during this period. (shrink)

We support the ambitious goal of unification within the behavioral sciences. We suggest that Darwinian evolution by means of natural selection can provide the integrative glue for this purpose, and we review our own work on selective investment theory (SIT), which is an example of how other-regarding preferences can be accommodated by a gene-centered account of evolution. (Published Online April 27 2007).