We investigate the role of social-media-triggered public pressure on corporate social responsibility that includes expectations of transparency and accountability on the firm’s part, and participative/evaluative inputs on the public’s part. Using the date when S&P 500 firms established corporate Twitter accounts, we investigate the impact of corporate social media exposure on CSR outcomes. Results from baseline regressions indicate that firms with Twitter accounts significantly outperform industry peers in CSR rating, after controlling for firm and industry characteristics. To test potential reverse (...) causality, we use a dynamic treatment effect model to explore within firm changes of CSR, and find that firms’ CSR rating improves in year one- and year two after establishing a Twitter account, while no difference emerged in similar comparisons with peers prior to the Twitter account establishment. Additionally, Granger causality tests results show that corporate Twitter presence improves CSR performance; it is also shown that CSR outcomes do not motivate corporations to establish a social media presence on Twitter. Finally, firms with more experience on Twitter, and those with more followers, tweets or Twitter accounts are associated with improved CSR outcomes. We draw on two theories and qualitative interviews with senior CSR executives to explain why social media influences CSR firm behaviors. (shrink)

Can drinking coffee help people live longer? What makes a stock's price go up? Why did you get the flu? Causal questions like these arise on a regular basis, but most people likely have not thought deeply about how to answer them. This book helps you think about causality in a structured way: What is a cause, what are causes good for, and what is compelling evidence of causality? Author Samantha Kleinberg shows you how to develop a set of (...) tools for thinking more critically about causes. You'll learn how to question claims, identify causes, make decisions based on causal information, and verify causes through further tests. Whether it's figuring out what data you need, or understanding that the way you collect and prepare data affects the conclusions you can draw from it, Why will help you sharpen your causal inference skills. (shrink)

This volume brings together for the first time the diverse threads within the growing field of serendipity research, to reflect both on the origins of this emerging field within different disciplines as well as its increasing influence as its own field with foundational texts and emerging practices. The phenomenon of serendipity has been described in many ways since Horace Walpole initially coined the term in 1754 to categorize those discoveries that happen by “both accidents and sagacity”. This book offers a (...) sampling of perspectives from experts in serendipity research from organizational studies, management theory, information science and library studies, psychology, literature, computer science, social science, ethics, and the history and philosophy of science. Considerations about the importance and role of serendipity are being raised now across science (both empirical and theoretical) as well as practice (from art and innovation to leadership and governance), with ever more eyes looking closer at its significance in human history and the likelihood it will play a key, while unpredictable, role in forming our future. Serendipity Science represents an emerging, and also important and potentially necessary field of study, if we are to deal well as a society with our complex times and uncertain future. (shrink)

Explores the critical role time plays in our understanding of causality, across psychology, biology, physics and the social sciences.

This book explores the philosophical thought and praxis of Paul B. Thompson, who planted some of the first seeds of philosophy of agriculture and whose work inspires interdisciplinary scholarship in food ethics, biotechnology, and environmental philosophy. Landmark texts such as The Spirit of the Soil, The Agrarian Vision, and From Field to Fork revealed the fertility of food systems for inspiring reflection on our relationships to technology, the land, and one another. Rooted in philosophical traditions ranging from pragmatism to post-phenomenology, (...) Thompson’s work nourishes projects in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science, and social and political theory, not only in academic philosophy departments but also in the social and natural sciences. This volume collects this diversity of thought in a tour of the many fields of food systems; from theorizing the sustainability of agroecological systems, to appreciating the quotidian practice of agrarian communities, to anticipating the impacts of emerging biotechnology, and to savoring the roles that food plays in forming our identities. Composed by an international crop of scholars working on the future of food ethics, the volume is a vital contribution to scholars and practitioners thinking through our relationships to the food systems that sustain us. (shrink)

In _Biocultural Creatures_, Samantha Frost brings feminist and political theory together with findings in the life sciences to recuperate the category of the human for politics. Challenging the idea of human exceptionalism as well as other theories of subjectivity that rest on a distinction between biology and culture, Frost proposes that humans are biocultural creatures who quite literally are cultured within the material, social, and symbolic worlds they inhabit. Through discussions about carbon, the functions of cell membranes, the activity (...) of genes and proteins, the work of oxygen, and the passage of time, Frost recasts questions about the nature of matter, identity, and embodiment. In doing so, she elucidates the imbrication of the biological and cultural within the corporeal self. In remapping the relation of humans to their habitats and arriving at the idea that humans are biocultural creatures, Frost provides new theoretical resources for responding to political and environmental crises and for thinking about how to transform the ways we live. (shrink)

That there is a “crisis of peer review” at the moment is not in dispute, but sufficient attention has not yet been paid to the normative potential that lies in current calls for reform. In contrast to approaches to “fixing” the problems in peer review, which tend to maintain the status quo in terms of professionalising opportunities, this paper addresses the needs of philosophers and how peer‐review reform can be an opportunity to improve the academic discipline of philosophy, whereby progress (...) is understood as making the discipline more fair to the global academic community and more conducive to the flourishing of academic philosophers. The paper evaluates recent categories of relevant norms and correlating reforms. In conclusion, it recommends that philosophy pursue the norms of transparency and democracy explicitly when proposing peer‐review reform and suggest that proposals for forum‐based models of peer review are most likely to support those norms. (shrink)

This article surveys recent feminist contributions to moral philosophy with an emphasis on those works which engage with debates within mainstream ethics. The article begins by examining a tension said to arise from the two criteria a theory must meet if it is to count as feminist moral theory: the women's experience requirement and the feminist conclusion requirement. Subsequent sections deal with feminist relational theories of rights, feminist work on responsibility and feminist contractarian approaches to ethics. A final section looks (...) at the application of some feminist moral theories to the problem of abortion. (shrink)

Deleuze's concept of 'becoming' provides the key to his notoriously complex metaphysics, yet it has not been systematized until now. Bankston tracks the concept of becoming and its underlying temporal processes across Deleuze's writings, arguing that expressions of becoming(s) appear in two modes of temporality: an appropriation of Nietzsche's eternal return (the becoming of the event), and Bergsonian duration (the becoming of sensation). Overturning the criticisms launched by Žižek and Badiou, with conceptual encounters between Bergson, Nietzsche, Leibniz, Borges, Klossowski, and (...) Proust, the newly charted concept of double becoming provides a roadmap to the totality of Deleuze's philosophy. Bankston systematizes Deleuze's multi-mirrored universe where form and content infinitely refract in a vital kaleidoscope of becoming" -- Amazon.com. (shrink)

In Miniland USA, the nation itself takes on many of the characteristics of the fan developed theme (FDT): vignettes of LEGO bricks, thematically unified as "American", based on representations of locations throughout the United States. Frequently referred to as the "heart" of the LEGOLAND theme parks, Miniland is a section made up of scaled‐down versions of national landmarks and icons, artfully arranged around winding paths. Contemporary domestic tourism envisions the United States as several distinct geographic zones, differentiated by metropolitan centers (...) and regional characteristics (primarily climate, food, and dialect). Tourist guides and maps reinforce this configuration, highlighting roughly the same delineation of regions: The Northeast,Mid‐Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest, Midwest, and Pacific Northwest. Echoing this conception of the national itinerary, LEGOLAND California's Miniland USA contains miniature versions of six different American locations: New York City, Washington DC, "New England", New Orleans, Las Vegas, and California. (shrink)

The skill of calling animals to fight brings up unique ethical questions. Mages usually interact with animals in two ways: First, the author can summon animals by using animal‐summoning or monster‐summoning spells. Second, a mage can summon animals to be familiar. A familiar was once a normal animal that has been transformed into magical beast with unique powers and abilities. Bats, cats, hawks, and rats are examples of common familiar companions. The rights ethicist Tom Regan argues that animals have particular (...) rights because they are subjects of a life, meaning that they seek to satisfy specific preferences and interests. As Lord Acton wrote, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It appears that this also holds in Dungeons Dragons (DD). Thus, when playing a character who can summon nonhuman animals, it may be wise to take the ethics into account when deciding what actions are best. (shrink)

​​This book explores the philosophical thought and praxis of Paul B. Thompson, who planted some of the first seeds of philosophy of agriculture and whose work inspires interdisciplinary scholarship in food ethics, biotechnology, and environmental philosophy. Landmark texts such as The Spirit of the Soil, The Agrarian Vision, and From Field to Fork revealed the fertility of food systems for inspiring reflection on our relationships to technology, the land, and one another. Rooted in philosophical traditions ranging from pragmatism to post-phenomenology, (...) Thompson’s work nourishes projects in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science, and social and political theory, not only in academic philosophy departments but also in the social and natural sciences. This volume collects this diversity of thought in a tour of the many fields of food systems; from theorizing the sustainability of agroecological systems, to appreciating the quotidian practice of agrarian communities, to anticipating the impacts of emerging biotechnology, and to savoring the roles that food plays in forming our identities. Composed by an international crop of scholars working on the future of food ethics, the volume is a vital contribution to scholars and practitioners thinking through our relationships to the food systems that sustain us. (shrink)

This paper is a response to recent student protests at South African universities, and the essentialising rhetoric and practices that characterise South African public debates. I explore the likely responses of white South Africans to views that seem to make their whiteness inescapable and necessarily morally bad.

This book presents a novel account of the aesthetics of animals. The author argues that the appreciation of animal beauty carries profound ethical consequences for our relations to our fellow creatures.

Déjà vu and involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) are differentiated by a number of factors including metacognition. In contrast to IAMs, déjà vu activates regions associated with self-awareness including the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Background The review of human participant research by Research Ethics Committees or Institutional Review Boards is a complex multi-faceted process that cannot be reduced to an algorithm. However, this does not give RECs/ IRBs permission to be inconsistent in their specific requirements to researchers or in their final opinions. In England the Health Research Authority coordinates 67 committees, and has adopted a consistency improvement plan including a process called “Shared Ethical Debate” where multiple committees review the same project. Committee reviews (...) are compared for consistency by analysing the resulting minutes. Methods We present a description of the ShED process. We report an analysis of minutes created by research ethics committees participating in two ShED exercises, and compare them to minutes produced in a published “mystery shopper” exercise. We propose a consistency score by defining top themes for each exercise, and calculating the ratio between top themes and total themes identified by each committee for each ShED exercise. Results Our analysis highlights qualitative differences between the ShED 19, ShED 20 and “mystery shopper” exercises. The quantitative measure of consistency showed only one committee across the three exercises with more than half its total themes as top themes. The average consistency scores for the three exercises were 0.23, 0.35 and 0.32. There is a statistically significant difference between the ShED 19 exercise, and the ShED 20 and mystery shopper exercises. Conclusions ShED exercises are effective in identifying inconsistency between ethics committees and we describe a scoring method that could be used to quantify this. However, whilst a level of inconsistency is probably inevitable in research ethics committee reviews, studies must move beyond the ShED methodology to understand why inconsistency occurs, and what an acceptable level of inconsistency might be. (shrink)

The review of human participant research by Research Ethics Committees or Institutional Review Boards is a complex multi-faceted process that cannot be reduced to an algorithm. However, this does not give RECs/ IRBs permission to be inconsistent in their specific requirements to researchers or in their final opinions. In England the Health Research Authority coordinates 67 committees, and has adopted a consistency improvement plan including a process called “Shared Ethical Debate” where multiple committees review the same project. Committee reviews are (...) compared for consistency by analysing the resulting minutes. We present a description of the ShED process. We report an analysis of minutes created by research ethics committees participating in two ShED exercises, and compare them to minutes produced in a published “mystery shopper” exercise. We propose a consistency score by defining top themes for each exercise, and calculating the ratio between top themes and total themes identified by each committee for each ShED exercise. Our analysis highlights qualitative differences between the ShED 19, ShED 20 and “mystery shopper” exercises. The quantitative measure of consistency showed only one committee across the three exercises with more than half its total themes as top themes. The average consistency scores for the three exercises were 0.23, 0.35 and 0.32. There is a statistically significant difference between the ShED 19 exercise, and the ShED 20 and mystery shopper exercises. ShED exercises are effective in identifying inconsistency between ethics committees and we describe a scoring method that could be used to quantify this. However, whilst a level of inconsistency is probably inevitable in research ethics committee reviews, studies must move beyond the ShED methodology to understand why inconsistency occurs, and what an acceptable level of inconsistency might be. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes is an iconic figure who serves as an easy reference for pundits commenting on the brutality of war as well as for critics of a distinctly modern individualism in which calculating and rapacious self-interest is the cause of the violence, destruction, and exploitation endemic to the contemporary world. Frost's reading of Hobbes's philosophy shows us that underlying such visions of self and politics is another iconic figure: that of the Cartesian subject. What gives the iconic Hobbes his hardcore (...) individualism and its corollary accounts of instrumentalism, conflict, and absolutism is a Cartesian rendering of the self as split into mind and body. Carefully elaborating Hobbes's materialist ontology, _Lessons from a Materialist Thinker_ challenges both our implicit Cartesian assumptions about the self and the commonplace Hobbes that so readily figures violence in our political imagination. Through his materialism, Hobbes presents an alternative modern account of self-consciousness, reason, agency, power, freedom, and responsibility. In doing so, he shows that our fundamental intersubjectivity and interdependence require that we pursue peace above all else. (shrink)

The concept of medical necessity is often used to explain or justify certain decisions—for example, which treatments should be allowed under certain conditions—as though it had an obvious, agreed-upon meaning as well as an inherent normative force. In introducing this special issue of Clinical Ethics on medical necessity, we argue that the term, as used in various discourses, generally lacks a definition that is clear, non-circular, conceptually plausible, and fit for purpose. We propose that future work on this concept should (...) address three main questions: what medical necessity is (i.e., what makes something medically necessary, as opposed to something else); what the concept does (what ‘work’ is it doing when invoked in different settings); and what should follow, normatively, from the fact that something is indeed medically necessary (on some plausible conception). (shrink)

The essays in this book clarify the technical, legal, ethical, and social aspects of the interaction between eHealth technologies and surveillance practices. The book starts out by presenting a theoretical framework on eHealth and surveillance, followed by an introduction to the various ideas on eHealth and surveillance explored in the subsequent chapters. Issues addressed in the chapters include privacy and data protection, social acceptance of eHealth, cost-effective and innovative healthcare, as well as the privacy aspects of employee wellness programs using (...) eHealth, the use of mobile health app data by insurance companies, advertising industry and law enforcement, and the ethics of Big Data use in healthcare. A closing chapter draws on the previous content to explore the notion that people are 'under observation', bringing together two hitherto unrelated streams of scholarship interested in observation: eHealth and surveillance studies. In short, the book represents a first essential step towards cross-fertilization and offers new insights into the legal, ethical and social significance of being 'under observation'. (shrink)

We have followed with interest the commentaries arising from Moore and Donnellys1 argument that authorities in charge of research ethics committees should focus primarily on establishing code-consistent reviews.1 We broadly agree with Savulescu’s2 argument that ethics committees should become more expert, but in a different way and for a different reason. We have recently been working with the UK Health Research Authority analysing the outcomes of their ‘Shared Ethical Debate’ exercises.3 Each ShED exercise involves the circulation of a single research (...) project to a number of RECs. The resulting minutes from each REC are compared along with the final decisions made by each REC on the project under consideration. This process was originally an administrative exercise designed to promote greater consistency among the 60 or so ethics committees that were brought under the HRA ) umbrella within the UK National Health Service. Over 20 ShEDs have been run, and although the process has significant weaknesses and has not always been run consistently, the results of the exercises are fascinating. Broadly speaking, NHS RECs have been getting more consistent over time in terms of their decision-making, but the reasons for the final decisions as described in the committee minutes continue to vary widely. Qualitative research now needs to be done to understand why different committees can have such different discussions in relation to exactly the same research project and yet come to essentially the same conclusion. As part of our analysis of the ShED data, we looked at …. (shrink)

Foucault contra Habermas is an incisive examination of, and a comprehensive introduction to, the debate between Foucault and Habermas over the meaning of enlightenment and modernity. It reprises the key issues in the argument between critical theory and genealogy and is organised around three complementary themes: defining the context of the debate; examining the theoretical and conceptual tools used; and discussing the implications for politics and criticism. In a detailed reply to Habermas' Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, this volume explains the (...) difference between Habermas' philosophical practice and Foucault's between the analytics of truth and the politics of truth. Many of the most difficult arguments in the exchange are subject to a detailed critical analysis. This examination also includes discussion of the ethics of dialogue; the practice of criticism; the politics of recognition, and the function of civil society and democracy. (shrink)

Paternalism is widely viewed as presumptively justifiable for children but morally problematic for adults. The standard explanation for this distinction is that children lack capacities relevant to the justifiability of paternalism. I argue that this explanation is more difficult to defend than typically assumed. If paternalism is often justified when needed to keep children safe from the negative consequences of their poor choices, then when adults make choices leading to the same negative consequences, what makes paternalism less justified? It seems (...) true that ordinary adults have capacities enabling them to promote their interests in ways most children lack. This can explain why paternalism is more often justified towards children than adults. What is not explained, however, is why paternalism would be justifiable for children, but not adults, when neither possess the relevant interest-promoting capacities—exactly the cases when paternalism towards adults might be considered. I argue that this dilemma undercuts capacities-based explanations for the belief that childhood is distinctively relevant for the permissibility of paternalism. I then address defenses of both consequentialist and deontological versions of the capacities-based explanation. Absent this capacities-based explanation, I argue that the intuition that less demanding justificatory standards apply to paternalism when directed at children than when directed towards adults presents unresolved problems for egalitarians. (shrink)

In his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, Friedrich Schiller draws a striking connection between aesthetic value and individual and political freedom, claiming that, ‘it is only through beauty that man makes his way to freedom’. However, contemporary ways of thinking about freedom and aesthetic value make it difficult to see what the connection could be. Through a careful reconstruction of the Letters, we argue that Schiller’s theory of aesthetic value serves as the key to understanding not only his (...) view of aesthetic engagement, but also his distinctive account of individual and political freedom. In Part I, we develop a reconstruction of Schiller's view that aesthetic value is the only path to individual freedom and in Part II we analyze how Schiller connects aesthetic value to political freedom. In the end, we show that Schiller defends a non-hedonic, action-oriented, communitarian theory of aesthetic value and a theory of freedom that makes the aesthetic not just supererogatory but fundamental for any fully autonomous life. Although we have lost touch with this way of thinking about aesthetic value and freedom, we submit that it is illuminating for contemporary thinking about both. (shrink)

Abstract‘Serendipity’ is a category used to describe discoveries in science that occur at the intersection of chance and wisdom. In this paper, I argue for understanding serendipity in science as an emergent property of scientific discovery, describing an oblique relationship between the outcome of a discovery process and the intentions that drove it forward. The recognition of serendipity is correlated with an acknowledgment of the limits of expectations about potential sources of knowledge. I provide an analysis of serendipity in science (...) as a defense of this definition and its implications, drawing from theoretical and empirical research on experiences of serendipity as they occur in science and elsewhere. I focus on three interrelated features of serendipity in science. First, there are variations of serendipity. The process of serendipitous discovery can be complex. Second, a valuable outcome must be obtained before reflection upon the significance of the unexpected observation or event in respect to that outcome can take place. Therefore, serendipity is retrospectively categorized. Third, the primacy of epistemic expectations is elucidated. Finally, I place this analysis within discussions in philosophy of science regarding the impact of interpersonal competition upon the number and significance of scientific discoveries. Thus, the analysis of serendipity offered in this paper contributes to discussions about the social-epistemological aspects of scientific discovery and has normative implications for the structure of epistemically effective scientific communities. (shrink)

Serendipity is fundamental to science. This quirky and intriguing phenomenon permeates across scientific disciplines, including the medical sciences, psychological sciences, management and organizational sciences, innovation science, philosophy and library and information sciences. Why is it so ubiquitous? Because of what it facilitates and catalyzes: scientific discoveries from velcro to Viagra, innovation of all forms, unexpected encounters of useful information, novel and important ideas, and deep reflection on how we, as individuals, organizations, communities and societies can take leaps forwards by seizing (...) unexpected opportunities and ‘making our own luck.’. (shrink)

The 1960s was a decade dedicated to experimentation within the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Americans witnessed many significant changes and advancements in those ten short years, including the first man on the moon, a war in Vietnam, and successes in the automobile industry. Probably the most important of these changes was the War on Poverty, introduced by John Fitzgerald Kennedy and continued by Lyndon Baines Johnson and subsequent administrations. This paper examines the creation of a new class of reliance on (...) government handouts, as well as a misallocation of resources.Poverty was a well-known tragedy in third world countries. It was hard to believe that the United States, a leading nation of the world, was hit just as badly as those other countries. In fact, many Americans denied the problem for fear of the reaction from the rest of the world. In reality, though, many American families were struggling every day to provide food, shelter, and education for their children. Once this devastating misfortune was acknowledged, Kennedy dedicated his 1960 campaign to the New Frontier, which would encourage Americans to regain faith in their country by implementing programs to eradicate poverty. To succeed, Kennedy knew that the key to recovery centered on education. Improved education would provide the youth with better job opportunities, which would increase productivity, and therefore decrease poverty. Unfortunately, Kennedy was unable to follow through with his plans. After he was assassinated, Johnson took office ready to expand on Kennedy’s drafted plan. He wanted to look at poverty in a more positive way, as an opportunity to effectively change society. Continuing with Kennedy’s ideas, Johnson felt this change would best be accomplished through publics works programs. In his State of the Union Address, Johnson declared a “war on poverty” in which he would provide Americans with the tools needed to escape the world of poverty and make a living for themselves.Under the provision of the Office of Economic Opportunity, created specifically to abolish poverty, programs were created to begin the process of recovery. Community action programs, the Jobs Corps, and Head Start are just three programs put into action to improve the status of the poor. Job training and education were the main functions of these programs, but the effectiveness is heavily debated amongst historians.Though many claim that the War on Poverty was indeed successful, evidence shows otherwise. In viewing statistics from Congressional Records and other government documents, it is clear that the short-term effects were not worth the long-term consequences, and had the problem of poverty been left to the natural market, the issue would have been solved much more sufficiently. (shrink)

The Routledge Companion to Intersectionalities is an outstanding reference source to the key contemporary analytic in feminist thought comprising over fifty chapters by a diverse, international and interdisciplinary team of contributors. The Companion is divided into nine clear parts: Retracing Intersectional Genealogies Intersectional Methods and (Inter)Disciplinarity Intersectionality's Travels Intersectional Borderwork Trans* Intersectionalities Disability and Intersectional Embodiment Intersectional Science and Data Studies Popular Culture at the Intersections Rethinking Intersectional Justice. Within these sections the key topics, debates, and applications are examined, including: (...) intersectional methods, trans intersectionality, transnational intersectionalities, intersectional pedagogies, digital intersectionalities, and intersectional science. This collection is essential reading for students and researchers working in Women's and Gender Studies, Feminism, Sociology, Politics and other related subjects from across the Humanities and Social Sciences. (shrink)

Drawing on research in posthumanism, science and technology studies and biosemiotics, this essay analyses the challenges epigenetic processes pose for our understanding of embodied subjectivity. It uses the work of Charles Sanders Peirce to argue that epigenetic processes are indexical in their patterned logic, that they are meaning-making processes and that, consequently, they can be conceived as a form of attention. To conceive of bodies as paying attention through epigenetic processes is to rupture the distinction between matter and meaning that (...) governs many philosophical categories. This in turn invites us to recalibrate our conception of the relationship between self, body and world. (shrink)

The other contributions address philosophical problems arising in specific domains of international law, such as human rights law, international economic law, ...

We analyse how memes construct networks of feminist critique and response, mobilising the derisive laughter that energises current feminisms. Using the 2012 case of the ‘Binders Full of Women’ meme, we argue that feminist memes create online spaces of consciousness raising and community building. The timeliness, humorous affect and media techné of meme propagators become significant infrastructures for feminist critique, what we term ‘doing feminism in the network’. If the Internet is particularly good at facilitating the diffusion of feminist jokes, (...) as others argue, we illustrate how the networking and distribution capacities of social media platforms such as Tumblr, Facebook and the online shopping site Amazon.com also cultivate new modes of feminist cultural critique and models of political agency for practising feminism through meme production and propagation. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory is widely accepted but elementary aspects remain indeterminate as the term ‘stakeholder’ is an essentially contested concept, being variously describable, internally complex and open in character. Such contestability is highly problematic for theory development and empirical testing. The extent of essential contestability, previously unknown, is demonstrated in this paper through a bounded systematic review of 593 different stakeholder theory definitions. As an essentially contested concept, the solution does not lie in a universal stakeholder definition, but in debating the (...) boundaries of stakeholder identification. To this end, this paper presents the first major attempt at sorting, filtering and ordering stakeholder theory and stakeholder definitions to produce a comprehensive, multi-dimensional classification of stakeholder theory. The constructs of the classification model juxtapose existing stakeholder theories and contributions from across the multi-contextual applications of stakeholder theory, thereby providing an invaluable overview of what we know about stakeholder theory in one model. The classification model is then tested with positive results. The paper concludes with a comprehensive discussion of the implications of classification stakeholder theory definitions, which has for future research. (shrink)

‘Serendipity’ is a category used to describe discoveries in science that occur at the intersection of chance and wisdom. In this paper, I argue for understanding serendipity in science as an emergent property of scientific discovery, describing an oblique relationship between the outcome of a discovery process and the intentions that drove it forward. The recognition of serendipity is correlated with an acknowledgment of the limits of expectations about potential sources of knowledge. I provide an analysis of serendipity in science (...) as a defense of this definition and its implications, drawing from theoretical and empirical research on experiences of serendipity as they occur in science and elsewhere. I focus on three interrelated features of serendipity in science. First, there are variations of serendipity. The process of serendipitous discovery can be complex. Second, a valuable outcome must be obtained before reflection upon the significance of the unexpected observation or event in respect to that outcome can take place. Therefore, serendipity is retrospectively categorized. Third, the primacy of epistemic expectations is elucidated. Finally, I place this analysis within discussions in philosophy of science regarding the impact of interpersonal competition upon the number and significance of scientific discoveries. Thus, the analysis of serendipity offered in this paper contributes to discussions about the social-epistemological aspects of scientific discovery and has normative implications for the structure of epistemically effective scientific communities. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 9, September 2020, Page 68-70.

Currently, we find ourselves in a paradigm in which we believe that accepting climate change data will lead to a kind of automatic action toward the preservation of our environment. I have argued elsewhere (Fried 2020) that this lack of civic action on climate data is significant when placed in the historical, military context of the technologies that collect this data––Earth remote sensing technologies. However, I have not yet discussed the phenomenological or moral implications of this context, which are deeply (...) interconnected. In this paper, I assert that Earth remote sensing technologies can, if we are not careful, lead us to a kind of environmental deskilling. This assertion comes in four parts. First, the military context of Earth remote sensing technologies––which collect important data on climate change––acts as a kind of stability, as defined by Don Ihde and others. Second, I invoke Sir Patrick Heelan to argue that the theoretical underpinnings of Earth systems science do not translate from military to environmental praxes as we imagine they do. Third, Hannah Arendt makes the case that a state’s trust in simplifying narratives like that of climate data, meant to create “islands” of certainty in an uncertain world, can be self-defeating. That is to say, they can silence public action. I extend these arguments through Vallor’s analysis of moral deskilling, in which she points out that an overemphasis on autonomous data collection––and trust in a kind of automated decision-making on that data––can deskill us from important questions relevant to our collective flourishing. In all of these examples, the lines between environmental and military research are blurry. (shrink)

The lack of importance traditionally ascribed to human-nonhuman animal relationships in the social sciences has meant that while commercial sex in the human realm has been well documented, very few socio-cultural studies of commercial sex involving nonhuman animals have been undertaken to date. However, the growing recognition that nonhuman, as well as human, animals are “actors” means that their role in the sex trade, becomes problematic and eminently worthy of academic attention. This article considers a very particular instance of commercial (...) animal sex—that practiced on stud farms in West Wales, where the breeding of autochthonous Welsh cobs is of immense political, social, economic, and cultural significance. This study found that in this context Welsh cobs are expected to embody specific gender ideals in what is an inherently inter-subjective relationship. Through their animals' performances, human caregivers are able to negotiate their own ideas about gender roles, and these in turn determine those individual animals used for breeding and those not. (shrink)

This book explores the relationship between the law and pervasive and persistent reasonable disagreement about justice. It reveals the central moral function and creative force of reasonable disagreement in and about the law and shows why and how lawyers and legal philosophers should take reasonable conflict more seriously. Even though the law should be regarded as the primary mode of settlement of our moral conflicts,it can, and should, also be the object and the forum of further moral conflicts. There is (...) more to the rule of law than convergence and determinacy and it is important therefore to question the importance of agreement in law and politics. By addressing in detail issues pertaining to the nature and sources of disagreement, its extent and significance, as well as the procedural, institutional and substantive responses to disagreement in the law and their legitimacy, this book suggests the value of a comprehensive approach to thinking about conflict, which until recently has been analysed in a compartmentalized way. It aims to provide a fully-fledged political morality of conflict by drawing on the analysis of topical jurisprudential questions in the new light of disagreement. Developing such a global theory of disagreement in the law should be read in the context of the broader effort of reconstructing a complete account of democratic law-making in pluralistic societies. The book will be of value not only to legal philosophers and constitutional theorists, but also to political and democratic theorists, as well as to all those interested in public decision-making in conditions of conflict. (shrink)

It has become typical to read Kant and Merleau-Ponty as offering competing approaches to perceptual experience. Kant is interpreted as an ‘intellectualist’ who regards perception as conceptual ‘all the way out’, while Merleau-Ponty is seen as Kant’s challenger, who argues that perception involves non-conceptual, embodied ‘coping’. In this paper, however, I argue that a closer examination of their views of perception, especially with respect to the notion of ‘schematism’, reveals a great deal of historical and philosophical continuity between them. By (...) analyzing Kant’s theory of schematism, the interpretation of it by the Neo-Kantian Pierre Lachièze-Rey, and Merleau-Ponty’s theory of the body schema, we find that aspects of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception are better understood as a development of Kant’s theory of perception. (shrink)