The contention that organizational culture influences ethical decision making is not disputable. However, the extent to which it influences ethical decision making in the workplace is a topic for scholarly debate and investigation. There are scholars who argue that, though corporate values are a powerful force in explaining the behavior of individuals and groups within organizations, these values are unperceived, unspoken, and taken for granted. However, there are others who argue that the formalization of corporate values facilitates job and role (...) clarity and is the key to influencing employee behavior. The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of the influence of organizational codes of ethics. The findings suggest that, depending upon the particular situation, corporate culture and ethics may mitigate individual personal moral convictions about right and wrong. (shrink)

This paper addresses a significant gap in the conceptualization of business ethics within different cultural influences. Though theoretical models of business ethics have recognized the importance of culture in ethical decision-making, few have examinedhow this influences ethical decision-making. Therefore, this paper develops propositions concerning the influence of various cultural dimensions on ethical decision-making using Hofstede''s typology.

L’étrange histoire du jeune Damon de Chéronée, le « dernier des Péripoltides », et de son masque de suie, que Plutarque a placée en introduction à ses Vies de Cimon et de Lucullus, a suscité des interprétations fort diverses : dernier avatar du « Chasseur noir », témoignage sur les luttes féroces entre factions pro-romaines et pro-pontiques aux temps de la première guerre de Mithridate… On cherche ici surtout à montrer ce que Plutarque a voulu faire en écrivant cette biographie (...) miniature en écho à celle de Lucullus, le sauveur de sa patrie. Entre des figures de fondateur ou de refondateur qui se substituent les unes aux autres, raconter le passage et l’intégration d’une cité grecque dans l’empire romain, faire un travail de mémoire qui conjure les fantômes du passé et contribue à l’homonoia dans la petite cité. Avec une question centrale : Rome cité-tyran ?Plutarch and Damon of Chaironeia: a story, a myth, a text, or something more? The strange story of young Damon of Chaironeia, the ‘last of the Peripoltids’, with his soot-smeared face, which Plutarch placed as an introduction to his Lives of Cimon and Lucullus, has given rise to various interpretations: from a last avatar of the Black Hunter to evidence for the fierce struggle between pro-Roman and pro-Pontic factions at the time of the First Mithridatic War… In this paper we have tried to show what Plutarch’s intention may have been when he wrote this miniature biography, echoing that of Lucullus, the saviour of his home city. Between figures of founders or re-founders substituting for each other, the task was to tell of the passing and integration of a Greek city into the Roman Empire, to make a work of memory, liable to ward off ghosts from the past and to contribute to homonoia in the little city, with a central question : was Rome a tyrant-city? (shrink)

Dans une de ses lettres, datée de 1976, Henri Bouillard présente ainsi l’œuvre de Weil : « Une pensée philosophique qui s’impose par son simple déploiement, celle d’une victoire de la liberté raisonnable sur le positivisme de notre temps ». Tout est dit ici mais, pour en comprendre le pourquoi, il faut retracer le déploiement de la Logique de la Philosophie d’Eric Weil, notamment les catégories de la condition, éclairant celles de Dieu et du moi qui la précèdent immédiatement, et (...) celle de la conscience qui la suit, celle de l’action enfin en laquelle elles s’articulent. Au terme de ce parcours, il resterait alors simplement à accepter, avec la perspective d’un progrès collectif, celle de la rédemption d’une humanité confrontée à ce scandale d’un non-sens que peut simplement conjurer la foi en la cohérence dernière d’un Dieu sauveur. In a 1976 letter, Henri Bouillard presents the work of Eric Weil in the following terms: “A philosophical system that asserts itself by its simple argument, that of the victory of reasoned liberty over the positivism of our time”. This says everything, but in order to understand the why of the piece, we need to retrace the way Eric Weil deployed his argument in Logique de la philosophie, and most specially the categories of condition, enlightening the immediately preceding categories, of God and of self , and the following categories, of conscience, and finally of action in which all of the former are articulated. At the end of this examination, we would simply have to accept, along with the perspective of collective progress, that of the redemption of humanity confronted by this scandal of non-sense that faith in the ultimate coherence of a God-Saviour can simply stave off. (shrink)

Michel Roberge | : Le mythe cosmogonique de la Paraphrase de Sem utilise le schéma médio-platonicien de deux Intellects : l’Intellect paternel et l’Intellect démiurge. Il situe cependant l’Intellect paternel à l’origine dans le chaos précosmique, recouvert d’un feu agité et soumis au principe mauvais, l’Obscur. De plus, la succession des Intellects procède selon le mode biologique de l’engendrement. Selon ce modèle la production des Idées ou Formes s’accomplit en deux étapes : 1) lorsque le Pneuma, principe intermédiaire entre l’Obscur (...) et la Lumière, agissant à la façon d’un principe actif stoïcien, chute dans le chaos, l’Intellect qui était inerte reçoit l’impulsion qui le rend actif et produit, avec l’aide du feu, les Idées qui illuminent alors le chaos . 2) Lorsque le Sauveur, venu à la rescousse de la lumière du Pneuma, provoque la formation de la Matrice cosmique, l’Obscur s’unit à elle et éjacule son Intellect comme une semence. Il engendre alors le second Intellect en même temps qu’il transfère dans la Matrice les Idées que la Nature utilisera comme des « raisons séminales » pour fabriquer le monde matériel . Traduire et interpréter ces pages exige de tenir compte du contexte philosophique et du vocabulaire technique de l’embryologie de l’époque. | : The cosmogonic myth of the Paraphrase of Shem uses a Middle Platonist model that postulates the existence of two Minds, the paternal and the demiurgic. But the paternal Mind is located at the beginning in the pre-cosmic chaos, wrapped in restless fire and submitted to Darkness, the evil principle. Moreover, the succession of Minds proceeds according to the biological generative mode. According to this model, the production of Forms or Ideas is achieved in two steps. 1) When Spirit, the intermediary principle between Darkness and Light, falls into the pre-cosmic chaos, it acts as a Stoic active principle and Mind, which was inert, becomes active and is able to shine upon Hades with its fiery Forms or Ideas . 2) When the Saviour comes to rescue the fallen light of Spirit, he provokes the formation of the cosmic womb. Darkness has intercourse with it and ejaculates its Mind as seed. It begets a second Mind and the Ideas are transferred at the same time in the cosmic womb. Nature will use them as “rational seeds” to construct the material world . The philosophical context and the embryological terminology of the time must be taken into account to translate and interpret adequately those pages. (shrink)

Gheorghe Sferlea | : Cet article examine les premières tentatives d’interprétation théologique du titre marial Theotokos au IVe siècle. Au coeur de cette histoire on retrouve Apollinaire, évêque de Laodicée et figure importante du camp pro-nicéen, qui a élaboré une théorie controversée sur l’unité du Christ, notamment en excluant l’intellect humain de la constitution du Sauveur. C’est dans le cadre de cette préoccupation plus large qu’il vit l’opportunité de tenter une appropriation théologique du titre Theotokos et qu’il en fit un (...) outil polémique dans la stratégie d’ériger sa propre position en orthodoxie christologique. L’idée que je défends ici est que Diodore de Tarse, Grégoire de Nazianze, Grégoire de Nysse et Théodore de Mopsueste se sont tous confrontés à l’interprétation proposée par Apollinaire et ont cherché les meilleurs moyens d’y réagir. | : This article examines the first attempts of theological interpretation of Marian title Theotokos in the fourth Century. At the centre of this history stands Apollinarius, bishop of Laodiceea and a significant character of the pro-Nicene movement, who elaborated a controversial account on the unity of Christ that excluded human intellect from Saviour’s constitution. It was within this broader concern that he saw the opportunity of attempting a theological appropriation of title Theotokos and made it a polemical tool in the strategy of establishing his own Christological stance as authoritative. My contention is that Diodore of Tarsus, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa and Theodore of Mopsuestia all found themselves confronted with Apollinarius’ interpretation and searched ways of reacting to it. (shrink)

This is a collection of essays on themes of legal philosophy which have all been generated or affected by Hart's work. The topics covered include legal theory, responsibility, and enforcement of morals, with contributions from Ronald Dworkin, Rolf Sartorius, Neil MacCormach, David Lyons, Kent Greenawalt, Michael Moore, Joseph Raz, and C.L. Ten, among others.

I explore some of the ways that assumptions about the nature of substance shape metaphysical debates about the structure of Reality. Assumptions about the priority of substance play a role in an argument for monism, are embedded in certain pluralist metaphysical treatments of laws of nature, and are central to discussions of substantivalism and relationalism. I will then argue that we should reject such assumptions and collapse the categorical distinction between substance and property.

This study investigates the differences in ethical beliefs between blacks and whites in the United States. Two hundred and thirty four white students and two hundred and fifty five black students were presented with two scenarios and given the Reidenbach-Robin instrument measuring their ethical reactions to the scenarios.Contrary to previous research, the results indicate that the two groups, which belong to different subcultures, have similar ethical beliefs.

In Victoria, Australia, some parents are now able to select embryos free from genetic disease which will provide stem cells to treat an existing siblingA n Australian couple from Victoria have been given permission to use in vitro fertilisation technology to screen an embryo in order to “create a `perfect match’ sibling” for their seriously ill child. In vitro fertilisation is regulated in Victoria by the Infertility Treatment Authority which restricts access to people who are medically infertile or who have (...) a family history of genetic disease. The approval given to the Victorian couple is for a new application of IVF consisting of preimplantation genetic diagnosis together with tissue typing.The couple’s three year old daughter Christina has Fanconi’s anaemia, a rare genetic condition, that means she will die before she turns 15 unless she receives blood from the umbilical cord of a “perfect match” sibling. Some people are saying this use of IVF amounts to the creation of a genetically engineered “designer” baby. 1–6Preimplantation genetic diagnosis is an IVF technique …. (shrink)

As the practice of medicine inevitably raises both ethical and legal issues, it had been recommended since 1999 that medical ethics and human rights be taught at every medical school. Most Nigerian medical schools still lack a formal undergraduate medical ethics curriculum. Medical education remains largely focused on traditional medical science components, leaving the medical students to develop medical ethical decision-making skills and moral attitudes passively within institutions noted for relatively strong paternalistic traditions. In conducting a needs assessment for developing (...) a curriculum germane to the Nigerian society, and by extension most of Sub-Saharan Africa, this study determined the views of Nigerian medical students on medical ethics education, ethical issues related to the doctor-patient relationship and the ethical/professional dilemmas they are confronted with. Using self-administered 63-item structured questionnaires, a cross-sectional survey of the final year medical students of the University of Nigeria was conducted in July 2015.Using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software, frequency counts and percentages were generated. The sample included 100 males and 40 females, with the respective mean age being 24.6 and 21.8 years. Only 35.7% were satisfied with their medical ethics knowledge, and 97.9% indicated that medical ethics should be taught formally. Only 8.6% had never witnessed a medical teacher act unethically. The dilemmas of poor communication between physicians and patients, and the provision of sub-standard care were reported highest for being encountered ‘often’. A majority indicated that “a doctor should do his best always, irrespective of the patient’s wishes”. No significant difference in responses across gender was noted. There is a strong desire by the contemporary Nigerian medical student for medical ethics education. Their lack of exposure in medical ethics in an ethically challenging environment suggest a dire need for the development of an appropriate medical ethics curriculum for them and the provision of an ethically conducive learning environment. (shrink)

This study investigates the differences in the way bribery and extortion is perceived by two different cultures — American and Nigerian. Two hundred and forty American business students and one hundred and eighty Nigerian business students were presented with three scenarios describing a businessman offering a bribe to a government official and three scenarios describing a businessman being forced to pay a bribe to an official in order to do business. The Reidenbach-Robin instrument was used to measure the ethical reactions (...) of the two samples to these scenarios. Results indicate that ethical reactions to bribery and extortion vary by (a) the nationality of the person offering the bribe, and (b) the country where the bribe is offered. In addition, Nigerians perceived some of the scenarios as being less unethical than did Americans. (shrink)

The structure of Chiodi's book is based on Vuillemin's important hermeneutical thesis that existentialism is one more step in the program of the romantics to give an absolute foundation to finite reality through the establishment of necessary relations between subjectivity and being. These relations, once revealed, would dispel the facticity and contingency in which the natural world is enshrouded. The role of Heidegger in this tradition involves one further dialectical twist, since Heidegger centers all Western Philosophy, including his own, around (...) the problem of ground in the manner proposed by the romantics. The suggested dialectical twist is then Heidegger's Kehre, a step beyond the radical contingency of Dasein in Sein und Zeit. Indeed, this contingency, once reached, shows unequivocally the failure of the romantic program. The ground cannot be ontologically connected with any object nor with the subject; it is rather the necessary history of the ground that determines all categorial differentiations in the world, including the reflective differentiation of subject-objects. Thus it becomes important to distinguish Heidegger from Hegel since, in both, history and necessity are characteristics of the ground. Chiodi gets to the bottom of this matter by pointing to the transfer of negativity from the process of history to the end of history. For Heidegger what is necessary is the repeated withdrawal of the ground so that it may never be confused with that which is known in any revelation or through all of them. This move, though clear, would still leave a fundamental ambiguity in the later philosophy of Heidegger: language, which acts as messenger from the ground to the world, must reflect the superabundance of Being from the standpoint of the ground while it only reflects possibilities of being from the standpoint of the world. This is an ambiguity that Heidegger would want to maintain. Chiodi's interpretation of Heidegger as a neo-platonist totally destroys this ambiguity and with it the very delicate balance created by Heidegger between infinite meaning and the ability of finite words to dwell upon it.--A. de L. M. (shrink)

G. Deledalle is the author of a Histoire de la philosophie américaine, and of some excellent studies on Dewey, such as La pédagogie de Dewey, philosophie de la continuité, and "Durkheim et Dewey". These are all works that deserve full attention by students of the Golden Age of American philosophy. For a European, Deledalle has an unusual capacity to detect the vitality and freshness, but also the depth, of the growth of higher education in the U.S. in the first half (...) of this century. At the heart of this growth were philosophical ideas, and in particular those of Dewey. Philosophy did not have then dictatorial or competitive designs regarding education, the social and political sciences, psychology, or the natural sciences. It freely mingled with them, not just imparting methodological or epistemological rigor but also contributing some insights and giving the hypotheses and conclusions in these fields the character of "experiences." Experience is the guiding theme of this rich and complicated work, covering a multitude of subjects and positions. The treatment is divided into six parts dealing respectively with Dewey's leanings toward unitary experience, organic experience, dynamic experience, functional experience, instrumental experience, and transactional experience. In the study of the intellectual of Dewey's life practically all of his production is critically examined by Deledalle: a monumental task in itself, made possible by the critical bibliography of Milton Hasley Thomas. There is enough early biographical detail to make this work an effective and affectionate intellectual portrait. The best pages of this work are devoted to a thorough explication and comparative study of Dewey's final synthesis of experience. There are very helpful comparative references to Marx, Freud, Bergson, and Heidegger, and also indispensable parallels and contrasts with Peirce, James, and Whitehead. This is not a modest contribution from a regional point of view: Deledalle is, perhaps more than anybody else, aware of an ongoing international dialogue on Dewey, a dialogue that is preserving experience as a problem-complex at the front line of contemporary reflection.--A. de L. M. (shrink)

By using tissue typing in conjunction with preimplantation genetic diagnosis doctors are able to pick a human embryo for implantation which, if all goes well, will become a “saviour sibling”, a brother or sister capable of donating life-saving tissue to an existing child.This paper addresses the question of whether this form of selection should be banned and concludes that it should not. Three main prohibitionist arguments are considered and found wanting: the claim that saviour siblings would be treated (...) as commodities; a slippery slope argument, which suggests that this practice will lead to the creation of so-called “designer babies”; and a child welfare argument, according to which saviour siblings will be physically and/or psychologically harmed. (shrink)

Hans Kelsen est, sans conteste, le juriste le plus important de ce siècle. Il n'y a pas une seule question de théorie juridique qu'on puisse traiter aujourd'hui sans examiner d'abord l'analyse qu'il en fait, mais son œuvre ne concerne pas seulement le droit et la philosophie du droit ; elle touche aussi la philosophie politique, l'épistémologie, l'éthique ou la logique. Sa théorie du droit représente, à côté du réalisme, l'une des deux branches du juspositivisme moderne, connue sous le nom de (...) normativisme et que lui-même appelait " Théorie pure du droit ". Elle se donne comme une théorie scientifique qui se borne à décrire son objet, le droit positif, et qui donc est " pure " de tout jugement de valeur. La pureté ne concerne toutefois que la méthodologie. Le droit, lui, n'est nullement pur, car il exprime des choix moraux et politiques. La doctrine kelsenienne pure apparaît ainsi doublement politique : d'une part, elle se donne pour tâche de mettre en évidence la fonction idéologique du droit ; d'autre part, dans la mesure où elle analyse les dispositifs juridiques comme des moyens au service de certaines fins, elle peut servir de fondement à une véritable technologie juridique. C'est cette technologie que Kelsen prétendait appliquer à la politique et qui fonde aussi bien son travail de constituant - il est le père de la Constitution autrichienne et de la première Cour constitutionnelle - que ses écrits sur la démocratie. La Théorie générale du droit et de l'Etat présente à cet égard un intérêt exceptionnel. Elle a été écrite aux Etats-Unis, où Kelsen s'était réfugié au début de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Comme le souligne Stanley L. Paulson dans son introduction, elle constitue une étape marquante dans l'évolution de sa pensée entre le néokantisme des origines et l'empirisme des derniers écrits. C'est aussi une présentation claire, systématique et concentrée de l'ensemble de sa doctrine et c'est le seul ouvrage de Kelsen qui porte à la fois sur les conditions de possibilité d'une science empirique du droit, sur la théorie générale du droit au sens strict - l'analyse structurale de tous les ordres juridiques possibles - et sur la théorie générale de l'Etat - l'analyse des concepts constitutifs de tout Etat possible. (shrink)

Robert Stern has argued that Levinas is a kind of command theorist and that, for this reason, Løgstrup can be understood to have provided an argument against Levinas. In this paper, I discuss Levinas’s use of the vocabulary of demand, order, and command in the light of Jewish philosophical accounts of such notions in the work of Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Emil Fackenheim. These accounts revise the traditional Jewish idea of command and I show that Levinas’s use of this (...) vocabulary is also revisionary. I show that in light of this tradition of discussion, Levinas’s use is not susceptible to the interpretation Stern proposes and thus that the Løgstrup-style argument cannot be used against Levinas. (shrink)

One of the more controversial uses of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) involves selecting embryos with a specific tissue type so that the child to be born can act as a donor to an existing sibling who requires a haematopoietic stem cell transplant. PGD with HLA tissue typing is used to select embryos that are free of a familial genetic disease and that are also a tissue match for an existing sibling who requires a transplant. Preimplantation HLA tissue typing occurs when (...) parents select embryos that are not at risk of a familial genetic disease to be a match for an existing sibling who requires a transplant. In Victoria, Australia, applications to use PGD with HLA tissue typing are reviewed by the Infertility Treatment Authority on a case by case basis. Preimplantation HLA tissue typing is prohibited prima facie because the embryo to be tested would not be at risk for a genetic abnormality or disease. Arguments for or against the use of PGD/HLA tissue typing are based on several key issues including the commodification and welfare of the donor child. This essay aims to show that that the same arguments apply to both PGD with HLA tissue typing and Preimplantation HLA tissue typing, and that the policy distinction between the two procedures is therefore ethically inconsistent. (shrink)