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)

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)

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)

Children conceived in order to donate biological material to save the life of an already existing child are known as 'saviour siblings'. The primary reasons that have been offered against the practice are: (i) creating a saviour sibling has negative impacts on the created child and (ii) creating a saviour child represents a wrongful procreative motivation of the parents. In this paper we examine to what extent the creation of saviour siblings actually presents a special case (...) in procreative ethics. Although we do not deny that there is a unique feature present in the saviour sibling case—namely, that the child was created to save their sibling’s life, we argue that the distinctive feature of being a saviour sibling does not make the procreative act wrong. Our claim is that the features that would make the creation of a particular saviour sibling (im)permissible are the same features that would make the creation of any child (im)permissible. Our conclusion is that saviour siblings—in relation to the reasons for the (im)permissibility of their creation—are not a special case for procreative ethics. (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)

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)

Definition of the problem The creation and selection of children as tissue donors is ethically controversial. Critics often appeal to Kant’s Formula of Humanity, i.e. the requirement that people be treated not merely as means but as ends in themselves. As many defenders of the procedure point out, these appeals usually do not explain the sense of the requirement and hence remain obscure. Arguments This article proposes an interpretation of Kant’s principle, and it proposes that two different instrumental stances be (...) distinguished. I argue that the creation of “saviour children” is a form of instrumentalization that I dub “preemptive instrumentalization” and that it is categorically different from earlier forms of instrumental attitudes concerning human reproduction. Conclusion Critics are wrong to claim that Kant’s principle is either compatible with the selection of saviour siblings or too vague to serve as an ethical principle. (shrink)

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.

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)

1. Falsafat al-rūḥ -- 2. Falsafat al-ʻaqūl -- 3. Raḥīq al-nafs -- 4. al-Qadāʼ wa-al-qadar.

Soteria has been traditionally an overlooked concept in the study of Greek religion, precisely due to its centrality in Christianity. The abundant pieces of evidence often were either examined teleologically as possible precedents of Christian salvation, or neglected for fear of projecting it into Greek religion. With the exception of the notable scholarship on ruler cults using the title Soter, the many testimonies of soteria and related terminology have been usually dispatched with the plat...

The conception of saviour siblings using preimplantation genetic diagnosis coupled with human leukocyte antigen typing or HLA typing alone is controversial and receives a wide divergence of legal responses among countries around the world. The resulting child conceived through this procedure is dubbed a ‘saviour sibling’ as the child can potentially act as a compatible donor for an elder ailing sibling who needs a haematopoietic stem cell transplantation. At present, the acceptability of this procedure in Malaysia is ambiguous (...) as there is no specific statute governing assisted reproductive technology, and the guideline issued by the Malaysian Medical Council does not expressly address this issue. The ethical arguments relating to the conception of saviour siblings in the current literature are mainly thought to reflect a liberal viewpoint which is predominantly Western in nature. This paper seeks to explore the perception of selected key stakeholders on the acceptability of and ethical concerns related to this procedure in the Malaysian context. The findings indicate that stakeholders generally support the conception of saviour siblings and some of their concerns echo the Western viewpoint. Interestingly, many were highly anxious about its economic implication, which is rarely discussed in the current literature on saviour siblings. (shrink)

Le philosophe Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) a-t-il vraiment existé? Que reste-t-il de lui? "Une élégance certaine de la pensée", affirme l'un de ses meilleurs interprètes, François L'Yvonnet. Le philosophe de La Société de consommation, des Stratégies fatales et des Cool Memories s'attachait à l'idée du fragment comme mode de pensée : car dans le détail, tout est parfait, c'est dans sa reproduction que tout se complique. François L'Yvonnet explore cinq fragments de la philosophie de Jean Baudrillard et de sa biographie pour (...) mieux saisir l'éclat et la jubilation d'une pensée toujours vivante et contemporaine. (shrink)

RésuméLa notion de «rationalité de l'Univers » a varié au cours du temps, le long dialogue de l'esprit et de la nature ayant toujours abouti à ce que Le Roy appelait « l'évolution de l'évidence et la plasticité de la raison ».L'échec de l'explication mécanique de l'Univers a conduit James Jeans à déclarer que le monde ressemble plutôt « à une grande pensée » qu'à une grande machine », car on ne peut en donner qu'une description mathématique. En réalité, la (...) physique moderne n'est ni plus ni moins mathématique que l'ancienne; elle est seulement plus générale. James Jeans confond les mathématiques pures et les mathématiques appliquées.Eddington prétend déduire les lois générales et les constantes physiques de la nature de considérations épistémologiques a priori. C'est un retour à Kant. Malheureusement les postulate dont il part comme évidents n'ont point paru tels au XVIIe siècle et n'ont été admis que sous la contrainte de l'expérience. Sa théorie ne prévoit ni les neutrons ni les mésons. Elle est vouée à l'échec.La possibilité de trouver un formalisme mathématique applicable à un domaine expérimental ne préjuge en rien la rationalité de l'Univers, car un mathématicien habile sera toujours capable de faire rentrer même un monde « erratique » dans un vêtement mathématique approprié. (shrink)