In this article, we document the growing influence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the realm of socially responsible investing (SRI). Drawing from ethical and economic perspectives on stakeholder management and agency theory, we develop a framework to understand how and when NGOs will be most influential in shaping the ethical and social responsibility orientations of business using the emergence of SRI as the primary influencing vehicle. We find that NGOs have opportunities to influence corporate conduct via direct, indirect, and interactive (...) influences on the investment community, and that the overall influence of NGOs as major actors in socially responsible investment is growing, with attendant consequences for corporate strategy, governance, and social performance. (shrink)

We argue that differences in the institutional setting of Europe and the US is the critical factor in understanding policymaking in Europe and the United States, and particularly the influence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). To test this relationship between institutional differences, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and NGO activism, we investigate 12 cases involving US and European companies in each of three industries. We conclude that different institutional structures and political legacies in the US and Europe are important factors in explaining (...) the influence of NGOs on business and in the policymaking process, regardless of the timeliness of corporate strategy or NGO influence. (shrink)

I. Introduction This paper aims to explain Nietzsche’s understanding of tragedy, and in particular his self-characterization as the “tragic philosopher.” What I shall claim is that, according to Nietzsche, to recognize the self-determining or self-creating character of our agency is to reveal it as tragic. Tragedy accordingly illuminates the most fundamental issue in Nietzsche’s mature philosophy: the possibility of affirmation.

Terrence Malick and the Thought of Film explores how the experience of viewing Terrence Malick's films enables imaginative acts of philosophical interpretation. Useful for both professional philosophers interested in film and scholars of cinema intrigued by philosophy, this book shows the ways Malick's films cast philosophy in new cinematic light.

This unique study opens up a new dimension of Terrence Malick’s cinema – its expressions of unseeing and hearing. ‘Unseeing’ is Malick’s means of transcending the moment in order to enter the life that unfolds; to treat cinema as a real experience for those who live its reality. In this way, Terrence Malick’s Unseeing Cinema moves beyond film theory to advance a work of original philosophy, bringing together two thinkers not normally associated with one another: Gilles Deleuze and (...) Søren Kierkegaard. It investigates how Malick’s gatherings of time allow one to explore new philosophical questions about immanence and transcendence, ethics and faith, time and infinity, and the foldings of subjectivity that are central to both philosophers. Beyond cinema, it offers a way to think about our everyday repetitions and recollections and our ephemeral points of connection with those we love. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s self-proclaimed ‘anti-political’(EH ‘wise’ 3; cf. TI 8.4) stance is often ignored.1 Commentators, that is, often interpret Nietzsche’s texts as responding to familiar issues within political philosophy, and as furnishing a novel position therein. This could indeed be the appropriate hermeneutic response. Dismissing one of Nietzsche’s proclamations is, on a variety of different grounds, hermeneutically reasonable. In this particular case, given all that Nietzsche has to say about sociality and the roles of public institutions in modern life, dismissal might even (...) seem compelling. Here, however, I wish to recuperate Nietzsche’s anti-political stance. That is, I shall argue that Nietzsche’s self-proclamation does in fact reflect his deep commitments, and thus compels a reassessment of the political interpretations of his thought. (shrink)

ARISTOTLE often claims that words are "homonymous" or "multivocal". He claims this about some of the crucial words and concepts of his own philosophy—"cause," "being," "one," "good," "justice," "friendship." Often he claims it with a polemical aim; other philosophers have wrongly overlooked homonymy and supposed that the same word is always said in the same way. Plato made this mistake; his accounts of being, good, and friendship are rejected because they neglect homonymy and multivocity. In Aristotle’s view Plato shared the (...) Socratic assumption about words and definitions. Socrates thought that when he asked "What is F?" some single definition of F could always be found to match the name "F." Aristotle thinks the Socratic question is important, but argues that it must be controlled by awareness of homonymy and multivocity. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that a basic problem in philosophical discussions of culture is what I call the “integration problem”: the need to provide an account of how distinctive considerations of culture can be integrated within practical deliberation in general. I then show how the failure to resolve this problem generates three paradoxes, which I call the “cosmopolitan paradox,” the “inclusion paradox,” and the “representation paradox.” I argue that these paradoxes arise from a common source, the attempt to separate (...) out determinations of worth from demands of recognition, and both from socially contested deliberative practices. I conclude by suggesting that resolving these paradoxes probably requires not a theoretical solution but the achievement of a fully inclusive, cosmopolitan culture. (shrink)

Terrence Malick and the Thought of Film explores how the experience of viewing Terrence Malick's films enables imaginative acts of philosophical interpretation. Useful for both professional philosophers interested in film and scholars of cinema intrigued by philosophy, this book shows the ways Malick's films cast philosophy in new cinematic light.

What are individuals? How can they be identified? These are crucial questions for philosophers and scientists alike. Criteria of individuality seem to differ markedly between metaphysics and the empirical sciences - and this might well explain why no work has hitherto attempted to relate the contributions of metaphysics, physics and biology on this question. This timely volume brings together various strands of research into 'individuality', examining how different sciences handle the issue, and reflecting on how this scientific work relates to (...) metaphysical concerns. The collection makes a major contribution to clarifying and overcoming obstacles to the construction of a general conception of the individual adequate for both physics and biology, and perhaps even beyond. (shrink)

The paper describes the approach by which ethics are integrated into the undergraduate curriculum at Northern Illinois University''s College of Business. Literature is reviewed to identify conceptual frameworks for, and issues associated with, the teaching of business ethics. From the review, a set of guidelines for teaching ethics is developed and proposed. The objectives and strategies implemented for teaching ethics is discussed. Foundation and follow-up coursework, measurement issues and ancillary programs are also discussed.

By recourse to the fundamentals of preference orderings and their numerical representations through linear utility, we address certain questions raised in Nover and Hájek 2004, Hájek and Nover 2006, and Colyvan 2006. In brief, the Pasadena and Altadena games are well-defined and can be assigned any finite utility values while remaining consistent with preferences between those games having well-defined finite expected value. This is also true for the St Petersburg game. Furthermore, the dominance claimed for the Altadena game over the (...) Pasadena game, and that would have been claimed for the St Petersburg game over the Altadena, can be contradicted without fear of inconsistency with the axioms of utility theory. However, insistence upon dominance can be made to yield a contradiction of the Archimedean axiom of utility theory. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that consequentialism does not work as a comprehensive theory of right action. This paper does not offer a typical refutation, in that I do not claim that consequentialism is self-contradictory. One can with perfect consistency claim that the good is prior to the right and that the right consists in maximizing the good. What I claim, however, is that it is senseless to make such a claim. In particular, I attempt to show that the (...) notion of what course of action maximizes the good has no content within a consequentialist framework. Since the problem that I identify rests with maximization, this refutation does not cut across the act/rule distinction. If rule consequentialism holds that there are occasions on which one should follow a rule rather than violate the rule in an optimific way, then it is not maximizing and my arguments do not apply; if not, then it collapses into act consequentialism. I have nothing to say about nonmaximizing forms of consequentialism.1 This refutation does, however, cut across the direct/indirect distinction.2 It makes no difference whether we take consequentialism as offering a principle of decision, or a standard of right. Presumably the former would be parasitic upon the latter for its legitimacy. (shrink)

The transference theory reduces causation to the transmission of physical conserved quantities, like energy or momenta. Although this theory aims at applying to all felds of physics, we claim that it fails to account for a quantum electrodynamic effect, viz. the Aharonov-Bohm effect. After having argued that the Aharonov-Bohm effect is a genuine counter-example for the transference theory, we offer a new physicalist approach of causation, ontic and modal, in which this effect is embedded.

Terrence Deacon, author of Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter, proposes that constraint understood as constitutive absence is a necessary factor in the emergence of life from nonlife, mind from matter. By "constraint" he means "the property of being restricted or being less variable than possible."1 By "absence" he means that constraint is a negative property qualifying a collection or ensemble of constituent parts or members: "It is a way of referring to what is not exhibited, but could (...) have been, at least under some circumstances". By "constitutive absence" he means what is the case "irrespective of whether this is registered by any act of observation". So constraint thus understood is... (shrink)

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume 78, Issue 1, Page 120-123, Winter 2020.

Christians, Allison, Benoît-Guay, Nicolas.

In this paper, we show that it is not a conceptual truth about laws of nature that they are immutable (though we are happy to leave it as an open empirical question whether they do actually change once in a while). In order to do so, we survey three popular accounts of lawhood—(Armstrong-style) necessitarianism, (Bird-style) dispositionalism and (Lewis-style) ‘best system analysis’—and expose the extent, as well as the philosophical cost, of the amendments that should be enforced in order to leave (...) room for the possibility of changing laws. (shrink)

Building Better Health Care Leadership for Canada explains the development and implementation of the Executive Training in Research Application program. Managed and funded by the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation in partnership with the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Nursing Association, and the Canadian College of Health Care executives, EXTRA is a two-year national fellowship program that uses the principles of adult learning theory as well as practical projects to educate senior health care leaders in making more consistent use of (...) research evidence in their management roles. Fellows apply the theory learned in residency sessions and educational activities to projects within their home organizations. The authors identify the imperative for better use of evidence, outline the core elements of the curriculum, and capture the real-world experience of regional leaders and fellows involved in making specific changes informed by research-based evidence within their organization. Contributors include Jean-Louis Denis, Terrence Sullivan, Owen Adams, Malcolm Anderson, Lynda Atack, Robert Bell, Sam G Campbell, Sylvie Cantin, Ward Flemons, Dorothy Forbes, J. Sonja Glass, Paula Goering, Karen Golden-Biddle, Jeffrey S. Hoch, Paul Lamarche, Ann Langley, John N. Lavis, Jonathan Lomas, Margo Orchard, Raynald Pineault, Brian D. Postl, Christine Power, Trish Reay, Jean Rochon, Denis A. Roy, Andrea Seymour, Samuel B. Sheps, Micheline Ste-Marie, Nina Stipich, David Streiner, Carl Taillon, and Muriah Umoquit. (shrink)

The accounts of social freedom offered by G. W. F. Hegel and Axel Honneth identify the normative demands on social institutions and explain how individual freedom is realized through rational participation in such institutions. While both offer normative reconstructions of the market economy, public sphere and family, they both derive the norms of educational institutions from education’s role in preparing people for participation in other institutions. We argue that this represents a significant defect in their accounts of social freedom because (...) they both fail to account for the distinctive aims and norms of education. Only educational institutions bring individuals into a both shared and autonomous standpoint necessary for participation in social life. We thus argue both that Hegel’s and Honneth’s accounts are empirically inadequate and that they neglect the normative demands on schools to contribute to individual moral and intellectual development. (shrink)

To explore how molecules became signs I will ask: “What sort of process is necessary and sufficient to treat a molecule as a sign?” This requires focusing on the interpreting system and its interpretive competence. To avoid assuming any properties that need to be explained I develop what I consider to be a simplest possible molecular model system which only assumes known physics and chemistry but nevertheless exemplifies the interpretive properties of interest. Three progressively more complex variants of this model (...) of interpretive competence are developed that roughly parallel an icon-index-symbol hierarchic scaffolding logic. The implication of this analysis is a reversal of the current dogma of molecular and evolutionary biology which treats molecules like DNA and RNA as the original sources of biological information. Instead I argue that the structural characteristics of these molecules have provided semiotic affordances that the interpretive dynamics of viruses and cells have taken advantage of. These molecules are not the source of biological information but are instead semiotic artifacts onto which dynamical functional constraints have been progressively offloaded during the course of evolution. (shrink)

Christian hope of resurrection requires that the one raised be the same person who died. Philosophers and theologians alike seek to understand the coherence of bodily resurrection and what accounts for numerical identity between the earthly and risen person. I address this question from the perspective of disability. Is a person with a disability raised in the age to come with that disability? Many theologians argue that disability is essential to one's identity such that it could not be eliminated in (...) the resurrection. What anthropology undergirds these claims is not often explicated. I argue that Thomistic hylemorphic anthropology provides the best context to understand the human person such that disability is not essential to identity. In the resurrection, we shall become truly ourselves. The marks of disability may remain, but Thomistic anthropology expresses the coherence of bodily resurrection in which one may hope for healing which eliminates the disability but not numerical identity. (shrink)

Professional Ethics: A Trust-Based Approach explores the unique nature of professional duty and virtue in light of the trust that professionals must invite, develop, and honor from those they intend to serve.

Shared views regarding the moral respect which is owed to children in family life are used as a guide in determining the moral permissibility of nontherapeutic clinical research procedures involving children. The comparison suggests that it is not appropriate to seek assent from the preadolescent child. The analogy with interventions used in family life is similarly employed to specify the permissible limit of risk to which children may be exposed in nontherapeutic research procedures. The analysis indicates that recent writers misconceive (...) how certain moral principles, such as respect for personal autonomy, require us to act toward children. The results are also used to assess proposed federal regulations on research with children. (shrink)

Theses on the semiotic study of life as presented here provide a collectively formulated set of statements on what biology needs to be focused on in order to describe life as a process based on semiosis, or sign action. An aim of the biosemiotic approach is to explain how life evolves through all varieties of forms of communication and signification (including cellular adaptive behavior, animal communication, and human intellect) and to provide tools for grounding sign theories. We introduce the concept (...) of semiotic threshold zone and analyze the concepts of semiosis, function, umwelt, and the like as the basic concepts for theoretical biology. (shrink)

À l'aube d'un nouveau millénaire, Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron poursuit son incursion philosophique dans les profondeurs énigmatiques de l'idéalisme allemand. Après son célèbre Platon et l'idéalisme allemand paru chez l'éditeur parisien Beauchesne en 1979, le professeur de l'Université de Poitiers persiste et signe avec la publication de Hegel et l'idéalisme allemand. On nous y propose «une interprétation de l'idéalisme allemand vu à partir de Hegel». Pour ce faire, le prospecteur français nous invite à cheminer à travers quatre problématiques bien définies, soit: imagination (...) et spéculation; Novalis et Hölderlin: imagination poétique et spéculation philosophique; spéculation et religion; l'esprit, la nature et l'histoire. En prime, l'auteur nous offre trois textes en annexe: deux traductions de Hölderlin, Ce qui advient dans ce qui passe et le poème Offrande matinale au Rédempteur ; et un autre intitulé Saint Martin en Allemagne. Ce sont les grands axes de méditation du volume que nous allons maintenant aborder, en montrant en quoi ceux-ci servent la visée de l'ouvrage. (shrink)

À quoi se réfère véritablement l’esprit dont nous a tant entretenus Hegel dans ses écrits? C’est ce que précise Hegel. Les Actes de l’esprit de Bernard Bourgeois. À une époque où on a appris à considérer l’esprit célébré par la philosophie hégélienne comme la négation de la nature, mais sans trop savoir ce que cela signifie concrètement pour Hegel, on peut dire que cet ouvrage répond à un besoin pressant. De plus, on ne pouvait trouver meilleur guide pour jeter un (...) peu de lumière sur cette ombre qui obscurcit la richesse de l’esprit hégélien que celui qui, en 1988 et chez le même éditeur, a magistralement traduit et annoté le livre qui témoigne le mieux du concept d’esprit chez Hegel, entendons la Philosophie de l’Esprit de l’Encyclopédie des sciences philosophiques. Mais on ne doit pas s’y tromper. Le volume recensé ici n’est pas un commentaire littéral de la portion de l’Encyclopédie hégélienne qui traite de l’esprit. Majoritairement composé de textes déjà publiés par Bourgeois — vingt-deux textes, dont sept inédits —, il se dévoile plutôt comme une méditation qui éclaire ce qui se joue en vérité dans cette dernière, c’est-à-dire comme un recueil qui nous aide à comprendre comment l’esprit, aux yeux du penseur allemand, parvient vraiment à se faire absolu. On nous achemine vers cette conclusion sur l’orientation de l’ouvrage dans l’avant-propos: «l’esprit n’est véritablement esprit que dans la mesure où il est au moins ce que Hegel appelle l’“esprit objectif”, l’esprit qui est devenu objet pour luimême comme esprit». Les répercussions de cette mise au point sont décisives en ce qui concerne le contenu hégélien couvert par Bourgeois: «C’est, par conséquent, essentiellement de l’esprit objectif et de l’esprit absolu qu’il sera question dans le présent recueil». Or, pour bien rappeler au lecteur que le concept d’esprit chez Hegel s’insère, avant tout, dans une philosophie de l’absolu, l’auteur a la délicatesse de réserver l’introduction de son ouvrage à un éclaircissement de la notion d’«esprit subjectif» figurant dans l’Encyclopédie, à savoir le moment qui précède immédiatement ceux sur lesquels se concentre le recueil. Cette attention ne permet pas seulement à un ouvrage qui affirme privilégier le contenu de deux des trois grandes divisions de la Philosophie de l’esprit de les aborder finalement toutes; elle permet surtout de souligner que, pour Hegel, le devenir vrai de l’esprit ne se manifeste que dans une structure conceptuelle où rien n’est mis à l’écart. Nous allons maintenant expliquer brièvement la teneur des grandes parties de cette publication de Bourgeois en faisant ressortir ce que nous avons trouvé de plus intéressant en chacune d’elles. (shrink)

Prenant ses distances par rapport aux commentateurs de Hegel qui postulent la présence d'un changement radical de méthode au sein de l'évolution philosophique de l'auteur allemand entre ses écrits de jeunesse et ceux de la maturité, André Stanguennec se propose de montrer que la construction du système hégélien fut «la seule réponse concevable à un ensemble de questions élaborées par Hegel au terme de son appropriation critique des philosophes qui l'avaient précédé». Inspiré par la périodisation classique du cheminement hégélien, entendons: (...) les périodes de jeunesse, de la maturation, de l'élaboration du système et de la maturité, A. Stanguennec dresse les balises qui permettent d'esquisser «une exploration de l'ensemble — genèse et structure — de l'univers hégélien, tout en tirant profit des recherches récentes». Ce copieux programme nous est offert en six chapitres: les deux premiers traitent respectivement des périodes de jeunesse et de la maturation de la philosophie de Hegel; les trois suivants abordent les œuvres majeures qui servent d'assise au système philosophique hégélien, à savoir: la Phénoménologie de l'Esprit, la Science de la logique, l'Encyclopédie des sciences philosophiques et les Principes de la philosophie du droit ; le dernier chapitre approche finalement l'exposition du système philosophique de Hegel à travers les Leçons professées par ce dernier à Berlin. (shrink)

Quantum probability (QP) theory can be seen as a type of vector symbolic architecture (VSA): mental states are vectors storing structured information and manipulated using algebraic operations. Furthermore, the operations needed by QP match those in other VSAs. This allows existing biologically realistic neural models to be adapted to provide a mechanistic explanation of the cognitive phenomena described in the target article by Pothos & Busemeyer (P&B).