This study examines the importance of microcultural differences on perceived ethical problems. This study also sought to identify the relationship between perceived ethical problems and value orientations as shown in the Hunt and Vitell's (1993) General Theory of Marketing Ethics. The data was collected from 173 Javanese, 128 Batak, and 170 Indonesian-Chinese marketing managers in Indonesia. The results indicate that, (1) Religious Value Orientation is positively related to the perceived ethical problems scores, and (2) there are significant differences among the (...) three ethnic microcultural groups relative to their perceived ethical problems scores. These results imply that acculturation training program for expatriates should include aspects of microcultures and ethical perceptions held by the local managers. The establishment of ethical corporate culture and formalised codes of conduct are recommended for future ethics training. (shrink)

This research study sought to identify and categorize international marketing ethical problems that confront business managers in Australia and Canada. The study focused on ten major ethical problems developed from previous exploratory research. Managers from both countries indicate that the most frequently cited ethical problem is "gifts/ favors/entertainment" and the most important ethical problem is "large-scale bribery". However, there exist significant differences in terms of rankings and mean values of frequency and importance ratings for other ethical problems.

The "purpose of this book is to examine those conceptions of metaphysics prevalent in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British philosophic thought." The book traces empiricist conceptions of metaphysics from Bacon onward to Reid and Stewart. Armstrong's treatment of Bacon is the most controversial chapter in his book. Armstrong opposes the widely held view that Bacon was essentially a mechanist. Armstrong argues that the texts usually cited to show that Bacon held the mechanical philosophy are at best ambiguous; while, (...) on the other hand, there are Bacon's clear statements on metaphysics as a science of formal causes. It is on the basis of these latter statements that Armstrong argues that Bacon's metaphysics is essentially Aristotelian. In the language of the tradition, Armstrong's interpretation of Bacon might be summed up as follows: Bacon understood metaphysics to be the science of formal causality; that is, he understood metaphysics as the science of Being as Being. Consequently, according to Armstrong, a characteristic empiricist metaphysics first appears in the thought of Hobbes. In Hobbes the mechanical philosophy is established as the science of nature, as the science of Being as Being. Metaphysics becomes defined once and for all within British Empiricism in opposition to physics or the materialist ontology. Beginning with Hobbes metaphysics is understood within British Empiricism as either epistemology or theology. This historical study should prove of interest to those who, brought up in the tradition of British Empiricism, are rediscovering the traditional questions of metaphysics.--J. W. S. (shrink)

George W. S. Bailey. prove that mental phenomena in general are not self- intimating in sense (3). Armstrong's argument is based on two claims: (a) Introspective awareness and its objects are distinct existences. (b) If introspective awareness ...

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

The most recent attempt to explain Aristotle's use of in Poetics 13 is that of T. C. W. Stinton , 221–54). Stinton insists that must not be restricted to any one definition, but should be understood to include a ‘range of applications’ embracing both moral error and ‘ignorance of fact’.

This research study sought to identify whether there is a relationship between ethical perceptions and culture. An examination of the cultural variables suggests that there is a relationship between two of Hofstede's cultural dimensions (i.e., Uncertainty Avoidance and Individualism) and ethical perceptions. This finding supports the hypothetical linkage between the cultural environment and the perceived ethical problem variables posited in Hunt and Vitell's General Theory of Marketing Ethics (1986).

This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

We all seem to think that we do the acts we do because we consciously choose to do them. This commonsense view is thrown into dispute by Benjamin Libet's eyebrow-raising experiments, which seem to suggest that conscious will occurs not before but after the start of brain activity that produces physical action.

This study identifies and categorises ethical problems in terms of frequency of occurrence and importance to a sample of Australian international business managers. The study determined that the most frequently cited ethical problem is gifts/favours/entertainment and that this problem may be related to the culture where the international business is being conducted. The most important ethical problem is large-scale bribery. When the frequency of occurrence and importance means are compared in a scatter plot, cultural differences, pricing practices and questionable commissions (...) were catagorised in the high frequency/high importance quadrant. The Australian general managers stated that managerial action will be taken to control unethical behavior among their international marketing managers. It was conjectured that managers were not as firm in their attitudes concerning the necessity to compromise one''s ethics to succeed in international business. (shrink)

Although the philosophical systems of G. W. Leibniz and David Lewis both feature possible worlds, the ways in which their systems are similar and dissimilar are ultimately surprising. At first glance, Leibniz’s modal metaphysics might strike us as one of the most contemporarily relevant aspects of his system. But I clarify in this paper major interpretive problems that result from understanding Leibniz’s system in terms of contemporary views (like Lewis’s, for instance). Specifically, I argue that Leibniz rejects the inference that (...) if something is possible, it therefore occurs in some possible world. This discussion highlights how Leibniz’s account of individual substance (with his strict notion of identity) constrains his modal theorizing and produces fatalistic threats. I then make an unexpected connection between Leibniz’s and Lewis’s systems by showing that Leibniz’s treatment of fatalism bears similarities to the response Lewis gives to the fatalist when considering the paradoxes of time travel. (shrink)

I review this fine collection of articles on ancient ethics ranging from the Presocratics to Sextus Empiricus. Eight of the nine chapters are published here for the first time. Contributors include Charles H. Kahn on "Pre-Platonic Ethics," C. C. W. Taylor on "Platonic Ethics," Stephen Everson on "Aristotle on Nature and Value," John McDowell on "Some Issues in Aristotle's Moral Psychology," David Sedley on "The Inferential Foundations of Epicurean Ethics," T. H. Irwin on "Socratic Paradox and Stoic Theory," Julia Annas (...) on "Doing Without Objective Values: Ancient and Modern Strategies," and Susan Sauvé Meyer on "Moral Responsibility: Aristotle and After." There is also an introductory essay by the editor, Stephen Everson. I summarize and then critique each chapter in this rather lengthy review. (shrink)

This article is about the history of logic in Australia. Douglas Gasking (1911?1994) undertook to translate the logical terminology of John Anderson (1893?1962) into that of Ludwig Wittgenstein's (1921) Tractatus. At the time Gilbert Ryle (1900?1976), and more recently David Armstrong, recommended the result to students; but it is reasonable to have misgivings about Gasking as a guide to either Anderson or Wittgenstein. The historical interest of the debate Gasking initiated is that it yielded surprisingly little information about Anderson's (...) traditional (syllogistic or Aristotelian) logic and its relation to classical (first-order predicate or Russellian) logic, the ostensible topic; but the materials now exist to interpret Anderson's logic in classical logic, possibly as an algebra of classes. This would be of little interest to contemporary logicians, but it might shed some light on Anderson's philosophy. (shrink)

The title of David Armstrong’s book on the topic asks “What is a Law of Nature?” [1] The answer I will develop and motivate in this paper is that causal laws are analyses of dispositions. We describe dispositions in terms of subjunctive conditionals. For sugar to be soluble in water, for instance, is just for it to be such that if it were submerged in water (under appropriate conditions), it would dissolve. In general, we can say that for a (...) thing to have a disposition is for it to be such that were certain precipitating conditions to obtain, then a certain manifestation of the disposition would occur. [2] In the case of solubility, being submerged in water (under appropriate conditions) is the precipitating condition for the manifestation of going into solution. A careful account of the conditions under which sugar would go into solution in water, that is, an account of the specific nature of its solubility, would be a statement of law. That statement of law would tell us something about the nature of sugar in terms of the dispositions it grounds. (shrink)

Abstract: In chapter 15 of A Materialist Theory of the Mind, D.M.Armstrong offers an account of what he calls “the biological value of introspection”, namely, that “without information…about the current state of our minds, purposive trains mental activity would be impossible.” This paper examines and assesses Armstrong’s “Just-so story about introspective consciousness”—as W.G.Lycan later called it. One moral will be that appreciating this aspect of Armstrong’s view blurs the difference between his own perceptual model of introspection, and (...) the anti-perceptual models advanced by such critics as Sydney Shoemaker . (shrink)

In this article, I discuss whether intuitive moral judgements have epistemic value. Are they mere expressions of irrational feelings that should be disregarded or should they be taken seriously? In section 2, I discuss the view of some social psychologists that moral intuitions are, like other social intuitions, under certain conditions more reliable than conscious deliberative judgements. In sections 3 and 4, I examine whether intuitive moral judgements can be said not to need inferential justification. I outline a concept of (...) moral intuition as a seeming whose seemingness resides in special, phenomenological features such as a felt veridicality, appropriateness, familiarity, or confidence, and whose justificatory force is influenced by the reliability of the belief-producing procedures and by a subject's competence in applying moral concepts. I argue that subjects can come to realise that the beliefs expressed in their intuitive judgements evoke a sense of non-inferential credibility. In section 5, I first discuss the contribution of moral expertise to the non-inferential credibility of a person's intuitions. Subsequently, I discuss whether Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is right in saying that we can never claim non-inferential justification for our intuitions because they are subject to all kinds of distorting influences. (shrink)

In this lecture Armstrong argues that the main point of difference between Saint Augustine and other Christian Platonists centers less on how they view the effectiveness of man's free will than on their view of man's relationship to God. The Platonic tradition always stressed the goodness of the deity. Augustine, however, stressed God's immutability and power, and paid little attention to His goodness and His offer of redemption to all men, including those who stand outside the institutionalized church. This (...) engaging 1966 Saint Augustine Lecture is an unabashed polemic which is cast within an examination of three topics which illustrate Augustine's relationship to pagan and Christian Platonism. The criticism is stated with refreshing boldness and masterly erudition. The extensive notes are stimulating and informative. In the first section the author discusses the natural divinity of the soul and tells why most Christian thinkers, including Augustine, rejected the Platonic view that man's soul is naturally divine. The second topic presents the different attitudes Augustine and Platonism expressed toward the body and the material universe. Here Armstrong argues that in their fervent rejection of the Plotinian doctrine of the mystical body of the universe, Christians lost the sense of the holiness of everyday life and thereby dampened their awareness of the immediacy of the Holy Spirit. In his last topic of discussion Armstrong preaches against Augustine's doctrine of selective predestination and his conception of God as an arbitrary tyrant. These two views, says Armstrong, bring bad news to mankind and cause extreme pessimism rather than an awakening of love--the motive force which speeds man back to God.--W. D. T. (shrink)

Debate between Humean contingentists and anti-Humean necessitarians in the philosophy of science is ongoing. One of the most important contemporary anti-Humeans is Alexander Bird. Bird calls the particular version of Humeanism he is opposed to 'categoricalism'. In his paper (2005) and in Chapter 4 of his book (2007) Bird argues against categoricalism about properties and laws. His arguments against categoricalism about properties are intended to support the necessitarian position he calls dispositional monism. His arguments against categoricalism about laws are intended (...) to refute the contingent regularity view of laws (even in its sophisticated Lewisean version) and the nomic necessitation view of Armstrong (which involves a contingent necessitation relation). The general position Bird defends is that properties are necessarily related to the dispositions they bestow on their bearers and laws are necessary truths. I consider two of Bird's arguments against categoricalism about properties, and one of his arguments against the regularity view of laws. Maybe other arguments against categoricalism are persuasive. These, I submit, are not. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss whether intuitive moral judgements have epistemic value. Are they mere expressions of irrational feelings that should be disregarded or should they be taken seriously? In section 2, I discuss the view of some social psychologists that moral intuitions are, like other social intuitions, under certain conditions more reliable than conscious deliberative judgements. In sections 3 and 4, I examine whether intuitive moral judgements can be said not to need inferential justification. I outline a concept of (...) moral intuition as a seeming whose seemingness resides in special, phenomenological features such as a felt veridicality, appropriateness, familiarity, or confidence, and whose justificatory force is influenced by the reliability of the belief-producing procedures and by a subject's competence in applying moral concepts. I argue that subjects can come to realise that the beliefs expressed in their intuitive judgements evoke a sense of non-inferential credibility. In section 5, I first discuss the contribution of moral expertise to the non-inferential credibility of a person's intuitions. Subsequently, I discuss whether Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is right in saying that we can never claim non-inferential justification for our intuitions because they are subject to all kinds of distorting influences. (shrink)

As the subtitle and consecutive division of contents indicate, these two volumes are integral parts of a single work and one may wonder why they were not published as such since the indices and bibliography in the second volume refers to both works. The basic tripartite thesis of the combined volumes may be stated thus. Both universal properties and universal relationships exist independently of the classifying mind, but not in factual independence of particulars; what universals in fact exist, however, must (...) be determined not a priori by considering what predicates are applied to particulars by linguistic convention, but a posteriori according to the norms of an empiricistic epistemology. Hence, Armstrong calls his theory "a posteriori," or simply, "scientific realism," since it is the task of total science, conceived of as a total inquiry, to determine which monadic or polyadic predicates do correspond to universals and which do not. The first volume is essentially a critical appraisal of classical approaches to the nominalism-realism controversy, whereas the second is a more positive presentation of the author’s own theory and grows out of the prior critique. Thus the second volume can be read independently of the first, especially since a brief recapitulation of the argument of volume one is given at its beginning. Similarly, a brief summary of the argument of volume two is appended to volume one. Thus the two volumes, which apparently grew out of materials presented in independent, but related, seminars, could still be used as such. Only this and the possibility of a student buying the overly expensive work by parts seems to justify the peculiar way in which this set was published. (shrink)

The death of Imre Lakatos on February 2, 1974 was a personal and philosophical loss to the worldwide circle of his friends, colleagues and students. This volume reflects the range of his interests in mathematics, logic, politics and especially in the history and methodology of the sciences. Indeed, Lakatos was a man in search of rationality in all of its forms. He thought he had found it in the historical development of scientific knowledge, yet he also saw rationality endangered everywhere. (...) To honor Lakatos is to honor his sharp and aggressive criticism as well as his humane warmth and his quick wit. He was a person to love and to struggle with. PAUL K. FEYERABEND ROBERT S. COHEN MARX W. WARTOFSKY TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface VII JOHN WORRALL / Imre Lakatos : Philosopher of Mathematics and Philosopher of Science JOSEPH AGASSI / The Lakatosian Revolution 9 23 D. M. ARMSTRONG / Immediate Perception w. W. BAR TLEY, III/On Imre Lakatos 37 WILLIAM BERKSON / Lakatos One and Lakatos Two: An Appreciation 39 I. B. COHEN / William Whewell and the Concept of Scientific Revolution 55 L. JONATHAN COHEN / How Can One Testimony Corroborate Another? 65 R. S. COHEN / Constraints on Science 79 GENE D'AMOUR/ Research Programs, Rationality, and Ethics 87 YEHUDA ELKANA / Introduction: Culture, Cultural System and Science 99 PA UL K. (shrink)

Libertarians such as J.R. Lucas have abandoned traditional Christian doctrines because they cannot reconcile them with the freedom of the will. Traditional Christian thinkers such as Augustine have repudiated libertarianism because they cannot reconcile it with the dogmas of the Faith. In Free Will and the Christian Faith, W.S. Anglin demonstrates that free will and traditional Christianity are ineed compatible. He examines, and solves, puzzles about the relationships between free will and omnipotence, omniscience, and God's goodness, using the idea of (...) free will to answer the question of why God allows evil, and presenting arguments that link free will to eternal life and to the nature of revelation. Topics covered include the meaning of life, the soul and Lesbegue measure, and strategies for discerning the voice of God. (shrink)

A reconstruction of Johnson's main contributions to philosophy is provided. Johnson's theories are grounded on his distinction between "substantives" and "adjectives", which governs the oppositions between (1) particular and universal, (2) determinandum and determinans in thought, (3) acts of separation and discrimination, (4) subject and predicate, (5) thing and quality, (6) substance and determination, (7) proposition and fact, (8) external and internal relations, (9) extension and intension. While substantives divide between continuants and occurrents, adjectives are fundamentally distinguishable into determinables and (...) determinates. The immediate (Stout, Broad) and later (Prior, Carnap, Searle, Armstrong, Hautamäki and Johansson) reception of Johnson's distinction between determinables and determinates is also discussed. (shrink)

A fundamental philosophical question that arises in connection with evolutionary theory is whether the fittest patterns of behavior are always the most rational. Are fitness and rationality fully compatible? When behavioral rationality is characterized formally as in classical decision theory, the question becomes mathematically meaningful and can be explored systematically by investigating whether the optimally fit behavior predicted by evolutionary process models is decision-theoretically coherent. Upon investigation, it appears that in nontrivial evolutionary models the expected behavior is not always in (...) accord with the norms of the standard theory of decision as ordinarily applied. Many classically irrational acts, e.g. betting on the occurrence of one event in the knowledge that the probabilities favor another, can under certain circumstances constitute adaptive behavior.One interesting interpretation of this clash is that the criterion of rationality offered by classical decision theory is simply incorrect (or at least incomplete) as it stands, and that evolutionary theory should be called upon to provide a more generally applicable theory of rationality. Such a program, should it prove feasible, would amount to the logical reduction of the theory of rational choice to evolutionary theory. (shrink)

by W. S. F. Pickering Durkheim's sociological approach to morals and moral systems has always aroused considerable interest, be it by way of criticism or ...

Here we endorse Hull’s replicator/interactor framework as providing the overarching understanding sought by MacCord and Maienschein. We suggest that difficulties in seeing the regeneration of limbs by salamanders and of forest ecosystems after fires as similar evolutionary processes can be overcome in this framework. In generalizing Dawkins’s “selfish gene” perspective, Hull defined natural selection as “a process in which the differential extinction and proliferation of interactors causes the differential perpetuation of the replicators that produced them”. Although genes and bacteria are (...) simultaneously both replicators and interactors, communities and ecosystems are generally only interactors. As reproducers, members of sexual species are intermediate. Within such species, organisms are indeed the interactors whose “differential extinction and proliferation” causes the “differential perpetuation” of replicators. But sexually-reproducing organisms do not individually replicate, persist, or recur as interactors, and in consequence it is only those genes causing an interactor differential that are specifically perpetuated in the long run. Higher-level interactors may seldom if ever reproduce, but their recurrence does enable the “differential perpetuation” of replicators specifically responsible for their “differential extinction and proliferation”. In offering answers to the question “What are the replicators specifically responsible for the differential extinction and proliferation of such higher-level entities?” we hope to unify adaptive regeneration across scales, from organisms to ecosystems. (shrink)