Across a variety of situations, people strongly condemn plagiarizers who steal credit for ideas, even when the theft in question does not appear to harm anyone. Why would people react negatively to relatively harmless acts of plagiarism? In six experiments, we predict and find that these negative reactions are driven by people's aversion toward agents who attempt to falsely improve their reputations. In Studies 1–3, participants condemn plagiarism cases that they agree are harmless. This effect is mediated by the extent (...) to which participants perceive the plagiarizer to have falsely benefitted from plagiarizing. In Studies 4–5, we demonstrate that this effect is not explained solely by participants’ negative response to lies or violations of permission. In Study 6, participants condemn a plagiarism case in which the idea's original author actually benefits, providing the strongest evidence that people condemn plagiarism for reasons beyond perceived harm. We discuss how this work connects to broader questions of intellectual property and impression management. (shrink)

The authors argue that corporate philanthropy is far too important as a social instrument for good to depend on ethical egoism for its support. They claim that rule utilitarianism provides a more compelling, though not exclusive, moral foundation. The authors cite empirical and legal evidence as additional support for their claim.

This paper aims for a more robust epistemological disjunctivism (ED) by offering on its behalf a new and better response to the ‘new evil genius’ problem. The first section articulates the ‘new evil genius challenge’ (NEG challenge) to ED, specifying its two components: the ‘first-order’ and ‘diagnostic’ problems for ED. The first-order problem challenges proponents of ED to offer some explanation of the intuition behind the thought that your radically deceived duplicate is no less justified than you are for adopting (...) her perceptual beliefs. In the second section, I argue that 'blamelessness' explanations are inadequate to the task and offer better explanations in their place—that of ‘trait-level virtue’ and ‘reasonability’. The diagnostic problem challenges proponents of ED to explain why it is that classical internalists disagree with them about how to interpret 'new evil genius' considerations. The proponent of ED owes some error theory. I tackle this problem in the third section, arguing that classical internalists overlook disjunctivist interpretations of new evil genius intuitions owing to a mistaken commitment to a ‘vindicatory’ explanation of perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

'Free will skepticism' refers to a family of views that all take seriously the possibility that human beings lack the control in action - i.e. the free will - required for an agent to be truly deserving of blame and praise, punishment and reward. Critics fear that adopting this view would have harmful consequences for our interpersonal relationships, society, morality, meaning, and laws. Optimistic free will skeptics, on the other hand, respond by arguing that life without free will and so-called (...) basic desert moral responsibility would not be harmful in these ways, and might even be beneficial. This collection addresses the practical implications of free will skepticism for law and society. It contains eleven original essays that provide alternatives to retributive punishment, explore what changes are needed for the criminal justice system, and ask whether we should be optimistic or pessimistic about the real-world implications of free will skepticism. (shrink)

To say that coronavirus is highly visible is a massive understatement in terms of its omnipresence in our lives and media coverage concerning it, yet also clearly untrue in terms of the virus itself. COVID-19 is our invisible enemy, changing our lives radically without ever revealing itself directly. In this paper I explore its invisibility and how it relates to and exposes other invisible enemies we are and have been fighting, in many cases without even realizing. First, I analyse the (...) virus itself and how its stealthy nature has transformed our lives. Second, I describe how the invisible epidemic of social media sharing of fake news about the virus worsens the situation further. Third, I explore how the virus has revealed to us what really matters in our lives and has forced us to re-evaluate our priorities. Fourth, I go on to explore the underlying structural weaknesses and disparities in society that have been exposed by the virus but previously remained unconsidered for so long that they too have become camouflaged, even if their effects are all too apparent; like the virus, neoliberal capitalism is an invisible enemy that has made prisoners of us all. I conclude by suggesting that the coronavirus pandemic represents a hidden opportunity to overcome perhaps the biggest invisible enemy of all: the moral distance that separates us from others. Only by rendering the rest of humanity morally visible to ourselves can we overcome capitalism and stop treating other people as invisible enemies. (shrink)

This article highlights the often overlooked fact that doctors who respect a bereaved family's veto of a deceased patient's organ donation are complicit in the deaths of those who would have benefited from the organs in question. Respecting the veto violates the dying wish of the patient, is against the spirit of the law and contributes to the deaths of other patients.

Professor Thomas Mulligan undertakes to discredit Milton Friedman's thesis that The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits. He attempts to do this by moving from Friedman's paradigm characterizing a socially responsible executive as willful and disloyal to a different paradigm, i.e., one emphasizing the consultative and consensus-building role of a socially responsible executive. Mulligan's critique misses the point, first, because even consensus-building executives act contrary to the will of minority shareholders, but even more importantly, because he assumes (...) that the mandate of a shareholder majority brings legitimacy to efforts of corporate managers to utilize corporate wealth in solving social problems. It is the role of our democratic institutions to deal with national agenda issues such as inflation, unemployment, and pollution, not that of the private sector. Corporations and private individuals do have a role to play in enhancing the quality of the human environment, however, and the author suggests a coherent means of developing that role in an effort rescue corporate social responsibility from Mulligan no less than from Friedman. (shrink)

I argue for two theses about semantically anomalous utterances (more commonly called "category mistakes") like "sequestered slaps reel evergreen rights". First, semantic anomaly generates a unique form of semantically enforced quantifier domain restriction. Second, the best explanation for why anomaly interacts with quantifiers in this way is that anomalous utterances are truth-valueless. After arguing for these points, I trace out two consequences these theses have in semantics and logic. First, I argue they motivate a trivalent semantics on which truth-valueless material (...) has an unsual positive role to play in the compositional semantics of truth-evaluable utterances. Second, I argue that the interaction of anomaly with quantifiers generates a unique form of classical inference failure, and also provides special motivations for reconceptualizing our logical consequence relations. (shrink)

Homeopathic medicine is based on the two principles that “like cures like” and that the potency of substances increases in proportion to their dilution. In November 2009 the UK Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee heard evidence on homeopathy, with several witnesses arguing that homeopathic practice is “unethical, unreliable, and pointless”. Although this increasing scepticism about the merits of homeopathy is to be welcomed, the unethical effects of funding homeopathy on the NHS are even further-reaching than has been acknowledged.

Advance directives (ADs), which are also sometimes referred to as ‘living wills’, are statements made by a person that indicate what treatment she should not be given in the event that she is not competent to consent or refuse at the future moment in question. As such, ADs provide a way for patients to make decisions in advance about what treatments they do not want to receive, without doctors having to find proxy decision-makers or having recourse to the doctrine of (...) necessity. While patients can request particular treatments in an AD, only refusals are binding. This paper will examine whether ADs safeguard the autonomy and best interests of the incompetent patient, and whether legislating for the use of ADs is justified, using the specific context of the legal situation in the United Kingdom to illustrate the debate. The issue of whether the law should permit ADs is itself dependent on the issue of whether ADs are ethically justified; thus we must answer a normative question in order to answer the legislative one. It emerges that ADs suffer from two major problems, one related to autonomy and one to consent. First, ADs’ emphasis on precedent autonomy effectively sentences some people who want to live to death. Second, many ADs might not meet the standard criteria for informed refusal of treatment, because they fail on the crucial criterion of sufficient information. Ultimately, it transpires that ADs are typically only appropriate for patients who temporarily lose physical or mental capacity. (shrink)

This paper surveys the meaning of aither in Empedocles. Since Aristotle, Empedoclean aither has been generally considered synonymous with air and understood anachronistically in terms of its Aristotelian conception as hot and wet. In critiquing this interpretation, the paper first examines the meaning of “air” in Empedocles, revealing scant and insignificant use of the term. Next, the ancient controversy of Empedocles’ “four roots” is recast from the perspective that aither, rather than air, designates the fourth root. Finally, the nineteen instances (...) of aither in Empedocles’ fragments are considered, revealing a bright and energetic root closely related to the force of life. (shrink)

In his “Why be Moral? A Different Rationale for Managers,” , La Rue Tone Hosmer argues that managers should be moral because “acting in ways that can be considered to be ‘right’ and ‘just’ and ‘fair’ is absolutely essential to the long-term competitive success of the firm.” According to Hosmer, moral behavior generates trust among stakeholders, which leads to stakeholder commitment, which leads to increased stakeholder effort, which ultimately leads to corporate success. Though we agree with Hosmer’s causal reasoning, we (...) are concerned about an ancient loophole, namely, cases where the mere appearance of morality will generate the same trust, and commitment, and so on, and will thus enable managers to reap the material benefits of morality while nevertheless engaging in immoral practices. We conclude that a virtue ethics perspective will strengthen Hosmer’s model so as to cover such cases. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 25 This paper aims for a more robust epistemological disjunctivism by offering on its behalf a new and _better_ response to the ‘new evil genius’ problem. The first section articulates the ‘new evil genius challenge’ to ED, specifying its two components: the ‘first-order’ and ‘diagnostic’ problems for ED. The first-order problem challenges proponents of ED to offer some understanding of the intuition behind the thought that your radically deceived duplicate is no less justified than you are (...) for adopting her perceptual beliefs. In the second section, the author argues that _blamelessness_ explanations are inadequate to the task and offer better explanations in their place—that of ‘trait-level virtue’ and ‘reasonability’. The diagnostic problem challenges proponents of ED to explain why it is that _classical_ internalists disagree with them about how to interpret new evil genius considerations. The proponent of ED owes some error theory. The author engages this problem in the third section, arguing that classical internalists are misled to overlook disjunctivist interpretations of new evil genius thinking owing to a mistaken commitment to a kind of ‘vindicatory’ explanation of proper perceptual belief. (shrink)

on The Philosophy of Horror by Noel Carroll.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:163 HUME'S THEORY OF MOTIVATION In this paper I shall defend a Humean theory of motivation. But first I should like to examine some of the standard criticisms of this theory and some alternative views that are currently in favour. Both in the Treatise and the Enguiry Hume maintains that reason alone never motivates action but always requires the cooperation of some separate, and separately identifiable desire-factor in order (...) to bring about action. What are Hume's grounds for this view? In the Treatise. Hume writes: 'Tis obvious, that when we have the prospect of pain or pleasure from any object, we feel a consequent emotion of aversion or propensity, and are carry 'd to avoid or embrace what will give us this uneasiness or satisfaction.... 'Tis from the prospect of pleasure or pain that the aversion or propensity arises towards any object.... This passage suggests that the way we (and Hume) know about the presence of the separate desire factor which he claims is always needed to motivate our every purposive action is by being directly aware of some desire-feeling, by introspection, each and every time we act. There is however a familiar objection to this argument: no doubt we sometimes are aware of a feeling of desire when we act, e.g., in cases where we are motivated by strong emotions. But much of the time when we act calmly or casually, after having deliberated 'in a cool hour', or when performing routine and trivial acts, we are not directly aware of any desire-feeling at the time of action. 164 Hume is not unaware of this objection -- in reply to it he invokes his notorious doctrine of the calm passions. He writes: 'Tis natural for one, that does not examine objects with a strict philosophic eye, to imagine, that those actions of the mind are entirely the same, which produce not a different sensation, and are not immediately distinguishable to the feeling and perception. Reason, for instance, exerts itself without producing any sensible emotion; and except in the more sublime disquisitions of philosophy, or in the frivolous subtilities of the schools, scarce ever conveys any pleasure or uneasiness. Hence it proceeds, that every action of the mind, which operates with the same calmness and tranquillity, is confounded with reason by all those, who judge of things from the first view and appearance. Now 'tis certain, there are certain calm desires and tendencies, which, tho' they be real passions, produce little emotion in the mind, and are more known by their effects than by the immediate feeling or sensation. These desires are of two kinds; either certain instincts originally implanted in our natures, such as benevolence and resentment, the love of life, and kindness to children; or the general appetite to good, and aversion to evil, consider 'd merely as such. When any of these passions are calm, and cause no disorder in the soul, they are very readily taken for the determination of reason, and are suppos'd to proceed from the same faculty, with that, which judges of truth and falshood. Their nature and principles have been suppos'd the same, because their sensations are not evidently different. (T 417) The most obvious application of this argument would be to cases of cool, seemingly passionless 165 deliberation: e.g., in the course of planning the family budget I set aside funds for the children's education. A cursory inspection (or recollection) of the contents of my conscious mind at the time of acting would reveal to me some purely rational considerations that I had in mind at the time. I had some thoughts at the time whose contents are (roughly) expressible in such words as "If I don't put aside so much per month over so many years we will never be able to see them all through university." But cursory introspection or recollection would not detect any separately identifiable desire-factor present to my conscious mind at the time. Considered philosophical examination, Hume assures us, will reveal one, a 'calm' one -- in this case calm 'kindness to children'. Less obviously, the calm-passions argument, most naturally applicable to cases of deliberation... (shrink)

Health care should be preferentially allocated to younger patients. This is just and is seen as just. Age is an objective factor in rationing decisions. The arguments against 'ageism' are answered. The effects of age on current methods of rationing are illustrated, and the practical applications of an age-related criterion are discussed. Ageist policies are in current use and open discussion of them is advocated.

For more than two centuries, human workers in both the United Kingdom and Australia have been afforded some level of protection at work by occupational or work health and safety legislation. Concurrently, the legislative protection of animals has grown from a bare recognition of some as legitimate objects for protection from cruelty to a space where many species are deemed sentient beings. However, current animal welfare legislation in Australia and elsewhere exempt some classes of animals from protection and allow some (...) questionable practices that result in animals suffering in a range of environments. One such environment is, arguably, the workplace. While work health and safety legislation aims to make workplaces and systems of work safe for people, animals who work are not captured by this legislation in Australia. In this article, I argue that work health and safety legislation should take a new, contemporary, and inclusive approach by relinquishing outdated anthropocentric perspectives and recognizing the role of animals as workers and their need for workplace regulation and protection. The proposed reform of the work health and safety legislation would incorporate animal work health and safety by, as a minimum, extending the current definition of “workers” to include animals who work. (shrink)

Almost all academics sigh at any mention of the REF. Preparing submissions for the Research Excellence Framework takes up a lot of effort, but is important because the REF determines a department's funding allocation from a finite pot of cash. As such, it is seen as a necessary evil by most staff. However, the REF poses ethical problems in addition to the stress it causes. As it stands, the REF is exacerbating a schism between research and teaching staff, encouraging deceptive (...) attribution of authorship, and failing to give due credit (and cash) to deserving research. As such, the REF needs some serious refereeing. (shrink)

Many families refuse to consent to donation from their deceased relatives or over-rule the consent given before death by the patient, but giving families more information about the potential recipients of organs could reduce refusal rates. In this paper, we analyse arguments for and against doing so, and conclude that this strategy should be attempted. While it would be impractical and possibly unethical to give details of actual potential recipients, generic, realistic information about the people who could benefit from organs (...) should be provided to families before they make a decision about donation or attempt to over-rule it. (shrink)

There is a palpable need for a new theory that embraces organisations and management – the hegemony of scientific theories is at an end. This paper argues that the phenomenological method which Husserl inaugurates has the potential to provide new insights. Those who adopt a phenomenological attitude to their situation within a business can explore unusual, and as yet unseen, depths within phenomena. The paper introduces Husserl’s method which requires the development of skills and a thoroughgoing rejection of scientific methods (...) of enquiry. However, this method is unlikely assist practitioners to achieve already determined business goals. (shrink)

This article defends misanthropy against what I take to be an underappreciated objection. Several recent defenders of misanthropy have held that it should be understood as involving a critical judgment of humanity based on the belief that human life is saturated with moral failings. The first half of this article identifies a problem for this view: namely, most people do not experience their lives in ways that would seem to be entailed by the misanthrope’s judgment. The second half proposes a (...) solution to this objection—an error theory for misanthropy. Several arguments are given. A common theme among them, however, is that there are good reasons to think that human beings habitually ignore and/or suppress certain displays of their moral failings. A misanthrope can also argue that beings whose lives are choked in moral failings will be more likely to overlook and to disavow them. (shrink)

Human stories lie at the heart of professional practice in the human, social services, though these are often discounted when it comes to researching such services and sharing practice through publication. This article identifies and addresses certain methodological and epistemological biases and consequent challenges in human science research, and discusses the importance of story (autoethnography) and discovery (heuristics) in research which can inform practice, meaningfully and ethically. It considers this by addressing both research and publication, illustrating both the challenges and (...) the solutions from the authors’ own experiences. The article argues for reclaiming the subjective and the subjectivist dimension in human, social science, and, therefore, the experiential, in both research and publication; and addresses four problems with regard to publishing in the human sciences, namely: privilege, quality, anonymity in peer-review, and capital. (shrink)

This book will attempt to show that these and other problems are ultimately resolvable, given careful and unbiased application of established ethical principles ...

It can be easy to assume that since the “theist in the street” is unaware of any of the traditional arguments for theism, he or she is not in position to offer independent rational support for believing that God exists. I argue that that is false if we accept with William Alston that “manifestation beliefs” can enjoy rational support on the basis of suitable religious experiences. I make my case by defending the viability of a Moorean-style proof for theism—a proof (...) for the existence of God that parallels in structure G. E. Moore’s famous proof for the existence of the external world. I argue that this shows that even if the theist in the street has nothing to offer for helping to convince the religious sceptic, this needn’t entail that she cannot offer independent rational support in defense of her theistic belief. (shrink)

Aaron Smuts argues that the holiday film It's a Wonderful Life should be understood as both an illustration and a cinematic vindication of objective list theories of worth. This article argues that he is right about the first point but wrong about the second. It's a Wonderful Life is an excellent illustration of objective list theories. However, it also exposes a problem for them – their susceptibility to sceptical anxieties about whether we can know if our lives are worth living. (...) More specifically, I argue that It's a Wonderful Life shows how our lives are vulnerable to two sceptical anxieties, one arising from our potential inability to confirm our successes in promoting the good, the other from our potential inability to ascertain which goods can properly be said to be in our lives due to gaps in our self-knowledge and our potential for self-deception. (shrink)

This special issue of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry focuses on global health and associated bioethical concerns. As a concept, global health broadens the focus from national public health situations to the international sphere and concerns itself with the health of all humans, but particularly those in developing countries who suffer from severe health inequalities. However, there is one sense in which global health is lacking: Its primary focus is on those currently alive and, in some cases, their offspring. But (...) what about future generations, who may suffer from even more pronounced inequalities? In this editorial, we consider the bioethical implications of failing to adopt an intergenerational concept of global health.One of the major strengths of global health is its emphasis on disenfranchised populations who do not enjoy the advantages of the medical systems of developed countries. By drawing attention to the issues that affect billions of disadvantaged people around the world .. (shrink)

In this essay I attempt to defend Badiou's conception of inaesthetics, drawn from the Handbook of Inaesthetics, from the pertinent criticisms of Rancière. In doing so, it is possible to delimit the intra-philosophical effects (truth effects) of artistic events (this combination being the domain of inaesthetics). Badiou can be defended from all of Rancière's objections, save the objection that inaesthetics asserts a 'propriety of art.' However, in granting this objection, it is possible to open a different question regarding Badiou's work: (...) what is the status of Badiou's comments on art outside of the Handbook of Inaesthetics? Through a reading of Le siècle, I show that, for Badiou, the importance of art extends beyond inaesthetics to other domains of thought. Yet Badiou has yet to answer the question of how art and truth relate outside of the domain of inaesthetics. (shrink)

The present study analyses the psychometric properties of the irrational procrastination scale in a sample of United States college students using the Rasch modeling approach. Results showed that the IPS items had a high level of reliability, good content validity, structural validity, and substantive validity, and no differential item functioning effects in terms of gender. The IPS was found to be unidimensional, supporting the originally proposed theoretical structure by Steel. Finally, psychometric implications derived from the results and study limitations are (...) discussed; recommendations for future investigations are also offered. (shrink)

Although homeopathy has received a great deal of criticism in recent years for unethical practices, Homeopaths without Borders (HWB) has gone almost entirely unmentioned in the medical literature. This is somewhat surprising, given that HWB are engaged in activity even more dubious than that of most homeopaths. HWB has quite a long history, and several different national associations; here, I focus on HWB Germany (HWBG) and HWB North America (HWBNA) and briefly describe some of their activities and their harmful effects.

Camus’ central thesis in The Myth of Sisyphus is that suicide is not the proper response to, nor is it the solution of, the problem of absurdity. Yet many of his literary protagonists either commit suicide or are self-destructive in other ways. I argue that the protagonists that best live up to the characteristics of the absurd man that Camus outlines in the Myth uniformly either commit suicide or consent to their destruction by behaving in such a manner as to (...) invite death. It is my contention that this raises serious questions abuut the validity of Camus’ arguments that suicide is not the proper response to the recognition that life is absurd. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 9, Page 1247-1276, November 2022. Classical leadership models have insistently reinforced the notion of leader-centric rule. Business models focus on strong leadership, definitive decision-making and charismatic figures. Authoritarian leadership is the foundation upon which other models are based. However, the adoption of Charismatic Leadership and Great Man theory puts into relief the tendency within democratic rule towards fascist and populist ideology. Many leading philosophers and political scientists lend support to authoritarian rule. This tendency (...) is not always apparent in democratic theory, indeed it is counter-intuitive, but from a critical perspective, we are forced to ask whether there is not something within democracy which invites authoritarianism and harbours the seed of fascism. (shrink)

The recent literature surrounding the realist/anti-realist debates in the philosophy of science has focused its attention towards the role that history plays in explaining why science is successful and thus approximately true. This has been caused, in large part, by the Pessimistic Meta-Induction (PMI), which has challenged attempted explanations by turning our attention towards the large amount of scientific theories that have been abandoned but were still empirically successful. There will be two primary goals of this paper. The first will (...) be to explore the PMI more deeply than it traditionally has been. This will involve demonstrating how the PMI is more malleable than it is normally given credit for as well as how meta-inductions can and have been used in practice. The second goal will be to discuss the implications of this more robust form of the PMI for explanationist realism, or the thesis that scientific realism provides the best answer as to why science is successful. I will argue that explanationist realism, after being cornered by the malleability of the PMI, turns out to be either a trivial or false thesis. Given this demise of explanationist realism as a substantive thesis, I will argue that the strength of scientific realism truly lies in its critical abilities or its ability to normatively assess scientific theories and the way we ought to practice science. (shrink)