This article examines whether the likelihood and amount of firm charitable giving in response to catastrophic events are related to firm advertising intensity, and whether industry competition level moderates this relationship. Using data on Chinese firms’ philanthropic response to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, we find that firm advertising intensity is positively associated with both the probability and the amount of corporate giving. The results also indicate that this positive advertising intensity-philanthropic giving relationship is stronger (...) in competitive industries, and firms in competitive industries are more likely to donate. This study thus provides evidence suggesting that even in the wake of catastrophic events, corporate philanthropic giving is strategic. (shrink)

The children’s market has become significantly more important to marketers in recent years. They have been spending increasing amounts on advertising, particularly of food and beverages, to reach this segment. At the same time, there is a critical debate among parents, government agencies, and industry experts as to the ethics of food advertising practices aimed toward children. The␣present study examines parents’ ethical views of food advertising targeting children. Findings indicate that parents’ beliefs concerning at least some dimensions (...) of moral intensity are significantly related to their ethical judgments and behavioral intentions of food advertising targeting children as well as the perceived moral intensity of the situation. (shrink)

While interest in doing business continues to rise steadily, information concerning the evolving social ethics of Chinese managers is sparse. This study reports the findings obtained from intensive interviews with thirty-nine Chinese advertising executives. In general, there appears to be developing a cautious optimism about the role of advertising in the Chinese economy. Findings are compared with earlier studies of American and Hong Kong managers and it is suggested that further research and observation is needed to track the (...) development of business ethics in this largest of the world's developing nations. (shrink)

This paper investigates the characteristics of firms which have underrepresented groups in top management positions and those which do not. It is argued that profiles of these characteristics will be different for firms with minorities vs. women and that these profiles will be different depending on whether representation is by board membership or through officerships. A discriminant analysis found both similarities and differences in variables that were associated with these different forms of representation. It was found, for example, that size (...) is associated with representation for both minorities and women, whereas high advertising intensity is associated with firms with women on board, but not as officers. Other findings and the implications of the study are discussed. (shrink)

Branding has long been seen as an effective means of marketing products. The use of brand-based marketing campaigns, however, has come under intense scrutiny over the past 10 years for its power to facilitate deception and emotional manipulation. As a way of proceeding through the many differing moral assessments, this paper turns for insight to the tradition of writing on social ethical issues within the Roman Catholic Church. The author suggests that Catholic Social Teaching offers a distinctive approach to (...) class='Hi'>advertising ethics that charts a middle course between the two poles of the debate on branding. This article introduces readers to the approach to advertising developed within Vatican documents on media, highlighting the basic values at stake and the particular moral norms for advertising that are articulated. The article then applies these values and norms to the case of brandbased advertising, ultimately suggesting that advertisers approach their work through the virtue of solidarity. (shrink)

Using Brehm's (1999) intensity of emotion paradigm, we investigated whether basic positive or negative affect operates like a motivational state. We focused on one of the most basic affects, the sensory affect experienced when eating food. Participants tasted a delicious chocolate truffle (Study 1) or some bitter chocolate (Study 2) and were exposed to either a weak, moderately strong, or a very strong reason for feeling an opposing-valence affect or to no reason. In line with the predictions, the affect (...) that participants reported in response to chocolate functioned like a motivational state as its intensity was a cubic function of the importance of the reason for feeling an opposing affect. We discussed the implications of these findings for the conceptualisation of affect and consider several applications for food advertising and consumer rating research. (shrink)

Intense debates about who will lead the Muslims after the death of the Prophet Muḥammad (PBUH) occurred among the Aṣḥāb (companions of the Prophet Muhammad). A group of Aṣḥāb claimed that the caliphate was the right of Ḥaḍrat ʿAlī and his descendants. This movement, which emerged as political advocacy supporting Ḥaḍrat ʿAlī (d. 40/661) and his children, took on a sectarian identity called Shīʿa by time, was divided into groups, and then spread to different places in the Islamic World. One (...) of these groups is the Ismāʿīliyya which took its name from Ismāʿīl b. Ḏj̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ (d. 138/755). Ismāʿīliyya had believed that the Umayyads and the ʿAbbāsids usurped the right of Ḥaḍrat ʿAlī and his descendants; therefore, they struggled against these dynasties secretly under the leadership of ʿUbayd Allāh al-Mahdī (d. 322/934) and by means of callers. After establishing their first state Fāṭimids in the North Africa with the Berbers, the Ismāʿīlīs carried out their activities openly and seized a region from Barqa to the Atlantic Ocean. The Fāṭimid State based on sectarianism aimed to follow the Shīʿa belief rather than controlling an area since its establishment. In this respect, the Fāṭimids, who differed from the ʿAbbāsid and Umayyad states, made great efforts to capture Egypt and Andalus by increasing their propagandas through callers (dāī) from the end of the third century. Because of this effort and successful policy of al-Muʿizz li-Din Allah the third, they conquered Egypt. The callers played a key role in the Egypt. As the Sunni-Maliki sect had taken root in Andalusia, Ismāʿīlīs could not achieve the same success, and a limited number of people embraced their doctrine. However, they managed to direct some famous intellectual and literary men to their side. Undoubtedly, one of the most important achievements was Ibn Hāniʾ al-Andalusi (d. 362/973). Ibn Hāniʾ, who had to leave Andalusia, as he was a Shiite, went to Maghrib and came under the patronage of the governors of Masila, which depended on Fāṭimid. His poems about governors spread his fame and made him known until al-Qayrawan, the capital of Fāṭimid. One of the methods used by many of the caliphs and amīrs (ruler) to consolidate their rule within the borders of the state and to spread their influence abroad since the Jahiliyya (pre-Islamic period) is that they included poets who praised themselves and the state policies, in other words, made their advertisements in the palace. Ibn Hāniʾ was one of the poets Caliph Muʿizz invited to his palace in al-Mansuriyya as soon as he heard of the poet’s fame. Ibn Hāniʾ came to the presence of Caliph in 350/962 and named as al-Mutanabbī of Maghreb as he became famous than poets such as Abu'l-Qasim al-Fazari and ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Iyadi. In time, Ibn Hāniʾ who became one of the sincerest friends of Muʿizz, used all his creative potential to defend the Caliph and deliver the views of Ismāʿīliyya in return for the value and generosity he received from the Caliph. Thus, the poet, who became the most powerful defender and propagandist of the Fāṭimids who pursued an expansionist policy in the East and the West, introduced an innovation to his style of praise contrary to his classical style. Accordingly, he gained great reputation thanks to his poems that praised the Fāṭimid Imāms, especially Muʿizz using expressions attributing him superhuman properties. Naturally, the successful politics followed by Muizz and the doctrine and terms of the Shiite-Ismāʿīliyya party, which the poet advocated, had a distinct reflection on his odes. Moreover, the issue of Ahl al-Bayt (the family of the Prophet Muḥammad) and injustices they suffered, affected the poet’s feelings deeply, and he did not hesitated to express these injustices in his poems without worrying about any danger. These odes reported to be the first written documents including information about the Fāṭimid creed and the traits, which Fāṭimid Imāms were supposed to have, are important resources for researchers. Fāṭimids believed that the imām was innocent, knew everything, and he would intercede his friends on Judgment Day. They even saw him as superhuman and attributed holiness and glory to him that would make him the spirit of God. Furthermore, they regarded that the imām was the reason of life. Similar themes were very common in Ibn Hāniʾ’s poetry. His poems went beyond the borders of the states in the North Africa, spread to a large region extending from Andalusia to Baghdad, and provided recognition of the doctrine of Ismāʿīliyya. This study consists of an introduction and two parts. The introduction part includes brief information about the history of the Shīʿa-Ismāʿīliyya and Ibn Hāniʾ’s life and poetry. The other parts discuss reflections of the Shīʿa-Ismāʿīliyya belief in the poet’s odes and analyses of these poems. Finally, poems having historical and political value related to Karbala, which has profound effects on Shiite literature, are analyzed. (shrink)

Space tourism is an emerging field where few people have direct experience. However, considering the potential in the near future, it is beneficial to better understand how related information influences people’s attitudes about this new form of tourism. Employing information-processing-based Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 361 respondents consuming content related to space tourism on Chinese social media, we found that induced happiness and impression are positively associated with willingness to try space tourism. Information authenticity positively moderates (...) these two associations. Our findings emphasize three aspects of information during the processes of reception and filtering: meaning, intensity, and trust. Since promotional materials for space tourism rely heavily on mental simulations rather than objective feedback, creative uses of digital technology are advantageous. However, precautions must be taken to prevent exploitation, such as false advertising, exaggeration, and emotional manipulation. (shrink)

As public awareness of environmental issues and animal welfare has risen, catering to public concerns and views on these issues has become a potentially profitable strategy for marketing a number of product types, of which animal products such as dairy and meat are obvious examples. Our analysis suggests that specific marketing instruments are used to sell animal products by blurring the difference between the paradigms of animal welfare used by producers, and the paradigms of animal welfare as perceived by the (...) public. These instruments rely on ethical, political and sustainable consumption discourses in order to sell one image of animal welfare in intensive animal production while the actual production at the same time presupposes a quite different paradigm of animal welfare. Specifically, product advertising utilizes representations tied to concepts of naturalness in depictions of both animal lives and product processes as “natural”. Product marketing suggests a coherence between nature, production process, and end product, thereby creating associations that the lives of production animals are lived in nature and that their products bring a wholesome and sustainable naturalness to the consumer—thus attempting to display a green, eco-, climate-, and animal friendly production. By analyzing a number of cases from the Scandinavian food market, this paper thus illustrates the tensions between paradigms of animal welfare and concepts of naturalness as these are used in animal product marketing, discusses the ethical implications of this type of marketing communication, and stresses the need for transparency in the area of animal welfare. (shrink)

Susan Sontag once remarked that since the invention of the camera, photography has “kept company with death.” And indeed, images of suffering human beings and devastated landscapes appear regularly in the popular media and even in contemporary art. This volume explores these painful images from the past few decades of photography, weighing in on the intense critical debate that has arisen in recent years around depictions of acute human suffering—especially those that are beautifully rendered. Drawing on works from advertising, (...) photojournalism, art photography, and conceptual art, Beautiful Suffering features reproductions of all the pieces in the Williams College Museum of Art exhibition that shares its name—including portrayals of AIDS sufferers, Abu Ghraib prisoners, refugees, and casualties of war. It also includes five critical essays that engage the works themselves as well as the larger issues the exhibition confronts: Is it inherently problematic to seek aesthetic pleasure in a rendering of pain? And if so, why? These essays, composed by scholars in fields as diverse as art history and political science, are perfect complements to the powerful images of suffering that probe some of the most pressing issues we face today. (shrink)

Who can feel both happy and sad at the same time, but not discomfort? This study aimed to investigate the cultural differences in mixed emotional experiences induced by conflict stimuli among American and Chinese undergraduate students. In total, 160 Americans and 158 Chinese watched two different valence advertisements (one predominantly positive and the other predominantly negative) that elicited mixed emotions; their feelings were assessed through self-reported measures. Findings indicated the impact that cultural differences have in people’s mixed emotional experiences depends (...) on the emotional components of the mixed emotional situations. The Americans and Chinese both experience a comparably intense mixture of emotions in different valence situations, but their discomfort toward conflicting stimuli is different. Further, dialectical thinking may be a mechanism behind the influence of cultural differences in people’s mixed emotional experiences. Implications for emotion theory and research are discussed. (shrink)

Religion is universal human culture. No phenomenon is more widely shared or more intensely studied, yet there is no agreement on what religion is. Now, in Faces in the Clouds, anthropologist Stewart Guthrie provides a provocative definition of religion in a bold and persuasive new theory. Guthrie says religion can best be understood as systematic anthropomorphism--that is, the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things and events. Many writers see anthropomorphism as common or even universal in religion, but few think (...) it is central. To Guthrie, however, it is fundamental. Religion, he writes, consists of seeing the world as humanlike. As Guthrie shows, people find a wide range of humanlike beings plausible: Gods, spirits, abominable snowmen, HAL the computer, Chiquita Banana. We find messages in random events such as earthquakes, weather, and traffic accidents. We say a fire "rages," a storm "wreaks vengeance," and waters "lie still." Guthrie says that our tendency to find human characteristics in the nonhuman world stems from a deep-seated perceptual strategy: in the face of pervasive uncertainty about what we see, we bet on the most meaningful interpretation we can. If we are in the woods and see a dark shape that might be a bear or a boulder, for example, it is good policy to think it is a bear. If we are mistaken, we lose little, and if we are right, we gain much. So, Guthrie writes, in scanning the world we always look for what most concerns us--livings things, and especially, human ones. Even animals watch for human attributes, as when birds avoid scarecrows. In short, we all follow the principle--better safe than sorry. Marshalling a wealth of evidence from anthropology, cognitive science, philosophy, theology, advertising, literature, art, and animal behavior, Guthrie offers a fascinating array of examples to show how this perceptual strategy pervades secular life and how it characterizes religious experience. Challenging the very foundations of religion, Faces in the Clouds forces us to take a new look at this fundamental element of human life. (shrink)

Michael Huemer argues, on statistical grounds, that ``existence is evidence for immortality". On reasoning derived from the anthropic principle, however, mere existence cannot be evidence against any non-indexical, ``eternal'' hypothesis that predicts observers. This note attempts to advertise the much-flouted anthropic principle's virtues and workings in a new way, namely by calling attention to the fact that it is the primary intension of one's indexically-described evidence that best characterizes one's epistemic position.

This paper theorises and exemplifies the place of audience labour in the propagation of Discourse and discourses. Audience labour is simply the work of people engaged in mediation processes as they gather themselves into groups defined by specific media events (sport, music, news, movies and so on). It compares the environments and practices of the mass media era and those of the current era to show that the most economically valuable work in media is done by audiences, and that that (...) work is becoming more direct in its orientation and effects, even as it gets cheaper for advertisers and more immersive for audience members. A social media view of audience labour shows up the intensely intimate nature of personal commodification: feelings, attitudes, opinions, outrages, general states of mind and being are all grist for the digital economy mill. Outrage systems are especially profitable. They provide grounds for what I call ‘discourse industrial sectors’, or, those groups of people making a living and sometimes a fortune fighting on one side or another of the so-called culture wars. I argue for a conception of rhetorical purpose as a guide for analysing current media environments that depend on social media. (shrink)

On Blindness opens the eyes of the sighted to the world as experience by the blind, offering a unique opportunity to explore the challenges, frustrations, joys - and extraordinary insights - experienced in the everyday business of discovering the world without sight. What difference doessight or its absence make to our ideas about the world? What begins as a philosophical exchange between the noted philosopher and broadcaster Bryan Magee and the late Martin Milligan, activist and philosopher blind almost from birth, (...) develops into a personal and intense discussion of the implications of blindness. The debate is vigorous and oftenheated; sometimes contentious, it is always stimulating. In discussing the range of blind experience, from those born blind to those who became blind - including those who have to cope with the shock of gaining sight they had never before possessed - On Blindness argues strongly against the notionthat blindness is a simple experience. This extraordinary book casts new light on one of the most fundamental aspects of human experience. It will make fascinating reading for anyone interested in sight and blindness from a personal, practical or philosophical point of view. This dictionary is intended for anyone who enjoys food andwould like a handy, non-technical guide to the terms they encounter on food labels, in advertising or in the media. Its broad coverage of food and nutrition makes it invaluable for consumers, cooks, and a range of students and practitioners in the fields of catering, home economies, foodtechnology, and health care. (shrink)

Globalization and fragmentation, weakly controlled flows of information and knowledge, increasing cleavages in societies undergoing rapid change, flows of migrants, services and capital, bypassing the control of national governments, life styles and consumption patterns produced by electronic media and advertising - all these developments already have a significant impact on post-Soviet regions. And all kind of actors - decision makers, journalists, experts, students - perceive the environment beyond their respective national borders increasingly as the "playground" they have to take (...) into account, and as a framework for action. The chapters in this volume are produced by experts in the so called transformation countries in Eastern Europe. They address various questions on inter- and transnational relations, thereby offering a framework for reflection and for analysis of macro-trends around policy fields relevant for the countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The product certainly mirrows the specific environment of researchers, teachers and students in these countries. At the same time, it reflects a process of intensive discussion on the state of IR literature worldwide. Furthermore, this book demonstrates how useful teaching tools for universities and institutes not only in Eastern and Central Europe can be produced. (shrink)

In Cameroon, a monumental "statue of liberty" is made from scrap metal. In Congo, a thriving popular music incorporates piercing screams and carnal dances. When these and other instantiations of the aesthetics of Africa and its diasporas are taken into account, how are ideas of beauty reconfigured? Scholars and artists take up that question in this invigorating, lavishly illustrated collection, which includes more than one hundred color images. Exploring sculpture, music, fiction, food, photography, fashion, and urban design, the contributors engage (...) with and depart from canonical aesthetic theories as they demonstrate that beauty cannot be understood apart from ugliness. Highlighting how ideas of beauty are manifest and how they mutate, travel, and combine across time and distance, continental and diasporic writers examine the work of a Senegalese sculptor inspired by Leni Riefenstahl's photographs of Nuba warriors; a rich Afro-Brazilian aesthetic incorporating aspects of African, Jamaican, and American cultures; and African Americans' Africanization of the Santería movement in the United States. They consider the fraught, intricate spaces of the urban landscape in postcolonial South Africa; the intense pleasures of eating on Réunion; and the shockingly graphic images on painted plywood boards advertising "morality" plays along the streets of Ghana. And they analyze the increasingly ritualized wedding feasts in Cameroon as well as the limits of an explicitly "African" aesthetics. Two short stories by the Mozambican writer Mia Couto gesture toward what beauty might be in the context of political failure and postcolonial disillusionment. Together the essays suggest that beauty is in some sense future-oriented and that taking beauty in Africa and its diasporas seriously is a way of rekindling hope. Contributors. Rita Barnard, Kamari Maxine Clarke, Mia Couto, Mark Gevisser, Simon Gikandi, Michelle Gilbert, Isabel Hofmeyr, William Kentridge, Dominique Malaquais, Achille Mbembe, Cheryl-Ann Michael, Celestin Monga, Sarah Nuttall, Patricia Pinho, Rodney Place, Els van der Plas, Pippa Stein, Françoise Vergès. (shrink)

In Cameroon, a monumental “statue of liberty” is made from scrap metal. In Congo, a thriving popular music incorporates piercing screams and carnal dances. When these and other instantiations of the aesthetics of Africa and its diasporas are taken into account, how are ideas of beauty reconfigured? Scholars and artists take up that question in this invigorating, lavishly illustrated collection, which includes more than one hundred color images. Exploring sculpture, music, fiction, food, photography, fashion, and urban design, the contributors engage (...) with and depart from canonical aesthetic theories as they demonstrate that beauty cannot be understood apart from ugliness. Highlighting how ideas of beauty are manifest and how they mutate, travel, and combine across time and distance, continental and diasporic writers examine the work of a Senegalese sculptor inspired by Leni Riefenstahl’s photographs of Nuba warriors; a rich Afro-Brazilian aesthetic incorporating aspects of African, Jamaican, and American cultures; and African Americans’ Africanization of the Santería movement in the United States. They consider the fraught, intricate spaces of the urban landscape in postcolonial South Africa; the intense pleasures of eating on Réunion; and the shockingly graphic images on painted plywood boards advertising “morality” plays along the streets of Ghana. And they analyze the increasingly ritualized wedding feasts in Cameroon as well as the limits of an explicitly “African” aesthetics. Two short stories by the Mozambican writer Mia Couto gesture toward what beauty might be in the context of political failure and postcolonial disillusionment. Together the essays suggest that beauty is in some sense future-oriented and that taking beauty in Africa and its diasporas seriously is a way of rekindling hope. Contributors. Rita Barnard, Kamari Maxine Clarke, Mia Couto, Mark Gevisser, Simon Gikandi, Michelle Gilbert, Isabel Hofmeyr, William Kentridge, Dominique Malaquais, Achille Mbembe, Cheryl-Ann Michael, Celestin Monga, Sarah Nuttall, Patricia Pinho, Rodney Place, Els van der Plas, Pippa Stein, Françoise Vergès. (shrink)

During 2012 students enrolled in a Master’s management accounting unit were invited to complete a compulsory class quiz, which was arranged to include a mild form of deception allowing them an opportunity to cheat. Prior to the test students were coached concerning the importance of the ICMA code of ethical conduct, which formed the basis of the quiz. Following the test, students were made aware of the deception and asked to judge the propriety of their actions using a research instrument (...) based on moral intensity theory (Jones in The Academy of Management Review, 16(2), 366–395, 1991). Academic dishonesty, in its many forms is endemic in universities and in this study a significant number of students take advantage of an opportunity to maximise test scores and earn an advertised reward by cheating. Others adopted a virtuous position and opted not to use the information. As reported from an earlier investigation, Woodbine and Amirthalingam (2013) again demonstrate the effect of cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957) although previously the research instrument did not clearly differentiate between respondent types. A logistic regression of subsequent data establishes that high achievers (in terms of their test scores) are more likely to take advantage of the disclosed information to maximise scores and that this is somewhat offset by aspects of their moral character. Immediately following the field experiment, students met to reflect on their actions. A summary of their responses is provided, which tends to support prior evidence that many are somewhat blasé in their attitude to this form of opportunistic behaviour. These findings have ramifications in terms of the way tertiary institutions emphasise academic excellence before moral development, while acting to manage the incidence of misbehaviour. (shrink)

Climate change and farming malpractices are harmful to the globe's productive soil and biodiversity, thereby posing a hazard to the survival of future generations. Innovative technologies provide continuous smart conservation solutions, such as regenerative farming, to confront the ongoing climate crisis and maintain biodiversity. Albeit, regenerative farming has the potential to conserve climate change by upgrading the soil's organic materials and reinstating biodiversity leading to carbon attenuation. However, a critical problem remains concerning adapting conservation farming practices that can assist low-income (...) farmers. In this scenario, theoretical-driven communication campaigns are critical for addressing individuals' resistance to innovation. Thereby, this research uncovers the moderating influence of the numerous communication tools in determining the adoption of regenerative farming through diminishing farmers' resistance to innovation. The study employed a cross-sectional design vis-à-vis a survey method. A sample of 863 farmers participated by responding to the self-administrated questionnaire. In line with prior theories, the study's results identified that communication campaigns such as public service advertisements and informative scientific documentaries could reduce the resistance to innovation that increases the attitude toward the adoption of regenerative farming with varied intensity. Besides, informational support also remained a significant contributor in determining the intention to adopt regenerative farming. This specifies that implanting habits of conservation farming requires the initiation of communication campaigns using different media content. These results may be advantageous for policymakers to influence farmers' intentions to adopt regenerative farming. (shrink)

As an alternative protein product to animal meat, plant-based meat is considered to play an essential role in improving animal welfare and protecting the environment. However, why do a few consumers choose plant-based meat but others do not? Despite the increasing research on plant-based meat marketing, little is known about the psychological mechanism by which plant-based meat marketing affects consumers’ purchasing decisions. We utilize dual-system theory to understand how social media marketing of plant-based meat influences cognitive fluency, customer inspiration, perceived (...) risk, and purchase intention. Four studies show that social media marketing can increase young people’s purchase intention of plant-based meat more than traditional marketing. In Studies 1 and 2, increased intensity of social media marketing can enhance young people’s cognitive fluency and further promote purchase intention. Study 3 explores how cognitive fluency relates to purchase intention through two psychological mechanisms. We suggest that a higher level of cognitive fluency increases customer inspiration and improves purchase intention. However, a lower level of cognitive fluency reduces purchase intention by increasing perceived risk. Study 4 manipulated members’ in-group or out-group status to show a boundary condition for the effect of brand community identity on purchase intention. These studies provide insight into how brand marketers can use social media to promote consumer inspiration and advertising engagement, how managers can offer fluency-increasing mechanisms to ensure a low level of perceived risk, and how enterprise practitioners may want to consider brand community publicity to attract out-group members. (shrink)

Following the Industrial Revolution in Europe and America, the market was flooded with manufacturing goods. To promote sales, the department store that stressed a “low profit, high volume” model appeared in Shanghai. Sellers lowered prices to encourage purchases, and used rapid and high volume turnover to make up for lower profits. To speed up turnover, department stores invented various devices to increase sales, including intensive media advertising, open and comfortable store spaces, and free and attentive services. The new sales (...) philosophy and tactics not only brought about a breakthrough in the retailing, but also reshaped consumer life and urban culture. The Shanghai department store evinced the social and cultural meaning of consumption in its building and inner design, its application of new technology, and its promotional activities and products display. A consumer lifestyle centering on the department store also remolded the Shanghai society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Procreative Liberty, Biological Connections, and MotherhoodMargaret Olivia Little (bio)Given the complex and dramatic array of issues currently facing us in reproductive ethics, bioethicists working on the topic might be forgiven feelings of trepidation when they cast their minds toward the next century. Currently, technologies such as artificial insemination by donor (AID), once the source of intense controversy, are used on a routine basis; mainstream newspapers carry advertisements offering “excellent (...) compensation” to ova “donors;” courts are arguing whether women who serve as gestational or “surrogate” mothers have any parental rights; and proposals resurface to jail pregnant women who take street drugs. Sorting out which developments are to be welcomed and which are to be resisted—and why—will require us not only to clarify some of our most basic value commitments, but also to reflect on our understanding of concepts, such as motherhood, that we previously had the luxury of thinking obvious. Let me highlight two issues I think we will be forced to confront as we try to navigate the ethics of reproduction into the twenty-first century—namely, the value of biological connection and the meaning of motherhood.Procreative Liberty and the Value of Biological ReproductionPeople who are unable to conceive a child or to carry one to term now face a variety of extraordinary means of procreative assistance: they can buy sperm and ova, undergo in vitro fertilization, or contract another woman to gestate and give birth to the baby. Those who are enthusiastic about these new technologies [End Page 392] and arrangements often explain their support in terms of many people’s deep desire or even right to bear children biologically related to them; those who are suspicious of the techniques often explain their resistance by criticizing our culture’s “pronatalist” emphasis on biological rather than social relations with children. Focusing on such clear-cut positions, though, undersells the complexity and difficulty of the issues involved. Few want to dismiss altogether the importance of biological connection; but the question remains, what measure of importance should it be granted? Or again, while most agree that procreative liberty is one of our most fundamental rights, the question remains, whose procreation, in what context, and by which means? The truly difficult questions, that is, pertain to how we are to value biological relatedness and how we are to draw the contours of procreative liberty.One perspective emerging in current debates urges an expansive answer to these questions, arguing that the new reproductive technologies and arrangements deserve constitutional protection. Procreative liberty is deeply important, it is urged, given how fundamental the decision to have or to refrain from having children is to our sense of dignity, identity, and meaning of life. But if we recognize a right to reproduce coitally, it is claimed, we should also recognize a right to reproduce noncoitally: people with infertile partners should no more be barred from exercising their right to “beget, bear, and raise” children biologically linked to them by using surrogate arrangements or AID than those who are blind should be barred from exercising their right to written information by using Braille texts. 1The fundamental question is whether the value of biological reproduction persists when pursued outside of the intimacies of marriage and family that form its traditional home. The new reproductive technologies and arrangements, after all, represent a departure not simply because they are noncoital but because they involve reproduction with strangers, under contract, and for pay. One question that demands our reflection, then, is whether the procreative liberty we value attaches to individuals atomistically, as it were, or to individuals only insofar as they are in relationships of an intimate and ongoing nature.Other developments on the horizon sound a restrictive note about procreative liberty. Many IVF clinics, for instance, have denied services to would-be single parents or to gay or lesbian couples. Some legislators have proposed making certain welfare payments for women conditional upon their use of contraceptives such as Norplant—an odd view if one regards procreative liberty as a fundamental right. After all, we do not usually make the receipt of public aid contingent on waiving a constitutional right. (Imagine the government stipulating that... (shrink)

Today, knowledge on ideal text legibility and high-quality typefaces support fast reading and are accessible to almost everybody who uses a computer. Instead of accelerating the reading process, the kind of typography discussed in this article invites the observer to play in order to catch attention and go beyond the sheer process of reading. Text, which tricks our perception, is observed more intensely than usual ones. Roman Terpitz’ exhibition poster (Figure 1) and the typeface Wirefox (Figure 2) demonstrate how this (...) works in static images. Currently, there is quick growth of still and moving images. Flickering screens catch attention while their content is exchangeable anytime. Hand-held devices like smart phones, touch pads or large, facade-covering LED billboards allow text to be convertible over time. The experiment Dancing type (Figure 3) shows how animated characters can change between text and texture. Words reveal out of a graphical structure and immediately dissolve afterwards. This claims the observer’s attention. This article will introduce and analyse a typography that leads to questions like where it could be used beyond advertising, which applications make sense, if it could improve communication qualities of certain texts and how it can add benefits to current screen technologies. (shrink)

How does an audience receive a work of art? Does the experience only affect the viewer or does it have an effect and thus influence his or her actions? It is the cultural philosopher Ernst Cassirer and his successors in philosophy and developmental psychology as well as in neuroscience to this day who postulate that perception in general and perception of art in particular are not neutral in their origins but alive and thus meaningful. They assume that both are based (...) on analogous principles: in the perception of moving forms and spatial forms in the world and rhythms of forms, colors, light and shadow in art. In practice, this means that perception and its felt effects have an effect on the feelings of the viewer and thus help him to inform himself directly and intensively about the world through art. In contrast to this general epistemological aesthetic theory, which philosophers in particular accept, it is to be shown that this assumption must be redefined not with reference to the world, but with reference to art and design. For the latter, the approach will be extended to a semiotic theory. The background is that in contrast to the world, the designed forms and thus the designed intentions of the artist and designer or his client in relation to the chosen theme have an impact on the viewer and thus on culture and its communicative dynamics. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of the issue that as yet not been extensively researched in the doctrine of Lithuanian and foreign law: the issue of legal distinguishing between medicinal products and food supplements. In order to analyze the problems of theory and practice, the structure of the paper is divided into two parts. The first part concentrates on the main features of medicinal products and food supplements in accordance with the case law of the Court of Justice of the (...) European Union (CJEU). It is established that medicinal products must comply with one of these descriptions: be made and aimed towards healing and preventing sicknesses; cause serious threats to health or have health-hazardous secondary effects; and have very intense effects on physiological features of human organisms. Food supplements in theory should not have these features. However, sometimes in practice preparations identified as food supplements have large doses of certain medicinal substances or other ingredients (e.g. alcohol, plant extracts, vitamins, amino acids, and etc.) that present threats to human health. The practice of the CJEU shows that counterbalancing free movement and public health protection interests is problematic in this area. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:482 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY with Diderot, in 1773, did not generate any excitement on either side: Diderot found the philosopher far less interesting than the patroness; Hemsterhuis, for his part, thought Diderot in person a disappointment, after reading his works. I wish I could say that I found Hemsterhuis an exciting thinker, as he is presented in Moenkemeyer 's useful and informed study. I cannot. On the other hand, (...) this quiet philosopher from Holland stood at one of the great crossroads in the history of European thought. In his struggle against the Atheism he saw emerging from the French Enlightenment, in his stress on essences, known and unknown, as opposed to the atheistic concept of matter, in his doctrine of total personality rather than faculty psychology, in his idea of perfectibilityand the Golden Age that he likened to the afterlife--in these he had found a way out of the sterile impass confronting the disciples of Diderot and d'Holbach. In short, this is a figure of undeniable consequence historically, and he has been too long ignored by American students of philosophy. We should be grateful both to the author and to the publisher for making him known to us in this monograph, the first comprehensive study of Hemsterhuis ever published in English. WALTER E. REX University of California, Berkeley The Autonomy of Reason: A Commentary on Kant's "Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals." By Robert Paul Wolff. (New York: Harper & Row, 1975. Pp. x + 228. $12.50) The Autonomy of Reason reflects Wolff's determination to get out of Kant's system what is good and to get out of Kant's system for good. It thus burns with the conflicting passions of a devoted student who has learned much from a reserved teacher but who now finds it imperative to break with him for precisely the reasons that attracted him initially. This explains why much of the book reads like a declaration of independence yet is based on a sympathetic, even immanent, critique of Kant addressed to Wolff himself. Although he is addressing himself, others may share and will certainly benefit from Wolff's two decades of intense study of Kant. Without question Wolff has written a provocative and important book. Contrary to its title, however, it is not really about the autonomy of reason; and contrary to its subtitle, it is only partly a commentary on Kant's Groundwork. It serves, rather, as a propaedeutic to Wolff's own moral and political views. I believe this at least accounts for some of the puzzling features of the book: its highly personal nature, its style of philosophical commentary, and its devastating introduction. Wolff does not see his task as one of either historical exegesis or philosophical criticism. In the place of both Whiff proposes a "philosophical reconstruction" of the text. This is both desirable and necessary, he says, because "of all the great philosophers, there is none so rich in insights and so plagued by inconsistency as Kant" (p. 4). The resulting reconstruction will be worthwhile provided that affirmative answers can be given to two questions: "Does the interpretation developed here illuminate the text, so that at least some of what Kant says is clearer and more plausible in the light of it; and, more important still, does the interpretation result in an argument whose independent philosophical merit justifies the effort spent grappling with Kant?" (p. 5). A third question suggests itself: would Kant recognize himself as the author of the reconstructed text? This question one must answer in the negative, for the Groundwork that emerges, although certainly Kantian, does not accurately reflect Kantianism. To the extent that this is a criticism, it is so only because the book advertises itself as a commentary. In short, Wolff's book is similar to Strawson's Bounds of Sense in that the value of both lies in salvaging something of worth from the sunken hulk of Kantianism. Wolff's Introduction is particularly revealing, for it consists of a sustained attack on several BOOK REVIEWS 483 of Kant's central metaphysical claims, an attack which, if successful, undermines much of his ethics. As an introduction to a commentary, it prejudices the... (shrink)

Advertisers often have been accused of using techniques which manipulate and control the behavior of consumers and hence violate their autonomy. Some of these techniques are puffery, subliminal advertising, and indirect information transfer. After examining both criticisms and defenses of such practices, this paper presents an analysis of four of the concepts involved in the debate — the concepts of autonomous desire, rational desire, free choice, and control. Applying the results to the case of advertising, it is shown (...) that advertising cannot be found guilty of intrinsically or frequently violating the consumer's autonomy in any of the relevant senses of this notion. (shrink)

This article analyzes the four main criticisms against commercial manipulative advertising : the virtue ethics criticism, the utilitarian criticism, the autonomist criticism, and the Kantian criticism. After demonstrating the weaknesses of the virtue ethics criticism, the utilitarian criticism, and the autonomist criticism, I reconstruct the latter using Kant’s conception of autonomy. In doing so, I simultaneously expand the Kantian criticism: irrational advertising not only entails treating humanity merely as means, but it also threatens moral autonomy by encouraging heteronomy (...) and sometimes even a rebellion against the moral law. (shrink)

It is argued that persuasive advertising overrides the autonomy of consumers, in that it manipulates them without their knowledge and for no good reason. Such advertising causes desires in such a way that a necessary condition of autonomy — the possibility of decision — is removed. Four notions central to autonomous action are discussed — autonomous desire, rational desire and choice, free choice, and control or manipulation — following the strategy of Robert Arrington in a recent paper in (...) this journal. Replies are made to Arrington's arguments in favour of advertising. It is also claimed that the argument developed by Philip Nelson, which concludes that even if persuasive advertising does override autonomy, it is still in the interests of consumers to be subjected to it, is seriously mistaken. Finally, some caveats concerning informative advertising are presented. (shrink)

Concerns about advertising take one of two forms. Some people are worried that advertising threatens autonomous choice. Others are worried not about autonomy but about the values spread by advertising as a powerful institution. I suggest that this bifurcation stems from misunderstanding autonomy. When one turns from autonomous choice to autonomy of persons, or what is often glossed as self-rule, then one has reason to think that advertising poses a moral problem of a sort so far (...) unrecognized. I diagnose this problem using Charles Taylor''s work on "strong evaluation". This problem turns out to have political ramifications that have been only dimly recognized in business ethics circles. (shrink)

Decades of research conducted in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, & Democratic (WEIRD) societies have led many scholars to conclude that the use of mental states in moral judgment is a human cognitive universal, perhaps an adaptive strategy for selecting optimal social partners from a large pool of candidates. However, recent work from a more diverse array of societies suggests there may be important variation in how much people rely on mental states, with people in some societies judging accidental harms just (...) as harshly as intentional ones. To explain this variation, we develop and test a novel cultural evolutionary theory proposing that the intensity of kin-based institutions will favor less attention to mental states when judging moral violations. First, to better illuminate the historical distribution of the use of intentions in moral judgment, we code and analyze anthropological observations from the Human Area Relations Files. This analysis shows that notions of strict liability—wherein the role for mental states is reduced—were common across diverse societies around the globe. Then, by expanding an existing vignette-based experimental dataset containing observations from 321 people in a diverse sample of 10 societies, we show that the intensity of a society's kin-based institutions can explain a substantial portion of the population-level variation in people's reliance on intentions in three different kinds of moral judgments. Together, these lines of evidence suggest that people's use of mental states has coevolved culturally to fit their local kin-based institutions. We suggest that although reliance on mental states has likely been a feature of moral judgment in human communities over historical and evolutionary time, the relational fluidity and weak kin ties of today's WEIRD societies position these populations' psychology at the extreme end of the global and historical spectrum. (shrink)

Political advertising is changing. This chapter considers some of the implications of this for the democratic process. I begin with recent reports of online political advertising. From this, two related concerns emerge. The first is that online political advertisements sometimes occur in the dark, and the second is that they can involve sending different messages to different groups. I consider these issues in turn. This involves an extended discussion of the importance of publicity and discussion in democracy, and (...) a comparison between dog whistles and dark advertisements. Through this, I look to outline some of the ways in which online political advertisements can undermine the democratic process. (shrink)

Feminist authors claim that many of the advertising messages are promoting stereotypical images of the genders. However, if in social sciences, gender stereotypes have been facilitated and enforced by religious ideologies, the connections between gender stereotypes in advertising and religious ideologies remain to be investigated. The purpose of this paper is to analyze these connections. Using the tools and methods of philosophy of communication, the paper attempts to emphasize a double discourse of advertising: an external one that (...) derives from existing religious ideologies, and an internal one that borrows the structure and elements of modern religiosity. If the first one is enforcing the gender stereotypes, the second one is more innovative and less related to stereotypical images of genders. When advertising is approached from the perspective of philosophy of communication, its most conspicuous aspect is its narrative dimension. One way in which narratives of advertising are constructed is in the form of myth. We can see that, in some circumstances, advertising has a function similar to myth, or includes structures of depth coming from the world of myth or of religion understood in a broader sense. The power of those elements is derived not from the realm of merchandise value, but from the one of traditional mentalities and cultural representations. In order to illustrate my research on the relation between gender, religion and advertising, I choose a sample of ads, that I analyze using the tools of philosophy of communication. Thus, my research has led me to a nuanced understanding of the relation between gender stereotypes and religion in advertising. (shrink)

_the a priori role_ (for word T). For instance, perhaps anyone who understands the word _water_ is able to know, without appeal to any further a posteriori information, that _water_ refers to the clear, drinkable natural kind whose instances are predominant in our oceans and lakes (if _water_ refers at all.

An important part of the world we live in is represented by symbols, and mediated images and mass media are the main sources of the symbolic material used in the process of shaping the postmodern self. The cultural industry and the communication technology are growing rapidly and they capture important areas located until recently under the tutelage of traditional social institutions such as the family or the church. If we think of the contemporary society in terms of the weak theology (...) proposed by John D. Caputo as a de-secularized space where the individual’s need for the sacred is strongly revealed, the crucial role played by the media in the construction of the contemporary world becomes obvious. Certainly, within this vast territory represented by the media culture, advertising is one of the most relevant areas for analysis of the manner in which symbolic structures are reintegrated in contemporary society. Therefore, our paper focuses on advertising as an important force that creates symbolic meanings in the contemporary culture. Along with the symbolic content of advertising, a significant part in augmenting its cultural force is attributed to the way it succeeds to contain religious dimensions in its mechanisms. (shrink)

Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy cuts to the heart of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and of today's science wars.At the start of the 21st Century, ...

Advertising, a form of publicity, can pass on a social message so that people understand their sobligation towards society. The purpose of this study was to look into how consumers responded to socially conscious advertisements. This study conceptualizes the antecedents of attitude towards commercial advertisements that incorporate the social message, including advertising creativity, informativeness, and emotional appeal; each one can influence consumers' behavior. This study also examined the relationship between (i) Attitude towards the ad with a social message (...) and purchase intention of the consumer and (ii) Purchase intention of the consumer and subjective well-being. The interrelationships in the proposed model were investigated using structural equation modeling (SEM). A quantitative survey of university students was conducted in order to gather the data, which was based on an experiment. A field survey of 395 students was conducted to test the hypotheses. The results of the empirical tests confirm that attitude towards the advertisement positively affects the purchase intention of the consumer and that advertising creativity and emotional appeal are the key predictors of attitude towards the advertisement that highlights a social issue. And, purchase intention positively influences the subjective well-being of the consumers. This paper contributes to the theory by giving new insight into the advertising literature. It also provides the necessary knowledge to marketers and advertisers on commercial advertisements incorporating a social message and the subjective well-being of consumers. (shrink)

To augment the consumption of the ever growing production of processed foods, food companies are specifically targeting children with their advertisements. Advertising has even infiltrated the educational system in the form of corporate sponsored “educational materials.” This paper discusses the effects such aggressive forms of advertising have on the development of personal autonomy, or self-governance. I argue that the bad reasoning skills such advertisements promote undermine the development of the very abilities children need to become adults capable of (...) making rational choices. A detailed look at several types of food advertisements aimed at children supports this claim. (shrink)

Ce texte a déjà paru dans la revue October, N° 131, Winter 2010, p. 23–50. Nous remercions Michael Cowan de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. In September of 1925, readers leafing through Der Kinematograph or Lichtbildbühne or another such film journal might have encountered a strangely familiar sight : in an advertisement for a major exhibition of the German film and photography industries entitled “Kipho” (“Kino und Photo”), which was to be held in Berlin from September 25th to (...) (...) - Cinéma, animation et vidéo – GALERIE – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Although a great deal of literature has looked at how individuals respond to stigma, far less has been written about how professional groups address challenges to their self-perception as abiding by clear moral standards. In this paper, we ask how professional group members maintain a positive self-perception in the face of moral stigma. Drawing on pragmatic and cultural sociology, we claim that professional communities hold narratives that link various aspects of the work their members perform with specific understanding of the (...) common good. These narratives allow professionals to maintain a shared view of their work as benefitting society and to perceive themselves as moral individuals. As a case study, we focus on the advertising industry, which has long been stigmatized as complicit in exploitative capitalist mechanisms and cultural degradation. We draw on nine total months of fieldwork and seventy-four interviews across three US advertising agencies. We find that advertising practitioners use narratives to present their work as contributing to the common good, depicting themselves as moral individuals who care about others in the process. We analyze three prevalent narratives: the account-driven narrative, which links moral virtue to caring for clients; the creative-driven narrative, which ties caring to the production of meaningful advertisements; and the strategic-driven narrative, which sees caring in finding meaningful relationships for consumers and brands. (shrink)

American democracy depends on the free exchange of ideas to create a rational and well informed public, which, in turn, makes decisions that benefit society as a whole. Unfortunately, media reliance on advertising may be eroding the necessary free flow of information. This article addresses the proper role of advertisers in the media. Certainly advertisers enjoy some degree of economic power over the media, but should that influence be used to control media content? Arendt's view of communicative power demonstrates (...) how advertisers' power originates with the public. Donaldson's social contract theory of business explains why that power entails responsibility and why advertisers are obligated not to abuse it. (shrink)