In many parts of the world, homework is a form of labour characterised by precariousness, lack of regulation, and invisibility and lack of protection of the workers who are often amongst the world's poorest and most exploited. Homework is spreading, due to firm practices such as outsourcing. The analysis and understanding of complex corporate networks may assist with the identification and protection of those most at risk within the supply chain network. It can also expose some of the key ethical (...) issues and dilemmas of supply chain management and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Based on a case-study of the Australian FairWear Campaign (FWC), this article identifies an ethical network that aims to increase corporate accountability (CA) via greater transparency in corporate supply chains and improve work conditions for homeworkers and increase their recognition in the supply chain. (shrink)

Annie Besant is primarily remembered as the international president of the Theosophical Society. One of the most important aspects of her career were the years that she was a professional atheist, which has given her a place in history as a pioneer feminist. _The Origins of Theosophy _contains thirteen of Besant’s pamphlets, originally published from 1883-1890. This book is ideal for students of theology.

Hans Vaihinger prefaces the English edition of his seminal text, The Philosophy of As If, by drawing attention to his philosophical predecessors. While Hobbes and Berkeley are afforded due credit in the development of philosophical fictionalism, Hume is conspicuously absent as a notable influence. I argue that Hume’s early theory of fiction, which he broadly abandoned after publishing the Treatise, prefigures Vaihinger’s central distinction between two types of fiction: real fictions and semi-fictions. In so doing, I situate Hume between Hobbes (...) and Kant as a significant figure in the history of philosophical fictionalism, a movement that has now become a standard alternative to various forms of philosophical realism. (shrink)

Exploring the relationship between conceptions of nature and (largely American) legal thought and practice, this study focuses on the politics and pragmatics of "nature talk"--as expressed in extra-legal disputes as well as different forms of legal discourse. Topics include the forces of nature, endangered species, animal experiments and bestiality. David Delaney demonstrates throughout that nearly any analysis of "nature" entails an interpretation of the essence of "humanity.".

This essay presents an ideal for modern Western romantic love.The basic ideas are the following: people want to form a distinctive sort of plural subject with another, what Nozick has called a "We", they want to be loved for properties of certain kinds, and they want this love to establish and sustain a special sort of commitment to them over time.

Philosophers from Hart to Lewis, Johnston and Bennett have expressed various degrees of reservation concerning the doctrine of double effect. A common concern is that, with regard to many activities that double effect is traditionally thought to prohibit, what might at first look to be a directly intended bad effect is really, on closer examination, a directly intended neutral effect that is closely connected to a foreseen bad effect. This essay examines the extent to which the commonsense concept of intention (...) supports a reasonably consistent and coherent application of double effect. Two important conclusions are these: (1) a number of traditionally proscribed activities involve a kind of “targeting” of innocents that can be taken to exhibit a direct intention to harm them; (2) a direct intention to harm need not involve a desire to harm in any ordinary sense of the latter expression. (shrink)

: The explanatory priority of natural science is an hallmark of pragmatism in the Peircean tradition. In his case the pride of place accorded to natural science applied in the first instance to science conceived concretely as an empirically constrained hypothetico-deductive methodology but the privileging spilled over to actual scientific explanations conceived of as converging on a complete explanation in the limit. However, from his perspective this privileging of natural science did not exclude metaphysical explanation but rather required it. In (...) this paper I intend to explore the several different senses of "metaphysical inquiry" in the Peircean project as a step toward endorsing some and questioning others.Key-words: metaphysics, science, pragmatism, tychism, synechism, agapism.Resumo: A prioridade explicativa da ciência natural é uma marca distintiva do pragmatismo na tradição de Peirce. Em seu caso, o lugar de destaque concedido à ciência natural referia-se, em primeiro lugar, à ciência concebida concretamente como uma metodologia hipotético-dedutiva constrangida empiricamente, mas esse privilégio se alastrou para explicações científicas efetivas concebidas como se convergissem, no limite, para uma explicação completa. Contudo, nessa sua perspectiva, esse privilégio da ciência natural não excluía a explicação metafísica, mas antes a requeria. Neste artigo pretendo explorar os diversos sentidos de "inquirição metafísica" no projeto peirceano, como um passo em direção a endossar alguns e questionar outros.Palavras-chave: metafísica, ciência, pragmatismo, tiquismo, sinequismo, agapismo. (shrink)

David Annis is professor of philosophy at Ball State University. In this essay, Annis offers an alternative to the foundationalist-coherent controversy: "contextualism." This theory rejects both the idea of intrinsically basic beliefs in the foundational sense and the thesis that coherence is sufficient for justification. he argues that justification is relative to the varying norms of social practices.

Siopis has always engaged in a critical and controversial way with the concepts of ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ in South Africa. For politically sensitive artists whose work has involved confronting the injustices of apartheid, the current post-apartheid situation has forced a reassessment of their practice and the terms on which they might engage with the fundamental changes which are now affecting all of South African society. Where mythologies of race and ethnicity have been strategically foregrounded in the art of any engaged (...) artist, to the exclusion of many other concerns, the demise of apartheid offers the possibility of exploring other dimensions of lived experience in South Africa. For feminists, this is potentially a very positive moment when questions of gender – so long subordinated to the structural issue of ‘race’ under apartheid – can now be explored. Penny Siopis’ work has long been concerned with the lived and historical relations between black and white women in South Africa. The discussion focuses on the ambivalent and dependent relationships formed between white middle-class women and black domestic labour during apartheid. Siopis’ work engages with how the appropriation of black women's time, lives, labour and bodies has shaped her ‘own’ history. (shrink)

Explores the gamut of social theory Classical and Contemporary Social Theory: Investigation and Application, 1/e, is the most comprehensive, informative social theory book on the market. The title covers multiple schools of thought and applies their ideas to society today. Readers will learn the origins of social theory and understand the role of myriad social revolutions that shaped the course of societies around the world. MySearchLab is a part of the Delaney program. Research and writing tools, including access to (...) academic journals, help students explore social theory in even greater depth. To provide students with flexibility, students can download the eText to a tablet using the free Pearson eText app. This title is available in a variety of formats - digital and print. Pearson offers its titles on the devices students love through Pearson's MyLab products, CourseSmart, Amazon, and more. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Al Mele (2003) suggests that the Simple View of intentional action is “fiction” because it is “wholly unconstrained” by a widely shared (folk) concept of intentional action. The Simple View (Adams, 1986, McCann, 1986) states that an action is intentional only if intended. As evidence that the Simple View is not in accord with the folk notion of intentional action, Mele appeals to recent surveys of folk judgments by Joshua Knobe (2003, 2004a, 2004b). Knobe’s surveys appear (...) to show that the folk judge unintended but known side effects of actions to be performed intentionally. In this paper we will reject Mele’s suggestion that the Simple View is “fiction.” We will also discuss the relationship between surveys and philosophical theories, and the abilities of surveys to access folk core concepts. We will argue that considerations of both fail to support Mele’s suggestion. (shrink)

The original essays in this volume call into question the simplistic strategy of characterizing religion by some abstract set of propositions and then judging it by means of an independently determined standard of rationality.

In 1795 Jeremiah Aversham went to execution bearing a flower in his mouth. “He was afterwards hung in chains on Wimbledon common, and for several months,” it was reported, “thousands of the London populace passed their Sundays near the spot as if consecrated by the remains of a hero.” From the perspective of bourgeois morality this was an intolerable scandal. The display of the dead body had become one of those suspicious or ill-defined areas of life that were treated as (...) indecent or marginalised as offensive. The general rearrangement of values in the society transformed the body into an object of aversion as opposed to representation. The change of attitude made it impossible to continue inscribing the bodies of criminals with the degradation of public exposure. (shrink)

John Harris argues that opponents of human embryonic stem cell research, Catholics specifically, suffer an inconsistency in their moral thinking, opposing it on the basis that the sacrifice of an embryo is impermissible even for the good of curing disease. They have no objection to natural procreation, however, which results in many early miscarriages. Harris contends that Catholics tacitly endorse these miscarriages as a permissible sacrifice for the good of producing other, healthy children. This paper offers a response to the (...) argument that relies on only basic moral principles that Harris himself is likely to accept. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 12.3 (Autumn 2012): 461–476. (shrink)

From psychotherapist and TikTok personality Dr. Annie Zimmerman comes a toolkit to transform yourself and your relationships, with advice on how to heal past trauma, build sustainable connections, and take ownership of your mental health. Every day, psychotherapist Dr. Annie Zimmerman meets clients in her private London practice who are struggling with their lives. They're committed to achieving personal growth, making changes--but they're struck at the question stage. They ask: Why can't I sleep? Why do I keep going (...) back to a bad relationship? Why did I lose my temper? What is wrong with me? Here's the answer: nothing is wrong with them. It's just that they're asking themselves the wrong questions. In Your Pocket Therapist, Dr. Zimmerman helps readers delve into their past to identify old, unhelpful patterns and teach them how to unlock the present. The book combines practical tools with anecdotes gleaned from the therapy room, distilling complex psychological concepts with her signature warmth and empathy. Her belief--galvanized by her hundreds of thousands of followers--is that if we learn to understand the roots of our suffering, we can bring about meaningful--and permanent--change in our lives. It comes down to learning how to ask the right questions. A brilliant, necessary toolkit for those who want to break free from past patterns and embrace a life of abundant self-awareness and connection, Your Pocket Therapist is an absolute must-read in the field of psychology. (shrink)

Laws requiring autopsies have generated little controversy. Yet it is considered unconscionable to take organs without consent for transplantation. We think an organ draft is justified if mandatory autopsies are. We reject the following five attempts to show why a mandatory autopsy policy is legitimate, but organ conscription is not: (1) The social contract gives the state a greater duty to protect its citizens from each other than from disease. (2) There is a greater moral obligation to prevent murders than (...) disease-caused deaths because killing people is morally worse than allowing people to die. (3) Autopsies do not confiscate body parts, but organ transplants do. (4) The citizenry's knowledge that their organs are very likely to be taken will generate more anxiety than the remote possibility of a mandatory autopsy. (5) A religious conviction that one's organs will be needed in order to be resurrected is threatened by organ transplantation but not by autopsies that "return" body parts. (shrink)

The authors analyze results of a survey of members of the Columbia University Graduate School of Business classes of 1953–1987 in order to assess the potential effectiveness of firms' ethics training programs. Results suggest that such training has a positive effect, but that relatively few firms provide such programs (about one-third of the respondents worked for firms with such programs). Although the sample is not representative of American employees and managers generally, the results suggest that it may be worthwhile for (...) firms to provide formal ethics training to their employees. (shrink)

Since the publication of Hume’s Treatise, scholars have been divided on how to interpret the ontology of Humean relations. In particular, is Hume’s theory of relations consistent with positivism, (skeptical) realism, or anti-realism? In this essay, I propose a novel distinction separating impressions and ideas from relations such that relations are construed as forming a distinct category equal to impressions and ideas. In so doing, I interpret Hume as fundamentally agnostic toward the ontology of relations.

Abstract: This essay consists of some clarifying remarks on the doctrine of double effect (DDE). After providing a contemporary formulation of the doctrine we put special emphasis on the distinction between those aspects of an action plan that are intended and those that are merely foreseen (the I/F distinction). Making use of this distinction is often made difficult in practice because salient aspects of the action plan exhibit a felt “closeness” to one another that is difficult if not impossible to (...) articulate with the precision we might like. The essay goes on to examine an especially adroit criticism of DDE best articulated by J.J. Thomson. We conclude with a brand new double effect case (new to the philosophical literature anyway) taken from medicine and Roman Catholic pastoral ministry. (shrink)

Hume’s account of contrariety in Book I of the Treatise poses several interpretive puzzles. I consider each in turn and offer a novel interpretation of contrariety based on Hume’s discussion of the passions. That Book II and Book I form a complete chain of reasoning suggests that the way in which passions are related is analogous to the way in which ideas are related in the understanding. I argue that Hume identifies three species of empirical contrariety in Book II: contraries, (...) oppositions, and contradictions. All three species help clarify Hume’s remarks concerning contrariety in Book I. I further identify a second genus I call logical contrariety by drawing on Hume’s discussion of fictitious duration and distance. (shrink)

In response to the continued expansion of “red flag” laws allowing broader classes of people to petition a court for the removal of firearms from individuals who exhibit dangerous conduct, this paper argues that state laws should adopt a double-filter provision that balances individual rights and government public safety interests. The main component of such a provision is a special statutory category — “reporting party” — that enables a broader social network, such as co-workers or school administrators, to request that (...) a law enforcement officer file a petition for an Extreme Risk Protection Order. A double-filter provision would not give reporting parties a right to file a court petition directly. Instead, parties would file a request for petition with law enforcement officers, who must seek an ERPO from the court if they find the reporting party's information credible. That information is then transmitted to the court as a sworn affidavit of the reporting party. The goal is to facilitate a balanced policy model that widens the reporting circle in order to feed more potentially life-saving information into the system, mitigates the risk of erroneous deprivation of constitutionally protected due process and Second Amendment rights. (shrink)

David Hume's early philosophy appeals to fiction and artifice to explain several important features in our cognitive and social activity. In this dissertation, I develop a typology of Humean fictions and artifices to clarify and render his account consistent. In so doing, I identify a special class of fictions I divide into natural fictions and natural artifices. I argue that this special class of fictions represents a significant break with prior English-speaking philosophers, such as Francis Bacon and John Locke, in (...) so far as these fictions and artifices of the imagination are recognized as natural, irresistible, and pragmatically useful in human cognition and social activity. That fictions and artifices are naturally generated by the imagination in epistemic and moral contexts, I argue, is a watershed discovery in the history of philosophy. Indeed, it is a philosophical conclusion that poses serious, perhaps fatal, problems for philosophers who espouse thoroughgoing realist positions. More broadly, Hume's pursuit of applying the experimental method to the moral subject reveals that human nature is mightily governed by the imagination, and that fictions and artifices are ubiquitous across the domains of science, morality, theology, logic, mathematics, and philosophy. For that reason, I suggest Hume ought to be recognized as a central figure in the history of philosophical fictionalism. Specifically, via a comparative analysis of Hume and Hans Vaihinger, I make the case that Hume functions as a vital link between Hobbes, Berkeley, and Kant in the development of early modern fictionalism. (shrink)

Twenty-first-century biology rejects genetic determinism, yet an exaggerated view of the power of genes in the making of bodies and minds remains a problem. What accounts for such tenacity? This article reports an exploratory study suggesting that the common reliance on Mendelian examples and concepts at the start of teaching in basic genetics is an eliminable source of support for determinism. Undergraduate students who attended a standard ‘Mendelian approach’ university course in introductory genetics on average showed no change in their (...) determinist views about genes. By contrast, students who attended an alternative course which, inspired by the work of a critic of early Mendelism, W. F. R. Weldon, replaced an emphasis on Mendel’s peas with an emphasis on developmental contexts and their role in bringing about phenotypic variability, were less determinist about genes by the end of teaching. Improvements in both the new Weldonian curriculum and the study design are in view for the future. (shrink)

In this study, we examined the perception of actual and ideal ethical climate type among 95 nurses working in the internal medicine wards of one central hospital in the state of Israel. We also examined whether nurses’ demographic characteristics influence that perception and if a relationship between perceptions of an actual and an ideal ethical climate type influences nurses’ job satisfaction. A questionnaire composed of three subquestionnaires was administered and the responses analyzed using multiple linear regressions, analysis of variance and (...) Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The results demonstrated that demographic characteristics (such as: gender, job tenure and level of education) partially influence the perception of an ideal ethical climate. Incongruence in perceptions of ‘caring’ and ‘independence’ climate types indicated a decline in nurses’ job satisfaction, while perception of actual ‘caring’ and ‘service’ climates positively influenced all aspects of job satisfaction. We recommend constructing training programs emphasizing the ethics of nursing practice and also to help lead nurses to clarify an ethical framework and guide nursing staff in dealing with ethical dilemmas. (shrink)

This book aims to spur critical thought on the various dimensions and impacts of "responsibility" for organizations, including companies, institutions, and governments, while considering international differences and similarities, as well as global challenges. It analyzes to what extent responsibility is becoming a crucial issue for all kinds of organizations, examining both the intensifying pressures of international competition and the growing crisis of confidence towards some management concepts and practices. As more and more socio-economic and political systems are suspected of serving (...) selfish interests instead of the public good, more accountable and integrated processes are appropriate in order to deal with the present and future stakes of our society. Further, with the development of digital technology and the use of data mining, new questions regarding responsibility require examination. This edited collection is a culmination of the international scientific conference "Responsible Organizations in the Global Context", co-organized by the CIED of Georgetown University (United States) and the Larequoi Research Center of the University of Versailles St-Quentin (France) in June 2017 in Washington DC. It will contribute to research and actions in the areas of social responsibility, business ethics, organizational excellence, sustainability, and cross-cultural management. (shrink)