This article examines the relationships between disaster type and firms’ disaster responses. We draw on a unique dataset of 2,164 press releases related to the occurrence of 206 natural disasters over a 10-year period to analyze how firm responses are shaped by the type of disaster it faces. Firms play an increasingly important role in disaster response. We find that firms engage in more anticipatory responses when the type of disaster a firm faces exhibits even impact dispersion and high expected (...) recurrence, and provides substantial warning. Our study draws a relationship between physical geography, disaster type, and more anticipatory firm responses which can improve how firms and communities respond to the risks posed by different types of natural disasters. The article concludes by outlining an agenda for future research on firm responses to natural disasters. (shrink)

In this study, we explore how investors reconcile information on firms’ social responsibility with analysts’ assessments of future firm risk in the pricing of long-term bonds. We ask whether investors pay attention to small strides toward and/or small slips away from socially responsible behavior, arguing that analysts’ corporate bias toward gains and against losses influences investor reactions to corporate social responsibility. We hypothesize that analysts notice and reward improvements in social responsibility, yet excuse lapses. We find support for this hypothesis, (...) using a unique dataset of long-term bonds that combines lagged measures of firm-level financial and social performance with bond-specific data pertaining to risk of default and pricing. The empirically robust asymmetry in investor responses to small but often cumulative increases versus decreases in corporate social responsibility reveals an under-examined root cause of longer-term, larger-scale distortions in financial market returns regarding corporate social performance. Our findings elaborate earlier behavioral research on how corporate bias influences analysts’ short-term assessments of economic risk, by theorizing why this corporate bias may influence long-term assessments of social risk. Our work also motivates more critical scrutiny of the role analysts play in revising the future risk of today’s social action versus inaction. (shrink)

The concept of individuality as applied to species, an important advance in the philosophy of evolutionary biology, is nevertheless in need of refinement. Four important subparts of this concept must be recognized: spatial boundaries, temporal boundaries, integration, and cohesion. Not all species necessarily meet all of these. Two very different types of pluralism have been advocated with respect to species, only one of which is satisfactory. An often unrecognized distinction between grouping and ranking components of any species concept is necessary. (...) A phylogenetic species concept is advocated that uses a grouping criterion of monophyly in a cladistic sense, and a ranking criterion based on those causal processes that are most important in producing and maintaining lineages in a particular case. Such causal processes can include actual interbreeding, selective constraints, and developmental canalization. The widespread use of the biological species concept is flawed for two reasons: because of a failure to distinguish grouping from ranking criteria and because of an unwarranted emphasis on the importance of interbreeding as a universal causal factor controlling evolutionary diversification. The potential to interbreed is not in itself a process; it is instead a result of a diversity of processes which result in shared selective environments and common developmental programs. These types of processes act in both sexual and asexual organisms, thus the phylogenetic species concept can reflect an underlying unity that the biological species concept can not. (shrink)

Antimicrobial Resistance is a threat to individual and to population health and to future generations, requiring “collective sacrifices” in order to preserve antibiotic efficacy. ‘Who should make the sacrifices?’ and ‘Who will most likely make them?’ are ethical concerns posited as potentially manageable through Antimicrobial Stewardship. Antimicrobial stewardship almost inevitably involves a form of clinical cost-benefit analysis that assesses the possible effects of antibiotics to treat a diagnosed infection in a particular patient. However, this process rarely accounts properly for patients (...) – above and beyond assessments of potential (non)compliance or adherence to care regimes. Drawing on a vignette of a pregnant woman of colour and migrant diagnosed with Mycoplasma genitalium, a sexually transmissible bacterium, this article draws out some of the ethical, speculative, and practical tensions and complexities involved in Antimicrobial Stewardship. We argue that patients also engage in a form of cost-benefit analysis influenced by experiences of reproductive and social (in)justice and comprising speculative variables - to anticipate future possibilities. These processes have the potential to have effects above and beyond the specific infection antimicrobial stewardship was activated to address. We contend that efforts to practice and research antimicrobial stewardship should accommodate and incorporate these variables and acknowledge the structures they emerge with(in), even if their components remain unknown. This would involve recognising that antimicrobial stewardship is intricately connected to other social justice issues such as immigration policy, economic justice, access to appropriate medical care, racism, etc. (shrink)

The work reported in this monograph was begun in the winter of 1967 in a graduate seminar at Berkeley. Many of the basic data were gathered by members of the seminar and the theoretical framework presented here was initially developed in the context of the seminar discussions. Much has been discovered since1969, the date of original publication, regarding the psychophysical and neurophysical determinants of universal, cross-linguistic constraints on the shape of basic color lexicons, and something, albeit less, can now also (...) be said with some confidence regarding the constraining effects of these language-independent processes of color perception and conceptualization on the direction of evolution of basic color term lexicons. (shrink)

"[Brent] has produced a thoughtful, sometimes moving, and entirely accessible intellectual biography which is also, under the circumstances, indispensable." —The New York Review of Books "... a fine biography."—The New York Times Book Review "... an extraordinary, inspiring portrait of the largely forgotten Peirce, a progenitor of modern thought who devised a realist metaphysics and attempted to achieve direct knowledge of God by applying the logic of science." —Publishers Weekly In this expanded paperback edition of the critically acclaimed biography (...) of a true American original, the philosopher-polymath Charles Sanders Peirce, Joseph Brent refines his interpretation of Peirce’s thought and character based on new research, and has added a glossary and a detailed chronology. (shrink)

Ethicists are typically willing to grant that thick terms (e.g. ‘courageous’ and ‘murder’) are somehow associated with evaluations. But they tend to disagree about what exactly this relationship is. Does a thick term’s evaluation come by way of its semantic content? Or is the evaluation pragmatically associated with the thick term (e.g. via conversational implicature)? In this paper, I argue that thick terms are semantically associated with evaluations. In particular, I argue that many thick concepts (if not all) conceptually entail (...) evaluative contents. The Semantic View has a number of outspoken critics, but I shall limit discussion to the most recent--Pekka Väyrynen--who believes that objectionable thick concepts present a problem for the Semantic View. After advancing my positive argument in favor of the Semantic View (section II), I argue that Väyrynen’s attack is unsuccessful (section III). One reason ethicists cite for not focusing on thick concepts is that such concepts are supposedly not semantically evaluative whereas traditional thin concepts (e.g. good and wrong) are. But if my view is correct, then this reason must be rejected. (shrink)

Integrating appreciative inquiry (AI) and pastoral care may help address the complex issues of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. This article explores the benefits of incorporating AI principles into pastoral care for survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. Commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking involve exploitation, degradation, and violence, making them complex issues. By understanding the sex trade, we can recognise that prostitution is an act of exploitation. Some scholars believe that prostitution and human trafficking are interconnected, with (...) a focus on exploiting the poor, especially women and children. Commercial sexual exploitation can cause mental, emotional, and spiritual distress. Survivors require comprehensive aftercare to address their spiritual, self-esteem, and dignity needs. Organisational development-based AI is constructive and strength-based. Appreciative inquiry promotes positive development, community and individual strength, and resilience by re-contextualizing narratives and envisioning brighter futures. The use of AI could improve pastoral care and holistic rehabilitation. Pastoral caregivers using AI can promote reconciliation, development, and rehabilitation. Using strengths-based strategies, pastoral care practitioners can help survivors regain agency and purpose. Survivors receive spiritual support through the Appreciative Way, which combines contemplative spirituality and inquiry. Narrative exploration can help trauma survivors envision a bright future based on love and resilience. This study suggests that AI principles may benefit pastoral care recipients who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. Pastoral caregivers can help survivors regain dignity, calling, and well-being by implementing an appreciative healing approach.Contribution: The article sheds light on the dehumanising consequences of sex trafficking on vulnerable populations in South Africa, particularly women and children. This article aims to explain how AI concepts can be applied to Practical Theology. Specifically, this article will demonstrate how the Appreciative Way can be utilised in pastoral care for healing from sex trafficking trauma. (shrink)

As a preliminary to the modern theory of measurement with which this paper is chiefly concerned, it is desirable to review a few of the characteristics and implications of classical physics to illustrate the far reaching changes that have taken place in our conception of nature as the result of the development of quantum mechanics.

Over the past decade, teaching and learning in virtual worlds has been at the forefront of many higher education institutions around the world. The DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group (VWWG) consisting of Australian and New Zealand higher education academics was formed in 2009. These educators are investigating the role that virtual worlds play in the future of education and actively changing the direction of their own teaching practice and curricula. 47 academics reporting on 28 Australian higher education institutions present an (...) overview of how they have changed directions through the effective use of virtual worlds for diverse teaching and learning activities such as business scenarios and virtual excursions, role-play simulations, experimentation and language development. The case studies offer insights into the ways in which institutions are continuing to change directions in their teaching to meet changing demands for innovative teaching, learning and research in virtual worlds. This paper highlights the ways in which the authors are using virtual worlds to create opportunities for rich, immersive and authentic activities that would be difficult or not possible to achieve through more traditional approaches. (shrink)

We will examine economic and security policy initiatives under the Harper regime for evidence of departures from traditional foreign policy behaviour. This essay argues that Canada‟s foreign policy initiatives are markedly different under the Harper regime.

In this article, the authors argue that having daughters has the potential of sensitizing parents to issues of gender equity. Because parents invest a significant amount of themselves in their children, anticipated and actual struggles that their children face, and the public policies addressing those struggles, take on increased salience. We find that both fathers' and mothers' support for public policies designed to address gender equity increases when parents have daughters only. The findings are stronger for men, suggesting that child (...) rearing might provide a mechanism for social change whereby fathers' connection with their daughters undermines their commitment to patriarchy. At the same time, when men have sons only, they show the least support for gender equity public policies, suggesting that wanting what is best for their children may keep men from challenging their patriarchal dividend. (shrink)

In information societies, operations, decisions and choices previously left to humans are increasingly delegated to algorithms, which may advise, if not decide, about how data should be interpreted and what actions should be taken as a result. More and more often, algorithms mediate social processes, business transactions, governmental decisions, and how we perceive, understand, and interact among ourselves and with the environment. Gaps between the design and operation of algorithms and our understanding of their ethical implications can have severe consequences (...) affecting individuals as well as groups and whole societies. This paper makes three contributions to clarify the ethical importance of algorithmic mediation. It provides a prescriptive map to organise the debate. It reviews the current discussion of ethical aspects of algorithms. And it assesses the available literature in order to identify areas requiring further work to develop the ethics of algorithms. (shrink)

The debate between faith and reason has been a dominant feature of Western thought for more than two millennia. This book takes up the problem of the relation between philosophy and theology and proposes that this relation can be reconceived if both philosophy and theology are seen as different ways of organising affects. Brent Adkins and Paul R. Hinlicky break new ground in this timely debate in two ways. Firstly, they lay bare the contemporary dependence on Kant and propose (...) that our Kantian inheritance leaves us with an insuperable dualism. Secondly, the authors argue that the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze provides a way of resolving the debate between faith and reason that does justice to philosophy and theology by reconceiving of both as assemblages. Deleuze's philosophy differentiates domains of thought in terms of what they create. This seems like a particularly fruitful way to pursue the problem of the relations among philosophy and theology because it allows their distinction without at the same time placing them in opposition to one another. (shrink)

For much of the past two centuries, religion has been understood as a universal phenomenon, a part of the “natural” human experience that is essentially the same across cultures and throughout history. Individual religions may vary through time and geographically, but there is an element, religion, that is to be found in all cultures during all time periods. Taking apart this assumption, Brent Nongbri shows that the idea of religion as a sphere of life distinct from politics, economics, or (...) science is a recent development in European history—a development that has been projected outward in space and backward in time with the result that religion now appears to be a natural and necessary part of our world. Examining a wide array of ancient writings, Nongbri demonstrates that in antiquity, there was no conceptual arena that could be designated as “religious” as opposed to “secular.” Surveying representative episodes from a two-thousand-year period, while constantly attending to the concrete social, political, and colonial contexts that shaped relevant works of philosophers, legal theorists, missionaries, and others, Nongbri offers a concise and readable account of the emergence of the concept of religion. (shrink)

It has long been known that scientists have a tendency to conduct experiments in a way that brings about the expected outcome. Here, we provide the first direct demonstration of this type of experimenter bias in experimental philosophy. Opposed to previously discovered types of experimenter bias mediated by face-to-face interactions between experimenters and participants, here we show that experimenters also have a tendency to create stimuli in a way that brings about expected outcomes. We randomly assigned undergraduate experimenters to receive (...) two different hypotheses about folk intuitions of consciousness, and then asked them to design experiments based on their hypothesis. Specifically, experimenters generated sentences ascribing intentional and phenomenal mental states to groups, which were later rated by online participants for naturalness. We found a significant interaction between experimenter hypothesis and participant ratings indicating a general tendency for experimenters to obtain the result that they expected. These results indicate that experimenter bias is a real problem in experimental philosophy since the methods and design employed here mirror the predominant survey methods of the field as a whole. The bearing of the current results on Knobe and Prinz’s :67–83, 2008) group mind hypothesis is discussed, and new methods for avoiding experimenter bias are proposed. (shrink)

On the Use and Abuse of Foucault for Politics provides an accessible interpretation of Foucault's political philosophy, demonstrating how Foucault is relevant for contemporary democratic theory. Brent Pickett lays out an overview of Foucault's politics, including a comprehensive overview of the reasons for various conflicting interpretations, and then explores how well the different "Foucaults" can be used in progressive politics and democratic theory.

Recent work on interpretability in machine learning and AI has focused on the building of simplified models that approximate the true criteria used to make decisions. These models are a useful pedagogical device for teaching trained professionals how to predict what decisions will be made by the complex system, and most importantly how the system might break. However, when considering any such model it’s important to remember Box’s maxim that "All models are wrong but some are useful." We focus on (...) the distinction between these models and explanations in philosophy and sociology. These models can be understood as a "do it yourself kit" for explanations, allowing a practitioner to directly answer "what if questions" or generate contrastive explanations without external assistance. Although a valuable ability, giving these models as explanations appears more difficult than necessary, and other forms of explanation may not have the same trade-offs. We contrast the different schools of thought on what makes an explanation, and suggest that machine learning might benefit from viewing the problem more broadly. (shrink)

I present an alternative account of action centered around the notion of effort. I argue that effort has several unique features: it is attributed directly to agents; it is a causal power that each agent alone possesses and employs; it enables agents causally to initiate, sustain, and control their capacities during the performance of an action; and its presence comes in varying degrees of strength. After defending an effort-based account of action and criticizing what is known as the standard story (...) of action, I apply my account to situations in which an agent displays strength of will, such as when one struggles to perform an action while overcoming a persistent urge to do otherwise. I conclude by offering an explanation of mental action that demonstrates the extent of our powers of agency within the domain of the mental. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In his paper ‘The Survival Lottery’John Harris suggested that there could be situations where the rational thing to do would be to kill a healthy person and harvest his organs for transplantation, thereby saving several lives at the cost of one. Anne Maclean claims that such a proposal, far from being rational, does not qualify as a moral proposal at all since what it suggests is ‘plain murder’. I argue that she is correct to claim that the proposal is (...) not uniquely rational and that doctors could quite rationally reject it, but that she overreaches herself when she holds it not to be a moral proposal at all. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Case of the Disappearing EnigmaDeborah Knight and George McKnightAsked to give examples of detection narratives, one might first mention paradigms of the detective genre from either the classical or hard-boiled traditions. But the study of detection need not be restricted to the generic as familiarly construed. 1 Our interest in detection is transgeneric, which is why we speak in terms of “detection narratives” rather than the detective genre. (...) We are as interested in detection narratives that exploit the generic tendencies of suspense or comedy as we are in nongeneric narratives that feature an investigation of some mystery or crime. While what we have to say about detection, interpretation, and narrative explanation is generally applicable to both literary and non-literary detection narratives, our five main examples are all unapologetically taken from cinema. We have selected these five just because they are unlikely to strike anyone as an intuitively obvious group of films. They are The Thin Man (W. S. Van Dyke, 1934), a mystery/comedy; The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941), standardly cited as the earliest film noir and a paradigm of the cinematic hard-boiled detective genre; All The President’s Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976), a political thriller based on Bernstein and Woodward’s nonfictional investigation of the Watergate break-in; Nicholas Roeg’s 1980 Bad Timing, a nongeneric film about sensual obsession; and Woody Allen’s 1993 comedy of manners, Manhattan Murder Mystery.Whether focusing on the investigation of a crime, the unraveling of a puzzle, or the solution of a mystery, detection narratives exhibit what Frank Kermode calls “a specialized ‘hermeneutic’ organization.” 2 As such, they call for a particular sort of investigation: namely, a hermeneutical one. Often we think about hermeneutical investigations as [End Page 123] interpretations and assume that the proper object of such interpretations is a text. Thinking primarily about literary texts, David Novitz argues that the function of such explanations is to “solve certain puzzles, answer certain questions, dispel confusions, or eliminate doubts about... the theme of a work or its plot, [or] about the actions, motives, or machinations of fictional characters....” 3Of course, interpretation is not restricted to literary texts, nor to answering specific questions about such matters as theme or plot or character motivation, nor does Novitz suggest it is. But when the object of interpretation is a text—literary, cinematic, legal, or other—it is arguable that interpretation is not restricted to those localized aspects of the text which we take to be puzzling. Novitz’s position is that interpretation only occurs when one confronts a specific puzzle or problem. What we understand directly is not, on this account, interpreted; interpretation is required only where we do not understand. The consideration of detection narratives suggests that understanding and interpretation are more closely related than Novitz seems to allow.In our attempts to make sense of the course of action of any detection narrative, there is always the question whether we have understood a given situation, event, action or statement correctly. It is always a question whether we have correctly distinguished between clues and red herrings. Detection narratives operate on the basis of a continual questioning—both for the detective and for the reader or viewer—as to whether we do, in fact, understand what is happening.This questioning attitude is keyed to the uncertainty as to whether we have correctly recognized what information is salient, which characters’ testimony is trustworthy. At various moments in any detection narrative, the detective (or reader/viewer) will have reason to question the reliability of their own assessment of what is going on. There is the risk of being mistaken, but also the risk of being deceived. So the appropriate attitude to detection narratives is an interpretive one, an attitude that asks questions about what is presented.Of course, particular questions cannot even be sensibly asked in the absence of a larger interpretive framework which gives the particular question its point. Not only the detective, but the reader or viewer, is well advised to contextualize any particular event or action as a (potential) part of what we call, adapting a notion of David Carr’s, an action of large... (shrink)

Although not ignored, Rahner’s theology has not played a significant influence on the interdisciplinary scholarship between Catholic theology and literature, perhaps because Rahner’s thought is often considered to lack a theological aesthetics. This article encourages a reevaluation of this impression by bringing Rahner’s theology of symbol and his argument for the anonymous Christian into dialogue with the last novel of the acclaimed Japanese Catholic Shusaku Endo, Deep River. Endo’s novel challenges theologians to consider Rahner’s insights in concrete, multi-cultural, and non-Christian (...) contexts, and demonstrates the importance of thinking about Rahner’s theology of symbol in terms of narrative. At the same time, Endo’s novel prompts a reconsideration of Rahner’s controversial argument for the anonymous Christian, for Rahner’s thought and Endo’s novel present two different approaches to the issue of religious pluralism. In this dialogue between novelist and theologian, the Incarnational foundation of Rahner’s argument for the anonymous Christian emerges more clearly, a foundation that can be easily missed amidst his abstract rhetoric. (shrink)

the author has outlined several of the more important interpretations of measurement in quantum mechanics and discussed the problems arising from them. Particular attention was paid to the work of Bohr, Heisenberg and von Neumann and a tentative proposal was made for a possible interpretation which would mitigate some of the problems and dilemmas. This interpretation was essentially that proposed by Margenau in terms of latent variables. He defines measurement to be any operation with physical apparatus which results in a (...) number, including in this, of course, yes and no answers as well as conventional numerical answers. Further he makes the distinction between the preparation of a state and the measurement of the state. A preparation puts the quantum system into a particular state whereas the measurement frequently destroys the state in question. This paper presents several criteria to help in the evaluation of the alternatives presented in the first paper and carries further the suggested interpretation mentioned at the end of that paper. (shrink)

This volume brings together critical review papers, many specially commissioned, on key themes and questions in the work of the political scientist, philosopher and religious thinker Eric Voegelin (1901-1985). Areas covered include: (1) Political science: 'Political Religions': manifestations in Nazi Germany and in contemporary European and North American nationalism; (2) International relations: the 'Cold War' in critical perspective; (3) Philosophy: Plato and Aristotle in the reading of Eric Voegelin: contemporary assessments; (4) Sociology: Correspondence of Voegelin and Alfred Schütz; (5) New (...) Testament studies and Christology: questions and developments for Voegelin's interpretations; (6) Old Testament studies: questions and developments from Voegelin's Israel and Revelation; (7) Historical sociology: Revelation and order in axial-age societies; (8) Philosophy of history: Voegelin and Toynbee in contrast; (9) Literary studies: Voegelin in contrast with contemporary literary theory; critical readings of Milton, Greek tragedy. (shrink)

I address David Hull's theses about the process of science from the perspective of an evolutionary biologist, particularly emphasizing phylogenetic systematics, an area that has figured prominently in Hull's work as a source of both sociological data and metatheory. The goal is to carefully explore analogies and disanalogies between scientific process and comparative biology. There do seem to be remarkable analogies, indeed these lead to important insights that might not otherwise have been made, yet some possible analogies present novel problems: (...) Are "memes" like genes or like traits? What is the nature of replication in science? It is argued that the primary need is for some rigorously worked-out case studies. (shrink)

The capacity to collect and analyse data is growing exponentially. Referred to as ‘Big Data’, this scientific, social and technological trend has helped create destabilising amounts of information, which can challenge accepted social and ethical norms. Big Data remains a fuzzy idea, emerging across social, scientific, and business contexts sometimes seemingly related only by the gigantic size of the datasets being considered. As is often the case with the cutting edge of scientific and technological progress, understanding of the ethical implications (...) of Big Data lags behind. In order to bridge such a gap, this article systematically and comprehensively analyses academic literature concerning the ethical implications of Big Data, providing a watershed for future ethical investigations and regulations. Particular attention is paid to biomedical Big Data due to the inherent sensitivity of medical information. By means of a meta-analysis of the literature, a thematic narrative is provided to guide ethicists, data scientists, regulators and other stakeholders through what is already known or hypothesised about the ethical risks of this emerging and innovative phenomenon. Five key areas of concern are identified: informed consent, privacy, ownership, epistemology and objectivity, and ‘Big Data Divides’ created between those who have or lack the necessary resources to analyse increasingly large datasets. Critical gaps in the treatment of these themes are identified with suggestions for future research. Six additional areas of concern are then suggested which, although related have not yet attracted extensive debate in the existing literature. It is argued that they will require much closer scrutiny in the immediate future: the dangers of ignoring group-level ethical harms; the importance of epistemology in assessing the ethics of Big Data; the changing nature of fiduciary relationships that become increasingly data saturated; the need to distinguish between ‘academic’ and ‘commercial’ Big Data practices in terms of potential harm to data subjects; future problems with ownership of intellectual property generated from analysis of aggregated datasets; and the difficulty of providing meaningful access rights to individual data subjects that lack necessary resources. Considered together, these eleven themes provide a thorough critical framework to guide ethical assessment and governance of emerging Big Data practices. (shrink)

W B Gallie’s notion of essentially contested concepts remains of philosophical interest. I argue that medicine is one such concept and look at the consequences of this as regards the inappropriateness of looking for definitions and necessary and sufficient conditions to settle debates about what medicine is and is not.

Two studies tested the relationship between three facets of personality—conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience—as well as moral identity, on individuals’ ethical ideology. Study 1 showed that moral personality and the centralityof moral identity to the self were associated with a more principled (versus expedient) ethical ideology in a sample of female speech therapists. Study 2 replicated these findings in a sample of male and female college students, and showed that ideology mediated therelationship between personality, moral identity, and two organizationally (...) relevant outcomes: organizational citizenship behavior and the propensity to morally disengage. Implications for business ethics are discussed. (shrink)

Mental action deserves a place among foundational topics in action theory and philosophy of mind. Recent accounts of human agency tend to overlook the role of conscious mental action in our daily lives, while contemporary accounts of the conscious mind often ignore the role of mental action and agency in shaping consciousness. This collection aims to establish the centrality of mental action for discussions of agency and mind. The thirteen original essays provide a wide-ranging vision of the various and nuanced (...) philosophical issues at stake. By investigating the nature, scope, and explanation of mental action, the essays presented here aim to demonstrate the significance of conscious mental action for discussions of agency and mind. Mental Action and the Conscious Mind will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, and philosophy of agency, as well as to philosophically inclined cognitive scientists. -/- . (shrink)

Formalizing shared ethical standards is an activity of scientific societies designed to achieve a collective goal of promoting ethical conduct. A scientist who is faced with the choice of becoming a “whistleblower” by exposing misconduct does so in the context of these ethical standards. Examination of ethics policies of scientific societies which are members of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) shows a breadth of purpose and scope in these policies. Among the CSSP member societies, some ethics policies chiefly (...) present the ethical culture of the community in an educational context and do not have enforcement procedures. Other policies are more comprehensive and include standards for certification, procedures for addressing ethical issues, and established sanctions. Of the 36 member societies of CSSP that have developed a code or adopted a code of another professional society, 18 specifically identified a responsibility to expose ethical misconduct, demonstrating an acknowledgment of the possible critical role of the whistleblower in addressing ethical issues. Scientific societies may revise their ethics codes based upon experience gained in addressing cases of ethical misconduct. In most cases, the action of a whistleblower is the initial step in addressing an ethics violation; the whistleblower may either be in the position of an observer or a victim, such as in the case of someone who discovers that his or her own work has been plagiarized. The ethics committee of a scientific society is one of several possible outlets through which the whistleblower can voice a complaint or concern. Ethical violations can include falsification, fabrication, plagiarism and other authorship disputes, conflict of interest and other serious violations. Commonly, some of these violations may involve publication in the scientific literature. Thus addressing ethical issues may be intertwined with a scientific society’s role in the dissemination of new scientific results. For a journal published by a scientific society, the editor can refer at some point to the ethics committee of the society. Whereas, in the case of a journal published by a commercial publisher, the editor may be without direct support of the associated scientific community in handling the case. The association of a journal with a scientific society may thus direct a whistleblower towards addressing the issue within the scientific community rather than involving the press or talking to colleagues who may gossip. A formal procedure for handling ethics cases may also discourage false accusers. Another advantage of handling complaints through ethics committees is that decisions to contact home institutions or funding agencies can be made by the ethics committee and are not the responsibility of the whistleblower or the editor of the journal. The general assessment is that the establishment of ethics policies, especially policies covering publication in society journals, will promote a culture supportive of whistleblowers and discouraging to false accusers. (shrink)