In this paper, the process for firms to decide whether or not to invest in corporate social responsibility is treated from a real option perspective. We extend the Husted framework with an important extra parameter that allows us to understand the timing of CSR investment and explain why some companies drag their feet over CSR investments. Our model explicitly allows for the impact of the opportunity cost of delaying the CSR investment decision, providing firms with tools to determine the optimal (...) moment of exercising the CSR investment option. We illustrate our timing model through a case study and analyze governmental support strategies for CSR from a real options perspective. (shrink)

Disability rights (DR) advocates have consistently opposed the legalization of physician-assisted dying (PAD) on the grounds that it wrongly discriminates against the disabled. This chapter distinguishes three variants of this objection. The first and perhaps primary one, based on “soft paternalism,” claims that PAD should not be legalized for the sake of those who might choose it. The second alleges that the laws harm all disabled people by encouraging support for PAD as the cheaper alternative to providing the disabled more (...) social support and protection from discrimination. The third alleges that legalized PAD harms all disabled people by expressing the denigrating message that their lives are less valuable than those of the able. The chapter finds that whatever the merits of the first two objections, DR advocates cannot consistently accept them while maintaining support for a legal right to reject unwanted treatment. It also finds grounds to doubt the cogency of the third objection. (shrink)

We present an argument for revising the theory of alternatives for Scalar Implicatures and for Association with Focus. We argue that in both cases the alternatives are determined in the same way, as a contextual restriction of the focus value of the sentence, which, in turn, is defined in structure-sensitive terms. We provide evidence that contextual restriction is subject to a constraint that prevents it from discriminating between alternatives when they stand in a particular logical relationship with the assertion or (...) the prejacent, a relationship that we refer to as symmetry. Due to this constraint on contextual restriction, discriminating between alternatives in cases of symmetry becomes the task of focus values. This conclusion is incompatible with standard type-theoretic definitions of focus values, motivating our structure-sensitive definition instead. (shrink)

A very brief explanation of free will and the confusion of the contemporary debate.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Ecology ed. by John HartDannis M. MattesonThe Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Ecology Edited by John Hart OXFORD: JOHN WILEY & SONS LTD, 2017. 560 pp. $195.00If ecology is the study of "relationships in a place," as John Hart reminds readers in the preface of the Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Ecology, it is fitting that this volume centers (...) its thrust relationally (xxiv). Throughout its pages, a diverse community of authors explores the relationships among religious and spiritual traditions, human life, and care for the Earth. Defining religion as a language with which to grapple with meanings assigned to cultural values (xxi), this volume turns to the meanings that humans have historically placed on their relationship to the Earth within spiritual and religious frameworks. It further ponders how our religions and spiritual traditions reflect a relationship to the Earth that is conscious of the status of our planet's health today. Offering insights from Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Eastern and Western Christianity, and indigenous perspectives, the authors reflect on new and old insights from within their tradition that speak to specific ecological issues. The volume is split into four parts, flowing thematically from conceptual and descriptive, to concrete visions for practical steps toward healing the Earth. [End Page 199]Part 1 describes the various ways religious and spiritual traditions enhance ecological consciousness. Seyyed Hossein Nasr shows how the Qur'an depicts the created order as a reflection of God's face, suggesting that we are literally defacing the face of God in our industrial recklessness. David Mevorach Seidenberg presents a Jewish eco-theology, which decenters the human as the pinnacle of creation. In part 2, the authors further draw out the socioecological implications of religious teachings. Melanie Harris argues that religious communities must open their eyes to the link between structural violence against black women to structural violence against the Earth. She maintains that this analysis is key to finding solutions for ecological reparations. When Harris argues that social justice is Earth justice, she is claiming that the dismantling of both white supremacy and colonial ecology go hand in hand.Part 3, titled "Ecological Commitment," highlights the specific contexts in which the relationship between religion and ecology are embedded. Myrna Perez Sheldon and Naomi Oreskes trace the entanglement of evangelical identity with the politics of scientific doubt. In response, they suggest a new framework for evangelical participation in environmental restoration that moves beyond a political identity that is chained to right-wing doubt about climate change. In asking how "Korean Christianity can become more Nature-conscious, Nature-related, and Nature-integrated," Yong Bum Park points to Chondogyo, a Korean indigenous religion (333). This tradition is shown to take seriously the ecological crisis as a "crisis of consciousness and conduct," encouraging religious people to foster a socioecological vision of restoration (333).Part 4, which provides examples of concrete visions and projects on the ground, ends with John Hart's reimagining of the Earth as a "common commons." The notion that the Earth is a sacred "common commons" of "interdependent, integral, evolving relational community" requires conversion in light of how religious people relate to the Earth today (437). According to this commons ethic, land should be "commonized and communalized" rather than rendered private property (476).I highly recommend this volume for teaching undergraduate and graduate courses that are exploring the intersection of religion and ecology, especially courses focusing on religious ethics. Though the breadth of this work might strike the reader as boundless, herein lies its strength, especially for teachers of Christian ethics. This resource broadens the conversation recently highlighted by Pope Francis in Laudato Si' beyond the Christian perspective on ecology. The Companion models interreligious dialogue, opening to the diverse ways many different religious and spiritual traditions demand action for environmental restoration. [End Page 200]Dannis M. MattesonLoyola University ChicagoCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

This paper will be concerned with the conjunctive interpretation of a family of disjunctive constructions. The relevant conjunctive interpretation, sometimes referred to as a “free choice effect,” (FC) is attested when a disjunctive sentence is embedded under an existential modal operator. I will provide evidence that the relevant generalization extends (with some caveats) to all constructions in which a disjunctive sentence appears under the scope of an existential quantifier, as well as to seemingly unrelated constructions in which conjunction appears under (...) the scope of negation and a universal quantifier. (shrink)

Judith Jarvis Thomson and others contend that rights are pro-tanto rather than absolute, that is, that rights may permissibly be infringed in some circumstances. Alan Gewirth maintains that there are some rights that are absolute because infringing them would amount to unspeakable evil. However, there seem to be possible circumstances in which it would be permissible to infringe even those rights. Specificationists, such as Gerald Gaus, Russ Shafer-Landau, Hillel Steiner and Kit Wellman, argue that all rights are absolute because they (...) have implicit exceptions, the exceptions being either right-voiding or right-compatible. Specificationists have charged pro-tantoism with preventing rights from being action-guiding, and pro-tantoists have levelled the same charge against specificationism. I show that both charges are mistaken. Pro-tantoists claim that specificationists cannot account for the moral remainder that we recognise in some circumstances and which can be explained by reference to a permissible right-infringement. Specificationists retort that the moral remainder can be explained by invoking compensation-rights. I show that the pro-tantoist claim is true and that the specificationist retort is false on two counts: explanation in terms of compensation-rights is not applicable to all cases; and it fails to account for the moral dynamic in the cases to which it is applicable. The contention that rights are pro-tanto does not conflict with the substance of the contention that rights are trumps, despite claims of specificationists to the contrary. (shrink)

Building on previous works which argued that scalar implicatures can be computed in embedded positions, this paper proposes a constraint on exhaustification which restricts the conditions under which an exhaustivity operator can be licensed. We show that this economy condition allows us to derive a number of generalizations, such as, in particular, the ‘Implicature Focus Generalization’: scalar implicatures can be embedded under a downward-entailing operator only if the scalar term bears pitch accent. Our economy condition also derives specific predictions regarding (...) the licensing of so-called Hurford disjunctions. (shrink)

Many contemporary legal positivists have argued that legal theory is evaluative because it requires the theorist to make judgments of importance. At the same time they argue that it is possible to know without resort to evaluative considerations. I distinguish between two senses of : in one sense it refers to legal validity, in another to the content of legal norms, and I argue that legal positivism is best understood (as indeed some legal positivists have explicitly said) as a claim (...) about legal content. Understood this way, however, it is open to the objection that knowing the content of legal norms requires evaluative considerations for reasons similar to those offered by positivists for thinking that legal theory is requires evaluative considerations. I then distinguish between evaluative considerations in general and moral considerations and argue that because of the subject-matter of legal norms, there are good reasons for thinking that it is moral considerations, and not just any other evaluative considerations, that are required for knowing the content of legal norms. (shrink)

According to the epistemic account of request normativity, a request gives us reasons by revealing normatively relevant information. The information is normative, not the request itself. I raise a new objection to the epistemic account based on situations where we might try to avoid someone requesting something of us. The best explanation of these situations seems to be that we do not want to acquire a new reason to do something. For example, if you know I am going to ask (...) you to read a draft of my paper, you might avoid running into me so as to avoid acquiring a reason to read a draft of my paper. I then argue that the epistemic account can successfully reply to this objection and that in fact the epistemic account does a better job of accounting for cases like this than competing views of the normativity of requests. (shrink)

A Logical Form (LF) is a syntactic structure that is interpreted by the semantic component. For a particular structure to be a possible LF it has to be possible for syntax to generate it and for semantics to interpret it. The study of LF must therefore take into account both assumptions about syntax and about semantics, and since there is much disagreement in both areas, disagreements on LF have been plentiful. This makes the task of writing a survey article in (...) the field fairly difficult, a difficulty that is amplified by the amount of material that needs to be covered if the result is going to be in any way representative. My response to this difficulty is to limit my objectives. As a start, I will confine myself to issues relating to the syntactic positions of Quantificational Noun Phrases (QNPs) at LF and to various interpretive consequences. But even within these relatively narrow confines, I will not attempt anything close to a comprehensive survey. Instead my goal will be restricted to the presentation of one leading idea and to the discussion of some evidence that might bear on it.1 Much research on the nature of LF has consisted in attempts to account for the meaning of sentences containing QNPs. (shrink)

This paper examines footraces that are paced and unpaced, and runners who are pre-arranged, designated pacers and those who are not. Although pacesetting is commonplace in footraces today, the practice challenges our conception of sport competition, the nature of competitors and the meaning of records. For example, Bale calls paced races as ‘staged experiments’ to set world records and argues that pacers were crucial in the running career of Roger Bannister. In 2011, the International Association of Athletics Federation banned women’s (...) world records in mixed gender running events, like major marathons, because women were paced by male runners. By examining these cases and others, the authors here will claim paced footraces are qualitatively different than unpaced competitions, pacers introduce peculiar motives and intentions as competitors, women should not be denied opportunities to excel and perform at their very best, and the 2011 IAAF policy is unjustified. (shrink)

This paper discusses gender, sexuality and race through the analysis of Ann Walker, who is a character in the Tv show Gentleman Jack (2019). It aims to focus on the encounter and on the latent desire between Ann and the series’ protagonist to then explore the tensions and established pacts within the limits of femininity, heterossexuality and whiteness, through an elusive gaze to the paranoid reading. Therefore, desire emerges as a theoretical-analytical category by the writings of Deleuze and Guattari (1997; (...) 1995) and Deleuze and Parnet (1998). Lugones’ theory (2014; 2007; 1994) on the coloniality of gender, purity and creativity also contributes to operating a racially aware analysis. Through her desire for the protagonist, Ann constitutes a pact with the demon, in Deleuzo-Gauttarian terms, which ambivalently culminates in the expropriation of herself and in the production of another self, elusive to the expectations of gender and sexuality, however sustained by the limits and possibilities of whiteness. (shrink)

Claims: A. Shared assumption (1) needs to be modified. The argument of a restrictive quantifier phrase, QP, (at least when there is Inverse Scope) is a partial function defined only for individuals that satisfy the restrictor: (3'a) a. λP.[[book]] ⊆ P b.

Schueler has argued, against the eliminativist, that human purposive action cannot be an illusion because the concept of purpose is not theoretical. He argues that the concept is known directly to be instantiated, through self-awareness; and that to maintain that the concept is theoretical involves an infinite regress. I show that Schueler’s argument fails because all our concepts are theoretical in the sense that we may be mistaken in applying them to our experience. As a consequence, it is conceivable that (...) direct introspection of an event as a purposive action may be mistaken. I indicate ways in which the eliminativist may be able to explain why our perception and introspection is afflicted with systematic error. (shrink)

A brief outline of the case for organ sales.

Cranston argued that scarcity makes universal welfare rights impossible. After showing that this argument cannot be avoided by denying scarcity, I consider four challenges to the argument which accept the possibility of conflicts between the duties implied by rights. The first denies the agglomeration principle; the second embraces conflicts of duties; the third affirms the violability of all rights-based duties; and the fourth denies that duties to compensate are overriding. I argue that all four challenges to the scarcity argument are (...) unsuccessful. I then discuss Eddy’s recent challenge, which makes welfare rights context dependent, but I argue that this also fails because it makes rights unknowable. I conclude that the scarcity argument, restated in the light of the discussion, shows that universal welfare rights, as ordinarily understood, are impossible and I explain the philosophical and practical significance of this conclusion. (shrink)

Summary This paper reconceptualizes Thomas Clifford Allbutt's contributions to the making of scientific medicine in late nineteenth-century England. Existing literature on Allbutt usually describes his achievements, such as his design of the pocket thermometer and his advocacy of the use of the ophthalmoscope in general medicine, as independent events; and his work on the development of comparative pathology is largely overlooked. In this paper I focus on this latter aspect. I examine Allbutt's books and addresses and claim that Allbutt argued (...) for the centrality of comparative pathology in the advancement of medical knowledge. He held that diseases should be studied as biological phenomena and that medicine should be made a biological science. He also argued that comparative pathology should be based upon the idea of evolution, and its study should embrace other nineteenth-century sciences including neurology, embryology and bacteriology. Allbutt's writings reveal that his endorsement of comparative pathology, his promotion of the use of the ophthalmoscope and the thermometer in clinical medicine, and his support of the hospital unit system were part of a single programme. All were grounded in his scientific vision of medicine which emphasized a research culture, a stringent nosological attitude and an integration of laboratory sciences and clinical medicine. (shrink)

The rhetorical view suggests that the goal of factual ar- gumentation in legal proceedings is to persuade the fact-finder about the facts under litigation. However, R does not capture our social expecta- tions: we want fact-finders to know the facts justifying their decisions, and persuasion does not necessarily lead to knowledge. I want to present an epistemic theory of argumenta- tion honoring our expectations. Un- der my account, factual argumenta- tion aims to transmit knowledge to the fact-finder.

Despite the important progress being made in the study of family business ethicality, there remains a lack of consensus in the findings and some ambiguity concerning the concept. We propose a new perspective on family firm ethicality by building on a modified socioemotional wealth perspective. We theorize why family firms are likely to manifest exceptionally ethical or equally unethical behavior during crises, arguing this to be caused by the close socioemotional connection between family owners and their firms, the decision-making discretion (...) of these owners, and the secrecy with which they can act. We extend our framework to multiple stakeholders – employees, customers, and local, national, and global communities. Positive and negative examples are provided of firms confronting specific economic, human, and natural crises – demanding situations that reveal authentic ethicality when the pressure is on. We also introduce the notions of ethical heterogeneity, focus and coverage, and their moderators, arguing that the same family and firm may exhibit both ethical and unethical behavior depending on the crisis and stakeholders concerned. Propositions are provided throughout, and research implications are drawn. (shrink)

At the provincial council elections of the 13th of October 1985 in Belgium two of the three traditional politie al families made a general progress, namely the socialists and the christian democrats. The liberals had a serious decline in Flanders, but for the greater part this was counterbalanced by the liberal progress in Wallonia. The ecologists also made progress, mostly in the Flemish part of the country. Beside the Flemish liberals, the big losers of these elections were the regional parties, (...) namely the Flemish nationalists and for sure the Walloon Rally who disappeared from the electoral scene. (shrink)

Responds to Leiter's naturalist/realist approach to jurisprudence - particularly his claim that such an approach implies exclusive positivism. Considers analogy with naturalized epistemology. "With regard to the first step the realists were anti-foundationalists in the sense that they 'denied that legal reasons justify a unique decision: the legal reasons underdetermine the decision '. The second step, the replacement suggests that instead of a justificatory account of adjudication, i.e. some prescription as to how judges should decide cases, the reaslists provided an (...) empirical description o fhow judges actually decide cases." Notes that positivists are generally commited to a moderate foundationalism by their acceptance of a RoR. "[T]he analogy with the epistemological anti-foundationalist thesis would suggest that foundationalism in law is committed to the view that if X is a legal norm, it is a legal norm in virtue of inference from self-validating foundations. There is nothing in this view that commits the legal foundationalist to the view that legal norms necessarily cover the entire practical domain, and therefor provide a determinate answer to every practical question...Now, if the anti-foundationl step fails, then we need not, indeed must not, take the second step, because if we take it, we will lsoe something of great importance for our understanding of law. If legal norms qua reasons are part of what determines the outcome of cases, then in order to understand how legal decisions are reached, we cannot disregard them." If Leiter rejects this moderate foundationalism, then it is in tension with his other claim that the realists were positivists. Goes on to argue that nothing in the realist program contributes to the hard vs. soft positivism debate and, in fact, does nothing to substantiate positivism. Offers brief explication of "positivism of norms". (shrink)

The Iran depicted in the headlines is a rogue state ruled by ever-more-defiant Islamic fundamentalists. Yet inside the borders, an unheralded transformation of a wholly different political bent is occurring. A “liberal renaissance,” as one Iranian thinker terms it, is emerging in Iran, and in this pamphlet, Danny Postel charts the contours of the intellectual upheaval. _Reading "Legitimation Crisis" in Tehran_ examines the conflicted positions of the Left toward Iran since 1979, and, in particular, critically reconsiders Foucault’s connection to (...) the Iranian Revolution. Postel explores the various elements of the subtle liberal revolution and proposes a host of potential implications of this transformation for Western liberalism. He examines the appeal of Jürgen Habermas, Hannah Arendt, and Isaiah Berlin among Iranian intellectuals and ponders how their ideas appear back to us when refracted through a Persian prism. Postel closes with a thought-provoking conversation with eminent Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo. A provocative and incisive polemic highly relevant to our times, _Reading "Legitimation Crisis" in Tehran_ will be of interest to anyone who wants to get beyond alarmist rhetoric and truly understand contemporary Iran. (shrink)

Neil Levy defends no-platforming people who espouse dangerous or unacceptable views. I reject his notion of higher-order evidence as authoritarian and dogmatic. I argue that no-platforming frustrates the growth of knowledge.

The foundations of analysis offered by Cauchy and Riemann were not immediately welcomed by the mathematical community. Before 1870 the foundations of mathematics were considered more or less a national affair. In this paper, Dutch ideas of rigour in analysis between 1840 and 1870 will be discussed. These ideas show that Dutch mathematicians were aware of developments abroad but preferred the concept of infinitesimals as a foundation of mathematics.

The literature on the interplay between geographic communities and organizations has largely ignored the role of individual residents. In adopting a meso-perspective, we examine a potentially vital relationship between corporate conduct and pro-social behavior demanding sacrifice from individuals. Drawing on Weber ), we theorize that organizations in a community legitimize personal social conduct in three ways—by serving as role models, imparting norms and values, and routinizing forms of interaction. We study the relationship between corporate social responsibility behavior by local firms (...) and the social distancing of citizens in US counties during the Covid-19 pandemic, a core ethical outcome. We argue and find that the residents of communities in which firms exhibit higher levels of CSR engaged in more SD during the Covid-19 pandemic. This was true when firms were long-established, isomorphic in their CSR, and major employers and vendors. Moreover, CSR relating to the treatment of employees as well as positive and negative extremes in CSR bore especially strong relationships with SD. Implications are drawn for the study of business ethics, as modeled by CSR, as a force for ethical personal behavior and public health in communities. (shrink)

Overview CHARLES E. CATON The part of philosophy known as the philosophy of language, which includes and is sometimes identified with the part known as ...

Pastoral power and techniques of the self: Foucault and the asceticism of the Desert Fathers This article argues that Foucault would probably have wanted to discuss a number of subjects and texts which are now almost completely lacking: the novelistic texts known as the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles and some hagiographical sources. The Christian views on sexuality were sometimes less ‘orthodox’ and more extreme than what Foucault presented, probably under the influence of Paul Veyne. The Life of Anthony by (...) Athanasius contains a passage which is not analyzed thoroughly in the volume as it was published but which is a key text for the development of Christian hermeneutics and pastoral power. (shrink)

Le rôle des mathématiques dans la formation des officiers de l’armée néerlandaise, a profondément changé pendant le premier xixe siècle avec la fondation de l’Académie militaire en 1828. Les mathématiques étaient au centre de la formation. L’Académie était un des lieux les plus importants de diffusion des connaissances mathématiques aux Pays-Bas pendant la première moitié du xixe siècle, mais elle a perdu ce rôle pendant les années 1860-1870. Dans cet article, je me propose d’examiner à la fois les programmes de (...) l’Académie et le rôle central des enseignants de mathématiques de l’Académie dans la Société Mathématique néerlandaise et dans l’Académie royale des Sciences. Par ailleurs, l’évolution des mathématiques, visible dans ces deux institutions dans les années 1850, n’a pas entraîné une adaptation des programmes au sein de l’Académie. Ainsi, à partir de 1870, l’Académie a presque complètement disparu de la vie mathématique des Pays-Bas. The role of mathematics in the education of Dutch army officers changed dramatically in the early 19th century. This shift became visible with the founding of the Dutch Royal Military Academy in 1828, which shows the role of mathematics in military education shifting toward a purely pedagogical function. This change in approach, which primarily occurred in 1860’s, affected the standing and perception of an academy once highly respected in the field of mathematics. In the present work, I examine both the curricula at the Academy and the crucial role of the Academy’s mathematics instructors in the Dutch Mathematical Society and the Royal Academy of Sciences. Importantly, these two institutions managed to successfully adapt to the changing character of mathematical sciences that occurred around 185 Mathematicians at the Royal Military Academy, however, appeared to cling to an outdated view of mathematics. Failing to update their approach ultimately caused the Academy to lose its once prominent place in the Dutch mathematical community. (shrink)

I point out some logical errors and infelicities in Hájek’s discussion of philosophical heuristics.