This textbook offers a unique and accessible approach to ethical decision-making for practicing pharmacists and student pharmacists. Unlike other texts, it gives clear guidance based on the fundamental principles of moral philosophy, explaining them in simple language and illustrating them with abundant clinical examples and case studies. The strength of this text is in its emphasis on normative ethics and critical thinking, and that there is truly a best answer in the vast majority of cases, no matter how complex. The (...) authors place high trust in a pharmacist’s moral judgment. This teaches the reader how to think, based on ethical principles, not necessarily what to think. This means navigating between the two extremes of overly theoretical and excessively prescriptive. The cogent framework given in this text uses the language of competing duties, identifying the moral principles at stake that create duties for the pharmacist. This is the balancing act of normative ethics, and of deciding which duties should prevail in a given clinical situation. This work presents a clear-cut pathway for resolving ethical dilemmas encountered by pharmacists, based on foundational principles and critical thinking. Presents a clear-cut pathway for resolving the ethical dilemmas encountered by pharmacists, based on foundational principles and critical thinking. Jon E. Sprague, RPh, PhD, Director of Science and Research for the Ohio Attorney General. (shrink)

A study involving purchasing managers was conducted to test specific Hunt-Vitell theoretical propositions concerning the determinants of managers' teleological evaluations. We extended the Hunt-Vitell model by developing a new integrative construct, namely the desirability of consequences to self versus others. We hypothesized that desirability of consequences affects teleological evaluations in that the more desirable the consequences of a particular action, the more likely managers evaluate that action positively. The results of the present study provided support for this hypothesis. Furthermore, we (...) extended the Hunt-Vitell model by developing a new integrative construct, namely the desirability of consequences of self versus others. We hypothesized that cognitive moral development moderates the relationship between the desirability of consequences of self versus others and teleological evaluation. The results failed to support this hypothesis. We explained the lack of support in terms of the level of aggregation of the data, the possibility of the confounding effect of respondents' sensitivity to ethical issues, and the possibility that deontological evaluations confounded the respondents' teleological judgments. Future research and managerial implications of the findings were also discussed. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions of business students and of business practitioners regarding ethics in business. A survey consisting of a series of brief ethical situations was completed by 537 senior business majors and 158 experienced business people. They responded to the situations, first, as they believed the typical business person would respond and, second, as they believed the ethical response would be.The results indicate that both students and business people perceived a significant gap between (...) the ethical response to the given situations and the typical business person's response. Students were significantly more accepting than business people of questionable ethical responses, and they also had a more negative view of the ethics of business people than did the experienced business people. (shrink)

Providing in-utero treatments to target specific conditions in the fetus is a relatively new approach in perinatal care, with the vast majority of these treatments being used off-label. The high degree of off-label medication use in the perinatal and neonatal settings raises concern for the safety of both the fetuses and expectant mothers. This report presents two examples of intra-amniotic drug administration based on reported clinical cases. From the ethical framework of medical principlism, we examine the competing ethical duties of (...) autonomy, beneficence, and non-maleficence in this setting. We then lay out three fundamental ethical principles for obtaining informed consent and maximizing clinical benefit. (shrink)

The Aristotelian dictum that desire is the starting point of practical reasoning that ends in action can of course be denied. Its denial is a commonplace of moral theory in the tradition of Kant. But in this essay I am concerned with that issue only indirectly. I shall not contend that rational action always or necessarily does involve desire as its starting point; nor shall I deny it. My question concerns instead the possibility of its ever beginning in desire. For (...) there is a question whether it is even possible for reasoning to begin in desire, a question arising from the nature of desire and its objects, which to my knowledge has not been articulated. If we can see how desire can provide the arche of action, then we can consider later, and from that vantage point, whether it is necessary that it should do so. It will, I think, be possible eventually to argue that if practical reasoning has the character it must have, if it can begin in desire, then its starting point can be nothing but desire. (shrink)

Lay persons may have intuitions about morality's objectivity. What do these intuitions look like? And what are their causes and consequences? In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have begun to investigate these questions empirically. This article presents and assesses the resulting area of research as well as its potential philosophical implications. First, we introduce the methods of empirical research on folk moral objectivism. Second, we provide an overview of the findings that have so far been made. Third, we (...) raise a number of methodological worries that cast doubt upon these findings. And fourth, we discuss ways in which lay persons' intuitions aboutmoral objectivity may bear on philosophical claims. (shrink)

Many metaethicists agree that as ordinary people experience morality as a realm of objective truths, we have a prima facie reason to believe that it actually is such a realm. Recently, worries have been raised about the validity of the extant psychological research on this argument’s empirical hypothesis. Our aim is to advance this research, taking these worries into account. First, we propose a new experimental design for measuring folk intuitions about moral objectivity that may serve as an inspiration for (...) future studies. Then we report and discuss the results of a survey that was based on this design. In our study, most of our participants denied the existence of objective truths about most or all moral issues. In particular, many of them had the intuition that whether moral sentences are true depends both on their own moral beliefs and on the dominant moral beliefs within their culture. This finding suggests that the realist presumptive argument may have to be rejected and that instead anti-realism may have a presumption in its favor. (shrink)

This book offers an array of important perspectives on Kant and nonconceptualism from some of the leading scholars in current Kant studies. As well as discussing the various arguments surrounding Kantian nonconceptualism, the book provides broad insight into the theory of perception, philosophy of mind, philosophy of mathematics, epistemology, and aesthetics. His idealism aside, Kantian nonconceptualism is the most topical contemporary issue in Kant’s theoretical philosophy. In this collection of specially commissioned essays, major players in the current debate, including Robert (...) Hanna and Lucy Allais, engage with each other and with the broader literature in the field addressing all the important aspects of Kantian nonconceptualism. Among other topics, the authors analyse the notion of intuition and the conditions of its generation, Kant’s theory of space, including his pre-Critical view of space, the relation between nonconceptualism and the Transcendental Deduction, and various challenges to both conceptualist and nonconceptualist interpretations of Kant. Two further chapters explore a prominent Hegelian conceptualist reading of Kant and Kant’s nonconceptualist position in the Third Critique. The volume also contains a helpful survey of the recent literature on Kant and nonconceptual content. Kantian Nonconceptualism provides a comprehensive overview of recent perspectives on Kant and nonconceptual content, and will be a key resource for Kant scholars and philosophers interested in the topic of nonconceptualism. (shrink)

According to what has become a standard history of quantum mechanics, von Neumann in 1932 succeeded in convincing the physics community that he had proved that hidden variables were impossible as a matter of principle. Subsequently, leading proponents of the Copenhagen interpretation emphatically confirmed that von Neumann's proof showed the completeness of quantum mechanics. Then, the story continues, Bell in 1966 finally exposed the proof as seriously and obviously wrong; this rehabilitated hidden variables and made serious foundational research possible. It (...) is often added in recent accounts that von Neumann's error had been spotted almost immediately by Grete Hermann, but that her discovery was of no effect due to the dominant Copenhagen Zeitgeist. We shall attempt to tell a more balanced story. Most importantly, von Neumann did not claim to have shown the impossibility of hidden variables tout court, but argued that hidden-variable theories must possess a structure that deviates fundamentally from that of quantum mechanics. Both Hermann and Bell appear to have missed this point; moreover, both raised unjustified technical objections to the proof. Von Neumann's conclusion was basically that hidden-variables schemes must violate the "quantum principle" that all physical quantities are to be represented by operators in a Hilbert space. According to this conclusion, hidden-variables schemes are possible in principle but necessarily exhibit a certain kind of contextuality. As we shall illustrate, early reactions to Bohm's theory are in agreement with this account. Leading physicists pointed out that Bohm's theory has the strange feature that particle properties do not generally reveal themselves in measurements, in accordance with von Neumann's result. They did not conclude that the "impossible was done" and that von Neumann had been shown wrong. (shrink)

This book represents a considerable revision and expansion of Public Choice II. Six new chapters have been added, and several chapters from the previous edition have been extensively revised. The discussion of empirical work in public choice has been greatly expanded. As in the previous editions, all of the major topics of public choice are covered. These include: why the state exists, voting rules, federalism, the theory of clubs, two-party and multiparty electoral systems, rent seeking, bureaucracy, interest groups, dictatorship, the (...) size of government, voter participation, and political business cycles. Normative issues in public choice are also examined including a normative analysis of the simple majority rule, Bergson–Samuelson social welfare functions, the Arrow and Sen impossibility theorems, Rawls's social contract theory and the constitutional political economy of Buchanan and Tullock. (shrink)

This article suggests a way to circumvent some of the problems that follow from the lack of consensus on a definition of emotion (Izard, 2010; Kleinginna & Kleinginna, 1981) and emotion regulation (Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004) by adopting a conceptual framework based on discrete emotions theory and focusing on specific emotions. Discrete emotions theories assume that neural, affective, and cognitive processes differ across specific emotions and that each emotion has particular motivational and regulatory functions. Thus, efforts at (...) regulation should target the specific dysregulated emotions. The positive effects of emotion regulation are more likely to be optimized when they result from or lead to emotion utilization—the constructive use of the energy of emotion arousal. Effective processes for regulation differ for basic emotions and emotion schemas. This article identifies neural systems that facilitate emotion experiences and emotion regulation processes. It considers the implications of the developmental change from basic emotions to emotion schemas, and also briefly discusses the effects of interventions on changes in emotion knowledge, emotion regulation, and social and emotional competence. (shrink)

blurb from publisher: "In Apperception and Self-Consciousness in Kant and German Idealism, Dennis Schulting examines the themes of reflexivity, self-consciousness, representation and apperception in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and German Idealism more widely. Central to Schulting’s argument is the claim that all of human experience is inherently self-referential and that this is part of a self-reflexivity of thought, or what is called transcendental apperception, a Kantian insight that was first apparent in the work of Christian Wolff and came (...) to inform all of German Idealism. In a rigorous text suitable for students of German philosophy and upper-level students of metaphysics, epistemology, moral and political philosophy, and aesthetics courses, the author establishes the historical roots of Kant’s thought and traces it through to his immediate successors Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. He specifically examines the cognitive role of self-consciousness and its relation to idealism and places it in a clear and coherent history of rationalist philosophy." . (shrink)

Between 1893 and 1908, at least six private consortia and the municipality of Baghdad were denied permission to operate steamships on the Tigris and Euphrates on the grounds that a navigation concession had already been granted to the Privy Purse ( hazine-i hassa). The Privy Purse justified its insistence on monopoly with reference to the emerging ideology of development ( nafia), though its ideas about the role of steam technology in nafia stood in contrast to those of private investors and (...) other Ottoman bureaucrats. Working from the hazine-i hassa’s planning memos and contracts, I show that the private treasury envisioned a primarily agrarian future for Iraq, with steamships serving agricultural aims. As such, it focused on envisioning future steamships rather than managing its existing fleet, while still acquiring dominance over land and transport in the region. However, private companies and officials contested this vision, emphasizing the materiality of existing steamships, their roles in trade, and the potential for commercial competition as a means of resisting British imperial encroachment. After the Committee of Union and Progress came to power in 1908, the Privy Purse was disestablished and its properties reverted to the Finance Ministry, opening a brief window during which steamship companies were encouraged to proliferate. Quickly, however, new comprehensive schemes were proposed, though with railways replacing steamships as the corollary to Iraq’s imagined riches. Engaging questions about the futurity of both infrastructure and capital, as well as those posed by the technology-in-use paradigm, this article suggests that the hazine-i hassa is a rich starting point for analysis because the scalar and ontological tensions it embodied highlight how different kinds of futures interact in development planning to affect the present. (shrink)

Descartes refuted skepticism in 1641. George Berkeley refuted skepticism in 1710. O.K. Bouwsma refuted skepticism in 1949. Hilary Putnam refuted skepticism in 1981. The locus classicus for the form of skepticism refuted is Descartes' Meditations -- which also goes on to set out a famous realist refutation of skepticism. Indeed, Descartes is the principal inventor of the philosophic enterprise of skepticism refutation so central to Modern philosophy and its epistemic preoccupations. What the cited successors of Descartes and many others have (...) in common is a rejection of both skepticism and Descartes' refutation of it. Berkeley, Bouwsma and Putnam offer a sophisticated, undercutting, refutation which undermines the very coherence of skepticism. And for all, issues of language and meaning rise to the fore, determining the coherence of any skeptical doubts and constraining the possibilities of systematic error and deception (for Berkeley, these appear as issues about the objects of thought, which in turn are the foundation of the meaning of language). (shrink)

The paper attempts to provide a basis for exploring the continued relevance of Catholic social teaching to business ethics, byinterpreting the historic development of a Catholic work ethic and the traditions of Catholic social teaching in light of contemporary discussions of economic globalization, notably those of Robert Reich and Peter Drucker. The paper argues that the Catholic work ethic and the Church’s tradition of social teaching has evolved dynamically in response to the structural changes involved in the history of modern (...) economic development, and thus is well poised to speak to the ethical challenges implicit in the advent of a knowledge-based society. In order to test this thesis, the author sketches an approach to the ethical challenge of corporate downsizing that he believes illustrates the continued relevance of Catholic social teaching to business ethics. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America. by Thomas R. Cole.

This book brings together the relevant interdisciplinary and method elements needed to form a conceptual framework that is both pragmatic and rigorous. By using the best, and often the latest, work in thanatology, psychology, neuroscience, sociology, physics, philosophy and ethics, it develops a framework for understanding both what death is - which requires a great deal of time spent developing definitions of the various types of identity-in-the-moment and identity-over-time - and the values involved in death. This pragmatic framework answers questions (...) about why death is a form of loss; why we experience the emotional reactions, feelings and desires that we do; which of these reactions, feelings and desires are justified and which are not; if we can survive death and how; whether our deaths can harm us; and why and how we should prepare for death. Thanks to the pragmatic framework employed, the answers to the various questions are more likely to be accurate and acceptable than those with less rigorous scholarly underpinnings or which deal with utopian worlds.. (shrink)

Existing and proposed provisions of the Model Penal Code refer to believing something “recklessly.” In this chapter, we examine the notion of reckless beliefs and determine what that notion cannot be and what it might be.

Mentoring is a natural setting for senior employees to render ethics advice and consultation to junior employees. Two studies examined the question of whether those who mentor are more practically wise than those who do not. Although four different measures of practical wisdom were used, no differences were detected. However, mentors were shown to be more politically skilled than non-mentors.

In workplace health interventions, engaging management and union decision makers is considered important for the success of the project, yet little research has described the process of making this happen. A case study of a knowledge-transfer process is presented to describe the practices and processes adopted by a knowledge broker who engaged workplace parties in discussions on research on physical and psychosocial factors important for employee health. The process included one-on-one interactions between the knowledge broker and individuals to explain the (...) research, to build trust and credibility, and to explore the applicability of the research to their work (sense making). It also included facilitated group sessions, where the groups explored how the research could solve problems within the workplace (social construction of knowledge). The workplace context offered multiple opportunities that helped and hindered the flow of research. Nevertheless, this intense, sustained, knowledge-transfer intervention noted conceptual, structural, and political knowledge use. (shrink)

The articles in this new edition of A Companion to Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory have been updated throughout, and the addition of ten new articles ensures ...

Zygmunt Bauman has used his `outsider' position to explore the defining boundaries of our world and help shape a discourse which allows communication across these boundaries. In this spirit he has investigated: sociology and culture; capitalism, socialism and class; and modernity and postmodernity. Bauman has argued for an emancipatory sociology which takes full account of what ought and ought not to be, what human beings hope for and fear, and the need to give people intellectual tools to make use of (...) their freedom. Applying the strategy of the `hermeneutic circle', he has examined capitalist and socialist regimes from a range of vantage points. He has also identified the challenges we all now face as inhabitants of the half-ruined structures created by modernity's failed ambitions. Bauman has confronted these challenges in the last decade by focusing on the evils of modern bureaucracy as epitomized by the Holocaust, the inescapability of each individual's responsibility for his or her own moral choices, and the potential for an open and self-critical dialogue between sociologists and their fellow citizens. (shrink)

Aristotle is often credited with views about practical reasoning, desire, and action collectively referred to as the theory of the practical syllogism.Some commentators are skeptical about the existence of any such general theory, but most would agree that a theory of some sort is outlined in the De Motu Animalium and that it influences Aristotle’s account of akrasia in the icomachean Ethics.This paper will begin by describing the most important ideas in the De Motu Animalium discussion of the practical syllogism. (...) The ideas are simple but I think that their implications and philosophical importance have not been appreciated. I will suggest that the practical syllogism is Aristotle’s model for the rational explanation of action. Other commentators have made this claim, but I think that it can be given a very precise sense. Aristotle thinks that an action can be rationally explained if the agent acts in response to the strength of the reasons that he sees for acting. The practical syllogism is an argument that expresses the reasons in favor of the action, so if the agent acts for those reasons the action is explained by the practical syllogism. The second part of the paper considers the work that the practical syllogism does in Aristotle’s account of akrasia. I will argue that in akrasia—at least in the most extreme kind of akrasia—the agent acts intentionally to satisfy a desire but the action cannot be explained by a practical syllogism. Aristotle distinguishes between explanation by the motivational strength of desires and explanation by a practical syllogism. The last part of this paper comments on David Charles’s interpretation of Aristotle’s views about desire, practical reason, and akrasia. Charles discusses the traditionally disputed questions in a provocative way, and more importantly his suggestions fit together into a complex and philosophically sophisticated reading of Aristotle. I disagree with his most important claims, but I can best explain and defend my own interpretation by contrasting it with his. (shrink)

The implications of game theory models of the evolution of strategies of exchange are explored with respect to the evolution of moral dispositions. I argue that dispositions to practice tit for tat strategies could have evolved, but the moral behaviours to which they give rise do not fare well on criteria of morality. Inasmuch as the strategy implicit in the Golden Rule is unconditional, it could not have evolved in environments containing strategies that exploit it. However, dispositions to invoke conditional (...) principles such as those that prescribe that people cooperate with those they observe cooperating and shun those they observe behaving selfishly, could have been selected in some conditions and may have given rise to the evolution of indirect reciprocity. The key to the evolution of morality is discrimination in favour of cooperators and against cheaters and selfish individualists. The limitations of game theory in the explanation of human morality are acknowledged. (shrink)

Abstract:It is argued that virtuous peers in work organizations have two elements of character no matter what the nature of the goods the organization produces: loyalty to common projects for their own sake and trustworthiness. Each of these is shown to be a uniquely human attribute, an element of character that contributes to a life well lived, and a trait that leads to the flourishing of an entire work community.

i would hazard to guess that nearly everyone would agree that In situations of peril, it is permissible to use another’s property without her permission if that is the only way to save oneself from serious harm.1But that If one damages or consumes that property, one ought to compensate its owner.It turns out, however, that the conjunction of N1 and N2 is surprisingly difficult to justify. That is because if you accept N1, you are also likely to accept A property (...) owner would wrong an imperiled trespasser if the owner prevented her from using his property if that were the only way she could save herself from serious harm.N3 implies that the permission granted in N1 issues from a right. This generates a... (shrink)

Theology offers an account of how a person grows in the love of God or fails to do so; this account is needed for understanding the role of mental health treatments. An overview of the elements of character formation is given, including moral and theological virtues, vices, emotions, reason, commandments, and the influence of family and the community. The diagnosis of mental disorders and illnesses is reviewed, along with the basic kinds of psychotherapist and methods of therapy. A few principles (...) regarding human dignity are highlighted, and the similarities of and differences between the counselor and the confessor are explained. (shrink)