This study focuses on the application of multicriteria decision-making techniques, specifically the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), to identify corporate socialresponsibility information which both companies and stakeholders consider relevant and material. This work explains how the AHP methodology was applied in the selection of material indicators in corporate social responsibility reporting, the interpretation of these indicators and their relative importance. The results of this study are summarized in 60 indicators distributed in four areas: environment, economy, corporate governance and social. As this (...) last area contains the greatest number of indicators, it was divided into four sub-areas (human resources, human rights, product responsibility and society). (shrink)

Suppositions can be introduced in either the indicative or subjunctive mood. The introduction of either type of supposition initiates judgments that may be either qualitative, binary judgments about whether a given proposition is acceptable or quantitative, numerical ones about how acceptable it is. As such, accounts of qualitative/quantitative judgment under indicative/subjunctive supposition have been developed in the literature. We explore these four different types of theories by systematically explicating the relationships canonical representatives of each. Our representative qualitative accounts of indicative (...) and subjunctive supposition are based on the belief change operations provided by AGM revision and KM update respectively; our representative quantitative ones are offered by conditionalization and imaging. This choice is motivated by the familiar approach of understanding supposition as `provisional belief revision' wherein one temporarily treats the supposition as true and forms judgments by making appropriate changes to their other opinions. To compare the numerical judgments recommended by the quantitative theories with the binary ones recommended by the qualitative accounts, we rely on a suitably adapted version of the Lockean thesis. Ultimately, we establish a number of new results that we interpret as vindicating the often-repeated claim that conditionalization is a probabilistic version of revision, while imaging is a probabilistic version of update. (shrink)

Proponents of the reasoning view analyze normative reasons as premises of good reasoning and explain the normativity of reasons by appeal to their role as premises of good reasoning. The aim of this paper is to cast doubt on the reasoning view by providing counterexamples to the proposed analysis of reasons, counterexamples in which premises of good reasoning towards φ‐ing are not reasons to φ.

A growing number of medical professionals claim a right of conscience, a right to refuse to perform any professional duty they deem immoral—and to do so with impunity. We argue that professionals do not have the unqualified right of conscience. At most they have a highly qualified right. We focus on the claims of pharmacists, since they are the professionals most commonly claiming this right.

According to orthodoxy, there are two basic moods of supposition: indicative and subjunctive. The most popular formalizations of the corresponding norms of suppositional judgement are given by Bayesian conditionalization and Lewisian imaging, respectively. It is well known that Bayesian conditionalization can be generalized (via Jeffrey conditionalization) to provide a model for the norms of partial indicative supposition. This raises the question of whether imaging can likewise be generalized to model the norms of ‘partial subjunctive supposition’. The present article casts doubt (...) on whether the most natural generalizations of imaging are able to provide a plausible account of the norms of partial subjunctive supposition. (shrink)

I present an explanatory argument for the reasons-first view: It is superior to knowledge-first views in particular in that it can both explain the specific epistemic role of perception and account for the shape and extent of epistemic justification.

The glaring lack of formal and informal caregivers in Germany has not only become apparent in hospitals and nursing homes but also in home care arrangements. One tension is particularly pertinent in such arrangements: a ‘family-oriented’ logic of the long-term care insurance and the individual wishes of those in need of care meet the actual possibilities of family carers. This care gap has been compensated for by 24-hour care workers, so-called ‘live-ins’, from Eastern Europe for some years. This contribution maps (...) the ‘live-ins’ situation comprehensively from an ethical perspective. Based on different constellations regarding the ‘live-ins’ status as a professional nurse or non-professional caregiver, which ethical principles and moral norms are affected by whom and potentially conflict with each other in such home care arrangements at a micro and meso level of care are outlined. Special attention is paid to the tension between self-care and care for others, and to questions of the shared responsibility in and social responsibility of those external services that are involved in home care in addition to the ‘live-in’. In order to uncover, understand and influence the current ethical problems, an ethical framework that considers both the divergent interests of all individuals involved in the home care arrangement and their mutual dependency and vulnerability is needed. (shrink)

This paper maintains that objectivism about practical reasons should be combined with pluralism both about the nature of practical reasons and about action explanations. We argue for an ‘expanding circle of practical reasons’, starting out from an open-minded monist objectivism. On this view, practical reasons are not limited to actual facts, but consist in states of affairs, possible facts that may or may not obtain. Going beyond such ‘that-ish’ reasons, we argue that goals are also bona fide practical reasons. This (...) makes for a genuine pluralism about practical reasons. Furthermore, the facts or states of affairs that function as practical reasons are not exclusively natural or descriptive, but include normative facts. That normative facts can be reasons justifies a pluralism about reason explanations, one which allows for what we call enkratic explanations in addition to teleological ones. (shrink)

Studies with sacrificial moral dilemmas capture human variation in moral attitudes towards an extreme case of moral conflict between utilitarian and deontological principles. In this moral task, th...

In this commentary I expand on the first of Noble’s illusions, the selection metaphor. Building on my work with Simona Ginsburg on the evolution of minimal consciousness, I argue that the existence of some complex sensory and motor patterns in the living world can be accounted for only through the evolution of conscious choice.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) describes the evolution of treatment‐resistant pathogens, with potentially catastrophic consequences for human medicine. AMR is driven by the over‐prescription of antibiotics, and could be reduced through consideration of the ethical dimensions of the dilemma faced by doctors. This dilemma involves balancing apparently opposed interests of current and future patients, and unique contextual factors in different countries, which may modify the core dilemma. We describe three example countries with different economic backgrounds and cultures—South Africa, Sri Lanka and the (...) United Kingdom. Then we discuss how country‐specific factors impact on the prominence of various ethical dimensions of the dilemma (visibility and moral equality of future generations; Rule of Rescue; prescribing autonomy and conflicts of interest; consensus on collective action). We conclude that a nuanced understanding of national prescribing dilemmas is critical to inform the design of effective stewardship approaches. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 52, Issue 3, Page 292-309, Fall 2021.

In this essay, I recount and examine my response to a genetic diagnosis of my disabled daughter. My daughter was forty‐nine before the diagnosis came. All her disabilities were traceable to a de novo single gene variant on the PURA gene that was discovered only in 2014. I speak of the jolt and the recalibration that this discovery engendered, concluding that, while it seemed that everything had changed, nothing had changed. But my family did discover a community in which Sesha (...) joins other PURA‐perfect sons and daughters and where we as a family acquire a “horizontal identity” marked by a genetic variant. (shrink)

I argue that the claim that merely being born of two human beings in a condition that supports life is sufficient for full moral status. Not only ought we not to exclude any human being from full moral status because they lack the possession of what some have deemed to be morally relevant properties, we don’t have a full grasp of what is morally relevant unless we include the many different possible lives humans live in their diverse bodies and minds. (...) Our understanding of how we ought to treat nonhuman beings is not of lesser importance, but it necessarily depends on how we understand what is morally significant in human lives. (shrink)

A growing body of literature supports that fixed intelligence mindset promotes the emergence of maladaptive emotional reactions, especially when self-threat is imminent. Previous studies have confirmed that in adverse academic situations, students endorsing fixed intelligence mindset experience higher levels of negative emotions, although little is known about the mechanisms through which fixed intelligence mindset exerts its influence. Thus, the present study proposed to investigate self-esteem as a mediator of this relationship in two different cultural contexts, in Hungary and the United (...) States. Structural equation modeling revealed that self-esteem fully mediated the relationship between fixed intelligence mindset and negative emotions. Furthermore, results of the invariance testing conferred preliminary evidence for the cross-cultural validity of the mediation model. These findings suggest that, students adhering to fixed intelligence beliefs tend to experience greater self-esteem loss when experiencing academic failure, which leads to higher levels of negative emotions. (shrink)

It is common for religiously motivated actions to be specially protected by law. Many legal theorists have asked why: what makes religion special? What makes it worthy of toleration over and above other non-religious deeply held convictions? The answer I put forward is that religions’ alleged afterlife consequences call for a principle of toleration that warrants special legal treatment. Under a Rawlsian principle of toleration, it is reasonable for those in the original position to opt for principles of justice that (...) accommodate actions with alleged afterlife consequences. And, under a utilitarian principle of toleration, a greater psychological harm is eased by such accommodations. Additionally, this alleged afterlife consequence is found in most of the religions that are thought to warrant some level of special toleration—not only do the Abrahamic religions have alleged afterlife consequences, but many eastern religions do as well, e.g. reincarnation. (shrink)

In this book, Eva Brann sets out no less a task than to assess the meaning of imagination in its multifarious expressions throughout western history. The result is one of those rare achievements that will make The World of the Imagination a standard reference.

The gendered assumptions embedded in the construction of the rational individual are well established in Western feminist thought but inapplicable to describe societies operating on different principles, such as East European state socialism. This article identifies the communist subject as the building block of communist political ideology and argues that this formulation was no less male biased than its counterpart, the rational individual under liberal capitalism. In state socialist Hungary this male bias came to be expressed differently: Women were integrated (...) into society through membership in a social group perceived as relatively homogeneous regarding interests and obligations and with gender-specific qualities and privileges. These qualities were considered inferior to men's since women—because of household responsibilities—were not capable of total devotion to the communist party. The author explores this construction of the female communist subject through a content analysis of classified materials from the archives of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party. (shrink)

In this comment on Katherine Dormandy's paper «True Faith», I point out that the clash she describes between epistemic norms and faith-based norms of belief needs to be supplemented with a clear understanding of the pertinent norms of belief. I argue that conceiving of them as evaluative fails to explain the clash, and that understanding them as prescriptive is no better. I suggest an understanding of these norms along the lines of Ross’s (1930) prima facie duties, and show how this (...) picture can make sense of the clash. (shrink)

Temporal dynamics have been increasingly recognized as an important component of facial expressions. With the need for appropriate stimuli in research and application, a range of databases of dynamic facial stimuli has been developed. The present article reviews the existing corpora and describes the key dimensions and properties of the available sets. This includes a discussion of conceptual features in terms of thematic issues in dataset construction as well as practical features which are of applied interest to stimulus usage. To (...) identify the most influential sets, we further examine their citation rates and usage frequencies in existing studies. General limitations and implications for emotion research are noted and future directions for stimulus generation are outlined. (shrink)

Since Hegel, the idea of an end of art has become a staple of aesthetic theory. This book analyzes its role and its rhetoric in Hegel, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Adorno, and Heidegger in order to account for the topic's enduring persistence. In addition to providing a general overview of the main thinkers of post-Idealist German aesthetics, the book explores the relationship between tradition and modernity. For despite the differences that distinguish one philosopher's end of art from another's, all authors treated here (...) turn the end of art into an occasion to thematize and to reflect on the very thing that modernism cannot or should not be: tradition. As a discourse, the end of art is one of our modern traditions. (shrink)

The article discusses two historical events taken from texts from the Holy Scripture – the Old and the New Testaments, and a spiritual view on human soul, as found in the Holy tradition of the Orthodox church: they support the thesis that, according to the method of allegorical interpretation, the three evidences point to three inner stages through which human soul passes in its transition to a holistic spiritual development: from the act of the Holy Baptism to the entry into (...) the Kingdom of God. (shrink)

Proč by se měl filozof vědy zajímat o počítačové simulace? Autorka ve své práci argumentuje tezi, podle níž je počítačová simulace nejen samozřejmou součástí vědeckých metod, ale navíc má potenciál rozvíjet na poli filozofie vědy zcela nové metodologické koncepty a kategorie. Na příkladu tzv. numerického experimentu, který představuje jednu z nejčastějších podob počítačových simulací ve vědě, je ukázán jejich nejasný metodologický status. Na jedné straně lze u simulací (konkrétně numerického experimentování) sledovat vlastnosti, které jsou typické pro teoretický přístup ve vědě, (...) na druhé straně však rovněž vystupují v roli velmi blízké empirické evidenci, čímž se naopak blíží experimentu. V textu autorka představuje zejména Humphreysovu interpretaci počítačové simulace jako hybridní kategorie, která vzbuzuje diskuzi nad založením zcela nové, simulace lépe postihující teorie vědy. (shrink)

This article addresses tensions within the emerging field of animal studies, which have arisen in the process of trying to craft an ethics that is not grounded in humanist rights-frameworks, by--firstly--mapping how these debates are manifested and--secondly--positing Cary Wolfe’s concept of "affirmative biopolitics" as means of overcoming these conceptual rifts. Building on work that attributes these tensions to the influence of posthumanism, it argues that the embrace of posthumanist thought has marginalised critique by framing perspectives such as ecofeminism and critical (...) animal studies as irredeemably humanist. To counter this marginalisation, Wolfe’s recent work on biopolitics is used to create a much-needed conversation between these perspectives. Debates surrounding veganism provide a route into instigating this dialogue, due to it being a contested practice that crystallises the differences between "mainstream" and critical animal studies. This framing of veganism not as a totalising practice but as a form of "affirmative biopolitics," however, is not solely intended to highlight affinities between apparently antagonistic perspectives, but offered as a contribution to broader debates about how a "posthumanist ethics" could be enacted in practice. (shrink)

Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic has presented millions of people with extraordinary challenges that are associated with significant amounts of stress. Emotion regulation is crucial during this crisis as people seek to mitigate the stress and uncertainty of the present moment. In this study, we surveyed a nationally representative sample of 297 adults from the United States on their levels of perceived stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as their level of engagement of different emotion regulation strategies (...) during the pandemic. We performed multiple linear regression analyses to assess which regulation strategies were associated with individual differences in perceived stress. Among all emotion regulation strategies, psychological distancing, which involves thinking about stressful circumstances in an objective, impartial way, was uniquely associated with reductions in perceived stress due to COVID-19 across individuals. This effect was not moderated by age, gender, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, or trait-related difficulty in regulating emotion. Conversely, situation modification was associated with significantly greater perceived stress overall. These results suggest the broad applicability and utility of psychological distancing during pandemic-related social distancing as part of an adaptive emotion regulation toolkit and motivate the investigation of interventions involving psychological distancing in this context. (shrink)

Das folgende Essay erläutert, warum der Tod Gottes sowohl in einem konsequent theistischen System als auch bei atheistischen Denkern unausweichlich ist. Zur Beantwortung der Frage, wie Gott gestorben ist, werden hauptsächlich Autoren wie Friedrich W. Schelling , Friedrich Nietzsche und Peter Sloterdijk herangezogen. Da die Rede vom Tod Gottes den Verdacht erweckt, metaphorisch zu sein, werden wir mit Apoptose und Nekrose auch zwei unterschiedliche Metaphern anwenden, um den vorliegenden Sachverhalt zu beschreiben . Das letzte Kapitel fragt dann nach den Konsequenzen (...) von Gottes Tod für die heutige Ethik.The following essay describes the death of god as unavoidable in a consequent theistic as well as in an atheistic system. To answer the question: how god died, philosophers like Friedrich W. Schelling , Friedrich Nietzsche und Peter Sloterdijk were taken into consideration. For the matter of god’s death is suggestive of being metaphorical, we use two different metaphors to discuss the issue – apoptosis and necrosis . Finally the last chapter asks for the consequences of god’s death concerning nowadays ethics. (shrink)