The present study examines the relationships between consumers'' ethical beliefs and personality traits. Based on a survey of 295 undergraduate business students, the authors found that individuals with high needs for autonomy, innovation, and aggression, as well as individuals with a high propensity for taking risks tend to have less ethical beliefs concerning possible consumer actions. Individuals with a high need for social desirability and individuals with a strong problem solving coping style tend to have more ethical beliefs concerning possible (...) consumer actions. The needs for achievement, affiliation, complexity and an emotion solving coping style were not significantly correlated with consumer ethical beliefs. (shrink)

Frank A. Lewis presents a close study of book Zeta of Aristotle's Metaphysics, one of his most dense and controversial texts, commonly understood to contain his deepest thoughts on the definition of substance and related metaphysical issues. Lewis argues that Aristotle returns to the causal view of primary substance from his Posterior Analytics.

Replying to Theaetetus’ suggestion that knowledge is true opinion at Tht. 200e, Socrates remarks that ‘a whole profession’ testifies against this definition. The orator practises the art of persuasion, not to teach people, but make them believe whatever he wants. If a robbery has taken place, for example, he cannot in a short time teach adequately the truth about what happened to people who were not on the scene.

The topic of homonymy, especially the variety of homonymy that has gone under the title, “focal meaning,” is of fundamental importance to large portions of Aristotle’s work-not to mention its central place in the ongoing controversies between Aristotle and Plato. It is quite astonishing, therefore, that the topic should have gone so long without a book-length treatment. And it is all the more gratifying that the new book on homonymy by Christopher Shields should be so comprehensive, and of such uniformly (...) high quality.’ Everyone who cares about Aristotle will be in his debt. Shields’s book falls into two parts. In the first, he is concerned to lay out the basic structure of Aristotle’s views about homonymy; in the second part, we are led through the various applications of the idea, to the analysis of friendship, for example, the homonymy of the body, the account of goodness and, not least, the homonymy of being. Shields’s book brings out well how the topic of homonymy weaves in and out of the fabric of Aristotle’s thinking in a variety of areas. I will resist the temptation to follow Shields through these various subject-matters, and instead take up essentially two topics. First, (I), the basic outline of Aristotle’s notion of homonymy, more or less independently of its different applications (here, I follow Shields’s example in the first half of his book). Thereafter, I discuss a single application: the homonymy of being (this is the subject of Shields’s last and longest chapter). Here, I will be interested (II) in how homonymy relates to the theory of the categories; and (III) in the application of homonymy to the analysis of substance in the Metaphysics. (shrink)

Secular change in sex ratios is examined in relation to experience in the family. Two theoretical perspectives are outlined: Guttentag and Secord’s (1983) adaptation of social exchange theory, and sexual selection theory. Because of large-scale change in number of births and typical age differentials between men and women at marriage, low sex ratios at couple formation ages existed in the U.S. between 1965 and the early 1980s. The currently high sex ratios, however, will persist until the end of the century. (...) High sex ratios appear to be associated with lower divorce rates, male commitment to careers that promise economic rewards, male willingness to engage in child care, higher fertility, and higher rates of sexual violence. Sexual selection theory calls attention to intrasexual competition in the numerically larger sex. (shrink)

What in Aristotle corresponds, in whole or (more likely) in part, to our contemporary notion of predication? This paper sketches counterparts in Aristotle's text to our theories of expression and of truth, and on this basis inquires into his treatment of sentences assigning an individual to its kinds. In some recent accounts, the Metaphysics offers a fresh look at such sentences in terms of matter and form, in contrast to the simpler theory on offer in the Categories . I argue (...) that the Metaphysics initiates no change in this regard over the Categories . The point that form is (metaphysically) predicated of matter is a contribution, not to the account of statement predication, but to the analysis of compound material substances. Otherwise put, in our terms Aristotelian form is not - in particular, is not also - a propositional function, but a function from matter to compound material substances. (shrink)

Leading scholars in the field of health economics evaluate the role of incentives in health and health-care decision making from the perspectives of both supply and demand.

**** Reprint of the Indiana U. Press edition of 1966--which is cited in BCL3. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Most experts would agree that the current medical malpractice system in the United States does not work effectively either to compensate victims fairly or prevent injuries caused by medical errors. Policy responses to a series of medical malpractice crises have not resulted in effective reform and have not altered the fundamental incentives of the stakeholders. In Medical Malpractice, economist Frank Sloan and lawyer Lindsey Chepke examine the U.S. medical malpractice process from legal, medical, economic, and insurance perspectives, analyze past (...) efforts at reform, and offer realistic, achievable policy recommendations. They review the considerable empirical evidence in a balanced fashion and assess objectively what works in the current system and what does not. Sloan and Chepke argue that the complexity of medical malpractice stems largely from the interaction of the four discrete markets that determine outcomes--legal, medical malpractice insurance, medical care, and government activity. After describing what the evidence shows about the functioning of medical malpractice, types of defensive medicine, and the effects of past reforms, they examine such topics as scheduling damages as an alternative to flat caps, jury behavior, health courts, incentives to prevent medical errors, insurance regulation, reinsurance, no-fault insurance, and suggestions for future reforms. Medical Malpractice is the most comprehensive treatment of malpractice available, integrating findings from several different areas of research and describing them accessibly in nontechnical language. It will be an essential reference for anyone interested in medical malpractice.Frank A. Sloan is J. Alexander McMahon Professor of Health Policy and Management and Professor of Economics at Duke University. He is the coauthor of The Price of Smoking and author or editor of many other books on health economics. Lindsey M. Chepke, an attorney, is a Research Associate at the Center for Health Policy at Duke University. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to set out some of the main views about essence which Aristotle puts forward in Book Z of theMetaphysics.A central feature of Aristotle's account, as we shall see, is his distinction between primary and secondary cases of essence, and a similiar distinction in connection with the related notions of substance and definition. This division between primary and secondary cases means that Aristotle may well have two very different sorts of remark to make about essence, or (...) definition, or substance, according to which of the two kinds of case he has in mind. There is no reason to suppose the same logical properties apply to both the primary and the secondary cases. And when we come to define the various notions, we shall see that if our definitions are right, the logical properties in the two kinds of case are in fact quite different. (shrink)

Explores different applications of Aristotle's hypothesis on the components of form, matter and pyschological states.

The business of philosophical analysis is clarification, But explicators and ordinary-Language philosophers disagree about how to achieve it. Their mutual criticisms or attempts at arbitration are made at such a level of generality as to leave the basis for dispute or settlement obscure. By focusing on supposedly competing analyses of truth--Tarski's semantical and strawson's performative conceptions of truth--The paper makes clarification itself the subject of clarification in an attempt to determine the basis of dispute.

This study clearly reveals that the benefits ascribed to strategic planning typically are achieved through a variety of means. A formal process that seeks to plan in a comprehensive, linear fashion is likely to be too complicated, politically divisive, expensive and inflexible, and to ignore how decisions are made in a complex, highly decentralised university. While many approaches to planning are used, universities must ensure they provide periodically opportunities for university staff—freed from daily responsibilities—to consider strategic concerns. Accurate and relevant (...) information must be available to all who make and carry out decisions. Planning should be viewed as a learning process rather than a document producing exercise. Extensive communication among university staff and faculty is needed to ensure informed debate and substantial acceptance of decisions—otherwise they are unlikely to be implemented. Perhaps most important is not the process employed but the decision-maker's breadth of perspective and sophistication. No process will overcome lack of competent leadership. The importance of daily decision-making in various councils and committees on issues such as cost containment and budgetary priorities is underestimated in the literature on planning.Critics have doubted whether universities' structures and processes permit them, or their leaders have the resolve, to confront the emerging issues. However, in many respects, the universities' decentralised, multiple decision-making practices may suit them well. They face the same challenging societal changes as other sectors of society. Their staff include some of the most capable individuals in the United States, and in the past they have been highly adaptable during periods of profound social change.Universities do not appear to be less aware of the need to adapt, nor more constrained in adapting to new conditions, than other sectors of society. In fact, university research and scholarship will be highly important in pointing the way for the whole of society to meet this era's challenges. If pessimistic predictions about current trends turn out to be accurate, universities no doubt will adapt at least as well as other kinds of institutions. The travails of business in this environment are daily news! There will be occasional casualties among the universities, as frequently occurs during major social transitions, but institutions that have grown in importance for over 1,000 years, will doubtless emerge from this period perhaps somewhat changed but still performing their historic social functions. (shrink)

Contributors to this collection examine the Turners’ most important theoretical contributions to anthropology, from their work on pilgrimages, liminality, and communitas to insights from their fieldwork. They illustrate the Turners’ enduring theoretical contributions and their profound effects on the anthropological perspective.