Golden parachutes are often viewed as a form of excessive compensation because they provide senior management with substantial payouts following an acquisition while other stakeholders are subjected to layoffs, disrupted business relationships and other negative externalities. Using a sample of S&P 500 firms, an economic and ethical justification for this type of contract is given. Golden parachutes ensure effective corporate governance that, in turn, preserve the firm's value for all stakeholders. Boards of directors enter into parachute agreements to protect recently (...) hired CEOs' human capital during periods of financial uncertainty and, thus, potential takeover activity. From an ethics viewpoint, golden parachutes are valuable to all stakeholders because they encourage merger or acquisition in lieu of bankruptcy. (shrink)

. Philip Hefner's focus on contingency and field as the guiding concepts in my thinking and his characterization of my theological enterprise as a Lakatosian research program are appropriate and helpful.I welcome Jeffrey Wicken's holistic approach to the emergence of life. Theology can appropriate the language of self‐organizing systems exploiting the thermodynamic flow of energy degradation for interpreting organic life as a creation of the Spirit of God.However, I cannot sympathize with Lindon Eaves's equation of “hard science” with a (...) reductionism which raises the double helix to the status of icon; the “meaning” of DNA derives from its place in the total phenomenon of life—not the reverse.Frank Tipler's cosmology raises the prospect of a rapprochement between physics and theology in the area of eschatology. A Christian cosmology, however, would require at least three modifications: contingency in the history of creation; the uniqueness of Jesus' resurrection; and the relation of these to the problem of evil. (shrink)

Machiavellians are manipulative and deceitful individuals willing to utilize any strategy or behavior needed to attain their goals. This study explores what occurs when Machiavellian employees have a Machiavellian leader with the same negative, manipulative disposition. We argue that Machiavellian employees have a negative worldview and are likely to trust their leaders less. This reduced trust likely results in these employees experiencing higher stress and engaging in more unethical behavior. In addition, we expect these negative relationships to be exacerbated when (...) such followers experience Machiavellian leadership. Thus, we test a moderated mediation model assessing whether Machiavellianism affects employees and whether combining Machiavellian leaders and Machiavellian employees is toxic in the sense of exacerbating the negative impact of Machiavellianism on employee trust. Results do not support the proposed conditional indirect effect of trust for either stress or unethical behavior. Instead, we find a conditional direct effect of employee Machiavellianism on both trust and stress: When Machiavellian employees have Machiavellian leaders, their trust in their leader significantly decreases, and their level of stress significantly increases. We also find support for an unconditional indirect effect of trust for employee stress, Machiavellianism in employees relates to stress via lowered trust in the leader. For unethical behavior, we only find a main effect of employee Machiavellianism. (shrink)

Social sustainability plays a prominent role in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, but a proper analysis of the concept is still lacking. According to a widespread conception, a system is sustainable when it is preserved or developed in a robust manner. I argue, however, that social sustainability is best understood in explicitly normative terms. Formulating suitable development goals requires a conception of the kind of society that is worth sustaining. I propose that, for a system to be socially sustainable (...) is for it to secure a range of values, including justice. Furthermore, I argue that social sustainability is first and foremost a property of institutions. I go on to ask what it takes for an institution to secure values and why justice is so important for institutions. The answers culminate in a social sustainability framework, which explains why making institutions more sustainable is so challenging. (shrink)

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is one of the terms that is used to refer to associatively induced changes in liking. Many controversies have arisen in the literature on EC. Do associatively induced changes in liking actually exist? Does EC depend on awareness of the fact that stimuli are associated? Is EC resistant to extinction? Does attention help or hinder EC? As an introduction to this special issue, we will discuss the extent to which the papers that are published in this issue (...) help to resolve some of the controversies that surround EC. We also speculate about possible boundary conditions of EC and attempt to reconcile conflicting results on the functional properties of EC. (shrink)

We discuss findings on evaluative conditioning (EC) that are problematic for the account of learning, namely, dissociations between conscious beliefs and acquired (dis)liking. We next argue that, both for EC and for Pavlovian learning in general, conditioned responding cannot rationally be inferred from propositional knowledge type and that, therefore, performance cannot be explained.

The COVID-19 pandemic created a situation for the implementation of emergency remote learning. This meant that as a lecturer at a traditionalist University of contact sessions, the pandemic forced us to teach remotely through online methods of communication, using online lectures, narrated powerpoints, voice clips, podcasts, interviews and interactive videos. The assessments were conducted online from assignments to multiple choice questions, which forced the lecturers to think differently about the way the assessments were presented, in order to avoid easy access (...) to answers found in a textbook and online. This meant that more application questions of theory to practice were assessed in a more challenging way to prevent cheating and collaboration with peers. Formal assessments completed during emergency remote learning, have become the past practice, as innovative methods have been adopted for learning and for assessment purposes in order to preserve the integrity and attainment of the degree through online modes of learning. The aim of the paper investigates and explores the methods of teaching, together with the results obtained from the students of 2019 and 2020 in their final year relating to two final year modules against the literature relating to learning processes and methodologies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Wellspring or Circuit?Commentary on Dewey and the Aesthetic UnconsciousnessFrank X. RyanEditor's note: This article contains material similar to a book review by the same author previously published in The Pluralist, vol. 18, no. 2, pp 114–21. The present article represents a further critical use of this material that we deem worthy of publication.in this vital and splendidly crafted work, Bethany Henning recovers a philosophy of aesthetic wisdom far richer (...) than the narrow epistemological lens dominant today. From its start, American philosophy looked beyond Europe's atomistic empiricism toward a continuity between our thought and nature's aesthetic splendor. Jonathan Edwards found beauty in the structure of being reflected in relations among ideas. For Emerson, each of us is a "transparent eyeball" in which nature's beauty fortifies our moral and spiritual agency. At the apex of this tradition is John Dewey, for whom "aesthetic experience [is] the highest mode of human experience" (Henning 55).Although aesthetic theory is usually associated with the cognitive evaluation of art, Dewey explores a broader non-reflective or unconscious dimension. Henning's appropriation of "unconscious"—the cradle of Freud's infantile id—is intentionally provocative. American culture, reflected in academic thought, has largely resisted appeals to subterranean urges and drives. In doing so, however, we perpetuate a myth of rational and moral exceptionalism masking a history of colonialism, oppression, and crass commercialism. In accepting the unconscious, European thought has taken strides to acknowledge and address such ills. Henning wonders whether America might accept "a dynamic unconscious, were it presented with an alternative mythology" (10) and finds a viable candidate in Dewey's underappreciated notion of qualitative immediacy: an "aesthetic (directly felt) connection between ourselves and [End Page 77] the world" (Henning 5). In affirming the unconscious depth of experience, this American reconfiguration welcomes "aesthetic experience back into our philosophical lives" (Henning 5).When embodied meaning supplements cognitive reflection, we come to champion "the sensuous, lived body" as "the primary reality" of qualitative immediacy—a felt aesthetic unity punctuated by "impulsions" arising from an organism's needs (Henning 69). As "a site of adaptive adjustments," Henning continues, "the body is responsive to the brink of coalescence at the point of contact with the world, in which things that are 'outside of it' belong to it" (71). "To move adeptly into aesthetic experience means to be skilled at loosening focal consciousness" so as to cultivate "the essential porousness of the world" (130).With this, the body-mind relation becomes a problem of normative aesthetics, not epistemology. The Cartesian detachment of intellect from nature perpetuated our cultural alienation from our bodies, our environments, and one another (Henning 81–84). With the re-emergence of the body, however, we can begin to acknowledge and heal this trauma.In tapping the significance of qualitative immediacy, of "having" beyond "knowing," Dewey and the Aesthetic Unconscious strives to recover Dewey's remarkable insight into our essential situatedness in the world. This alone establishes its importance. But Henning's book is equally ambitious in suggesting how Dewey's aesthetic understanding can(1). reconfigure the shadowy daemons of Freud's id;(2). replace the myth of American exceptionalism with authentic relationships rooted in pluralist values;(3). rehabilitate the body as an authentic vehicle of expression and communication;(4). vindicate the bold claim that all unified experience is aesthetic; and(5). identify and promote connections forged in shared human experiences.These aims are of inestimable value. I pledge to do whatever I can to defend and advance them. At the outset, however, I feel we must shore up the relationship between two different approaches to thinking about our situatedness in the world: (1) of organic beings existing in a porous world they dynamically interact with, and (2) a phenomenology of experience wherein nonreflective having is an unanalyzed totality from which thought and thing, subject and object, organism and environment, functionally emerge in what Dewey calls the pattern of inquiry. [End Page 78]The general consensus that Dewey failed to reconcile these two approaches—of existence with experience—was dubbed the "deep crack" in Dewey's thought, by Richard Bernstein in 1961. Bernstein laments Dewey's being caught between (1... (shrink)

In the philosophy of the 17th and early 18th century, political legitimacy was regarded not least as a question of establishing a generally accepted and valid rationale for the imposition of norms. This question was given a new urgency in the context of the debate on natural law. The volume offers a detailed analysis of the major landmarks and positions in the development toward a secularized substantiation of legal norms. In so doing it focuses not only on the theoretical resources (...) and problems involved in such a substantiation but also inquires into the consequences and functions such normative processes have for political theory. (shrink)

In this criticism of Mitrović argument about realism it is pointed out 1): that Mitrović is unaware of how the medieval debate between realists and nominalists about the existence of universals complicates his position, 2) similarly, he is unaware of how the debate on the so-called ‘essentially contested concepts’ (W.B. Gallie) complicates his position, 3) when taking up the issue of holism and individualism he mistakenly assumes that what has been said about it in the context of the social sciences (...) can also be applied to the writing of history, 4) the debate on the legal person or corporation since Innocent IV further complicates the issue. Finally, I explain why and how one can be a realist in philosophy of history, though on the basis of arguments entirely different from those proposed by Mitrović. (shrink)

The main response to the multiple crises besetting Western societis in the past decades has been the attempt of the academic and scientific as well as political circles to gain a sense of orientation—and of social cohesion—by two main modes of thinking: identity politics and evidence-based knowlegde. Regarding the latter, I argue that if scientific knowledge is reduced to facts, data and numbers, as the basis for political decisions without any alternatives, it would become a dogma propagating the truth—that is, (...) a new religion. Politicians will no longer have to struggle with other perspectives, once there is a consensus about following the line that “the numbers or the facts speak for themselves.” While many people would perhaps find in this new religion a guarantee of security in an insecure world, this sense would be illusionary. I argue that the role intellectuals should play in a spiritual crisis of this kind is paradoxically to cultivate a sense of more security by strengthening a culture of “insecureness” or docta ignorantia against the dogmas within science and religion. To create and encourage a new art of questioning and listening, and of learning to appreciate non-knowledge as the basis of coming together. This notion is found in the Greek and Christian as well as the Jewish tradition of European thought, and it continues in the works of modern thinkers such as Paul Ricoeur, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Hartmut Rosa, and of philosophers who focus on the question of the ineffable. My aim is to present this quality of certainty within uncertainty by examples from different fields, including philosophy, art and psychotherapy, and to elaborate on the paradoxical question: does a troubled Geist need more trouble in order to help us find a sense of orientation through disorientation? (shrink)

When in 1868, Alfred von Kremer (1828–89) in his Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen des Islams (“History of the Ruling Ideas of Islam”) introduced al-Suhrawardī for the first time to a Western readership, he presented him as a freethinking Sufi devoted to “theosophy.” In a long chapter on Sufism, al-Suhrawardī appears under the heading “anti-Islamic tendencies.” Von Kremer characterized al-Suhrawardī's thought as a balanced mixture of three sources: Neoplatonic philosophy, a Zoroastrian theory of light, plus Islamic monotheism. “According to the Arab (...) biographers, his teaching was aimed at the destruction of the existing religion, which, however, they say of anyone who dared to oppose the ruling orthodox party.” Expressing views that openly contradict the ruling religion, von Kremer wrote, meant putting one's life in danger. In accordance with that explanation, al-Suhrawardī died as “a martyr for his convictions” after the all too powerful group of orthodox scholars obtained his death sentence from Saladin. (shrink)

Reading the Visual is an essential introduction that focuses on what teachers should know about multimodal literacy and how to teach it. This engaging book provides theoretical, curricular, and pedagogical frameworks for teaching a wide-range of visual and multimodal texts, including historical fiction, picture books, advertisements, websites, comics, graphic novels, news reports, and film. Each unit of study presented contains suggestions for selecting cornerstone texts and visual images and launching the unit, as well as lesson plans, text sets, and analysis (...) guides. These units are designed to be readily adapted to fit the needs of a variety of settings and grade levels. (shrink)

Forms characteristic of the earth itself are inherent in the design of man. Man's being emerged out of a cosmic matrix whose morphic aspects man himself expresses. These forms and their functional interrelationships are the very conditions of consciousness. This paper proposes that the relationship between human consciousness and its complete environment should be the subject matter of an emerging discipline, the ecology of consciousness. Constructs useful in the ecology of plants and animals should be coordinated to psychological constructs. These (...) coordinating constructs should be based upon study of the most pervasive morphic regularities at the biophysical level. An analysis of the design of man suggests many possibilities, especially when one considers the known neurophysiological and biochemical conditioners of consciousness. Educational (experiential) strategies for the transformation of consciousness should also be explored. These might include the manipulation of variables such as volume, duration, and intensity of sensory stimulation, including various combinations of modalities. A systematic effort should be made to state the fundamental problems to which a scientific ecology of consciousness might address itself. New methods must be devised. A preliminary program for an ecology of consciousness is proposed. (shrink)

The author asks, "Can Christianity still be the moral guide to our fast-changing western society, in its moral confusion and spiritual bankruptcy?" "What is Christian mority and what has it to offer to to the twentieth century man?" In answering these questions, he considers such topics as "Charity and Chastity", "The Family and Society", Crime and Punishment", "The Sanctity of Human Life", and "Peace and War". He has intended the book for the general reader, but hopes that it will be (...) used by students as back-ground reading. (shrink)

The anonymous Life of King Edward, written about the time of the Norman Conquest, is an important and intriguing source for the history of Anglo-Saxon England in the years just before 1066. It provides a fascinating account of Edward the Confessor and his family: his wife Edith, his father-in-law Earl Godwin, and the queen's brothers Tostig and Harold. The foundations of the legend of St Edward the Confessor are apparent from the version of the work supplied by the unique MS (...) of c.1100. Professor Barlow explores the problems raised by this anonymous work in its now incomplete MS, and examines the development of the cult of St Edward. He also investigates the life and works of Folcard and Goscelin of St Bertin, possible authors. Recent discoveries have enabled Professor Barlow to reconstruct in part the lacunae in BL Harley MS 526 with texts closer to the original. For the second edition, he has undertaken a complete revision of the book. (shrink)