This empirical study of Fortune 1000 firms assesses the degree to which those firms have adopted various practices associated with corporate ethics programs. The study examines the following aspects of formalized corporate ethics activity: ethics-oriented policy statements; formalization of management responsibilities for ethics; free-standing ethics offices; ethics and compliance telephone reporting/advice systems; top management and departmental involvement in ethics activities; usage of ethics training and other ethics awareness activities; investigatory functions; and evaluation of ethics program activities. Results show a high (...) degree of corporate adoption of ethics policies, but wide variability in the extent to which these policies are implemented by various supporting structures and managerial activities. In effect, the vast majority of firms have committed to the low cost, possibly symbolic side of ethics management (e.g., adoption of ethics codes and policies, etc.). But firms differ substantially in their efforts to see that those policies or codes actually are put into practice. (shrink)

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Even if there were widespread cross-cultural agreement on the normative issues of business ethics, corporate ethics management initiatives (e.g., codes of conduct, ethics telephone lines, ethics offices) which are appropriate in one cultural setting still could fail to mesh with the management practices and cultural characteristics of a different setting. By uncritically adopting widely promoted American practices for managing corporate ethics, multinational businesses risk failure in pursuing the ostensible goals of corporate ethics initiatives. Pursuing shared ethical goals by means of (...) culturally inappropriate management practices, in short, can undermine the effectiveness of ethics management efforts. This article explicates how several important dimensions of culture can influence the effectiveness of common ethics initiatives, and recommends the development and application of a culture-structure contingency analysis in the task of encouraging ethical behavior in global businesses. (shrink)

This article examines perceptions of tax partners and non-partner tax practitioners regarding their CPA firms’ ethical environment, as well as experiences with ethical dilemmas. Prior research emphasizes the importance of executive leadership in creating an ethical climate (e.g., Weaver et al., Acad Manage Rev 42(1):41–57, 1999; Trevino et al., Hum Relat 56(1):5–37, 2003; Schminke et al., Organ Dyn 36(2):171–186, 2007). Thus, it is important to consider whether firm partners and other employees have congruent perceptions and experiences. Based on the (...) responses of 144 tax practitioners employed at CPA firms, the results show that tax partners rate the ethical environment of their firms as stronger than non-partner tax practitioners, particularly among those who describe a self-identified ethical dilemma. Tax partners also report having encountered more of the common examples of researcher-provided ethical dilemmas than non-partner tax practitioners, although non-partners perceive that certain ethical dilemmas occur at a higher rate than partners do. Overall, this study provides evidence of a disconnect between tax partners and non-partner tax practitioners with respect to perceptions of organizational ethics. Suggestions for potential remedies are offered. (shrink)

This Companion provides a fresh and comprehensive account of this outstanding work, which remains among the most frequently read works of Greek philosophy, indeed of Classical antiquity in general. The sixteen essays, by authors who represent various academic disciplines, bring a spectrum of interpretive approaches to bear in order to aid the understanding of a wide-ranging audience, from first-time readers of the Republic who require guidance, to more experienced readers who wish to explore contemporary currents in the work’s interpretation. The (...) three initial chapters address aspects of the work as a whole. They are followed by essays that match closely the sequence in which topics are presented in the ten books of the Republic. Since the Republic returns frequently to the same topics by different routes, so do the authors of this volume, who provide the readers with divergent yet complementary perspectives by which to appreciate the Republic’s principal concerns. (shrink)

Tracing a central theme of Plato's Republic , G. R. F. Ferrari reconsiders in this study the nature and purpose of the comparison between the structure of society and that of the individual soul. In four chapters, Ferrari examines the personalities and social status of the brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus, Plato's notion of justice, coherence in Plato's description of the decline of states, and the tyrant and the philosopher king—a pair who, in their different ways, break with the terms of (...) the city-soul analogy. In addition to acknowledging familiar themes in the interpretation of the Republic —the sincerity of its utopianism, the justice of the philosopher's return to the Cave—Ferrari provocatively engages secondary literature by Leo Strauss, Bernard Williams, and Jonathan Lear. With admirable clarity and insight, Ferrari conveys the relation between the city and the soul and the choice between tyranny and philosophy. City and Soul in Plato's Republic will be of value to students of classics, philosophy, and political theory alike. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;An explanation of the possibility of empirical knowledge must establish how there could be an adequately non-accidental connection between our beliefs and the truth about the independent external world, and how this could be a connection in which we have good reason to believe. ;Foundationalist theories of justification offer the most promise of establishing this connection. But the best recent foundationalist theories fail. Even the allegedly basic judgements of (...) the content of one's sensory experience are not utterly secure. And neither are these judgements shown to provide adequate support for our perceptual judgements. Critical cognitivism manages only to describe, and not to establish the entitlement, of procedures we ordinarily take to be justificatory. Arguments for the thesis that judgements of the sensory content of our experiences provide criteria for our perceptual judgements turn out to be unsound, as do Michael Dummett's arguments for the thesis that we could not understand the sentences in which our perceptual judgements are couched unless we were able to recognize truth-conditions of these sentences whenever those conditions obtain. And arguments for the view that perceptual judgements provide the best explanation of our experiences fail even to establish the probability of our empirical judgements. ;Nor does epistemological naturalism disclose any reason to regard ourselves as entitled to dispense with the requirement that we establish a justificatory explanation of our beliefs. ;However, belief in a non-deceiving God does offer a good, and indeed a uniquely good, explanation of the non-accidental connection between our empirical judgements and the truth. Even if it cannot be demonstrated, the theistic explanation must be postulated if we are to possess the required foundational grounds for our natural faith in the reliability of those presuppositions by which we guide ourselves in forming the beliefs we are most inclined to call knowledge. (shrink)

This full-length study of Plato's dialogue Phaedrus, now in paperback, is written in the belief that such concerted scrutiny of a single dialogue is an important part of the project of understanding Plato so far as possible 'from the inside' - of gaining a feel for the man's philosophy. The focus of this account is on how the resources both of persuasive myth and of formal argument, for all that Plato sets them in strong contrast, nevertheless complement and reinforce each (...) other in his philosophy. Not only is the dialogue in its formal structure a dovetail of myth and argument, but the philosophic life that it praises is also shaped by an acknowledgement of the limitations of argument and the importance of mythical understanding. By means of this correlation of form and content Plato invites his readers, through the very act of reading, to take a first step along the path of the philosophical life. (shrink)

This paper discusses the surprising resurgence in the fortunes of the British eugenics movement in the 1930s. It is argued that although mass unemployment may in the long run have discredited that version of eugenics in which social dependence and destitution were attributed to genetic defect, in the short run the Depression was often perceived as a vindication of the eugenical creed. In particular, the attempt to reduce the fertility of the unemployed by popularising birth control techniques, and the voluntary (...) sterilization campaign aimed at preventing the propagation of defectives from the so-called Social Problem Group, satisfied the urge felt by many conservative members from the professional classes to respond creatively to the country's crisis, without endangering existing social and economic institutions. It is also shown that not until 1938 did events in Germany cause substantial damage to the cause of eugenics in Britain. In fact, the ‘German experiment’ was actually greeted with approval by certain British eugenists of an authoritarian cast of mind. However, the Society as a whole never identified with these right-wing extremists, thanks in part to the moderating influence exercised by its General Secretary, Dr. C. P. Blacker, whose prime concern was with psycho-medical problems likely to concern people of all party persuasions. (shrink)

This paper presents a theoretical elaboration of the ethical framework of classical capitalism as formulated by Adam Smith in reaction to the dominant mercantilism of his day. It is seen that Smith's project was profoundly ethical and designed to emancipate the consumer from a producer and state dominated economy. Over time, however, the various dysfunctions of a capitalist economy — e.g., concentration of wealth, market power — became manifest and the utilitarian ethical basis of the system eroded. Contemporary capitalism, dominated (...) as it is by large corporations, entrenched political interests and persistent social pathologies, bears little resemblance to the system which Smith envisioned would serve the common man. Most critiques of capitalism are launched from a Marxian-based perspective. We find, however, that by illustrating the wide gap between the reality of contemporary capitalism and the model of amoral political economy developed by Smith, the father of capitalism proves to be the most trenchant critic of the current order. (shrink)