A symposium was held at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Cambridge on June 12th 2019, ‘Rethinking Repetition in a Digital Age’, at which Geoff Stead, a leading mobile tech designer, was a keynote speaker. The focus of the Cambridge UK event was on how the potentials of digital technologies—whose harms have received widespread attention—could be redirected for the social good. For Stead, this is precisely what Babbel are (...) doing in their approach to commercial digital language learning. Stead spoke to the idea of reversing our personal relationships to mechanical affordances, and finding empowerment in understanding their designed logics. The transcript of the interview below, made in October 2021, revisits some of the main points he raised at that event. (shrink)

The study was prompted by (a) Frederick and Vogel's debate concerning future research in business and society, (b) such recently reported managerial excesses as golden parachutes, greenmail, and fraud, (c) the increasing emphasis on coursework in the area. It appears that there is a need to assess how students, our future business leaders, perceive social issues and if a business and society course can help them define and understand the importance of these issues.Three questions provided the focal point: (1) Which (...) issues do students perceive as most important before and after completing the course? (2) How much importance do students place on issues? (3) Does completing a business and society course make a significant difference in how students perceive the importance of the issues presented? (shrink)

Managing ethical behavior is a one of the most pervasive and complex problems facing business organizations today. Employees' decisions to behave ethically or unethically are influenced by a myriad of individual and situational factors. Background, personality, decision history, managerial philosophy, and reinforcement are but a few of the factors which have been identified by researchers as determinants of employees' behavior when faced with ethical dilemmas. The literature related to ethical behavior is reviewed in this article, and a model for understanding (...) ethical behavior in business organizations is proposed. It is concluded that managing ethics in business organizations requires that managers engage in a concentrated effort which involves espousing ethics, behaving ethically, developing screening mechanisms, providing ethical training, creating ethics units and reinforcing ethical behavior. (shrink)

This paper extends previous discussions of corporate character and corporate virtues. By drawing particularly on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, it offers a perspective on context-dependent categories of the virtues. It then provides a philosophically grounded framework which enables a discussion of which virtues are required for business organizations to qualify as virtuous. It offers a preliminary taxonomy of such corporate virtues and provides a revised definition of corporate character.

Karl Popper is a philosopher of knowledge and politics, rationality and freedom. His ideas have won acceptance and provoked controversy among an academic as well as a more general audience. This book aims to broaden our understanding of Popper's philosophy. It is one of the few studies to present his work as an evolving "system of ideas", and to take account of the full range of his writings. The book discusses Popper's early philosophy of politics, science and social science, as (...) well as his later philosophy, which offers an evolutionary account of human nature and the growth of knowledge. Contrary to many earlier interpretations, Stokes argues that we should look to Popper's political values to understand the unity of his work and the evolution of his theory of knowledge and general philosophy. The chapters in this book examine Popper's arguments, and offer critical analysis of the achievements and shortcomings of his philosophy. In particular, Stokes considers the problems of rationality, politics and ethics in the context of debates between the Frankfurt School of critical theory and critical rationalism. The book will be of interest to second-year undergraduates and above in the fields of philosophy and critical theory. (shrink)

This book provides an integrated and philosophically-grounded framework which enables a coherent approach to organizations and organizational ethics from the perspective of practitioners in the workplace, from the perspective of managers in organizations, as well as from the perspective of organizations themselves.

This paper argues against the view that trolley cases are of little or no relevance to the ethics of automated vehicles. Four arguments for this view are outlined and rejected: the Not Going to Happen Argument, the Moral Difference Argument, the Impossible Deliberation Argument and the Wrong Question Argument. In making clear where these arguments go wrong, a positive account is developed of how trolley cases can inform the ethics of automated vehicles.

Derided and disregarded by many of his contemporaries, Michel Foucault is now regarded as probably the most influential thinker of the twentieth century, his work is studied across the humanities and social sciences. Reading Foucault, however, can be a challenge, as can writing about him, but in Understanding Foucault, the authors offer an entertaining and informative introduction to his thinking. They cover all the issues Foucault dealt with, including power, knowledge, subjectivity and sexuality and discuss the development of his analysis (...) throughout his work. (shrink)

Suppose that an autonomous vehicle encounters a situation where imposing a risk of harm on at least one person is unavoidable; and a choice about how to allocate risks of harm between different persons is required. What does morality require in these cases? Derek Leben defends a Rawlsian answer to this question. I argue that we have reason to reject Leben’s answer.

The words we call slurs are just plain vanilla descriptions like ‘cowboy’ and ‘coat hanger’. They don't semantically convey any disparagement of their referents, whether as content, conventional implicature, presupposition, “coloring” or mode of presentation. What distinguishes 'kraut' and 'German' is metadata rather than meaning: the former is the conventional description for Germans among Germanophobes when they are speaking in that capacity, in the same way 'mad' is the conventional expression that some teenagers use as an intensifier when they’re emphasizing (...) that social identity. That is, racists don’t use slurs because they’re derogatory; slurs are derogatory because they’re the words that racists use. To use a slur is to exploit the Maxim of Manner (or Levinson’s M-Principle) to signal one’s affiliation with a group that has a disparaging attitude towards the slur’s referent. This account is sufficient to explain all the familiar properties of slurs, such as their speaker orientation and “nondetachability,” with no need of additional linguistic mechanisms. It also explains some features of slurs that are rarely if ever explored; for example the variation in tone and strength among the different slurs for a particular group, the existence of words we count as slurs, such as 'redskin', which almost all of their users consider to be respectful, and the curious absence in Standard English of any commonly used slurs—by which I mean words used to express a negative attitude toward an entire group—for Muslims and women. (shrink)

Suppose that an autonomous vehicle encounters a situation where (i) imposing a risk of harm on at least one person is unavoidable; and (ii) a choice about how to allocate risks of harm between different persons is required. What does morality require in these cases? Derek Leben defends a Rawlsian answer to this question. I argue that we have reason to reject Leben’s answer.

Suppose a driverless car encounters a scenario where harm to at least one person is unavoidable and a choice about how to distribute harms between different persons is required. How should the driverless car be programmed to behave in this situation? I call this the moral design problem. Santoni de Sio defends a legal-philosophical approach to this problem, which aims to bring us to a consensus on the moral design problem despite our disagreements about which moral principles provide the correct (...) account of justified harm. He then articulates an answer to the moral design problem based on the legal doctrine of necessity. In this paper, I argue that Santoni de Sio’s answer to the moral design problem does not achieve the aim of the legal-philosophical approach. This is because his answer relies on moral principles which, at least, utilitarians have reason to reject. I then articulate an alternative reading of the doctrine of necessity, and construct a partial answer to the moral design problem based on this. I argue that utilitarians, contractualists and deontologists can agree on this partial answer, even if they disagree about which moral principles offer the correct account of justified harm. (shrink)

Philosophy for Children has enabled schools to engage with what is typically thought of as an ‘academic’ discipline and has provided the opportunity to unlock a rich educational experience for children from a diverse range of backgrounds. A wide range of qualitative and quantitative studies have emerged looking at P4C in terms of the development of students at the social, academic and emotional level. However, while there have been many P4C papers that have ‘teacher’ in the title, these are often (...) about teacher training – including ‘hints and tips’ and curriculum development. Relatively few studies have looked at the effect of teaching P4C on teachers themselves. This paper considers how P4C affects teachers, in particular whether teaching P4C has led teachers to develop new pedagogical approaches, different ways of thinking critically and whether it has changed how they engage with their students, colleagues and their school. (shrink)

The Thousands of Problems for Theorem Provers (TPTP) World is a well-established infrastructure that supports research, development and deployment of automated theorem proving systems. This paper provides an overview of the logic languages of the TPTP World, from classical first-order form (FOF), through typed FOF, up to typed higher-order form, and beyond to non-classical forms. The logic languages are described in a non-technical way and are illustrated with examples using the TPTP language.

The paper begins by exploring whether a “tendency to avarice” exists in most capitalist business organisations. It concludes that it does and that this is problematic. The problem centres on the potential threat to the integrity of human character and the disablement of community.What, then, can be done about it? Building on previous work (Moore, 2002) in which MacIntyre’s notions of practice and institution were explored (MacIntyre, 1985), the paper offers a philosophically based argument in favour of the rediscovery of (...) craftsmanship by those who work in business organisations, and the exercise of craftsmanship in community.The practical implications for individuals of this way of conceptualising business, and the virtues which must then come to the fore, are discussed. (shrink)

In his excellent essay, ‘Nudges in a post-truth world’, Neil Levy argues that ‘nudges to reason’, or nudges which aim to make us more receptive to evidence, are morally permissible. A strong argument against the moral permissibility of nudging is that nudges fail to respect the autonomy of the individuals affected by them. Levy argues that nudges to reason do respect individual autonomy, such that the standard autonomy objection fails against nudges to reason. In this paper, I argue that Levy (...) fails to show that nudges to reason respect individual autonomy. (shrink)

The notion of ‘resilience’ is rapidly emerging as a research topic in its own right, with the notion of ‘social resilience’ rapidly gaining importance. Yet, due to the relative novelty of the research field, discussions about processes of social resilience are not yet fully developed, especially with regard to how the inbuilt ‘memory’ of a local community helps shape resilience pathways (social memory). Interlinkages between social memory and community resilience are the focus of this study, with emphasis on analysis of (...) the importance of rites, traditions and social learning processes for shaping community resilience/ vulnerability. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper is a further development of two previous pieces of work (Moore 2002, 2005) in which modern virtue ethics, and in particular MacIntyre’s (1985) related notions of “practice” and “institution,” have been explored in the context of business. It first introduces and defines the concept of corporate character and seeks to establish why it is important. It then reviews MacIntyre’s virtues-practice-institution schema and the implications of this at the level of the institution in question—the corporation—and argues that the concept (...) of corporate character follows from, but is a novel development of, MacIntyre’s schema. The paper contrasts corporate character and virtues with the more familiar concepts of corporate culture and values. The constitutive and substantive elements of corporate character, including the essential corporate virtues, are then drawn out and illustrated with reference to the cases explored in Koehn (1998). Finally, the paper acknowledges and counters a specific criticism of this approach. (shrink)

This paper develops a set of 16 criteria, divided into four groupings, for responsible business practice (RBP) in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) drawn from the existing SME/RBP literature. The current lack of a general set of criteria against which such activity can be judged is noted and this deficit is redressed. In order to make an initial assessment in support of the criteria so derived, an exploratory feasibility study of RBP in U.K. Fair Trade organisations was conducted. The findings (...) from this study show that most but not all of the RBP criteria seem to be applicable to U.K. Fair Trade organisations but it is recommended that the complete set of criteria continues to be used in further research until such time as there is a general consensus as to which criteria are appropriate. Implications for RBP in small businesses in general, and for Fair Trade organisations in particular, are drawn out and suggestions for further research are identified. (shrink)

Christianity began as a little-known Jewish sect, but rose within 300 years to dominate the civilised world. It owed its rise in part to inspired moral leadership, but also to its success in assimilating, criticising and developing the philosophies of the day, which offered rationally approved life-styles and moral directives. Without abandoning their allegiance to their founder and to Holy Scripture, Christians could therefore present their faith as a 'new philosophy'. This book, which is written for non-specialist readers, provides a (...) concise conspectus of the emergence of philosophy among the Greeks; an account of its continuance in early Christian times, and its influence on early Christian thought, especially in formulating the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation; and finally a brief critical assessment of the philosophy of St Augustine - arguably the greatest philosopher of the first millennium. (shrink)

This paper presents a discussion of my personal experiences of selling a family farm and analyses those experiences using the layered account form of autoethnographic writing. I describe how the cultural influences from family farming led me, a farmer’s son, to also become a farmer, why farmers may choose to continue in their occupation sometimes against increasingly negative economic pressures, why I continued farming for as long as I did, and the thoughts and feelings associated with my decision to sell (...) my farm and exit the industry. I discuss the emotions that I experienced and place them in a theoretical context that makes them more understandable to others. Because this paper examines the effects from my decision to retire from farming it makes a contribution to the limited literature on farmers’ retirement. (shrink)

After exploring MacIntyre’s (1985) practice—institution distinction, the article demonstrates its applicability to business-as-practice and to corporations as institutions. It then considers the implications of MacIntyre’s schema to ethical schizophrenia, to the claim that themarket is a source of the virtues and to the opposite claim that capitalism corrodes character. A fully worked out modern virtue ethics, based on MacIntyre’s work, is then established and the claim is made and substantiated that such an understanding of MacIntrye’s work revitalises it and makes (...) it directly applicable to business and to corporations. (shrink)

Allshorn, Geoff I believe the year in which I was born to be a very important year, perhaps not surprisingly, but particularly because of other events which would ultimately become significant in my own life.

Following the American indie cinema boom of the 1990s and the creation of "specialty" divisions by several Hollywood studios, many predicted an end to both the indie sector's viability and the making of films with ambitions beyond the commercial mainstream. Yet, as Geoff King demonstrates, plenty of distinct indie productions continue to thrive, even in the face of difficult economic circumstances. Recasting the term "indie" to denote a particular form of independent feature production that has risen to prominence in (...) the twenty-first century, King identifies and discusses the new opportunities available to indie filmmakers. These new options and techniques include low-cost digital video and a range of Internet and social-media ventures providing funding, distribution, promotion, and sales. He also covers the ultra-low-budget "mumblecore" movement; the social realism of such filmmakers as Kelly Reichardt and Ramin Bahrani; the "digital desktop" aesthetics of Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation and Arin Crumley and Susan Buice's Four Eyed Monsters ; and the affect of certain dominant discourses, such as the articulation of notions of "true" indie film and its opposition to what some see as the quirky contrivances of crossover hits such as Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. King ultimately locates a strong vein of continuity in indie practice, both industrially and in the textual qualities that define individual features. (shrink)

The use of machine learning systems for decision-support in healthcare may exacerbate health inequalities. However, recent work suggests that algorithms trained on sufficiently diverse datasets could in principle combat health inequalities. One concern about these algorithms is that their performance for patients in traditionally disadvantaged groups exceeds their performance for patients in traditionally advantaged groups. This renders the algorithmic decisions unfair relative to the standard fairness metrics in machine learning. In this paper, we defend the permissible use of affirmative algorithms; (...) that is, algorithms trained on diverse datasets that perform better for traditionally disadvantaged groups. Whilst such algorithmic decisions may be unfair, the fairness of algorithmic decisions is not the appropriate locus of moral evaluation. What matters is the fairness of final decisions, such as diagnoses, resulting from collaboration between clinicians and algorithms. We argue that affirmative algorithms can permissibly be deployed provided the resultant final decisions are fair. (shrink)

In this paper the problematic nature of the morality of management, in particular related to business organisations operating under Anglo-American capitalism, is explored. MacIntyre’s critique of managers in After Virtue serves as the starting point but this critique is itself subjected to analysis leading to a more balanced and contemporary view of the morality of management than MacIntyre provides. Paradoxically perhaps, MacIntyre’s own virtues-goods-practice-institution schema is shown to provide a way of re-imagining business organisations and management and thereby holds out (...) the possibility of resolving the issue of the morality of management within such organisations. Implications for management practice are drawn out. (shrink)

In an earlier defense of the view that the fundamental logical properties of logical truth and logical consequence obtain or fail to obtain only relative to contexts, I focused on a variation of Kaplan’s own modal logic of indexicals. In this paper, I state a semantics and sketch a system of proof for a first-order logic of demonstratives, and sketch proofs of soundness and completeness. (I omit details for readability.) That these results obtain for the first-order logic of demonstratives shows (...) that the significance of demonstratives for logic exceeds their behavior as rigid designators in counterfactual reasoning, or reasoning about alternative possibilities. Furthermore, the results in this paper help address one common objection to the view that logical truth and consequence obtain only relative to contexts. According to this objection, the view entails that logical consequence is not formal. (shrink)

This article holds that governmental investments in quantum technologies speak to the imaginable futures of digital sovereignty and digital infrastructures, two major areas of change driven by related technologies like AI and Big Data, among other things, in international law today. Under intense development today for future interpolation into digital systems that they may alter, quantum technologies occupy a sort of liminal position, rooted in existing assemblages of computational technologies while pointing to new horizons for them. The possibilities they raise (...) are neither certain nor determinate, but active investments in them (legal, political and material investments) offer perspective on digital technology-driven influences on an international legal imagination. In contributing to visions of the future that are guiding ambitions for digital sovereignty and digital infrastructures, quantum technologies condition digital technology-driven changes to international law and legal imagination in the present. Privileging observation and description, I adapt and utilize a diffractive method with the aim to discern what emerges out of the interference among the several related things assembled for this article, including material technologies and legal institutions. In conclusion, I observe ambivalent changes to an international legal imagination, changes which promise transformation but appear nonetheless to reproduce current distributions of power and resources. (shrink)

_Television and Common Knowledge_ Edited by Jostein Gripsrud London: Routledge, 1999 ISBN 0-415-18929-2 209 pp.

Discusses the importance of the early history of Greek mathematics to education and civic life through a study of the Parthenon and dialogues of Plato.

The understanding of and adherence to professional ethics is fundamental in navigating the moral encounters and dilemmas that all psychologists face in their daily work, whether in research or professional practice. Core values and principles remain stable. However as more complex and conflicting societal contexts come into play, the individual psychologist and the professional community need support in upholding a solid moral integrity. The volume is a welcome resource for any psychologist or student wanting to foresee, prevent, and professionally manage, (...) in an ethically responsible way, the moral challenges that arise. The framework for this timely, second edition remains the Meta-code of Ethics of the European Federation of Psychologists Associations (EFPA), which is an important asset in addressing the challenges faced by the profession now and in the coming years. The discussions of the principles on the meta-code are further developed and the authors have extended the number and types of practical examples to vividly illustrate ethical challenges and dilemmas faced. Read, discuss, and evaluate your practice. (shrink)

Augustine's philosophy of being, the subject of my lecture, might be approached in two ways. In traditional terms, we might consider the question quid est esse, or alternatively the question quaenam sunt. This latter question is easily explained; it means, roughly speaking, what does the real universe contain or comprise, in a large and general sense. Material objects, of course, we can all accept; but what should be said about minds and spirits and the things with which they are concerned? (...) The other question is more difficult to explain in simple terms. Suppose we translate it ‘What is being?’, we may seem to be asking a question about the word ‘being’; what is the sense which Augustine gives to this word? But in fact we shall discover a whole spectrum of senses. ‘Being’, for Augustine, sometimes appears to express the purely minimal notion of mere existence; but he also uses it as a powerful symbol to formulate his deepest reflections on the spiritual life and the nature of God. (shrink)