Lucian Blaga was the creator of a speculative and metaphoric philosophical system that placed mystery at its very core. Mystery, according to Blaga, veils existence and represents both a stimulus and a brake for human knowledge. His articulation of this view is strongly indebted to Kant, whose transcendental philosophy he sought to extend by critically examining the forms of sensibility and categories of the understanding, not so much in relation to consciousness, but as they are duplicated, or doubled, in the (...) unconscious. The result is Blaga's stylistic apriorism, according to which the unconscious always manages consciousness through abyssal categories in terms of which different regions and peoples at once reveal and remain isolated from mystery. (shrink)

The libertarian view of freedom has attracted considerable attention in the past three decades. It has also been subjected to numerous criticisms regarding its nature and effects on society. G. A. Cohen''s recent book, Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality, continues this attack by linking libertarian views on freedom to their view of self-ownership. This paper formulates and evaluates Cohen''s major arguments against libertarian freedom and self-ownership. It contends that his arguments against the libertarian rights definition of freedom are inadequate and need (...) modification. Similarly, Cohen''s defense of restrictions on self-ownership on behalf of autonomy are also found wanting. Finally, I argue that the thesis of self-ownership (whether in its full or partial version) ought to be rejected. (shrink)

What is the difference between entrepreneurship and altruism? This paper argues that the two differ only in degree, not in kind. Entrepreneurship, in its most generic form, is an expression of freedom in the economic realm and is therefore as deserving of zealous protection as is free speech. Furthermore, entrepreneurial success is as much the result of contingency as it is of design, and entrepreneurial failures vastly outnumber successes; these two issues point to the fairness of the entrepreneurial process.

Though this paper acknowledges the progress made in business ethics over the past several decades, it focuses on the challenges and limits of global business ethics. It maintains that business ethicists have provided important contributions regarding the Evaluative, Embodiment, and Enforcement aspects of business ethics. Nevertheless, they have not sufficiently considered a fourth part of a theory of moral change, an Enactment theory, whereby the principles and values business ethicists have identified might actually be followed. Enactment theory argues that appeals (...) to ethical leadership, moral imagination, and communicative participation have been insufficient to the task of closing the gap between what businesses do and what they ought to be doing. To address this problem, a theory of moral change focusing on the relations of power within which individuals and businesses operate needs to be developed. Drawing on the work of John Gaventa, the paper sketches some directions in which business ethics should proceed to help diminish this gap. The upshot is that business ethics needs greater connection with economic, social, and political theories. It also suggests that there are important limits to fostering the ethics of global business. (shrink)

Business ethics has made important strides over the past decades, but it has also suffered significant failures as witnessed by the long line of business scandals in the past half century. This paper discusses different forms that business ethics has taken in relation to the goal of businesses acting ethically. In the end, it maintains that a major challenge current business ethics faces is the lack of an account of business organizations as they ethically develop and change both individually and (...) systemically within social and political conditions. Even if business ethicists can rationally defend what businesses should be doing, unless we can relate this to how businesses can come to operate in those ways, our normative arguments will lack power, persuasiveness, and effectiveness. Only if we are able to provide this analysis will our normative ethics fulfill the practical task it has taken upon itself. (shrink)

In a recent important book,The Ethics of International Business, Tom Donaldson argues that multinational corporations (as well as individuals and nationstates) must, at a minimum, respect international human rights. For a purported right to be such a fundamental right it must satisfy three conditions. Donaldson calls the third condition the fairness-affordability condition. The affordability part of this condition holds that moral agents must be capable of paying for the burdens and responsibilities that a proposed human right would impose. If this (...) is impossible, then the purported right is not an international human right.I argue that Donaldson''s affordability condition is subject to four objections which reveal its untenability as one of the conditions upon which identification of international human rights must rest. I offer another way of treating problems of affordability and capability when it comes to such rights that all moral agents must respect. (shrink)

This book reveals Marxâe(tm)s moral philosophy and analyzes its nature. The author shows that there is an underlying system of ethics which runs the length and breadth of Marxâe(tm)s thought. The book begins by discussing the methodological side of Marxâe(tm)s ethics showing how Marxâe(tm)s criticism of conventional morality and his views on historical materialism, determinism and ideology are compatible with having an ideological system of his own. In the light of contemporary social, moral and political philosophy the insights and defects (...) of Marxâe(tm)s major ethical themes are discussed. (shrink)

Evolution can be a “weasel word” unless circumscribed to mean only a morphological change over time. When this is done, the fact of what can be distinguished from the faith of how. I believe that evolution is purely a natural process, but recognizing that everyone creates his or her own God, I feel justified in giving the name God to that mysterious presence in every interaction that causes transformation, since this is what gives the universe its dynamism. I relate how (...) this God concept informs my religious and ethical life and gives my life meaning and purpose. (shrink)

A broad perspective on historical thought and writing, with a new epilogue.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Numerous universal standards have been proposed to provide ethical guidance for the actions of business. The result has been a confusing mix of standards and their defenses. Thus, there is widespread recognition that business requires a common framework to provide ethical guidance. One of the most prominent conceptual frameworks recently offered, which addresses issues of international business ethics, is that of integrative social contracts theory (ISCT) developed by Thomas Donaldson and Thomas Dunfee. By integrating normative and empirical matters, and drawing (...) on the concepts of social contracts and hypernorms, ISCT seeks to provide a workable, comprehensive theory of business ethics. In this article I argue that, in fact, ISCT offers two different views of hypemorms and the theoretical structure surrounding them. A Principlist View that understands hypernorms as the most general, universal moral principles that hold moral sway over all microsocial contracts. A Contextualist View is that hypernorms are not special, additional norms, but refer to a certain status that the most general norms or principles of each community achieve that are part of a convergence with the norms of other societies. I maintain that the Contextualist View offers a plausible view of ISCT while avoiding many of the criticisms that have been made against the Principlist interpretation of ISCT. Further, the Contextualist View suggests other areas in which ISCT needs further development, such as in the area of human rights which I also briefly explore. (shrink)

Abstract:Contemporary society faces a wide range of environmental problems. In what ways might business be part of the solution, rather than the problem? The Moralist Model is one general response. It tends to focus on particular corporations which it treats as moral agents operating within our common moral system. As a consequence, it claims that, with various (usually modest) changes, corporations may become environmentally responsible.This paper contends, on the contrary, that business has its own special “ethics,” which relates not simply (...) to the internal nature of the corporation but also to the corporate (free market) system. Given this special ethics, business cannot in general be environmentally responsible in the manner that the Moralists demand. Instead, more far-reaching changes are needed within corporations and the economic system to promote environmental responsibility. Though the requisite changes are significant, there are forces pushing in the direction which the paper identifies. (shrink)

ABSTRACTControl over information is essential to business. This has become increasingly true in an era in which technological advances have enabled the rapid globalization of business. This article explores the implications of this control of information for freedom of speech and information. Four different situations are considered: censorship of the Internet by search engines albeit at the direction of a government; restrictions on Internet content by Internet Services Providers acting on their own; decisions by retail businesses not to sell various (...) DVDs, CDs, etc. to their customers; and legal suits brought against individuals and groups by businesses seeking to prevent the further spread of information they deem injurious to their products or activities. The paper seeks to sort out the various rights and values involved in these cases, when a business may be justifiably said to be violating individuals' rights to freedom of information, and when customers and citizens do not have justified complaints against business decisions not to provide them with certain information products. (shrink)

The relation of Marx's writings to ethical theory has been viewed in a variety of different ways. Some deny that Marx has or can have any ethical theory at all. Others claim, on the contrary, that underlying Marx's pronouncements lies an implicit ethical theory which we may discern. Amongst this latter group a debate has quietly been taking place of late as to the nature of the ethical theory to which Marx might be said to subscribe. Some, e.g. E. Kamenka, (...) have maintained that Marx's ethics is non-utilitarian. Others such as A. Schaff, and most recently D. Allen, have argued that in fact, Marx is a utilitarian, though of course Marx did not proclaim himself to be a utilitarian. (shrink)

uppose that the most fundamental and general principle of a science had been known for over a century and had long since become a main basis for understanding and research by scientists in that field. You would surely assume that the principle would be taken as a matter of course by everyone with even a nodding acquaintance with the science. It would obviously be taught everywhere as basic to the science at any level of education. If you think that about (...) biology, however, you are wrong. (shrink)

International business faces a host of difficult moral conflicts. It is tempting to think that these conflicts can be morally resolved if we gained full knowledge of the situations, were rational enough, and were sufficiently objective. This paper explores the view that there are situations in which people in business must confront the possibility that they must compromise some of their important principles or values in order to protect other ones. One particularly interesting case that captures this kind of situation (...) is that of Google and its operations in China. In this paper, I examine the situation Google faces as part of the larger issue of moral compromise and integrity in business. Though I look at Google, this paper is just as much about the underlying or background views Google faces that are at work in business ethics. In the process, I argue the following: First, the framework Google has used to respond to criticisms of its actions does not successfully or obviously address the important ethical issues it faces. Second, an alternative ethical account can be presented that better addresses these ethical and human rights questions. However, this different framework brings the issue of moral compromise to the fore. This is an approach filled with dangers, particularly since it is widely held that one ought never to compromise one’s moral principles. Nevertheless, I wish to propose that there may be a place for moral compromise in business under certain conditions, which I attempt to specify. (shrink)

In this paper I briefly summarize Pastin's views on the problem of good business thinking (GBT) and the solution (Perspectival Analysis) which he offers. In discussing Pastin's solution I offer a number criticisms which call for further elucidation on Pastin's part. Specifically, I challenge his vagueness on which perspectives a manager must consider, the manner in which the moral components of these perspectives are to be evaluated, and whether Pastin is not in the end committed simply to an economic account (...) of GBT. Finally, I contend that Pastin's account of GBT errors in being too intellectualistic and too individualistic. (shrink)

Contemporary marketing is commonly characterized by the marketing concept which enjoins marketers to determine the wants and needs of customers and then to try to satisfy them. This view is standardly developed, not surprisingly, in terms of normal or ordinary consumers. Much less frequently is attention given to the vulnerable customers whom marketers also target. Though marketing to normal consumers raises many moral questions, marketing to the vulnerable also raises many moral questions which are deserving of greater attention.This paper has (...) three objectives. First, it explores the notion of vulnerability which a target audience might have. I argue that we must distinguish those who are specially vulnerable from normal individuals, as well as the susceptible and the disadvantaged - two other groups often distinguished in marketing literature. Second, I contend that marketing to the specially vulnerable requires that marketing campaigns be designed to ensure that these individuals are not treated unfairly, and thus possibly harmed. Third, I maintain that marketing programs which violate this preceding injunction are unethical or unscrupulous whether or not those targeted are harmed in some further manner. Accordingly, social control over marketing to the vulnerable cannot simply look to consumer injury as the measure of unfair treatment of the vulnerable. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Abstract:This paper argues that trust is one of the crucial bases for an international business morality. To defend this claim, it identifies three prominent senses of trust in the current literature and defends one of them, viz., what I term the “Attitudinal view.” Three different contexts in which such trust plays a role in business relationships are then described, as well as the conditions for the specific kinds of Attitudinal trust which appear in those contexts. Difficulties for the international development (...) of these forms of trust are briefly characterized and some of the possible responses are noted. Finally, the paper identifies morally important features of trust and some of their implications for an international business morality. (shrink)

Stolen Legacy by George G.M. James refutes the Euro-centric myth that the origin of Western philosophy is Greek. First published in 1954, this book was seminal in leading to a radical reappraisal of a philosophical system long thought to be of European origin. It is an essential work in the syllabus for the study of Western philosophy.