Philosophers who have a conception of morality that allows for an ultimate conflict between duty and self-interest inherit a most difficult problem: the problem of the unity of practical reason. As long as duty is thought of as an extension of self-interest, as apparently both Plato and Hobbes thought, no theoretical difficulty arises; practical reason is unified simply because duty and interest have the same goal. But once this kind of conceptual connection between duty and self-interest is severed, the task (...) is to avoid the philosophical nemesis of dualism, a conception of practical reason in which an individual’s choice between doing his duty and securing his interests is necessarily arbitrary as a matter of practical justification. Moreover, the difficulty is compounded when morality is conceived in such a way that a person has a morality only if his moral concerns have justificatory priority among his practical concerns. When built into the concept of morality, this sort of justificatory priority might initially appear to restore the unity lost by practical reason with the severance of duty and interest. But so achieved, the unity bears all the marks of having been gained arbitrarily, for it can just as plausibly be said that a person is an egoist only if his own interests take justificatory priority among his practical concerns. Faced then with a decision about what he ought to do in a situation in which duty and interest are in conflict, the practical reasoner confronts a dilemma. In trying to decide what he ought to do, practical reason, in the form of morality, advises him to do one thing, yet in the form of self-interest, it advises him to do another. Therefore, like Humpty Dumpty, once practical reason is shattered by the separation of duty and interest, the practical reasoner’s problem is how to put things back together again. (shrink)

The concept of second nature promises to provide an explanation of how nature and reason can be reconciled. But the concept is laden with ambiguity. On the one hand, second nature is understood as that which binds together all cognitive activities. On the other hand, second nature is conceived of as a kind of nature that can be changed by cognitive activities. The paper tries to investigate this ambiguity by distinguishing a Kantian conception of second nature from a Hegelian conception. (...) It argues that the idea of a transformation from a being of first nature into a being of second nature that stands at the heart of the Kantian conception is mistaken. The Hegelian conception demonstrates that the transformation in question takes place within second nature itself. Thus, the Hegelian conception allows us to understand the way in which second nature is not structurally isomorphic with first nature: It is a process of ongoing selftransformation that is not primarily determined by how the world is, but rather by commitments out of which human beings are bound to the open future. (shrink)

The article presents the conceptual groundwork for an understanding of the essentially improvisational dimension of human rationality. It aims to clarify how we should think about important concepts pertinent to central aspects of human practices, namely, the concepts of improvisation, normativity, habit, and freedom. In order to understand the sense in which human practices are essentially improvisational, it is first necessary to criticize misconceptions about improvisation as lack of preparation and creatio ex nihilo. Second, it is necessary to solve the (...) theoretical problems that derive from misunderstandings concerning the notions of normativity, habit, and freedom – misunderstandings that revolve around the idea that rationality is a form that is developed out of itself and thus works in a way similar to algorithms. One can only make sense of normativity, habit, and freedom if one understands that they all involve conflictual relationships with the world and with others, which in turn enables one to adequately take into account their constitutive connection to improvisation, properly understood. In outlining these conceptual connections, we want to prepare the foundations for an explanation of rational practices as improvisational practices. The article concludes by stating that human rational life is improvisatory because the conditions of human practice arise out of practice itself. (shrink)

George McClure offers here a far-reaching analysis of the role of consolation in Italian Renaissance culture, showing how the humanists' interest in despair, and their effort to open up this realm in both social and personal terms, signaled a shift toward a heightened secularization in European thought. Analyzing works by fourteenth-and fifteenth-century writers, from Petrarch to Marsilio Ficino, McClure examines the treatment of such problems as bereavement, fear of death, illness, despair, and misfortune. These writers, who evinced a belief (...) in the legitimacy of secular sadness, tried to forge a wisdom that in their view dealt more realistically with the art of living and dying than did the disputations of scholastic philosophy and theology. Arguing that consolatory concerns helped spur the revival of classical schools of psychological thought, McClure reveals that the humanists sought comfort from once-neglected troves of Stoic, Peripatetic, Epicurean, Platonic, and Christian thought. He contends that the humanists' pursuit of solace and their duty as consolers provided not only a forum but perhaps also an incentive for the articulation of prominent Renaissance themes concerning immortality, the dignity of man, and the sanctity of worldly endeavor. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

In this paper, we develop an understanding of recognition in terms of individuals’ capacity for conflict. Our goal is to overcome various shortcomings that can be found in both the positive and negative conceptions of recognition. We start by analyzing paradigmatic instances of such conceptions—namely, those put forward by Axel Honneth and Judith Butler. We do so in order to show how both positions are inadequate in their elaborations of recognition in an analogous way: Both fail to make intelligible the (...) fundamental nexus between relations of recognition and individuals’ capacity for conflict. We then move on to reconsider aspects of Hegel's view of recognition—ones that, from our viewpoint, have been unjustly neglected in the debate about recognition: his focus on the constitution of relations of recognition in conflict and on the status of being an author of acts of recognition. On this basis, we then spell out in a more systematic way what we take to be a more convincing conception of recognition. This puts us in the position to gesture at some consequences of this conception in practical contexts, above all with regard to the justification, role and structure of political institutions. (shrink)

George W. Roberts; III—Some Questions in Epistemology, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 70, Issue 1, 1 June 1970, Pages 37–60, https://doi.org/10.

In an attempt to gain some control over ever escalating health care cost, many organizations have moved to a managed care concept of health benefits. Managed care health benefit strategies account for well over 90 percent of all employer sponsored health benefit programs.In essence, managed care coverage usually demands, at a minimum, some form of utilization review in regard to provider services. Thus the privacy of the traditional doctor patient relationship must inevitably be modified when managed care enters the picture.

George W. S. Bailey. prove that mental phenomena in general are not self- intimating in sense (3). Armstrong's argument is based on two claims: (a) Introspective awareness and its objects are distinct existences. (b) If introspective awareness ...

New Essays on the Nature of Rights. Edited by Mcbride Mark.

The problem of pessimism is the secular analogue to the evidential problem of evil facing traditional theism. The traditional theist must argue two things: that the evidence shows that this is on balance a good world and that it is the best possible world. Though the secular optimist who advocates any form of secular moral theory need not argue that the current and future world will likely be the best possible world, she nonetheless must argue that were there a clean (...) solution to the problem of current and future suffering in which all sentient life could be instantly and painlessly eliminated, we would have reasons not to employ the clean solution because the future promises to bring on balance a good world in which the evil of human and animal suffering is outweighed by whatever is good in the world. Pessimism is the view that the evidence argues against secular optimism. It is argued here that it is anything but clear that secular optimism is warranted when viewed from an impersonal point of view. The problem is then evaluated from the personal point of view in which a form of personal optimism is defended even in the face of impersonal pessimism. (shrink)

Opposition: Obedience and authority in Exodus 32-34 / George W. Coats -- The theological significance of contradiction within the Book of the Covenant / Paul D. Hanson -- The renewed authority of Old Testament wisdom for contemporary faith / Wayne Sibley Towner -- A stylistic study of the priestly creation story / Bernhard W. Anderson -- "I will not cause it to return" in Amos 1 and 2 / Rolf P. Knierim.

Usually, the ontology of art is executed as an ontology of artworks. This has the consequence that the answer to the question what art is says nothing about why art is valuable. But it is, I argue, necessary to determine the value of art if one wants to say what art is. In order to account for the value of art, I start with the claim that art is a practice of transformation. Thus, I propose to develop the ontology of (...) art as the ontology of a practice of transformation. The practice in question has four elements: first artworks, second interpretive activities through which recipients and producers follow the constellations realized in artworks, third ordinary practices which are reflected through interpretive activities, and fourth practices of art criticism. By way of these four elements art is realized. According to the proposed conception, art is a profoundly unstable practice which challenges human beings and their self-understandings in such a way that they and their self-understandings develop further. (shrink)

Although social contracts theory has been applied to organizations (Donaldson & Dunfee, 1994), rarely has the theory been tested empirically. This article uses the traditions of communitarianism and individualism to instantiate an ideal-type economic social contract. We asked 269 subjects to complete the Ideological Orientation Scale and to make judgments on eight downsizing scenarios. Using social judgment theory, we assess the direct and indirect influences of ideology on judgments of fairness. Our findings suggest that ideology indeed shapes individual’s conceptions of (...) organizational fairness. (shrink)

Humans have developed various practices to confront the indeterminacy of their existence. Roughly speaking, there are two types of such practices. On the one hand are those through which humans control the uncertainty that permeates their actions and choices. These are practices of self-reassurance and risk reduc- tion. On the other hand are practices in which humans welcome or search out uncertainty, practices that are explicitly open to the risk of failure. One particu- larly remarkable example of the latter set (...) is art. Art is a practice that embraces the uncertainty of human existence in a special way. Generally speaking, art- works do not aim to reassure. Rather, they are open to uncertainty. Thus, art represents a special mode of reflecting on a constitutive feature of human exis- tence, namely, the possibility of failure. What does it mean that art is, in princi- ple, always susceptible to failure? The present article explores this question. (shrink)

Literature addressing organizational ethical behavior has focused intensely on cognitive moral development, and more recently the automatic and natural moral inclinations. Research addressing the incapacity for moral reasoning, such as psychopathy, is rarely addressed in organizational behavior. Our first aim is to develop a construct definition for functional psychopathy that is appropriate for organizational science and theoretically consistent with the extensive previous clinical and criminal research in this field. Second, we apply two versions of a scale not previously used in (...) business research relative to moral judgments. This scale is a self-reported measure of functional psychopathy and is useful for its relationships with ethically relevant business decisions. Further, we examine which factors emerge as having the highest relationship with ethical decision making. Third, we seek to advance the usefulness of this construct by more precisely placing psychopathy within its nomological network. With these goals in mind, a combined sample of business school seniors participated in three studies. Findings indicate a significant influence of psychopathy over a range of ethically relevant business decisions, as well as negative correlations with factors of the Moral Approbation and the Moral Awareness scales. We conclude with directions for future research and considerations for practice. (shrink)

S76 1992 305.8—dc20 92-25829 "The Ethnographer's Magic: Fieldwork in British Anthropology from Tylor to Malinowski" was originally published in Observers Observed: Essays on Ethnographic Fieldwork (History of Anthropology Vol. ... Toward a History of the Interwar Years" was originally published in Selected Papers from the American Anthropologist, 1921-45, edited by George W . Stocking, Jr., pp.

This volume attempts a critical historical consideration of the varying colonial situations in which (and from which) ethnographic knowledge essential to anthropology has been produced. The essays cover regions from Oceania, Southeast Asia and southern Africa to North and South America.

This paper aims to offer a new and alternative perspective on the basic idea of Levinas’s philosophy. My claim is that the latter can be more appropriately understood not as a contribution to a new way of thinking about ethics or the realm of the ethical as such, but rather toward the theory of normativity. The goal of Levinas’s reflections on alterity is to exhibit the normativity that is in play in all modes of understanding. Levinas tries to understand how (...) intentional beings are normatively bound by one another. This paper tries to give answers to the questions of why Levinas addresses questions of alterity, what is distinctive about these questions according to his way of thinking, and why one should consider Levinas’ thought from the perspective of the articulation of a theory of normativity. (shrink)

Franz Boas, the major founding figure of anthropology as a discipline of America, came to the United States from Germany in 1886. Though this fact is widely known, the significance of Boas' roots in German intellectual tradition and late nineteenth century German anthropology remains obscure. The essays in Volkgeist a Method and Ethic explore the Germanic influences on Boasian anthropology and clarify their implications for the ethnographic practice that Boas promulgated.

"A very fine piece of work, essential reading for anyone concerned with Kant, Aristotelian ethics, practical reason, and more generally, the foundations of moral value and justification.... The examples are a real strength, insightful and very well-chosen."--Anthony Cunningham, St. John's University "The issues Harris has taken on are among the most important in contemporary moral thinking, and he has handled them systematically, innovatively, wisely, with wit and good sense."--J. K. Swindler, Wittenberg University.

We test conformity-related values applying the value-pragmatics hypothesis by evaluating how personal values related to compliance moderate the relationships between situational factors and unethical decisions. We examine the direct and indirect effects of the values of traditionalism, conformity, and stimulation, as they combine with the situational factors of rewards and punishments in the person–situation interaction model. We find strong support for the value-pragmatics view of ethical decision making and further build support for the person–situation interaction model.