In this study, we propose and test a model of the effects of organizational ethical culture and organizational architecture on the perceived unethical behavior of employees towards customers. This study also examines the relationship between organizational ethical culture and moral acceptability judgment, hypothesizing that moral acceptability judgment is an important stage in the ethical decision-making process. Based on a field study in one of the largest financial institutions in Europe, we found that organizational ethical culture was significantly related to the (...) perceived frequency of unethical behavior towards customers and to the moral acceptability judgment of this type of unethical behavior. No support was found for the claim that features of organizational architecture are associated with the perceived frequency of unethical behavior towards customers. This is the first study to document the differential effects of organizational architecture and organizational ethical culture on perceived unethical behavior of employees towards customers, in wholesale banking. Implications for managers and future research are discussed. (shrink)

Raymond Geuss has been a distinctive contributor to the analysis and evaluation of German philosophy and to recent debates in ethics. In this new collection he treats a variety of topics in ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of history with special reference to the work of Hegel, Nietzsche, and Adorno. Two of the essays in the volume deal with central aspects of the philosophy of Nietzsche. The collection also contains an essay on the history of conceptions of 'culture' and (...) one on the ethics of Ernst Tugendhat. The remaining three essays focus on questions in aesthetics. The volume will be of interest to students of modern philosophy, German intellectual and cultural history, and literary theory. (shrink)

Evandro Agazzi hat die Möglichkeit einer Versöhnung zwischen dem logischen Empirismus und dem Realismus aufgezeigt, indem er sein Konzept der wissenschaftlichen Objektivität vorschlug, das den Begriff der Entität durch den des Objekts ersetzt, das als strukturierte Menge von Eigenschaften verstanden wird. Diese Konzeption wurde einerseits aus einer eher empiristischen Perspektive entwickelt, der zufolge die Realität des Objekts auf eine seiner vorhersagbaren Eigenschaften verlagert wird, und hat andererseits seine fruchtbare Kritik an der orthodoxen Interpretation der Quantenmechanik und seine Forderung nach einer (...) realistischen Interpretation hervorgebracht, die auf der Einführung neuer nicht-klassischer Konzepte beruht. (shrink)

With John Calvin, the Reformed tradition found inseparable linkage between eschatology and ethics. Christians' decision making must include reflection about God's future re-creation of our corporate, corporeal selves, or else individualism or dualism will set in. Meditatio vitae futurae is to figure right alongside of the Creator's past word for us and His present intercourse as Spirit among us. Calvin's three foci here, trinitarian in intent, are Christologically informed. Comprising teleological, deontological, and contextual vectors for ethical consideration, they are to (...) work together as orientational constants—a kind of global positioning system—functioning as faith's response to the triune God. This eschatology becomes a key to puzzles in Calvin's ethics: such as why he is reluctant to prescribe patterns of conduct; why he gives such prominence to Christians' freedom; or again, how his world-weary expressions cohere with his astounding activism. Calvin's letters show how anticipation of our future generates normative challenge, proleptic promise, and much more. (shrink)

In the Proceedings that emerged from the Second International Workshop on the Assessment of Animal Welfare at Farm and Group Level, Sandoe, Christiansen, & Appleby challenged participants to ponder four fundamental questions:a. What is the baseline standard for morally acceptable animal welfare?b. What is a good animal life?c. What farming purposes are legitimate?d. What kinds of compromises are acceptable in a less-than-perfect world?Continued reflection on those questions warrants examination of the shape of our modern agricultural ethic. It also calls for (...) a reexamination of recent work by Nussbaum on extending the capabilities approach to animals and the interface of Nussbaum's work with Rollin's scholarship on telos . The resources of narrative ethics are summoned to navigate the above-mentioned questions and to explore how Nussbaum's approach and Rollin's notion of animals' natures relate to the main storyline associated with developments in agriculture. (shrink)

In 2012, the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean melted to 4.10 million square kilometers, the smallest level to date. 2012 has also been marked by extreme weather, intense storms, drought, heat waves, warming oceans and intense precipitation events in many regions of the world. While climate scientists consider the relationship between climate change and large storms like Hurricane Sandy or the 2010 drought in Russia, many still continue to hum and haw over the extent to which human-induced climate change (...) is responsible for the planet’s recent drastic weather patterns. What naysayers and climate change exponents can agree on is just how vulnerable we are to natural disasters. The need for balanced and informed discourses .. (shrink)

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

This highly regarded volume features a modern translation of all ten books of _The Republic_ along with a synoptic table of contents, a prefatory essay, and an appendix on The Spindle of Necessity by the translator and editor, Raymond Larson. Also included are an introduction by Eva T. H. Brann, a list of principal dates in the life of Plato, and a bibliography.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:UNREAL REAL,JSM RAYMOND DENNEHY University of San Francisco San Francisco,, California Contextual Realism, a Meta-Physical Framework for Modern Science. By RICHARD H. SCHLAGEL. New York: :Raragon House, 1986. Pp. xxiv + 808. $22.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-913729-20-5. The Many Faces of Realism. By HILARY PuTNAM. LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1987. Pp. 98. $8.95 (paper). ISBN 0-81269043 -5. Varieties of Realism: A Rationale fo!f' the Natural Sciences. By RoM HARR.E. (...) Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986. Pp. vii + 375. $34.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-631-12592-2. REN PASSMORE wrote his assessment of British moral philosophy, he lamented that the fifty years which :had elapsed since 1900 had produced nothing beitter than so many variations on utilitarianism. Equally, a lament seems in order over the ourrent state of epistemology. After so many years of grappling with the problem of v,aJidating epistemo1log~cail!l'eailism-consider, for example, the American scene during the first severail decades of this century: Roy Wood Sellars et al. announcing the "new realism '' and George Santayana et al. announcing,the "critical realism "one might have hoped for 1 an oiutcome more reassuring than Hie current £deistic realism. But if the fideism disappoints, its rationalizations fascinate. Take, for examp1e, the trio o.f books discussed herein. They undertake a common project: to forge a raitionaJ justification for realism. They shave other features, not so 1audatory, especiaUy :a merely fideis:tic ioommitment to what might best be deseribed as generic realism, which finally evaporaites into 631 RAYMOND DENNEHY idealism. The mo,sit thait the authors can muster on behalf of realism amounts: to no more than this: " Something (what, we don't know) must e.rist outside our minds heearuse we aict on that premise with considemhle success, not only in daily life hut in scientific prructice, aillld a~l the theories used to explruin it aDJd its successes form a logieally coherent whoJe." In other wo11ds, whait these "defenses'' of rerulism offer is a pragmatic representationalism, organized and ultimaitiely vindi!caited by the ideaJist criterion of coherence and der,iving overai11 inspiration from a blind faith in e~tmmental reality. The tip-off,fa,in the books' titles: Contextual Real-ism, The Many Fa(')es of Realism, and Varieties of Realism. How can you taJk about the "contexts," " v;arieties,'' and "many faces " of realism if__,espreiciaJJy by your own admiss:ion-you cannot identify 11eaJ,ity itself? The answer is found in fideism: you want to affirm extramentaJ reality, even though y;ou find it impossible to justify 1that affirmation,rationaHy. So, in a flush. of ega,1itarian fervur, you aooept au plausible claimants to the title of " reality "; and being unabJ:e to say that any one c~aim­ ant is more or ~ess 11eal than any other, you hope to bring matters to a happy conclusion by apperuling to "varieties," "con- :te:xJts," and "many faces" of rea1ity. Hut the imperatives of life and thought maroe,a harmoniza-,tion of ail1l these " realities'' inevitable if anything resembling tl'IUe and false assertions is to he sav;ed. If, for example, common sense tells us that the11e 1a11e,ice cubes and scienee teHs us that the11e are only indeterminate mass particles, we will want to know how these 1 asse11tions can both be true. Clearly, the V'enerahle correspondence criterion of truth won't do here, is:ince we are fruoed with two oompeting objects of correspondence. It thus becomes necessary to enlist :the aid of the pragmatic theory of tmth to deoide which of the " realities " wil,l be designated " xeal '' in a part:iou~ar set of circumstances. Anticipating PiUtnam's examp~e, we ma.y then say that ice cubes~ and pink ones aJt that__,are real when we wish to mix drinks and that iDJdeterminate mass particles,a~11e reail when we wish UNREAL REALISM 633 to produce a scientific ruoom.mt of the phenomenon caHed " ice cubes." Still,.antil(Jipating Schlagel, not even pragmatism carries us far enough because it depends on knowing which resuJtis are felicitous. We thus turn fo the cohe11ence theory of tmth as our final court of... (shrink)

Qu'entend-on par enchantement et désenchantement du monde? Quelles seraient les voies à suivre pour susciter un réenchantement du monde qui sera le fait de l’humain lui-même? La raison et la rationalité sont-elles les causes des maux de nos errements ou des outils pour les contrer? Suffira-t-il d’avoir « foi en la raison » pour surmonter les défis que l’humanité s’est elle-même imposés par négligence et irresponsabilité.