We regularly wield powers that, upon close scrutiny, appear remarkably magical. By sheer exercise of will, we bring into existence things that have never existed before. With but a nod, we effect the disappearance of things that have long served as barriers to the actions of others. And, by mere resolve, we generate things that pose significant obstacles to others' exercise of liberty. What is the nature of these things that we create and destroy by our mere decision to do (...) so? The answer: the rights and obligations of others. And by what seemingly magical means do we alter these rights and obligations? By making promises and issuing or revoking consent When we make promises, we generate obligations for ourselves, and when we give consent, we create rights for others. Since the rights and obligations that are affected by means of promising and consenting largely define the boundaries of permissible action, our exercise of these seemingly magical powers can significantly affect the lives and liberties of others. (shrink)

: Feminist epistemologists have found the atomistic view of knowers provided by classical epistemology woefully inadequate. An obvious alternative for feminists is Lynn Hankinson Nelson's suggestion that it is communities that know. However, I argue that Nelson's view is problematic for feminists, and I offer instead a conception of knowers as "individuals-in-communities." This conception is preferable, given the premises and goals of feminist epistemologists, because it emphasizes the relations between knowers and their communities and the relevance of these relations for (...) epistemic assessments. Furthermore, it provides a sense of epistemic agents as active reflective inquirers, capable of transforming and improving knowledge-seeking practices. (shrink)

Therapieentscheidungen lösen in klinischen Teams häufig Unsicherheiten und Konflikte aus, insbesondere wenn es um schwerkranke Patienten geht. Fallen Entscheidungen vornehmlich situationsgeleitet, sind bestimmte Patientengruppen einem Risiko der Unter-, Über- oder Ungleichversorgung ausgesetzt. Der Metap-Leitfaden unterstützt Ärzte, Pfleger und Therapeuten daher in ihrer ethisch reflektierten Entscheidungskompetenz mit verschiedenen Orientierungs- und Entscheidungsinstrumentarien. Diese berücksichtigen eine gerechte Zuteilung der Ressourcen.

Empathy is one of the most talked about and widely studied concepts of recent years. Some argue it can help create a more just society, improve medical care and even avert global catastrophe. Others object that it is morally problematic. Who is right? And what is empathy anyway? Is it a way of feeling with others, or is it simply feeling sorry for them? Is it a form of knowledge? What is its evolutionary origin? In this thorough and clearly-written introduction (...) to the philosophy of empathy Heidi Maibom explores these questions and more, examining the following topics: The nature of empathy and key themes in the literature Empathy as a way of understanding others, particularly 'simulation theory' and 'perspective-taking' Empathy, emotional contagion, and sympathy Empathy's role in moral understanding or motivation Empathy and art appreciation, with examples from film, music and fiction Empathy and mental disorder, such as psychopathy and autism. Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary, Empathy is an excellent resource for students of philosophy of mind and psychology, psychology, and cognitive science, as well as for those in related subjects such as art, literature and politics. (shrink)

Much of the literature concerning epistemic injustice has focused on the variety of harms done to socially marginalized persons in their capacities as potentialcontributorsto knowledge projects. However, in order to understand the full implications of the social nature of knowing, we must confront the circulation of knowledge and the capacity of epistemic agents to take up knowledge produced by others and make use of it. I argue that members of socially marginalized lay communities can sufferepistemic trust injusticeswhen potentially powerful forms (...) of knowing such as scientific understandings are generated in isolation from them, and when the social conditions required for aresponsibly-placed trustto be formed relative to the relevant epistemic institutions fail to transpire. (shrink)

“News! Oh! Yes, I always like news.” Throughout Emma, Jane Austen’s eponymous heroine repeatedly betrays her intense love of gossip. Other characters (notably, Miss Bates and Mr. Knightley) also indulge and rejoice in this style of conversation, as does the novel’s own narrator. In this chapter, the authors propose to examine the multifaceted and ambiguous role played by gossip in Emma, in light of the diverse opinions expressed by a number of critics and philosophers about the ethical and psychological significance (...) of this form of human discourse. They argue that Austen exhibits a fascinating, consistently ambivalent evaluative attitude toward the information-rich chitchat of her characters. She reveals a sensitivity to the moral dangers of gossip, as well as to what evolutionary psychologists have identified as its fundamental role in the regulation of human societies, and in the development of more indispensable forms of linguistic communication. (shrink)

Among theory theorists, it is commonly thought that folk psychological theory is tacitly known. However, folk psychological knowledge has none of the central features of tacit knowledge. But if it is ordinary knowledge, why is it that we have difficulties expressing anything but a handful of folk psychological generalisations? The reason is that our knowledge is of theoretical models and hypotheses, not of universal generalisations. Adopting this alternative view of (scientific) theories, we come to see that, given time and reflection, (...) we can say what we know. (shrink)

Empathy plays a central role in the history and contemporary study of ethics, interpersonal understanding, and the emotions, yet until now has been relatively underexplored. _The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Empathy_ is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting field and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors, the _Handbook_ is divided into six parts: Core issues History of empathy Empathy and understanding (...) Empathy and morals Empathy in art and aesthetics Empathy and individual differences. Within these sections central topics and problems are examined, including: empathy and imagination; neuroscience; David Hume and Adam Smith; understanding; evolution; altruism; moral responsibility; art, aesthetics, and literature; gender; empathy and related disciplines such as anthropology. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, particularly ethics and philosophy of mind and psychology, the _Handbook_ will also be of interest to those in related fields, such as anthropology and social psychology. (shrink)

A useful concept that can be invoked to resolve complex bioethical issues is that of moral status (or, human dignity). In this article, we apply this concept to dead human bodies in order to support our view that research on such bodies is permissible. Instead of drawing from salient Western theories of human dignity that account for it by appeals to autonomy or rationality, we will base our investigation on emerging conceptions in African theories of moral status as articulated by (...) Thaddeus Metz and Munamato Chemhuru. Our conclusion is that neither of these theories of moral status, one secular, and the other religious, can accommodate the intuition that we have direct duties of respect towards such bodies because, in relation to Metz's conception, they lack the capacity to enter into social relationships while on Chemhuru's conception, dead bodies appear not to have any meaningful purpose within the hierarchy that captures the ontological systems that determine such status. Consequently, we argue that our analysis provides support for the use of unclaimed cadavers in training and research in medical institutions. (shrink)

This book explores the thesis that legal roles force people to engage in moral combat, an idea which is implicit in the assumption that citizens may be morally required to disobey unjust laws, while judges may be morally required to punish citizens for civil disobedience. Heidi Hurd advances the surprising argument that the law cannot require us to do what morality forbids. The 'role-relative' understanding of morality is shown to be incompatible with both consequentialist and deontological moral philosophies. In (...) the end, Hurd shows that our best moral theory is one which never makes one actor's moral success turn on another's moral failure. Moral Combat is a sophisticated, well-conceived and carefully argued book on a very important and controversial topic at the junction between legal and political philosophy. It will be of interest to moral, legal, and political philosophers, as well as teachers and students of professional ethics in law. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the Hegelian philosophy offers insights that are particularly important for feminists: 1) a descriptive analysis of the historic family as a social system whose inherent oppressiveness needs to be transcended; and 2) a model of intrapsychic and social liberation and harmony as precisely the true path of emergence from and rational transformation of the family. Although a clear advocate of the traditional bourgeois family, Hegel, perhaps paradoxically, also took a critical posture toward the family, (...) identifying and formulating theoretically the nature of its oppressiveness and the - or, at least, a - route toward its transcendence. This paper offers, first, a new angle from which to view Hegel’s concepts of woman and the family, and, second, draws some implications for a contemporary understanding of women and the family from Hegel’s theory of human liberation as the transcendence of the unindividuated harmonious communities of the family and the Greek city. (shrink)

Numerous grounds have been offered for the view that healthcare workers have a duty to treat, including expressed consent, implied consent, special training, reciprocity (also called the social contract view), and professional oaths and codes. Quite often, however, these grounds are simply asserted without being adequately defended or without the defenses being critically evaluated. This essay aims to help remedy that problem by providing a critical examination of the strengths and weaknesses of each of these five grounds for asserting that (...) healthcare workers have a duty to treat, especially as that duty would arise in the context of an infectious disease pandemic. Ultimately, it argues that none of the defenses is currently sufficient to ground the kind of duty that would be needed in a pandemic. It concludes by sketching some practical recommendations in that regard. (shrink)

This article focuses on academics’ conceptions of teaching research ethics and integrity. Seventeen academics from a Finnish research intensive university participated in this qualitative study. The data were collected using a qualitative multi-method approach, including think-aloud and interview data. The material was scrutinized using thematic analysis, with both deductive and inductive approaches. The results revealed variation in academics’ views on the responsibility for teaching research integrity, the methods employed to teach it and the necessity of intervening when misconduct occurs. The (...) academics emphasized the responsibility of the individual teacher and the student to foster integrity as well as the shared responsibility of all members of the academic community. However, many academics felt that they themselves needed pedagogical training. Most shared the view that practices of responsible conduct in research can be explicitly and intentionally taught through demonstration, explanation, and practice. However, the academics also noted that learning research integrity and ethics takes place implicitly. A few questioned the need for and the utility of training in the form of courses or through an explicitly addressed topic included in, for instance, methods courses. Their views on the question of how to deal with alleged cases of misconduct varied. While many academics considered a proactive approach the best way to prevent misconduct, some trusted more in a reactive approach. The results show that, while in general academics agree on the importance of research ethics, their conceptions of teaching it vary. The teaching conception bears consequences for the teaching methods chosen, assignment of responsibility for both teaching and students learning, and for the way in which teachers believe that misconduct should be responded to. (shrink)

This article explores two very different forms in which immoral conduct was problematized over the course of the 19th century. It does this by contrasting the sexual purity politics of the Vice Society and the medicalization of morality as `moral insanity'. Early in the century the Vice Society promoted coercive legislation with the aim of `suppressing vice'. From mid-century, moral insanity theories sought to grapple with vice by disaggregating `moral' from other forms of insanity. These two movements had quite distinct (...) and incompatible lines of development; and they never overtly engaged with each other. The article makes its key argument by demonstrating the way in which such dissimilar trajectories came together towards the end of the century in the `moral hygiene' movement, mobilizing discourses of `degeneration' (and `feeblemindedness') with projects promoting sexual purity. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie qualitative Interviewstudie analysiert informelle Wissensstrukturen von Pflegenden und Ärzten hinsichtlich der beiden Einflussfaktoren „Alter“ und „Kosten“ auf Therapieentscheide am Lebensende als Grundlage ethischer Meinungsbildung. Als Auswertungsmaterial dienen spontane Aussagen zu „Alter“ und „Kosten“, die nicht im Kontext von Fragestellungen zu Ageism oder Rationierung erhoben wurden. Diese Aussagen wurden einer Inhaltsanalyse unterzogen, und zwar anhand von qualitativen und quantitativen Analyseschritten.Die Studie zeigt, dass der Faktor „Alter“ wesentlich häufiger als Einflussfaktor auf Therapieentscheide am Lebensende genannt wird als der Faktor „Kosten“. Zudem (...) gibt es Hinweise auf mögliche Ungleichbehandlung sowie auf Überversorgung von Patienten am Lebensende. Die Befunde stützen die Annahme, dass Therapieentscheidungen eher auf informellen, nicht-institutionalisierten Prozessen beruhen. Eine stärker explizite Strukturierung des Prozesses zur Therapieentscheidung könnte die Risiken von Ungleichbehandlung und Überversorgung reduzieren und dadurch zu ethisch besser vertretbaren Ergebnisse führen. (shrink)

Background: Healthcare personnel in the municipal healthcare systems experience many ethical challenges in their everyday work. In Norway, 243 municipalities participated in a national ethics project, aimed to increase ethical competence in municipal healthcare services. In this study, we wanted to map out what participants in ethics reflection groups experienced as promoters or as barriers to successful reflection. Objectives: To examine what the staff experience as promoters or as barriers to successful ethics reflection. Research design: The study has a qualitative (...) design, where 56 participants in municipal healthcare participated in 10 different focus-group interviews. Ethical considerations: The data collection was based on the participants’ informed consent and approved by the Data Protection Official of the Norwegian Centre for Research Data. Results: The informants had different experiences from ethics reflection group. Nevertheless, we found that there were several factors that were consistently mentioned: competence, facilitator’s role, ethics reflection groups organizing, and organizational support were all experienced as promoters and as a significant effect on ethics reflection groups. The absence of such factors would constitute important barriers to successful ethics reflection. Discussion: The results are coincident with other studies, and indicate some conditions that may increase the possibility to succeed with ethics reflection groups. A systematic approach seems to be important, the systematics of the actual reflections, but also in the organization of ethics reflection group at the workplace. Community healthcare is characterized by organizational instabilities as many vacancies, high workloads, and lack of predictability. This can be a hinder for ethics reflection group. Conclusion: Both internal and external factors seem to influence the organization of ethics reflection group. The municipalities’ instabilities challenging this work, and perceived as a clear inhibitor for the development. The participants experienced that the facilitator is the most important success factor for establishing, carrying out, and to succeed with ethics reflection groups. (shrink)

This article examines how culture influences Chinese managers’ perception of some western management instruments, such as codes of ethics and performance evaluation systems. The research is based on analyzing the tacit messages in “stories told” by managers and reviewing some of the barriers that may hinder understanding. Major obstacles lie in failing to ‘read’ each other’s cultures correctly. Assumptions and biases are left alone instead of being addressed openly. Western management systems and tools do not necessarily function equally well in (...) the Chinese culture, unless they are reassessed and adapted. Some recommendations for managers and further research are given. (shrink)

After describing the disorder of psychopathy, I examine the theories and the evidence concerning the psychopaths’ deficient moral capacities. I first examine whether or not psychopaths can pass tests of moral knowledge. Most of the evidence suggests that they can. If there is a lack of moral understanding, then it has to be due to an incapacity that affects not their declarative knowledge of moral norms, but their deeper understanding of them. I then examine two suggestions: it is their deficient (...) practical reason or their stunted emotions that are at fault. The evidence supports both explanations. I conclude with an overview of the debate concerning whether they are morally or legally responsible for their actions. (shrink)

Psychopaths are renowned for their immoral behavior. They are ideal candidates for testing the empirical plausibility of moral theories. Many think the source of their immorality is their emotional deficits. Psychopaths experience no guilt or remorse, feel no empathy, and appear to be perfectly rational. If this is true, sentimentalism is supported over rationalism. Here, I examine the nature of psychopathic practical reason and argue that it is impaired. The relevance to morality is discussed. I conclude that rationalists can explain (...) the moral deficits of psychopaths as well as sentimentalists. In the process, I identify psychological structures that underpin practical rationality. (shrink)

Nanotechnology and nanosciences have recently gained tremendous attention and funding, from multiple entities and directions. In the last 10 years the funding for nanotechnology research has increased by orders of magnitude. An important part that has also gained parallel attention is the societal and ethical impact of nanotechnology and the possible consequences of its products and processes on human life and welfare. Multiple thinkers and philosophers wrote about both negative and positive effects of nanotechnology on humans and societies. The literature (...) has a considerable amount of views about nanotechnology that range from calling for the abandonment and blockage of all efforts in that direction to complete support and encouragement in hopes that nanotechnology will be the next big jump in ameliorating human life and welfare. However, amidst all this hype about the ethics of nanotechnology, relatively less efforts and resources can be found in the literature to help engineering professionals and educators, and to provide practical methods and techniques for teaching ethics of nanotechnology and relating the technical side of it to the societal and human aspect. The purpose of this paper is to introduce strategies and ideas for teaching ethics of nanotechnology in engineering in relation to engineering codes of ethics. The paper is neither a new philosophical view about ethics of nanotechnology nor a discussion of the ethical dimensions of nanotechnology. This is an attempt to help educators and professionals by answering the question of how to incorporate ethics of nanotechnology in the educational process and practice of engineering and what is critical for the students and professionals to know in that regard. The contents of the presented strategies and ideas focus on the practical aspects of ethical issues related to nanotechnology and its societal impact. It also builds a relation between these issues and engineering codes of ethics. The pedagogical components of the strategies are based on best-practices to produce independent life-long self-learners and critical thinkers. These strategies and ideas can be incorporated as a whole or in part, in the engineering curriculum, to raise awareness of the ethical issues related to nanotechnology, improve the level of professionalism among engineering graduates, and apply ABET criteria. It can also be used in the way of professional development and continuing education courses to benefit professional engineers. Educators and institutions are welcome to use these strategies, a modified version, or even a further developed version of it, that suits their needs and circumstances. (shrink)

This volume contains twelve original papers about the importance of empathy and sympathy to morality, with perspectives from philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and neuroscience.

Discover the many layers of bead embroidery. Through 14 astonishingly beautiful projects, including one from Sherry Serafini and one from Margie Deeb, Heidi Kummli guides beaders to a greater understanding of how to infuse their jewelry with deeper meaning. From animal totems, to the four elements, to the healing power of gemstones, beaders will create pieces that reveal how the natural world can enhance their jewelry-making journey.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Response to Susan Laird, “Musical Hunger: A Philosophical Testimonial of Miseducation”Heidi WesterlundCan hunger and satisfaction, which according to John Dewey form “the arsis and thesis of a child’s life,”1 create the rhythm and heartbeat of music education? Susan Laird shows us through her autobiographical experiences how this heartbeat was missed in her case, while the undertone of her narrative and testimonial begs a wider self-reflection upon the (...) culture of music education. Indeed, Laird’s testimonial assumes that musical hunger has something to do with professional music educators; that musical hunger and satisfaction while setting the beat for a person’s musical life are not simply biological functions—something that exists and stays no matter how and what the person is fed or where and with whom the person eats. As Dewey wrote,[t]he very tendency of the child, while hungry, to recall his previous satisfaction, and to anticipate the coming one, is the beginning of the recognition of time. It grows more definite and accurate just in the degree in which all experiences are related to each other as members of one whole.2The imaginative musical dinner table that Laird’s testimonial lays out calls for music educators to reflect upon what kind of meal is served, not only from their own perspective but also from that of their students. Yet, reconstructing the menu is demanding in a profession that struggles with the pros and cons of a tradition in which teachers have learnt to teach in the same way that they themselves have been taught, also teaching using the same order in which they have learned—only hoping to do it more effectively.Quite recently, when visiting the recording studio at the Sibelius Academy department of music education to listen to one of my student’s work with her own rock band, I was reminded by my own remembrances of the difficulty, as well as the necessity, of reconstructing traditions in music teacher education. My thoughts led me fleetingly back to the ‘70s when making arrangements, improvisations, or working in recording studios were part of my musical life, until they were overwhelmed by the then-prevalent diet of professional music studies. Although my experiences of general music education were similar to those of Laird, teachers in the specialized music school fed me with goal-directed instruction in more than one instrument, in music theory, solfege, and the history of Western [End Page 81] art music. Looking back, however, I was lucky in more ways than one: my adolescent leisure time was blessed with numerous choirs, orchestras, and gigging bands—bringing a self-organized satisfaction and motivation to all kinds of music and musical activities. Multiple diets were feeding my musical life: I obtained the strengthening vitamin drops and enjoyed my self-made smorgasbord with family and friends, none of which had been enough by themselves to lead me into the profession. Yet, when entering the university to pursue my professional music studies, I experienced events in reverse order to that which Lucy Green describes in How Popular Musicians Learn.3 As I then did not have a piano of my own, I only had the opportunity to practice what was necessary for exams and so I practically stopped playing for fun. I also realized that not all flute teachers were able to accompany their students as did my first teacher, and so I had to play my flute repertoire for most of the year only imagining how the pieces would sound as a whole with no community with whom to share the joy of music making. While watching my student working in front of the studio desk searching for the right bass sound for her own song—a song that she was performing with friends and fellow students—to give the song the final touch for her work for the pedagogy of African-American music (popular music) course, to my own surprise I suddenly felt a long-forgotten hunger and desire. I was reminded of the challenges facing teacher education in exemplifying by its own practices a music education that does not take for granted that particular subject content or official... (shrink)

Many spectacular claims about psychopaths are circulated. This contribution aims at providing the reader with the more complex reality of the phenomenon (or phenomena), and to point to issues of particular interest to philosophers working in moral psychology and moral theory. I first discuss the current evidence regarding psychopaths’ deficient empathy and decision-making skills. I then explore what difference it makes to our thinking whether we regard their deficit dimensionally (as involving abilities that are on or off) and whether we (...) focus on primary or secondary psychopathy. My conclusion is that most grand claims about psychopathy settling long-standing debates in moral philosophy and psychology are overblown, but there is much to be learnt from this disorder when it comes to formulating modern theories of moral psychology. (shrink)

It used to be thought that folk psychology is the only game in town. Focusing merely on what people do will not allow you to predict what they are likely to do next. For that, you must consider their beliefs, desires, intentions, etc. Recent evidence from developmental psychology and fMRI studies indicates that this conclusion was premature. We parse motion in an environment as behavior of a particular type, and behavior thus construed can feature in systematizations that we know. Building (...) on the view that folk psychological knowledge is knowledge of theoretical models, I argue that social knowledge is best understood as lying on a continuum between behavioral and full-blown psychological models. Between the two extremes, we have what I call social models. Social models represent social structures in terms of their overall purpose and circumscribe individuals' roles within them. These models help us predict what others will do or plan what we should do without providing information about what agents think or want. Thinking about social knowledge this way gives us a more nuanced picture of what capacities are engaged in social planning and interaction, and gives us a better tool with which to think about the social knowledge of animals and young children. (shrink)

CHAPTER 1 Introduction HEIDI M. RAVVEN AND LENN E. GOODMAN The attitudes of Jewish thinkers toward Spinoza have defined a fault line between traditionalist ...

The author addresses the question of how to use value-learning processes to integrate corporate social responsibility (CSR) in organizations as an interesting challenge in (higher) education. Two strategies have been proposed for the issue of CSR: a compliance strategy and a cultural change strategy (Karssing, 2001). This article focuses on the ethical and philosophical presuppositions of these different approaches. The incorporation of CSR in organizations cannot be accomplished by means of a compliance strategy only. Rather, it needs to be supplemented (...) by a strategy aimed at stimulating a transformation process on the corporate culture level. The perspective of change through dialogue is proposed as a means of innovating the curriculum and the primary processes of student education. This organizational change perspective is demonstrated by describing how (ethical) reflective aspects are integrated in the curriculum of the Free University of Amsterdam. An additional case study on organizational value learning is presented to illustrate the thesis that CSR presupposes that university is an adequate context where life-long learning begins. (shrink)

This study examines how individual members of the public make moral sense of the potentially conflicting “economic problem” or “public health problem” representations of the COVID-19 crisis when judging responsible business behavior. The data are based on a qualitative survey involving a thought experiment with 119 participants in the United States conducted at the initial stage of the pandemic. This article proposes a typology matrix using the theories of cognitive polyphasia and cognitive dissonance to understand better individual moral sensemaking of (...) responsible business behavior in the context of a societal paradox in which there are contradictory and interdependent demands between important social objectives. The typology, referred to as the 4R Model of Moral Sensemaking of Competing Social Problems, provides insights for how companies may be perceived when responding to competing social problems, expanding the micro-CSR (corporate social responsibility) and paradox literatures. (shrink)

The recent success in generating live offspring from embryonic stem cell –derived gametes in mice sparked visions of growing tailor-made sperm for men faced with infertility. However, although this development will almost certainly lead to new insights into the processes underlying spermatogenesis and thus in the possible causes of male infertility, it is less certain if deriving sperm from ES cells, which are in turn derived from a sterile man, can make someone a genetic parent. As the gap between newly (...) envisioned reproductive technologies and natural reproduction widens, the question thus needs to be asked if these possible therapies still lead to genetic parenthood. (shrink)

“The discipline of theological bioethics is in trouble.” So wrote Charles Camosy in November 2014, claiming that “Today’s centers of power in academic and clinical bioethics (at least in the develo...

Global Corporate Citizenship (GCC) continues to become increasingly popular in large corporations. However, this concept has rarely been considered in small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). A case study of a Norwegian clothing company illustrates how GCC can be also applied to small companies. This case study also shows that SMEs can be very innovative in exercising corporate citizenship, without necessarily following the patterns of large multinational companies. The company studied engages as partner in some voluntary labor initiatives promoted by (...) the government, employs people in marginal situations, and exerts influence for the adoption of good working conditions in its supply chain. Environmental issues and actions of solidarity are also considered within a global scope. Ethics of care and concern for specific aspects of the common good seem crucial as GCC drivers in this company, as do personal values, character, and leadership of the owner-manager of the firm. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a version of theory theory, so-called model theory, according to which theories are families of models, which represent real-world phenomena when combined with relevant hypotheses, best interpreted in terms of know-how. This form of theory theory has a number of advantages over traditional forms, and is not subject to some recent charges coming from narrativity theory. Most importantly, practice is central to model theory. Practice matters because folk psychological knowledge is knowledge of the world only (...) if it is combined with knowledge of how to apply it. By combining the general and the particular in this way, model theory gives a deep and explanatorily satisfactory account of the centrality of practice. Model theory accounts not just as well as, but better than, narrativity theory for the fact that our folk psychological explanations appear to contain, or form part of, narratives. (shrink)

Although analogical reasoning has long been a popular method of reasoning in bioethics, current literature does not sufficiently grasp its variety. We assert that the main shortcoming is the fact that an analogy's value is often judged on the extent of similarity between the source situation and the target situation, while in (bio)ethics, analogies are often used because of certain dissimilarities rather than in spite of them. We make a clear distinction between dissimilarities that aim to reinforce a similar approach (...) in the source situation and the target situation and dissimilarities that aim to undermine or denounce a similar approach. The former kind of dissimilarity offers the analogy more normative force than if there were no dissimilarities present; this is often overlooked by authors who regard all relevant dissimilarities as detrimental to the analogy's strength. Another observation is that an evaluation of the normative force of an analogy cannot be made independently of moral principles or theories. Without these, one cannot select which elements in an analogy are morally relevant nor determine how they should be interpreted. (shrink)