Combat deployments put health care providers in ethically compromising and morally challenging situations. A sample of recently deployed nurses and physicians provided narratives that were analyzed to better appreciate individual perceptions of moral dilemmas that arise in combat. Specific questions to be answered by this inquiry are: 1) How do combat deployed nurses and physicians make sense of morally injurious traumatic exposures? and 2) What are the possible psychosocial consequences of these and other deployment stressors? This narrative inquiry involves analysis (...) of ten deployed military nurses’ and physicians’ aversive or traumatic experiences. Burke’s dramatist pentad is used for structural narrative analysis of stories that confirm and illuminate the impact of war zone events such as betrayal, disproportionate violence, incidents involving civilians, and within-rank violence on military health care provider narrators. Results indicate cognitive dissonance and psychosocial sequelae related to moral and psychological stressors faced by military medical personnel. Discussion addresses where healing efforts should be focused. (shrink)

The received model of degrees of belief represents them as probabilities. Over the last half century, many philosophers have been convinced that this model fails because it cannot make room for the idea that an agent’s degrees of belief should respect the available evidence. In its place they have advocated a model that represents degrees of belief using imprecise probabilities (sets of probability functions). This paper presents a model of degrees of belief based on Dempster–Shafer belief functions and then (...) presents arguments for belief functions over imprecise probabilities as a model of evidence-respecting degrees of belief. The arguments cover three kinds of issue: theoretical virtues (simplicity, interpretability and flexibility); motivations; and problem cases (dilation and belief inertia). (shrink)

The degrees of belief of rational agents should be guided by the evidence available to them. This paper takes as a starting point the view—argued elsewhere—that the formal model best able to capture this idea is one that represents degrees of belief using Dempster–Shafer belief functions. However degrees of belief should not only respect evidence: they also guide decision and action. Whatever formal model of degrees of belief we adopt, we need a decision theory that works with it: that (...) takes as input degrees of belief so represented. The task of this paper is to develop such a decision theory for the belief function model of degrees of belief. This is not the first paper to attempt that task, but compared to the existing literature it takes a more abstract route to its destination, via a consideration of the very idea of rational decision making in light of one’s beliefs and desires. After presenting the new decision theory and comparing it to existing views, the paper goes on to consider diachronic decision situations. (shrink)

Introduction -- Value theory : the nature of the good life -- Epicurus letter to Menoeceus -- John Stuart Mill, Hedonism -- Aldous Huxley, Brave new world -- Robert Nozick, The experience machine -- Richard Taylor, The meaning of life -- Jean Kazez, Necessities -- Normative ethics : theories of right conduct -- J.J.C. Smart, Eextreme and restricted utilitarianism -- Immanuel Kant the good will & the categorical imperative -- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan -- Philippa Foot, Natural goodness -- Aristotle, Nicomachean (...) ethics -- W.D. Ross, What makes right acts right? -- Hilde Lindemann, What is feminist ethics? -- Metaethics : the status of morality -- David Hume, Moral distinctions not derived from reason -- J.L. Mackie, The subjectivity of values -- Gilbert Harman, Ethics and observation -- Mary Midgley, Trying out one's new sword -- Michael Smith, Rrealism -- Renford Bambrough, Pproof -- Moral problems -- Peter Singe, The Singer solution to world poverty -- Heidi Malm, Paid surrogacy: arguments and responses -- Ronald Dworkin, Playing God : genes, clones, and luck -- James Rachels, The morality of euthanasia -- John Harris, The survival lottery -- Peter Singer, Unsanctifying human life -- William F. Baxter, People or penguins : the case for optimal pollution -- Judith Jarvis, Tthomson a defense of abortion -- Don Marquis, Why abortion is immoral -- Jonathan Bennett, The conscience of Huckleberry Finn -- Michael Walzer, Terrorism : a critique of excuses -- David Luban, Liberalism, torture, and the ticking bomb -- Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham City Jail -- Igor Primoratz, Justifying legal punishment -- Stephen Nathanson, An eye for an eye -- Michael Huemer, America's unjust drug war -- John Corvino, Why shouldn't Tommy and Jimmy have sex? : a defense of homosexuality -- Bonnie Steinbock, Adultery -- Hugh Lafollette, Licensing parents -- Jane English, What do grown children owe their parents? (shrink)

Choquet expected utility substitutes capacities for subjective probabilities to explain uncertainty aversion and related phenomena. This paper studies capacities as models of belief. The notions of inner and outer acceptance context are defined. These are shown to be the natural acceptance contexts when belief expansion is described by naïve Bayesian and Dempster–Shafer updating of capacities respectively. We also show that Eichberger and Kelsey's use of Dempster–Shafer updating as a model of belief revision may lead to violations of the (...) AGM axioms for rational belief change. (shrink)

This paper studies general numerical networks with support and attack. Our starting point is argumentation networks with the Caminada labelling of three values 1=in, 0=out and ½=undecided. This is generalised to arbitrary values in [01], which enables us to compare with other numerical networks such as predator–prey ecological networks, flow networks, logical modal networks and more. This new point of view allows us to see the place of argumentation networks in the overall landscape of networks and import and export ideas (...) to and from argumentation networks. We make a special effort to make clear how general concepts in general networks relate to the special case of argumentation networks. We pay special attention to the handling of loops and to the special features of numerical support. We find surprising connections with the Dempster–Shafer rule and with the cross-ratio in projective geometry. This paper is an expansion of our 2005 paper and so we also consider higher level features such as numerical attacks on attacks, and propagation of numerical values.We conclude with a brief view of temporal numerical argumentation and with a detailed comparison with related papers published since 2005. (shrink)

This study proposes and tests a model of the relations among corporate accountants’ perceptions of the ethical climate in their organization, the perceived importance of corporate ethics and social responsibility, and earnings management decisions. Based on a field survey of professional accountants employed by private industry in Hong Kong, we found that perceptions of the organizational ethical climate were significantly associated with belief in the importance of corporate ethics and responsibility. Belief in the importance of ethics and social responsibility was (...) also significantly associated with accountants’ ethical judgments and behavioral intentions regarding accounting and operating earnings manipulation. These findings suggest that perceptions of ethical climate, usually presumed to reflect the “tone at the top” in the organization, lead accounting professionals to rationalize earnings management decisions by adjusting their attitudes toward the importance of corporate ethics and social responsibility. This is the first study to document a relationship between organizational ethical climate and professional accountants’ support for corporate ethics and social responsibility, and also the first study to document that industry accountants’ views toward corporate ethics and social responsibility are associated with their willingness to manipulate earnings. The findings have important implications, suggesting that organizational efforts to enhance the ethical climate and emphasize the importance of corporate ethics and social responsibility could reduce the prevalence of earnings manipulation. (shrink)

We develop an exact truthmaker semantics for permission and obligation. The idea is that with every singular act, we associate a sphere of permissions and a sphere of requirements: the acts that are rendered permissible and the acts that are rendered required by the act. We propose the following clauses for permissions and obligations: -/- - a singular act is an exact truthmaker of Pφ iff every exact truthmaker of φ is in the sphere of permissibility of the act, and (...) -/- - a singular act is an exact truthmaker of Oφ iff some exact truthmaker of φ is in the sphere of requirements of the act. -/- We show that this semantics is hyperintensional, and that it can deal with some of the so-called paradoxes of deontic logic in a natural way. Finally, we give a sound and complete axiomatization of the semantics. (shrink)

This article revisits the manuscript tradition and the different redactions of John Buridan’s commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics. The aim of the article is threefold. First, it makes some corrections to the lists of manuscripts containing the third redaction and the final redaction of Buridan’s questions commentary on the Physics. Second, it argues that manuscript Zaragoza, Biblioteca Capitular de la Seo, cod. 15-61, ff. 1r-62v, contains a previously unknown version of the final redaction (together with the standard version from f. 62v (...) onwards). Third, to facilitate further study of the manuscripts of Buridan’s questions on the Physics and their mutual relations, appendices at the end of the article provide detailed tables of contents for the third redaction and the final redaction, as well as editions of selected questions from the Zaragoza manuscript, the third redaction of Buridan’s questions on the Physics, and the so-called Quaestiones breves. (shrink)

Oxford Studies in Metaethics is the only publication devoted exclusively to original philosophical work in the foundations of ethics. It provides an annual selection of much of the best new scholarship being done in the field.

1. L'aspect le plus important du toucher est sa relation au temps et à l'étendue, relation constituée par le mouvement même du toucher. En référence aux conceptions de E. Straus, on expose la distinction entre le toucher et l'être-touché à la lumière d'expériences faites par nous avec des animaux. 2. Le toucher est un être-dans-les-limites-propres et en même temps un franchissement de ces limites, être par lequel l'objet touché est éprouvé à la fois comme „Gegenstand” et comme „Mitseiend”. „Pour le (...) tactile, c'est l'être à deux qui se place au premier rang.” L'affirmation de l'être par le sens du toucher est saisissante dans le cas du se-touchersoi-même, qui est une union exceptionnelle d'activité et de passivité. 3. La reconnaissance tactile de la forme présente elle aussi une dialectique d'activité et de passivité, dialectique qui procède sous la forme d'un développement surmontant le temps, et cela à partir d'un schéma produit dans l'acte même de préhension. On renvoie aux études de V. von Weizsäcker sur le „Gestaltkreis”. Il faut se rappeler aussi l'inquiétude primaire de la main, qui dans le jeu de la main avec un objet devient perdurante. 4. La main peut enserrer un objet. En ce faisant une image schématique tactile est donnée, image qui fonctionne comme hypothèse ou comme principe organisateur du développement prolèptique de l'exploration tactile ultérieure. L'analyse phénoménologique du toucher avec la main se révèle comme une préfiguration de la pensée par jugements synthétiques. Il est donc vrai, comme le remarquait Herder et comme le confirmaient Goldstein et Merleau-Ponty, que la perception telle que l'homme l'effectue et l'existence spirituelle sont identiques. 5. En se référant aux recherches de Révèsz et de Palagyi, on analyse le caractère propre du monde tactil. L'exploration tactile procède selon un véritable développement, donnant lieu à des déterminations anticipatives et rétrospectives qui assurent la continuité de l'événement et de son sens. La perception tactile permet de décrire l'unité continue des phases discontinues objectivement constatables, „comme si” attente et souvenir, jugements provisoires et vérification, fixations conceptuelles et corrections étaient mises en œuvre. 6. Important est l'aspect affectif et émotif des impressions tactiles et leur rapport aux relations interhumaines. 7. Par le toucher l'homme se trouve d'une manière „sensible” en relation personnelle avec cette matérialité des choses qui demeure cachée aux sens-à-distance. Cette participation a un double aspect. Elle est comme le surgissement d'un „état d'âme”, une '‚Befindlichkeit”, mais en même temps elle est le point de départ actif d'un sentir, d'un „comprendre”, d'un „saisir par le dedans”, d'un être-ému, d'un être-frappé par l'objet touché qui se rend présent comme un „quale” propre, comme une matière, comme un être-en-soi. On rappelle le caractère propre du caresser, par lequel l'„être à deux” de l'objet caressé devient complémentaire avec celui du caressant actif. Les concepts usuels par le moyen desquels, dans la vie pratiquement et gnostiquement vécue, sont indiquées les qualités tactiles les plus importantes, ont comme but de nous référer aux propriétés des choses qui prennent place dans le monde géométrique et dans l'espace objectivement mesurable et qui fondent notre orientation naturelle. On rappelle les recherches de von Homborstel au sujet des propriétés internodales des impressions tactiles. Celles-ci nous montrent comment un „savoir” qui accompagne ta perception peut changer une impression sensible. La relation affective, déterminée par un „savoir” nuancé et par un système de valeurs, change la réalité tangible, la substantialité du corps, de la „chair”. Ce changement affectif de la matière, cette „transsubstantiation phénoménale” peut se réaliser facilement par rapport à des objets dont nous savons qu'ils appartiennent ou ont appartenu à quelqu'un. La signification qu'a une chose change la matière de l'objet, objet qui, précisément par le toucher, se rend présent „en chair et en os”. On illustre ceci avec plus de précision grâce aux phénomènes du fétichisme et grâce à de simples expériences de la vie courante. Si nous cherchons un point de vue anthropologique à partir duquel le toucher, dont la main réalise les possibilités, peut prendre un sens, une approche d'un tel point de vue devra s'effectuer à partir de la certitude non-représentable que l'unité ontique de la nature et de l'esprit est dans l'homme la réalité d'une participation possible, participation qui, dans notre existence, n'est qu'indiquée. L'„inquiétude” de la main jamais remplie et toujours chercheuse que nous avons remarquée, est le signe humain de notre existence concrète. Ainsi le toucher nous montre ce que Valéry remarquait à propos de l'esprit : „L'esprit est à la merci du corps, comme les aveugles sont à la merci des voyants.”. (shrink)

Bringing together specialists in various fields, this volume shows that the transformation from the scholastic to more empirical approaches to psychology was a gradual process.