By the end of April 1923, Paul Tillich’s Das System der Wissenschaften nach Gegenständen und Methoden (1981: The System of the Sciences according to Objects and Methods) was published by the German publishing house Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in Göttingen. Based on numerous source documents from the publishers’ archives and particularly on the correspondence between the publishers Wilhelm and Gustav Ruprecht, hitherto unknown but now edited and commented on here, the present article explains that Tillich wrote his System of the Sciences (...) primarily for the publisher. It was Emanuel Hirsch who established the connection between them as the publishing house was looking for a new editor for their popular series Wege zur Philosophie (Ways to Philosophy), published since 1911. After Hirsch having brought Tillich into play, Wilhelm Ruprecht could convince the Berlin “Privatdozenten” to become the new editor of the series. As to the series, Tillich unfolded the concept of a comprehensive system design which covered 65 topics, i. e. forthcoming volumes. When the publisher then demanded that Tillich prove his abilities to write comprehensively in common language by providing a sample of a first issue of the series, he began to work on his System der Wissenschaften. Although this text contained all sorts of ideas and concepts, it was certainly not very well suited as an introduction to a series of popular accounts of the central themes and matters of philosophy. In the end, the System was published, although not as a volume of the series as having been announced by the publishing house in 1922, but as a text in its own right. (shrink)

Die University of Tokyo hatte mich zu einem Vortrag über die im Rahmen der Kritischen Gesamtausgabe als Band 9 (in drei Teilbänden) erscheinende Neuausgabe von Ernst Troeltschs “Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen” eingeladen. Das mir vorgegebene Thema lautete: “The Significance of Troeltsch’s Soziallehren for the Present”’. Im ersten Teil skizziere ich die Genese von Troeltschs christentumshistorischem Hauptwerk. Im zweiten Teil geht es um die zentralen Themen seines “Lieblingsbuches”. Im dritten Teil werden einige seiner handschriftlichen Zusätze und Marginalien kurz vorgestellt, (...) die die 2020 erscheinende Kritische Ausgabe der “Soziallehren” erstmals zugänglich macht. Abschließend entfalte ich eine Antwort auf die Frage, warum es sich auch heute noch lohnt, Ernst Troeltsch zu lesen. (shrink)

In June 1947 Paul Tillich signed a contract with The University of Chicago Press for a “Systematic Theology” in two volumes. Having published the first volume in April 1951, he asked the publisher to split the second volume into two parts, which were published in 1957 as volume II and 1963 as volume III. In this article the different editions of “Systematic Theology” are described, and the economic aspects of writing and publishing this very influential academic book are explained. Many (...) unknown sources are presented. Some of them show Tillich as an author in real despair. (shrink)

When shared decision making breaks down and parents and medical providers have developed entrenched and conflicting views, ethical frameworks are needed to find a way forward. This article reviews the evolution of thought about the best interest standard and then discusses the advantages of the harm principle (HP) and the zone of parental discretion (ZPD). Applying these frameworks to parental refusals in situations of complexity and uncertainty presents challenges that necessitate concrete substeps to analyze the big picture and identify key (...) questions. I outline and defend a new decision-making tool that includes three parts: identifying the nature of the disagreement, checklists for key elements of the HP and ZPD, and a “think list” of specific questions designed to enhance use of the HP and ZPD in clinical decision making. These tools together will assist those embroiled in complex disagreements to disentangle the issues to find a path to resolution. (shrink)

This paper examines the impact of integrated reporting on the integration of environmental, social, and governance issues into the business model and the related economic and ESG performance changes. To investigate these internal and external transformational effects of IR, important differences between IR and alternative ESG reporting strategies are worked out. Using three matched samples of companies from around the world for the sample period 2002–2011, IR companies are matched with companies applying no ESG reporting, stand-alone ESG reporting, or ESG (...) reporting in the annual report. The results suggest that IR is a superior mechanism only for the integration of ESG issues into the core business model when comparing IR with the ESG reporting strategies of no ESG reporting and ESG reporting in annual reports. In comparison with, stand-alone ESG reporting, the results indicate that IR is negatively associated with the ESG integration level and with the economic and ESG performance. Moreover, this negative impact is lower for companies that have already implemented ESG management tools prior to the initiation of IR and is stronger for companies residing in countries with legal requirements for the disclosure of ESG information. A separate change analysis reveals that companies do not benefit from a switch from stand-alone ESG reporting to IR. Thus, this paper provides empirical evidence that contradicts the general notion of IR as a superior reporting mechanism, as the benefits of IR are driven by several factors. (shrink)

The dominant theory of elite power, grounded in Weberian bureaucracy, has analyzed elites in terms of stable positions at the top of enduring institutions. Today, many conditions that spawned these stable ‘command posts’ no longer prevail, and elite power thus warrants rethinking. This article advances an argument about contemporary ‘influence elites’. The way they are organized and the modus operandi they employ to wield influence enable them to evade public accountability, a hallmark of a democratic society. Three cases are presented, (...) first to investigate changes in how elites operate and, second, to examine varying configurations in which the new elites are organized. The cases demonstrate that influence elites intermesh hierarchies and networks, serve as connectors, and coordinate influence from multiple, moving perches, inside and outside official structures. Their flexible and multi-positioned organizing modes call for reconsidering elite theory and grappling with the implications of these elites for democratic society. (shrink)

Reports of children participating in hunger strikes while detained in offshore detention centres raise interrelated ethical issues and recognizable challenges for the medical decision-makers at these sites. A composite case study, informed by reports in the public domain, is employed to explore the unique challenges of consent and decision-making in these circumstances and the perennial issues inherent in adolescents’ developing capacity and autonomy. We present an amalgamated case of a fourteen-year-old adolescent who refused to consent to medical reversal of her (...) hunger strike protest. The medical team became the final arbiter when her parents, who were also in detention, could not agree with each other even after mediation. The case explores the complexity of evaluating the adolescent’s capacity to provide informed consent while influenced by the opinions of co-detainees in this extreme setting. We argue that the parents and the child had compromised decisional capacity due to the effects of detention. The challenges to the medical team are recognized and discussed. The team members faced a difficult dilemma and considered the competing values of the multiple cultural and ethical factors. Each team member integrated his or her own roles, duties, and discipline-specific professional guidelines with the primary goal of mitigating potential harms. (shrink)

This article examines the Canadian case, focusing on the ways in which the political rationalities that have informed the Canadian variants of post-war social liberalism and neoliberalism have opened and then closed spaces for the articulation and institutionalization of gender-based equality claims-making. The article recounts how the Canadian welfare state underwrote a unique gender equality infrastructure inside the state and a thick field of gender organizations in civil society and later how this potent political and symbolic node of social liberalism (...) became a critical field of contestation for those promoting neoliberal political rationalities. The article describes a protracted war of position in which the gendered politics and identities of the 20th century have been displaced and marginalized, but not fully consumed by neoliberal idioms, representations and policy interventions. (shrink)

Action-based legal theory is a discrete branch of praxeology and the basis of an emerging school of jurisprudence related to, but distinct from, natural law. Legal theory and economic theory share content that is part of praxeology itself: the action axiom, the a priori of argumentation, universalizable property theory, and counterfactual-deductive methodology. Praxeological property-norm justification is separate from the strictly ethical “ought” question of selecting ends in an action context. Examples of action-based jurisprudence are found in existing “Austro-libertarian” literature. Legal (...) theory and legal practice must remain distinct and work closely together if justice is to be found in real cases. Legal theorizing was shaped in religious ethical contexts, which contributed to confused field boundaries between law and ethics. The carrot and stick influence of rulers on theorists has distorted conventional economics and jurisprudence in particular directions over the course of centuries. An action-based approach is relatively immune to such sources of distortion in its methods and conclusions, but has tended historically to be marginalized from conventional institutions for this same reason. (shrink)

The title of Renaud Gagné’s book hides as much as it reveals. Hyperborea, R.G.’s name for the country of the Hyperboreans, is attested in a wide variety of ancient texts on those fascinating and enigmatic people of the farthest North, of which the A. proposes a “slow reading”: this reading is also a test case in which he tries out his “anthropological philology”. “Philology” might seem too narrow a term, since R.G. does not only look at the texts that talk (...) about the Hyperboreans from Hesiod t... (shrink)

Somewhat in contrast to their proposal of two separate somatosensory streams, Dijkerman & de Haan (D&dH) propose that tactile recognition involves active manual exploration, and therefore involves parietal cortex. I argue that interactions from perception for action to object recognition can be found also in vision. Furthermore, there is evidence that perception for action and perception for recognition rely on similar processing principles.

This paper argues that the idea of inclusion is linked to the democratic tradition rather than to the republican one. By analyzing the origins and meaning of these two concepts, the author holds that democracy is rather linked to desire and republic to will (and to the expression of desire), and concludes that, since North Atlantic political tradition has not given a key role to desire, democracy, in order to overcome the difficulties it has been encountering in all parts of (...) the world, should take more account of desire and of the social struggles it brings to the fore. (shrink)

Professional providers of mental health services are motivated to help people, including, or especially, vulnerable people. We analyse the ethical implications of mental health providers accepting employment at detention centres that operate out of the normal regulatory structure of the modern state. Specifically, we examine tensions and moral harms experienced by providers at the Australian immigration detention centre on the island of Nauru. Australia has adopted indefinite offshore detention for asylum-seekers arriving by boat as part of a deterrence strategy that (...) relies on making detainment conditions harsh. This has known deleterious mental health effects. As a token to fiduciary care obligations, Australia employs mental health professionals to work on Nauru. These providers are often motivated to make a positive difference for detainees’ lives. We examine the overall impact of the providers’ work with detainees and the implications of their presence. The strongest evidence supports that the small mitigation of harms offered by these providers does not outweigh the harms of supporting a system designed to perpetuate human suffering. For mental health professionals considering working in offshore detention, we offer specific topics to scrutinise and weigh prior to employment. Because optimising detainee’s mental health is beyond the capacity of individual providers, we call for the organisations standardising and supporting mental health professionals to oppose employment of their associates in offshore detention. Lessons from this case study are generalisable to other jurisdictions to help inform organisations that licence and support mental health providers and individual providers considering work in similar settings. (shrink)

In the wake of the most recent financial crisis, corporations have been criticized as being self-interested and unmindful of their relationship to society. Indeed, the blame is sometimes placed on the corporate legal form, which can exacerbate the tension between duties to shareholders and interests of stakeholders. In comparison, the Benefit Corporation (BC) is a new legal business entity that is obligated to pursue public benefit in addition to the responsibility to return profits to shareholders. It is legally a for-profit, (...) socially obligated, corporate form of business, with all the traditional corporate characteristics combined with societal responsibilities. Considering the history and perception of shareholder primacy in United States law, it is argued that this new business structure is an ethical step toward empowering socially committed commercial entities. The contribution of this research is to provide a fundamental base of knowledge about the new legal form of business, the BC, upon which further study may rely. First, the legal history of the corporation is briefly reviewed in order to provide context to the relationship of the corporate form to society, including exploration of the premise that shareholder wealth maximization is its best and only purpose. Second, the BC is described in detail, and state statutes are compared. Third, the BC is placed within the context of corporate social responsibility. Finally, opportunities for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Within collective epistemology, there is a class of theories that understand the epistemic status of collective attitude ascriptions, such as ‘the college union knows that the industrial action is going to plan’, or ‘the jury justifiedly believes that the suspect is guilty’, as saying that a sufficient subset of group member attitudes have the relevant epistemic status. In this paper, I will demonstrate that these summativist approaches to collective epistemology are incompatible with epistemic permissivism, the doctrine that a single body (...) of evidence may rationalize multiple doxastic attitudes. In particular, I will make use of epistemic permissivism to provide a general recipe for generating so-called divergence cases, which demonstrate situations in which rationality requires group-level and member-level attitudes to diverge. I will call this class of cases permissive divergence cases. While other divergence cases have been discussed in the literature, permissive divergence cases prove themselves to be less susceptible to many of the worries raised against their competitors, while being directly built on an often-defended epistemological thesis. (shrink)

This thesis is an investigation into the nature of epistemic justification. It brings together themes from traditional, individual-centred epistemology, and collective, group-centred epistemology. The first half of the thesis is concerned with the question of whether rationality is epistemically permissive; that is, whether one body of evidence can rationalise more than one doxastic attitude. In chapter 1, I argue that permissive cases are best understood as epistemic standard conflicts. Doing so provides us with a novel understanding of the arbitrariness objection (...) against permissivism and enables us to reduce questions about epistemic permissibility to questions about the nature of incommensurability. In chapter 2, I show that the defended understanding of permissive cases generalises by defending it against an objection from self-fulfilling beliefs. In chapter 3, I demonstrate that we can use this view of epistemic rationality to generate so-called divergence arguments which show that the epistemic status of group-level attitudes and member-level attitudes can rationally diverge. In the second half of the thesis, I develop a novel evidentialist theory of epistemic justification, called Continuous Evidentialism. Continuous Evidentialism is inspired by some general methodological reflections (chapter 4), which suggest that we should opt for a theory of epistemic justification that analyses the epistemic status of group-level attitudes and member-level attitudes continuously. According to Continuous Evidentialism, to have a justified belief is to possess sufficient evidence and utilise that evidence in an epistemically responsible way when forming the belief. While I argue that we can reduce epistemic responsibility to higher-order evidentialist requirements. In chapter 5, I develop a theory of evidence, evidence possession and epistemic basing. Chapters 6 - 8, discuss various complications of the proposed theory, having to do with the alleged defeasibility of justification (chapter 6), epistemic responsibility (chapter 7), and the proposed reduction of epistemic responsibility (chapter 8). In chapter 9, I compare Continuous Evidentialism to various extant accounts. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to think through paranoia’s epistemic and affective features, which pervade both the worldview presented in Senecan tragedy and the inner life of many of its protagonists. Drawing upon recent literary-critical work, I argue that paranoia is temporally and epistemically ambivalent: subjects simultaneously attempt to “get ahead” of a looming cataclysm—looking to the future in an attempt to avert disaster—while inevitably “falling behind,” failing to predict or preempt the future in time to protect themselves. Much of (...) Senecan tragedy plays out paranoia’s future-oriented vigilance on the formal level. Foreshadowing, allusions, and meta-literary flourishes serve to render both readers and characters hyperaware of the earth-shattering horrors to come; however, in doing so, they also reveal that this forward-oriented bracing only serves to dredge up negative affect in advance. By contrast, I argue that Seneca’s Phoenissae thematizes in the character of Oedipus not only paranoia’s future-looking vigilance but also its inherent lagging, the failure to know and act in advance. These elements of slowness, stuckness, and delay open a space for stillness, relief, and intimacy, even within a narrative which hurtles toward cataclysm. (shrink)

Any worlds semantics for intentionality has to provide a plenitudinous theory of impossibility: For any impossible proposition, it should provide a world where it is true. Hence, also any semantics for impossibility statements that extends Lewis’s concretism about possible worlds should be plenitudinous. However, several such proposals for impossibilist semantics fail to accommodate two kinds of impossibility that, albeit not unheard of, have been largely neglected in the literature on impossible worlds, but that are bound to arise in the Lewisian (...) context. The proposals discussed here stop short of plenitude because they adhere to what Lewis occasionally referred to as ‘ontological truth’, as they lack the semantic ability to misrepresent ontological facts. The paper develops a framework for systematic misrepresentations on the basis of Mares’s situation-based account of impossible ‘worlds’, and which confines ‘ontological truth’ to possibility. It thus illustrates how a plenitude of impossibilities can be achieved. (shrink)

This article unfolds in three stages. First, it locates the emergence of modern conceptions of social justice in industrializing Europe, and especially in the discovery of the “social,” which provided a particular idiom for the liberal democratic politics for most of the twentieth century. Second, the article links this particular conception of the social to the political rationalities of the postwar welfare state and the identity of the social citizen. Finally, the article discusses the myriad ways in which this legacy (...) of the social and social justice has been disrupted, although not yet fully displaced, by the economic orthodoxies and individualization that inform the contemporary neoliberal governing project in Canada. The result, the article concludes, has been the institutionalization of insecurity, which demands the renewal of a social way of seeing and a politics of social justice on local and global scales. (shrink)

This paper examines whether and to what extent the overall business strategy influences the firm’s mismanagement of sustainability. Specifically, an empirical measure for the mismanagement of sustainability is developed by exploiting the newly available materiality guidelines for US firms to define industry-specific material sustainability issues. Using this measure, this paper shows that mismanagement of sustainability can represent unethical business behavior when firms intentionally perform better on immaterial issues than on material issues by diverting stakeholders’ attention from the firm’s low overall (...) sustainability performance. This paper assumes that the right business strategy can prevent such unethical actions. Based on Miles and Snow’s organizational theory, this paper distinguishes between Prospector and Defender business strategies. By employing multiple firm-level panel regressions, the findings suggest that Prospector-type firms are more likely to mismanage sustainability issues compared to Defender-type firms intentionally. The results give implications for researchers, regulators and standard setters, auditors, sustainability practitioners, and scholars. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungKreuzfahrtschiffe zählen gegenwärtig zu den beliebtesten und zugleich umstrittensten Verkehrsmitteln. Das überdimensionale Schiff vor der Kulisse des historischen Zentrums von Venedig wurde zu einem ikonischen Bild. Der Artikel beleuchtet den Hintergrund dieser Debatte und untersucht die Verräumlichung der Kreuzfahrtindustrie durch Infrastrukturen und ihre Auswirkungen auf Venedig und die Lagune aus kulturanalytischer Sicht, und nimmt die Schnittmenge von kulturwissenschaftlicher Technikforschung und Technikgeschichte, kulturwissenschaftlicher Stadtforschung und der Analyse sozialer Bewegungen in den Blick.In meinem Beitrag zeichne ich die Entwicklung dieser Zusammenhänge nach und (...) zeige, wie Aktivist:innen, Vereine und engagierte Bürger:innen diese Verflechtungen aufgreifen und performen. Der Protest machte das Schiff zu einem wirkmächtigen Symbol für die infrastrukturelle Aneignung und Umgestaltung natürlicher und städtischer Räume. Da Transport- und Verkehrswege stets den Alltag der Menschen beeinflussen, gilt es, ihre Auswirkungen auf Praktiken, Räume und Beziehungen zu berücksichtigen, besonders in einer Stadt wie Venedig, wo Fuß- und Wasserwege stark zur Identität der Stadt und ihrer Bewohner:innen beitragen. Durch die Aktionen, das implizite Wissen über lokale Räume und das explizite Wissen, das das Protestnetzwerk produziert, widersetzt es sich hegemonialen Diskursen und trägt zugleich zu diesen bei. Ich argumentiere, dass das Schiff zu einer Metapher des globalen Kapitalismus wurde und daher als Symbol mit transnationaler Wirkung fungiert. (shrink)

Ayahuasca is a psychoactive beverage that is mostly used in ritualized settings (Santo Daime rituals, neo-shamanic rituals, and even do-it-yourself-rituals). It is a common practice in the investigated socio-cultural field to call these settings “healing rituals.” For this study, 15 people who underwent ayahuasca (self-)therapy for a particular disease like chronic pain, cancer, asthma, depression, alcohol abuse, or Hepatitis C were interviewed twice about their subjective concepts and beliefs on ayahuasca and healing. Qualitative data analysis revealed a variety of motivational (...) patterns, subjective effects, and user types. Most participants were convinced that ayahuasca had influenced their illness positively or improved their coping with their illness. More importantly, it had enhanced their well being in general. As a result, we concluded that the effects of ayahuasca should not be reduced to a pharmacological model. The substance should be conceptualized as a psychological catalyst that unfolds within different fields of sociocultural ideas. (shrink)

PurposeMedical assistance in dying (MAiD) in Canada places the medical provider at the centre of the process. The MAiD provider holds primary responsibility for determining eligibility and becomes acquainted with patients’ inner desires and expressions of suffering. This is followed by the MAiD procedure of administering the lethal agent and being present at the death of eligible patients. We report participants’ perceptions of the emotional and moral impacts of this role.MethodologyTwo years after MAiD was legalised in Canada, 22 early-adopting physician (...) providers were interviewed. Data were examined using both phenomenological analysis and a novel ChatGPT-enhanced analysis of an anonymised subset of interview excerpts.FindingsParticipants described MAiD as emotionally provocative with both challenges and rewards. Providers expressed a positive moral impact when helping to optimise a patient’s autonomy and moral comfort with their role in relieving suffering. Providers experienced tensions around professional duty and balancing self with service to others. Personal choice and patient gratitude enhanced the provider experience, while uncertainty and conflict added difficulty.ConclusionsParticipants described MAiD provision as strongly aligned with a patient-centred ethos of practice. This study suggests that, despite challenges, providing MAiD can be a meaningful and satisfying practice for physicians. Understanding the emotional and moral impact and factors that enhance or detract from the providers’ experience allows future stakeholders to design and regulate assisted dying in ways congruent with the interests of patients, providers, families and society. (shrink)

Stories of young children who make up exaggerated stories provide questions for a discussion about lying.

Victim compensation now plays a central role in dealing with harm. It can be brought into play by various devices: private or social insurance, the courts or special funds created for specific disasters. With each device, compensation raises complex evaluation issues: is it appropriate to use financial compensation to repair harm? Who should pay and on what basis should the compensation be awarded? What is the nature of the damage? How to evaluate it and how to value the amount of (...) compensation determined? These questions are the subject of intense work of evaluation by both those who create or implement the compensation devices and by those who use them. This article looks more specifically at this work of evaluation by people who have endured a collective disaster and who have had to deal with the devices designed to compensate them. (shrink)

Dieses letzte große Buch Troeltschs entstand in einem komplizierten Arbeitsprozess zwischen 1915 und 1922 und gilt als der zentrale Text im geschichtsphilosophischen Diskurs der 20er Jahre. Der gefeierte Berliner Kulturphilosoph verarbeitete hier die traumatischen Erfahrungen des Ersten Weltkriegs und suchte durch sein Konzept der „europäischen Kultursynthese“ ethische Potentiale europäischer Integration und die Aussöhnung der Deutschen mit der westlichen Demokratie zu fundieren. Dazu verarbeitete er weit über 1000 Titel aus dem zeitgenössischen geschichtsphilosophischen Diskurs. Diese erste kritische Edition des Textes bietet neben (...) allen Entwicklungsstufen erstmals auch eine präzise Dokumentation der reichen Diskussionslage. (shrink)

Einleitung -- I. Teil : Theorie. Verwandlung des Klaviertons ; Die Entdeckung der Objektivität der Musik ; Die Vergegenwärtigung der dynamischen Ordnung der Musik ; Handwerk und Kunst--Meisterschaft und Inspiration des Augenblicks--Verwesentlichung und Individualisierung -- II. Teil : Praxis. Übergang : Erkenntnis im Vollzug ; Sechs Grundmaximen für die Arbiet am Klavier ; Zwölf praktische Übungen zur fortschreitenden Erschliessung der musikalischen Dynamik in ihrer Vielschichtigkeit ; Supplement : Wilde Jagd--eine zusammengesetzte Zusatzübung für Fortgeschrittene -- Schlussbetrachtung.

An anthology that provides new translations and makes available much of the relevant historical literature needed for an exploration of the view that morality is very literally created by God. Contains 41 selections representing discussions of divine command morality in Ancient philosophy, scholastic philosophical theology, the Reformation tradition, the British modern period, and contemporary analytic philosophy. This book includes a bibliography of Latin, French, English, German, and Italian sources on divine command morality.