Recent incidences of fraud and the growing globalization of business have focused attention on the effect of culture on ethical decision making within organizations. Because fraud can be extremely costly and is more likely to be committed by employees than persons external to the organization, employees willing to report un-ethical acts are an important supplemental control tool. The current study provides evidence of the effects of culture (Canadian and Chinese) and the type of reporting (whistle-blowing and peer reporting) on reporting (...) unethical acts within organizations. Chinese and Canadian participants were asked to respond to scenarios describing unethical acts committed within organizations. Results indicate that Chinese are more likely to report the unethical acts of peers than Canadians. Chinese also appear more likely to report the unethical acts of peers than supervisors. The results also suggest that Graham’s model of principled organizational dissent may not be applicable to Chinese and perhaps other non-Western cultures. (shrink)

In this book, Seumas Miller examines the moral foundations of contemporary social institutions. Offering an original general theory of social institutions, he posits that all social institutions exist to realize various collective ends, indeed, to produce collective goods. He analyses key concepts such as collective responsibility and institutional corruption. Miller also provides distinctive special theories of particular institutions, including governments, welfare agencies, universities, police organizations, business corporations, and communications and information technology entities. These theories are philosophical and, thus, (...) foundational and synoptic in character. They are normative accounts of a sampling of contemporary social institutions, not descriptive accounts of all social institutions, both past and present. Miller also addresses various ethical challenges confronting contemporary institutional designers and policymakers, including the renovation of the international financial system, the 'dumbing down' of the media, the challenge of world poverty, and human rights infringements by security agencies combating global terrorism. (shrink)

This is a pre- publication copy of an article that appeared in "Debating Design from Darwin to DNA," edited by Michael Ruse and William Dembski. Debating Design..

A central idea in moral and political philosophy, 'autonomy' is generally understood as some form of self-governance or self-direction. Certain Stoics, modern philosophers such as Spinoza, and most importantly, Immanuel Kant, are among the great philosophers who have offered important insights on the concept. Some theorists analyze autonomy in terms of the self being moved by its higher-order desires. Others argue that autonomy must be understood in terms of acting from reason or from a sense of moral duty independent of (...) the passions. Autonomy seems closely related to the notion of freedom, but in what sense: freedom from coercion, freedom from psychological constraints, or freedom from material necessity? Various approaches to these and similar questions yield different implications for public policy. Is capitalism, social democracy or socialism more favorable to autonomy? The essays in this volume address these important questions. (shrink)

Much of the literature in contemporary analytic metaethics has grown rather stale – the range of possible positions seems to have been exhaustively delineated, and most of the important arguments on all sides have been clearly articulated and evaluated. In order to advance discussion in this area, I examine more fundamental issues about the nature of agency. In my view, the heart of what it is to exhibit intentional agency in the world is to identify with the relevant components of (...) practical reasoning from the first person perspective. Chapter one attempts to arrive at sufficient conditions for desire identification by examining the structure of instrumental practical reasoning. But it turns out that this story about identification cannot be told until we first have available a separate account of norm identification. The best way of developing this latter account is by understanding the phenomenon of first person volitional impossibility. With the resources in hand from the first two chapters, we can articulate sufficient conditions in chapter three for desire, norm, and action identification, as well as critically evaluate rival hierarchical views. Finally, chapter four is devoted to a preliminary consideration of our sense of our own wills as free. (shrink)

This is a response paper to Daniel Russell's paper in the same volume. I raise some challenges to Russell's model of virtue acquisition which draws extensively on the CAPS model in psychology and on parallels between virtues and skills.

"The subject of this book is an extremely important one. The treatments are good, and the whole is considerably more than its parts. I strongly recommend it.

_Clinical Interaction and the Analysis of Meaning_ evinces a therapeutic vitality all too rare in works of theory. Rather than fleeing from the insights of other disciplines, Dorpat and Miller discover in recent research confirmation of the possibilities of psychoanalytic treatment. In Section I, "Critique of Classical Theory," Dorpat proposes a radical revision of the notion of primary process consonant with contemporary cognitive science. Such a revised conception not only enlarges our understanding of the analytic process; it also provides (...) analysis with a conceptual language that can articulate meaningful connections with a growing body of empirical research about the development and nature of human cognition. In Section II, "Interactional Theory," Miller reverses the direction of inquiry. He begins with the literature on cognitive development and functioning, and proceeds to mine it for concepts relevant to the clinical process. He shows how a revised understanding of the operation of cognition and affect can impart new meaning to basic clinical concepts such as resistance, transference, and level of psychopathology. In Section III, "Applications and Exemplifications," Dorpat concludes this exemplary collaboration by exploring select topics from the standpoint of his and Miller's new psychoanalytic theory. At the heart of the authors' endeavor it "meaning analysis," a concept that integrates an up-to-date model of human information processing with the traditional goals of psychoanalysis. The patient approaches the clinical encounter, they argue, with cognitive-affective schemas that are the accumulatice product of his life experience to date; the manifold meanings ascribed to the clinical interaction must be understood as the product of these schemas rather than as distortions deriving from unconscious, drive-related fantasies. The therapist's goal is to make the patient's meaning-making conscious and thus available for introspection. (shrink)

The study of morality continues to flourish in contemporary philosophy. As the chapters of this Companion illustrate, new and exciting work is being done on a wide range of topics from the objectivity of morality to the relationship between morality and religious, biological, and feminist concerns. Along with this vast amount of work has come a proliferation of technical terminology and competing positions. The goal of this chapter is to provide an overview of the terrain in contemporary ethics.

A appreciation and critical discussion of RE Allen's Plato's Parmenides. I argue that, contra Allen, the Parmenides is not an aporetic dialogue and that the eight hypotheses are not governed by the so-called "dilemma of participation." Rather, the apparent contradictions between and within the hypotheses function to elicit from the reader a distinction in kind between the sorts of one that forms, on the one hand, and their sensible participants, on the other, are and to illumine the 'relation' of participation.

Felony disenfranchisement is best understood as a means of vote suppression. Quite apart from its significance as a form of criminal stigma, disenfranchisement is most properly characterized as one of the ways in which the American voting system reserves political participation for a privileged social and intellectual class. Thus understood, felony disenfranchisement reveals the theoretical underpinnings of an exclusionary version of American democracy in which more or less widespread disenfranchisement is an acceptable or necessary political tactic. Felony disenfranchisement should not (...) be characterized as a sanction for criminal conduct: It fits none of the usual justifications for punishment. Most commentators agree that felony disenfranchisement as a collateral sanction for criminal conduct stigmatizes alike a disparate collection of individuals convicted of crimes carrying a penalty of one year or more - everything from drug possession to murder - and extends, in many instances, long after former felons have completed their sentences. Justifications for refusing the vote to felons, and to former felons who are no longer incarcerated, are surprisingly weak and clearly related to larger issues of democratic participation. Accordingly, it is under the framework of democratic participation that the most persuasive justifications of disenfranchisement might be found. Under the framework of democratic participation, the disenfranchisement debate implicates competing theories of democracy, each of which has profound consequences for the constitution of the American polity. I contend that there are currently three models for the right to vote in American society: (1) a membership model premised upon popular participation in the democratic process as an expression of citizenship; (2) a deliberative model in which popular participation is conditioned upon the duty to be an informed and reflective citizen; and (3) an elite model entrenching political office in a political class that competes for votes among the electoral masses. The continuing vitality of these three models at the level of political debate and constitutional doctrine unsettles the dominant history of the franchise as one of progress from an exclusionary to an inclusionary extension of the mandate, and requires us to acknowledge felony disenfranchisement as part of a larger process of voter exclusion and suppression. (shrink)

Introduction.- Conclusions.- Chronology.- Political activities of Barlow.- Political writings of Barlow.- An evaluation.- Bibliography.- Appendix: The conspiracy of kings, by Joel Barlow.

This essay, which was originally the opening presentation for the 2005 conference of the Venerable John Henry Newman Association on “Newman and the Laity” at Villanova University, discusses four areas where Newman’s ideas about the voice of the laity have lessons for American Catholic life today: his non-clericalized view of the Church, the lack of appreciation for the laity, his vision of an educated laity, and the need for consulting the laity about doctrinal matters.