Volume 20, Issue 6, June 2020, Page 75-77.

In this chapter, I interpret Vladimir Jankélévitch’s work on the bad conscience and on forgiveness in relation to the film Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016). This film is a striking meditation on remorse and the difficulty of self-forgiveness for Lee Chandler, a man who lives a monastic life as a janitor in Boston after the tragic death of his three children in a house fire. Many discussions of the film so far have focused on its depictions of despair (...) and grief (with brief references to guilt), aspects of it that are certainly important. (Lane, 2016; Scott, 2016; Fleming, 2017) However, a focus on grief neglects the ethical dimensions of the film that Jankélévitch’s intense articulations of the solitary character of remorse and what a genuine offering of forgiveness really concerns can illuminate and engage with. His accounts demonstrate the immense complexity of remorse, self-forgiveness and the difficulty of accepting the generous forgiveness of others, even in situations where the calamity that has occurred is not a result of a deliberate, intentional action. Lee’s remorse dwells in the irreversibility of time and the irrevocability of our acts that Jankélévitch explains, and goes further in being a remorse that cannot be overcome. The film also enables us to question features of Jankélévitch’s view: that we can undo the consequences of our act or deed, in contrast to the action, and that self-forgiveness is a conceptual impossibility, because forgiveness must be a relation to another, rather than sometimes an existential one. (shrink)

This article presents the results of a study that investigated the roles that religiosity and ones money ethic play in determining consumer attitudes/beliefs in various situations regarding questionable consumer practices. One dimension of religiosity – intrinsic religiousness – was studied. Four separate dimensions of a money ethic scale were initially examined, but only one was used in the final analyses. Results indicated that both intrinsic religiousness and one’s money ethic were significant determinants of most types of consumer ethical beliefs.

This paper re-examines the well-known problem of how it is possible to have an “intuition of absences” in Sartre’s example of Pierre. I argue that this problem is symptomatic of an overly theoretical interpretation of Sartre’s use of intentionality. First, I review Husserl’s notion of evidence within his phenomenology. Next, I introduce Sartre’s Pierre example and highlight some difficulties with interpreting it as a problem of perception. By focusing on Sartre’s notion of the project, I argue instead that the problem (...) is better understood at the level of action. In support of this interpretation, I conclude with a brief comparison to the early work of Paul Ricoeur. By borrowing some of Ricoeur’s phenomenological vocabulary tailored to action, I reinterpret Sartre’s example as a practical problem. (shrink)

Academic dishonesty is a persistent problem in the American educational system. The present investigation examined how reports of academic cheating related to students' emphasis on their moral identities and their sensitivity to social evaluation. Seventy college students at a large southeastern university completed a battery of surveys. Symptoms of social anxiety were positively correlated with recall of academic cheating. Additionally, relative to students who placed less importance on their moral identities, students who placed more importance on their moral identities recalled (...) significantly fewer instances of cheating. In summary, these findings suggest that students are less likely to cheat on their school work when they place greater emphasis on their moral identity and are less sensitive to social evaluation. Practical interventions to rampant cheating in American schools are discussed. (shrink)

Contemporary suicide terrorists from the Middle East are publicly deemed crazed cowards bent on senseless destruction who thrive in poverty and ignorance. Recent research indicates they have no appreciable psychopathology and are as educated and economically well-off as surrounding populations. A first line of defense is to get the communities from which suicide attackers stem to stop the attacks by learning how to minimize the receptivity of mostly ordinary people to recruiting organizations.

Most jurisdictions require that a mental capacity assessment be conducted using a functional model whose definition includes several abilities. In England and Wales and in increasing number of countries, the law requires a person be able to understand, to retain, to use or weigh relevant information and to communicate one’s decision. But interpreting and applying broad and vague criteria, such as the ability ‘to use or weigh’ to a diverse range of presentations is challenging. By examining actual court judgements of (...) capacity, we previously developed a descriptive typology of justifications used in the application of the Mental Capacity Act criteria. We here critically optimise this typology by showing how clear definitions—and thus boundaries—between the criteria can be achieved if the ‘understanding’ criterion is used narrowly and the multiple rationales that fall under the ability to ‘use or weigh’ are specifically enumerated in practice. Such a typology-aided practice, in theory, could make functional capacity assessments more transparent, accountable, reliable and valid. It may also help to create targeted supports for decision making by the vulnerable. We also discuss how the typology could evolve legally and scientifically, and how it lays the groundwork for clinical research on the abilities enumerated by the MCA. No data are available. This paper does not report any original data. (shrink)

This paper reports on a survey that investigated the moral decision processes of accountants. A formal belief revision model is adapted and hypotheses based on theorizations from the cognitive-developmental school are tested. The moral decision processes of accountants are hypothesized to be influenced by professional expectations, organizational expectations and internalized expectations. Subjects provided specific demographic data and were asked to access the appropriateness of fourteen principles for making moral decisions in business. Subjects were also asked to indicate which of the (...) fourteen approaches would be most appropriate for resolving each of five ethical situations that are representative of common ethical dilemmas in accounting.Subjects'' responses to the appropriateness of the fourteen principles are reduced to two dimensions using factor analysis. The factors are consistent and representative of important underlying dimensions of the stages of moral development. Demographic variables are correlated with the extracted factors using analysis of variance. (shrink)

A number of philosophers of medicine have attempted to provide analyses of health and disease in which the role that values play in those concepts is restricted. There are three ways in which values can be restricted in the concepts of health and disease. They can be: (i) eliminated, (ii) tamed or (iii) corralled. These three approaches correspond, respectively, to the work of Boorse, Lennox, and Wakefield. The concern of each of these authors is that if unrestricted values are allowed (...) to infect our concepts of health and disease, then anything could be construed as healthy or diseased. They believe that, if at all possible, such a result should be avoided. Unfortunately, as I argue, this result is unavoidable and such attempts to limit values in these concepts are destined to fail. I argue for this position by showing how each of these three attempts to provide value-restricted analyses of health and disease fail as analyses of the concepts of health and disease and that they fail because of their attempts to restrict the role of values in their accounts. I also show how, despite their best efforts, each of these analyses are, themselves, value-driven and value-laden. This leads to the conclusion that values infect our concepts of health and disease at all levels. (shrink)

A new collection of essays highlighting the wide range of Buber's thought, career, and activism. Best known for I and Thou, which laid out his distinction between dialogic and monologic relations, Martin Buber (1878-1965) was also an anthologist, translator, and author of some seven hundred books and papers. Martin Buber: Creaturely Life and Social Form, edited by Sarah Scott, is a collection of nine essays that explore his thought and career. Martin Buber: Creaturely Life and Social Form shakes up (...) the legend of Buber by decentering the importance of the I-Thou dialogue in order to highlight Buber as a thinker preoccupied by the image of relationship as a geode to spiritual, social, and political change. The result is a different Buber than has hitherto been portrayed, one that is characterized primarily by aesthetics and politics rather than by epistemology or theology. Martin Buber: Creaturely Life and Social Form will serve as a guide to the entirety of Buber's thinking, career, and activism, placing his work in context and showing both the evolution of his thought and the extent to which he remained driven by a persistent set of concerns. (shrink)

Presenting the first book-length study in English of Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations, this work takes a fresh look at this seminal text on false reasoning.

While evidence exists suggesting that irresponsible corporate behaviour may lead to decreased shareholder wealth (Frooman 1997), one cannot help but question the generalizability of these results when companies such as Exxon, an organization well known for its environmental problems, remains at the top of the 2006 Fortune 500 list. In this paper we show with regards to news of irresponsible behaviour, the market punishes smaller, less capitalized firms but not necessarily the very large and highly capitalized companies.

In this unprecedented time, there are many questions and plenty of speculation surrounding what life will be like after the South African nationwide lockdown. There is concern over the effects that the lockdown will have on worship services when churches are in a position to open their doors to the public once more. As a result of recognising the lockdown as a liminal phase, perspectives are shared when considering how the church will gather again in a post-lockdown context and therefore (...) a post-liminal phase. One prevailing perspective in considering this post-liminal phase involves koinonia and how an undiscriminating virus can remind those to further practise inclusivity and ubuntu, by embracing sameness and difference when ‘being church’. In contrast, another important perspective focuses on ritualising certain measures in the worship service to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), when gathering in church buildings is permissible in a post-lockdown context. This is concluded by echoing the spirit of ubuntu, namely, ‘I am because we are’, in ‘being church’ during and after the crisis of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Contribution: From the perspective of Liturgical and Ritual Studies, this article aims to contribute to the Theological perspectives of COVID-19. (shrink)

Essay one: Parmenidean dialectic -- Essay two: Parmenidean metaphysics -- Essay three: Parmenides and the history of dialectic.

Abstract:This article argues that the important organizational values to study are organizational moral values. It identifies five moral values (honest communication, respect for property, respect for life, respect for religion, and justice), which allow parallel constructs at individual and organizational levels of analysis. It also identifies dimensions used in differentiating organizations’ moral values. These are the act, actor, person affected, intention, and expected result. Finally, the article addresses measurement issues associated with organizational moral values, proposing that content analysis is the (...) appropriate measurement technique to be used for an organization-level conception of moral values. (shrink)

"The Eternal City, Rome offers endless insights through its millennia of history, its centrality to European art and religion, and the generations of travelers that have sought it out. This book from philosopher Scott Samuelson offers readers a thinker's tour of Rome. Samuelson shows how people have made sense of Rome as a scene of human nature and then envisioned the good life-philosophers such as Lucretius and Seneca, but also poets and artists such as Horace and Caravaggio, filmmakers like (...) Fellini, and adventurers like Rosa Bathurst. He roots these explorations and visions in the city of Rome itself: Samuelson introduces us to some of the most famous sites in Rome by sharing illuminating moments in their histories; and he discusses great works of art to be found in Rome by getting to the heart of the knotty ethical and emotional questions they pose. And, practicing philosophy in place, he tackles head-on the profound questions that most tours of Rome only bracket: What does it mean to see the Forum through the eyes of Cicero? Does all this art about God really signify anything? Should visitors really be impressed by these incredible sites built on the slaughter and domination of others? What does all this history tell us about who we are? And, most important, how can an afternoon Negroni help us find the good life? Samuelson's aim is to provide an eclectic guide to Rome and happiness-a portable approach, blending history and philosophy, for tourists and dreaming readers alike"--. (shrink)

From the acclaimed author and scholar James C. Scott, the compelling tale of Asian peoples who until recently have stemmed the vast tide of state-making to live at arm’s length from any organized state society For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them—slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and (...) warfare. This book, essentially an “anarchist history,” is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states. In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of “internal colonialism.” This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scott’s work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen. (shrink)

Metaphilosophy, Volume 53, Issue 4, Page 371-384, July 2022.

If people vote rationally for their economic interests, one would expect Democrats to be perennial favorites among working poor and middle class, and especially so in this year of economic downturn. Why then does polling show the election a tossup? A culture's moral compass is not an innate or logical determination, but an underdetermined product of historical contingency and willful choice. Belief in moral "rightness" or "truth" is always a matter of faith rather than reason. Only some professional philosophers, jurists, (...) scientists and academics believe that the principal point of political argument is, or ought to be, truth rather than persuasion, and that an argument's principal appeal should be reason rather than passion. The fundamental social constituent of economic and political culture in the United States was neither the individual nor the state, but the sectarian community. The religious community in the USA was a civic as well as moral community, a combination which infused American economic and political culture with particular dynamism. As Darwin noted, in competition between groups with similar levels of technology and population size, those groups will tend to win out that favor and transmit willingness to sacrifice some self interest for group interests. Religions with morally concerned deities arguably made the rise of civilization and large-scale cooperation between genetic strangers possible. (shrink)

Soccer, paintball, camping, hiking, rafting, body building, martial arts training and other forms of physically stimulating and intimate group action create a bunch of buddies, which becomes a “band of brothers” in a simple heroic cause. It's usually enough that a few of these action buddies identify with a cause, and its heroic path to glory and esteem in the eyes of peers, for the rest to follow even unto death. Humans need to socially organize, to lead and be led; (...) however, notions of “charismatic leaders” and Svengali-like “recruiters” that “brainwash” unwitting minds into joining well-structured organizations with command and control is exaggerated. Viewed from the field, notions of “cells” and “recruitment” - and to a degree even “leadership” – may reflect more the psychology and organization of those analyzing terrorist groups than terrorist groups themselves. (shrink)

The great British biologist J.B.S Haldane counted monotheism's creation of fanaticism as one of the most important inventions of the last 5,000 years. Call it love of God or love of group, it matters little in the end. Modern civilizations spin the potter's wheel of monotheism to manufacture the greatest cause of all, humanity. Before missionary monotheism, people did not consider that all others could be pigeonholed into one kind. The salvation of humanity is a cause as stimulating as it (...) is impossible to achieve. Nevertheless, all modern missionary "-isms," whether religious or in their secular post-Enlightenment guise, preach devotion unto death for the sake of humanity, including allowance for mass killing for the mass good. "The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology," wrote Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago. Especially for young men, mortal combat in a great cause provides the ultimate adventure and glory to gain maximum esteem in the eyes of many and, most dearly, in the hearts of their peers. By identifying their devotion with the greater defense and salvation of humanity, they commit themselves to a path that allows massive killing for what they think is a massive good.... (shrink)

In Plato's political theory we discover the essence of politics, which provides the requisite lessons to understand political as it is and should be. As there is a Form of the Good, there is a Form of the Polis, discerned in Plato's philosophy and as real for us as it was for him.

The surface appeal of the Social Responsibility theory of the press emerging in the report of the Commission on Freedom of the Press in 1947 has made Social Responsibility theory broadly acceptable. Yet, I declare it inconsistent with the American social system. Three concepts are discussed - societal obligation, individual rights, and interpersonal relationships - as necessary for a new moral theory that serves valid societal goals.