Washington eludes us, even in the city named for him. Other leaders are accessible there—Lincoln brooding in square-toed rectitude at his monument, a Mathew Brady image frozen in white, throned yet approachable; Jefferson democratically exposed in John Pope’s aristocratic birdcage. Majestic, each, but graspable.Washington’s faceless monument tapers off from us however we come at it—visible everywhere, and perfect; but impersonal, uncompelling. Yet we should remember that this monument, unlike the other two, was launched by private efforts. When government energies (...) were stalled, in the 1830s, subscriptions kept the project alive. Even when Congress took over the project, stones were added by the citizenry, those memorial blocks one can study while descending the long inner stairway. The classical control of the exterior hides a varied and spontaneous interior—an image of the puzzle that faces us, the early popularity of someone lifted so high above the populace. The man we can hardly find was the icon our ancestors turned to most easily and often. We are distanced from him by their generosity, their willingness to see in him something more than human.The larger they made Washington, the less they left us to admire—until, in Horatio Greenough’s George Washington, he becomes invisible by sheer vastness. Greenough took for his model what the neoclassical period believed was the greatest statue ever created, by the greatest sculptor who ever lived—the Elean Zeus of Phidias. Since that chryselephantine wonder was no longer extant, artists had to rely on the description given by Pausanias in the Description of Greece, and on coins of Elis that celebrated the work. Here is what Pausanias had to say.The seated god is himself fashioned from gold and ivory; the garland on his head appears to be real olive shoots. In his right hand he holds a Victory, also of gold and ivory, offering a ribbon, a garland on her head. In the god’s left hand there is a scepter, encrusted with every kind of metal, and the bird on the tip is an eagle.1 1. Pausanias Description of Greece 5. 11. Garry Wills, a prize-winning author and journalist, is Henry R. Luce Professor of American Culture and Public Policy at Northwestern University. Among his many books are Nixon Agonistes , Inventing America , and The Kennedy Imprisonment . His forthcoming book, Cincinnatus: George Washington in the Englightenment, will appear in June 1984. His previous contribution to Critical Inquiry was “Critical Inquiry in Clausewitz”. (shrink)

Human cooperation is highly unusual. We live in large groups composed mostly of non-relatives. Evolutionists have proposed a number of explanations for this pattern, including cultural group selection and extensions of more general processes such as reciprocity, kin selection, and multi-level selection acting on genes. Evolutionary processes are consilient; they affect several different empirical domains, such as patterns of behavior and the proximal drivers of that behavior. In this target article, we sketch the evidence from five domains that bear on (...) the explanatory adequacy of cultural group selection and competing hypotheses to explain human cooperation. Does cultural transmission constitute an inheritance system that can evolve in a Darwinian fashion? Are the norms that underpin institutions among the cultural traits so transmitted? Do we observe sufficient variation at the level of groups of considerable size for group selection to be a plausible process? Do human groups compete, and do success and failure in competition depend upon cultural variation? Do we observe adaptations for cooperation in humans that most plausibly arose by cultural group selection? If the answer to one of these questions is “no,” then we must look to other hypotheses. We present evidence, including quantitative evidence, that the answer to all of the questions is “yes” and argue that we must take the cultural group selection hypothesis seriously. If culturally transmitted systems of rules (institutions) that limit individual deviance organize cooperation in human societies, then it is not clear that any extant alternative to cultural group selection can be a complete explanation. (shrink)

We stipulate, arguendo, that fractional-reserve-demand deposit banking is per se fraudulent. We ask whether or not time deposit banking can also be illicit, and answer in the positive, if there is a mismatch between the time dimensions of deposits and loans. To wit, if an intermediary borrows short and lends long.

HOW WE BECOME AWARE OF PHYSICAL OBJECTS OVER AND ABOVE THE PERCEPTUAL ACTS OF SEEING COLOR, SHAPES AND HEARING SOUNDS, ETC., IS A QUESTION THAT HAS OCCUPIED MANY CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHERS OF SENSE-PERCEPTION. DID ARISTOTLE EVER FACE THIS PROBLEM, AND IF HE DID, HOW DID HE DEAL WITH IT? THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES THIS QUESTION AND CONCLUDES THAT THE ANSWER TO IT CAN BE FOUND "DE INSOMNIAS" IN ARISTOTLE'S DISCUSSION OF DREAMS AND ILLUSIONS. THERE IS AN ACT AFFIRMATION ("PHESIN") CARRIED OUT BY (...) THE CONTROLLING AND DISCRIMINATING SENSE ("TO KURION KAI TO EPIKRINON") WHICH DOES THIS. "FOR, SPEAKING GENERALLY, THE CONTROLLING POWER ("ERXE") AFFIRMS ("PHESIN") THE REPORT GIVEN BY EACH SENSE UNLESS SOME MORE AUTHORITATIVE POWER CONTRADICTS IT.". (shrink)

A central debate in philosophy and neuroscience pertains to whether PFC activity plays an essential role in the neural basis of consciousness. Neuroimaging and electrophysiology studies have revealed that the contents of conscious perceptual experience can be successfully decoded from PFC activity, but these findings might be confounded by post- perceptual cognitive processes, such as thinking, reasoning, and decision-making, that are not necessary for con- sciousness. To clarify the involvement of the PFC in consciousness, we present a synthesis of research (...) that has used intracranial electrical stimulation (iES) for the causal modulation of neural activity in the human PFC. This research provides compelling evidence that iES of only certain prefrontal regions (i.e., orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingu- late cortex) reliably perturbs conscious experience. Conversely, stimulation of anterolateral prefrontal sites, often con- sidered crucial in higher-order and global workspace theories of consciousness, seldom elicits any reportable alterations in consciousness. Furthermore, the wide variety of iES-elicited effects in the PFC (e.g., emotions, thoughts, and olfactory and visual hallucinations) exhibits no clear relation to the immediate environment. Therefore, there is no evidence for the kinds of alterations in ongoing perceptual experience that would be predicted by higher-order or global workspace theories. Nevertheless, effects in the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortices suggest a specific role for these PFC subregions in supporting emotional aspects of conscious experience. Overall, this evidence presents a challenge for higher-order and global workspace theories, which commonly point to the PFC as the basis for con- scious perception based on correlative and possibly confounded information. (shrink)

States of sensory absorption may offer a means to disentangle perception from report. Interestingly, such states lead to an antagonistic relationship between perceptual and cognitive-access networks, suggesting that perceptual awareness does not depend on a read-out by high order cognitive-access mechanisms. Rather, it may emerge internally, through a cooperative coding dynamics, whereby each neuron simultaneously represents and reads-out the perceptual awareness state.

A possible solution is offered to help resolve the “two times problem” regarding the veridical and illusory nature of time. First it is recognized that the flow (passage) of time is part of a wider array of temporal experiences referred to as manifest time, all of which need to be reconciled. Then, an information gathering and utilizing system (IGUS) model is used as a basis for a view of manifest time. The model IGUS robot of Hartle that solves the “unique (...) present” debate is enhanced with veridical and (corresponding) illusory components of not only the flow of time but also the larger entity of manifest time, providing a dualistic IGUS robot that represents all of the important temporal experiences. Based upon a variety of prior experiments, that view suggests that the veridical system is a reflection of accepted spacetime cosmologies and through natural selection begets the illusory system for functional purposes. Thus, there are not two opposing times, one outside and one inside the cranium. There is just one fundamental physical time which the brain developed, now possesses and is itself sufficient for adaption but then enhances. The illusory system is intended to provide a more satisfying experience of physical time, and better adaptive behavior. Future experiments to verify that view are provided. With a complete veridical system of temporal experiences there may be less need to reify certain temporal experiences so that the two times problem is less of a problem and more of a phenomenon. (shrink)

This paper is a review of how biological as well as other scientific theories, concepts and findings have been used to answer philosophical questions regarding the nature of male homosexuality. We argue that while these sciences are certainly relevant for present philosophical debates, few of the different philosophical issues surrounding male homosexuality can be settled by science alone. In the first section, we introduce a number of various essentialist and constructivist views on (male) homosexuality. The second section focuses on the (...) innateness debate over homosexuality. In the last section, we assess the typically constructivist critiques of biological research into homosexuality. (shrink)

Mental (or semantic) holism is the doctrine that the identity of a belief content (or the meaning of a sentence that expresses it) is determined by its place in the web of beliefs or sentences comprising a whole theory or group of theories. It can be contrasted with two other views: atomism and molecularism. Molecularism characterizes meaning and content in terms of relatively small parts of the web in a way that allows many different theories to share those parts. For (...) example, the meaning of 'chase' might be said by a molecularist to be try to catch. Atomism characterizes meaning and content in terms of none of the web; it says that sentences and beliefs have meaning or content independently of their relations to other sentences or beliefs. One major motivation for holism has come from reflections on the natures of confirmation and learning. As Quine (1953) observed, claims about the world are confirmed not individually, but only in conjunction with theories of which they are a part. And typically, one cannot come to understand scientific claims without understanding a significant chunk of the theory of which they are a part. For example, in learning the Newtonian concepts of 'force', 'mass', kinetic energy' and 'momentum', one doesn't learn any definitions of these terms in terms that are understood beforehand, for there are no such definitions. Rather, these theoretical terms were all learned together in conjunction with procedures for solving problems. The major problem with holism is that it threatens to make generalization in psychology virtually impossible. If the content of any state depends on all others, it would be extremely unlikely that any two believers would ever share a state with the same content. Moreover, holism would appear to conflict with our ordinary conception of reasoning. What sentences one accepts influence what one infers. if i accept a sentence and then later reject it, i thereby change the inferential role of that sentence, so the meaning of what i accept wouldn't be the same as what i later reject. but then it would be difficult to understand on this view how one could rationally --or even irrationally!-- change one's mind. and agreement and translation are also problematic for much the same reason. holists have responded (1) by proposing that we should think not in terms of "same/different" meaning but in terms of a gradient of similarity of meaning, (2) by proposing "two factor" theories or (3) by simply accepting the consequence that there is no real difference between changing meanings and changing beliefs. (shrink)

We attempt to shed light on property rights by examining the case of conjoined twins. We do so since their situation is perhaps among the most challenging of all cases of separating “mine” from “thine.”.

Discussion of J. Kevin O’Regan’s “Why Red Doesn’t Sound Like a Bell: Understanding the Feel of Consciousness” Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-20 DOI 10.1007/s13164-012-0090-7 Authors J. Kevin O’Regan, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, CNRS - Université Paris Descartes, Centre Biomédical des Saints Pères, 45 rue des Sts Pères, 75270 Paris cedex 06, France Ned Block, Departments of Philosophy, Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University, 5 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA Journal Review of Philosophy (...) and Psychology Online ISSN 1878-5166 Print ISSN 1878-5158. (shrink)

Background Design thinking is a tool for generating and exploring ideas from multiple stakeholders. We used DT principles to introduce students to the ethical implications of organ transplantation. Students applied DT principles to propose solutions to maximise social justice in liver transplant allocation. Methods A 150 min interactive workshop was integrated into the longitudinal ethics curriculum. Following a group didactic on challenges of organ donation in the USA supplemented by patient stories, teams of students considered alternative solutions to optimise fairness (...) of organ distribution and ethical implications of changing the current model. Facilitators led students through DT steps of empathy, defining the team’s point of view, ideating on potential solutions, prototyping a specific idea and testing the idea through oral presentation, with questions and answers by peers and faculty. The curriculum was evaluated with presurveys and postsurveys including quantitative and open-ended items. Results 100 first year medical students participated. Before the session, 75.3% of students had no practical experience with DT. Following participation, students reported an increased understanding of the current liver transplant allocation system and an increased appreciation of shortcomings of the current organ allocation system. After the session, 73.8% of students felt that DT could be used to approach complex health system problems. Discussion Students participating in a DT workshop displayed improved knowledge and attitudes toward organ transplantation and DT. In this pilot study, DT showed promise as a student-led approach emphasising collaboration and creativity in ethics curricula in medical education. (shrink)

Academic freedom and tenure, both cherished institutions of higher education, are currently under attack by many both outside and within the academy. Richard DeGeorge argues that they can be defended on ethical grounds only if they are joined with appropriate accountability, publicly articulated and defended standards, and conscientious enforcement of these standards by academic institutions and the members of the academic community.

In Barnett and Block (J Bus Ethics 88(4):711–716, 2009a), the present authors claim that borrowing short and lending long is fraudulent, and thus ought to be prohibited on legal grounds. Bagus and Howden (J Bus Ethics 90(3):399, 2009) take issue with our ethical analysis. The present paper is our response to these authors; it is an attempt to defend Barnett and Block (J Bus Ethics 88(4):711–716, 2009a) against the very interesting and important, although we believe, erroneous, criticisms of (...) Bagus and Howden (J Bus Ethics 90(3):399, 2009). (shrink)

In recent centuries Christians of various denominations have endorsed many different political philosophies that they see as being truly biblical in their approach. Over this time there has been an increasing hostility, by some Christians, towards free markets and political philosophies that hold human liberty as the highest goal such as libertarianism and classical liberalism. This criticism is unwarranted and misplaced as libertarianism and free markets are not only compatible with Christianity, they are also the most biblically sound of all (...) economics systems and political philosophies endorsed by Christians today. Therefore, this paper will argue that Christians of all denominations should endorse free markets and libertarianism if they wish to create a world that follows biblical principles and the teachings of Jesus. (shrink)

In 1984, Edward O. Wilson proposed the idea that natural selection has resulted in an adaptive love of life-forms and life-like processes ('biophilia') in humans. To date, the idea of biophilia has been viewed as an ultimate explanation of many conservation attitudes in humans. In this paper, we contend that environmental ethics has little to gain from the biophilia hypothesis. First, the notion is open to various and even conflicting interpretations. Second, the empirical findings that do seem to corroborate a (...) more well-defined version of the biophilia hypothesis can often be accounted for by alternative hypotheses. Third, the evolutionary reasoning behind the biophilia hypothesis tends to be unclear, and sometimes even inaccurate. (shrink)

When assessing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its impact on company performance there may be an informational asymmetry caused by differences in Familiarity with the firm assessed. This study uses participants' ratings of six large UK retailers to establish the direct relationships between the CSR components of Economic, Legal, Ethical, and Discretionary, and the firm performance dimensions of Reputation, Trust, and Customer Satisfaction, then explores whether Familiarity mediates the relationships between the CSR and the performance dimensions. The findings show CSR (...) Economic, Legal, and Discretionary are associated with firm Reputation and Trust, but not Customer Satisfaction, and that CSR Ethical is associated with Reputation, Trust, and Customer Satisfaction. Familiarity acts as a mediator between CSR Economic, Legal and Discretionary, and Trust and Customer Satisfaction. Familiarity also mediates the relationship between CSR Discretionary and Reputation. The link between CSR Economic and Legal, and Customer Satisfaction only emerges in mediation analysis. Managerial implications suggest increasing familiarity is vital through open and continuous communication about CSR programs is essential to keep customers aware. Methodological implications propose reevaluating the methods used to measure (CSR), taking into consideration its' multi‐faceted nature and the diverse impacts that different aspects have on familiarity and performance measures. (shrink)

Economic principles operate in much the same way whether on land or in the oceans. It is the very same tragedy of the commons that almost wiped out the buffalo that is now endangering precious fish stocks. The answer to these challenges, in both cases, is privatization. Establishment of private property will not only solve the problems of the over fishing of the ocean commons, but will also create incentives for investors to use new technologies that could radically increase the (...) productivity of the ocean for fish and other resources. In order to make these gains however, we must make an irrevocable commitment to defining and defending these property rights as a permanent institution of the future of our oceans. (shrink)

For half a century, Ernest Fortin's scholarship has charmed and educated theologians and philosophers with its intellectual search for the best way to live. Written by friends, colleagues, and students of Fortin, this book pays tribute to a remarkable thinker in a series of essays that bear eloquent testimony to Fortin's influence and his legacy. A formidable commentator on Catholic philosophical and political thought, Ernest Fortin inspired others with his restless inquiries beyond the boundaries of conventional scholarship. With essays on (...) subjects ranging across philosophy, political science, literature, and theology Gladly to Learn and Gladly to Teach reflects the astonishing depth and breadth of Fortin's contribution to contemporary thought. (shrink)

Modern microeconomic theory is based on a foundation of ordinal preference relations. Good textbooks stress that cardinal utility functions are artificial constructions of convenience, and that economics does not attribute any meaning to “utils.” However, we argue that despite this official position, in practice mainstream economists rely on techniques that assume the validity of cardinal utility. Doing so has turned mainstream economic theorizing into an exercise of reductionism of objects down to the preferences of ‘ideal type’ subjects.

Conventional agency theory typically focuses on a unidirectional problem, in which an agent behaves opportunistically against the interests of a principal. Yet, this conceptualization is too limited to fully describe all aspects of principal–agent relationships. This article presents a more comprehensive framework explaining a potential three-directional problem—that is, agents behave opportunistically against the interests of principals, principals behave opportunistically against the interests of agents, and relationships between agents and principals representing confluence of interests affect the interests of third-party stakeholders. The (...) article provides evidence of these problems, describes their unique characteristics, and outlines implications for society. It concludes with a discussion focusing on the implications of the proposed framework for purported governance solutions, the ongoing debate between shareholder and stakeholder views of the firm, and business practices. (shrink)

Nuclear power has never been free from the stifling involvement of government. Heavy regulation has reduced the ability of entrepreneurs to develop and provide new means for the generation of energy using nuclear fuel. The strict parameters dictated by government officials are based upon outdated technology, an improper regulatory philosophy, and preclude innovation in nuclear power generation. Anti-market environmentalists misunderstand the implications of a free market in nuclear power and argue against it based on problems that are actually caused by (...) government involvement. Our position is neither for nor against nuclear power. We advocate a hands-off policy where the nuclear industry is left to its own devices, free from governmental regulations and subsidies: free to succeed or fail on its own. Thus, our position is neither right-wing conservative (removing regulations), nor left-wing liberal (removing subsidies). Very much to the contrary of both positions, we propose a free-market in nuclear power. (shrink)

We attempt to shed light on property rights by examining the case of conjoined twins. We do so since their situation is perhaps among the most challenging of all cases of separating “mine” from “thine.”.

Since the cognitive revolution, psychologists have developed formal theories of cognition by thinking about the mind as a computer. However, this metaphor is typically applied to individual minds. Humans rarely think alone; compared to other animals, humans are curiously dependent on stores of culturally transmitted skills and knowledge, and we are particularly good at collaborating with others. Rather than picturing the human mind as an isolated computer, we can imagine each mind as a node in a vast distributed system. Viewing (...) human cognition through the lens of distributed systems motivates new questions about how humans share computation, when it makes sense to do so, and how we can build institutions to facilitate collaboration. (shrink)

One of the claims sometimes advanced in favour of anti-doping is that allowing doping would lead to a uniform increase in performance in comparison to no doping. The idea is that if all athletes wo...

This study examines the practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) during COVID-19. Little is known about how organizations practice CSR during acute exogenous crises. Overlooking how CSR practices change during a crisis matters because organizations are compelled into trade-offs that carry implications for their CSR initiatives. Analysis of interview data with CSR managers, from 21 Dubai-based business organizations during COVID-19, uncovers changes in the content and process of CSR during the pandemic. The results show that the practice of CSR underwent (...) a fundamental change in focus as organizations shifted to an employee-centric model of CSR and away from an environmental one. Measures placed on organizations and society to combat the pandemic also led to a recalibration of stakeholder and issue salience, with notable effects on CSR that challenge the capability of the power–legitimacy–urgency framework to anticipate these shifts. We consider the impacts associated with the shift in the content of CSR initiatives and process of their implementation and discuss the implications of the findings for CSR theory, research, policy, and practice. (shrink)