Today''s headlines suggest that economic criteria alone is the basis for business decision-making. This paper argues that while profitability is a legitimate end of business, it must be moderated by ethical considerations. But can business be both successfuland ethical? Practical examples highlight individuals who chose profitability over ethical responsibility and those who chose and continue to choose both. The authors propose that there is an ethical person profile. Corporate managers can resolve the profits vs ethics dilemma by modeling ethical behavior.

Phenomenological research on forgiving another is presented with a focus on impetus, outcome, and relationship to reconciliation. Preliminary implications for psychotherapeutic application of the distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation are introduced.

Of the four types of biological control, (1) natural, (2) conservation, (3) augmentation, and (4) importation), ethical concerns have been raised almost exclusively about only one type: importation. These concerns rest largely on fears of extinction of animal species. Importation biological control is a cost-effective alternative to chemical control for basic food crops of resource-poor farmers. Regarding the other types of biological control, natural biological control is not consciously manipulated by humans. Augmentation has some technical concerns, but is generally an (...) environmentally-sound, viable alternative to chemicals and offers local employment. Conservation can help empower farmers to preserve native species, while saving labor and money and reducing chemical insecticides. (shrink)

Integrated pest management (IPM) has been widely promoted in the developing world, but in many regions its adoption rates have been variable. Experience has shown that to ensure IPM adoption, the complexities of local agro-production systems and context-specific folk knowledge need to be appreciated. Our research explored the linkages between farmer knowledge, pest management decision making, and ecological attributes of subsistence maize agriculture. We report a case study from four rural communities in the highlands of southeast Honduras. Communities were typified (...) by their agro-environments, IPM training history, and levels of infestation by a key maize pest, the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda Smith). Although variable, infestation levels generally did not justify pest management intervention. Consequently, crop losses from this pest were considered of low importance and most farmers proceeded in a rational fashion by refraining from action in their fields. Farmers attributed the low degree of pest infestation predominantly to abiotic causal factors (rainfall, temperature). The role of natural enemies in controlling this pest (i.e., biological control) was deemed of low importance by farmers; nevertheless, a broad array of such organisms was mentioned by farmers as operating in their maize crop. Farmers’ knowledge of natural enemies only partially matched scientific knowledge and was associated with the ecological features of their respective field settings. Local knowledge about natural enemies was mainly restricted to abundant and easily observable predatory species. Farmers who were knowledgeable about biological control were also familiar with a larger variety of pest management alternatives than uninformed farmers. Management options covered a wide range of curative techniques, including conservation biological control. Farmers who relied on insecticides to manage pest outbreaks knew less about biological control and pesticide alternatives. In contrast, farmers who received IPM training mentioned more types of natural enemies and were familiar with a broader range of alternative pest management tactics. Our research suggests that IPM training modifies local knowledge to better fit its environmental context. This paper provides insights in the environmental context of local agro-ecological knowledge and its linkage with pest management decision making. It also constitutes a basis for modifying IPM extension programs to deliver locality-specific technologies while strengthening the local knowledge base. (shrink)

Study on the thought and activities of a mystic philosopher of India.

What is the opposite of freedom? In _Freedom as Marronage_, Neil Roberts answers this question with definitive force: slavery, and from there he unveils powerful new insights on the human condition as it has been understood between these poles. Crucial to his investigation is the concept of marronage—a form of slave escape that was an important aspect of Caribbean and Latin American slave systems. Examining this overlooked phenomenon—one of action from slavery and toward freedom—he deepens our understanding of freedom (...) itself and the origin of our political ideals. Roberts examines the liminal and transitional space of slave escape in order to develop a theory of freedom as marronage, which contends that freedom is fundamentally located within this space—that it is a form of perpetual flight. He engages a stunning variety of writers, including Hannah Arendt, W. E. B. Du Bois, Angela Davis, Frederick Douglass, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the Rastafari, among others, to develop a compelling lens through which to interpret the quandaries of slavery, freedom, and politics that still confront us today. The result is a sophisticated, interdisciplinary work that unsettles the ways we think about freedom by always casting it in the light of its critical opposite. (shrink)

Moving back and forth between the history of philosophy and the contributions of philosophers in his own day, Durkheim takes up topics as diverse as philosophical psychology, logic, ethics, and metaphysics, and seeks to articulate a unified philosophical position. Remarkably, in these lectures, given more than a decade before the publication of his groundbreaking book, The Division of Labour in Society, the 'social realism' that is so characteristic of his later work - where he insists, famously, that social facts cannot (...) be reduced to psychological or economic ones, and that such facts constrain human action in important ways - is totally absent in these early lectures. For this reason, they will be of special interest to students of the history of the social sciences, for they shed important light on the course of Durkheim's intellectual development. (shrink)

Exploring the latest work and future directions in Metaphysics, this complete one-volume reference guide brings together chapters by leading scholars working in the field today.

Many private business relationships are increasingly characterized by claims that certain actions should not be permitted since particular right claims are involved. Such claims should be taken seriously, but are they always ethically legitimate? This paper analyzes one context, the use of age as a rating variable in the pricing of automobile insurance, where such claims are made. By identifying, evaluating and assessing the relevant basis for the differentiation, actuarial equity, it is concluded that there is an ethical basis for (...) such a practice. The analysis also provides an equivalent means for considering other such analogous claims where actuarial equity is involved. (shrink)

In 1960, E. P. Wigner, a joint winner of the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physics, published a paper titled On the Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences [61]. This paper can be construed as an examination and affirmation of Galileo's tenet that “The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics”. To this effect, Wigner presented a large number of examples that demonstrate the effectiveness of mathematics in accurately describing physical phenomena. Wigner viewed these examples as (...) illustrations of what he called the empirical law of epistemology, which asserts that the mathematical formulation of the laws of nature is both appropriate and accurate, and that mathematics is actually the correct language for formulating the laws of nature. At the same time, Wigner pointed out that the reasons for the success of mathematics in the natural sciences are not completely understood; in fact, he went as far as asserting that “… the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and there is no rational explanation for it.”. (shrink)

Although William James formed his philosophical views in direct reaction to the Hegelianism then dominant in American and British institutions, modern critics have tended to reject James’s criticism of G. W. F. Hegel as superficial and outdated. This is in part due to James’s energetic rhetorical style, but also because James at his most polemical tends to present his pluralistic and pragmatist empiricism as diametrically opposed to Hegel’s monistic and intellectualistic idealism, so that it is not clear how the two (...) theories could engage in any meaningful dialogue. This chapter presents a different interpretation of the engagement between James and Hegel. On this interpretation, James’s criticisms of Hegel emerge from what he perceives to be a common starting point: the attempt to find the world to be “a home.” As such, James’s criticisms of Hegel should be understood as offering a kind of internal critique. According to James, Hegel offers too narrow an account of what it is for beings like us to “feel at home” in the world. This is a unique and internal criticism of Hegel which deserves to be taken seriously. (shrink)

Violence is a necessary factor in Frantz Fanon's concept of anti-colonial freedom. What does Fanon mean by violence? Why does he think violence is necessary or good? Is he correct? This article defends the opening statement through an exegesis of primary and secondary literature on Fanon, Jean-Paul Sartre, violence, and freedom. Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth is the central text under analysis. References to Black Skin, White Masks and A Dying Colonialism receive critical scrutiny only in relation to Fanon's (...) overall theory of violence and freedom. I argue that Fanon views violence as intrinsically valuable in the anti-colonial struggle for freedom. (shrink)

Volume II in the Evolution of Gestalt series, _Relational Child, Relational Brain_ continues the development of the paradigm shift that places human development in a field that is deeply complex and fundamentally one of interconnection, taking us away from the limiting view of us as separate individuals. It builds on the foundation of contemporary views of relational neurodevelopment and the profound influence of relationship on brain growth. It shows how, particularly in the first two years of life, but continuing across (...) the whole of childhood and adolescence into early adulthood, the relational field is the context of child development. The focus then broadens out to examine the intersubjective influence of community, culture, and social and physical support. Backed by neurobiological and related research, it offers many examples of relational Gestalt practice with children, adolescents, and their families, with stories of loss, trauma, isolation, and other adversities. Not just an invaluable resource for child and adolescent therapists, _Relational Child, Relational Brain_ goes beyond the Esalen Study Conference from which it emerged and is a further invitation and challenge to apply relational Gestalt practice as a coherent and effective way forward in the troubled world of today. (shrink)

Creolizing Hannah Arendt is the first book to explore the implications of creolizing Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and thinking for: action, liberation, freedom, power, democracy, identity, racism, prejudice, totalitarianism, immigration, judgment, revolution, decolonial politics, the human, and the modern traditions of Caribbean political thought, Africana philosophy, and existential phenomenology.

Few figures of the Middle Ages command the attention of so many modern disciplines as Robert Grosseteste (c. 1170-1253). Theology, Philosophy, History, and Science are all areas which his life and thought continue to have significance and to inspire re-interpretation. Accompanied by a series of original commentaries, this new edition of Grosseteste's work, with English translation, draws together the perspectives of modern scientists and medieval specialists. Volume I of a six volume series, Knowing and Speaking presents two of the (...) earliest of Grosseteste's works, the treatises On the Liberal Arts and On the Generation of Sounds. These are accompanied by a significant Middle English treatise on the Seven Liberal Arts whose anonymous fifteenth-century author translated and excerpted passages from Grosseteste's treatises in a re-imagining of their structure and function.0Each work is treated separately within the volume, which is constructed in three parts. On the Liberal Arts sets Grosseteste's thoughts on the arts subjects and emphasises moral concerns about the purpose of learning. On the Generation of Sounds builds on the theories and statements of On the Liberal Arts in connection to the production of sound, elaborating the earlier position, relating the generation of sounds to human vocal and speech production. (shrink)