Reprint of the original, first published in 1919.

In “Sweatshops and Respect for Persons” we argued on Kantian grounds that managers of multinational enterprises (MNEs) have the following duties: to adhere to local labor laws, to refrain from coercion, to meet minimum health and safety standards, and to pay workers a living wage. In their commentary on our paper Sollars and Englander challenge some of our conclusions. We argue here that several of their criticisms are based on an inaccurate reading of our paper, and that none of the (...) remaining criticisms successfully challenge our main arguments. By highlighting the shortcomings of their arguments we hope to advance discussion of the ethical treatment of workers in global supply chains. (shrink)

Epiphenomenalism expressed as a form of materialism in two key axioms; distinguished from Cartesian dualism, physicalism, eliminativism; shown to be compatible with a subjective experience of free choice but not with libertarian free will - the social consequences of this view.

Following an earlier paper (Wetherick, 1989), the analysis of syllogistic reasoning via the medieval doctrine of “distribution of terms” is pursued and completed. The doctrine was not originally presented as an explanation of syllogistic reasoning but turns out to furnish one. It is shown that: It is impossible to assert two propositions having a distributed middle term in common without, at the same time, tacitly asserting the valid conclusion, if any. When the middle term is distributed but no valid conclusion (...) follows, this is a consequence of the distributional status of the subject and predicate terms. When the middle term is not distributed the propositions have nothing but a name in common. The logic of Spencer Brown (1969) is employed to show that logic is implicit in the behaviour of any organism that survives by making distinctions (e.g. between prey/non-prey; predator/non-predator). It is suggested that animal organisms answer this description by definition. Cognitive structures have evolved in the human organism so as to permit the conversion of habitual associations into universal propositions thus allowing formal logic and mathematics. This view appears to require a reversion to psychologism in logic, the consequences are considered and judged acceptable. (shrink)

Although BEQ is celebrating its tenth anniversary, business ethics is considerably older than that. Business ethics has been a staple of Catholic thinking on business for most of this century at least. For most philosophers, however, business ethics is about twenty-five years old. Philosophers became active in the field in the mid-1970s. I have chosen as my topic for this essay the role that the discipline of philosophy could play in the future.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [271]-285) and index.

Socratic philosophy represents a long-standing tradition within philosophy that understands the journey to truth in terms of the traveler's innate capacity. Anamnesis, maieutics, and elenchus each confirm that truth is not utterly foreign but is instead always within my possession or grasp. Other people, to the extent that they participate in my philosophical exploration, serve only to enable my capabilities or potential. They are not teachers to me. Nor would I need them, since I am always already in the neighborhood (...) of truth. ;Emmanuel Levinas's description of the "face to face" encounter between people challenges the adequacy of this model. Another person is not simply a midwife who leads me to a recovery of truth that was always within me or within my domain. Rather, the Other comes to me from a dimension of height or transcendence and teaches me. By this teaching Levinas means that I, as one who might claim truth for myself, find myself put into question. Before the Other I discover that my claims to knowledge are inadequate, even unjust, insofar as the Other exceeds, and thereby resists, my comprehensive claim on the world. The Other, in other words, reveals the naivete and the dogmatism characteristic of my familiar world, and puts me on a new and unforseen path to truth. ;This dissertation, by way of an explication of the category of transcendence, examines how the autonomous world of Socratic maieutics is transformed by the teaching encounter with another person into a heteronomous world. Heteronomy suggests my answerability to an order beyond the resources of anamnesis. This answerability, which Levinas describes as my responsibility to the Other, demands that we re-examine language not in terms of its systematicity or thematic capability but as the condition for all speaking whatsoever, i.e., my being called into communication. The word of the Other signifies a transcendent domain, a domain beyond my familiar world. It also makes possible a sincere life lived to the Other. (shrink)

This article investigates an intertwined systematic and historical view on theories of matter. It follows an approach brought forward by Hermann Weyl around 1925, applies it to recent theories of matter in physics (including geometrodynamics and quantum gravity), and embeds it into a more general philosophical framework. First, I shall discuss the physical and philosophical problems of a unified field theory on the basis of Weyl's own abandonment of his 1918 ‘pure field theory’ in favour of an ‘agent theory’ of (...) matter. The difference between agent and field theories of matter is then used to establish a sort of dialectic meta-view. With reference to Weyl this view can be understood as being a particular Fichtean transcendental idealist approach which attempts to combine the strengths of the Husserlian phenomenology and Cassirer's neo-Kantianism. (shrink)

SIECLE DES LUMIERES, HISTOIRE, 18e siècle.

In this paper I argue that the poker analogy is unsuitable as a model for collective bargaining negotiations. Using the poker game analogy is imprudent, its use undermines trust and ignores the cooperative features of business, and its use fails to take into account the values of dignity and fairness which should characterize labor-management negotiations. I propose and defend a model of ideal family decision-making as a superior model to the poker game.