The objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of privatization on the performance of firms by using a panel data set of 38 companies that were privatized in Europe. We compare the profit, profitability, total product, operating efficiency, net income, employment, leverage and risk of these SOEs before and after their privatization. The legal environment, regulation, goals of privatization and competition characterize each sector, which is why we split the total sample into sectors. Our results indicate that the (...) performance of companies in the utility industry is significantly better after privatization; however, we cannot assert this for the other sectors. (shrink)

After experiments with various economic systems, we appear to have conceded, to misquote Winston Churchill that "free enterprise is the worst economic system, except all the others that have been tried." Affirming that conclusion, I shall argue that in today's expanding global economy, we need to revisit our mind-sets about corporate governance and leadership to fit what will be new kinds of free enterprise. The aim is to develop a values-based model for corporate governance in this age of globalization that (...) will be appropriate in a variety of challenging cultural and economic settings. I shall present an analysis of mental models from a social constructivist perspective. I shall then develop the notion of moral imagination as one way to revisit traditional mind-sets about values-based corporate governance and outline what I mean by systems thinking. I shall conclude with examples for modeling corporate governance in multi-cultural settings and draw tentative conclusions about globalization. (shrink)

In Frege's Conception of Logic Patricia A. Blanchette explores the relationship between Gottlob Frege's understanding of conceptual analysis and his understanding of logic.

In its treatment of the role of emotion in ethics the argument of the book outlines a new way of packing motivational force into moral meaning that allows for a ...

Despite the fact that a number of economists and philosophers of late defend insider trading both as a viable and useful practice in a free market and as not immoral, I shall question the value of insider trading both from a moral and an economic point of view. I shall argue that insider trading both in its present illegal form and as a legalized market mechanism undermines the efficient and proper functioning of a free market, thereby bringing into question its (...) own raison d'etre. It does so and is economically inefficient for the very reason that it is immoral. Thus this practice cannot be justified either from an economic or a moral point of view. Insider trading is the reverse of speculation. It is reward without risk, wealth generated — and injury done to others — by an unfair advantage in information ... [T]he core principle is clear: no one should profit from exploitation of important information not available to the public. (shrink)

There is a well-known scene from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer that illustrates what might be considered benign manipulation: Tom has the job of whitewashing a fence but would rather spend the time with friends. By feigning enthusiasm for the job he manages to get his friends to hang around and do it for him. They even pay to do it - with various little items that he later trades for..

Ruth Marcus has offered an account of moral dilemmas in which the presence of dilemmas acts as a motivating force, pushing us to try to minimize predicaments of moral conflict. In this paper, I defend a Marcus-style account of dilemmas against two objections: first, that if dilemmas are real, we are forced to blame those who have done their best, and second, that in some cases, even a stripped down version of blame seems inappropriate. My account highlights the importance of (...) collective responsibility in understanding dilemmas, and I suggest that it sheds light on understanding moral progress. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I argue that Heidegger offers a philosophy of science by explicating that philosophy of science. The following chapter presents Heidegger's early analysis of modern science, from 1916 to the mid-1930s. During these years Heidegger maintains two theses: that the essence of science is the mathematical projection of nature; and that metaphysics is the science of being. As the latter thesis becomes more problematic, Heidegger turns from metaphysics as a science, to the sciences. ;The pivot for this turn (...) is the experiment. Chapter 3 is an analysis of three specific issues surrounding the experiment. I raise the question of whether a single experimental result is enough to overturn a theory, the problem of the theory-loadedness of observation, and the question of representation. ;These issues serve to explicate Heidegger's claim that the essence of science is research, and to show that Heidegger's philosophy of science shares issues with contemporary analytic philosophy of science. Further, I take Heidegger's claim that the essence of science is the ground from out of which the essence of the modern epoch can be shown, as proof that his consideration of science is not secondary in his thinking but rather is the basis from which his critique of the modern epoch is made. ;Chapter 4 is an account of Heidegger's view of the role of science in the university. Heidegger's vision is that the German university can serve to guide historical destiny. His complete disillusionment with that vision comes with his realization that, whereas he calls for a renewal of science for the sake of the sciences in their service of the people, the Nazi call for a renewal of the sciences is toward their own political ends. What little I have to say about Heidegger's involvement with the Nazis is found in this chapter. ;Chapter 5 considers Heidegger's view of ancient science. It lays out Aristotle's distinction between physis and techne under Heidegger's reading. In Chapter 6, I argue that the ancient distinction between physis and techne is not sustained in the modern epoch under Heidegger's account. ;I close with a brief account of Heidegger on quantum theory. (shrink)

Habit and Embodiment in Merleau-PontyIntroductionMerleau-Ponty (French phenomenological philosopher, born in 1908 and deceased in 1961) refers to habit in various passages of his Phenomenology of Perception as a relevant issue in his philosophical and phenomenological position. Through his exploration of this issue he explains both the pre-reflexive character that our original linkage with the world has, as well as the kind of “understanding” that our body develops with regard to the world. These two characteristics of human existence bear a close (...) relation with the vision of an embodied mind sustained by Gallagher and Zahavi in their work The Phenomenological Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science. Merleau-Ponty uses concepts like those of the lived or own body and of lived space in order to emphasize, from a first-person perspective, the co-penetration that exists between subject and world.Gallagher and Zahavi have regained the experience of phenomenology, especially that of Merleau-Ponty and Sartre, to contribute to the development of the cognitive sciences. Via the phenomenological approach to the reality of habit, a new understanding of the body becomes possible for us, such that it becomes characterized “as subject, as experiencer, as agent”, and at the same time we can understand “the way the body structures our experience” (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2008). Additionally, the idea of a pre-reflexive understanding is conceived of by these authors... (shrink)

On an expressivist view, ethical claims are not fact stating; instead they serve the alternative function of expressing our feelings, attitudes and values. On a deflationary view, truth is not a property with a nature to be analyzed, but merely a grammatical device to aid us in endorsing sentences. Views on the relationship between expressivism and deflationism vary widely: they are compatible; they are incompatible; they are a natural pair; they doom one another. Here I explain some of these views, (...) extract some necessary distinctions, and put these to use for understanding expressivism. I argue that contrary to the opinions of some, deflationism doesn’t help with problems of objectivity, knowledge and reasoning in ethics. I suggest alternative expressivist treatments of these problems, and show how expressivism as a metaethical view must have consequences for our ethical lives and beliefs. In particular it must affect the way we deal with ethical consistency—when norms or beliefs conflict—and ethical incompleteness—when ethical questions have no right answer. (shrink)

_A study edition of Peirce's manuscripts for lectures on pragmatism given in spring 1903 at Harvard University, with notes, preface, and an original introduction by the editor introducing Peirce and interpreting Peirce's thinking for a more general readership._.

The East/West divide seems to be as old as history itself, the roots of Orientalism and anti-Semitism lying far beyond the origins of modern Western imperialism. The very project of Western classical republicanism had its darker side: to purloin the legacy of the Greeks, distancing them from Eastern systems deemed 'despotic' and 'other'. Western Republicanism and the Oriental Prince is a thoroughly revisionist book, challenging not only the comfortable view the West has of its own political evolution, but the negative (...) stereotypes of non-Western systems. Not only did these images serve to legitimate early modern European nation states struggling for an identity, but they also served to justify slavery and other forms of domination over subject peoples. Drawing upon archaeological and epigraphic evidence, Springborg discusses the Mesopotamian and ancient Egyptian contribution of political forms and cultic institutions to classical Graeco-Roman civilization, an Eastern legacy to the West long obscured for political reasons. A different reading of the foundation myths of Athens and Rome, certain texts of Plato, Aristotle, and the writings of Herodotus, Isocrates, Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus, permits us to restore possible lines of filtration. Renaissance thought, long believed to have ushered in the Western classical republican tradition, demonstrates a curious ambivalence towards powerful Eastern system, objects of fascination as much as fear. We do not yet find sedimented the divide between Western Democracy and oriental despotism, in which post-Reformation thought as been set in stone. This major new study will be of interest to students of political history, political theory, comparative politics and political archaeology. (shrink)

Originating as a presidential address during the seventieth birthday celebrations of the British Society for the History of Science, this essay reiterates the society's long-standing commitment to academic autonomy and international cooperation. Drawing examples from my own research into female scientists and doctors during the First World War, I explore how narratives written by historians are related to their own lives, both past and present. In particular, I consider the influences on me of my childhood reading, my experiences as a (...) physics graduate who deliberately left the world of science, and my involvement in programmes to improve the position of women in science. In my opinion, being a historian implies being socially engaged: the BSHS and its members have a responsibility towards the future as well as the past.Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.Søren Kierkegaard,Journals and Papers, 1843. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of what value pluralism tells us about the pursuit of moral coherence as a method of moral reasoning. I focus on the status of the norm of ‘systematicity,’ or the demand that our principles be as few and as simple as possible. I argue that, given certain descriptive facts about the pluralistic ways we value, epistemic ways of supporting a systematicity norm do not succeed. Because it is sometimes suggested that coherence functions in moral reasoning (...) as it does in scientific reasoning, my argument considers analogies and disanalogies between moral reasoning and scientific reasoning. (shrink)

A comprehensive look at fictive letters in Greek literature from Homer to Philostratus, first published in 2001. It includes both embedded epistolary narratives in a variety of genres, and works consisting solely of letters, such as the pseudonymous letter collections and the invented letters of the Second Sophistic. The book challenges the notion that Ovid 'invented' the fictional letter form in his Heroides and considers a wealth of Greek antecedents for the later European epistolary novel tradition. Epistolary technique always problematizes (...) the boundaries between fictionality and reality. Based on a process of selection and self-censorship, the letter is a construction, not a reflection, of reality. The author bypasses the question of sincerity for a close look at epistolary self-representation, the function of the letter form and the nature of the relationship between writer and reader in a wide range of ancient Greek texts. (shrink)

Desde una hermenéutica ontológica política se hacen visibles y audibles prácticas singulares a partir del punto de vista de los estudios latinoamericanos, los cuales apelan por una perspectiva de afirmación como propone Arturo Escobar respecto a una mirada sobre la diversidad y singularidad de accio..

Two very different insights motivate characterizing the brain as a computer. One depends on mathematical theory that defines computability in a highly abstract sense. Here the foundational idea is that of a Turing machine. Not an actual machine, the Turing machine is really a conceptual way of making the point that any well-defined function could be executed, step by step, according to simple 'if-you-are-in-state-P-and-have-input-Q-then-do-R' rules, given enough time (maybe infinite time) [see COMPUTATION]. Insofar as the brain is a device whose (...) input and output can be characterized in terms of some mathematical function -- however complicated -- then in that very abstract sense, it can be mimicked by a Turning machine. Given what is known so far brains do seem to depend on cause-effect operations, and hence brains appear to be, in some formal sense, equivalent to a Turing machine [see CHURCH-TURING THESIS]. On its own, however, this reveals nothing at all of how the mind-brain actually works. The second insight depends on looking at the brain as a biological device that processes information from the environment to build complex representations that enable the brain to make predictions and select advantageous behaviors. Where necessary to avoid ambiguity, we will refer to the first notion of computation as algorithmic computation, and the second as information processing computation. (shrink)

My comments focus on Proops’s treatment of the Paralogisms. I agree with many aspects of his discussion, including his views about the project of Rational Psychology and his analyses of how, exactly, the arguments of the Paralogisms are defective in form, but I disagree with his interpretation of the First Paralogism. I argue that the source of confusion that Kant diagnoses is not the grammatical distribution of ‘I’ as singular, but the fact that the I-representation is both empty and necessary (...) for cognition. (shrink)

Classical philosophy adopts the standpoint of males in the Greek polis. The consequent adumbration of the standpoint of women and noncitizen men in the oikos, the household, has implications for feminist philosophy. Two systems of action are differentiated: the domestic economy protected by the goddess Hestia, and the political economy protected by Hermes. Shifting one's standpoint to include both the oikos and the polis offers an alternative to gender as the defining issue in feminist theory.

The papers in this volume question how perceptions of space influenced understandings of the body and its functions, illness and treatment, and the surrounding natural and built environments in relation to health in the classical and ...

• But this rests on the debatable view that understanding a moral reason implies being motivated to conform to it. Psychopaths do seem to have at least a “rote” or emotionally shallow understanding that their acts are wrong.

Like many people, I was initially attracted to free will issues – at first embracing hard determinism, as part of a general rejection of doctrines associated with religion, though exposure to Kant’s views in my first philosophy course made me begin to consider nonreligious grounds for an indeterminist conception of free action. Of course, Kant also takes belief in God and immortality as presupposed by moral agency, but I was never much moved by those arguments. On free will, though, I (...) thought seeing my acts as determined would give me a reason to expend less effort on them. (shrink)

Today’s business students are tomorrow’s business leaders. To ensure they have skills in creating profitable, pro-social, ethical organizations, we need to consider alternative methods of teaching CSR. In this proposed symposium, we will present different approaches to international CSR/Service-Learning.

El objetivo de este artículo es comprender las prácticas y percepciones de las navegadoras de pacientes con sospecha o diagnóstico de cáncer de mama en cuatro hospitales públicos argentinos respecto del uso de las tecnologías de información y comunicación en su tarea cotidiana. En el sistema de navegación de CM, la navegadora acompaña a las pacientes para evitar o superar barreras de acceso a la línea de cuidado del CM, buscando lograr diagnóstico, atención y tratamiento en tiempos óptimos. El abordaje (...) metodológico de la investigación aquí presentada es cualitativo con un diseño descriptivo y exploratorio. Se realizaron entrevistas y observaciones participantes. Entre otros hallazgos, observamos que los déficits estructurales de las TIC en los servicios de salud estudiados obstaculizan el desarrollo de la navegación y refuerzan rechazos y desconfianza a su utilización en las navegadoras estudiadas. A pesar de ello, las TIC se instalan progresivamente en la navegación de pacientes con CM. (shrink)

What principles explain or justify legal institutions or decisions, thereby transforming coercion to authority? Are there or could there be any such universal principles? Can any philosophical theory account for such principles? How, if at all, do philosophical theories of law and politics apply to particular issues? And finally, what, if any, do such practical applications tell us about general theories and principles? The essays in this volume represent the efforts of an international group of scholars to understand these general (...) aspects of legal philosophy. (shrink)

Unlike other works in philosophy of law, which focus on the nature of law in the abstract, this comprehensive anthology presents law as a "process," part and parcel of a system of government and defined constitutional procedures. Using the U.S. legal system as a model, it establishes the basis of law in political theory, then presents substantive issues in private and public law, illustrated throughout with important political documents and court cases and stimulating readings in history, law, and philosophy. The (...) editor's detailed critical commentary, notes, and study questions make these materials accessible and useful for a wide range of readers seeking a deeper understanding of private and public law and the nature of the political process. (shrink)