The Pasadena game invented by Nover and Hájek raises a number of challenges for decision theory. The basic problem is how the game should be evaluated: it has no expectation and hence no well-defined value. Easwaran has shown that the Pasadena game does have a weak expectation, raising the possibility that we can eliminate the value gap by requiring agents to value gambles at their weak expectations. In this paper, I first prove a negative result: there are gambles like the (...) Pasadena game that do not even have a weak expectation. Hence, problematic value gaps remain even if decision theory is extended to take in weak expectations. There is a further challenge: the existence of a ‘value gap’ in the Pasadena game seems to make decision theory inapplicable in a number of cases where the right choice is obvious. The positive contribution of the paper is a theory of ‘relative utilities’, an extension of decision theory that lets us make comparative judgements even among gambles that have no well-defined value. (shrink)

This article argues that contemporary debates of the 'hard problem' of consciousness (i.e.how does 'mindless' matter produce 'matterless' mind?) cannot be resolved through philosophical analysis alone and need to be anchored to a comprehensive empirical foundation that includes psychophysiological research of psychosomatic phenomena and exceptional human experience. First, alternative perspectives on the mind–matter question and reasons why traditional formulations of the 'hard problem' have been so difficult to resolve are reviewed. Empirical evidence of mind modulation of bodily systems and its (...) implications for the classical quantitative–qualitative distinction and construct of causal closure are then considered. A novel theory that combines bottom-up (panpsychism) and top-down (non-theistic panenpsychism) approaches relating physical processes to mental activity is then proposed that has practical implications for conceiving and exploring alternatives to current ways of thinking about the mind–matter question. (shrink)

The trilogy is viewed through the lens of myth and metaphor. A wide variety of philosophical and mythological themes are presented and expounded upon, drawing from a rich source of scholars, thinkers, writers, and poets from East and West alike. Heretical or not, the Star Wars prequels are a surprisingly rich source of insight into the whole saga.

We should seek an ethic internal to marketing arising from marketing's societal function, rather than imposing some add-on ethic. This suggests that marketing should enhance the information and the freedom the potential customer brings to the market transaction. Defining and achieving this information and freedom is difficult, but marketers suggest that the market itself drives out major violators, a suggestion less persuasive concerning increasingly complex goods and services. Marketing also is tempted to appeal to our baser, darker side. These problems (...) are better addressed through self-regulation guided by a vision of advertising and business in the service of society, and by the marketer's own sense of integrity than through external regulation. (shrink)

The authors argue that the time is ripe for national and corporate leaders to move consciously towards the development of global ethics. This papers presents a model of global ethics, a rationale for the development of global ethics, and the implications of the model for research and practice.

Fish proposes that we need to elucidate what 'disjunctivism' stands for, and he also proposes that it stands for the rejection of a principle about the nature of experience that he calls the decisiveness principle. The present paper argues that his first proposal is reasonable, but then argues, in Section II, that his positive suggestion does not draw the line between disjunctivism and non-disjunctivism in the right place. In Section III, it is argued that disjunctivism is a thesis about the (...) special nature of perceptual experience, and the thesis as elucidated here is then distinguished from and related to certain other ideas about perception, namely, direct realism and also McDowell's epistemological disjunctivism. (shrink)

Professor Donaldson in his book Corporations and Morality has attempted to use a social contract theory to develop moral principles for regulating corporate conduct. I argue in this paper that his attempt fails in large measure because what he refers to as a social contract theory is, in fact, a weak functionalist theory which provides no independent basis for evaluating business corporations. I further argue that given the nature of a morality based on contract and the nature of the modern (...) corporation, it is highly unlikely that any plausible contract theory of business ethics can be developed. (shrink)

An authoritative account of the intellectual and educational history of the late Italian Renaissance. Twenty essays on major themes, institutions, and persons of the Italian Renaissance by one of its most distinguished living historians.

What kind of thing are we? Paul Snowdon's answer is that we are animals, of a sort. This view--'animalism'--may seem obvious but on the whole philosophers have rejected it. Snowdon argues that animalism is a defensible way of thinking about ourselves. Its rejection rests on the tendency when doing philosophy to mistake fantasy for reality.

Gift and gratitude are examined as moral realities and are found to play a variety of roles in the moral life and in moral discourse. Some of these have to do with obligations arising from the gift relation while others stand in some tension with the idea of obligation. The relation between these two kinds of elements is explored. Gift and gratitude are also examined in relation to moral agenthood. The analysis is then tested for its usefulness in relation to (...) some problematic gifts cited in Christian ethics. Finally, some normative implications of the analysis are briefly suggested. (shrink)

As transnational interactions increase, cross-cultural conflict concerning ethical issues is inevitable. This article presents a model for assisting decision makers in selecting appropriate strategies for addressing cross-cultural ethical conflict. A theoretical framework for the model is developed based on the literature on international business ethics and on conflict resolution. The model is illustrated through several case examples. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Book reviewed: O’Connor, Peg, Oppression and Responsibility: a Wittgensteinian Approach to Social Practices and Moral Theory, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002, 151 pp., ISBN 0‐271‐02202‐7.

La concepción disyuntiva del conocimiento perceptual de McDowell contiene una novedosa adición a su interesante respuesta al escepticismo introduciendo un argumento trascendental. No está claro que esta adición fortalezca su respuesta. El disyuntivismo de McDowell parece envolver compromisos tanto epistemológicos como teórico-empíricos. Se trata de una estructura de dos lados de la que surgen preguntas acerca de la supuesta relación entre ambos lados. El propósito de este trabajo es realizar algunos progresos en la evaluación de la contribución de McDowell a (...) la discusión sobre el conocimiento perceptual y aclarar aspectos más generales del debate en torno al disyuntivismo. (shrink)

Nietzsche's harsh attacks on modernity suggest a problem: if the modern age is so diseased, can we overcome it and move on to something higher? Or is the disease too severe? I examine the question by studying Nietzsche's view of spiritual health. Spiritual illness, even in the highest man, is nothing unusual or necessarily debilitating. Even the strongest have been infected since the earliest days of civilization. Indeed, infection with slave morality and bad conscience are requirements for spiritual elevation. And (...) the disease serves life by giving the strong something to struggle against, as well as making possible the spiritual greatness required to revalue all values. The higher man, then, is a mixture of health and disease. The revaluation of values is extraordinarily dangerous, but not impossible. Key Words: great politics • Nietzsche's revaluation of all values • On the Genealogy of Morals • spiritual health. (shrink)

The ability to imagine hypothetical events in one’s personal future is thought to involve a number of constituent cognitive processes. We investigated the extent to which individual differences in working memory capacity contribute to facets of episodic future thought. College students completed simple and complex measures of working memory and were cued to recall autobiographical memories and imagine future autobiographical events consisting of varying levels of specificity . Consistent with previous findings, future thought was related to analogous measures of autobiographical (...) memory, likely reflecting overlapping cognitive factors supporting both past and future thought. Additionally, after controlling for autobiographical memory, residual working memory variance independently predicted future episodic specificity. We suggest that when imagining future events, working memory contributes to the construction of a single, coherent, future event depiction, but not to the retrieval or elaboration of event details. (shrink)