Abstract:Extrapolating from Carroll’s four domains of corporate social responsibility (1979) and Pyramid of CSR (1991), an alternative approach to conceptualizing corporate social responsibility (CSR) is proposed. A three-domain approach is presented in which the three core domains of economic, legal, and ethical responsibilities are depicted in a Venn model framework. The Venn framework yields seven CSR categories resulting from the overlap of the three core domains. Corporate examples are suggested and classified according to the new model, followed by a discussion (...) of limitations and teaching and research implications. (shrink)

Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions ; both big and small ; have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you (...) even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice ; the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish ; becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice ; from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs ; has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make."--provided by publisher. (shrink)

Over the past year the debate over physician-assisted death has been waged in several courts and legislatures, and before at least one electorate as well. Measure 16, the Oregon Death With Dignity initiative that would permit physician-assisted suicide in some circumstances, was approved by the electorate; but it remains on hold while a permanent injunction issued against it by a Federal judge is reviewed by the United States Court of Appeals. Another Federal court judge's decision that the Washington statute criminalizing (...) physician-assisted suicide was unconstitutional when applied to the case of a competent terminally ill patient in intractable pain, was reversed by a three judge panel of that same United States Court of Appeals. (shrink)

The moral obligation to support space exploration follows from our obligations to protect the environment and to survive as a species. It can be justified through three related arguments: one supporting space exploration as necessary for acquiring resources, and two illustrating the need for space technology in order to combat extraterrestrial threats such as meteorite impacts. Three sorts of objections have been raised against this obligation. The first are objections alleging that supporting space exploration is impractical. The second is the (...) widely held notion that space exploration and environmentalism are at odds with one another. Finally, there are two objections to using space resources that Robert Sparrow has raised on the topic of terraforming. The obligation to support space exploration can be defended in at least three ways: (1) the "argument from resources," that space exploration is useful for amplifying our available resources; (2) the "argument from asteroids," that space exploration is necessary for protecting the environment and its inhabitants from extraterrestrial threats such as meteorite impacts; and (3) the "argument from solar burnout," that we are obligated to pursue interstellar colonization in order to ensure long-term human survival. (shrink)

Patients should not always receive hard data about the risks and benefits of a medical intervention. That information should always be available to patients who expressly ask for it, but it should be part of standard disclosure only sometimes, and only for some patients. And even then, we need to think about how to offer it.

This paper offers a novel interpretation of the political implications of Hobbes’s theory of imagination and his solution to the threat posed by the imagination to political stability. While recent work has correctly identified the problem the imagination poses for Hobbes, it has underestimated the severity of the problem and, accordingly, has underestimated the length to which the Hobbesian sovereign will have to go in order to solve it. By reconstructing Hobbes’s account of sleep and the operation of the imagination (...) during sleep, this paper argues that the Hobbesian sovereign who seeks to solve the problem of the imagination must maintain his subjects in a ‘state of sleep,’ by preventing any kind of new inputs from disturbing their imagination. This solution suggests that the citizens of the Leviathan state are not sleeping sovereigns, but rather sleeping subjects. (shrink)

Backdating of stock options is an example of an agency problem. It has emerged despite all the measures (i.e., new regulations and additional corporate governance mechanisms) aimed at addressing such problems? Beyond such negative controlling measures, a more positive empowering approach based on ethics may also be necessary. What ethical measures need to be taken to address the agency problem? What values and norms should guide the board of directors in protecting the shareholders' interests? To examine these issues, we first (...) discuss the role values and norms can play with respect to underlying corporate governance and the proper role of directors, such as transparency, accountability, integrity (which is reflected in proper mechanisms of checks and balances), and public responsibility. Second, we discuss various stakeholder approaches (e.g., government, directors, managers, and shareholders) by which conflicts of interest (i.e., the agency problem) can be addressed. Third, we assess the practice of backdating stock options, as an illustration of the agency problem, in terms of whether the practice is legally acceptable or ethically justifiable. Fourth, we proceed to an analysis of good corporate governance practice involving backdating options based on a series of ethical standards including: (1) trustworthiness; (2) utilitarianism; (3) justice; and (4) Kantianism. We conclude that while executive compensation schemes (e. g., stock options) were originally intended to help remedy the agency problem by tying together the interests of the executives and shareholders, these schemes may have actually become "part of the problem," and that the solution ultimately depends upon whether directors and executives accept that all of their actions must be based on a set of core ethical values. (shrink)

Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his "horrible heresies" and "monstrous deeds." Yet, over the past three centuries, Spinoza's rupture with traditional Jewish beliefs and practices has elevated him to a prominent place in genealogies of Jewish modernity. The First Modern Jew provides a riveting look at how Spinoza went from being one of Judaism's most notorious outcasts (...) to one of its most celebrated, if still highly controversial, cultural icons, and a powerful and protean symbol of the first modern secular Jew. Ranging from Amsterdam to Palestine and back again to Europe, the book chronicles Spinoza's posthumous odyssey from marginalized heretic to hero, the exemplar of a whole host of Jewish identities, including cosmopolitan, nationalist, reformist, and rejectionist. Daniel Schwartz shows that in fashioning Spinoza into "the first modern Jew," generations of Jewish intellectuals -German liberals, East European maskilim, secular Zionists, and Yiddishists- have projected their own dilemmas of identity onto him, reshaping the Amsterdam thinker in their own image. The many afterlives of Spinoza are a kind of looking glass into the struggles of Jewish writers over where to draw the boundaries of Jewishness and whether a secular Jewish identity is indeed possible. Cumulatively, these afterlives offer a kaleidoscopic view of modern Jewish culture and a vivid history of an obsession with Spinoza that continues to this day."--Jacket. (shrink)

The paper examines both the phenomenology of the manic self as well as critical aspects of manic neurobiology, focusing, with respect to both domains, on manic temporality. We argue that the distortions of lived time in mania exceed mere acceleration and are fundamental for manic affectivity. Mania involves radical acceleration and radical asynchronicity, which result in an instantaneous existence. People with mania rebel against the facticity of reality and suffer from an existential leap towards the future, in which the self (...) abandons normal temporal boundaries. Excerpts from the interviews with persons with mania who experienced psychosis illustrate this phenomenon. Commenting upon disrupted circadian rhythms in mania and the role of lithium in its treatment the paper posits manic temporality as the link through which manic phenomenology and manic neurobiology intertwine. (shrink)

In social and political theory, the imagination is often used in accounting both for creativity, innovation, and change and for sociopolitical stagnation and the inability to promote innovation and change. To what extent, however, can we attribute such seemingly contradictory outcomes to the same mental faculty? To address this question, this paper develops a comprehensive account of the political imagination, one that explains the various roles played by imagination in politics and thus accounts for the promises and limits of the (...) political imagination. This conceptualization of the political imagination allows us to account for the simultaneous presence of its seemingly contradictory roles—such as promoting stability and order on the one hand while generating creativity and critical innovation on the other. (shrink)

This paper argues that intuition plays a role in the diagnosis of schizophrenia and presents its phenomenological rationale. A discussion of self-assessment questionnaires and empirical studies in the clinical setting provides evidence that despite the prevalence of operational diagnosis, the intuitive judgment of schizophrenia continues to take place. Two related notions of intuitive diagnosis are presented: Minkowski’s diagnostic by penetration and Rümke’s praecox feeling. Further on, the paper explores and clarifies the phenomenology behind the praecox feeling. First, it is argued, (...) intuitive diagnosis is neither a feeling nor an experience, but a typification operating at an implicit level. Second, it is not simply subjective as spatially it takes place in the in-between of the clinical interaction. Finally, it is not just momentary, but temporally extended, and, hence, partly reflective. The paper suggests that intuitive diagnosis requires critical testing on the side of the psychiatrist to either confirm or falsify it through reflective operations. In conclusion, the merits and shortcomings of intuitive vs. operational diagnosis are presented. (shrink)

This paper attempts to build on the contribution to moral imagination theory by Patricia Werhane by further integrating moral imagination with new theoretical developments that have taken place in the business ethics field. To accomplish this objective, part one will review the concept of moral imagination, from its definitional origins to its full theoretical conceptualization. Part two will provide a brief literature review of how moral imagination has been applied in empirical research. Part three will analyze and apply the construct (...) of moral imagination as it relates to the key process stages of ethical decision making including awareness, judgment, intention, and behavior. Immoral imagination is then discussed, along with other behavioral ethics concepts as they relate to moral imagination. The paper concludes with potential future research directions, as well as teaching and managerial implications for the moral imagination construct. (shrink)

Ever since its first documented live birth in 2014, the use of uterine transplantation (UTx) for the treatment of absolute uterine factor infertility (UFI) has seen major clinical advances, which include the use of alternative surgical approaches, different donor states, and diverse patient populations. In addition to the thorough research programs that developed the technique, this accomplishment has occurred in large part following a number of ethical frameworks, such as the Montreal Criteria and the Indianapolis Consensus, which paved the way (...) to transition from experimental animal trials to human ones. To date, over 60 uterine transplants have been performed in the world, and at least 18 births have been thus far confirmed. While the procedure remains experimental, the vast knowledge and procedural experience amassed over the last 20 years of rigorous research have hinted at the next step of discovery. In particular, advancing social circumstances have prompted the question regarding the use of this technology in transgender individuals. Though the potential use of uterine transplants in the transgender population has been hypothesized, no in‐depth ethical framework has been developed towards this purpose. Herein, we explore the ethical issues revolving around the use of this technology in this patient population and provide key insights that may advance this cause. (shrink)

How and why did comparative political economy lose sight of the sources of growing macroeconomic and political instability, a problem that encompassed a growing financial bubble and then a crash in the housing market, a period of sluggish growth that plausibly constitutes secular stagnation, and a crisis of political legitimacy manifesting itself in the rise of antisystem “populist” parties? A gradual shift in CPE’s research agenda from macroeconomic to microeconomic concerns, and from demand-side to supply-side explanations, diminished its ability to (...) analyze adequately the central economic and political problems of the past twenty years. This article traces CPE’s evolution through successive “supermodels” that constituted its core research foci. To understand the current crisis, CPE needs to revisit and update its original roots in Keynes, macroeconomics, and the demand side. This shift is already happening at the margins, as CPE scholars struggle to understand the current crisis. (shrink)

Linda burns in her article 'vagueness and coherence' ("synthese" 68) claims to solve the sorites paradox. Her strategy consists in part in arguing that vague terms involve loose rather than strict tolerance principles. Only strict principles give rise to the sorites paradox. I argue that vague terms do indeed involve paradox-Generating strict tolerance principles, Although different ones from those burns considers. The sorites paradox remains unsolved.

The goal of this paper is to introduce Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences’ thematic issue on disordered temporalities. The authors begin by discussing the main reason for the neglect of temporal experience in present-day psychiatric nosologies, mainly, its reduction to clock time. Methodological challenges facing research on temporal experience include addressing the felt sense of time, its structure, and its pre-reflective aspects in the life-world setting. In the second part, the paper covers the contributions to the thematic issue concerning temporal (...) experience in anxiety, depression, mania, addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, autism, and in recovery from psychosis. The authors argue in favor of integrative and cross-disciplinary approaches. In conclusion, they present time as a significant aspect of human suffering. (shrink)

Food safety problems in China, such as deadly tainted milk, have attracted growing attention from a corporate social responsibility perspective. To examine the forces that potentially drive CSR behavior within the Chinese food industry, our study is organized as follows. First, a review is conducted on the unique history of CSR in China as well as some of the major Chinese food scandals that have taken place. The primary drivers of CSR in China that have been suggested in the literature (...) are then summarized. Next, new institutional theory perspectives are drawn upon to analyze three forces that potentially affect the behavior of Chinese firms: coercive isomorphism, mimetic processes, and normative pressures. Based on a questionnaire survey of 164 Chinese managers and employees, the CSR behavior of firms operating in the Chinese food industry is found to only be significantly affected by the institutional factor of normative pressures. The study concludes with its limitations as well as the implications of the findings. (shrink)

A number of business ethics theorist have highlighted the potential for economics to contribute to the advancement of business ethics. In response, this article emphasizes the insights of a particular area of economics that could provide such expansion and development. Subjectivist economics may yet provide an effective analytical framework through which to investigate and evaluate business decision making, and hence the ethics of business. Integrating the concepts of uncertainty, time and imagination, subjectivist economic theory contributes to a greater appreciation of (...) economic choice and behaviour. While such notions are often effectively omitted from modern economic analysis to aid formal representation, business ethicists could utilize such concepts more effectively than their colleagues in economic theory. Significantly, the well-known economists who have championed the insights of subjectivist economics have themselves recommended its extension to an analysis of ethics. (shrink)

The clinical ethics propounded by Richard Zaner is unique. Partly because of his phenomenological orientation and partly because of his own daily practice as a clinical ethicist in a large university hospital, Zaner focuses on the particular concrete situations in which patients and their families confront illness and injury and struggle toward workable ways for dealing with them. He locates ethical reality in the clinical encounter. This encounter encompasses not only patient and physician but also the patients family and friends (...) and indeed the entire lifeworld in which the patient is still striving to live. In order to illuminate the central moral constituents of such human predicaments, Zaner discusses the often-overlooked features of disruption and crisis, the changed self, the patients dependence and the physicians power, the violation of personal boundaries and their necessary reconfiguring, and the art of listening. (shrink)

Most decisions in life involve ambiguity, where probabilities can not be meaningfully specified, as much as they involve probabilistic uncertainty. In such conditions, the aspiration to utility maximization may be self-deceptive. We propose “robust satisficing” as an alternative to utility maximizing as the normative standard for rational decision making in such circumstances. Instead of seeking to maximize the expected value, or utility, of a decision outcome, robust satisficing aims to maximize the robustness to uncertainty of a satisfactory outcome. That is, (...) robust satisficing asks, “what is a ‘good enough’ outcome,” and then seeks the option that will produce such an outcome under the widest set of circumstances. We explore the conditions under which robust satisficing is a more appropriate norm for decision making than utility maximizing. (shrink)

This new volume on logic follows a recognizable format that deals in turn with the topics of mathematical logic, moving from concepts, via definitions and inferences, to theories and axioms. However, this fresh work offers a key innovation in its ‘pyramidal’ graph system for the logical formalization of all these items. The author has developed this new methodology on the basis of original research, traditional logical instruments such as Porphyrian trees, and modern concepts of classification, in which pyramids are the (...) central organizing concept. The pyramidal schema enables both the content of concepts and the relations between the concept positions in the pyramid to be read off from the graph. Logical connectors are analyzed in terms of the direction in which they connect within the pyramid. Additionally, the author shows that logical connectors are of fundamentally different types: only one sort generates propositions with truth values, while the other yields conceptual expressions or complex concepts. On this basis, strong arguments are developed against adopting the non-discriminating connector definitions implicit in Wittgensteinian truth-value tables. Special consideration is given to mathematical connectors so as to illuminate the formation of concepts in the natural sciences. To show what the pyramidal method can contribute to science, a pyramid of the number concepts prevalent in mathematics is constructed. The book also counters the logical dogma of ‘false’ contradictory propositions and sheds new light on the logical characteristics of probable propositions, as well as on syllogistic and other inferences. (shrink)

BackgroundIt is becoming increasingly apparent that the COVID-19 pandemic not only poses risks to physical health, but that it also might lead to a global mental health crisis, making the exploration of protective factors for mental well-being highly relevant. The present study seeks to investigate religious/spiritual well-being as a potential protective factor with regard to psychiatric symptom burden and addictive behavior.Materials and MethodsThe data was collected by conducting an online survey in the interim period between two national lockdowns with young (...) adults in Austria. The primary study variables were assessed through the Brief Symptom Inventory 18, the Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test and the Multidimensional Inventory for Religious/Spiritual Well-Being short version, with its sub-dimensions Hope, Forgiveness, General Religiosity, and Connectedness.ResultsWe observed HO and FO as substantial negative predictors of psychiatric symptom burden. With regard to addictive behavior, HO in particular but also GR seem to have a protective function. Furthermore, we found positive connections between CO, psychiatric symptom burden, and addictive behavior.ConclusionIn line with our assumptions, HO, FO and to a minor extent GR were confirmed as negative predictors regarding psychiatric symptom burden or addictive behavior in young adults, coping with the psychological threat of COVID-19 pandemic. These dimensions might be further considered as potential resources in clinical treatment. However, the positive prediction of mental illness parameters by increased feelings of CO could also be interpreted as an expression of exhaustion and alienation from the real world. (shrink)

If distributed cognition is to become a general analytic frame, it needs to handle more aspects of cognition than just highly efficient problem solving. It should also handle learning. We identify four classes of distributed learning: induction, repurposing, symbiotic tuning, and mutual adaptation. The four classes of distributed learning fit into a two-dimensional space defined by the stability and adaptability of individuals and their environments. In all four classes of learning, people and their environments are highly interdependent during initial learning. (...) At the same time, we present evidence indicating that certain types of interdependence in early learning, most notably mutual adaptation, can help prepare people to be less dependent on their immediate environment and more adaptive when they confront new environments. We also describe and test examples of learning technologies that implement mutual adaptation. (shrink)

The term corporate social responsibility is often used in the boardroom, classroom, and political platform, but what does it really mean? Do corporations have ethical or philanthropic duties beyond their obligations to comply with the law? How does CSR relate to business ethics, stakeholder management, sustainability, and corporate citizenship? Mark Schwartz provides a concise, cutting-edge introduction to the topic, analyzing many case studies with the help of his innovative “Three Domain Approach” to CSR. _Corporate Social Responsibility_ also provides a (...) chronology of landmark contributions to the concept of CSR and includes CSR resources on organizations, global codes and criteria, corporate CSR reports, and websites and blogs. It is an invaluable resource for students, instructors, and business leaders looking to master the basics of CSR. (shrink)

This article offers a new interpretation of the second ‘theological’ pattern in Plato’s Republic. Situating Plato within his religious context, it argues that this pattern calls into question the traditional ancient model of divine epiphany. Divine epiphany was a central element in Greek religion. Yet, in the absence of a centralized religious organization, this model threatened the philosophers’ authoritative position. Plato’s second pattern seeks not only to undermine this potential threat but also to pave the way towards a new, philosophicalmodel (...) of divine epiphany, thus further establishing the philosophers’ authority and legitimacy within and outside his ideal city. (shrink)

Images of encounters between animals and drones or Google Street View cars are quite viral on the web. This article focuses on the different regimes of animacy and conflicts of affects in these images using an anthropo- semiotic approach. It investigates how other- ness reveals something that exceeds us, from the materiality of the machine to systems of values. It suggests that the disturbance of ani- mal presence in contemporary digital images helps us to read media technologies.

RÉSUMÉLe mot «migrants» n'existait pas dans la langue des Hellènes; ils étaient plus familiers avec le vocable de l'exil et de l'asile. D'ailleurs, l'exil ne saurait se penser sans son corollaire, l'asile, comme le citoyen antique sans le barbare et la démocratie sans la tyrannie. À travers une métaphore située au carrefour de la fiction historique, de la philosophie politique et de la psychanalyse, cet article propose une réflexion sur l'exil comme condition fondamentale du sujet. L'exil est d'origine, car la (...) langue de l'enfance, la langue dite maternelle est d'abord une langue étrangère. L'exil intime porte la marque d'une universalité qui fonde l'expérience subjective.ABSTRACTThe word ‘migrants’ did not exist in the language of the Hellenes; they were more familiar with the terms ‘exile’ and ‘political asylum.’ Indeed, exile cannot be thought of without its corollary, political asylum, as the Ancient citizen cannot be thought of without the barbarian, and democracy without tyranny. Through a metaphor located at the crossroads of historical fiction, political philosophy and psychoanalysis, this article offers a reflection on exile as a fundamental condition of the subject. Exile is originary because the language of childhood, the so-called mother tongue, is originally a foreign language. Intimate exile bears the mark of a universality that founds subjective experience. (shrink)

This paper aims to clarify and defend the distinction by Isaiah Berlin between “negative liberty” on the one hand, and “positive” and “communal liberty” on the other. This distinction has been attacked by those who believe it breaks the necessary harmony with equality or fraternity, virtues that many progressive authors place on the same plane as freedom. Instead of speaking of “negative liberty,” as proposed by Berlin, we propose to call it “classical” or “formal” liberty. In turn, rather than speaking (...) of “positive” liberty, we propose to say “possessive liberty” and “communal liberty.” Thus, Isaiah Berlin should have spoken of three concepts of liberty and have stressed that the latter two may be destructive of the first. Possessive and communal liberty can be significant aspects of a society, but should not be confused with personal liberty. The promotion of possessive and comunal liberty is often accompanied by invasions of formal liberty. (shrink)

In Arendt's Judgment: Freedom, Responsibility, Citizenship, Jonathan Peter Schwartz claims that Arendt's theory of political judgment formed the core of her political thought, and that understanding it correctly makes it possible to grasp the systematic thread that runs through her diverse body of work.

Putnam's intuitionist proposal for a logic of vague terms is defended. It is argued that both classical logic and the degrees of truth approach are committed to treating vague terms as having hidden precise borderlines. This is a crucial failing in a logic of vagueness. Intuitionism, because of the nature of intuitionist negation, avoids this failing.

This volume is designed to be an in-depth and nuanced philosophical treatment of the virtue of obedience in the context of the professional military and the broader civilian political community, including the general citizenry. The nature and components of obedience are critical factors leading to further discussions of the moral obligations related to obedience, as well as the related practical issues and implications. Pauline Shanks Kaurin seeks to address the following questions: What is obedience? Is it a virtue, and (...) if it is, why? What are the moral grounds of obedience? Why ought military members and citizens be obedient? Are there times that one ought not be obedient? Why? How should we think about obedience in contemporary political communities? (shrink)

Statistics from both South Africa and the United States of America indicate that the phenomenon of violence amongst youths is increasing. This implies that a larger number of youths are being exposed to the experience of violence and thus present with the complex and multi-dimensional effects of such an experience. Past research has centred mostly on the causative factors that can be statistically represented, with little focus being paid to the juveniles’ in-depth, subjective experience of the phenomenon. For the male (...) adolescent, the experience of the phenomenon of violence is complex, diverse and may span across many aspects of his life, including physical, psychological, personal and social dimensions. Three participants were sourced from the Leeuwkop Juvenile Correctional Facility in Johannesburg and interviewed for the purpose of this study. The participants were selected based on their age (between 13 and 19 years of age) and the type of crime that they had committed (assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, common assault or indecent assault). In accordance with the phenomenological approach, open-ended interviews were used as a research method in order to allow for the participants’ unique and subjective experience of the phenomenon to emerge. The researchers found that the phenomenon of violence is characterised by the juveniles’ experience of external events that provoke a certain response manifesting itself in violent behaviour. The responses described by the participants were mostly emotional in nature and included emotions such as anger, rage and fury. The experience of violence also holds certain consequences for the male juvenile offender. The most common consequence experienced by all three participants was their subsequent arrest and incarceration in a correctional facility. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 11, Edition 1 May 2011, iii-v. (shrink)

All human relationships are containers of emotional life, but what are the structures underlying them? Nathan Schwartz-Salant looks at all kinds of relationships through an analyst's eye. By analogy with the ancient system of alchemy he shows how states of mind that can undermine our relationships - in marriage, in creative work, in the workplace - can become transformative when brought to consciousness. It is only by learning how to access the interactive field of our relationships that we can (...) enter this transformative process and explore its mysterious potential for self-realization. (shrink)

The woman being is a human being. This paper critiques gender politics and questions the mistreatment, the second class status and some of the socio-cultural gender roles of women. It posits critical education of men and women, sensitivity and sensibleness as the surest way out of the quagmire.

The notion of veridicality has and continues to play a significant role in both the psychology and philosophy of perception. This paper raises questions about the very idea of perceptual veridicality. In particular, it examines the role the veridical/nonveridical distinction plays in our conception of visual illusions and visual constancies.

Comparative assessments of national bioethics commissions in the United States commonly look at the differences among these groups over their forty‐year history. A particular focus has been differences in the membership, mission, methods, and reports of the President's Council on Bioethics, which was active from 2001 until 2009, compared to those of its predecessors and the recent Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, active from 2009 until 2016. The differences are real, but disproportionate attention to them can obscure (...) the substantial similarities in commissions’ structure and function throughout the history of expert bioethics advice to government. As the Trump administration considers what role, if any, a bioethics commission will play in its work, it would be well served to consider how choices regarding the design of such a group and the topics it examines can best facilitate the unique contributions it can make to the government and to the country. (shrink)

“Business Ethics in Developing Countries: A Response to Rossouw” examines Gedeon J. Rossouw’s account of business morality and those preconditions that he seeks in order to develop a moral business culture in South Africa, given the historical reality in that country. The paper argues that Rossouw does not take cognisance of history. Particularly of the decade after the election of the Nationalist Party Government in 1948, when that government strove to impose its ideology upon South African Society. If he did (...) take cognisance of that history, then he would not be able to proffer those proposals which he believes would improve business morality there. The paper also extends a caution against the acceptance of economic advancement as a pre-condition for the appearance of moral business practices. Likewise for the contrary view that economic growth is the harbinger of moral decay. (shrink)