Morality can help guide behavior and facilitate relationships. Although moral judgments by autistic people are similar to neurotypical individuals, many researchers argue that subtle differences signify deficits in autistic individuals. Moral foundation theory describes moral judgments in terms of differences rather than deficits. The current research, aimed at assessing autistic individuals’ moral inclinations using Haidt’s framework, was co-designed with autistic community members. Our aim was to describe autistic moral thinking from a strengths-based perspective while acknowledging differences that may pose interpersonal (...) challenges among autistic youth. We assessed 25 autistic and 23 neurotypical children’s moral judgments using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire for Kids. We used semi-structured interviews and qualitative analysis with a subset of participants to describe children’s moral reasoning. Analyses suggested that autistic and neurotypical children make similar judgments about moral transgressions across all five moral foundations. General linear mixed modeling showed that the greatest predictor of recommending punishment was how bad children deemed moral transgressions to be. We also found a trend that autistic children were more likely to recommend punishment for harmless norms violations than were neurotypical children. Future research could use longitudinal methods to understand the development of moral judgments among autistic and neurotypical children. (shrink)

Many contemporary artworks include active matter along with rules for conservation that are designed to either facilitate or prevent that matter’s degradation or decay. I discuss the mechanisms through which actual or potential states of material decay contribute to the work’s expressive import. Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin introduce the concepts of literal and metaphorical exemplification, which are critical to expression: a work literally exemplifies a property when it both possesses and highlights that property, and it metaphorically exemplifies a property (...) when the properties it literally exemplifies bring that property powerfully to mind. I argue that the literal exemplification of actual or potential states of decay enhances a work’s expressive power by stimulating our bodily and emotional responses to the physical potential of the work’s active matter. Conservation practices, by affecting the properties the work literally and metaphorically exemplifies, are key to the expressive power of works that employ states of degradation and decay. The argument is illustrated through discussion of works by Zoe Leonard, Marc Quinn, and Kara Walker that literally exemplify actually or potentially decaying materials, as contrasted with works by Ai Weiwei and Sam Taylor-Johnson that represent rather than exemplify decaying materials. (shrink)

Routinization is a term invented by Max Weber to describe events after the death of a charismatic religious leader. It has become widely used in the humanities in a variety of contexts. The death of the historical Buddha produced the first known instance of extreme routinization, in which the charisma of the founder is transmuted into a system of teachings that are themselves invested with authority, quite separate from the charisma of any individual within that tradition. This article examines the (...) Sāmagāmasutta and the Gopaka-Mogallānasutta, two texts from the Majjhima Nikāya. These texts, when read together, show us just how the Buddha prepared the way for the extreme routinization that would take place in the community, and how the early Buddhist monks reacted to this. In the Sāmagāmasutta, the Buddha prepares for the power vacuum after his own death by setting up procedures by which the monks will be able to govern themselves without relying on a single charismatic leader. The Gopaka-Mogallānasutta describes events after the Buddha’s death and indicates that the Buddha’s instructions had been followed faithfully. Taken together, these two obscure texts frame the far more famous Mahāparinibbānasutta and provide it with valuable context. This discussion is followed by a consideration of how Buddhism ended up reverting to more conventional patterns of routinization as it expanded. (shrink)

There is increasing public interest in understanding the nature of corporate ethics due to the knowledge that unethical decisions and activities frequently undermine the performance and abilities of many organizations. Of the current literature found on the topic of ways organizations can influence ethical behavior, a majority is found on the issue of corporate codes of ethics.Most discussions on codes of ethics evaluate the contents of the codes and offer opinions on their wording, content, and/or value. Unfortunately, very little research (...) has been devoted towards discovering whether they are effective in promoting ethical decision-making behavior. Thus, due to the lack of empirical research on this particular topic, this paper attempts to further address this issue. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: The Philosophical Assessment of Theology: Essays in Honour of Frederick C. Copleston. Edited by Gerard J. Hughes. Language, Meaning and God: Essays in Honour of Herbert McCabe OP. Edited by Brian Davies. God Matters. By Herbert McCabe. Philosophies of History: A Critical Essay. By Rolf Gruner. The ‘Phaedo’: A Platonic Labyrinth. By Ronna Burger. Lessing's ‘Ugly Ditch’: A Study of Theology and History. By Gordon E. Michalson, Jr. Peirce. By Christopher Hookway. Frege: Tradition and Influence. (...) Edited by Crispin Wright. The Private World. Selections from the Diario Íntimo and Selected Letters 1890–1936. By Miguel de Unamuno, translated by Anthony Kerrigan, Allen Lacy, Martin Nozick. A Third Collection: Papers by Bernard J.F. Lonergan, S.J. Edited by Frederick E. Crowe. Philosophical Papers. By Charles Taylor. 2 vols. Principles of Language and the Mind. By T.P. Waldron. The Principle of Double Effect: A Critical Appraisal of its Traditional Understanding and its Modern Reinterpretation. By L.I. Ugorji. Human Rights: Fact or Fancy By Henry B. Veatch. Enlightenment and Alienation: An Essay towards a Trinitarian Theology. By Colin Gunton. Only Human. By Don Cupitt. The Roots of the Modern Christian Tradition. Edited by E. Rpzanne Elder. ‘Africanische Theologie’: Darstellung und Dialog.. By Heribert Rücker. African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes. By Emefie Ikenga Metuh. The Destiny of Man: Dagaare Beliefs in Dialogue with Christian Eschatology. By Edward Kuukure. The World in Between: Christian Healing and the Struggle for Spiritual Survival. By E. Milingo. Theology in Africa. By Kwesi A. Dickson. The Future of Anglican Theology. Edited by M. Darrol Bryant. Reconciling. By John Coventry. The Genesis of Faith: The Depth Theology of Abraham Joshua Heschel. By John C. Merkle. Anthropology in Theological Perspective. By Wolfhart Pannenberg. Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion. Volume II: The Social Sciences. Edited by Frank Whaling. American Sociology: Worldly Rejections of Religion and Their Directions. By Arthur J. Vidich and Stanford M. Lyman. A Critical Theory of Religion: The Frankfurt School. By Rudolf J. Siebert. The Anthropology of Evil. Edited by David Parkin. The Wealth of Christians. By Redmond Mullin. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. By Michael Fishbane. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. By Lawrence Boadt. Old Testament Theology: Its History and Development. By John H. Hayes and Frederick C. Prussner. God's Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament. By John Day. Law and Wisdom from Ben Sira to Paul. By Eckhard J. Schnabel. The Order of the Synoptics: Why Three Synoptic Gospels? By Bernard Orchard and Harold Riley. The Making of Mark. By J. Duncan M. Derrett. Argumentation bei Paulus. By Folker Siegert. Christians and the Military: The Early Experience. Edited by Robert J. Daly. Origienes' Eucharistielehre im Streit der Konfessionen; Die Auslegungsgeschichte seit der Reformation. By Lothar Lies. L'église de Cappadoce au IVe siècle d'après la correspondance de Basile de Césarée. By Benpit Gain Cave Monasteries of Byzantine Cappadocia. By Lyn Rodley. Augustine of Hippo, Selected Writings. Translated with an Introduction by Mary T. Clark. Wisdom from St Augustine. By Vernon J. Bourke. A History of Religious Ideas, Vol. 3: From Muhammad to the Age of Reforms. By Mircea Eliade. Les Lectionnaires Copies Annuels: Basse‐Egypte. By Ugo Zanetti. Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany. By James H. Overfield. Wyclif. By Anthony Kenny. The Lady and the Virgin: Image, Attitude and Experience in Twelfth Century France. By Penny Shine Gold. Unquiet Souls: Fourteenth‐Century Saints and Their Religious Milieu. By Richard Kieckhefer. Luther: Theologian for Catholics and Protestants. Edited by George Yule. La Réforme Catholique: Le Combat de Maldonat. By Paul Schmitt. Roman Catholicism in England: From the Elizabethan Settlement to the Second Vatican Council. By Edward Norman. The Life of David Brainerd. Edited by Norman Pettit. Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West. Edited by Ninian Smart, John Clayton, Patrick Sherry and Steven T. Katz The Significance of Jesus Christ in Asia. By Hans Staffner. Is the Virgin Mary Appearing at Medjugorje? By René Laurentin and Ljudevit Rupčić. Mary Queen of Peace: Is the Mother of God Appearing in Medjugorje? By Lucy Rooney and Robert Fancy. (shrink)

This study examines the deliberations of professional MBA students when presented with a dilemma that weighs the difference between commitments to profit-maximization against concerns for fired workers who would need to seek a new job during a recession. Using content analysis, accounting, economic, and ethically based rationales that differ from the profit-maximizing recommendation are categorized. Results also show that those who make non-profit-maximizing recommendations consider, but ultimately reject the profit-maximizing approach to layoffs.

We sought to expand on the concept of the moral self to include not just the duty to develop the moral self but the moral duty to develop the self in both moral and non-moral ways. To do this, we focused on how leaders can promote a climate in which individuals feel a sense of duty to develop themselves for the betterment of the team and organization. In our theoretical model, duty orientation plays a key role in determining whether followers (...) will seek performance feedback to develop their work selves. We hypothesized that followers with ethical leaders would experience a greater sense of duty to improve themselves and would therefore be more likely to seek and less likely to avoid leader feedback. Drawing on social learning theory, we hypothesized that duty orientation would mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and feedback-seeking/feedback-avoiding behavior, expert power would moderate the relationship between ethical leadership and duty orientation such that duty orientation would be higher when followers perceived their leader to be both highly ethical and competent, and expert power would moderate the indirect effect of ethical leadership on feedback-seeking/feedback-avoiding behavior through duty orientation. We tested our hypotheses using a sample of 249 followers across two waves of data collection. Results suggest that ethical leadership and leader competence interact to drive followers’ duty orientation, thereby reducing followers’ feedback-avoiding behaviors. Further, ethical leadership had a direct positive relationship with followers’ feedback-seeking behaviors. (shrink)

_An engaging, accessible survey of the ethical issues faced by engineers, designed for students_ The first engineering ethics textbook to use debates as the framework for presenting engineering ethics topics, this engaging, accessible survey explores the most difficult and controversial issues that engineers face in daily practice. Written by a leading scholar in the field of engineering and computer ethics, Deborah Johnson approaches engineering ethics with three premises: that engineering is both a technical and a social endeavor; that engineers (...) don’t just build things, they build society; and that engineering is an inherently ethical enterprise. (shrink)

In this paper we study abstract elementary classes with Löwenheim-Skolem number $\kappa$ , where $\kappa$ is cofinal with $\omega$ , which have finite character. We generalize results obtained by Kueker for $\kappa=\omega$ . In particular, we show that $\mathbb{K}$ is closed under $L_{\infty,\kappa}$ -elementary equivalence and obtain sufficient conditions for $\mathbb{K}$ to be $L_{\infty,\kappa}$ -axiomatizable. In addition, we provide an example to illustrate that if $\kappa$ is uncountable regular then $\mathbb{K}$ is not closed under $L_{\infty,\kappa}$ -elementary equivalence.

To explore the realm of creativity, we will make use of the concept of instauration as articulated in the work of Étienne Souriau. Although infrequently used, the word remains extant in English, with agreement among dictionaries that the primary definition is the action of restoring or renewing, with a secondary meaning of instituting or founding. While both senses are at play in Souriau’s thought, it is perhaps the tension between the two that is predominantly in question, akin to what we (...) describe as open containment. We think instauration, as institutive renewal, in dialogue with Merleau-Ponty’s late use of the term aesthesiology to further elaborate the process of creating as a return to the wonder that is aesthesis, the affectively and sensually apprehended opening onto and entanglement with what is. Merleau-Ponty extends aesthesiology as the science of the sense organs themselves into a philosophical organology for ontology. His use of aesthesiology and Souriau’s use of instauration constitute efforts to offer sufficient conceptual containment to be able to say the contingent and ambiguous open of ongoing originating, even while both thinkers strive not to institute any final closure by this very act of naming. This is the inevitable tension of writing philosophic creation.Pour explorer le royaume de la créativité, nous utilisons ici le concept d’instauration tel qu’il a été articulé dans l’oeuvre d’Étienne Souriau. Quoique utilisé rarement, ce terme est attesté dans la langue anglaise. Les dictionnaires anglais accordent que sa définition principale désigne une action de rétablissement ou de renouvellement, avec un sens secondaire d’institution ou fondation. Si les deux sens sont à l’oeuvre chez Souriau, c’est peut-être la tension entre eux qui y est surtout patente. Nous pensons ici l’instauration, entendue comme renouvellement instituant, en dialogue avec l’idée d’esthésiologie telle que Merleau-Ponty la comprend à la fin de son oeuvre. Il utilise cette notion pour développer sa conception du processus de création comme retour à l’étonnement que produit l’áisthesis. L’áisthesis est en effet l’ouverture, affective et sensible, et l’entrelacs, affectif et sensible, à ce qui est. Merleau-Ponty prolonge ainsi l’esthésiologie entendue comme science des organes sensibles, vers une organologie philosophique à visée ontologique. L’usage de l’esthésiologie chez Merleau-Ponty et l’usage de l’instauration chez Souriau constituent des efforts vers une maîtrise conceptuelle suffisante pour pouvoir dire l’ouverture continue, contingente et ambiguë de l’originaire – bien que les deux penseurs ne visent pas à instaurer une clôture finale à partir de l’acte nominatif. Telle est la tension inévitable qu’on rencontre lorsqu’on cherche à écrire la création philosophique.Utilizzeremo in queste pagine per esplorare il regno della creatività il concetto di “instaurazione” così come si trova articolato nell’opera di Étienne Souriau. Benché impiegato raramente, questo termine è attestato anche nella lingua inglese. I dizionari inglesi danno come significato principale quello di un’azione di ristabilimento o rinnovamento, a cui si aggiunge un significato secondario di istituzione o fondazione. Se è vero che entrambi i significati sono all’opera in Souriau, è d’altra parte ancor più evidente la loro tensione. Proporremo qui di pensare l’instaurazione, intesa come rinnovamento istituente, in dialogo con l’idea di estesiologia così come la intende Merleau-Ponty alla fine del suo percorso. Egli usa questa nozione per sviluppare la sua concezione del processo creativo come ritorno allo stupore dell’áisthesis, cioè dell’apertura affettiva e sensibile, e dell’intreccio affettivo e sensibile, a ciò che è. Merleau-Ponty prolunga così l’estesiologia come scienza degli organi di senso in direzione di un’organologia filosofica orientata ontologicamente. L’indagine sull’estesiologia condotta da Merleau-Ponty e l’uso del concetto di instaurazione in Souriau costituiscono così altrettanti sforzi di dire concettualmente l’apertura continua, contingente e ambigua dell’originario – benché sia chiaro che i due pensatori non intendono raggiungere in alcun modo, con questo dire concettuale e con questa scelta lessicale, una qualsiasi “chiusura” della questione. Tale è infatti la tensione inevitabile cui ci si ritrova esposti quando si tenta di scrivere la creazione. (shrink)

In some part, the ideas presented here are anticipated in a paper by Frank Tillman, through I present a broader theory intended to have utility in connection with the theory of truth.

Open peer commentary on the article “Constructivist Model Building: Empirical Examples From Mathematics Education” by Catherine Ulrich, Erik S. Tillema, Amy J. Hackenberg & Anderson Norton. Upshot: I concur with Ulrich et al. that second-order models can be powerful tools for investigating students’ mathematical learning. I argue for a role that a dynamic, learner-centered perspective on context could play in constructivist model building.

Without so much as an America Online account, Timothy Dwight, president of Yale University two centuries ago, learned of an evil plot -- hatched in France by Freemasons hopped up on Enlightenment philosophy -- to overthrow the United States Government. A Bavarian secret society called the Order of the Illuminati was also involved. Unable to access alt.conspiracy or even a good E-mail program, Dwight had to resort to public speaking to spread the word.

IN THIS ESSAY I USE W. E. B. DU BOIS AND HIS CATEGORY OF TRAGIC SOUL-life in an attempt to expand John Rawls's notion of public reason. As it stands, the divide between religion and politics within Rawlsian political liberalism inadequately attends to the role of moral beliefs, especially those used to justify and reinforce antiblack racism, in forming and fashioning political commitments. By introducing tragic soul-life and Du Bois's category of second sight, I plan to show how a reflective (...) model of deliberation based on Du Boisian themes will allow social actors to interrogate the overlap between political and comprehensive beliefs without necessarily compromising democratic traditions on which rest political conceptions of justice. (shrink)

Serres thought that humans had become the world’s parasites and that we must seek a more reciprocal partnership with our host. He put forward a legal justification for writing a new social contract that encompassed the more-than-human. Serres associated the foundation of the “natural contract” with the story of evolution, the biological relation between symbiosis and the parasite. Closely aligned to his proposal, Serres also envisioned the gathering together of a universal history revealed by the knowledge of the diverse sciences (...) of matter and life and stories from the humanities and religion. He thought the “Grand Narrative” would bring people to an intimate understanding of our relation to the living world and the need for a contract of symbiosis. Serres referred to Molière’s Tartuffe, the fables of La Fontaine, the adventures of Tintin and Livy’s history of Rome to describe an underlying parasitical logic. Crossing social, medical, communicative and historical practices, the parasite is portrayed by Serres as an acquisitive guest, a contagious microbe, a confusing noise and part of ritualistic feasts. Crossing these specific examples, Serres depicts how the general operation of the parasite works in close partnership with the symbiotic. For instance, germs can both invade the body and strengthen immunity. As evolutionary biologists recognise, there is no simple division between parasitic and symbiotic processes. In this paper, I explore the biological–parasitic–symbiotic framework that Serres applies in the context of the ecological crisis and his proposal for a contract of symbiosis. I focus on pioneering research into the history of bacteria carried out by microbiologist Lynn Margulis and associated studies on the evolution of fungi and moss. I describe how this research contributes to Serres’s formulation of a universal story and at the same time helps both to supplement and critically engage with Serres’s thought on the natural contract. Specifically, I describe how Margulis’s contentions about the abilities of micro-organisms differ from Serres’s conception of the technology of “nature.” I also examine how his notion of the “Biosum,” a body that integrates all the perceptions and senses of the living world, informs his understanding of the divergent evolution of humankind. I conclude that Serres’s natural contract seeks to reinvent rather than imitate the rest of nature and briefly consider how his vision of inclusive global stories offers a glimpse of a new politics. (shrink)