This is a book on business ethics for managers. It is structured around three themes: 1) the idea that how we perceive and think about organizations we work for is a major factor in the framing and atmosphere of those organizations; 2) the idea of the corporation as a community rather than the formalistic, legal and mystical characterizations that currently abound in management books; 3) the various business virtues and vices and their role in the daily practice of business.

Here at the Center, we had the privilege of seeing how Dan Callahan lived out his last days and weeks. True to his nature, Dan never stopped thinking or writing. Indeed, his wife Sidney told me that he finished his last essay one day before his death, on July 16th, insisting that she help him get to the computer so he could discuss it with a colleague. “It's my last one,” he told her with his characteristic self‐awareness. Dan also chose (...) the last topic he would focus on: climate change. At a December 2018 board meeting, Dan presented his desire to develop a workshop to explore the ways in which bioethics in general, and The Hastings Center in particular, might be able to make a valuable contribution to addressing the problem of global warming. (shrink)

In the second edition of this groundbreaking text in non-Western philosophy, fifteen experts introduce some of the great philosophical traditions in the world. The dozen essays collected here unveil exciting, sophisticated philosophical traditions that are too often neglected in the western world. The contributors include the leading scholars in their fields, but they write for students coming to these concepts for the first time. Building on revisions and updates to the original essays on China, India, Japan, and the Americas, this (...) new edition also considers three philosophical traditions for the first time--Jewish, Buddhist, and South Pacific (M ori) philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Nietzsche on Freedom and Fatalism Fatalism, Determinism, Destiny Nietzsche's Classical Fatalism Nietzsche's Watchword, “Become Who You Are” Nietzsche on “Free Will” Nietzsche on Responsibility.

The technique of the normal ordering of non-commuting operators is an important tool in the solution of problems involving creation and annihilation operators in quantum physics, such as in many-body theory or quantum optics. We point out the inconsistencies in previous definitions of the two standard normal ordering procedures for such operators, and show how consistent definitions may be made.

John Ziman, like most other scientists, learnt about the social nature of science by becoming a scientist. He travelled through the various stages of passing examinations, having articles that he had written reviewed by peers, and applying for academic posts. Better still he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society because of the problems he had solved-- at least for the time being-- in several landmark papers. There was little written about the social nature of science at this time (...) so when he was asked to give a talk on the radio in 1960 he chose the title 'Science is Social' and began as follows: I am going to try to justify the following proposition 'A scientific truth is statement that has been publicly accepted by the experts'. (shrink)

In the twentieth century, in both China and the West, ritual became marginalized in the face of the growth of secularism and individualism. In China, Confucianism and its essentially ritualistic comportment to the world were vigorously suppressed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) under Mao Zedong. But de-ritualization already took place as a result of the Chinese Revolution of 1911 under Sun Yat-Sen. In the West, while the process of de-ritualization has been generally more gradual, it has been nonetheless drastic. In (...) contrast to this situation, this volume investigates the crucial role ritual plays in constituting the human understanding of their place in the cosmos, the purpose of their lives, and imbues human existence with a more complete sense of meaningfulness. This volume presents the work of philosophers from both China and the West as they reflect upon the constitutive role that ritual plays in human life. They reflect not only on ritual in general but also on specific Confucian and Christian appreciations of ritual. This provocative volume is a beacon of warning to Western philosophers, who think they have graduated from the trappings of ritual, and a beacon of hope for Eastern thinkers, who wish to avoid cultural fragmentation. The Editors, both Eastern and Western, have together created a seamless work that not only introduces ritual, but advances an argument for the contribution that ritual makes to cultural renewal. This volume is a work of philosophical thinking about ritual doing, but challenges those who think to realize that the salvation of philosophical thinking rests in the particularity and contingency of ritual doing. Let us hope this volume is widely read, for it points to that which might renew the West. - Jeffrey P. Bishop, Saint Louis University. (shrink)

In this essay, I want to reconsider sympathy as a “natural” emotion or sentiment. Adam Smith famously defended it as such (as did his friend David Hume) but both used the term ambiguously and in a different sense than we use it today. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Smith got it quite right, that the basis of morality and justice is to be found in the realm of affect rather than in theory and principles alone, and that sympathy is (...) a “natural” or should we say a “basic” emotion. But that means that morality may not be an exclusively human characteristic, as many philosophers (including Smith and Hume) have assumed. But some contemporary thinking in psychology and philosophy makes that extension plausible. (shrink)