Much historical investigation has been conducted into the Victorians' fear of moral decline at the end of the nineteenth century. In part, concerns about the future of human morality and ethics were intimately connected with the rise of materialist science that appeared to be permeating every facet of human life and civilization. Uniquely, Alan Rauch's work moves this investigation back in time to examine the fear of moral decline in the early years of the Victorian era. Rauch posits that in (...) this period there was, on the one hand, a cultural recognition of the importance of the growth of “knowledge” production, often of the scientific kind. Such knowledge was considered to be useful in making technological advances that would improve human life. Yet, on the other hand, there was also concern that too much emphasis on the “getting and spending” of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, would lead to materialism, atheism, and, thus, a loss of moral and ethical standards.Arguing that novels in this period reflected and responded to the larger cultural movements of the time, Rauch takes up a discussion of five novels: Jane Loudon's The Mummy , Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , Charlotte Bronte's The Professor , Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke , and George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss . Each of these novels, he argues, attempts to balance the need of British society to recognize the usefulness of scientific knowledge with the desire to retain traditional morals and values: “The challenge for the novelist was to create societies that responded to these inevitable developments without succumbing to a cynical dismissal of moral responsibility” . Before beginning his discussion of the novels, each of which gets a chapter, Rauch includes a useful introduction to the process of the dissemination of knowledge in this period that attends to the rise of encyclopedias, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and popular works for children. In each instance he shows how knowledge was paired with moral responsibility in this wider literary milieu. Rauch then moves on to show how novelists were clearly as fascinated as other writers by scientific and technological advances. They were also as worried as other groups in society that such progress could cause humans to lose their sympathy and concern for others, their spirituality, their ability to cooperate with members of other classes, their ability to grow and change for the better as physical, moral, and religious beings, and their respect for the natural world. The novelists Rauch discusses seem to argue that a balance may be struck between scientific knowledge and morality, maintaining the advantages of both.While the last chapter, on The Mill on the Floss, takes the reader beyond Rauch's time frame of the early Victorian period, his aim here is to show how the depiction of the relationship between science and morality in the novel must necessarily change after Darwin. Rauch argues that, unlike the earlier novelists, Eliot “constructed a world where scientific knowledge is, prima facie, the appropriate measure of the material world, and moral knowledge must bend to accommodate it” . Still, despite her acceptance of the laws of nature, Eliot, according to Rauch, still looked for a way to maintain human free will and moral duty. The introduction of this post‐Darwinian writer, in contrast to the earlier writers, raises the question of whether there were other novelists attempting to reconcile science and morality in this way in the later period and, if so, how they went about it.Rauch's main argument is convincing and contributes to the work to date on the relationship between literature and science and, more generally, to the recognition of the importance of science as a powerful cultural force in nineteenth‐century society. The book would certainly have benefited, however, from a much stronger gender analysis. Of the five novels treated, four are by women. The Victorian association of women with the moral, spiritual, and religious world, together with the female authorship of the majority of novels under discussion, leaves the reader to ponder the relationship between Rauch's main thesis and the gender of his chosen novelists. This is particularly relevant as Rauch argues that only Kingsley's novel fails in its endeavor to “link science with tradition” and attributes that failure to his insistence on “invoking religion” rather than a moral tradition that is not necessarily connected with the Church . Are women novelists alone responsible for successful explorations of the relationship between morality and scientific knowledge? Do the men who explore this relationship always fail? Considering his choice of novelists, this is an issue Rauch ought to have explored. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

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This research aims to explore the relationship between corporate governance and CSR: What are the major factors that play a direct role in the establishment of this relationship? How does context and institutional background impact upon the relationship between CSR and Governance? Using in-depth semi-structured interviews from two types of governance systems in three countries over three years, this study has demonstrated that in practice, within different settings, CSR is being used both as a strategy as well as a reaction (...) to different drivers. We call this adaptive governance where governance can be defined as a flexible system of action incorporating strategic and monitoring activities that determines the way a company enacts its responsibilities to its shareholders and stakeholders and which is determined at any given time by the interrelationship of institutional drivers and behavioural norms. Governance systems and their interrelationships with CSR are demonstrated as fluid according to the national and institutional context, economic situation and industry impact. In the eyes of practitioners corporate governance includes both structural and behavioural factors as well as responsibilities and actions towards shareholders and stakeholders. Contextual factors that this research highlights to be important to the incorporation of CSR into governance include the economic environment, national governance system, regulation and soft law, shareholders, national culture, behavioural norms and industry impacts. Hypotheses on the impact of institutional contexts, industry impacts and economic situations on different types of CSR actions are proposed for further research. (shrink)

Frisbee Sheffield argues that the Symposium has been unduly marginalized by philosophers. Although the topic, eros, and the setting at a symposium have seemed anomalous, she demonstrates that both are intimately related to Plato's preoccupation with the nature of the good life, with virtue, and how it is acquired and transmitted. For Plato, analyzing our desires is a way of reflecting on the kind of people we will turn out to be and on our chances of leading a worthwhile (...) and happy life. In its focus on the question why he considered desires to be amenable to this type of reflection, this book explores Plato's ethics of desire. (shrink)

This article discusses the nature of euthanasia, and the way in which redevelopment of the concept of euthanasia in some influential recent philosophical writing has led to morally less discriminating killing/letting die/not saving being misdescribed as euthanasia. Peter Singer's defence of non-voluntary ‘euthanasia’of defective infants in his influential book Practical Ethics is critically evaluated. We argue that Singer's pseudo-euthanasia arguments in Practical Ethics are unsatisfactory as approaches to determining the legitimacy of killing, and that these arguments present a total utilitarian (...) improvement policy—not a case for non-voluntary euthanasia. (shrink)

In this essay Suzanne Rice examines Aristotle's ideas about virtue, character, and education as elements in an Aristotelian conception of good listening. Rice begins by surveying of several different contexts in which listening typically occurs, using this information to introduce the argument that what should count as “good listening” must be determined in relation to the situation in which listening actually occurs. On this view, Rice concludes, there are no “essential” listening virtues, but rather ways of listening that may (...) be regarded as virtuous in the context of particular concrete circumstances. (shrink)

Translator's Preface LA LOGIQUE DE HUSSERL, etude sur "Logique for- melle et logique transcendentale" the original of the present translation, was published ...

This paper argues that the educational and social practices of Plato’s Laws are deeply concerned with the citizens’ affective relationship both to the ideals of the city and to other persons. Two kinds of love – eros (roughly, passionate love or desire) and philia (roughly, friendship) are central to this enterprise. We are familiar with the idea that virtue is not just a matter of doing the right thing, but doing it with the appropriate feelings and desires; so, too, for (...) virtuous citizenship: what is required is both passionate devotion towards the ideals of the city (eros) and an orientation towards other persons (philia), in which citizens are recognized as equals and acknowledged as persons of worth and value, such that one is moved to treat them as deserving of goods and opportunity. Citizens learn this not, or not solely, through grasping principles of ‘equality’ and ‘justice’, but by communal experiences in which they take pleasure and which cultivate a certain kind of love. (shrink)

"In recent years, we have grown accustomed to philosophical language that is intensely self-conscious and rhetorically thick, often tragic in tone. It is enlivening to read Bergson, who exerts so little rhetorical pressure while exacting such a substantial effort of thought.... Bergson's texts teach the reader to let go of entrenched intellectual habits and to begin to think differently—to think in time.... Too much and too little have been said about Bergson. Too much, because of the various appropriations of his (...) thought. Too little, because the work itself has not been carefully studied in recent decades."—from Thinking in Time Henri Bergson, whose philosophical works emphasized motion, time, and change, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. His work remains influential, particularly in the realms of philosophy, cultural studies, and new media studies. In Thinking in Time, Suzanne Guerlac provides readers with the conceptual and contextual tools necessary for informed appreciation of Bergson's work. Guerlac's straightforward philosophical expositions of two Bergson texts, Time and Free Will and Matter and Memory, focus on the notions of duration and memory—concepts that are central to the philosopher's work. Thinking in Time makes plain that it is well worth learning how to read Bergson effectively: his era and our own share important concerns. Bergson's insistence on the opposition between the automatic and the voluntary and his engagement with the notions of "the living," affect, and embodiment are especially germane to discussions of electronic culture. (shrink)

Presents a contemporary philosophical reading of the American Psychological Association Memories of Childhood Abuse report. First, background on the nature of the report is given and then the philosophical approach taken towards the reading itself is discussed. The "philosophical reading" of the report is not an attempt to resolve the debate and the authors therefore do not take sides. Instead, the authors read the document as a disciplinary cultural artifact—a resource about psychology as a theoretical, epistemological, cultural, and political enterprise—rather (...) than simply a statement of contemporary knowledge on memories of child abuse. In the critical reading of the Report, 4 themes are highlighted that characterize the approach of both the clinical and research subgroup, and thus the Report as a whole. These 4 themes are problematic grounding in positivist science, problematic understanding of memory as monism and mechanism, problematic understanding of truth, and a problematic view of a disciplinary community. In the presentation of each theme, the authors speak to the implications of the theme, both for what psychology has been and for what it could become. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

In this book, Suzanne Kirschner traces the origins of contemporary psychoanalysis back to the foundations of Judaeo-Christian culture, and challenges the prevailing view that modern theories of the self mark a radical break with religious and cultural tradition. Instead, she argues, they offer an account of human development which has its beginnings in biblical theology and neoplatonic mysticism. Drawing on a wide range of religious, literary, philosophical and anthropological sources, Dr Kirschner demonstrates that current Anglo-American psychoanalytic theories are but (...) the latest version of a narrative that has been progressively secularized over the course of nearly two millennia. She displays a deep understanding of psychoanalytic theories, while at the same time raising provocative questions about their status as knowledge and as science. (shrink)

Increasingly complex and autonomous systems require machine ethics to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks to society arising from the new technology. It is challenging to decide which type of ethical theory to employ and how to implement it effectively. This survey provides a threefold contribution. First, it introduces a trimorphic taxonomy to analyze machine ethics implementations with respect to their object (ethical theories), as well as their nontechnical and technical aspects. Second, an exhaustive selection and description of relevant (...) works is presented. Third, applying the new taxonomy to the selected works, dominant research patterns, and lessons for the field are identified, and future directions for research are suggested. (shrink)

Has exclusion of Darwin's views on evolution distorted 20c philosophy? Cunningham suggests a reappraisal.

Although the most common understanding of suicide is intentional self-killing, this conception either rules out someone who lacks mental capacity being classed as a suicide or, if acting intentionally is meant to include this sort of case, then what it means to act intentionally is so weak that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide. This has implications in health care, and has a further bearing on issues such as assisted suicide and health insurance. In this paper, I argue (...) that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide at all. Rather, I develop a novel approach that deploys the structure of a homicide taxonomy to classify and characterise suicides to arrive at a conceptually robust understanding of suicide. According to my analysis of suicide, an agent is the proximate cause of his death. Suicide is ‘self-killing,’ rather than ‘intentional self-killing.’ Adopting this understanding of suicide performs several functions: We acquire an external standard to assess diverging analyses on specific cases by appealing to homologous homicides. Following such a taxonomy differentiates types of suicides. This approach has application in addressing negative connotations about suicide. As a robust view, adding intention is an unnecessary complication. It is more consistent with psychological and sociological assessments of suicide than ‘intentional self-killing.’ It has useful applications in informing public policy. This paper’s focus is on classifying types of suicides, rather than on the moral permissibility or on underlying causes of suicidal ideation and behaviour. (shrink)