This paper explores the relationship between eugenics, disability, and dehumanization, with a focus on forms of eugenics beyond Nazi eugenics.

The impressive variation amongst biological individuals generates many complexities in addressing the simple-sounding question what is a biological individual? A distinction between evolutionary and physiological individuals is useful in thinking about biological individuals, as is attention to the kinds of groups, such as superorganisms and species, that have sometimes been thought of as biological individuals. More fully understanding the conceptual space that biological individuals occupy also involves considering a range of other concepts, such as life, reproduction, and agency. There has (...) been a focus in some recent discussions by both philosophers and biologists on how evolutionary individuals are created and regulated, as well as continuing work on the evolution of individuality. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of "the species problem", arguing for a view of species as homeostatic property cluster kinds, positioning the resulting form of realism about species as an alternative to the claim that species are individuals and pluralistic views of species. It draws on taxonomic practice in the neurosciences, especially of neural crest cells and retinal ganglion cells, to motivate both the rejection of the species-as-individuals thesis and species pluralism.

In the good old days, when general philosophy of science ruled the Earth, a simple division was often invoked to talk about philosophical issues specific to particular kinds of science: that between the natural sciences and the social sciences. Over the last 20 years, philosophical studies shaped around this dichotomy have given way to those organized by more fine-grained categories, corresponding to specific disciplines, as the literatures on the philosophy of physics, biology, economics and psychology--to take the most prominent four (...) examples--have blossomed. In general terms, work in each of these areas has become increasingly enmeshed with that in the corresponding science itself, increasingly naturalistic (in at least one sense of that term), and in my view, increasingly interesting. (shrink)

We describe herein an introductory STS course, designed for large numbers of students, which uses a large number of faculty instructors. Its content and style has evolved continuously for 20 years in a major research university and been adapted for use in small two-year and four-year campuses.

Thomas Schelling, who wrote the foreword for this book, won the Nobel Prize in economics for "having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis." This came after he had taught a course in game theory and rational choice to advanced students and government officials for 45 years. In this book, Robert Dodge provides in language for a broad audience, the concepts that Schelling taught. Armed with Schelling's understanding of game theory methods and his approaches to problems, (...) the general reader can improve daily decision making. Mathematics often make game theory challenging but was not a major part of Schelling's course and is even less of a factor in this book. Along with a summary of the material Schelling presented, included are problems from the course and similar less challenging questions. While considerable analysis is done with the basic game theory tool--the two-by-two matrix--much of the book is descriptive and rational decision-making is explained with stories. Chapter supplements are added to illuminate points presented by Schelling, including writings by Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman, Steven Levitt, and others. (shrink)

Written by the preeminent democratic theorist of our time, this book explains the nature, value, and mechanics of democracy. In a new introduction to this Veritas edition, Ian Shapiro considers how Dahl would respond to the ongoing challenges democracy faces in the modern world. “Within the liberal democratic camp there is considerable controversy about exactly how to define democracy. Probably the most influential voice among contemporary political scientists in this debate has been that of Robert Dahl.”—Marc Plattner, _New York (...) Times_ “An excellent introduction for novices, as well as a trusty handbook for experts and political science mavens.”—_Publishers Weekly_. (shrink)

In Water into Wine? Robert Larmer re-examines significant issues in this cross-disciplinary debate and attacks two basic assumptions governing it.

Discussions of whistleblowing and employee loyalty usually assume either that the concept of loyalty is irrelevant to the issue or, more commonly, that whistleblowing involves a moral choice in which the loyalty that an employee owes an employer comes to be pitted against the employee''s responsibility to serve public interest. I argue that both these views are mistaken and propose a third view which sees whistleblowing as entirely compatible with employee loyalty.

Media stories of ethical lapses in business are relentless. The general public vacillates between revulsion, impatience, cynicism, and apathy. The role of the Business School in Moral Development is debated by scholars, accrediting agencies, and Schools of Businesses. It is a question to which there is no easy answer and one with which Business Schools continue to grapple. This article places the concept of "moral imagination," theories of moral development, and ethics in a behavioral context. It then discusses a staple (...) of business education, the case study, as a form of ethics narrative that provides ethical modeling within that context. Finally, in discussing the narrative role of the classroom professor in ethical modeling, it provides a framework for further discussion of the role of business education in moral development. (shrink)

Previous research on unethical business behavior usually has focused on its impact from a financial or philosophical perspective. While such foci are important to our understanding of unethical behavior, we argue that another set of outcomes linked to individual well-being are critical as well. Using data from psychological, criminological, and epidemiological sources, we propose a model of unethical behavior and well-being. This model postulates that decrements in well-being result from stress or trauma stemming from being victimized by, engaging in, or (...) witnessing unethical behavior, or even from being associated with individuals involved in such behavior. (shrink)

Where does the mind begin and end? Most philosophers and cognitive scientists take the view that the mind is bounded by the skull or skin of the individual. Robert Wilson, in this provocative and challenging 2004 book, provides the foundations for the view that the mind extends beyond the boundary of the individual. The approach adopted offers a unique blend of traditional philosophical analysis, cognitive science, and the history of psychology and the human sciences. The companion volume, Genes and (...) the Agents of Life, explores the theme in the biological sciences. Written with verve and clarity, this ambitious book will appeal to a broad swathe of professionals and students in philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and the history of the behavioural and human sciences. You can download the table of contents here. (shrink)

The first is that a miracle, understood as an event produced by a transcendent agent overriding the usual course of nature, involves a violation of the laws of nature. Larmer argues that events are explained by reference to both relevant laws and units of mass/energy in the sequences to be explained. He contends that a miracle need not be conceived as involving a violation of natural law, but rather as the creation or annihilation of mass/energy by a transcendent agent. In (...) reply to the objection that this account would violate the first law of thermo-dynamics, he distinguishes two forms of the principle -- one metaphysical, one scientific -- and aruges that a miracle would not violate the principle considered as a scientific law. The second assumption is that miracle testimony cannot serve as evidence for theism. Larmer demonstrates that the logical ties connecting the concept of miracle to theism need not imply that one must be a theist to evaluate miracle testimony properly. All that is required is that one is prepared to entertain theism as a hypothesis. Attacking these assumptions allows Larmer to show that Humean balance-of-probabilities arguments, based on a presumed conflict between evidence which establishes belief in the laws of nature and evidence in favour of miracles, miss the point if miracles need not be defined as violations of the laws of nature. He argues that, in the absence of a general argument demonstrating that the testimonial evidence in favour of miracles conflicts with the evidence for the laws of nature, it is up to the atheist to demonstrate, on a case-by-case basis, why the testimonial evidence is to be rejected. His conclusion is that, contrary to what is usually thought, the burden of proof lies not upon the shoulders of the theist, but upon the shoulders of the atheist. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory has become a central issue in the literature on business ethics / business and society. There are, however, a number of problems with stakeholder theory as currently understood. Among these are: 1) the lack of a coherent justificatory framework, 2) the problem of adjudicating between stakeholders, and 3) the problem of stakeholder identification. In this essay, I propose that a possible source of obligations to stakeholders is the principle of fairness (or fair play) as discussed in the political (...) philosophic literature of Rawls, Simmons, and Cullity among others. The principle of fairness states that, “Whenever persons or groups of persons voluntarily accept the benefits of a mutually beneficial scheme of co-operation requiring sacrifice or contribution on the parts of the participants and there exists the possibility of free-riding, there exist obligations of fairness on the part of these persons or groups to co-operate in proportion to the benefits accepted.” In this essay I discuss the gaps in the current stakeholder literature, elucidate and defend a principle of fairness that fills the gap, compare the fairness model to other similar models of business ethics, and draw some conclusions for the future of stakeholder theory. (shrink)

Followers of traditional modes of ethical thinking rightly approachpostmodern philosophical methodologies with a certain enigma andsuspicion due to the latter’s tendency to swipe clean basic assumptionswhich had been historically accepted without question. Contemporarytheorists conceptually dig their way into complex labyrinths of noveldefinitions not only to establish the neotericity of their paradigms but also to disengage themselves from the tyranny of dogmatic conclusions that may inhibit their suppositions from being enclosed by established systems of thought. When the Principle of Generic Consistency (...) was introduced by Alan Gewirth in his most popular work Reason and Morality, it spurred numerous reactions, both pros and cons,1 as the principle offered to fulfill the utopian dream of establishing a rational foundation for human rights. The latter part of the book, together with subsequent articles and works, explained in detail how the principle could be applied to the intricacies of applied morality, such as the promotion of man’s well-being, and consequently, the fulfillment of his existence. This paper deals with the same path of Gewirth; only this time, it seeks to construct a rational bridge between a PGC-basedhuman self-fulfillment and the creation of a habitat that embodies hope for political harmony. Moreover, the PGC would not only be construed as the foundation for human rights, but also as a rational trail by which man’s relation with his fellow could serve to develop an intersubjective enhancement of freedom and well-being. (shrink)

This is an introductory article on sociobiology, particularly its relationship to eugenics. Sociobiology developed in the 1960s as a field within evolutionary biology to explain human social traits and behaviours. Although sociobiology has few direct connections to eugenics, it shares eugenics’ optimistic enthusiasm for extending biological science into the human domain, often with reckless sensationalism. Sociobiology's critics have argued that sociobiology also propagates a kind of genetic determinism and represents the zealous misapplication of science beyond its proper reach that characterized (...) the eugenics movement. More recently, evolutionary psychology represents a sophistication of sociobiology that attends to the mind as the "missing link" between evolution and behaviour (Cosmides and Tooby 1992, Pinker 1997). (shrink)

The twentieth century has marked transitions in the developed world from an agricultural to an industrial to an information-based society. As the primary work force has evolved from farmers to laborers to knowledge workers, the bases of wealth, power and social interaction have moved from land to mass production to e-commerce. Critical writings from Drucker''s The Age of Social Transformation to Fukuyama''s The Great Disruption, have discussed these transitions and their impact on values. This paper places the issue of downsizing (...) in the context of those discussions, exploring the ethical impact and role in those transitions of the author''s Four Horsemen of Downsizing: Suspicion, Acquisition, Budget-cuts, and Termination. Finally, it discusses Western society''s predilection to use language to construct an epistemological Tower of Babel and the impact that may have on Fukuyama''s conclusion that a Great Reconstruction based on Western values will replace the Great Disruption. (shrink)

1. The Situation in Cognition 2. Situated Cognition: A Potted Recent History 3. Extensions in Biology, Computation, and Cognition 4. Articulating the Idea of Cognitive Extension 5. Are Some Resources Intrinsically Non-Cognitive? 6. Is Cognition Extended or Only Embedded? 7. Letting Nature Take Its Course.

The Legitimacy of Miracle defends the view that miracles, in the strong sense of being events produced by a supernatural agent overriding the usual course of nature, can take place without violating any laws of nature. This means that the evidence for miracles cannot be judged to be in conflict with the evidence for the laws of nature; the result being that Humean objections to the rationality of belief in miracles fail.

Reprinted, with modification, from Wilson and Keil 1998.

Although ethics consultation is offered as a clinical service in most hospitals in the United States, few valid and practical tools are available to evaluate, ensure, and improve ethics consultation quality. The quality of ethics consultation is important because poor quality ethics consultation can result in ethically inappropriate outcomes for patients, other stakeholders, or the health care system. To promote accountability for the quality of ethics consultation, we developed the Ethics Consultation Quality Assessment Tool. ECQAT enables raters to assess the (...) quality of ethics consultations based on the written record. Through rigorous development and preliminary testing, we identified key elements of a quality ethics consultation, established scoring criteria, developed training guidelines, and designed a holistic assessment process. This article describes the development of the ECQAT,.. (shrink)

Management and non-management employees of a northeastern bank read a description of a manager who engaged in a breach of confidentiality. Subjects were asked to evaluate the acceptability of 27 excuses. Results showed that subjects' ratings of acceptability were affected by their individual perception of the severity of the stimulus manager's breach of confidentiality. Subjects' rank did not affect acceptability of accounts.

Genes and the Agents of Life undertakes to rethink the place of the individual in the biological sciences, drawing parallels with the cognitive and social sciences. Genes, organisms, and species are all agents of life but how are each of these conceptualized within genetics, developmental biology, evolutionary biology, and systematics? The 2005 book includes highly accessible discussions of genetic encoding, species and natural kinds, and pluralism above the levels of selection, drawing on work from across the biological sciences. The book (...) is a companion to the author's Boundaries of the Mind (2004), also available from Cambridge, where the focus is the cognitive sciences. The book will appeal to a broad range of professionals and students in philosophy, biology, and the history of science. You can download the table of contents and the first chapter here. (shrink)

The present study sought to determine the extent to which individuals'' ethical ideologies, as measured by Forsyth''s (1980) Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ), impacted the degree of punishment they advocated for differing ethical infractions, as well as their selection of non-ethics related variables that might be used to modify judgments of disciplinary action. The data revealed that individual ideology does impact both advocated punishment and choice of non-ethics related variables, but only in some measures. The data are discussed in terms of (...) potential moderating variables that could be examined in future studies. (shrink)

Belief in some kind of life after death is a widespread feature of human cultures. Attitudes to death and dying in western culture are increasingly varied and variable. Death is often still a taboo subject in conversation. There is some evidence that, despite some decline, belief in some kind of post-mortem existence is resilient. The decline in belief is most notable in terms of ‘hell,’ but belief in life after death is also becoming more diverse. Holland's poem suggests that death (...) might be less of a threat than is sometimes the perception. Death is seen by him, stared out, embraced even, certainly walked steadily toward. What does the believing community actually believe about death and beyond? (shrink)

Essentialism is widely regarded as a mistaken view of biological kinds, such as species. After recounting why (sections 2-3), we provide a brief survey of the chief responses to the “death of essentialism” in the philosophy of biology (section 4). We then develop one of these responses, the claim that biological kinds are homeostatic property clusters (sections 5-6) illustrating this view with several novel examples (section 7). Although this view was first expressed 20 years ago, and has received recent discussion (...) and critique, it remains underdeveloped and is often misrepresented by its critics (section 8). (shrink)

In discussing the $1 trillion bailout of the U.S. Financial Institutions, virtually every Member of Congress and almost every government official—including Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and President Obama—has blamed the crisis on the “greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street”. Almost all of the financial executives involved in the crisis, from CEOs to middle managers, are products of our business schools. Additionally, there is a high correlation between the recentunethical behavior of a number of multinational corporations and the number of MBA (...) holders in their top ranks. As a consequence, many critics are convinced that there is something wrong with our business schools. This paper presents the causes and consequences of what ails business school students and graduates today: the toxic teaching of bad management theories. These theories—grounded in the assumptions of economics—include determinism and materialism, the cult of profit maximization and a pessimistic view of human nature as totally self-interested. By teaching these theories, business schools are inculcating values of materialism and greed that create a life-long pursuit of money and status. This makes it all too easy for business managers to choose expediency and short-term profits over ethical behavior. Further, these materialistic values create higher levels of depression, anxiety and psychological disorders as well as make our students less cooperative and more anti-social as individuals long after they leave academia. (shrink)

This engaging and informative text will hold the attention of students and scholars as they take a journey through time to understand the role that history and philosophy have played in shaping the course of sport and physical education in Western and selected non-Western civilizations. Using appropriate theoretical and interpretive frameworks, students will investigate topics such as the historical relationship between mind and body; what philosophers and intellectuals have said about the body as a source of knowledge; educational philosophy and (...) the value of physical education and/or sport; philosophical positions that have impacted the historical development of sport and physical education; the history of women in sport and physical education; the role and scope of sport and physical education in Ancient Greece and Rome; the Ancient Olympic Games; the relationship between sport and religion in ancient and modern times; the theoretical and professional development of physical education; the rise of sport in modern America; the history and politics of the modern Olympic Games; and the contributions of men, women, and social movements to the development of sport and physical education from ancient times to the modern era. (shrink)