The advent of sales over the Internet has led to interesting developments in sales tax policy as states attempt to monitor, control, and collect revenue from illusive Internet tobacco vendors. Tobacco sales have been successfully monitored and regulated, to some extent, in convenience stores, grocery stores, and smoke shops, and in most cases sales taxes are collected. The Internet, however, is extremely difficult to regulate. States could use their regulatory powers to ban the sale of products such as tobacco and (...) alcohol over the Internet, but enforcement would be nearly impossible.The issue of enforcement of Internet sales is extremely difficult. Keeping the products out of the wrong hands, under aged children for example, is difficult. Also, it is difficult in terms of tax policy. (shrink)

The advent of sales over the Internet has led to interesting developments in sales tax policy as states attempt to monitor, control, and collect revenue from illusive Internet tobacco vendors. Tobacco sales have been successfully monitored and regulated, to some extent, in convenience stores, grocery stores, and smoke shops, and in most cases sales taxes are collected. The Internet, however, is extremely difficult to regulate. States could use their regulatory powers to ban the sale of products such as tobacco and (...) alcohol over the Internet, but enforcement would be nearly impossible.The issue of enforcement of Internet sales is extremely difficult. Keeping the products out of the wrong hands, under aged children for example, is difficult. Also, it is difficult in terms of tax policy. (shrink)

Thank you so much for the invitation to be here with you. It is always a pleasure to be with people who understand, believe in, and know the importance of public health. Those of us who work in the legislative arena know how infrequent it is to have dialogue and conversation with people who really have a good, tangible, hands-on working knowledge of health care, and particularly of public health.The notion of public health is an interesting one. It will range—if (...) you talk to people in the legislature or out of the legislature—from just complete ignorance to total unawareness of what we mean by the words “public health.” When you talk to individuals like us in this room, we find a mixture of definitions, a mixture of understandings, and a mixture of appreciation as to what public health really is. (shrink)

Thank you so much for the invitation to be here with you. It is always a pleasure to be with people who understand, believe in, and know the importance of public health. Those of us who work in the legislative arena know how infrequent it is to have dialogue and conversation with people who really have a good, tangible, hands-on working knowledge of health care, and particularly of public health.The notion of public health is an interesting one. It will range—if (...) you talk to people in the legislature or out of the legislature—from just complete ignorance to total unawareness of what we mean by the words “public health.” When you talk to individuals like us in this room, we find a mixture of definitions, a mixture of understandings, and a mixture of appreciation as to what public health really is. (shrink)

Recent research suggests that committing to corporate social responsibility (CSR) can induce moral licensing among employees, resulting in unethical behaviors. We extend this line of research and develop a theoretical framework to study how CSR influences managerial decision-making in crisis management. We test this theory in the context of product recall remediation. We examine under what circumstances CSR induces morally consistent or morally dubious recall remedial decisions and factors moderating this effect. We focus on two product recall remedial decisions that (...) differ in ambiguity—full versus partial compensation and proactive versus passive recall. We predict and show that a company’s strong prior CSR performance increases the likelihood of full compensation but decreases the likelihood of a proactive recall. This finding suggests that CSR can induce moral licensing behavior at the highest corporate level when a decision is morally difficult to diagnose. Further analysis reveals that consumer harm and institutional ownership moderate the relationship between CSR and these two remediation strategies. Together, our findings provide important insights into when CSR leads to moral licensing in crisis remediation and how the link can be mitigated, and thus shed light on when CSR yields consistent and meaningful ethical business decisions. (shrink)

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.

Der Kinder- und Jugendgesundheitssurvey soll repräsentative, gültige Daten und Erkenntnisse zur gesundheitlichen Situation von Kindern und Jugendlichen in Deutschland als entscheidende Voraussetzung für die Bewertung und die Verbesserung von deren gesundheitlicher Lage schaffen. Forschung und insbesondere Blutentnahmen an nichteinwilligungsfähigen Personen erfordern eine profunde ethische und rechtliche Überprüfung. Der Beitrag befasst sich damit, welche medizinethischen Empfehlungen und welche rechtlichen Grundsätze in Deutschland für die Bewertung relevant sind. Nach geltendem deutschen Recht können Eltern zu Blutentnahmen bei ihren Kindern nur zustimmen, wenn diese (...) in deren individuellem gesundheitlichen Interesse liegen. Ein „gruppenspezifischer Nutzen“, wie er von Medizinethikern national und international als Voraussetzung für ethische Akzeptabilität (bei minimalem Risiko der Untersuchungen) ebenfalls für sinnvoll und wichtig angesehen wird, und der in dem geplanten Survey in jedem Falle gegeben wäre, genügt deutschen Rechtsansprüchen nicht. Im Pretest hat sich der potenzielle individuelle Nutzen der Blutentnahmen bestätigt: Viele Kinder hatten biochemisch nachweisbare Gesundheitsrisiken (z. B. verborgener Nährstoffmangel, allergische Sensibilisierung, Hinweise auf Impflücken oder langfristige Gesundheitsrisiken), die ohne Blutuntersuchung nicht feststellbar gewesen wären. Bei über 90% der Kinder waren nach schriftlicher Einwilligung der Eltern und Jugendlichen sowie informeller Zustimmung der Kinder, die in jedem einzelnen Falle berücksichtigt wurde, Blutentnahmen möglich. Nach der Befragung einer Unterstichprobe ist die Akzeptanz insgesamt gut. (shrink)

Der Kinder- und Jugendgesundheitssurvey soll repräsentative, gültige Daten und Erkenntnisse zur gesundheitlichen Situation von Kindern und Jugendlichen in Deutschland als entscheidende Voraussetzung für die Bewertung und die Verbesserung von deren gesundheitlicher Lage schaffen. Forschung und insbesondere Blutentnahmen an nichteinwilligungsfähigen Personen erfordern eine profunde ethische und rechtliche Überprüfung. Der Beitrag befasst sich damit, welche medizinethischen Empfehlungen und welche rechtlichen Grundsätze in Deutschland für die Bewertung relevant sind. Nach geltendem deutschen Recht können Eltern zu Blutentnahmen bei ihren Kindern nur zustimmen, wenn diese (...) in deren individuellem gesundheitlichen Interesse liegen. Ein „gruppenspezifischer Nutzen“, wie er von Medizinethikern national und international als Voraussetzung für ethische Akzeptabilität (bei minimalem Risiko der Untersuchungen) ebenfalls für sinnvoll und wichtig angesehen wird, und der in dem geplanten Survey in jedem Falle gegeben wäre, genügt deutschen Rechtsansprüchen nicht. Im Pretest hat sich der potenzielle individuelle Nutzen der Blutentnahmen bestätigt: Viele Kinder hatten biochemisch nachweisbare Gesundheitsrisiken (z. B. verborgener Nährstoffmangel, allergische Sensibilisierung, Hinweise auf Impflücken oder langfristige Gesundheitsrisiken), die ohne Blutuntersuchung nicht feststellbar gewesen wären. Bei über 90% der Kinder waren nach schriftlicher Einwilligung der Eltern und Jugendlichen sowie informeller Zustimmung der Kinder, die in jedem einzelnen Falle berücksichtigt wurde, Blutentnahmen möglich. Nach der Befragung einer Unterstichprobe ist die Akzeptanz insgesamt gut. (shrink)

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

On the dominant contemporary accounts of how practical considerations affect what we ought to believe, practical considerations either encroach on epistemic rationality by affecting whether a belief is epistemically justified, or constitute distinctively practical reasons for belief which can only affect what we ought to believe by conflicting with epistemic rationality. This paper argues that Søren Kierkegaard offers a promising alternative view on which practical considerations can affect what we ought to believe without either encroaching on or (necessarily) conflicting with (...) epistemic rationality by determining which among the epistemically permitted outright doxastic attitudes one should all‐things‐considered adopt. (shrink)

Debate about cognitive science explanations has been formulated in terms of identifying the proper level(s) of explanation. Views range from reductionist, favoring only neuroscience explanations, to mechanist, favoring the integration of multiple levels, to pluralist, favoring the preservation of even the most general, high-level explanations, such as those provided by embodied or dynamical approaches. In this paper, we challenge this framing. We suggest that these are not different levels of explanation at all but, rather, different styles of explanation that capture (...) different, cross-cutting patterns in cognitive phenomena. Which pattern is explanatory depends on both the cognitive phenomenon under investigation and the research interests occasioning the explanation. This reframing changes how we should answer the basic questions of which cognitive science approaches explain and how these explanations relate to one another. On this view, we should expect different approaches to offer independent explanations in terms of their different focal patterns and the value of those explanations to partly derive from the broad patterns they feature. (shrink)

Science is the study of our world, as it is in its messy reality. Nonetheless, science requires idealization to function—if we are to attempt to understand the world, we have to find ways to reduce its complexity. Idealization and the Aims of Science shows just how crucial idealization is to science and why it matters. Beginning with the acknowledgment of our status as limited human agents trying to make sense of an exceedingly complex world, Angela Potochnik moves on to (...) explain how science aims to depict and make use of causal patterns—a project that makes essential use of idealization. She offers case studies from a number of branches of science to demonstrate the ubiquity of idealization, shows how causal patterns are used to develop scientific explanations, and describes how the necessarily imperfect connection between science and truth leads to researchers’ values influencing their findings. The resulting book is a tour de force, a synthesis of the study of idealization that also offers countless new insights and avenues for future exploration. (shrink)

There is increasing attention to the centrality of idealization in science. One common view is that models and other idealized representations are important to science, but that they fall short in one or more ways. On this view, there must be an intermediary step between idealized representation and the traditional aims of science, including truth, explanation, and prediction. Here I develop an alternative interpretation of the relationship between idealized representation and the aims of science. In my view, continuing, widespread idealization (...) calls into question the idea that science aims for truth. I argue that understanding must replace truth as the ultimate epistemic aim of science. Additionally, science has a wide variety aims, epistemic and non-epistemic, and these aims motivate different kinds of scientific products. Finally, I show how these diverse aims---all rather distant from truth---result in the expanded influence of social values on science. (shrink)

The concept of hierarchical organization is commonplace in science. Subatomic particles compose atoms, which compose molecules; cells compose tissues, which compose organs, which compose organisms; etc. Hierarchical organization is particularly prominent in ecology, a field of research explicitly arranged around levels of ecological organization. The concept of levels of organization is also central to a variety of debates in philosophy of science. Yet many difficulties plague the concept of discrete hierarchical levels. In this paper, we show how these difficulties undermine (...) various implications ascribed to hierarchical organization, and we suggest the concept of scale as a promising alternative to levels. Investigating causal processes at different scales offers a way to retain a notion of quasi-levels that avoids the difficulties inherent in the classic concept of hierarchical levels of organization. Throughout, our focus is on ecology, but the results generalize to other invocations of hierarchy in science and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Recently, a number of philosophers have begun to question the commonly held view that choice or voluntary control is a precondition of moral responsibility. According to these philosophers, what really matters in determining a person’s responsibility for some thing is whether that thing can be seen as indicative or expressive of her judgments, values, or normative commitments. Such accounts might therefore be understood as updated versions of what Susan Wolf has called “real self views,” insofar as they attempt to ground (...) an agent’s responsibility for her actions and attitudes in the fact (when it is a fact) that they express who she is as a moral agent. As such, they seem to be open to some of the same objections Wolf originally raised to such accounts, and in particular to the objection that they cannot license the sorts of robust moral assessments involved in our current practices of moral responsibility. My aim in this paper is to try to respond to this challenge, by clarifying the kind of robust moral assessments I take to be licensed by (at least some) non-volitional accounts of responsibility and by explaining why these assessments do not in general require the agent to have voluntary control over everything for which she is held responsible. I also argue that the limited applicability of the distinction between “bad agents” and “blameworthy agents” on these accounts is in fact a mark in their favor. (shrink)

This article argues that resolutions are reason-giving: when an agent resolves to φ, she incurs an additional normative reason to φ. Resolution-making is therefore a normative power: an ability we have to alter our normative circumstances through sheer acts of will. I argue that the reasons we incur from forming resolutions are importantly similar to the reasons we incur from making promises. My account explains why it can be rational for an agent to act on a past resolution even if (...) temptation causes a shift in her preferences and even her judgment about what to do, and offers a response to a common objection to the normativity of resolutions known as the bootstrapping problem, on which if resolutions were reason-giving, they would problematically allow us to bootstrap any action into rationality simply by resolving to perform it. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have recently argued that we should interpret the debate over moral responsibility as a debate over the conditions under which it would be “fair” to blame a person for her attitudes or conduct. What is distinctive about these accounts is that they begin with the stance of the moral judge, rather than that of the agent who is judged, and make attributions of responsibility dependent upon whether it would be fair or appropriate for a moral judge (...) to react to the agent in various (negative) ways. This is problematic, I argue, because our intuitions about whether and when it would be fair to react negatively to another are sensitive to a host of considerations that appear to have little or nothing to do with an agent’s responsibility or culpability for her attitudes or behavior. If this is correct, then theories which make attributions of responsibility dependent upon the appropriateness of our reactions as moral judges will turn out to be fundamentally misguided. (shrink)

Using data collected at two phases, this study examines why and how ethical leadership behavior influences employees’ evaluations of organization-focused justice, i.e., procedural justice and distributive justice. By proposing ethical leaders as moral agents of the organization, we build up the linkage between ethical leadership behavior and the above two types of organization-focused justice. We further suggest trust in organization as a key mediating mechanism in the linkage. Our findings indicate that ethical leadership behavior engenders employees’ trust in their employing (...) organization, which in turn promotes their justice perceptions toward the organization. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and some directions for future research are suggested. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIt has recently become fashionable among those who write on questions of moral responsibility to distinguish two different concepts, or senses, of moral responsibility via the labels ‘responsibility as attributability’ and ‘responsibility as accountability’. Gary Watson was perhaps the first to introduce this distinction in his influential 1996 article ‘Two Faces of Responsibility’ , but it has since been taken up by many other philosophers. My aim in this study is to raise some questions and doubts about this distinction and (...) to argue that it has led to confusion rather than clarification in debates over moral responsibility. In place of the attributability/accountability distinction, I propose that there is a single concept of moral responsibility underlying our actual moral practices. This core notion of moral responsibility, which I call ‘responsibility as answerability’, is well positioned to explain thos.. (shrink)

Plato's thinking on courage, manliness and heroism is both profound and central to his work, but these areas of his thought remain under-explored. This book examines his developing critique of both the notions and embodiments of manliness prevalent in his culture, and his attempt to redefine them in accordance with his own ethical, psychological and metaphysical principles. It further seeks to locate the discussion within the framework of his general approach to ethics, an approach which focuses on concepts of flourishing (...) and virtue, rather than on consequences or duty. The question of why courage is necessary in the flourishing life in its turn leads to Plato's bid to unify the noble and the beneficial and the tensions this unification creates between human and divine ideals. The issue of manliness also raises problems of gender: does Plato conceive of the ethical subject as human or male? (shrink)

Levels of organization and their use in science have received increased philosophical attention of late, including challenges to the well-foundedness or widespread usefulness of levels concepts. One kind of response to these challenges has been to advocate a more precise and specific levels concept that is coherent and useful. Another kind of response has been to argue that the levels concept should be taken as a heuristic, to embrace its ambiguity and the possibility of exceptions as acceptable consequences of its (...) usefulness. In this chapter, I suggest that each of these strategies faces its own attendant downsides, and that pursuit of both strategies (by different thinkers) compounds the difficulties. That both kinds of approaches are advocated is, I think, illustrative of the problems plaguing the concept of levels of organization. I end by suggesting that the invocation of levels may mislead scientific and philosophical investigations more than it informs them, so our use of the levels concept should be updated accordingly. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss two questions. What does Kant understand by mechanical explanation in the Critique of judgment? And why does he think that mechanical explanation is the only type of the explanation of nature available to us? According to the interpretation proposed, mechanical explanations in the Critique of judgment refer to a particular species of empirical causal laws. Mechanical laws aim to explain nature by reference to the causal interaction between the forces of the parts of matter and (...) the way in which they form into complex material wholes. Just like any other empirical causal law, however, mechanical laws can never be known with full certainty. The conception according to which we can explain all of nature by means of mechanical laws, it turns out, is based on what Kant calls ‘regulative’ or ‘reflective’ considerations about nature. Nothing in Kant’s Critique of judgment suggests that these considerations can ever be justified by reference to how the natural world really is. I suggest that what, upon first consideration, appears to be a thoroughly mechanistic conception of nature in Kant is much more limited than one might have expected. (shrink)

Some mental states seem to be "of" or "about" things, or to "say" something. For example, a thought might represent that grass is green, and a visual experience might represent a blue cup. This is intentionality. The aim of this book is to explain this phenomenon. -/- Once we understand intentionality as a phenomenon to be explained, rather than a posit in a theory explaining something else, we can see that there are glaring empirical and in principle difficulties with currently (...) popular tracking and functional role theories of intentionality, which aim to account for intentionality in terms of tracking relations and functional roles. -/- This book develops an alternative theory, the phenomenal intentionality theory (PIT), on which the source of intentionality is none other than phenomenal consciousness, the subjective, felt, or qualitative aspect of mental life. While PIT avoids the problems that plague tracking and functional role theories, it faces its own challenges in accounting for the rich and complex contents of thoughts and the contents of nonconscious states. In responding to these challenges, this book proposes a novel version of PIT, on which all intentionality is phenomenal intentionality, though we in some sense represent many non-phenomenal contents by ascribing them to ourselves. This book further argues that phenomenal consciousness is an intrinsic feature of mental life, resulting in a view that is radically internalistic in spirit: Our phenomenally represented contents are literally in our heads, and any non-phenomenal contents we in some sense represent are expressly targeted by us. (shrink)

The 1940s and 1950s were marked by intense debates over the origin of drug resistance in microbes. Bacteriologists had traditionally invoked the notions of ‘training’ and ‘adaptation’ to account for the ability of microbes to acquire new traits. As the field of bacterial genetics emerged, however, its participants rejected ‘Lamarckian’ views of microbial heredity, and offered statistical evidence that drug resistance resulted from the selection of random resistant mutants. Antibiotic resistance became a key issue among those disputing physiological vs. genetic (...) explanations of variation in bacteria. Postwar developments connected with the Lysenko affair gave this debate a new political valence.Proponents of the neo-Darwinian synthesis weighed in with support for the genetic theory. However, certain features of drug resistance seemed inexplicable by mutation and selection, particularly the phenomenon of ‘multiple resistance’—the emergence of resistance in a single strain against several unrelated antibiotics. In the late 1950s, Tsutomu Watanabe and his collaborators solved this puzzle by determining that resistance could be conferred by cytoplasmic resistance factors rather than chromosomal mutation. These R factors could carry resistance to many antibiotics and seemed able to promote their own dissemination in bacterial populations. In the end, the vindication of the genetic view of drug resistance was accompanied by a recasting of the ‘gene’ to include extrachromosomal hereditary units carried on viruses and plasmids. (shrink)

Scientific explanations must bear the proper relationship to the world: they must depict what, out in the world, is responsible for the explanandum. But explanations must also bear the proper relationship to their audience: they must be able to create human understanding. With few exceptions, philosophical accounts of explanation either ignore entirely the relationship between explanations and their audience or else demote this consideration to an ancillary role. In contrast, I argue that considering an explanation’s communicative role is crucial to (...) any satisfactory account of explanation. (shrink)

In recent years bilingualism has been linked to both advantages in executive control and positive impacts on aging. Such positive cognitive effects of bilingualism have been attributed to the increased need for language control during bilingual processing and increased cognitive reserve, respectively. However, a mechanistic explanation of how bilingual experience contributes to cognitive reserve is still lacking. The current paper proposes a new focus on bilingual memory as an avenue to explore the relationship between executive control and cognitive reserve. We (...) argue that this focus will enhance our understanding of the functional and structural neural mechanisms underlying bilingualism-induced cognitive effects. With this perspective we discuss and integrate recent cognitive and neuroimaging work on bilingual advantage, and suggest an account that links cognitive control, cognitive reserve, and brain reserve in bilingual aging and memory. (shrink)

This paper summarises the author 's doctoral research on the development of interpersonal/interorganisational trust in relationships between expatriate and Russian staff working in east‐west enterprises in Russia. There is strong evidence from a variety of researchers to suggest that in order for western businesses investing in Russia to succeed, the dif.cult process of building trust needs to be understood and managed since in the Russian business climate western standards and norms of ethical business have not yet been established. According to (...) research.ndings, western investors doing business in Russia and the long‐term, personal trust that characterises family and friend relationships more congenial and more productive than formal, arm's‐length contacts and contracts. In such a context, it becomes important to identify what creates and destroys trust in the post‐Soviet business environment. This paper describes the causal factors leading to trust or lack of trust in relationships within western‐invested strategic alliances in Russia. The key relationship under consideration is the one between expatriate western staff and managers seconded to the venture on the one hand, and their local Russian staff, counterparts and superiors on the other. (shrink)

It is a live possibility that certain of our experiences reliably misrepresent the world around us. I argue that tracking theories of mental representation have difficulty allowing for this possibility, and that this is a major consideration against them.

This paper examines the US Atomic Energy Commission’s radioisotope distribution program, established in 1946, which employed the uranium piles built for the wartime bomb project to produce specific radioisotopes for use in scientific investigation and medical therapy. As soon as the program was announced, requests from researchers began pouring into the Commission’s office. During the first year of the program alone over 1000 radioisotope shipments were sent out. The numerous requests that came from scientists outside the United States, however, sparked (...) a political debate about whether the Commission should or even could export radioisotopes. This controversy manifested the tension between the aims of the Marshall Plan and growing US national security concerns after World War II. Proponents of international circulation of radioisotopes emphasized the political and scientific value of collaborating with European scientists, especially biomedical researchers. In the end, radioisotopes were shipped from the Commission’s Oak Ridge facility to many laboratories in England and continental Europe, where they were used in biochemical research on animals, plants, and microbes. However, the issue of radioisotope export continued to draw political fire in the United States, even after the establishment of national atomic energy facilities elsewhere. (shrink)

The future of health research will be characterised by three continuing trends: rising demand for health data; increasing impracticability of obtaining specific consent for secondary research; and decreasing capacity to effectively anonymise data. In this context, governments, clinicians and the research community must demonstrate that they can be responsible stewards of health data. IRBs and RECs sit at heart of this process because in many jurisdictions they have the capacity to grant consent waivers when research is judged to be of (...) particular value. However, several different terms are used to refer to this value, indicating a lack of conceptual clarity regarding the appropriate test for access to health data for research without consent. In this paper we do three things. First we describe the current confusion and instability in terminology relating to public interest in the context of consent waivers. Second we argue for harmonisation of terminology on the grounds of clarity, transparency and consistency. Third we argue that the term ‘public interest’ best reflects the normative work required to justify consent waivers because it is the broadest of the competing terms. ‘Public interest’ contains within its scope positive and negative implications of a study, as well as welfare, justice and rights considerations. In making this argument, we explain the normative basis for consent waivers, and provide a starting place for further discussion about the precise conditions in which a given study can be said to advance the public interest. Ipsos MORI study found that: … the public would be broadly happy with administrative data linking for research projects provided Those projects have social value, broadly defined. Data are de-identified. Data are kept secure. Businesses are not able to access the data for profit. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophy of science has witnessed a significant increase in attention directed toward the field’s social relevance. This is demonstrated by the formation of societies with related agendas, the organization of research symposia, and an uptick in work on topics of immediate public interest. The collection of papers that follows results from one such event: a 3-day colloquium on the subject of socially engaged philosophy of science (SEPOS) held at the University of Cincinnati in October 2012. In this (...) introduction, we first survey the recent history of philosophy of science’s social involvement (or lack thereof) and contrast this with the much greater social involvement of the sciences themselves. Next, we argue that the field of philosophy of science bears a special responsibility to contribute to public welfare. We then introduce as a term of art “SEPOS” and articulate what we take to be distinctive about social engagement, with reference to the articles in this collection as exemplars. Finally, we survey the current state of social engagement in philosophy of science and suggest some practical steps for individuals and institutions to support this trajectory. (shrink)

One of biology's fundamental aims is to generate understanding of the living world around—and within—us. In this chapter, I aim to provide a relatively nonpartisan discussion of the nature of explanation in biology, grounded in widely shared philosophical views about scientific explanation. But this discussion also reflects what I think is important for philosophers and biologists alike to appreciate about successful scientific explanations, so some points will be controversial, at least among philosophers. I make three main points: (1) causal relationships (...) and broad patterns have often been granted importance to scientific explanations, and they are in fact both important; (2) some explanations in biology cite the components of or processes in systems that account for the systems’ features, whereas other explanations feature large-scale or structural causes that influence a system; and (3) there can be multiple different explanations of a given biological phenomenon, explanations that respond to different research aims and can thus be compatible with one another even when they may seem to disagree. (shrink)

This paper summarises the author 's doctoral research on the development of interpersonal/interorganisational trust in relationships between expatriate and Russian staff working in east‐west enterprises in Russia. There is strong evidence from a variety of researchers to suggest that in order for western businesses investing in Russia to succeed, the dif.cult process of building trust needs to be understood and managed since in the Russian business climate western standards and norms of ethical business have not yet been established. According to (...) research.ndings, western investors doing business in Russia and the long‐term, personal trust that characterises family and friend relationships more congenial and more productive than formal, arm's‐length contacts and contracts. In such a context, it becomes important to identify what creates and destroys trust in the post‐Soviet business environment. This paper describes the causal factors leading to trust or lack of trust in relationships within western‐invested strategic alliances in Russia. The key relationship under consideration is the one between expatriate western staff and managers seconded to the venture on the one hand, and their local Russian staff, counterparts and superiors on the other. (shrink)

There is broad agreement that humans can be wronged independently of their incurring any harm, that is, when their welfare is not affected. Examples include unnoticed infringements of privacy, ridiculing unaware individuals, or disregarding individuals’ autonomous decision-making in their best interest. However, it is less clear whether the same is true of animals—that is, whether moral agents can wrong animals in situations that do not involve any harm to the animals concerned. In order to answer this question, I concentrate on (...) the illustrative case of treating animals in a demeaning yet harmless way that would be disrespectful if humans were concerned. I discuss whether such actions are permissible or unjustifiably discriminatory from a moral point of view. I conclude that moral agents cannot directly wrong animals without harming them and thus do not owe it to a particular animal to refrain from such actions. However, if the actions increase the likelihood that animal abuse will occur, this presents a strong indirect reason against performing them. Thus, the reasons for refraining from such actions are merely indirect rather than direct. (shrink)

Despite the recent proliferation of scientific, clinical, and narrative accounts of auditory verbal hallucinations, the phenomenology of voice hearing remains opaque and undertheorized. In this article, we outline an interdisciplinary approach to understanding hallucinatory experiences which seeks to demonstrate the value of the humanities and social sciences to advancing knowledge in clinical research and practice. We argue that an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenology of AVH utilizes rigorous and context-appropriate methodologies to analyze a wider range of first-person accounts of AVH (...) at 3 contextual levels: cultural, social, and historical; experiential; and biographical. We go on to show that there are significant potential benefits for voice hearers, clinicians, and researchers. These include informing the development and refinement of subtypes of hallucinations within and across diagnostic categories; “front-loading” research in cognitive neuroscience; and suggesting new possibilities for therapeutic intervention. In conclusion, we argue that an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenology of AVH can nourish the ethical core of scientific enquiry by challenging its interpretive paradigms, and offer voice hearers richer, potentially more empowering ways to make sense of their experiences. (shrink)