Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:David Hume’s Political EconomyJohn RobertsonCarl Wennerlind and Margaret Schabas, eds., David Hume’s Political Economy (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), Pp. xiii + 378. ISBN 978-0-415-32001-6, Cloth, $160. ISBN 978-0-415-49413-7, Paper, $44.95.This collection of papers is as welcome as it is overdue. As its editors observe in their introduction, the reference point for studies of Hume’s economic thinking has remained Eugene Rotwein’s “Introduction” to his volume David Hume: (...) Writings on Economics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press) since its publication in 1955. The conference from which these papers derive was convened forty-eight years later, in 2003, and the volume was another five years in preparation (while this review, in turn, has taken its own time). But David Hume’s Political Economy is not a random collection of conference papers: editorial direction has ensured a substantial publication, and an important contribution to Hume studies. The individual contributions fall into four broad categories, with fruitful overlaps between them. These are: (1) Hume’s biography and his immediate Scottish context; (2) the philosophical framework of Hume’s economic thinking provided by his account of human nature; (3) Hume’s treatment of money; and (4) the reception of Hume’s economic writings in France, as a starting-point for exploring his contribution to the wider European Enlightenment debate over the prospects of the modern commercial economy.Two established scholars of the Scottish Enlightenment open the volume. Roger Emerson identifies “Scottish contexts for David Hume’s political-economic [End Page 123] thinking” (10), and Ian Simpson Ross traces “the emergence of David Hume as a political economist” (31) in a more strictly biographical perspective. Emerson draws on his knowledge of Scottish improvers, most notably Lord Ilay, third duke of Argyll, and explores the several ways in which Hume could have been aware of their activities and the issues they had to confront. Ross directs attention to specific episodes in Hume’s life that may have stimulated Hume’s interest in economic affairs. By their use of the conditional and the subjunctive, both contributors acknowledge that the suggested connections are speculative: for reasons which he left to be inferred, Hume was reluctant to apply his arguments explicitly to local, Scottish circumstances. But as Ross demonstrates in the case of Hume’s friendship with Isaac Pinto, and later in the volume Robert Dimand documents in the matter of Hume’s memorandum on Canadian paper money, there are still details of Hume’s biography to be filled out. As more Hume letters become available, it is likely that further such episodes may come to light: Hume’s biography is not an exhausted subject.A fine essay by Christopher Berry on “Hume and Superfluous Value” (49) opens the second set of contributions. Re-visiting Hume’s intervention in the Luxury Debate, Berry argues that Hume rejected the Stoic ideal of poverty embodied in Epictetus’s view that slippers were simply for the protection of the foot indoors, and any ornamentation was superfluous “luxury.” Instead, Hume deliberately attached value to the superfluous. It was precisely the indulgence of luxury, the enjoyment of a more beautiful slipper, which aroused and sustained the “industry” of men, whence derived the enrichment of society and the strengthening of the power of the sovereign. Other contributions in this group are less successful. Till Grüne-Yanoff and Edward McClennen target Albert Hirschman’s thesis that in a commercial society the passions are tamed by the increasing importance attached to the particular passion of “interest.” Instead of relying solely on “interest,” Hume envisages an evolution or “refinement” of the passions, in which reason “serves” the passions by helping individuals to determine how to achieve their ends (86). Quite why this process should be termed a “natural history of the passions” (86) is, however, unclear, as is the extent to which the authors wish to rehabilitate “reason” in Hume’s explanation of action. Richard Boyd seeks to extrapolate from Hume’s writings a concept of “civility” adequate to the pluralism of modern commercial society. Working hard with exiguous evidence—“civility” is mentioned in passing on only a few occasions in... (shrink)

David Hume, Adam Smith, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, Lord Kames, John Millar, James Dunbar and Gilbert Stuart were at the heart of Scottish Enlightenment thought. This introductory survey offers the student a clear, accessible interpretation and synthesis of the social thought of these historically significant thinkers. Organised thematically, it takes the student through their accounts of social institutions, their critique of individualism, their methodology, their views of progress and of moral and cultural values. By taking human sociality as their (...) premise, the book shows how they produced important analyses of historical change, politics and morality, together with an assessment of their own commercial society. (shrink)

Individualized customer information is at the heart of on-line commerce. Using increasing amounts of customer-specific data enhances the success and value of one-to-one on-line marketing; but the extensive gathering and use of data specific to individuals also causes alarm over the loss of digital privacy, setting up a confrontation between e-commerce and society. Governments and nations, particularly in Europe, have reacted with a reliance on sweeping laws governing digital privacy protection while other nations such as the U.S. have generally preferred (...) to allow companies and industry associations to regulate themselves. This tenuous balance is under attack from both sides. In this paper, we set up a framework which incorporates the environmental context, ethical perspectives and firm-specific considerations to help firms develop a strategy for handling digital privacy concerns. (shrink)

In this paper we theorize that cognitive ethical orientations play an influential role in the beliefs of consumers when faced with different ranges of moral dilemmas. We examine this proposition in transitional Eastern Europe and results from a sample of 210 Romanian consumers suggest that Romanians are faced with a moral situation where low levels of Machiavellianism and high levels of idealism appear to relate to a higher ethical concern about passively benefiting at the expense of others.

From a corporate governance perspective, one of the most important jobs of a firm's top management team is to create and maintain a positive moral environment. Business ethics has long been considered a cornerstone in the field of strategic management and a number of scholars have called for more research in this area over the years. In this paper 658 articles that appeared in "Strategic Management Journal" over the 10-year period between 1996 and 2005 are reviewed for business ethics focus (...) and content. The results reveal that while business ethics research in "Strategic Management Journal" is on the rise, the overall focus on this research stream has been limited. The most prominent ethics theme during the review period was environmentalism, accounting for 30% of all ethics articles. Author affiliations, future research directions, and implications are also discussed. (shrink)

Aristotle attaches particular significance to the homomyny of many of the central concepts in philosophy and science: that is, to the diversity of ways of being that are denoted by a single concept. Shields here investigates and evaluates Aristotle's approach to questions about homonymy, characterizing the metaphysical and semantic commitments necessary to establish the homonymy of a given concept. Then, in a series of case studies, he examines in detail some of Aristotle's principal applications of homonymy--to the body, sameness and (...) and oneness, life, goodness, and being. This first full-length study of a central aspect of Aristotle's thought will interest philosophers working in a number of areas. (shrink)

Char et al. aspire to provide “a systematic approach to identifying … ethical concerns” around machine learning healthcare applications, which includes artificial intelligence and...

Despite an increase in international business ethics research in recent years, the number of studies focused on Latin America and China has been deficient. As trade among Pacific Rim nations increases, an understanding of the ethical beliefs of the people in this region of the world will become increasingly important. In the current study 208 respondents from Peru and China are queried about their ethical ideologies, firm practices, and commitment to organizational performance. The empirical results reveal that Chinese workers are (...) more relativistic and less idealistic than their Peruvian counterparts. One explanation for the disparity between these two groups is likely the variation in collectivism that can be traced to different levels of importance across ingroups and outgroups. In addition to a summary of the results, future research directions and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

Although business ethics has a long history as a core theme within the realm of strategic management it has not received considerable attention in top strategy journals until recently. In this paper, we assess the state of business ethics research published over a 5-year period (2006–2010) in Strategic Management Journal to ascertain whether there has been an increase in business ethics research published in the top strategy outlet. The results of our content analysis reveal that ethics research in SMJ is (...) indeed on the rise yet this research stream is still underrepresented with only 5.8 % of all articles published over the five-year period having an ethics theme. Moreover, the link between Corporate Social Performance and Financial Performance was identified as the top theme during the review period. (shrink)

Aristotle attaches particular significance to the homonymy of many central concepts in philosophy and science: that is, to the diversity of ways of being common to a single general concept. His preoccupation with homonymy influences his approach to almost every subject that he considers, and it clearly structures the philosophical methodology that he employs both when criticizing others and when advancing his own positive theories. Where there is homonymy there is multiplicity: Aristotle aims to find the order within this multiplicity, (...) and believes that doing so is crucial to scientific inquiry and philosophical progress.Christopher Shields investigates and evaluates Aristotle's approach to questions about homonymy, characterizing the metaphysical and semantic commitments necessary to establish the homonymy of a given concept. Then, in a series of case-studies, Shields examines in detail some of Aristotle's principal applications of homonymy--to the body, sameness and oneness, life, goodness, and being. Shields's aim is not only to give a fuller understanding of Aristotle's methodology and to illuminate his specific doctrines in a variety of areas, but to show that this methodology remains fruitful today. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle reflects the lively international character of Aristotelian studies, drawing contributors from the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, and Japan; it also, appropriately, includes a preponderance of authors from the University of Oxford, which has been a center of Aristotelian studies for many centuries. The volume equally reflects the broad range of activity Aristotelian studies comprise today: such activity ranges from the primarily textual and philological to the application of broadly Aristotelian (...) themes to contemporary problems irrespective of their narrow textual fidelity. In between these extremes one finds the core of Aristotelian scholarship as it is practiced today, and as it is primarily represented in this Handbook: textual exegesis and criticism. Even within this more limited core activity, one witnesses a rich range of pursuits, with some scholars seeking primarily to understand Aristotle in his own philosophical milieu and others seeking rather to place him into direct conversation with contemporary philosophers and their present-day concerns. No one of these enterprises exhausts the field. On the contrary, one of the most welcome and enlivening features of the contemporary Aristotelian scene is precisely the cross-fertilization these mutually beneficial and complementary activities offer one another. The volume, prefaced with an introduction to Aristotle's life and works by the editor, covers the main areas of Aristotelian philosophy and intellectual enquiry: ethics, metaphysics, politics, logic, language, psychology, rhetoric, poetics, theology, physical and biological investigation, and philosophical method. It also, and distinctively, looks both backwards and forwards: two chapters recount Aristotle's treatment of earlier philosophers, who proved formative to his own orientations and methods, and another three chapters chart the long afterlife of Aristotle's philosophy, in Late Antiquity, in the Islamic World, and in the Latin West. (shrink)

As multinational firms explore new and promising national markets two of the most crucial elements in the strategic decision regarding market-entry are the level of corruption and existing trade barriers. One form of corruption that is crucially important to firms is the theft of intellectual property. In particular, software piracy has become a hotly debated topic due to the deep costs and vast levels of piracy around the world. The purpose of this paper is to assess how laissez-faire trade policies (...) and corruption affect national software piracy rates. Using invisible hand theory, as well as literature from the fields of international strategy and ethics, formal research hypotheses are posited and tested. Results suggest that corruption mediates the relationship between economic freedom and software piracy. Implications for multinational managers and researchers are also addressed. (shrink)

A thorough and closely argued examination of a central issue in philosophical logic, an issue which is shown to have profound implications for the philosophy of language and much of metaphysics.

Although the Federal Common Rule requires that informed consent documents include all material information, it does not specify the content of materials used to recruit human subjects. In particular, there is no federal regulation relating to how payment for research participation is to be advertised. Rather, the FDA has issued guidance, advising researchers not to emphasize payment information. In order to determine how IRBs have interpreted this guidance, we coded the policies of the top 100 institutions by receipt of NIH (...) funding, in order to determine whether they require, permit, or forbid researchers to disclose the amount of compensation in their recruitment materials. We found that the vast majority of institutions implicitly or explicitly permit such disclosures; however, there are a significant number of IRBs at each extreme, some discouraging or forbidding with others encouraging or mandating such disclosures. Such heterogeneity in local regulations suggests that IRB discretion may be imposing costs on human subjects and the scientific enterprise that outweigh the benefits. We suggest that this heterogeneity should be resolved towards a national consensus on permissibility. (shrink)

The payment of human subjects is an area where Institutional Review Boards have wide discretion. Although the “Common Rule” requires the provision of full information to human research participants to secure valid consent, the Rule is silent on the issue of payment. Still, some federal agencies offer guidance on the matter. For example, the National Science Foundation cautions that high payments for risky research “may induce a needy participant to take a risk that they normally would prefer not to take.” (...) For research under its purview, the Food and Drug Administration guidance provides that “[a]dvertisements may state that subjects will be paid, but should not emphasize the payment or the amount to be paid, by such means as larger or bold type.” One might read the FDA guidance to permit the advertisement for human subjects to state the specific amount of payment, as long as it is not emphasized. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 6, June 2019, Page 44-46.

In this re-titled and substantially revised update of his _Classical Philosophy_, Christopher Shields expands his coverage to include the Hellenistic era, and now offers an introduction to more than 1,000 years of ancient philosophy. From Thales and other Pre-Socratics through Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and on to Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Scepticism, _Ancient Philosophy_ traces the important connections between these periods and individuals without losing sight of the novelties and dynamics unique to each. The coverage of Plato and Aristotle also (...) has been expanded. It now includes, for example, updated coverage of Plato's allegories of the cave and the divided line and the metaphor of the sun as well as features of Plato's epistemology. Shields also adds new discussion on Aristotle's theory of virtue and his approach to the Socratic problem of _akrasia_, or weakness of will. In terms of its structure, _Ancient Philosophy_ is presented so that each philosophical position receives: a brief introduction, a sympathetic review of its principal motivations and primary supporting arguments, and a short assessment, inviting readers to evaluate its plausibility. The result is a book that brings the ancient arguments to life, making the introduction truly contemporary. It will serve as both a first stop and a well visited resource for any student of the subject. _Ancient Philosophy_ offers a vivid picture of the ideas that flourished at philosophy's long birth and considers their relevance, both to the historical development of the Western philosophical tradition, and to philosophy today. (shrink)

The concept of identity has been seen to lead to paradox: we cannot truly and usefully say that a thing is the same either as itself or as something else. This book is a full examination of this paradox in philosophical logic, and of its implications for the philosophy of mathematics, the philosphy of mind, and relativism about identity. The author's account involves detailed discussion of the views of Wittgenstein, Russell, Frege, and Hintikka.

From a corporate governance perspective, one of the most important jobs of a firm's top management team is to create and maintain a positive moral environment. Business ethics has long been considered a cornerstone in the field of strategic management and a number of scholars have called for more research in this area over the years. In this paper 658 articles that appeared in "Strategic Management Journal" over the 10-year period between 1996 and 2005 are reviewed for business ethics focus (...) and content. The results reveal that while business ethics research in "Strategic Management Journal" is on the rise, the overall focus on this research stream has been limited. The most prominent ethics theme during the review period was environmentalism, accounting for 30% of all ethics articles. Author affiliations, future research directions, and implications are also discussed. (shrink)

Physicians, scholars, and policymakers continue to be concerned about conflicts of interests among health care providers. At least two main types of objections to conflicts of interest exist. Conflicts of interests may be intrinsically troublesome if they violate providers’ fiduciary duties to their patients or they contribute to loss of trust in health care professionals and the health care system. Conflicts of interest may also be problematic in practice if they bias the decisions made by providers, adversely impacting patient outcomes (...) or wastefully increasing health care costs. This latter objection may be observed in differences in the prescriptions written, procedures performed, or costs billed by health care professionals who have conflicting interests, when compared to those that do not have such financial relationships. (shrink)

This essay traces the complex constellation of ideas that informs Anders's turn to the generalizing expression ‘the human’ in his postwar work. It mobilizes the properties of radioactive material and digital data, which are both curiously imperceptible to our senses, to discuss Anders’s insistence on the universalizing pronoun `we' and assess its significance in the contemporary world. To do so, it aligns Anders's work with current debates about the Anthropocene and critiques of the use of the term ‘the human’ in (...) postcolonial settings. (shrink)

Commentators on Schopenhauer’s philosophy have been at odds with one another concerning the signification of the “nothing” with which he closed the first volume of The World as Will and Representation in 1818, and how this relates to Schopenhauer’s proposition that the will is Kant’s thing-in-itself. This chapter contends that Schopenhauer’s works contain two conceptions of soteriological nothing: an early conception that is ontological and contrasted with the vanity of phenomenal life, and a later conception in which nothing is employed (...) as an apophatic denial of our epistemological categories. Schopenhauer sought to conceal the way in which his use and understanding of these concepts had changed by 1860 by appending a handwritten note to the close of the first volume that cited Isaak Jacob Schmidt’s translation of the Diamond-Sūtra, an explanation of the Buddhist concept of prajñāpāramitā. Examination of Schmidt’s treatise throws some light on the development of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics and soteriology between 1818 and 1860. (shrink)

The concept of identity has been seen to lead to paradox: we cannot truly and usefully say that a thing is the same either as itself or as something else. This book is a full examination of this paradox in philosophical logic, and of its implications for the philosophy of mathematics, the philosphy of mind, and relativism about identity. The author's account involves detailed discussion of the views of Wittgenstein, Russell, Frege, and Hintikka.

Managers throughout the world regularly face ethical dilemmas that have important, and perhaps complex, professional and personal implications. Further, societal consequences of decisions made can be far-reaching. In this study, 210 financial services managers from Australia, Chile, Ecuador and the United States were queried about their ethical beliefs when faced with four diverse dilemmas. In addition, the situational context was altered so the respondent viewed each dilemma from a top management position and from a position of economic hardship. Results suggest (...) a complex interaction of situation, culture and issue when individuals make ethical judgments. Specifically, Chileans were found to have different beliefs about sex discrimination and child labor dilemmas when compared to their colleagues from the other three nations. Chileans and Australians also disagreed on the bribery dilemma. Anglo managers were more likely than Latin American managers to change their ethical responses when the situation was altered. For multinational firms interested in maintaining healthy ethical climates, the findings suggest that culturally contingent ethical guidelines, or policies adapted to the local customs, must be considered. Further, managers must remain aware of issues related to specific situations, both internal and external, that would cause subordinates to alter their moral judgment. (shrink)

Philosophers have met with many problems in discussing the interconnected concepts being, identity, and truth, and have advanced many theories to deal with them. Williams argues that most of these problems and theories result from an inadequate appreciation of the ways in which the words "be," "same," and "true" work. By means of linguistic analysis he shows that being and truth are not properties, and identity is not a relation. He is thus able to demystify a number of metaphysical issues (...) concerning the meaning of the word "I," the relation between the mental and the physical, objects of thought, times and places, and the nature of reality. Williams presents his views clearly, with a minimum of technicality, and with rich and apt examples, so that they will be accessible to readers not versed in symbolic logic. (shrink)

We contribute to the study of offshoring and outsourcing by examining how stakeholders' ethical evaluations of these decisions are influenced by both their roles and the issues embedded within the decisions. Although offshoring and outsourcing have been studied from a transactional perspective, the moral issues embedded within these decisions can profoundly affect how the organization is perceived by outside stakeholders. First, we contend that investors use different moral paradigms compared with consumer stakeholders, as a result the stakeholder role an individual (...) occupies significantly influences their ethical evaluation of offshoring and outsourcing decisions. Next, we examine whether embedded issues of product quality and information security increase the moral intensity of offshoring and outsourcing decisions, thereby negatively influencing ethical evaluations. Using vignettes, we find that respondents viewed either offshoring or outsourcing less favorably than relocation. Surprisingly, respondents viewed offshoring with data security risks more negatively than offshore outsourcing with quality risks, suggesting that the issue of information security has a greater moral intensity than the issue of product or service quality for both consumer and investor stakeholders. Thus, we show that that embedded issues play a significant role in stakeholders' ethical judgments of business decisions, such as offshoring and outsourcing. (shrink)

This chapter defends the view that Arthur Schopenhauer and Siddhattha Gotama were unquestionably pessimistic philosophers, insofar as they converged in locating the source of life’s suffering within the person rather than the external world. However, in the process of outlining the significant continuities between their respective phenomenological analyses of life’s suffering, this chapter detects an important divergence between them. This stems from their contrasting metaphysical positions and ultimately impacts upon their respective interpretations of the significance of life’s suffering, as well (...) as their proposed solutions to it. (shrink)

Classical Philosophy is a comprehensive examination of early philosophy from the presocratics through to Aristotle. The aim of the book is to provide an explanation and analysis of the ideas that flourished at this time and considers their relevance both to the historical development of philosophy and to contemporary philosophy today. From these ideas we can see the roots of arguments in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and political philosophy. The book is arranged in four parts by thinker and covers: The Presocratics (...) Socrates Plato Aristotle Christopher Shields' style is inviting, refreshing and ideal for anyone coming to the subject for the first time. He provides a balanced account of the central topics and ideas that emerged from the period and includes helpful further reading and chapter overviews. (shrink)

Aristotle argues that the soul and body are non-identical substances; the soul is an immaterial particular form, while the body is a diachronic material continuant. Despite their immateriality, Aristotle argues that souls are not separable from bodies, and so implicitly rejects any version of Cartesian dualism. But because of his commitment to immaterialism, Aristotle's position cannot be assimilated to any contemporary materialist theory in the philosophy of mind. We need not, however, regard him as inconsistent in rejecting both Cartesian dualism (...) and materialism: Aristotle rightly recognizes that the soul can be a substantial immaterial particular form which supervenes on the body. Aristotle is, then, a supervenient dualist, who holds that there are nomological relations between physical and psychic states, but who denies that psychic states are token identical with material states. ;But Aristotle notoriously does not regard the supervenience of the soul as sufficient for the supervenience of each of its capacities. He provides an interesting but unsuccessful a priori argument for the claim that nous, or mind, is a capacity of the soul which does not supervene on any bodily state. Thus, he concludes that nous can survive the destruction of the body; but post mortem survival of nous need not be regarded as sufficient for a commitment to post mortem personal identity in Aristotle. (shrink)