Business ethics and firm economic performance have traditionally often been regarded as mutually exclusive ends. We challenge this “either-or” belief and analyze when and how ethical firm leadership and firm performance may harmonize well. In extension of earlier research on ethical leadership and performance at the individual and team level, we study the context–dependency of the organization level relationship between CEO ethical leadership and firm performance. We propose a moderated mediation model of the link between CEO ethical leadership and firm (...) performance, identifying mediating and moderating variables unique to the organization-level of analysis. CEO ethical leadership is argued to work through organizational ethical culture which promotes firm performance under the condition that there is a strong corporate ethics program in place. Results from a multisource cross-sectional study, in which we surveyed 145 participants from 32 organizations and validated organizational performance ratings by objective performance data, showed support for our conceptual model. (shrink)

Leading social innovation is challenging. Creating enduring social innovation requires navigating the tension of simultaneously engaging top-down and shared leadership. We outline the crux of the challenge and provide key takeaways and practical advice for the tandem deployment of top-down and shared leadership for social innovation success.

To advance current knowledge on ethical decision-making in organizations, we integrate two perspectives that have thus far developed independently: the organizational identification perspective and the ethical climate perspective. We illustrate the interaction between these perspectives in two studies, in which we presented participants with moral business dilemmas. Specifically, we found that organizational identification increased moral decision-making only when the organization’s climate was perceived to be ethical. In addition, we disentangle this effect in Study 2 from participants’ moral identity. We argue (...) that the interactive influence of organizational identification and ethical climate, rather than the independent influence of either of these perspectives, is crucial for understanding moral decision-making in organizations. (shrink)

According to Susan Wolf's hybrid view about meaning in life, a life is meaningful in virtue of subjective attraction to objectively valuable pursuits. Recently, several philosophers have presented counterexamples to the subjective element in Wolf's view. We argue that these examples are not clearly successful and present a modified version which is even stronger in the face of them. Finally, we offer some positive reasons for accepting a subjective condition on a meaningful life.

In this article we argue that duties towards future generations are situated on the collective level and that they should be understood in terms of collective responsibility for structural injustice. In the context of climate change, it seems self‐evident that our moral duties pertain not only to the current generation but to future generations as well. However, conceptualizing this leads to the non‐identity problem: future persons cannot be harmed by present‐day choices because they would not have existed if other choices (...) had been made. Recently, Charlotte Franziska Unruh has proposed a solution that places the duties not on the individual level but on the collective level. The current generation has a responsibility for future generations as a whole. This solution is promising, but we argue that it problematically overlooks the existence of unjust relations within the contemporary collective, as we all contribute differently to bringing future generations into existence. Therefore, we propose to graft Iris Marion Young's Social Connection Model, which is concerned with structural injustice, on to the discussion of responsibility for future generations. Our proposal incorporates the strengths of Unruh's arguments, while also allowing for a differentiated responsibility based on different implications in unjust structures. (shrink)

Summary This account is on the connection between the quest of meaning and the Christian belief from the perspective of Creation. First the most important notions are discussed. Meaning is related to the experience of the conditions of existence: time and space. The question of meaning is summarized by: Who am I within the contours of the existence which forces itself upon me in the shape of time and space? This question belongs to human beings and is as old as (...) human consciousness. It becomes more manifest when we find ourselves in borderline situations. The meaning we attach to such situations is partly determined by the frame of reference one has at its disposal, the perspective, the system of cognitions and feelings which causes us to view reality in a certain way. We talk about a religious perspective when the discrepancies and even absurdities of everything we experience find a point of connection in the end. It is characterized by the conviction that the life the individual leads is a fragment in a larger connection which has its roots in Creation. When we want to sum up the Christian meaning of our existence, we have to look for that meaning within the notion of Creation. Belief in Creation is the very core of all kinds of validation activity emanating from the Christian spatio-temporal orientation. From the perspective of Creation, the world presents itself as a fabric in which seperate creatures are connected. According to this viewpoint there are two acting alternatives which make the faithful experience of space and time concrete and communicative: the experience of hospitality and the experience of being fellow-travellers. Christian faith has a rich tradition in both fields, as much in the practical as formal dimensions of its creed. In this account the belief in Creation is used as the point of departure to indicate how meaning may be given concrete form. Exercising hospitality is related to the ordering of space; the experience of being fellowtravellers is related to the ordering of time. (shrink)

This account is on the connection between the quest of meaning and the Christian belief from the perspective of Creation. First the most important notions are discussed. Meaning is related to the experience of the conditions of existence: time and space. The question of meaning is summarized by: Who am I within the contours of the existence which forces itself upon me in the shape of time and space? This question belongs to human beings and is as old as human (...) consciousness. It becomes more manifest when we find ourselves in borderline situations. The meaning we attach to such situations is partly determined by the frame of reference one has at its disposal, the perspective, the system of cognitions and feelings which causes us to view reality in a certain way. We talk about a religious perspective when the discrepancies and even absurdities of everything we experience find a point of connection in the end. It is characterized by the conviction that the life the individual leads is a fragment in a larger connection which has its roots in Creation. When we want to sum up the Christian meaning of our existence, we have to look for that meaning within the notion of Creation. Belief in Creation is the very core of all kinds of validation activity emanating from the Christian spatio-temporal orientation. From the perspective of Creation, the world presents itself as a fabric in which separate creatures are connected. According to this viewpoint there are two acting alternatives which make the faithful experience of space and time concrete and communicative: the experience of hospitality and the experience of being fellow-travellers. Christian faith has a rich tradition in both fields, as much in the practical as formal dimensions of its creed. In this account the belief in Creation is used as the point of departure to indicate how meaning may be given concrete form. Exercising hospitality is related to the ordering of space; the experience of being fellow-travellers is related to the ordering of time. (shrink)

Many research fields concerned with the processing of information contained in human faces would benefit from face stimulus sets in which specific facial characteristics are systematically varied while other important picture characteristics are kept constant. Specifically, a face database in which displayed expressions, gaze direction, and head orientation are parametrically varied in a complete factorial design would be highly useful in many research domains. Furthermore, these stimuli should be standardised in several important, technical aspects. The present article presents the freely (...) available Radboud Faces Database offering such a stimulus set, containing both Caucasian adult and children images. This face database is described both procedurally and in terms of content, and a validation study concerning its most important characteristics is presented. In the validation study, all frontal images were rated with respect to the shown facial expression, intensity of expression, clarity of expression, genuineness of expression, attractiveness, and valence. The results show very high recognition of the intended facial expressions. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe olfactory system provides us with rich information about the world, but the odours around us are not always detectable. Previous research has shown that disgust enhances olfactory sensi...

To advance current knowledge on ethical decision-making in organizations, we integrate two perspectives that have thus far developed independently: the organizational identification perspective and the ethical climate perspective. We illustrate the interaction between these perspectives in two studies, in which we presented participants with moral business dilemmas. Specifically, we found that organizational identification increased moral decision-making only when the organization’s climate was perceived to be ethical. In addition, we disentangle this effect in Study 2 from participants’ moral identity. We argue (...) that the interactive influence of organizational identification and ethical climate, rather than the independent influence of either of these perspectives, is crucial for understanding moral decision-making in organizations. (shrink)

A.G. van Aarde and historical Jesus research. A.G. van Aarde’s contribution to historical Jesus research is mainly expressed in his book Fatherless in Galilee: Jesus as Child of God. The book was the result of five years of Jesus research. Van Aarde is an ordained minister of the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa. Since the book’s publication in 2001, the NRCA has experienced an immense dispute regarding the book in particular but also regarding the subject of historical Jesus research in (...) general. This dispute has publicly escalated since 2010. It has often centred on Van Aarde’s notion of Jesus’ fatherlessness. This article will focus on said book in order to ascertain what is meant by the concept ‘the fatherless Jesus’. This is done to illustrate that Van Aarde’s research, as it converges in the scrutinised publication, remains of relevance to the NRCA. (shrink)

We investigate the notion of minimal cognition, and claim that this notion already applies to bacterial behavior. On the basis of the example of E. coli, we argue that the basis of cognition can be profitably cast as sensorimotor coordinations which subserve the metabolic requirements of organisms.

Research regarding the drivers of acceptance of clinical decision support systems by physicians is still rather limited. The literature that does exist, however, tends to focus on problems regarding the user-friendliness of CDSS. We have performed a thematic analysis of 24 interviews with physicians concerning specific clinical case vignettes, in order to explore their underlying opinions and attitudes regarding the introduction of CDSS in clinical practice, to allow a more in-depth analysis of factors underlying acceptance of CDSS. We identified three (...) general themes from the results. First, ‘the perceived role of the AI’, including items referring to the tasks that may properly be assigned to the CDSS according to the respondents. Second, ‘the perceived role of the physician’, referring to the aspects of clinical practice that were seen as being fundamentally ‘human’ or non-automatable. Third, ‘concerns regarding AI’, including items referring to more general issues that were raised by the respondents regarding the introduction of CDSS in general and/or in clinical medicine in particular. Apart from the overall concerns expressed by the respondents regarding user-friendliness, we will explain how our results indicate that our respondents were primarily occupied by distinguishing between parts of their job that should be automated and aspects that should be kept in human hands. We refer to this distinction as ‘the division of clinical labor.’ This division is not based on knowledge regarding AI or medicine, but rather on which parts of a physician’s job were seen by the respondents as being central to who they are as physicians and as human beings. Often the respondents’ view that certain core parts of their job ought to be shielded from automation was closely linked to claims concerning the uniqueness of medicine as a domain. Finally, although almost all respondents claimed that they highly value their final responsibility, a closer investigation of this concept suggests that their view of ‘final responsibility’ was not that demanding after all. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

I first show how one might argue for a mind-independent conception of beauty and artistic merit. I then discuss whether this makes aesthetic judgements suitable to undermine skeptical worries about the existence of mind-independent moral value and categorical reasons.

Farbod Akhlaghi (2021) argues that noncognitivists and naturalists cannot explain the epistemic possibility of wholesale moral error. This would show that noncognitivism and naturalism are false. I argue that noncognitivists and naturalists have no trouble explaining the epistemic possibility of wholesale moral error and that the requirement to explain this possibility is plausible only on one particular conception of epistemic possibility.

Poet and playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s scientific studies grew out of a disenchantment with the reductionist science of his time. He believed a more accurate description of nature was possible. Goethe’s scientific method paralleled the methodology of art current in his era, and very likely arose, at least in part, from pre-existing traditions of knowledge in the visual arts. The study of similarities between Goethe’s scientific method and the methodology of art could provide insights into both disciplines, and insights (...) into the intentions that drove Goethe’s scientific studies. (shrink)

Militairy technology is developing at a rapid pace and we are seeing a growing number of weapons with increasing levels of autonomy being developed and deployed. This raises various legal, ethical, and security concerns. The absence of clear international rules setting limits and governing the use of autonomous weapons is extremely concerning. There is an urgent need for the international community to work together towards a treaty not only to safeguard ethical and legal norms, but also for our shared security. (...) This article explains why a treaty on autonomous weapons is needed and achievable. It goes into what a treaty could consist of to establish an international norm and set rules and limits on autonomy in weapon systems. (shrink)

Wide-scopers argue that the detachment of intuitively false ‘ought’ claims from hypothetical imperatives is blocked because ‘ought’ takes wide, as opposed to narrow, scope. I present two arguments against this view. The first questions the premise that natural language conditionals are true just in case the antecedent is false. The second shows that intuitively false ‘ought’s can still be detached even WITH wide-scope readings. This weakens the motivation for wide-scoping.

This article assesses Bernard Stiegler’s critique of infantilization. Contemporary education—and society in general—would no longer develop children into adults, but would keep them in their childish state. Stiegler’s critique is explicitly inspired by Enlightenment ideals, characterized by a positive notion of maturity and a negative notion of childhood and immaturity. Infantilization is for Stiegler therefore immediately a negative development. However, Stiegler’s works also contain a positive understanding of childhood and of the extension of childish characteristics into adulthood. The main thesis (...) of this article is that this results in an unresolved tension in Stiegler’s work. I therefore propose a notion of infantilization not as solely negative, but as fundamentally ambivalent and risky. The continuation of childhood into maturity is necessary for the life of the mind, yet it can also foreclose maturity altogether. I use this new notion of infantilization to correct some of Stiegler’s radically conservative views on education and on the care for the new generations. (shrink)

According to Stephen Finlay, ‘A ought to X’ means that X-ing is more conducive to contextually salient ends than relevant alternatives. This in turn is analysed in terms of probability. I show why this theory of ‘ought’ is hard to square with a theory of a reason’s weight which could explain why ‘A ought to X’ logically entails that the balance of reasons favours that A X-es. I develop two theories of weight to illustrate my point. I first look at (...) the prospects of a theory of weight based on expected utility theory. I then suggest a simpler theory. Although neither allows that ‘A ought to X’ logically entails that the balance of reasons favours that A X-es, this price may be accepted. For there remains a strong pragmatic relation between these claims. (shrink)

Metaphysicians speak of laws of nature in terms of necessity and universality; scientists, in terms of symmetry and invariance. In this book van Fraassen argues that no metaphysical account of laws can succeed. He analyzes and rejects the arguments that there are laws of nature, or that we must believe there are, and argues that we should disregard the idea of law as an adequate clue to science. After exploring what this means for general epistemology, the author develops the empiricist (...) view of science as a construction of models to represent the phenomena. (shrink)

The idea that normative statements implicitly refer to standards has been around for quite some time. It is usually defended by normative antirealists, who tend to be attracted to Humean theories of reasons. But this is an awkward combination: 'A ought to X' entails that there are reasons for A to X, and 'A ought to X all things considered' entails that the balance of reasons favours X-ing. If the standards implicitly referred to are not those of the agent, then (...) why would these entailments hold? After all, Humeanism says that 'A has a reason to X' is true if and only if A has some desire which is furthered by X-ing. In this paper, I develop a standard-relational theory of 'ought' and a non-Humean theory of reasons (oughtism). Together, they explain why 'A ought to X' entails not only that there are reasons for A to X, but also that the balance of reasons favours X-ing. The latter explanation depends on a theory of weight, in which the weight of a reason depends on the position of a rule (standard) in an order of priorities. The theories are truth-conditional, but do not require objective normative facts for the truth of 'ought' judgments and judgments about reasons. (shrink)

Many individuals with developmental language disorder (DLD) and individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) have social–emotional problems, such as social difficulties, and show signs of aggression, depression, and anxiety. These problems can be partly associated with their executive functions (EFs) and theory of mind (ToM). The difficulties of both groups in EF and ToM may in turn be related to self-directed speech (i.e., overt or covert speech that is directed at the self). Self-directed speech is thought to (...) allow for the construction of non-sensory representations (i.e., representations that do not coincide with direct observation). Such non-sensory representations allow individuals to overcome the limits set upon them by the senses. This ability is constrained by the development of word meaning structure (i.e., the way words are understood). We argue that the greater ability to construct non-sensory representations may result in more enhanced forms of EF and ToM. We conclude that difficulties in EF, ToM, and social–emotional functioning in those with hearing and language problems may be accounted for in terms of word meaning impairments. We propose that word meaning structure and self-directed speech should be considered in assigning EF and ToM treatments to individuals with DLD and those who are D/HH. (shrink)

I argue that relativists about aesthetic and other evaluative language face some of the same objections as non-naturalists in ethics. These objections concern the metaphysics required to make it work. Unlike contextualists, relativists believe that evaluative propositions are not about the relation in which things stand to certain standards. Nevertheless, the truth of such propositions would depend on variable standards. I argue that relativism requires the existence of states of affairs very different from other things known to exist. Furthermore, there (...) seems to be no convincing reason to postulate such entities. However, if they do not exist, then relativism leads to an error theory. That is unattractive, as relativism was meant to preserve the truth of many evaluative claims. (shrink)

I argue that relativists about evaluative language face some of the same objections as non-naturalists in ethics. If these objections are powerful, there is reason to doubt the existence of relative evaluative states of affairs. In they do not exist, then relativism leads to an error theory. This is unattractive, as the position was specifically designed to preserve the truth of many evaluative claims.

Terence Cuneo and Russ Shafer-Landau have recently proposed a new version of moral nonnaturalism, according to which there are nonnatural moral concepts and truths but no nonnatural moral facts. This view entails that moral error theorists are conceptually deficient. We explain why moral error theorists are not conceptually deficient. We then argue that this explanation reveals what is wrong with Cuneo and Shafer-Landau’s view.

Deleuze and Guattari’s thought on remainders of childhood has proven its worth for educational theory and philosophy. However, thus far the discussion has not paid much attention to their notion of infantilization, which reveals a new dimension of their understanding of childhood. In this article, I develop both their concept of becoming-child and their concept of infantilization. This allows for thinking the remainders of childhood as inherently risky and ambiguous. I argue that this new understanding does not only paint a (...) more complete picture of Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of childhood, but is also better equipped to evade two dangers already identified in the Deleuze and Guattari scholarship: the romanticization of childhood on the one hand and the risky proximity of becoming-child to the acceleration of consumerist capitalism on the other hand. (shrink)