Ces études voudraient inviter le public francophone à la découverte de la philosophie de l'école de Marbourg et de son apport au site pratique de la philosophie. La réflexion morale, juridique et politique s'est trouvée fort enrichie par les écrits de Friedrich Albert Lange, Hermann Cohen et Paul Natorp. Ernst Cassirer a poursuivi la réflexion de ses maîtres en théorie de la connaissance, mais aussi dans le site pratique, ici dominé par un socialisme d'inspiration kantienne.

The prospect of using cell-based interventions to treat neurological conditions raises several important ethical and policy questions. In this target article, we focus on issues related to the unique constellation of traits that characterize CBIs targeted at the central nervous system. In particular, there is at least a theoretical prospect that these cells will alter the recipients' cognition, mood, and behavior—brain functions that are central to our concept of the self. The potential for such changes, although perhaps remote, is cause (...) for concern and careful ethical analysis. Both to enable better informed consent in the future and as an end in itself, we argue that early human trials of CBIs for neurological conditions must monitor subjects for changes in cognition, mood, and behavior; further, we recommend concrete steps for that monitoring. Such steps will help better characterize the potential risks and benefits of CBIs as they are tested and potentially used for treatment. (shrink)

The literature on ethical decision-making is rooted in a cognitive perspective that emphasizes the role of moral judgment. Recent research in interpersonal dynamics, however, has suggested that ethics revolves around an individual’s perceptions and views of others. We draw from both literatures to propose and empirically examine a contingent model. We theorize that whether the individual relies on cognitions about the ethical issue or perceptions of others depends on the level of social consensus surrounding the issue. We test our hypotheses (...) in three studies. Results suggest that not only does social consensus determine whether an individual relies on ethical cognitions about the issue or perceptions of others, but also that an individual’s view of self is an important moderator in these relationships. We conclude by considering implications of this research for theory and practice. (shrink)

Models of gene regulatory networks have proven useful for understanding many aspects of the highly complex behavior of biological control networks. Randomly generated non-Boolean networks were used in experimental simulations to generate data on dynamic phenotypes as a function of several genotypic parameters. We found that predictive relationships between some phenotypes and quantitative genotypic parameters such as number of network genes, interaction density, and initial condition could be derived depending on the strength of the topological genotype on specific phenotypes. We (...) quantitated the strength of the topological genotype effect on a number of phenotypes in multi-gene networks. For phenotypes with a low influence of topological genotype, derived and empirical relationships using quantitative genotype parameters were accurate in phenotypic outcomes. We found a number of dynamic network properties, including oscillation behaviors, that were largely dependent on genotype topology, and for which no such general quantitative relationships were determinable. It remains to be determined if these results are applicable to biological gene regulatory networks. (shrink)

Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age generated a great deal of attention—and has stimulated important debates—among a diverse range of scholars in sociology, history, politics, religious studies and to a lesser extent, anthropologists. Much of the debate has focused on the implications of Taylor’s work for the so-called secularisation thesis and the place of religion in the so-called public sphere. The essays in this volume arise less out of such concerns and more from Taylor’s discussion of secularism in a third, ‘experiential’ (...) sense. Each paper addresses the question of what it is like to ‘believe’ in the modern world. Among other things the authors of the essays published in this Special Issue are concerned to develop better understandings of the conditions under which belief and unbelief may be experienced as open, rather than closed, to the possibility of other ontological construals, thereby building on Taylor’s insights into the phenomenology of modern secularism. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show that, if Kant’s universalization formulations of the Categorical Imperative are our only standards for judging right from wrong and permissible from impermissible, then we have no obligations. I shall do this by examining five different views of how obligations can be derived from the universalization formulations and arguing that each one fails. I shall argue that the first view rests on a misunderstanding of the universalization formulations; the second on a misunderstanding of (...) the concept of an obligation; the third on a misunderstanding of the concept of a maxim; the fourth on a misunderstanding of the limits of action description; and the fifth on a misunderstanding of the universalization formulations again. (shrink)

In this anthropological investigation of the nature of an underdeveloped peasant economy, Joel S. Kahn attempts to develop the insights generated by Marxist theorists, by means of a concrete case study of a peasant village in the Indonesian province of West Sumatra. He accounts for the specific features of this regional economy, and, at the same time, examines the implications for it of the centuries-old European domination of Indonesia. The most striking feature of the Minangkabau economy is the predominance (...) of petty commodity relations in agriculture, handicrafts and the local network of distribution. Dr Kahn illustrates this with material on local economic organization, which he collected in the field in the highland village of Sungai Puar, the site of a blacksmithing industry, and with published and unpublished data from other parts of Indonesia. Dr Kahn's book is unusual for its combination of a theoretical analysis of underdevelopment with a detailed regional study. It will appeal to those interested in South-east Asian studies, in development, and in neo-Marxist approaches in anthropology. (shrink)

In this commentary we argue that evolution of the human brain to host the language system was accomplished by the selective development of frontal and temporal areas in the left hemisphere. The unilateral development of Broca's and Wernicke's areas could have resulted from one or more transcription factors that have an expression pattern restricted to the left hemisphere.

Contents:Acknowledgements Foreword (Lt. Ervin J. Rokke)Preface (Davis S. Alberts and Thomas Czerwinski)SETTING THE SCENEThe Simple and the Complex (Murray Gell-Mann)America in the World Today (Zbigniew Brzezinski)COMPLEXITY THEORY and NATIONAL SECURITY POLICYComplex Systems: The Role of Interactions (Robert Jervis)Many Damn Things Simultaneously: Complexity Theory and World Affairs (James N. Rosenau)Complexity, Chaos, and National Security Policy: Metaphors or Tools? (Alvin M. Saperstein)The Reaction to Chaos (Steven R. Mann)COMPLEXITY THEORY, STRATEGY, and OPERATIONSClausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Importance of Imagery (Alan D. Beyerchen)Complexity and Organization (...) Management (Robert R. Maxfield)Command and (Out of) Control: The Military Implications of Complexity Theory (John F. Schmitt)Complexity Theory and Air Power (Steven M. Rinaldi)Chaos Theory and U. S. Military Strategy: A "Leapfrog" Strategy for U.S. Defense Policy (Michael J. Mazarr)Contributors EditorsBibliography. (shrink)

This paper compares the ethical standards reported by consumers and managers with different attachment styles (secure, preoccupied, fearful, or dismissing). We conducted two studies of consumer ethical beliefs and a third managerial survey. In Study 1, we used a questionnaire that we constructed, and in Study 2, we used the Muncy–Vitell Consumer Ethics Scale. The results in both the studies were consistent and showed that men reported a greater indifference to ethical transgressions than women. Based on the two studies, the (...) results indicate that␣among male consumers, the dismissing participants reported the greatest overall indifference to ethical transgressions and the secure participants expressed the most ethical beliefs. The two intermediate groups did not differ significantly from each other. In Study 1, none of the women consumers reported a dismissing attachment style. Women with a secure style reported more ethical beliefs than those in the other two groups. However, the sample in Study 2 included dismissing women. The dismissing women reported the greatest overall indifference to ethical transgressions and the secure women expressed the most ethical beliefs. The illegal profit subscale described the most severe ethical transgressions, and for both men and women, the secure participants were less apt than the other participants to report a willingness to transgress. In Study 3, the Newstrom and Ruch (1975, MSU Business Topics, Winter, 31) Questionnaire was administered to 227 managers. All four attachment patterns were represented among the participants of both genders. In all cases, the participants with a dismissing attachment style showed the greatest readiness to transgress. (shrink)