Plagiarism is increasingly evident in business and academia. Though links between demographic, personality, and situational factors have been found, previous research has not used actual plagiarism behavior as a criterion variable. Previous research on academic dishonesty has consistently used self-report measures to establish prevalence of dishonest behavior. In this study we use actual plagiarism behavior to establish its prevalence, as well as relationships between integrity-related personal selection and workplace deviance measures. This research covers new ground in two respects: (a) That (...) the academic dishonesty literature is subject to revision using criterion variables to avoid self bias and social desirability issues and (b) we establish the relationship between actual academic dishonesty and potential workplace deviance/white-collar crime. (shrink)

How Do We Reimagine?We reimagine by combining activism with philosophy.... We have to see every crisis as both a danger and an opportunity. It's a danger because it does so much damage to our lives, to our institutions, to all that we have expected. But it's also an opportunity for us to become creative; to become the new kind of people that are needed at such a huge period of transition.—Boggs, "How Do We Reimagine?"this essay seeks to add to the (...) emerging dialogue about the incredibly rich and complex nature of Grace Lee Boggs's philosophic activism by exploring the connections and tensions between her philosophic activism and pragmatist feminism. As an Asian American immigrant with a PhD in philosophy, her... (shrink)

Includes a foreword by Kevin M. Gilmartin, PhD, author of the bestselling Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement: A Guide for Officers and Their Families. This book offers practical, research-based strategies to help police officers improve wellness, strengthen ethical commitments, and boost resilience both on and off-duty. Your power as a police officer does not come from your badge, gear, or tactical skills. It comes from your POWER: police officer wellness, ethics, and resilience. This book offers a research-based approach to dealing (...) with the daily challenges you face in your law enforcement job. It describes personal and professional steps you can take, on-duty and off-duty, to optimize your health and maintain your performance. When you proactively practice the skills, tips, and exercises outlined in this book, you will be better prepared to defuse crisis situations before they happen, and more capable of coping with them when they do. As a law enforcement officer, you deal with enormous challenges on a daily basis. Policing involves daily risks and stressors that can compromise your health, shorten your career, and make life harder on your loved ones. Even if you have a gym or access to counseling at work, you need a personal plan to maintain your overall wellness-physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and spiritual. (shrink)

An engaging and accessible introduction to mathematical proof incorporating ideas from real analysis A mathematical proof is an inferential argument for a mathematical statement. Since the time of the ancient Greek mathematicians, the proof has been a cornerstone of the science of mathematics. The goal of this book is to help students learn to follow and understand the function and structure of mathematical proof and to produce proofs of their own. An Introduction to Proof through Real Analysis is based on (...) course material developed and refined over thirty years by Professor Daniel J. Madden and was designed to function as a complete text for both first proofs and first analysis courses. Written in an engaging and accessible narrative style, this book systematically covers the basic techniques of proof writing, beginning with real numbers and progressing to logic, set theory, topology, and continuity. The book proceeds from natural numbers to rational numbers in a familiar way, and justifies the need for a rigorous definition of real numbers. The mathematical climax of the story it tells is the Intermediate Value Theorem, which justifies the notion that the real numbers are sufficient for solving all geometric problems. • Concentrates solely on designing proofs by placing instruction on proof writing on top of discussions of specific mathematical subjects • Departs from traditional guides to proofs by incorporating elements of both real analysis and algebraic representation • Written in an engaging narrative style to tell the story of proof and its meaning, function, and construction • Uses a particular mathematical idea as the focus of each type of proof presented • Developed from material that has been class-tested and fine-tuned over thirty years in university introductory courses An Introduction to Proof through Real Analysis is the ideal introductory text to proofs for second and third-year undergraduate mathematics students, especially those who have completed a calculus sequence, students learning real analysis for the first time, and those learning proofs for the first time. Daniel J. Madden, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA. He has taught a junior level course introducing students to the idea of a rigorous proof based on real analysis almost every semester since 1990. Dr. Madden is the winner of the 2015 Southwest Section of the Mathematical Association of America Distinguished Teacher Award. Jason A. Aubrey, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Director, Mathematics Center of the University of Arizona. (shrink)

In recent years, the "science of science" has combined computational methods with novel data sources in order to understand the dynamics of research communities. As the name suggests, science of science is primarily focused on science and technology, with less attention to the humanities. However, many of the questions investigated by science of science are also relevant to academic philosophy: To what extent can the discipline be divided into subfields with different methods and topics? How are prestige and credit distributed (...) across the discipline? And how do these factors interact with other factors, such as gender, to shape job market outcomes? In this paper, we provide some empirically-informed answers to these questions by applying computational methods to job market data for Anglophone academic philosophy. We find, first, evidence that is consistent with the analytic-continental divide, but is also consistent with other, more complex ways of organizing academic philosophy into distinct intellectual traditions; second, a clear prestige hierarchy, dividing PhD programs into two distinct prestige categories; and third, evidence that gender, prestige, and country have notable effects on academic job market outcomes for recent philosophy PhDs. (shrink)

BackgroundEven though research integrity (RI) training programs have been developed in the last decades, it is argued that current training practices are not always able to increase RI-related awareness within the scientific community. Defining and understanding the capacities and lacunas of existing RI training are becoming extremely important for developing up-to-date educational practices to tackle present-day challenges. Recommendations on how to implement RI education have been primarily made by selected people with specific RI-related expertise. Those recommendations were developed mainly without (...) consulting a broader audience with no specific RI expertise. Moreover, the academic literature lacks qualitative studies on RI training practices. For these reasons, performing in-depth focus groups with non-RI expert stakeholders are of a primary necessity to understand and outline how RI education should be implemented.MethodsIn this qualitative analysis, different focus groups were conducted to examine stakeholders’ perspectives on RI training practices. Five stakeholders' groups, namely publishers and peer reviewers, researchers on RI, RI trainers, PhDs and postdoctoral researchers, and research administrators working within academia, have been identified to have a broader overview of state of the art.ResultsA total of 39 participants participated in five focus group sessions. Eight training-related themes were highlighted during the focus group discussions. The training goals, timing and frequency, customisation, format and teaching approach, mentoring, compulsoriness, certification and evaluation, and RI-related responsibilities were discussed. Although confirming what was already proposed by research integrity experts in terms of timing, frequency, duration, and target audience in organising RI education, participants proposed other possible implementations strategies concerning the teaching approach, researchers' obligations, and development an evaluation-certification system.ConclusionsThis research aims to be a starting point for a better understanding of necessary, definitive, and consistent ways of structuring RI education. The research gives an overview of what has to be considered needed in planning RI training sessions regarding objectives, organisation, and teaching approach. (shrink)

Each year, many young professionals forego advanced education in the traditional doctoral programs of medicine, law, and philosophy in favor of pursuing a PhD or professional doctorate in bioethics or healthcare ethics that is offered by several major institutes of higher education across the United States. These graduates often leverage their degrees into careers within the broader field of bioethics. As such, they represent a growing percentage of professional bioethicists in both academia and healthcare nationwide. Given the significant role that (...) doctoral bioethics programs play in the training of future professional bioethicists, it is imperative that programs conferring bioethics degrees are attuned to the knowledge and skills students will need as they transition to professional positions, especially where this training substantially differs from more traditional doctoral degree tracks. Yet, even given this need, there is nothing in the professional literature regarding doctoral bioethics graduates’ perspectives or the overall efficacy of a bioethics doctorate as compared to more traditional doctoral degree tracks for future professional bioethicists. This paper then gives the perspective of five recent doctoral bioethics graduates on the utility of a bioethics doctorate and areas where the doctorate prepared or underprepared them in their roles as early-career professional bioethicists. (shrink)

No university or research institution is immune to research misconduct or the more widespread problem of questionable research practices. To strengthen integrity in research, universities worldwide have developed education in research integrity. However, little is known about education in research integrity for PhD students in European research-intensive universities. We conducted a content analysis of didactic materials of 11 of the 23 members of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) to map out the content, format, frequency, duration, timing, and compulsory (...) status of their training programmes and the characteristics of instructors of the onsite courses. Quantitative results revealed substantial variation in educational materials among the studied institutions. This variation might be because European research universities are free to design curricula without any requirements from the European, national, or institutional public funding channels. Given the challenges inherent to modern science and preventing misconduct, research institutions should empower future generations of researchers to engage in responsible research practices. To promote integrity in research among PhD students, we provide a set of recommendations for university-wide education in research integrity for doctoral trainees based on our investigation of educational resources. (shrink)

To foster research integrity (RI), research institutions should develop a continuous RI education approach, addressing various target groups. To support institutions to achieve this, we developed RI education guidelines together with RI experts and research administrators, exploring similarities and differences in recommendations across target groups, as well as recommendations about RI education using approaches other than formal RI training. We used an iterative co-creative process. We conducted four half-day online co-creation workshops with 16 participants in total, which were informed by (...) the RI education evidence-base. In the first two workshops, participants generated ideas for guidelines’ content, focusing on different target groups and various approaches to RI education. Based on this content we developed first drafts of the guidelines. Participants in the third and fourth workshop refined those drafts. We next organized a working group which further prioritized, reorganized, and optimized the content of the guidelines. We developed four guidelines on RI education focusing on (a) bachelor, master and PhD students; (b) post-doctorate and senior researchers; (c) other RI stakeholders; as well as (d) continuous RI education. Across guidelines, we recommend mandatory RI training; follow-up refresher training; informal discussions about RI; appropriate rewards and incentives for active participation in RI education; and evaluation of RI educational events. Our work provides experience-based co-created guidance to research institutions on what to consider when developing a successful RI education strategy. Each guideline is offered as a distinct, publicly available tool in our toolbox (www.sops4ri.eu/toolbox) which institutions can access, adapt and implement to meet their institution-specific RI education needs.Trial registrationhttps://osf.io/zej5b. (shrink)

The potential to collect brain data more directly, with higher resolution, and in greater amounts has heightened worries about mental and brain privacy. In order to manage the risks to individuals posed by these privacy challenges, some have suggested codifying new privacy rights, including a right to “mental privacy.” In this paper, we consider these arguments and conclude that while neurotechnologies do raise significant privacy concerns, such concerns are—at least for now—no different from those raised by other well-understood data collection (...) technologies, such as gene sequencing tools and online surveillance. To better understand the privacy stakes of brain data, we suggest the use of a conceptual framework from information ethics, Helen Nissenbaum’s “contextual integrity” theory. To illustrate the importance of context, we examine neurotechnologies and the information flows they produce in three familiar contexts—healthcare and medical research, criminal justice, and consumer marketing. We argue that by emphasizing what is distinct about brain privacy issues, rather than what they share with other data privacy concerns, risks weakening broader efforts to enact more robust privacy law and policy. (shrink)

I ask you to X. You now have a reason to X. My request gave you a reason. How? One unpopular theory is the epistemic account, according to which requests do not create any new reasons but instead simply reveal information. For instance, my request that you X reveals that I desire that you X, and my desire gives you a reason to X. Peter Schaber has recently attacked both the epistemic account and other theories of the reason-giving force of (...) requests. Schaber defends a new theory of the reason-giving force of requests according to which request give reasons because it is valuable for requesters and requestees that requests have this power. In this paper I argue that Schaber's attack on the epistemic account fails, and that his own theory ought to be rejected because it faces compelling objections. (shrink)

“X-Firsters” hold that there is some normative feature that is fundamental to all others (and, often, that there’s some normative feature that is the “mark of the normative”: all other normative properties have it, and are normative in virtue of having it). This view is taken as a starting point in the debate about which X is “on first.” Little has been said about whether or why we should be X-Firsters, or what we should think about normativity if we aren’t (...) X-Firsters. Hence the chapter’s two main goals. First, to provide a simple argument that one shouldn’t be an X-Firster about the normative domain, which starts with the observation that analogous views have dubious merits in analogous domains. Second, to offer an alternative view—taking normativity to be a determinable explained in terms of its determinates—that offers an interesting way to think about the structure and unity of normativity. (shrink)

Plato's dialogues frequently criticize traditional Greek myth, yet Plato also integrates myth with his writing. Daniel S. Werner confronts this paradox through an in-depth analysis of the Phaedrus, Plato's most mythical dialogue. Werner argues that the myths of the Phaedrus serve several complex functions: they bring nonphilosophers into the philosophical life; they offer a starting point for philosophical inquiry; they unify the dialogue as a literary and dramatic whole; they draw attention to the limits of language and the limits of (...) knowledge; and they allow Plato to co-opt cultural authority as a way of defining and legitimating the practice of philosophy. Platonic myth, as a species of traditional tale, is thus both distinct from philosophical dialectic and similar to it. Ultimately, the most powerful effect of Platonic myth is the way in which it leads readers to participate in Plato's dialogues and to engage in a process of self-examination. (shrink)

Supporters of open borders sometimes argue that the state has no pro tanto right to restrict immigration, because such a right would also entail a right to exclude existing citizens for whatever reasons justify excluding immigrants. These arguments can be defeated by suggesting that people have a right to stay put. I present a new form of the exclusion argument against closed borders which escapes this “right to stay put” reply. I do this by describing a kind of exclusion that (...) has not been discussed in depth, which I call “territorial exclusion.” Territorial exclusion is the process according to which the group that wishes to exclude current citizens secedes from the territory in which those citizens reside. I argue that the wrongness of territorial exclusion explains why there is no pro tanto right for a state to exclude immigrants, because otherwise there would be a pro tanto right for the state to kick people out by seceding from the territory they inhabit. Because kicking people out like this is typically wrong, borders cannot be closed. (shrink)

Motion—and, in particular, local motion or change in location—plays a central role in Kenelm Digby’s natural philosophy and in his arguments for the immateriality of the soul. Despite this, Digby’s account of what motion consists in has yet to receive much scholarly attention. In this paper, I advance a novel interpretation of Digby on motion. According to it, Digby holds that for a body to move is for it to divide from and unify with other bodies. This is a view (...) of motion—as change in relations of parthood—that Alison Peterman attributes to Digby’s contemporary and acquaintance, Margaret Cavendish. Having shown that Digby’s presentation of the view predates Cavendish’s by more than a decade, I make a case that Digby’s work influenced Cavendish’s on this topic. In developing and defending my reading, I consider to what extent the Digbean account of motion and the arguments for it accord with the ideals of the mechanical philosophy emerging in the early modern period. (shrink)

Abstract This paper offers an appraisal of Phillip Pettit's approach to the problem how a merely finite set of examples can serve to represent a determinate rule, given that indefinitely many rules can be extrapolated from any such set. I argue that Pettit's so-called ethnocentric theory of rule-following fails to deliver the solution to this problem he sets out to provide. More constructively, I consider what further provisions are needed in order to advance Pettit's general approach to the problem. I (...) conclude that what is needed is an account that, whilst it affirms the view that agents' responses are constitutively involved in the exemplification of rules, does not allow such responses the pride of place they have in Pettit's theory. (shrink)

This book is a study of the role of intellect in human action as described by Thomas Aquinas. One of its primary aims is to compare the interpretation of Aristotle by Aquinas with the lines of interpretation offered in contemporary Aristotelian scholarship. The book seeks to clarify the problems involved in the appropriation of Aristotle's theory by a Christian theologian, including such topics as the practical syllogism and the problems of akrasia. Westberg argues that Aquinas was much closer to Aristotle (...) than is often recognized, and he puts forward important new interpretations of the relation of intellect and will in the stages of intention, deliberation, decision, and execution. In the concluding section of the book, he shows how this new interpretation yields fruitful insights on a range of theological topics, including sin, law, love, and the moral virtues. (shrink)

The problem known as Buridan’s Ass says that a hungry donkey equipoised between two identical bales of hay will starve to death. Indecision kills the ass. Some philosophers worry about human analogs. Computer scientists since the 1960s have known about the computer versions of such cases. From what Leslie Lamport calls ‘Buridan’s Principle’—a discrete decision based on a continuous range of input-values cannot be made in a bounded time—it follows that the possibilities for human analogs of Buridan’s Ass are far (...) more wide-ranging and securely provable than has been acknowledged in philosophy. We are never necessarily decisive. This is mathematically provable. I explore four consequences: first, increased interest of the literature’s solutions to Buridan’s Ass; second, a new asymmetry between responsibility for omissions and responsibility for actions; third, clarification of the standard account of akrasia; and, fourth, clarification of the role of credences in normative decision-theory. (shrink)

This paper aims to understand Hegel’s claim in the introduction to his Philosophy of Mind that mind is an actualization of the Idea and argues that this claim provides us with a novel and defensible way of understanding Hegel’s naturalism. I suggest that Hegel’s approach to naturalism should be understood as ‘formal’, and argue that Hegel’s Logic, particularly the section on the ‘Idea’, provides us with a method for this approach. In the first part of the paper, I present an (...) interpretation of Hegel’s method in which life plays a central role. In the second part of the paper, I develop Hegel’s method by providing a reading of Hegel’s Subjective Spirit, focusing on the sections ‘Anthropology’ and ‘Phenomenology’ in particular, arguing that they display the dialectic between life and cognition outlined by Hegel’s Idea. (shrink)

This paper aims to understand Hegel’s claim in the introduction to his Philosophy of Mind that mind is an actualization of the Idea and argues that this claim provides us with a novel and defensible way of understanding Hegel’s naturalism. I suggest that Hegel’s approach to naturalism should be understood as ‘formal’, and argue that Hegel’s Logic, particularly the section on the ‘Idea’, provides us with a method for this approach. In the first part of the paper, I present an (...) interpretation of Hegel’s method in which life plays a central role. In the second part of the paper, I develop Hegel’s method by providing a reading of Hegel’s Subjective Spirit, focusing on the sections ‘Anthropology’ and ‘Phenomenology’ in particular, arguing that they display the dialectic between life and cognition outlined by Hegel’s Idea. (shrink)

This essay considers the critical response to Hegel's view of Socrates we find in Kierkegaard's dissertation, The Concept of Irony. I argue that this dispute turns on the question whether or not the examination of particular thinkers enters into Socrates’ most basic aims and interests. I go on to show how Kierkegaard's account, which relies on an affirmative answer to this question, enables him to provide a cogent defence of Socrates' philosophical practice against Hegel's criticisms.

Can a liberal state exclude illiberal immigrants in order to preserve its liberal status? Hrishikesh Joshi has argued that liberalism cannot require a commitment to open borders because this would entail that liberalism is committed to its own demise in circumstances in which many illiberal immigrants aim to immigrate into a liberal society. I argue that liberalism is committed to its own demise in certain circumstances, but that this is not as bad as it may appear. Liberalism’s commitment to its (...) own demise is merely a reflection of the fact that it must take into account the rights of outsiders, not just the rights of existing citizens, and of the fact that circumstances of injustice can sometimes leave liberal societies with no correct choice. (shrink)

Mandatory minimum sentencing provisions have been a feature of the U.S. justice system since 1790. But they have expanded considerably under the war on drugs, and their use has expanded considerably under the Trump Administration; some states are also poised to expand drug-related mandatory minimums further in efforts to fight the current opioid epidemic. In this paper I outline and evaluate three prominent arguments for and against the use of mandatory minimums in the war on drugs—they appeal, respectively, to proportionality, (...) consistency, and efficiency. I ultimately defend the view that the use of mandatory minimums in the war on drugs is unjust. -/- . (shrink)

Abstract: According to a rationalist theory of introspection, rational agents have a capacity to believe they are in conscious states when they are in them, much as they have the capacity, for example, to avoid obvious contradictions in their beliefs. For the agent to know or believe by introspection, on this view, is for them to exercise that capacity. According to an acquaintance theory of introspection, by contrast, whenever an agent is in a conscious state, the agent is aware of (...) or is acquainted with being in the state, where the background notion of acquaintance is understood to be distinct from sense perception, on the one hand, and belief or knowledge, or the other. For the agent to know or believe by introspection, on this view, is for them to take advantage of the epistemic position they occupy in virtue of being acquainted in this way. These theories are not in conflict; it is possible to hold both an acquaintance theory and a rationalist theory. This paper, however, sets out and recommends a different possibility, namely, that of holding a rationalist theory while rejecting any acquaintance theory. (shrink)

Functional decomposition is an important goal in the life sciences, and is central to mechanistic explanation and explanatory reduction. A growing literature in philosophy of science, however, has challenged decomposition-based notions of explanation. ‘Holists’ posit that complex systems exhibit context-sensitivity, dynamic interaction, and network dependence, and that these properties undermine decomposition. They then infer from the failure of decomposition to the failure of mechanistic explanation and reduction. I argue that complexity, so construed, is only incompatible with one notion of decomposition, (...) which I call ‘atomism’, and not with decomposition writ large. Atomism posits that function ascriptions must be made to parts with minimal reference to the surrounding system. Complexity does indeed falsify atomism, but I contend that there is a weaker, ‘contextualist’ notion of decomposition that is fully compatible with the properties that holists cite. Contextualism suggests that the function of parts can shift with external context, and that interactions with other parts might help determine their context-appropriate functions. This still admits of functional decomposition within a given context. I will give examples based on the notion of oscillatory multiplexing in systems neuroscience. If contextualism is feasible, then holist inferences are faulty—one cannot infer from the presence of complexity to the failure of decomposition, mechanism, and reductionism. (shrink)

The _Physics_ is a foundational work of western philosophy, and the crucial one for understanding Aristotle's views on matter, form, essence, causation, movement, space, and time. This richly annotated, scrupulously accurate, and consistent translation makes it available to a contemporary English reader as no other does—in part because it fits together seamlessly with other closely associated works in the New Hackett Aristotle series, such as the _Metaphysics_, _De Anima_, and forthcoming _De Caelo_ and _On Coming to Be and Passing Away_. (...) Eventually the series will include all of Aristotle's works. Sequentially numbered endnotes provide the information most needed at each juncture, while a detailed Index of Terms indicates places where focused discussion of key notions occurs. An illuminating general Introduction describes the book that lies ahead, explaining what sort of work it is and what sorts of evidence it relies on. (shrink)

Lovejoy (1873-1962) was America's foremost historian of ideas, a major participant in the philosophical debates of the twentieth century, and a prominent advocate of academic freedom. The product of an emotionally unsettled childhood and an evangelical father, Lovejoy reacted against his father by postulating the certainty of self-sufficient reason. He believed that only the principles of reason could order the world and so make our universe intelligible. Originally published in 1980. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions (...) use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value. (shrink)

According to ethical objectivism, what a person should do depends on the facts, as opposed to their perspective on the facts. A long-standing challenge to this view is that it fails to accommodate the role that norms play in guiding a person’s action. Roughly, if the facts that determine what a person should do lie beyond their ken, they cannot inform a person’s deliberations. This paper explores two recent developments of this line of thought. Both focus on the epistemic counterpart (...) to ethical objectivism, according to which what a person should believe depends on the facts, as opposed to their perspective on the facts. The suggestion in each case is that epistemic objectivism faces a distinctive problem in accommodating guidance. Insofar as objectivism concerning the epistemic domain stands or falls with objectivism concerning the ethical domain, this is a problem for objectivism more generally. In this paper, I show that those arguments are not successful. The upshot is that the objectivist – whether ethical or epistemic – need not reject the idea that norms serve a guiding function. (shrink)

Despite myriad controversies about reasons, two theses are frequently taken for granted: (i) reasons are sources of normative support for actions, attitudes, etc; and (ii) reasons, at least in simple, paradigmatic cases, consist in atomic facts. Call this conjunction “the atomic view.” Against this, we advocate what we call “the cluster view,” on which even in the simplest cases, the normative support for an action or attitude is typically provided by a whole cluster of facts. Moreover, many of these facts (...) are on an explanatory par—they each play the same kind of role in explaining why there is normative support for the action or attitude in question. We show that presupposition of the atomic view generates unnecessary (psuedo-)puzzles⁠—about topics such as rationality, moral worth, and doxastic justification⁠—that can be largely (dis)solved with the cluster view in place. The cluster view’s ability to do this constitutes an argument in its favor, beyond intuitive considerations that we also adduce. (shrink)

About the ontology of the Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden, as presented in his treatise 'The Controversy about the Existence of the World'.

Poor ethical decision–making costs industry billions of dollars a year and damages the images of corporations. Thus, by answering the question ‘Why do individuals behave as they do when confronted with ethical issues?’ ethical theory can provide businesses with a means to create a more ethical climate and a more successful operation. This study tested the Ethical Decision–Making Model with accountability (Beu & Buckley 2001), which uses theory that suggests that ethical behavior is influenced by the individual, the issue, social (...) relationships (accountability), and the organization in which the employee is embedded (Brass, Butterfield & Skaggs 1988; Frink & Klimoski 1998). The results showed that individuals’ thought processes (cognitive moral development), personalities (locus of control, hostility and aggression, Machiavellianism), and gender influence how they respond to ethical dilemmas, as well as the salience of the moral issue (moral intensity) and the environmental context (work/school). (shrink)

According to the cluster of theories in the metaphysics of properties known as ‘trope’ theories, properties are collections of particular qualitative instances. Though increasingly influential, the cluster is sufficiently diverse for there to be little agreement as to the prospects of its members. The present essay articulates and defends a conception of tropes as primitively qualitatively complex, somewhat in the vein of Quinean nominalist objects. After clarifying the relationships among tropes, properties, property exemplification, and property conferral, the essay discusses the (...) benefits of this new ‘ostrich’ trope theory. Specifically, the theory explains better than prior trope theories both the spatiotemporal status of tropes and the capacity tropes have to confer properties onto objects. Moreover, the theory is immune to many of the concerns that threaten more orthodox trope ontologies. (shrink)

Moral philosophy is often said to be about what we owe to each other. Do we owe anything to ourselves?

This article further systematizes the existential body, contributing to the ethnographic model of embodied objectivity. It situates embodiment as the foundation of knowledge, demonstrating its underdevelopment in anthropological literature. The paper explores the philosophical relationship between being-in-the-world and Merleau-Ponty’s body-proper, emphasizing the central role of embodied pre-objective signification in representational ethnographic knowing. This aspect is often insufficiently addressed, particularly in light of certain ethnographic applications of the epoché. The paper concludes that, given the oscillatory apprehension of embodiment, the use of (...) terms like “systematizing” and “inter-objectivity” adequately enhances its portrayal as a pre-objective phenomenon rather than an objective one. (shrink)

Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical. The thesis is usually intended as a metaphysical thesis, parallel to the thesis attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, that everything is water, or the idealism of the 18th Century philosopher Berkeley, that everything is mental. The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms (...) to a certain condition, the condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don't deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don't seem physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are either physical or supervene on the physical. (shrink)

There could be no more gratifying response to a philosopher's work than such a bounty of challenging, high-quality essays. I have learned a great deal from them, and hope that other readers will be as delighted as I have been by the insights gathered here. One thing I have learned is just how much hard work I had left for others to do, by underestimating the degree of explicit formulation of theses and arguments that is actually required to bring these (...) issues into optimal focus. These essays cover my work from top to bottom. Just about every nook and cranny is probed and tested in ways I could never do for myself. The essays thus highlight the areas of weakest exposition of my views; they also show the weak points of the views themselves--and suggest repairs, which I am sometimes happy to accept, but not always, since there are a few cases in which one critic deftly disarms another, sight unseen. I will be fascinated to learn how the individual authors react to each other's essays, since they side with me on different points, and disagree about what is still in need of revision or repair. (shrink)

In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the relation of consciousness, the will, and our intentional and voluntary actions. Wegner claims that our experience and common sense view according to which we can influence our behavior roughly the way we experience that we do it is an illusion.