Triple Bottom Line (TBL) reports, outlining the economic, environmental and social impact of organisations, are increasingly viewed as a business requirement. Unfortunately, despite global frameworks, there is no one established standard against which to evaluate the social dimension. Thus, current social reporting is often disparagingly described as a public relations exercise with limited accountability, consistency or comparability. This article outlines the development of a generic TBL social impact framework and questionnaire designed to quantify an organisation's social impact. Based on valid (...) preexisting measures appropriate for organisations in the industrialised world, the proposed framework and questionnaire offers a comparable and objective social impact assessment tool for organisations. The aim is to prompt informed debate and discussion about current organisational social impact reporting, whilst providing organisations with a tool which enables the identification, quantification and comparability of social impact reporting. (shrink)

Amie Thomasson’s work provides numerous ways to rethink and improve our approach to metaphysics. This chapter is my attempt to begin to sketch why I still think the easy approach leaves room for substantive metaphysical work, and why I do not think that metaphysics need rely on any ‘epistemically metaphysical’ knowledge. After distinguishing two possible forms of deflationism, I argue that the easy ontologist needs to accept (implicitly or explicitly) that there are worldly constraints on what sorts of entities could (...) exist, and could co-exist. I argue this leaves room for a substantive role for metaphysics if (following the work of E.J. Lowe) we take metaphysics to be concerned with the possible ways that reality could be. I explain how this conception does not need to appeal to any ‘epistemically metaphysical’ knowledge, and need only make use of conceptual and/or empirical means to arrive at views on what could exist (and co-exist). Thus, the answer I propose to the question posed in the title, at least in my view, is no-one. Or, at least, no-one should be afraid of conceptual analysis. Not even metaphysicians. (shrink)

Children enter the world curiously hard-wired for creativity and imagination. After a few short years of school, something drastically changes for them. Why? There is an unmistakable and deliberate attempt to control the learning of young people who find themselves sitting in our schools. The industrial model of schooling has taken its toll and victims without remorse. It programs curious young minds to become helpless, dependent, and compliant. It is manipulation and malpractice, but few seem to notice or care. After (...) years of observing and participating in some of these questionable practices herself, Evonne decided it was time to tell the truth about schools. With a credible and strong voice, Evonne tackles the “sacred school rituals” that are rarely questioned and widely accepted as normal. She transparently leads the reader through firmly-held and often faulty assumptions about schooling practices. She offers common sense solutions that challenge us to re-imagine how we do school in this country. With strong conviction, passion, and a call to action, she encourages us to hear and listen to the voices of our children who are crying out for the freedom to learn. (shrink)

The Ethics of Need: Agency, Dignity, and Obligation argues for the philosophical importance of the notion of need and for an ethical framework through which we can determine which needs have moral significance. In the volume, Sarah Clark Miller synthesizes insights from Kantian and feminist care ethics to establish that our mutual and inevitable interdependence gives rise to a duty to care for the needs of others. Further, she argues that we are obligated not merely to meet others’ needs (...) but to do so in a manner that expresses "dignifying care," a concept that captures how human interactions can grant or deny equal moral standing and inclusion in a moral community. She illuminates these theoretical developments by examining two cases where urgent needs require a caring and dignifying response: the needs of the elderly and the needs of global strangers. Those working in the areas of feminist theory, women’s studies, aging studies, bioethics, and global studies should find this volume of interest. (shrink)

This chapter outlines the main ideas of my book National responsibility and global justice. It begins with two widely held but conflicting intuitions about what global justice might mean on the one hand, and what it means to be a member of a national community on the other. The first intuition tells us that global inequalities of the magnitude that currently exist are radically unjust, while the second intuition tells us that inequalities are both unavoidable and fair once national responsibility (...) is allowed to operate. This conflict might be resolved either by adopting a cosmopolitan theory of justice (which leaves no room for national responsibility) or by adopting a ?political? theory of justice (which denies that questions of distributive justice can arise beyond the walls of the sovereign state). Since neither resolution is satisfactory, the chapter defends the idea of national responsibility and proposes a new theory of global justice, whose main elements are the protection of basic human rights worldwide, and fair terms of interaction between independent political communities. (shrink)

A startling look at one of this century's most influential philosophers, the book chronicles every stage of Foucault's personal and professional odyssey, from his early interest in dreams to his final preoccupation with sexuality and the nature of personal identity.

In thePhaedo, Socrates warns his listeners, discouraged by the objections of Simmias and Cebes, against becoming haters oflogoi. I argue that the ‘misologists’ are presented as a type of proto-skeptic and that Socrates in fact shows covert sympathy for their position. The difference between them is revealed by the pragmatic argument for trust in the immortality of the soul that Socrates offers near the end of the passage: the misologists reject such therapeutic uses oflogos. I conclude by assessing the relationship (...) of the positions of Socrates and the misologists in thePhaedoto those of later ancient skeptics. (shrink)

Paul Boghossian has argued, on grounds concerning the holistic nature of belief fixation, that there are principled reasons for thinking that 'optimal conditions' versions of reductive dispositionalism about content cannot hope to satisfy a condition of extensional accuracy. I discern three separable strands of argument in Boghossian's work—the circularity objection, the open-endedness objection, and the certification objection—and argue that each of these objections fails. My conclusion is that for all that Boghossian has shown, 'optimal conditions' versions of reductive dispositionalism have (...) to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. (shrink)

Exploring materialism and social relationships in modern culture Material Culture and Mass Consumption offers an in-depth exploration of objects, objectification, ideology, and materialism in modern society. Drawing from Hegel, Marx, Munn, and Simmel, the discussion delves into the physicality of the material world and attempts to understand materialism as a form of cultural expression. Targeting mass production as the root of mass consumption, rather than the result, this book positions material goods at odds with genuine social interaction and questions these (...) relationships from the abstract to the intensely specific. (shrink)

This article serves as either an addendum or as an expansion of ideas and work developed in my 2024 book, The Rationality Project: Across the Millennia, issued by Palgrave Macmillan. The book explores 21 potential theories for explaining rationality in terms of why and how one among these can serve in the position of explanatory power. The book does not fully explain all of these candidate theories, assigning that complete role to this addendum or work-in-progress. The main reason for this (...) abbreviation in assessing all the theories in the book is that the complete coverage—which this addendum allows—of all 21 theories would become too detailed for some philosophical readers. This addendum; one may consider, is then for the more technically minded reader—although certainly not-too-technically minded readers are welcome to explore it. If it becomes too bogged in detail for those latter kinds of readers, they may end up skimming the material in this addendum, trying at least to get the general idea of how these addendum sections fit into the book's goals. (shrink)

The Ethics of Need: Agency, Dignity, and Obligation argues for the philosophical importance of the notion of need and for an ethical framework through which we can determine which needs have moral significance. In the volume, Sarah Clark Miller synthesizes insights from Kantian and feminist care ethics to establish that our mutual and inevitable interdependence gives rise to a duty to care for the needs of others. Further, she argues that we are obligated not merely to meet others’ needs (...) but to do so in a manner that expresses "dignifying care," a concept that captures how human interactions can grant or deny equal moral standing and inclusion in a moral community. She illuminates these theoretical developments by examining two cases where urgent needs require a caring and dignifying response: the needs of the elderly and the needs of global strangers. Those working in the areas of feminist theory, women’s studies, aging studies, bioethics, and global studies should find this volume of interest. (shrink)

All too often, historians of the ‘Galileo Affair’ fail to recognize the dynamic – indeed, tumultuous – nature of the political landscape surrounding Galileo’s condemnation and the events leading to it. This was a landscape rent by the Thirty Years War, which dominated the affairs of Europe’s rulers, including Galileo’s patrons. In fact, Galileo’s publication of the Dialogo in 1632 could not have come at a more ill-advised moment: in the aftermath of the battle of Breitenfeld, the nadir of Catholicism (...) in Germany. Blame for this calamitous defeat fell on Galileo’s most important protector, Pope Urban VIII. Thus, when Galileo’s book appeared, Galileo became a useful example by which Urban could consolidate his severely weakened position. The Pope carefully crafted the public image of an unusual trial, at the expense of his old friend. Certainly, Galileo’s trial resulted from profound intellectual and political tensions that pervaded early modern Rome, but it must also be understood in light of the European exigencies of the moment. (shrink)

La presente propuesta de investigación se promueve desde las áreas de formación ética, filosófica y las ciencias sociales escolares. El objetivo principal es describir los niveles de desarrollo de pensamiento crítico a partir de los ejercicios de lectura compartida y práctica pedagógica elaborados por los estudiantes de la educación media de la jornada tarde del colegio Carlos Albán Holguín. El proceso investigativo se organizó desde los métodos mixtos, a partir del paradigma pragmático y un diseño concurrente. Se tuvo en cuenta (...) desde el enfoque cuantitativo, cuestionarios como instrumentos de recolección de datos, y, del enfoque cualitativo, las técnicas de la observación participante, grupo focal y entrevista semiestructurada. La muestra con la que se implementa la investigación es de 97 estudiantes en edades comprendidas entre los 14 y 19 años. La experiencia ha permitido evidenciar como las prácticas lúdicas de lectura y reflexión ética, filosófica y social permiten generar otros ambientes de aprendizaje de los estudiantes de la educación media y de la básica primaria; asimismo, ha posibilitado fortalecer habilidades socioemocionales y ciudadanas que ayudan a incidir positivamente en la toma de decisiones en temas pertinentes para los jóvenes y niños del contexto donde desarrollan sus quehaceres diarios escolares. (shrink)

In this book, Daniel K. Miller articulates a new vision of human and animal relationships based on the foundational love ethic within Christianity. Framed around Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan, Animal Ethics and Theologythoughtfully examines the shortcomings of utilitarian and rights-based approaches to animal ethics. By considering the question of animals within the Christian concept of neighbourly love, Miller provides an alternative narrative for understanding the complex relationships that humans have with other animals. This book addresses significant (...) theological questions such as: Does being created in the image of God present a meaningful distinction between humans and other animals? What does it mean for humans to have dominion over animals? Is meat eating a moral problem for Christians? In addition to drawing out the significance of Christian theology for field of animal ethics this book also engages environmental and feminist ethics. Miller brings a theological perspective to such questions as: Should care for animals be distinguished from care for the environment, and what role should human emotions play in our ethical dealings with other animals? As the title suggests, this book provides fresh insight into the theological significance of human relationships with other animals. mental and feminist ethics. Miller brings a theological perspective to such questions as: Should care for animals be distinguished from care for the environment, and what role should human emotions play in our ethical dealings with other animals? As the title suggests, this book provides fresh insight into the theological significance of human relationships with other animals. (shrink)

It has been a common assumption that words are substances that instantiate or have properties. In this paper, I question the assumption that our ontology of words requires posting substances by outlining a bundle theory of words, wherein words are bundles of various sorts of properties (such as semantic, phonetic, orthographic, and grammatical properties). I argue that this view can better account for certain phenomena than substance theories, is ontologically more parsimonious, and coheres with claims in linguistics.

Thorough and wide-ranging examination of the science of morals, reviving and defending the tradition of a scientific approach to ethics. Engages with recent debates on modernism and morality, demonstrating the contemporary relevance of Durkheim's ideas. This book is intended for social and political theory, philosophy of science and Durkheimian studies within sociology, philosophy and politics.

Why do so many—including philosophers—care about equality? Mere envy? This book investigates how Homo sapiens developed, thrived in, and nurtured a certain social condition that happened to abet our continual survival. Empirical evidence points to a natural, possibly inborn, sense that humans live most humanly as equals: No one told them what to do; no one had significantly more goods. Humans evolved in such a condition of social equality and autonomy. This condition of individual autonomy in turn shaped our species (...) and led humans to demand social equality to this day. All changed when groups stopped roving for food, settled down, and cultivated land. Some individuals started storing goods clandestinely, gaining wealth and power. Inequality set in and, ever since, a struggle between haves and have-nots. People strive to reestablish some degree of equality, philosophical theories notwithstanding. This book’s empirical theory of equality’s ontology explains why humans over the millennia strive for equality and help assess whether theories of equality, if implemented in policy, could accommodate this need. Equality is essentially bound up with autonomy, liberty and justice. Any political theory neglecting these interconnections may fall short of its goals. While industrial societies will unlikely implement the book’s theory, at the least it can illuminate common theories of equality and where they fly or fail. (shrink)

Rationality has been philosophers’ concern stretching back to ancient times. But just what is rationality? In trying to answer this question, we find rationality more complex than supposed. That supposition has not been insufficiently investigated. This work aspires to bring together the facets of this peculiar phenomenon, rationality. It is both more complex than presumed and yet more accessible than many may have feared. One argument concedes the common assumption that those interested in rationality need only rely on intuitions about (...) this phenomenon. Yet, even moderate research reveals the concept’s profound fuzziness. This book’s systematic approach should make this puzzle much less obscure. By the end, rationality and its critics provide more luminous light than has long been missing. (shrink)

Richard Miller presents a bold new program for international justice. He argues for new standards of responsible conduct by governments, firms, and individuals in developed countries, to govern trade, investment, environmental policy, and the use of force. He offers an urgently needed strategy for moving humanity toward genuine global co-operation.

Fred Miller offers a controversial reappraisal of the Politics, suggesting that nature, justice, and rights are central to Aristotle's political thought. He sheds new light on Aristotle's relation to modern natural rights theorists, and to the current liberalism-communitarianism debate.

_The Ethics of Need: Agency, Dignity, and Obligation_ argues for the philosophical importance of the notion of need and for an ethical framework through which we can determine which needs have moral significance. In the volume, Sarah Clark Miller synthesizes insights from Kantian and feminist care ethics to establish that our mutual and inevitable interdependence gives rise to a duty to care for the needs of others. Further, she argues that we are obligated not merely to meet others’ needs (...) but to do so in a manner that expresses "dignifying care," a concept that captures how human interactions can grant or deny equal moral standing and inclusion in a moral community. She illuminates these theoretical developments by examining two cases where urgent needs require a caring and dignifying response: the needs of the elderly and the needs of global strangers. Those working in the areas of feminist theory, women’s studies, aging studies, bioethics, and global studies should find this volume of interest. (shrink)

Heil's vision of the relationship between the manifest and scientific images is compelling. Central to his vision are the convictions that ordinary truths do not impose substantive constraints on the natures of their underlying truthmakers and, relatedly, that one and the same subject can be represented truly and aptly in different ways. But what exactly are the grounds or arguments for these convictions?

T he O bject of this paper is the development of a view of punishment which incorporates what is of importance in retributive and utilitarian justifications of the practice of punishment. This proposed theory was noted and referred to as the plene esse , but not fully worked out, in the course of a discussion paper in which my concern was to offer an alternative view, to that of Mr Anthony Quinton, by construing ‘the right to punishment’ as meaning that (...) ‘the offender has the right to be regarded as responsible for his actions’. (shrink)

Durkheim, in his very role as a "founding father" of a new social science has become like a figure in an old religious painting, enshrouded in myth and encrusted in layers of thick, impenetrable varnish. This book undertakes detailed, up-to-date investigations of Durkheim's work in an effort to restore its freshness and reveal it as originally created. These investigations explore his particular ideas, within an overall narrative of his initial problematic search for solidarity, how it became a quest for the (...) sacred, and how, at the end of his life, he embarked on a project for a new great work on ethics. A theme running through this is his concern with a modern world in crisis and a hope in social and moral reform. Accordingly, the book concludes with a set of essays on modern times and on a crisis that Durkheim thought would pass but which now seems here to stay. (shrink)

"A Wiley-Interscience publication." Bibliography: p. 327-333.

This paper argues for a particular view about in what metaphysical equivalence consists: namely, that any two metaphysical theories are metaphysically equivalent if and only if those theories are strongly hyperintensionally equivalent. It is consistent with this characterisation that said theories are weakly hyperintensionally distinct, thus affording us the resources to model the content of propositional attitudes directed towards metaphysically equivalent theories in such a way that non-ideal agents can bear different propositional attitudes towards metaphysically equivalent theories.

Here are some intuitions we have about the nature of space and time. There is something fundamentally different about the past, present, and future. What is definitive of the past is that the past events are fixed. What is definitive of the future is that future events are not fixed. What is definitive of the present is that it marks the objective ontological border between the past and the future and, by doing so, instantiates a particularly salient phenomenological property of (...) nowness. Call the combination of these intuitions according to which there exists an objective present, a fixed past, and an open future, the intuitive view. I argue that, given the intuitive view, the possibility of backwards causation—and hence, for instance, backwards time travel—is problematic. (shrink)

Mill's discussion of ‘the internal sanction’ in chapter III of Utilitarianism does not do justice to his understanding of internal sanctions; it omits some important points and obscures others. I offer an account of this portion of his moral psychology of motivation which brings out its subtleties and complexities. I show that he recognizes the importance of internal sanctions as sources of motives to develop and perfect our characters, as well as of motives to do our duty, and I examine (...) in some detail the various ways in which these sanctions give rise to motivating desires and aversions. (shrink)

In chapter 8 of Miller 2003, I argued against the idea that Jackson and Pettit's notion of program explanation might help Sturgeon's non-reductive naturalist version of moral realism respond to the explanatory challenge posed by Harman. In a recent paper in the AJP[Nelson 2006, Mark Nelson has attempted to defend the idea that program explanation might prove useful to Sturgeon in replying to Harman. In this note, I suggest that Nelson's argument fails.

It is possible to wholly exist at multiple spatial locations at the same time. At least, if time travel is possible and objects endure, then such must be the case. To accommodate this possibility requires the introduction of a spatial analog of either relativising properties to times—relativising properties to spatial locations—or of relativising the manner of instantiation to times—relativising the manner of instantiation to spatial locations. It has been suggested, however, that introducing irreducibly spatially relativised or spatially adverbialised properties presents (...) some difficulties for the endurantist. I will consider an objection according to which embracing such spatially relativised properties could lead us to reject mereology altogether in favour of a metaphysics according to which objects are wholly present at every space-time point at which they exist. I argue that although such a view is coherent, there are some good reasons to reject it. Moreover, I argue that the endurantist can introduce spatially relativised or adverbialised properties without conceding that objects lack spatial parts. Such a strategy has the additional advantage that it allows the endurantist not only to explain time travel, but also to reconcile our competing intuitions about cases of fission. (shrink)

Quantum field theories containing massless particles are divergent not just in the ultraviolet but also in the infrared. Infrared divergences are typically regarded as less conceptually problematic than ultraviolet divergences because there is a cancellation mechanism that renders measurable physical observables such as decay rates and cross-sections infrared finite. In this article, I scrutinize the restriction to measurable physical observables that is required to arrive at infrared finite results. I argue that the restriction does not necessitate a retreat to operationalism (...) about the meaning of the theory, but it does call attention to underappreciated features of the infrared regime. (shrink)

Abstract Theories are metaphysically equivalent just if there is no fact of the matter that could render one theory true and the other false. In this paper I argue that if we are judiciously to resolve disputes about whether theories are equivalent or not, we need to develop testable criteria that will give us epistemic access to the obtaining of the relation of metaphysical equivalence holding between those theories. I develop such ?diagnostic? criteria. I argue that correctly inter-translatable theories are (...) metaphysically equivalent, and what we need are ways of determining whether a putative translation is correct or not. To that end I develop a number of tools we can employ to discern whether a translation is a correct one. (shrink)

It is possible to wholly exist at multiple spatial locations at the same time. At least, if time travel is possible and objects endure, then such must be the case. To accommodate this possibility requires the introduction of a spatial analog of either relativising properties to times—relativising properties to spatial locations—or of relativising the manner of instantiation to times—relativising the manner of instantiation to spatial locations. It has been suggested, however, that introducing irreducibly spatially relativised or spatially adverbialised properties presents (...) some difficulties for the endurantist. I will consider an objection according to which embracing such spatially relativised properties could lead us to reject mereology altogether in favour of a metaphysics according to which objects are wholly present at every space-time point at which they exist. I argue that although such a view is coherent, there are some good reasons to reject it. Moreover, I argue that the endurantist can introduce spatially relativised or adverbialised properties without conceding that objects lack spatial parts. Such a strategy has the additional advantage that it allows the endurantist not only to explain time travel, but also to reconcile our competing intuitions about cases of fission. (shrink)