In this paper I explain the utility of shapeshifting through the figure of the sage and the nepantlera according to the Zhuangzi and “the path of conocimiento... inner work, public acts,” respectively. These two figures could serve as guidelines to protecting subjective truth in a tumultuous and egoistic time, and aid in defense against mental assimilation into normative cultures. A distinction between the two will be made, with emphasis on how the contextual development of the figures applies to different social (...) situations, and a synthesis of the utility of their application in present day will follow. The process of shapeshifting, of not clinging to social custom and normative identity categories as a means to protect ourselves from mental harm and assimilation, may serve to be of some use to us all. (shrink)

Current models for individuation in academe exacerbate generational tensions between second and third wave feminists. Feminist pedagogues must be wary of getting caught in the "vicious circle of contempt," where students are expected to compensate for a teacher's past narcissistic wounds. Instead, we must be willing to mourn the wounds we have received at the hands of a contemptuous culture and to acknowledge same-gender attachments that are disavowed in dialectical models of subject production.

The ethics of decision making for the critically ill elderly is an area of concern for all those involved in the decision-making process. The number of participants involved in decision making around end-of-life issues may be many: treatment and care decisions often bring together not only the patient and the physician, but the family, an extended medical care team, and impartial members of a hospital or institutional ethics committee. In addition, treatment and care decisions made at the end of life (...) occur in a variety of settings, not just the acute care hospital. Elderly patients who are critically ill, or in the final days or weeks of life, are found in intensive care or medical units of hospitals, in hospital and nursing home based hospice programs, in long-term care settings such as skilled nursing facilities, or at home, where they are tended by family caregivers. Differences in patterns of decision making regarding the care and treatment of critically ill older adults can be found across these settings, and decisions often vary according to the roles of the participants. (shrink)

John Searle began to discuss his recently published book `The Construction of Social Reality' with Anthony Freeman, and they ended up talking about God. The book itself and part of their conversation are introduced and briefly reflected upon by Anthony Freeman. Many familiar social facts -- like money and marriage and monarchy -- are only facts by human agreement. They exist only because we believe them to exist. That is the thesis, at once startling yet obvious, that philosopher (...) John Searle explores in The Construction of Social Reality. (shrink)

It has become part of the accepted wisdom to say that the twentieth century was the century of physics and the twenty-first century will be the century of biology. Two facts about the coming century are agreed on by almost everyone. Biology is now bigger than physics, as measured by the size of budgets, by the size of the workforce, or by the output of major discoveries; and biology is likely to remain the biggest part of science through the twenty-first (...) century. Biology is also more important than physics, as measured by its economic consequences, by its ethical implications, or by its effects on human welfare. (shrink)

In Sarsi I seem to discern the firm belief that in philosophising one must support oneself on the opinion of some celebrated author, as if our minds ought to remain completely sterile and barren unless wedded to the reasoning of someone else…that is not how things are. Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze.

Infinite in All Directions is a popularized science at its best. In Dyson's view, science and religion are two windows through which we can look out at the world around us. The book is a revised version of a series of the Gifford Lectures under the title "In Praise of Diversity" given at Aberdeen, Scotland. They allowed Dyson the license to express everything in the universe, which he divided into two parts in polished prose: focusing on the diversity of the (...) natural world as the first, and the diversity of human reactions as the second half. Chapter 1 is a brief explanation of Dyson's attitudes toward religion and science. Chapter 2 is a one-hour tour of the universe that emphasizes the diversity of viewpoints from which the universe can be encountered as well as the diversity of objects which it contains. Chapter 3 is concerned with the history of science and describes two contrasting styles in science: one welcoming diversity and the other deploring it. He uses the cities of Manchester and Athens as symbols of these two ways of approaching science. Chapter 4, concerned with the origin of life, describes the ideas of six illustrious scientists who have struggled to understand the nature of life from various points of view. Chapter 5 continues the discussion of the nature and evolution of life. The question of why life characteristically tends toward extremes of diversity remains central in all attempts to understand life's place in the universe. Chapter 6 is an exercise in eschatology, trying to define possible futures for life and for the universe, from here to infinity. In this chapter, Dyson crosses the border between science and science fiction and he frames his speculations in a slightly theological context. (shrink)

In Sarsi I seem to discern the firm belief that in philosophising one must support oneself on the opinion of some celebrated author, as if our minds ought to remain completely sterile and barren unless wedded to the reasoning of someone else…that is not how things are. Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze.

The work of Donaldson and Dunfee offers an example of how normative and descriptive approaches to business ethics can be integrated. We suggest that to be truly integrative, however, the theory should explore the processes by which such integration happens. We, therefore, sketch some preliminary thoughts that extend Integrative Social Contracts Theory by beginning to consider the process by which microsocial contracts are connected to hypernorms.

In Australia, young adults are more likely to experience psychological distress than other age-groups. Accordingly, volunteer work engagement may act as an important tool for supporting psychological wellbeing. The present study relies on the job demands–resources model and self-determination theory to help understand the negative consequences of high work demands and the importance of effective organizational support to enhance positive mental health outcomes. To address research gaps, the current study explores these concepts for the young adulthood cohort in not-for-profit organizations. (...) The study aims to explore the relationship between psychological wellbeing, volunteer work engagement, and perceived organizational support. The study used a quantitative, cross-lagged, longitudinal method for collecting data from two online surveys completed 4 weeks apart. The inclusion criteria of participants were volunteers who worked a minimum of 4 h a month, resided in Australia, and were between 19 and 40 years old. The main study findings were that perceived organizational support mediated the relationship between psychological wellbeing at time point 1 and volunteer engagement at time point 2. However, perceived organizational support did not mediate volunteer engagement at time point 1 and psychological wellbeing at time point 2. There were no bidirectional effects between volunteer engagement and psychological wellbeing. The findings contributed to the existing literature, suggesting there are overlaps between support mechanisms and motivation between paid and unpaid work. The practical implications for not-for-profit organizations are the importance of providing organizational support for young adult volunteers to improve wellbeing outcomes. Limitations and future study recommendations are presented. (shrink)

McCaffrey and Danks have posed the challenge of discovering causal relations in data drawn from a mixture of distributions as an impossibility result in functional magnetic resonance. We give an algorithm that addresses this problem for the distributions commonly assumed in fMRI studies and find that in testing, it can accurately separate data from mixed distributions. As with other obstacles to automated search, the problem of mixed distributions is not an impossible one, but rather a challenge. 1Introduction2Background3Addressing the Problem4Discussion.

Pragmatists believe that philosophical inquiry must engage closely with practice to be useful and that practice serves as a source of social norms. As a growing alternative to the analytic and continental philosophical traditions, pragmatism is well suited for research in business ethics, but its role remains underappreciated. This article focuses on Richard Rorty, a key figure in the pragmatist tradition. We read Rorty as a source of insight about the ethical and political nature of business practice in contemporary global (...) markets, focusing specifically on his views about moral sentiments, agency, and democratic deliberation. Importantly for business ethicists, Rorty’s approach sets in stark relief our moral responsibility as useful, practical thinkers in addressing the societal challenges of our time. We use “modern slavery” as an empirical context to highlight the relevance of Rorty’s approach to business ethics. (shrink)

Ethical physicians need to share their biases and prejudices and articulate alternatives and also be tolerant of the decisions of their patients and families.I believe that I am a moral, caring, dedicated doctor working with children and parents who are often faced with ethical problems of large and small dimensions. There is no question that these decisions should be ethical, but, in general, I find ethical theory of little day-to-day use. Indeed, even when an ethicist joins me in a discussion (...) of “What should I do?”, or more appropriately, “What should I advocate be done?”, I usually find their additions to the discussion wanting. Ethical theory gives guidance but does not seem to provide sufficient help in decisions for the individual case: What will be best for the infant with spina bifida while still in utero? Termination of the pregnancy? Birth and long-term care? What is best were that same child already born with a high paraplegia and hydrocephalus? What is best for the infant with a major malformation of the brain and uncontrollable seizures whose only hope for controlling the seizures is removal of half of the brain? What is best for the family in each of these situations and the many others I have encountered? What is best for society?I have been called a Hegelian pragmatist, although my knowledge of Hegel is minimal. I think that the term pragmatist is a badge of honour, because, on the front lines of clinical decision-making, I do not have the philosopher’s luxury of days or weeks for managing words. As a pragmatic doctor, I am forced to be a person of action or inaction. I must make a decision and advocate for the position I take.I am clearly a utilitarian, as I strive to produce the greatest good …. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The contemporary world is politically organised on the assumption that there exists an international community which should be governed by the rule of law under the authority of the United Nations Organisation. This idea may be called cosmopolitan liberalism. It is commonly criticised for ineffectiveness caused by excessive respect for the sovereignty of states. Recently, it has become apparent that cosmopolitan liberalism is inadequate to conceptualise and consequently to solve the practical problems posed by nationalism. David Miller has sought (...) to rehabilitate ‘nationality’in left‐liberal political philosophy. Reasons are presented for believing that his defence of nationality is inadequately articulated with cosmopolitan liberalism and consequently morally dangerous from a liberal point of view. (shrink)

Should face transplants be undertaken? This article examines the ethical problems involved from the perspective of the recipient, looking particularly at the question of identity, the donor and the donor’s family, and the disfigured community and society more generally. Concern is expressed that full face transplants are going ahead.

Oliver Sacks MD, Clinical Professor of Neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, talked with Anthony Freeman during his visit to London in January 1995 to publicize his recently published book An Anthropologist on Mars. The interview is preceded by an overview of the book.

This book celebrates the work of Patricia Werhane, an iconic figure in business ethics. This festschrift is a collection of articles that build on Werhane’s contributions to business ethics in such areas as Employee Rights, the Legacy of Adam Smith, Moral Imagination, Women in Business, the development of the field of business ethics, and her contributions to such fields as Health Care, Education, Teaching, and Philosophy. All papers are new contributions to the management literature written by well-known business ethicists, such (...) as Norman Bowie, Richard De George, Ronald Duska, Edwin Hartman, Michael Hoffman, Mollie Painter-Morland, Mark Schwartz, Andrew Wicks, and others. The volume is comprised of articles that reflect on Werhane’s work as well as build on it as a way to advance further research. At the end of the festschrift, Pat Werhane provides responses to each chapter. The first chapter of the book also includes the overview of Patricia Werhane’s work and her academic career. The book is written to appeal to management scholars and graduate students interested in the areas of Business Ethics, Modern Capitalism, and Human Rights. Patricia Werhane is one of the most distinguished figures in the field of business ethics. She was a founder of the field, she is one of its leading scholars, and she has had a profound impact on the world of business practice. Among her many accomplishments, Pat is known for her original work on moral imagination, she is an acclaimed authority on employee rights in the workplace, and she is one of the leading scholars on Adam Smith. Having been active in Academia for over 50 years, Werhane is a prolific author of over a hundred articles and book chapters, and the author or editor of twenty-seven books, including Adam Smith and his Legacy for Modern Capitalism, Moral Imagination and Management Decision-Making, and co-authored books Organization Ethics in Health Care, Alleviating Poverty Through Profitable Partnerships, Obstacles to Ethical Decision-Making, Corporate Responsibility: The American Experience, and Research Approaches to Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility. (shrink)

The mission of the Indian Health Service affects what research is done and how It is reviewed and managed and in turn affects the forms and process used to obtain informed consent. Consent forms must be Informative and understandable to American Indian and Alaska Native potential volunteers; the process used to obtain informed consent must minimize any institutional pressure to participate. The IHS Institutional Review Boards developed seven research Model Volunteer Consent Forms.

In this paper, I defend a conception of Deleuze’s two volumes dedicated to film – Cinema I: The Movement-Image, and Cinema II: The Time-Image – as protracted expressions of his political philosophy. In this context, I will elaborate the difficult and entwined political claims Deleuze makes on behalf of cinema: that it is capable of engendering a tentative ‘belief in the world’, such as is the necessary correlate of political action; that it captures the contemporary political fact that ‘the people (...) are missing’, as a unified or coherent political agent; and finally that it might reveal those ‘impossible’ or ‘intolerable’ situations which would provoke such a people into being. In advancing this conceptual triumvirate, I will argue that the claims made here on behalf of cinema overspill the art form itself, linking up with Deleuze’s broader political ontology of thought and constituting a generalised political philosophy proper to so-called ‘late-capitalism’. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a conception of Deleuze’s two volumes dedicated to film – Cinema I: The Movement-Image, and Cinema II: The Time-Image – as protracted expressions of his political philosophy. In this context, I will elaborate the difficult and entwined political claims Deleuze makes on behalf of cinema: that it is capable of engendering a tentative ‘belief in the world’, such as is the necessary correlate of political action; that it captures the contemporary political fact that ‘the people (...) are missing’, as a unified or coherent political agent; and finally that it might reveal those ‘impossible’ or ‘intolerable’ situations which would provoke such a people into being. In advancing this conceptual triumvirate, I will argue that the claims made here on behalf of cinema overspill the art form itself, linking up with Deleuze’s broader political ontology of thought and constituting a generalised political philosophy proper to so-called ‘late-capitalism’. (shrink)

This essay provides an analysis of the role of affectivity in Martin Heidegger's writings from the mid to late 1920s. We begin by situating his account of mood within the context of his project of fundamental ontology in Being and Time. We then discuss the role of Befindlichkeit and Stimmung in his account of human existence, explicate the relationship between the former and the latter, and consider the ways in which the former discloses the world. To give a more vivid (...) and comprehensive picture of Heidegger's account of mood, we focus on the experience of anxiety by articulating both its function within fundamental ontology and, relatedly, its revelatory nature. We conclude by considering the place of emotions in Heidegger's thinking from this period. In a companion essay, ‘Affectivity in Heidegger II: Temporality, Boredom, and Beyond’, we complement our present analysis by revisiting the issue of affectivity in terms of Heidegger's discussion of temporality in Division II of Being and Time. We also expand our present discussion by considering the fundamental mood of boredom and other specific moods that Heidegger considers within his later thinking. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Genocide is a political catastrophe. Yet it has not received much academic attention. A few social scientists have studied it. Philosophers have largely ignored it. There is a large literature on the Holocaust, but there is little agreement as to how this should be related to other genocides. Some have argued that the Holocaust represented a crisis of Western culture, but that Western culture has not responded adequately for the lack of the appropriate self‐understanding. This crisis has been attributed (...) to the predominance of scientistic models of rationality in our culture. Social‐scientific approaches to genocide have been criticised because of their commitment to logical empiricism, which is held to be epistemologically and ethically inadequate. Ethical approaches based on liberal humanism have been criticised by post‐Nietzschean philosophers for their attachment to allegedly outworn metaphysical assumptions. However, the deconstruction of social science and liberal ethics leads in the direction of relativism and nihilism, which are either useless or dangerous in the face of evils such as genocide. The arguments against conventional social science and ethics are examined, and a counter‐critique made of post‐modern philosophy in order to clear the ground for constructive thinking about genocide. (shrink)

This study investigates the hypothesis that the advantage corporate social performance (CSP) yields in attracting human resources depends on the degree of job choice possessed by the job seeking population. Results indicate that organizational CSP is positively related to employer attractiveness for job seekers with high levels of job choice but not related for populations with low levels suggesting advantages to firms with high levels of CSP in the ability to attract the most qualified employees.

Benefits and costs on prospective memory performance, of enactment at encoding and a semantic association between a cue-action word pair, were investigated in two experiments. Findings revealed superior performance for both younger and older adults following enactment, in contrast to verbal encoding, and when cue-action semantic relatedness was high. Although younger adults outperformed older adults, age did not moderate benefits of cue-action relatedness or enactment. Findings from a second experiment revealed that the inclusion of an instruction to perform a prospective (...) memory task led to increments in response latency to items from the ongoing activity in which that task was embedded, relative to latencies when the ongoing task only was performed. However, this task interference ‘cost’ did not differ as a function of either cue-action relatedness or enactment. We argue that the high number of cue-action pairs employed here influenced meta-cognitive consciousness, hence determining attention allocation, in all experimental conditions. (shrink)

It is widely accepted in science that the universe is a closed deterministic system in which everything can, ultimately, be explained by purely physical...

Scandinavia is routinely cited as a global leader in corporate social responsibility and sustainability. In this article, we explore the foundation for this claim while also exploring potential contributing factors. We consider the deep-seated traditions of stakeholder engagement across Scandinavia including the claim that the recent concept of “creating shared value” has Scandinavian origins, institutional and cultural factors that encourage strong CSR and sustainability performances, and the recent phenomenon of movement from implicit to explicit CSR in a Scandinavian context and (...) what this may entail. In sum, we depict the state of the art in CSR and sustainability in Scandinavia. We intend for this to serve as a basis to help establish a globally recognized research paradigm dedicated to considering CSR and sustainability in a Scandinavian context. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to draw out and make explicit the assumptions made in the treatment of technology within business ethics. Drawing on the work of Freeman (1994, 2000) on the assumed separation between business and ethics, we propose a similar separation exists in the current analysis of technology and ethics. After first identifying and describing the separation thesis assumed in the analysis of technology, we will explore how this assumption manifests itself in the current literature. A (...) different stream of analysis, that of science and technology studies (STS), provides a starting point in understanding the interconnectedness of technology and society. As we will demonstrate, business ethicists are uniquely positioned to analyze the relationship between business, technology, and society. The implications of a more complex and rich definition of lsquotechnologyrsquo ripple through the analysis of business ethics. Finally, we propose a pragmatic approach to understanding technology and explore the implications of such an approach to technology. This new approach captures the broader understanding of technology advocated by those in STS and allows business ethicists to analyze a broader array of dilemmas and decisions. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger is often credited as having offered one of the most thorough phenomenological investigations of the nature of boredom. In his 1929–1930 lecture course, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude, he goes to great lengths to distinguish between three different types of boredom and to explicate their respective characters. Within the context of his discussion of one of these types of boredom, profound boredom [tiefe Langweile], Heidegger opposes much of the philosophical and literary tradition on boredom insofar (...) as he articulates how the experience of boredom can be existentially beneficial to us. In this chapter, we undertake a study of the nature of profound boredom with the aim of investigating its place within contemporary psychological and philosophical research on boredom. Although boredom used to be a neglected emotional experience, it is no more. Boredom’s causal antecedents, effects, experiential profile, and neurophysiological correlates have become topics of active study; as a consequence, a proliferation of claims and findings about boredom has ensued. Such a situation provides an opportunity to scrutinize Heidegger’s claims and to try to understand them both on their own terms and in light of our contemporary understanding of boredom. (shrink)