South Korean industrial conglomerates (chaebols) are discussed in the context of value-based management (VBM). Recent economics and finance literature on the diversion of corporate resources from the firm to the controlling shareholders (tunneling), for which chaebols are notoriously known, is discussed. Chaebols have engaged in empire building and expropriation of minority shareholders, distorting the process of efficient resource allocation in South Korea, and became the root cause of the 1997 financial crisis. We argue that the 1997 crisis should be viewed (...) as a consequence of chaebols’ systematic deviation from the guiding principles of VBM. We use tunneling within chaebols as an example of the need to directly address prohibition of the expropriation of minority shareholders as a primary postulate of VBM. We argue that VBM should require that the value generated by the firm not be expropriated from minorities, or any stakeholders, by dominant shareholders. We also examine moral and ethical considerations and present explanations as to why the unethical practice of tunneling has been tolerated by the South Korean public. We show that public opinion on tunneling is changing and that the treatment of minority shareholders by chaebols’ controlling families is becoming increasingly unacceptable to South Koreans. (shrink)

The first detailed monography on how Thomas Aquinas used the contemporary philosophy of language in his works. Precise interpretations, many tables and schematical drawings give the reader a useful orientation in the field of the new research on Aquinas.

Could Christians and Muslims be referring to the same God? For an account of the reference of divine names, I follow Bogardus and Urban (2017) in advocating in favour of using Gareth Evans’s causal theory of reference, on which a name refers to the dominant source of information in the name’s “dossier”. However, I argue further that information about experiences, in which God is simply the object of acquaintance, can dominate the dossier. Thus, this demonstrative use of names offers a (...) promising alternative avenue by which users of the divine names can refer to the same referent despite having different conceptions of God. I also respond to Burling’s (2019) worship-worthiness view. (shrink)

When the Japanese invaded Joseon at the end of the sixteenth century, a Spanish Jesuit priest, Gregorio de Céspedes, S.J. , stayed in the Japanese fortress in Ungcheon with Japanese soldiers. While Céspedes is celebrated as the first European who allegedly came with an evangelical vision of proselytizing the native Koreans, previous scholarship has inadequately acknowledged Céspedes’ role without consideration of his concrete actions in the Japanese fortress and of the broader context of sixteenth–century Spanish colonial expansion. An examination of (...) the Jesuit mission to sixteenth-century Japan, the role of the Spanish chaplains and their activities in foreign expeditions, and Céspedes’ activities in Joseon indicate that Céspedes was not a missionary sent to Korea, but rather an active chaplain who played a role in the larger development of church and state collaboration under Spanish colonialism. (shrink)

The sociology of symbolic power, as put forth by Pierre Bourdieu, treats the relations between behavior and socio-cultural structure. Bourdieu comprehends culture as a form of capital that follows certain laws of accumulation, exchange, and operation, and emphasizes that its symbolic form plays an important role in establishing and maintaining power structures.1 Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital comprises a variety of resources such as language capabilities, general cultural consciousness, aesthetic symbols, educational information, and level of education.2 His analysis of cultural (...) capital reveals three different processes of its formation.3 First, education fosters its formation, internalizing it through the.. (shrink)

A two-part survey was conducted, where respondents reported ethically challenging incidents encountered in the previous two years and actions taken to address them. 132 certified counseling psychologists participated and reported 136 ethical dilemmas. The top categories of dilemmas pertained to breaking confidentiality between respondents and clients, including mandatory reporting, collaborating with education associates, and interjecting by the authority. 82% of the respondents took actions to address the dilemmas. These actions ranged from steering a middle course, upholding professional ethical standards, seeking (...) consultation to taking no actions. Potential environmental contributors to the dilemmas and actions taken to address them were explored. (shrink)

The prospect of using genome technologies to modify the human germline has raised profound moral disagreement but also emphasizes the need for wide-ranging discussion and a well-informed policy response. The Hinxton Group brought together scientists, ethicists, policymakers, and journal editors for an international, interdisciplinary meeting on this subject. This consensus statement formulated by the group calls for support of genome editing research and the development of a scientific roadmap for safety and efficacy; recognizes the ethical challenges involved in clinical reproductive (...) applications of genome editing but, importantly, rejects the idea that human reproductive germline modification is necessarily morally unacceptable; and highlights the importance of meaningful engagement in discussions of genome editing and the development of regulation and oversight mechanisms to govern future uses of such technologies. (shrink)

Two groups of scientists have just announced what is being described as a leap forward in human stem cell research.1–3 Both have found ways of producing what are being called “induced pluripotent cells” , stem cells that they hope will demonstrate the same key properties of regeneration and unrestricted differentiation that human embryonic stem cells possess, but which are derived from skin cells not from embryos. In simple terms, these scientists have succeeded in reprogramming skin cells to behave like hESCs.Stem (...) cell research has been hailed as one of the most important and exciting areas of science, because it is believed that these types of cells will not only play an important part in regenerative medicine, but also yield valuable scientific information. These latest developments in cell reprogramming represent a milestone for stem cell science. No longer does the paradigm of irreversible cell specialisation hold true; instead, almost any type of cell might have the potential to become any other.The advent of techniques for producing these iPCs has also been hailed as an ethical breakthrough. Up until now, the production of hESCs has required a process which involves the destruction of embryos. Many of these embryos are available as by-products of IVF; but in addition, the process of somatic cell nuclear transfer to produce cloned embryonic stem cells requires a supply of human oocytes, which must currently be harvested from female donors at no insignificant cost. In a nutshell, iPCs seem to enable us to produce “embryo-free” human pluripotent stem cells, and in a “gender-neutral” way—that is, without the need for human oocytes.The response from the scientific community, ethical commentators and the public has, however, reflected an inherent confusion over the ethical significance of this research. The anti-embryo …. (shrink)

More impetus needs to be placed on cord blood donationIn July, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists released a report on the uses and the potential perils of umbilical cord blood collection.1 This report has had the positive effect of drawing attention to what has hitherto been an under addressed topic of medical research and ethics. However, the focus and recommendations of the report say little about one important aspect of cord blood usage—research. Such an omission, although understandable from (...) an organisation primarily concerned with maternal and neonatal health, may nevertheless have implications for the broader applicability of the report’s recommendations, outside the immediate arena of patient care.The RCOG report deals with various aspects of cord blood collection and use—the harvesting procedure itself; cord blood transplantation treatment, either as an autologous cell transplant or as a donation for community use; and whether cord blood banking for personal use should be permitted or encouraged as a privately funded commercial enterprise. It also makes note of some of the legal and ethical issues surrounding cord blood and tissue banking more generally, concerns that will be of increasing importance as more biobanks are established worldwide. A large part of the report deals with concerns on neonatal and maternal safety and whether cord blood collection may pose a risk. These concerns may be valid and certainly, the health of mothers and children should not be compromised. The guidance provided by this report in relation to the collection procedure will undoubtedly assist maternity health professionals in this area.The main relevance of the RCOG …. (shrink)

Consider this scenario: A terrorist just bombed the subway in London, which resulted in the casualties of numerous innocent people. His act can be considered well-planned for he fully knew what consequences his act would bring. If determinism is true, is it possible that the terrorist in question bombed the subway out of free will? An incompatibilist would respond to this question with a resounding “no”. A compatibilist, on the other hand, would answer yes, as long as the terrorist possessed (...) certain psychological characteristics, causal histories, etc. This underlies the basis of disputes between the compatibilists and incompatibilists, who appear to hold opposite views on whether it is possible for someone to act out of free will if determinism is true. However, as I shall discuss in Chapter One, this disagreement is partly a verbal one that stems from the diverse meanings of the term “free will”. This thesis aims to transcend the verbal disagreement and explore where the deeper, more substantial disagreements may lie between compatibilists and incompatibilists. One possible sphere where substantial disagreements between compatibilists and incompatibilists may lie is the content of the ordinary concept of free will, or that of the strongest sense of control condition necessary for securing the ordinary concept of moral responsibility. On this view, the metaphysical question and the conceptual question about free will are inseparable; in order to find out the metaphysical satisfaction conditions of free will, one must first identify the conceptual satisfaction conditions of free will. Further, the latter is reflected in everyday free will/ moral responsibility ascriptions about hypothetical or real scenarios. In Chapter Two, I analyze how the recent experimental philosophy movement bears on this issue. By examining the findings of some current experimental philosophy studies, I argue that neither compatibilism nor incompatibilism can sufficiently capture the ordinary concept of free will or moral responsibility. In the light of my discussions in Chapter Two, I explain in Chapter Three why each of the various traditional accounts of free will cannot independently provide an adequate “package deal” of solutions for the problem of free will. Near the end of the chapter, I propose a pluralistic, agnostic account of free will as an alternative solution. Despite its great instrumental value, experimental philosophy is not widely recognized as a philosophically significant methodology. Hence, Chapter Four is devoted to discussing the actual and potential values of experimental philosophy in the light of its contribution to the free will debate. I conclude that the encounter between the free will debate and the experimental philosophy movement is a fruitful one; the former proves the value of the latter by receiving helpful insights from it. (shrink)

Questions about sincerity play a central role in our lives. But what makes an assertion insincere? In this paper we argue that the answer to this question is not as straightforward as it has sometimes been taken to be. Until recently the dominant answer has been that a speaker makes an insincere assertion if and only if he does not believe the proposition asserted. There are, however, persuasive counterexamples to this simple account. It has been proposed instead that an insincere (...) assertion that p is one made by a speaker who (a) does not express his belief that p; or (b) does not believe that he believes that p; (c) does not assent to p; or (d) does not express any of these cognitive states. We show that these .. (shrink)

Taking the animal and the machine as two ontological others of the human, this paper looks into how they “are added to” and “replace” the humanist others based on race, gender, class, etc. in contemporary cinema. This “supplement” urges us to reframe identity politics and cultural studies in a larger “polis” emerging between and encompassing both the human world, which becomes ever more globally homogenized, and its radical environment, natural or technological. The topic is a global cinematic phenomenon that even (...) local films directly embody. The animal is captured on the boundaries between “the symbolic” and “the real,” between “the actual” and “the virtual” in the artistic works of Werner Herzog, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Peter Greenaway. The machine convolutes the issues of informatics, embodiment, and cyborgism, often through SF fantasy that pervades Hollywood blockbusters and Japanimation. The rare amalgam of animal–machine receives further attention in David Cronenberg's films, and becoming-animal/-machine in Avatar empowers the human in the posthuman sense of biopower that transforms the body and registers it on a larger network. From this perspective, discourses on the animal (zooesis) and technology (technesis) work together to bring a new political potential. Animality and technology no longer form a naïve dichotomy of nature vs. civilization but combine in ways of making more visible the new condition of life. It unfolds in a cinematic “zone,” an ephemeral “clearing” for “bare life” within the globalized world. This zone exists in the exceptional state of temporary potential to de-/repoliticize any humanistic politics. (shrink)

This paper aims at a semio-epistemological revisit of Peircean/Bazinian indexicality. On the level of diegesis, an image takes on indexicality as physical causality, the succession of causes and effects. What matters in our cinematic experience is then less medium-specificity than reference-recognition, i.e. whether or not we know what a visual sign refers to within diegesis. The problematic case is that in which an image is not a clear index to something visually given, but it appears and functions like a “para-index” (...) that only partially, impossibly indicates the unthinkable, a sort of “digit” that fingers what Lacan or Deleuze calls the absent but immanent Real or Virtual. In fact Bazin’s interest in adventure films facing this unrepresentable realm especially inspires us to revamp indexicality as para-indexicality. The paper elaborates on this notion through George Didi-Huberman and Jacques Rancière, as well as films by Michael Haneke, Ingrid Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard etc. (shrink)

We may understand natural science as part of the attempt by human beings to understand themselves and their place in the world in which they find themselves. In this sense, as Karl Rahner has suggested, natural science flows naturally into anthropology. Consciously or unconsciously, science is always part of the drive to self-understanding. In an age of religious pluralism like ours, Christian faith in Asia is also brought face to face with the living reality of other religions, and that, too, (...) cannot but affect how we understand our shared humanity. (shrink)

Previous work employing graph theory and nonlinear analysis has found increased spatial and temporal disorder, respectively, of functional brain connectivity in schizophrenia. We present a new method combining graph theory and nonlinear techniques that measures the temporal disorder of functional brain connections. Multichannel electroencephalographic data were windowed and functional networks were reconstructed using the minimum spanning trees of correlation matrices. Using a method based on Shannon entropy, we found elevated connection entropy in gamma activity of patients with schizophrenia; however, gamma (...) connection entropy remained elevated in patients with schizophrenia even after a reduction in symptoms due to treatment with antipsychotics. Our results are consistent with several possibilities: aberrant functional connectivity is epiphenomenal to schizophrenia, aberrant functional connectivity is a central feature but antipsychotics reduce symptoms by an independent mechanism, or connection entropy is not an appropriately sensitive measure of brain abnormalities in schizophrenia. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:We Walk the Path Together: Learning from Thich Nhat Hanh and Meister EckhartSeung Hee KangWe Walk The Path Together: Learning from Thich Nhat Hanh and Meister Eckhart. By Brian J. Pierce. New York: Maryknoll, 2005. 202 pp.Being that he is a contemplative, Pierce’s Trinitarian Christian love beautifully manifests itself in this book in his art of interdialoguing on the Buddhist-Christian religious traditions. Pierce’s manner of interdialoguing resonates with (...) what Ann Belford Ulanov also attempts: “I am writing not about how to prove that God exists but rather about what happens religiously when psyche and soul create a space for conversation [End Page 178] out of which life can flow.” 1 If someone asks whether Pierce and Ulanov point to two different absolute realities, my response would be, “Absolutely not!” The sacred inner space that Pierce points to, in light of the two contemporary mystics from different religious traditions, namely Thich Nhat Hanh and Meister Eckhart, also reminds me of Lao Tzu’s wisdom that permeates the Tao Te Ching, specifically in his concept of “useful emptiness.” 2We Walk the Path Together is neither an abstract account nor sheer philosophical speculation. The whole of the book is rooted in Pierce’s faith-based lived experience (pp. 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 113, 163); this renders the book life-giving and deeply ecological in terms of its transcendence of either/or dichotomies.Chapter 1 summarizes the meaning and art of dialogue. Pierce utilizes mystical language to illustrate what the dialogue is. For Pierce, dialogue connotes “a mutual giving and receiving, and it posits a profound sense of being of one heart and mind” (p. 3). Pierce extends his personal experience of a vow of obedience into the meaning of dialogue. For Pierce, this vow means to “transcend any illusion of separateness” and thus “obedience liberates him from his tiny world of ego” (p. 4). In the process of dialogue, according to Pierce, “our hearts are challenged to grow larger, all-inclusive and universal” (p. 8). This expansion of the heart is what mystics call “magnanimity.” As Pierce is acutely aware, “magnanimity is one of life’s un-planned for graces; it teaches us to see and hear and learn things that we never dreamed were possible” (p. 9).Chapter 2 discusses mindfulness as a gateway to eternity. Pierce asserts that home is everywhere in the present moment; it is where freedom is possible. This particular point echoes with what Thomas Merton spoke about in reference to the prodigal son who turned away from his father: “sin is our refusal to be what we are, a rejection of our spiritual reality hidden in the mystery of God” (p. 23). However, when the prodigal son was restored his senses, he was able to attune himself back to present moment: “I’ll get up and go to my father” (cited by Pierce, ibid.). He became free from his sin, returning home. In this chapter, Pierce highlights the words of the mystics (St. Irenaeus, St. John of the Cross, Brother Lawrence, St. Augustine, Jan van Ruusbroec, and St. Catherine de Siena) who lived this present moment in order to help the readers understand the intrinsic relationship between our mindfulness of the present moment and eternity. He argues that Buddhist teachings on mindfulness and Christianity’s tradition concerning the kingdom of God are mutually informative (pp. 19, 21).In chapter 3, Pierce expands the meaning of present moment through its association with breathing; being present is not a concept, but a living reality, as we experience the Holy Spirit in our breathing practice, such as centering prayer and meditation (p. 36). Pierce carefully states, “contemplation is authentic only if it flows out in loving-kindness to others. When we breathe in all the spiritual energy of the universe, thus, we literally implode—a spiritual ego intoxication” (p. 40). Pierce explains further what contemplation means; breathing in the Holy Spirit and breathing out the Holy Spirit may mean two separate phenomena. Contemplation is, for Pierce, authentic, only when the Spirit that is breathed in reaches out to our community. [End Page 179] This is also Pierce’s ecological aspect... (shrink)

Russellian monism – an influential doctrine proposed by Russell (1927/1992) – is roughly the view that the natural sciences can only ever tell us about the causal, dispositional, and structural properties of physical entities and not about their categorical properties, and, moreover, that our qualia are constituted by categorical properties. Recently, Stoljar (2001a, 2001b), Strawson (2008), Montero (2010, 2015), Alter and Nagasawa (2012), and Chalmers (2015) have attempted to develop this doctrine into a version of physicalism. Russellian monism faces the (...) so-called combination problem, according to which it is difficult to see how categorical properties could collectively constitute qualia. In this paper, I suggest that there is an insufficiently discussed aspect of the combination problem which I call the difference-maker problem. Taking the difference-maker problem into account, I argue that the combination problem – whether or not it can be solved – results in a dilemma for the project of developing Russellian physicalism. That is, Russellian monism is either physicalistically unacceptable or it is implausible; hence, Russellian monism and physicalism are incompatible. (shrink)

In this sequel of my previous publication, I will continue my discussion of the word tian as it appears in the Guodian texts. I shall argue that, from natural order arises xing, human’s distinctive potentiality, which is endowed by heaven to follow and be guided by the heavenly principle. I thereafter will elaborate the sages’ role as cultural creators. The distinct roles of heaven and humanity are further deepened when tian and ming are perceived as the determinants of an individual’s (...) success or failure. I will go on to show how the word tian can be understood as the source or underlying pattern that brings about coincidental or synchronous events and experiences. (shrink)

Marcel Mauss’s discussion of the gift relies on a paradox: although gift-giving is the foundational act of building a society, in order for a gift to be circulated, society must be always-already presupposed so that the gift can reach and be recognized by its destination. This article focuses on how this paradox has been addressed in anthropological and philosophical studies of the gift, by reviewing work by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Maurice Godelier and Jacques Derrida. By illuminating each position through the lens (...) of the Lacanian triad of the symbolic, the imaginary and the real, I first show how Lévi-Strauss and Godelier, respectively, focus on the symbolic and imaginary economies of the gift and how their perspectives are still bound by Mauss’s paradox in assuming the totality of society as the ultimate basis of gift exchange. I then read Derrida’s critique of Mauss as an attempt to explore the space for the aneconomic that grounds but simultaneously threatens the symbolic and imaginary economies of society. In doing so, I argue that the gift always includes the effaceable negativity and uncertainty that serve as the condition of (im)possibility for the social. (shrink)

Adopting an Ethics of Care theoretical framework, this paper aims to investigate the way in which the owner-mangers (OMs) of small and medium-sized enterprises in Malaysia engage in human resource management. Based on in-depth interviews with 48 OMs, the findings show that HRM practices occur within the remit of management but are described by the managers in terms of relational obligations and cannot be fully accounted for using a strategic, instrumental, or critical lens. The present study highlights the importance of (...) the caring attitudes of OMs who adopt a humanistic management approach, responding to the varied needs of their employees and the obligations which are inherent to relationships between humans. (shrink)

: Jing (respect) in ancient Confucianism can be seen as referring to either a frame of mind or an intentional state that includes the elements of singlemindedness, concentration, seriousness, caution, and a strong sense of responsibility. Hence, it can be seen as a due regard based on the perception of the worth of its object. It is the central element and the germ of li (ritual). A critical comparison is made between jing and the ideas of appraisal respect, recognition respect, (...) and identification respect as discussed in Western ethics. (shrink)

Byrne has demonstrated that although subjects can make deductively valid inferences of the modus ponens and modus tollens forms, these valid inferences can be suppressed by presenting an appropriate additional premise “If R then Q” with the original conditional “If P then Q”. This suppression effect challenges the assumption of all syntactic theories of conditional reasoning that formal rules of inference such as modus ponens is part of mental logic. This paper argues that both the syntactic and the mental model (...) accounts of the suppression effect are inadequate because they fail to give a principled account of the critical interpretive component involved in reasoning. In contrast, the relative salience model proposed in this study emphasized the centrality of the interpretative processes with the critical component being the relative salience of premises as judged by subjects on the basis of their prior knowledge activated in particular problem situations. Using 120 undergraduates and 120 policemen as subjects, predictions from the model were tested and confirmed in a suppression paradigm and evidence of convergent validity for the construct of salience were obtained. The results cannot be reconciled with either the syntactic view or the mental model view that have dominated theories of conditional reasoning. (shrink)

What is belief? "Beliefs aim at truth" is the commonly accepted starting point for philosophers who want to give an adequate account of this fundamental state of mind, but it raises as many questions as it answers. For example, in what sense can beliefs be said to have an aim of their own? If belief aims at truth, does it mean that reasons to believe must also be based on truth? Must beliefs be formed on the basis of evidence alone? (...) Is truth the constitutive norm of belief? Does aiming at truth bring in a normative dimension to the nature of belief? How can the aim of truth guide the formation of our beliefs? In what ways do partial beliefs aim at truth? Is truth the aim of epistemic justification? Last but not least, is it knowledge rather than truth which is the fundamental aim of belief? In recent years, pursuing these questions has proved extremely fertile for our understanding of a wide range of current issues in philosophy of mind and action, epistemology, and meta-ethics. The Aim of Belief is the first book to be devoted to this fast-growing topic. It brings together eleven newly commissioned essays by leading authors on the aim of belief. Contributors: Jonathan Adler, Krister Bykvist, Timothy Chan, Pascal Engel, Kathrin Glüer, Anandi Hattiangadi, Michael Hicks, Paul Horwich, David Papineau, Andrew Reisner, Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, Ralph Wedgwood, Åsa Wikforss, Daniel Whiting. (shrink)

This essay is focused on the necessity of redefining the concepts of human beings to coexist in harmony with life-community in the Post-Corona age. The point is to explicate how the concepts of human beings in the Book of Changes provide implications for posthumanism from the viewpoint of beyond-borders through the Change-Penetrating view. Its mechanism connotatively implies the aspect of the reality of balance and changes in the world in the Book of Changes. In the Change-Penetrating view, the category of (...) Yin and Yang, revealing the way of trans-boundaries through robustness and stillness, can verify new concepts of human beings. It has an axiological meaning on the direction in which human beings have to take in this fast changing world. This is reflected in the humanity of the sage, the best human image that appears in the protagonist, and the practicality of Jin-de-xiu-ye (廣德崇業). The attitude of consistent improvement of human beings and the axiology of beyond-borders in the book of change exhibit the new type of integrated viewpoints on the subject about the sustainable coexistence with non-human objects. It is what post-humanism pursues through the process of trans-boundaries. (shrink)

In twentieth-century Kant scholarship, few have provided an account of the analytic-synthetic distinction and of the problem of the synthetic a priori that takes into consideration the views of Kant's idealist successors such as Maimon, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. I first explain how Kant formulates the analytic-synthetic distinction in terms of the determinate-indeterminate distinction, which, in turn, is based on the distinction between general and transcendental logic. Kant's problem of the synthetic a priori , then, is the problem of showing (...) how the logical forms of judgment can be employed determinately (and not merely indeterminately). I then show that Maimon also formulates the distinction and the problem in the same way, and that his interpretation will shape how Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel each construe and address Kant's question, How are synthetic judgments possible a priori ? (shrink)

Research focusing on Anglo-European languages indicates that children’s acquisition of the subordinate structure of complement-clause constructions and the semantics of mental verbs facilitates their understanding of false belief, and that the two linguistic factors interact. Complement-clause constructions support false-belief development, but only when used with realis mental verbs like ‘think’ in the matrix clause (de Villiers, Jill. 2007. The interface of language and Theory of Mind.Lingua117(11). 1858–1878). In Chinese, however, only the semantics of mental verbs seems to play a facilitative (...) role in false-belief development (Cheung, Him, Hsuan-Chih Chen & William Yeung. 2009. Relations between mental verb and false belief understanding in Cantonese-speaking children.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology104(2). 141–155). We argue that these cross-linguistic differences can be explained by variations in availability and usage patterns of mental verbs and complement-clause constructions across languages. Unlike English, Mandarin-Chinese has a verb that indicates that a belief might be false:yi3wei2‘(falsely) think’. Our corpus analysis suggests that, unlike English caregivers, Mandarin-Chinese caregivers do not produce frequent, potentially unanalyzed, chunks with mental verbs and first-person subjects, such as ‘I think’. In an experiment, we found that the comprehension of complement-clause constructions used withyi3wei2‘(falsely) think’, but not withjue2de2‘think’, predicted Mandarin children’s false-belief understanding between the ages of 4 and 5. In contrast to English, whether mental verbs were used with first- or third-person subjects did not affect their correlation with false-belief understanding. (shrink)

Whole-genome analysis and whole-exome analysis generate many more clinically actionable findings than traditional targeted genetic analysis. These findings may be relevant to research participants themselves as well as for members of their families. Though researchers performing genomic analyses are likely to find medically significant genetic variations for nearly every research participant, what they will find for any given participant is unpredictable. The ubiquity and diversity of these findings complicate questions about disclosing individual genetic test results. We outline an approach for (...) disclosing a select range of genetic results to the relatives of research participants who have died, developed in response to relatives? requests during a pilot study of large-scale medical genetic sequencing. We also argue that studies that disclose individual research results to participants should, at a minimum, passively disclose individual results to deceased participants? relatives. (shrink)

Aristotelian theory, as found in Michael Thompson and Philippa Foot, claims that to be good is to be good as a member of that kind. Moreover, Foot argues in effect that goodness admits of only the kind-based sort, obtaining solely in virtue of something’s satisfying kind-based standards. However, I contend that something can satisfy kind-relative standards but nonetheless be bad—I propose a hypothetical Ebola-like microbe that meets its kind-standards of being destructive for its own sake, but it would plausibly be (...) bad for doing so. In defending my counterexample, I respond to the Aristotelian contention that evaluations should only be made from “within” the standpoint of a particular lifeform conception, rather than an “external” one from which that kind itself can be judged to be bad. (shrink)

Appealing to self-interest is a common way of justifying the rationality of religious faith. For instance, Pascal’s wager relies upon the expected value of choosing the life of faith being infinite. Similarly, many contemporary arguments for the rationality of faith turn on whether it is better for an agent to have faith rather than lack it. In this paper, I argue, contra Pascal, that considerations of self-interest do not make choosing faith rational because they fail to take into account the (...) way the self is transformed by faith. (shrink)

In an emerging field such as social enterprise, it is important for an organization to secure legitimacy to obtain resources and sustain its business. Specifically, when a government distributing subsidies does not have adequate information to decide which organization is trustworthy, it is the legitimacy-seeking activities of social enterprise that decides who receives a subsidy; this, in turn, decides which organization will survive. One of the most effective ways to gain legitimacy is to explicitly emphasize in the public promotion that (...) the organization devotes to its social mission. In the case of Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs), an organization emphasizes its social employment of the disadvantaged individuals. However, we argue that social enterprises’ public promotion that emphasizes social employment can lower the expected wage, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment of the employees who are hired due to their disadvantaged social status. This is because such obvious promotional messages makes the employees more keenly aware of their disadvantaged status; as a result, this reinforces their self-prejudice that they are not competitive enough in the labor market. We test our hypotheses in the context of South Korean WISEs and found general support for our arguments. (shrink)

We investigate what determines a multinational enterprise’s propensity to engage in lobbying and bribing in host countries where the overall institutional development for market exchanges is insufficient, and thus, their governance systems are relatively weak. We extend the current literature on institutional strategies by theorizing and showing the persistent and significant impacts of home country institutions on an MNE’s choice of influencing activities to address institutional constraints overseas. More specifically, our results demonstrate that the MNEs from a home country with (...) a stronger governance system are less involved in bribery, but have a higher tendency to lobby in transition economy countries, which have been characterized by relatively weaker institutional development, particularly in the area of governance. This tendency still holds even when these MNEs rely more on the local market for sales. We draw theoretical and practical implications from these observations. (shrink)

The aim of this dissertation is to propose and justify the thesis that Kant's theory of judgment, which plays a vital role in the Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, and Critique of Judgment, is fundamentally theoretical in nature, and that this theory insures the unity of the critical philosophy. Most of the contemporary writers who have dealt with the question of the unity of Kant's philosophy on the basis of his theory of judgement have emphasized the priority (...) of either practical, aesthetic, or even political judgment. Such interpretations, however, seem at odds with the fact that Kant's theory of judgment is rooted in the non-practical, theoretical discipline of formal logic, a discipline that underlies the structure of all three Critiques. The "theoretical" understanding of judgment is first developed in the Critique of Pure Reason wherein Kant distinguishes between general and transcendental logic. This distinction governs the distinction between two ways of employing the same logical form of judgment, viz., indeterminately and determinately. The determinate-indeterminate distinction with respect to judging is elaborated in both the first and the second editions of the Critique of Pure Reason as well as in the Prolegomena and the Preface to the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science . ;In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals , Kant distinguishes between "general practical philosophy" and "the metaphysics of morals." In fact, general practical philosophy "differs from a metaphysics of morals in the same way that general logic is distinguished from transcendental philosophy." Thus, the distinction between general practical philosophy and the metaphysics of morals in Kant's practical philosophy represents the distinction between indeterminate and determinate functions of judging practically, i.e., of willing. ;In the Critique of Judgment , the determinate-indeterminate distinction is expressed by means of the distinction between determinative and reflective power of judgment . Kant shows that while the determinative Urteilskraft gives rise to scientific and moral judgments, the reflective Urteilskraft makes possible both aesthetic and teleological judgments by leaving something undetermined, viz., the cognizability of an object and the intentionality of the purposiveness of nature, respectively. (shrink)