Niche construction is the process whereby organisms, through their activities and choices, modify their own and each other’s niches. By transforming natural-selection pressures, niche construction generates feedback in evolution at various different levels. Niche-constructing species play important ecological roles by creating habitats and resources used by other species and thereby affecting the flow of energy and matter through ecosystems—a process often referred to as “ecosystem engineering.” An important emphasis of niche construction theory (NCT) is that acquired characters play an evolutionary (...) role through transforming selective environments. This is particularly relevant to human evolution, where our species has engaged in extensive environmental modification through cultural practices. Humans can construct developmental environments that feed back to affect how individuals learn and develop and the diseases to which they are exposed. Here we provide an introduction to NCT and illustrate some of its more important implications for the human sciences. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Buddhism and humanistic-Marxism have much in common, and that they really are quite complementary in many ways. Early on I cite the Dalai Lama and some remarks he makes in relation to Buddhism and Marxism—remarks that seem not to make a distinction between orthodox-Marxism and humanistic-Marxism. I then go on to give a brief sketch of some of the central aspects of humanistic-Marxism; and in doing 50 I draw from a number of well-known Eastern (...) European philo-sophers. Among other things, I focus on the relation between the early and late Marx, "praxis", 'free conscious activity", historical materialism, the spiritual dimension in Marx and its role in social transformations, etc. After a brief indication of the Buddhist "four noble truths", I bring out that both Marx and Buddha are deeply concerned about human suffering; but that there is an important difference in emphasis with respect to the external and internal Factors associated with human suffering. I go on to bring out that both perspectives agree that there is no creator God, or eternal soul; and that both perspectives see reality as process in character. For each perspective this means that things are what they are by virtue of the dynamic interrelations they have with other things. whether directly and indirectly. I bring out that both perspectives begin their analysis of the human condition with the given situation in which human beings find themselves, and that both perspectives see human beings as the makers of themselves, but that they do so in somewhat different ways. Also both perspectives see human beings as making themselves on the basis of the ways they have made themselves in the past, but as doing so in ways that are not fatalistic. In this connection I compare the Buddhist view of karma, and an overlapping view of social karma in Marx. Also I discuss Buddhism ancj Marxism with respect to the notion of the ego-self, and the question of whether there are many different forms of the ego-self; and if so, how such different forms might come about, and what this would mean in relation to the Buddhist notion of ''samsara". Finally,! point to a way that humanistic-Marxism could consistently acknowledge a possible transcendence of the ego-self. In passing I point out that the notion of "unalienated spirituality" in Marx has much in common with the Buddhist notion of "enlightenment". (shrink)

In this analysis of the problem of freedom from a humanistic-Marxist perspective, philosopher Kevin M. Brien draws on the full chronological spectrum of Marx's writings to reconstruct the mature Marx's view of freedom under three broad categories: freedom as a mode of being, freedom as transcendence, and freedom as spontaneity. While recognizing that many students of Marx have noted two distinctly different perspectives in early and late Marx, Brien interprets Marx's philosophy as a coherent organic whole. He (...) demonstrates that Marx's thought is principally and systematically an elaborated philosophical-scientific theory of freedom. New to this second edition is an extended postscript in which Brien provides critical responses to a number of published reviews of the first edition of his book. In addition, Brien also presents a humanistic-Marxist interpretation of spirituality. In so doing he identifies a potential revolutionizing agency in the context of the 21st century. Finally, an addendum shows how humanistic Marxism and Buddhism converge on the same basic values and mutually complement each other. This comparison serves to emphasize the viability of projecting a nontheistic spiritual dimension and shows that there is a genuine moral basis for common social action among adherents of different perspectives. This rigorously argued and deeply thoughtful analysis reveals the continuing relevance and promise of Marx's thought in the 21st century. (shrink)

In Karl Marx’s “Preface” to the second edition of Capital, Volume 1, he famously wrote that with Hegel dialectical thinking is “standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.” Unfortunately, across a wide spectrum of interpretations of Marxism, there continues to be a great deal of confusion about what Marx means by the “rational kernel” that he discerns within the Hegelian “mystical shell.” But not just (...) a great deal of confusion, but real mystification and distortion of what Marx himself means by dialectical thinking, and especially what a dialectical mode of explanation involves. The concern of this brief paper is to offer some considerations that might open up a clearer conceptual horizon for understanding Marx’s method of dialectical explanation, and the fundamental canons of interpretation that are associated with it. (shrink)

This paper is aimed at a rethinking of the spiritual in relation to Marx. Drawing from Marx’s own formulations, it makes clear that Marx made an important distinction between religion and the spiritual, and that he did indeed speak of the spiritual in positive ways. Much of the discussion centers on Marx’s famous passage speaking about religion as “the opium of the people.” Therein Marx writes that: “Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers from the chain, not so that man will (...) wear the chain that is without fantasy or consolation but so that he will throw it off and pluck the living flower.” This paper attempts to make clear whatMarx means by the “imaginary flowers” and also by the “living flower”; and in so doing helps to clarify what Marx means by “the spiritual”. (shrink)

This paper explores Marx’s mature method of dialectical explanation. Drawing from Marx’s formulations, the paper proceeds to philosophically elaborate what this method involves. It discloses that: a) all explanatory factors come from prior empirical inquiry; b) this method moves in stages from more ..

This is a working paper that presents the first phase of what will eventually be a huge project, namely a critical appropriation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Early on it provides a sketch of the main strands of Aristotle’s theoretical web in his N. Ethics. Following that, the paper offers some critical commentary concerning some of Aristotle’s main positions: especially his views on moral virtue, the soul, intellectual virtue, and human well-being. The paper then turns to the development of some significantly (...) different ways of construing both intellectual virtue as well as moral virtue. With respect to intellectual virtue, I present my own perspective in interconnection with a process-oriented way of understanding reality, as opposed to Aristotle’s substance-oriented way. With respect to moral virtue, I present my interpretation in relation to a thisworldly understanding of the human spirit/soul, as well as a humanistic-Marxist interpretation of human well-being. Toward the paper’s end, I offer some suggestions concerning a modified “doctrine of the mean” that would be a sort of critical synthesis of the views of Aristotle and Confucius. (shrink)

This paper is the second phase of a project that was begun more than three years ago. The first phase culminated in the publication of a paper working toward a critical appropriation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.1 Therein Aristotle famously argues that human wellbeing (eudaimonia) is constituted by “activity of the soul in accordance with moral and intellectual virtue.”2 This earlier paper brought into focus all the main lines of Aristotle’s theoretical web in the N. Ethics: including the nature of the (...) soul, intellectual virtue, moral virtue, etc. That paper went on to give a developed critique of Aristotle’s theoretical web, and against that background it argued for a very different way of thinking about intellectual virtue, and it prepared the ground for different ways of thinking about moral virtue. This current paper explores the various conceptual understandings of “the mean” in Aristotelian and in Confucian thought. It begins with an explanatory sketch of “the mean” as understood in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and then in a second section goes on to explore “the mean” as presented in classical Confucianism. The third section of this paper offers some reflections oriented toward a tentative formulation of a modified conception of “the mean” as it might be construed from a humanistic Marxist perspective. (shrink)

This meditation is a series of reflections about some milestones along my philosophical journey that concern universals, universal definitions, claims to universal moral principles, and universal dialogue. It begins with a focus on the Socratic search for universal definitions of general terms; and it continues with a look at the way my discovery of non-Euclidean geometries began to challenge my attitude toward the possibility of universal definitions of all general terms. Along the way I bring out how Wittgenstein’s notion of (...) “family resemblances” added to this challenge. The meditation continues with reflections on Kant’s attempts to make a case for a universal and unconditional moral imperative. Following this I sketch a counter-case that the concrete human being gets lost in a haze of Kantian abstraction. These reflections bring out the clear conceptual linkage between the “abstract universal” and the “external relation” as canons ofinterpretation.The meditation then makes a shift to some later milestones on my journey, beginning with reflection on the “concrete universal” and the “internal relation” as alternative canons of interpretation. I try to illustrate how Marx critically appropriated Hegel’s view of these canons via discussion of Marx’s notion of “praxis;” and then go on to adopt these canons of interpretation throughout the rest of the meditation. Employing these canons of interpretation, and with Aristotle’s very broad understanding of the term “politics” in mind, I construe universal dialogue to be a mode of discourse oriented toward the development of a new “politics of the global village” that could cultivate the practice of concretely relating to the other person as a person. Inasmuch as Aristotle construed “politics” as involving a developed ethics as well as a “science of society” , the meditation proceeds with a preliminary sketch of these two dimensions of a new “politics of the global village.”My meditation goes on to suggest a fundamental ethical principle that could be concretely and universally adopted by all people, and that could guide universal dialogue. The meditation continues with a sketch of a philosophical reconstruction of a humanistic Marxist “science of society,” and integrates the fundamental ethical principle with it. This sketch is basically a philosophical clarification of Marx’s theory of cultural evolution that brings into play the key role of the concrete universal and the internal relation as fundamental canons of interpretation. The meditation concludes with an argument that universal dialogue on the part of a very wide spectrum of ordinary people, as well as specialists, is the sine qua non for any hope of transforming the secular basis of human societies in the direction of social justice, as all of humanity faces the daunting crises that loom throughout planet Earth. (shrink)

This paper will open with a focus on alienated and unfree activity as it is presented by Marx in his famous Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. My concern will be to bring out the most central dimensions of his view of such activity including: the alienated relation in such activity to other people, to one’s own activity, to the products of one’s activity, to the natural world, etc. Moreover, I will be especially concerned to bring out the mode of (...) reason that is embedded within alienated activity, as well as the kind of relation between cognition, conation, sensory experience, feeling, (etc.) that Marx projects as obtaining in such activity. Following this I will make a dialectical extrapolation from the analysis of alienated activity that Marx gives us, and go on to present a sketch of a humanistic-Marxist interpretation of unalienated and free activity. This will be seen to involve not only a very different structural relation to other people, to one’s own activity, and to the natural world than the one that obtains in alienated activity—but also a very different structural relation between cognition, conation, sensoryexperience, feeling, (etc.). Then I will give a sketch of a praxis-oriented interpretation of historical materialism, which will serve to bring out the historicity of reason, and the historicity of the modes of rationality that prevail at various stages in world history. The last section of this paper will argue: (1) that a transformation of reason is a real possibility; (2) that a transformation of reason in the direction of the kind of unalienated and free activity I have delineated earlier offers the best hope for a human future and a sustainable relation to the natural world; and also (3) that at this juncture in human history it has now become a practical necessity, if humankind is to lift itself out of the mounting world crisis—spiritual and otherwise—in which we are all enmeshed. (shrink)

This article offers an approach to advance the use of virtue ethics in the training of business managers and leaders, as well as in the education of business students. A thesis is that virtue ethics offers a valuable way to think about how we want to be and what we should strive to become qua businessperson, manager, and leader. The article provides a framework for thinking about virtue ethics in the context of business and leadership, with emphasis on building trust (...) in organizations. It includes a brief summary of Aristotelian virtue ethics, core concepts, and how they apply to management and leadership decision-making. The article concludes with a summary of an approach for teaching a virtue ethics module, which has evolved over the past 20 years. Included are exercises, a survey tool, and a business case as components of the module. The module has been used in corporate training, as well as graduate and undergraduate business education. It is hoped this approach will spur others to explore other ways to bring virtue ethics to business and business education. (shrink)

Many environmentalists believe that the ethos of capitalism is a primary cause of environmental degradation, arguing that only a fundamental shift away from the materialism and competition of the marketplace will allow humans to live within the earth's carrying capacity. A different strand of contemporary thought, free market environmentalism, argues the opposite: private ownership, individual choice, and the creative forces of human ingenuity are the best available means to solve ecological problems. This essay considers how Christian ecological ethics should respond (...) to free market environmentalism, identifying its moral claims and the theoretical questions it poses to our field while also critiquing the shortcomings that accompany its economic view of human nature and character. We advocate a pragmatic approach that engages in a mutually educative dialogue toward the shared goal of protecting the earth and all its inhabitants. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Political Theology of Climate Change by Michael S. Northcott, and: Restored to Earth: Christianity, Environmental Ethics, and Ecological Restoration by Gretel Van WierenKevin J. O’BrienA Political Theology of Climate Change Michael S. Northcott grand rapids, mi: eerdmans, 2013. 335 pp. $30.00Restored to Earth: Christianity, Environmental Ethics, and Ecological Restoration Gretel Van Wieren washington, dc: georgetown university press, 2013. 208 pp. $29.95These two excellent books, A Political Theology (...) of Climate Change by Michael S. Northcott and Restored to Earth by Gretel Van Wieren, offer distinct directions for Christian environmental ethics: Northcott develops a rigorous analysis of climate change as a failure of enlightenment rationality and politics, while Van Wieren argues that those who care about the earth can connect with it through the practice of ecological restoration. Northcott theologically defines a complex global problem; Van Wieren theologically engages a community-based solution. Each book advances Christian environmental ethics in important ways; considered together, they have much to teach about the content and methods of the field.Northcott’s A Political Theology of Climate Change argues that climate change is a “cosmopolitical crisis” and that Christians should embrace a more ecological and theological politics in response. Theologians and ethicists have long argued that environmental degradation has cosmological roots: The belief that human beings are separate from nature makes global-scale degradation and pollution acceptable. Northcott adds a nuanced political analysis, noting that modern politics is based on a denial “that the weather is political, or that politics influences the climate” (46). Enlightenment thinkers who laid the groundwork for contemporary political structures insisted that storms and floods were not divine responses to human behavior, so modern nation-states are premised on an ideological separation from nature. Climate change reveals the failure of such thinking, so the facts of climate change pose an inherently political challenge.Thus, failures to act on climate change are political failures. Mainstream politics cannot consider that economic growth is unsustainable because it is premised on ignorance about nature. Nations cannot collaborate to solve the problem because they have no common moral agreement “about the ends and goals of human life” (245). Any response to climate change that simply extends [End Page 198] the enlightenment project—by ascribing “rights” to the natural world, or by trusting existing secular political structures—is doomed to failure. Instead, climate change calls for a different cosmology and a different politics.Northcott argues that both can be found in the Christian tradition. Natural law thinking respects the relationship between human beings and external moral standards “set into the structure of the cosmos,” demanding careful accounting for the atmospheric consequences of human action (246). Virtue ethics teaches the ideal of politics as a “community of friendship and love,” nurturing practices of participation in the good life, lived with less consumption and less destructive energy (200).Northcott hopes that small-scale communities inspired by Christian cosmology and Christian politics will transition away from destructive practices and thereby demonstrate a new way of life to the world. His book concludes by reasserting that because climate change is a political problem, it is fundamentally a theological problem, calling human communities to “re-create the historic and customary connections between nature and culture, land and life, love for neighbour and nature which are central to the Jewish and Christian messianism of empire-challenging love” (316).In contrast to Northcott’s focus on political and philosophical failures, Gretel Van Wieren’s Restored to Earth seeks a “more positive, solution-oriented” approach to Christian ethics (viii). The book is about reconnecting humans with the natural world through ecological restoration, “the science and art of repairing ecosystems that have been damaged by human activities” (2), and it argues that restoration models moral life by creating physical, intellectual, emotional, communal, and spiritual connections with the natural world.Van Wieren begins with an interdisciplinary definition of ecological restoration and argues that views on the practice depend upon varied definitions of nature. She then moves to a nuanced account of restoration ecology as a spiritual practice (chapter 3) of community formation (chapter 4). Evocatively recounting a controlled prairie burn in Illinois on Maundy Thursday, Van Wieren... (shrink)

White climate ethicists have a responsibility to learn, teach, and write about the intersections between climate change and white supremacy. Learning from Andrea Smith’s understanding of white supremacy as three pillars—commodification, orientalism, and genocide—built from heteropatriarchy, this essay argues that white climate ethicists should focus on particular experiences rather than universal narratives; learn from histories of colonization, slavery, and genocide; and support coalitions that empower people of color and indigenous communities. A focus on the writings of scholars from marginalized identities (...) leads to an understanding of climate change as atmospheric defilement. (shrink)

CHRISTIAN ECOLOGICAL ETHICISTS INCREASINGLY RECOGNIZE THAT MORAL response to contemporary problems such as mass extinction and climate change must incorporate and build upon established movements for social justice. This essay contributes to that work by learning from the twentieth-century union organizer César Chávez and his advocacy for justice and environmental health among farm workers. I argue that understanding key themes of Chávez's morality in his context, particularly the universality of human dignity and the importance of personal and collective sacrifice, can (...) contribute to a Christian ecological ethics with a program for social change and justice. (shrink)

"This book offers a multidisciplinary environmental approach to ethics in response to the contemporary challenge of climate change caused by globalized economics and consumption. This book synthesises the incredible complexity of the problem and the necessity of action in response, highlighting the unambiguous problem facing humanity in the 21st century, but arguing that it is essential to develop an ethics housed in ambiguity in response. Environmental Ethics and Uncertainty is divided into theoretical and applied chapters, with the theoretical sections engaging (...) in dialogue with theorists and scholars from a variety of disciplines, while the applied chapters offer insight from 20th century activists who demonstrate and/or illuminate the theory, including Martin Luther King, Rachel Carson and Frank Lloyd Wright. This book is written for scholars and students in the interdisciplinary field of environmental studies and the environmental humanities, and will appeal to courses in religion, philosophy, ethics, politics and social theory"--. (shrink)

Literature reviews have repeatedly emphasized the need to further investigate relationships between corporate social responsibility and micro-organizational variables. The present research attempts to address this call by examining the direct and indirect relationship between individual perceptions of CSR and employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors. Multiphasic data from 207 workplace supervisor–subordinate dyads recruited from an online panel were analyzed to show that organizational identification mediated the relationship between CSR and OCBs. Furthermore, supervisor transformational leadership style moderated the mediation, such that the indirect (...) effect of the organizational identification on the relationship between CSR and OCBs became nonsignificant under low transformational leadership. Based on these results, we make suggestions for using embeddedness programs to improve perceptions of CSR. (shrink)

In ‘The Tollgate Principles for the Governance of Geoengineering’, Stephen M. Gardiner and Augustin Fragnière develop a holistic framework for geoengineering governance, pointing out the importance...

The contributors to this volume offer, in the light of specialised knowledge of leading philosophers of the ancient world, answers to the question: how are we to read and understand the surviving texts of Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and Augustine?

The contributors to this volume offer, in the light of specialised knowledge of leading philosophers of the ancient world, answers to the question: how are we to read and understand the surviving texts of Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and Augustine?

O'Brien, Roderick When we held the Woods Centenary Seminar in 1989, the local Naracoorte Herald gave us excellent publicity. I recall sitting with the editor, Richard Peake, as he was briefed by the great Sr Margaret Press, assisted by Fr Kevin Horsell, the parish priest of Bordertown who brought his scientific background, and by me. The editor asked the question: 'If Mary MacKillop is to be canonised, why not Woods?'.

Recently, Dan O’Brien has argued that there are situations in which a hearer can gain testimonial knowledge from a speaker who is lying. In order to make his case, O’Brien presents two examples where a speaker lies to a hearer, but supposedly the hearer comes to have testimonial knowledge on the basis of the lying speaker’s testimony. O’Brien claims that his examples demonstrate that lies can be used to pass on knowledge in a non-inferential fashion. I argue (...) that O’Brien is mistaken. More specifically, I argue that the hearer’s belief in the second example that O’Brien depicts fails to meet two plausible conditions for knowledge. First, the hearer’s belief fails to satisfy the requirements of the epistemic basing relation. Second, the hearer’s belief is not safe. (shrink)