Recent ethical breeches by corporate governorsat the highest levels have called into questionwhether ethical attitudes have changed sincethe Corporate Raider scandals of the mid-1980s. We exploit a unique opportunity to follow-up ona previous investigation of college students inthe mid-1980s to analyze this question. Usinga similar survey instrument, we find thatstudents surveyed in 2001 are significantlyless accepting of the ethically questionablesituations in seven of 15 scenarios and moreaccepting in only one. Seven scenarios showedno significant change. We conclude that,overall, ethical attitudes of (...) students in 2001appear to have become higher over time. To theextent that current students are futurebusiness leaders, we find these results to beencouraging for the long term. (shrink)

Recent highly publicized ethical breaches including those at Enron and WorldCom have focused attention on ethical behavior within the accounting profession. At the heart of the debate is whether ethical attitudes of accountants are to blame. Using a nationally representative sample of accounting practitioners and a multidisciplinary student sample at two Southern United States universities, we compare sample responses to 25 ethically charged vignettes to test whether they differ. Overall, we find no significant difference - even for a specific "accounting (...) tricks" vignette, which resembles the Enron and WorldCom situations. We do find, however, that the practitioners were more accepting of vignettes that involved physical harm to individuals and those that were legal. We postulate that accounting practitioners may apply a legalistic framework to their assessment of the acceptability of each vignette. Focusing on an "accounting tricks" vignette, we also find no significant difference between auditors and institutional practitioners compared to all other types of accountants in the sample. We conclude that ethical attitudes of accounting practitioners do not differ significantly by specialty area. (shrink)

Recent highly publicized ethical breaches including those at Enron and WorldCom have focused attention on ethical behavior within the accounting profession. At the heart of the debate is whether ethical attitudes of accountants are to blame. Using a nationally representative sample of accounting practitioners and a multidisciplinary student sample at two Southern United States universities, we compare sample responses to 25 ethically charged vignettes to test whether they differ. Overall, we find no significant difference – even for a specific “accounting (...) tricks” vignette, which resembles the Enron and WorldCom situations. We do find, however, that the practitioners were more accepting of vignettes that involved physical harm (PH) to individuals and those that were legal (but ethically questionable). We postulate that accounting practitioners may apply a legalistic framework to their assessment of the acceptability of each vignette. Focusing on an “accounting tricks” vignette, we also find no significant difference between auditors and institutional practitioners compared to all other types of accountants in the sample. We conclude that ethical attitudes of accounting practitioners do not differ significantly by specialty area. (shrink)

We address a previous finding in the business ethics literature in which accounting professionals in higher rank levels, i.e., “manager” or “partner” of auditing firms, appear to have lower moral reasoning ability than their junior counterparts. Prior investigations have relied upon a similar methodology for estimating ethical beliefs, namely testing “moral reasoning ability” using either the Moral Judgment Interview or Defining Issues Test. In the present study, we use a multiple vignettes approach to test for the existence of the inverse (...) rank-ethical beliefs effect. With only 2 of the 30 vignettes resulting in both managers and partners being more accepting of the ethically charged behaviors, the results presented here using this alternative methodology are generally not supportive of the inverse rank-ethical beliefs phenomenon. We also use a multivariate analysis in order to control for demographic characteristics. Our results suggest that the most robust predictor of ethical attitudes among accounting practitioners is age, not rank within a firm. (shrink)

We survey students at two Southern United States universities (one public and one private, religiously affiliated). Using a survey instrument that includes 25 vignettes, we test two important hypotheses: whether ethical attitudes are affected by religiosity (H1) and whether ethical attitudes are affected by courses in ethics, religion or theology (H2). Using a definition of religiosity based on behavior (church attendance), our results indicate that religiosity is a statistically significant predictor of responses in a number of ethical scenarios. In seven (...) of the eight vignettes for which religiosity is significant, the effect is negative, implying that it reduces the acceptability of ethically-charged scenarios. Completion of ethics or religion classes, however, was a significant predictor of ethical attitudes in only two of the 25 vignettes (and in the expected direction). We also find that males and younger respondents appear to be more accepting of the ethically-questionable vignettes. We conclude that factors outside of the educational system may be more influential in shaping responses to ethical vignettes than are ethics and religion courses. (shrink)

Recent high-profile corporate scandals are reminiscent of the corporate raider scandals of the 1980s, suggesting that ethical scandals may occur in waves. This article provides a framework for analysis of this question by suggesting that ethical attitudes may be cyclical about long-term secular trends. We provide some empirical evidence from previously published work for the existence of cycles as well as a potential mechanism for their propagation, namely widespread publicity about a particularly salient event, e.g., Enron. Further, we posit that (...) long-run secular trends would be affected through more deliberate, cognitive means, e.g., instruction in business ethics. We also discuss an important research implication, namely that traditional cross-sectional “book-end” studies surveying ethical attitudes at two different points in time may be unable to disentangle short-run cyclical movements from long-term secular trends. (shrink)

As a result of numerous, highly publicized, ethical breaches, firms and their agents are under ongoing scrutiny. In an attempt to improve both their image and their ethical performance, some firms have adopted ethical codes of conduct. Past research investigating the effects of ethical codes of conduct on behavior and ethical attitudes has yielded mixed results. In this study, we again take up the question of the effect of ethical codes on ethical attitudes and find strong evidence to suggest that (...) business professionals employed at firms with ethical codes of conduct are significantly less accepting of ethically questionable behavior toward most stakeholders. One notable exception relates to ethical actions toward customers. (shrink)

Several essays, articles, and papers have appeared during the last fifteen years which have shed light on the place and function of science in the intellectual life of eighteenth-century Scotland. Some have concentrated on ideological factors such as the increasing concerns with polite culture, improvement, and the reaction of the Scottish élite to the Act of Union. Others have noted the roles of Jacobites and Whigs in the production of a culture which was unique to Scotland. The generalist educational ideals (...) held by Scots have been explored, as have their philosophical, methodological, and mathematical traditions. Another set of papers has fruitfully examined ‘the social role of knowledge’ and has attempted through studies of the politics of Scottish science and a consideration of its audience to show how the characteristics of local provincial society could influence if not ‘determine scientific activity, its social organization or intellectual structure’. Concerns with the institutionalization of scientific activities and the acceptance of new values have also led to studies of the universities, medical corporations, and societies which provided focuses for scientific enquiry. All of these studies have emphasized the aspects of science north of the Tweed between about 1690 and 1830 which seem uniquely Scottish. No one would deny the value of these works but perhaps it is now time to redress the balance and to notice how typical much of the scientific work of the Scots was, and how easily it and the institutions through which it was pursued can be fitted into the wider context of the European Enlightenment. (shrink)

The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh which had flourished for a few years after 1738 was as good as dead in 1748. Lord Morton, its President, now lived most of the time in London whence he wrote to Sir John Clerk in 1747 that he regarded the Society as ‘annihilated’, apparently thinking that the death of Colin MacLaurin in 1746 and the temporary retirement to the countryside of its other Secretary, Andrew Plummer, had put an end to it. Sir John had (...) hoped to revive it through association with the Royal Society of London, but Morton did not encourage him in this scheme, about which he had ‘great doubts’. The Society needed a mathematician and an experimenter who could carry on the consulting work which MacLaurin had done, but Morton glumly wondered if ‘the new professor of Mathematics [Matthew Stewart] will be as zealous as MacLaurin had been.’ The Society's other officers, Dr John Clerk and Alexander Lind, are not known to have tried to revive the Society. Perhaps they were discouraged by the fact that ten of the members of the Society were dead, and that six more had left the kingdom. At least three others were likely to have been habitually absent from meetings because they lived some distance from Edinburgh. Of the remaining forty-five known members in 1748, nine were over sixty-one years of age with four being between seventy-one and seventy-six. In 1737 the average age of thirty-eight of the founders had been 46.0, but by 1748 it had risen to 53.9 for the thirty-three men for whom it can be calculated. Disruption, death, and age had diminished enthusiasm for the Society and jeopardized its survival. Only two meetings are known to have been held in 1746. Sir John's letter to Morton about affiliation with the Royal Society is the only clear sign of life in 1747. We may well ask why this floundering body survived, to whom and to what it owed its revival? The answers to these questions tell us something about the intellectual needs and interests of the Edinburgh intelligentsia of the mid-eighteenth century. (shrink)

This paper shows that in late seventeenth-century Scotland there existed a sizeable virtuoso community whose leaders were abreast of European developments in philosophy, history and science. Moreover, by c. 1700, Sir Robert Sibbald was attempting to organize a learned society modelled upon those he knew in Europe and upon London's Royal Society. The interests of the virtuosi and their attempts to institutionalize their pursuits laid much of the ground work for the Scottish Enlightenment. The Royal Society of Scotland which Sir (...) Robert hoped to found never became a reality, but the academic ideals which he propounded came to fruition in the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh and later bodies such as the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The intellectual inquiries and achievements of Sir Robert and his friends, particularly those in medicine and natural history, continued to be of interest to later Scots. They, thanks in part to the influence of the Newtonian physician Archibald Pitcaire, improved upon Sibbald's naïve Baconianism, but to a surprising degree their concerns had also been his. (shrink)

The story of the end of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh in 1783, is linked with that of the founding of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and the Royal Society of Edinburgh , both of which were given Royal Charters sealed on 6 May 1783. It is a story which has been admirably told by Steven Shapin. He persuasively argued that the P.S.E. was a casualty of bitter quarrels rooted in local Edinburgh politics, in personal animosities and in disputes (...) about the control of cultural property and intellectual leadership. In all this he was surely correct just as he was in finding the principal actors in this controversy to be: David Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan; the Reverend Dr John Walker, Professor of Natural History in Edinburgh University; Dr William Cullen, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Vice-President of the P.S.E.; Mr William Smellie, Printer to the Society of Antiquaries; Henry Home, Lord Kames, S.C.J. and President of the P.S.E.; Sir George Clerk-Maxwell, Vice-President of the P.S.E.; John Robison, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Secretary to the P.S.E.; Edinburgh University's Principal, William Robertson; the Curators of the Advocates Library: Ilay Campbell, Robert Blair, Alexander Abercromby, Alexander Fraser Tytler, Professor of Public Law; Henry Dundas, Lord Advocate and M.P. for Midlothian. In a peripheral way, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons were probably also involved; so too were Lord Buchan's brothers, Henry and Thomas Erskine, Foxite Whigs who opposed Dundas politically. Henry Erskine displaced Dundas as Lord Advocate in August 1783. After the change of ministry on 18 December 1783 he was ousted, but became Dean of the Faculty of Advocates in 1785. National as well as burgh politics touched these disputes and gave the parties of the Erskines and Dundas and his friends some leverage in London. (shrink)

The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh Throughout the years 1768–1783 looked to the outside world like a flourishing and important body. By 1771 it had sponsored the publication of five volumes of papers which had gone through several printings and translations. It had a distinguished foreign membership which assured its recognition abroad as one of the important academic bodies in the cosmopolitan Republic of Letters. From its foundation in 1737 until his death in 1768, its President had been the Earl of (...) Morton, better known as the President of the Royal Society of London and as an astronomer who had been active in the practical work of the London society. Another member, Sir John Pringle, became President of the Royal Society in 1772. It was also known abroad that among the Edinburgh philosophers were to be found the most important professors of the town's university, not only those of its distinguished medical faculty but also men like William Robertson, Adam Ferguson and later John Robison. David Hume had been at one time a Secretary of the Society and probably remained a member to the end of his life in 1776. In the British colonies, the Society could point to members in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Jamaica and other West Indian islands and it had contacts in a far-flung network reaching from China and Siberia in the east to places less remote in Europe and America. Within Britain, the Society had members in London and in provincial towns of whom William Brownrigg was the most important. From these men and from others scattered in Scotland, the Society drew information and projected its image as a successful learned society. These appearances, however, are far clearer than the Society's record of accomplishment during its last years. It is not accidental that so little pertaining to its work survives. The Society in reality had a career far from brilliant and by 1778 hardly deserved the reputation it had acquired. During its last five years it revived but even then it probably did not reach the level of activity seen in the early and mid 1750s. (shrink)

Amateur scientists were important in the science of the eighteenth century as patrons, investors in talent and new equipment, as the maintainers of gardens and libraries, and, occasionally, as men who could and did make discoveries or significant innovations. The article shows that the 3rd Duke of Argyll was one of these men. He was also much more. Ilay's interests in science, because of his important political position in Scotland, touched not only his immediate friends but helped to reshape Scottish (...) culture itself. This essay looks at his scientific interests, his political career, and his patronage to argue that the results of his long career in politics were to institutionalize a new set of modern values in most Scottish institutions. (shrink)

The world in which the Scottish Enlightenment took shape -- Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll (1682-1761) : patronage and the creation of the Scottish Enlightenment -- How many Scots were enlightened? -- What did eighteenth-century Scottish students read? -- Our excellent and never to be forgotten friend : David Hume (26 April 1711- 25 August 1776) -- Hume's intellectual development : part II, 1711-1762 -- Hume's histories -- Hume's economics -- Numbering the medics -- Numbers and money -- Who (...) were they? -- The émigrés as they appear in the American sample. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed a renewed scholarly interest in David Hume’s History of England (1754–1762), and this essay adds to that interest by analyzing the sources that Hume used in the History. Unfortunately, Hume did not provide a bibliography or guide to those sources, and no scholar has produced one since. We have been preparing a bibliography for publication and the following essay is a preliminary view of some of what it will show. It demonstrates that Hume consulted and used (...) more varied sources, and used them in more skillful ways, than commonly has been assumed. (shrink)

The understanding of value in moral naturalism as a descriptivist endeavor will be analized through an application of the naturalistic fallacy on an evolutive perspective of moral psychology. From a brief analysis of the naturalistic fallacy as proposed by Dall’Agnol, I’ll criticize the author’s application of such on what he refers to as moral naturalism. Contrasting E. Wilson’s sociobiology with R. Triver’s theory of reciprocal altruism I will procure a definition of naturalized ethics by investigating the psychological roots of moral (...) motivation. Once identified the descriptive and non-reductionist aspects of contemporary moral naturalism, the naturalistic fallacy presents itself as unbecoming of its hallmark and metaethical importance, and it becomes clear that a naturalized comprehension of human moral behavior is vital to the understanding of the motivations for action and the conception of value; though weak under a normative perspective. (shrink)

I’ll attempt to describe contemporary moral naturalism by an analysis of cognitivist and non-cognitivist theories, elucidating a normative dichotomy in current ethics. Although a recent model in the history of philosophy, post-humean moral naturalism has a myriad of different theories under its name. I’ll attempt to delineate a standard definition of the naturalistic perspective of morality to then divide cognitivist and non-cognitivist theories in order to better understand key points of their difference. This will uncover a normative dichotomy between theories (...) of action, purely descriptive, and of value, which focuses on prescriptiveness. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the four principle realization in the creative work of two poets, namely the English literature classic T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) and a representative of the Russian poetry Elena Swarz (1948-2010). Number four is a structural principle in their works composition and crucifix of Christ. On the example of the two poets the author shows that on the one hand, the symbol of four is a cosmic transversalism of being and the cross image, on the other. Thus, (...) two contradictory meanings are combined here: harmony and drama as truly Christian forms of dialectics. (shrink)

First of all, I should like to express my gratitude to the organizers of this discussion for their initiative in posing and debating the question of Soviet philosophy. I cannot but note the timeliness of this question: today we are sobering up from the mindless nihilism toward all that is "Soviet" and we observe an increasingly sober and realistic, balanced, and analytic approach to the assessment of our past history, including the history of Russian social thought. Indeed, we cannot dismiss (...) as nonexistent or nonessential the range of problems touching on the nature and character of Soviet philosophy and its social functions. In my opinion they exist and they are essential in any event, even when it is claimed that Soviet philosophy was only a failure, a "hole" in the history of Russian philosophical thought. There are several questions: what caused this failure, who is responsible for it, and can one in that case describe Marxist philosophy as the absence of philosophy? (shrink)

Study of the social determinants of consciousness is one of the more timely problems of contemporary philosophy. It requires a complex study of various factors determining the social nature of human consciousness and the cultural-historical mediation of humankind's reflection of the world. Esthetics, which studies the phenomenon of esthetic consciousness, has a place among these scientific disciplines.

The name Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov has entered the ranks of the most outstanding thinkers who are worthy representatives of Russian philosophy. However, we shall not forget that this has become obvious only in recent years in the homeland of this unique philosopher. The scandal created by the publication in 1982 of Fedorov's works in the series Filosofskoe nasledie [Philosophical Heritage] is still remembered. On instructions from above, publication of the works was followed by dismissals, investigations, and allegations about the resurrection, (...) under conditions of "developed socialism," of the works of a "religious-conservative utopian"; there was also an anti-Fedorov campaign in the press. True, enthusiastic investigators—philosophers, literary figures, and artists—did not cease their efforts either before or after this ill-starred scandal to study and publish the works of this "strange" thinker. But it should be said—and this is pointed out in the book under review here—that under conditions of unfree development of philosophical thought, Fedorov's ideas were sometimes distorted to better accord with official attitudes, to make them "acceptable" for publication under the circumstances of that time, as well as for the sake of adapting them for the propaganda of various unofficial ideas, such as "native soil" ideas. Both Fedorov's person and his works have been surrounded by legend. Paradoxical though it may seem, foreign students of the works of the Russian philosopher have had more favorable conditions to study his legacy and have written many articles and books about him. Among them, the dissertation by Michael Hagemeister, Nikolai Fedorov. Studies of His Life, Works, and Influence, published as a book in the series Marburg Studies in the History and Culture of Eastern Europe in 1989, occupies a worthy place. (shrink)