This paper is designed to do three things while discussing the challenge of ethical behavior in organization. First, it discusses some reasons why unethical behavior occurs in organization. Secondly, the paper highlights the importance of organizational culture in establishing an ethical climate within an organization. Finally, the paper presents some suggestions for creating and maintaining an ethically-oriented culture.

The importance of institutionalizing ethics within an organization cannot be underestimated.

The institutionalization of ethics is an important task for today's organizations if they are to effectively counteract the increasingly frequent occurrences of blatantly unethical and often illegal behavior within large and often highly respected organizations. This article discusses the importance of institutionalizing organizational ethics and emphasizes the importance of several variables (psychological contract, organizational commitment, and an ethically-oriented culture) to the institutionalization of ethics within any organization.... institutionalizing ethics may sound ponderous, but its meaning is straightforward. It means getting ethics (...) formally and explicitly into daily business life. It means getting ethics into company policy formation at the board and top management levels and through a formal code, getting ethics into all daily decision making and work practices down the line, at all levels of employment. It means grafting a new branch on the corporate decision tree — a branch that reads right/wrong (Purcell and Weber, 1979, p. 6). (shrink)

A sensible, workable approach to the teaching of business ethics, based on an understanding of how people actually learn and on the need to start with a clear ...

This book seeks to enhance our understanding of the causes of ethical debacles in an era when ethical missteps can often lead to corporate bankruptcies or worse ...

This paper is designed to do three things while discussing the challenge of ethical behavior in organization. First, it discusses some reasons why unethical behavior occurs in organization. Secondly, the paper highlights the importance of organizational culture in establishing an ethical climate within an organization. Finally, the paper presents some suggestions for creating and maintaining an ethically-oriented culture.

Scientific models are used to predict and understand the target phenomena in the reality. The kind of epistemic relationship between the model and the reality is always regarded by most of the philosophers as a representational one. I argue that, complementary to this representational role, some of the scientific models have a constructive role to play in altering and reconstructing the reality in a physical way. I hold that the idealized model assumptions and elements bestow the constructive force of a (...) model on the reality. By recognizing the physical constructive force of some scientific models, the merit of these models could be judged by how successful they are in the reality construction, rather than by the traditional criterion of model-world representation. (shrink)

Business schools have a responsibility to incorporate applied business ethics courses as part of their undergraduate and MBA curriculum. The purpose of this article is to take a background and historical look at reasons for the new emphasis on ethical coursework in business schools. The article suggests a prescription for undergraduate and graduate education in applied business ethics and explores in detail the need to increase applied business ethics courses in business schools to enhance the ethical development of students.

Efforts to counter software piracy are an increasing focus of software publishers. This study attempts to develop a profile of those who illegally copy software by looking at undergraduate and graduate students and the extent to which they pirate software. The data indicate factors that can be used to profile the software pirater. In particular, males were found to pirate software more frequently than females and older students more than younger students, based on self-reporting.

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between the ethical climate of the organization and the development of person-organization fit. The relationship between an individual's stage of moral development and his/her perceived ethical work environment was examined using a sample of 86 working students. Results indicate that a match between individual preferences and present position proved most satisfying. Subjects expressing a match between their preferences for an ethical work climate and their present ethical work (...) climate indicated that they were less likely to leave their positions. (shrink)

Religion and philosophy in 'Akāla usatati', portion of Daswen̲ Pādshāh kā Granth, attributed to Gobind Singh, Guru, 1666-1708.

Conversation with Navjyoti Singh, philosopher, chiefly about his views of modern Indic philosophy.

Turning around and changing an organization's culture does not happen by chance. The purpose of this paper is to offer insights into what is needed for an organization to successfully transform itself from a culture and experience that does not support individual ethical behavior. The recent bond trading scandal at Salomon Brothers will be used to demonstrate that a successful ethical turnaround does not just happen spontaneously. In particular, we argue that new leadership, altering policies, structure, behavior, and beliefs are (...) paramount to successfully change to an organizational culture that supports ethical behavior. Schein's five primary mechanisms available to leaders for embedding and reinforcing culture will be used to systematically analyze efforts to change Salomon Brothers' culture. (shrink)

Biogenic approaches investigate cognition from the standpoint of evolutionary function, asking what cognition does for a living system and then looking for common principles and exhibitions of cognitive strategies in a vast array of living systems—non-neural to neural. One worry which arises for the biogenic approach is that it is overly permissive in terms of what it construes as cognition. In this paper I critically engage with a recent instance of this way of criticising biogenic approaches in order to clarify (...) their theoretical commitments and prospects. In his critique of the biogenic approach, Fred Adams uses the presence of intentional states with conceptual content as a criterion to demarcate cognition-driven behaviour from mere sensory response. In this paper I agree with Adams that intentionality is the mark of the cognitive, but simultaneously reject his overly restrictive conception of intentionality. I argue that understanding intentionality simpliciter as the mark of the mental is compatible with endorsing the biogenic approach. I argue that because cognitive science is not exclusively interested in behaviour driven by intentional states with the kind of content Adams demands, the biogenic approach’s status as an approach to cognition is not called into question. I then go on to propose a novel view of intentionality whereby it is seen to exist along a continuum which increases in the degree of representational complexity: how far into the future representational content can be directed and drive anticipatory behaviour. Understanding intentionality as existing along a continuum allows biogenic approaches and anthropogenic approaches to investigate the same overarching capacity of cognition as expressed in its different forms positioned along the continuum of intentionality. Even if all organisms engage in some behaviour that is driven by weak intentional dynamics, this does not suggest that every behaviour of all organisms is so driven. As such, the worry that the biogenic approach is overly permissive can be avoided. (shrink)

ion is one of the important processes in scientific modeling. It has always been implied that abstraction is an agent-centric activity that involves the cognitive processes of scientists in model building. I contend that there is an autonomous aspect of abstraction in many modeling activities. I argue that the autonomous process of abstraction is continuous with the agent-centric abstraction but capable of evolving independently from the modeler’s abstraction activity.

Although recent research suggests that women are underrepresented in philosophy after initial philosophy courses, there have been relatively few empirical investigations into the factors that lead to this early drop-off in women’s representation. In this paper, we present the results of empirical investigations at a large American public university that explore various factors contributing to women’s underrepresentation in philosophy at the undergraduate level. We administered climate surveys to hundreds of students completing their Introduction to Philosophy course and examined differences in (...) women’s and men’s feelings of belonging, comfort, and confidence in the philosophy classroom. We present findings suggesting various factors that contribute to women’s lower willingness to continue in philosophy compared to men’s, including perceptions about intuition-based methods in philosophy, the usefulness of the philosophy major, philosophy as a male discipline, and philosophical abilities as innate talents. We conclude by providing some suggestions for improving undergraduate philosophy courses in ways that would increase women’s willingness to continue in philosophy and may improve the courses for all students. (shrink)

Polemical Advaita treatise, with a 16th century commentary, against Jayatīrtha's Nyāyasudhā, 13th century super-commentary on Madhva's Aṇuvyākhyāna, Dvaita commentary of Bādarāyaṇa's Brahmasūtra, basic work of Vedanta.

On Advaita, Hindu philosophy with Telugu commentary.

Sanskrit classical text on Advaita philosophy; includes explanation in Hindi.

This paper is designed to do four things. First, the paper discusses the importance of groupthink in contributing to unethical behavior. Second, the paper discribes how groupthink contributed to unethical behavior in three organizations (Beech-Nut, E. F. Hutton, and Salomon Brothers). Third, symptoms of groupthink (such as arrogance, overcommitment, and excessive loyalty to the group) will be presented along with two methods for programming conflict (devil's advocate and dialectic) into an organization and group's decisions. Finally, the paper introduces some prescriptions (...) for reducing the probability of groupthink. (shrink)

Predictive processing theories are increasingly popular in philosophy of mind; such process theories often gain support from the Free Energy Principle —a normative principle for adaptive self-organized systems. Yet there is a current and much discussed debate about conflicting philosophical interpretations of FEP, e.g., representational versus non-representational. Here we argue that these different interpretations depend on implicit assumptions about what qualifies as representational. We deploy the Free Energy Principle instrumentally to distinguish four main notions of representation, which focus on organizational, (...) structural, content-related and functional aspects, respectively. The various ways that these different aspects matter in arriving at representational or non-representational interpretations of the Free Energy Principle are discussed. We also discuss how the Free Energy Principle may be seen as a unified view where terms that traditionally belong to different ontologies—e.g., notions of model and expectation versus notions of autopoiesis and synchronization—can be harmonized. However, rather than attempting to settle the representationalist versus non-representationalist debate and reveal something about what representations are simpliciter, this paper demonstrates how the Free Energy Principle may be used to reveal something about those partaking in the debate; namely, what our hidden assumptions about what representations are—assumptions that act as sometimes antithetical starting points in this persistent philosophical debate. (shrink)

This study considers the ethical decision making of individual employees and the influence their perception of organizational expectations has on employee feelings about the decision making process. A self-administered questionnaire design was used for gathering data in this study, with a sample size of 245 full-time employees. The match between the ethical alternative chosen by the respondent and that alternative perceived to be encouraged by his/her organization was found to be significantly related to both feelings of discomfort and feelings of (...) intrapersonal role conflict. Implications for these findings are discussed. (shrink)

The recent corporate scandals in the United States have caused a renewed interest and focus on teaching business ethics. Business schools and their faculties are reexamining the teaching of business ethics and are reassessing their responsibilities to produce honest and truthful managers who live lives of integrity and ethical accountability. The authors recognize that no agreement exists among business schools and their faculties regarding what should be the content and pedagogy of a course in business ethics. However, the authors hold (...) that regardless of one’s biases regarding the content and pedagogy, the effective teaching of business ethics requires that the instructor in designing and delivering a business ethics course needs to focus particular attention on four principal questions: (1) what are the objectives or targeted learning outcomes of the course? (2) what kind of learning environment should be created? (3) what learning processes need to be employed to achieve the goals? and (4) what are the roles of the participants in the learning experience? The answers to these questions provide the foundations for any business ethics course. The answers are major determinants of the impact of a business ethics course on the thinking of students and the views on the ethical and professional accountabilities and responsibilities of managers in the workplace. (shrink)

Pictorial representations such as diagrams and figures are widely used in scientific literature for explanatory and descriptive purposes. The intuitive nature of pictorial representations coupled with texts foster a better understanding of the objects of study. Biological mechanisms and processes can be clearly illustrated and grasped in pictures. I argue that pictorial representations describe biological phenomena by telling stories. I elaborate on the role of narrative structures of pictures in the frontier research using a case study in immunology. I articulate (...) that pictures with an inherent narrative structure are crucial in biological sciences. (shrink)

Under the assumption that anticipatory models are required for anticipatory behavior, an important question arises about the different manners in which organisms acquire anticipatory models. This article aims to articulate four different non-exhaustive ways that anticipatory models might possibly be acquired over both phylogenetic and ontogenetic timescales and explore the relationships among them. To articulate these different model-acquisition mechanisms, four schematics will be introduced, each of which represents a particular acquisition structure that can be used for the purposes of comparison, (...) analysis, and hypothesis formulation. By bringing to the fore the differences and similarities between each of the four ways that anticipatory models are acquired, a more complete picture of both anticipatory behavior and its pervasive role in biological self-maintenance can be offered. In doing so, this article helps not only to shed light on how anticipatory behavior might arise in the wide range of organisms that it has been observed in but also to throw into relief the subtle and often still overlooked causal interplay between ontogenetic and phylogenetic plasticity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Spiritual Experience and Psychopathology”Andrew Sims (bio)In examining this interesting paper, we need first of all to understand what the authors are doing. They are not taking the conceptual vehicles of “spiritual experience” (SE) and “psychotic phenomena” (PP) for a gentle outing, but exposing both of them to the hardest road test they can devise. From 1,000 accounts of “spiritual experiences” that were already so dramatic that those (...) involved were prepared to describe them, the authors selected three which most successfully blurred the boundaries between SE and PP. So we are not exploring whether these concepts have general practical validity, but whether their mutual frontiers are discrete or overlapping. The authors’ task is legitimate, but it needs to be recognized for what it is.Unusual spiritual experiences are interpreted by the authors as psychotic symptoms, and the definitions of the Present State Examination (PSE) descriptions are cited to justify this. However, we have known for a long time that using instruments for purposes for which they were not designed can produce unexpected results; it is rather like washing socks in a dishwasher and being surprised that it does little good to the socks. The PSE was devised for categorizing and quantifying existing psychiatric disorders in epidemiological studies. The further one gets from this, its true purpose, the less satisfactory it becomes as an instrument. A better way of evaluating symptomatology in an individual case is a skilled and painstaking interview by a well-trained descriptive psychopathologist. One can only conclude from the authors’ use of the PSE in distinguishing SE from PP, that the instrument itself is not capable of doing this, which is not really very surprising. One can form no views on the concepts of SE and PP themselves, except that in some circumstances they may be difficult to tell apart.It would be easy to dispute whether Simon’s beliefs were delusions. Believers from many religious backgrounds “know” that God gives them thoughts or ideas, and it requires detailed psychopathological examination, and not the application of a questionnaire, to distinguish this from the much more concrete experience as described in PSE of “inserted thoughts.”Rating scales, be they assessments of the quality of teaching in primary schools or quantification of established psychotic symptoms, are necessarily only a pale reflection and an over-simplification of the skilled work that professionals undertake. To imply that because a score could be given on the PSE to an otherwise healthy woman who describes the frequent experience of hearing God’s voice, denies the validity of her experience, but also affronts the professional skills of a trained psychopathologist. When psychiatrists, or even [End Page 79] untrained research workers, use the PSE they are presumably doing so as part of an epidemiological research study, and the validity of their individual result is evened out by results from a number of other subjects. If a psychiatrist is trying to decide whether Sara had “true” hallucinations, he or she will carry out a psychopathological interview in which the criteria for establishing true hallucinations are much more sophisticated than is possible in a questionnaire, and the interview will be individualized. Sara’s significant statement, “but God doesn’t take your free will away,” immediately distinguishes her diagnosis from schizophrenia. It was good that Sara’s priest did not need detailed knowledge of psychopathology to come to a common-sense evaluation of her experience.It was with some feelings of disappointment that I realized that when the authors use the word “psychotic” they merely mean that a tick could be placed in an appropriate box for the PSE. If one were to carry out an investigation of serum electrolytes on a fit athlete on completion of a marathon, one would get bizarre and probably abnormal results. For a quantified investigation to be meaningful, one must always take account of the context.When I read these three cases as a psychopathologist, I find no convincing psychotic phenomena, and the three human beings were undoubtedly not psychotic at the time of expression of their religious experiences. The word psychosis is not helpful in psychopathology: if one looks more specifically in these cases for the phenomena... (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to the discussion of how religious perspectives can improve business ethics. Two such perspectives are in natural law of antiquity and recent Catholic social doctrine and teaching. This paper develops a conceptual framework from natural law and CSD/T that business leaders can adopt to build an ethos of humanistic management. This “Human Dignity-Centered” framework fills the gap between time-tested Christian norms and contemporary firm-leaders’ concrete needs. “Human dignity” is used as a rhetorical device to convey (...) the idea that firms are composed of dynamic social networks, with an ultimate purpose of serving human needs. Ultimately, the principles and virtues the framework employs have a logic that should inspire excellence, as ethical practices and concern for human welfare lay a foundation for long-term business prosperity. In a one-frame visual representation, this paper portrays: firm leadership challenges; a transforming ethical prism of principles and virtues; and results and feedback mechanisms. The accompanying narrative describes each element and how each affects humanistic management. Finally, illustrative company examples and questions are provided to illustrate how the framework can be used to benefit human flourishing. The framework provides an adjunct to current formulations of improving managerial excellence. (shrink)

This paper describes and discusses the Enron Corporation debacle. The paper presents the business ethics background and leadership mechanisms affecting Enron''s collapse and eventual bankruptcy. Through a systematic analysis of the organizational culture at Enron (following Schein''s frame of reference) the paper demonstrates how the company''s culture had profound effects on the ethics of its employees.

Mechanisms consist of component parts and processes organized in a specific way to produce changes that may give rise to one or more phenomena. I aim to examine the generative mechanism of generative material models in the production of new material models. A generative material model in biology is a living material model that is capable of generating new material models. I contend that generative mechanisms of a generative material model are not to be conflated with biological mechanisms: the former (...) is a mechanism manipulated and altered by the modeler while the latter is a naturally occurring mechanism. I examine the ways in which idealization may contribute to the generative mechanism in generating new model organisms. I articulate that the component parts and activities in a generative mechanism are to a large extent shaped by idealization in generative material modeling. Although biological mechanisms do have a role to play in the generation of model organisms, I propose that we shall view the generative mechanism as a hybrid of biological mechanisms and modeling activities. I shall argue that the notion of generative mechanisms as hybrid mechanisms is different from the extant conceptions of mechanisms in various aspects. (shrink)

Derrida describes the relationship between ethics and politics as an absolute hiatus . One problematic consequence of this formulation is that there seems to be no way for the ethical law to bear on political practice. I attempt to locate a link between the ethical and the political within this hiatus, through a reading of texts by two thinkers whose confrontation is suggested by Derrida: Carl Schmitt and Emmanuel Levinas. The link between the ethical and the political is that they (...) are respectively defined by the prohibition and the sanctioning of the same act: killing. In the discourses of both thinkers, killing is pivotal on account of its exceptional character. Through an analysis of the role of the exception in their work, I determine that Schmitt’s conception of the political requires Levinas’s conception of the ethical as its formal condition. I end by considering what consequences this derivation has for politics. Key Words: decision • Jacques Derrida • the ethical • ethics • exception • killing • Emmanuel Levinas • the political • politics • Carl Schmitt. (shrink)

In a broad brush, biological models are often constructed in two general types: as a concrete model; as an abstract model. A concrete model is a material model such as model organisms, while an abstract model is a mathematical or computational model consists of equations or algorithms. Though there are types of biological models that cannot be strictly categorized as either concrete or abstract, they are falling somewhere in between this spectrum. In view of the fact that biological phenomena are (...) sui generis and distinct from physical phenomena in many respects, using the concepts in standard modeling fails to account for the differences between biological sciences and physical sciences. Drawing from the resources of a credible-world account of models in economic modeling, I propose to reinterpret abstract models and concrete models in the light of the credible world account of models. (shrink)

Plant predictive processing suggests that plants anticipatorily perceive their environment. This hypothesis runs up against a challenge which takes the form of two constraints on per- ception advanced by Tyler Burge: the veridicality constraint and the constancy constraint. This paper argues that the veridicality constraint can be satisfied by assuming a general account of predictive processing. To show how the constancy constraint may be fulfilled, an ecologically informed account of invariant pick-up is developed and given a place within plant predictive (...) processing. It is concluded that, against our anthro- pocentric folk-psychological notions of perception, there is reason to believe that plants engage in minimal perception. (shrink)