Institutional investors are increasingly becoming active owners through voting their shares and engaging in dialogue with investee companies to improve corporate environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performance. This article applies a model of stakeholder salience to the shareholder context, analysing the attributes of power, legitimacy and urgency, to determine the factors that are likely to enhance shareholder salience. It is found that a strong business case and the values of the managers of investee companies are likely to be the (...) most important contributors to shareholder salience. (shrink)

Next SectionFollowing the influential Gifford and Reith lectures by Onora O’Neill, this paper explores further the paradigm of individual autonomy which has been so dominant in bioethics until recently and concurs that it is an aberrant application and that conceptions of individual autonomy cannot provide a sufficient and convincing starting point for ethics within medical practice. We suggest that revision of the operational definition of patient autonomy is required for the twenty first century. We follow O’Neill in recommending a (...) principled version of patient autonomy, which for us involves the provision of sufficient and understandable information and space for patients, who have the capacity to make a settled choice about medical interventions on themselves, to do so responsibly in a manner considerate to others. We test it against the patient–doctor relationship in which each fully respects the autonomy of the other based on an unspoken covenant and bilateral trust between the doctor and patient. Indeed we consider that the dominance of the individual autonomy paradigm harmed that relationship. Although it seems to eliminate any residue of medical paternalism we suggest that it has tended to replace it with an equally (or possibly even more) unacceptable bioethical paternalism. In addition it may, for example, lead some doctors to consider mistakenly that unthinking acquiescence to a requested intervention against their clinical judgement is honouring “patient autonomy” when it is, in fact, abrogation of their duty as doctors. (shrink)

In a congressional hearing in the spring of 1996, talk show host Kathie Lee Gifford was charged with endorsing clothing made in Honduran sweatshops by exploited children. Resulting media coverage focused public attention on a seamy underside of the "global economy." Redemption strategies used by Gifford and her public relations consultant, and repeated and promoted through the mass media, fed a larger controversy over the meaning of the concept of the global economy and its ethical implications for the (...) American public. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to extend the previous research on ethics in retailing. Prior research of Dornoff and Tankersley, Gifford and Norris, Norris and Gifford, and Burns and Rayman examined the ethics orientation of retail sales persons, sales managers, and business school students. These studies found the college students less ethically-oriented than retail sales people and retail managers. The present study attempts to extend the research on ethics formation to a geographically and academically diverse sample, and (...) to determine if retail management experience in the form of a professional practicum or internship, or entry level management training programs, such as experienced by recent graduates, are critical factors in the formation of business ethics. The sample consisted of thirty-three students majoring in Human Ecology with a concentration in Retail Merchandising and 51 recent graduates of the retail Merchandising program. The series of fourteen vignettes developed by Dornoff and Tankersley was used. An acknowledged limitation of this study is the validity of the questionnaire developed by Dornoff and Tankersley due to the method of development and new laws concerning warranties and credit etc. which have occurred since 1976. The instrument was used, however, to maintain consistency with earlier studies for the purpose of comparison of groups. No significant differences were found in the students' perceptions of the fourteen actions presented in the vignettes, but the range of the responses in the post-internship tests increased in many cases. The alumni appeared to be slightly more ethical than the students but not as ethical as the managers surveyed in 1986 by Norris and Gifford. Indications are that the critical point of ethics formation may be at the mid-management level and that internships and management training programs have little effect on the ethical perceptions of participants. These findings are consistent with studies such as Gable and Topol, and Jordan and Davis which showed high Machiavellian scores among young retailing executives, often buyers, as opposed to upper level retailing management. Scales with measure Machiavellianism, or manipulativeness, have been used as an alternative method of examining business ethics. (shrink)

The present work is volume II of the author's Gifford Lectures. MacMurray sustains and enriches the point of view that he presented in The Self as Agent, developing at length the implications of his insistence that the self must be understood primarily as an agent. The apprehension of the Other, the modes of morality, the nature of society and community, and the role of religion are examined. --S. M. W.

This volume is the second part of the Gifford Lectures devoted to the topic, "The Phenomenon of Mind." Like the first part, entitled The Nature of Mind, this part consists of two papers by each of the four authors, discussions of each paper by the authors, and answers to questions from the audience. Since frequent references are made to papers published in the first part, this volume is best read after the prior one. The authors begin this part by (...) acknowledging their differing views about the meaning of the term "mind;" these views are that "mind" refers to the ability to speak and understand a natural language, rationality and moral autonomy, the ability to select and modify goals, and the ability to devise plans and carry out certain intellectual procedures. Because of their different views on the nature of mind, the papers in this volume, which are devoted to the development of mind in the individual and the species, tend to lack cohesion. Despite this lack, the papers raise a number of interesting points on such issues as the development of the mind in the process of evolution the significance of Chomsky’s views of language for our concept of mind, the difference between the computer’s capacities and man’s, and the significance of having a mind for certain theological views. The inclusion in the text of the discussion sessions following each paper and the sessions devoted entirely to answering questions from the audience is valuable because it helps the reader to recognize and focus upon those issues on which the authors disagree.—M.G. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to extend the previous research on ethics in retailing. Prior research of Dornoff and Tankersley (1985–1976), Gifford and Norris (1987), Norris and Gifford (1988), and Burns and Rayman (1989) examined the ethics orientation of retail sales persons, sales managers, and business school students. These studies found the college students less ethically-oriented than retail sales people and retail managers. The present study attempts to extend the research on ethics formation to a geographically and (...) academically diverse sample, and to determine if retail management experience in the form of a professional practicum or internship, or entry level management training programs, such as experienced by recent graduates, are critical factors in the formation of business ethics. The sample consisted of thirty-three students majoring in Human Ecology with a concentration in Retail Merchandising and 51 recent graduates of the retail Merchandising program. The series of fourteen vignettes developed by Dornoff and Tankersley (1975–1976) was used. An acknowledged limitation of this study is the validity of the questionnaire developed by Dornoff and Tankersley due to the method of development and new laws concerning warranties and credit etc. which have occurred since 1976. The instrument was used, however, to maintain consistency with earlier studies for the purpose of comparison of groups. No significant differences were found in the students' perceptions of the fourteen actions presented in the vignettes, but the range of the responses in the post-internship tests increased in many cases. The alumni appeared to be slightly more ethical than the students but not as ethical as the managers surveyed in 1986 by Norris and Gifford. Indications are that the critical point of ethics formation may be at the mid-management level and that internships and management training programs have little effect on the ethical perceptions of participants. These findings are consistent with studies such as Gable and Topol (1988), and Jordan and Davis (1990) which showed high Machiavellian scores among young retailing executives, often buyers, as opposed to upper level retailing management. Scales with measure Machiavellianism, or manipulativeness, have been used as an alternative method of examining business ethics. (shrink)

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

In Lands of Likeness, philosopher, theologian, and poet Kevin Hart utilizes the history of Christian thought and secular philosophy to develop a novel and profound hermeneutics of contemplation. Drawing in particular on the work of Arthur Schopenhauer, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Edmund Husserl, Hart traces the development of notions of contemplation in modernity and refines the approaches he finds there. Utilizing his refined approach, Hart trains our attention on modern poems from G. M. Hopkins, Wallace Stevens, A. R. Ammons, Geoffrey (...) Hill and others as sites for a kind of contemplative reading that phenomenology can make precise. Delivered in its original form as the prestigious Gifford Lectures, Lands of Likeness is a revelatory meditation on contemplation for the modern world. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of regulation and legislation on influencing the development and diffusion of technologies and methods of crop production. To do this, the change in pesticide registration under European Regulation 1107/2009 ‘Placing Plant Protection Products on the Market’ was followed through the UK’s agricultural system of innovation. Fieldwork included: a series of interviews conducted with scientists, agronomists and industry organisations; a programme of visiting agricultural events; as well as sending an electronic survey to British potato growers. The (...) innovation system is noted to have made the legislation less restrictive than originally proposed. The most notable system response to the legislation is the adjustment of agrochemical company pesticide discovery strategy and their expansion into biologically derived treatments. There have also been other innovation responses: agricultural seed companies have been breeding in pathogen resistance in their cultivars; agricultural consultancies are prepared to recommend pathogen-resistant seeds; scientists are using the change as justification for adopting their solutions; the agricultural levy boards funded research into off-label pesticide uses; and producers, potato growers in particular, have been seeking advice, but not changing their growing practices. (shrink)

The paper provides close commentary on an important but generally neglected passage in _Prior Analytics B.21 where, in the course of solving a logical puzzle concerning our knowledge of universal statements, Aristotle offers his only explicit treatment of the Platonic doctrine of 'recollection'. I show how Aristotle defends his solution to the "Paradox of Knowing Universals", as we might call it, and why he introduces recollection into his discussion of the puzzle. The reading I develop undermines the traditional view of (...) the passage and lends fresh insight into Aristotle's conception of Plato's particular version of innatism. (edited). (shrink)

This work investigates worship and formation in view of Christian anthropology, particularly union with Christ.

Ibn al-ʻArabī, 1165-1240; views on freedom; Sufism; Islamic philosophy.

This study describes which clinical ethics approaches are available to support healthcare personnel in clinical practice in terms of their construction, functions and goals. Healthcare personnel frequently face ethically difficult situations in the course of their work and these issues cover a wide range of areas from prenatal care to end-of-life care. Although various forms of clinical ethics support have been developed, to our knowledge there is a lack of review studies describing which ethics support approaches are available, how they (...) are constructed and their goals in supporting healthcare personnel in clinical practice. This study engages in an integrative literature review. We searched for peer-reviewed academic articles written in English between 2000 and 2016 using specific Mesh terms and manual keywords in CINAHL, MEDLINE and Psych INFO databases. In total, 54 articles worldwide described clinical ethics support approaches that include clinical ethics consultation, clinical ethics committees, moral case deliberation, ethics rounds, ethics discussion groups, and ethics reflection groups. Clinical ethics consultation and clinical ethics committees have various roles and functions in different countries. They can provide healthcare personnel with advice and recommendations regarding the best course of action. Moral case deliberation, ethics rounds, ethics discussion groups and ethics reflection groups support the idea that group reflection increases insight into ethical issues. Clinical ethics support in the form of a “bottom-up” perspective might give healthcare personnel opportunities to think and reflect more than a “top-down” perspective. A “bottom-up” approach leaves the healthcare personnel with the moral responsibility for their choice of action in clinical practice, while a “top-down” approach risks removing such moral responsibility. (shrink)

This volume covers a wide range of conceptual, epistemological and methodological issues in the philosophy of science raised by reflection upon medical science and practice.

This paper critically examines a particular strategy for resolving the central ethical dilemma associated with randomized clinical trials — the “community equipoise” strategy . The dilemma is that RCTs appear to violate a physician's duty to choose that therapy which there is most reason to believe is in the patient's best interest, randomizing patients even once evidence begins to favor one treatment. The community equipoise strategy involves the suggestion that our judgment that neither treatment is to be preferred is to (...) be assessed according to a community rather than an individual standard. Thus, though a physician may personally believe that there is some reason to prefer one treatment, patients can legitimately be randomized if there remains disagreement in the community of medical professionals. Rationales in favor of this conception include the following: medical knowledge is best understood as residing in the community, the judgments of others count as evidence, and so should change one's own opinion, subjects would not be better off outside the trial, and the point of any trial is the resolution of dispute in the medical community. I critically examine these rationales and argue that they are insufficient. Amongst the problems are tensions between various of these underlying rationales, and important ambiguities in just what the CE criterion is to amount to. Finally, I argue that even if use of CE was justified, it would not justify carrying out RCTs anywhere near long enough to discharge our duty to gain reliable knowledge on which to base safe and effective medical practice. Hence, we need some different justification for carrying out RCTs. (shrink)

Recognizing that all traits are the result of an interaction between genes and environment, I offer a set of criteria for nevertheless making sense of our practice of singling out certain traits as genetic ones, in effect making a distinction between causes and mere conditions. The central criterion is that a trait is genetic if it is genetic differences that make the differences in that trait variable in a given population. A second criterion requires that genetic traits be individuated in (...) a way that matches what some genetic factors cause specifically. Clarifying our causal and classificatory language here can help us to avoid confusions of both theoretical and practical significance. (shrink)

The central dilemma concerning randomized clinical trials (RCTs) arises out of some simple facts about causal methodology (RCTs are the best way to generate the reliable causal knowledge necessary for optimally-informed action) and a prima facie plausible principle concerning how physicians should treat their patients (always do what it is most reasonable to believe will be best for the patient). A number of arguments related to this in the literature are considered. Attempts to avoid the dilemma fail. Appeals to informed (...) consent and mechanisms for minimizing the resulting harm are important for policy, but informed consent is problematic and mechanisms for minimization of harm do not address the dilemma. Appeals to some sort of contract model of justification are promising and illuminating. Keywords: randomized clinical trials, ethics CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Some philosophers argue that we are justified in rejecting skepticism because it is explanatorily inferior to more commonsense hypotheses about the world. Focusing on the work of Jonathan Vogel, I show that this “abductivist” or “inference to the best explanation” response rests on an impoverished explanatory framework which ignores the explanatory gap between an object's having certain properties and its appearing to have those properties. Once this gap is appreciated, I argue, the abductivist strategy is defeated.

This paper critically examines a particular strategy for resolving the central ethical dilemma associated with randomized clinical trials (RCTs) — the “community equipoise” strategy (CE). The dilemma is that RCTs appear to violate a physician's duty to choose that therapy which there is most reason to believe is in the patient's best interest, randomizing patients even once evidence begins to favor one treatment. The community equipoise strategy involves the suggestion that our judgment that neither treatment is to be preferred (that (...) there obtains a state of “equipoise”) is to be assessed according to a community rather than an individual standard. Thus, though a physician may personally believe that there is some reason to prefer one treatment, patients can legitimately be randomized if there remains disagreement in the community of medical professionals. Rationales in favor of this conception include the following: (i) medical knowledge is best understood as residing in the community, (ii) the judgments of others count as evidence, and so should change one's own opinion, (iii) subjects would not be better off outside the trial, and (iv) the point of any trial is the resolution of dispute in the medical community. I critically examine these rationales and argue that they are insufficient. Amongst the problems are tensions between various of these underlying rationales, and important ambiguities in just what the CE criterion is to amount to. Finally, I argue that even if use of CE was justified, it would not justify carrying out RCTs anywhere near long enough to discharge our duty to gain reliable knowledge on which to base safe and effective medical practice. Hence, we need some different justification for carrying out RCTs. (shrink)

In this article, I review and expand upon arguments showing that Freedman's so-called "clinical equipoise" criterion cannot serve as an appropriate guide and justification for the moral legitimacy of carrying out randomized clinical trials. At the same time, I try to explain why this approach has been given so much credence despite compelling arguments against it, including the fact that Freedman's original discussion framed the issues in a misleading way, making certain things invisible: Clinical equipoise is conflated with community equipoise, (...) and several versions of each are also conflated. But a misleading impression is given that, rather than distinct criteria being arbitrarily conflated, a puzzle is solved and a number of features unified. Various issues are pushed under the rug, hiding flaws of the "clinical equipoise" approach and thus deceiving us into thinking that we have a solution when we do not. Particularly significant is the ignoring of the crucial distinction between the individual patient decision and the policy decision. (shrink)

It is often claimed that a clinical investigator may ethically participate (e.g., enroll patients) in a trial only if she is in equipoise (if she has no way to ground a preference for one arm of the study). But this is a serious problem, for as data accumulate, it can be expected that there will be a discernible trend favoring one of the treatments prior to the point where we achieve the trial's objective. In this paper, I critically evaluate Benjamin (...) Freedman's 'clinical equipoise' solution to this dilemma. I argue that Freedman actually puts forth at least two distinct contrasts - one in terms of community vs. individual equipoise, and another concerning clinical vs. theoretical equipoise - and that neither of them resolves the dilemma. I then make a proposal for a more adequate account of how to think about the circumstances under which entering subjects in trials would be justified - a 'sliding-scale equipoise' that arises out of a discussion of patients' values. (shrink)

In this study, we discuss the colonial project as an eliminatory structure of indigenous ways of knowing and doing that is built into Canadian social and health institutions. We elaborate on the role nursing plays in maintaining systemic racism, marginalization and discrimination of Indigenous Peoples. Based on historical practices and present‐day circumstances, we argue that changing language in research and school curriculums turns decolonization into what Tuck and Yang call a ‘metaphor’. Rather, we propose decolonization as a political project where (...) nurses acknowledge their involvement in colonial harms and disrupt the assumptions that continue to shape how nurses interact with Indigenous people, including knowledge systems that perpetuate colonial interests and privilege. Decolonization requires nurses to understand the colonial practices that led to dispossession of land, erasure of knowledge, culture and identity, while upholding indigenous ways of knowing and doing in health, healing and living. As a political manifesto that liberates indigenous life from oppressive structures of colonialism and capitalism, The Red Deal is presented as a visionary platform for decolonization. The aim of this study is to articulate three dimensions of caretaking within The Red Deal as a framework to decolonize nursing knowledge development and practice. Based on the philosophical dimension embedded in The Red Deal that revoke norms and knowledge assumptions of capitalism that destroy indigenous ways of knowing and doing, we underscore an approach toward decolonizing nursing. Our approach rejects the apolitical nature of nursing as well as the unilateral western scientific knowledge approach to knowledge development and recognition. A critical emancipatory approach that addresses the socio‐political and historical context of health care, recognizes dispossession of land and adopts a ‘multilogical’ vision of knowledge that gives space for representation and voice is needed for true decolonization of nursing. (shrink)

Contrary to Vaesen's argument that humans are unique with respect to nine cognitive capacities essential for tool use, we suggest that although such cognitive processes contribute to variation in tool use, it does not follow that these capacities arenecessaryfor tool use, nor that tool use shaped cognition per se, given the available data in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral biology.

We present some teaching materials for metaphysics which use the method of introducing issues via puzzles, paradoxes, problems, and conundrums in metaphysics. The method is motivated by the aim to increase student participation and engagement in metaphysical issues so that the student considers and understands philosophical theories based on specific metaphysical concepts. These materials are a result of distilling first and second year undergraduate academic materials into simple presentations that retain the core focus on salient concepts. The presented teaching methods (...) share the same approach as Raymond Smullyan's puzzle-first approach to teaching. Potential goals for the material are numerous; one main goal is the development of the individual student's independent, original, and creative philosophical thinking and analysis as applied to the area of metaphysics. Other goals include the appreciation of overlap between different subareas within metaphysics - overlaps that we note. The article finishes with a further consideration of the importance and utilization of the emotions elicited from materials of philosophical problems and how these can be best incorporated into the teaching methods. (shrink)

Cheryl Misak (2000; 2008a; 2008b; Misak and Talisse 2014; Misak and Talisse 2021) has presented an argument for democracy based on her analysis of the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce: If we care about the truth of our beliefs – as everyone does, according to Misak – then we ought to support democratic norms and democratic political institutions. We argue in the present paper that Misak’s argument does not adequately justify a democratic political system. Her argument does, however, justify a (...) rational commitment to the standard liberal-democratic values of freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the like. We demonstrate as well that Misak’s argument for the democratic values withstands well-known objections against her argument for a democratic political system. We also show that weaker premises involving every agent’s commitment to pursuing their own subjective ends can get us to Misak’s conclusions regarding liberal values using reasoning otherwise similar to Misak’s in that our alternative premises also get us to the commitment to taking the experiences of others seriously. These weaker premises avoid objections raised against Misak’s Peircean view and are acceptable even to those who reject Misak’s idea, taken from her reading of Peirce, that truth is a constitutive norm of belief. (shrink)