What is ethics in the contemporary world? What is the need of defining ethics and, secondly, defining it in contemporary context? The meaning of ethics is so ambiguous to nonphilosophical academicians, corporate world, and others who look to the meaning in the branch of Philosophy called Ethics. At the end of endless debates, if the purpose of getting a definition is done, it is clarity in thinking in defining ethics which would happen. This may lead to clarity in the study (...) of ethics. And why should one study ethics at all? Ethics is interwoven at various levels in our life. The same individual is often in an obligation to face ethics at different levels like home, office, society, etc., or different ethical obligations. With a number of normative theories, the individual mind would be indefinite as to which one to follow. Is it just one theory alone which can be resorted to in an ethical dilemma or a combination of them? Are these theories practical also? Or are they just theories per se? To clear this ambiguity and in order to define ethics, the discussion of the meaning of ethics is important. This paper answers the above questions and throws light on the enquiry. This study hence is an exploratory one. Since the word ethics is interwoven with morality, it is worthwhile to define the word moral. (shrink)

With the advent of social networking websites, privacy concerns have reached a new high. One particularly problematic concern entails employers requesting login credentials to popular social media platforms. While many people may consider this request unethical, they may not agree on the reasons it is unethical. One reason may be to blame the behavior on egoism. Egoism, however, comes in multiple flavors, not all of which would agree that violating privacy is acceptable. In this paper, we articulate how one egoist (...) perspective provides a defense of privacy in the face of unjust information access requests. Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, offers an egoist approach to ethics that values individual privacy on rational, self-interested grounds. By applying Objectivist principles to a business context, we observe that businesspeople should not violate other people’s privacy for short-term gains. Furthermore, we observe that privacy can be protected without distinct right to privacy. Rather, Objectivism’s conception of rational self-interest suggests that long-term flourishing is the proper end of individuals and businesses, predicated on, among other things, respecting privacy and enforcing individual rights. (shrink)

This essay builds from an analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of Bruce Lee’s jeet kune do to an analysis of the current state of academic scholarship generally and martial arts studies scholarship specifically. For the sake of a more comprehensive understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of jeet kune do, and in particular its affinities with a philosophical tradition traced by Stanley Cavell under the heading of perfectionism, this essay brings the philosophical writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ayn Rand into (...) contact with Lee’s writings during the time that he spent formulating his martial arts philosophy. Additionally, this essay uses the philosophical insights of Emerson, Rand, and Lee to challenge longstanding academic dogma vis-à-vis poststructuralist philosophy, the methods of academic intervention, and the nature of philosophical argumentation. Though pitched as a debate regarding the content and the status of Bruce Lee and his combative philosophy, this essay endeavors to inspire scholars to (re)examine their conceptions of Bruce Lee, martial arts, and martial arts studies. (shrink)

The Spanish philosopher Gustavo Bueno coined the expression “substantive arts” to refer to those arts that do not serve any immediate, mundane or practical purpose. In this paper, I briefly present this idea and put forward a definition of the substantive arts as an alternative to those used until now. Starting from the assumption that since the end of the 18th century there has been a set of arts that have their own substantivity, I expound on certain criteria widely used (...) as distinctive features to define the substantive arts. I subsequently put forward an alternative intensional criterion to characterize the substantive arts. To end, I draw some corollaries following from the application of this criterion. (shrink)