The author draws on arguments from contemporary philosophy of mind to provide an argument for sociological collectivism. This argument for nonreductive individualism accepts that only individuals exist but rejects methodological individualism. In Part I, the author presents the argument for nonreductive individualism by working through the implications of supervenience, multiple realizability, and wild disjunction in some detail. In Part II, he extends the argument to provide a defense for social causal laws, and this account of social causation does not require (...) any commitment to intentionality or agency on the part of individuals. (shrink)

An advertising firm''s ethical culture (as defined by the firm''s managerial and peer ethical behaviors) may affect the employees'' comfort levels and ethical behaviors. In this research, scenarios were used to describe advertising firms with various ethical cultures. Respondents'' perceived comfort levels in working for the firms described in the scenarios and the respondents'' behavioral intentions when faced with various advertising situations were assessed. Results of the study indicate that peer ethical behavior exerts a strong influence on the comfort or (...) discomfort level and the ethical behavioral intentions of potential advertising employees. Further, the strong influence exerted by peers seems to transcend the ethical behavior of the manager and carry over to the attitude toward the entire corporate advertising environment. This study provides insights for firms and researchers interested in assessing the impact of an advertising firm''s ethical culture on potential employees. (shrink)

This study investigates the role that moral identity, religiosity, and the institutionalization of ethics play in determining the extent of justification of norm violating behavior among business practitioners. Moral justification is where a person, rather than assuming responsibility for an outcome, attempts to legitimize ethically questionable behavior. Results of the study indicate that both the internalization and symbolization dimensions of moral identity as well as intrinsic religiosity and the explicit institutionalization of ethics within the organization are significant determinants of the (...) moral justification of unethical behaviors. (shrink)

This essay draws on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work to argue for a practice-oriented concept of expertise. We propose that conceptualizing types of expertise as having a family resemblance, relative to the problems such expertise addresses, escapes certain limitations of defining expertise as primarily epistemic. Recognizing the pragmatic purchase on actual problems a Wittgensteinian approach provides to discussions of expertise, we seek to understand the nature of expertise in situations where the people who need to make a difficult decision do not possess (...) or have access to the epistemic status that traditionally confers expertise. These are situations where people need to answer difficult questions that, while they may be informed by expertise in the epistemic register, are ultimately decided by expertise that weighs certified knowledge against the intractable characteristics of a particular situation. We suggest that there is not—even deep down on a conceptual level—only one kind of expertise, but multiple kinds of expertise that resonate with diverse kinds of problems. (shrink)

Examines the nature of rhetorical theory and criticism, the rhetoric of science, and the impact of poststructuralism and postmodernism on contemporary accounts of rhetoric.

Asl. Atthasalinl of Buddhaghosa, ed. PTS. 1897. BB. Bibliotheca Buddhica, Petrograd. BC. Buddhacarita, ed. Cowell, Oxford, 1893. BCA. ...

Some scientists suggest that it might be possible to reflect a portion of incoming sunlight back into space to reduce climate change and its impacts. Others argue that such solar radiation management (SRM) geoengineering is inherently incompatible with democracy. In this article, we reject this incompatibility argument. First, we counterargue that technologies such as SRM lack innate political characteristics and predetermined social effects, and that democracy need not be deliberative to serve as a standard for governance. We then rebut each (...) of the argument’s core claims, countering that (1) democratic institutions are sufficiently resilient to manage SRM, (2) opting out of governance decisions is not a fundamental democratic right, (3) SRM may not require an undue degree of technocracy, and (4) its implementation may not concentrate power and promote authoritarianism. Although we reject the incompatibility argument, we do not argue that SRM is necessarily, or even likely to be, democratic in practice. (shrink)

Since its enactment, the Affordable Care Act has faced numerous legal challenges. Many of these lawsuits have focused on implementation of the law and the limits of executive power. Opponents challenged the ACA under the Obama Administration while supporters have turned to the courts to prevent the Trump Administration from undermining the law. In the meantime, Congress remains gridlocked over the ACA and many other critical health policy issues, leaving the executive branch to adopt its preferred policy approach and ultimately (...) leading to lawsuits. This article briefly discusses the history of litigation over the ACA and some reasons why this litigation has been so enduring. The article then identifies other areas of health policy that are or could be future targets for litigation. Finally, the article comments on the potential impact of the courts on future health reform efforts. (shrink)

Using data from the National Survey of Black Americans, this study examines the way in which gender socially constructs the importance of skin tone for evaluations of self-worth and self-competence. Skin tone has negative effects on both self-esteem and self-efficacy but operates in different domains of the self for men and for women. Skin color is an important predictor of self-esteem for Black women but not Black men. And color predicts self-efficacy for Black men but not Black women. This pattern (...) conforms to traditional gendered expectations of masculinity and femininity. Moreover, there are conditions of success that allow women to escape the effects of colorism. The impact of skin tone on self-esteem was much weaker for women from higher social class. Those who had lower self-esteem scores were dark-skinned women from working classes and dark-skinned women who were judged unattractive. (shrink)

Intellectual Disability: Ethics, Dehumanization, and a New Moral Community presents an interdisciplinary exploration of the roots and evolution of the dehumanization of people with intellectual disabilities. Examines the roots of disability ethics from a psychological, philosophical, and educational perspective Presents a coherent, sustained moral perspective in examining the historical dehumanization of people with diminished cognitive abilities Includes a series of narratives and case descriptions to illustrate arguments Reveals the importance of an interdisciplinary understanding of the social construction of intellectual disability.

In an analysis of 47 U.S. journalism ethics codes, we found that although most consider images, only 9 address a gripping issue: how to treat images of tragedy and violence, such as those produced on the battlefields of Iraq, during the 2005 London bombings, and after Hurricane Katrina. Among codes that consider violent and tragic images, there is agreement on what images are problematic and a move toward green-light considerations of ethical responsibilities. However, the special problems of violence and truth (...) telling in wartime and issues of how to handle graphic images across media platforms receive virtually no attention. (shrink)

The progression of research and scholarly inquiry does not occur in isolation and is wholly dependent on accurate reporting of methods and results, and successful replication of prior work. Without mechanisms to correct the literature, much time and money is wasted on research based on a crumbling foundation. These guidelines serve to outline the respective responsibilities of researchers, institutions, agencies, and publishers or editors in maintaining the integrity of the research record. Delineating these complementary roles and proposing solutions for common (...) barriers provide a foundation for best practices. (shrink)

Accountability is viewed as a civilizing element in society, with professional accountability formalized in most cases as duties dating to the Greeks and Socrates; journalists must find their own way, without formal professional or government regulation or licensing. Three scholars look at the process in a line from the formal professional discipline to suggesting problems the journalism fraternity faces without regulation to suggesting serious internal ethics conferences as 1 solution to the problem.

This study examined more than 2,500 war images from U.S. television news, newspapers, news magazines, and online news sites during the first five weeks of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and found that only 10% showed injury or death. The paper analyzes which media platforms were most willing to show casualties and offers insights on when journalists should use gruesome war images or keep them secret.

This study examined more than 2,500 war images from U.S. television news, newspapers, news magazines, and online news sites during the first five weeks of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and found that only 10% showed injury or death. The paper analyzes which media platforms were most willing to show casualties and offers insights on when journalists should use gruesome war images or keep them secret.

Like many disciplines, the study of political philosophy has, to a large extent, been the study of modern western political philosophy, particularly liberalism, utilitarianism, and socialism. As a consequence, the study of comparative political philosophy is still in its infancy. The contributors to this volume move beyond this Eurocentric bias to facilitate and exchange perspectives originating in European, Chinese, Indian, and Islamic communities. They document the responses to the perilous transition from "tradition" to "modernity" and address the commonality of human (...) distress which characterizes such momentous transition. With respect to the central theme of transition, Comparative Political Philosophy is unusual in its coverage of so many eminent political philosophers--Aristotle, Plato, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Voltaire, Hegel, Marx, Confucius, Mao Zedong, Kautilya, Gandhi, Farabi, and Khomeini. The book will be of interest to those interested in political theory, intellectual history, philosophy, as well as the general disciplines of political science, history, and area studies. "The book should appeal to readers across the disciplinary boundaries.". (shrink)

I should say at the outset that I actually like this book a lot, but I am not sure how comfortable I am with liking it. It is the sort of innovative, exciting, exasperating, infuriating, and provocative book that's good even when it's bad, because it sets everyone to talking and arguing about all kinds of things. Initially, I will give a brief gloss of the main points of the book and of its virtues. Then I would like to single (...) out two issues for brief discussion: Fuller 's conception of rhetoric and in what sense he is still a philosopher, in both his case studies and curriculum, despite advertising to the contrary. (shrink)

Newspaper copy editors labor in anonymity and struggle for respect in their newsrooms. These conditions may make it difficult for them to realize their potential as the last line of defense against violations of ethical practice. By adopting existentialism as a guiding moral philosophy, however, copy editors can find the courage and confidence to act as final guardians of ethical journalism. This article examines how copy editors are often overlooked in the literature of journalism ethics and suggests ways in which (...) existential philosophy would address specific problems of copy editors. The article examines whether a model for the existential copy editor is morally defensible and how adopting it might benefit copy editors, their newsroom colleagues, and readers. (shrink)

In this article we consider the forms of democratic participation that revolve around issues of religious faith and Islam. The context of such work is one in which a concern with the levels of participation in the political institutions of Western Europe and North America feature prominently in both journalistic and academic debate. The article speaks to debates that are concerned with the efficacy of specific forms of participation. In doing so we argue that we need to think carefully about (...) the forms of social action that constitute participation in the democratic process. We also need to think precisely about definitions of the political with which people engage. If we take the political as a domain in which the ethical settlement of society is contestable, the sorts of mobilization around faith communities that this article describes are clearly a form of political participation. Yet the article argues that the reasons many become involved in these forms of social organization in contemporary East London is precisely because they are seen as less complicit with mainstream political institutions of the British state. (shrink)

This paper integrates theoretical and methodological evaluations of the effect of group size on helping. Bystander theory includes a reward–cost model for understanding the general helping context and a more specific designation of three psychological processes that produce the bystander effect. The three processes include: diffusion of responsibility, audience inhibition, and social influence. The present analysis identifies incompatibilities between the general model and the three processes and incompatibilities between the three processes and the definition of the bystander effect. Implications of (...) these problems in the theory extend to the passive confederate design, one of the two major methods used in bystander research. This method is an attempt to test the bystander effect by manipulating social influence. But, because of a previously unrecognized disjunction between social influence and the bystander effect, we conclude that passive confederate studies do not actually test the bystander effect. (shrink)

In their important paper “Autonomous Agents”, Floridi and Sanders use “levels of abstraction” to argue that computers are or may soon be moral agents. In this paper we use the same levels of abstraction to illuminate differences between human moral agents and computers. In their paper, Floridi and Sanders contributed definitions of autonomy, moral accountability and responsibility, but they have not explored deeply some essential questions that need to be answered by computer scientists who design artificial agents. One such question (...) is, “Can an artificial agent that changes its own programming become so autonomous that the original designer is no longer responsible for the behavior of the artificial agent?” To explore this question, we distinguish between LoA1 (the user view) and LoA2 (the designer view) by exploring the concepts of unmodifiable, modifiable and fully modifiable tables that control artificial agents. We demonstrate that an agent with an unmodifiable table, when viewed at LoA2, distinguishes an artificial agent from a human one. This distinction supports our first counter-claim to Floridi and Sanders, namely, that such an agent is not a moral agent, and the designer bears full responsibility for its behavior. We also demonstrate that even if there is an artificial agent with a fully modifiable table capable of learning* and intentionality* that meets the conditions set by Floridi and Sanders for ascribing moral agency to an artificial agent, the designer retains strong moral responsibility. (shrink)