Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:European Network of Buddhist-Christian StudiesJohn D'Arcy MayThe European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies met at Samye Ling, Scotland, 16-19 May 2003. The theme of the meeting was "Buddhists, Christians, and the Doctrine of Creation."Samye Ling, founded in 1967 by Dr. Akong Tulku Rinpoche and now under the guidance of his brother, the Venerable Lama Yeshe Losal, is one of the oldest and largest Buddhist monasteries in Europe. Ven. Yeshe, in (...) welcoming conference participants, told how the monastery has both materially and spiritually reinvigorated what had become a depressed area around the town of Lockerbie in southwest Scotland. Despite the inclement weather, it was thus an appropriate venue for the fifth conference of the European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies on the topic of creation. As Perry Schmidt-Leukel (Glasgow), who organized the conference, pointed out in his opening remarks, creation in view of ultimate redemption is the quintessentially Christian doctrine. Yet Buddhism certainly did not see samsara as the ultimate reality, and even if the origin of the world was ultimately an unanswerable question, Buddhism too was confronted by the problem of evil.Ernst Steinkellner (Vienna) opened the conference proper with an account of Buddhist critiques of Hindu doctrines of creation. The absolute Brahman was not a creator, but in the course of doctrinal evolution (the masculine Brahman becoming the post-Vedic Brahma) the world came to be seen as the work of a kind of demi-urge, leaving open the question of why. Buddhism, restricting itself to the realm of the finite, mocked Brahmin ideas of the cause of the world, but still had to account for the existence and nature of the world. By the time the Madhyamaka had developed theories of momentary creation, these had become part of the common logic of Buddhists and Hindus.This was followed by a presentation on contemporary Buddhist critiques of creation and creator doctrines by José Cabezón (Santa Barbara), who pointed out certain affinities between modern theories of many universes without beginning or end and traditional Buddhist ideas. Buddhism, he maintained, has an aversion to cosmological uniqueness, whether spatial, temporal, causal, or personal, but it does [End Page 237] regard the causal law of karman as ineluctable. Despite the critiques of Buddhist thinkers such as Gunapala Dharmasiri of Sri Lanka, who are under the misapprehension that Buddhism is on a par with science whereas Christianity is merely religion, this lays the basis for a metaphysics. The site of both suffering and liberation is the cocreativity of all beings. Buddhism is concerned not with being, but with consciousness.Eva Neumaier (Calgary) suggested that in fact Buddhism does have conceptions of creation, but in narrative form, represented in the cosmological structure of the world as the product of the Buddha's meditation rather than as a cosmogony. Creation is not ex nihilo, because nature predates any act of creation, yet the "emptiness" of shūnyatā is also the "swollenness" of fulfilled potential. The Buddha has been represented as the all-creating sovereign, and pure mind has been interpreted as the gender-neutral mother-father of all Buddhas, the "primordial basis." The "original enlightenment" objected to by Critical Buddhism enabled Buddhists to adapt pre-Buddhist ideas such as the Tao, even to the extent of tolerating animistic polytheism.If this presentation surprised some participants, it provided the perfect counterpart to the paper on Christian ideas of creation by John Keenan (Middlebury College). The Jewish and Christian conceptions of creation arise out of events in history, the exodus from Egypt being the originating metaphor. For Christians, liberation from the bondage of sin was the legacy of Israel's tribal warrior God. The Genesis accounts of creation are essentially liturgical, not cosmogonic. Creation is simply assumed as the evidence of divine transcendence; God is not a benevolent parent. The pagan critics who mocked the Jewish and Christian creation stories were just as misguided as the Buddhists who ridiculed the Vedic myths. God was eventually conceived as ipsum esse, the "to be" of things, a nonsubstantialist account that does not purport to answer the question "why." According to the logic of Buddhism, the complete enlightenment of all would mean the... (shrink)

Several recent papers dealing with Plato's position on the imperfection of the phenomenal world draw heavily on the differences between two kinds of predicates in order to show the following: In the middle dialogues, Plato posits Forms only as referents of what the writers call incomplete predicates. He does not posit Forms as referents for complete predicates. When interpreters ignore the differences between these kinds of predicates, they ascribe too radical a view regarding the imperfection of the phenomenal world to (...) the middle dialogues. The ontology of these dialogues includes sensible particulars which retain their identity over time even though they are continually changing in some respect or other. (shrink)

This book examines Augustine's description of the actually existing world, especially that aspect most important for the human pursuit of happiness: the human being and God. It begins with an overview of the characteristics of the human individual and the context in which they must live out their lives, a context dominated by two seemingly contradictory realities: the existence of God and the existence of evil.

Søren Kierkegaard præsenterer os for ikke mindre end 18 opbyggelige taler forholdsvist tidligt i forfatterskabet, og det vil sige, at vi er i den del af hans værker, der betegnes som religiøse. Det er samtidig ensbetydende med, at Kierkegaard står ved det skrevne og ikke lader et pseudonym være den ansvarshavende, som ellers er tilfældet med mange af hans udgivelser. Talerne forkynder, formidler og forklarer kristendommen eller Jesu budskaber, og vi præsenteres for fortællinger og historier fra Bibelen, der på eksemplarisk (...) vis perspektiverer begreber som tvivl, godhed, sandhed og naturligvis tro med frelse. Når Kierkegaard bruger betegnelsen opbyggelige taler, så er det, fordi det netop er tanker og beskrivelser, der automatisk fører til refleksion og eftertænksomhed, og dermed er det enkelte menneske allerede i gang med en form for opbyggelse. Guiden giver således et indblik i og overblik over talerne, så man er bedre rustet, når man vil læse Kierkegaard selv. (shrink)

Scholarship on the Euthydemus has largely focused on the protreptic character of the Euthydemus—that is, the manner by which Socrates attempts to turn the young Cleinias toward philosophy. By focusing on the dramatic structure of the text, and above all its comic tenor, this article argues that it is Crito—he to whom Socrates tells his hilarious story of his encounter with the two sophist-brothers—who is the real object of Socrates’s protreptic speech.