A textbook for the undergraduate who is meeting the Lebesgue integral for the first time, relating it to the calculus and exploring its properties before deducing the consequent notions of measurable functions and measure.

A comprehensive introduction to the ways in which meaning is conveyed in language. Alan Cruse covers semantic matters, but also deals with topics that are usually considered to fall under pragmatics. A major aim is to highlight the richness and subtlety of meaning phenomena, rather than to expound any particular theory.

What is health policy for? In Health and the Good Society, Alan Cribb addresses this question in a way that cuts across disciplinary boundaries. His core argument is that biomedical ethics should draw upon public health values and ethics; specifically, he argues that everybody has some share of responsibility for health, including a responsibility for promoting greater health equality. In the process, Cribb argues for a major rethink of the whole project of health education.

A centipede can walk until it thinks about howit does so. Thereafter it stumbles, over thesheer impossibility of the information andcoordination required. Life in the economy islittle different. Those engaged in productionand exchange discover, pragmatically, ways tomake them work. Those observing the processsee, realistically, the immense improbabilitythat it should do so. That most economies workin practice, but must pass such toughteleological tests to succeed in theory,highlights a difference between players' andspectators' outlook which may help to explainwhy the game has repeatedly (...) been thrown wideopen just when conclusive results seemed withinreach.Section 1 of this paper identifies the fourforms of realism which economists have tendedto adopt. Section 2 considers the pragmatism ofeconomic agents, when observed in action bypsychologists and management scholars notoverly steeped in economic theory. Theconcluding section reviews the ways in whicheconomists have tried to blur the distinction,by reclassifying agents as realistic or theirown views as pragmatic, and suggests that amore pragmatic economics might bridge thedivide. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that there are important ethical questions about healthcare improvement which are underexplored. We start by drawing on two existing literatures: first, the prevailing, primarily governance-oriented, application of ethics to healthcare ‘quality improvement’ (QI), and second, the application of QI to healthcare ethics. We show that these are insufficient for ethical analysis of healthcare improvement. In pursuit of a broader agenda for an ethics of healthcare improvement, we note that QI and ethics can, in some respects, (...) be treated as closely related concerns and not simply as externally related agendas. To support our argument, we explore the gap between ‘quality’ and ‘ethics’ discourses and ask about the possible differences between ‘good quality healthcare’ and ‘good healthcare’. We suggest that the word ‘quality’ both adds to and subtracts from the idea of ‘good healthcare’, and in particular that the technicist inflection of quality discourses needs to be set in the context of broader conceptualisations of healthcare improvement. We introduce the distinction between quality as a measurable property and quality as an evaluative judgement, suggesting that a core, but neglected, question for an ethics of healthcare improvement is striking the balance between these two conceptions of quality. (shrink)

In this paper I consider the routine moral burden of occupying a professional role and having to negotiate tensions between the normative expectations attached to that role and one's own personal moral compass. Using an example to introduce this central issue I then seek to explore it through a discussion of the tensions between, and spaces between, ‘identifying’ with one's role and ‘separating’ oneself from one's role. I suggest that ethical integrity at work is revealed through the successful negotiation of (...) these tensions, but that such negotiation depends upon the power and other resources available to individual professionals. Finally I argue that this discussion of ‘the ethics of role occupation’ has important implication for ‘the ethics of role construction’ and adds weight to concerns about the potential moral costs of managerialism. (shrink)

The first book length study of property-owning democracy, Republic of Equals argues that a society in which capital is universally accessible to all citizens is uniquely placed to meet the demands of justice. Arguing from a basis in liberal-republican principles, this expanded conception of the economic structure of society contextualizes the market to make its transactions fair. The author shows that a property-owning democracy structures economic incentives such that the domination of one agent by another in the market is structurally (...) impossible. The result is a renovated form of capitalism in which the free market is no longer a threat to social democratic values, but is potentially convergent with them. It is argued that a property-owning democracy has advantages that give it priority over rival forms of social organization such as welfare state capitalism and market socialist institutions. The book also addresses the currently high levels of inequality in the societies of the developed West to suggest a range of policies that target the "New Inequality" of our times. For this reason, the work engages not only with political philosophers such as John Rawls, Philip Pettit and John Tomasi, but also with the work of economists and historians such as Anthony B. Atkinson, François Bourguignon, Jacob S. Hacker, Lane Kenworthy, and Thomas Piketty. (shrink)

In this editorial essay I explore the possibilities of ‘improvement scholarship’ in order to set the scene for the theme of, and the other papers in, this issue. I contrast a narrow conception of quality improvement research with a much broader and more inclusive conception, arguing that we should greatly extend the existing dialogue between ‘problem-solving’ and ‘critical’ currents in improvement research. I have in mind the potential for building a much larger conversation between those people in ‘improvement science’ who (...) are expressly concerned with tackling the problems facing healthcare and the wider group of colleagues who are engaged in health-related scholarship but who do not see themselves as particularly interested in quality improvement, indeed who may be critical of the language or concerns of QI. As one contribution to that conversation I suggest that that the increasing emphasis on theory and rigour in improvement research should include more focus on normative theory and rigour. The remaining papers in the issue are introduced including the various ways in which they handle the ‘implicit normativity’ of QI research and practice, and the linked theme of combining relatively ‘tidy’ and potentially ‘unruly’ forms of knowledge. (shrink)

Introduction: Natural necessity, being, and becoming -- Accentuate the negative -- Diffracting dialectic -- Opening totality -- Constellating ethics -- Metacritique I : philosophy's primordial failing -- Metacritique II : dialectic and difference -- Conclusion: Natural necessity and the grounds of justice : natural necessity as material meshwork.

Despite immediate appearances, this book is not primarily a hermeneutical exercise in which the superiority of one interpretation of canonical texts is championed against others. Its origin lies elsewhere, near the overlap of history, psychoanalysis, aesthetics, and social theory of the usual kind. Weber, Pareto, Freud, W. I. Thomas, Max Scheler, Karl Mannheim, and many others of similar stature long ago wondered and wrote much about the interplay between societal rationalization and individual rationality, between collective furor and private psychopathology—in short, (...) about the strange and worrisome union of “character and social structure” (to recall Gerth and Mills). Pondering the history of social thought in this century can lead to the unpleasant realization that such large-scale questions slipped away, especially from sociologists, sometime before World War II. Or, if not entirely lost, they were so transformed in range and rhetoric that a gap opened between contemporary theorizing and its European background. Perhaps this partly explains Weber’s continuing appeal. By dealing with him, one might again broach topics long at odds with “social science” of the last forty years.—From the Preface. (shrink)

Critical insights into Kierkegaard's influence on Barth's theology. Karl Barth was often critical of Søren Kierkegaard's ideas as he understood them. But close reading of the two corpora reveals that Barth owes a lot to the melancholy Dane. Both conceive of God as infinitely qualitatively different from humans, and both emphasize the shocking nearness of God in the incarnation. As public intellectuals, they used this theological vision to protect Christocentric faith from political manipulation and compromise. For Kierkegaard, this meant criticizing (...) the state church; for Barth, this entailed resisting Nazism. Meticulously crafted by a father-son team of renowned systematic theologians, Beyond Immanence demonstrates that Kierkegaard and Barth share a theological trajectory--one that resists cynical manipulation of Christianity for political purposes in favor of uncompromising devotion to a God who is radically transcendent yet established kinship with humanity in time. (shrink)

The widespread confusion of Nature with God and "natural" with holy has far-reaching negative consequences, from misinformation about everyday food and health choices to mistaken justifications of sexism, racism, and flawed economic policies.

We introduce a notion of complexity for interpretations, which is used to prove some new results about interpretations of sequential theories. In particular, we give a new, elementary proof of Pudlák's theorem that sequential theories are connected. We also demonstrate a counterexample to the infinitary distributive law $a \vee \bigwedge_{i \in I} b_i = \bigwedge_{i \in I} (a \vee b_i)$ in the lattice of chapters, in which the chapters a and b i are compact. (Counterexamples in which a is not (...) compact have been found previously.). (shrink)

Consider this propositional function which includes the dyadic predicate “loves”: “X does not love Y unless Y loves X” (or “if Y does not love X”). This function may be treated in four ways. (1) If universally quantified, it states a (purported) conceptual truth about “love” or the nature or essence of love. Love is necessarily reciprocal. (2) If universally quantified, it may alternatively be a nomological generalization stating an empirical or factual truth about human nature, i.e., about a pattern (...) of reciprocity that occurs among people who are independently identified as lovers. (3) If instantiated with constants, it is an empirical proposition about the attitudes or behaviors of particular individuals (a, b, c). Finally, (4) the function may be treated axiologically; it expresses a normative judgment about what love ought to be or what lovers ought to feel or do. Other propositional functions may be constructed for the constancy, exclusivity, and benevolence of love. This essay investigates the implications of these understandings of the function and how they are logically related to each other. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the role of conversations in contributing to healthcare quality improvement. More specifically, we suggest that conversations can be important in responding to what we call ’normative complexity’. As well as reflecting on the value of conversations, the aim is to introduce the dimension of normative complexity as something that requires theoretical and practical attention alongside the more recognised challenges of complex systems, which we label, for short, as ’explanatory complexity’. In brief, normative complexity relates to (...) the inherent difficulty of deciding what kinds of changes are ’improvements’ or, more broadly, what is valuable in healthcare. We suggest that explanatory and normative complexity intersect and that anyone interested in healthcare improvement needs to be sensitive to both. After briefly introducing the idea of normative complexity, we consider some contrasting examples of conversations, reflecting on how they do and might contribute to healthcare quality. We discuss both conversations that are deliberately organised and facilitated (’orchestrated conversations’) and more informally occurring and routine conversations. In the first half of the paper, we draw on some examples of orchestrated and routine conversations to open up these issues. In the second half of the paper, we bring some more theoretical lenses to bear on both conversations and normative complexity, summarise what we take to be the value of conversations and draw together some of the implications of our discussion. In summary, we argue that conversations can play a crucial role in negotiating the normative complexity of healthcare quality improvement because of their capacity to hold together a plurality of perspectives, to contribute and respond to emergence and to help underpin institutional conditions for empathy and imagination. (shrink)

This commentary welcomes the work of Ives et al. on Standards of practice in Empirical Bioethics, and especially the dialogical spirit in which the standards have been constructed and offered. It also raises some questions about the consistent interpretation and use of such standards.

It is easy to read Hobbes's moral thinking as a deviant contribution to 'modern' natural law, especially if Leviathan (1651) is read through a lens provided by De Cive (1642). But The Elements of Law (1640) encourages the view that Hobbes's argument is 'physicalist', that is, that it requires no premises beyond those required by his physics of matter in motion. The Elements included a draft De Homine and its argument is intimately connected with De Cive's; it shows how such (...) concepts as 'reason', 'right', 'natural law' and 'obligation' can be understood in physicalist terms. But Hobbes's decision to print the latter work in isolation has led to serious misunderstandings. (shrink)

Truth Through Proof defends an anti-platonist philosophy of mathematics derived from game formalism. Alan Weir aims to develop a more satisfactory successor to game formalism utilising a widely accepted, broadly neo-Fregean framework, in which the proposition expressed by an utterance is a function of both sense and background circumstance.

This paper describes a new course in Medical Technology and Critical Decisions, part of the Technology Studies Program at Wellesley College, established with the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's New Liberal Arts Program. The course uses the dramatic new options in medicine presented by technology to individuals and society as a vehicle for promoting general technological literacy in liberal arts students. The course motivates the study of the scientific principles on which the technology rests and the mathematical principles (...) of a methodology for making rational choices. A case in point is the decision of a pregnant woman whether or not to undergo amniocentesis, a procedure used to determine the genetic make-up of a fetus from cells in the amniotic fluid. The course introduces students to the underlying notions of genetics; the physical principles behind the ultrasound imaging technique used to position the needle that draws the fluid; the probability and statistics needed to understand the risks to the woman and fetus both of having and of not having the procedure; and the methodology of decision analysis, increasingly used by genetic counselors to help prospective parents incorporate their personal values into the decision-making process. (shrink)

This collection joins together sixty essays on the philosophy of love and sex. Each was presented at a meeting of The Society for the Philosophy of Sex and Love held between 1977 and 1992 and later revised for this edition. Topics addressed include ethical and political issues (AIDS, abortion, homosexual rights, and pornography), conceptual matters (the nature, essence, or definition of love, friendship, sexual desire, and perversion); the study of classical and historical figures (Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant, and Kierkegaard); and (...) issues in feminist theory (sexual objectification, the social construction of female sexuality, reproductive and marital arrangements). Authors include Jerome Shaffer, Sandra Harding, Michael Ruse, Richard Mohr, Russell Vannoy, Claudia Card, M.C. Dillon, Gene Fendt, Steven Emmanuel, T.F. Morris, Timo Airaksinen, and Sylvia Walsh. The editor, who is the author of Pornography (1986), The Structure of Love (1990), and Sexual Investigations (1996), has also contributed six pieces and an Introduction. (shrink)

oes anything exist outside culture? Is there anything that we do that is free of the distortions of our tastes and customs? That isn't irrevocably shaped by the languages we speak or our material interests? Is there anything out there that we can assume to be noncultural or transcultural or even universal?

Looks at the life and historical role of Louis Auguste Blanqui. Studies his philosophy, economic theories, and socialism.

In this Response to Hasko von Kriegstein, I defend several claims, including that the publicly-traded corporation and its assets are unowned; that managers may stand in fiduciary relations to shareholders that do not require managers to maximize shareholder wealth; and that the rights of a shareholder and of the owner of a privately-held corporation may differ fundamentally.

In Herodas Mime 6 Metro first learns from Coritto that she purchased her scarlet dildos from Kerdon the cobbler. In Mime 7 Metro comes to Kerdon’s cobbler’s shop and he shows her some special shoes, which the poet displays in a catalogue. Most scholars agree that the shoes in Mime 7 refer to the dildos in Mime 6, yet more work remains to unlock their hidden meaning. I argue that the catalogue of shoes in Mime 7 stands as a catalogue (...) of double entendres and that it is set among a series of sexual puns. (shrink)

In recent years, major disasters have figured prominently in the media. While corporate response to disasters may have raised corporate philanthropy to a new level, it remains an understudied phenomenon. This article draws on comparative research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate philanthropy to explore the geography of corporate philanthropic disaster response. The study analyzes donation announcements made by Fortune Global 500 firms from North America, Europe and Asia to look for regional patterns across three recent disasters: the South (...) Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and the Kashmiri earthquake. The results reveal inter-regional differences in the overall likelihood of donations and in their cash value, in addition to the identification of home-region- and local presence effects. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed. (shrink)

An organizing framework is set out for the diverse literature on business ethics in relation to strategic management. It consists of sets of bi-polar components, spanning themes and topical themes, with a derived typology of contributions. Then, in the spirit of classical pragmatism, the organizing framework is re-cast as an integrative conceptual model of the strategy–ethics relationship. The approach recognizes that both pragmatism and dialectics can underpin progress towards integration, encompassing both normative and empirical aspects.

Nordenfelt has presented a very useful philosophical analysis of the nature and ethics of health promotion. The first section of this paper is a response to the starting point of that analysis—the equation of health promotion with health promotion action. It is argued that this starting point leads to a serious ambiguity, and that this ambiguity is characteristic of other writing about health promotion, including that of the WHO. The second section of this paper explores the implications of this ambiguity, (...) as it appears in the wider health promotion literature, for drawing the borders of health promotion. (shrink)