Given the importance of the Machiavellianism construct on informing a wide range of ethics research, we focus on gaining a better understanding of Machiavellianism within the whistle-blower context. In this regard, we examine the effect of Machiavellianism on whistle-blowing, focusing on the underlying mechanisms through which Machiavellianism affects whistle-blowing. Further, because individuals who are higher in Machiavellianism (high Machs) are expected to be less likely to report wrongdoing, we examine the ability of an organization’s ethical environment to increase whistle-blowing intentions (...) of high Machs. Results from a sample of 116 MBA students support our premise that Machiavellianism is negatively related to whistle-blowing. Further, we find that Machiavellianism has an indirect effect on whistle-blowing through perceived benefits and perceived responsibility. Finally, we find that a strong ethical environment, relative to a weak ethical environment, increases whistle-blowing intentions incrementally more for individuals who are higher in Machiavellianism. Taken together, these findings extend our understanding of how Machiavellianism and an organization’s ethical environment impact whistle-blowing. (shrink)

Access to a deep pool of talent is essential to the success of every professional services firm. The supply of that talent is contingent upon the available rewards for the exercise of that talent, and both the existence of the potential rewards and the beliefs that individuals hold about the existence of the rewards affect the decision to remain in the field. One structural factor that may affect the judgment about whether to remain in a profession concerns promotions based on (...) the gender of the employee. In this study, we examine the “glass ceiling” within the context of the accounting profession. While advances have been made within the accounting profession to address the glass ceiling, the continued existence—and perceptions about the continued existence—of the issue exert adverse effects upon the available talent pool and may create long-term problems for the profession. In this study, we investigate glass ceiling perceptions among a large sample of female accounting professionals employed in accounting; the sample includes both public accountants, and those employed in industry accounting. Our study yields the finding of beliefs in bias-driven effects, structural effects, and cultural effects among these accounting professionals. Glass ceiling perceptions are also influenced by several demographic factors. Furthermore, accounting professionals employed by industry are more likely to report a glass ceiling within their firms than accounting professionals employed by public accounting firms. The findings are of interest to researchers who explore gender-related issues in professional service firms such as the field of accounting, and to senior members of practice who are tasked with ensuring the integrity and quality of the talent pool and the equitable distribution of rewards to employees. (shrink)

The United States Sentencing Commission’s guidelines for the sentencing of organizations found guilty of violating federal laws recently became effective. Dramatically increased penalties are possible under these gudelines, but so too is a substantial reduction in the penalties imposed on organizations that have an effective program in place to prevent and detect violations. This provides corporations with a tremendous new incentive in inaugurate organizational ethics audits both to avoid violations in the first instance and to reduce the penalty imposed in (...) the event that a violation occurs. We argue, however, that there have always been very good reasons for organizations to conduct such audits, which emphasize the identification of the organizational factors that create incentives for unethical behavior. Corporate ethics programs initiated without reference to such factors cannot reasonably be expected to be effective in improving a company’s internal ethical environment. (shrink)

Much has been made of the so-called “empirical turn” of “speculative materialism” with thinkers like Quentin Meillassoux championing the material sciences as a new route to absolute reality. According to Meillassoux, the material sciences “provide philosophers access once again to the great outdoors, the absolute outside,” of reality in-itself. One might expect from such encomia the attempt to engage with the products of contemporary science in order to develop a new metaphysics; but, Meillassoux spends almost no time in this way, (...) focusing instead on the form and methods of the material sciences over their actual accomplishments. As a result, his praise rings hollow and his metaphysics remains undeveloped. This paper examines what would happen if we were to take seriously his claims that a new metaphysics be developed from a scientific accounting of material reality by surveying the conclusions of contemporary physics. The paper ends by contrasting such a new speculative and materialistic metaphysics with the speculative nihilism of Ray Brassier. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper examines two recent trends relative to boards of directors’ compensation, and their potential incompatibility. There has been some progress in increasing board diversity, specifically the inclusion of women and minorities on boards. The increasing trend requiring directors to hold/purchase equity as a requirement of board membership may seriously compromise further improvements in diversifying boards. Also, an increasing number of companies compensate directors partially or fully in stock grants and options. These compensation policies may be exclusionary, especially for women (...) and minorities, impacting the quality of boardroom discussions and decisions. This study systematically examines whether corporations requiring director equity are exclusionary toward women and minority directors. Contrary to being exclusionary, companies with director stock requirements and annual stock awards have greater representation by women and minorities on their board. Moreover, larger companies are both more likely to have such policies and have higher proportions of women and minorities on the board. (shrink)

One of the most persistent and poignant human experiences is the sensation of longing--a restlessness perhaps best described as the unspoken conviction that something is missing from our lives. In this study, Drew M. Dalton attempts to illuminate this experience by examining the philosophical thought of Emmanuel Levinas on longing, or what Levinas terms "metaphysical desire." Metaphysical desire, according to Levinas, does not stem from any determinate lack within us, nor does it aim at a particular object beyond us, much (...) less promise any eventual satisfaction. Rather, it functions in the realm of the infinite where such distinctions as inside and outside or one and the other are indistinguishable, perhaps even eliminated. As Levinas conceives such longing, it becomes a mediator in our relation to the other--both the human other and the divine Other. -/- Dalton follows the meandering trail of Levinas's thought along a series of dialogues with some of the philosophers within the history of the Western tradition who have most influenced his corpus. By tracing the genealogy of Levinas's notion of metaphysical desire--namely in the works of Plato, Heidegger, Fichte, Schelling, and Otto--the nature of this Levinasian theme is elucidated to reveal that it is not simply an idealism, a "hagiography of desire" detached from actual experience and resulting in a disconnect between his phenomenological account and our own lives. Rather, Levinas's account of metaphysical desire points to a phenomenology of human longing that is both an ethical and religious phenomenon. In the end, human longing is revealed to be one of the most profound ways in which a subject becomes a subject, arising to its "true self," and hearing the call to responsibility placed upon it by the Other. -/- Throughout, Dalton explicates the nuance of a number of key Levinasian terms, many of which have been taken from the Western philosophical tradition and reinscribed with a new meaning. Eros, the "Good beyond being," shame, responsibility, creation, the trace, the il y a, and the holy are discovered to be deeply tied to Levinas's account of metaphysical desire, resulting in a conclusion regarding longing's role in the relationship between the finite and the Infinite.". (shrink)

Abstract:While a ubiquitous phenomenon, initial public offerings (IPOs) have received no attention in the ethics literature. We provide an overview of a series of potential conflicts of interest that pervade the IPO process. We also report the results of an empirical assessment of IPOs and those elements that may inform a substantive moral hazard faced by key players in the period prior to and just after an IPO.

There is an apparent contradiction within Levinas’s work: on the one hand, Levinas upholds an account of existence that seemingly requires a creation narrative, while maintaining, on the other hand, that an account of the ethical import of that existence needs no recourse to the divine. This seeming contradiction results from a fundamental misunderstanding concerning Levinas’s account of creation and its logical consequences concerning the divine. This paper aims to clarify this misunderstanding by exploring the similarities between and influence of (...) F. W. J. Schelling’s work on Levinas’s thereby providing a more complete picture of both author’s respective accounts of genesis and the existence of God. (shrink)

Many areas of business ethics research are “sensitive.” We provide an empirical assessment of the randomized response techniquewhich provides absolute anonymity to subjects and “legal immunity” to the researcher. Beyond that, RRT techniques provide complete disclosure to subjects, unconditional privacy is maintained, and there is no deception.

Many areas of business ethics research are “sensitive.” We provide an empirical assessment of the randomized response technique which providesabsoluteanonymity to subjects and “legal immunity” to the researcher. Beyond that, RRT techniques provide complete disclosure to subjects, unconditional privacy is maintained, and there is no deception.

Like the Copernican revolution which initiated the Modern project, there has been a thermodynamic revolution in the empirical sciences in the last two centuries. The aim of this paper is to show how we might draw from this revolution to make new and startling metaphysical and ethical claims concerning the nature and value of reality. To this end, this paper employs Aristotle’s account of the relation of the various philosophies and sciences to one another to show how we might assert (...) a new theory of being, moral value, and practical action from the primacy of entropic decay asserted in the contemporary mathematical sciences. This paper proceeds to show how, from what the contemporary sciences have concluded concerning the primacy of entropic decay within reality, unbecoming might be forwarded as a new account of the essence of existence: i.e., the first cause and motivating principle of reality’s formal, material, efficient, and final nature. The paper concludes by arguing that a new and surprising account of universal ethical value and normative duty can be deduced from such a metaphysics of decay. (shrink)

Director compensation can potentially represent an ethical minefield. When faced with supporting strategic decisions that can lead to an increase in director pay, directors may consider their own interests and not solely those of the shareholders to whom they are legally bound to represent. In such cases, directors essentially become agents, rather than those installed to protect principals (shareholders) from agents. Using acquisitions as a study context, we employ a matched-pair design and find a statistically significant difference in outside director (...) compensation between acquiring and control firms. Outside directors of acquiring firms earn more than twice as much as their counterparts in the matched-sample. (shrink)

Gender is one of the most frequently studied variables within the ethics literature. In prior studies that find gender differences, females consistently report more ethical responses than males. However, prior research also indicates that females are more prone to responding in a socially desirable fashion. Consequently, it is uncertain whether gender differences in ethical decision-making exist because females are more ethical or perhaps because females are more prone to the social desirability response bias. Using a sample of 30 scenarios from (...) prior studies that find gender differences, we examine whether these gender differences remain robust once social desirability is controlled for in the analysis. Our data suggest that the effect of gender on ethical decision-making is largely attenuated once social desirability is included in the analysis. In essence, the social desirability response bias appears to be driving a significant portion of the relationship between gender and ethical decision-making. We discuss several important research implications of this study. (shrink)

Central to Levinas’ “phenomenological” approach to ethics is his identification of an “infinite signification” in the human face. This insistence on the appearance of an infinitely signifying phenomenon has led many, notably Dominique Janicaud, to decry Levinas’ work as anti-phenomenological: little more than a novel approach to metaphysics. A significant element of the phenomenological revolution, Janicaud insists, referencing Husserl and the early Heidegger for support, is grounded in the recognition that phenomena arise in and are circumscribed by finitude. Any reference (...) to an infinite phenomenon which breaks with apperception, he therefore concludes, necessarily breaks as well with the phenomenological tradition, signaling a reversion to idealism, metaphysics, and ultimately theology. As this paper will argue however, a close reading of Husserl reveals not only the recognition of infinite phenomena; but, more significantly, the possibility that all phenomena are potentially infinite. This means that in many ways Levinas is not only more faithful to Husserl’s project than is often admitted; but moreover, that Levinas’ work serves as a lens through which a hitherto under-emphasized element of Husserl’s work can be examined – an element which challenges the traditional critique of Levinas. What’s more, the possibility of infinite phenomena opened up in Husserl’s work, when read through Levinas’ analysis of the ethical significance of the infinite, creates the possibility of recognizing the potential ethical value of all objects, and not merely one object in particular: the human face. This possibility, as I will show, contributes to further blurring the already ambiguous distinction within Levinas between “good” and “bad” infinities – a blurring which, as I will argue, serves as a powerful heuristic in interpreting certain human pathologies, from obsessive compulsive disorder and certain forms of schizophrenia, to the temptation of evil. In this way, an analysis of the status of the infinite in Husserl and Levinas provides a purely phenomenological ground for exploring issues traditionally seen as the exclusive domain of metaphysics and theology. (shrink)

In his reflection upon Dasein’s attempt to approach, understand and appropriate the possibility of its own death in Being and Time, Martin Heidegger makes an interesting side note on the phenomenological appearance of the dead body of another. Make no mistake; it is only a note – one made in passing en route to a much larger argument. But it is a note of interest nonetheless; for within it is contained the thread of a thought that, when pursued to its (...) end, seems to unravel some of the fundamental elements of the Heideggerian analytic. It is the goal of this paper then to follow that thread to its logical end by engaging in an detailed examination of the enigmatic phenomenon that is the dead body of another and, in doing so, not only illuminate the curious nature of its appearance; but, more importantly, reveal some of the limits of the Heideggerian analytic. The paper will conclude by turning to the work of Emmanuel Levinas in attempt to stretch beyond those limits. (shrink)

Objects are inert, passive, devoid of will, and as such bear no intrinsic value or moral worth. This claim is supported by the argument that to be considered a moral agent one must have a conscious will and be sufficiently free to act in accordance with that will. Since material objects, it is assumed, have no active will nor freedom, they should not be considered moral agents nor bearers of intrinsic ethical vale. Thus, the apparent “moral neutrality” of objects rests (...) upon a kind of subject/object or mind/body dualism. The aim of this paper is to explore two paths by which western thought can escape this dualism, re-valuate the alleged “moral neutrality” of material objects, and initiate a sort of “object oriented ethics,” albeit with surprising results. To do so, this paper explores the work of Arthur Schopenhauer and Baruch Spinoza to interrogate both the claim that material objects have no will and that freedom is the necessary condition for ethical responsibility. This paper concludes by arguing that not only should objects been seen as bearers of their own ethical value, a determinate judgement can be made regarding that value through a basic understanding of the laws of physics. (shrink)

Central to Emmanuel Levinas’s critique of Martin Heidegger is his assessment that Heidegger’s phenomenology delimits the possibility of dealing with ethical questions in any sincere way. According to Levinas, Heidegger ontologizes these questions, reducing them to mere means to a deeper understanding of Being. Levinas, by contrast, attempts to forge a phenomenology which can providea metaphysical account of ethics which goes beyond being. In this paper we will explore the nature and validity of Levinas’s critiqueof Heidegger by comparing his approach (...) to the question of evil to Heidegger’s as presented in his 1936 lecture course on Schelling’sFreiheitschrif. (shrink)

The recent re-evaluation of Schelling’s work has blossomed interest and research into a number of Schelling’s core ideas. Amongst these Schelling’s analysis of God, the creative act and human freedom have been amongst the most explored. Much less explored has been his theory of temporality, a theory which not only underpins but is essential to understanding properly these other insights. It is the goal of this essay to correct that oversight by offering some initial remarks concerning Schelling’s theory of temporality, (...) a topic which is rarely explicitly addressed within his work. This it does by analysing closely the passages within his oeuvre wherein the topic is most explicitly treated and by addressing the ontological theory implied therein. (shrink)

Some would argue that the more promising areas of business ethics research are "sensitive." In such areas, it would be expected that subjects, if inclined to respond at all, would be guarded in their responses, or respond inaccurately. We provide an introduction to an empirical approach -- the unmatched block count (UCT) -- for collecting these potentially sensitive data which provides absolute anonymity and confidentiality to subjects and "legal immunity" to the researcher. Interestingly, under UCT protocol researchers could not divulge (...) subjects' responses even if they were inclined to do so. Beyond that, UCTs provide complete disclosure to subjects and there is no deception. (shrink)

The Levinasian critique of Heidegger is well know: Heidegger’s phenomenological investigation into the nature of beings, employed towards the end of catching a glimpse of the Being behind those beings, though undeniably rich, is nevertheless fundamentally limited as it fails to allow for anything “beyond being,” anything outside the sway of presence, like, for Levinas, an ultimate Good. In recognition of this limitation, Levinas attempts to expand the Heideggerian project by accounting in his own work for those phenomena which seem (...) to indicate a Good “beyond being” at work within existence, phenomenon such as shame, Eros and fecundity. While intriguing, is Levinas’ critique of Heidegger accurate? Is it true that Heidegger excludes anything resembling a Good beyond being in his work? It is the aim of this paper to examine these questions and by exposing a hitherto unrecognized element within Heidegger’s thought and in doing so calling into question and clarifying Levinas’ criticisms of Heidegger. (shrink)

According to Quentin Meillassoux, one of the principal aims of speculative philosophy “must be the immanent inscription of values in being.” In this regard, the return to speculation in contemporary philosophy is in many ways a deeply ethical project. This “inscription of values” can only be successful, however, if it can somehow assert an absolute ethical value without, on the one hand, resorting to the kind of dogmatism laid to rest by the Kantian critique; or, on the other, by falling (...) into some form of ethical relativism incapable of grounding universal ethical judgments. Unfortunately, too many of these attempts have failed. The aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, to explore the structure and failures of two such attempts through an analysis of the ethical projects of Alain Badiou and Quentin Meillassoux, respectively; and then, secondly, to show how both of these thinkers, and the project of speculative ethics in general, could benefit by turning to the work of F.W.J. Schelling on the concept of good and evil as absolute ethical values. (shrink)

pt. 1: lecture 1. The Hindu vision of life ; lecture 2. Thucydides and the Peloponnesian war ; lecture 3. Law and rule in Sophocles' Antigone ; lecture 4. Socrates and socratic quest ; lecture 5. Plato, idealism and power : part 1 ; lecture 6. Plato, idealism and power : part 2 ; lecture 7. Aristotle's critique of Plato's Republic ; lecture 8. Machiavelli's theory of power and politics -- pt. 2: lecture 9. Rousseau's theory of human nature and (...) society ; lecture 10. Marx's critique of capitalism and solution of communism ; lecture 11. Freud's theory of human nature and civilization ; lecture 12. Thoreau's theory of civil disobedience ; lecture 13. Dostoevsky's grand inquisitor ; lecture 14. The idea of anarchism and the example of Emma Goldman ; lecture 15. Hitler's use of power ; lecture 16. Gandhi's use of power. (shrink)

Much has been made within certain philosophic circles of Emmanuel Levinas’s interaction with and critique of Western philosophy in general and German Idealism in particular. What is little recognized, however, is that J. G. Fichte is often the hidden target of this salvo. Indeed, Fichte appears within Levinas’s work as one of the major foils against whom he attempts to define his own insights. Whenexamined in light of Levinas’s attack, however, Fichte’s work actually appears to be in remarkable contiguity with (...) Levinas. The aim of this paper is to illuminate these commonalities by making an apology for Fichte in light of Levinas’s criticism. The result of this examination is the revelation that the German Idealism of such thinkers as Fichte, rather than rivaling Levinas’s work, actually proves to be in many ways its ally and intellectual forerunner. (shrink)

Opening a new debate on ethical reasoning after Kant, Drew Dalton addresses the problem of the absolute in ethical and political thought. Attacking the foundation of European philosophical morality, he critiques the idea that in order for ethical judgement to have any real power, it must attempt to discover and affirm some conception of the absolute good. Without rejecting the essential role the absolute plays within ethical reasoning, Dalton interrogates the assumed value of the absolute. -/- Dalton brings some of (...) the most influential contemporary philosophical traditions into dialogue with each other: speculative realists like Badiou and Meillassoux; phenomenologists, including Husserl, Heidegger, and Levinas; German Idealists, especially Kant and Schelling; psychoanalysts Freud and Lacan; and finally, post-structuralists, specifically Foucault, Deleuze, and Ranciere. The relevance of these thinkers to concrete socio-political problems is shown through reflections on the Holocaust, suicide bombings, the rise of neo-liberalism and neo-nationalism, as well as rampant consumerism and racism. -/- This book re-defines ethical reasoning as that which refuses absolutes and resists what Milton's devil in Paradise Lost called the “tyranny of heaven.” Against traditional ethical reasoning, Dalton sees evil not as a moral failure, but as the result of an all too easy assent to the absolute; an assent which can only be countered through active resistance. For Dalton, resistance to the absolute is the sole channel through which the good can be defined. (shrink)

The unusual lacuna which runs between the philosophical works of Emmanuel Levinas and the psychoanalytical treatises of Jacques Lacan is one of the most unusual in the history of 20th century thought. Despite the numerous interests, influences, and friends the two shared, no evidence exists to suggest that they ever met or encountered one another’s work. This alluring gap has inspired explanations by a few and compensation by others. But in all of these approaches to what has been called one (...) of the most famous “missed connections,” of the 20th century, the most powerful connection has yet to be explored: the respective attempt in each to carve out a post-Heideggerian account of subjectivity. The goal of this paper will be to compare and contrast Levinas and Lacan’s respective accounts of subjectivity to better illuminate each thinkers attempt to affirm the power of the Heideggerian critique while preserving some integrity to the idea of subjectivity. (shrink)

A provocative and entirely new account of ethical reasoning that reconceives the traditional understanding of ethical action negatively -/- In this radical reconsideration of ethical reasoning in contemporary European philosophy, Drew M. Dalton makes the case for an absolutely grounded account of ethical normativity developed from a scientifically informed and purely materialistic metaphysics. Expanding on speculative realist arguments, Dalton argues that the limits placed on the nature of ethical judgments by Kant’s critique can be overcome through a moral evaluation of (...) the laws of nature—specifically, the entropic principle that undergirds the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. In order to extract a moral meaning from this simple material fact, Dalton scrutinizes the presumptions of classical accounts and traditional understandings of good and evil within the history of Western philosophy and ultimately asserts that ethical normativity can be reestablished absolutely without reverting to dogmatism. -/- By overturning our assumptions about the nature and value of reality, The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism presents a provocative new model of ethical responsibility that is both logically justifiable and scientifically sound. Dalton argues for “ethical pessimism,” a position previously marginalized in the West, as a means to cultivate an account of ethical responsibility and political activism that takes seriously the unbecoming of being and the moral horror of existence. (shrink)

Yael Lin's The Intersubjectivity of Time: Levinas and Infinite Responsibility is the first sustained inquiry into Emmanuel Levinas's theory of temporality, a concept which permeates his work and can in many ways serve as a lens through which his entire system can be examined and understood. As the first book length monograph on the subject, Lin's work promises to be of significant value to scholars of Levinas. The book proceeds by tracing what the author sees as the Western roots of (...) Levinas's theory of temporality, namely the works of Martin Heidegger and Henri Bergson, then goes on to explore the various limitations and problems of that philosophical lineage, before showing how Levinas's own theory responds to those limitations and problems by drawing from the Jewish philosophical tradition. (shrink)

This research, relying on companies continuously listed on the Fortune 500 over a five-year period (n=384), provides an empirical assessment of two hypotheses. Based on 334 violations over the period the results indicate: (1) gross differences in illegal activity based on corporate size, and (2) similar differences in corporate recidivism also based on size. Discussion includes a number of size related dynamics which may account in part for such results.

Federal legislation (the Employee Polygraph Protection Act) adopted in 1988 prohibits virtually all private sector employers from requiring or requesting preemployment polygraph examinations for prospective employees. Since then, written integrity testing designed to reliably distinguish those prospective employees who may steal from the company from those who are far less likely to do so has been something of a growth industry. Indeed, the American Psychological Association has recently noted that honesty tests have demonstrated useful levels of validity as an employee (...) selection measure. We provide an alternative perspective. We argue that, even under the most charitable of assumptions, the propensity of integrity tests to generate false positives (i.e., to identify prospective employees as potential thieves when, in fact, they are not) is unsuitably large. Thus, the integrity test as currently configured is largely without merit as a personnel selection device. (shrink)

This study of 481 corporations provides an assessment of the relationship between several corporate governance variables (board composition, type of board leadership, officer and director stock holdings, institutional stock holdings, number of majority owners, existence of severance agreements) and adoption of anti-takeover amendments. The results of analysis suggest that the two groups (adopters/non-adopters) differ significantly in regards to these variables.

Some would argue that the more promising areas of business ethics research are "sensitive." In such areas, it would be expected that subjects, if inclined to respond at all, would be guarded in their responses, or respond inaccurately. We provide an introduction to an empirical approach -- the unmatched block count (UCT) -- for collecting these potentially sensitive data which provides absolute anonymity and confidentiality to subjects and "legal immunity" to the researcher. Interestingly, under UCT protocol researchers could not divulge (...) subjects' responses even if they were inclined to do so. Beyond that, UCTs provide complete disclosure to subjects and there is no deception. (shrink)

This paper discusses legal and ethical issues related to genetic screening. It is argued that persons identified with actual or perceived deleterious genetic markers are protected by the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Civil Rights Act of 1991, if members of a protected group, regardless of whether or not they are currently ill. However, legislation may not protect all employees in all scenarios, in which case, ethical principles should guide decision-making. In doing so a model of preventive (...) ethics is proposed to better understand the multiple levels on which this issue resides. (shrink)

Shannon Mussett’s _Entropic philosophy_ offers a creative and important new lens through which the history of philosophy and a number of contemporary ethical, social, and political problems can be read and interpreted. By exploring the concept of entropy not merely as a scientific certainty but as a “root metaphor” through which the inexorable finitude, fragility, and vulnerability of material reality might be re-examined, Mussett invites her readers to re-consider the nature of their responsibility for one another and the material world (...) as a whole. In this way, Mussett offers her readers a new paradigm by which they can approach philosophical and ethical problems; one which takes the tendency towards pessimism entropic thinking typically inspires and transmutes it to an invitation to care more reverently for material beings, human and nonhuman alike. As such, Mussett’s work provides a valuable new contribution to contemporary philosophy by highlighting how we might re-imagine both its history and the ethical, social, and political problems which motivate it together. (shrink)

While the notion of establishing a value for human life may be uncomfortable for some, we argue that it is a fundamental requirement for many aspects of public policy. We compare a number of approaches which have been traditionally relied on to make estimations. Also, we provide an exercise which provides an unusual, but we hope provocative, perspective on the evaluation of human life.

A Book Review of J. Aaron Simmons and Bruce Ellis Benson's The New Phenomenology: A Philosophical Introduction.

This study of major corporations (n=481) provides an empirical assessment of the effects of several corporate governance variables (CEO duality, boards of director composition, officers and directors common stock holdings, institutional common stock holdings, number of majority owners) on the adoption of so-called severance agreements. A discriminant analysis indicates a significant multivariate function. Wilks lambda univariate analyses suggest that the percentage of common stock held by owners and directors and number of majority stock holders are the more robust discriminators.