This study examines the way ethical decisions are made in controversial cases at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, to see if codes of ethics can be efective at a newspaper known for its commitment to ethics. The study concludes that a code is efective in that environment especially on conflict-of-interest questions. A critical factor in the code's efectiveness is an ethical culture in which editors support ethical standards vigorously and foster a process that encourages newsroom debate over controversial cases.

This book teaches students how to make the difficult ethical decisions that journalists routinely face.

Linking abstract principles and concrete cases is not always easy. Beginning deductively with ethical theory requires an a priori choice of ethical principles which, when applied, may not take account of the complexity of real problems. But beginning with cases can result in a situationalism in which the normative role of ethical principles is slighted. Casuistry, a case-centered methodology, offers one way to bridge this gap. Casuistry's bottom-up strategy develops policy guidelines out of case analysis, building a middle ground between (...) practice and principle. This article identifies the key features of casuistry and its link to ethical theory. The development of a code of ethics and the use of anonymous sources at a daily newspaper test casuistry's relevance for journalism ethics. (shrink)

As discussion intensifies, and critics exploit what they see as a serious press abuse of anonymous sources, this article explores current practices and policies, as well as examines justification for and danger of anonymous source usage. Seven guidelines are listed and discussed which may help editors and reporters decide whether to use the anonymous source: editor authorization, just cause, last resort, fullest possible identification, proportionality, just intentions, and second source verification.

Though related, pain and suffering are two distinct entities and are defined accordingly. An examination of their natures suggests alterations in personal attitudes, particularly in a more positive evaluation of the functions of pain. The evidence provides partial clarification of debates within medical ethics which discuss pain and suffering. Certain concrete changes in the practice of medicine are proposed, especially in the therapeutic treatment of suffering.

Concerns about caregivers providing religious or spiritual care arise, in large part, out of a misunderstanding about religion and spirituality and what those terms really mean. Many people treat religion and spirituality as special and unique. This chapter argues that religion and spirituality are basic human facts as inseparable from what it means to be human in the same way as our sex, our age, our ethnicity or the other social and cultural factors that caregivers routinely address. The chapter begins (...) by offering a functionalist definition of religion and spirituality. It then examines research on the needs of patients at the end of life and suggests how these express religious and spiritual concerns. Finally, it offers guidelines as to how the caregiver may meet those needs of a patient. (shrink)

This chapter argues that ethics plays an extremely important role in decision making and lawmaking in bioethics issues. These decisions are not simple case-by-case judgments; rather, they rest upon deeply considered ethical opinions. It also discusses the implications of this epistemic grounding for bioethics and its use of case law materials as an ethical resource. Finally, since many people base their moral judgments on religious beliefs, the religious implications of this legal-moral relationship are considered.

This paper is concerned with formal aspects of the logic of theory change, and in particular with the process of shrinking or contracting a theory to eliminate a proposition. It continues work in the area by the authors and Peter Gärdenfors. The paper defines a notion of safe contraction of a set of propositions, shows that it satisfies the Gärdenfors postulates for contraction and thus can be represented as a partial meet contraction, and studies its properties both in general and (...) under various natural constraints. (shrink)

Contrary to what many philosophers believe, Calvinism neither makes the problem of evil worse nor is it obviously refuted by the presence of evil and suffering in our world. Or so most of the authors in this book claim. While Calvinism has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years amongst theologians and laypersons, many philosophers have yet to follow suit. The reason seems fairly clear: Calvinism, many think, cannot handle the problem of evil with the same kind of plausibility as other (...) more popular views of the nature of God and the nature of God's relationship with His creation. This book seeks to challenge that untested assumption. With clarity and rigor, this collection of essays seeks to fill a significant hole in the literature on the problem of evil. (shrink)

This collection of Habermas's recent essays on philosophical topics continues the analysis begun in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. In a short introductory essay, he outlines the sources of twentieth-century philosophizing, its major themes, and the range of current debates. The remainder of the essays can be seen as his contribution to these debates.Habermas's essay on George Herbert Mead is a focal point of the book. In it he sketches a postmetaphysical, intersubjective approach to questions of individuation and subjectivity. In (...) other essays, he develops his distinctive, communications-theoretic approach to questions of meaning and validity. The book as a whole expands on his earlier efforts to define a middle ground between nostalgic revivals of metaphysical conceptions of reason and radical deconstructions of reason. Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt.The Essays: The Horizon of Modernity is Shifting. Metaphysics after Kant. Themes in Postmetaphysical Thinking. Toward a Critique of the Theory of Meaning. Peirce and Communication. The Unity of Reason in the Diversity of Its Voices. Individuation through Socialization: On George Herbert Mead's Theory of Subjectivity. Philosophy and Science as Literature? (shrink)

Investigates the resolution of contradictions and ambiguous derogations in a code, by means of the imposition of partial orderings.

We review the major phenomena of skilled typing and propose a model for the control of the hands and fingers during typing. The model is based upon an Activation‐Trigger‐Schema system in which a hierarchical structure of schemata directs the selection of the letters to be typed and, then, controls the hand and finger movements by a cooperative, relaxation algorithm. The interactions of the patterns of activation and inhibition among the schemata determine the temporal ordering for launching the keystrokes. To account (...) for the phenomena of doubling errors, the model has only “type” schemata—no “token” schemata—with only a weak binding between the special schema that signals a doubling, and its argument. The model exists as a working computer simulation and produces an output display of the hands and fingers moving over the keyboard. It reproduces some of the major phenomena of typing, including the interkeystroke interval times, the pattern of transposition errors found in skilled typists, and doubling errors. Although the model is clearly inadequate or wrong in some of its features and assumptions, it serves as a useful first approximation for the understanding of skilled typing. (shrink)

David E. Cooper; III*—Anthropology and Translation, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 86, Issue 1, 1 June 1986, Pages 51–68, https://doi.org/10.10.

...It is clear that there exists in the history of ethics the problem that naturalist systems of ethics frequently fall prey to the entailment of behavioral determinism. If this occurs, it robs the ethic of doing any real work. Instead of proscribing correct and incorrect action, or allowing those considering the situation and activity to meaningfully assign praise or blame, the naive naturalist ethic functions only as a psychological thesis: that one will behave according to whatever psychological or mechanical program (...) one is informed by.The question of this paper was whether Aristotle's system falls prey to such a difficulty given his reliance on the individual's established character as one of the bases upon which ethical decisions are made. (shrink)

A strong parallel exists between current research methodologies in the social sciences and the two most central and popular approaches to aesthetics over the last four centuries. The point of this paper is to show this parallel, to demonstrate the importance and relevance of this parallel, and finally to examine ways of deciding, given this parallel between research methodologies and aesthetic approaches, which research methodology in a given context is the better.

In a series of recent papers, Professor Nick Zangwill has returned our attention to the merits of aesthetic formalism. In this paper, I seek to support formalism as an approach to understanding what counts as an aesthetic property by considering how this approach serves to illuminate identity conditions and critical assessment of a subset of allographic works of art I label “consumable”; these are works that exist as token art objects (as contrasted with art works) only within thetemporal duration of (...) their being reproduced and presented to their audiences. I look at three sorts of consumable art forms: food, theater plays, and dance. (shrink)

Civil wars vary greatly in their duration. This book argues that conflicts are longer when they involve more actors who can block agreement and identifies specific problems that arise in multi-party bargaining. Quantitative analysis of over 200 civil wars since World War II reveals that conflicts with more of these actors last much longer than those with fewer. Detailed comparison of negotiations in Rwanda and Burundi demonstrates that multi-party negotiations present additional barriers to peace not found in two party conflicts. (...) In addition, conflicts with more veto players produce more casualties, are more likely to involve genocide and are followed by shorter periods of peace. Because they present many barriers to peace, the international community has a poor track record of resolving multi-party conflicts. David Cunningham shows that resolution is possible in these wars if peace processes are designed to address the barriers that emerge in multi-party conflicts. (shrink)

Almost a half century has passed since the appearance of The Politics of Modernization, (Apter, 1965) an analysis purporting to treat political development in terms of structural-functional theory. Since that time the world has virtually turned upside down. Modernization theory itself has all but disappeared. In part this has been for good reasons. Its three frames, social change in general, industrialization, in particular, and modernization as an aspect of the first resulting from the consequences of the second, contained too many (...) far from warranted assumptions, especially about the prospects of integrative order. Indeed, so much have the problematic questions changed that subsequent efforts to bring back at least of its principles have not had much success. In some ways this is a great pity. I believe it had greater depth and theoretical power than its critics have given it credit for. Accordingly I want to suggest some of the ideas that were most germane to modernization theory as it was practiced in the sixties of the last century and comment briefly on a few of theoretical characteristics. I will do so in three parts. Part I will outline of the ingredients and concerns of modernization theorists sketching its intellectual pedigree. Part II will examine particular schools and approaches to modernization. Part III will address some questions about modernization today suggesting new ways to examine them. (shrink)

Dodging questions pervades human interaction, including interpersonal interactions, relational conversations, media interviews and political debates. Variously referred to as equivocation, evasion, obfuscation, strategic ambiguity and topic avoidance, among other terms, the concept has a rich history in the communication literature. Covertly dodging questions presents serious social and political problems. This essay focuses on theoretical issues of dodging, specifically the ability for a person to change the subject with an irrelevant answer. Discussion primarily draws upon Grice’s theory of conversational implicature and (...) deception research inspired by Grice. Theoretical impediments to detecting dodges are discussed, as well as barriers to accuracy from the perspective of discourse analysts and societal perceptions. (shrink)

David E Cooper; Grammar and the Possession of Concepts, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 7, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 204–222, https://doi.org/10.11.

The current literature on indeterminacy centers around two projects. One concerns the logic of indeterminacy; the other concerns its nature or source. The aim of this paper is to introduce, motivate and go some way toward addressing a new, third project: that of providing what I call a minimal characterization of indeterminacy. An MC, to a first approximation, is a relatively pre-theoretical characterization of indeterminacy that is neutral between the various substantive theories of the nature and logic of indeterminacy. An (...) MC thus captures a generic sense of indeterminacy that, at least in principle, is recognized by all parties to the debate over the phenomenon’s underlying nature and logic. I begin by introducing the concept of an MC and outlining some of the main theoretical virtues of providing an MC. I then establish some desiderata on a suitable MC, and use these desiderata to rule out various initially attractive proposals. In the final part of the paper I sketch the beginnings of my own MC and defend it against objections. (shrink)

The commercialization of transgenic crops has engendered significant resistance from environmental groups and defensive responses from industry. A part of this struggle entails the politicization of science as groups gather evidence from the scholarly literature to defend a supportive or opposing position to transgenic crop commercialization. The authors argue that novel technology development and associated scientific uncertainty have led to two competing approaches to risk management: precaution and ex post trial and error. In this paper we use the controversies over (...) currently commercialized transgenic crops to analyze the debate over these competing approaches. We also suggest a hybrid approach that incorporates a precautionary selection process, but also relies on ex post trial and error after commercialization. This approach is labeled precaution through experience since the development of a technology’s characteristics would ideally take into account previous experience with similar technologies, or rather technologies with similar applications. The authors argue that substantial public participation and dialogue is needed to identify socially desirable crop traits to guide research and development. Policy tools are also recommended that provide incentives to private-sector firms to engineer the identified traits into crops. (shrink)

My intention in this paper is to present a schema for understanding �sthetic transactions. (By '�sthetic transactions' I mean to refer to the artist's creation of a work of art and the audience's appreciation of it). For Kant a schema was a rule or principle that enables the under- standing to apply its categories. I am using this term in a narrower sense but in the same spirit : The schema to be considered is to serve as a principle which (...) will allow us to grasp in a definitive fashion the special character of �sthetic transactions. (shrink)

Evolution and Religion in American Education shines a light into one of America’s dark educational corners, exposing the regressive pedagogy that can invade science classrooms when school boards and state overseers take their eyes off the ball. It sets out to examine the development of college students’ attitudes towards biological evolution through their lives. The fascinating insights provided by interviewing students about their world views adds up to a compelling case for additional scrutiny of the way young people’s educational experiences (...) unfold as they consider—and indeed in some cases reject—one of science’s strongest and most cogent theoretical constructs. Inevitably, open discussion and consideration of the theory of evolution can chip away at the mental framework constructed by Creationists, eroding the foundations of their faith. The conceptual battleground is so fraught with logical challenges to Creationist dogma that in a number of cases students’ exposure to such dangerous ideas is actively prevented. This book provides a detailed map of this astonishing struggle in today’s America—a struggle many had thought was done and dusted with the onset of the Enlightenment. (shrink)