This is the conundrum that gives rise to the issue of tax avoidance: Although governments always seem to lack sufficient funds to support the needs of society, tax codes are often written that offer “a way out” of paying taxes for some but not all constituents. The ways out are referred to as loopholes that allow taxpayers to avoid taxes. This paper first defines the basic terms of tax avoidance and tax evasion and then offers an ethical review of the (...) morality of aggressive tax avoidance. Aggressive tax avoidance is then addressed in relationship a corporate entity’s tone at the top. The conclusion is drawn that use of the letter of the law to avoid payment of taxes sorely needed by governments for the good faith provision of public goods and services is ethically unacceptable. Several suggestions for change are provided, including a new financial statement disclosure and the possibility of a published corporate ethics report. (shrink)

The international economy is changing at a rapid rate. The alteration and reduction of both geographical and political borders, coupled with the growing interdependence of socially, politically, economically, and legally diverse countries, have caused multinational corporate entities to revise various policies. These revisions include revisions in marketing strategies, strategic alliances, product and service strategies and, perhaps most importantly as it affects all strategies, a MNC's approach to ethical systems. The truly global company must come to grips with the legal and (...) moral atmosphere in which it operates. The concept of moral rights, those transcending legal or political rights, drives us to review four international codes of conduct and to attempt to develop one international uniform code that might be applicable to any business, in any country or culture. (shrink)

This article focuses on the issue of data mining as it relates to the consumer and to the issue of whether the consumer's private information has any proprietary status. A brief review of data mining is provided as a background for a better understanding of the purposes and uses of data mining. Also examined are several issues of the ethics of data mining, including a review of stakeholders, who they are and which may be most seriously affected by unethical data (...) mining practices. Several suggestions for the improvement of data mining as it relates to the consumer are further presented: suggestions that would allow for data mining that would be beneficial to both the business community and the consumer. (shrink)

This chapter compares simple predicates of personal taste (PPTs) such as tasty and beautiful with their complex counterparts (eg tastes good, looks beautiful). I argue that the former differ from the latter along two dimensions. Firstly, simple PPTs are individual-level predicates, whereas complex ones are stage-level. Secondly, covert Experiencer arguments of simple PPTs obligatorily receive a generic interpretation; by contrast, the covert Experiencer of a complex PPT can receive a generic, bound variable or referential interpretation. I provide an analysis of (...) these facts based on a novel proposal about the licensing of individual-level predicates (the ‘Licensing Condition on ILPs’). This condition states that all covert pronominal arguments of an individual-level predicate must be bound by the generic operator. Finally, I show that generic construal of the Experiencer is a necessary condition for faultless disagreement. This is evidence in favour of treatments of subjective meaning that appeal to genericity, and against relativism about PPTs. (shrink)

Battle lines have been drawn over involuntary treatment. On one side, there are those who oppose involuntary psychiatric treatments under any condition. Activists who take up this cause often don't acknowledge that psychiatric symptoms can render people dangerous to themselves or others. They also don't allow for the idea that the civil rights of an individual may be at odds with the heartbreak of a caring family. On the other side are groups pushing for increased use of involuntary treatment. These (...) proponents are quick to point out that people with psychiatric illnesses often don't recognize that they are ill, which (from their perspective) makes the discussion of civil rights moot. They may gloss over the sometimes dangerous side effects of psychiatric medications, and they often don't admit that patients, even after their symptoms have abated, are sometimes unhappy that treatment was inflicted upon them. In Committed, psychiatrists Dinah Miller and Annette Hanson offer a thought-provoking and engaging account of the controversy surrounding involuntary psychiatric care in the United States. They bring the issue to life with first-hand accounts from patients, clinicians, advocates, and opponents. Looking at practices such as seclusion and restraint, involuntary medication, and involuntary electroconvulsive therapy--all within the context of civil rights-- Miller and Hanson illuminate the personal consequences of this controversial practice through voices of people who have been helped by the treatment they had as well as those who have been traumatized by it. The authors explore the question of whether involuntary treatment has a role in preventing violence, suicide, and mass murder. They delve into the controversial use of court-ordered outpatient treatment at its best and at its worst. Finally, they examine innovative solutions--mental health court, crisis intervention training, and pretrial diversion--that are intended to expand access to care while diverting people who have serious mental illness out of the cycle of repeated hospitalization and incarceration. They also assess what psychiatry knows about the prediction of violence and the limitations of laws designed to protect the public. (shrink)

Culture is the most difficult thing about an organization to change in a lasting way. Our paper is predicated upon the idea that better ethics leadership through change is the foundation to more successful implementation of change. Ethical culture will enable the firm to initiate the change process from a stronger position: the obstacles to change such as mistrust, fear of uncertainty, failure of communication and empowerment will be easier to overcome in an atmosphere pursuing the ethically correct approach, combining (...) ethical leadership with an ethical corporate culture. Our idea goes one step beyond the virtuous change circle by incorporating a series of check points a leader can reference to stay on a course of change management based in good ethical principle that will lead to effective change. Our model incorporates the concept of values into the management of change; this allows for a more comprehensive approach to change management by the utilization of well-known change management principles used in conjunction with basic principles of ethics. We argue that the change leader can depend on this more comprehensive approach for a better assurance of ethical and therefore more effective change. Our idea also would be effective regardless of the type of change confronting the organization and/or the leaders of the firm. Our point is that, while change is by its nature hard and there is an inclination to resist change, with ethical change management, the firm has a better chance of success. (shrink)

Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality have been responsible for the major transitions in levels of selection and individuality in natural history, such as the origins of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, multicellular organisms, and eusocial insects. The integrated hierarchical organization of life thereby emerged as groups of individuals repeatedly evolved into new and more complex kinds of individuals. The Social Protocell Hypothesis proposes that the integrated hierarchical organization of human culture can also be understood as the outcome of an ETI—one that produced (...) a “cultural organism” from a substrate of socially learned traditions that were contained in growing and dividing social communities. The SPH predicts that a threshold degree of evolutionary individuality would have been achieved by 2.0–2.5 Mya, followed by an increasing degree of evolutionary individuality as the ETI unfolded. We here assess the SPH by applying a battery of criteria—developed to assess evolutionary individuality in biological units—to cultural units across the evolutionary history of Homo. We find an increasing agreement with these criteria, which buttresses the claim that an ETI occurred in the cultural realm. (shrink)

This article focuses on the ethics of payday lending. We present information about the payday lending industry, a range of legal and best practices guidelines for the industry, and finally our own presentation of the most appropriate practices to be used to satisfy both legal and ethical edicts. This effort is made with the hope that business people in general, professionals in the payday lending industry, lawmakers, educators, and even potential consumers may benefit by understanding the driving economic, legal, and (...) social guidelines that can make payday lending services a positive and efficacious addition to our lending industries. (shrink)

The study of business ethics has led to the development of various principles that are the foundation of good and ethical business practices. A corresponding study of Information Technology (IT) professionals’ ethics has led to the conclusion that good ethics in the development and uses of information technology correspond to the basic business principle that good ethics is good business. Ergo, good business ethics practiced by IT professionals is good IT ethics and vice versa. IT professionals are professionals in businesses; (...) a difficulty presented to these professionals, however, is the number and diversity of codes of ethics to which they may be held. Considering the existence of several formalized codes of ethics prepared by various IT professionals’ associations, a more harmonized approach seems more reasonable. This paper attempts to present a review of the purpose of codes of ethics, the persons who should be covered by such codes and to organize codes of ethics for business in general and IT professionals in particular and to make the argument that, once again, good ethics is good business practice, regardless of the profession or occupation concerned. (shrink)

Over a period of 10 years following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the author conducted interviews with 18 women on four separate occasions to determine their response to unification. The fourth set of interviews, which took place during the spring of 1999, revealed that the women had adopted one of three different ways of adapting to unification. In the first and largest group were women who were more engaged, active and upbeat about their new lives. A second, (...) smaller group consisted of women who were frustrated, discouraged and bitter and had turned inward. Women in the third group were involved in their new lives but exhausted by their efforts to maintain their involvement. The most significant factor in defining these women's different experiences appears to have been the ability to maintain a sense of community. These biographies show that women who successfully adapted to unification held onto the community they had enjoyed in the GDR or else created it anew, while those who were discouraged and bitter had lost connection with the wider community. (shrink)

Cet article s'interroge sur le type de théories qui sont produites dans des livres et uniquement dans des livres, sans garantie disciplinaire ni institutionnelle. À partir de deux cas, une méthode comptable et un traité sur la noblesse, il vise à montrer que l'identification des conditions matérielles et sociales d'évolutions de la pensée (contexte de rédaction d'un ouvrage, circulation ou marché de l'imprimé, commande) revient finalement à une analyse par l'esprit du temps, dès lors que le livre est traité comme (...) un résultat ou un produit, et que le travail qu'il effectue n'est pas pris en compte. Les cas choisis révèlent que l'ajustement d'un livre à une demande ou à une action politique n'est pas une explication, utilisable telle quelle par l'historien, mais le fait d'une interprétation des besoins de théorie suscités par cette action. Cette interprétation, comme fait, est à expliquer: on la comprend ici comme proposition de manières de savoir que seule la reconnaissance du pouvoir, c'està- dire l'activation de réseaux et de relais sociaux, peut valider. (shrink)

The book explores and explains the relationship between law and ethics in the context of medically related research in order to provide a practical guide to understanding for members of research ethics committees (RECs), professionals involved with medical research and those with an academic interest in the subject.

This article focuses on the issue of data mining as it relates to the consumer and to the issue of whether the consumer's private information has any proprietary status. A brief review of data mining is provided as a background for a better understanding of the purposes and uses of data mining. Also examined are several issues of the ethics of data mining, including a review of stakeholders, who they are and which may be most seriously affected by unethical data (...) mining practices. Several suggestions for the improvement of data mining as it relates to the consumer are further presented: suggestions that would allow for data mining that would be beneficial to both the business community and the consumer. (shrink)

This paper presents novel data regarding the logophoric pronoun in Ewe. We show that, contrary to what had been assumed in the absence of the necessary fieldwork, Ewe logophors are not obligatorily interpreted de se. We discuss the prima facie rather surprising nature of this discovery given the assumptions that de se construals arise via binding of the pronoun by an abstraction operator in the left periphery of the clausal complement of an attitude predicate, and that logophors are elements that (...) are obligatorily bound by such abstractors. We show that this approach can be reconciled with these facts given the additional assumption that elements that are ‘de se’ bound can interact with the concept generator variables posited by Percus and Sauerland to derive de re interpretations of embedded nominals. The proposed set-up has consequences for our understanding of puzzles raised by Heim and Sharvit concerning binding-theoretic effects with de re elements, and for the derivation of the obligatorily de se interpretation of controlled PRO. (shrink)

It is a somewhat vexed question whether presuppositions are always accommodated into the global context of utterance of the sentence, or whether they may sometimes be accommodated into a local context - the context of some subsentential constituent. Von Fintel (2008) argues that there is no local accommodation. He shows that presuppositions in the scope of universally quantified sentences, which have traditionally been handled via local accommodation (eg Heim 1983), can be accounted for by assuming that conversational participants select a (...) domain of quantification such that every relevant element of it has the property required by the presupposition in the scope. It is shown that this domain selection mechanism cannot account for a related set of data involving presupposition triggers in the restrictor rather than scope of the universal. We also discuss the relationship between quantified sentences and conditionals, and general consequences for the theory of presupposition accommodation. (shrink)

The Demonic in the Political Thought of Eusebius of Caesarea explores how Eusebius of Caesarea's ideas about demons interacted with and helped to shape his thought on other topics, particularly political topics Hazel Johannessen builds on and complements recent work on early Christian and early modern demonology. Eusebius' political thought has long drawn the attention of scholars who have identified in some of his works the foundations of later Byzantine theories of kingship. However, Eusebius' political thought has not previously been (...) examined in the light of his views on demons. Moreover, despite frequent references to demons throughout many of Eusebius' works, there has been no comprehensive study of Eusebius' views on demons, until now, as expressed throughout a range of his works.The originality of this study lies both in an initial examination of Eusebius' views on demons and their place in his cosmology, and in the application of the insights derived from this to consideration of his political thought. As a result of this new perspective, Johannessen challenges scholars' traditional characterization of Eusebius as a triumphal optimist. Instead, she draws attention to his concerns about a continuing demonic threat, capable of disrupting humankind's salvation, and presents Eusebius as a more cautious figure than the one familiar to late antique scholarship. (shrink)

This two-part study analyzed some of the ethical choices made by founding entrepreneurs during the creation and development of their ventures in order to identify the areas in which founding entrepreneurs must make decisions related to ethics or social responsibility during venture creation and development. Content analysis was used to identify decisions with ethical components and/or implications from in-depth interviews with 10 successful business founders. The research for part one of the study was guided by the following research question: In (...) what areas must entrepreneurs make decisions with ethical and/or social responsibility implications during new venture creation and development? The authors identified four distinct categories of decisions where ethical or social responsibility components exist: (1) individual entrepreneurial values-related decisions, (2) organizational culture/employee well-being decisions, (3) customer satisfaction and quality decisions, and (4) external accountability decisions. In the second part of the study, the decisions identified in part one were analyzed using a framework derived from prior research in ethics. This framework was developed from the work of Kant (1964) who theorized about human morals and Rawls (1971) who developed theories about justice. Part two of the study was guided by the following research questions: Do entrepreneurs have values and ethics similar to those held by society in general? If they don’t, how do their values and ethics differ? The comparison revealed that the ethics and/or values that the entrepreneurs either explicitly or implicitly acknowledged were in fact similar to those of society in general. (shrink)

We relate Popper functions to regular and perfectly additive such non-Archimedean probability functions by means of a representation theorem: every such non-Archimedean probability function is infinitesimally close to some Popper function, and vice versa. We also show that regular and perfectly additive non-Archimedean probability functions can be given a lexicographic representation. Thus Popper functions, a specific kind of non-Archimedean probability functions, and lexicographic probability functions triangulate to the same place: they are in a good sense interchangeable.

Calls for the inclusion of women in clinical trials raise the obvious question: why have sponsors excluded them? The answer most often given is one tragically evocative word: Thalidomide. The tragedies of the children born with seal limbs because their mothers took this over-the-counter sleeping pill and cure for morning sickness showed that, contrary to previous perceptions, the placenta could not be depended upon to filter out toxins before they reached the fetus. The specter of birth defects spawned sponsors’ fears (...) of a variety of catastrophes which contributed to closing the doors of clinical trials for women.This paper will not argue that the possibility of birth defects arising from the ingestion of an experimental drug does not exist. Sadly, scientists do not yet have the ability to predict which drugs will cause birth defects. Rather, it will argue that case law does not provide a basis for sponsor liability when a woman gives informed consent and the regulations governing clinical trials are followed. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Table of Cases xi -- Table of legislation xv -- Introduction: Medicine Men, Outlaws and Voluntary Euthanasia 1 -- 1. To Kill or not to Kill; is that the Euthanasia Question? 9 -- Introduction-Why Euthanasia? 9 -- Dead or alive? 16 -- Euthanasia as Homicide 25 -- Euthanasia as Death with Dignity 29 -- 2. Euthanasia and Clinically assisted Death: from Caring to Killing? 35 -- Introduction 35 -- The Indefinite Continuation of Palliative Treatment 38 -- (...) Withholding or Withdrawing Treatment 44 -- The Principle of Double Effect 54 -- Physician Assisted Suicide 60 -- Mercy Killing 64 -- Conclusions 66 -- 3. Consent to Treatment but Not to Death 69 -- Introduction-Why Consent? 69 -- Without Consent 70 -- Killing and Consent 73 -- Valid Consent, Freely Given? 74 -- Old Enough to Consent 80 -- Deciding for Others 82 -- Conclusions-A Consent Too Far? 93 -- 4. Autonomy, Self-determination and Self-destruction 95 -- Introduction-Autonomous Choices 95 -- Choosing to Die-Suicide and Autonomy 100 -- Suicidal Intentions 107 -- Autonomous Clinical Discretion 110 -- Deciding to Live or Die-Whose Decision? 112 -- 5. Living Wills and the Will to Die 115 -- Introduction 115 -- I Know My Will 118 -- This is My Will 121 -- I Will Decide 128 -- Will My Will be Done? 134 -- Where There's a Will 137 -- Conclusions 143 -- 6. Is Euthanasia a Dignified Death? 145 -- Introduction-Why Dignity? 145 -- Needing Dignity 146 -- Finding Dignity 149 -- Achieving Dignity in Dying 151 -- Dignifying Death 157 -- 7. Conclusions: Dignified Life, Dignified Death and Dignified Law 165 -- Select Bibliography 175 -- Index 183. (shrink)

My purpose in this essay is to describe and define the ways in which Afro-American women intellectuals, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, theorized about the possibilities and limits of patriarchal power through its manipulation of racialized and gendered social categories and practices. The essay is especially directed toward two academic constituencies: the practitioners of Afro-American cultural analysis and of feminist historiography and theory. The dialogue with each has its own peculiar form, characterized by its own specific history; (...) yet both groups are addressed in an assertion of difference, of alterity, and in a voice characterized by an anger dangerously self-restrained. For it is not in the nature of Caliban to curse; rather, like Caliban, the black woman has learned from her behaviour of her master and mistress that if accommodation results in a patronizing loosening of her bonds, liberation will be more painful. Hazel V. Carby is assistant professor of English at Wesleyan University. She is the coauthor of the Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in Seventies Britain and the author of Uplifting as They Write: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist. (shrink)

In ‘Fuzzy gender: between female embodiment and intersex’, Ashley Tauchert offers a ‘fuzzy’ model for gender. Her proposed model aims to account for the normative boundaries of sex and gender, especially between females, transwomen, and intersexuals, in terms of a ‘gender line’ on which different gender categories are located. This reply paper aims to clear the fuzziness in Tauchert’s model by pointing out two critical problems. First, her model appears to be self-defeating, since the marginalized gender categories it attempts to (...) empower are defined in terms of the hegemonic binarism of the ‘pure’ heterosexual male and the ‘pure’ heterosexual female, which it tries to dislodge. Second, her model implies an infinite number of possible gender categories along the gender line; being so, it becomes theoretically inert and practically inadequate. In lieu of the fuzzy model, this paper suggests an alternative model of thinking through the black/white and grey gender categories. This model utilizes the metaphor of gender galaxies, where each gender category is treated as an independent, socially-conferred galaxy; each having specific societal concerns and political agenda. This model, as will be argued, provides firmer grounding for the political aspirations of these various gender categories. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore the law related to identity theft, to review corresponding rights, and responsibilities of stakeholders involved in identity theft and to formulate a system of best practices businesses could engage in to prevent or reduce identity theft threats. Utilizing two ethical frameworks based on deontological approaches, the authors conclude that there should be a well-defined management scheme to prevent identity theft, which is easy to comprehend and comply with for all stakeholders. Our proposed (...) management scheme incorporates both legal and ethical elements such that identity theft will be more difficult. Further, our proposal would also address business entities’ practices that are so careless that identity theft is made possible at all or made easier: ethical business practice can do much to reduce or eliminate identity theft. (shrink)

Cet article s'interroge sur le type de théories qui sont produites dans des livres et uniquement dans des livres, sans garantie disciplinaire ni institutionnelle. À partir de deux cas, une méthode comptable et un traité sur la noblesse, il vise à montrer que l'identification des conditions matérielles et sociales d'évolutions de la pensée (contexte de rédaction d'un ouvrage, circulation ou marché de l'imprimé, commande) revient finalement à une analyse par l'esprit du temps, dès lors que le livre est traité comme (...) un résultat ou un produit, et que le travail qu'il effectue n'est pas pris en compte. Les cas choisis révèlent que l'ajustement d'un livre à une demande ou à une action politique n'est pas une explication, utilisable telle quelle par l'historien, mais le fait d'une interprétation des besoins de théorie suscités par cette action. Cette interprétation, comme fait, est à expliquer: on la comprend ici comme proposition de manières de savoir que seule la reconnaissance du pouvoir, c'està- dire l'activation de réseaux et de relais sociaux, peut valider. (shrink)

Michel Foucault donne en 1969 à Paris, puis en 1970 aux États-Unis, une conférence sur la question de l'auteur dont la formule-clé, «Qu'importe qui parle», est empruntée à Samuel Beckett. Il existe plusieurs manières de donner un contexte aux propositions avancées dans ce texte qui fit événement, de raconter l'histoire de son impact sur la théorie, la critique, l'histoire du fait littéraire, d'y réagir enfin. On s'efforce ici d'éclairer ces interprétations, ces récits, leurs évolutions et leurs enjeux, en s'intéressant notamment (...) à leur caractère contradictoire, ainsi qu'à l'importance qu'ont eue, pour l'évolution des études littéraires, des choses que Foucault ne dit pas dans «Qu'est-ce qu'un auteur?»."--Back cover. (shrink)

Cet article propose une discussion sur les sources d'une histoire des savoirs à la recherche d'institutions, de communautés et plus largement des lieux où ces savoirs s'élaborent. Il montre que la nature scripturaire des sources d'un savoir possible sur les lieux de savoir du passé doit faire partie des objets de l'analyse, sous peine de reproduire des fictions sociales créées en leur temps pour servir des politiques diverses. Le cas étudié semble proposer ensemble à l'observation certains des objets favoris de (...) l'histoire intellectuelle du XVIIe siècle (académies, salons, École), et permet ainsi de questionner l'inégale solidité sociale de ces objets, en réinsérant l'activité d'écriture et de publication d'un auteur philosophe dans le tissu des multiples écritures sur la philosophie et ses lieux qui ont, à cette époque, fait d'elle autre chose qu'une discipline. (shrink)

Calls for the inclusion of women in clinical trials raise the obvious question: why have sponsors excluded them? The answer most often given is one tragically evocative word: Thalidomide. The tragedies of the children born with seal limbs because their mothers took this over-the-counter sleeping pill and cure for morning sickness showed that, contrary to previous perceptions, the placenta could not be depended upon to filter out toxins before they reached the fetus. The specter of birth defects spawned sponsors’ fears (...) of a variety of catastrophes which contributed to closing the doors of clinical trials for women.This paper will not argue that the possibility of birth defects arising from the ingestion of an experimental drug does not exist. Sadly, scientists do not yet have the ability to predict which drugs will cause birth defects. Rather, it will argue that case law does not provide a basis for sponsor liability when a woman gives informed consent and the regulations governing clinical trials are followed. (shrink)

Numerous recommendations and guidelines aim to improve the quality, timeliness and transparency of medical publications. However, these guidelines use ambiguous language that can be challenging to interpret, particularly for speakers of English as a second language. Cultural expectations within the Asia-Pacific region raise additional challenges and several studies have suggested that awareness and application of ethical publication practices in the Asia-Pacific region is relatively low compared with other regions. However, guidance on applying ethical publication practice guidelines in the Asia-Pacific region (...) is lacking. This commentary aims to improve publication practices in the Asia-Pacific region by providing guidance on applying the 10 principles of the Good Publication Practice 3 (GPP3) guidelines and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for authorship. Recommendations are provided for encore presentations, applying the ICMJE authorship criteria in the context of regional cultural expectations, and the role of study sponsors and professional medical writers. Ongoing barriers to compliance with guidelines are also highlighted, and additional guidance is provided to support authors submitting manuscripts for publication. The roles of regional journals, regulatory authorities and professional bodies in improving practices are also discussed. (shrink)

Peter Frase's Four Futures is a well-developed study of how a postcapitalist egalitarian society could be created. As the title suggests, the book is organized around four chapters detailing possible future societies. There are two utopian visions contained in chapters entitled "Communism" and "Socialism," and two contrasting dystopian worlds in "Rentism" and "Exterminism." Frase takes each of these societies in turn and analyzes the possibility of creating a utopian one, where humanity cares about finding a solution to the climate crisis (...) and embraces technology for positive outcomes. Throughout the book Frase warns the reader of the totalitarian alternatives that the misuse of postcapitalist... (shrink)