Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 3, March 2022.

BackgroundPatients with COVID-19 may feel under pressure to participate in research during the pandemic. Safeguards to protect research participants include ethical guidelines [e.g. Declaration of Helsinki and good clinical practice (GCP)], legislation to protect participants’ privacy, research ethics committees (RECs) and informed consent. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) advises researchers to document compliance with these safeguards. Adherence to publication guidelines has been suboptimal in other specialty fields. The aim of this rapid review was to determine whether COVID-19 (...) human research publications report compliance with these ethical safeguards.MethodsA rapid systematic literature review was conducted in MEDLINE using the search term ‘COVID-19’. The search was performed in April 2020 with no start date and repeated to include articles published in November 2020. Filters were ‘Full free text available’ and ‘English Language’. Two reviewers assessed article title, abstracts and full texts. Non-COVID-19 articles and non-clinical studies were excluded. Independent reviewers conducted a second assessment of a random 20% of articles. The outcomes included reporting of compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki and GCP, REC approval, informed consent and participant privacy.ResultsThe searches yielded 1275 and 1942 articles of which 247 and 717 were deemed eligible, from the April search and November respectively. The majority of journals had editorial policies which purported to comply with ICMJE ethical standards. Reporting of compliance with ethical guidelines was low across all study types but was higher in the November search for case series and observational studies. Reporting of informed consent for case studies and observational studies was higher in the November search, but similar for case series. Overall, participant confidentiality was maintained but some case studies included a combination of details which would have enabled participant identification. Reporting of REC approval was higher in the November search for observational studies.ConclusionsWhile the majority of journal’s editorial policies purported to support the ethical safeguards, many COVID-19 clinical research publications identified in this rapid review lacked documentation of these important safeguards for research participants. In order to promote public trust, ethical declarations should be included consistently. (shrink)

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 3, Page 438-451, May 2022.

A growing group of institutional investors use divestment strategically to deter misconducts that are harmful for the climate and society. Based on Kantian ethics, we propose that divestment represents investors’ universal and absolute moral commitment to socially responsible investing (SRI). Following categorical and hypothetical imperatives and reciprocity as a norm, we hypothesize how institutional investors’ commit to SRI through a divestment strategy against ethically reprehensible behaviour of banks, especially when these investors represent banks themselves. Using a hand-collected database of the (...) revelation dates of enforcement actions on banks, we find evidence that banks are less likely to divest equity holding on banks with misconduct (fined banks) than their non-bank institutional investors peers. Banks that commit to invest responsibly by signing for the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) are not significantly more likely to divest on fined banks stocks than non-signatory banks. Moreover, divestment of fined banks whose own legitimacy to operate is in question is not significantly different from non-fined banks divestment. We find that European banks are more inclined to sell their holdings permanently on fined banks than their United States peers. Therefore, bank’s moral commitment to SRI via divestments is influenced more by cultural and reciprocity norms than their moral commitment to participate in the PRI. (shrink)

This thesis develops and defends epistemic fictionalism, according to which knowledge talk is metaphorical. One of the distinctive features of metaphor is that metaphorical sentences have multiple readings: a literal (or ‘face-value’) reading and at least one metaphorical (or ‘non-face-value’) reading. Typically, speakers who utter metaphorical sentences intend to communicate a content that corresponds to the metaphorical meaning. Epistemic fictionalism posits that, as is standard for metaphors, sentences of the form “S knows that P” admit of at least two different (...) readings: a face-value (literal) reading, and a different non-face-value metaphorical reading. A face-value reading of sentences of the form “S knows that P” is that S is infallible with regards to P, and as such are always (or almost always) false at face-value. However, such sentences are not typically used to communicate their typically false face-value content, but some other, typically true metaphorical content. The thesis applies the methods of function-first epistemology (Craig 1990, Hannon 2019a), taking as a starting point the question of what knowledge talk is used for. I argue that understanding knowledge talk as metaphorical coheres with the function that knowledge talk plays, in spite of all (or most) knowledge attributions being literally false: there are advantages to communicating the non-face-value, metaphorical content. Another key advantage of epistemic fictionalism is that it explains the intuitions surrounding sceptical arguments. On the one hand, sceptical infallibilism is compelling because it is the correct analysis of the face-value content of knowledge attributions. On the other hand, sceptical infallibilism is not threatening to everyday knowledge attributions because it does not threaten the truth of the metaphorical content that knowledge attributions are typically used to express. Overall, the main aim of the thesis is to motivate epistemic fictionalism as a serious contender worthy of further investigation and development. (shrink)

In a series of philosophical discussions and artistic case studies, this volume develops a materialist and immanent approach to modern and contemporary art. The argument is made for a return to aesthetics--an aesthetics of affect--and for the theorization of art as an expanded and complex practice. Staging a series of encounters between specific Deleuzian concepts--the virtual, the minor, the fold, etc.--and the work of artists that position their work outside of the gallery or "outside" of representation--Simon O'Sullivan takes Deleuze's (...) thought into other milieus, allowing these "possible worlds" to work back on philosophy. (shrink)

Prior studies in business ethics highlight the role of philanthropy in shaping stakeholders’ perceptions of a firm’s underlying moral tendencies and values. Scholars argue that philanthropy-based character inferences influence whether and how stakeholders engage with firms. We extend this line of reasoning to examine the impact of philanthropy on firms’ contracting costs in the capital market. We posit that philanthropy-based character inferences reduce investors’ agency concerns, thereby reducing firms’ cost of capital. We also posit that the strength of the philanthropy–cost (...) of capital relationship is contingent on uncertainty regarding a firm’s character, visibility of a firm, and prevailing philanthropic norms. We test and find support for our arguments in a longitudinal study of philanthropy and the cost of capital. Our findings have implications for business ethics research on corporate philanthropy and corporate social performance and for organizational research on social judgment. (shrink)

Animals, Equality and Democracy examines the structure of animal protection legislation and finds that it is deeply inequitable, with a tendency to favor those animals the community is most likely to see and engage with. Siobhan O'Sullivan argues that these inequities violate fundamental principle of justice and transparency.

It is widely thought that functionalism and the qualia theory are better positioned to accommodate the ‘affective’ aspect of pain phenomenology than representationalism. In this paper, we attempt to overturn this opinion by raising problems for both functionalism and the qualia theory on this score. With regard to functionalism, we argue that it gets the order of explanation wrong: pain experience gives rise to the effects it does because it hurts, and not the other way around. With regard to the (...) qualia theory, we argue that it fails to capture the sense in which pain 's affective phenomenology rationalises various bodily-directed beliefs, desires, and behaviours. Representationalism, in contrast, escapes both of these problems: it gets the order of explanation right and it explains how pain 's affective phenomenology can rationalise bodily-directed beliefs, desires, and behaviours. For this reason, we argue that representationalism has a significant advantage in the debates about pain 's affective phenomenology. We end the paper by examining objections, including the question of what representationalists should say about so-called ‘disassociation cases’, such as pain asymbolia. (shrink)

The concept of the public realm is the most fundamental of all political concepts because it is only the shared relationship it constitutes between rulers and ruled that makes government more than mere domination. It is therefore not surprising that the question of how the public realm is to be defined has been a central concern of political thinkers from Plato to more recent philosophers like Hannah Arendt. Although the answers they have given have of course varied greatly, what is (...) relevant in the present context is simply the assumption, for well over two thousand years, that there could be an answer. What is novel today, by contrast, is the increasing realization that political theory cannot in principle provide philosophical guidance of any kind about how the public realm can be finally and definitively identified, in a way which would clearly distinguish it from the private realm and thereby enable an incontestable limit to be set to the proper scope of politics and of state action. The present essay considers how some leading contemporary political thinkers have responded to this situation. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of mood on corporate philanthropic giving. Drawing on group emotions theory and affect-infused decision theory, we advance the argument that firms allocate greater resources to philanthropy when headquarters-based employees are in a more positive affective state. We also describe three boundary conditions in this relationship—executives’ embeddedness in the firm, executives’ latitude to engage in philanthropic giving, and the firm’s track record of corporate social irresponsibility. We test our arguments using a longitudinal dataset of philanthropic giving (...) by U.S. firms. Our study contributes to the literature by shedding light on the role of affect in shaping the decision to allocate resources to corporate philanthropy. (shrink)

Prior studies suggest that firms headquartered in areas with strong religious social norms have higher ethical standards. In this study, we examine whether the ethical standards associated with local religious norms influence the M&A announcement returns. We document that the M&A announcement returns of acquirer firms increase with the strength of religious social norms in the area surrounding firms’ headquarters. We also document that the relationship is attenuated when acquirer firms have strong corporate social responsibility credentials, is amplified when public (...) trust that firms act in the best interest of stakeholders suffers a negative shock and when the M&A deal has greater economic significance for the acquirer, and manifests predominantly in the lower tail of the distribution of M&A returns. Our findings are consistent with investor assessments of firms’ ethical standards driving the relationship between local religious social norms and M&A announcement returns. We find no evidence for the competing explanation—that investor assessments of firms’ risk preferences drive the documented relationship. (shrink)

(2006). Liberalism, Nihilism and Modernity in the Political Thought of John Gray. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 9, The Political Theory of John Gray, pp. 285-304.

Introduction: contemporary conditions and diagrammatic trajectory -- From joy to the gap: the accessing of the infinite by the finite (Spinoza, Nietzsche, Bergson) -- The care of the self versus the ethics of desire: two diagrams of the production of subjectivity (and of the subject's relation to truth) (Foucault versus Lacan) -- The aesthetic paradigm: from the folding of the finite-infinite relation to schizoanalytic metamodelisation (to biopolitics) (Guattari) -- The strange temporality of the subject: life in-between the infinite and the (...) finite (Deleuze contra Badiou) -- Desiring-machines, chaoids, probeheads: towards a speculative production of subjectivity (Deleuze and Guattari) -- Conclusion: composite diagram and relations of adjacency. (shrink)

Discussions of whistleblowing whether in academic literature or in more popular media have tended to very one-sided assessments of the moral worth of the act. Indeed, much of the current literature concentrates on psychological or managerial aspects of whistleblowing while taking for granted this or that moral position or eschewing any normative commitment on the question. The purpose of this article is firstly to reemphasise the importance and complexity of the normative foundations of whistleblowing acts; and secondly, through a moral (...) philosophical analysis of the component decisions that make up any act of whistleblowing, to contribute to a more balanced and less polarised treatment of the topic. It is argued that the polarisation of views on the topic is in part due to a failure to decompose the act of whistleblowing into a number of inevitable component moral decisions leading up to the act. It is furthermore argued on the basis of the analysis that it is impossible to state a priori as a matter of general principle that whistleblowing is always morally right or morally wrong . The article will close with a reflection on the degree to which the weighing up of good and bad in the act of whistleblowing differs sharply among cultures; and with a conjecture as to a possible relation to a people's history which may serve as a pointer to interesting future empirical research on the topic. (shrink)

Three philosophical accounts of risk dominate the contemporary literature. On the probabilistic account, risk has to do with the probability of a disvaluable event obtaining; on the modal account, it has to do with the modal closeness of that event obtaining; on the normic account, it has to do with the normalcy of that event obtaining. The debate between these accounts has proceeded via counterexample-trading, with each account having some cases it explains better than others, and some cases that it (...) cannot explain at all. In this article, we attempt to break the impasse between the three accounts of risk through a shift in methodology. We investigate the concept of risk via the method of conceptual reverse-engineering, whereby a theorist reconstructs the need that a concept serves for a group of agents in order to illuminate the shape of the concept: its intension and extension. We suggest that risk functions to meet our need to make decisions that reduce disvalue under conditions of uncertainty. Our project makes plausible that risk is a pluralist concept: meeting this need requires that risk takes different forms in different contexts. But our pluralism is principled: each of these different forms are part of one and the same concept, that has a ‘core-to-periphery’ structure, where the form the concept takes in typical cases (at its ‘core’) explains the form it takes in less typical cases (at its ‘periphery’). We then apply our findings to epistemic risk, to resolve an ambiguity in how ‘epistemic risk’ is standardly understood. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Paragrana Jahrgang: 25 Heft: 2 Seiten: 80-93.

Traditionally, acts of civil disobedience are understood as a mechanism by which citizens may express dissatisfaction with a law of their country. That expression will typically be morally motivated, non-violent and aimed at changing their government’s policy, practice or law. Building on existing work, in this paper we explore the limits of one well-received definition of civil disobedience by considering the challenging case of the actions of animal activists at sea. Drawing on original interviews with advocates associated with Sea Shepherd, (...) Greenpeace and Humane Society International we find that even if animal activists are morally motivated and civil, the transnational nature of their activity makes it difficult to assess their intention to bring about a change in law or public policy. This means that a civil disobedience defence may not be available to activists operating across international borders. This raises important questions about the usefulness of the civil disobedience concept within the context of a globalised world. We conclude that while the actions of some anti-whaling activists may not meet definitions of civil disobedience as conventionally understood, this says more about the narrow way in which that concept has been traditionally defined, than it does about the type of activity some anti-whaling activists have undertaken in the Southern Ocean. Finally, we argue that activists wishing to make a stand against whaling may have no choice but to act as global citizens because policy change within a single nation-state is unlikely to lead to the cessation of this inherently transnational activity. (shrink)

Some of the most important contributions to animal ethics over the past decade or so have come from political, as opposed to moral, philosophers. As such, some have argued that there been a ‘political turn’ in the field. If there has been such a turn, it needs to be shown that there is something which unites these contributions, and which sets them apart from previous work. We find that some of the features which have been claimed to be shared commitments (...) of the turn are contested by key theorists working in the field. We also find that the originality of the turn can be exaggerated, with many of their ideas found in more traditional animal ethics. Nonetheless, we identify one unifying and distinctive feature of these contributions: the focus on justice; and specifically, the exploration of how political institutions, structures and processes might be transformed so as to secure justice for both human and nonhuman animals. (shrink)

Maurice O'Sullivan was born on the Great Blasket in 1904, and Twenty Years A-Growing tells the story of his youth and of a way of life which belonged to the Middle Ages. He wrote for his own pleasure and for the entertainment of his friends, without any thought of a wider public; his style is derived from folk-tales which he heard from his grandfather and sharpened by his own lively imagination.

Bertrand Russell developed a conception of the nature of the visual field, and of other sensory fields, as part of his project of explaining the construction of the external world. Wittgenstein's remarks on the visual field in the Tractatus are in part a response to Russell. Wittgenstein, against Russell, analyses the visual field in terms of facts rather than objects. Further, his conception of the field is, in a distinctive sense, depsychologised.

Qualia have proved difficult to integrate into a broadly physicalistic worldview. In this paper, I argue that despite popular wisdom in the philosophy of mind, qualia’s intrinsicality is not sufficient for their non-reducibility. Second, I diagnose why philosophers mistakenly focused on intrinsicality. I then proceed to argue that qualia are categorical and end with some reflections on how the conceptual territory looks when we keep our focus on categoricity.

The background to the regime : Demetrius of Phalerum's early years. The years in obscurity : the reigns of Philip, Alexander, and the age of Lycurgus -- Demetrius' rise to prominence : Athens after Alexander -- The decade of Demetrius : some introductory observations -- Demetrius the law-giver : the moral programme. Burial laws -- The gunaikonomoi and their laws -- The nomophulakes -- Demetrius and the ephêbeia -- The laws : an interpretation and discussion of the historical context -- (...) The institutions of democracy. The citizen body -- The assembly and council -- Elections and the archonship -- Jurisdiction in the courts : the graphê paranomôn and eisangelia -- The Areopagus -- The Athenian institutions : a summary -- Festivals and finances : the economic administration of Athens. Demetrius and the khorêgeia -- The other liturgies -- The Athenian economy, 317-307 -- Philosophy and the Phalerean regime. Demetrius' laws and the Peripatos -- The philosophical schools and political calumny -- Demetrius : orator, peripatetic, and patron of philosophers -- Athens and Cassander. The years 317-307 : a narrative history -- Athenian foreign policy under Demetrius of Phalerum -- Conclusion -- Appendix 1. The literary sources for the regime of Demetrius -- Appendix 2. Gunaikonomoi & nomophulakes : a comparison -- Appendix 3. The duties of the gunaikonomoi : a rejected suggestion. (shrink)