Distinguished contributors take up eminent scholar Daniel R. Schwarz’s reading of modern fiction and poetry as mediating between human desire and human action. The essayists follow Schwarz’s advice, “always the text, always historicize,” thus making this book relevant to current debates about the relationships between literature, ethics, aesthetics, and historical contexts.

In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decision-making and an oligarchic challenge concerning power concentration. To address the challenges we then (...) put forward three main normative claims, each of which is compatible with the evidence. We start with a critique of the epistocratic position commonly thought to be supported by the evidence. We then introduce a qualified critique of referenda and other forms of plebiscite, and an outline of a tribune-based system of popular control over oligarchic influence on the policy process. Our discussion points towards a renewal of democracy in a plebeian but not plebiscitarian direction: Attention to the relative power of social classes matters more than formal dispersal of power through voting. We close with some methodological reflections about the compatibility between our normative claims and the realist program in political philosophy. (shrink)

Four years after the Panama Papers scandal, tax avoidance remains an urgent moral-political problem. Moving beyond both the academic and policy mainstream, I advocate the “democratization of tax enforcement,” by which I mean systematic efforts to make tax avoiders accountable to the judgment of ordinary citizens. Both individual oligarchs and multinational corporations have access to sophisticated tax avoidance strategies that impose significant fiscal costs on democracies and exacerbate preexisting distributive and political inequalities. Yet much contemporary tax sheltering occurs within the (...) letter of the law, rendering criminal sanctions ineffective. In response, I argue for the creation of Citizen Tax Juries, deliberative minipublics empowered to scrutinize tax avoiders, demand accountability, and facilitate concrete reforms. This proposal thus responds to the wider aspiration, within contemporary democratic theory, to secure more popular control over essential economic processes. (shrink)

This essay identifies ‘oligarchic harm’ as a dire threat confronting contemporary democracies. I provide a formal standard for classifying oligarchs: those who use personal access to concentrated wealth to pursue harmful forms of discretionary influence. I then use Aristotle to think through both the moral and the epistemic dilemmas of oligarchic harm, highlighting Aristotle’s concerns about the difficulties of using wealth as a ‘proxy’ for virtue. While Aristotle’s thought provides great resources for diagnosing oligarchic threats, it proves less useful as (...) a guide to democratic institutional design. Aristotle raises a deep-seated objection to democratic forms of ‘rule by the poor.’ A successful response to oligarchy must move beyond Aristotle’s objection and affirm the demos’ tripartite status as many, free, and poor. I briefly outline the terms of this ‘new’ mixed regime: one that seeks to tame oligarchy through a mixture of aggregative, deliberative, and plebeian institutions. (shrink)

This article tackles the issue of offshore tax sheltering from the perspective of normative political realism. Tax sheltering is a pressing contemporary policy challenge, with hundreds of billions in private assets protected in offshore trusts and shell companies. Indeed, tax sheltering produces a variety of empirical dilemmas that render it a distinctive challenge for global governance. Therefore, it is crucial for normative political theorists to confront this problem. A realist approach offers three distinct advantages, elaborated in the three subsequent sections (...) of the article. First, it relaxes the theoretical burden by starting from the real practice of tax evasion rather than from an abstract theory of equality or justice. Second, this approach recognizes that sheltering is a political harm: a threat to the very maintenance of order, not just a problem of inequality or injustice. If politicians fail at such polity maintenance, realism's ethic of responsibility provides clear political reasons why they should be held accountable. Third, realism's focus on power and its acceptance of coercion open up new strategies for addressing the problem that would not be allowed by theories with a stronger emphasis on consensus. (shrink)

This essay identifies ‘oligarchic harm’ as a dire threat confronting contemporary democracies. I provide a formal standard for classifying oligarchs: those who use personal access to concentrated w...

A study of 612 CPAs employed in four separate regions of the People’s Republic of China shows that they exhibit ethical orientations that are not significantly different from one another and that they do not, as a group identify with the Subjectivist description provided in the Forsyth et al. (Journal of Business Ethics 8(83):813–833, 2008) meta-analytic international study involving the Ethical Position Questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis did however establish the validity of the instrument as a measure of idealistic and relativistic (...) tendencies. It was established that the ethical tone within local accounting firms plays a significant role in forming ethical positions and that these variables together work to influence ethical judgement making with respect to issues involving independence and objectivity. The constructs of relativism and idealism act as reliable predictors of moral choice, but need to be carefully interpreted in the context of field research. The study highlights concerns about the ethicality of a fledgling group of professionals having to cope with the exigencies associated with the world’s fastest developing economy. (shrink)

In ‘Wittgenstein on Language and Rules’, Professor N. Malcolm took us to task for misinterpreting Wittgenstein's arguments on the relationship between the concept of following a rule and the concept of community agreement on what counts as following a given rule. Not that we denied that there are any grammatical connections between these concepts. On the contrary, we emphasized that a rule and an act in accord with it make contact in language. Moreover we argued that agreement in judgments and (...) in definitions is indeed necessary for a shared language. But we denied that the concept of a language is so tightly interwoven with the concept of a community of speakers as to preclude its applicabilty to someone whose use of signs is not shared by others. Malcolm holds that ‘This is an unwitting reduction of Wittgenstein's originality. That human agreement is necessary for “shared” language is not so striking a thought as that it is essential for language simpliciter .’ Though less striking, we believe that it has the merit of being a true thought. We shall once more try to show both that it is correct, and that it is a correct account of Wittgenstein's arguments. (shrink)

The Reeh-Schlieder theorem asserts the vacuum and certain other states to be spacelike superentangled relative to local fields. This motivates an inquiry into the physical status of various concepts of localization. It is argued that a covariant generalization of Newton-Wigner localization is a physically illuminating concept. When analyzed in terms of nonlocally covariant quantum fields, creating and annihilating quanta in Newton-Wigner localized states, the vacuum is seen to not possess the spacelike superentanglement that the Reeh-Schlieder theorem displays relative to local (...) fields, and to be locally empty as well as globally empty. Newton-Wigner localization is then shown to be physically interpretable in terms of a covariant generalization of the center of energy, the two localizations being identical if the system has no internal angular momentum. Finally, some of the counterintuitive features of Newton-Wigner localization are shown to have close analogues in classical special relativity. (shrink)

Alvin Goldman's early work in action theory and theory of knowledge was a major influence on my own thinking and writing about emotions. For that reason and others, it was a very happy moment in my professional life when I learned, in 1988, that in his presidential address to the Society for Philosophy and Psychology Goldman endorsed and defended the “simulation” theory I had put forward in a 1986 article. I discovered afterward that we share a strong conviction that empirical (...) evidence is relevant to a full assessment of the theory. We both find the burgeoning evidence from cognitive neuroscience to be of particular interest, I believe, in part because it makes possible a major departure for the philosophy of mind: turning its attention from " the neural basis of mental states, " to. (shrink)

CHAPTER ONE Simple cognition Ockham's epistemology is founded upon the primacy of individual cognition. As coming first in the order of knowing, ...

Robust stakeholder engagement in health research requires broad communicative integration, not only of patients but also other stakeholders such as health system leaders, clinicians, and researcher...

Wilfrid Sellars's essay, "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind," (1) introduced, although it did not exactly endorse, what many philosophers consider the first defense of functionalism in the philosophy of mind and the original "theory" theory of commonsense psychology.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE INSCRUTABILITY O:F MORAL EVIL IN KANT ((W:HENCE COMETH EVIL?" Late in his career, Immanuel Kant would turn his attention to this perennial question with an elaborate account of " radical evil " in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone. His discussion produced consternation among his admirers, such as Goethe, and continues to produce puzzlement among his commentators. Among the chief difficulties facing the modern-day interpreter has been (...) the welter of complex terminology tossed up by Kant's attempts to tame his topic. The Kant specialist can justifiably suppose that if only he or she could un-scramble the terminology, grasp the intended interconnections among the terms, and set the discussion within the context of the entire critical philosophy, the result would be a reasonably clear view of Kant's theory of the nature and source of moral evil. There is of course some justification to this vaguely masochistic approach to the matter, yet such an approach, I fear, leads inevitably to frustration. This is because, despite all the appearances to the contrary, Kant never really explains moral evil in the discussion of radical evil in Religion. To be sure, he offers a definition of what moral evil is, by the terms of his philosophy. Nevertheless, he never really accounts for evil, nor does he offer anything remotely approaching an answer to my opening question. The deepest part of Kant's analysis is not a response to that question, but a link between moral evil and human freedom, and this link is utterly inexplicable, for the same reason that freedom itself is, for Kant, ultimately inexplicable. Thus, by this reading of the theory of radical evil, we are not finally led to comprehend Kant's view of evil. Instead, we are 246 THE INSCRUTABILITY OF MORAL EVIL IN KANT 247 reminded of the contingent nature of the exercise of freedom, the unfathomable quality of the process of character-building, and, finally, the sheer inscrutability of moral evil itself. Kant is theorizing about human nature in a way that gradually discloses the futility of domesticating this topic conceptually or rationally. This point is worth stressing, partly because of certain stereotypes that persist regarding the things Kant's philosophy supposedly renders in rational form. And, obviously, the point can be stressed in the present context by pursuing further the notion that moral evil is, for Kant, inscrutable. The inscrutability of moral evil does not pop into view all at once, for Kant's discussion in Religion is set in the context of a complex account of the structure of the will, the nature of the incentives capable of determining the will, and the issue of freedom. Consequently, in what follows I shall attempt to trace the Kantian line of thought lying behind his agnosticism regarding the source of moral evil. -IFor Kant, moral evil resides in a maxim.1 A maxim is for him a special kind of principle, one which guides or informs actionin effect, a "practical principle." The very idea of a maxim is a key element in Kant's efforts to determine how reason can be practical. Discourse about maxims is Kant's way of accounting for those practical principles by which we actually do act, instead of only those principles by which we ought ideally to act.2 In effect, a maxim is the guiding principle that I could state to myself were I to reflect upon the overall policy determining a given act (" I should enrich myself by whatever 1 Kant, Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, ed. W. Weischedel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978), p. 6*7. English translation, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), p. 17. Hereafter referred to as Religion, followed by page numbers in both Weischedel and Greene/Hudson, with all translations taken from the latter. 2 Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. trans. Lewis White Beeck, (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950), pp. 17 n.l, 38 n.9. Q48 GORDON E. MICHALSON means possible," " I should at all times tell the truth "). This distinction between guiding principles by which we actually do... (shrink)

The purpose of this book is expressed in its title. It is an essay, an attempt to explore the ways in which the medieval outlook on the world was changing and giving place to the fourteenth century to new consessions that were ultimately to bring its supersession. It is not a survey, still less a textbook, but rather a delineation of what seem to me to have been the areas of fundamental change. It is, therefore, one individual's interpretation, much though (...) it owes to others. (shrink)

This paper seeks to provide a practical theoretical setting for ethics in business. The perspective is that of the strategic practitioner rather than the moral philosopher. It seeks to take account of the currently dominant business influences of rapid technological development and globalisation and the resultant new form of stakeholder organisation.From this perspective it is clear that being perceived as trustworthy is seen as vital to long term business success. There are various corporate actions that are taken to ensure that (...) organisations are perceived in this way and this paper reports those which were identified during interviews with executives in leading UK companies.The research found little support for corporate philanthropy involving firms investing in ‘good works’ unrelated to their business activities. The main focus was on setting standards of behaviour and achieving a high degree of openness and transparency between stakeholders made subject to independent audit and report. These practical initiatives do not rest on any knowledge and understanding of moral philosophy. (shrink)

During 2012 students enrolled in a Master’s management accounting unit were invited to complete a compulsory class quiz, which was arranged to include a mild form of deception allowing them an opportunity to cheat. Prior to the test students were coached concerning the importance of the ICMA code of ethical conduct, which formed the basis of the quiz. Following the test, students were made aware of the deception and asked to judge the propriety of their actions using a research instrument (...) based on moral intensity theory (Jones in The Academy of Management Review, 16(2), 366–395, 1991). Academic dishonesty, in its many forms is endemic in universities and in this study a significant number of students take advantage of an opportunity to maximise test scores and earn an advertised reward by cheating. Others adopted a virtuous position and opted not to use the information. As reported from an earlier investigation, Woodbine and Amirthalingam (2013) again demonstrate the effect of cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957) although previously the research instrument did not clearly differentiate between respondent types. A logistic regression of subsequent data establishes that high achievers (in terms of their test scores) are more likely to take advantage of the disclosed information to maximise scores and that this is somewhat offset by aspects of their moral character. Immediately following the field experiment, students met to reflect on their actions. A summary of their responses is provided, which tends to support prior evidence that many are somewhat blasé in their attitude to this form of opportunistic behaviour. These findings have ramifications in terms of the way tertiary institutions emphasise academic excellence before moral development, while acting to manage the incidence of misbehaviour. (shrink)

Prey-catching behavior (PCB) in frogs and toads has been the focus of intense neuroethological research from the mid-twentieth century to the present and epitomizes some major themes in science and philosophy during this period. It reflects the movement from simple reflexology to more complex views of instinctive behavior, but it also displays a neural reductionism that denies subjectivity and individual agency The present article engages contemporary PCB research but provides a philosophically more promising picture of it based on Whitehead's nonreductionist (...) "philosophy of organism," which proposes that the flow of events from stimulus to response in organisms of all kinds is mediated by "the intervening touch of mentality " This approach resolves some basic mind-body and mind-nature issues that have long bedeviled modern philosophy and presents an image of a postmodern frog for a constructively postmodern science. (shrink)

The form of this paper, which has more than one purpose, needs a word of explanation and perhaps of excuse. I had had it in mind to bring together and discuss a number of passages of Plautus in which gratus or gratia occurred. Then I came across an interesting paper by Professor L. R. Palmer in Hommages à Max Miedermann , Bruxelles, 1956, pp. 258–69, entitled ‘The Concept of Social Obligation in Indo-European: A Study in Structural Semantics’. There Palmer dealt, (...) among other things, with gratus and related words; he seemed to me, however, to treat the Latin evidence, the greater part of it from Plautus, in a way which I felt to be mistaken. In addition it seemed that a preconceived theory, derived from a special interpretation of the Mycenean tablets, was being read into Roman thought and institutions against the evidence. I have therefore taken the opportunity to discuss the passages of Plautus in which I was first interested within a general examination of Palmer's treatment of the Latin evidence for his theory. (shrink)

This volume examines themes that complicate the conventional economist's view of the world and thereby provide for a notably more complex, and humane, subject of study than the traditional Homo economicus. Written by economists and philosophers, these essays attempt to place neoclassical economic theory, especially conventional textbook micro-economic theory, in the broader context of other social sciences and modern economics. In doing so, the book aims to find the boundaries of economics and to define more sharply its relationship to other (...) kinds of inquiry. Though the widespread use of textbook microtheory in business, economic, and political analysis is a clear testament to its power, the restrictions and artificialities of neoclassical assumptions give cause for worry even to many economists. This book examines the extent to which the economist's paradigm - that man is characterized chiefly by self-interested goals and rational choice of means - is useful in studying traditional noneconomic fields such as philosophy, political theory, and rhetoric. It also looks at how insights from other disciplines are changing - and perhaps improving - the current practice of economics. (shrink)

This study introduces 'time-specific' analysis of economic processes. Economic processes are conventionally analysed from one point in time to another over a series of time units - days, weeks, or years. By contrast, these time-specific models focus on the temporal character of events within the unit time - their timing, duration, and sequence - utilizing the information that is lost in the macroscopic time perspective of standard economic theory. What time-specific analysis reveals are economic and technological characteristics of goods and (...) services - prices and cost behaviour and temporal mobility or immobility within the unit time - that affect capital productivity and its utilization, optimal schedules of production, work, and consumption, least-cost methods of producing time-shaped outputs, and efficient welfare-maximizing behavior in time-specific, including peak-load, markets. (shrink)

This paper explores a remarkable convergence of ideas and evidence, previously presented in separate places by its authors. That convergence has now become so persuasive that we believe we are working within substantially the same broad framework. Taylor's mathematical papers on neuronal systems involved in consciousness dovetail well with work by Newman and Baars on the thalamocortical system, suggesting a brain mechanism much like the global workspace architecture developed by Baars (see references below). This architecture is relational, in the (...) sense that it continuously mediates the interaction of input with memory. While our approaches overlap in a number of ways, each of us tends to focus on different areas of detail. What is most striking, and we believe significant, is the extent of consensus, which we believe to be consistent with other contemporary approaches by Weiskrantz, Gray, Crick and Koch, Edelman, Gazzaniga, Newell and colleagues, Posner, Baddeley, and a number of others. We suggest that cognitive neuroscience is moving toward a shared understanding of consciousness in the brain. (shrink)

In a critical discussion, interlocutors can strategically maneuver by shading their expressed degree of standpoint commitment for rhetorical effect. When is such strategic shading reasonable, and when does it cross the line and risk fallacious derailment of the discussion? Analysis of President George W. Bush’s 2002–2003 prewar commentary on Iraq provides an occasion to explore this question and revisit Douglas Ehninger’s distinction between argumentation as coercive correction and argumentation as a person-risking enterprise. Points of overlap between Ehninger’s account and pragma-dialectical (...) argumentation theory suggest avenues for harmonization of rhetorical and dialectical perspectives on argumentation. Out of this conceptual convergence comes theoretical resources for understanding strategic maneuvering, by accounting for ways that discussants exploit gaps between their externalized and actual discussion attitude. As such higher-order strategic maneuvering played a major role in the 2003 Iraq prewar discourse failure, perspicacious understanding of this particular argumentative maneuver carries practical, as well as theoretical import. (shrink)

The founders and 19th-Century leaders of the American democratic experiment sought to base their institution on a rationalist and individualist model of political reality. As characterized by D. M. Levitan, they distrusted representative government and powerful executives, subscribing to a laissez-faire philosophy: he governs best who governs least. Levitan goes on to accentuate the intimate relationship of the political system to its philosophical foundation. While he notes that Liberal ideas were well adapted to the needs of the plutocracy, he does (...) not play down the importance of Liberalism to the particular form taken by political institutions in democracy. A paradigm of this Liberal doctrine is John Stuart Mill's famous Principle: “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will is to prevent harm to others.” This Principle, if not the source, can certainly qualify as a rationalization for a great part of what passes for “policy” in a democracy. (shrink)