In Barnett and Block (J Bus Ethics 88(4):711–716, 2009a), the present authors claim that borrowing short and lending long is fraudulent, and thus ought to be prohibited on legal grounds. Bagus and Howden (J Bus Ethics 90(3):399, 2009) take issue with our ethical analysis. The present paper is our response to these authors; it is an attempt to defend Barnett and Block (J Bus Ethics 88(4):711–716, 2009a) against the very interesting and important, although we believe, erroneous, criticisms of Bagus and (...) Howden (J Bus Ethics 90(3):399, 2009). (shrink)

We stipulate, arguendo, that fractional-reserve-demand deposit banking is per se fraudulent. We ask whether or not time deposit banking can also be illicit, and answer in the positive, if there is a mismatch between the time dimensions of deposits and loans. To wit, if an intermediary borrows short and lends long.

Whereas previous studies have criticized low-quality products for inadequate safety, this paper considers only safe products, and it examines the ethics of designing and selling low-quality products. Product quality is defined as suitability to a general purpose. The duty that companies owe to consumers is summarized in the Consumer-Oriented Process principle: “to place an increase in the consumer’s quality of life as the primary goal for producing products.” This principle is applied in analyzing the primary ethical justifications for low-quality products: (...) availability and applicability. Finally, a low-quality product should be designed afresh, not by altering an existing high-quality product. (shrink)

El objetivo de nuestro trabajo está en exponer el punto final de la argumentación de Foucault acerca del cuidado de si cristiano ( epimeleia ton allon ), demostrando que la epimeleia ton allon cristiana está muy relacionada a la modalidad de gobierno de las almas y de los cuerpos que Foucault denomina de pastorado cristiano. Intentaremos demonstrar como la recusa de Foucault en aceptar una auténtica epimeleia heautou cristiana resulta en un inevitable vínculo de ésta con el nacimiento de la (...) biopolítica moderna. Estamos dispuestos a evidenciar que era inevitable, para Foucault, hacer dichas consideraciones y llegar a esta conclusión, uniendo en una misma línea epimeleia ton allon cristiana, gobierno pastoral y biopolítica moderna. En el trascurso de nuestro texto, utilizaremos los argumentos de Agamben, expuestos principalmente en su obra El reino y la gloria , en la cual él trata del cruce de dos paradigmas: teología política y economía política. (shrink)

Lawyers and the legal system have been much criticized in recent years. Despite popular perceptions, the legal system contains numerous mechanisms and rules designed to ensure fair results. This paper shows how the legal system tries to implement, in commercial transactions, the ethical principles of truthfulness and fairness. The Anglo-American development of Equity Courts is reviewed briefly. Several examples of the Law's enforcement of ethical principles are presented, in four different legal areas: Contracts, Securities, Goods, and Real Estate. The intent (...) here is to present an overview of the problem, with area-specific illustrations, rather than a comprehenisve examination of the cases in just one area. (shrink)

The paper interprets Nietzsche’s description of authentic human person.Based on the works of Nietzsche, commentaries and philosophical interpretationsof various authors, authentic human person evolves into a superman by usingthe principles of discipline and mastery of oneself. His authenticity, however,requires persistence, courage and strength to endure many forms of sufferingsand to overcome alienation brought about by his environment. Otherwise,man would become slave of his desires or alien to his own powers, talents andcapacities. Thus, Nietzsche’s thought of superman is an invitation to (...) overcomeoneself, the self that is influenced by the non-self or factors outside one self. Itis only possible by using the will to power. The will to power of man overcomesthe influences of the world’s modernization and industrialization that alienateshim to his true self, and this true self is best expressed by his will to power. Onthis note, the author suggests that the readers must use their potentials to face up to challenges of this new era. Keywords: Philosophy, language and literature, emergence, authentic human person,philosophy of the superman, authenticity, alienation, morality, descriptivedesign, Philippines. (shrink)

Henri Delacroix is a French philosopher, religious scholar and psychologist, a student and follower of Bergson. He began his activity with the study of mysticism. Following the thesis “An Essay on Speculative Mysticism in Germany in the 14th Century”, where the author analyzed the teachings of Meister Eckhart and the associated intellectual movement, he published several other works where he examined other historical and national forms of mysticism. Describing different types of mystical intuition, conducting a detailed psychological analysis, Delacroix interpreted (...) the higher forms of mystical experience, contrary to the opinions of some researchers, as an expression of deep inner life and not as a special type of neurosis. His work Studies in the History and Psychology of Mysticism: the Great Christian Mystics was highly appreciated by contemporaries, and the approach he proposed to this subject gradually gained recognition and became classical. In his philosophical and psychological works, Delacroix acted as an opponent of associationism and mental atomism. He developed the treatment of consciousness as an entity, considering the various forms and manifestations of consciousness and the unconscious in their interconnection and mutual influence. He paid special attention to the relationship between language and thinking as well as child psychology and the psychology of art. In his book Language and Thinking, Delacroix, relying on the concept of F. de Saussure, developed the distinction of language and speech proposed by the latter. (shrink)

Marcel Proust’s works contain a lot of ideas consonant with the ideas that were actively discussed by philosophers of his time. Many philosophers focused on the issues of perception, memory, will, freedom, personal identity, etc., which constituted an important part of academic curriculum. Proust familiarized himself with the issues studying philosophy at the Lyceum and at the Sorbonne. In his novel In Search of Lost Time, Proust describes an existential experience of his character viewing these issues from a particular perspective, (...) through the prism of the main character’s lifelong search of his calling. He gradually proceeds from philosophical psychology exploring the interaction of memories and impressions in a particular perception, to philosophy proper, to metaphysics aimed at understanding the truth, at going beyond time. The article traces some moments of this transition, shows that for Proust it is not just the work of memory that is important but the emphasis on those states of consciousness where the present and the past coincide, merge, and thereby we go beyond time, to eternity. The author analyzes some images and signs that accompanied the character of the novel on the way to the realization of his calling. Particular attention is paid to the Proustian interpretation of the role of art in changing and enriching the perception of the world, as well as the importance in human life of a habit in which positive and negative aspects are highlighted. Proust himself believed that a work of art is an optical instrument through which the readers begin to discern in themselves what they would otherwise fail to see. His own novel was such an instrument. (shrink)

Chaïm Perelman resuscitated the rhetorical tradition by developing an elegant and detailed theory of argumentation. Rejecting the single-minded Cartesian focus on rational truth, Perelman recovered the ancient wisdom that we can argue reasonably about matters that admit only of probability. From this one would conclude that Perelman's argumentation theory is inalterably opposed to natural law, and therefore that I would have done better to have written an article titled "Perelman's Theory of Argumentation as a Rejection of Natural Law."However, my thesis (...) is precisely that Perelman's theory of argumentation connects to the natural law tradition in interesting and productive ways. Perelman referred to natural law in. (shrink)

Neurotechnologies that promise to dampen (via pharmacologicals), disassociate (via electro-convulsive therapy), erase (via deep brain stimulation), and replace (via false memory creation) unsavory episodic memories are no longer the subject of science fiction. They have already arrived, and their funding suggests that they will not disappear anytime soon. In light of their emergence, this essay examines the neurostructure of normative morality to clarify that memory manipulation, which promises to take away that which is bad in human experience, also removes that (...) which enables human beings to be good. Concepts such as free will, moral responsibility, and the neurobiological basis of moral reasoning are explored to underscore the fundamental hubris inherent to the memory manipulation enterprise. (shrink)

Neurotechnologies that promise to dampen (via pharmacologicals), disassociate (via electro-convulsive therapy), erase (via deep brain stimulation), and replace (via false memory creation) unsavory episodic memories are no longer the subject of science fiction. They have already arrived, and their funding suggests that they will not disappear anytime soon. In light of their emergence, this essay examines the neurostructure of normative morality to clarify that memory manipulation, which promises to take away that which is bad in human experience, also removes that (...) which enables human beings to be good. Concepts such as free will, moral responsibility, and the neurobiological basis of moral reasoning are explored to underscore the fundamental hubris inherent to the memory manipulation enterprise. (shrink)

A necessary prerequisite for application, to the humanities, of the techniques of contemporary logic, which have proven so effective in the formalization of the natural sciences, is explication of concepts, i.e., the setting up of unambiguous analogs permitting subsequent formal operations with these concepts within the confines of a clearly defined model. Today, the need for and the fruitfulness of modeling are obvious, and any explication meeting the requirements of unambiguity is therefore regarded as unquestionably a step forward. This is (...) entirely natural. (shrink)