Over the past two decades, Victor and Cullen's (Adm Sci Q 33:101-125, 1988) typology of ethical climates has been employed by many academics in research (...) on issues of ethical climates. However, little is known about how managerial practices such as communication and empowerment influence ethical climates, especially from a functional perspective. The current study used a survey of employees from Taiwan's top 100 patent-owning companies to examine how communication and empowerment affect organizational ethical climates. The results confirm the relationship between these two managerial practices and organizational ethical climates. We discuss our results and their implications for both future academic research and practice. (shrink)

Escalation of commitment causes people to continue a failing course of action. We study the role of construal level in such escalation of commitment. Consistent with the (...) widely held view of construal level as a primed effect, we employed a commonly used prime for manipulating this construct in a laboratory experiment. Our findings revealed that the prime failed to produce statistically significant differences in construal level, which was measured using the Behavior Identification Form. Furthermore, there was no effect of the prime on escalation of commitment, or on constructs that have previously been linked to construal level such as the perceived importance of feasibility considerations relative to desirability considerations, and the number of pros and cons that subjects can think of.Interestingly, however, subjects’ actual construal level scores on the BIF were found to significantly affect escalation. Specifically, our findings show that people with a low construal level are less willing to continue a failing project. This relation is mediated by the perceived importance of the feasibility of the project relative to its desirability. For people with a low construal level, the perceived importance of feasibility relative to desirability is higher, which in turn makes escalation of commitment less likely.Our findings are consistent with prior research suggesting that priming construal level may not always be effective. Thus, while construal level has typically been regarded as a state-like variable that can be primed, in this study, we show that construal level may also be considered as a trait. (shrink)

"An Interface book." Includes bibliographical references.

The standard semantics for counterfactuals ensures that any counterfactual with a true antecedent and true consequent is itself true. There have been many recent attempts to amend (...) the standard semantics to avoid this result. I show that these proposals invalidate a number of further principles of the standard logic of counterfactuals. The case against the automatic truth of counterfactuals with true components does not extend to these further principles, however, so it is not clear that rejecting the latter should be a consequence of rejecting the former. Instead I consider how one might defuse putative counterexamples to the truth of true-true counterfactuals. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a novel view of the coherence (or structural) requirements on belief and intention, according to which they are not norms, but rather (...) principles describing how your belief and intention operate. I first argue, on the basis of the unintelligibility of some relevant attitudes-reports, that there are conditions under which you simply do not count as believing or intending unless your beliefs and intentions satisfy the requirements: the conditions under which all of your relevant attitudes are occurrent or activated. I then argue that you are subject to a coherence requirement only if your relevant attitudes are all activated, for you are not necessarily subject to the charge of irrationality in violating a coherence requirement when your attitudes are not all activated. If so, however, you satisfy the coherence requirements whenever you are subject to them, which makes it plausible that the “requirements” should be seen as descriptive principles about belief and intention. [*published with open access]. (shrink)

Recent years have seen the rise of fittingness-first views, which take fittingness to be the most basic normative feature, in terms of which other normative features (...) class='Hi'>can be explained. This paper poses a serious difficulty for the fittingness-first approach by showing that existing fittingness-first accounts cannot plausibly accommodate an important class of reasons: reasons not to believe a proposition. There are two kinds of reasons not to believe a proposition: considerations that are counterevidence; and considerations that count against believing the proposition without indicating that it is false. I will argue that the fittingness- first accounts have trouble accommodating reasons of the latter kind. (shrink)

Some think that life is worth living not merely because of the goods and the bads within it, but also because life itself is good. I explain (...) how this idea can be formalized by associating each version of the view with a function from length of life to the value generated by life itself. Then I argue that every version of the view that life itself is good faces some version of the following dilemma: either (1) good human lives are worse than very long lives wholly devoid of pleasure, desire-satisfaction, knowledge, or any other goods, or (2) very short lives containing nothing but suffering are worth living. Since neither result is plausible, we ought to reject the view that life itself is good. On the view I favor, any given life may be worth living because of the goods that it contains, but life itself is neutral. (shrink)

Co-authored by three prominent philosophers of art, Jazz and the Philosophy of Art is the first book in English to be exclusively devoted to philosophical issues (...) class='Hi'>in jazz. It covers such diverse topics as minstrelsy, bebop, Voodoo, social and tap dancing, parades, phonography, musical forgeries, and jazz singing, as well as Goodman's allographic/autographic distinction, Adorno's critique of popular music, and what improvisation is and is not. The book is organized into three parts. Drawing on innovative strategies adopted to address challenges that arise for the project of defining art, Part I shows how historical definitions of art provide a blueprint for a historical definition of jazz. Part II extends the book's commitment to social-historical contextualism by exploring distinctive ways that jazz has shaped, and been shaped by, American culture. Chapters 4 and 5 use the lens of jazz vocals to provide perspective on racial issues previously unaddressed in the work, after which chapter 6 examines the broader premise that jazz was a socially progressive force in American popular culture. Part III concentrates on a topic that has entered into the arguments of each of the previous chapters: what is jazz improvisation? It outlines a pluralistic framework in which distinctive performance intentions distinguish distinctive kinds of jazz improvisation. This book is a comprehensive and valuable resource for any reader interested in the intersections between jazz and philosophy. (shrink)

According to predicativism about names, names which occur in argument positions have the same type of semantic contents as predicates. In this paper, I shall argue that (...) these bare singular names do not have the same type of semantic contents as predicates. I will present three objections to predicativism—the modal, the epistemic, and the translation objections—and show that they succeed even against the more sophisticated versions of predicativism defended by Fara and Bach. (shrink)

To resolve the lottery paradox, the “no-justification account” proposes that one is not justified in believing that one's lottery ticket is a loser. The no-justification (...) account commits to what I call “the Harman-style skepticism”. In reply, proponents of the no-justification account typically downplay the Harman-style skepticism. In this paper, I argue that the no-justification reply to the Harman-style skepticism is untenable. Moreover, I argue that the no-justification account is epistemically ad hoc. My arguments are based on a rather surprising finding that the no-justification account implies that people living in Taiwan typically suffer from the Harman-style skepticism. (shrink)

Little is known and understood about ethics management or the development of formal, systematic, and goal-directed initiatives to improve ethics in the public relations workplace. This (...) class='Hi'>study found little ethics training and written guidelines in the public relations workplace. Organizational ethics initiatives are poorly communicated to practitioners and rely mostly on punitive restraints with little reward for ethical behavior. For many practitioners, ethics is not learned through workplace ethics initiatives but rather is mostly informed by external influences including personal values, family upbringing, and professional work experiences. (shrink)

Contemporary physics is in a great need of a unified theoretical framework allowing for a comprehensive physical description of particles and interactions. One of the leading candidates (...) for such a framework, the superstring theory, has recently provoked immense critics due to the lack of its experimental verification (L. Smolin, R. Penrose). The survey of the specificity of the unification mechanisms that are operative within the superstring theory shows that, in comparison with such a successful paradigm as that of the general theory of relativity, the unification model of the theory does not follow the strict relation between the formalism and a unifying physical idea. The critical analysis of the superstring theory, presented by Lee Smolin in his book The Trouble with Physics, offers a detailed re-evaluation of theory's physical foundations but remains insensitive to issues of methodological, ontological and epistemological import. In particular, Smolin seems to be aware of the lack of the background independence as well as the need to compactify extra space-time dimensions that are hoped to be alleviated in the future M-theory. He treats purely mathematical criteria such as that of renormalizability on an equal footing with the physical interpretation of the theory. Such a methodological disarray leads to Smolin's biased estimate of the true drawbacks of the superstring theory. (shrink)

Although the criteria of double effect is usually used with issues of warfare and human health, such as abortion and euthanasia, the authors suggest using T. A. (...) Cavanaugh's version of double effect reasoning when deliberating about cases that deal with the social media. With the creation of a modified version of Cavanaugh's three criteria, both social media users and those who evaluate decisions in that medium will have an alternate ethical decision-making model to use. The authors show how one might use this model in the age of anytime, anywhere technology. (shrink)

A Phenomenology of the Devout Life offers a phenomenological approach to the kind of Christian spirituality set out in François de Sales’s Introduction to the Devout (...) class='Hi'>Life but with parallels in other movements in both Protestant and Catholic spirituality. Situating the subject in relation to contemporary philosophical discussions of selfhood, the book arrives at a view of the devout self as essentially motivated by an affective orientation towards God that, via the experience of temptation and the practice of humility, subordinates reason to love and ends with self-annihilation. In this annihilated condition it becomes capable of a pure love of God, devoid of self-interest, willing only what God wills. These themes of pure love and nothingness are explored with particular reference to the writings of Archbishop Fénelon. Although this may suggest that the devout life is a kind of mysticism, it is argued that as a programme for practical life in the world it is distinct from experientially oriented kinds of mysticism, though sharing the ideal of union with God. As the first of a three-part Philosophy of Christian Life, the book ends by questioning what it could mean to insist that the source of the affective lure of devotion is God. (shrink)

It is widely accepted among philosophers that there is a tension between acquaintance constraints on singular thought and the plausible assumption that the truths of singular attitude (...) reports ensure the subject's having singular thoughts. From this, anti-acquaintance theorists contend that acquaintance constraints must be rejected. As a response, many acquaintance theorists maintain that there is good reason to doubt a strong connection between singular attitude reports and singular thoughts. In this paper, however, I defend the acquaintance theory by arguing that there is in fact no tension at all. I consider three objections regarding singular attitude reports against the acquaintance theory: (i) ultra-liberal singular attitude reports, (ii) the “There is something that S believes to be F” locution, and (iii) infelicities of singular attitude reports. Then, I argue that none of them succeed in showing a genuine tension. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept both of the following claims: (1) consciousness matters morally, and (2) species membership doesn’t matter morally. In other words, many reject speciesism but (...) class='Hi'>accept what we might call 'sentientism'. But do the reasons against speciesism yield analogous reasons against sentientism, just as the reasons against racism and sexism are thought to yield analogous reasons against speciesism? This paper argues that speciesism is disanalogous to sentientism (as well as racism and sexism). I make a case for the following asymmetry: (a) some non-humans clearly have interests, but (b) no non-conscious entities clearly have interests. This asymmetry, I argue, renders sentientism resistant to the standard argument against speciesism. (shrink)

Frederic Lee sets out the foundations of a post-Keynesian price theory through developing an empirically grounded production schema. The administered, normal cost and mark-up price doctrines (...) class='Hi'> are explained in parts I-III of the book, as many of their theoretical arguments are important for developing the foundations. This involves discussing the work of Gardiner Means, Philip Andrews, and Michal Kalecki as well as the developers of the doctrines, such as Edwin Nourse, Paolo Sylos Labini, Harry Edwards, Josef Steindl and Alfred Eisner. Drawing upon the arguments and formal modelling offered by the doctrines, in conjunction with empirical evidence from one hundred studies on pricing and production, Dr Lee develops an empirically grounded pricing model and production schema. He argues that the model and the schema together constitute the foundations for post-Keynesian price theory. (shrink)

In this study I argue that Husserl’s phenomenology is compatible with a realistic interpretation of scientific theories. That said, I distinguish between the realistic interpretation of (...) class='Hi'>scientific theories and scientific realism. The former holds that the theoretical terms of a scientific theory are intended to refer, and that if we have good reason to believe that a scientific theory is true then we also have good reason to believe the entities it refers to exist. Scientific realism holds that the world as described by the physical sciences not only exists, it is the only world that exists—the world of everyday perceptual experience must be demoted to the status of a mere appearance. My case for the compatibility of Husserl’s phenomenology with a realistic interpretation of scientific theories is based on a distinction between scientific laws and scientific theories. I hold that Husserl’s instrumentalism, if one can call it that, is restricted to an interpretation of scientific laws; accordingly, his anti-realism is directed against the reification of ideal objects constructed in the course of the exact mathematical representation of scientific laws, not against the theoretical entities postulated in the explanation of those laws. At the end of the study I seek to allay the fear that if one adopts a realistic interpretation of scientific theories one is thereby committed to some version of scientific realism. (shrink)

Conscious experiences are characterized by mental qualities, such as those involved in seeing red, feeling pain, or smelling cinnamon. The standard framework for modeling mental qualities represents (...) them via points in geometrical spaces, where distances between points inversely correspond to degrees of phenomenal similarity. This paper argues that the standard framework is structurally inadequate and develops a new framework that is more powerful and flexible. The core problem for the standard framework is that it cannot capture precision structure: for example, consider the phenomenal contrast between seeing an object as crimson in foveal vision versus merely as red in peripheral vision. The solution I favor is to model mental qualities using regions, rather than points. I explain how this seemingly simple formal innovation not only provides a natural way of modeling precision, but also yields a variety of further theoretical fruits: it enables us to formulate novel hypotheses about the space and structures of mental qualities, formally differentiate two dimensions of phenomenal similarity, generate a quantitative model of the phenomenal sorites, and define a measure of discriminatory grain. A noteworthy consequence is that the structure of the mental qualities of conscious experiences is fundamentally different from the structure of the perceptible qualities of external objects. (shrink)

"I have been privileged to live in a queer time; I have witnessed the possibilities of both transcendence and horror. Beneath the mélange of comely and loathsome, (...) I found a hope hidden in contemporary existence: one can set out on a quest, a search for the truth of the whole, the good of one's life. In spite of the stumbling, the errors, the moral lapses, indeed, because of the disarray, I came to see that only a teleological odyssey makes sense, quiets the need for meaning. The end not only illumines the journey, it also permits one to live with the shame of failure." —from the Preface _Stumbling Toward Justice _is a collection of stories of one man's odyssey through the darkness of the modern world. His journey takes him through the United States, Venezuela, Mexico, Spain, Germany, and India. In each place he stumbles for ground on which he can stand, on which he can seek an honorable life and practice. Lee Hoinacki's goal, he tells us, is to illustrate a fundamental insight: "The promise of progress is a lie, a terrible and cruel trap. My words can have only one justification: they sow doubt." He questions contemporary belief in the goods offered by mainstream or conventional practices of child rearing, education, health care, industrial farming, and offers a critique of economic growth and technological advances. Each chapter relates a story in one of these areas from Hoinacki's experience, an experience that inspires him to critical reflection. Hoinacki's underlying assumption is that a narrative relating one's personal experience may introduce the reader to a wider and more incisive understanding than that provided by the investigative and reporting methods of the social and natural sciences. He suggests that one comes to see the physical world, the self, and others better through the language of poetry than through that of science. _Stumbling Toward Justice_ is a fitting sequel to his earlier book,_ El Camino: Walking to Santiago de Compostela_. In this account, Hoinacki is writing not about a single pilgrimage but about a series of journeys over the course of his life. He speaks with the greatest possible directness and authenticity, and the truths he draws are powerful because his right to speak them has been earned along the way. "I must discover and improvise my own story as I go along," he writes. (shrink)