The tears of Odysseus -- History : music gives voice to the ineffable -- Tears, chills, and broken bones -- The music itself -- Explaining strong emotional responses to music I -- Explaining strong emotional responses to music II -- The sublime, revisited -- Conclusion : values.

This study looks to the work of Tarski's mentors Stanislaw Lesniewski and Tadeusz Kotarbinski, and reconsiders all of the major issues in Tarski scholarship in light of the conception of Intuitionistic Formalism developed: semantics, truth, paradox, logical consequence.

This collection of newly published essays examines our relationship to physical objects that invoke, commemorate, and honor the past. The recent destruction of cultural heritage in war and controversies over Civil War monuments in the US have foregrounded the importance of artifacts that embody history. The book invites us to ask: How do memorials convey their meanings? What is our responsibility for the preservation or reconstruction of historically significant structures? How should we respond when the public display of a monument (...) divides a community? This anthology includes coverage of the destruction of Palmyra and the Bamiyan Buddhas, the loss of cultural heritage through war and natural disasters, the explosive controversies surrounding Confederate-era monuments, and the decay of industry in the U.S. Rust Belt. The authors consider issues of preservation and reconstruction, the nature of ruins, the aesthetic and ethical values of memorials, and the relationship of cultural memory to material artifacts that remain from the past. Written by a leading group of philosophers, art historians, and archeologists, the 23 chapters cover monuments and memorials from Dubai to Detroit, from the instant destruction of Hiroshima to the gradual sinking of Venice. (shrink)

Christian realism is undergoing a renaissance in both American Christianity and around the world. Caught between globalist liberalism, on the one hand, and pragmatic realism on the other, Christians are in search of international ethics, a standard and tradition in foreign policy, that takes the two great books of life, the Christian Scriptures and the world we live in, seriously. This book is an extended, edited collection that mines the tradition of Christian realism in international relations and finds in it (...) voices and mentors urgently fresh for a new age. With classic authors like Reinhold Niebuhr, Herbert Butterfield, Paul Ramsey, and Jean Bethke Elshtain, and contemporaries like Marc LiVecche, Rebecca Heinrichs, and others, this collection offers for the first time an organization, periodization, and collection of primary Christian realist sources for the initiate and the expert in foreign relations."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

In this commentary on Anneli Jefferson’s Are Mental Disorders Brain Disorders? I endorse her capacitarian approach to responsibility but suggest that the effects of at least some mental/brain disorders on the agent’s psychology show that we cannot neatly separate the epistemic condition from the control condition when assessing agential capacity. I then discuss the labeling issue in the context of rival attributionist accounts of responsibility which hold that agents are responsible if their actions are attributable to them. The incorporation of (...) mental disorders into identity through social processes may open agents with mental or brain disorders open to unfair blame. However, we cannot fully understand the effects of the disorders on agential capacity without closely attending to the social environment that shapes the way the disorder is conceived, enacted, perceived, and responded to over time. (shrink)

Book synopis: A collection of more than 30 specially commissioned essays, this volume surveys the work of the 17th-century philosopher-scientist commonly regarded as the founder of modern philosophy, while integrating unique essays detailing the context and impact of his work. Covers the full range of historical and philosophical perspectives on the work of Descartes Discusses his seminal contributions to our understanding of skepticism, mind-body dualism, self-knowledge, innate ideas, substance, causality, God, and the nature of animals Explores the philosophical significance of (...) his contributions to mathematics and science Concludes with a section on the impact of Descartes's work on subsequent philosophers. (shrink)

A diagnosis of schizophrenia is often taken to denote a state of global irrationality within the psychiatric paradigm, wherein psychotic phenomena are seen to equate with a lack of mental capacity. However, the little research that has been undertaken on mental capacity in psychiatric patients shows that people with schizophrenia are more likely to experience isolated, rather than constitutive, irrationality and are therefore not necessarily globally incapacitated. Rational suicide has not been accepted as a valid choice for people with schizophrenia (...) due in part to a belief that characteristic irrationality prevents autonomous decision-making. Since people with schizophrenia are often seen to lack insight into the nature of their disorder, both psychiatric and ethical perspectives generally presume that suicidal acts result directly from mental illness itself and not from second-order desires. In this article, I challenge notions of global irrationality conferred by a diagnosis of schizophrenia and argue that, where delusional beliefs are unifocal, schizophrenia does not necessarily lead to a state of mental incapacity. I then attempt to show that people with schizophrenia can sometimes be rational with regard to suicide, where this decision stems from a realistic appraisal of psychological suffering. (shrink)

This research was designed to develop an inventory of vendor-related problems experienced by buyers for small retail apparel stores during the merchandise buying process, determine how frequently each difficulty occurs, and identify the experiences perceived to be unethical. Among the 22 vendor-related difficulties examined minimum order requirements, 6 month advance purchase, incomplete orders, late shipments, and shipping overcharges were identified most frequently. Analysis of results suggested that one factor, misleading vendor practices, and eight background variables (annual sales, price line, full- (...) and part-time employees, retail and buying experience, and shopping large or small markets) were associated with unethical experiences. Ethically troublesome experiences mentioned most frequently were padded orders, selling competitor same merchandise, withholding return authorization and credit, shipping overcharges, and dealing with vendor's factor. (shrink)

A person suffering a mental illness or disorder may differ dramatically from his or her previous well self. Family and close friends who knew the person before the onset of illness tend to regard the illness as obscuring their loved one's true self and see the goal of treatment as the restoration of that self. ‘He is not really like this,’ they will say with increasing desperation. Treatment teams and others, who have no acquaintance with the person when well, respond (...) to what they see in front of them and do sometimes make harmful judgments of character based on the person's presentation when ill. (shrink)

The last twenty years or so have seen a surge of interest in the philosophy of music. However there is comparatively little philosophical literature devoted specifically to songs, singing and vocal music in general. This new collection of essays on the philosophical aspects of song and singing includes articles on the relationship between words and music in songs, the ontology of songs and recordings, meaning in songs, the metaphysics of vocal music in opera and the movies, and the ethical challenges (...) raised in song performance. The essays discuss a large range of examples, including rock, lieder, jazz songs, blues, doo wop, and rap. New essays by leading philosophers of art, including Peter Kivy (on "realistic song" in film), Jerrold Levinson (on jazz singing), Lee B. Brown (on the "minstrel hypothesis" in popular music), and Ted Gracyk (on linguistic pragmatics and song meaning). Papers that offer ground-breaking theories of the appreciation of rock recordings, the ethical implications of popular songs, the ontology of ephemeral artworks, the ontological status of cover versions, and of how a genre of popular music can both express and be a function of its social context papers that challenge existing accounts of much-debated topics, including operatic metaphysics and of the ontology of recorded music. Interdisciplinary essays that cut across aesthetics, philosophy of music, cultural music studies and musicology. Essays that are clearly written and engaging. (shrink)

This study examines cheating behaviors among 422 business students at two public Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business-accredited business schools. Specifically, we examined the simultaneous influence of attitudinal characteristics and motivational factors on reported prior cheating behavior, the tendency to neutralize cheating behaviors, and likelihood of future cheating. In addition, we examined the impact of in-class deterrents on neutralization of cheating behaviors and the likelihood of future cheating. We also directly tested potential mediating effects of neutralization on cheating behavior. (...) Using structural equations modeling procedures, we conducted an assessment of the validity of a modified version of the K. J. Smith, Davy, Rosenberg, and Haight model of cheating behavior and its antecedents. The modified model included motivation as a potential predictor of cheating behavior. Results supported the differentiation of the theoretical constructs within the specified process model. Furthermore, tests of the aforementioned theoretical model indicated a significant positive relation between extrinsic motivation and prior cheating and a significant negative relation between both intrinsic motivation and academic performance, and prior cheating. Finally, prior cheating had a significant positive relation, whereas deterrents had a significant negative relation to likelihood of future cheating. (shrink)

This collection of newly published essays examines our relationship to physical objects that invoke, commemorate, and honor the past. The recent destruction of cultural heritage in war and controversies over Civil War monuments in the US have foregrounded the importance of artifacts that embody history. The book invites us to ask: How do memorials convey their meanings? What is our responsibility for the preservation or reconstruction of historically significant structures? How should we respond when the public display of a monument (...) divides a community? This anthology includes coverage of the destruction of Palmyra and the Bamiyan Buddhas, the loss of cultural heritage through war and natural disasters, the explosive controversies surrounding Confederate-era monuments, and the decay of industry in the U.S. Rust Belt. The authors consider issues of preservation and reconstruction, the nature of ruins, the aesthetic and ethical values of memorials, and the relationship of cultural memory to material artifacts that remain from the past. Written by a leading group of philosophers, art historians, and archeologists, the 23 chapters cover monuments and memorials from Dubai to Detroit, from the instant destruction of Hiroshima to the gradual sinking of Venice. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References.

Toward the end of Ender's Game, after the manipulations of the Battle School officials stand exposed, Ender Wiggin must face the terrible consequences of what has really been going on during the last simulation. In the spirit of diplomacy, political leaders decide that Ender will not return home, since his presence on Earth could spark a war. Instead, he will be part of the pioneering groups launched out into space to explore and to establish settlements on the “bugger worlds.” We (...) gradually realize that Ender has another destiny‐revealed through the significant philotic connection that the Formic hive‐queen has made with him‐the new role of Speaker for the Dead. The special nature of his connection with the buggers is the real reason Ender cannot go home. In searching for a way to bring back the Formics, Ender has to establish a new community. (shrink)

We have argued elsewhere that moral responsibility over time depends in part upon the having of psychological connections which facilitate forms of self-control. In this chapter we explore the importance of mental time travel - our ordinary ability to mentally travel to temporal locations outside the present, involving both memory of our personal past and the ability to imagine ourselves in the future - to our agential capacities for planning and control. We suggest that in many individuals with dissociative disorders, (...) forms of amnesia, or other frontal lobe damage, our capacity for mental time travel is impaired, resulting in commensurate losses to agency autonomy, and a forensic condition essential for holding persons responsible: in legal terms, the capacity for mens rea. (shrink)

Background In the course of the last four decades, the profession of physiotherapy has progressively expanded its scope of responsibility and its focus on professional autonomy and evidence-based clinical practice. To preserve professional autonomy, it is crucial for the physiotherapy profession to meet society's expectations and demands of professional competence as well as ethical competence. Since it is becoming increasingly popular to choose a carrier in private practice in Denmark this context constitutes the frame of this study. Physiotherapy in private (...) practice involves mainly a meeting between two partners: the physiotherapist and the patient. In the meeting, power asymmetry between the two partners is a condition that the physiotherapist has to handle. The aim of this study was to explore whether ethical issues rise during the first physiotherapy session discussed from the perspective of the physiotherapists in private practice. Methods A qualitative approach was chosen and semi-structured interviews with 21 physiotherapists were carried out twice and analysed by using a phenomenological framework. Results Four descriptive themes emerged: general reflections on ethics in physiotherapy; the importance of the first physiotherapy session; the influence of the clinical environment on the first session and; reflections and actions upon beneficence towards the patient within the first session. The results show that the first session and the clinical context in private practice are essential from an ethical perspective. Conclusions Ethical issues do occur within the first session, the consciousness about ethical issues differs in Danish physiotherapy private practice, and reflections and acts are to a lesser extent based on awareness of ethical theories, principles and ethical guidelines. Beneficence towards the patient is a fundamental aspect of the physiotherapists' understanding of the first session. However, if the physiotherapist lacks a deeper ethical awareness, the physiotherapist may reason and/or act ethically to a varying extent: only an ethically conscious physiotherapist will know when he or she reflects and acts ethically. Further exploration of ethical issues in private practice is recommendable, and as management policy is deeply embedded within the Danish public sector there are reasons to explore public contexts of physiotherapy as well. (shrink)

Small human complex systems, here called co-present groups, are found across all fields of human social life. Complexity thinking suggests why this is so: that these groups, irrespective of formal content, have a meta-function of providing maximum complexity to manage the indeterminacy or uncertainty that characterises the most complex of human social issues. This claim depends on an understanding of the functioning of these groups as being characterised by irreducibly complex intersubjective (person to person) relations, which are involved in the (...) processing of raw human experience (‘affective processing’), to produce shared meaningfulness. An example of the use of co-present groups in medical continuing professional development (CPD) is given. (shrink)

The goal of this study was to construct a valid new instrument to measure the effect of moral intensity on managers' propensity to manage earnings. More specifically, this study is a pilot study of the impact of moral intensity on financial accountants' propensity to manage earnings. The instrument, once validated, will be used in a full-study of managers in the hotel industry. Different ethical scenarios were presented to respondents in the survey; each ethical scenario was designed in both high or (...) low moral intensity form, to reflect the importance of the moral dilemma at hand. The results were analysed by factor analysis. The findings of this study have positively validated the instrument, with three of the five moral intensity components identified as having appropriate eigenvalues. This indicates that they have a significant influence in the study. The first factor captures the social consensus dimension and one scenario of the proximity dimension. The second factor indicates an interaction between the temporal immediacy and the magnitude of consequences dimension. The third dimension is probability of effect and one scenario of the proximity dimension. In addition, t-tests indicated that the manipulation of high and low conditions within each scenario were also successful. One limitation of the study might be the use of undergraduate accounting students as manager proxies, although prior evidence suggests use of accounting students as proxies is a valid approach in this type of study. This is a highly novel project as most prior studies have focussed on moral intensity and the general ethical decision-making process. (shrink)

The goal of this study was to construct a valid new instrument to measure the effect of moral intensity on managers' propensity to manage earnings. More specifically, this study is a pilot study of the impact of moral intensity on financial accountants' propensity to manage earnings. The instrument, once validated, will be used in a full-study of managers in the hotel industry. Different ethical scenarios were presented to respondents in the survey; each ethical scenario was designed in both high or (...) low moral intensity form, to reflect the importance of the moral dilemma at hand. The results were analysed by factor analysis. The findings of this study have positively validated the instrument, with three of the five moral intensity components identified as having appropriate eigenvalues. This indicates that they have a significant influence in the study. The first factor captures the social consensus dimension and one scenario of the proximity dimension. The second factor indicates an interaction between the temporal immediacy and the magnitude of consequences dimension. The third dimension is probability of effect and one scenario of the proximity dimension. In addition, t-tests indicated that the manipulation of high and low conditions within each scenario were also successful. One limitation of the study might be the use of undergraduate accounting students as manager proxies, although prior evidence suggests use of accounting students as proxies is a valid approach in this type of study. This is a highly novel project as most prior studies have focussed on moral intensity and the general ethical decision-making process. (shrink)

Among the topics explored in this book are ways of viewing the soul, the relation between body and soul, environmentalist thought, the phenomenon of torture, and the philosophical and theological warrants for genocide. Presenting an analysis of abstract modes of thought that have contributed to genocide, the book argues that a Jewish model of concrete thinking may inform our understanding of the abstractions that can lead to genocide. Its aim is to draw upon distinctively Jewish categories of thought to demonstrate (...) how the conceptual defacing of the other human being serves to promote the murder of peoples, and to suggest a way of thinking that might help prevent genocide. (shrink)

Recent advancements in therapeutic and diagnostic medicine, along with the creation of large biobanks and methods for monitoring health technologies, have improved the prospects for preventing, treating, and curing illness. These same advancements, however, give rise to a plethora of ethical questions concerning good decision-making and best action. These ethical questions engage policymakers, practitioners, scientists, and researchers from a variety of fields in different ways. Collaborations between professionals in the medical and health sciences and the social sciences and humanities often (...) take an asymmetrical form, as when social scientists use ethnographic approaches to study the moral issues and practices of physicians. The ethics laboratory described in this article is a cross-sectoral and inter-disciplinary forum for collaborative investigation on important moral topics. It offers an experimental way of unpacking implied assumptions, underlying values, and comparable notions from different professional healthcare fields. The aim of this article is to present the ethics laboratory’s methodology. The article offers a model and a hermeneutical framework that rests on a dialogical approach to ethical questions. The model and the framework derive from a Danish research project, _Personalized Medicine in the Welfare State_. This article uses personalized medicine as a point of reference, though it offers an argument for the applicability of the model more broadly. (shrink)

BM 76829, a fragment from the mid-section of a small tablet from Sippar in Late Babylonian script, preserves what remains of two new unparalleled pieces from the cuneiform astronomical repertoire relating to the zodiac. The text on the obverse assigns numerical values to sectors assigned to zodiacal signs, while the text on the reverse seems to relate zodiacal signs with specific days or intervals of days. The system used on the obverse also presents a new way of representing the concept (...) of numerical ‘zero’ in cuneiform, and for the first time in cuneiform, a system for dividing the horizon into six arcs in the east and six arcs in the west akin to that used in the Astronomical Book of Enoch. Both the obverse and the reverse may describe the periodical courses of the sun and moon, in a similar way to what is found in astronomical texts from Qumran, thus adding to our knowledge of the scientific relationship between the two cultures. (shrink)

The initial purpose of this study is to provide an empirical validation of Victor and Cullen’s ethical-climate model (1987, Frederick (ed.), Research in Corporate Social Performance and Policy, Vol. 9, pp. 51–71; 1988, Administrative Science Quarterly 33, 101–125; 1990, Frederick and Preston (eds.), Business Ethics: Research Issues and Empirical Studies (JAI Press Inc., Greenwich, Connecticut), pp. 77–97). Testing the model on a sample of Danish firms, this study demonstrates that the empirical model as suggested by Victor and Cullen is much (...) stronger than suggested by previous research. Based on a confirmatory factor model, the results of this study suggest a revised ethical structure. Especially a sixth dimension – own interest – is separated from the original instrumental dimension. Further, this study suggests that the ethical-climate model can be enhanced with the dimension of autonomy deriving from Koys and DeCotiis’ (1991, Human Relations 44(3), 265–285.) dimensional psychological climate instrument. (shrink)

This article introduces _the Ethics Laboratory_ as an inter-sectorial and cross-disciplinary dialogical forum which can be viewed as an educational tool for moral learning. _The Ethics Laboratory_ represents a platform for the informal, collaborative investigation, in strict confidentiality, of ethical questions that have social consequences and/or legal concerns and bridges boundaries between research communities, institutions and patients. Its methodological structure proposes an experimental, open-ended way of unpacking implied assumptions, underlying values, comparable notions and observations from different professional fields. In connection (...) with a large social science project on precision medicine, we conducted four Ethics Laboratories followed by eight interviews with a selected number of participants. Through these interviews we learnt how this exploratory dialogical forum heighten moral awareness on issues that are shared among stakeholders who work to implement precision medicine in Denmark. Though the framework was developed specifically to foster ethical reflection within precision medicine, its dialogical structure lends itself to other professional areas and can easily be adopted and carried out. (shrink)

Suicide prevention is a National Health Service priority in the United Kingdom. People with mental illness are seen to represent one of the most vulnerable groups for suicide and recent British Government policy has focused on prevention and management of perceived risk. This approach to suicide prevention is constructed under a biomedical model of psychiatry, which maintains that suicidal persons suffer from some form of disease or irrational drive towards self-destruction. Many react to the idea of self-inflicted death with instinctive (...) revulsion, which has prevented serious discussion of the concept of rational suicide, particularly in relation to those with schizophrenia. The idea that there may be circumstances in which suicide can be viewed as rational is discussed within the biomedical approach to ethics and wider literature primarily in relation to physical disease, terminal states and chronic pain. It is not deemed a viable choice for those who are considered ‘non-autonomous’ due to the controlling forces of mental illness. I propose that suicide is not a consequence of mental illness per se, and that it may be seen as a rational response to a realistic perspective on the course and consequences of living with schizophrenia. The denial of dialogue about the validity of suicidal ideation for people with schizophrenia has led to negative consequences for people with serious mental illness in terms of justice and recognition of person-hood. (shrink)

Psychopaths have long been of interest to moral philosophers, since a careful examination of their peculiar deficiencies may reveal what features are normally critical to the development of moral agency. What underlies the psychopath's amoralism? A common and plausible answer to this question is that the psychopath lacks empathy. Lack of empathy is also claimed to be a critical impairment in autism, yet it is not at all clear that autistic individuals share the psychopath's amoralism. How is empathy characterized in (...) the literature, and how crucial is empathy, so described, to moral understanding and agency? I argue that an examination of moral thinking in high-functioning autistic people supports a Kantian rather than a Humean account of moral agency. (shrink)

A central feature of complexity is that it is based on non-linear, recursive relations. However, in most current accounts of complexity such relations, while non-linear, are based on the reductive relations of a Newtonian onto-epistemological framework. This means that the systems that are emergent from the workings of such relations are a narrowly reduced spectrum of complex systems. It is argued that John Dewey’s trans-actional relations, relations that are characterized by an irreducible internal distinction, can function as an exemplar of (...) the less reductive relations seen in living complex systems. Conceptualizing complex relations and complex systems in a less reductive way allows indeterminate concepts such as epistemological limits and the generative production of meaning, which are inextricably linked, to be considered. Methodologically, such lessened reduction highlights functional systems, revealing aspects of the biopsychosocial human ‘complex system of complex systems’ that are hidden from view in a Newtonian framework. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between everyday talk, the reproduction of political ideology and the interactional accomplishment of situated identities through analyzing how institutional members index neoliberal ideology in their everyday interactions. Analysis of audio- and video-recorded data from racially diverse business members of two Texas chambers of commerce illustrates how chamber members indirectly index neoliberal ideology through taking stances toward government policies. White, upper class participants display neoliberal stances through using complaints – constituted by questions, humor, idioms and inference-rich (...) terms – about the Affordable Care Act because it is a form of government interference that increases taxes and the federal deficit. Minority business members use discursive strategies such as double-voiced discourse and self-repairs to balance tensions between criticizing neoliberal ideology because it does not benefit minorities yet still orient to its taken-for-granted value in their business community. Overall, while participants’ interactions generally seem to operate within the structural constraints of neoliberal ideology, our analysis illustrates how participants take up neoliberal ideology in situated ways that, at times, provide avenues for negotiating the relevance of neoliberal ideology to everyday life. (shrink)

Within the Givenness Hierarchy framework of Gundel, Hedberg, and Zacharski (1993), lexical items included in referring forms are assumed to conventionally encode two kinds of information: conceptual information about the speaker’s intended referent and procedural information about the assumed cognitive status of that referent in the mind of the addressee, the latter encoded by various determiners and pronouns. This article focuses on effects of underspecification of cognitive status, establishing that, although salience and accessibility play an important role in reference processing, (...) the Givenness Hierarchy itself is not a hierarchy of degrees of salience/accessibility, contrary to what has often been assumed. We thus show that the framework is able to account for a number of experimental results in the literature without making additional assumptions about form-specific constraints associated with different referring forms. (shrink)

Is it ever possible for people to act freely and intentionally against their better judgement? Is it ever possible to act in opposition to one's strongest desire? If either of these questions are answered in the negative, the common-sense distinctions between recklessness, weakness of will and compulsion collapse. This would threaten our ordinary notion of self-control and undermine our practice of holding each other responsible for moral failure. So a clear and plausible account of how weakness of will and self-control (...) are possible is of great practical significance. Taking the problem of weakness of will as her starting point, Jeanette Kennett builds an admirably comprehensive and integrated account of moral agency which gives a central place to the capacity for self-control. Her account of the exercise and limits of self-control vindicates the common-sense distinction between weakness of will and compulsion and so underwrites our ordinary allocations of moral responsibility. She addresses with clarity and insight a range of important topics in moral psychology, such as the nature of valuing and desiring, conceptions of virtue, moral conflict, and the varieties of recklessness (here characterised as culpable bad judgement) — and does so in terms which make their relations to each other and to the challenges of real life obvious. Agency and Responsibility concludes by testing the accounts developed of self-control, moral failure, and moral responsibility against the hard cases provided by acts of extreme evil. (shrink)