This study investigates whether the market valuation of the two summary accounting measures, book value of equity and net income, is higher for firms with reputation for sustainability leadership, when compared to firms that do not enjoy such reputation. The results are interpreted through the lens of a framework combining signalling theory and resource-based theory, according to which firms signal their commitment to sustainability to influence the external perception of reputation. A firm’s reputation for being committed to sustainability is an (...) intangible resource that can increase the value of a firm’s expected cash flows and/or reduce the variability of its cash flows. Our findings are according to expectations and show that the net income of firms with good sustainability reputation has a higher valuation by the market, when compared to their counterparts. (shrink)

This study investigates whether local gambling norms are associated with audit pricing. Using a religion-based measure of local social gambling norms, we find strong evidence that public firms located in U.S. counties with more liberal gambling norms exhibit higher levels of audit fees. This result is consistent with our view that, as an important external risk factor, clients’ local gambling norms influence audit pricing decisions. Our findings are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests, including non-religion based measures of liberal (...) gambling norms and a natural experiment. (shrink)

The Tree of Life hypothesis frames the evolutionary process as a series of events whereby lineages diverge from one another, thus creating the diversity of life as descendent lineages modify properties from their ancestors. This hypothesis is under scrutiny due to the strong evidence for lateral gene transfer between distantly related bacterial taxa, thereby providing extant taxa with more than one parent. As a result, one argues, the Tree of Life becomes confounded as the original branching structure is gradually superseded (...) by reticulation, ultimately losing its ability to serve as a model for bacterial evolution. Here we address a more fundamental issue: is there a Tree of Life that results from bacterial evolution without considering such lateral gene transfers? Unlike eukaryotic speciation events, lineage separation in bacteria is a gradual process that occurs over tens of millions of years, whereby genetic isolation is established on a gene-by-gene basis. As a result, groups of closely related bacteria, while showing robust genetic isolation as extant lineages, were not created by an unambiguous series of lineage-splitting events. Rather, a temporal fragmentation of the speciation process results in cognate genes showing different genetic relationships. We argue that lineage divergence in bacteria does not produce a tree-like framework, and inferences drawn from such a framework have the potential to be incorrect and misleading. Therefore, the Tree of Life is an inappropriate paradigm for bacterial evolution regardless of the extent of gene transfer between distantly related taxa. (shrink)

As one of the most important ethicists to emerge since the Second World War, Alan Gewirth continues to influence philosophical debates concerning morality. In this ground-breaking book, Gewirth's neo-Kantianism, and the communitarian problems discussed, form a dialogue on the foundation of moral theory. Themes of agent-centered constraints, the formal structure of theories, and the relationship between freedom and duty are examined along with such new perspectives as feminism, the Stoics, and Sartre. Gewirth offers a picture of the philosopher's theory and (...) its applications, providing a richer, more complete critical assessement than any which has occurred to date. (shrink)

Public health ethics, like the field of public health it addresses, traditionally has focused more on practice and particular cases than on theory, with the result that some concepts, methods, and boundaries remain largely undefined. This paper attempts to provide a rough conceptual map of the terrain of public health ethics. We begin by briefly defining public health and identifying general features of the field that are particularly relevant for a discussion of public health ethics.Public health is primarily concerned with (...) the health of the entire population, rather than the health of individuals. Its features include an emphasis on the promotion of health and the prevention of disease and disability; the collection and use of epidemiological data, population surveillance, and other forms of empirical quantitative assessment; a recognition of the multidimensional nature of the determinants of health; and a focus on the complex interactions of many factors—biological, behavioral, social, and environmental—in developing effective interventions. (shrink)

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

John Rawls’ Difference Principle, which requires that primary goods--income, wealth, and opportunities--be distributed so as to maximize the primary goods of the least advantaged class, has both a libertarian and a welfarist interpretation. The welfarist interpretation, which fits somewhat more easily with Rawls’ method for deriving principles of justice--rational contractors choosing principles behind the veil of ignorance--and with Rawls’ contention that there is a natural affirmative duty to aid others and to help establish and maintain just institutions, is the orthodox (...) interpretation. But there is scattered, fragmentary evidence for the libertarian interpretation as well. In this article I examine a recent version of the libertarian interpretation put forward by Jeffrey Reiman and discuss its implications as a standard for justice in cooperative arrangements. (shrink)

John Rawls’ Difference Principle, which requires that primary goods--income, wealth, and opportunities--be distributed so as to maximize the primary goods of the least advantaged class, has both a libertarian and a welfarist interpretation. The welfarist interpretation, which fits somewhat more easily with Rawls’ method for deriving principles of justice--rational contractors choosing principles behind the veil of ignorance--and with Rawls’ contention that there is a natural affirmative duty to aid others and to help establish and maintain just institutions, is the orthodox (...) interpretation. But there is scattered, fragmentary evidence for the libertarian interpretation as well. In this article I examine a recent version of the libertarian interpretation put forward by Jeffrey Reiman and discuss its implications as a standard for justice in cooperative arrangements. (shrink)

A system of environmental ethics recently developed by Lawrence Johnson may be used to analyze the moral implications of biological control. According to this system, entities are morally relevant when they possess well-being interests (i.e., functions or processes that can be better or worse in so far as the entity is concerned). In this formulation of ethical analysis, species and ecosystems are morally relevant because they are not simply aggregates of individuals, so their processes, properties, and well-being interests are (...) not reducible to the sum of their individual members. Following Johnson's thesis, species and ecosystems have morally relevant interests in surviving and maintaining themselves as integrated wholes with particular self-identities. This theoretical structure gives rise to a number of ethical criteria that are particularly relevant to biological control, which apply to the ecosystem (the extent to which it is large, native, unique, and integrated) and to the action being considered (the extent to which it is novel, omnipresent, monitored, reversible, and necessary). In these terms, it is evident that not all biological control efforts are ethically defensible. In general terms, natural biological control is most desirable, followed by augmentative strategies, classical approaches, and finally neoclassical biological control. Two specific cases (neoclassical biological control of rangeland grasshoppers and classical biological control of prickly pear cactus) illustrate the ethical concerns. Finally, it can be shown that formalized restrictions of biological control are necessary, given the unique properties of this technology. (shrink)

The apostle Paul employed many techniques that demonstrated his leadership. One of the most understated instances of that is in his ‘Fool’s Speech’ in 2 Corinthians 11:16- 12:13. Paul flaunted his rhetorical skills in calling attention to his own shortcomings, in lampooning his opponents, and in revealing the source of his assurance for foolishness. This article evaluates Paul’s rhetorical masterpiece calling the Corinthians to humble submission to his apostleship by synthesizing the work of both Jennifer Glancy and Lawrence Welborn (...) with Don Howell. [All Scriptural quotes are taken from the New American Standard Bible © 1977]. (shrink)

In light of the recent Abu Ghraib prison scandal, this paper examines various works of literature to reveal that people who have prisoners in their power tend to torment their victims. Richard Henry Dana and Herman Melville’s seafaring novels reveal how the captain and his mates assume brutal, godlike powers over the common sailors; T. E. Lawrence describes how the victim’s pain can become a masochistic pleasure; Franz Kafka imagines a state of universal guilt, where the victim, an average (...) man, suffers in the grip of an elaborate torture machine; Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Jacobo Timerman, both political prisoners who survived to describe their terror, and George Orwell, meditating on contemporary totalitarian regimes as he suffered the agonies of medical treatment, transform their pain into art. Such literary works provide insights into the morally ambiguous depths of punishment. Every scene of torture, based on the authors’ experience, observation and imagination, has the same context as those vividly captured in the Abu Ghraib snapshots. (shrink)

Few subjects have provoked more speculation or scholarly inquiry than the relationship between creativity and madness—or, in the case of Jason Thompson, the link between memoir writing and depression. Plato theorized that the poet’s madness is divinely inspired, and two thousand years later Sigmund Freud (1928/1961) admitted that “Before the problem of the creative artist analysis must, alas lay down its arms” (p. 177)—a cautionary injunction he then disregards. Should authors heed Thompson’s prudent advice not to write about present traumas, (...) or should they accept D. H. Lawrence’s (1981) statement that “One sheds one’s sicknesses in books, repeats and presents again one’s emotions, to be master of them” (p. .. (shrink)

What can we know about God by reason alone? Philosophical theology is the attempt to obtain such knowledge. An ancient tradition, which is perhaps more influential now than ever, tries to derive the attributes of God from the principle that God is the greatest possible being. Jeff Speaks argues that that constructive project is a failure. He also argues that the related view that the concept of God is the concept of a greatest possible being is a mistake. In the (...) last chapter, he sketches an alternative path forward. (shrink)

Recently in this journal, Jessica Morley and colleagues (AI & SOC 2023 38:411–423) review AI ethics and education, suggesting that a cultural shift is necessary in order to prepare students for their responsibilities in developing technology infrastructure that should shape ways of life for many generations. Current AI ethics guidelines are abstract and difficult to implement as practical moral concerns proliferate. They call for improvements in ethics course design, focusing on real-world cases and perspective-taking tools to immerse students in challenging (...) situations with relatable personal, social and environmental implications. The present paper considers the ACTWith model of moral cognition for use in such training contexts. Morley and colleagues' paper and contemporary literature are reviewed. Whistleblowing as a source for relatable case studies is discussed, and the purpose of ethics education considered. The ACTWith model is introduced, and correlations with contemporaries noted. The ACTWith model has been successfully employed in a broad range of technology ethics courses in the Netherlands and South Korea. Illustrations are offered. Correlations with contemporary efforts are drawn in the context of software engineering. Summary discussion considers strengths and limitations of the ACTWith program. Overall, the paper emphasizes training high-level moral reasoning through guided inquiry education informing lifetime professional practice, and indicates an outstanding need for teachers able to do the job. (shrink)

Soon after the book's publication in 1982, artist David Hockney read Lawrence Weschler's _Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin _and invited Weschler to his studio to discuss it, initiating a series of engrossing dialogues, gathered here for the first time. Weschler chronicles Hockney's protean production and speculations, including his scenic designs for opera, his homemade xerographic prints, his exploration of physics in relation to Chinese landscape painting, his investigations (...) into optical devices, his taking up of watercolor—and then his spectacular return to oil painting, around 2005, with a series of landscapes of the East Yorkshire countryside of his youth. These conversations provide an astonishing record of what has been Hockney's grand endeavor, nothing less than an exploration of "the structure of seeing" itself. (shrink)

After considering Buber’s and Levinas’s critiques of Heidegger and of each other, I propose that we should acknowledge authenticity, “essential relations” of love and friendship, and holiness as aspects of a good life, though they pull in different directions. We should resist the temptation to take sides in a battle between different approaches to the complex nature of our social being.

Human nature and cooperation -- Tucson knows all about that -- Featuring interviews with Curtis A., Renø M., and Alanna C. -- Democracy and Sproul Plaza -- The people's library -- Featuring interviews with Zachary L. and Jaime T. -- Barcelona to Greensboro -- Student loan debt -- Featuring an interview with professor George Caffentzis -- Solidarity.

Departing from the sociological dual process model that divides thoughts into automatic and unconscious, or deliberate and conscious occurrences, this book draws on empirical cases to demonstrate the existence of 'automatic deliberation'. Through research into the ways in which people address difficult subjects, such as death and dying, paedophilia, and career decision-making, the author sheds light on a mode of thinking which is both habitual and effortful, displaying a combination of habituated understandings and conscious deliberation. Advancing a blended view of (...) cognition by which individuals draw on schemas and frames to think through complex topics, this volume will appeal to sociologists and psychologists with interests in cognition and the ways in which we make decisions. (shrink)

The ultimate goal of research into computational intelligence is the construction of a fully embodied and fully autonomous artificial agent. This ultimate artificial agent must not only be able to act, but it must be able to act morally. In order to realize this goal, a number of challenges must be met, and a number of questions must be answered, the upshot being that, in doing so, the form of agency to which we must aim in developing artificial agents comes (...) into focus. This chapter explores these issues, and from its results details a novel approach to meeting the given conditions in a simple architecture of information processing. (shrink)

Until the 1970s the history of sexuality was a marginalized practice. Today it is a flourishing field, increasingly integrated into the mainstream and producing innovative insights into the ways in which societies shape and are shaped by sexual values, norms, identities and desires. In this book, Jeffrey Weeks, one of the leading international scholars in the subject, sets out clearly and concisely how sexual history has developed, and its implications for our understanding of the ways we live today. The (...) emergence of a new wave of feminism and lesbian and gay activism in the 1970s transformed the subject, heavily influenced by new trends in social and cultural history, radical sociological insights and the impact of Michel Foucault’s work. The result was an increasing emphasis on the historical shaping of sexuality, and on the existence of many different sexual meanings and cultures on a global scale. With chapters on, amongst others, lesbian, gay and queer history, feminist sexual history, the mainstreaming of sexual history, and the globalization of sexual history, What is Sexual History? is an indispensable guide to these developments. (shrink)

The first ethics casebook that integrates clinical ethics (medical, nursing, and dental) and research ethics with public health and informatics. The book opens with five chapters on ethics, the development of interprofessional ethics, and brief instructional materials for students on how to analyze ethical cases and for teachers on how to teach ethics. In today's rapidly evolving healthcare system, the cases in this book are far more realistic than previous efforts that isolate the decision-making process by professions as if each (...) is not embedded in a larger context that involves healthcare teams, hospital policies, and technology. The central claim of this book is that ethics is an important common ground for all of the health professions. Furthermore, when we recognize that our professions converge upon a common goal we will find less conflict and more pleasure in working together. (shrink)

Het christendom zit in de verdrukking. De kerken lopen leeg. Wie leest er nog de Bijbel? Toch is er in deze verweesde postmoderne samenleving een grote hang naar zingeving. Velen zoeken het ver weg, in bijvoorbeeld het boeddhisme of zij kiezen voor zweverige esoterie. In 2018 wandelde God het leven van Lawrence Urbain binnen. De grote levensvragen kwamen op de voorgrond en de auteur van 'Tussen Hoop en Genade' zocht de antwoorden in het christendom, meer bepaald bij het protestantisme. (...) 'Tussen Hoop en Genade' bevat een verzameling essays over het christelijke geloof. Hoe verhoudt de christenheid zich tot de wetenschap? Bestaat er zoiets als een christelijke ethiek? En wat is de toekomst van het protestants-evangelisch onderwijs in Vlaanderen? Aan de hand van zeven essays geeft de auteur een inkijk in zijn opvattingen aangaande het christelijk-protestantse geloof. Tal van denkers en schrijvers passeren hierbij de revue. Veel aandacht gaat naar de protestantse theoloog Karl Barth, maar evenzeer komen de antieke bijbelwetenschapper Origenes, de liberale protestant Friedrich Schleiermacher en de psychoanalyticus Carl Gustav Jung voorbij. Lawrence Urbain (°1990) is Master in de Internationale Betrekkingen en Diplomatie (Universiteit Antwerpen). Hij is werkzaam als economisch adviseur en is daarnaast freelance-journalist. In 2017 publiceerde hij bij uitgeverij Polemos 'De Chrono-crisis'. Hij studeert momenteel theologie aan de Faculteit voor Protestantse Theologie en Religiestudies (FPTR) te Brussel. (shrink)

This chapter examines the theory of moral obligation presented by Robert Adams in Finite and Infinite Goods. The theory holds, quite plausibly, that obligations are requirements which arise within the context of social relationships. It also holds, more controversially, that genuinely moral obligations are requirements resulting from the commands of a loving God. The advantage Adams sees in introducing the notion of a loving God into the theory is that doing so rules out the possibility that certain sorts of horrendous (...) evils, including wanton cruelties, could turn out, according to the theory, to be morally obligatory. This advantage obtains, however, only if God's love is taken to be unlike that of the jealous, strongly preferential sort apparently attributed to God in many biblical passages. Adams does not adequately explain why he identifies the God posited by his theory with the God of the Old and New Testaments. Nor does he adequately explain why one should suppose that a God who conforms to Adams's conception of a perfectly loving being actually exists, given the horrendous evils there are and given the confusing biblical portrait of God as both a horror-defeater and a horror-commander. All things considered, more modest versions of the social theory of obligation appear more plausible than Adams's metaphysically extravagant version. A slightly more modest version would appeal directly to Adams's own theistic theory of excellence, without making reference to divine commands. An even more modest version would eschew the theistic commitments of Adams's ethical theory altogether. The chapter concludes by raising questions about Adams's conception of the metaphysics of morals as a discipline analogous to scientific inquiry into the natural kinds. (shrink)

In recent years consciousness has become a significant area of study in the cognitive sciences. The Frontiers of Consciousness is a major interdisciplinary exploration of consciousness. The book stems from the Chichele lectures held at All Souls College in Oxford, and features contributions from a 'who's who' of authorities from both philosophy and psychology. The result is a truly interdisciplinary volume, which tackles some of the biggest and most impenetrable problems in consciousness. The book includes chapters considering the apparent explanatory (...) gap between science and consciousness, our conscious experience of emotions such as fear, and of willed actions by ourselves and others. It looks at subjective differences between two ways in which visual information guides behaviour, and scientific investigation of consciousness in non-human animals. It looks at the challenges that the mind-brain relation presents for clinical practice as well as for theories of consciousness. The book draws on leading research from philosophy, experimental psychology, functional imaging of the brain, neuropsychology, neuroscience, and clinical neurology. Distinctive in its accessibility, authority, and its depth of coverage, Frontiers of Consciousness will be a groundbreaking and influential addition to the consciousness literature. (shrink)