This paper deals with a major problem of the early days of the science of palaeontology, the nature and origin of fossils. In 1725, the German physician and academician, Dr Johann Beringer, was deceived into believing that fraudulent, carved stones were true fossils. Despite an extensive analysis, Beringer was not able to fit his ‘fossils’ to any contemporary concept of how fossils originate. The reason for Beringer's inability to classify his stones is explored here. It is argued that the carvings (...) embodied a sixteenth-century, Neoplatonic, concept of fossils, a concept that was outdated in Beringer's time. Beringer chose not to explain his stones rather than to accept the meaning they implied. (shrink)

Late eighteenth-century writings on race by Kant and four of his contemporaries.

Meister Eckhart has been a huge influence on spirituality for more than 800 years. This book of meditations is for people seeking the 'wayless way.' It is not for those looking for a simple path. These fresh, stunning renderings of Eckhart's writings in poetic form bring life to one of the great spiritual voices of any age. They reveal what it means to love God and find meaning in darkness-not darkness in general, but your darkness. Only when you are in (...) the darkness, Meister says, do you have even the possibility of seeing the light. (shrink)

We argue that the stakeholder perspective on corporate social responsibility is in the process of being enlarged. Due to the process of institutional isomorphism, corporations are increasingly adopting organizational features designed to promote proactivity over mere reactivity in their stakeholder relationships. We identify two sources of pressure promoting the emergence of the proactive corporation -- stakeholder activism and the recognition of the social embeddedness of the economy. The final section describes four organizational design dimensions being installed by the more proactive (...) corporations today -- cooperation, participation, negotiation, and direct anticipation. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

An onslaught of ethically questionable actions by top government, business, and religious leaders during the 1980s has brought the issue of ethics in decision making to the forefront of public consciousness. This study examines the ethical orientation of university students in four decision-making situations. The dependent variable — ethical orientation toward work-related decisions — is measured through student responses to questions following four work-related vignettes. Possible responses to each vignette are structured to permit categorization of respondents into two broad orientations: (...) egoistic and ethical. Independent variables are academic major, ethics in business orientation, gender, and religiosity. Generally, students tended to choose an ethical orientation over an egoistic orientation in each vignette. Business majors were generally no less likely to choose an ethical orientation toward work-related decisions than nonbusiness majors. Respondents characterized by moral unity (belief in the consistency between general ethical principles and work-related ethical standards) were more likely to have an ethical orientation toward work-related decisions than those subscribing to the amoral theory of business. Females showed a consistent tendency to be more ethically oriented toward work-related decisions than males. Finally, respondents high on religiosity tended to be more ethically oriented. (shrink)

This paper examines corporate social responsibility in Japan today within the context of the paradigm of the moral unity of business. Under this paradigm, business is expected to operate under the same set of moral standards operative in other societal institutions. We suggest that a micro moral unity characterizes Japan—business activity is linked to that society’s moral values but only within carefully circumscribed communities of interest. Because of the strains brought on by the maturing of the Japanese economy, the negative (...) consequences of this micro moral unity are now becoming apparent. A new paradigm will be required to address thesechallenges. A possible foundation for such a paradigm, based on the emerging notion of kyosei (living and working together for the common good), is discussed. (shrink)

This article uses concepts from sociology, history, and philosophy to explore the shifting relationship between moral values and business in the Western world. We examine the historical roots and intellectual underpinnings of two major business-society paradigms in ideal-type terms. In pre-industrial Western society, we argue that business activity was linked to society’s values of morality (the moral unity paradigm}-for good or for ill. With the rise of industrialism, we contend that business was freed from moral constraints by the alleged “invisible (...) hand” of efficient markets (the amoral theory of business). Armed with this understanding of the intellectual history of the moral unity and amoral business-society paradigms, we suggest that some variant of the moral unity paradigm may be recurring in post-industrial society. (shrink)

This article uses concepts from sociology, history, and philosophy to explore the shifting relationship between moral values and business in the Western world. We examine the historical roots and intellectual underpinnings of two major business-society paradigms in ideal-type terms. In pre-industrial Western society, we argue that business activity was linked to society’s values of morality (the moral unity paradigm}-for good or for ill. With the rise of industrialism, we contend that business was freed from moral constraints by the alleged “invisible (...) hand” of efficient markets (the amoral theory of business). Armed with this understanding of the intellectual history of the moral unity and amoral business-society paradigms, we suggest that some variant of the moral unity paradigm may be recurring in post-industrial society. (shrink)

By combining normative philosophy and empirical social science, we craft a research framework for assessing differential expectations embodied in normative conceptions of the economic social contract in the United States. We argue that there are distinctviews of such a contract grounded in individualist and communitarian philosophical ideologies. We apply this framework to organizational downsizing, postulating that certain human resource practices, in combination with the respective ideological orientations, will affect perceptions of the justice of downsizing policies.Living up to one’s word is (...) a decisive measure of moral character. Within the microsocial realm of the family, promises and commitments derive their social force and cultural meaning from the idea that love or biology binds people together in an absolute way. But outside of this world, in the larger society, the only thing binding people together is a sense that there is a social contract, a set of common obligations held collectively by society as a whole. But today’s workers say no one seems to care whether these promises are kept. (shrink)

In recent years, theoretical and empirical developments in the area of organizational climate has provided the impetus for research concerning ethical climate. According to this latter research, ethical climate is a multi-dimensional construct which is manifested in organizations. Studies, however, have not focused on the relationship between ethical climate and ethical behavior. Furthermore, an enhanced understanding of the multi-dimensionality of ethical climate will likely advance what we know about organizational climate and culture in general. We propose further examination of ethical (...) climate by: (1) showing the conceptual relationship between ethical climate and ethical (or unethical) behavior in organizations; and (2) examining supervision as one of the principle influences on ethical climate and concomitant subordinate behavior. Finally, we explore the implications for future research on ethical climate. (shrink)

Thinking at the axes of homonationalism, civic education, and queer-inclusive social studies, this article complicates the uneven relationships between lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) exclusion and belonging. Arguing that more attention should be paid to how Genders and Sexualities Alliance (GSA) spaces may function to render particular imaginaries of the queer civic subject, and the U.S. queer civic subject in particular, more viable than others, I extend both the conceptual and methodological directions of out-of-school social studies research to (...) underscore how equity – as a concept – becomes connotative of particular types of civic action and life. Highlighting how LGBTQ + youths’ talk can be discursively read and traced as a pedagogical text, I emphasize how a ‘good’ queer citizenry, and indeed a ‘good’ queer life, is one that follows the logics of cis-hetero-patriarchy and American exceptionalism. In so doing, I document the rhetorical reification and discursive production of queer complicity and community. (shrink)

Victor and Cullen (1988) identified several dimensions of ethical climate that exist in organizations and organizational subunits. We tested the relationship between these dimensions of ethical climate and ethical behavior at different levels of analysis. Using Within and Between Analysis (WABA) (cf. Dansereau, Alutto and Yammarino, 1984), partial support was found for a relationship between dimensions of ethical climate and ethical behavior.

Multiple explanatory frameworks may be required to provide an adequate account of human cognition. This paper embeds the classical account within a neural network framework, exploring the encoding of syntacticallystructured objects over the synchronicdiachronic characteristics of networks. Synchronic structure is defined in terms of temporal binding and the superposition of states. To accommodate asymmetric relations, synchronic structure is subject to the type uniqueness constraint. The nature of synchronic structure is shown to underlie Xbar theory that characterizes the phrasal structure of (...) human languages. The derivation differentiates core Xbar properties from languagespecific properties. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the ethical climate dimensions identified by Victor and Cullen (1987, 1988) could be replicated in the subunits of a multi-unit organization and if so, were the dimensions associated with particular types of operating units. We identified three of the dimensions of ethical climate found by Victor and Cullen and also found a new dimension of ethical climate related to service. Partial support was found for Victor and Cullen's hypothesis that certain ethical (...) climate dimensions are associated with particular forms of organizational governance and control. (shrink)

This paper draws from the fields of history, sociology, psychology, moral philosophy, and organizational theory to establish a theoretical connection between a social/organizational influence (ethical work climate) and an individual cognitive element of moral behavior (moral awareness). The research was designed to help to fill a gap in the existing literature by providing empirical evidence of the connection between organizational influences and individual moral awareness and subsequent ethical choices, which has heretofore largely been merely assumed. Results of the study provide (...) evidence that ethical work climate (EWC) is a primary predictor of individual moral awareness, and that the influence of social factors often overrides the effects of individual differences in a work group setting. Implications for future research are provided. (shrink)

Multi-voxel pattern recognition techniques combined with Hidden Markov models can be used to discover the mental states that people go through in performing a task. The combined method identifies both the mental states and how their durations vary with experimental conditions. We apply this method to a task where participants solve novel mathematical problems. We identify four states in the solution of these problems: Encoding, Planning, Solving, and Respond. The method allows us to interpret what participants are doing on individual (...) problem-solving trials. The duration of the planning state varies on a trial-to-trial basis with novelty of the problem. The duration of solution stage similarly varies with the amount of computation needed to produce a solution once a plan is devised. The response stage similarly varies with the complexity of the answer produced. In addition, we identified a number of effects that ran counter to a prior model of the task. Thus, we were able to decompose the overall problem-solving time into estimates of its components and in way that serves to guide theory. (shrink)

Abstract:By combining normative philosophy and empirical social science, we craft a research framework for assessing differential expectations embodied in normative conceptions of the economic social contract in the United States. We argue that there are distinct views of such a contract grounded in individualist and communitarian philosophical ideologies. We apply this framework to organizational downsizing, postulating that certain human resource practices, in combination with the respective ideological orientations, will affect perceptions of the justice of downsizing policies.

This paper explores possible connections between gender and the willingness to engage in unethical business behavior. Two approaches to gender and ethics are presented: the structural approach and the socialization approach. Data from a sample of 213 business school students reveal that men are more than two times as likely as women to engage in actions regarded as unethical but it is also important to note that relatively few would engage in any of these actions with the exception of buying (...) stock with inside information. Fifty percent of the males were willing to buy stock with insider information. Overall, the results support the gender socialization approach. (shrink)

Birch, Ginsburg, and Jablonka, in an article in this issue of Biology and Philosophy, provided a much-needed condensation of their well-reasoned theory of Unlimited Associative Learning. This theory compellingly identifies the conscious animals and the time when the evolutionary transition to consciousness was completed. The authors convincingly explained their use of UAL as a “transition marker,” identified two more features by which UAL can be recognized, showed how UAL’s learning features relate to consciousness, and how investigating consciousness is analogous to (...) investigating life. My constructive criticisms are that I wish they had taken a stand on which organisms and entities are not conscious, and I feel they made too many predictions by which to test the UAL theory. That is, some of the proposed tests are unnecessary because parts of UAL are already supported by enough evidence, and other proposed tests are so ambitious as to be nearly impossible to complete. Finally, UAL has a major, detailed, sub-hypothesis that says such learning led to stress and to the evolution of mechanisms to cope with this stress; but this idea is speculative and requires the most basic testing to judge whether it could be valid. (shrink)

The multiple realizability thesis (MRT) is an important philosophical and psychological concept. It says any mental state can be constructed by multiple realizability (MR), meaning in many distinct ways from different physical parts. The goal of our study is to find if the MRT applies to the mental state of consciousness among animals. Many things have been written about MRT but the ones most applicable to animal consciousness are by Shapiro in a 2004 book called The Mind Incarnate and by (...) Polger and Shapiro in their 2016 work, The Multiple Realization Book. Standard, classical MRT has been around since 1967 and it says that a mental state can havevery manydifferent physical realizations, in a nearly unlimited manner. To the contrary, Shapiro’s book reasoned that physical, physiological, and historical constraints force mental traits to evolve in just a few, limited directions, which is seen as convergent evolution of the associated neural traits in different animal lineages. This is his mental constraint thesis (MCT). We examined the evolution of consciousness in animals and found that it arose independently in just three animal clades—vertebrates, arthropods, and cephalopod mollusks—all of which share many consciousness-associated traits: elaborate sensory organs and brains, high capacity for memory, directed mobility, etc. These three constrained, convergently evolved routes to consciousness fit Shapiro’s original MCT. More recently, Polger and Shapiro’s book presented much the same thesis but changed its name from MCT to a “modest identity thesis.” Furthermore, they argued against almost all the classically offered instances of MR in animal evolution, especially against the evidence of neural plasticity and the differently expanded cerebrums of mammals and birds. In contrast, we argue that some of these classical examples of MR are indeed valid and that Shapiro’s original MCT correction of MRT is the better account of the evolution of consciousness in animal clades. And we still agree that constraints and convergence refute the standard, nearly unconstrained, MRT. (shrink)

A classicist, philosopher, and poet, Poul Martin Møller was an important figure in the Danish Golden Age. The traumatic event of the death of his wife led him to think more profoundly about the question of the immortality of the soul. In 1837 he published his most important philosophical treatise, "Thoughts on the Possibility of Proofs of Human Immortality," presented here in English for the first time. It was read and commented upon by the leading figures of the Golden Age, (...) such as Søren Kierkegaard. It proved to be the last important work that Møller wrote before his death in March of 1838 at the age of 43. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper contends that rationality is more properly evaluated as a property of an organization’s relationships with its stakeholders than of the organization itself. We predicate our approach on the observation that stakeholders can hold goals quite distinct from those of owners and top managers, and these too can be rationally pursued. We build upon stakeholder theory and Weber’s classic distinction betweenwertrationalitatandzweckrationalitat, adding to them the “new institutionalist” concept of the organization field (1983, 1991). Stakeholders employ a variety of direct (...) and indirect mechanisms to rationalize relations with the firm. We discuss four: internal subunits, legislated stakeholder participation, legislated access to information, and direct stakeholder activism. These developments are blurring the distinction between the environment and the organization by importing the values and goals of external stakeholders into the internal organization. They are also precipitating a more structured set of relationships among the actors who comprise the field. To the extent that thezweckrationalitatvalues of managers and owners as well as thewertrationalitatconcerns of stakeholders are met, the firm is more rational. (shrink)

This article investigates the potential of fMRI to test assumptions about different components in models of complex cognitive tasks. If the components of a model can be associated with specific brain regions, one can make predictions for the temporal course of the BOLD response in these regions. An event‐locked procedure is described for dealing with temporal variability and bringing model runs and individual data trials into alignment. Statistical methods for testing the model are described that deal with the scan‐to‐scan correlations (...) in the errors of measurement of the BOLD signal. This approach is illustrated using a “sacrificial” ACT‐R model that involves mapping 6 modules onto 6 brain regions in an experiment from Ravizza, Anderson, and Carter (in press) concerned with equation solving. The model's visual encoding predicted the BOLD response in the fusiform gyrus, its controlled retrieval predicted the BOLD response in the lateral inferior prefrontal cortex, and its subgoal setting predicted the BOLD response in the anterior cingulate cortex. On the other hand, its motor programming failed to predict anticipatory activation in the motor cortex, its representational changes failed to predicted the pattern of activity in the posterior parietal cortex, and its procedural component failed to predict an initial spike in caudate. The results illustrate the power of such data to direct the development of a theory of complex problem solving, both at the level of a specific task model as well as at the level of the cognitive architecture. (shrink)

While life in general can be explained by the mechanisms of physics, chemistry and biology, to many scientists and philosophers it appears that when it comes to explaining consciousness, there is what the philosopher Joseph Levine called an “explanatory gap” between the physical brain and subjective experiences. Here we deduce the living and neural features behind primary consciousness within a naturalistic biological framework, identify which animal taxa have these features (the vertebrates, arthropods, and cephalopod molluscs), then reconstruct when consciousness first (...) evolved and consider its adaptive value. We theorize that consciousness is based on all the complex system features of life, plus the even more complex features of elaborate brains. We argue that the main reason why the explanatory gap between the brain and experience has been so refractory to scientific explanation is that it arises from both life and from varied and diverse brains and brain regions, so bridging the gap requires a complex, multifactorial account that includes the great diversity of consciousness, its personal nature that stems from embodied life, and the special neural features that make consciousness unique in nature. (shrink)

Critics of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have repeatedly argued that there is no proof for the condition being symptomatic of an organic brain disease and that the current "ADHD epidemic" is an expression of medicalization. To this, the supporters of ADHD can retort that the condition is only defined as a mental disorder and not a physical disease. As such, ADHD needs only be a harmful mental dysfunction, which, like other genuine disorders, can have a complex and obscure etiology. This article (...) argues that such a line of argument fails to save ADHD as a valid diagnostic category. Given the general diagnostic logic of the DSM-IV and how ADHD has been defined in terms of everyday (male) child behaviors, there are compelling grounds to disbelieve that ADHD can be a true medical syndrome united by some type of harmful dysfunction. Indeed, strong logical and empirical reasons will be adduced to show that people may qualify for ADHD diagnosis without suffering from any type of underlying pathology. (shrink)

According to the ‘fact-plus-value’ model of pathology propounded by K. W. M. Fulford, ‘disease’ is a value term that ought to reflect a ‘balance of values’ stemming from patients and doctors and other ‘stakeholders’ in medical nosology. In the present article I take issue with his linguistic-analytical arguments for why pathological status must be relative to such a kind of medico-ethical normativity. Fulford is right to point out that Boorse and other naturalists are compelled to utilize evaluative terminology when they (...) characterize the nature of diseases and biological dysfunctions. But the relevant ‘biofunctional judgements’ are no less factual and empirical for that. While it is indeed evaluative to say that biological dysfunctions involve failures to execute naturally selected functions, such judgments are not bound to entail anything about what is good or bad for us, and what should be treated or not. In the last part of the paper I ruminate briefly on the relationship between ‘biological evaluationism’, on my construal, and descriptions of ‘causal biology’. As I note in my conclusion, a strict bioevaluative concept of disease can be valid for every species on earth, and thus be of particular usefulness in general biological contexts. (shrink)