In a post-Trump, post-Covid-19 world, it is clear that truth is contested by fake news outlets and misinformation. Less clear is how to navigate the vicissitudes of intersectional discourse without devolving into a Richard Rortyan relativism that denies truth altogether. This paper considers the epistemic commitments of foundationalism and coherentism before turning to pragmatist Susan Haack to explore whether there are convergences between the two. The goal of this paper is three-fold: (1) to clarify how truth and fact feature in (...) foundationalist and coherentist epistemic thinking; (2) to offer a pragmatist “foundherentist” intersection between foundationalism and coherentism; and (3) to use (1) and (2) to highlight the untenable position Rortyan relativism represents, specifically in relation to education formally understood. (shrink)

While virtual simulations are a familiar professional training tool, they have only recently been implemented in teacher education programs. These simulations are used to complement traditional student teacher placement. In this paper, the author critically examines one teacher training simulation, TeachLivE, specifically in terms of its implicit conceptions of what it means to teach and to learn. The analysis utilizes Aristotle’s explanation of the Greek concepts energeia and dunamis, as well as Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. The author argues that (...) TeachLivE’s structure implies an ontology of teaching and learning that precludes the cultivation of a teacherly disposition, and that, were this ontology to be corrected, teacher training simulations would be rendered superfluous. (shrink)

About this book Mr. Burke contributes an introductory and summarizing remark, "What is involved, when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it?

Much has been written about stakeholder analysis as a process by which to introduce ethical values into management decision-making. This paper takes a critical look at the assumptions behind this idea, in an effort to understand better the meaning of ethical management decisions.A distinction is made between stakeholder analysis and stakeholder synthesis. The two most natural kinds of stakeholder synthesis are then defined and discussed: strategic and multi-fiduciary. Paradoxically, the former appears to yield business without ethics and the latter appears (...) to yield ethics without business. The paper concludes by suggesting that a third approach to stakeholder thinking needs to be developed, one that avoids the paradox just mentioned and that clarifies for managers (and directors) the legitimate role of ethical considerations in decision-making. (shrink)

David Hume wrote that Berkeley's arguments `admit of no answer but produce no conviction'. This book aims at the kind of understanding of Berkeley's philosophy that comes from seeing how we ourselves might be brought to embrace it. Berkeley held that matter does not exist, and that the sensations we take to be caused by an indifferent and independent world are instead caused directly by God. Nature becomes a text, with no existence apart from the spirits who transmit and receive (...) it. Kenneth P. Winkler presents these conclusions as natural consequences of Berkeley's reflections on such topics as representation, abstraction, necessary truth, and cause and effect. In the closing chapters Proefssor Winkler offers new interpretations of Berkeley's view on unperceived objects, corpuscularian science, and our knowledge of God and other minds. (shrink)

This article reviews 1 decade of research on cheating in academic institutions. This research demonstrates that cheating is prevalent and that some forms of cheating have increased dramatically in the last 30 years. This research also suggests that although both individual and contextual factors influence cheating, contextual factors, such as students' perceptions of peers' behavior, are the most powerful influence. In addition, an institution's academic integrity programs and policies, such as honor codes, can have a significant influence on students' behavior. (...) Finally, we offer suggestions for managing cheating from students' and faculty members' perspectives. (shrink)

This book is the first detailed study of Kant's method of 'transcendental reflection' and its use in the Critique of Pure Reason to identify our basic human cognitive capacities, and to justify Kant's transcendental proofs of the necessary a priori conditions for the possibility of self-conscious human experience. Kenneth Westphal, in a closely argued internal critique of Kant's analysis, shows that if we take Kant's project seriously in its own terms, the result is not transcendental idealism but realism regarding (...) physical objects. Westphal attends to neglected topics - Kant's analyses of the transcendental affinity of the sensory manifold, the 'lifelessness of matter', fallibilism, the semantics of cognitive reference, four externalist aspects of Kant's views, and the importance of Kant's Metaphysical Foundations for the Critique of Pure Reason - that illuminate Kant's enterprise in new and valuable ways. His book will appeal to all who are interested in Kant's theoretical philosophy. (shrink)

Codes of conduct are viewed here as a community’s attempt to communicate its expectations and standards of ethical behavior. Many organizations are implementing codes, but empirical support for the relationship between such codes and employee conduct is lacking. We investigated the long term effects of a collegiate honor code experience as well as the effects of corporate ethics codes on unethical behavior in the workplace by surveying alumni from an honor code and a non-honor code college who now work in (...) business. We found that self-reported unethical behavior was lower for respondents who work in an organization with a corporate code of conduct and was inversely associated with corporate code implementation strength and embeddedness. Self-reported unethical behavior was also influenced by the interaction of a collegiate honor code experience and corporate code implementation strength. (shrink)

Probes the nature of linguistic or symbolic action as it relates to specific novels, plays, and poems.

This book assesses and defends Kant's Critical epistemology, and the rich yet neglected resources it provides for understanding and resolving fundamental issues regarding human experience, perceptual judgment, empirical knowledge and cognitive sciences. Kenneth Westphal first examines Kant's methods and strategies for examining human sensory-perceptual experience, and then examines Kant's central, proper, and subtle attention to judgment, and so to the humanly possible valid use of concepts and principles to judge particulars we confront. This provides a comprehensive account of Kant's (...) anti-Cartesianism, the integrity of his three principles of causal judgment, and Kant's account of disciminatory perceptual-motor behaviour, including both sensory reafference and perceptual affordances. Westphal then defends the significance of Kant's subtle and illuminating account of causal judgment for three main philosophical domains: history and philosophy of science, theory of action and human freedom, and philosophy of mind. Kant's Critical Epistemology will appeal to researchers and advanced students interested in Kant and the relations of his thought to contemporary philosophical debates and to the sciences of the mind. (shrink)

_Conscience and Corporate Culture_ advances the constructive dialogue on a moral conscience for corporations. Written for educators in the field of business ethics and practicing corporate executives, the book serves as a platform on a subject profoundly difficult and timely. Written from the unique vantage point of an author who is a philosopher, professor of business administration, and a corporate consultant A vital resource for both educators in the field of business ethics and practicing corporate executives Forwards the constructive dialogue (...) on a moral conscience for corporations Offers a philosophical and practical approach to considering business ethics. (shrink)

Opening with Ford Motor Company as a case in point, this essay develops a broad and systematic approach to the field of business ethics. After an analysis of the form and content of the concept of responsibility, the author introduces the principle of moral projection as a device for relating ethics to corporate policy. Pitfalls and objections to this strategy are examined and some practical implications are then explored.The essay not only defends a proposition but exhibits a research style and (...) a research program. Philosophical ethics and organizational management are joined in the process. (shrink)

Probes the nature of linguistic or symbolic action as it relates to specific novels, plays, and poems.

The social philosophy of Kenneth Boulding.

Boulding discusses the image as the key to understanding society and human behavior.

In this article, I develop the idea of the “institutional insight” as a pathway to two foundational values for applied ethics: human dignity and the common good. I explore—but do not offer a definitive analysis of—these two values that I believe are critical to the progress of business ethics. In several previous articles, I have alluded to this theme, but here I hope to show that human dignity and the common good underlie both management's fiduciary duty to shareholders, and management's (...) obligations to “stakeholders.” Indeed, it may be that the frequently observed tension between the latter two normative paradigms can be resolved only by engaging in the comprehensive moral thinking afforded by the institutional insight. (shrink)

We address how the leaders of a Catholic business school can articulate and assess how well their schools implement the following six principles drawn from Catholic social teaching : produce goods and services that are authentically good; foster solidarity with the poor by serving deprived and marginalized populations; advance the dignity of human work as a calling; exercise subsidiarity; promote responsible stewardship over resources; and acquire and allocate resources justly. We first discuss how the CST principles give substantive content and (...) meaning to the Good Goods, Good Work, and Good Wealth framework in The Vocation of the Business Leader and then discuss their congruencies and tensions with the UNGC and UNPRME principles. Next, we describe the Catholic Identity Matrix, an assessment tool that provides a quantitative and qualitative portrait of how well a Catholic business school integrates, within the scope of its mission and capacities, the three goods and related CST principles in its strategies, policies, activities, and processes. The concluding section discusses implications for ongoing UNGC and UNPRME assessment, reporting, and development efforts, and addresses the generalizability of our approach to business schools who draw their inspiration and moral principles from other faith-based or secular traditions. (shrink)

This work emerged from funded research examining collaboration among stake-holder organizations present at three U.S. nuclear weapons complex sites. The authors examine issues such as how and why stakeholder groups form collaborative alliances when dealing with the target organization, what leaders of stakeholder organizations actually think about when collaborating to deal with the target organization, and what outcomes result from the collaboration process. Drawing on stakeholder theory and research in interorganizational collaboration, the authors used an inductive, interview-based methodology to build (...) a model of collaboration among nonprofit stakeholder groups. The model contributes to the descriptive stream of stakeholder theory and, in turn, has implications for the instrumental stream. The model also offers implications for future researchers, leaders of stakeholder alliances, and leaders of target organizations. (shrink)

To live in this world is to live in the midst of evil. The reality of evil seems all too real and yet ever-perplexing in that it scoffs at any attempt to make rational sense of the world. Can we dare to insist, as traditional theodicy does, that such a world is not only created by but is also under the providence of God who is seen as perfect in both goodness and power? Many find such an attempt incredulous if (...) not scandalous. David Griffin, a foremost process philosopher of religion and the leading proponent of process theodicy, too, finds the traditional theistic theodicy philosophically and theologically unsatisfactory.1 The main reason for its failure, Griffin thinks, lies in the traditional .. (shrink)

This collection of original essays aims to reinvigorate the debate surrounding philosophical realism in relation to philosophy of science, pragmatism, epistemology, and theory of perception. Questions concerning realism are as current and as ancient as philosophy itself; this volume explores relations between different positions designated as ‘realism’ by examining specific cases in point, drawn from a broad range of systematic problems and historical views, from ancient Greek philosophy through the present. The first section examines the context of the project; contributions (...) systematically engage the historical background of philosophical realism, re-examining key works of Aristotle, Descartes, Quine, and others. The following two sections epitomize the central tension within current debates: scientific realism and pragmatism. These contributions address contemporary questions of scientific realism and the reality of the objects of science, and consider whether, how or the extent to which realism and pragmatism are compatible. With an editorial introduction by Kenneth R. Westphal, these fourteen original essays provide wide-ranging, salient insights into the status of realism today. (shrink)

Despite widespread interest in the topic of moral repair in the business ethics literature and in the workplace, little is currently known about moral repair with regard to the self—i.e., how and why individuals repair themselves in the aftermath of harming others within workplace contexts and what factors may influence the success of self-repair. We conducted a qualitative study in the context of health care organizations to develop an inductive model of self-repair in the workplace. Our findings reveal a set (...) of factors, including reactions to the harm incident, motivating factors, and methods of self-repair that involve intrapersonal (e.g., self-compassion) and interpersonal (e.g., seeking feedback and support from co-workers and managers) actions. We discovered that self-repair, or what we characterize as “moral self-repair” is a complex process characterized by important ethical, emotional, and social dimensions and that the effectiveness of self-repair actions is moderated by the actions of those within the organization (e.g., co-workers, managers) and outside the organization (e.g., families, friends, counselors). These social actors can promote self-repair by offering encouragement and support, or undermine self-repair by communicating a lack of trust and respect that reinforces self-blame. This model of self-repair is intended to guide future ethics research on the topic of moral self-repair and offers insight to practicing managers. (shrink)

There are many reports about the digital divideand many discrepant interpretations of what thereports indicate. This pattern of competinganalyses, often in relation to identical datasets, has endured for a good part of the lastdecade. It is argued here that a major problemwith much of the digital divide research is afailure to include ethical concerns as anexplicit part of analyzing and interpretingdigital divide gaps. If researchers includemore recognition of ethics with their findingsabout divide gaps, it is likely that they willproduce better (...) research and findings as well asmore defensible linkages between study reportsand policy deliberations. (shrink)

Why is it so hard to make up our minds? Adam and Eve set the template: Do we or don't we eat the apple? They chose, half-heartedly, and nothing was ever the same again. With this book, Kenneth Weisbrode offers a crisp, literate, and provocative introduction to the age-old struggle with ambivalence. Ambivalence results from a basic desire to have it both ways. This is only natural--although insisting upon it against all reason often results not in "both" but in (...) the disappointing "neither." Ambivalence has insinuated itself into our culture as a kind of obligatory reflex, or default position, before practically every choice we make. It affects not only individuals; organizations, societies, and cultures can also be ambivalent. How often have we asked the scornful question, "Are we the Hamlet of nations"? How often have we demanded that our leaders appear decisive, judicious, and stalwart? And how eager have we been to censure them when they hesitate or waver? Weisbrode traces the concept of ambivalence, from the Garden of Eden to Freud and beyond. The Obama era, he says, may be America's own era of ambivalence: neither red nor blue but a multicolored kaleidoscope. Ambivalence, he argues, need not be destructive. We must learn to distinguish it from its symptoms--selfishness, ambiguity, and indecision--and accept that frustration, guilt, and paralysis felt by individuals need not lead automatically to a collective pathology. Drawing upon examples from philosophy, history, literature, and the social sciences, _On Ambivalence_ is a pocket-sized portrait of a complex human condition. It should be read by anyone who has ever grappled with making the right choice. (shrink)

One of the largest, oldest, and most interesting challenges in health care is the balancing act in which clinicians have generally uncontroversial duties both to individual patients and to communities. Physicians and nurses must — so we teach them — put patients first, and at the same time recognize that individuals are members of communities. Individuals affect the health of communities, and communities affect the health of individuals. Thus, the moral and professional duties that result are sometimes in conflict.Moreover, the (...) traditional, prosaic clinical encounter is evolving in an environment increasingly shaped by electronic health records, personal health records, pharmacogenomics and vast networks of data collection and storage for public health surveillance, human subjects research, health services evaluation, and comparative effectiveness research. Health information technology is changing everything. It would be perverse otherwise: imagine large amounts of data and information either ignored, missed, or collected and then ignored. (shrink)

Increasingly widespread adoption of health information technology tools in clinical care increases interest in ethical and legal issues related to the use of these tools for public health and the effects of these uses on the clinician-patient relationship. It is argued that patients, clinicians, and society have generally uncontroversial duties to support civil society's public health mission, information technology supports this mission, and the effects of automated and computerized public health surveillance are likely to have little if any effect on (...) the clinician-patient relationship. It is also suggested, nevertheless, that electronic public health surveillance raises interesting and important ethical issues, some of which can be addressed if not resolved by empirical research, especially regarding patient preferences about secondary use of health data and their moral obligation to contribute to population- based health. (shrink)