This study examines whether corporate social responsibility performance is associated with corporate tax avoidance. Employing a matched sample of 434 firm-year observations from the Kinder, Lydenberg, and Domini database over the period 2003–2009, our logit regression results show that the higher the level of CSR performance of a firm, the lower the likelihood of tax avoidance. Our results indicate that more socially responsible firms are likely to display less tax avoidance. Finally, the results from our additional analysis show that the (...) CSR categories community relations and diversity represent particularly important elements of CSR performance that reduce tax avoidance. (shrink)

We speak of the right to know with relative ease. You have the right to know the results of a medical test or to be informed about the collection and use of personal data. But what exactly is the right to know, and who should we trust to safeguard it? This book provides the first comprehensive examination of the right to know and other epistemic rights: rights to goods such as information, knowledge and truth. These rights play a prominent role (...) in our information-centric society and yet they often go unnoticed, disregarded and unprotected. As such, those who control what we know, or think we know, exert an influence on our lives that is often as dangerous as it is imperceptible. Beginning with a rigorous but accessible philosophical account of epistemic rights, Lani Watson examines the harms caused by epistemic rights violations, drawing on case studies across medical, political and legal contexts. She investigates who has the right to what information, who is responsible for the quality and circulation of information and what epistemic duties we have towards each other. This book is essential reading for philosophers, legal theorists and anyone concerned with the protection and promotion of information, knowledge and truth.. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of board of director gender diversity on corporate tax aggressiveness. Based on a sample of 418 U.S. firms covering the 2006–2009 period, our ordinary least squares regression results show a negative and statistically significant association between female representation on the board and tax aggressiveness after controlling for endogeneity. Our results are consistent across several measures of tax aggressiveness and additional robustness checks.

This study examines the impact of corporate tax avoidance on board of directors and chief executive officer reputation. Our regression results show that when firms engage in tax avoidance, both directors and CEOs, on average, are rewarded by improvements in their reputations as proxied by an increased number of outside board seats. In particular, both independent directors and non-CEO executive directors undergo positive changes in reputation. We also find that CEOs of tax-aggressive firms experience enhanced reputations by gaining extra board (...) seats. Our main regression results hold based on additional analyses. Overall, this study provides important empirical evidence confirming an association between tax avoidance and the individual reputations of directors and CEOs. (shrink)

Learners exposed to an artificial language recognize its abstract structural regularities when instantiated in a novel vocabulary (e.g., Gómez, Gerken, & Schvaneveldt, 2000; Tunney & Altmann, 2001). We asked whether such sensitivity accelerates subsequent learning, and enables acquisition of more complex structure. In Experiment 1, pre-exposure to a category-induction language of the form aX bY sped subsequent learning when the language is instantiated in a different vocabulary. In Experiment 2, while naíve learners did not acquire an acX bcY language, in (...) which aX and bY co-occurrence regularities were separated by a c-element, prior experience with an aX bY language provided some benefit. In Experiment 3 we replicated this finding with a 24-hour delay between learning phases, and controlled for prior experience with the aX bY language's prosodic and phonological characteristics. These findings suggest that learners, and the structure they can acquire, change as a function of experience. (shrink)

Hume and Rousseau argue that “feeling with and/or for others” is natural and basic to us as human persons. but Royce claims that merely feeling the fleeting impulse of sympathy is not the moral insight itself. Compassion must be both felt and acted upon for it to play the role in morality ascribed by Hume and Rousseau. Why is it so often the case that we fail to feel compassion for others and, even when we do, why do we often (...) fail to act on this basis? There are multiple socially constructed barriers to feeling and acting on compassion, three of which are discussed: null curriculum. stereotyping and privileges. Finally, the Dalai Lama maintains that it is in every person’s own self-interest to develop compassion for others because it is the source of both inner and external peace. (shrink)

The landscape of contemporary epistemology has significantly diversified in the past 30 years, shaped in large part by two complementary movements: virtue and social epistemology. This diversification provides an apt theoretical context for the epistemology of education. No longer concerned exclusively with the formal analysis of knowledge, epistemologists have turned their attention towards individuals as knowers, and the social contexts in which epistemic goods such as knowledge and understanding are acquired and exchanged. As such, the concerns of epistemology have once (...) again aligned with questions lying at the heart of the philosophy of education regarding the nature, aims and practice of education. Employing the conceptual tools and frameworks of the contemporary field, these questions are addressed by both epistemologists and education theorists in the emerging epistemology of education literature. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the role that the intellectual virtue of curiosity can play in response to some of the most pressing challenges of the Information Age. I argue that virtuous curiosity represents a valuable characterological resource for the twenty-first century, in particular, a restricted form of curiosity, namely inquisitiveness. I argue that virtuous inquisitiveness should be trained and cultivated, via the skill of good questioning, and discuss the risks of failing to do so in relation to the design (...) and use of novel technologies. If left unchecked, I argue, vicious forms of curiosity can emerge, with broad implications for society as a whole. Thus, we should seek to cultivate virtuous curiosity and teach the skill of good questioning to those of us (in principle, all of us) who use and rely on technology in our work and lives. (shrink)

Questioning is a familiar, everyday practice which we use, often unreflectively, in order to gather information, communicate with each other, and advance our inquiries. Yet, not all questions are equally effective and not all questioners are equally adept. Being a good questioner requires a degree of proficiency and judgment, both in determining what to ask and in deciding who, where, when, and how to ask. Good questioning is an intellectual skill. Given its ubiquity and significance, it is an intellectual skill (...) that, I believe, we should educate for. In this paper, I present a central line of argument in support of educating for good questioning, namely, that it plays an important role in the formation of an individual’s intellectual character and can thereby serve as a valuable pedagogical tool for intellectual character education. I argue that good questioning plays two important roles in the cultivation of intellectual character: good questioning stimulates intellectually virtuous inquiry and contributes to the development of several of the individual intellectual virtues. Insofar as the cultivation of intellectually virtuous character is a desirable educational objective, we should educate for good questioning. (shrink)

In this interview, Lani Roberts provides a philosophical justification for the study of diversity issues and highlights the pedagogical methods needed to prepare students to live and thrive in a diverse society. This article is a partial transcript of a recorded interview.

Questions are, in many respects, the hallmarks of the philosopher's trade. They are passed down from one generation to the next and yet, throughout history, philosophers have had relatively little to say about questions. In particular, few have asked or tried to answer the question ‘what is a question'. I call this the ‘Question Question’ and I offer an answer to it in this paper, furnishing philosophical analysis with the results of a large online survey, which has been running for (...) more than a decade. (shrink)

The interest in meaningful work has significantly increased over the last two decades. Much of the associated managerial research has focused on researching ways to 'provide and manage meaning' through leadership or organizational culture. This stands in sharp contrast with the literature of the humanities which suggests that meaningfulness does not need to be provided, as the distinct feature of a human being is that he or she has an intrinsic 'will to meaning'. The research that has been done based (...) on the humanistic paradigm has been quite fragmented. This article aims to address these gaps through an action research project that actively involved participants in the process of affirming and uncovering the meaningfulness of their work. Our findings contribute to current organizational scholarship and practice as they enable scholars to clearly distinguish 'meaningful work' from 'the management of meaning', bring together the various sources of meaningful work in one framework and show their relationship with each other, clearly show the importance of engaging with both the inspiration towards the ideal as well as the often less than perfect self and the organizational reality in which meaning gets expressed and contribute to our understanding of how to engage individuals in conversations about meaningful work that are not prescriptive or exclusive, but that also show where meanings are commonly held. (shrink)

This review essay provides a critical discussion of Linda Zagzebski’s Exemplarist Moral Theory. We agree that emt is a book of impressive scope that will be of interest to ethical theorists, as well as epistemologists, philosophers of language, and philosophers of religion. Throughout the critical discussion we argue that exemplarism faces a number of important challenges, firstly, in dealing with the fallibility of admiration, which plays a central role in the theoretical framework, and secondly, in serving as a practical guide (...) for moral development. Despite this, we maintain that emt points the way for significant future theoretical and empirical research into some of the most well-established questions in ethical theory. (shrink)

Enquiry into the relationship between kinds of oppression raises several possibilities. Perhaps there are multiple yet distinct oppressions. If this is so, are there philosophical relationships among them? What are the theoretical distinctions between racism and sexism, for example. The question raised here has to do with the philosophical structure of social dominance, rather than the discrete manifestations usually based on distinct target groups. Although the characteristics of peoples who are targets of each of the individual kinds of oppression are (...) different, and even though many people are multiply oppressed, there is good reason to question the underlying assumption that each form of oppression is fundamentally separate and distinct from the others. There are many deep correspondences shared by specifically focused theories of oppression. It is plausible to suggest there is a single phenomenon called oppression. Perhaps there is only one monster with several heads, rather than many monsters hiding in our communal closet. (shrink)

The philosophical treatment of abortion has rarely placed actual women at the center of the discussion. This essay argues that moral decisions are made by actual persons and a woman, as a person, is more than a breeder of humans. Drawing on an analogy with the treatment of light in quantum physics, it also argues that the status of a fertilized ovum is indeterminate, often dependent on the context of the woman's life.

In this paper, I focus on the role of curiosity as a key motivating factor in successful collaboration for interdisciplinary research. I argue that curiosity is an important, perhaps essential component of successful collaboration for interdisciplinary teams. I begin by defining curiosity and highlighting the significance of the characteristic motivation of the virtue for successful collaboration. I argue that curiosity initiates, maintains, and coordinates successful collaborative interdisciplinary research. Moreover, if curiosity is a foundational intellectual virtue, then it is not only (...) important but essential for successful collaboration. I then draw attention to a specific type of curiosity, namely inquisitiveness, and argue that the defining feature of inquisitiveness – good questioning – renders it a particularly valuable form of curiosity for collaborative projects, including (although not limited to) interdisciplinary research. I conclude by deriving some practical recommendations for successful collaboration in interdisciplinary research. (shrink)

There is an enduring and widespread perception amongst policy makers and practitioners that certain groups of children, in particular those who find learning difficult, have a detrimental effect on the achievement of other children. Challenging this basic assumption, this award-winning book argues that high levels of inclusion can be entirely compatible with high levels of achievement and that combining the two is not only possible but essential if all children are to have the opportunity to participate fully in education. This (...) fully revised second edition is packed with vivid case studies that explore the benefits and tensions for children and schools, and sets out to answer the following questions: What is the nature of the relationship between the inclusion of some children and the achievement of all? Are there strategies which can raise the achievement of all children, whilst safeguarding the inclusion of others who are more vulnerable? What changes can a school make to ensure high levels of inclusion as well as high levels of achievement for all its children? Achievement and Inclusion in Schools offers a fully up-to-date analysis of current issues in light of recent changes to education policy in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It provides practical guidance for practitioners and policy-makers, and will be of interest to anyone passionate about inclusive education. (shrink)

Infants are sensitive to statistics in spoken language that aid word‐form segmentation and immediate mapping to referents. However, it is not clear whether this sensitivity influences the formation and retention of word‐referent mappings across a delay, two real‐world challenges that learners must overcome. We tested how the timing of referent training, relative to familiarization with transitional probabilities (TPs) in speech, impacts English‐learning 23‐month‐olds’ ability to form and retain word‐referent mappings. In Experiment 1, we tested infants’ ability to retain TP information (...) across a 10‐min delay and use it in the service of word learning. Infants successfully mapped high‐TP but not low‐TP words to referents. In Experiment 2, infants readily mapped the same words even when they were unfamiliar. In Experiment 3, high‐ and low‐TP word‐referent mappings were trained immediately after familiarization, and infants readily remembered these associations 10 min later. In sum, although 23‐month‐old infants do not need strong statistics to map word forms to referents immediately, or to remember those mappings across a delay, infants are nevertheless sensitive to these statistics in the speech stream, and they influence mapping after a delay. These findings suggest that, by 23 months of age, sensitivity to statistics in speech may impact infants’ language development by leading word forms with low coherence to be poorly mapped following even a short period of consolidation. (shrink)

Practical Ethics in Architecture and Interior Design Practice presents the basics of design practice through ethical scenarios, ushering design students into real-world experiential learning. Each chapter begins with a detailed story involving a complicated set of practical and ethical dilemmas, exemplifying those encountered each day in the world of professional practice. Practice-based topics such as contracts and project delivery methods, marketing design services, cross-cultural collaboration, virtual connectivity, social justice and sustainable design, soft skills, and other related professional practice themes are (...) anchored in realistic scenarios. While all the stories are fictional, in writing them the authors drew from over 75 combined years of professional experience in architecture and interior design, as well as many years of academic experience in teaching professional practice and ethics to architecture and interior design students. Each story is followed by discussion questions and suggested additional resources. This book provides a unique integrated perspective into the allied fields of architecture and interior design with topics relevant to both fields as well as specific to each profession. It prepares students of both disciplines for the broad issues of professional practice and encourages them to become ethical practitioners ready to contribute effectively to design teams and to ask the right questions. (shrink)

This paper explains some of the reasoning behind “Can a Good Philosophical Contribution Be Made Just by Asking a Question?,” a paper which consists solely in its title and which is published in the same issue of the journal as the present paper. The method for explaining that reasoning consists in making available a lightly edited version of a letter the authors sent to the editors when submitting the title-only paper. The editors permitted publication of that paper on the condition (...) that the authors also separately publish a version of that letter; the present paper aims to fulfil that condition. (shrink)

Infants are sensitive to statistical regularities (i.e., transitional probabilities, or TPs) relevant to segmenting words in fluent speech. However, there is debate about whether tracking TPs results in representations of possible words. Infants show preferential learning of sequences with high TPs (HTPs) as object labels relative to those with low TPs (LTPs). Such findings could mean that only the HTP sequences have a word‐like status, and they are more readily mapped to a referent for that reason. But these findings could (...) also suggest that HTP sequences are easier to encode, just like any other predictable sequence. Here we aimed to distinguish between these explanations. To do so, we built on findings that infants become resistant to learning labels that are not typical of their native language as they approach 2 years of age and add words to their lexicons. If tracking TPs in speech results in identifying candidate words, at this age TPs may have reduced power to confer lexical status when they yield a unit that is very dissimilar to word forms that are typical of infants’ native language. Indeed, we found that at 20 months, English‐learning infants with relatively small vocabularies learned HTP Italian words (but not LTP words) as object labels, while infants with larger vocabularies resisted learning HTP Italian words. These findings suggest that the HTP sequences may be represented as candidate words, and more broadly, that TP statistics are relevant to word learning. (shrink)

It is predicted that the rapid acquisition of new genetic knowledge and related applications during the next decade will have significant implications for virtually all members of society. Currently, most people get exposed to information about genes and genetics only through stories publicized in the media. We sought to understand how individuals in the general population used and understood the concepts of ???genetics??? and ???genes.??? During in-depth one-on-one telephone interviews with adults in the United States, we asked questions exploring their (...) basic understanding of these terms, as well as their belief as to the location of genes in the human body. A wide range of responses was received. Despite conversational familiarity with genetic terminology, many noted frustration or were hesitant when trying to answer these questions. In addition, some responses reflected a lack of understanding about basic genetic science that may have significant implications for broader public education measures in genetic literacy, genetic counseling, public health practices, and even routine health care. (shrink)

André Tosel, décédé en mars 2017, était un philosophe engagé, attaché tout au long de son existence à faire vivre un marxisme critique puisant notamment dans le meilleur de la tradition italienne de ce courant de pensée ; il fut l'un des rares français à introduire et discuter les oeuvres majeures d'A. Labriola et surtout d'A. Gramsci, ainsi par ailleurs que celles de Vico dont il fut un fin connaisseur. Il consacra sa thèse de doctorat d'état aux rapports entre religion, (...) politique et philosophie chez Spinoza et contribua de façon décisive à de nouvelles lectures du philosophe en le mettant en miroir de Marx. Professeur de philosophie des universités de Besançon, Franche Comté, de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne et de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, dans lesquelles il occupa de nombreuses fonctions de directions administratives et scientifiques, il était un homme de collectif attaché à faire vivre le savoir, s'engageant dans la vie universitaire et politique, contribuant également de manière décisive au lancement et à l'animation de la revue Actuel Marx. Passionné par l'évolution des pensées contemporaines, il intervenait régulièrement dans des débats d'actualité, sous la forme de contributions dans L'Humanité ou dans des ouvrages destinés à un public large, tout particulièrement dans la dernière période sur les questions de sécularisation, de laïcité et de religion. Cet ouvrage entend lui rendre hommage en abordant les différentes facettes de son oeuvre, traversant un demi-siècle de vie intellectuelle. (shrink)

Landscape Agency New York was founded by Gavin Keeney, c.1997, and encompassed a wide array of activities and effects – e.g., research, writing, design, consulting, and teaching. /S/OMA (Syntactical Operations Metaphorical Affects) was the mobile, and sometimes global design and teaching module within LANY, focusing primarily on entirely hypothetical and/or irreal projects, many becoming the foundation for lectures and courses delivered at institutions in the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe, from 2003 to 2007. Lastly, the LANY Archive-Grotto was (...) established following publication of On the Nature of Things: Contemporary American Landscape Architecture (Birkhauser, 2001), primarily as a means of escaping the then-formulaic production of texts common to Landscape Architecture and Architecture. (shrink)

The insightful commentaries to our contribution "Education as the Social Cultivation of Intellectual Virtue" (in 'Social Virtue Epistemology', (eds.) M. Alfano, C. Klein & J. de Ridder, Routledge 2022) offered by Alessandra Tanesini and Lani Watson highlight some important aspects of the work that philosophers, education theorists, and educators should carry out to strengthen the theoretical and practical advantages of the educational approach we have proposed. This commentary briefly addresses a few points that could set the grounds for future investigations (...) on intellectual virtue-based approaches to education and their social dimensions. (shrink)

This paper follows the Salt-Wind and subterraneous freshwater flows in Hawaiian poet Brandy Nālani McDougall's collection of poetry The Salt-Wind/ka Makani Pa'akai. McDougall illustrates that in order to begin again in the aftermath of American imperialism and environmental destruction, one must return to the salt-water and sub-surface waterings, and the ancestral connections and voices therein who beckon her (and others) home. In this way, her work is situated within contemporary movements within the Pacific, presently coming together in deimperializing efforts to (...) restructure a future for the Pacific that is ‘beyond empires’ (Fujikane, 2012: 191). Selecting two poems in particular from McDougall's collection—'Hāloanaka’ and ‘On a Routing Slip from the U.S. Postal Service, Pukalani Branch'—I illustrate how they chart the ancestral, cosmological, and historical flows of kinship between Kānaka Maoli and their near and distant earthly and spiritual relations. In particular, the water that passes through the taro plant infuses all manner of kinship, economic, and social relations in Hawai'i, connecting Kānaka Maoli to their ancestor Hāloa, and to land, sea, and each other, as well as—through the formative oceanic movements of Moana Nui—to other Pacific islanders. A thirst for water—sacred, imaginative, mobile, past, present—underwritten by an assertion of Hawaiian sovereignty, language, and tradition flows just beneath the surface of McDougall's words. (shrink)

I reply to Lani Watson's recent article on the social virtue of questioning.

I offer a detailed discussion of the connections Lani Watson posits in her book The Right to Know between violations of a person’s epistemic rights on the one hand and the distinctively epistemic forms of injustice influentially discussed in the work of Miranda Fricker on the other. I argue that if we specify the content of the relevant epistemic rights (and the corresponding duties of others) carefully enough, it becomes plausible that there is an even tighter relationship between violations of (...) these rights and various epistemic injustices than Watson claims. I close by tabling a speculative suggestion on the significance of this conclusion. (shrink)