This research note analyzes the relationship between indicators of corporate social and financial performance within a comprehensive theoretical framework. The results, based on data for 67 large U.S. corporations for 1982-1992, reveal no significant negative social-financial performance relationships and strong positive correlations in both contemporaneous and lead-lag formulations.

Here is a well-known thought about truth: Truth consists in correspondence with reality. A sentence is true just in case what it says corresponds with how the world is. Theories of truth that incorporate this thought are naturally regarded as robust or “heavyweight”. Truth is to be understood in a realist fashion. The world decides what is true and what is not. A recent incarnation of the correspondence view is found in truth-maker theories, whose adherents maintain that truths are true (...) in virtue of there being something – a truth-maker – in the world that makes them so.2. (shrink)

Applying critical sociological theory, this book explores the shortcomings of popular tactics in animal liberation efforts. Building a case for a scientifically-grounded grassroots approach, it is argued that professionalized advocacy that works in the service of theistic, capitalist, patriarchal institutions will find difficulty achieving success.

This paper contributes to biodiversity and species extinction literature by examining the relationship between corporate accountability in terms of species protection and factors affecting such accountability from forward-thinking companies. We use triangulation of theories, namely deep ecology, legitimacy, and we introduce a new perspective to the stakeholder theory that considers species as a ‘stakeholder’. Using Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood regression, we examine a sample of 200 Fortune Global companies over 3 years. Our results indicate significant positive relations between ecologically conscious companies (...) that are accountable for the protection of biodiversity and species extinction and external assurance, environmental performance, partnerships with socially responsible organizations and awards for sustainable activities. Our empirical results appear to be robust in controlling for possible endogeneities. Our findings contribute to the discussion on the concern of species loss and habitat destruction in the context of corporate accountability, especially in responding to the sixth mass extinction event and COVID-19 crisis. Our results can also guide the policymakers and stakeholders of the financial market in better decision making. (shrink)

Previous research has alluded to the predominance of atheism in participant pools of the Nonhuman Animal rights movement (Galvin and Herzog 1992; Guither 1998), as well as the correlation between atheism and support for anti-speciesism (Gabriel et al. 2012; The Humane League 2014), but no study to date has independently examined this demographic. This article presents a profile of 210 atheists and agnostics, derived from a larger survey of 287 American vegans conducted in early 2017. Results demonstrate that atheists constitute (...) one of the movement's largest demographics, and that atheist and agnostic vegans are more likely to adopt veganism out of concern for other animals. While these vegans did not register a higher level of social movement participation than religious vegans, they were more intersectionally oriented and more likely to politically identify with the far left. Given the Nonhuman Animal rights movement's overall failure to target atheists, these findings suggest a strategic oversight in overlooking the movement's potentially most receptive demographic. (shrink)

Religion inspires honesty. The love of money incites dishonesty. Religious and monetary values apply to all religions. We develop a formative theoretical model of monetary wisdom, treat religiosity (God) and the love of money (mammon), as two yoked antecedents—competing moral issues (Time 1), and frame the latent construct in good barrels (performance or humane contexts, Time 2), which leads to (dis)honesty (Time 3). We explore the direct and indirect paths and the model across genders. Our three-wave panel data (411 participants) (...) show that religious and monetary values are negatively correlated. Directly, religiosity consistently curbs dishonesty; surprisingly, the love of money has no impact on dishonesty. In the performance context, the two mediation effects reduce dishonesty. Across genders, this mediation effect is nonsignificant for males but significantly excites females' honesty. In the humane context, the two mediation effects are nonsignificant. Across genders, for the love of money, males passively curb dishonesty by omission, and females actively engage in honesty by commission. Decision-makers must challenge people's moral issues, frame them in good barrels, and help people become good apples, choice architects, and moral and ethical decision-makers, promoting the Matthew effect in religion. We offer practical implications to individuals and organizations. (shrink)

Mental toughness (MT) is a key psychological variable related to achievement in performance domains and perseverance in challenging circumstances. We sought to understand the lived experiences of mentally tough high-altitude mountaineers, focusing primarily upon decisions to persevere or abort summit attempts. Phenomenological interviews were conducted with 14 mountaineers including guides, expedition leaders, and doctors (Mage = 44 years). A content analysis was employed to identify key themes in the data. Participants emphasized the importance of MT in extreme environments and described (...) rational, flexible, and vigilant decision-making. Turning around without summiting was the toughest decision reported, with recognition of the thin line between persevering and overstretching. In contrast to much MT literature, mountaineers accepted limits, demonstrated restraint, and sacrificed personal goals to aid others. Costly perseverance was also reported with some mountaineers described as “too tough”: overcompetitive, goal-obsessed, and biased decision-makers. These findings revealed both benefits and dangers of MT in mountaineering. (shrink)

Spoken word recognition involves a perceptual tradeoff between the reliance on the incoming acoustic signal and knowledge about likely sound categories and their co-occurrences as words. This study examined how adult second language (L2) learners navigate between acoustic-based and knowledge-based spoken word recognition when listening to highly variable, multi-talker truncated speech, and whether this perceptual tradeoff changes as L2 listeners gradually become more proficient in their L2 after multiple months of structured classroom learning. First language (L1) Mandarin Chinese listeners and (...) L1 English-L2 Mandarin adult listeners took part in a gating experiment. The L2 listeners were tested twice—once at the start of their intermediate/advanced L2 language class and again two months later. L1 listeners were only tested once. Participants were asked to identify syllable-tone words that varied in syllable token frequency (high/low according to a spoken word corpus) and syllable-conditioned tonal probability (most probable/least probable in speech given the syllable). The stimuli were recorded by 16 different talkers and presented at eight gates ranging from onset-only (gate 1) through onset+40 ms increments (gates 2 through 7) to the full word (gate 8). Mixed-effects regression modeling was used to compare performance to our previous study which used single-talker stimuli (Wiener, Lee, & Tao, 2019). The results indicated that multi-talker speech caused both L1 and L2 listeners to rely greater on knowledge-based processing of tone. L1 listeners were able to draw on distributional knowledge of syllable-tone probabilities in early gates and switch to predominantly acoustic-based processing when more of the signal was available. In contrast, L2 listeners, with their limited experience with talker range normalization, were less able to effectively transition from probability-based to acoustic-based processing. Moreover, for the L2 listeners, the reliance on such distributional information for spoken word recognition appeared to be conditioned by the nature of the acoustic signal. Single-talker speech did not result in the same pattern of probability-based tone processing, suggesting that knowledge-based processing of L2 speech may only occur under certain acoustic conditions, such as multi-talker speech. (shrink)

Population policy has taken two divergent trajectories. In the developing part of the world, controlling population growth has been a major tune of the debate more than a half-century ago. In the more developed part of the world, an inverse pattern results in the discussion over the facilitation of population growth. The ethical debates on population policy have primarily focused on the former and ignored the latter. This paper proposes a more comprehensive account that justifies states’ population policy interventions. We (...) first consider the reasons that support pro-natalist policies to enhance fertility rates and argue that these policies are ethically problematic. We then establish an ethics of population policy grounded on account of self-sustaining the body politic, which consists of four criteria: survival, replacement, accountability, and solidarity. We discuss the implications of this account regarding birth-control and pro-natalist policies, as well as non-procreative policies such as immigration, adoption, and unintended baby-saving strategies. (shrink)

Intelligent design, though unnecessary in the study of biological evolution, is essential to the study of cultural evolution. However, the intelligent designers in question are not deities or aliens but rather humans going about their lives. The role of intentionality in cultural evolution can be elucidated through the addition of signaling theory to the framework outlined in the target article. (Published Online November 9 2006).

In a society marked by liberal gun ownership laws, and an increasingly militarized police force, how should we think about cases where a homeowner shoots a person who has mistakenly knocked on the wrong door, or where a police officer shoots someone who is unarmed? The general tendency – by shooters, courts, and many observers – is to use the framework of self-defense. However, as I will argue, relying on the framework of self-defense is inappropriate in these cases, because theories (...) of self-defensive killing are built up around a very specific type of case, namely, a random, sudden, one-off encounter between roughly equally matched strangers. When a person who acts in self-defense has undertaken certain preparations to kill in self-defense – such as buying a gun, or undergoing certain kinds of training – they transform what would have been defensive violence into offensive violence. But because the self-defense framework distinguishes only between defensive and aggressive violence, it cannot easily register the unique moral features of offensive violence. Relying on the self-defense framework, then, produces judgments that are overly permissive of killings by gun owners and police, masking them as self-defensive when in fact they are much more morally fraught. (shrink)

When the odds of achieving world peace seem so long, do hopes for peace amount to anything more than wishful thinking? In this paper, I introduce the idea of meaningful hope, which can help us to u...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Life as Dialogue:Remembering RogerHarry WellsI first met Roger when we both attended a colloquium on "Buddhist Thought and Culture" at the University of Montevello, Alabama, in April 1988. Roger read a paper that was thoroughly engaging, called "Becoming a Dialogian: How to do Buddhist-Christian Dialogue without Really Trying." At that point, I was hooked on getting to know this funny little man with a British accent who could deliver (...) an excellent reflection without being bothered by his occasional stammering.What struck me about Roger's paper was that it was meant to engage the one who heard it. It was written with a sense of interpretive transparency—a reflection on experience that was his own but also bigger than his own. It was one of those times where in hearing the account of his experience, one found one's own experience mirrored and affirmed. The paper was an autobiographical reflection on his journey into the interior ambiguity of interreligious dialogue, which at times can be very challenging when one tries truly to listen deeply to the visions of two distinct religious traditions. But his life was testament to the integrity of the journey and to an emergent overarching trust, or faith, that something very real and true was being birthed in the midst of it all.In the paper, which I use as an introductory essay for my Interreligious Dialogue course, he delightfully describes his boyhood "conversions" from one religious tradition to another in his own imagination as his pocket money purchases from Penguin Press "brought the world to my front door." One evening he emerges from his bedroom to inform his parents that he had become a Buddhist. "I had been reading all about it, I explained, and it was clear that I was already a Buddhist. It was as if I were remembering something from a past life. 'That's nice dear' commented my mother, 'have you finished your homework yet?' "He goes on to describe his theological studies, and his ever increasing grasp of, and being grasped by, the Eucharistic celebration. But he recounts:I was now in a quandary. Buddhism made sense to me, Meditation worked, and the Four Noble Truths seemed indeed to be true. But, now Christianity also made sense. In the Bible and the Mass some Power greater, more serene, and more loving than any other power I had known, was trying to contact me. Apparently, it was God, the same God, I presumed, that Buddhism denied.I did not know what to do, other than to be loyal somehow or another to what I had discovered, even though what I had discovered was self-contradictory. [End Page 157]The rest of the paper discusses his journey of that loyalty, becoming a Roman Catholic along the way, and later "the Buddhism erupted and demanded to be taken just as seriously as my Christianity."From that starting point twenty years ago, Roger and I shared our thoughts and reflections along the way at academic conferences and Buddhist-Christian dialogues. I always looked forward to hearing Roger speak, because he had a unique way of taking scholarship seriously by not being stuck in the mold of academic presentation. What I mean is this: Roger thoroughly researched what he was studying, but he is always studied for the engagement of life. As a result, his presentations were always lively in the best sense of that word—"alive," reflection seeking insight, and the "playful" embrace of living life within that insight.Here are some of the ways Roger impacted my life:• Roger taught me about "faith." He helped me learn to trust my experience of being compelled into interreligious experience, which takes immense effort and internal conflict initially but is a "burning in one's bones," to quote the prophet Jeremiah, for those called to be in that stance.• He taught me how to be a better teacher-scholar. He modeled for me the ability to present papers that were written to make a difference in the lives of those present, to connect with them in a way that led me and them to participate in insight as it was manifesting. Scholarship was... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Transformation of Hearts and Minds:Chan Zen-Catholic Approaches to PreceptsHarry L. WellsCatholic and Buddhist priests, monastics, teachers, and community leaders participated in the second of an anticipated four annual dialogues. The series is sponsored by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, the San Francisco Zen Center, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The conference took place 4–7 March 2004 at Mercy Center in Burlingame, CA, whose own East-West (...) meditation program, led by Fr. Thomas Hand, celebrated its twentieth anniversary that year. A popular retreat center and home to the Sisters of Mercy of Burlingame, the Center offered participants tree-dotted, spacious grounds and strolling paths, as well as a labyrinth for contemplative walking.Each day began with both Catholics and Buddhists in Mercy Center's Rose Room, a Zen-style meditation space, for an hour of silent meditation in the morning. Catholic liturgy was celebrated in the afternoon in the main chapel, with all participants invited to attend and share prayer and blessings. On the two full days, Friday and Saturday, two sessions of presentations were held each morning, with one session following in the afternoon. Each of the six sessions focused on a position paper, with three papers given from a Buddhist and three from a Christian perspective. Each paper was presented by its authors, followed by two formal responses, one by a Buddhist and one by a Catholic participant. This was in turn followed by an open discussion within the whole group. A minute of silent meditation began and ended each session.The presentations focused on various meanings embraced by the term "precepts" in each tradition. One paper introduced perspectives on Buddhist precepts in three different Buddhist lineages. Another presented six guidelines as "Precepts on the [End Page 155] Mind-Ground" that connect ethical commitments with social engagement. A third paper focused on Bodhisattva practice, which embraces and unifies all sentient beings. On the Christian side, presentations discussed the precepts as signposts on the path that leads away from suffering, as motivations that move us, and as the practice of the presence of God, exemplified by the writings of Brother Lawrence.A glossary prepared by Fr. Francis Tiso helped define Catholic Christian terms for the Buddhist participants in the dialogue. Similarly, a book distributed to all participants by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association provided background on "Buddhism A–Z." Formal discussion sessions in the evenings, as well as informal talks by the participants while walking outside or in the form of impromptu hallway meetings added to the depth and richness of the dialogue. Some recurring themes were the importance and meaning of a personal teacher in both traditions; another was the "embodiment" of the teachings, the value of teaching through presence. Personal stories and practical experiences offered by individual participants were much appreciated and added poetry and emotion to the headiness of theological discussion.Members of both the Buddhist and the Catholic traditions reported that the encounter with the spiritual practices and beliefs of the other faith provides both affirmation of the familiar and welcome discovery of unexpected riches of the spirit. The next meeting will be held 20–23 January 2005 at the San Francisco Zen Center. The theme will be "Practice: Method and Experience Toward Transformation."Participating in the 2004 dialogue were Rev. Heng Sure (Berkeley Buddhist Monastery), Bishop John C. Wester (Auxiliary Bishop, Archdiocese of San Francisco), Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton (Mountain Source Sangha), Fr. Arthur Kennedy (Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, USCCB), Bhikshuni Heng Liang (Dharma Realm Buddhist Association), Dr. Martin Verhoeven (Institute for World Religions), Dr. Ron Epstein (Institute for World Religions), Dr. Snjezana Akpinar (Dharma Realm Buddhist University), Rev. Shosan Victoria Austin (San Francisco Zen Center), Rev. Alan Senauke (Berkeley Zen Center), Jan Chozen Bays (Zen Community of Oregon), Sr. Phyllis D'Anna, SND (Center for the Practice of Applied Spirituality), Fr. Thomas W. Devereaux (Diocese of Santa Rosa), Robert Hale, OSB Cam. (Incarnation Monastery, Berkeley, CA), Thomas Hand, S.J. (Mercy Center, Burlingame, CA), Fr. Rafael Luévano (Diocese of Orange), Deacon Thomas McGowan (Diocese of Oakland), Lorraine Moriarity (St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Mateo County), Fr. Gerry O'Rourke (Archdiocese... (shrink)

Although some psychoanalysts in the clinical field have criticised Žižek for corrupting Lacan’s teachings, through playing down the importance of the clinical, there is no doubt that Žižek’s scholarship and contribution to psychoanalysis displays mastery of Lacanian theory. Moreover, Žižek has applied this mastery to push theoretical ideas about the subject and social worlds, into public and intellectual debate. For Žižek, Lacan is a master from whom social knowledge as well as knowledge of the social is developed and critiqued. In (...) keeping with Žižek’s ontology, an examination of the intersection of belief with desire reveals the importance of a critical return to ideology that cannot be overlooked, particularly when examining how present social conditions structure an intersection of desire and belief. For Žižek, the contemporary subject believes now more than ever. Žižek positions modern social conditions together with the practices and organisations which maintain ideologies, as structuring the contours of belief. Capitalism, the supposed master of the 20th century, has presented as not so reliable. Might belief be the 21st century master, stepping in to support those ideological forces which intensify the scaffolding of a failing capitalist system? (shrink)

Lymphangiogenesis is an important developmental process that is critical to regulation of fluid homeostasis, immune surveillance and response as well as pathogenesis of a number of diseases, among them cancer, inflammation, and heart failure. Specification, formation, and maturation of lymphatic blood vessels involves an interplay between a series of events orchestrated by various transcription factors that determine expression of key genes involved in lymphangiogenesis. These are traditionally thought to be under control of several key growth factors including vascular growth factor‐C (...) (VEGF‐C) and fibroblast growth factors (FGFs). Recent insights into VEGF and FGF signaling point to their role in control of endothelial metabolic processes such as glycolysis and fatty acid oxidation that, in turn, play a major role in regulation of lymphangiogenesis. These advances have significantly increased our understanding of lymphatic biology and opened new therapeutic vistas. Here we review our current understanding of metabolic controls in the lymphatic vasculature. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of various forms of alethic pluralism. Along the way we will draw a number of distinctions that, hopefully, will be useful in mapping the pluralist landscape. Finally, we will argue that a commitment to alethic disjunctivism, a certain brand of pluralism, might be difficult to avoid for adherents of the other pluralist views to be discussed. We will proceed as follows: Section 1 introduces alethic monism and alethic pluralism. Section 2 (...) presents a distinction between strong and moderate versions of monism and pluralism, understood as theses about the existence of truth properties. Section 3 introduces four pluralist positions: strong alethic pluralism, alethic disjunctivism, second-order functionalism and manifestation functionalism. These positions are classified using the basic framework from Section 2, and a further distinction between pure and mixed versions of pluralism is drawn. Interestingly, alethic disjunctivism and the two kinds of functionalism—i.e. three out of four positions— have a mixed character. They incorporate a monist thesis. The only pure form of pluralism is strong alethic pluralism. Section 4 adds another distinction to the stock: one-level and two-level views. Each of the mixed positions operates with two levels, locating certain “alethically potent”—or grounding—properties at a lower level and others at a higher level. We briefly discuss the nature of grounding. In Section 5, we answer a question about mixed, two-level views, viz. whether they are as much monist as pluralist in nature, or more. They are not. Section 6 is devoted to the task of arguing that the strong pluralist, the second-order functionalist, and the manifestation functionalist will find it hard to deny a commitment to alethic disjunctivism. (shrink)

Phillips & Silverstein's focus on schizophrenia as a failure of “cognitive coordination” is welcome. They note that a simple hypothesis of reduced Gamma synchronisation subserving impaired coordination does not fully account for recent observations. We suggest that schizophrenia reflects a dynamic compensation to a core deficit of coordination, expressed either as hyper- or hyposynchronisation, with neurotransmitter systems and arousal as modulatory mechanisms.

Falk's contribution to a continuity theory of the origins of language would be complemented by an account of the origins of displaced reference, a key characteristic distinguishing human language from animal signaling systems. Because deception is one situation in which nonhumans may use signals in the absence of their referents, deception may have been the starting point for displaced reference.

"In an era of economic devastation, ongoing legacies of colonization and imperialism, climate change and habitat loss, there is a call for a new understanding of the meaning and relevance of ethics. These essays on otherness, responsibility, and hospitality raise urgent questions about the state of ethics in tumultuous times. Contributors range from prominent theorists-including Levinas, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Giorgio Agamben-to more recent theorists including Judith Butler, Enrique Dussell, and Rosi Braidotti. Perhaps most crucially, this reader emphasizes the (...) always vulnerable status of a radically different Other, even as it questions what responsibility to that Other might mean."-Provided by publisher. (shrink)

It is widely believed that some wars are just, and that the paradigm case of a just war is a defensive war. A familiar strategy used to justify defensive war is to infer its permissibility from the case of self-defensive killing. I show, however, that the permission to defend oneself does not justify killing, but instead calls for nonviolent resistance. I conclude that on the account of self-defense I develop, the appropriate way to respond to a war of aggression is (...) not by prosecuting a defensive war, but by engaging in a form of nonviolence I call pacific resistance. (shrink)

Despite the considerable attention given to Spinoza’s account of affectivity, especially in recent years, scant attention has been paid to the distinction between action and passion, or to the problems which it presents internally and externally. This essay offers a clarification and defense of Spinoza’s account of action and passion. A second theme is the behavioristic nature of Spinoza’s account of human affectivity. Despite the bad press which behaviorism is receiving these days, I argue that the behavioristic aspects of Spinoza’s (...) account are defensible. (shrink)

This essay is a reflection on the ways we understand East Asia, as well as how East Asia is related to our knowledge construction. In spite of the personal tone, which I use strategically to formulate arguments in a carefully designed narrative flow, the article remains critical throughout and its conclusion is clear: exploration of the essence of East Asian civilization can constitute a meaningful effort to reevaluate and even restructure our current world of knowledge.

In his theory of determination, Charles Peirce considered two processes of determination, the semiotic process and epistemology. The semiotic process is an extensional process from object to interpretant that consists of an infinite chain of references that can be spatially reversible. The epistemological process of determination is temporal and irreversible, where the idea grows into the individual mind, as the universe is unfolded by the agency of mind.

I argue that Spinoza’s account of appetition, and its application to human sexuality, is more original than many commentators suggest; and that it offers resolutions to several puzzles in the philosophy of sex. The paper first situates these puzzles in contemporary debates, offers a detailed analysis of Spinoza’s remarks on love in general and sexual love in particular, and concludes with some of the normative consequences which Spinoza attempts to derive from these.

It is often claimed that Spinoza regards aesthetic values as inherently subjective and relative. I suggest in my opening section that this reading is derived from Leibniz's misconception of Spinoza's method, and go on to develop a spinozistic account of aesthetic experience which is relational, but which sees it as rooted in human sensibility (imagination). In the closing section I take up the issue of intersubjective valuation, and the question how aesthetic values are shared within the human community. I suggest (...) also that Spinoza's somewhat out-of-fashion approach to aesthetic valuation through the concepts of 'beauty' and 'well-being' are worthy of further attention and development by contemporary aestheticians. (shrink)

In 2011, when Judith Butler delivered the lecture series that would become Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, the speech act theorist joined other critical scholars attempting to work through the dark cloud of neoliberal fatigue settling over the humanities. “Identitarian ontologies” had become only more entrenched in the age of terror, any potential alternatives seeming destined for “discursive appropriation” by the insidious vocabulary of late biopolitical capitalism. Fatigued, but not yet resigned, Notes sets out “to rethink the speech (...) act”, not to discover something else to say or some other way to say it but instead to take seriously what Butler described more than a... (shrink)