This is the first book to offer the best essays, articles, and speeches on ethics and intelligence that demonstrate the complex moral dilemmas in intelligence collection, analysis, and operations. Some are recently declassified and never before published, and all are written by authors whose backgrounds are as varied as their insights, including Robert M. Gates, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; John P. Langan, the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Professor of Catholic Social Thought at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown (...) University; and Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia and recipient of the Owens Award for contributions to the understanding of U.S. intelligence activities. Creating the foundation for the study of ethics and intelligence by filling in the gap between warfare and philosophy, this is a valuable collection of literature for building an ethical code that is not dependent on any specific agency, department, or country. (shrink)

This article joins with others in the same issue to celebrate the career of Robert B. Zajonc who was a broad, as well as a deeply talented, psychologist. Beyond his well-known focus in social psychology, the work of Zajonc also involved, at one time or another, forays into nearly every other subfield of psychology. This article focuses specifically on his studies that extended into biopsychology, which deserve special highlighting in order to be recognized alongside his many major achievements in emotion (...) and related social topics. The biopsychological focus is offered here in the hope that all his diverse contributions be savored together when celebrating the complete psychology of Robert Zajonc. (shrink)

This volume collects essays which are thematically connected through the work of Kent Emery Jr., to whom the volume is dedicated. A main focus lies on the attempts to bridge the gap between mysticism and a systematic approach to medieval philosophical thought.

Religion: A Study in Beauty, Truth, and Goodness covers the wide array of elements, including the concepts of ultimate being, scripture, ritual, morality, and beauty, which make up the fascinating entity known as religion. Taking a phenomenological approach that emphasizes the standpoint of the religious believer--a view from the inside of religion--Kent Richter uses the categories of experience, belief, and behavior ("Beauty, Truth, and Goodness") as a way to think about religion in general. This approach helps students understand both (...) the great variety in religious traditions and the internal coherence that religion holds for its practitioners. (shrink)

RésuméCet article défend une approche à la philosophic et à l'éthique environnementale qui a originalement été avancée par Aldo Leopold. Selon cet auteur, l'éthique peut être comprise, d'un point de vue biologique, comme la forme spécifiquement humaine de la symbiose. La question cruciate de notre époque est de savoir si les humains peuvent coexister avec l'environnement global en un état de symbiose. La philosophie et les sciences humaines en général peuvent contribuer grandement à l'atteinte de ce but, à cause de (...) la façon très spéciale dont le caractère même des actions et des æuvres humaines peut être amplifié par l'écosystème. Je critique un argument thermodynamique qui a été formulé contre la possibilité de la symbiose humaine; et je mets en garde contre les tendances à l'autoritarisme et è l'évasion par l'introspection qui sont typiques des cultures en état de crise écologique. (shrink)

Psychopaths constitute less than 1% of the general population, but they commit a much larger proportion of crime and violence in society. This volume chronicles the latest science of psychopathy, various ways that psychopaths challenge the criminal justice system, and the major ethical issues arising from this fascinating condition.

This review takes a historical perspective on concepts in the psychology of motivation and emotion, and surveys recent developments, debates and applications. Old debates over emotion have recently risen again. For example, are emotions necessarily subjective feelings? Do animals have emotions? I review evidence that emotions exist also as core psychological processes, which have objectively detectable features, and which can occur either with subjective feelings or without them. Evidence is offered also that studies of emotion in animals can give new (...) insights into human emotions. Beyond emotion, motivation concepts also have changed over decades, and debates still continue. Motivation was once thought in terms of aversive drives, and reward was thought of in terms of drive reduction. Motivation-as-drive concepts were largely replaced by motivation-as-incentive concepts, yet aversive drive concepts still occasionally surface in motivation neuroscience today. Among incentive motivation concepts, incentive salience is a core process, mediated by brain mesocorticolimbic systems (dopamine-related systems) and sometimes called ‘wanting’ (in quotation marks), to distinguish it from cognitive forms of desire (wanting without quotation marks). Incentive salience as ‘wanting’ is separable also from pleasure ‘liking’ for the same reward, which has important implications for several human clinical disorders. Ordinarily, incentive salience adds motivational urgency to cognitive desires, but ‘wanting’ and cognitive desires can dissociate in some conditions. Excessive incentive salience can cause addictions, in which excessive ‘wanting’ can diverge from cognitive desires. Conversely, lack of incentive salience may cause motivational forms of anhedonia in depression or schizophrenia, whereas a negatively-valenced form of ‘fearful salience’ may contribute to paranoia. Finally, negative ‘fear’ and ‘disgust’ have both partial overlap but also important neural differences. (shrink)

When Kent Nerburn received a letter from a young woman questioning her calling to spend her life in the arts, the writer and artist was struck by how closely her questions mirrored the doubts and yearnings of his own youth. Nerburn resolved that he would write his own letter: a letter of welcome and encouragement to all artists setting out on the same strange and magical journey, sharing the wisdom of a life spent working in the arts. From struggles (...) with money and the bitterness of rejection, to spiritual questions of inspiration and authenticity, Dancing With the Gods offers insight, solace and courage to help artists on the winding road to artistic fulfilment. Tender and joyous, it is a celebration of art's power to transform the darkest of human experience and give voice to the grandest of human hopes. (shrink)

"In Realms of Legal Interpretation, Kent Greenawalt focuses on how courts decide what is legally forbidden or authorized, and how context shapes their decisions. The problem, he argues, is that we do not, and never have, agreed on all the details of the standards United States judges should employ - like everyone else, judges have different ideas of what constitutes good common sense. Moreover, circumstance regularly throws up hurdles... Different judges react in different ways. Acknowledging that courts will never (...) agree upon a uniform approach to applying norms and interpreting the law, Greenawalt's aim is to provide a capacious, user-friendly model for approaching hard cases sensibly in both public and private law. Just as importantly, the book serves as a pithy guide to the major forms of legal interpretation for nonlawyers" --. (shrink)

Different brain mechanisms seem to mediate wanting and liking for the same reward. This may have implications for the modular nature of mental processes, and for understanding addictions, compulsions, free will and other aspects of desire. A few wanting and liking phenomena are presented here, together with discussion of some of these implications.

China is the world’s second largest economy and the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, yet we know little about environmental proactivity in the most populated country in the world. We address this gap through a survey of 161 Chinese companies with two respondents per firm (N = 322), where we seek to identify the antecedents and consequences of environmental proactivity. We identify two categorizations of environmental proactivity: Environmental operational improvements and environmental reporting. We find that ecological motivations and regulatory stakeholder (...) pressure are positively related to both types of environmental proactivity, and external stakeholder pressure is negatively related to environmental reporting. Furthermore, we find that (1) if a firm is environmentally proactive (as it relates to either measure) and they are ecologically motivated, there is a positive and significant cost advantage, and (2) if a firm makes use of environmental operational improvement and they are competitively motivated, there is a positive and significant reputation advantage. Implications for researchers, managers, and policy-makers in China are discussed. (shrink)

From widespread unemployment and mounting international hostilities, every day we are swept into more political chaos--so one brave man looks to the Star Wars universe for answers to our most urgent problems. "You can't stop the change -- anymore than you can stop the sun from setting." Anakin Skywalker was never able to live with this wisdom shared by his mother on the day he left home to train as a Jedi Knight. That failure led him to becoming the fearsome (...) villain we all know as Darth Vader. We're living in a time of unprecedented and rapid change. An age of chaos. Democracies are in decline worldwide. Dictators are ascendant. Civic organizations are crumbling. People feel lonelier and more rudderless than in any other time in recent history. We've tried to slow down, and in some cases we, like Anakin, have tried stop the change, but failed at every turn. The fears that come with living in an age of disruption have produced public anger, and that anger has swelled movements of hate. Author Stephen Kent believes part of the solution is hiding in plain sight. A story that binds together multiple generations with a common language, a moral framework, and a sense of wonder. It's Star Wars. What if we looked to Star Wars for more than just entertainment? How the Force Can Fix the World takes this challenge on by analyzing the core principles of the Star Wars franchise: HOPE, CHOICE, HUMILITY, EMPATHY, REDEMPTION, BALANCE and rejecting FEAR. Together, these are the Star Wars roadmap for living better lives, and maybe even fostering a better politics. The path that we're on -- where fear leads to anger, and anger to hatred -- will only end in suffering. But Star Wars shows us the way back from the brink. Shared stories of virtue that are beloved across cultures and political divides are hard to come by, but Star Wars is one such story. Turn on the news; things are pretty broken right now -- but the Force can fix the world. (shrink)

Where does normal brain or psychological function end, and pathology begin? The line can be hard to discern, making disease sometimes a tricky word. In addiction, normal ‘wanting’ processes become distorted and excessive, according to the incentive-sensitization theory. Excessive ‘wanting’ results from drug-induced neural sensitization changes in underlying brain mesolimbic systems of incentive. ‘Brain disease’ was never used by the theory, but neural sensitization changes are arguably extreme enough and problematic enough to be called pathological. This implies that ‘brain disease’ (...) can be a legitimate description of addiction, though caveats are needed to acknowledge roles for choice and active agency by the addict. Finally, arguments over ‘brain disease’ should be put behind us. Our real challenge is to understand addiction and devise better ways to help. Arguments over descriptive words only distract from that challenge. (shrink)

We discuss the relationship between the political philosophies of Feyerabend and Marx, focusing on the nature of the political process, the ideal of the 'free society', and the ends of politics.

The Dialectical Path of Law discusses the origin of law leading to the development of advanced corporate law intertwined with the formation of technical tax rules. Lincoln explores the recent developments of the OECD and United States tax rules within a hardly discussed context in legal academia - the Hegelian dialectic.

We examine three assumptions commonly held in the corporate reputation literature: (1) reputation ratings of owners and investors are generally representative of all stakeholders; (2) stakeholders will generally provide a higher reputation rating to firms that emphasize corporate social responsibility versus firms that do not; and (3) profitability is the primary criterion of importance to all stakeholders when rating a firm's reputation. Using an exploratory in‐class exercise, our findings suggest that: (1) there are significant differences among stakeholder groups in their (...) reputation ratings; (2) firms that emphasize corporate social responsibility are not rated more highly across all stakeholder groups; and (3) for all stakeholder groups, the ethicality criterion explained more of the variance in firms' reputation ratings than the profitability criterion. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: The Scope of Ecology General Description of Ecosystems History of the Term “Ecosystem” Ecosystems as Symbiotic Units Ecosystems as Dissipative Structures Ecosystems and Evolutionary Biology Skeptical Critiques of Ecosystem Theory Ecosystem Integrity and Health Sustainability from an Ecosystems Point of View Acknowledgments References Further Reading.

Although it is possible to regard a species as a set with a special internal structure, it is preferable to regard a species as an individual precisely to emphasize this internal structure. It is necessary to recognize, moreover, that two organisms that are part of a single entity with respect to one process need not be part of a single entity with respect to another process. Furthermore, choosing to regard two entities (with respect to one process) as conspecific is not (...) to deny that there are two entities within this species. Thus, the systematist need not propose formal names for every entity he discovers, but the names he proposes ought to be as faithful to the relationship among the entities as is possible. (shrink)

Against a background of increasing regulation regarding access to medical information and the presentation of patients' confidentiality, the case of genetic information raises interesting questions about whether the application of general rules is appropriate in all situations. Whilst all genetic information is not equally sensitive, some of it is highly predictive. It also allows deductions to be made about other family members. It may not be regarded as particularly sensitive when compared to other types of medical information and those to (...) whom it applies may not be as anxious about preserving their confidentiality as compared with—for example, the prospect of seeing research into cause and cures for rare diseases put in hand. These distinctions also find resonance with the general public. Resolving conflicting tensions will require subtlety, not a blunt “one size fits all” model. (shrink)

The political upheavals of China's Warring States period proved to be intellectually fertile, giving rise to one of history's greatest flowerings of political philosophy. The most eminent thinkers of the day sought to articulate models for good government amidst the ruins of the Zhou dynasty. Zhuangzi, on the other hand, appears to many readers to eschew these political questions. In this article, however, I contend that the Zhuangzi has a more practical political teaching than has often been appreciated. It is (...) intended to help others to navigate the treacherous political waters in which they might well find themselves, particularly in an era of profound instability, by teaching them how to understand their own... (shrink)

With its practical, hands-on approach to legal ethics, the third edition of LEGAL ETHICS is designed to ensure that readers have a solid grasp of the ethical rules that apply in the legal setting. Comprehensive yet easy to understand, this engaging book provides a thorough and substantive analysis of the major principles that affect how the practice of law is regulated. Filled with real-life examples of lawyer and non-lawyer instances of misconduct, current and classic case law, and discussions of famous (...) (and infamous) people, this straightforward book brings the material to life and demonstrates how courts interpret and apply ethical rules to lawyers and their non-lawyer employees. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

From climate change, debt, and refugee crises, to energy security, environmental disasters, and terrorism, the events that lead nightly newscasts and drive public policy demand a global perspective. In the twentieth century the world sought solutions through formal institutions of international governance such as like the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, and the World Bank, but present-day our responses to global realities are often more provisional, improvisational, and contingent. Tracing this uneven history in order to identify principal actors, contesting (...) ideologies, and competing rhetoric, Negative Cosmopolitanism challenges the Kantian ideal of cosmopolitanism as the precondition for a perpetual global peace. Uniting researchers working on contemporary problems with those studying related issues of the past--including slavery, industrial capitalism, and corporate imperialism--essays in this volume scrutinize the entanglement of cosmopolitanism within expanding networks of trade and global capital from the eighteenth-century to the present. By doing so, the contributors pinpoint the ways in which whole populations have been unwillingly caught up in a capitalist reality that has little in common with the earlier ideals of cosmopolitanism. A model for provoking new and necessary questions about neoliberalism, biopolitics, colonialism, citizenship, and xenophobia, Negative Cosmopolitanism establishes a fresh take on the representation of globalization and modern life in history and literature. (shrink)