There are different groups in society who may be considered vulnerable, for example those experiencing mental or physical health issues, learning disabilities, prisoners or children. There are, however, other groups in society who may also be regarded as vulnerable, such as those who are bereaved. Vulnerability in relation to the bereaved occurs as a result of experiencing a normal life event, death or a loss. In this situation vulnerability may be transient and, depending upon the management of the bereavement, generally (...) temporary. Unlike the aforementioned groups, participants required for this type of research (bereavement, death and dying) are able to consent themselves into projects, and the capacity to do so is not an issue. Undertaking research with those who may be considered vulnerable into sensitive, emotive topics such as death and dying can create difficulties for the National Research Ethics Service (NRES), making it difficult to get approval for such studies. It appears that the ethical issues are concerned with not wishing to cause distress to participants when asked for research purposes to recollect what for some may have been emotionally challenging and traumatic events. The article offers a narrative, reflective account of the above from several perspectives: being employed as a contract researcher in a university; having experience of being an active member of a National Health Service Research Ethics Committee; and later assuming the role of full-time postgraduate (PhD) student requiring ethical approval to undertake research with what may be considered a vulnerable group involving a sensitive and emotive topic. Valuable insights from participants – their views on participation in an emotive research project and good practice in research having been explored via questionnaire – are highlighted and discussed. (shrink)

Functionalism offers an account of the relations that hold between behavioural functions, information and neural processing, and conscious experience from which one can draw two inferences: for any discriminable difference between qualia there must be an equivalent discriminable difference in function; and for any discriminable functional difference within a behavioural domain associated with qualia, there must be a discriminable difference between qualia. The phenomenon of coloured hearing synaesthesia appears to contradict the second of these inferences. We report data showing that (...) this form of synaesthesia is genuine and probably results from an aberrant projection from cortical language areas to a region specialized for the perception of colour. Since functionalism purports to be a general account of consciousness, one such negative instance, if it can be further sustained empirically, is sufficient to invalidate it. (shrink)

Efforts to institutionalize ethics in corporations have been discussed without first addressing the desirability of norm conformity or the possibility that the means used to elicit conformity will be coercive. This article presents a theoretical context, grounded in models of social control, within which ethics initiatives may be evaluated. Ethics initiatives are discussed in relation to variables that already exert control in the workplace, such as environmental controls, organizational controls, and personal controls.

We discuss potential biorisks from large language models (LLMs). AI assistants based on LLMs such as ChatGPT have been shown to significantly reduce barriers to entry for actors wishing to synthesize dangerous, potentially novel pathogens and chemical weapons. The harms from deploying such bioagents could be further magnified by AI-assisted misinformation. We endorse several policy responses to these dangers, including prerelease evaluations of biomedical AIs by subject-matter experts, enhanced surveillance and lab screening procedures, restrictions on AI training data, and access (...) controls on biomedical AI. We conclude with a suggestion about future research directions in bioethics. (shrink)

Desire in René Girard and Jesus presents a comprehensive analysis of René Girard’s work on the origins of culture and the depths of human desire. Girard’s hypothesis of mimesis discloses the lack of originality in human desire even as it offers a scientific method for handling religion after two centuries of its absence in the social science.

Huw Lloyd Williams looks at the critical debate surrounding John Rawls' The Law of Peoples. He responds to the work of cosmopolitan theorists and Amartya Sen, arguing that Rawls offers a persuasive and prescient moral approach to issues of global poverty and development.

Introduction to the special issue, "Belief, Reconsidered".

Abstract:This study tests the usefulness of a person-situation interactionist framework in examining the willingness of a salesperson to lie to get an order. Using a survey of 389 salespersons, our results demonstrate that organizational relationships influence willingness to lie. Specifically, salespersons are less willing to lie to their own company than to their customer, than to a channel partner, and finally, than to a competitor firm. Furthermore, respondents from firms with a clear and positive ethical climate are less willing to (...) lie. Finally, our study finds that interactions between personality factors, such as high Machiavellianism and high self-monitoring, and situational factors have an impact on willingness to lie. Our results suggest that firms can take steps to influence employee ethical behavior. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Global Justice: The Basics is a straightforward and engaging introduction to the theoretical study and practice of global justice. It examines the key political themes and philosophical debates at the heart of the subject, providing a clear outline of the field and exploring: the history of its development the current state of play its ongoing interdisciplinary development. Using case studies from around the world which illustrate the importance of the debates at the heart of global justice, as well as activist (...) campaigns for global justice, the book examines a wide range of theoretical debates from thinkers worldwide making it ideal for those seeking a balanced introduction to global justice. (shrink)

The Laws of Peoples (LP) has a great deal to offer in at least three different respects: as the completion of Rawls's philosophical project, as a guide to foreign policy, and as a different way of understanding international relations (IR). This chapter outlines arguments put forward in respect to these three themes, demonstrating that they represent promising avenues for further debate, while pointing to LP's broader value and merit. It focuses on specific elements of world politics where Rawls's ideas provide (...) promising alternatives. The chapter explains how Rawls's realistic utopianism represents a form of theorizing that could constitute a genuine challenge to more traditional forms of thinking in IR. It examines some of the key ideas of Rawls's international theory through mapping the development of his thought, and indicates how critiques such as Sen's initially represented the predominant response. (shrink)

War After September 11 considers the just aims and legitimate limits of the United States' response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

As multinational firms explore new and promising national markets two of the most crucial elements in the strategic decision regarding market-entry are the level of corruption and existing trade barriers. One form of corruption that is crucially important to firms is the theft of intellectual property. In particular, software piracy has become a hotly debated topic due to the deep costs and vast levels of piracy around the world. The purpose of this paper is to assess how laissez-faire trade policies (...) and corruption affect national software piracy rates. Using invisible hand theory, as well as literature from the fields of international strategy and ethics, formal research hypotheses are posited and tested. Results suggest that corruption mediates the relationship between economic freedom and software piracy. Implications for multinational managers and researchers are also addressed. (shrink)

This article presents a cognitive map proposed to be associated with understanding of the “system concept,” one component of the physics principle of Newton's second low. A definition of the concept is followed by the results of a problem‐solving experiment designed to investigate whether or not good problem solvers possess cognitive structures similar to the one proposed. Think‐aloud protocols were collected as subjects solved a series of physics problems involving Newton's second law. Coding schemes were used to analyze these protocols (...) and to develop a quantitative index intended to reflect the extent to which subjects possessed certain components of the proposed structure. This index proved a highly significant predictor of performance on Newton's second law transfer problems contained in a written exam. In contrast, performance on a set of familiar problems in the same written exam was not a good predictor of performance on transfer problems. These results indicate that cognitive structures that connect the equation ΣF = ma and the concept of choosing appropriate systems are at least part of what constitutes understanding of the principle of Newton's second law. Implications for physics education and problem‐solving research are presented. (shrink)

If we are to ensure the persistence of species in an increasingly warm world, of interest is the identification of drivers that affect the ability of an organism to resist thermal stress. Underpinning any organism's capacity for resistance is a complex interplay between biological and physical factors occurring over multiple scales. Tropical coral reefs are a unique system, in that their function is dependent upon the maintenance of a coral–algal symbiosis that is directly disrupted by increases in water temperature. A (...) number of physical factors have been identified as affecting the biological responses of the coral organism under broadscale thermal anomalies. One such factor is water flow, which is capable of modulating both organismal metabolic functioning and thermal environments. Understanding the physiological and hydrodynamic drivers of organism response to thermal stress improves predictive capabilities and informs targeted management responses, thereby increasing the resilience of reefs into the future. (shrink)

Graphical AbstractDriving patterns of coral bleaching over reefs are a suite of biophysical interactions where the physical environment modulates organism response through an interplay with intrinsic biological functioning. Flow conditions over reefs can mitigate the physiological impacts of thermal stress across multiple spatial scales. More details can be found in article number 1800226 by Charlotte E. Page et al., Seeking Resistance in Coral Reef Ecosystems: The Interplay of Biophysical Factors and Bleaching Resistance under a Changing Climate, DOI: 10.1002/bies.201800226.

We explore two dimensions of situational factors expected to influence decision-making about ethical issues among sales representatives – universal vs. particular and direct vs. indirect. We argue that these distinctions are important theoretically, methodologically, and managerially. We test our hypotheses by means of a survey of 252 sales representatives. Our results confirm that considering universal and particular and direct and indirect situational factors contributes to our understanding of decision-making about ethical issues within a sales context, specifically willingness to engage in (...) an unethical act. We also find that personal factors act independently and interact with situational factors in decision-making about ethical issues. Both demographic factors, age and gender, and personality factors, Machiavellianism and self-monitoring, have main effects on decision-making, and some of these factors interact with situational factors to affect decision-making. For example, age of the decision-maker (younger) and size of commission (larger) interact such that the likelihood of choosing an unethical alternative is greater. (shrink)

Managers throughout the world regularly face ethical dilemmas that have important, and perhaps complex, professional and personal implications. Further, societal consequences of decisions made can be far-reaching. In this study, 210 financial services managers from Australia, Chile, Ecuador and the United States were queried about their ethical beliefs when faced with four diverse dilemmas. In addition, the situational context was altered so the respondent viewed each dilemma from a top management position and from a position of economic hardship. Results suggest (...) a complex interaction of situation, culture and issue when individuals make ethical judgments. Specifically, Chileans were found to have different beliefs about sex discrimination and child labor dilemmas when compared to their colleagues from the other three nations. Chileans and Australians also disagreed on the bribery dilemma. Anglo managers were more likely than Latin American managers to change their ethical responses when the situation was altered. For multinational firms interested in maintaining healthy ethical climates, the findings suggest that culturally contingent ethical guidelines, or policies adapted to the local customs, must be considered. Further, managers must remain aware of issues related to specific situations, both internal and external, that would cause subordinates to alter their moral judgment. (shrink)

Automated reasoning about uncertain knowledge has many applications. One difficulty when developing such systems is the lack of a completely satisfactory integration of logic and probability. We address this problem directly. Expressive languages like higher-order logic are ideally suited for representing and reasoning about structured knowledge. Uncertain knowledge can be modeled by using graded probabilities rather than binary truth-values. The main technical problem studied in this paper is the following: Given a set of sentences, each having some probability of being (...) true, what probability should be ascribed to other (query) sentences? A natural wish-list, among others, is that the probability distribution (i) is consistent with the knowledge base, (ii) allows for a consistent inference procedure and in particular (iii) reduces to deductive logic in the limit of probabilities being 0 and 1, (iv) allows (Bayesian) inductive reasoning and (v) learning in the limit and in particular (vi) allows confirmation of universally quantified hypotheses/sentences. We translate this wish-list into technical requirements for a prior probability and show that probabilities satisfying all our criteria exist. We also give explicit constructions and several general characterizations of probabilities that satisfy some or all of the criteria and various (counter) examples. We also derive necessary and sufficient conditions for extending beliefs about finitely many sentences to suitable probabilities over all sentences, and in particular least dogmatic or least biased ones. We conclude with a brief outlook on how the developed theory might be used and approximated in autonomous reasoning agents. Our theory is a step towards a globally consistent and empirically satisfactory unification of probability and logic. (shrink)

In this international and interdisciplinary collection of critical essays, distinguished contributors examine a crucial premise of traditional readings of Plato's dialogues: that Plato's own doctrines and arguments can be read off the statements made in the dialogues by Socrates and other leading characters. The authors argue in general and with reference to specific dialogues, that no character should be taken to be Plato's mouthpiece. This is essential reading for students and scholars of Plato.

The aim of the social and behavioral sciences is to understand human behavior across a wide array of contexts. Our theories often make sweeping claims about human nature, assuming that our ancestors or offspring will be prone to the same biases and preferences. Yet we gloss over the fact that our research is often based in a single temporal context with a limited set of stimuli. Political and moral psychology are domains in which the context and stimuli are likely to (...) matter a great deal (Van Bavel, Mende-Siedlecki, Brady, & Reinero, 2016). In response to Yarkoni (see BBS issue), we delve into topics related to political and moral psychology that likely depend on features of the research. These topics include understanding differences between liberals and conservatives, when people are willing to sacrifice someone to save others, the behavior of political leaders, and the dynamics of intergroup conflict. (shrink)

Abstract David Sobel (2001) objects to Bernard Williams's internalism, the view that an agent has a reason to perform an action only if she has some motive that will be served by performing that action. Sobel is an unusual challenger in that he endorses neo-Humean subjectivism, ?the view that it is the agent's subjective motivational set that makes it the case that an agent does or does not have a reason to φ? (219). Sobel's objection in fact arises from this (...) very commitment. Internalism, he says, is incompatible with the best subjectivist accounts of reasons for action?accounts that suggest that there are what he calls fragile reasons and perhaps also superfragile ones, both of which allegedly provide for counterexamples to internalism. I argue that such reasons do not in fact threaten internalism. I then briefly explore whether internalism is vulnerable to a related charge?that it commits the conditional fallacy. (shrink)