. This article presents and examines four different reconstructions of Ronald Duska’s argument for the thesis that employees’ loyalty to their employers is misguided. One of them is the reconstruction presented by John Corvino in this journal. The remaining three revolve around, respectively, employers’ failure to reciprocate employees’ (attempts at) loyalty, the commercial character of employment, and the instrumental character of employment. The result of the examination is that the argument does not withstand scrutiny in any of the four reconstructions. (...) The failure of Duska’s argument, however, does not mean that employee loyalty is justified, because the burden of proof is on the defenders of the loyalty. Moreover, a different argument, which is also presented in the article, shows that the loyalty of most present-day employees to their employers is bound to be significantly limited, because of the radical changeability of corporations with publicly traded stock. (shrink)

In this article I am going to propose a modification in the theory of pure restitution, in the hope that such modification will eliminate at least some sources of resistance to the theory, while preserving the theory's distinct place among the philosophical approaches to the institution of legal punishment.

Assuming that moral discourse is prescriptive, what distinguishes it from other types of prescriptive discourse? To say, as Hare does, that it is its overridingness, is subject both to criticisms that assume that overridingness could, in principle, be used to distinguish one type of prescriptive discourse from another, and then show that it is doubtful that moral discourse is overriding, and to the criticisms that claim that it is in principle impossible to use overridingness to distinguish one type of prescriptive (...) discourse from another, because all of them are bound to be on a par in respect of overridingness. ;It is also impossible to distinguish moral discourse from other types of prescriptive discourse by saying that in it we use arguments based on imaginatively putting oneself in the shoes of others, because such arguments are used in prudential discourse as well. However, we can account for the distinction, if we realize that such arguments can be performed only on certain designated argument-places, and that in moral claims argument-places of two different types are designated for the purpose: those for moral agents and those for moral patients; while in prudential claims argument-places of only one type are designated: those for prudential agents. ;If this account is accepted, this raises a number of further questions. Examination of these questions leads to a form of relativism about membership in the sets of moral agents and moral patients. This form of relativism, however, leaves considerable room for rational discussion of membership in these sets and is compatible with the rejection of relativism about the content of moral rules. (shrink)

The question of what constitutes sexual harassment—from suggestive remarks to outright threats, from off-color jokes to lewd posters on office walls—is contentious, as is the question of how to address sexual harassment. Do all instances of sexual harassment constitute sex discrimination? Are some instances merely sexual attraction gone wrong? Do social policies aimed at eliminating sexual harassment in the workplace violate freedom of expression or do they make working relationships possible between women and men? In this uncompromising yet respectful debate, (...) two philosophers of widely divergent views present clear arguments and then respond directly to each other's reasoning. LeMonchek argues for a feminist perspective on sexual harassment that is sensitive to the politics of gender. Hajdin contends that this perspective is both morally confusing and legally problematic, and that sexual harassment can be better addressed by traditional moral and legal categories. (shrink)