Finance programs around the world have been revising their curricula following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). While much of the debate has centred on the dominance of scientific and quantitative pedagogical approaches to finance education in business schools, one of the most egregious aspects uncovered during the deleveraging of the financial system was the scale and scope of finance crime and financial fraud (including the Madoff scandal, described as the largest Ponzi scheme in history). This paper argues that those “on (...) the inside”, the professionals within the finance industry, have a central role to play in safeguarding the ethics and integrity of financial markets. It is our conjecture that prevention and earlier detection of finance crime and financial fraud may be addressed, in part, by better educating finance professionals about these issues. We posit that the enormity of illegal activity uncovered in the wake of the GFC demands, as a matter of priority, the integration of criminological and criminal justice theory into the finance curriculum. (shrink)

Finance programs around the world have been revising their curricula following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). While much of the debate has centred on the dominance of scientific and quantitative pedagogical approaches to finance education in business schools, one of the most egregious aspects uncovered during the deleveraging of the financial system was the scale and scope of finance crime and financial fraud (including the Madoff scandal, described as the largest Ponzi scheme in history). This paper argues that those “on (...) the inside”, the professionals within the finance industry, have a central role to play in safeguarding the ethics and integrity of financial markets. It is our conjecture that prevention and earlier detection of finance crime and financial fraud may be addressed, in part, by better educating finance professionals about these issues. We posit that the enormity of illegal activity uncovered in the wake of the GFC demands, as a matter of priority, the integration of criminological and criminal justice theory into the finance curriculum. (shrink)

Reviews : Robyn Eckersley, Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach ; Robert E. Goodin, Green Political Theory ; Peter Hay and Robyn Eckersley, Ecopolitical Theory: Essaysfrom Australia, ; Peter Hay, Robyn Eckersley and Geoff Holloway Environmental Politics in Australia and New Zealand ; Drew Hutton, Green Politics in Australia ; Michael Muetzelfeldt, Society, State and Politics in Australia.

Much research about organic foods standards and certification in the United States employs a critical political economic perspective to interrogate links between certification politics and the “conventionalization” of organic agriculture. While helpful, this literature tends towards a dualistic framework, which emphasizes conflicts between movement-oriented and agribusiness wings of the organic community but obscures deliberative processes that sustain the organic market as an alternative economic space. This article develops a different approach by taking up E. Melanie DuPuis and Sean Gillon’s invitation (...) to “begin a conversation about the everyday forms of civic engagement” involved in the governance of the organic foods market and other alternative economies (DuPuis and Gillon in Agric Hum Values 26:43, 2009). I merge DuPuis and Gillon’s analysis of civic “modes of governance” in the organic sector with a theory of deliberative discourse developed by the cultural sociologist Jeffrey Alexander. I then apply this approach to examine a 2017 dispute about whether hydroponic growing operations were eligible for certification under the National Organic Program rules. The data indicate that (1) several features of this dispute did not follow the lines of movement/agribusiness conflict emphasized by political economic research and (2) both supporters and opponents of hydroponic certification drew from a common discursive repertoire to advocate for their preferred outcomes. I argue that while this common repertoire does not prevent conflict over the organic standards, it does sustain the importance of civic—as opposed to purely economic or technical—considerations in the sector’s governance. (shrink)

Human beings act together in characteristic ways that matter to us a great deal. This book explores the conceptual, metaphysical and normative foundations of such sociality. It argues that appeal to the planning structures involved in our individual, temporally extended agency provides substantial resources for understanding these foundations of our sociality.

"Writing in a lively and refreshingly clear American English, Zimmerman provides an uncompromisingly honest and judicious account... of Heidegger’s views on technology and his involvement with National Socialism.... One of the most important books on Heidegger in recent years." —John D. Caputo "... superb... " —Thomas Sheehan, The New York Review of Books "... thorough and complex... " —Choice "... excellent guide to Heidegger as eco-philosopher." —Radical Philosophy "... engrossing, rich in substance... makes clear Heidegger's importance for the issue of (...) technology, ethics, and politics." —Religious Studies Review The relation between Martin Heidegger’s understanding of technology and his affiliation with and conception of National Socialism is the leading idea of this fascinating and revealing book. Zimmerman shows that the key to the relation between Heidegger’s philosophy and his politics was his concern with the nature of working and production. (shrink)

This book challenges the dominant approach to problems of justice in global normative theory and offers a radical alternative designed to transform our thinking about what kind of problem injustice is and how political theorists might do better in understanding and addressing it. It argues that the dominant approach, ideal moral theory (IMT), takes a fundamentally wrong-headed approach to the problem of justice. IMT seeks to work out what an ideally just society would look like, and only then outlines our (...) moral obligations in realizing that ideal. In other words, it ignores the realities of everyday politics. As Michael Goodhart asserts, IMT postpones engagement with actually existing injustices and distorts our understanding of them, and it normalizes many problematic features of our world. On the other hand, the leading alternatives to IMT struggle to make sense of the role values play in politics. This book sees justice as an ideology and develops an innovative bifocal theoretical framework for making sense of it. This framework provides two complementary perspectives on justice: a theoretical perspective that situates competing ideological claims about justice in a broader political context and a partisan perspective that evaluates the structure and coherence of particular conceptions of justice. As opposed to IMT, it focuses on barriers to justice and advocates an activist political theory that takes sides in political struggles against injustice. Goodhart argues that theorists can help to generate the countervailing power necessary for social transformation through the work of articulation, translation, and mapping, work which contributes to a more comprehensive social science of injustice. (shrink)

There is a deeply entrenched view in philosophy and physics, the closed systems view, according to which isolated systems are conceived of as fundamental. On this view, when a system is under the influence of its environment this is described in terms of a coupling between it and a separate system which taken together are isolated. We argue against this view, and in favor of the alternative open systems view, for which systems interacting with their environment are conceived of as (...) fundamental, and the environment's influence is represented via the dynamical equations that govern the system's evolution. Taking quantum theories of closed and open systems as our case study, and considering three alternative notions of fundamentality: (i) ontic fundamentality, (ii) epistemic fundamentality, and (iii) explanatory fundamentality, we argue that the open systems view is fundamental, and that this has important implications for the philosophy of physics, the philosophy of science, and for metaphysics. (shrink)

Radical ecology typically brings to mind media images of ecological activists standing before loggers' saws, staging anti-nuclear marches, and confronting polluters on the high seas. Yet for more than twenty years, the activities of organizations such as the Greens and Earth First! have been influenced by a diverse, less-publicized group of radical ecological philosophers. It is their work—the philosophical underpinnings of the radical ecological movement—that is the subject of _Contesting Earth's Future_. The book offers a much-needed, balanced appraisal of radical (...) ecology's principles, goals, and limitations. Michael Zimmerman critically examines the movement's three major branches—deep ecology, social ecology, and ecofeminism. He also situates radical ecology within the complex cultural and political terrain of the late twentieth century, showing its relation to Martin Heidegger's anti-technological thought, 1960s counterculturalism, and contemporary theories of poststructuralism and postmodernity. An early and influential ecological thinker, Zimmerman is uniquely qualified to provide a broad overview of radical environmentalism and delineate its various schools of thought. He clearly describes their defining arguments and internecine disputes, among them the charge that deep ecology is an anti-modern, proto-fascist ideology. Reflecting both the movement's promise and its dangers, this book is essential reading for all those concerned with the worldwide ecological crisis. (shrink)

Although computation and the science of physical systems would appear to be unrelated, there are a number of ways in which computational and physical concepts can be brought together in ways that illuminate both. This volume examines fundamental questions which connect scholars from both disciplines: is the universe a computer? Can a universal computing machine simulate every physical process? What is the source of the computational power of quantum computers? Are computational approaches to solving physical problems and paradoxes always fruitful? (...) Contributors from multiple perspectives reflecting the diversity of thought regarding these interconnections address many of the most important developments and debates within this exciting area of research. Both a reference to the state of the art and a valuable and accessible entry to interdisciplinary work, the volume will interest researchers and students working in physics, computer science, and philosophy of science and mathematics. (shrink)

Ray Kurzweil and others have posited that the confluence of nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and genetic engineering will soon produce posthuman beings that will far surpass us in power and intelligence. Just as black holes constitute a ldquo;singularityrdquo; from which no information can escape, posthumans will constitute a ldquo;singularity:rdquo; whose aims and capacities lie beyond our ken. I argue that technological posthumanists, whether wittingly or unwittingly, draw upon the long-standing Christian discourse of ldquo;theosis,rdquo; according to which humans are capable of (...) being God or god-like. From St. Paul and Luther to Hegel and Kurzweil, the idea of human self-deification plays a prominent role. Hegel in particular emphasizes that God becomes wholly actualized only in the process by which humanity achieves absolute consciousness. Kurzweil agrees that God becomes fully actual only through historical processes that illuminate and thus transform the entire universe. The difference is that for Kurzweil and many other posthumanists, our offspringmdash;the posthumansmdash;will carry out this extraordinary process. What will happen to Home sapiens in the meantime is a daunting question. (shrink)

Empathy and Democracy argues that empathy plays a crucial role in enabling democratic deliberation to function the way it should.

Avicenna, the most influential of Islamic philosophers, produced _The Healing_ as his magnum opus on his religious and political philosophy. Now translated by Michael Marmura, _The Metaphysics_ is the climactic conclusion to this towering work. Through Marmura’s skill as a translator and his extensive annotations, Avicenna’s touchstone of Islamic philosophy is more accessible than ever before. In _The Metaphysics_, Avicenna examines the idea of existence, and his investigation into the cause of all things leads him to a meditation on (...) the nature of God. From this discussion, Avicenna develops a theory of divine causation that synthesizes Neoplatonic, Aristotelian, and Islamic ideas. Within this emanative scheme, Avicenna establishes some of the basic ideas of his religious and political philosophy, as he discusses the divine attributes, divine providence, the hereafter, and the ideal “virtuous” city with its philosopher-prophet as the human link between the terrestrial and heavenly realms. With this edition, _The Metaphysics_ can now be better seen as one of the most masterful works of classical Islamic philosophy. (shrink)

These are replies to the discussions by Kirk Ludwig, Elizabeth Pacherie, Björn Petersson, Abraham Roth, and Thomas Smith of Michael E. Bratman, Shared Agency: A Planning Theory of Acting Together (Oxford University Press, 2014).

Daniel, Michael E Review(s) of: Benedict XVI: A guide for the perplexed, by Tracey Rowland, London: T and T Clark International, 2010, pp.160, $29.95.

To what extent can Nietzsche's idea of the Overman be used in connection with transhumanist notions of highly advanced humans and even posthumans?

It is widely maintained that self-interested rationality is a matter of maximizing one's own good or well-being. Rationality more generally is also frequently characterized in maximizing terms: the rational thing to do in any decision context is whatever is best in terms of one's interests or will lead to the greatest preference-satisfaction, My dissertation consists of three independent papers that challenge this orthodoxy by lending support to "satisficing," the idea that it is rational to prefer what is good enough. In (...) the first I argue that the preferences frequently displayed in the Allais Paradox can not be reconciled with expected utility maximizing and therefore must be construed in satisficing terms. To the extent that common sense is an important touchstone for theory choice, this lends support to satisficing. In the second, I argue more directly for satisficing by claiming that satisficing is the best way to deal with the different temporal perspectives available to human beings. In the third, I argue that supererogation, the idea that options which are not optimal can nonetheless be morally or rationally acceptable, depends on "optional reasons," I claim, further, that the criticisms of the very idea of optional reasons are not compelling. I also include an appendix which addresses Derek Parfit's challenge to prudential rationality. (shrink)

Daniel, Michael E Review of: Continental ambitions: Roman catholics in North America: The colonial experience, by Kevin Starr, pp. 605, hardback, $59.99.

Daniel, Michael E Review of: It is right and just: Responses of the Roman Missal, by John M. Cunningham, Strathfield, NSW: St Pauls, 2017, pp. 63, paperback, $9.95.

Daniel, Michael E Review of: Words from the wound: selected addresses, letters and homilies of archbishop mark coleridge, by Mark Coleridge, edited by Anthony Ekpo and David Pascoe, pp. 342, $24.95.

Daniel, Michael E Review of: My door is always open: A conversation on faith, hope and the church in a time of change, by Pope Francis with Antonio Spadaro, trans. Shaun Whiteside, London: Bloomsbury, 2014, pp. 172, $30.00.

The doctrine of double effect has a firm, respected position within Roman Catholic medical ethics. Neil M. Gorsuch, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, believes that this doctrine also enjoys a central place within U.S. law. This essay examines and assesses Gorsuch’s thesis. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.1 (Spring 2011): 31–40.

Daniel, Michael E Review of: Wehrmacht priests: Catholicism and the Nazi war of Annihilation, by Lauren Faulkner Rossi, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015, pp. 255, hardback, $79.00.

Daniel, Michael E Review of: Martin Griver unearthed, by Odhran O'Brien, Strathfield, NSW: St Pauls, 2014, pp. 261, hardback, $39.95; paperback, $35.95.

Daniel, Michael E Review(s) of: Australians and the Christian god: An historical study, by Hugh Jackson, (Preston: Mosaic Press, 2013), pp.209, $37.95.

Daniel, Michael E Review of: Saints, sacrilege and sedition: Religion and conflict in the Tudor reformations, by Eamon Duffy, pp. 253, paperback, $27.99.

I argue that Immanuel Kant's critical philosophy—in particular the doctrine of transcendental idealism which grounds it—is best understood as an `epistemic' or `metaphilosophical' doctrine. As such it aims to show how one may engage in the natural sciences and in metaphysics under the restriction that certain conditions are imposed on our cognition of objects. Underlying Kant's doctrine, however, is an ontological posit, of a sort, regarding the fundamental nature of our cognition. This posit, sometimes called the `discursivity thesis', while considered (...) to be completely obvious and uncontroversial by some, has nevertheless been denied by thinkers both before and after Kant. One such thinker is Jakob Friedrich Fries, an early neo-Kantian thinker who, despite his rejection of discursivity, also advocated for a metaphilosophical understanding of critical philosophy. As I will explain, a consequence for Fries of the denial of discursivity is a radical reconceptualisation of the method of critical philosophy; whereas this method is a priori for Kant, for Fries it is in general empirical. I discuss these issues in the context of quantum theory, and I focus in particular on the views of the physicist Niels Bohr and the Neo-Friesian philosopher Grete Hermann. I argue that Bohr's understanding of quantum mechanics can be seen as a natural extension of an orthodox Kantian viewpoint in the face of the challenges posed by quantum theory, and I compare this with the extension of Friesian philosophy that is represented by Hermann's view. -/- A shorter version of this paper, focusing specifically on the views of Grete Hermann, has been published as: Cuffaro, Michael (2023). Grete Hermann, Quantum Mechanics, and the Evolution of Kantian Philosophy. In Jeanne Peijnenburg & Sander Verhaegh (eds.), Women in the History of Analytic Philosophy. Cham: Springer. pp. 114-145. (shrink)

I argue that Kant's and Frege's refutations of the ontological argument are more similar than has generally been acknowledged. As I clarify, for both Kant and Frege, to say that something exists is to assert of a concept that it is instantiated. With such an assertion one expresses that there is a particular relation between the instantiating object and a rational subject - a particular mode of presentation for the object in question. By its very nature such a relation cannot (...) be the property of an object and thus cannot be included in the concept of that object. Thus the ontological argument, which takes existence to be a part of the concept of the supreme being, cannot, according to Kant and Frege, succeed. A secondary goal of the paper is to illuminate what I take to be an important affinity between Kant's and Frege's views more generally: that Frege's fundamental distinction between the sense and the referent of a proposition echoes, in an important way, Kant's distinction between concepts and the formal principles for their application to experience. (shrink)

Cases of modest sociality are cases of small scale shared intentional agency in the absence of asymmetric authority relations. I seek a conceptual framework that adequately supports our theorizing about such modest sociality. I want to understand what in the world constitutes such modest sociality. I seek an understanding of the kinds of normativity that are central to modest sociality. And throughout we need to keep track of the relations—conceptual, metaphysical, normative—between individual agency and modest sociality. In pursuit of these (...) theoretical aims, I propose that a central phenomenon is shared intention. I argue that an adequate understanding of the distinctiveness of the intentions of individuals allows us to provide a construction of attitudes of the participants, and of relevant inter-relations and contexts that constitutes shared intention. I explain how shared intention, so understood, differs from a simple equilibrium within common knowledge. And I briefly contrast my views with aspects of views of John Searle and Margaret Gilbert. (shrink)