This provocative book refurbishes the traditional account of freedom of will as reasons-guided "agent" causation, situating its account within a general metaphysics. O'Connor's discussion of the general concept of causation and of ontological reductionism v. emergence will specially interest metaphysicians and philosophers of mind.

How is it that we think and refer in the first-person way? For most philosophers in the analytic tradition, the problem is essentially this: how two apparently conflicting kinds of properties can be reconciled and united as properties of the same entity. What is special about the first person has to be reconciled with what is ordinary about it. The range of responses reduces to four basic options. The orthodox view is optimistic: there really is a way of reconciling these (...) apparently contradictory properties as contained within the same thing. The heretical views are pessimistic and content to be so: there is no such way, and that is because there is simply nothing to reconcile – because there is really nothing special about what is in question; or there is really nothing ordinary about it; or there is really nothing …. (shrink)

We say we can no longer trust our public services, institutions or the people who run them. The professionals we have to rely on - politicians, doctors, scientists, businessmen and many others - are treated with suspicion. Their word is doubted, their motives questioned. Whether real or perceived, this crisis of trust has a debilitating impact on society and democracy. Can trust be restored by making people and institutions more accountable? Or do complex systems of accountability and control themselves damage (...) trust? Onora O'Neill challenges current approaches, investigates sources of deception in our society and re-examines questions of press freedom. 2002's Reith Lectures present a philosopher's view of trust and deception, and ask whether and how trust can be restored in a modern democracy. (shrink)

Microbes and microbiology are seldom encountered in philosophical accounts of the life sciences. Although microbiology is a well-established science and microbes the basis of life on this planet, neither the organisms nor the science have been seen as philosophically significant. This book will change that. It fills a major gap in the philosophy of biology by examining central philosophical issues in microbiology. Topics are drawn from evolutionary microbiology, microbial ecology, and microbial classification. These discussions are aimed at philosophers and scientists (...) who wish to gain insight into the basic philosophical issues of microbiology. (shrink)

We live in a world confronted by mounting environmental problems; increasing global deforestation and desertification, loss of species diversity, pollution and global warming. In everyday life people mourn the loss of valued landscapes and urban spaces. Underlying these problems are conflicting priorities and values. Yet dominant approaches to policy-making seem ill-equipped to capture the various ways in which the environment matters to us. Environmental Values introduces readers to these issues by presenting, and then challenging, two dominant approaches to environmental decision-making, (...) one from environmental economics, the other from environmental philosophy. The authors present a sustained case for questioning the underlying ethical theories of both of these traditions. They defend a pluralistic alternative rooted in the rich everyday relations of humans to the environments they inhabit, providing a path for integrating human needs with environmental protection through an understanding of the narrative and history of particular places. The book examines the implications of this approach for policy issues such as biodiversity conservation and sustainability. Written in a clear and accessible style for an interdisciplinary audience, this volume will be ideal for student use in environmental courses in geography, economics, philosophy, politics and sociology. (shrink)

The republican ideal of non-domination identifies the capacity for arbitrary interference as a fundamental threat to liberty that can generate fearful uncertainty and servility in those dominated. I argue that republican accounts of domination can provide a powerful analysis of the nature of legal and institutional power that is encountered by people with mental disorders or cognitive disabilities. In doing so, I demonstrate that non-domination is an ideal which is pertinent, distinctive, and desirable in thinking through psychological disability. Finally, I (...) evaluate republican strategies for contesting domination, focusing on the limits of contestatory democracy, and proposing a participatory alternative which better addresses problems of political agency in the mentally disordered and cognitively disabled. (shrink)

Object perception deploys a suite of perceptual capacities that constrains attention, guides reidentification, subserves recognition, and anchors demonstrative thought. Objects for perception—perceptual objects—are the targets of such capacities. Characterizing perceptual objects for multisensory perception faces two puzzles. First is the diversity of objects across sensory modalities. Second is the unity of multisensory perceptual objects. This paper resolves the puzzles. Objects for perception are structured mereologically complex individuals. Perceptual objects are items that bear perceptible features and have perceptible parts arranged to (...) form a unified whole. This circumscribes the targets of object perception where neutral talk concerning intentional objects and objects of perception cannot. Nonetheless, it is more permissive than identifying perceptual objects with material bodies, which excludes too much and leans too heavily on vision. The account thus is tailored to capture the role of objects in perception beyond vision: tactual, auditory, and olfactory objects are individuals with differing structures. Its flexibility also enables the account to accommodate shared objects for multisensory perception: multisensory perceptual objects are mereologically complex individuals with hybrid structure. For instance, one can bimodally perceive a common whole with parts accessible to one but not both modalities. Each sense provides a partial perspective on a complex whole that is perceptible through the coordinated use of multiple senses. Understanding perceptual objects as structured mereologically complex individuals thus provides a theoretically useful notion of an object for multisensory perception that resolves the puzzles of diversity and of unity. (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno was one of the foremost philosophers and social theorists of the post-war period. Crucial to the development of Critical Theory, his highly original and distinctive but often difficult writings not only advance questions of fundamental philosophical significance, but provide deep-reaching analyses of literature, art, music sociology and political theory. In this comprehensive introduction, Brian O’Connor explains Adorno’s philosophy for those coming to his work for the first time, through original new lines of interpretation. Beginning with an overview (...) of Adorno’s life and key philosophical views and influences, which contextualizes the intellectual environment in which he worked, O’Connor assesses the central elements of Adorno’s philosophy. He carefully examines Adorno’s distinctive style of analysis and shows how much of his work is a critical response to the various forms of identity thinking that have underpinned the destructive forces of modernity. He goes on to discuss the main areas of Adorno’s philosophy: social theory, the philosophy of experience, metaphysics, morality and aesthetics; setting out detailed accounts of Adorno’s notions of the dialectic of Enlightenment, reification, totality, mediation, identity, nonidentity, experience, negative dialectics, immanence, freedom, autonomy, imitation and autonomy in art. The final chapter considers Adorno’s philosophical legacy and importance today. Including a chronology, glossary, chapter summaries, and suggestions for further reading, _Adorno_ is an ideal introduction to this demanding but important thinker, and essential reading for students of philosophy, literature, sociology and cultural studies. (shrink)

Meeting grand challenges requires responses that constructively combine multiple forms of expertise, both academic and non-academic; that is, it requires cross-disciplinary integration. But just what is cross-disciplinary integration? In this paper, we supply a preliminary answer by reviewing prominent accounts of cross-disciplinary integration from two literatures that are rarely brought together: cross-disciplinarity and philosophy of biology. Reflecting on similarities and differences in these accounts, we develop a framework that integrates their insights—integration as a generic combination process the details of which (...) are determined by the specific contexts in which particular integrations occur. One such context is cross-disciplinary research, which yields cross-disciplinary integration. We close by reflecting on the potential applicability of this framework to research efforts aimed at meeting grand challenges. (shrink)

In this study, we propose and test a model of the effects of organizational ethical culture and organizational architecture on the perceived unethical behavior of employees towards customers. This study also examines the relationship between organizational ethical culture and moral acceptability judgment, hypothesizing that moral acceptability judgment is an important stage in the ethical decision-making process. Based on a field study in one of the largest financial institutions in Europe, we found that organizational ethical culture was significantly related to the (...) perceived frequency of unethical behavior towards customers and to the moral acceptability judgment of this type of unethical behavior. No support was found for the claim that features of organizational architecture are associated with the perceived frequency of unethical behavior towards customers. This is the first study to document the differential effects of organizational architecture and organizational ethical culture on perceived unethical behavior of employees towards customers, in wholesale banking. Implications for managers and future research are discussed. (shrink)

My thesis is that perceptual awareness is richly multisensory. I argue for this conclusion on the grounds that certain forms of multisensory perceptual experience are incompatible with the claim that each aspect of a perceptual experience is associated with some specific sensory modality or another. First, I explicate what it is for some feature of a conscious perceptual episode to be modality specific. Then, I argue based on philosophical and experimental evidence that some novel intermodal features are perceptible only through (...) the coordinated use of multiple senses. I appeal to cases that involve consciously perceptible feature instances and feature types that could not be perceptually experienced through the use of individual sense modalities working on their own or simply in parallel and co-consciously. Finally, I offer an account of how to type perceptual experiences by modality that makes room for richly multisensory experiences. (shrink)

1. Kodae ch'ŏrhak sasang -- 2. Chungse ch'ŏrhak sasang 1 (Se nara sigi wa Parhae mit hugi Silla sigi) -- 3. Chungse ch'ŏrhak sasang 2 (Koryŏ sigi) -- 4. Chungse ch'ŏrhak sasang 3 (Yijo chŏnban'gi) -- 5. Chungse ch'ŏrhak sasang 4 (Yijo hugan'gi) -- 6. Chungse ch'ŏrhak sasang 5 (Yijo hugan'gi) -- 7. Kŭndae ch'ŏrhak sasang 1 -- 8. Kŭndae ch'ŏrhak sasang 2 -- 9. Puryo pulgul ŭi hyŏngmyŏng t'usa Kim Hyŏng-jik Sŏnsaengnim ŭi ch'ŏrhak sasang -- 10. Widaehan suryŏng Kim (...) Il-sŏng Tongji ŭi ch'ŏrhak sasang 1 -- 11. Widaehan suryŏng Kim Il-sŏng Tongji ŭi ch'ŏrhak sasang 2 -- 12. Widaehan suryŏng Kim Il-sŏng Tongji ŭi ch'ŏrhak sasang 3 -- 13. Widaehan yŏngdoja Kim Chŏng-il Tongji ŭi ch'ŏrhak sasang 1 -- 14. Widaehan yŏngdoja Kim Chŏng-il Tongji ŭi ch'ŏrhak sasang 2 -- 15. Widaehan yŏngdoja Kim Chŏng-il Tongji ŭi ch'ŏrhak sasang 3. (shrink)

This paper reports on an investigation of issues surrounding the use of ethical codes/codes of conduct in Irish based companies. Using a comprehensive questionnaire survey, the paper examines the incidence, content and enforcement of codes of conduct among a sample of the top 1000 companies based in Ireland. The main findings indicate that the overall usage of codes of conduct amongst indigenous Irish companies has increased significantly from 1995 to 2000. However, in line with prior research, these codes focus primarily (...) on issues surrounding company and employee protection as opposed to society protection. Almost half of all codes are written by company personnel or provided by head office. Revisions of codes are common but formal ongoing methods of instructing new staff about codes are not prevalent. Less than one-third of companies with codes have formal channels for reporting violations but a high percentage have formal disciplinary procedures in place for breaches of codes. (shrink)

Over the past several decades, a large number of publications have claimed that there are important similarities between mindfulness and phenomenology, with a particular emphasis on the epoché and phenomenological reduction. We argue that these comparisons trade on a rather superficial and often misleading presentation of phenomenology. The epoché-reduction is treated either as a matter of bracketing our 'theoretical baggage' so as to allow for a full disclosure and precise description of the objects of experience, or as a matter of (...) bracketing our preoccupation with and absorption in worldly affairs so as to allow for a close attention to subjective acts. Both interpretations mischaracterize the proper scope of phenomenology, namely the subject-object (mind-world) correlation. Furthermore, both miss the theoretical, systematic, and (most importantly) philosophical character of phenomenology. We suggest that, in the end, comparisons between phenomenology and Buddhism would be better off focusing on Buddhist philosophy, rather than Buddhist meditative practice. (shrink)

Over the last decade, there has been a considerable expansion of mindfulness programmes into a number of different domains of contemporary life, such as corporations, schools, hospitals and even the military. Understanding the reasons for this phenomenon involves, I argue, reflecting upon the nature of contemporary capitalism and mapping the complexity of navigating new digital technologies that make multiple and accelerated solicitations upon attention and our affective lives. Whilst acknowledging the benefits of mindfulness practice, this article argues that it is (...) equally important to attend to the ethical framework that gives orientation to these practices and the outer conditions that shape lived daily experience, such as school or work environments. I suggest that the well-meaning efforts to secularise mindfulness, provide scientific evidence for its effectiveness, and introduce it to wider publics may have served to impoverish the rich contribution that practices of mindfulness, situated within a broader ethical framework, can make to human lives, and arguably contribute to the educational endeavour. For example, the emphasis on transforming inner conditions of students’ lives can lead to the neglect of outer conditions, such as structural inequality, or unhealthy and exploitative work practices. This can result in practices that privilege individual wellbeing over compassion and concern for the happiness of others, providing a buffer against loving attention to the world and others. Instead, I ask how mindfulness in educational settings could come to be viewed in a different light if we reflect upon the ways in which school environments and curricula can promote mindfulness, awareness, sensitive inquiry, and contemplative practices through the day, rather than offering it as a discrete intervention focused on the self and wellbeing. (shrink)

This collection of new essays on the systematic thought and intellectual legacy of the American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars comes at a time when Sellars's influence on contemporary debates about mind, meaning, knowledge, and metaphysics has never been greater. A team of well-known contemporary philosophers who have been strongly influenced by Sellars critically examines the groundbreaking ideas by means of which Sellars sought to integrate our thought, perception, and rational agency within a naturalistic outlook on reality. Topics include Sellars's inferentialist semantics (...) and normative functionalist view of the mind; his attempted reconciliations of internalist and externalist aspects of thought, meaning, and knowledge; his novel nominalist account of abstract entities; and a speculative 'pure process' metaphysics of consciousness. Of particular interest is how this volume exhibits the ongoing fruitful dialogue between philosophers whose work continues to be inspired and informed by Sellars's thought today. (shrink)

Metaphors used to describe new technologies mediate public understanding of the innovations. Analyzing the linguistic, rhetorical, and affective aspects of these metaphors opens the range of issues available for bioethical scrutiny and increases public accountability. This article shows how such a multidisciplinary approach can be useful by looking at a set of texts about one issue, the use of a newly developed technique for genetic modification, CRISPRcas9.

In their target article, Hutto and Satne eloquently articulate the failings of most current attempts to naturalize mental content. Furthermore, we think they are correct in their insistence that the only way forward is by drawing a distinction between two kinds of intentionality, one of which is considerably weaker than—and should be deployed to explain—the propositional variety most philosophers take for granted. The problem is that their own rendering of this weaker form of intentionality—contentless intentionality—is too weak. What’s needed is (...) a species of intentionality distinct from both the industrial-strength version beloved by philosophers and the intentionality lite recommended by Hutto and Satne. We briefly motivate and sketch this alternative, and say a few words about the account of cognition that it spawns. (shrink)

The model of major transitions in evolution devised by Maynard Smith and Szathmáry has exerted tremendous influence over evolutionary theorists. Although MTE has been criticized for inconsistently combining different types of event, its ongoing appeal lies in depicting hierarchical increases in complexity by means of evolutionary transitions in individuality. In this paper, we consider the implications of major evolutionary events overlooked by MTE and its ETI-oriented successors, specifically the biological oxygenation of Earth, and the acquisitions of mitochondria and plastids. By (...) reflecting on these missed events, we reveal a central philosophical disagreement over the explanatory goals of major transitions theory that has yet to be made explicit in the literature. We go on to argue that this philosophical disagreement is only reinforced by Szathmáry’s recent revisions of MTE in the form of MTE 2.0. This finding motivates us to propose an alternative explanatory strategy: specifically, an interactionist metabolic perspective on major transitions. A metabolic framework not only avoids many of the criticisms that beset classic and revised MTE models, but also accommodates missing events and provides crucial explanatory components for standard major transitions. Although we do not provide a full-blown alternative theory and do not claim to achieve unity, we explain why foregrounding metabolism is crucial for any attempt to capture the major turning points in evolution, and why it does not lead to unmanageable pluralism. (shrink)

Prior studies in business ethics highlight the role of philanthropy in shaping stakeholders’ perceptions of a firm’s underlying moral tendencies and values. Scholars argue that philanthropy-based character inferences influence whether and how stakeholders engage with firms. We extend this line of reasoning to examine the impact of philanthropy on firms’ contracting costs in the capital market. We posit that philanthropy-based character inferences reduce investors’ agency concerns, thereby reducing firms’ cost of capital. We also posit that the strength of the philanthropy–cost (...) of capital relationship is contingent on uncertainty regarding a firm’s character, visibility of a firm, and prevailing philanthropic norms. We test and find support for our arguments in a longitudinal study of philanthropy and the cost of capital. Our findings have implications for business ethics research on corporate philanthropy and corporate social performance and for organizational research on social judgment. (shrink)

Biologists and philosophers of biology have argued that learning rules that do not lead organisms to play evolutionarily stable strategies (ESSes) in games will not be stable and thus not evolutionarily successful. This claim, however, stands at odds with the fact that learning generalization---a behavior that cannot lead to ESSes when modeled in games---is observed throughout the animal kingdom. In this paper, I use learning generalization to illustrate how previous analyses of the evolution of learning have gone wrong. It has (...) been widely argued that the function of learning generalization is to allow for swift learning about novel stimuli. I show that in evolutionary game theoretic models learning generalization, despite leading to suboptimal behavior, can indeed speed learning. I further observe that previous analyses of the evolution of learning ignored the short term success of learning rules. If one drops this assumption, I argue, it can be shown that learning generalization will be expected to evolve in these models. I also use this analysis to show how ESS methodology can be misleading, and to reject previous justifications about ESS play derived from analyses of learning. (shrink)

_Philosophy of Mind: Contemporary Readings_ is a comprehensive anthology that draws together leading philosophers writing on the major topics within philosophy of mind. Robb and O'Connor have carefully chosen articles under the following headings: *Substance Dualism and Idealism *Materialism *Mind and Representation *Consciousness Each section is prefaced by an introductory essay by the editors which guides the student gently into the topic in which leading philosophers are included. The book is highly accessible and user-friendly and provides a broad-ranging exploration of (...) the subject. Ideal for any philosophy student, this book will prove essential reading for any philosophy of mind course. The readings are designed to complement John Heil's _Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction, Second edition _, although the anthology can also be used as a stand-alone volume. (shrink)

The phenomenon of action in which the mind moves the body has puzzled philosophers over the centuries. In this new edition of a classic work of analytical philosophy, Brian O'Shaughnessy investigates bodily action and attempts to resolve some of the main problems. His expanded and updated discussion examines the scope of the will and the conditions in which it makes contact with the body, and investigates the epistemology of the body. He sheds light upon the strangely intimate relation of awareness (...) in which we stand to our own bodies, doing so partly through appeal to the concept of the body-image. The result is a new and strengthened emphasis on the vitally important function of the bodily will as a transparently intelligible bridge between mind and body, and the proposal of a dual aspect theory of the will. (shrink)

_An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge_ guides the reader through the key issues and debates in contemporary epistemology. Lucid, comprehensive and accessible, it is an ideal textbook for students who are new to the subject and for university undergraduates. The book is divided into five parts. Part I discusses the concept of knowledge and distinguishes between different types of knowledge. Part II surveys the sources of knowledge, considering both _a priori_ and _a posteriori_ knowledge. Parts III and IV provide (...) an in-depth discussion of justification and scepticism. The final part of the book examines our alleged knowledge of the past, other minds, morality and God. O'Brien uses engaging examples throughout the book, taking many from literature and the cinema. He explains complex issues, such as those concerning the private language argument, non-conceptual content, and the new riddle of induction, in a clear and accessible way. This textbook is an invaluable guide to contemporary epistemology. (shrink)

In this paper I want to propose that we see solipsism as arising from certain problems we have about identifying ourselves as subjects in an objective world. The discussion will centre on Wittgenstein’s treatment of solipsism in his Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus. In that work Wittgenstein can be seen to express an unusually profound understanding of the problems faced in trying to give an account of how we, who are subjects, identify ourselves as objects in the world. We have in his (...) compressed remarks, the kernels of a number of arguments which all come together to form what can be called the problem of self-identification. I want to argue that the solipsism of the Tractatus arises at least in part as a solution to, or – to put it less optimistically – as a symptom or articulation of this problem. In approaching Wittgenstein’s early discussion of solipsism in this way I will obviously be in disagreement with some other interpretations of the work. For example, there are those who think that there is no ‘solipsism of the Tractatus’.1 In fact, the Tractarian arguments presented below as motivating solipsism have been seen as fulfilling the quite opposite function of refuting it. I do not intend in this piece to engage with alternative interpretations. Let me say a little bit about why I have granted myself the licence not to do so. First, the focus of my concern with solipsism is on how it connects with what I have called the problem of self-identification. While it is a concern that emerged in an attempt to make sense of Wittgenstein’s remarks in. (shrink)

Ethical reasoning of all types is anthropocentric, in that it is addressed to agents, but anthropocentric starting points vary in the preference they accord the human species. Realist claims about environmental values, utilitarian reasoning and rights-based reasoning all have difficulties in according ethical concern to certain all aspects of natural world. Obligation-based reasoning can provide quite strong if incomplete reasons to protect the natural world, including individual non-human animals. Although it cannot establish all the conclusions to which anti-speciesists aspire, it (...) may establish many of them with some clarity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Adoro Te Devote of St. Thomas AquinasSr. Lucia Marie of the Visitation Langford O.P.The Adoro te devote is perhaps the most well-beloved Eucharistic hymn of our time, popularly attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas, the medieval Dominican friar known for his theological treatises as well as his Eucharistic hymnography. Unlike most of Aquinas's work, the poem reveals the intensely personal side of his faith. Rich in theological content and (...) inspiring deep Eucharistic devotion, this poem amply repays a closer investigation. We will look first at the questions of authorship, background, and structure before moving on to a discussion of the text itself.The "Disputed Question" of AuthorshipWhile the Adoro te has traditionally been attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas, the Thomistic authorship of the text was contested in the twentieth century, with two main objections being raised. The first claims that the content of the poem contradicts Thomas's own teachings and cannot have flowed from the same pen. The second objection is historical, claiming that a lack of evidence makes Thomistic authorship improbable.The first objection, claiming that the content of the poem is irreconcilable with Thomistic authorship, takes objection to a line in the poem which seems to claim that sense perception is unreliable and inaccurate, at least with regard to the Eucharist. The text of the Adoro te uses the word fallitur (deceived) with reference to the senses: "Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur"—"Sight, touch, taste in you are deceived." Some scholars have claimed that this line contradicts the teaching of Aquinas that the senses are [End Page 365] infallible in regard to their proper sensibles.1 Robert Wielockx addresses this charge in his study of the Adoro te, arguing that "the text does not contradict the continuous teaching of Thomas according to which the senses are not wrong when they judge their proper object, which as far as the Eucharist is concerned, is only the sacramental species."2 The substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist is a mystery which is not knowable by the senses, and as Paul Murray, O.P., observes: "That's surely the point St. Thomas is making."3 However, the Thomistic insistence that all knowledge comes through our senses is not missing even here. While sight, touch, and taste fall short of comprehending the truth before them, the Adoro te itself proclaims that it is another sense—hearing—which reveals the mystery: "sed auditu solo tute creditur"—"but by hearing alone it is safely believed."4Thus there is no solid objection to Thomistic authorship based on the poem's content. But what about the historical evidence? Dom André Wilmart published a comprehensive study of the manuscript tradition in 1929. Noting that there were no extant copies of the text dating to Aquinas's lifetime and that the biography of Aquinas written by his own Dominican confrere and contemporary, William of Tocco, made no mention of the Adoro te, he considered it most probable that the poem was authored at a later date and ascribed to Aquinas.5However, Dom Wilmart did not know that he was not working with William of Tocco's final version of his work. The publication of a critical edition of William of Tocco's Ystoria Sancti Thome de Aquino in 1996 demonstrated that Tocco published his work in four successive redactions. The fourth and final version of his text (unknown to Dom Wilmart) was finished just before his death in 1323, and in this final version, Tocco includes the text of the Adoro te, attributing its authorship to St. Thomas.6 [End Page 366] Furthermore, Wielockx published a study of the Adoro te in 1998; his investigation of the manuscript tradition found that, of fifty-one sources, forty-four explicitly cite St. Thomas as their author. The remaining sources simply lacked any attribution. We may thus conclude with Wielockx: "External evidence, which must be given priority in sound criticism, wholly favors Thomas Aquinas's authorship of the poem."7BackgroundWith the attribution of the poem to St. Thomas Aquinas on secure footing, we now move to the background of the poem. Unlike Aquinas's Eucharistic hymns such as... (shrink)

This article makes two arguments. First, that social justice constitutes an inherent part of the conception of sustainable development that the World Commission on Environment and Development outlined in Our Common Future. The primary goal of the Commission was to reconcile physical sustainability, need satisfaction and equal opportunities, within and between generations. Sustainable development is what defines this reconciliation. Second, it is argued that this conception of sustainable development is broadly compatible with liberal theories of justice. Sustainable development, however, goes (...) beyond liberal theories of justice in many respects. It is based on three assumptions, which are for the most part ignored in liberal theories: an accelerating ecological interdependence, historical inequality in past resource use, and the 'growth of limits'. These assumptions create a conflict between intra- and intergenerational justice, which is ignored in liberal theories, but which sustainable development tries to solve. It does so by imposing duties on developed countries that goes beyond liberal demands, and by abandoning the focus 'solely on protection' that dominates non-anthropocentric approaches to environmental sustainability. (shrink)

Overview of the Stoic position. Looks at the roots of their determinism in their theology, their response to the 'lazy argument' that believing that all things are fated makes action pointless, their analysis of human action and how it allows actions to be 'up to us,' their rejection of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, their rejection of anger and other negative reactive attitudes, and their contention that submission to god's will brings true freedom.

This review summarizes and critiques the empirical ethical decision-making literature from 1996–2003. One hundred and seventy-four articles were published in top business journals during this period. Tables are included that summarize the findings by dependent variable – awareness, judgment, intent, and behavior. We compare this review with past reviews in order to draw conclusions regarding trends in the ethical decision-making literature and to surface directions for future research.

I argue that information about the distal causes of moral beliefs, such as evolution, is only relevant for assessing the epistemic status of moral beliefs in cases where we cannot determine whether the proximal processes producing these beliefs are reliable just by examining the properties of these proximal processes. Any investigation into the epistemic status of moral beliefs given their causes should start with a look at proximal causes—not at evolution. I discuss two proximal psychological influences on moral beliefs—disgust and (...) sympathy—to demonstrate the feasibility of drawing epistemic conclusions from an examination of proximal causes alone. (shrink)

It is an extraordinary thing that Descartes' famous Cogito argument is still being puzzled over; this paper is another fragment in an untiring tradition of puzzlement. The paper will argue that, if I were to ask the question the Cogito could provide for a positive answer. In particular, my aim in this is to argue, in opposition to recent discussion by John Campbell, that there is a way of construing conscious thinking on which the Cogito can be seen to provide (...) a non-question begging argument for one's own existence. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that there are no categories of being⎯at least not in the robust metaphysical sense of something fundamental. Central arguments that metaphysicians provide in support of fundamental categories, such as indispensability and theoretical utility arguments, are not adequate to guarantee their existence. We illustrate this point by examining Jonathan Lowe’s [2006] four-category ontology, and indicating its shortcomings. In contrast, we offer an alternative, no-category ontology, which dispenses with any fundamental categories of being, and provides a deflationary (...) understanding of any categorization in terms of concepts. Concepts, we insist, as opposed to fundamental ontological categories, can always be revised, refined, and recast. A distinctive deflationary, no-category ontology then emerges. (shrink)

In this important new book, David O'Connor discusses both logical and empirical forms of the problem of inscrutable evil, perennially the most difficult philosophical problem confronting theism. Arguing that both a version of theism and a version of atheism are justified on the evidence in the debate over God and evil, O'Connor concludes that a warranted outcome is a philosophical dètente between those two positions. On the way to that conclusion he develops two arguments from evil, a reformed version of (...) the logical argument and an indirect version of the empirical argument, and deploys both against a central formulation of theism that he describes as orthodox theism. God and Inscrutable Evil makes a valuable contribution to contemporary debates in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Echo experiences are illusory experiences of ordinary primary sounds. Just as there is no new object that we see at the surface of a mirror, there is no new sound that we hear at a reflecting surface. The sound that we hear as an echo just is the original primary sound, though its perception involves illusions of place, time, and qualities. The case of echoes need not force us to adopt a conception according to which sounds are persisting object-like particulars (...) that travel through space. (shrink)

The human resources profession emphasizes the personal and interpersonal aspects of work, that make it conscious of complex ethical issues in relationships in the workplace, while finance specialists are conversant with routine compliance with regulations. Marketing professionals are under pressure to produce revenue results. Thus, this research hypothesized that human resources managers would be more disapproving of unethical conduct than both finance and marketing functional managers, and that finance managers would be more disapproving than marketing managers. When asked to evaluate (...) instances of unethical behavior in vignettes, human resources and finance managers were both significantly more disapproving than marketing managers. However, human resources managers were not significantly more disapproving than finance managers. Explanations for the results lie in the divergent antecedent conditions, objectives, perceptions of ethical problems and demands of the various functions. Alternative behavior patterns to resolve ethical dilemmas and expected consequences by the different functions also define their ethical orientations. Average responses on the disapproving side from all three functional groups are explained by two complementary trends that promote ethical awareness among all functional managers. One is the adoption of homogeneous conventions in ethical business practice. The other trend is the increase in ethical awareness specific to each of the functional professions. (shrink)

In this innovative and cogent presentation of her concept of sustainable happiness, Catherine O’Brien outlines how the leading recommendations for transforming education can be integrated within a vision of _well-being for all_. Solution-focused, the book demonstrates how aspects of this vision are already being realized, and the potential for accelerating education transitions that enable people and ecosystems to flourish. Each chapter assists educators to understand how to apply the lessons learned, both personally and professionally. The aim is to support educators (...) to experience themselves as change-makers with growing confidence to implement new teaching strategies and inspire their students to become change-makers as well—engaged in deep learning that develops character, connections with life, and invigorating collaborations that revitalize the very purpose of education. (shrink)

At the core of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason was a decisive break with certain fundamental Cartesian assumptions or claims about consciousness and self-consciousness, claims that have nonetheless remained perennially tempting, from a phenomenological perspective, independently of any further questions concerning the metaphysics of mind and its place in nature. The core of this philosophical problem has recently been helpfully exposed and insightfully probed in Dan Zahavi’s book, Self and Other: Exploring Subjectivity, Empathy, and Shame. In these remarks I suggest (...) that Zahavi’s view of what he calls ‘The Experiential Self’ defends precisely the sorts of claims to which a Kantian account of consciousness is fundamentally opposed, and while assessing the overall merits of the two contrasting outlooks is no easy matter, I side with the Kantian view. (shrink)

Large mining projects can generate highly inequitable outcomes, with affected communities bearing the burden of social and environmental costs while economic benefits accrue largely to domestic and foreign metropolitan centres. This raises important ethical and social justice issues, as does the finite nature of mineral resources, which can mean that current generations enjoy the benefits of mining while future generations bear the costs of environmental and social impacts that can continue long after mining ends. During recent decades two broad approaches, (...) voluntary industry initiatives and government regulation, have been employed in attempts to achieve a more equitable distribution of mining’s positive and negative effects. Both have serious drawbacks. Industry initiatives are ultimately voluntary and may be abandoned in tough economic times; they can be highly variable across companies and projects; and they suffer from serious compliance issues. Public regulation can be inflexible, is subject to industry capture, and in many major mineral producing nations a ‘retreat from regulation’ is reducing its relevance. This article considers whether, and under what conditions, a third and emergent instrument, community development agreements, can help overcome the shortcomings associated with industry initiatives and public regulation. It argues that CDAs have considerable potential in this regard, but that communities can encounter significant practical challenges in their negotiation and implementation. In addition, disparities in negotiation power between communities and project developers can result in inequitable agreements, indicating a continued need for government involvement to create a more level ‘negotiation terrain’. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell developed a conception of the nature of the visual field, and of other sensory fields, as part of his project of explaining the construction of the external world. Wittgenstein's remarks on the visual field in the Tractatus are in part a response to Russell. Wittgenstein, against Russell, analyses the visual field in terms of facts rather than objects. Further, his conception of the field is, in a distinctive sense, depsychologised.

This paper examines the epistemological arguments about markets and planning that emerged in a series of unpublished exchanges between Hayek and Neurath. The exchanges reveal problems for standard accounts of both the socialist calculation debates and logical empiricism. They also raise questions concerning the sources of ignorance and uncertainty in modern economies, and the role of market and non-market organisations in the distribution and coordination of limited knowledge, which remain relevant to contemporary debates in economics. Hayek had argued that Neurath's (...) work exemplified the errors of rationalism that underpinned the socialist project. In response Neurath highlighted assumptions about the limits of reason and predictability that the two theorists shared and attempted to turn those assumptions back against Hayek in a defence of the possibility of socialist planning. The paper critically compares Neurath's and Hayek's criticisms of rationalism and considers how far Neurath is successful in his attempt to employ Hayek's assumptions against Hayek himself. (Published Online April 18 2006) Footnotes1 I would like to thank the staff at the Vienna Circle Institute for their assistance in consulting their copy of the Neurath Nachlass. I owe a debt of gratitude to Thomas Uebel and David Archard for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. I would like to acknowledge the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Board and a Manchester University Hallsworth Fellowship in writing this paper. (shrink)