Moral stress is an increasingly significant concept in business ethics and the workplace environment. This study compares the impact of moral stress with other job stressors on three important employee variables—fatigue, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions—by utilizing survey data from 305 customer-contact employees of a financial institution’s call center. Statistical analysis on the interaction of moral stress and the three employee variables was performed while controlling for other types of job stress as well as demographic variables. The results reveal that (...) even after including the control variables in the statistical models, moral stress remains a statistically significant predictor of increased employee fatigue, decreased job satisfaction, and increased turnover intentions. Implications for future research and for organizations are discussed. (shrink)

Arguing against those who situate F.H. Bradley as a skeptic, mystic, or empiricist, this book makes a case for understanding his thought firmly in the tradition of rationalistic idealism.

At more than five-hundred pages, this volume — the first in a set of five — is neither a short nor an easy read. Most will, I suspect, treat the book as a reference work, consulting only those sections relevant to their study. But its materials are sometimes demanding; and in several chapters readers will encounter considerable interpretive difficulties. I shall have more to say about these difficulties further down. First, though, a few comments on the book’s contents.

In this thesis I focus on F. H. Bradley's theory of judgment and his doctrine of predication. My goal is to present an account of Bradley's views which pays special attention to his belief that all logical predication must necessarily fail to accomplish what it sets out to do. All assertion , we are told, attempts to state truth, whole and complete; but, in the end, it must fall short. All judgment, Bradley claims, must contain an element (...) of untruth or falsity. And the outcome of this theory of predication is a doctrine of "degrees of truth". No truth is understood as entirely true or entirely false; rather, each has a position in a hierarchy of truths with some being truer than others when measured against the theoretical criterion of absolute knowledge. ;But, this is not to be understood as a sceptical doctrine. I argue that Bradley's doctrine of predicative failure should be seen as the only means by which radical scepticism in the theory of knowledge can be avoided. If we were capable of possessing truths which are whole and complete unto themselves then there would exist no legitimate basis upon which the inferential development of thought could expand beyond a self-enclosed circle. ;In this essay I also examine a persisting historical problem. It is my claim that Bradley's theory should be understood as a continuation of and development within the British neo-Kantian tradition. Bradley's association with this tradition has sometimes been questioned based on scattered statements found in the 1883 edition of the Principles of Logic. Collectively these statements have been referred to as the doctrine of "floating ideas". However, I maintain that the doctrine of floating ideas must be distinguished from the theory of predicative failure . I argue that the two theories should in no way be identified and that certain misinterpretations of Bradley's position have resulted from confusing these two incompatible views. (shrink)

Despite renewed interest in T.H. Green’s social and political theory, little attention has as yet been given to his metaphysics and epistemology — even more neglected, though, are his views on logical matters. It is unclear why this is. I suspect that the obscurity of his discussion has much to do with it. Green routinely refers to writers in whom there is little interest today; and a good deal of effort is required to penetrate his technical vocabulary. Still, I believe (...) we miss something important when we ignore his specifically logical writings. Green has much to say about classical syllogism and its influence on his contemporaries. And, while the discussion is always grounded in his own idealist theory of knowledge, Green’s analysis often reveals surprising aspects of the problem being considered. In what follows, then, I shall consider one such analysis: his account of the logical/epistemological doctrine of Sir William Hamilton and H.L. Mansel — individuals whose writings, in Green’s eyes, made apparent all that was wrong with the “formal logic” of the day. (shrink)

F.H. Bradley has been characterized by many commentators as something of a sceptic. And the reason why Bradley is often cast in this light is, I believe, largely a result of his theory of relations. As even the casual student is aware, the relational nature of all judgment leads, on Bradley’s analysis, to an infinite and, many have claimed, “vicious” regress. And when we add to this Bradley’s claim that all assertion is, at some level, “contradictory”, (...) there seems to be good reason for the sceptical moniker. What I would like to suggest in this paper, though, is that Bradley’s “scepticism” is not what it seems. Hence in what follows I shall argue that Bradley’s views on contradiction and contrariety are actually important aspects of his larger theory of knowledge; and, as such, they should be understood — not as doctrines whose intent is the condemnation of our ordinary inferences — but, rather, as a crucial component in the defense of such practices. What I hope to show, then, is that, far from being an endorsement of radical scepticism, Bradley’s theory of contradiction and contrariety is an effort to preserve the continuity between one judgment and another — a continuity that he sees as necessary to any coherent account of inference. But first some preliminaries. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to examine what I believe is an often misunderstood aspect of F.H. Bradley’s philosophy. Specifically, I want to consider Bradley’s views on the relation between perception and what he calls the “feeling base” of experience. Although Bradley’s doctrine of feeling is generally recognized as one of the most distinctive aspects of his thought, his theory of perception is, I believe, also unusual in that it views our perceptual experience as permeated by (...) conceptual identities. As we shall see, Bradley understands perception as essentially ideal. And when he uses this term to describe the contents of our ordinary perceptual awareness, Bradley wants to convey to us his belief that there is something about perception which bears the mark of thought. “Ideal” and “ideality” — terms which signal the presence of thought — are also used by Bradley to indicate that an experience is at least partially abstract and general. Thus when he calls perception ideal he is claiming — contrary to the received view — that perception does not present us with objects that are wholly determinate and particular. (shrink)

Remembered today primarily for his commentaries on Plato, R.L. Nettleship was a fellow and tutor of Balliol College, Oxford, from 1869 to 1892. And, while he was one of the past century’s better known interpreters of Plato, Nettleship’s influence extends well beyond the study of Greek philosophy. Although his life was cut short in its prime and saw the publication of no major works expressive of his own views, it is to Nettleship that we owe the existence of T.H. Green’s (...) collected Works and the book-length “Memoir” that introduces these volumes. And, despite its being ignored by later writers, Nettleship’s “Lectures on Logic” remains one of the most accessible accounts of the idealist theory of knowledge that came to dominate late nineteenth century British philosophy. (shrink)

While students of idealism will be pleased to see another important text back in print, the Cambridge Scholars Press reissue of F.H. Bradley’s Principles of Logic will, I suspect, find only a limited audience. Although the book is nicely bound and printed on what appears to be a high quality acid-free paper, CSP — surely for reasons of economy — has chosen to compress the text’s original five hundred thirty-four pages to three-hundred fourteen, entirely changing the pagination. What has (...) also changed in the CSP edition are the page headers. Sometimes the CSP edition provides a fuller account of the chapter contents than the original; often, though, the new headers tell us less. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an overview of the logical doctrine of three prominent idealists: T.H. Green, F.H. Bradley, and Bernard Bosanquet. I first identify the works in which this doctrine is developed; then I provide a general account of judgment, and inference. In my discussion of judgment I examine, the individual, hypothetical, and disjunctive forms as well as negation. In my examination of inference I compare the “nonlinear” and “linear” views. This comparison includes the idealist critique of syllogism, (...) and the theory of the association of ideas. I conclude with a brief discussion of idealism and formal logic. (shrink)

Phillip Ferreira - Perfectionism and the Common Good: Themes in the Philosophy of T.H. Green - Journal of the History of Philosophy 43:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 43.3 369-370 David O. Brink. Perfectionism and the Common Good: Themes in the Philosophy of T. H. Green. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003. Pp. xiv + 139. Cloth, $27.50. The British idealists have not fared well during the past century. Still, there has been in recent years a renewed interest in the movement's (...) principal figures: F. H. Bradley and T. H. Green. And, while Bradley's polemical style has found a wider audience, Green's work—especially his Principles of Political Obligation—appears to have had the steadier following. Lesser known than Green's political writing, though, is his longer and more difficult Prolegomena to Ethics. And David O. .. (shrink)

In this paper, I will investigate the early work of William Temple (1881–1944). My contention is that Temple’s systematic philosophy contains resources for an interesting variant of a desire argument for God’s existence and for the truth of Christianity. This desire argument moves from claims about the nature of human reason to the conditions for its satisfaction and how that satisfaction might be achieved. In constructing this argument, Temple confronts the problem of evil, and so I will also outline his (...) response to the problem here. Temple is often overlooked in histories of philosophy, though he was conversant with philosophical classics, including Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Lotze, and, to list a few of the contemporaries or near-contemporaries: Balfour, Haldane, F. H. Bradley, A. C. Bradley, Moore, Bosanquet, Joachim, and Croce. He also acknowledges, in the preface to his main philosophical work Mens Creatrix, a special debt to Bergson, but also signals distance from him in the same place. Temple presents an interesting case of a philosopher and theologian (most of his books are a mixture of the two, some being more predominantly one or the other) because of his commitment to philosophical system in the midst of early analytic philosophy. (shrink)

How is metaphysics related to human culture? Any culture has at its base a concept of being. This concept of being is expressed through the power of the myth. Myth provides culture with a grasp of the whole, with the interrelations of the human, natural, and divine. The instinct to form the myth achieves its expression at the origin of culture. Once the origin is passed, myth passes into memory, but the instinct to grasp the whole of things remains. F. (...) H. Bradley claims: “Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct, but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.” Metaphysics is myth remembered. Once past the origin, the formation of being passes from the mythic imagination to the metaphysical imagination. The metaphysical imagination pursues an account of the whole of things through the power of the rational idea. (shrink)

Although context-processing deficits may be core features of schizophrenia, context remains a poorly defined concept. To test Phillips & Silverstein's model, we need to operationalize context more precisely. We offer several useful ways of framing context and discuss enhancing or facilitating schizophrenic patients' performance under different contextual situations. Furthermore, creativity may be a byproduct of cognitive uncoordination.

Although in modern times and clinical settings, we rarely see the old characteristics of tribal shamanism such as deep trances, out-of-body experiences, and soul retrieval, the archetypal dreams, waking visions and active imagination of modern depth psychology represents a liminal zone where ancient and modern shamanism overlaps with analytical psychology. These essays explore the contributors' excursions as healers and therapists into this zone. The contributors describe the many facets shamanism and depth psychology have in common: animal symbolism; recognition of the (...) reality of the collective unconscious; and healing rituals that put therapist and patient in touch with transpersonal powers. By reintroducing the core of shamanism in contemporary form, these essays shape a powerful means of healing that combines the direct contact with the inner psyche one finds in shamanism with the self-reflection and critical awareness of modern consciousness. The essays draw from the contributors' experiences both inside and outside the consulting room, and with cultures that include the Lakota Sioux, and those of the Peruvian Andes and the Hawaiian Islands. The focus is on those aspects of shamanism most useful and relevant to the modern practice of depth psychology. As a result, these explorations bring the young practice of analytical psychology into perspective as part of a much more ancient heritage of shamanistic healing. Contributors: Margaret Laurel Allen, Norma Churchill, Arthur Colman, Lori Cromer, Patricia Damery, C. Jess Groesbeck, Pansy Hawk Wing, June Kounin, Carol McRae, Pilar Montero, Jeffrey A. Raff, Janet S. Robinson, Meredith Sabini, Dyane N. Sherwood, Sara Spaulding-Phillips, Bradley A. Te Paske and Louis M. Vuksinick. (shrink)

This paper provides an exploration of whistleblowing as a protracted process, using secondary data from 868 cases from a whistleblower advice line in the UK. Previous research on whistleblowing has mainly studied this phenomenon as a one-off decision by someone perceiving wrongdoing within an organisation to raise a concern or to remain silent. Earlier suggestions that whistleblowing is a process and that people find themselves inadvertently turned into whistleblowers by management responses, have not been followed up by a systematic study (...) tracking the path of how a concern is repeatedly raised by whistleblowers. This paper provides a quantitative exploration of whistleblowing as a protracted process, rather than a one-off decision. Our research finds that the whistleblowing process generally entails two or even three internal attempts to raise a concern before an external attempt is made, if it is made at all. We also find that it is necessary to distinguish further between different internal as well as external whistleblowing recipients. Our findings suggest that whistleblowing is a protracted process and that this process is internally more protracted than previously documented. The overall pattern is that whistleblowers tend to search for a more independent recipient at each successive attempt to raise their concern. Formal whistleblower power seems to determine which of the available recipients are perceived as viable and also what the initial responses are in terms of retaliation and effectiveness. (shrink)

In this paper we explain our pretense account of truth-talk and apply it in a diagnosis and treatment of the Liar Paradox. We begin by assuming that some form of deflationism is the correct approach to the topic of truth. We then briefly motivate the idea that all T-deflationists should endorse a fictionalist view of truth-talk, and, after distinguishing pretense-involving fictionalism (PIF) from error- theoretic fictionalism (ETF), explain the merits of the former over the latter. After presenting the basic framework (...) of our PIF account of truth-talk, we demonstrate a few advantages it offers over T-deflationist accounts that do not explicitly acknowledge pretense at work in the discourse. In turning to the Liar Paradox, we explain how the quasi-anaphoric functioning that our account attributes to truth-talk provides a diagnosis of the Liar Paradox (and other instances of semantic pathology) as having no content—in the sense of not specifying any of what we call M-conditions. At the same time, however, we vindicate the intuition that we can understand liar sentences, thereby avoiding one standard objection to “meaningless strategy” responses to the Liar Paradox. With this diagnosis in place, we then, by way of treatment, introduce a new predicate, ‘semantically defective’, and show how the explanation we give for its application allows for a consistent, yet revenge-immune, (dis)solution of the Liar Paradox, and semantic pathology generally. (shrink)

Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) employ an evolving framework of calibrated language for assessing and communicating degrees of certainty in findings. A persistent challenge for this framework has been ambiguity in the relationship between multiple degree-of-certainty metrics. We aim to clarify the relationship between the likelihood and confidence metrics used in the Fifth Assessment Report (2013), with benefits for mathematical consistency among multiple findings and for usability in downstream modeling and decision analysis. We discuss how our (...) proposal meshes with current and proposed practice in IPCC uncertainty assessment. (shrink)

Auditory perception is traditionally conceived as the perception of sounds — a friend’s voice, a clap of thunder, a minor chord. However, daily life also seems to present us with experiences characterized by the absence of sound — a moment of silence, a gap between thunderclaps, the hush after a musical performance. In these cases, do we positively hear silence? Or do we just fail to hear, and merely judge or infer that it is silent? This longstanding question remains controversial (...) in both the philosophy and science of perception, with prominent theories holding that sounds are the only objects of auditory experience and thus that our encounter with silence is cognitive, not perceptual. However, this debate has largely remained theoretical, without a key empirical test. Here, we introduce a novel empirical approach, presenting experimental evidence that silence can be genuinely perceived (not just cognitively inferred). We ask whether silences can ‘substitute’ for sounds in event-based auditory illusions — empirical signatures of auditory event representation in which auditory events distort perceived duration. Seven experiments introduce three new ‘silence illusions’ — the one-silence-is-more illusion, silence-based warping, and the oddball-silence illusion — each adapted from a prominent perceptual illusion previously thought to arise only from sounds. Subjects were immersed in ambient noise interrupted by silences structurally identical to the sounds in the original illusions. In all cases, silences elicited temporal distortions perfectly analogous to the illusions produced by sounds. Our results suggest that silence is truly heard, not merely inferred, introducing a general approach for studying absence perception. (shrink)

When making decisions, people naturally face uncertainty about the potential consequences of their actions due in part to limits in their capacity to represent, evaluate or deliberate. Nonetheless, they aim to make the best decisions possible. In Decision Theory with a Human Face, Richard Bradley develops new theories of agency and rational decision-making, offering guidance on how 'real' agents who are aware of their bounds should represent the uncertainty they face, how they should revise their opinions as a result (...) of experience and how they should make decisions when lacking full awareness of, or precise opinions on relevant contingencies. He engages with the strengths and flaws of Bayesian reasoning, and presents clear and comprehensive explorations of key issues in decision theory, from belief and desire to semantics and learning. His book draws on philosophy, economics, decision science and psychology, and will appeal to readers in all of these disciplines. (shrink)

Blurb & Contents Readings from Physics Today With over 300 photographs and illustrations, this volume is a valuable library reference, a useful supplementary text for a wide range of courses, and stimulating leisure reading for physicists and non- physicists alike.

When agents violate norms, they are typically judged to be more of a cause of resulting outcomes. In this paper, we suggest that norm violations also affect the causality attributed to other agents, a phenomenon we refer to as "causal superseding." We propose and test a counterfactual reasoning model of this phenomenon in four experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 provide an initial demonstration of the causal superseding effect and distinguish it from previously studied effects. Experiment 3 shows that this causal (...) superseding effect is dependent on a particular event structure, following a prediction of our counterfactual model. Experiment 4 demonstrates that causal superseding can occur with violations of non-moral norms. We propose a model of the superseding effect based on the idea of counterfactual sufficiency. (shrink)

Causal judgments are widely known to be sensitive to violations of both prescriptive norms (e.g., immoral events) and statistical norms (e.g., improbable events). There is ongoing discussion as to whether both effects are best explained in a unified way through changes in the relevance of counterfactual possibilities, or whether these two effects arise from unrelated cognitive mechanisms. Recent work has shown that moral norm violations affect causal judgments of agents, but not inanimate artifacts used by those agents. These results have (...) been interpreted as showing that prescriptive norm violations only affect causal reasoning about intentional agents, but not the use of inanimate artifacts, thereby providing evidence that the effect of prescriptive norm violations arises from mechanisms specific to reasoning about intentional agents, and thus casting doubt on a unified counterfactual analysis of causal reasoning. Four experiments explore this recent finding and provide clear support for a unified counterfactual analysis. Experiment 1 demonstrates that these newly observed patterns in causal judgments are closely mirrored by judgments of counterfactual relevance. Experiment 2 shows that the relationship between causal and counterfactual judgments is moderated by causal structure, as uniquely predicted by counterfactual accounts. Experiment 3 directly manipulates the relevance of counterfactual alternatives and finds that causal judgments of intentional agents and inanimate artifacts are similarly affected. Finally, Experiment 4 shows that prescriptive norm violations (in which artifacts malfunction) affect causal judgments of inanimate artifacts in much the same way that prescriptive norm violations (in which agents act immorally) affect causal judgments of intentional agents. (shrink)

ABSTRACTRecent debate over the semantics and pragmatics of epistemic modals has focused on intuitions about cross-contextual truth-value assessments. In this paper, we advocate a different approach to evaluating theories of epistemic modals. Our strategy focuses on judgments of the incompatibility of two different epistemic possibility claims, or two different truth value assessments of a single epistemic possibility claim. We subject the predictions of existing theories to empirical scrutiny, and argue that existing contextualist and relativist theories are unable to account for (...) the full pattern of observed judgments. As a way of illustrating the theoretical upshot of these results, we conclude by developing a novel theory of epistemic modals that is able to predict the results. (shrink)

Many contemporary theorists charge that naïve realists are incapable of accounting for illusions. Various sophisticated proposals have been ventured to meet this charge. Here, we take a different approach and dispute whether the naïve realist owes any distinctive account of illusion. To this end, we begin with a simple, naïve account of veridical perception. We then examine the case that this account cannot be extended to illusions. By reconstructing an explicit version of this argument, we show that it depends critically (...) on the contention that perceptual experience is diaphanous, or more minimally and precisely, that there can be no difference in phenomenal properties between two experiences without a difference in the scenes presented in those experiences. Finding no good reason to accept this claim, we develop and defend a simple, naïve account of both veridical perception and illusion, here dubbed Simple, Austere Naïve Realism. (shrink)

Measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) has been fundamental to our understanding of how language is encoded in the brain. One particular ERP response, the N400 response, has been especially influential as an index of lexical and semantic processing. However, there remains a lack of consensus on the interpretation of this component. Resolving this issue has important consequences for neural models of language comprehension. Here we show that evidence bearing on where the N400 response is generated provides key insights into what it (...) reflects. A neuroanatomical model of semantic processing is used as a guide to interpret the pattern of activated regions in functional MRI, magnetoencephalography and intracranial recordings that are associated with contextual semantic manipulations that lead to N400 effects. (shrink)

Many transnational corporations and international organizations have embraced corporate social responsibility to address criticisms of working and environmental conditions at subcontractors' factories. While CSR 'codes of conduct' are easy to draft, supplier compliance has been elusive. Even third-party monitoring has proven an incomplete solution. This article proposes that an alteration in the supply chain's governance, from an arms-length market model to a collaborative partnership, often will be necessary to effectuate CSR. The market model forces contractors to focus on price and (...) delivery as they compete for the lead firm's business, rendering CSR observance secondary, at best. A collaborative partnership where the lead firm gives select suppliers secure product orders and other benefits removes disincentives and adds incentives for CSR compliance. In time, the suppliers' CSR habit should shift their business philosophy toward pursuing CSR as an end in itself, regardless of buyer incentives and monitoring. This article examines these hypotheses in the context of the athletic footwear sector with Nike, Inc. and its suppliers as the specific case study. The data collected and conclusions reached offer strategies for advancing CSR beyond the superficial and often ineffectual 'code of conduct' stage. (shrink)

Control measures, such as “lockdowns”, have been widely used to suppress the COVID-19 pandemic. Under some conditions, they prevent illness and save lives. But they also exact an economic toll. How should we balance the impact of such policies on individual lives and livelihoods (and other dimensions of concern) to determine which is best? A widely used method of policy evaluation, benefit–cost analysis (BCA), answers these questions by converting all the effects of a policy into monetary equivalents and then summing (...) them up. A different method, social welfare analysis, proceeds by determining the effects of a policy on individual wellbeing and then applying an aggregation formula to them to evaluate the overall effects of a policy. In this chapter, we survey these methods and argue that social welfare analysis has important advantages. One crucial advantage is that it enables ethical considerations relating to the impact of policies on individual wellbeing and its distribution to be incorporated into policy assessments in a transparent way. We illustrate this with a simple numerical model for evaluating pandemic policies that vary in terms of the stringency of the controls that they impose on individual behaviour, showing how the evaluation depends on the ethical significance accorded to their impact on the wellbeing of different age and income groups. (shrink)

A central theme in the scholarly literature on Enlightenment Europe concerns the increased focus on the role of reason in the development of European thought, especially in the development of the new science by the natural philosophers. As a consequence, there is a tendency in both philosophical scholarship and teaching to bind philosophy and science tightly together. While there is certainly much that is correct in this approach, one motivation for pluralizing philosophy’s past is that this story leaves out a (...) great deal that is important in Enlightenment views of reason. We argue, using as an example the work of figures like Margaret Cavendish, that reason was significantly broader in scope—and that developments in science were paralleled by equally important advances in music, art, literature, medicine, philosophy, and other areas. In recognizing the lack of a sharp boundary between these areas, an inclusive canon of Enlightenment philosophy gives us this richer notion of reason. Integrating figures such as Cavendish into the canon helps us to see that the narrow focus on the scientific version of reason within Enlightenment scholarship creates a false distinction between science and the humanities and misses out on the humanistic ends for which we engage in philosophy. (shrink)

The desirability of what actually occurs is often influenced by what could have been. Preferences based on such value dependencies between actual and counterfactual outcomes generate a class of problems for orthodox decision theory, the best-known perhaps being the so-called Allais Paradox. In this paper we solve these problems by extending Richard Jeffrey's decision theory to counterfactual prospects, using a multidimensional possible-world semantics for conditionals, and showing that preferences that are sensitive to counterfactual considerations can still be desirability maximising. We (...) end the paper by investigating the conditions necessary and sufficient for a desirability function to be an expected utility. It turns out that the additional conditions imply highly implausible epistemic principles. (shrink)

What are the truth conditions of want ascriptions? According to an influential approach, they are intimately connected to the agent’s beliefs: ⌜S wants p⌝ is true iff, within S’s belief set, S prefers the p worlds to the not-p worlds. This approach faces a well-known problem, however: it makes the wrong predictions for what we call (counter)factual want ascriptions, wherein the agent either believes p or believes not-p—for example, ‘I want it to rain tomorrow and that is exactly what is (...) going to happen’ or ‘I want this weekend to last forever, but of course it will end in a few hours’. We solve this problem. The truth conditions for want ascriptions are, we propose, connected to the agent’s conditional beliefs. We substantiate this connection by pursuing a striking parallel between (counter)factual and non-(counter)factual want ascriptions on the one hand and counterfactual and indicative conditionals on the other. (shrink)

There has been much recent interest in imprecise probabilities, models of belief that allow unsharp or fuzzy credence. There have also been some influential criticisms of this position. Here we argue, chiefly against Elga (2010), that subjective probabilities need not be sharp. The key question is whether the imprecise probabilist can make reasonable sequences of decisions. We argue that she can. We outline Elga's argument and clarify the assumptions he makes and the principles of rationality he is implicitly committed to. (...) We argue that these assumptions are too strong and that rational imprecise choice is possible in the absence of these overly strong conditions. (shrink)

According to the orthodox treatment of risk preferences in decision theory, they are to be explained in terms of the agent's desires about concrete outcomes. The orthodoxy has been criticised both for conflating two types of attitudes and for committing agents to attitudes that do not seem rationally required. To avoid these problems, it has been suggested that an agent's attitudes to risk should be captured by a risk function that is independent of her utility and probability functions. The main (...) problem with that approach is that it suggests that attitudes to risk are wholly distinct from people's (non-instrumental) desires. To overcome this problem, we develop a framework where an agent's utility function is defined over chance propositions (i.e., propositions describing objective probability distributions) as well as ordinary (non-chance) ones, and argue that one should explain different risk attitudes in terms of different forms of the utility function over such propositions. (shrink)

A number of tensions have been suggested between stakeholder theory and strategic management (SM). Following a brief review of the histories of stakeholder theory and mainstream SM, we argue that many of the tensions are more apparent than real, representing different narratives about stakeholder theory, SM, business, and ethics. Part of the difference in these two theoretical positions is due to the fact that they seek to solve different problems. However, we suggest how there are areas of overlap, and we (...) argue that some of the tensions may, instead, provide interesting ways to put the two areas of scholarship and practice together. We maintain that SM and stakeholder theory could mutually benefit from a more pragmatist philosophy. (shrink)

The standard interpretation of quantum mechanics and a standard interpretation of the awareness of pain have a common feature: Both postulate the existence of an irresolvable duality. Whereas many physicists claim that all particles exhibit particle and wave properties, many philosophers working on pain argue that our awareness of pain is paradoxical, exhibiting both perceptual and introspective characteristics. In this chapter, we offer a pessimistic take on the putative paradox of pain. Specifically, we attempt to resolve the supposed paradox by (...) undermining the reasons offered for accepting the introspective side of the dualism. (shrink)

Fears of black-box algorithms are multiplying. Black-box algorithms are said to prevent accountability, make it harder to detect bias and so on. Some fears concern the epistemology of black-box algorithms in medicine and the ethical implications of that epistemology. In ‘Who is afraid of black box algorithms? On the epistemological and ethical basis of trust in medical AI,' Durán and Jongsma seek to allay such fears. While some of their arguments are compelling, we still see reasons for fear.

We generalize an observation made by Goldblatt in "Diodorean modality in Minkowski spacetime" by proving that each -dimensional integral spacetime frame equipped with Robb's irreflexive `after' relation determines a unique temporal logic. Our main result is that, unlike -dimensional spacetime where, as Goldblatt has shown, the Diodorean modal logic is the same for each frame , in the case of -dimensional integral spacetime, the frame determines a unique Diodorean modal logic.