Imperial Plato presents new translations of three introductions to Plato's thought from the second half of the second century CE: the Introduction to Plato by Albinus of Smyrna, Dissertation 11 of Maximus of Tyre, and On Plato and his Teaching by Apuleius of Madaurus. These three presentations of Plato's ideas--one a Greek dialectic introduction with a suggested reading order for Plato's dialogues, another a Greek speech in the sophistic style of the time, and one a lengthy doxological study in Latin--are (...) examples by three distinct authors using divergent methods of the assorted ways in which Plato and Platonism were understood and discussed during the revival of Hellenism and Greek Philosophy, and the period of the Roman Empire often referred to as the Second Sophistic. (shrink)

Plato in the Third Sophistic examines the influence and impact of Plato and Platonism on later Christian and Byzantine rhetoric. The volume brings together specially commissioned articles from leading scholars of late antique philosophy and literature. Their examinations show that Plato is the single most important and influential literary figure used to frame the literature of this time. Plato in the Third Sophistic will help scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines better understand the development of Christian and (...) Byzantine rhetoric and philosophy during the third through sixth centuries. (shrink)

This volume concerns the status and ambitions of metaphysics as a discipline.

Review of extant research on the corporate environmental performance (CEP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) link generally demonstrates a positive relationship. However, some arguments and empirical results have demonstrated otherwise. As a result, researchers have called for a contingency approach to this research stream, which moves beyond the basic question “does it pay to be green?” and instead asks “when does it pay to be green?” In answering this call, we provide a meta-analytic review of CEP–CFP literature in which we (...) identify potential moderators to the CEP–CFP relationship including environmental performance type (e.g., reactive vs. proactive performance), firm characteristics (e.g., large vs. small firms), and methodological issues (e.g., self-report measures). By analyzing these contingencies, this study attempts to provide a basis on which to draw conclusions regarding some inconsistencies and debates in the CEP–CFP research. Some of the results of the moderator analysis suggest that small firms benefit from environmental performance as much or more than large firms, US firms seem to benefit more than international counterparts, and environmental performance seems to have the strongest influence on market-measures of financial performance. (shrink)

Editor's note: This article contains material similar to a book review by the same author previously published in The Pluralist, vol. 18, no. 2, pp 114–21. The present article represents a further critical use of this material that we deem worthy of publication.in this vital and splendidly crafted work, Bethany Henning recovers a philosophy of aesthetic wisdom far richer than the narrow epistemological lens dominant today. From its start, American philosophy looked beyond Europe's atomistic empiricism toward a continuity between our (...) thought and nature's aesthetic splendor. Jonathan Edwards found beauty in the structure of being reflected in relations among ideas. For Emerson, each of us is a "transparent eyeball"... Read More. (shrink)

This study explores the relationship between board environmental committees and corporate environmental performance. We propose that board environmental committees will be positively associated with CEP. Moreover, we argue that the composition of the committee as well as the presence of a sustainability manager will influence this relationship. Our results find support for a positive association between board environmental committees and CEP. Further, the presence of a senior-level environmental manager positively moderates this relationship, but is not effective in isolation. Unexpectedly, no (...) support was found for the influences of stakeholder representation. (shrink)

The Metaphysical Club, a gathering of intellectuals in the 1870s associated with Harvard, is widely recognized as the crucible where pragmatism, America's distinctively original philosophy, was refined and proclaimed. Louis Menand's bestseller about the group was a dramatic publishing success. However, only three actual members - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Charles S. Peirce, and William James - appear in this book, alongside other thinkers such as John Dewey who were never in the Club. The Real Metaphysical Club tells the full (...) story of how this influential group shifted the course of philosophy in America. In addition to pioneering pragmatism, the group explored radical empiricism and idealism, and formulated personalism and process philosophy, equally important developments. This volume contains thirty-seven important writings dating from 1870 to 1885 by the real members of the Metaphysical Club. The first section centers on pragmatism and science; the second part collects writings of the lawyers; and the third part covers idealist and personalist philosophers. Many of these writings have never been reprinted before, and nothing like this impressive collection has ever been attempted. A general introduction provides a narrative history, and the editors' three introductions to the volume's sections vividly bring to life the intense meetings, sustained debates, and pioneering thought from the Metaphysical Club. (shrink)

Process models are valuable conceptual tools to help in understanding the approaches to value creation in social enterprises. This teaching case illustrates the application of a process model about creating, building, and sustaining a social enterprise with a mission to provide clean water to communities in need. The social enterprise generates revenue in support of community water projects and works with community stakeholders in different locations throughout the world to provide sustainable clean water solutions. The case study uses primary data (...) from semi-structured interviews, direct observations of a community project, and archival sources to demonstrate application of the process model. The study shows how the social enterprise developed as a promising idea; was implemented through an operating model with resources to support social impact; and continues to build and evolve while guided by the social mission. The paper concludes with a discussion and teaching note on ways to use the case for educational purposes to enhance learning about the social value creation process. (shrink)

The essential guide to the life, thought, and legacy of Adam Smith Adam Smith (1723–90) is perhaps best known as one of the first champions of the free market and is widely regarded as the founding father of capitalism. From his ideas about the promise and pitfalls of globalization to his steadfast belief in the preservation of human dignity, his work is as relevant today as it was in the eighteenth century. Here, Ryan Hanley brings together some of the (...) world's finest scholars from across a variety of disciplines to offer new perspectives on Smith's life, thought, and enduring legacy. Contributors provide succinct and accessible discussions of Smith's landmark works and the historical context in which he wrote them, the core concepts of Smith's social vision, and the lasting impact of Smith's ideas in both academia and the broader world. They reveal other sides of Smith beyond the familiar portrayal of him as the author of the invisible hand, emphasizing his deep interests in such fields as rhetoric, ethics, and jurisprudence. Smith emerges not just as a champion of free markets but also as a thinker whose unique perspective encompasses broader commitments to virtue, justice, equality, and freedom. An essential introduction to Adam Smith's life and work, this incisive and thought-provoking book features contributions from leading figures such as Nicholas Phillipson, Amartya Sen, and John C. Bogle. It demonstrates how Smith's timeless insights speak to contemporary concerns such as growth in the developing world and the future of free trade, and how his influence extends to fields ranging from literature and philosophy to religion and law. (shrink)

AI and people do not compete on a level-playing field. Self-driving vehicles may be safer than human drivers, but laws often penalize such technology. People may provide superior customer service, but businesses are automating to reduce their taxes. AI may innovate more effectively, but an antiquated legal framework constrains inventive AI. In The Reasonable Robot, Ryan Abbott argues that the law should not discriminate between AI and human behavior and proposes a new legal principle that will ultimately improve human (...) well-being. This work should be read by anyone interested in the rapidly evolving relationship between AI and the law. (shrink)

The Novum Organum, (or Novum Organum Scientiarum - "New Instrument of Science"), is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, originally published in 1620. The title is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. This is now known as the Baconian method.

Can our beloved cats and dogs love us back? This chapter aims to find a satisfactory theory of love that substantiates the claim that they can. It begins by reconstructing and critically evaluating recent attempts by scientists to show that dogs can love humans back. Although these attempts are argued to be unsuccessful, it is further argued that they illuminate the need for an adequate theory of love and offer us some plausible ideas about love that direct us to two (...) recent philosophical theories of love that support the idea that dogs can love humans back. These two theories are discussed in detail before it is argued that dogs, but not cats, seem capable of loving humans under these theories. These theory-based defenses of the belief that dogs can love humans back are then criticized on the grounds that the theories they use are unsatisfactory because they fail to capture three central truths about love. This leads to a third theory of love that, after some friendly amendments, is argued to be a tentatively adequate theory that provisionally vindicates the claim that dogs, but not cats, can love humans back. (shrink)

The focus of this chapter is on some of the ethical and philosophical issues at the intersection of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) applications in the health care sector and medical assistance in dying (e.g. physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia), including: (1) Is there a role for robotic systems/AI to play in the orchestration or delivery of assisted dying?; (2) Can the use of robotic systems/AI make the orchestration of assisted dying more ethical?; and (3) What insights can be generated in (...) the ethical debate on physician assisted suicide and euthanasia from considering the prospect of robotic systems/AI assisting with the provision of or providing assistance in dying? The prospect of including robotic systems/AI in the context of assisted dying provides opportunity to revisit longstanding philosophical and ethical issues under new light. Indeed, reflecting on these questions may invigorate debate, for example in reconsidering the de-medicalization of assisted dying, reconsidering whether assisted dying is within the proper scope of medicine, and reconsidering which normative approach to the ethics of assisted dying is the most appropriate. (shrink)

Scientific research is almost always conducted by communities of scientists of varying size and complexity. Such communities are effective, in part, because they divide their cognitive labor: not every scientist works on the same project. Philip Kitcher and Michael Strevens have pioneered efforts to understand this division of cognitive labor by proposing models of how scientists make decisions about which project to work on. For such models to be useful, they must be simple enough for us to understand their dynamics, (...) but faithful enough to reality that we can use them to analyze real scientific communities. To satisfy the first requirement, we must employ idealizations to simplify the model. The second requirement demands that these idealizations not be so extreme that we lose the ability to describe real-world phenomena. This paper investigates the status of the assumptions that Kitcher and Strevens make in their models, by first inquiring whether they are reasonable representations of reality, and then by checking the models' robustness against weakenings of these assumptions. To do this, we first argue against the reality of the assumptions, and then develop a series of agent-based simulations to systematically test their effects on model outcomes. We find that the models are not robust against weakenings of these idealizations. In fact we find that under certain conditions, this can lead to the model predicting outcomes that are qualitatively opposite of the original model outcomes. (shrink)

For Plato and Aristotle, arete (traditionally translated as "virtue") was the essential object of human admiration and striving, and even the key to happiness. Their work continues to inspire reflection on fundamental questions of ethics and politics today, as the fourteen new essays collected here demonstrate. -/- Contributors: Lidia Palumbo, Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, Ryan M. Brown, Jay R. Elliott, Guilherme Domingues da Motta, Federico Casella, Jonathan A. Buttaci, George Harvey, Mark Ralkowski, Gary S. Beck, Paula Gottlieb, Giulio di Basilio, Audrey (...) L. Anton, and Elena Bartolini. (shrink)

When thinking of Plato’s discussions of virtue, many dialogues come to mind, but, assuredly, the Phaedrus does not. The word ἀρετή is used only six times in the dialogue. Unlike other dialogues, the Phaedrus thematizes neither the general concept of virtue nor any of the particular virtues. Given the centrality of virtue to Plato’s ethics and politics, it is surprising to see little reference to virtue in a dialogue devoted to love and to rhetoric, topics that have deep ethical and (...) political significance. -/- I argue that the Phaedrus makes important contributions to our understanding of virtue in Plato despite the infrequency of references. First, the dialogue juxtaposes competing conceptions of virtue: the “urbane” (cf. 227d) capacity to make things conform to one’s happenstance desires, championed by Lysias, and the “manic” capacity to conform oneself to reality, championed by Socrates. After clarifying that enslavement to pleasure-lust is the underlying condition of soul for Lysianic virtue, Socrates reveals that the non-lover’s “virtue” is, in truth, virtue in name only. Rather, true virtue emerges only when the soul becomes harmoniously ordered under reason’s guidance, a condition which is achieved through the soul’s encounter with beauty. Second, in the process of articulating how true virtue comes to be in the soul, Socrates gives grounds for distinguishing it from “self-restraint” (ἐγκράτεια), a condition of soul whose outward aspect may be indistinguishable from that of virtue. While a soul in which reason does not take the reins may act from self-restraint, it does not yet act from virtue. Third, the dialogue gives us resources for seeing how other people, such as artful rhetoricians, can influence one’s cultivation of virtue. At first glance, Socrates’s claim that artful rhetoricians can “hand over” virtue (270b) seems incompatible with his claim that virtue is unteachable (cf. Meno 86d-99e). However, the dialogue offers some resources for seeing that the unteachability of virtue and the capacity for rhetoricians to “hand over” virtue are not, in fact, incompatible. From these three points, we will see that the Phaedrus offers an intellectualist account of virtue reminiscent of what we see in other dialogues. The intellectualist vision here, however, is one that includes a positive role for the subrational elements of the soul rather than one that excludes them from relevance or actively seeks to suppress them. (shrink)

Coronavirus disease 2019 can lead to respiratory failure. Some patients require extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support. During the current pandemic, health care resources in some cities have been overwhelmed, and doctors have faced complex decisions about resource allocation. We present a case in which a pediatric hospital caring for both children and adults seeks to establish guidelines for the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation if there are not enough resources to treat every patient. Experts in critical care, end-of-life care, bioethics, and (...) health policy discuss if age should guide rationing decisions. (shrink)

These essays strike a judicious yet thought-provoking balance between theoretical and historical perspectives.

Nichols offers the first comprehensive interpretation of the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid's theory of perception - by far the most important feature of his philosophical system. Nichols's consummate knowledge of Reid's texts, lively examples, and plainspoken style make this book especially readable. It will be the definitive analysis for a long time to come.

When are morally good actions beautiful, when indeed they are? In this paper, it is argued that morally good actions are beautiful when they appear to express the deep or true self, and in turn tend to give rise to an emotion which is characterised by feelings of being moved, unity, inspiration, and meaningfulness, inter alia. In advancing the case for this claim, it is revealed that there are additional sources of well-formedness in play in the context of moral beauty (...) in addition to those that have tended to be focused on to date: one which is connected to imagining a deep location for the goodness concerned, and another which is connected to imagining that the goodness stems from capacities which are essential to the person. (shrink)

In this article, robust evidence is provided showing that an individual’s moral character can contribute to the aesthetic quality of their appearance, as well as being beautiful or ugly itself. It is argued that this evidence supports two main conclusions. First, moral beauty and ugliness reside on the inside, and beauty and ugliness are not perception-dependent as a result; and, second, aesthetic perception is affected by moral information, and thus moral beauty and ugliness are on the outside as well.

This book explores the constraints which justice imposes on immigration policy. Like liberal nationalists, Ryan Pevnick argues that citizens have special claims to the institutions of their states. However, the source of these special claims is located in the citizenry's ownership of state institutions rather than in a shared national identity. Citizens contribute to the construction and maintenance of institutions, and as a result they have special claims to these institutions and a limited right to exclude outsiders. Pevnick shows (...) that the resulting view justifies a set of policies - including support for certain types of guest worker programs - which is distinct from those supported by either liberal nationalists or advocates of open borders. His book provides a framework for considering a number of connected topics including issues related to self-determination, the scope of distributive justice and the significance of shared national identity. (shrink)

The work draws together a rich tapestry of material across many different disciplines, covering the crucial relationship between medicine and law from the early apothecaries to the modern-day general practitioner. It presents an invaluable overview of the subject and offers vital background reading to anyone interested in medico-legal medicine, as well as providing a springboard for students of medicine and law interested in researching the field through its remarkable diversity of reference resources.

Ryan Wasserman explores a range of fascinating puzzles raised by the possibility of time travel, with entertaining examples from physics, science fiction, and popular culture, and he draws out their implications for our understanding of time, tense, freedom, fatalism, causation, counterfactuals, laws of nature, persistence, change, and mereology.

This wide-ranging history of ancient Greek political thought shows what ancient political texts might mean to citizens of the twenty-first century. A provocative and wide-ranging history of ancient Greek political thought Demonstrates what ancient Greek works of political philosophy might mean to citizens of the twenty-first century Examines an array of poetic, historical, and philosophical texts in an effort to locate Greek political thought in its cultural context Pays careful attention to the distinctively ancient connections between politics and ethics Structured (...) around key themes such as the origins of political thought, political self-definition, revolutions in political thought, democracy and imperialism. (shrink)

We identified nearly 180 Black women who earned medical degrees prior to the start of the Second World War and found information regarding their family and social connections, premedical and medical educations, and internship experience or lack thereof for many of these women. Through their collective history, we observed large-scale trends, especially regarding the importance of “separatist” medical education and declining medical school attendance among African American women in the 1910s as medicine became an increasingly exclusionary profession. While our research (...) uncovered trends specific to Black women physicians, the implications of our research can be applied far more widely to other historically marginalized scientific practitioners. This research reminds us of the longstanding and shifting presence of Black women in science and medicine, despite the enduring popular belief that white men represent who participates in science, both historically and today. (shrink)

What is the nature of the concept BEAUTY? Does it differ fundamentally from nearby concepts such as PRETTINESS? It is argued that BEAUTY, but not PRETTINESS, is a dual-character concept. Across a number of contexts, it is proposed that BEAUTY has a descriptive sense that is characterised by, inter alia, having intrinsically pleasing appearances; and a normative sense associated with deeply-held values. This account is supported across two, pre-registered, studies (N=500), and by drawing on analysis of corpus data. It is (...) suggested that this can help to explain why beauty, unlike prettiness, is thought to be deep in both the sense of being important, and in the sense of being less closely tied to sensory surfaces. (shrink)

According to the most important objection to the existence of moral beauty, true judgements of moral beauty are not possible as moral judgements require being motivated to act in line with the moral judgement made, and judgements of beauty require not being motivated to act in any way. Here, I clarify the argument underlying the objection, and show that it does not show that moral beauty does not exist. I present two responses: namely, that the beauty of moral beauty does (...) not lie in the moral goodness per se (the “adjacent properties” response); and that only a dispositional motivation to act is required for the moral judgements that are typically made as part of judgements of moral beauty, whereas aesthetic judgements only rule out state motivations to act (the “equivocation of motivation required” response). In addressing the objection, I show how moral beauty is consistent with disinterestedness, and so should be accepted more widely; and also clarify where the beauty in moral beauty resides, and how the moral-aesthetic distinction should be drawn. (shrink)

Very diverse societies pose real problems for Rawlsian models of public reason. This is for two reasons: first, public reason is unable accommodate diverse perspectives in determining a regulative ideal. Second, regulative ideals are unable to respond to social change. While models based on public reason focus on the justification of principles, this book suggests that we need to orient our normative theories more toward discovery and experimentation. The book develops a unique approach to social contract theory that focuses on (...) diverse perspectives. It offers a new moral stance that author Ryan Muldoon calls, "The View From Everywhere," which allows for substantive, fundamental moral disagreement. This stance is used to develop a bargaining model in which agents can cooperate despite seeing different perspectives. Rather than arguing for an ideal contract or particular principles of justice, Muldoon outlines a procedure for iterated revisions to the rules of a social contract. It expands Mill's conception of experiments in living to help form a foundational principle for social contract theory. By embracing this kind of experimentation, we move away from a conception of justice as an end state, and toward a conception of justice as a trajectory. (shrink)

In this careful and compelling study, Ryan K. Balot brings together political theory, classical history, and ancient philosophy in order to re-conceive of courage as a specifically democratic virtue.

Which traits are beautiful? And is their beauty perceptual? It is argued that moral virtues are partly beautiful to the extent that they tend to give rise to a certain emotion— ecstasy—and that compassion tends to be more beautiful than fair-mindedness because it tends to give rise to this emotion to a greater extent. It is then argued, on the basis that emotions are best thought of as a special, evaluative, kind of perception, that this argument suggests that moral virtues (...) are partly beautiful to the extent that they tend to give rise to a certain kind of evaluative perceptual experience. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, a growing philosophical literature has subjected virtue ethics to empirical evaluation. Drawing on results in social psychology, a number of critics have argued that virtue ethics depends upon false presuppositions about the cross‐situational consistency of psychological traits. Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue has been a prime target for the situationist critics. This essay assesses the situationist critique of MacIntyre’s account of virtue. It argues that MacIntyre’s social teleological account of virtue is not what his situationist critics (...) take it to be. Virtues, for MacIntyre, are not reducible to psychological traits. They are qualities of one’s socially constituted character, and their intelligibility as virtues derives from their role in the narrative of one’s life. Recognizing this both clarifies and complicates debates about the implication of situationist social psychology for virtue ethics. It also grants a new significance to MacIntyre’s attention to the socio‐historical context of virtue, a significance that should be especially interesting to religious ethicists. (shrink)

This mixed methods study examines how college students’ perceptions and experiences affect their understanding of academic integrity. Using qualitative and quantitative responses from the Personal and Social Responsibility Institutional Inventory, both quantitative and qualitative results demonstrate that while campuses may see a reduction in overall levels of cheating when punitive academic integrity policies are present, students may develop higher levels of personal and academic integrity through the use of more holistic and community-focused practices.

Why are moral actions beautiful, when indeed they are? This paper assesses the view, found most notably in Schiller, that moral actions are beautiful just when they present the appearance of freedom by appearing to be the result of internal harmony (the Schillerian Internal Harmony Thesis). I argue that while this thesis can accommodate some of the beauty involved in contrasts of the ‘continent’ and the ‘fully’ virtuous, it cannot account for all of the beauty in such contrasts, and so (...) needs to be weakened considerably (to the Internal Harmony Thesis). To account for the remaining beauty that cannot be fully accommodated even by this revised thesis, as well as the beauty contained in contrasts that involve agents who experience internal conflict as a result of being sensitive to different sources of moral value to an appropriate extent, a number of further theses need to be posited: namely, that the beauty of some moral actions is to be accommodated in terms of internal disharmony (the Internal Disharmony Thesis), and in terms of a felt harmony between the appreciator of the action and the executor of the action (the Affective Harmony Thesis). As such, in contrast to Schiller, I suggest that we need to take a pluralist and context-sensitive approach to accommodating the beauty of moral actions. (shrink)

In The Conditions for Ethical Chemical Restraint, Crutchfield and Redinger (2024) propose ethical standards for the use of chemical restraints, which they consider normatively distinct from physica...

Young and colleagues . Betwixt life and death: case studies of the Cotard delusion. In P. W. Halligan & J. C. Marshall , Method in madness: Case studies in cognitive neuropsychiatry. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.) have suggested that cases of the Cotard delusion result when a particular perceptual anomaly occurs in the context of an internalising attributional style. This hypothesis has not previously been tested directly. We report here an investigation of attributional style in a 24-year-old woman with Cotard (...) delusion . LU’s attributional style was assessed using the Internal, Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire . A new measure of causal locus: the internal, personal and situational attributions questionnaire. Personality and Individual Differences, 20, 261–264.). LU showed a significantly greater proportion of internalising attributions than the control group, both overall and for negative events specifically. The results obtained thus support an association of Cotard delusion with an internalising attributional style, and are therefore consistent with the account of Young and colleagues. The potential brain basis of Cotard delusion is discussed. (shrink)

It is widely held that agent-neutral consequentialism is incompatible with deontic constraints. Recently, Kieran Setiya has challenged this orthodoxy by presenting a form of agent-neutral consequentialism that he claims can capture deontic constraints. In this reply, we argue against Setiya's proposal by pointing to features of deontic constraints that his account fails to capture.