The issue of communicated accountability is particularly important in Faith-Based Charity Organisations as the donated funds and use of those funds are often meant to fulfil religious obligations for the well-being of society. Integrating Stewart’s (1984) ladder of accountability with the Statement of Recommended Practice guidance for charities, this paper examines communicated accountability practices of Muslim and Christian Charity Organisations in England and Wales. Our content analysis results indicate communicated accountability to be generally limited, focusing on providing basic descriptive information (...) rather than judgement-based information. Our interviews with trustees and preparers of Trustee Annual Reports in Muslim Charity Organisations identified the reasons being due to high donor trust and consequently weak demand by stakeholders for the latter type of information, as well as internal organisational issues related to the organisational structure and culture, lack of internal professional expertise and high accountability cost. (shrink)

. American businesses and corporate executives are faced with a serious problem the loss of public confidence. Public criticism, increased government controls, and growing expectations for improved financial performance and accountability have accompanied this decline in trust. Traditional approaches to corporate governance, typified by agency theory and stakeholder theory, have been expensive to direct and have focused on short-term profits and organizational systems that fail to achieve desired results. We explain why the organizational governance theories are fundamentally, inadequate to (...) build trust. We advance a conceptual framework based on stewardship theory characterized by “covenantal relationships” and argue that design of governance mechanisms using a covenantal approach is more effective in building trust in organizations. A covenantal relationship is a specialized form of a relational contract between an employee and his or her organization. We argue that regardless of incentives and control mechanisms carefully designed through contractual mechanisms, in the absence of covenantal relationships it is extremely difficult to build trust within organizations. We propose that organizations are more likely to build trust – both at the organizational level and at the interpersonal level – when they create reinforcing and integrated systems that honor implied duties of “covenantal relationships.”. (shrink)

A victim of a crime may claim that the criminal must make restitution of the benefit gained at his expense. The enrichment may arise directly from the criminal act. For example, a criminal demands money with menaces or obtains Property by fraud. No legal system will allow him to retain his enrichment gained at his victim's expense. More difficult problems arise if the criminal's enrichment is an indirect enrichment, for example, if he or members of his family used information relating (...) to his criminal activities and published his story. The victim's common law claim may be defeated by such submissions as: the benefit was not gained at the plaintiff's expense or the criminal did not act wrongfully in using the information so acquired. There is also the forfeiture rule which insures, in England, that neither the legal nor beneficial title to property vests in the criminal; in contrast, in the United States, the criminal will be deemed to hold the property on constructive trust. These issues are discussed in Part I and Part II of the article respectively. Part III of the article discusses briefly the English legislation which seeks to deprive criminals of the profits of their criminal activities. An important statute, the Criminal Justice Act 1988, is not well drafted. The existence of such statutes should not exclude the possibility of a common law restitutionary claim where no confiscation order has been, or can be, made. This point is examined further in Part IV of the article, which discusses the implications of the important decision of the English Court of Appeal in Attorney-General v. Blake in 1998, where the defendants conduct amounted, not only to a breach of contract, but to a serious criminal offense. Part V of the article asks whether there should be further legislative intervention and suggests that the American statutes provide only limited guidance for the English draftsman. The nature and scope of any future English legislation must now take into account the United Kingdom Human Rights Act 1998. Its possible impact is discussed in the final Part, VI, of the article. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that trust plays an important role for the acceptability of data sharing practices in research and healthcare, and for the adoption of new health technologies such as AI. Yet there is reported distrust in this domain. Although in the UK, the NHS is one of the most trusted public institutions, public trust does not appear to accompany its data sharing practices for research and innovation, specifically with the private sector, that have been introduced in (...) recent years. In this paper, we examine the question of, what is it about sharing NHS data for research and innovation with for-profit companies that challenges public trust? To address this question, we draw from political theory to provide an account of public trust that helps better understand the relationship between the public and the NHS within a democratic context, as well as, the kind of obligations and expectations that govern this relationship. Then we examine whether the way in which the NHS is managing patient data and its collaboration with the private sector fit under this trust-based relationship. We argue that the datafication of healthcare and the broader ‘health and wealth’ agenda adopted by consecutive UK governments represent a major shift in the institutional character of the NHS, which brings into question the meaning of public good the NHS is expected to provide, challenging public trust. We conclude by suggesting that to address the problem of public trust, a theoretical and empirical examination of the benefits but also the costs associated with this shift needs to take place, as well as an open conversation at public level to determine what values should be promoted by a public institution like the NHS. (shrink)

This study examines how ambiguity in corporate objectives affects managers’ choice between opposing sustainability and short-term profit goals. We test this question with an experiment in which we vary whether environmental sustainability is included explicitly as a strategic objective that is used for managers’ performance evaluations. Findings show that managers increase biodegradable production and correspondingly decrease short-term profit when environmental sustainability performance is explicitly incorporated within the company’s strategic objectives. Also, managers in the implicit incorporation group are more likely to (...) decrease their biodegradable production when they learn that their counterparts within the firm have chosen to decrease biodegradable production in other product lines. Further, managers in the explicit incorporation group have greater trust in senior management, and that trust mediates the negative relationship between incorporation ambiguity and the level of biodegradable production. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed. (shrink)

This paper argues that current accountability mechanisms are inadequate to ensure that straight-commissioned agents meet their fiduciary obligations to their clients. In doing so, using agency theory, it revisits how the straight-commission compensation system creates agents’ dueling loyalties and recommends mechanisms of accountability organizations, agents, and/or clients can recognize and employ to ensure agents’ fiduciary obligations to their clients.

A short account of the philosophy of knowledge for students reading philosophy for the first time. It also serves as a general introduction to those interested in the subject.

The purpose of this book is to show how the science of biology has been influenced by ethical, religious, social, cultural and philosophical beliefs as to the nature of life and our human place in the natural world. It follows that there are accounts of theories and investigations from those of Aristotle to research in molecular biology today. These have been selected to illustrate the theme and there is no intention to present a comprehensive history of biology. It is suggested (...) that ethical beliefs in particular have a greater influence in biology than in other sciences, such as physics and chemistry, and this is because biology includes the study of ourselves and involves us in consideration of the value and purpose of life. Attitudes to non-human life are also coloured by ethical beliefs and though some philosophers, for example Descartes, thought that only human beings were capable of thought and feeling the general view has always been that animals were sentient. Our treatment of animals and our attitudes toward them have also been conditioned by religious views as to the position of humans in relation to the natural world. (shrink)

This book examines the place of mathematics in Berkeley's philosophy and Berkeley's place in the history of mathematics. Beginning with an account of the traditional "abstractionist" philosophy of mathematics which Berkeley opposed, it examines his case against abstract ideas as well as his differing accounts of arithmetic and geometry. Berkeley's critique of the calculus is also examined in detail, beginning with a historical treatment of the origins of the calculus, proceeding to analyze Berkeley's objections in his 1734 work "The Analyst", (...) and studying some of the many responses to Berkeley. (shrink)

When engaging in community-based research, it is important to consider ethical research practices throughout the project. While current research practices require many investigators to obtain approval from an ethics review board before starting a project, more is required to ensure that ethical principles are applied once the investigations begin and after the investigations are complete. In response to this concern, as expressed by workers at a feminist non-profit during a community placement, we developed a tool to foster both greater ethical (...) and feminist research practice in community-based research. Using feminist theories, methodologies, and concepts such as epistemic justice, epistemic trust, and coauthorship, a tool was developed to support researchers and other collaborators in building relationships of reciprocity. This tool, called the Research Responsibility Agreement (RRA) invites all members of a research project to explicitly reflect on their role in the research, their relationships with other collaborators, their responsibility to contributing meaningfully in the project, and their plans to remain accountable to one another. In doing so, the RRA adds to existing tools that support ethical research by sharing explicit reflections from all collaborators on how to prevent harm and by asking them to reflect on ethical practices beyond the initial stages of the project. The RRA also encourages greater engagement from researchers and collaborators toward building meaningful relationships with each other, and with participants, to work together in advancing social change. As a practical tool that promotes reflection, that builds relationships, and that holds all parties accountable to ethical and feminist research practices, the RRA has the potential to generate impactful change in community-based research projects and beyond. While the RRA is tailored to community-based research, it can be applied widely to any research project and has the potential to revolutionize how research relationships are built across disciplines. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between accountability, trust and corporate reputation building. Increasing numbers of corporations are mobilising themselves to put more and more information out into the public domain as a way of communicating with stakeholders. Corporate social accounting and stakeholder engagement is happening on an unprecedented scale. Rather than welcoming such initiatives, academics have been quick to pick faults with contemporary social auditing and reporting, claiming that in its current form it is not about demonstrating accountability (...) at all, but rather about building corporate reputation. Academics argue that ‘accountability should hurt’, that if accountability is an enjoyable process, then the organisation isn’t doing it right. For organisations that are currently engaging with stakeholders and ostensibly becoming more transparent about their corporate social performance, this kind of critique is likely to be bewildering. This paper argues that central to the notion of accountability and to contemporary social accounting practice is the concept of trust. Accountability is based upon a distrust of corporate management, whereas corporate reputation building is about strategically seeking to establish trust in stakeholder relationships in order to negate formal accountability requirements. Using a split trust continuum, the paper seeks to explain and synthesise what seem to be two very different paradigms of organisational transparency. (shrink)

Background Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, different countries sought to manufacture and supply effective vaccines to control the disease and prevent and protect public health in society. The implementation of vaccination has created many ethical dilemmas for humans, which must be recognized and resolved. Therefore, the present study was conducted to analyze the ethical considerations in vaccination against COVID-19 from the perspective of service providers. Methods The present qualitative research was conducted in 2022 in the north of Iran. (...) The participants included 23 health workers with at least five years of work experience and members of the COVID-19 vaccination team. The data were initially collected through systematic semi-structured interviews, then snowball sampling and finally continued until data saturation. The next steps were transcription of interviews, identification of meaning units, coding, categorization based on similarity and symmetry, extraction of themes and the analysis of themes through content analysis. Results The analysis of participants’ experiences led to the extraction of five main categories of themes and fifteen sub-categories of the ethical considerations of COVID-19 vaccination. Safe and standard vaccine production, vaccine supply, fairness, respect for autonomy, and accountability were the main categories. The subcategories included compliance with scientific and ethical procedures, effectiveness and profitability of vaccine, absence of severe adverse effects, allocation of resources for vaccine supply, vaccine availability, diversity and comprehensiveness of alternative vaccines, vaccination prioritization, prioritization of the vulnerable populations of society, autonomy of patient (equal rights), autonomy of community, autonomy of service providers, reporting correct information, reporting vaccine side effects, public trust and acceptance. Conclusion The health system managers should be adequately prepared to solve the ethical problems posed by COVID-19 vaccination. Therefore, it is recommended to avoid haste in vaccination and pay more attention to vaccination safety standards, provide sufficient resources for a comprehensive vaccine supply, pay close attention to collective interests versus individual interests, and meet community needs. (shrink)

Presenting real life cases from clinical practice, this book claims that children can be conceived of as moral equals without ignoring the fact that they still are children and in need of strong family relationships. Drawing upon recent advances in childhood studies and its key feature, the ‘agentic child’, it uncovers the ideology of adultism which has seeped into much what has been written about childhood ethics. However, this book also critically examines those positions that do accord moral equality to (...) children but on grounds not strong enough to support their claim. It lays the groundwork for a theory of moral equality by assessing the concepts of parenthood, family, best interest, paternalism, and, above all, autonomy and trust which are so important in envisioning what we owe the child. It does not only show how children – like adults – should be considered moral agents from infancy but also how ethical theories addressing adults can significantly profit from recognizing this. The analysis takes into account contributions from European as well as American scholars and makes use of a wide range of ethical, psychological, cultural, and social-scientific research. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between accountability, trust and corporate reputation building. Increasing numbers of corporations are mobilising themselves to put more and more information out into the public domain as a way of communicating with stakeholders. Corporate social accounting and stakeholder engagement is happening on an unprecedented scale. Rather than welcoming such initiatives, academics have been quick to pick faults with contemporary social auditing and reporting, claiming that in its current form it is not about demonstrating accountability (...) at all, but rather about building corporate reputation. Academics argue that ‘accountability should hurt’, that if accountability is an enjoyable process, then the organisation isn’t doing it right. For organisations that are currently engaging with stakeholders and ostensibly becoming more transparent about their corporate social performance, this kind of critique is likely to be bewildering. This paper argues that central to the notion of accountability and to contemporary social accounting practice is the concept of trust. Accountability is based upon a distrust of corporate management, whereas corporate reputation building is about strategically seeking to establish trust in stakeholder relationships in order to negate formal accountability requirements. Using a split trust continuum, the paper seeks to explain and synthesise what seem to be two very different paradigms of organisational transparency. (shrink)

According to doxastic accounts of trust, trusting a person to \(\varPhi \) involves, among other things, holding a belief about the trusted person: either the belief that the trusted person is trustworthy or the belief that she actually will \(\varPhi \) . In recent years, several philosophers have argued against doxastic accounts of trust. They have claimed that the phenomenology of trust suggests that rather than such a belief, trust involves some kind of non-doxastic mental attitude (...) towards the trusted person, or a non-doxastic disposition to rely upon her. This paper offers a new account of reasons for trust and employs the account to defend a doxastic account of trust. The paper argues that reasons for trust are preemptive reasons for action or belief. Thus the Razian concept of preemptive reasons, which arguably plays a key role in our understanding of relations of authority, is also central to our understanding of relations of trust. Furthermore, the paper argues that acceptance of a preemptive account of reasons for trust supports the adoption of a doxastic account of trust, for acceptance of such an account both neutralizes central objections to doxastic accounts of trust and provides independent reasons supporting a doxastic account. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION BY NANCY FUMERO What is a translation that stalls comprehension? That, when read, parsed, obfuscates comprehension through any language – English, Portuguese. It is inevitable that readers expect fidelity from translations. That language mirror with a sort of precision that enables the reader to become of another location, condition, to grasp in English in a similar vein as readers of Portuguese might from João Guimarães Rosa’s GRANDE SERTÃO: VEREDAS. There is the expectation that translations enable mobility. That what was (...) written in one language be accessible in another. And that a translator is to serve as a mediator, acting ultimately in service to ideas within the source text. To disperse them. However, this notion of translation is partly antithetical to the ideas in Rosa’s work. Or, alternately, to convey the despair of terrain slipping beneath one’s feet, and to encounter the heightened suspense of magic, the translation, as part of its strategy, cannot devotedly rely on its original language, not as its source text. The work undertaken by Felipe W.Martinez is a new form of translation that risks everything in order to encounter the same treacherous knowing Rosa had traversed. And it takes its risks by not taking risks: by being, almost word for word, a literal translation. This is an approach that reductively converts, as opposed to translates. The idiomatic differences between English and Portuguese are not accented. The syntax is not finessed. Liberties are not assumed on account of improving readability. What stands, resoundingly amid such absences, is the awakened challenge of reading. The genuine peril of not knowing. That is, this translation, one that purports to know nothing, creates access into the guileful world Rosa had created in Portuguese. But not by translating. If anything, GRANDE SERTÃO: VEREDAS is speaking a cosmic language through a linguistic one. And W.Martinez does us the service of recognizing this, as what configures the shapes of words and sentences is not as simple as neologisms, portmanteaus, and digressions, but as terrifying as the path the fool traverses: all paths. As such, this translation doesn’t speak English, just as the original does not speak Portuguese. It is the assemblage of paradox as a new logic that can be navigated, if only one could suspend the comfort of readability, of expectation. If one could descend a mountain in the pitch dark of night, each step shocking the body, unable to acclimate to the unleveled heights. Without a doubt, the translation is incongruous to the Portuguese. Taking a small excerpt to compare: Eh, well, thereafter, the rest the Sir provide: comes the bread, comes the hand, comes the god, comes the dog. What is striking is the interplay between “god” and “dog”. To most English speakers, this anagram is a familiar one. But in Portuguese the words god (“deus”) and dog (“cão”) are not so closely linked. In fact, there is no direct mention of “deus” in Rosa’s text: Eh, pois, empós, o resto o senhor prove: vem o pão, vem a mão, vem o são, vem o cão. Both are fascinating. In Rosa’s excerpt, the rhythm is unmistakable and precise, despite, of course, the indices of hesitation: the commas, the Eh, the uncomfortable way of searching through prolongation and wait. This is the sort of paradox Rosa can engage within a sentence. W.Martinez’s does this as well, at a scale that reverberates beyond the sentence, and with one noticeable addition: deus. What may appear to be an overstep, to add such a weighted word that draws out wordplay but is, nevertheless, not in the source text, is exemplary of risk. The translation buzzes because of it. This is because throughout the text we encounter dogs frequently, as some primal beast on par with humans. The dog is one that masters and can be mastered. A creature that is at times its face, and at others a mask. It is a powerful presence. For the translator to be attuned to the reverent undercurrent attributed to this animal, and create within the translation such charged play in English from what was only an implication in Portuguese, is in tribute to the grand beauty within dissonance. What aberrant modes of writing and translation can teach us most assuredly, is that things, words, are not in states of rightness or wrongness, but of oscillation. This isn’t so different from what Rosa says himself: The Sir look…see: the most important and beautiful, of the world, is this: that the people are not always same, still were not completed — but that they go always shifting. They tune or detune. We find this so readily in W.Martinez’s translation, this tuning and detuning. Nancy Fumero Los Angeles GRAND SERTÃO: VEREDAS BY JOÃO GUIMARÃES ROSA TRANSLATED FROM THE PORTUGUESE BY FELIPE W.MARTINEZ Nonothing. Shots that the Sir heard were man brawling not, God be. Bleach white sights on the tree in the backyard, down in the river. By my right. I do this every day, I like; from the bad of boyhood. Thereof they came to call on me. Case of a calf: a white calf, errorful, eyes of to not be—saw selves—; and with a mask of a dog! They told me; I didn’t want to catch a sight. Same that, by the defects of birth, upturned lips, looked to be a laughing man. Folkface, dogface: they determined—it was the devil. Bananas. Killed it. Do not know who owned it. They came to borrow my guns. I caved. I’ve no power to impose. Oh, sir, you laugh certain laughs…Look: when it’s a true shot, first the dogs begin to bark, instantly—after, then, you see who’s handed death. Sir, endure, this is the Sertão. Some want that it is not: that situated Sertão is in and out of those general fields, they say, end of the road, highlands, the other Urucuia. Toleima. For those of Cortino and of Curvelo, then, isn’t here said Sertão? Ah! That there’s more! To place the Sertão it’s told: it’s where the pastures lack latches; where one can tear off ten, fifteen leagues without running into a houseinhabitant; where criminalousness lives out its christ jesus. Sifted out from the tightening grip of the law. The Urcuia comes from the western mountains. But today, its banks, give all—farmlands of farms, pastures of meadows of good yield, low tides, cultures that go kill for kill, until these virgins there are. The general fields run round. These general fields are without size. Ultimately, whichever one one approves, the Sir knows: bread or breads, it’s a question of heads…the Sertão is everywhere. Of the devi? No comment. Sir ask the dwellers. Falsely I fear they unspeak that name of his—only say: whatsitcalled. Volt! no… Whosoever over avoids it, lives with it. In the sentence of one Aristides—who exists in the first palm grove on the right hand side, called Vereda-of-Cow-Calm-of-Saint-Rita—everyone believes: he can't pass in three designated places: then can be heard the tiny cry, behind, a little voice warning:— "Here I come! Here I come!... "— that is the Capirote, the whatsitcalled... And one Jise Simplicio—who anyone from here will swear he keeps an imp in house, a little satanite, imprisoned and obliged to help in all greedful deeds; reason that Simplicio emprises en route to complete riches. As such, for this they say too that his beast bristles and refuses, denying his banner, unyielding, when he wishes to mount... Superstition. Jise Simplicio and Aristides, continue getting fatter, thence unheard or heard. Still the Sir study: right now, in these days of time, you have people purporting that the devil proper stopped, mid-passage, in Andrequice. A boy out of there, to whom'd appeared, and there lauded that, to get here—normally, by horse, a day-n-half—he was capable of such with only some twenty minutes enough... by coasting the River of Chico by the headwaters! Or, too, who knows—sans offense—will not have been, for example, even yourself the Sir who announced such, when you passed by there, for fun run funny? Thereof, not my given crime, I know that wasn't. And evil I wanted not. Only that one question, in hours, at times, brightens peaceful reason. But, the Sir understand: if such a boy, there was, he wanted to dupe. Because, hey, that, to cut the river off by the springs, would be the same thing as one redoubling in the internals of this our state of ours, costant of a journey of some three months... Then? Whatsitcalled? Dodo. The fantastication. And, the respect of giving him such these names of delicacy, is what it is for one to want to invoke that he form of form, with his presence! Not that is. I, personally, almost that have lost in him the creed, deserving to Deus; is the that to the Sir I say, to pure-secret. I know that it is well established, that it greases our Saintly-Gospels. On occasion, I conversed with a young seminarian, super suitable, conferring in the book of prayers and coated in vestments, with a stick of black-sage in hand—prosed that he went auxilitator to the father, to extract the Cujo, from the body living of an oldwoman, in Waterfalls-of-Bulls, he went with the vicar of Field-Round... I conceive. The Sir not is as I? I didn't believe a single thing. Compadre mine Quelemem describes that that which reveals effect are the low spirits meager, of third, adoing in the worst darkness and with anxieties of connecting selves with the livers—they give support. Compadre mine Quelemem is who much me consoles—Quelemem of Goias. But he has to live far from here, in Jijuja, Vereda of Buriti Dark... Ahrr, I leave myself there, that in enevildemonment or with support—the Sir too must have had known diverse, men, women. As not yes? For me, umpteen I've seen, that I've learned. Ma-Neigh, Blood-o'Other, or Legion-Lips, or Tear-em-Down, Cold-Cutter, or Sissy-Goat, one Treciziano, or Verdigris... or Hermogenes... o'them, pileload. If I could forget so many names... I'm not a man for calming horses! And, same, whom of yes of to be jagunço self enters, yea is for some competence entrant of demonion. Will it not? Will it? From first, I made and mixed, and to think not I thought. I didn't have the deadlines. I lived pulling difficult from difficult, fish alive on griddle: who lives asp'rously, no fantasies. But, now, fete of fate to me comes, and sans little disquietudes, I'm from creaky net. And myself invented in this like, of to speculate ideas. The devil exists and nonexists? I say the saying. Opennouncement. These melancholies. The Sir sees: exists waterfall; and since? But waterfall is gulch of ground, and water so pouring from it, retumbling; the Sir consume that water, or undo that bankment, remainder waterfall any? To live is negotiation much perilous. I explain to the Sir: the devil vigors inside of human, the wrinkles of human— or is the human ruin, or the human of adversess. I free, per se, citizen, is that not has devil notone. Notone!— is the that I say. The Sir approve? Me declares total, frank— is high merit that me make: and to beg might, increased. This case— by rashtravagance that me they see— is of mine certain importance. God grant not was... But, not say that the Sir, awised and instructed, that agrees in people of them?! Not? You I appreciate! Your high opinion composes my value. Yea I knew, waited for it— yea the field! Ah, a we, in oldness, we lack of to have plowing of rest. You I appreciate. Is devil notone. Nor esprit. Never I've seen. Someone ought to see, then was I myself, this your servant. Was I you to tell... Well, the devil regulate his state black, ins creatures, ins womens, ins humans. E'en: ins childrens— I declaim. Since not is said: "boy—trainee of the devil"? And ins thes uses, ins plants, ins waters, in terra, in wind... Manures. …The devil in the street, in the middle of the vortex... Hey? Hey? Ah. Figuration mine, of worse by back, the certain memories. Mal-make me! I suffer pain of to tell not…Meliorate, if chillingly: well, in a ground and with equal format of branches and leaves, not give to cassava-calm, that is eaten common, and the cassava-mad that kills? Now, the Sir yea saw a strangeness? A cassava-sweet can rapidly to turn agonizing— motives not I know, at times is said that is for replanted in the terrain always, with mutations then, of caules—go embittering, of s’much in s’much, of its self takes poisons. And, well look: the other, the cassava-mad, too is that at times can fix calm, the estimate, of is to eat sans notone mal. And what this is? Eh, the Sir yea saw, for to see, the ugliness of hate pleated, facetorqued, on the faces of one cobrarattlesnake? Observed the porker fat, capita day more felicity brute, capable of, could, snort and engulf for its own dirty coziness the world total? And sparrowhawk, blackbird, some, the features of they yea represent the need of cleave for before, rend and shred by beak, appears a knife much fine for ruin I desire. Total. Has even twisted races of stone, horrorous, venomous— that spoil mortal the aquas, if they are buried beneath of well; the devil inside of them sleeps: they are the devil. Is known? And the demon— that is only thus the significance of one mercury malign— have order of to follow the path of him, have license to brag?! Arr, he is variegated in all! What the what wastes, goes spending the devil of inside of the people, by itttybits, is the reasonable to suffer. And the delight of love—compadre mine Quelemem says. Family. Really? Is, and not is. The Sir think and not think. Total is and not is… Almost all more grave criminous ferocity, always is much good husband, good son, good father, and is good-friend-of-your-friends! I know of those. Solo that have the afters— and Deus, joined. I spy many nimbi. But, in veracity, son, too, softens. Look: one called Aleixo, resident a league from Step-of-Sour, in Of-Sand, was the man of major badness calm that yea you saw. Me agreed that near the house of his had a weir, amidst the palms, with traíras, for souls of enormous, desenormous, to the real, that received fame; the Aleixo gave of to eat to them, in hours just, they self accustomed to if assuch of lunacies, in order to gobble, seemed to be fishes instructed. One day, solo for grace rustic, he killed an oldman who by there passed, destitute begging alms. The Sir not doubt—have people, in this bored world, that kill solo in order to see someone make grimace… Eh, well, thereafter, the rest the Sir provide: comes the bread, comes the hand, comes the god, comes the dog. This Aleixo was man afamilied, had children small; they were the love of his, total, absurdity. Gave good, that not even a year there passed, of to killed the oldman poor, and the children of Aleixo there they asickened. Smallepidemic of measles, they said, but complex; they never heal. When, then, they healed. But the eyes of theirs vermillionized high in an inflame of spraining to rebellion; and nexthing— the that not I know is if they went of at once, or one later and later other and other— they remained blind. Blind, sans remission of one sweet of light of this Ours! The Sir imagine: stairset— three boys and one girl— all blind. Sans remediable. The Aleixo not lost the judgment, but he changed; ah, mutated complete— now lives of band of Deus, sweating to be good and charitous in all his hours of night and of day. Appears even that he fixed the felicity, that before not was. He himself says he was a man of luck, because Deus wanted to have pity of him, to transform for there the route of his soul. That I heard, and me it gave rage. Reason of the children. If being castigated, what culpa of the let-there-bes of Aleixo those little children had?! Compadre mine Quelemem reproved my uncertainties. That, for certain, inother life returnaound, the children too had been the most wicked, of the mass and part of the father, demons of the same kettle of place. Sir the what thinks? And the oldman, assassinated? — I know the Sir goes to discuss. Well, too. In order that he had a sin of crime, in the body, by to pay. If the people— conforming compadre mine Quelemem is who says— if the people turn to to incarnate renovated, I contemplate even that enemy of death can come as son of the enemy. Look see: if to myself I say, has a subject Pedro Pindo, neighbor of here more six leagues, man of good for all in all, he and the woman of his, always been good, of goodness. They have a son of some ten years called Valtei—name modern, is the that the population of here now appreciates, the Sir knows. Well this-little-thing, thislet, since that some understanding illuminated in him, deed demonstrated the that is: petition stepfather, acid burner, likeful of ruin of inside of the profundity of the species of its nature. In which that torments, to the slowly, of all beasts or raisinglings little that quarrel; one time he found a creole woman hooched foolish sleeping, he arranged a shard of bottle, lashed at three points on the stern of the legs of hers. The what this boy drooled seeing, is bleeding hen or to knife pig.— “I enjoy of to kill…”— one occasion he teeny me told. He opened in me a fright; because: birdy that self leans over— the flight yea is ready! Well the Sir oversee: the pa, Pedro Pindo, mode of to correct this, and the ma, they give in him, misery and mast—they cast the boy sans to eat, they tied to trees in the yard, he nude, unplumed, even in June cold, they tilled the bittybody of his with the trammel and with the goblet, after they cleansed the skin of the sanguine, with bottle gourd brine. The people know, spy, fix wasted. The boy yea relowered of thinness, the eyes entering, caress of bones, enskulled, and tuberculated, the time total hacking, coughness of the that draw parched pectorals. Arr, that now, visible, the Pindo and the woman self habituated of on him hit, of little bit in little they were creating in this a pleasure ugly of diversion— as they regulate the canings in hours certain comfortable, until they call people to see the example good. I think that boy not endure, yea there is in the ta-da, not arrive for the lent to come… Ooee-ooee, then?! Not being as compadre mine Quelemem to want, that explication is that the Sir bestowed? That boy had to be a man. He should, in swing, terrible perversities. Soul of his was in the pitch. Demonstrated. And, now, paid. Ah, but, happens, when he’s crying and paining, he suffers equal that as was as a boy good… Bird, I saw all, in this world! Yea I saw even horse with hiccups… —the that the thing most costous that is. Good, but the Sir may say, should of: and in the start— for offenses and arts, the people— as for that was that s’much amended was started? Ey, ey, ey all collided. Compadre mine Quelemem, too. Am solo a sertanite, in these high ideas I navigate mal. Am much poor poor-thing. Envy my pedigree and of ones conform the Sir, with total reading and doctoration. Not is that I be illiterate. I spelt, years and middle, midly speller, memory and palmer. I had master, Master Lucas, in the Curralinho, he memorized grammar, the operations, rule-of-three, even geography and study patria. On leaves great of paper, with caprice I traced handsome maps. Ah, not is for to speak: but, since of the start, me they thought sophisticated of side. And that I merited of to go to course latin, in Lesson Waterlily—that too they said. Time nostalgic! Going today, I appreciate a good book, despaced. On the farm The Lilittlelemon, of one mine friend Vito Soziano, so sign of this almanac thick, of logoglyphs and conundrums and other divided matters, all year come. In s’much, I place primacy is in the reading advantageous, life of saints, virtues and examples— missionary astute engambling the Indians, or Saint Francis of Assis, Saint Anthony, Saint Gerald… I like much of moral. To ratiocinate, exhort the others for the good way, to acounsel to just. Mine woman, that the Sir knows, vigils for me: much prayer. She is a blessable. Compadre mine Quelemem always says that I may to aquiet my fears on conscience, that being well-attended, terrible good-esprits me protect. Eep! With like… As is of saint effect, I help with mine to want to accredit. But not even always can I. The Sir knew: I total the mine life I thought for me, lining, I am born different. I am and I same. I divert of total the world… I almost that nothing not I know. But I disconfide of many things. The Sir, conceding, I say: in order to think long, I am dog master— the Sir loose in mine front an idea ease and I research that by profundity of total the backwoods, amen! Look: the should of to have, was of so reunited-selves the wise, politicos, constitutions graded, closed the definitive the notion— to proclaim for one time, art assemblies, that not have devil notone, not exists, not possible. Valor of law! Solo assuch, they gave tranquility good to the people. Because the government not cares?! Ah, I know that not is possible. Not me settled the Sir for philistine. One this is to place ideas arranged, other is to deal with country of people, of flesh and sanguine, of thousand-and-many miseries… S’many people—gives scare of to know—and notone so calms: All nascenting, crescendoing, so wedding, wanting collocation of employment, consumables, health, abundance, to be important, wanting rain and affairs good… Of luck that lacks of so to choose: or we t’weave of to live in the salacious common, or care solo of religion solo. I could to be: father clergyman, if not chief of jagunços; for other things not was I birthed. But mine oldness yea principaled I erred of total account. And the rheumatism… There as whom says: in the primers. Ahem. Hey? Hey? The that more I think, I testify and explain: all-the-world is mad. The Sir, I, we, the people all. For this is that so lacks principally of religion: in order to desendodorize, to disdodoate. Pray is that heals of lunacy. In the general. This is that is the salvation-of-the-soul…Much religion your servant! I here, not I lose occasion of religion. I profit of all. I drink water of all rivers… One solo, for me is little, maybe not me arrives. I pray christian, catholic, I burrow the certain; and I accept the prayers of compadre mine Quelemem, doctrine of he, of Kardec. But, when I can, I go in the Mindubim, where one Matias is believer, methodist: the people so accuse of sinner, reads high the bible, and why, singing hymns beautiful of his. Total me quiets, me suspends. Whatever small shade me refreshes. But is solo much provisory. I wanted to pray— the time total. Many people not me approve, they think that law of Deus is privileges, invariable. And I! Doof! I Detest! The what I am? — the what I do, that want, much curia. And in face of total I face, executed. I? —not I trammel. Look: I have a black girl, Maria Leoncia, long from here not she lives, the prayers of her afame much virtue of power. Well to her I pay, every month— ordering of to pray for me one third, every saint day, and, on the Sundays, a rosary. Value, so values. Mine woman not sees mal in this. And I am, yea mandated word for an other, of the voyage-voyage, a Izina Calanga, in order to come here, I heard of that prayer too with grand mermermerits, I go to effect with she treatment equal. I want handful of those, me defending in Deus, reunited of me in volta… Cuts of Christ! To live is much perilous… To want the good with too much force, of incertain way, can yea to be being so wanting the mal, per to initiate. These humans! All they pull the world for itself, for the to concert amended. But capita one solo sees and understands the things of one his world. Amountain, the most supro, most serious was Mediero Vaz. That one man ancient… his Joaozy Ben-Ben, the most brave of all, no-one never can decipher how he by inside consisted. Joca Ramiro— grand man prince!— was politico. Zé Bebelo wanted to be politico, but had and not had luck: fox that lingered. So Candelario so demonized, by to think that was with illness mal. Titao Passos was the by the appreciation of friends: solo per via of them, of his same amities, were that such high so ajagunçoed. Antonio Do— severe bandit. But by half, grand majority half that be. Andalecio, in the profound, a good man-of-good, being raving in his total justice. Ricardao, same, wanted was to be rich in peace: for this he warred. Solo the Hermogenes was that born formed tiger, and assassinite. And the “Ofidios White”? Ah, not me speak. Ah this… joyless mischeivious, that was— that was a poor boy of the destiny… So good, congruous. The Sir heard, I you told: the ruin with the ruin, they terminate by the spine-bushes so to crack— Deus awaits that spendance. Boy!: Deus is patience. The contrary, is the devil. So consumes. The Sir file knife on knife— and file— that so they scrape. Even the rocks of the profound, one of in the other, they go-so aroundabounding even, that the rivulet rolls. Per enquantity, that I think, total as hath, in this world, is because so merits and lacks. Afterly precise. Deus not so reports with rifle, not garrotes the regulation. For what? Quit: goof with goof—one day, some illumination and learn: smart. Solo that, at times, for most auxiliar, Deus begets, in the middle, a pinch of pepper… Therebe? Well, for example: some time, I went of train, there in Seven-Lagoons, for parts of to consult a medical, of name me indicated. He went vested well, and in car of first, by via of the doubts, not me they shadowed for jagunço ancient. It goes and happens, that, close same of me, enfront, he took aseat, returning from the wild North, a mac Jazevedao, delegate professionale. Came with a capanga of his, an undercover, and I well knew the two, of that s’much a was ruin, as the other ruin was. The veracity to say, first I had the strict of me to surpasss for one lonng, to mutate of my place. Judgement me told, meliorate stay. Well, looking, I looked. And— you I tell: never I saw face of man furnished of brutez or malady more, of the them in that. As that was ogre, trussed of thickset, relustered of crude in the eyes small, and armed a chin of stone, toweringbrow; not of mid nor forehead. Not laughed, not so laughed not even one time; but, speaking or silent, the people appeared always to him some teeth, prey pointed of canids. Arr, and blustered, an ittybit. Solo growled curt, low, the mid-words grizzled. He came relooking, historicizing the documents— one by one the leaves with portraits and with the blacks of the digits of jagunços, lifters of horses and criminouses of death. That application of work, in one thing of those, generated the ire in the people. The undercover, busybodyguard, total close, seated joined, attending, excelling of to be dog. Me made a dread, but solo in the goof of the corpus, not in the intern of the courages. One hour, one of those reports fell— and I bent quickly, I knew there precisely by why, not I wanted, not I thought— even today I raise shame of this— I picked the paper of the ground, and delivered to him. Thereof, I say: I had more rage, because I did that; but there yea it was done. The man not even me looked, not even said notone thankfulment. Event he soles of the shoes of his— solo looking— that soles rough thick, bent of enormous, appearing iron bronzed. Because I knew: This Jazevedao, when he apprehended someone, the primary quiet thing that proceeded was that he came entering, sans to have to to say, feigning some hurry, and go stepping on the top of the feet of the poorthings. And that on these occasions he gave laughters, gave… Well, geck! I delivered to him the leaf of paper, and went leaving of there, by to have hand on me of not to destroy by shots that subject. Meat that much they weigh… And umbilicated beginning of belly pot bellied, that me created will… With my lightness, joyful that I’d kill. But, the barbarities that this delegate made and happened, the Sir not even has callus in heart to be able me to hear. He achieved of many men and women to cry blood, for the simple universolo ours here. Sertão. The Sir knows: sertão is where mandates who is strong, with the guile. And bullet is a tidbit of metal… S’much, I say: Jazevedao— one assuch, should of to have, needed? Ah, need. Leather ruined is that calls goad of point. That there be that, after— business particular of he— in the life or in the other, each Jazevedao, accomplished the that he has, desclimbs in his time of pain, too, until to pay the that he gave— compadre mine Quelemem is there, in order to fiscalize. The Sir knows: the peril that is to live… But solo of the mode, of these, by ugly instrument, was that the jagunsaga so finished. Sir thinks that Antonio Do or Olivino Oliviano were going to fix goodies by pure spelling of itself, or by begging of the infelicitous, or by always to hear sermon of father? You I think! In the aims… Of jagunço comported active in order so to repent in the middle of his jagunsagas, solo I lay of one: called Joe Cazuzo— was in smashing of one shotshow, for on the summit of the place Sierra New, district of river rusted, on the stream Traçadal. We made mal minority small, and they closed in order summit of us the personnel of one Coronel Adalvino, forted politico, with many soldiers uniformed in the center, commanding of the Lieutenant Epiphany Helm, that after fixed captain. We lasted hour more hour, and yea gave almost of encircled. There, of misslip, that Joe Cazuzo— man much valiant— so kneeled turned on the ground of the thick, lifted the arms that not even shoots of Jatoba dry, and solo yell, howl clear and howl deaf:— “I saw the Virgin Ours, in the resplendor of the Heavens, with her children of angels!... ” He screamed not touched. — “I saw the Virgin!... ” He ensouled? We desequaled. Bolt for my horse—that I thought— I leaped in mal seat, noteven I knew in which rupture-time I unfastened the halter, of tied up it foot of timber. I flew, arrived. Bullet come. The pasture roared. In the brush, the fear of the people so goes to the whole, one fear intentional. I could to lash out, fated burro brute, giv-that, giv-that. Some two or three bullets so drovein the pad of the mine saddle, they perforated of to tear away almost much the kapok of the filling. Horse trembled in pro, in middle of gallop, I know: thinks in the owner. I not fit of to be more well shrunken. Bulleted came to the sack that I had on the back, with few mine things. And other, of fusil, in ricochet decreed, heated my thigh, sans me wound, the Sir see: bullet does the what to want—so pierced impressed, between in me and the harness! Times crazy… Burumbum!: the horse so kneeled in the fall, dead perhaps, and I yea falling for front, embraced in foliage full, branched and linias, that me swayed and skewered, done I was pendulating in web of spider… Whither? I traversed that life total… Of fear of anxiety, I ruptured to read with mine corpus that forest, I know there — and me fell world below, rolled for the hollow of a grotto closed of shrubs, always me grasped— rolled same assuch: after: after, when I saw mine hands, total on they that not was withdrawn sanguine, was smeared green, on the digits, of leaves living that I pulled and mashed… I landed on the sedge of the profound— and a beast dark gave a releap, with a sneeze, too mad of fright: that was a papa-mel, that I descried; in order to flee, this is solely. Bigger being I, me doused mine overcoat; I spigotted total. And of one bit of thought: if that beast irara lying there then there not had cobra. I took the place of his. Existed cobra notone. I could me to lose. I was solo spineless, softness, but that not deadened, inside, the collisions of the heart. I gasped. I conceived that they came, me kill. Not even did mal, me mattered not. Assuch, some moments, at least I guarded the license of term in order me to rest. Conforming I thought in Diadorim. Solo I thought was in he. One joão-congo sang. I wanted to die thinking in my friend Diadorim, hand-o-bro, who was on the Sierra of WoodO’Bow, almost on the border baiana, with our other half of the so-candelarios… With my friend Diadorim me embraced, sentiment my went-flew right for he… Ay, arr, but: that this mine mouth not has order notone. I am accounting outside, things divagated. In the Sir me confide? Til-that, til-that. Say the angel-of-the-guard… But, conforming I came: after so knew, that same the soldiers of the Lieutenant and the goats of Coronel Adalvino remitted of to respect the blast of that Joe Cazuzo. And that this ended being the man most pacificious of the world, fabricator of oil and sacristan, in the Saint Sundays White. Times! For total, cleaned revelation, I fix thinking. I like. Meliorate, for the idea if well to open, is travelling in train-of-iron. Could, lived to top and to bottom, inside of it. Information that I ask: same in the Heavens, end of end, how is that the soul wins so to forget s’much sufferments and maladies, in the received and in the given? The how? The Sir knows: are things of hideous ofmuch, have. Pain of corpus and pain of idea mark forted, that forted as the total love and rage of hate. Goes, sea… Of luck that, then, the Firmiano, by appellationed Louse-of-Snake, so leoprosized with the leg disconformed, thickening, of that disease that not so cures; and not discern almost more, constant the branchials in the eyes, of the cataracts. Of before, years, had to of so disarray of the jagunsaga. Well, one occasion, some was on the ranch of his, on the High Jeuitai, after accounted—that, turns time, comes subject, he would say: “Me give yearning is of to seize a soldier, and such, for one good flay, with knife blind… But, first, to castrate…” The Sir conceive? Who has more dose of demon in self is Indian, any race of brusque. Folk see nation ofthese, for there profound of the generals of Goias, theofwhere has vagarous grand rivers, of aquas always so clear pleasantly, running of down crystal rosed… Louse-of-Snake gave of sanguine of heathen. Sir me will say: but that he pronounced that out of mouth, manner of to represent that yet not was old decadent. Opus of to oppose, for fear of to be tame, and cause in order so to see respected. Total listened for such rule: palavered of ruins, for more so valued, because we to the environs is hard durability. The worst, but, is that they finish, through the same ford, given of one day to execute the declared, in the real. I saw s’much crudity! Pain not pays to account; if I go, I collide. And me dedrip, three that me sicken, this total. Me convokes that the personnel, today in day, is good of heart. This is, good in the trivial. Malices wildwants, and perversities, always have some, but scarcities. Generation mine, true, was not assuch. Ah, goes to turn a time, in which not is used more to kill people… I yea am old. Good, I was saying: question, this that me excavates… Ah, I formed that question, for compadre mine Quelemem. That me responded: that, for close to heaven, we so amplified so, that total the uglies past so exhaled of not to be—fated sans-modus from time of youngster, mal-arts. As we not lack of to have remorse of the which divulged in the pulsation of his nightmares of one night. Assuch that: fleeced-so, flourished-so! Ahem. For this said, is that the journey to the Heavens is delayed. I confide with compadre mine Quelemem, the Sir knows: reason of creed same that has—that, for total the mal, that so does, one day so repays, the exact. Subject assuch rises three times, in ante of to want to facilitate in any minutia reprehensible… Compadre mine Quelemem never speaks vacant, not subtreats. Solo that this to he not I go to expose. We never should have to declare that accept entire the alien—that is what is the rule of the king! The Sir look…see: the most important and beautiful, of the world, is this: that the people are not always same, still were not completed — but that they go always shifting. They tune or detune. Truth major. Is the that the life me taught. This that me animates, mound. And, other thing: the devil and the brutes; but Deus is treacherous! Ah, a beauty of treacherous— gives like! The force of his, when he wants— boy!— me gives the fear dread! Deus comes coming: no one not sees. He does in the law of gentle— assuch is the miracle. And Deus attacks beautiful, so amusing, so economizes. The well: one day in a tannery, the little knife mine I had dropped inside of a tank, solo soup of bark of tan, stryphnodendron adstringens, angico, there I know. —“Tomorrow I try…”— I said, withmyself. Because it was of night, light notone I not disputed. Ah, then, I found: on the other day, early, the knife, the iron of it, had been gnawed, almost by half, by that aqua dark, total quiet. I left, for more to see. Crack, fuse! Know the what was? Well, in that same of afternoon, there: of the little knife solo so found the handle… The handle, for not to be of cold metal, but of horn of deer. There is: Deus… Good, the Sir heard knows, the that knows me understands… We sum, not think that religion fractures. Sir think the contrary. Visible that, those other times, I painted—belief that the neoglaziovia variegata lifts the flower. Ah, good my joy… Boyhood. But boyhood is task for more later so to deny. Too, I of that of to think in vague in s’much, lost mine hand-of-man for the management hot, in the middle of all. But, today, that I ratiocinated, and think the endeavor, not nor for this not I give for low my competence, in a fire-and-iron. The to see. Would approach would come here with war on me, with bad parts, with other laws, or with excessive looks, and I even draw to ignite this zone, ay, if, if! Is in the mouth of the blunderbuss: is in the rete-te-tem… And lonelyonly not I am, there-of-the. For not this, I was I placed encircle my mine people. Look the Sir: here, close, vereda below, the Paspe — cropper my — is mine. More league, if that, have the Herpetotheres, and have the compadre Ciril, him and three children, I know that they serve. Band of that hand, the Alaripe: knew the Sir the that is that so boasts, in rifleation and by the knife, one cearense did this! After more: the João Innatal, the Quipes, Lophiosilurus-of-claws. And the Fafafa— this gave fights high, all side with me, in the combat old of the Anteater-such: we cleaned the wind of whom not had order of to respirate, and ante these we desencompassed… The Fafafa has a mass of mares. He raises horses good. Even a little more distant, on the ped-of-sierra, of band mine was the Sesfred, Jesualdo, the Nelson, and João Concliz. Some others. The Triol… And not I go valuing? I leave terra with them, of theirs the what is mine is, we close that we not even brothers. For what I want to gather richness? They are there, of arms aireated. Enemy to come, we cross called, gathering: is hour of one good shotshowerment in peace, they exp’riment to see. I say this to the Sir, of confidence. Too, not go to think in double. We want is to work, propose tranquility. Of me, person, I live for mine woman, that total mode-meliorate merits, and for the devotion. Well-to want of mine woman was that me assisted, prayers of hers, graces. Love comes of love. I say. In Diadorim, I think too— but Diadorim is the mine nebulina… Now, well: not I wanted to touch on this more— of the Tineaous; arrive. But has a nevertheless: I ask: the Sir believe, think trust of truth in that parlance, of with the demon so to able to deal with pact? No, no is no? I knew that not there. I spoke of favas. But I like of total good confirmation. To vend you proper soul… Inventionate false! And, soul, the what is? Soul of has to be thing internal supremed, much more of the of inside, and is solo, of the that one if thought: ah, soul sheer! Decision of to vend soul is fearless moll, fantasied of moment, has not the obedience legal. Can I to vend those good terras, thereof of between the Veredas-Four— that are of one Mr. Admiral, who resides in the capital federal? Can I some? Then, if one boy boy is, and for this not so authorizes of to negotiate… And we, this I know, at times is solo fated boy. Mal that in mine life I prepared, I was in a certain infancy in dreams — total runs and arrives so swift —; will be that if hath flame of responsibilities? If dream; yea so did… I gave rapadura to the chump! Ahem. Well. If his soul, and has, it is of Deus established, not even that the person want or not want. Not is vendible. The Sir not thinks? Me declare, frank, I beg. Ah, you I appreciate. You so see that the Sir knows much, in idea firm, beyond of to have letter of doctor. You I appreciate, for much. Your company me gives high pleasures. In terms, I liked that I would live here, or close, was a help. Here not so has conviviation that to instruct. Sertão. Knows the Sir: sertão is where the thought of the people so forms more forted of the than power of the place. To live is much perilous… Eh, that you so go? Yeayea? Is that not. Today, no. Tomorrow, no. Not I consense. The Sir me forgive, but in endeavor of mine friendship accept: the Sir stay. After fifth of-morning-early, the Sir wanting to go, then goes, same me leaves feeling your absence. But, today or tomorrow, no. Visit, here in house, with me, is for three days! But, the Sir really intends to trespass the field this sea of territotires, for sortment of to confer the what exists? You have your motives. Now— I say for me — the Sir comes, came late, Times were, the customs mutate. Almost that, of legitimate loyal, little surplus, not even no excess more nothing. The bands good of valientoughs they reparted their end; many who were jagunço, by ouch pain, beg alms. Same as the herdsmen they doubt of to come in the commerce vested of clothes entire of leather, they think that garb of jerkin is ugly and boor. And even the herd in the shrubbed pasture goes waning less mad, more educated: casted of zebu, dissee with the rest of corralers and captiveborns. Always, in the generals is to the poverty, to the sadness. A sadness that even gladdens. But, then, for a crop reasonable of bizzarancies, I recounsel of the Sir to entest journey more dilated. Not were my desmight, by acids and rheumatism, there I went. I guided the Sir till total. March 2013 San Diego, CA ORIGINAL TEXT NONADA. TIROS QUE O SENHOR ouviu foram de briga de homem não, Deus esteja. Alvejei mira em árvores no quintal, no baixo do córrego. Por meu acerto. Todo dia isso faço, gosto; desde mal em minha mocidade. Daí, vieram me chamar. Causa dumbezerro: um bezerro branco, erroso, os olhos de nem ser – se viu –; e com máscara de cachorro. Me disseram; eu não quis avistar. Mesmo que, por defeito como nasceu, arrebitado de beiços, esse figurava rindo feito pessoa. Cara de gente, cara de cão: determinaram – era o demo. Povo prascóvio. Mataram. Dono dele nem sei quem for. Vieram emprestar minhas armas, cedi. Não tenho abusões. O senhor ri certas risadas... Olhe: quando é tiro de verdade, primeiro a cachorrada pega a latir, instantaneamente – depois, então, se vai ver se deu mortos. O senhor tolere, isto é o sertão. Uns querem que não seja: que situado sertão é por os campos-gerais a fora a dentro, eles dizem, fim de rumo, terras altas, demais do Urucuia. Toleima. Para os de Corinto e do Curvelo, então, o aqui não é dito sertão? Ah, que tem maior! Lugar sertão se divulga: é onde os pastos carecem de fechos; onde um pode torar dez, quinze léguas, sem topar com casa de morador; e onde criminoso vive seu cristo-jesus, arredado do arrocho de autoridade. O Urucuia vem dos montões oestes. Mas, hoje, que na beira dele, tudo dá – fazendões de fazendas, almargem de vargens de bom render, as vazantes; culturas que vão de mata em mata, madeiras de grossura, até ainda virgens dessas lá há. O gerais corre em volta. Esses gerais são sem tamanho. Enfim, cada um o que quer aprova, o senhor sabe: pão ou pães, é questão de opiniães... O sertão está em toda a parte. Do demo? Não gloso. Senhor pergunte aos moradores. Em falso receio, desfalam no nome dele – dizem só: o Que-Diga. Vote! não... Quem muito se evita, se convive. Sentença num Aristides – o que existe no buritizal primeiro desta minha mão direita, chamado a Vereda-da-Vaca-Mansa-deSanta-Rita – todo o mundo crê: ele não pode passar em três lugares, designados: porque então a gente escuta um chorinho, atrás, e uma vozinha que avisando: – “Eu já vou! Eu já vou!...” – que é o capiroto, o que-diga... E um José Simpilício – quem qualquer daqui jura ele tem um capeta em casa, miúdo satanazim, preso obrigado a ajudar em toda ganância que executa; razão que o Simpilício se empresa em vias de completar de rico. Apre, por isso dizem também que a besta pra ele rupeia, nega de banda, não deixando, quando ele quer amontar... Superstição. José Simpilício e Aristides, mesmo estão se engordando, de assim nãoouvir ou ouvir. Ainda o senhor estude: agora mesmo, nestes dias de época, tem gente porfalando que o Diabo próprio parou, de passagem, no Andrequicé. Um Moço de fora, teria aparecido, e lá se louvou que, para aqui vir – normal, a cavalo, dum dia-e-meio – ele era capaz que só com uns vinte minutos bastava... porque costeava o Rio do Chico pelas cabeceiras! Ou, também, quem sabe – sem ofensas – não terá sido, por um exemplo, até mesmo o senhor quem se anunciou assim, quando passou por lá, por prazido divertimento engraçado? Há-de, não me dê crime, sei que não foi. E mal eu não quis. Só que uma pergunta, em hora, às vezes, clareia razão de paz. Mas, o senhor entenda: o tal moço, se há, quis mangar. Pois, hem, que, despontar o Rio pelas nascentes, será a mesma coisa que um se redobrar nos internos deste nosso Estado nosso, custante viagem de uns três meses... Então? Que-Diga? Doideira. A fantasiação. E, o respeito de dar a ele assim esses nomes de rebuço, é que é mesmo um querer invocar que ele forme forma, com as presenças! Não seja. Eu, pessoalmente, quase que já perdi nele a crença, mercês a Deus; é o que ao senhor lhe digo, à puridade. Sei que é bem estabelecido, que grassa nos Santos- Evangelhos. Em ocasião, conversei com um rapaz seminarista, muito condizente, conferindo no livro de rezas e revestido de paramenta, com uma vara de maria-preta na mão – proseou que ia adjutorar o padre, para extraírem o Cujo, do corpo vivo de uma velha, na Cachoeira-dos-Bois, ele ia com o vigário do Campo-Redondo... Me concebo. O senhor não é como eu? Não acreditei patavim. Compadre meu Quelemém descreve que o que revela efeito são os baixos espíritos descarnados, de terceira, fuzuando nas piores trevas e com ânsias de se travarem com os viventes – dão encosto. Compadre meu Quelemém é quem muito me consola – Quelemém de Góis. Mas ele tem de morar longe daqui, na Jijujã, Vereda do Buriti Pardo... Arres, me deixe lá, que – em endemoninhamento ou com encosto – o senhor mesmo deverá de ter conhecido diversos, homens, mulheres. Pois não sim? Por mim, tantos vi, que aprendi. Rincha- Mãe, Sangued’Outro, o Muitos-Beiços, o Rasgaem-Baixo, Faca-Fria, o Fancho-Bode, um Treciziano, o Azinhavre... o Hermógenes... Deles, punhadão. Se eu pudesse esquecer tantos nomes... Não sou amansador de cavalos! E, mesmo, quem de si de ser jagunço se entrete, já é por alguma competência entrante do demônio. Será não? Será? De primeiro, eu fazia e mexia, e pensar não pensava. Não possuía os prazos. Vivi puxando difícil de dificel, peixe vivo no moquém: quem mói no asp’ro, não fantaseia. Mas, agora, feita a folga que me vem, e sem pequenos dessossegos, estou de range rede. E me inventei neste gosto, de especular idéia. O diabo existe e não existe? Dou o dito. Abrenúncio. Essas melancolias. O senhor vê: existe cachoeira; e pois? Mas cachoeira é barranco de chão, e água se caindo por ele, retombando; o senhor consome essa água, ou desfaz o barranco, sobra cachoeira alguma? Viver é negócio muito perigoso... Explico ao senhor: o diabo vige dentro do homem, os crespos do homem – ou é o homem arruinado, ou o homem dos avessos. Solto, por si, cidadão, é que não tem diabo nenhum. Nenhum! – é o que digo. O senhor aprova? Me declare tudo, franco – é alta mercê que me faz: e pedir posso, encarecido. Este caso – por estúrdio que me vejam – é de minha certa importância. Tomara não fosse... Mas, não diga que o senhor, assisado e instruído, que acredita na pessoa dele?! Não? Lhe agradeço! Sua alta opinião compõe minha valia. Já sabia, esperava por ela-já o campo! Ah, a gente, na velhice, carece de ter sua aragem de descanso. Lhe agradeço. Tem diabo nenhum. Nem espírito. Nunca vi. Alguém devia de ver, então era eu mesmo, este vosso servidor. Fosse lhe contar... Bem, o diabo regula seu estado preto, nas criaturas, nas mulheres, nos homens. Até: nas crianças – eu digo. Pois não é ditado: “menino – trem do diabo”? E nos usos, nas plantas, nas águas, na terra, no vento... Estrumes. ... O diabo na rua, no meio do redemunho... Hem? Hem? Ah. Figuração minha, de pior pra trás, as certas lembranças. Mal hajame! Sofro pena de contar não... Melhor, se arrepare: pois, num chão, e com igual formato de ramos e folhas, não dá a mandioca mansa, que se come comum, e a mandioca-brava, que mata? Agora, o senhor já viu uma estranhez? A mandioca-doce pode de repente virar azangada – motivos não sei; às vezes se diz que é por replantada no terreno sempre, com mudas seguidas, de manaíbas – vai em amargando, de tanto em tanto, de si mesma toma peçonhas. E, ora veja: a outra, a mandiocabrava, também é que às vezes pode ficar mansa, a esmo, de se comer sem nenhum mal. E que isso é? Eh, o senhor já viu, por ver, a feiúra de ódio franzido, carantonho, nas faces duma cobra cascavel? Observou o porco gordo, cada dia mais feliz bruto, capaz de, pudesse, roncar e engolir por sua suja comodidade o mundo todo? E gavião, corvo, alguns, as feições deles já representam a precisão de talhar para adiante, rasgar e estraçalhar a bico, parece uma quicé muito afiada por ruim desejo. Tudo. Tem até tortas raças de pedras, horrorosas, venenosas – que estragam mortal a água, se estão jazendo em fundo de poço; o diabo dentro delas dorme: são o demo. Se sabe? E o demo – que é só assim o significado dum azougue maligno – tem ordem de seguir o caminho dele, tem licença para campear?! Arre, ele está misturado em tudo. Que o que gasta, vai gastando o diabo de dentro da gente, aos pouquinhos, é o razoável sofrer. E a alegria de amor – compadre meu Quelemém, diz. Família. Deveras? É, e não é. O senhor ache e não ache. Tudo é e não é... Quase todo mais grave criminoso feroz, sempre é muito bom marido, bom filho, bom pai, e é bom amigo-de-seus-amigos! Sei desses. Só que tem os depois – e Deus, junto. Vi muitas nuvens. Mas, em verdade, filho, também, abranda. Olhe: um chamado Aleixo, residente a légua do Passo do Pubo, no da-Areia, era o homem de maiores ruindades calmas que já se viu. Me agradou que perto da casa dele tinha um açudinho, entre as palmeiras, com traíras, pra-almas de enormes, desenormes, ao real, que receberam fama; o Aleixo dava de comer a elas, em horas justas, elas se acostumaram a se assim das locas, para papar, semelhavam ser peixes ensinados. Um dia, só por graça rústica, ele matou um velhinho que por lá passou, desvalido rogando esmola. O senhor não duvide – tem gente, neste aborrecido mundo, que matam só para ver alguém fazer careta... Eh, pois, empós, o resto o senhor prove: vem o pão, vem a mão, vem o são, vem o cão. Esse Aleixo era homem afamilhado, tinha filhos pequenos; aqueles eram o amor dele, todo, despropósito. Dê bem, que não nem um ano estava passado, de se matar o velhinho pobre, e os meninos do Aleixo aí adoeceram. Andaço de sarampão, se disse, mas complicado; eles nunca saravam. Quando, então, sararam. Mas os olhos deles vermelhavam altos, numa inflama de sapiranga à rebelde; e susseguinte – o que não sei é se foram todos duma vez, ou um logo e logo outro e outro – eles restaram cegos. Cegos, sem remissão dum favinho de luz dessa nossa! O senhor imagine: uma escadinha – três meninos e uma menina – todos cegados. Sem remediável. O Aleixo não perdeu o juizo; mas mudou: ah, demudou completo – agora vive da banda de Deus, suando para ser bom e caridoso em todas suas horas da noite e do dia. Parece até que ficou o feliz, que antes não era. Ele mesmo diz que foi um homem de sorte, porque Deus quis ter pena dele, transformar para lá o rumo de sua alma. Isso eu ouvi, e me deu raiva. Razão das crianças. Se sendo castigo, que culpa das hajas do Aleixo aqueles meninozinhos tinham?! Compadre meu Quelemém reprovou minhas incertezas. Que, por certo, noutra vida revirada, os meninos também tinham sido os mais malvados, da massa e peça do pai, demônios do mesmo caldeirão de lugar. Senhor o que acha? E o velhinho assassinado? – eu sei que o senhor vai discutir. Pois, também. Em ordem que ele tinha um pecado de crime, no corpo, por pagar. Se a gente – conforme compadre meu Quelemém é quem diz – se a gente torna a encarnar renovado, eu cismo até que inimigo de morte pode vir como filho do inimigo. Mire veja: se me digo, tem um sujeito Pedro Pindó, vizinho daqui mais seis léguas, homem de bem por tudo em tudo, ele e a mulher dele, sempre sidos bons, de bem. Eles têm um filho duns dez anos, chamado Valtei – nome moderno, é o que o povo daqui agora apreceia, o senhor sabe. Pois essezinho, essezim, desde que algum entendimento alumiou nele, feito mostrou o que é: pedido madrasto, azedo queimador, gostoso de ruim de dentro do fundo das espécies de sua natureza. Em qual que judia, ao devagar, de todo bicho ou criaçãozinha pequena que pega; uma vez, encontrou uma crioula bentabêbada dormindo, arranjou um caco de garrafa, lanhou em três pontos a popa da perna dela. O que esse menino babeja vendo, é sangrarem galinha ou esfaquear porco. – “Eu gosto de matar...” – uma ocasião ele pequenino me disse. Abriu em mim um susto; porque: passarinho que se debruça – o vôo já está pronto! Pois, o senhor vigie: o pai, Pedro Pindó, modo de corrigir isso, e a mãe, dão nele, de miséria e mastro – botam o menino sem comer, amarram em árvores no terreiro, ele nu nuelo, mesmo em junho frio, lavram o corpinho dele na peia e na taca, depois limpam a pele do sangue, com cuia de salmoura. A gente sabe, espia, fica gasturado. O menino já rebaixou de magreza, os olhos entrando, carinha de ossos, encaveirada, e entisicou, o tempo todo tosse, tossura da que puxa secos peitos. Arre, que agora, visível, o Pindó e a mulher se habituaram de nele bater, de pouquinho em pouquim foram criando nisso um prazer feio de diversão – como regulam as sovas em horas certas confortáveis, até chamam gente para ver o exemplo bom. Acho que esse menino não dura, já está no blimbilim, não chega para a quaresma que vem... Uê-uê, então?!Não sendo como compadre meu Quelemém quer, que explicação é que o senhor dava? Aquele menino tinha sido homem. Devia, em balanço, terríveis perversidades. Alma dele estava no breu. Mostrava. E, agora, pagava. Ah, mas, acontece, quando está chorando e penando, ele sofre igual que se fosse um menino bonzinho... Ave, vi de tudo, neste mundo! lá vi até cavalo com soluço... – o que é a coisa mais custosa que há. Bem, mas o senhor dirá, deve de: e no começo – para pecados e artes, as pessoas – como por que foi que tanto emendado se começou? Ei, ei, aí todos esbarram. Compadre meu Quelemém, também. Sou só um sertanejo, nessas altas idéias navego mal. Sou muito pobre coitado. Inveja minha pura é de uns conforme o senhor, com toda leitura e suma doutoração. Não é que eu esteja analfabeto. Soletrei, anos e meio, meante cartilha, memória e palmatória. Tive mestre, Mestre Lucas, no Curralinho, decorei gramática, as operações, regra-de-três, até geografia e estudo pátrio. Em folhas grandes de papel, com capricho tracei bonitos mapas. Ah, não é por falar: mas, desde o começo, me achavam sofismado de ladino. E que eu merecia de ir para cursar latim, em Aula Régia – que também diziam. Tempo saudoso! Inda hoje, apreceio um bom livro, despaçado. Na fazenda O Limãozinho, de um meu amigo Vito Soziano, se assina desse almanaque grosso, de logogrifos e charadas e outras divididas matérias, todo ano vem. Em tanto, ponho primazia é na leitura proveitosa, vida de santo, virtudes e exemplos – missionário esperto engambelando os índios, ou São Francisco de Assis, Santo Antônio, São Geraldo... Eu gosto muito de moral. Raciocinar, exortar os outros para o bom caminho, aconselhar a justo. Minha mulher, que o senhor sabe, zela por mim: muito reza. Ela é uma abençoável. Compadre meu Quelemém sempre diz que eu posso aquietar meu temer de consciência, que sendo bem-assistido, terríveis bons-espíritos me protegem. Ipe! Com gosto... Como é de são efeito, ajudo com meu querer acreditar. Mas nem sempre posso. O senhor saiba: eu toda a minha vida pensei por mim, forro, sou nascido diferente. Eu sou é eu mesmo. Diverjo de todo o mundo... Eu quase que nada não sei. Mas desconfio de muita coisa. O senhor concedendo, eu digo: para pensar longe, sou cão mestre – o senhor solte em minha frente uma idéia ligeira, e eu rastreio essa por fundo de todos os matos, amém! Olhe: o que devia de haver, era de se reunirem-se os sábios, políticos, constituições gradas, fecharem o definitivo a noção – proclamar por uma vez, artes assembléias, que não tem diabo nenhum, não existe, não pode. Valor de lei! Só assim, davam tranqüilidade boa à gente. Por que o Governo não cuida?! Ah, eu sei que não é possível. Não me assente o senhor por beócio. Uma coisa é pôr idéias arranjadas, outra é lidar com país de pessoas, de carne e sangue, de mil-e-tantas misérias... Tanta gente – dá susto de saber – e nenhum se sossega: todos nascendo, crescendo, se casando, querendo colocação de emprego, comida, saúde, riqueza, ser importante, querendo chuva e negócios bons... De sorte que carece de se escolher: ou a gente se tece de viver no safado comum, ou cuida só de religião só. Eu podia ser: padre sacerdote, se não chefe de jagunços; para outras coisas não fui parido. Mas minha velhice já principiou, errei de toda conta. E o reumatismo... Lá como quem diz: nas escorvas. Ahã. Hem? Hem? O que mais penso, testo e explico: todo-omundo é louco. O senhor, eu, nós, as pessoas todas. Por isso é que se carece principalmente de religião: para se desendoidecer, desdoidar. Reza é que sara da loucura. No geral. Isso é que é a salvaçãoda- alma... Muita religião, seu moço! Eu cá, não perco ocasião de religião. Aproveito de todas. Bebo água de todo rio... Uma só, para mim é pouca, talvez não me chegue. Rezo cristão, católico, embrenho a certo; e aceito as preces de compadre meu Quelemém, doutrina dele, de Cardéque. Mas, quando posso, vou no Mindubim, onde um Matias é crente, metodista: a gente se acusa de pecador, lê alto a Bíblia, e ora, cantando hinos belos deles. Tudo me quieta, me suspende. Qualquer sombrinha me refresca. Mas é só muito provisório. Eu queria rezar – o tempo todo. Muita gente não me aprova, acham que lei de Deus é privilégios, invariável. E eu! Bofe! Detesto! O que sou? – o que faço, que quero, muito curial. E em cara de todos faço, executado. Eu não tresmalho! Olhe: tem uma preta, Maria Leôncia, longe daqui não mora, as rezas dela afamam muita virtude de poder. Pois a ela pago, todo mês – encomenda de rezar por mim um terço, todo santo dia, e, nos domingos, um rosário. Vale, se vale. Minha mulher não vê mal nisso. E estou, já mandei recado para uma outra, do Vau-Vau, uma Izina Calanga, para vir aqui, ouvi de que reza também com grandes meremerências, vou efetuar com ela trato igual. Quero punhado dessas, me defendendo em Deus, reunidas de mim em volta... Chagas de Cristo! Viver é muito perigoso... Querer o bem com demais força, de incerto jeito, pode já estar sendo se querendo o mal, por principiar. Esses homens! Todos puxavam o mundo para si, para o concertar consertado. Mas cada um só vê e entende as coisas dum seu modo. Montante, o mais supro, mais sério – foi Medeiro Vaz. Que um homem antigo... Seu Joãozinho Bem-Bem, o mais bravo de todos, ninguém nunca pôde decifrar como ele por dentro consistia. Joca Ramiro – grande homem príncipe! – era político. Zé- Bebelo quis ser político. (shrink)

The doxastic view (DV) of trust maintains that trust essentially involves belief. In a recent paper, Arnon Keren (Citation2020) gestures toward a new objection to the view, labeled Trust’s Meno Problem (TMP), which calls into question the DV’s ability to explain the widely held intuition that trust has distinct and indispensable value. As of yet, there has been no attempt to take up TMP on behalf of DV. This paper aims to fill precisely this lacuna. I (...) do so in three main stages. In §1 I contextualize and elucidate the problem, to which Keren gestures but does not address in detail. In §2 I disambiguate multiple possible interpretations of TMP, seeking to identify the most philosophically challenging. Finally, in §3, I argue that DV can solve even this interpretation. In order to do so, I make use ofthe highly plausible claim we find in the work of Katherine Hawley (Citation2012, 2019): that trust pays a compliment to the trustee. The payoffs of exploring the doxastic view in the context of Trust’s Meno Problem are twofold: we better understand the nature of the problem itself, and we see that the doxastic view can give a satisfying answer. (shrink)

This paper sets out an account of trust in AI as a relationship between clinicians, AI applications, and AI practitioners in which AI is given discretionary authority over medical questions by clinicians. Compared to other accounts in recent literature, this account more adequately explains the normative commitments created by practitioners when inviting clinicians’ trust in AI. To avoid committing to an account of trust in AI applications themselves, I sketch a reductive view on which discretionary authority is (...) exercised by AI practitioners through the vehicle of an AI application. I conclude with four critical questions based on the discretionary account to determine if trust in particular AI applications is sound, and a brief discussion of the possibility that the main roles of the physician could be replaced by AI. (shrink)

This article grapples with the causes of India’s microfinance crisis. By contrasting Bangladesh’s highly successful Grameen model with the allegedly “universalizable” version of India’s SKS Microfinance, trust or social capital is isolated—not just narrowly interpreted within standard economic theory, but more broadly construed—as the essential element accounting for the early success of microfinance. It is argued that the microfinance experience has been widely misinterpreted, in both analytical and policy terms. This article suggests inherent limits in extending the model (...) to for-profit institutions and, in particular, to the pace of scaling up. (shrink)

While humans are the best of creations and God’s caliphs on Earth, such a status is always hard to achieve and necessitates many efforts and too much practice. This world also has a two-way path, one terminating in the lowest of the low and the other culminating in the highest of the high. It means that one way leads to misfortune and misery and the other to happiness and perfection. To attain happiness, accountability can be of utmost importance. Besides, the (...) purpose of human creation is closeness to God by preferring the right path, which is not often possible unless they speak the truth and make the best use of the enlightening teachings of the revelation to spot the bad and good, becoming aware of their own duties and responsibilities and ultimately putting them into effect. This research aimed to investigate the mediating role of values in the relationship between accountability and trust among Muslim managers and employees in Islamic organisations, using a descriptive method through a field study. The statistical population included 2500 senior Muslim managers and employees of Iraqi government organisations, selected via simple random sampling. In this research, structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis was recruited for data analysis in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Analysis of a Moment Structures (AMOS). The study results demonstrated that accountability in Muslim managers and employees has a significant positive effect on trust (p = 0.45) and values (p = 0.81). Moreover, the findings revealed that values have a positive effect on reinforcing trust in Islamic organisations (p = 0.54), and above all bolster the relationship between accountability in managers and employees and organisational trust (p = 0.43).Contribution: The accountability of managers and employees can have a positive effect on individuals’ performance in organisations. In general, psychological pressures in organisations result in organisational transformation and then maintain values through trust-building. Such changes can be subsequently operationalized and have a profound impact on people’s behaviour by affecting work order and keeping them always growing, agile and diligent, in order to reach a new level of performance. (shrink)

The growing commercialization of research with its effect on the ethical conduct of researchers, and the advancement of scientific knowledge with its effect on the welfare or otherwise of patients, are areas of pressing concern today and need a serious, thorough study. Biomedical research, and its forward march, is becoming increasingly dependent on industry-academia proximity, both commercial and geographic. A realization of the commercial value of academic biomedical research coupled with its rapid and efficient utilization by industry is the major (...) propelling force here. A number of well-intentioned writers in the field look to the whole development with optimism. But this partnership is a double-edged sword, for it carries with it the potential of an exciting future as much as the prospect of misappropriation and malevolence. Moreover, such partnerships have sometimes eroded public trust in the research enterprise itself. Connected to the growing clout of industry in institutions is concern about the commercialization of research and resolving the 'patient or product' loyalty. There is ambivalence about industry funding and influence in academia, and a consequent 'approach-avoidance' conflict. If academia has to provide the patients and research talent, industry necessarily has to provide the finances and other facilities based on it. This is an invariable and essential agreement between the two parties that they can walk out of only at their own peril. The profound ethical concerns that industry funded research has brought center-stage need a close look, especially as they impact patients, research subjects, public trust, marketability of products, and research and professional credibility. How can the intermediate goal of industry serve the purpose of the final goal of academia is the basic struggle for conscientious research institutions /associations. And how best the goal of maximizing profits can be best served, albeit suitably camouflaged as patient welfare throughout, is the concern of the pharmaceutical industry. A very great potential conflict of interest lies in the fact that academia needs the sophisticated instruments that only big funding can provide, while at the same time resists the attempts of the fund provider to set the agenda of research, protocol, design, publication, the works. Conflicts arise at many steps and levels of functioning, and are related to the expectations, competing interests, and conflicting priorities of the different entities involved, whether they are the academic medical centers, the funding agencies, the patients and their families, or the investors and venture capitalists. The public expects access to new treatments. Its appetite for innovation has been bolstered by the constant attention given by the press to new treatments and by the implicit promise from researchers of continuing advances. Similarly, patients demand privacy and control over information about themselves. It makes greater sense for genuine researchers to associate with large long-term industry players who have a track record of genuine hard-core discoveries, even if the process is slow , and the funding less . The element of control venture capitalists exert over the pharmaceutical industry is an under researched area for obvious reasons. But it needs further probing, for that will lay bare the pulls and pressures under which industry works. It makes sense for ethically minded researchers and institutions not to fall in the trap of stocks and equity investments in industry, howsoever attractive they appear, and get rid of them as soon as possible if they have them. If at all they want, it makes more sense to own stocks of larger well established concerns, for the stock upheavals being less, the pressure of the market-place, and of venture sharks, is likely to be lower too. While active participation by the researcher in the commercialization process may be greatly desired by industry, ostensibly in the name of creating value, academia must realize it is a bait it might find hard to swallow in the long run. It makes more sense for the researcher and institution to forego such temptations and/or walk out of such investments as soon as possible. While mainstream medicine and research are booming, as is connected industry, concerns about professional commitment to patient welfare are growing too. Increasing corporate influence is challenging certain long held and fundamental values of patient care, which will have far reaching implications for biomedical care and the future progress of mainstream medicine. (shrink)

Since its beginnings, the conceptualisation of social responsibility has taken many forms, some of them related to philanthropy, patronage, strategy or business marketing among others. This paper defends the thesis that economic organization needs to manage those communicative goods, such as trust, reputation or reciprocity, evolved in the right development of their business activity and, therefore, on economic profit maximization. But for this, economic organization should implement a social responsibility to live up to expectations at stake; that is, to (...) take into account the ethical dimension that underlies it. (shrink)

The first part of this paper makes five points: First, the problem of Otherness is different and differently constructed in modern differentiated societies. Therefore, approaches to Otherness based on traditional notions of difference and boundary between societies and systems of shared belief will not suffice; Second, because solidarity can no longer be maintained through boundaries between ingroup and outgroup, social cohesion has to take a different form; Third, to the extent that Otherness is not a condition of demographic, or belief (...) based, exclusion in modern societies, but rather something that happens to people otherwise available to one another in interaction, othering is a processthat occurs over the course of interaction, turn by turn, not a set of beliefs or a state of mind; Fourth, othering may be supported by accounts and narratives, and these may exist before the fact – or be articulated after the fact. But, over the course of an ongoing interaction, beliefs and narratives do not explain what goes wrong with practices; Fifth, practices require reciprocity and trust. Therefore, practices require a morestringent form of morality – not a less stringent form – and moresocial cohesion – not less – than traditional society.The second part of the paper illustrates these five points with an extended analysis of a cross-race interaction in which accounts are invoked, reciprocity breaks down, and participants are rendered as Accountable Others. (shrink)

Tax havens and tax secrecy have risen to the top of the global policy agenda and may constitute the most important impediment for reducing inequalities. Moreover, complex corporate structures allow charging for services undertaken in various countries through one low-tax country. Transferring profits to low-tax jurisdictions will significantly reduce a multinational corporation’s overall tax burden. Individuals are assisted in opening shell corporations that officially own bank accounts where the real owner is not revealed. Reducing this practice of tax dodging has (...) proven to be difficult, despite substantial efforts by several international organizations and states over the last decade. It is too easy to be removed from the list of tax havens; mere membership in OECD’s Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes qualifies. Tax dodgers add to global inequalities and severely weaken states’ capacity to undertake their task of creating a solid tax base, embedded in the principle that all actors are taxed according to the income generated in each country. A weak tax base will lead to less trust, more violence and more deaths. Keywords: country-by-country reporting, EU, OECD, tax avoidance, tax evasion, tax havens. (shrink)

Accountability is present in many types of social relations; for example, the accountability of elected representatives to voters is the key characteristic of representative democracy. We distinguish between two institutional mechanisms of accountability, i.e., opportunity to punish and requirement of a justification, and examine the separate and combined effects of these mechanisms on individual behavior. For this purpose, we designed a decision-making experiment where subjects engage in a three-player trust game with two senders and one responder. We ask whether (...) holding the responder accountable increases senders’ and responders’ contributions in a trust game. When restricting the analysis to the first round, the requirement of justification seems to have a positive impact on senders’ contributions. When the game is played repeatedly, the experience of previous rounds dominates the results and significant treatment effects are no longer seen. We also find that responders tend to justify their choices in terms of reciprocity, which is in line with observed behavior. Moreover, the treatment combining punishment and justification hinders justifications that appeal to pure self-interest. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of trustworthiness typically define trustworthiness as an agent being reliable in virtue of a specific motivation such as goodwill. The underlying thought motivating this view is that to be trustworthy is to be more than merely reliable. If motivational accounts are correct, this is a problem for non-motivational accounts of trustworthiness, as motivations are not required for trustworthiness. In this paper, I defend the non-motivational approach to trustworthiness and show that the motivational approach is inadequate. I do this (...) by making a novel distinction between trusting-to and trusting-as relations. A trusting-to relation is a relation in which a trustor ‘X’ trusts the trustee ‘Y’ to do something. Trusting-as relations are an overlooked relation implicit in all trusting-to relations. They describe the social relationship that holds between X and Y. I will argue that trusting-as relations determine whether any specific motivations are required for trustworthiness trusting-to relations. Thus, I show that acknowledging trusting-as relations enables us to provide a satisfactory explanation of the motivation intuition without making specific motivations constitutive features of trust. -/- . (shrink)

Not so long ago, being reasonably trustworthy was good enough. But soon only the extremely trustworthy will thrive. In the age of smartphones and social networks, every action an organization takes can be exposed and critiqued in real time. Nothing is local or secret anymore. If you treat one customer unfairly, produce one shoddy product, or try to gouge one price, the whole world may find out in hours, if not minutes. The users of Twitter, Yelp, and similar outlets show (...) little mercy for bad behavior. The bar for trustworthiness is higher than ever and continues to rise. Bestselling authors Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., argue that the only sane response to these rising levels of transparency is to protect the interests of customers proactively—even if that requires spending extra money in the short run to preserve your brand reputation in the long run. The payoff of generating extreme trust will be worth it. With a wealth of fascinating research as well as practical applications, this book will show you how to earn—and keep—the extreme trust of everyone your company interacts with. (shrink)

An increasingly popular solution to the anti-scientific climate rising on social media platforms has been the appeal to more critical thinking from the user's side. In this paper, we zoom in on the ideal of critical thinking and unpack it in order to see, specifically, whether it can provide enough epistemic agency so that users endowed with it can break free from enclosed communities on social media (so called epistemic bubbles). We criticise some assumptions embedded in the ideal of critical (...) thinking online and, instead, we propose that a better way to understand the virtuous behaviour at hand is as critical engagement, namely a mutual cultivation of critical skills among the members of an epistemic bubble. This mutual cultivation allows members within an epistemic bubble (in contrast, as we will show, with the authority-based models of epistemic echo chambers) to become more autonomous critical thinkers by cultivating self-trust. We use the model of relational autonomy as well as resources from work on epistemic self-trust and epistemic interdependence to develop an explanatory framework, which in turn may ground rules for identifying and creating virtuous epistemic bubbles within the environments of social media platforms. (shrink)

The modern orthodoxy is that compensatory and gain-based damages are ‘alternative remedies’ for civil wrongdoing. As such, a claimant can only have judgment for one or other, and must elect which it is to be. This article prepares the ground for a re-examination of that rule by exploring its origins in patent cases, where the election requirement was firmly established in the 1870s by the House of Lords in Neilson v Betts and De Vitre v Betts. Closer examination of early (...) practice offers two important insights. The first is that the explanation given for the election requirement in Neilson v Betts, the ‘condonement theory’, was novel, and not orthodox. Pre-Neilson v Betts, courts had generally refused to allow a claimant to have both compensatory damages (as ‘damages’) and gain-based damages (as an ‘account of profits’). Nevertheless, that practice had more contingent, practical foundations than the Neilson v Betts orthodoxy suggests. It is best viewed as a practical response, in the prevailing institutional context, to the risk of excessive remedial cumulations. The second insight is that the relationship between the remedies is fundamentally determined by two factors: the prevailing conceptions of the remedies' nature and basis, and the procedural and institutional context within which the remedies are claimed and awarded. (shrink)

In light of a history of an unethical news media system used by the state as an instrument of oppression, media ethics in South Africa is intended to uphold the foundational tenets of journalism and play a pivotal role in addressing issues of diversity, equity, and social justice. Most recently, the 2021 Inquiry into Media Ethics and Credibility report instructed media watchdogs, such as the South African Press Council, to track data concerning ethical breaches based on the potential that such (...) data can contribute to transparency and accountability. This study examines the trends in ethical issues raised in rulings by the South African Press Council (PCSA) over the period 2018–2022. Our analysis found that most of the South African news media publications registered with PCSA have a good track record when it comes to upholding ethical standards. However, a few publications have a disproportionate share of the complaints against them. (shrink)

Whistleblowing (WB) is the practice of reporting immoral or illegal behavior by members of a legitimate organization with privileged access to information concerning an alleged wrongdoing within that organization. A common critique of WB draws on its supposed consequence of generating a climate of mutual distrust. This wariness is heightened in the case of external WB, which may lead to weakening public trust in an organization by diminishing its credibility. Accordingly, even the defenders of WB have presented it as (...) an individual conscientious extrema ratio; the justification of WB as a dutiful practice has lost plausibility. Contrary to this view, we present WB as a specific instance of institutional and individual moral duties of public accountability in nonideal conditions. WB is thus justified as a dutiful corrective practice within a general normative theory of institutions because it qualifies the individual and institutional moral demands attached to rule-governed institutional roles. (shrink)

Where most discussions of trust focus on the rationality of trust, in this paper I explore the doxastic justification of beliefs formed through trust. I examine two forms of trust: the self-trust that is involved when one trusts one’s own basic cognitive faculties, and the interpersonal trust that is involved when one trusts another speaker. Both cases involve regarding a source of information as dependable for the truth. In thinking about the epistemic significance regarding (...) a source in this way, I call upon Process Reliabilism (PR). With its core idea that the epistemic goodness of a belief tracks the reliability of the process through which the belief was formed, PR suggests one way to think about the (potential) epistemic benefits and risks of trust: in cases of trust the process through which belief is formed includes reliance on an information source, where the reliability with which the source produced its information is the main determinant of the epistemic status of the beliefs formed through trusting that source. While it is much more common to find something like this picture endorsed in connection with cases of self-trust, I argue that it ought to be endorsed for cases of interpersonal trust as well. The failure to do so, I submit, reflects a commitment to an individualistic orientation that proponents of PR need not, and should not, endorse. (shrink)

Who are you to tell me what I should do? What gives you the right to order me around? How dare you call me a racist!? Many of us have heard these refrains over the course of the 2016 US Presidential campaign and since the election of Donald Trump. We try to talk to Trump supporters—family, former classmates, home-town friends, and online acquaintances—about the racism, xenophobia, sexism, transphobia, ableism, and authoritarianism that some of us have judged to be endemic to (...) his campaign and nascent administration. We try to hold them accountable for supporting him, and, almost inevitably, we meet with responses like these.In this essay, I aim to develop an understanding of these encounters by framing them as... (shrink)

I have a very particular reason to be grateful to Stewart Sutherland, our late President, which is connected to some of the themes of this lecture, so want to begin by recalling a long conversation I had with him on these topics.

This paper seeks to reconceptualise the basis for trusting teachers in current educational discourses. It proposes moving away from trust based on ‘absolute accuracy’ to trust as encapsulated in the practice of parrhesia. On the surface, parrhesia appears to be the opposite of Sartre’s concept of ‘bad faith’. Paradoxically, however, our attempts to be sincere in our accounts are inevitably tainted by this. This paradox is especially evident in autobiographical writing, an activity that is both parrhesiastic in nature (...) and susceptible to bad faith. This does not mean that we should abandon trust in these ways of accounting for oneself, however. Rather, parrhesiastic practices in autobiographical writing can offer a different understanding of how we account for ourselves and our practices, one that does not pertain to a narrow definition of truth as accuracy, but instead leads to a form of self-criticism where one situates oneself in relation to the ‘truth’ of their accounts in new ways. Towards the end of the paper, I explore three ‘parrhesiastic techniques’ and their relationship to accounting for oneself as a teacher, to reimagine these techniques from technicist to existential ways of relating to our practices. (shrink)

Pressures are mounting upon Australian retailers including their ability to grow profit. Price deflation for many items, a lack of wage growth, and, the rise of huge online platforms is just some of the factors now creating difficulties for retailers. In the absence of sales growth, profit can only be improved with a focus on the cost side of the business. And, it is this focus that has brought about the potential for unethical decision making. This case study examines the (...) role of accountants in influencing this decision making. Accountants are often seen as the experts when it comes to cost control. Consequently, they have a unique opportunity to use their position to help ensure that when governance processes surrounding cost (and profit) management are established, or when key decisions are made, these are undertaken on an ethical basis. This teaching case explores this issue within three scenarios relevant to the current Australian retail industry. Firstly, the ethical concerns of the use of power by the big retailers to reduce costs within international and domestic supply chains are examined. Secondly, recent instances of questionable practices to inflate profits through rebate, and other, accounting methods are analysed. Finally, the design of remuneration systems is discussed within the context of whether these are creating unethical biases within organisational decision making. (shrink)

In this study we examine (1) how a manager’s risk behavior is influenced by developing success (or failure) as an impending settling up deadline to report performance approaches, (2) how willingness to provide transparent accountability is negatively affected by perceived risk and eroding trust, and (3) how others interpret and respond to reduced transparency. As perceptions of high levels of risks suggest a lack of environmental control of a firm’s destiny in contemporary settings, we adopt a historical approach to (...) examine these issues. In this respect we draw on primary sources found in library archives in Spain and Argentina. Our focal case refers to the contract signed and executed between the South Sea Company and Captain José de Salinas (1731–1735) to walk 408 Negroes from Buenos Aires to Potosí and sell them en route or at destination. Drawing on this evidence, we examine how bring about unethical conduct featured by increasingly risky business practices, and how eroding trust conditions lead to only summary record-keeping and delayed reporting. In turn, diminished accountability further undermined trust. Our findings have implications for further research in this area as well as for contemporary cases of accounting failures. (shrink)

Trust is commonly defined as a metaphysically-hybrid notion involving an attitude and an action. The action component of trust is defined as a special form of reliance in which the trustor has: (1) heightened expectations of their trustee; and (2) a disposition to justifiably feel betrayed if their trust is broken. The first aim of this paper is to reject the view that trust is a form of reliance. -/- The second aim of this paper is (...) to develop and defend a non-reliance-based variation of Katherine Hawley’s commitment trust account. Roughly, on my variant account, if X trusts Y to ϕ, then X has a belief with the following counterfactual as its content: ‘if I were to rely on Y to keep a commitment to ϕ, then I believe that Y would keep that commitment to ϕ.’ I defend this account against the objection that non-reliance accounts cannot explain the intuition that trust involves heightened expectations, and that it elicits justified betrayal when broken. I also respond to the argument that such accounts can’t provide adequate explanations of therapeutic trust, which is taken to be a counterexample of belief trust insofar as it describes instances where trustors trust trustees despite not believing that they are trustworthy. (shrink)

A just culture is a culture of trust, learning and accountability. It is particularly important when an incident has occurred; when something has gone wrong. How do you respond to the people involved? What do you do to minimize the negative impact, and maximize learning? This third edition of Sidney Dekker's extremely successful Just Culture offers new material on restorative justice and ideas about why your people may be breaking rules. Supported by extensive case material, you will learn about (...) safety reporting and honest disclosure, about retributive just culture and about the criminalization of human error. Some suspect a just culture means letting people off the hook. Yet they believe they need to remain able to hold people accountable for undesirable performance. In this new edition, Dekker asks you to look at 'accountability' in different ways. One is by asking which rule was broken, who did it, whether that behavior crossed some line, and what the appropriate consequences should be. In this retributive sense, an 'account' is something you get people to pay, or settle. But who will draw that line? And is the process fair? Another way to approach accountability after an incident is to ask who was hurt. To ask what their needs are. And to explore whose obligation it is to meet those needs. People involved in causing the incident may well want to participate in meeting those needs. In this restorative sense, an 'account' is something you get people to tell, and others to listen to. Learn to look at accountability in different ways and your impact on restoring trust, learning and a sense of humanity in your organization could be enormous. (shrink)

Management has the opportunity to promote self-serving accounting practices, such as earnings management, when management can effectively avoid oversight by the audit committee. This article investigates the effects of financial knowledge and dispositional trust on the ability of audit committee members to recognize management attempts to avoid full disclosure to the board and potentially deceive board members. The results of a controlled laboratory experiment with 40 experienced audit committee member participants indicate that: (1) Audit committee members with less (...) financial knowledge are more likely to accept insufficient client explanations for accounting judgments than are more knowledgeable audit committee members; (2) Audit committee members with less financial knowledge are more likely to reject sufficient client explanations for accounting judgments than are more knowledgeable audit committee members; and (3) Audit committee members that place higher levels of trust in others are more likely to accept insufficient client explanations for accounting judgments than are less trusting committee members. (shrink)

Some accounts of the fiduciary relationship place trust and autonomy at odds with one another, so that trusting a fiduciary to act on one’s behalf reduces one’s ability to be autonomous. In this chapter, we critique this view of the fiduciary relationship (particularly bilateral instances of this relationship) using contemporary work on autonomy and ‘relational autonomy’. Theories of relational autonomy emphasize the role that interpersonal trust and social relationships play in supporting or hampering one’s ability to act autonomously. (...) We argue that fiduciary relationships, understood through the lens of relational autonomy, can provide a means of enhancing, rather than diminishing, beneficiaries’ autonomy. (shrink)