Oxford Scholarly Classics brings together a number of great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in a uniform series design, they will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.

The Right and the Good, a classic of twentieth-century philosophy by the great scholar Sir David Ross, is now presented in a new edition with a substantial introduction by Philip Stratton-Lake, a leading expert on Ross. Ross's book is the pinnacle of ethical intuitionism, which was the dominant moral theory in British philosophy for much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Intuitionism is now enjoying a considerable revival, and Stratton-Lake provides the context for a proper understanding of Ross's great (...) work today. (shrink)

Sir David Ross was one of the most distinguished and influential Aristotelians of this century; his study has long been established as an authoritative survey ...

This careful commentary analyzes the Grundlegung, the metaphysical discussion of morality written during Kant's critical period, between publication of the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason.

Abstract:This study tests the usefulness of a person-situation interactionist framework in examining the willingness of a salesperson to lie to get an order. Using a survey of 389 salespersons, our results demonstrate that organizational relationships influence willingness to lie. Specifically, salespersons are less willing to lie to their own company than to their customer, than to a channel partner, and finally, than to a competitor firm. Furthermore, respondents from firms with a clear and positive ethical climate are less willing to (...) lie. Finally, our study finds that interactions between personality factors, such as high Machiavellianism and high self-monitoring, and situational factors have an impact on willingness to lie. Our results suggest that firms can take steps to influence employee ethical behavior. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper develops a framework for examining decision making about ethical issues and tests the applicability of a social contract perspective. Using two separate samples of students and salespeople, we determine that community members (salespeople) tend to judge a potentially unethical act to constitute a violation of an implicit social contract and non-community members (students) do not. Also, consistent with the emphasis on context specificity of integrative social contracts theory, situational variables influence perceptions of ethicality for the community members, but (...) do not affect the perceptions of individuals outside the community. The study finds considerable support for the use of a social contractarian perspective in the study of decision-making processes about ethical issues. (shrink)

Sir David Ross was one of the most distinguished and influential Aristotelians of this century; his study has long been established as an authoritative survey of the life, work and philosophy of Aristotle. This clear and lucid account contains useful summaries of theories and arguments, with brief, suggestive critical comments. Aristotle's work encompassed all the branches of science and learning which were central to the intellectual life of the ancient world: logic, the philosophy of nature, biology, psychology, metaphysics, ethics, politics, (...) rhetoric and poetics. Aristotle's borrowings from his predecessors, and his own fundamental influence on later philosophy, are also examined. Important Greek terms in Aristotle's work are explained and discussed. Aristotle is now re-issued with a new introduction by John L. Ackrill, which reviews developments in Aristotelian studies since Sir David Ross originally wrote his classic study. The bibliography has been supplemented by references to recent works. Both students of philosophy and general rea ders will find the volume an indispensable guide to Aristotle's thought. (shrink)

Sir David Ross was one of the most distinguished and influential Aristotelians of this century; his study has long been established as an authoritative survey of the life, work and philosophy of Aristotle. This clear and lucid account contains useful summaries of theories and arguments, with brief, suggestive critical comments. Aristotle's work encompassed all the branches of science and learning which were central to the intellectual life of the ancient world: logic, the philosophy of nature, biology, psychology, metaphysics, ethics, politics, (...) rhetoric and poetics. Aristotle's borrowings from his predecessors, and his own fundamental influence on later philosophy, are also examined. Important Greek terms in Aristotle's work are explained and discussed. Aristotle is now re-issued with a new introduction by John L. Ackrill, which reviews developments in Aristotelian studies since Sir David Ross originally wrote his classic study. The bibliography has been supplemented by references to recent works. Both students of philosophy and general rea ders will find the volume an indispensable guide to Aristotle's thought. (shrink)

Oxford Scholarly Classics brings together a number of great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in a uniform series design, they will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.

Discriminating behavior depends on neural representations in which the sensory activity patterns guiding different responses are decorrelated from one another. Visual information can often be parsimoniously transformed into these behavioral bridge-locus representations within neuro-computational visuo-spatial maps. Isomorphic inverse-optical world representation is not the goal. Nevertheless, such useful transformations can involve neural filling-in. Such a subpersonal representation of information is consistent with personal-level vision theory.

Oxford Scholarly Classics brings together a number of great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in a uniform series design, they will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.

On soutient souvent que le bien moral, l’activité intellectuelle correcte et les plaisirs comme tels sont des biens dans le même sens. Mais la réflexion montre que, tandis que les deux premiers sont des biens au sens de choses à admirer, le plaisir comme tel n’est jamais à admirer, simplement pour son caractère plaisant. Pourtant nous sentons le devoir de produire certains plaisirs qui ne sont pas à admirer, c’est-à-dire qui sont moralement neutres, par exemple des plaisirs des sens pour (...) les autres, et, d’une manière encore plus évidente, le devoir de ne pas produire pour eux des peines des sens, moralement neutres. C’est pourquoi il paraît que, à côté du sens du mot « bien » comme « digne d’admiration », nous devons reconnaître un autre sens, celui de « digne d’intérêt », et qu’il est autant de notre devoir de produire ce qui est bien en ce sens que ce qui est bien dans l’autre sens. (shrink)

We explore two dimensions of situational factors expected to influence decision-making about ethical issues among sales representatives – universal vs. particular and direct vs. indirect. We argue that these distinctions are important theoretically, methodologically, and managerially. We test our hypotheses by means of a survey of 252 sales representatives. Our results confirm that considering universal and particular and direct and indirect situational factors contributes to our understanding of decision-making about ethical issues within a sales context, specifically willingness to engage in (...) an unethical act. We also find that personal factors act independently and interact with situational factors in decision-making about ethical issues. Both demographic factors, age and gender, and personality factors, Machiavellianism and self-monitoring, have main effects on decision-making, and some of these factors interact with situational factors to affect decision-making. For example, age of the decision-maker (younger) and size of commission (larger) interact such that the likelihood of choosing an unethical alternative is greater. (shrink)