When faced with the threat of negative reputation spillover from an alliance partner accused of environmental misconduct, the focal firm must decide whether to adopt a supportive or non-supportive response. We argue that this decision denotes a commitment escalation dilemma, but that factors previously found to increase escalation tendencies lead to de-escalation in our crisis contagion context. Specifically, we derive four hypotheses from this reverse effect proposition, and test these using a policy-capturing survey targeting Norwegian CEOs. We found that (...) firms are more likely to select an adversary response when the alliance is of high strategic importance and has high termination costs. Conversely, firms are more likely to select an advocacy response when the alliance is of low strategic importance and has low termination costs and when the CEO was not involved in the formation of the alliance. Overall, our study answers a call for a more nuanced understanding of commitment escalation and the theory’s boundary conditions by introducing reputation spillover crisis as a contextual influencer of escalation behavior. It also extends the reputation literature and provides new evidence that reputation concerns can instigate ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Although scholars have invoked the escalation framework as a means of explaining the occurrence of numerous organizationally undesirable behaviors on the part of decision makers, to date no empirical research on the potential influences of escalating commitment on the likelihood of unethical behavior at the individual level of analysis has been reported in either the escalation or the ethical decision-making literatures. Thus, the main purpose of this project is to provide a theoretical foundation and empirical support for the (...) contention that escalating commitment situations can induce unethical behavior in decision makers. An experimental research design utilizing a computerized investment task was administered to 155 undergraduate business majors as a means of assessing the hypotheses presented here. Results from a hierarchical logistic regression analysis found strong support for the contention that exposure to an escalation situation increases the likelihood of unethical behavior on the part of decision makers. Further, results also supported previous ethical decision-making findings by confirming the effects of locus of control (LOC) on ethical behavior. Specifically, the data indicated that individuals with an external LOC orientation were significantly more likely to select the unethical option than were individuals with an internal LOC orientation. Interestingly, support was not found for the effects of Machiavellianism or gender on ethical decision-making. (shrink)

This paper posits that organizational variables are the factors that lead to the moral decline of companies like Enron and Worldcom. The individuals involved created environments within the organizations that precipitated a spiral of unethical decision-making. It is proposed that at the executive level, it is the organizational factors associated with power and decision-making that have the critical influence on moral and ethical behavior. The study has used variables that were deemed to be surrogate measures of the ethical violations (OSHA (...) and EPA violations), the risky shift phenomenon (executive team size), banality of wrong-doing (reputation score for firms) and escalating commitment (tenure with the firm/change in revenue for declining firms). The research found that there were small correlations between ethical violations and the three organizational variables. (shrink)

Despite the recent emergence of many new ethical decision making models, there has been minimal emphasis placed on the impact of escalating commitment on the ethical decision making process. In this paper a new variable is introduced into the ethical decision making literature. This variable, exposure to escalation situations, is posited to increase the likelihood that individuals will choose unethical decision alternatives. Further, it is proposed that escalation situations should be included as a variable in Jones's (1991) comprehensive (...) model of ethical decision making. Finally, research propositions are provided based on the relationship between escalating commitment and the ethical decision making process. (shrink)

Escalation of commitment causes people to continue a failing course of action. We study the role of construal level in such escalation of commitment. Consistent with the widely held view of construal level as a primed effect, we employed a commonly used prime for manipulating this construct in a laboratory experiment. Our findings revealed that the prime failed to produce statistically significant differences in construal level, which was measured using the Behavior Identification Form. Furthermore, there was no effect (...) of the prime on escalation of commitment, or on constructs that have previously been linked to construal level such as the perceived importance of feasibility considerations relative to desirability considerations, and the number of pros and cons that subjects can think of.Interestingly, however, subjects’ actual construal level scores on the BIF were found to significantly affect escalation. Specifically, our findings show that people with a low construal level are less willing to continue a failing project. This relation is mediated by the perceived importance of the feasibility of the project relative to its desirability. For people with a low construal level, the perceived importance of feasibility relative to desirability is higher, which in turn makes escalation of commitment less likely.Our findings are consistent with prior research suggesting that priming construal level may not always be effective. Thus, while construal level has typically been regarded as a state-like variable that can be primed, in this study, we show that construal level may also be considered as a trait. (shrink)

Research on escalation of commitment has predominantly been studied in the context of a single decision without consideration for the psychological consequences of escalating. This study sought to examine a) the extent to which people escalate their commitment to a failing course of action in a sequential decision-making task, b) confidence and anger as psychological consequences of escalation of commitment, and c) the reciprocal relationship between escalation of commitment and confidence and anger. Participants were 110 (...) undergraduate students who completed a series of investment decisions regarding a failing endeavor. Results revealed that although a high proportion of individuals escalate through all decisions, the extent to which they escalated decreased with each decision as they were less willing to invest money in the project. Furthermore, as participants escalated, confidence in one’s decision decreased and anger increased. Lastly, the analyses revealed that the relationship between escalation and confidence is reciprocal. Escalation was negatively associated with confidence, and confidence predicted escalation in the subsequent decision. These results highlight the importance of considering both the determinants and psychological consequences of escalation of commitment. (shrink)

This article deals briefly with the most loathsome of business topics — the admission of failure. Rather than actively encouraging project Anti-champions, many organizations experiencing financial duress inadverdently stifle opposing opinion. In some cases recognition is delayed until it is too late. This is unfortunate since failure can be managed like any other business situation. Companies with CEOs that foster open communications between finance and operations are more likely to avoid escalating commitment to failed projects.

Limited strikes are arguably different from war insofar as they are more circumscribed, less destructive, and cost less in blood and treasure to employ. However, what they can achieve is also considerably more circumscribed than what is set out by the goals of war. How do we morally evaluate limited strikes? As part of the roundtable, “The Ethics of Limited Strikes,” this essay argues that we need to turn to the ethics of limited of force, orjus ad vim, to do (...) so. Two moral assumptions that are the keystone tojus ad vimcan shed light on the moral imperatives and ethical dilemmas of undertaking limited strikes. First, such strikes should be seen as an alternative to war, and not part of thejus ad bellumlast resort process. What I call the “Rubicon assessment” determines at what level force should be used: at the level of war, with all its costs and unpredictability, or at that of the more predictable and less costly limited force. Second, limited strikes should adhere to a “presumption against escalation”; that is, a moral commitment not to escalate to war. This essay highlights these moral principles in five different limited strike scenarios: “hot pursuit,” “red line,” “the last straw,” “the point of no return,” and “the right of retaliation.” The conclusion explores the notion of justice after limited strikes, or what I calljus post vim, to show that while what can be accomplished by limited strikes is inherently constrained, they can, if used morally and in tune with diplomacy, be of service in the quest for peace. (shrink)

In Spain, the state of alarm declared on March 14, 2020 caused changes in the population in relation to the habits of physical activity and sports practice. This study analyzed what motivational variables predicted the self-efficacy and commitment to sports practice, as well as the differences according to gender, during lockdown and the progressive de-escalation caused by COVID-19, using the theory of self-determination as a theoretical framework. The study sample was conformed of 179 subjects between 18 and 65 years (...) of age. The Behavioral Regulation in Sport Questionnaire, the Psychological Need Satisfaction in Exercise Scale, the Physical Activity Self-Efficacy scale, and the Sport Commitment scale were applied. The most relevant results have showed significant differences in favor of the male gender in terms of levels of controlled motivation and amotivation, as well as higher levels of self-efficacy and basic psychological need of autonomy. Furthermore, the regression analysis has revealed that self-efficacy and current commitment to sports practice were explained by a variance of 57 and 64%, respectively, due to autonomous motivation and the basic psychological need of competence. Therefore, the basic psychological need of competence should be fostered in order to increase the levels of self-determined motivation, self-efficacy, and commitment to sports practice of the population. (shrink)

This study aims to describe social network and social participation and to assess associations with depressive symptoms in older persons with increased risk for dementia in Germany. We conducted a cross-sectional observational study in primary care patients (aged 60-77) as part of a multicenter cluster-randomized controlled trial (AgeWell.de). We present descriptive and multivariate analyses for social networks (Lubben Social Network Scale and subscales) and social participation (item list of social activities) and analyze associations of these variables with depressive symptoms (Geriatric (...) Depression Scale). Of 1030 included patients, 17.2% were at risk for social isolation (Lubben Social Network Scale < 12). Looking at the subscales, a reduced non-family network was found almost twice as often as a reduced family network. Patients with depressive symptoms had significantly smaller social networks than patients without depression (p < 0.001). They rather engaged in social activities of low involvement level or no weekly social activity at all (p < 0.001). The study shows associations of depressive symptoms with a decreased social network and less social participation in elderly participants. Sufficient non-family contacts and weekly social activities seem to play an important role in mental health and should be encouraged in elderly primary care patients. (shrink)

The sunk cost fallacy is a well-established phenomenon where decision makers continue to commit resources, or escalate commitment, because of previously committed efforts, even when they have knowledge that their returns will not outweigh their investment. Most research on the sunk cost fallacy is done using hypothetical scenarios where participants make a single decision to continue with a project or to abandon it. This paradigm has several limitations and has resulted in a relatively limited understanding sunk cost behavior. To (...) address some of these limitations, we created a dynamic repeated choice paradigm where sunk costs are learned over time and opportunity costs are explicit. Over three experiments we show that the sunk cost fallacy depends on the relative a priori importance of the goal being invested in. We observed escalation of commitment only when the sunk cost domain is more important than alternatives, and participants showed de-escalation of commitment to the sunk costs domain otherwise. (shrink)

This study derives an improved model of managers' decision-making behavior regarding possibly failing projects. Instead of adopting cognitive moral development used by Rutledge and Karim (Accounting, Organization and Society 24, 173-184, 1999) this investigation uses the agency theory framework to consider individual moral philosophy for the improvement of decisions regarding possibly failing projects. This research hypothesizes that a manager with low relativism has a stronger tendency to discontinue a possibly failing project than one with high relativism when agency problem are (...) present or absent. Also, this study suggests that a manager with high idealism has a stronger tendency to discontinue a possibly failing project than one with low idealism. Through experiments this work finds that agency problem is a significant factor on decisions regarding possibly failing projects in all circumstances. This result is consistent with prior literature and shows agency problem universality. Next, the empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that a project manager with low relativism tends to discontinue a possibly failing project more than one with high relativism, showing that individual moral philosophy can partially mitigate the phenomenon of escalating managers' commitment. (shrink)

The escalation of violence committed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas against noncombatant civilians triggered a shift in the theoretical orientation of scholars who study Colombia’s political economy. While previous explanations emphasized the sociopolitical “grievances” underlying guerrilla activities, recent explanations emphasize the “greed” motive, including guerrilla involvement in Colombia’s illegal narcotics trade. In this article, the author posits an alternative explanation using Charles Tilly’s theories of state formation to explain FARC activities in Caquetá, Colombia. Drawing from a longitudinal (...) data set that documents the war making, state making, extraction, and protection activities of the FARC between 1975 and 2007, in addition to historical sociological methods, the author finds that increases in FARC repression stem from the growing militarization and paramilitarization of the region, which pressured the FARC to extract resources from the local population in a way that no longer served that population’s legitimate protection interests. (shrink)

In the face of escalating environmental and social crises, this essay explores how it might be possible to reweave the threads that connect people to one another, collectively to place, and jointly toward possible futures. Highlighting the potential of a renewed human-environment interface across a range of perspectives and illustrations, and drawing upon concepts such as reinhabitation and practices of placemaking, it is considered here how making connections with people and places that might otherwise be taken for granted can (...) help foster more grounded experiences and cultivate imaginations at the same time. Confronting apparent assertions from some quarters that humankind must move further away from “nature” to address current crises, the central aim of this intervention is to examine how a commitment toward deeper engagement with the world around us can stoke aspirations and attitudes for positive change. (shrink)

Developmental psychologists identify propensities for social engagement in human infants that are less evident in other apes; Sarah Hrdy links these social propensities to novel features of human childrearing. Unlike other ape mothers, humans can bear a new baby before the previous child is independent because they have help. This help alters maternal trade-offs and so imposes new selection pressures on infants and young children to actively engage their caretakers’ attention and commitment. Such distinctive childrearing is part of our (...) grandmothering life history. While consequences for other cooperative activities must surely follow, the novel rearing environments set up by helpful grandmothering can explain why natural selection escalated preferences and motivations for interactivity in our lineage in the first place, and why, unlike other aspects of infant development, social sensitivities are not delayed in humans compared with genus Pan. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell: The Colours of Pacifism analyzes the tenacious commitment of one of the twentieth century's most extraordinary intellectuals to the cause of civilization, progress, and human rights. Through his active and pragmatic pacifism, Russell sought to confront the problems stemming from the unstable and dramatic political conditions of his age: the beginning of the Great War, the establishment of the League of Nations, the rise of totalitarian regimes, the outbreak of the Second World War, the dawn of the (...) Atomic Age, the escalation of the Cold War, the weakness of the United Nations, and the need for world government. His reflections on the subject of peace, which constitute the main focus of this book, led Russell into dialogue with some of the greatest figures of his time, including Romain Rolland, Albert Einstein, Woodrow Wilson, Leon Trotsky, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Nikita Khrushchev, and J. F. Kennedy. Shining new light on a lifelong preoccupation in Russell's work and thinking, The Colours of Pacifism is a landmark study that will appeal to students, scholars and anyone curious about the philosopher's engagement with the world around him. (shrink)

Disputational models of argumentation have been criticized as introducing adversariality into argumentation by mistakenly conceiving of it as minimally adversarial, and, in doing so, structurally incentivizing ancillary adversariality. As an alternative, non-adversarial models of argumentation like inquiry have been recommended. In this article I defend disputational, minimally adversarial models of disagreement-based argumentation. First, I argue that the normative kernel of minimal adversariality is properly located in the normative fabric of disagreement, not our practices of disputation. Thus, argumentation’s minimal adversariality is (...) a hereditary, rather than an acquired, trait. Second, I show how attempts to model disagreement-based argumentation non-adversarially, as co-inquiry, misrepresent the normative commitments of disagreers. Indeed, such attempts backfire in their efforts to make argumentation less adversarial, by removing the normative, discursive mechanisms by which we may hold each other to rational account for our commitments. Finally, I show how regulative models of disputation, like the Pragma-Dialectical critical discussion, are designed to minimize ancillary adversariality thereby preventing its escalation. (shrink)

The all too common sunk cost effect is apparent when an investor influenced by what has been spent already persists in a venture, committing further resources or foregoing more profitable opportunities, when the economically rational action is to quit. Less common but arguably just as much a sunk cost effect is the mistake of giving up on a failed or failing venture too readily, sometimes out of nothing but pique at what has been lost, or perhaps through the more subtle (...) psychological forces posited by Kahneman, Tversky, Thaler and others within prospect theory and related work on ``mental budgeting''. Two case examples are considered, wherein decision makers dissatisfied with the results of their investments, and having lost money, appear to compound their losses by selling out at prices less than their own estimates of the remaining financial worth of the failed assets. These decisions are evaluated from the perspectives of both behavioral and prescriptive economics, and are found to have possible explanations in both. Their prescriptive rationale assumes a portfolio theory of investment decisions, and is demonstrated within both expected utility (economics) and mean-variance (finance) frameworks. (shrink)

Launch of clinical investigation represents a substantial escalation in commitment to a particular clinical translation trajectory; it also exposes human subjects to poorly understood interventions. Despite these high stakes, there is little to guide decision-makers on the scientific and ethical evaluation of early phase trials. In this article, we review policies and consensus statements on human protections, drug regulation, and research design surrounding trial launch, and conclude that decision-making is largely left to the discretion of research teams and sponsors. (...) We then review what is currently understood about how research teams exercise this discretion, and close by laying out a research agenda for characterizing the way investigators, sponsors, and reviewers approach decision-making in early phase research. (shrink)

Economics is today among the most influential of all professions. Economists alter the course of economic affairs and deeply affect the lives of current and future generations. Yet, virtually alone among the major professions, economics lacks a body of professional ethics to guide its practitioners. Over the past century the profession consistently has refused to adopt or even explore professional economic ethics. As a consequence, economists are largely unprepared for the ethical challenges they face in their work.The Economist's Oath challenges (...) the economic orthodoxy. It builds the case for professional economic ethics step by step-first by rebutting economists' arguments against and then by building an escalating positive case for professional economic ethics. The book surveys what economists do and demonstrates that their work is ethically fraught. It explores the principles, questions, and debates that inform professional ethics in other fields, and identifies the lessons that economics can take from the best established bodies of professional ethics. George DeMartino demonstrates that in the absence of professional ethics, well-meaning economists have committed basic, preventable ethical errors that have caused severe harm for societies across the globe. The book investigates the reforms in economic education that would be necessary to recognize professional ethical obligations, and concludes with the Economist's Oath, drawing on the book's central insights and highlighting the virtues that are required of the "ethical economist."The Economist's Oath seeks to initiate a serious conversation among economists about the ethical content of their work. It examines the ethical entailments of the immense influence over the lives of others that the economics profession now enjoys, and proposes a framework for the new field of professional economic ethics. (shrink)

Much has been written about the escalating intolerance of worldviews other than one's own. Reasoned arguments based on facts and data seem to have little impact in our increasingly post-truth culture dominated by social media, fake news, tribalism, and identity politics. Recent advances in the study of human cognition, however, offer insights on how to counter these troubling social trends. In this book, psychologist Jon F. Wergin calls upon recent research in learning theory, social psychology, politics, and the arts (...) to show how a deep learning mindset can be developed in both oneself and others. Deep learning is an acceptance that our understanding of the world around us is only temporary and is subject to constant scrutiny. Someone who is committed to learning deeply does not simply react to experiences, but engages fully with that experience, knowing that the inevitable disquietude is what leads to efficacy in the world. (shrink)

This book was undertaken before the terms 'fake news' and 'alternative facts' were coined and the further escalation of America's ideological civil war. It was prompted by deep wonderment at the way people tend to be wholly enclosed within their ideological frames and deaf to claims about reality that come from the opposite camp, no matter how valid they might be. Ideology consists of normative prescriptions regarding how society should be shaped, together with an interpretive roadmap indicating how this normative (...) vision can be implemented in reality. Ideological fixation is the result of tensions and conflicts between these two elements. The book does not focus on the normative aspect of ideology, which is largely subjective, but on its factual claims about the world, typically subordinate to, and often distorted by, the normative commitment. After theorists around 1960 proclaimed the 'death of ideology', ideological divides and clashes have reemerged with renewed intensity throughout the world, including in the liberal democracies. In the United States they have become particularly venomous. The other side is widely viewed as malicious, irrational or downright stupid, and, often, as barely legitimate. The zeal of the opposing sides is often scarcely less than that which characterized the religious ideologies of old. Indeed, historical religious ideologies have largely been replaced by 'secular religions' or 'religion substitutes'. The book is not another survey of past and present ideologies. It is an attempt to understand the cognitive, emotional and social roots of ideology and ideological fixation. It combines insights from evolutionary psychology regarding the nature of some of our deepest proclivities with a broad sweep through history. It proceeds from the Stone Age to the rise of civilization, the great religions and modernity, to a critique of fundamental factual premises that underlie some of the major debates dominating today's liberal democracies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 8.1 (2003) 57-60 [Access article in PDF] The Art of Impurity Patsy Hallen I was taken aback when I received a request from the West Australian government to write a response to the question, "What Is The Ethical Foundation For Planning A More Sustainable Future?" My first reaction was: Does not every one want a future? And doesn't this necessarily mean a commitment to (...) sustainability? Would not everyone earnestly want a more sustainable future?To have to ask the question at all shows just how far out of balance our crazy, greed-driven culture is. To ask the question is to imply that many people do not want to live on, or, at least, do not want the next generation to live on. It was like being asked: How can one morally justify a flourishing, joyful life for every being on earth?In a profound sense, there cannot and need not be any moral justification for sustainability because sustainability is the foundation for morality, not the other way around. As the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle cautioned, it shows a lack of education to try and prove everything. You can't prove logic, for example, because logic presupposes proof. Likewise, our ultimate norms such as "Love is better than hate" must be gained by intuition; they can't be proved.No sooner had I received this request than I became ill (no causal connection, I assure you!) and in my fever-induced reveries I penned imaginary responses. I wrote:"The Ethical Foundation of Sustainability is 'Joy' or 'Life' or 'An Ethic of Flourishing'." [End Page 57]'Survival' seemed the most appropriate candidate (especially as the fever escalated), until I settled on Love.Of course, Love.* * *He was huge. He was unbelievably huge. He just kept coming and coming. He was so close.His blue-grey body turned the intensely deep blue depths into a translucent green, like an enormous halo hovering just below the surface.I was drawn into his presence like ink into blotting paper.He blew, rhythmically expelling air. I, too, exhaled and this made me 'come to', returning me to my body. I realized I was wet-by his breath. I had been baptized, the most magnificent baptism one could imagine.In my baptism, luckily, I was spared being hit by a dollop of phlegm.It does happen.His breath smelt... not sweet but not sour-primordial, like the origin of life. I became aware of someone softly counting the breaths: "17... 18... 19..." it seemed everlasting.Then after 19 breaths, he dove, not with a rush, just leisurely, almost seamlessly, like the pulse of life itself, hardly a splash.I hadn't even remembered to be seasick.He is one of the largest animals ever to have lived on earth. His tongue weighs more than an elephant. He measures a length of 26 meters, a weight of around 160 tons.This is the Pygmy Blue Whale, Balaenoptera Brevicanda, hunted close to extinction by the whaling industry, and now slowly returning from the brink. Whoever named him "Pygmy" must have had delusions of grandeur.We were 30 nautical miles off the west end of Rottenest Island (near Perth), on board "Whalesong," a 13-meter catamaran built and sailed by Curt and Mich Jenner, who have been researching whales on the West Australian coast for over 10 years.We were at "the trench," where Pygmies feed. Mich and Curt had spent the summer trying to learn about this Rorqual Whale, before sailing north for the winter to follow Humpbacks on their annual migratory path from their feeding grounds in the southern ocean to their breeding enclaves in the Kimberley.Very little is known about Pygmy Blues. They are a tropical subspecies of the Blue Whale, but might possibly be a new species altogether. No one [End Page 58] knows where they go to mate or to give birth. Very few people have even seen them. Like the Whale Sharks, they are one of the last unfathomable mysteries of the planet.We stayed with this foundational animal for 2 hours, until the last... (shrink)

One of the most important issues that distinguishes the Baghdādī branch of the Muʿtazila from the Baṣran branch is their view on ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661). Basra branch accepts the order of virtue of the first four caliphs as their order of coming to office, while the Baghdad branch considers the first three caliphs legitimate, but considers Ali more virtuous than them. The Baghdādī Muʿtazilīs who outspokenly defended this idea were Abū Jaʿfar al-Iskāfī (d. 240/854), Abū al-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī (...) (d. 319/931) and Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd (d. 656/1258). Among them, Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd was renowned as “the greatest scholar of the Muʿtazila” and was considered one of the last representatives of this school. He ardently defended ʿAlī's superiority in his commentary on Nahj al-Balāgha, the famous collection of Ali’s sermons, letters and wisdom sayings. In his defense, he rebutted some criticisms about ʿAlī’s political decisions from his school’s point of view. Many items of Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd’s rebuttal are worthy of analysis in terms of their content, style and approach. This article aims to present a detailed account of Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd’s aforementioned refutations. In addition to the descriptive method, the interpretative method was also employed in the article. Although Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd did not consider Ali's infallibility necessary (wājib), unlike Imamiyya, he accepted it. Therefore, he responded to the criticisms directed at Ali, starting from the point of Ali's innocence. According to Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd: (a) After the death of the Prophet, ʿAlī insisted on becoming the new leader of the Muslim community. He did not act hastily to assume the caliphate because he was not expecting any opposition to that. However, when the events took a different turn, he did not escalate the situation, rather accepted the status quo. (b) ʿAlī also did the right thing by participating in ʿUmar b. Al-Khaṭṭāb’s (d. 23/644) electoral shūrā. This was an opportunity for him to become the next caliph, and reinstitute a system in accordance with the Qurʿānic principles and sunna of the Prophet. (c) It was also not an error when ʿAlī decided to stay in Medina during the events of ʿUthmān’s murder (d. 35/656). He played an active role in dissuading the rebels from their attempt to kill ʿUthmān, but he was in no position to know that his activity would be used against him later by the Umayyads who accused ʿAlī of being complicit in ʿUthmāns’s murder. (d) ʿAlī took the caliphate after ʿUthmān because of his popularity among the people. In this way, he managed to prevent an unqualified person to occupy the seat of the caliphate. (e) When the Battle of Camel broke out, those who demanded justice and opposed ʿAlī were in error. (f) When ʿAlī became the new caliph, his decision to remove Muʿāwīya (d. 60/680) from the governorship of Syria was correct. This is because Muʿāwīya would have refused to accept ʿAlī’s leadership even had he stayed in office as a governor. ʿAlī understood that the conflict would end only through fighting, so he did not lose time in marching against Muʿāwīya. (g) During the battle he abided by the sharīʿa and allowed the Syrian army to access water. (h) It was not ʿAlī, but those defectors in his army who obliged him to end the fighting through arbitration. (i) When ʿAlī agreed to sign the Ṣiffīn ceasefire agreement and did not use his title amīr al-muʾminīn, he followed the Prophet's example since the latter also refrained from using his title during the Ḥudaybiyya agreement. (j) ʿAlī also cannot be blamed for those among his supporters, such as the poet al-Najāshī, who defected and joined the ranks of Muʿāwīya. The motivations for the defectors were either to attain worldly gains or to escape from punishment for the crimes which they had committed. (k) When Muʿāwīya managed to conquer Egypt, ʿAlī’s governors of the province, Qays b. Saʿd (d. 60/680) or Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr (d. 38/658), did nothing for which they could be blamed. (l) And finally, ʿAlī never had guards to protect him because he was never afraid of being assassinated. Although Ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd took Ali's innocence as a basis while presenting these views, he did not make inconsistent comments in general and did not say things contrary to historical facts. Therefore, it is necessary to acknowledge historical value of his views in question. (shrink)

Despite the advances made in the liberal Western philosophical and educational tradition to counteract unethical, immoral and inhumane acts committed by the human species, these acts of inhumanity persist. It would be inapt to apportion blame only to Western thinking, which has its roots in Greek antiquity, as Plato and Aristotle, for instance, perpetually and justifiably pursued and advocated the human enactment of civility and friendship in their writings. Instead of revisiting liberal views on education and arguing for a reconsidered (...) view of humanity—a possible and plausible contention—this article draws on African philosophical thought on education to disturb some of the doubts in potentially disrupting atrocities committed against the human race, especially on the African continent. By drawing on the philosophical ideas of Agamben, in particular the notions of actuality, potentiality and becoming, it is argued that an instance of African philosophy of education—ubuntu —can do much to trouble the escalating levels of inhumanity on the African continent. (shrink)

This study derives an improved model of managers’ decision-making behavior regarding possibly failing projects. Instead of adopting cognitive moral development used by Rutledge and Karim this investigation uses the agency theory framework to consider individual moral philosophy for the improvement of decisions regarding possibly failing projects. This research hypothesizes that a manager with low relativism has a stronger tendency to discontinue a possibly failing project than one with high relativism when agency problem are present or absent. Also, this study suggests (...) that a manager with high idealism has a stronger tendency to discontinue a possibly failing project than one with low idealism. Through experiments this work finds that agency problem is a significant factor on decisions regarding possibly failing projects in all circumstances. This result is consistent with prior literature and shows agency problem universality. Next, the empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that a project manager with low relativism tends to discontinue a possibly failing project more than one with high relativism, showing that individual moral philosophy can partially mitigate the phenomenon of escalating managers’ commitment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sacrificial and Nonsacrificial Mass NonviolenceJohn Roedel (bio)Have been awake since 2 a.m. God’s grace alone is sustaining me. I can see there is some grave defect in me somewhere which is the cause of all this. All round me is utter darkness.—M. K. Gandhi, diary entry, dated January 2, 1947.1During the last few years of Gandhi’s life, massive rioting verging on civil war tore India apart, despite Gandhi’s best (...) efforts to calm the situation and despite repeated, widespread, politically successful mass nonviolent actions by large segments of the Indian populace in the previous decades. There have been many analyses of the violent births of India and Pakistan, but none that I know of have taken seriously Gandhi’s intuitions of his own responsibility. At most, intuitions such as these have been taken as further evidence of the Mahatma’s profound humility.I will not suggest that Gandhi bore some moral responsibility for this violence, but I will suggest that his (and others’) ignorance of what I will term the sacrificial aspects of mass nonviolence did have a role to play. I will model my distinction between sacrificial and nonsacrificial nonviolence on Girard’s [End Page 221] distinction between sacrificial and nonsacrificial Christianity as presented in Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, and will attempt to use this distinction to suggest how violence might arise out of the practice of mass nonviolence, using the example of the nonviolent movement for Indian independence as an example. I hope that my speculations may also shed light on other puzzling aspects of mass nonviolence, such as the reason why, despite the many political successes of nonviolence, nonviolent movements have never become more widely established, and have for the most part been limited to ad hoc movements.2In Girard’s view, sacrificial practices such as I am proposing as part of mass nonviolence are ubiquitous, destructive, and mostly invisible. Girard writes, “every negation of the other leads... towards expulsion and murder. The basis for all of this lies in the fundamental human situation of a mimetic rivalry that leads to a destructive escalation.”3 That is, every negation of the other contributes to widening cycles of escalation that would lead to the extinction of humanity, were it not for sacrifice, which allows the rivalries to be discharged without consequences onto an individual outside the community—a scapegoat.There is not much agreement about how nonviolence functions or even about what the word “nonviolence” refers to. It will be defined here as a refusal to submit to or inflict violence, where “violence” includes not just physical violence but also verbal and structural violence, such as imperialism and poverty. Within such a definition, fleeing physically or otherwise from violence is a form of submission to the violence, and allows violence the last word, so to speak. Nonviolence is perhaps clearest in a face-to-face encounter with physical violence, as in the many civil disobedience actions of Gandhi’s career. But like violence, nonviolence also occurs in common, even subtle, situations, as in a conversation between friends.Beginning with Gandhi, a distinction has often been made between “strategic” and “principled” nonviolence. Strategic nonviolence is the contingent embrace of nonviolence as a tactic. Principled nonviolence is the unconditional embrace of nonviolence, on the basis of a moral or religious commitment. Gandhi spoke of principled nonviolence as a refusal to submit to or inflict violence out of unselfish love for the opponent. He spoke of strategic nonviolence as a means for achieving one’s goals; in his opinion, this was not really nonviolence at all, but a simulacrum of it. An individual may even sometimes be unable to distinguish the extent to which his own nonviolence is strategic or principled.To distinguish between strategic and principled nonviolence, according to Gandhi, it is necessary to explore the motivations and character formation of the nonviolent practitioner in question. For Gandhi, principled nonviolence [End Page 222] arises out of one’s “relationship to God” and a “deep sense of the intercon-nectedness of all beings.” Gandhi believed that in defense of truth, or in defense of the honor of oneself... (shrink)

Very little of the expanding debate over private policing has employed the language of human rights. This is notable not just because private policing is a distinctly global phenomenon, and human rights have become, as Michael Ignatieff puts it, “the lingua franca of global moral thought.” It is notable as well because a parallel development that seems in many ways related to the spread of private policing—the escalating importance of private military companies—has been debated as a matter of human (...) rights. This Article asks whether discussions of private policing have been impoverished by their failure to employ the language of human rights. It begins by discussing the dramatic rise, over the past several decades, in the size and significance of private policing. It then summarizes the academic and public policy debates about that development and considers what, if anything, the language of human rights could add to those debates, and whether the addition would be welcome. One strand of the Article compares the debate over private policing with the debate over private military companies. Another strand compares private policing with private prisons, in light of the recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Israel declaring private prisons unconstitutional. The Article concludes that the benefits of introducing the language of human rights into debates about private policing are far from clear—with one exception. Human rights, particularly as codified in international treaties, do seem a promising way to get traction on a particular aspect of police privatization that has received less attention than it deserves: the way in which widespread reliance on private security firms may weaken public commitment to providing everyone with a minimally acceptable degree of protection against private violence. (shrink)

Drawing on a number of recent high-profile cases of corporate corruption, we develop a process model that explains the escalation of deception in corrupt firms. If undetected, an initial lie can begin a process whereby the ease, severity and pervasiveness of deception increases overtime so that it eventually becomes an organization level phenomenon. We propose that organizational complexity has an amplifying effect. A␣feedback loop between organization level deception and each of the escalation stages positively reinforces the process. In addition, moderators (...) are proposed that will halt escalation at various stages. By conceptualizing corporate deception as a social process, the paper contributes to a growing body of research that looks beyond 'bad' individuals for the causes of corporate illegality. (shrink)

Gender scholars use the metaphor of the “glass escalator” to describe a tendency for men in women-dominated workplaces to be promoted into supervisory positions. More recently, scholars, including the metaphor’s original author, critique the glass escalator metaphor for not addressing the intersections of gender with other relevant identities or the ways that work has changed in the twenty-first century. I apply an intersectional lens to understand how gender and race shape women’s career paths in tech work, where twenty-first century changes (...) to the organization of workplaces are common. I build on theories of raced and gendered labor and the glass escalator to make sense of women’s careers in a contemporary field dominated by men. I find some evidence that white women, but not women of color, experience something similar to a “glass escalator” where they are promoted into management, but those promotions are a smaller step up—more step stool than escalator. These promotions move women out of technical positions and towards business and management, releasing engineering teams from the pressure to fully incorporate women. (shrink)

(2013). De-Escalating Conflict: Mediation and the “Difficult” Patient. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 11-12. doi: 10.1080/15265161.2013.768855.

At first glance, hate speech and microaggressions seem to have little overlap beyond being communicated verbally or in written form. Hate speech seems clearly macro-aggressive: an intentional, obviously harmful act lacking the ambiguity (and plausible deniability) of microaggressions. If we look back at historical discussions of hate speech, however, many of these assumed differences turn out to be points of similarity. The harmfulness of hate speech only became widely acknowledged after a concerted effort by critical race theorists, feminists, and other (...) activists. Before the 1990s, slurs were widely considered socially acceptable behavior: mere jokes that weren’t intended to be harmful. Authors like Richard Delgado, Mari Matsuda, and Charles Lawrence pushed back against this dismissal. In this chapter, I show that their arguments for the serious harmfulness of hate speech prefigure and provide support for current debates about the serious harmfulness of microaggressions. Exploring resonances with the 1980s hate speech debate will allow us to explain why microaggressions fall below the cutoff for legal liability but remain apt targets for moral blame. (shrink)

Defenders of physicalism often point to the reduction of chemistry to quantum physics as a paradigm for the reduction of the rest of reality to a microphysical foundation. This argument is based, however, on a misreading of the philosophical significance of the quantum revolution. A hylomorphic interpretation of quantum thermodynamics and chemistry, in which parts and wholes stand in a mutually determining relationship, better fits both the empirical facts and the actual practice of scientists. I argue that only a hylomorphic (...) interpretation of quantum mechanics is able to treat thermodynamic quantities, such as temperature and entropy, as genuinely real, which in turn provides grounds for the reality of the direction of time and of molecular structure. (shrink)

Our cognitive competence is well accounted for by our evolutionary niche in the world's scheme of things. The development of inquiry in natural science is best understood on analogy with exploration -- to be sure, not in the geographical mode but rather exploration in nature's parametric space of such physical quantities as temperature, pressure, and field strength. The technology-mediated exploration at issue here involves an interaction between us humans and nature that becomes increasingly difficult as we move ever farther away (...) from the home base of the accustomed environment of our evolutionary heritage. The course of scientific progress accordingly involves a technological escalation -- an ascent to successively higher levels of technological sophistication that is unavoidably required for the production of the requisite observational data. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Escalation to Academic Extremes?Revisiting Academic Rivalry in the Möhler/Baur DebateGrant Kaplan (bio)INTRODUCTION: THEOLOGY AS THE SITE OF CONFLICTOne way to understand the history of Christian theology is as a history of rivalries. In the Letter to the Galatians, Paul and Peter seem like rivals when Paul recounts "opposing Peter to his face" (Gal. 2:11). The key theological discoveries in the fourth and fifth century are mostly borne of rivalry: (...) Eunomius versus the Cappadocians, and Pelagius versus Augustine. The Middle Ages contain the Eucharistic controversies between Pascasius and Ratramnus, and later controversies about the nature of authority in the theology between Abelard and Lombard. By the sixteenth century, not only the history of theology but the history of the Western churches seems to be intertwined with rivalry, with the Protestant Reformation being the most obvious example. One could also tell the history of religious orders as a history of rivalries between, among others, Franciscans and Dominicans, and later Jesuits. The teachings on justification arose from rivalries, and most of modern Catholic ecclesiology arose from Bellarmine's disputatious interactions with leading Lutherans like Flacius [End Page 163] and Chemnitz. In the past century, much of the theological terrain seems to be shaped by disputes between figures who had once been aligned: Barth and Brunner, Balthasar and Rahner, Cone and Jones.In retrospect, the nineteenth century seemed primed for theological rivalry. Due to social, political, and institutional factors, the nineteenth century was profoundly destabilizing for theology, particularly in Germany, where political realignment threatened to unsettle whatever truce had emerged after the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War in 1648. A number of factors contributed to this climate; perhaps foremost among them was the rapid expansion of academic journals. Without being in the same room, scholars could argue and respond to one another in what must have felt like "real time." Journals, to put it crudely, were the online comment section of their day, and they provided a new medium for theological dispute. Although public debate still figured prominently in the sixteenth century, even as the printing press was making it less central to theological argument, in the nineteenth century, one could escalate debate through asynchronous modes of communication.Both political destabilization and technological innovation made possible a range of intraconfessional disputes: among both Protestants—between mediating and confessing, Kantian and Hegelian, authoritarian, and scientific theologies—and Catholics—between scholastic and modern, German and Roman, Gallican and ultramontanist theologies. These circumstances also occasioned a redoubling of confessional identity. Olaf Blaschke has described the nineteenth century as a "second confessional age."1 By this he means that the nineteenth century, on the scale of confessional identity, looked more like the sixteenth century than the eighteenth did; instead of manifesting an increase in secularizing and nationalizing forces that downplayed religious identities, the nineteenth, according to a variety of measures, witnessed an upsurge in confessional identity.2 This upsurge affected Württemberg, the primarily Protestant territory in the southwestern part of Germany, where Tübingen was located. The newly constituted Württemberg combined a number of tiny, mono-confessional states into a larger, multi-confessional state as part of the reconfigurations brought about by Napoleon. Practically, this meant a loss in political autonomy for Catholic areas within Württemberg.According to one account, the confessional conflicts that memorably marked the 1870s (the Kulturkampf) and also the 1830s and 1840s (the Cologne Troubles and the Kniebeugungsstreiten) were already on the increase in the 1810s in Württemberg, in part due to the massive anniversary celebrations (Wartburgfeier) of the Reformation in 1817.3 This was the same year that the government relocated the newly established Catholic theological faculty from Ellwangen [End Page 164] to Tübingen, a long-time Protestant stronghold with a reputable theological faculty.The Catholic theologians in Tübingen were eager to engage critically with the leading theological issues of the day, resisting the urge to hide behind confessional barriers or pious pretenses. This decision led to a variety of conflicts that could be called rivalrous, and that fall into three categories: The first was within the Catholic faculty itself, as exemplified in the debate over celibacy. Their journal... (shrink)

Defenders of physicalism often point to the reduction of chemistry to quantum physics as a paradigm for the reduction of the rest of reality to a microphysical foundation. This argument is based, however, on a misreading of the philosophical significance of the quantum revolution. A hylomorphic (from Aristotle’s concepts of hyle, matter, and morphe, form) interpretation of quantum thermodynamics and chemistry, in which parts and wholes stand in a mutually determining relationship, better fits both the empirical facts and the actual (...) practice of scientists. I argue that only a hylomorphic interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM) is able to treat thermodynamic quantities, such as temperature and entropy, as genuinely real, which in turn provides grounds for the reality of the direction of time and of molecular structure. (shrink)

An important area of business ethics research focuses on how otherwise normal and law-abiding individuals can engage in acts of corruption. Key in this literature is the concept of rationalization. This is where individuals attempt to justify past and future corrupt deeds to themselves and others. In this article, we argue that rationalization often entails a process of overcompensation whereby the justification forwarded is excessive in relation to the actual act. Such over-rationalization provides an impetus for further and more serious (...) acts of illegality. Using a number of high profile cases, it is argued that this dynamic gap between the act and excessive rationalization can explain why corruption often escalates in severity and scope in the organization. (shrink)

Defence cases with an escalatory structure, in which the levels of violence between aggressor and defender start out as minor and then become major, even lethal, raise sharp problems for defence theory, and for our understanding of the conditions of defence: proportionality, necessity, and imminence. It is argued here that defenders are not morally required to withdraw from participation in these cases, and that defensive escalations do not offend against any of the conditions of defence, on an adequate understanding of (...) them. No plausible interpretation of proportionality or necessity excludes defensive permissions in escalatory cases. Moreover, the structure of escalatory defensive cases also sheds useful light on permissible responses to conditional deadly threats. This is because we can analyse conditional deadly threats as disguised cases of escalation. Because defensive resistance is permissible in escalatory cases, it is also permissible in cases involving conditional deadly threats. (shrink)

Reason's capacity to take us where we did not expect to go could also lead to a curious diversion from what one might expect to be the straight line of evolution. We have evolved a capacity to reason because it helps us to survive and reproduce. But if reason is an escalator, then although the first part of the journey may help us to survive and reproduce, we may go further than we needed to go for this purpose alone. We (...) may even end up somewhere that creates tension with other aspects of our nature. In this respect, there may after all be some validity in Kant 's picture of tension between our capacity to reason, and what it may lead us to see as the right thing to do, and our more basic desires. We can live with the contradictions only up to a point. (shrink)

Reason's capacity to take us where we did not expect to go could also lead to a curious diversion from what one might expect to be the straight line of evolution. We have evolved a capacity to reason because it helps us to survive and reproduce. But if reason is an escalator, then although the first part of the journey may help us to survive and reproduce, we may go further than we needed to go for this purpose alone. We (...) may even end up somewhere that creates tension with other aspects of our nature. In this respect, there may after all be some validity in Kant's picture of tension between our capacity to reason, and what it may lead us to see as the right thing to do, and our more basic desires. We can live with the contradictions only up to a point. (shrink)