Do famous athletes have special obligations to act virtuously? A number of philosophers have investigated this question by examining whether famous athletes are subject to special role model obligations (Wellman 2003; Feezel 2005; Spurgin 2012). In this paper we will take a different approach and give a positive response to this question by arguing for the position that sport and gaming celebrities are ‘ambassadors of the game’: moral agents whose vocations as rule-followers have unique implications for their non-lusory lives. According (...) to this idea, the actions of a game’s players and other stakeholders—especially the actions of its stars—directly affect the value of the game itself, a fact which generates additional moral reasons to behave in a virtuous manner. We will begin by explaining the three main positions one may take with respect to the question: moral exceptionalism, moral generalism, and moral exemplarism. We will argue that no convincing case for moral exemplarism has thus far been made, which gives us reason to look for new ways to defend this position. We then provide our own ‘ambassadors of the game’ account and argue that it gives us good reason to think that sport and game celebrities are subject to special obligations to act virtuously. (shrink)

The Ethics Committee at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) developed a Bioethics Ambassador Program (BAP); a yearlong educational program to assist clinical and non-clinical staff develop the skills to identify and address common burgeoning ethical issues that can arise during the provision of care to patients with cancer. The goal was to provide greater awareness of the role and services of Ethics, particularly at the institution’s geographically-diverse outpatient care centers and to better-instill a culture of preventative ethics. This (...) article discusses the design and implementation of the first two years of the program and analyzes its strengths, weaknesses, and impact on MSK. (shrink)

(2003). Essay Review of 'The Ambassadors' Secret: Holbein and the World of the Renaissance' by John North. Annals of Science: Vol. 60, No. 2, pp. 201-205.

The Ethics Ambassador program at the University of Colorado Hospital was born from a desire to encourage earlier ethics consultation, with the goal of providing timely, effective, and patient-centered ethics support. The selected Ethics Ambassadors are individuals from multiple roles across the hospital who receive regular education to serve as an ethics resource for their respective units or specialties. As embedded individuals, they are better able to recognize the unique needs and challenges of their units and provide relevant ethics (...) education to staff and faculty. Outcomes of the first year of the program illustrated the diverse ethics needs across the hospital and the benefits of utilizing embedded individuals, able to straddle both the domains of ethics and the needs of their individual units. (shrink)

The Overview Effect is the commonly reported experience of astronauts viewing planet Earth from space, and the subsequent reflection on, and processing of this experience. The Overview Effect is associated with feelings of awe, self-transcendence, and a change of perspective and identity that manifest themselves in taking steps towards protecting the fragile ecosystem. In the current study, we investigated whether the Overview Effect can be obtained in school children when simulated using virtual reality and whether the effect has a positive (...) impact on learning gains. Using questionnaires and attention data in an existing simulation environment used in the school system, we showed that the virtual reality simulation elicits an Overview Effect experience. Moreover, the experience yields learning gains in the domain of astrophysics. These findings are in line with past evidence regarding the positive impact of awe on learning and can be used to support further investigations of the relation between the Overview Effect and behavioral changes, specifically for educational purposes. (shrink)

Askold Melnyczuk’s novel Ambassador of the Dead narrates the process through which a second-generation, assimilated American learns to comprehend the Ukrainian historical experience of his family and their generation. This article argues that the novel is centrally concerned with Nick’s learning process: as he begins to better understand his parents’ generation, he transforms his own identity. As a child, Nick is unable to see Ada — his friend’s mother, who is haunted by traumatic experiences — as anything other than (...) an unchanging, incomprehensible enigma: “Old World Syndrome.” Eventually, Nick comes to follow the example of Anton, a displaced Ukrainian who narrates a story-within-the-novel that returns Ada’s experiences to their historical and cultural contexts, while using magical realism to place her Ukrainian experience on a historical scale. Through Anton’s example, Nick learns how to see both Ada and his parents as complex historical actors in world history. Understanding the past then enables him to see himself as Ukrainian and claim an identity that is both Ukrainian and American. (shrink)

This article investigates the tenet of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) that art, like philosophy, is a form of cognition different from literal knowledge by applying key OOO concepts to the analysis of the Renaissance painting The Ambassadors (1533), a double portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98–1543). The Ambassadors is found to exemplify the key principles of OOO in its treatment of objects and their relationships. Through an OOO lens, the painting becomes not merely a literal representation of the subjects and (...) their possessions, but a dynamic interplay of real and sensual qualities that exceeds any straightforward paraphrase. The figures and objects in the work are not simply passive symbols, but active agents that withdraw from direct access, preserving their autonomy and inviting the viewer’s participatory engagement. Holbein’s masterpiece comes alive precisely by troubling its own representational coherence, drawing the viewer into an uncanny encounter with the withdrawn depths of objects. By reading The Ambassadors through an object-oriented framework, the painting exemplifies art’s capacity to operate as a non-literal form of cognition, irreducible to mere symbolic codes or propositional knowledge. (shrink)

Abstract:This study links Homeric and Machiavellian outlooks in Henry James's The Ambassadors. We first relate Lambert Strether's embassy seeking Chad's return to Woollett to what Alexander Pope famously designated the "Embassy to Achilles," i.e., the Achaean effort to induce Achilles's return to battle. Achilles impassionedly rejects the embassy's hypocrisy; he will not be bought. We then find Chad Newsome conspiratorially excluding Strether from the family fortune via intended marriage to Mrs. Newsome. Contrary to Achilles's forthrightness and integrity, Chad and his (...) Parisian circle adopt a post-Machiavellian ethos of deceit as the norm. (shrink)

As past research has identified frontline employees as the primary communicators of a company’s CSR, this paper reports on a large-scale quasi-field experiment aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of the levers of successful in-store, point-of-sale, CSR communication. In cooperation with a large international retailer, the authors analyzed the effects of varying in-store CSR communication strategies in 48 unique stores, combining data from a customer survey, company records of customers’ real visits and purchases, and interviews with store managers. Taking into (...) account the nested structure of the data, the authors reveal that CSR-related training of frontline employees bestows its favorable effect on customers and customer behavior only if it is accompanied by the store managers’ personal support for CSR. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article examines Torquato Tasso’s Il Messaggiero [The Messenger], by focusing on the political subject matter, as discussed in the final part of the text through an imaginary dialogue, that is, the figure of the ambassador, the framework of his office and its relationship with power. Tasso’s dialogue features the nature of the ambassador as a figure incarnating his own ‘self’, while simultaneously representing his prince and acting on his own behalf within a specific political context, an (...) external dimension, namely, the ‘international’. Such a condition of alienation is one of the origins of the office’s ‘conflicting obligations’ toward the prince and toward its conciliatory function. We should indeed discuss the diplomatic personae or a divided persona. Tasso rejects the concept of the ambassador as a mere executor of policy, which is a striking departure from the previous general conception of the ambassador. The paradoxical conclusion that emerges is that the messenger, or the ambassador, is not a simple messenger. Tasso’s text and its context is the article’s epicentre. However, this article concerns the possible links between certain ideas and discourses regarding the ambassador’s persona and the growth of diplomacy as a part of the rise of the ‘international’. (shrink)

Life satisfaction is a research hotspot in positive psychology in recent years. This study uses overseas students as subjects and attempts to examine the effect of place attachment and student life satisfaction on Mainland Chinese students’ word-of-mouth recommendations and their Ambassador Behavioral intention. A survey was systematically conducted in six institutions in Macao. The results of 312 valid data indicate that place dependence has a positive influence on place identity; place identity and place dependence have a positive influence on (...) student life satisfaction; student life satisfaction mediates the influence of the two dimensions of place attachment on WOM and AB intention. Recommendations are provided to improve overseas students’ life satisfaction in the study places. It helps to improve their sense of ownership and actively participate in the construction of the study places. (shrink)

Juan de Vera’s El Enbaxador (1620) was one of the main treatises on the role of the ambassador in Early Modern Europe and the first one published in Spanish. At the time, Spain was no exception to the influence of Tacitus as a significant ancient author to inspire the political practice of the age. Juan de Vera, a nobleman and writer, soon an ambassador and entitled count, incorporated his own reading of Tacitus into El Enbaxador. Justus Lipsius, the (...) outstanding editor of Tacitus’ works, was also a main source for this book which was defined by John Elliott as a ‘quintessentially Lipsian handbook for diplomats’. The focus of this article is on Tacitus’ citations in El Enbaxador and their contexts within the book. My aim is to identify the specific themes for which Tacitus served as an exemplary source of guidance according to this particular text. Notably, some of such themes pertain to ambassadorial affairs, while others are common political topics in Early Modern Europe. Vera's reading of Tacitus in El Enbaxador gained wider dissemination beyond Spain as the work was subsequently translated into French and Italian. (shrink)

This paper highlights the contributions of three major Islamicists, Louis Massignon, Henry Corbin, and Frithjof Schuon, to the understanding of the Qur’ân. Their works point to the epistemologic primacy of the contemplative and esoteric dimensions of the Book. Its linguistic texture and modalities are here understood as expressing the very limits of language, the proportional reciprocity between the actualization of inner meaning and spiritual fruition, and its ultimate metaphysical substance. These principles and their spiritual consequences may constitute the best antidote (...) to contemporary fundamentalist and modernist reductionism in scriptural hermeneutics. (shrink)