Drawing from the Boulding''s (1956) framework for general systems theory, the need to employ richer paradigm in the study of organizations (Pondy and Mitroff, 1979) is reiterated. It is argued that a better understanding of organizational ethical behavior is contingent upon viewing organizations as symbol processing systems of shared language and meanings. Further, it is proposed that organizations, like individuals, develop into collectivities of shared cognitions and rationale, over a period of time. The study adapts Kohlberg''s (1983) model of moral (...) development to examine if organizations can be viewed as passing through different stages of moral development depending on the type of moral reasoning employed to explain their behaviors in the face of ethical crises. Several cases raising questions about the ethics of corporate behavior were researched. An instrument entitled Organization Response Analysis was constructed using statements made by various spokespersons representing five of these organizations. The instrument was administered to 246 graduate and undergraduate students of business (N = 246). Results indicated a great degree of concurrence among respondents of differing genders, levels of education and work experience in determining the stages of moral development of organizations. Limitations of the current study and implications for future research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Objectives: To compare attitudes of medical and law students toward informing a cancer patient about diagnosis and prognosis and to examine whether differences are related to different convictions about benefit or harm of information.Setting and design: Anonymous questionnaires were distributed to convenience samples of students at the University of Geneva containing four vignettes describing a cancer patient who wishes, or alternatively, who does not wish to be told the truth.Participants: One hundred and twenty seven medical students and 168 law students.Main (...) outcome measures: Five point Likert scale of responses to the vignettes ranging from “certainly inform” to “certainly not inform” the patient.Results: All medical students and 96% of law students favoured information about the diagnosis of cancer if the patient requests it. Seventy four per cent of medical students and 82% of law students favoured informing a cancer patient about his or her prognosis . Thirty five per cent of law students and 11.7% of medical students favoured telling about the diagnosis and 25.6% of law students and 7% of medical students favoured telling about the prognosis even if the patient had clearly expressed his wish not to be informed. Law students indicated significantly more often than medical students reasons to do with the patient’s good, legal obligations, and the physician’s obligation to tell the truth, and significantly less often than medical students that their attitude had been determined predominantly by respect for the autonomous choice of the patient.Conclusion: Differences in attitudes according to the type of case and the type of studies were related to convictions about the benefit or harm to the patient caused by being given information. The self reported reasons of future physicians and future lawyers are helpful when considering means to achieve a better acceptance of patients’ right to know and not to know. (shrink)

Simultaneous discovery in science has been a subject of close historical investigations, not only for assessing claims of priority, which occasionally generate controversy rather than consensus, but also for understanding the cultural and intellectual context of the time. Thomas S. Kuhn is a pioneer in the contextual study of simultaneous discovery, and his paper on the formulation of the first law of thermodynamics has already become a classic.

Formal definitions of the following concepts of animal ecology are given: environment, niche, locality, local population, natural population, community, ecosystem. Five primitive (undefined) notions are used including "animal", "offspring" and "habitat", the latter in the sense of Charles Elton. The defining equations for the environment of one animal are first given, then niche (in the Elton sense) is formally defined in terms of the environment. The fifth primitve notion "habitat" is then introduced in order to define the remaining concepts.

This is a detailed commentary on Hume's first Inquiry. Flew argues, rightly, that it should not be treated simply as a weakened abridgement of part of the Treatise. He gives a great deal of the historical context in an interesting and helpful way, but he is primarily concerned to lay out and to assess Hume's arguments. Inevitably much of the book covers quite familiar ground, but in discussing Hume's arguments on miracles and on religion generally, Flew has a number of (...) new and suggestive points to make. The book as a whole will be useful for the student beginning the study of Hume, and Flew's criticisms, as well as his frequent review of other criticisms, should prove helpful to the advanced student. --J. B. S. (shrink)

In his account of probable reasoning, Poincare used the concept, or at least the language, of conventions. In particular, he claimed that the prior probabilities essential for inverse probable reasoning are determined conventionally. This paper investigates, in the light of Poincare's well known claim about the conventionality of metric geometry, what this could mean, and how it is related to other views about the determination of prior probabilities. Particular attention is paid to the similarities and differences between Poincare's conventionalism as (...) it applies to probabilities and de Finetti's subjectivism. The aim of the paper is to suggest that in accounts of the development of ideas about probable reasoning, particularly those customarily described as Bayesian, Poincare's discussion deserves more attention than it has so far received. (shrink)

This volume of the Great American Thinkers series purports to let Thoreau speak for himself, primarily through passages quoted from his journals. Originally published in fourteen volumes, the journals represent over twenty years of Thoreau's life, and are the background and, in some cases, the original form of works more polished and more widely known. Murray has aptly considered Thoreau's wide range of thought and comment under several main headings, such as "Primacy or Purpose," "Society as Burden," and "Freedom and (...) Simplicity." In this arrangement, many of Thoreau's specific and often curt observations can be seen in a more general context, with Thoreau himself providing some of the keys to the transition.--G. B. S. C. (shrink)