This paper investigated the effects, ramifications and limitations of categorising and labelling Directors and Boards when measuring or evaluating performance. According to Weiner (1982) labelling can have a profound impact on a person's life, leading to stigmas, reputation bias, prejudice or discrimination which can adversely impact Director and Board performance. Labelling Directors' behavioural traits can lead to the exaggeration of behaviours and lead fellow Directors or shareholders to have preconceived expectations about Directors. This study hypothesised that measurement of Directors and (...) Boards should be measured on a continuum and remain fluid. Fluid measurement takes into account all aspects of a Directors behaviour, circumstances and situational impacts, without categorisation or judgement. Results suggest Directors feel more confident in their ability to perform as Directors and evidence a greater state of preparedness and readiness for change. Findings are discussed in terms of the impacts for Directors, decision-making ability and Board performance. (shrink)

This is an introductory guide to the basic principles of constructing good arguments and criticizing bad ones. It is nontechnical in its approach, and is based on 150 key examples, each discussed and evaluated in clear, illustrative detail. The author explains how errors, fallacies, and other key failures of argument occur. He shows how correct uses of argument are based on sound argument strategies for reasoned persuasion and critical questions for responding. Among the many subjects covered are: techniques of posing, (...) replying to, and criticizing questions, forms of valid argument, relevance, appeals to emotion, personal attack, uses and abuses of expert opinion, problems in deploying statistics, loaded terms, equivocation, and arguments from analogy. (shrink)

This book is designed to appeal both to those interested in Roman poetry and to specialists in ancient philosophy. In it David Sedley explores Lucretius ' complex relationship with Greek culture, in particular with Empedocles, whose poetry was the model for his own, with Epicurus, the source of his philosophical inspiration, and with the Greek language itself. He includes a detailed reconstruction of Epicurus' great treatise On Nature, and seeks to show how Lucretius worked with this as his sole (...) philosophical source, but gradually emancipated himself from its structure, transforming its raw contents into something radically new. By pursuing these themes, the book uncovers many unrecognised aspects of Lucretius ' methods and achievements as a poetic craftsman. (shrink)

Stamos squarely confronts the problem of determining what a biological species is, whether species are real, and the nature of their reality. He critically considers the evolution of the major contemporary views of species and also offers his own solution to the species problem.

Examines Darwin’s concept of species in a philosophical context.

In "The Indeterministic Character of Evolutionary Theory: No 'Hidden Variables Proof' But No Room for Determinism Either," Brandon and Carson (1996) argue that evolutionary theory is statistical because the processes it describes are fundamentally statistical. In "Is Indeterminism the Source of the Statistical Character of Evolutionary Theory?" Graves, Horan, and Rosenberg (1999) argue in reply that the processes of evolutionary biology are fundamentally deterministic and that the statistical character of evolutionary theory is explained by epistemological rather than ontological considerations. In (...) this paper I focus on the topic of mutation. By focusing on some of the theory and research on this topic from early to late, I show how quantum indeterminism hooks up to point mutations (via tautomeric shifts, proton tunneling, and aqueous thermal motion). I conclude with a few thoughts on some of the wider implications of this topic. (shrink)

Mary Winsor (2003) argues against the received view that pre-Darwinian taxonomy was characterized mainly by essentialism. She argues, instead, that the methods of pre-Darwinian taxonomists, in spite of whatever their beliefs, were that of clusterists, so that the received view, propagated mainly by certain modern biologists and philosophers of biology, should at last be put to rest as a myth. I argue that shes right when it comes to higher taxa, but wrong when it comes the most important category of (...) all, the species category. (shrink)

This provocative text considers whether evolutionary explanations can be used to clarify some of life’s biggest questions. Examines topics of race, sex, gender, the nature of language, religion, ethics, knowledge, consciousness and ultimately, the meaning of life Each chapter presents a main topic, together with discussion of related ideas and arguments from various perspectives Addresses questions such as: Did evolution make men and women fundamentally different? Is the concept of race merely a social construction? Is morality, including universal human rights, (...) a mass delusion? Can religion and evolution really be harmonized? Does evolution render life meaningless? Written in a clear and informative style, with helpful references for further reading and research. (shrink)

First, a brief history is provided of Popper's views on the status of evolutionary biology as a science. The views of some prominent biologists are then canvassed on the matter of falsifiability and its relation to evolutionary biology. Following that, I argue that Popper's programme of falsifiability does indeed exclude evolutionary biology from within the circumference of genuine science, that Popper's programme is fundamentally incoherent, and that the correction of this incoherence results in a greatly expanded and much more realistic (...) concept of what is empirical, resulting in the inclusion of evolutionary biology. Finally, this expanded concept of empirical is applied to two particular problems in evolutionary biology — viz., the species problem and the debate over the theory of punctuated equilibria — and it is argued that both of them are still mainly metaphysical. (shrink)

In addition to the distinction between species as a category and speciesas a taxon, the word species is ambiguous in a very different butequally important way, namely the temporal distinction between horizontal andvertical species. Although often found in the relevant literature, thisdistinction has thus far remained vague and undefined. In this paper the use ofthe distinction is explored, an attempt is made to clarify and define it, andthen the relation between the two dimensions and the implications of thatrelation are examined. (...) Using Darwin's analogy of language evolution forspeciesevolution, and by appealing to a major change in the conception of languagebetween 19th- and 20th-century linguistics, it is argued that the horizontaldimension has priority (pragmatic, epistemological, logical, and ontological)over the vertical dimension. This has immense ramifications for the modernspecies problem. Fundamentally, it favors horizontal species concepts oververtical ones. In so doing it places species realism on a much more securefoundation and largely undercuts species pluralism. In addition it raises aserious problem for the increasingly popular family of phylogenetic speciesconcepts, which generally suffer from a dimensionality confusion. However,thereis a recent trend within this family that attempts to restore the priority ofthe horizontal dimension. It is concluded that this trend should be affirmedandthat the species-as-individuals view should be abandoned. (shrink)

Gayon's recent claim that Buffon developed a concept of species as physical individuals is critically examined and rejected. Also critically examined and rejected is Gayon's more central thesis that as a consequence of his analysis of Buffon's species concept, and also of Darwin's species concept, it is clear that modern evolutionary theory does not require species to be physical individuals. While I agree with Gayon's conclusion that modern evolutionary theory does not require species to be physical individuals, I disagree with (...) his reasons and instead provide logical rather than historical reasons for the same conclusion. (shrink)

In this book, David McNeill illuminates Plato’s distinctive approach to philosophy by examining how his literary portrayal of Socrates manifests an essential interdependence between philosophic and ethical inquiry. In particular, McNeill demonstrates how Socrates’s confrontation with profound ethical questions about his public philosophic activity is the key to understanding the distinctively mimetic, dialogic, and reflexive character of Socratic philosophy. Taking a cue from Nietzsche’s account of “the problem of Socrates,” McNeill shows how the questions Nietzsche raises are questions that, (...) in Plato's depiction, Socrates was aware of and responded to. McNeill also shows how the Republic provides a view of Socratic moral psychology that resembles Nietzsche’s account of human psychology: it deals with the internalized ethical narratives and justificatory schemes through which human beings orient themselves to their world. McNeill argues that this moral psychology not only determines Socrates’s explicit account of different character types and political regimes but also crucially informs his dialectical engagements with his various interlocutors in the dialogues. In addition to contributing a unique perspective to current debates about Socrates’s philosophic methods and the significance of the literary character of Plato’s dialogues, the book offers a far-reaching interpretation of Plato’s presentation of the theoretical and practical activities of the fifth-century Sophists. And in showing how Plato responds to “modern” theoretical challenges, McNeill provides new evidence to question standard views of the differences between ancient and modern conceptions of the self, society, and nature. (shrink)

When in 2001 Earth Liberation Front activists drove metal spikes into hundreds of trees in Gifford Pinchot National Forest, they were protesting the sale of a section of the old-growth forest to a timber company. But ELF's communiqu on the action went beyond the radical group's customary brief. Drawing connections between the harms facing the myriad animals who make their home in the trees and the struggles for social justice among ordinary human beings resisting exclusion and marginalization, the dispatch declared, (...) "all oppression is linked, just as we are all linked," and decried the "patriarchal nightmare" in the form of "techno-industrial global capitalism." In Total Liberation, David Naguib Pellow takes up this claim and makes sense of the often tense and violent relationships among humans, ecosystems, and nonhuman animal species, expanding our understanding of inequality and activists' uncompromising efforts to oppose it. Grounded in interviews with more than one hundred activists, on-the-spot fieldwork, and analyses of thousands of pages of documents, websites, journals, and zines, Total Liberation reveals the ways in which radical environmental and animal rights movements challenge inequity through a vision they call "total liberation." In its encounters with such infamous activists as scott crow, Tre Arrow, Lauren Regan, Rod Coronado, and Gina Lynn, the book offers a close-up, insider's view of one of the most important--and feared--social movements of our day. At the same time, it shows how and why the U.S. justice system plays to that fear, applying to these movements measures generally reserved for "jihadists"--with disturbing implications for civil liberties and constitutional freedom. How do the adherents of "total liberation" fight oppression and seek justice for humans, nonhumans, and ecosystems alike? And how is this pursuit shaped by the politics of anarchism and anticapitalism? In his answers, Pellow provides crucial in-depth insight into the origins and social significance of the earth and animal liberation movements and their increasingly common and compelling critique of inequality as a threat to life and a dream of a future characterized by social and ecological justice for all. (shrink)

Bioethics, once a four-letter word in the private sector, is now an integral part of the decisionmaking process of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. And bioethicists, once confined to the classroom and limited to abstract, philosophical discussions about what is right and wrong in medicine and medical research, now play an important role in the practical implementation of ethical boundaries. Bioethicists increasingly are hired by biomedical companies as consultants to highlight and help resolve complex ethical issues that arise in the companies’ (...) normal business practices. Whether motivated by profit, reputation, or a genuine desire to act morally, these companies are willing to pay bioethicists substantial consultation fees for their “expert” opinions. This fairly recent phenomenon has caused some to be concerned about the potential for bioethicists to encounter conflicts of interests. Specifically, many critics of this new relationship between bioethicists and the private sector “are concerned about the appropriateness of ethicists who should have broader interests, such as concerns about social justice, serving clients whose primary interest is profit-maximizing.”. (shrink)

In this book, author David N. Levy uses Machiavelli’s conflict between the elite and the people as the lens through which to understand the other major features of his republicanism. Through analyzing his Discourses on Livy, Levy shows that Machiavelli’s principles can provide support for, and constructive criticism of, modern liberal democracy.

The primary purpose of this paper is to argue that biologists should stop citing Karl Popper on what a genuinely scientific theory is. Various ways in which biologists cite Popper on this matter are surveyed, including the use of Popper to settle debates on methodology in phylogenetic systematics. It is then argued that the received view on Popper—namely, that a genuinely scientific theory is an empirically falsifiable one—is seriously mistaken, that Popper’s real view was that genuinely scientific theories have the (...) form of statements of laws of nature. It is then argued that biology arguably has no genuine laws of its own. In place of Popperian falsifiability, it is suggested that a cluster class epistemic values approach (which subsumes empirical falsifiability) is the best solution to the demarcation problem between genuine science and pseudo- or non-science. (shrink)

Ever since Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published, the received view has been that Darwin literally thought of species as not extra-mentally real. In 1969 Michael Ghiselin upset the received view by interpreting Darwin to mean that species taxa are indeed real but not the species category. In 1985 John Beatty took Ghiselin's thesis a step further by providing a strategy theory to explain why Darwin would say one thing (his repeated nominalistic definition of species) and do (...) another (hold that species taxa are real). In the present paper I attempt to take this line of interpretation to a new level. Guided by the principle of charity, I provide and analyze a considerable amount of evidence from Darwin's mature writings (both private and published) to show that (contra Ghiselin and Beatty) Darwin did not simply accept the species delimitations of his fellow naturalists but actually employed, repeatedly and consistently, a species concept in a thoroughly modern sense, albeit with an implicit definition, a concept uniquely his own and fully in accord with his theory of evolution by natural selection. This implicit concept and definition is carefully reconstructed in the present paper. A new strategy theory is then provided to account for why Darwin would define species (both taxa and category) nominalistically on the one hand but delimit species realistically on the other. (shrink)

Aristotle claims in the Metaphysics that in order to be resourceful in first philosophic inquiry it is useful to go through perplexity well. In this essay, the author argues that that perplexity plays a parallel role in Aristotle’s account of practical, deliberative inquiry in the Nicomachean Ethics. He does so by offering an interpretation of the relation between Aristotle’s account of akratic ignorance in Nicomachean Ethics 7 and his emphasis on the necessity of going through perplexity when inquiring into akrasia. (...) Along the way, the author tries to shed some additional light on Aristotle’s conception of endoxa, his account of the so-called practical syllogism, and the distinction between ethical virtue simply and “authoritative” virtue. But the intention throughout the essay is to examine the role that perplexity about the phenomena of ethical life plays in Aristotle’s account of the kind of thoughtfulness required for excellence of character. (shrink)

An awareness of the significance of location in the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge has brought a new dimension to recent work on the sociology of science. But the importance of speech in scientific enterprises has been less well developed. This article explores the idea of `spaces of speech' by underscoring the connections between location and locution. It develops a case study of how Darwinian evolution was talked about in different sites using examples from Ireland and the American South (...) during the latter part of the 19th century. These reveal how sites enable and constrain what may be said, and heard, about particular scientific claims, and how they are crucial to understanding the circulation of scientific claims in public arenas. (shrink)

A term with myriad associations, revolution is commonly understood in its intellectual, historical, and sociopolitical contexts. Until now, almost no attention has been paid to revolution and questions of geography. Geography and Revolution examines the ways that place and space matter in a variety of revolutionary situations. David N. Livingstone and Charles W. J. Withers assemble a set of essays that are themselves revolutionary in uncovering not only the geography of revolutions but the role of geography in revolutions. Here, (...) scientific revolutions—Copernican, Newtonian, and Darwinian—ordinarily thought of as placeless, are revealed to be rooted in specific sites and spaces. Technical revolutions—the advent of print, time-keeping, and photography—emerge as inventions that transformed the world's order without homogenizing it. Political revolutions—in France, England, Germany, and the United States—are notable for their debates on the nature of political institutions and national identity. Gathering insight from geographers, historians, and historians of science, Geography and Revolution is an invitation to take the where as seriously as the who and the when in examining the nature, shape, and location of revolutions. (shrink)

Explores the science and creative process behind Poe’s cosmological treatise. Silver Winner for Philosophy, 2017 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards In 1848, almost a year and a half before Edgar Allan Poe died at the age of forty, his book Eureka was published. In it, he weaved together his scientific speculations about the universe with his own literary theory, theology, and philosophy of science. Although Poe himself considered it to be his magnum opus, Eureka has mostly been overlooked (...) or underappreciated, sometimes even to the point of being thought an elaborate hoax. Remarkably, however, in Eureka Poe anticipated at least nine major theories and developments in twentieth-century science, including the Big Bang theory, multiverse theory, and the solution to Olbers’ paradox. In this book—the first devoted specifically to Poe’s science side—David N. Stamos, a philosopher of science, combines scientific background with analysis of Poe’s life and work to highlight the creative and scientific achievements of this text. He examines Poe’s literary theory, theology, and intellectual development, and then compares Poe’s understanding of science with that of scientists and philosophers from his own time to the present. Next, Stamos pieces together and clarifies Poe’s theory of scientific imagination, which he then attempts to update and defend by providing numerous case studies of eureka moments in modern science and by seeking insights from comparative biography and psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, and evolution. David N. Stamos teaches philosophy at York University in Toronto. He is the author of several books, including Darwin and the Nature of Species, also published by SUNY Press. (shrink)

Sophocles' Antigone contains the first recorded instance of the word αὑτ ό νομος, the source for our word “autonomous”. I argue that reflection upon the human aspiration toward autonomy is central to that work. I begin by focusing on the difficulty readers of the play have determining whether Antigone's actions in the play should be considered autonomous and then suggest that recognizing this difficulty is crucial to a proper understanding of the play. The very aspects of Antigone's character that seem (...) to militate against understanding her actions within the play as autonomous—her rejection of life, her intimacy with death and the way she seems defined by her incestuous heritage— serve to illustrate the inherently problematic character of a moral ideal that we can provisionally call Antigone's autonomy. I show how the movement of the play can be understood in terms of Antigone's progress from what Kant would characterize as a heteronomous representation of her irremissible duty to bury her dead brother, to a self-conception defined by a recognition and embrace of her autonomy understood as, in Kant's words, “a respect for something entirely different from life”. Antigone's autonomy is exemplified by her choice to be dead, the choice to bear the burden of responsibility to her own. This choice, I argue, must be understood as the choice of herself as defined by her obligation to her own. Sophocles' Antigone suggests that the moral ideal Antigone represents is unliveable, but that this ideal is nonetheless essential to human moral aspiration. (shrink)

In Freedom's Right Axel Honneth seeks to provide a theory of justice by appropriating Hegel's account of ethical substance in the Philosophy of Right, but he wants to do so without endorsing Hegel's more robust idealist commitments. I argue that this project can only succeed if Honneth can offer an alternative, comparatively robust demonstration of the rationality and normative coherence of existing social institutions. I contend that the grounds Honneth provides for this claim are insufficient for his purposes. In particular, (...) I argue that Honneth's claim that “justice and individual self-determination are mutually referential,” even were it to be accepted, would be insufficient to underwrite his more robust identification between the normative foundations of justice, autonomy and reciprocal self-realization. In the final section of the paper, I turn to Honneth's analysis of the “social institution” of friendship, which he, following Hegel, holds up as a paradigmatic instantiation of social freedom understood as, in Hegel's words, “being with oneself in another” . I argue that an analysis of the normative import of friendship wholly in terms of mutual recognition misses an important aspect of the kind of self-realization that friendship makes possible. (shrink)

Objective: To identify the frequency and nature of care conflict dilemmas that United States long-term care providers encounter, response strategies, and use of ethics resources to assist with dispute resolution. Design: An online cross-sectional survey was distributed to the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine (AMDA). Results: Two-thirds of participants, primarily medical directors, have rejected surrogate instructions and 71% have managed family conflict. Conflict over treatment decisions and issues interpreting advance directives were frequently reported. Half of facilities lack a (...) formal dispute mediation policy. Only five respondents have called an ethics consult for assistance. Conclusion: Ethically tense care conflicts commonly arise in long-term and post-acute care facilities. Few facility procedures incorporate ethics resources into actual practice. Recommendations are made to create actionable policy, increase access to ethics services, and support staff skill development in order to improve the end-of-life care experiences for patients, families, and care facility staff. (shrink)

Photo by Jonathan Ford on Unsplash ABSTRACT Since 2008, an average of twenty million people per year have been displaced by weather events. Climate migration creates a special setting for a duty to rescue. A duty to rescue is a moral rather than legal duty and imposes on a bystander to take an active role in preventing serious harm to someone else. This paper analyzes the idea of expanding a duty to rescue to climate migration. We address who should have (...) the duty and to whom the duty should extend. The paper discusses ways to define and apply the duty to rescue as well as its limitations, arguing that it may take the form of an ethical duty to prepare. (shrink)

This paper examines the reaction of Victorian Presbyterian culture to the theory of evolution in late nineteenth century Scotland. Focusing on the role played by the Free Church theologian, biblical critic and anthropological theorist, William Robertson Smith, it argues that, compared with Smith’s radical scholarship, evolutionary theories did little to disturb the Scottish Calvinist mind-set. After surveying the attitudes to evolution among a range of theological leaders, the paper examines Smith’s fundamentally threatening proposals and the circumstances that led to the (...) public spectacle of his dismissal from his Free Church professorship. It concludes by suggesting that, ironically, even while his fellow churchmen were making their peace with Darwin, Smith was mobilising an evolutionary outlook that challenged Scotland’s conservative religious culture to its very core. (shrink)

A startling amount of intelligent activity can be controlled without reasoning or thought. By tuning the perceptual system to task relevant properties a creature can cope with relatively sophisticated environments without concepts. There is a limit, however, to how far a creature without concepts can go. Rod Brooks, like many ecologically oriented scientists, argues that the vast majority of intelligent behaviour is concept-free. To evaluate this position I consider what special benefits accrue to concept-using creatures. Concepts are either necessary for (...) certain types of perception, learning, and control, or they make those processes computationally simpler. Once a creature has concepts its capacities are vastly multiplied. (shrink)

Journalists in many Afiican countries have long been caught between differing ideals i n their relationship between press and government. Two models viefor dominance-the western, libertarian and development journalism models. This article uses Walzer's (1983) theory of distributive justice to illuminate the ethical significance of this debate. A t issue is political power. A case study of the 1996 proposed press law i n Kenya illustrates the ethical arguments mounted for each press model and how the arguments are marshaled not (...) necessarily for moral purposes but to gain political advantage. Finally, a viable third alternative avoids a false dilemma between the libertarian and development journalism models. Communitarianism preserves the independence from government SO central to the libertarian model while providing a basis for activist journalism. (shrink)

Nineteenth-century European thought, especially in Germany, was increasingly dominated by a new historicist impulse to situate every event, person, or text in its particular context. At odds with the transcendent claims of philosophy and--more significantly--theology, historicism came to be attacked by its critics for reducing human experience to a series of disconnected moments, each of which was the product of decidedly mundane, rather than sacred, origins. By the late nineteenth century and into the Weimar period, historicism was seen by many (...) as a grinding force that corroded social values and was emblematic of modern society's gravest ills. Resisting History examines the backlash against historicism, focusing on four major Jewish thinkers. David Myers situates these thinkers in proximity to leading Protestant thinkers of the time, but argues that German Jews and Christians shared a complex cultural and discursive world best understood in terms of exchange and adaptation rather than influence.After examining the growing dominance of the new historicist thinking in the nineteenth century, the book analyzes the critical responses of Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Leo Strauss, and Isaac Breuer. For this fascinating and diverse quartet of thinkers, historicism posed a stark challenge to the ongoing vitality of Judaism in the modern world. And yet, as they set out to dilute or eliminate its destructive tendencies, these thinkers often made recourse to the very tools and methods of historicism. In doing so, they demonstrated the utter inescapability of historicism in modern culture, whether approached from a Christian or Jewish perspective. (shrink)