Like several prominent moral philosophers before him, such as St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, Kant held that it is never morally permissible to tell a lie. Although a great deal has been written on why and how he argued for this conclusion, comparatively little has been written on what, precisely, Kant considered a lie to be, and on how he differentiated between being truthful and being candid, between telling a lie and being reticent, and between telling a lie and (...) other forms of linguistic deception. That is to say, very little has been written on the scope of Kant's prohibition against lying. In this article I will argue that the scope of the prohibition against lying is narrower than it is commonly supposed to be. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Ubuntu can be construed as a strict form of cosmopolitan moral and political theory. The implication of this is that the duty or obligation that humans owe other humans arises in virtue of humanity or the notion of human-ness. That is, one is a person insofar as he or she forms humane relations and it is this particular way of beingness that makes every person both an object and subject of duty. On this cosmopolitan (...) interpretation of Ubuntu, I therefore, argue that Ubuntu would support the principle of natural resource redistribution according to which all humans fall within the scope of justice and the principles of distributive justice. If this is right, then Ubuntu’s cosmopolitanism has something to contribute generally to cosmopolitanism, as an account of global justice. (shrink)

In this paper we look at business ethics from a deontological perspective. We address the theory of ethical decision-making and deontological ethics for business executives and explore the concept of “moral duty” as transcending mere gain and profit maximization. Two real-world cases that focus on accounting fraud as the ethical conception. Through these cases, we show that while accounting fraud – from a consequentialist perspective – may appear to provide a quick solution to a pressing problem, longer term effects of (...) fraud and misconduct make ethical implications more apparent. Widely used compensation schemes also may have the tendency to fuel unethical behavior. We argue that an ethical reinvigoration of the business world can only be accomplished by encouraging the business realm to impose upon itself some measure of self-regulating along the lines of deontological ethics. Principles of deontology should guide executive decision-making particularly when executives are tempted to operate outside of codified legislation or are bound to act under judicial-free conditions. (shrink)

In this article, we offer an approach of how participative stakeholder innovation can be evaluated in complex multistakeholder settings that address wicked issues. Based on the principle of mutual value creation, we present an evaluation framework that accounts for the social interaction process during which stakeholders integrate their resources and capabilities to develop innovative products and services. To assess this evaluation framework, we collected multiple data from the case study of the Swiss Cardiovascular Network, which represents a multistakeholder setting related (...) to the prevention of cardiovascular disease. Our findings indicate that the evaluation dimensions of the stakeholders’ mindsets, the process and context of the stakeholder interactions, as well as the outcomes are useful concepts to account for a cooperative process of innovation in a multistakeholder setting. We discuss both the theoretical and practical insights of our analysis for participative stakeholder innovation. (shrink)

This paper reports two cases in Hong Kong involving two native Chinese adolescent cancer patients (APs) who were denied their rights to consent to necessary treatments refused by their parents, resulting in serious harm. We argue that the dynamics of the ‘AP‐physician‐family‐relationship’ and the dominant role Chinese families play in medical decision‐making (MDM) are best understood in terms of the tendency to hierarchy and parental authoritarianism in traditional Confucianism. This ethic has been confirmed and endorsed by various Chinese writers from (...) Mainland China and Hong Kong. Rather than giving an unqualified endorsement to this ethic, based more on cultural sentimentalism than rational moral reasoning, we warn that a strong familism in MDM, which deprives ‘weak’ family members of rights, represents the less desirable elements of this tradition, against which healthcare professionals working in this cultural milieu need to safeguard. Specifically for APs, we suggest that parental authority and family integrity should be re‐interpreted in terms of parental responsibility and the enhancement of children's interests respectively, as done in the West. This implies that when parents refuse to consent to necessary treatment and deny their adolescent children's right to consent, doctors, as the only remaining advocates of the APs' interest, have the duty to inform the state, which can override parental refusal to enable the doctors to fulfill their professional and moral obligations. In so doing the state exercises its ‘parens patriae’ power to defend the defenseless in society and the integrity of the medical profession. (shrink)

In this article I attempt to survey work on Hobbes within the period from 1975 to 1989. The text is restricted almost exclusively to work in English on topics in moral and political philosophy. The bibliography is more comprehensive, including work on other aspects of Hobbes’ philosophy and work written in a variety of other languages.The central questions on which the text focuses are these: what psychological assumptions underlie Hobbes’ moral and political conclusions? in particular, what roles do egoism, the (...) striving for self-preservation, and the desire for glory play in his system? to what extent is Hobbes committcd to the claim that the state of nature is a war or all against all? does that war stem from human rationality or from human irrationality? does Hobbes view morality as entirely a human invention, a creation of the state? if people had the psychology Hobbes assumes in justifying the institution of a sovereign, would they be able to institute one? to what extent does Hobbes regard rebellion as justifiable?I devote an attention some people may find excessive to recent works by Greg Kavka and Jean Hampton. I share Gautier’s view that they will prove landmarks in Hobbes scholarship. But I do try also to pay attention to other interesting work by authors like Richard Tuck, Tom Sorell, and David Johnston, and I have many criticisms to make of Kavka and Hampton. (shrink)

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156056/1/Mind-Body Union.pdf.

ABSTRACT Objectives: To investigate whether Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong share similar perceptions with their Western counterparts regarding their capacity for autonomous decision‐making, and secondarily whether Chinese parents underestimate their adolescent children's desire and capacity for autonomous decision‐making. Method:‘Healthy Adolescents’ and their parents were recruited from four local secondary schools, and ‘Sick Adolescents’ and their parents from the pediatric wards and outpatient clinics. Their perceptions of adolescents' understanding of illnesses and treatments, maturity in judgment, risk‐taking, openness to divergent opinions, pressure (...) from parents and doctors, submission to parental authority and preference for autonomy in medical decision‐making are surveyed by a 50‐item questionnaire on a five‐point Likert scale. Results: Findings indicate that Chinese adolescents aged 14–16 perceive themselves to possess the necessary cognitive abilities and maturity in judgment to be autonomous decision‐makers like their Western counterparts. Paradoxically, although they hesitate to assert their autonomy, they are also unwilling to surrender that autonomy to their parents even under coercion or intimidation. Parents tend to underestimate their adolescents' preferences for making autonomous decisions and overestimate the importance of parental authority in decision‐making. Conclusion:‘14‐and‐above’ Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong perceive themselves as capable of autonomous decision‐making in medically‐related matters, but hesitate to assert their autonomy, probably because of the Confucian values of parental authority and filial piety that are deeply embedded in the local culture. (shrink)

This article surveys work on descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche, And leibniz, Between 1960 and 1972, With particular attention to hintikka, Frankfurt, Kenny, Gueroult, Robinet, Rescher, Parkinson, Ishiguro, And mates. It is accompanied by an extensive bibliography.

My thesis is simple. The right of informational privacy, the great modern achievement often attributed to the classic Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis article, “The Right to Privacy” , asserts an individual's right not to have private personal information circulated. Warren and Brandeis claimed that individual dignity in a modern society requires that people be able to keep their private lives to themselves and proposed that the common law should be understood to protect this dignity by making dissemination of private (...) information a tort. As broadly stated, this right not to have private information distributed directly conflicts with a broadly conceived freedom of speech and of the press. My claim is that, in cases of conflict, the law should reject the Warren and Brandeis innovation. Speech and press freedom should prevail; the privacy tort should be ignored. This conclusion requires a normative argument concerning the appropriate basis and status of speech freedom that this essay will not really provide but for which I have argued elsewhere. Here, instead, I will describe that theory of speech freedom, explore its implications for informational privacy, and finally suggest some reasons to think that rejection of the privacy tort should not be so troubling and is, in fact, pragmatically desirable. (shrink)

The following paper will undertake to demonstrate an I.E. root dyu ‘iungere,’ and its synonymous correlatives dyem/dyā , dyā-t-/dyat dyes/dyō[u]s.

The present essay, reposing on phenomena of derivation and semantics, will attempt to establish a more objective basis for the syntax of the impersonals. As a matter of syntax, the subject is of vital interest for the living Germanic tongues, and with these the essay begins. It will continue with a discussion of the phenomena of the Latin impersonals, and seek, by the help of living English usage, to establish upon a correct psychological basis the definition and derivation of the (...) least elusive impersonals of emotion in Sanskrit and Latin. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the thought of Descartes and Spinoza regarding the immortality of the soul. I conclude that Descartes’s argument(s) for the immortality of the soul—or at least the argument(s) that one can construct based on Descartes’s texts—are disappointing, and that Spinoza’s thought on the soul and its relation to the body leaves little room for the traditional doctrine of personal immortality.

The cinematic illusion of movement always requires a number of images. In this regard, the present article poses the question as to how far one can narrow this down, and still consider such a manifestation a meaningful cinematic experience that communicates a concise idea. Demonstrating the impact of a flicker or an electronically alternating sequence of visual impulses that arrest our attention, a thaumatrope or an animated GIF can already generate such significance. Within both the art world and avant-garde cinema, (...) artists have found ways to maximize the ­potential of such a minimalist approach to the moving image. The discussion of what the minimal duration for filmic experience of any cultural significance could be, is approached here from a media-archaeological perspective. (shrink)

This article seeks to explain the correspondence between human intelligibility and that of the physical world by synthesizing the contributions of Jean Ladrière. Ladrière shows that the objectification function of formal symbolism in mathematics as an artificial language has operative power acquired through algorithm to represent physical reality. In physical theories, mathematics relates to observations through theoretic and empirical languages mutually interacting in a methodological circle, and nonmathematical anticipatory intention guides mathematical algorithmic exploration. Ladrière reasons that mathematics can make the (...) physical world comprehensible because of the presence of a rational principle in both kinds of intelligibility. (shrink)