Managers often ask why their firm should have an ethics program, especially if no one has complained about unethical behavior. The pursuit of business ethics can cost money, they say. It can lose sales to less scrupulous competitors and can drain management time and energy. But as Harvard business professor Francis Aguilar points out, ethics scandals (such as over Beech-Nut's erzatz "apple juice" or Sears's padded car repair bills) can severely damage a firm, with punishing legal penalties, bad (...) publicity, and irreparably injured customer relations. Equally important if less obvious, unethical behavior can undermine a firm's organizational spirit. On the other hand, Aguilar argues, in a well run firm, ethical programs can actually enhance corporate performance, strengthening the company at every level and supercharging employee risk taking and innovation. In Managing Corporate Ethics, Aguilar shows managers how to create ethical programs within their organizations that not only discourage large-scale wrongdoing, but can contribute substantially to the achievement of corporate excellence. Aguilar's program is down-to-earth and comprehensive, and based on his extensive research on highly successful, ethical companies, both large and small. He recommends action on three fronts: first, get senior management to provide effective ethical leadership; second, set up an ethics program that promotes concern for the interests of people affected by the firm's operations and that provides safeguards against corrupting business pressures; and third, staff the company with ethical people and surround the organization with ethical advisors (including legal, financial, accounting, tax, and marketing consultants). To illuminate this three-step program, Aguilar incorporates the lessons learned in his in-depth study of ten prominent firms with proven successful ethics programs--among them Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Nucor Steel, Cray Research, ServiceMaster, and Texas Instruments. He examines Lincoln Electric's attention to compensation and job security to ensure quality products and to reduce the pressure or temptation to act unethically. He shows how General Mills, while pushing product line managers to compete aggressively, uses corporate staff units to guard against illegal or unacceptable claims (testing cake recipes, for example, to see if a product's quality fails under the less-than-perfect conditions of a normal kitchen). And he details how Armstrong World Industries uses pep talks, inspirational stories, role models, and ready access to management to promote ethical standards among employees. Throughout, Aguilar demonstrates convincingly that an ethical program pays dividends: that employees, suppliers, customers, and the community at large know when they are being treated in a positive and constructive manner, and are likely to respond in kind. Packed with real life examples of successful (and failed) ethical programs, Managing Corporate Ethics is a valuable roadmap to an often overlooked source of business success. (shrink)

Property rights of personal data have been advocated for some time. From the perspective of economics of law some argued that they could lower transaction costs for contracts involving personal data. This may be the case, but new transaction costs are introduced by propertization and the issue has not been settled. In this paper, I focus on a different and potentially more important aspect. In the actual situation, data collectors externalize costs and internalize benefits. An ownership regime that enables every (...) citizen to hold a personal data account, like a bank account, and that gives people ownership rights over secondary use of personal data could correct these misallocations. I hope to shed new light on the normative implications of the issue by offering normative justifications for property rights of personal data (Sections 2–4). Secondly, I present fundamental goals and building blocks of a property regime of personal data (Section 5) and, thirdly, I illustrate how income from personal data ownership could for instance contribute to financing pensions under proper regulation (Section 6). (shrink)

On March 12, 2018, I received an email from André De Tienne, General Editor of the Peirce Edition Project. He recommended that I visit the Francis Blake archives at the Massachusetts Historical Society, remarking, Francis Blake was a cousin of Charles Peirce. I have not yet figured out how that cousinage works out genealogically. In any case, on 13 January 1893, the day CSP and Juliette returned from Boston to New York after the Lowell Lectures, they first took (...) a trip to Weston, MA, to visit Frank Blake, and from there they went to Worcester to visit W. Stanley Hall at Clark University. … If you look in folder R L49, it... (shrink)

Qu'est-ce que le temps? Cette question nous plonge forcément dans l'embarras. La physique refuse de la poser: elle mesure le temps et en propose diverses théories au sein desquelles nous ne reconnaissons pas le temps de notre monde. Renonçant elle aussi à le définir, la philosophie s'est généralement réfugiée dans la conscience du temps, mais sans rien nous dire du temps lui-même. Il y a pourtant bien un concept de temps qui ne doit rien à la conscience ni à l'ordre (...) cosmique, c'est celui de ce monde où nous vivons et dont nous parlons; celui par lequel se distinguent l'avant et l'après, celui qui nous fait dire que les êtres changent et que Pierre est en retard. Tout cela dépend, à notre échelle, du mobilier du monde commun. La philosophie peut ainsi reprendre l'analyse du concept de temps soutenue par toute la tradition, d'Aristote à Bergson, de Kant à David Lewis. Elle offre alors de nouvelles réponses à nos interrogations les plus classiques: Le devenir n'est-il qu'une illusion? Le passé existe-t-il ou n'est-il qu'un fantôme de la mémoire? Pourquoi le temps est-il irréversible? Devons-nous l'imaginer comme une flèche dirigée vers l'avenir ou comme un fleuve précipitant notre présent en passé? Ces problèmes n'ont pas épuisé leurs mystères. Au bout de l'enquête, il y a l'espoir d'éclairer ce qu'Einstein lui-même estimait être l'énigme du 'maintenant'"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Attitudes toward mission agencies in general, and toward the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in particular, were assessed using two 10-item scales completed by 833 recently ordained Anglican clergy from the UK. Clergy were generally positive toward mission agencies and willing for their churches to engage with them, but more reluctant to form personal links. Most clergy felt agencies should give priority to the relief of poverty and to development needs, rather than to spreading specifically Christian beliefs. (...) Results for the USPG indicated more uncertain responses than for mission agencies generally, which probably indicated a lower visibility for this agency among some clergy, especially evangelicals. (shrink)

Catholics and Evangelical Protestants often find themselves on the same side on a variety of issues in bioethics. However, some Evangelicals have expressed reluctance to embrace the natural law reasoning used by Catholics in academic and policy debates. In this article, I argue that the primary concerns raised by Evangelicals about natural law reasoning are, ironically, concerns expressed by and intrinsic to the natural law tradition itself. To show this, I address two types of Protestant critics: the Frustrated Fellow Traveler (...) and the Solo Scripturist. (shrink)

La cognition humaine paraît étroitement liée à la structure de l'espace et du temps relativement auxquels le corps, le geste, l'intelligibilité semblent devoir se déterminer. Pourtant, ce qui, après les approches physico-mathématiques de Galilée et de Newton, fut caractérisé par Kant comme formes de l'intuition sensible, n'a cessé au cours des siècles qui suivirent de se trouver remis en cause dans leur saisie première par les développements théoriques. En mathématiques d'abord, avec les géométries non-euclidiennes, en physique ensuite, où relativité générale (...) puis théories quantiques et critiques ont dû remanier profondément l'objectivité de ces concepts pour en faire des catégories, certes toujours aussi essentielles, mais de plus en plus contre-intuitives, et maintenant en biologie où la temporalité, notamment, et la causalité se révèlent largement différentes de celles de la physique. C'est ce que nous tentons de présenter et de discuter dans ce texte en vue d'en dégager la pertinence pour la cognition elle-même. (shrink)

PawPrints On Our Souls is dotted with belief facts, supported by quotes by prominent doctors, philosophers, writers, and celebrities, to build a strong case against vivisection, factory farming, and other animal abuses. Pawprints can be read in any order: Each fact and quote is separated by a double-space... So there's lots of white space for easy reading...

There has long been a history of studies investigating how people (“ordinary people”) perform on tasks that involve deductive reasoning. The upshot of these studies is that people characteristically perform some deductive tasks well but others badly. For instance, studies show that people will typically perform MP (“modus ponens”: from ‘If A then B’ and ‘A’, infer ‘B’) and bi-conditional MP (from: ‘A if and only if B’ and ‘A’, infer ‘B’) correctly when invited to make the inference and additionally (...) can discover of their own accord when such inferences are appropriate. On the other hand, the same studies show that people typically perform MT (“modus tollens”: from ‘If A then B’ and ‘not-B’, infer ‘not-A’) and biconditional MT badly. They not only do not recognize when it is appropriate to draw such inferences, but also they will balk at doing them even when they are told that they can make it. Related to these shortcomings seems to be the inability of people to understand that contrapositives are equivalent (that ‘If A then B’ is equivalent to ‘If not-B then not-A’). [Studies of people’s deductive inference-drawing abilities have a long history, involving many studies in the early 20th century concerning Aristotelian syllogisms. But the current spate of studies draws much of its impetus from Wason (Wason, 1968; see also Wason & Johnson-Laird, 1972). ] The general conclusion seems to be that there are specific areas where “ordinary people” do not perform very logically. This conclusion will not come as a surprise to teachers of elementary logic, who have long thought that the majority of “ordinary people” are inherently illogical and need deep and forceful schooling in order to overcome this flaw. (shrink)

In “Medical Ethics: Common or Uncommon Morality,”1 Rosamond Rhodes defends a specialist view of medical ethics, specifically the ethics of physicians. Rhodes’s account is specifically about the ethics of medical professionals, rooted in what these professionals do. It would seem to follow that other healthcare professions might be subject to ethical standards that differ from those applicable to physicians, rooted in what these other professions do, but I leave this point aside for purposes of this commentary. Rhodes’s view includes both (...) a negative and a positive thesis. The negative thesis is that precepts in medical ethics—understood as the ethics of physicians—cannot be derived from principles of common morality. The positive thesis is two-fold: that precepts in medical ethics must be derived from an account of the special nature of what physicians do, and that this account is to be understood through an overlapping consensus of rational and reasonable medical professionals. While I agree emphatically with, and have learned a great deal from, Rhodes’s defense of the negative thesis, I disagree with both claims in Rhodes’s positive thesis, for reasons I will now explain after a brief observation about the negative thesis. (shrink)

While art and science still functioned side-by-side during the Renaissance, their methods and perspectives diverged during the nineteenth century, creating a still enduring separation between the "two cultures". Recently, artists and scientists again collaborate more frequently, as promoted most radically by the ArtScience movement. This approach aims at a true synthesis between the intuitive, imaginative methods of art and the rational, rule-governed methods of science. To prepare the grounds for a theoretical synthesis, this paper surveys the fundamental commonalities and differences (...) between science and art. Science and art are united in their creative investigation, where coherence, pattern or meaning play a vital role in the development of concepts, while relying on concrete representations to experiment with the resulting insights. On the other hand, according to the standard conception, science seeks an understanding that is universal, objective and unambiguous, while art focuses on unique, subjective and open-ended experiences. Both offer prospect and coherence, mystery and complexity, albeit with science preferring the former and art, the latter. The paper concludes with some examples of artscience works that combine all these aspects. (shrink)

This chapter compares the institutional setting and integrations processes in Switzerland and the EU. The major findings are that EU integration is trying to achieve more political integration and accommodation of a much higher degree of diversity in much less time than has ever been the case in Switzerland. Integration and expansion processes that were slower and non-linear in Switzerland and that happened in separate phases (e.g. religious diversification, linguistic diversification, territorial expansion, etc.) are all going on at the same (...) time in the EU. Especially integration and accession with enormous shocks of diversification are engineered at the same time in the EU. From this point of view, the EU has already tried to go beyond many stages that took centuries to be completed in Switzerland. The institutional design of the European Union seems to echo quite well the federal state formation process in Switzerland. The following precisions are however necessary in the comparative perspective. First, the momentary stage of European Integration, characterized by intergovernmental crisis management, resembles the (dysfunctional) intergovernmental centralism of the Swiss cantons during the decades before the formation of the federal-state in 1848. Second, due to the greater diversity of the European Union, this quasi-federal system has derived in extreme asymmetries between the member states. Since EU identity is not well entrenched among European citizens (and politicians), it has been hard to design institutions and policies of common territorial protection and redistribution and there is mistrust towards centralistic EU institutions (specially in the countries more affected by the economic crisis). Most European citizens do not feel that their interests are taken into account by the European Union. Third, it is important to note that in Swiss federalism the municipalities play an important role, they are much more than just administrative districts. This city-centred and bottom up construct of citizenship is guaranteed by the Swiss federal constitution. Citizens feel that their most immediate and local identity is not jeopardized but rooted in and guaranteed by the Swiss federal constitution. Compared to sub-national Swiss federalism, EU federalism is entirely focused on the nation-state and the EU institutions. Serious consideration ought to be given to the idea that European citizenship is not only about bringing citizenship to a higher European level but also about bringing it more to the root-level of citizenship: the city. Direct democracy has acted as a federator in the Swiss context. Switzerland made direct democracy and direct democracy made Switzerland. There has been a slow and iterative process of adaptation of structurally similar institutions of direct democracy at all levels (communal, cantonal, federal) of all units (all communes, all cantons, confederation roughly between 1830-1891. To the contrary, the EU is only incipiently in a process of introducing direct democracy (in some member-states and ECI), and so far direct democracy is mainly practiced as national plebiscitary democracy. Under this guise it is seen as a threat to EU integration and probably not without good reason. While in Switzerland the coherent introduction of direct democracy at all levels of the polity in the long run served as an important unifier, direct democracy has even not been considered as integrative part of all levels of political integration in the EU. It is of great interest that the one element in which the European Union has based the construction of EU citizenship and identity – mobility of residence – has been implicitly discouraged in Switzerland. The institutional design as incorporated in Swiss multicultural identity (which aims fundamentally at the protection of cantonal autonomy, culture and language) has facilitated that Switzerland is called today a successful multicultural society. Most citizens identify with Switzerland as a country and they like it as it is, but they do not want to take advantage of their formal right to move to other parts of the country, especially not across language borders. The same institutional design that has made of Switzerland a successful case of multiculturalism and democracy poses important barriers that make it difficult for the Swiss to move their residence across their country. Considering that one of the main features of European citizenship is the freedom of movement and residence, this poses a main concern. The Swiss compromise between the formal right and economic necessity of mobility on the one hand and the protection of political and cultural sub-identities on the other hand, is commuting. Due to the vast size, this is of limited applicability in the EU. However, in a Europe of cities and trans-border regions, commuting is an important option provided that every European citizen lives reasonably close to an important economic centre. In short, the Europe of commuters deserves attention in the context of EU citizenship. (shrink)

Book one consists of Bacon's scathing attack on current philosophy and on the scientific method. He attacks the syllogistic method, and the various idols that prevent men from investigating Nature in a reasonable way. The lack of attention paid to natural philosophy and the excessive reverence for ancient authors are key reasons why man's knowledge of nature has progressed so slowly. Book Two is a detailed explanation of Bacon's method, using various examples. It begins by creating tables of the various (...) instances that meet in the nature to be investigated. After the relevant instances have been presented to the intellect, the task of induction can be carried out. Induction acts by excluding various possibilities, until an affirmative has been achieved. The next stage is the consideration of privileged instances, which assist the process in terms of information or of practice. (shrink)