The rising prominence of consumer sovereignty, wherein businesses prioritize customers as kings, presents complex ethical dilemmas. This paper delves into the ethical implications of consumer sovereignty by examining the lack of recognition to which service workers are subjected in their interactions with customers. Applying the sensitizing lens of recognition theory, we investigate how the relational domination inherent in the service industry ultimately results in four main recognition gaps: visibility, status recognition, affective recognition, and capacity recognition gaps. These gaps considerably hinder (...) an employee’s ability to experience workplace dignity. Our findings enrich the business ethics literature by providing a more holistic analysis of the ethical challenges raised by consumer sovereignty. We introduce recognition theory as a framework to address these concerns and offer recommendations for managers to better support their service employees in overcoming the absence of customer recognition. (shrink)

This article addresses the service of financial companies to society from the perspective of the Catholic Social Teaching (hereinafter CST), specifically regarding conflicts of interest between banks and their customers. The article begins with a case based on interviews with professionals in the financial sector, which provides the context for the CST’s contribution. The analysis of the aforementioned conflicts points to an apparent disconnect between service to society and service to customers. Thus, the bank would set aside the customer’s interests (...) in exchange for a better service to society through good results. This article presents the CST’s normative framework to analyze this matter through some of the CST’s principles: the centrality of the person, the respect for her dignity, and the orientation to the common good. These principles and the CST’s ethical concept of service provide guidance in assessing these conflicts of interest. From an ethical point of view and according to CST, there cannot be a true service to society if the dignity of the client is not respected. It is necessary to review the organization’s incentive policy and level of awareness about the importance of customer service. We end with recommendations related to conflicts of interest with clients. (shrink)

Although work–family conflict is highly relevant for both families and businesses, scarce attention has received from business ethics perspective. This article focuses on the latter, presenting a set of relevant insights from Catholic Social Teaching (CST). After reviewing the foundations and principles presented by CST regarding work–family relationships, a set of normative propositions are presented to develop work–family policies and for a correct personal work–family balance. It is argued that business responsibility with employees’ family should be considered as a part (...) of Corporate Social Responsibility. In addition, the applications of these principles and propositions can lead to a mutual enrichment of both business and family. (shrink)

El artículo de Alejandro Pidal y Mon sobre "La doctrina científica de santo Tomás" en el primer número de la Revista ofrece la oportunidad de volver a la intuición de fondo del aprecio por el maestro dominico. Es cierto que santo Tomás se coloca en la estela de los grandes maestros de la razón. En su afán por reivindicar el valor de la razón humana otorga a la doctrina sagrada el calificativo de ciencia. Pero es preciso, ya desde el comienzo, (...) advertir que aquí habla de la doctrina sagrada, no de los métodos. Con su tesis sobre el carácter científico de la sagrada doctrina pretende reivindicar el valor de la misma en el ámbito del saber. Pero en sus métodos mantiene que, entre las referencias, la primera es la Sagrada Escritura, aunque sin renunciar, por supuesto, a otras argumentaciones como probables. Por eso, reducir la teología una ciencia de conclusiones no es lo más característico de la doctrina de santo Tomás.Alejandro Pidal y Pon’s article on "St Thomas scientific doctrine" in the first issue of the magazine gives us the opportunity of returning to the basic intuition of the esteem for the Dominican master. It is true that St Thomas followed the steps of the reason great masters. Trying to claim responsibility for the value of the human reason, he labels the sacred doctrine as science. But it is necessary from the beginning to tell that here he is talking of the sacred doctrine, not of the methods. With his thesis of the scientific character of the sacred doctrine, he tries to claim its value in the ground of knowing. But in his methods, he holds that, among his references, the Sacred Scripture is the first, without renouncing of course to other arguments as probable. So, reducing Theology to a science of conclusions is not St Thomas’ most characteristic. (shrink)

University research in the U.S.A. is based on a tight relationship between University and economic activity. In Europe and South America, although less commonly than in the U.S.A., there's already a large amount of experiences related to the creation of "on campus" or "spin off" companies based on the results and knowledge obtained from research in University departments and R&D centres financed with public funds. The virtual base of this results in communication technologies enables private use and the appropriation of (...) the benefits by their authors. European model, historically widely separated from private companies, has produced high quality basic research, but it has failed to obtain profit from technological development. Research funds happen to be basically public. Europe heads for economic, politic and military union. Common economic space and the growing up of the new markets, which we can foresee to be extended to other countries, will promote business opportunities and the relationship University-Industry. University institutions and faculties should think about their current ethic convictions to create a new Industry-University model in the context of a global economy. (shrink)

This paper addresses a potentially major shift in environmental and landscape aesthetics, which reassesses the traditional view on landscape in light of the idea of global environment. Landscaping is thus rethought as a mode of creatively being on Earth. For this purpose, the paper begins by providing a definition of Earth as a completely semiotized and therefore “plastic” space which is continuously re-shaped by traces, semantic processes and human practices. Earth-shaping practices are then investigated as gestures of poetic overwriting, capable (...) of inhabiting interconnected non-equilibrium landscapes. The paper concludes by examining the case-study of DOM-, an artistic collective that performs ways of dwelling in damaged territories and exploited environments. (shrink)

"Gregorio Piaia si è formato presso l'Università di Padova, dove si laureò il 17 febbraio 1968 con una tesi coordinata da Carlo Giacon sul tema dell'averroismo politico nel pensiero di Marsilio da Padova. Tra i suoi maestri è da ricordare ancora Giovanni Santinello, del quale fu il principale collaboratore nel guidare il gruppo di lavoro formato da giovani studiosi impegnati nel progetto di una grande Storia delle storie generali della filosofia, uscita in prima edizione in lingua italiana tra il (...) 1979 e il 2004 ed ora in corso di traduzione e aggiornamento in lingua inglese. La vita "pubblica" di Piaia si è svolta essenzialmente nella sua funzione di professore universitario, all'inizio come docente in formazione presso l'Università di Padova, poi quale professore associato presso l'Università di Verona, infine dal 1987 di nuovo a Padova, dove in qualità di professore ordinario tenne per quasi trent'anni la cattedra di storia della filosofia. Padova, Verona, il Veneto: certamente questi sono stati i riferimenti territoriali entro i quali si è compiuta la carriera accademica del bellunese Piaia. Ma egli estese ben presto l'ambito della sua attività di docente oltre questi limiti geografici, in Europa e nelle Americhe. Lo stesso spirito di apertura ha animato l'attività scientifica di Gregorio Piaia, che non si è svolta in limiti territoriali o di scuola precisi ma all'interno di una vasta "repubblica delle lettere" dai contorni più internazionali che nazionali: ne è testimonianza il suo ruolo di direttore o redattore di importanti riviste e la sua presenza nelle più rilevanti società di promozione degli studi filosofici e storico-filosofici. Non meno degna di nota, infine, è la sua costante attenzione e disponibilità nei confronti dei giovani studiosi. Il presente volume intende essere modesto segno della stima di cui gode e dell'ampiezza dei suoi interessi di ricerca." --Contratapa. (shrink)

Recent developments in science and technology point to the need to unify, and extend, the definition of memory. On the one hand, molecular neurobiology has shown that memory is largely a chemical process, which includes conditioning and any form of stored experience. On the other hand, information technology has led many to claim that cognition is also extended, that is, memory may be stored outside of the brain. In this paper, we review these advances and describe the increasingly accepted extended (...) definition of memory. This definition is largely accepted in neuroscience but not explicitly stated. In the extended definition, memory is the capacity to store and/or retrieve information. Does this new definition of memory mean that everything is now a form of memory? We stress that memory still requires incorporation, that is, a corpore. It is a relationship -- where one biological or chemical process is incorporated into another, and changes both in a permanent way. Looking at natural and biological processes of incorporation can help us think of how incorporation of internal and external memory occurs in cognition. We further argue that, if we accept that there is such a thing as the storage of information outside the brain -- and that this organic, dynamic process can also be called “memory” -- then we open the door to a very different world. The mind is not static. The brain, and the memory it uses, is a work in progress; we are not now who we were then. (shrink)

Lire les �uvres de philosophie grecque revient la plupart du temps à lire un corpus limité de textes érigés en «classiques» déconnectés de leurs sites. Pour désenclaver cette sélection, on propose ici d�ouvrir le canon des textes philosophiques grecs moyennant une prise en compte des voyages de ces textes en Occident, de leur forme ainsi que de leur lieu de production. L�article décrit d�une part deux formes de transit des textes philosophiques grecs?: le transit homogène philologico-humaniste, le transit hétérogène des (...) médiations entre nous et l�antiquité. D�autre part, on présente trois formes situées dans l�espace grec?: le logos du temple de Parménide, le dialogos du théâtre de Platon et la dialogê du Lycée d�Aristote. (shrink)

_The Dead Mother_ brings together original essays in honour of André Green. Written by distinguished psychoanalysts, the collection develops the theme of his most famous paper of the same title, and describes the value of the dead mother to other areas of clinical interest: psychic reality, borderline phenomena, passions and identification. The concept of the 'dead mother' describes a clinical phenomenon, sometimes difficult to identify, but always present in a substantial number of patients. It describes a process by which the (...) image of a living and loving mother is transformed into a distant figure; a toneless, practically inanimate, dead parent. In reality, the mother remains alive, but she has psychically 'died' for the child. This produces a depression in the child, who carries these feelings within him into adult life, as the experience of the loss of the mother's love is followed by the loss of meaning in life. Nothing makes sense any more for the child, but life seems to continue under the appearance of normality. _The Dead Mother_ is a valuable contribution to literature on psychoanalytic and psychotheraputic approaches to grief, loss and depression. (shrink)

Starting from the impossibility of understanding fundamental rights from the standpoint of natural law doctrine or positivism, the author tackles the issue of rights from a realistic point of view, that is to say from the perspective of law and politics on the one hand, and from the perspective of public morality, on the other. Thus the foundation of fundamental rights is the meeting point of conceptions of social morality that are current in the modern world and the political aspect (...) of the conception of pluralist democracy. Moreover, fundamental rights are considered an instrument to enable the social and moral development of human beings. (shrink)

SummaryThis article examines the relationship of Jeremy Bentham and some of his disciples within Romantic Liberalism in the Mediterranean in the early 1820s. By studying the content of Bentham's correspondence with his collaborators and some Spanish political leaders, the text sheds light on Bentham's ideas on constitutional rule, the independence of Latin America and religious tolerance.

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Ciencia e ideología: reportaje a Gregorio Klimovsky.--Grupo de Estudio sobre Ciencia y Subdesarrollo. Ciencia dependiente en la Argentina.--Varsavsky, O. Ideología y verdad. Ciencia y estilos de desarrollo.--Simpson, T.M. Irracionalidad, ideología y objetividad.--García, R.V. Ciencia política y concepcíon del mundo.--Schvarzer, J. La ideología de un científico puro.

Klimovsky, G. Notas preliminares sobre convención y modalidad.--Orayen, R. Comentario del trabajo del profesor G. Klimovsky "Notas preliminares sobre convención y modalidad".--Klimovsky, G. Respuesta al Comentario del profesor Raúl Orayen.--Orayen, R. Acerca de la adecuación de los modelos formales de la explicación científica.--Klimovsky, G. Comentario del trabajo del profesor Raúl Orayen, "Acerca de la adecuación de los modelos formales de la explicación científica".--Orayen, R. Respuesta al Comentario del profesor G. Klimovsky.

La teología de santo Tomás es una tarea de mediación entre la concepción cristiana del universo y el conocimiento de la cultura humana. El artículo presenta su originalidad en este cometido siguiendo la lectura de los textos. La primera parte presenta su vocación cristiana en el contexto de las innovaciones culturales del siglo XIII. La segunda, ofrece el contexto de los debates que santo Tomás mantuvo con teólogos y filósofos. Así puede ofrecer en la tercera parte la síntesis original del (...) maestro dominico, es decir, unir ambos campos sin confundirlos. El autor subraya la condición teológica de esta síntesis. En la cuarta parte aclara que esta posición no significa reducir la fe a una metafísica ni tampoco dejar la razón al arbitrio de la teología. (shrink)

What contribution has Umberto Eco’s historical fiction made to knowledge of the history of medieval philosophy? His first and most famous novel, The Name of the Rose, had the merit of drawing the attention of the common reader to mediaeval thought, which is usually neglected and still not widely known. However, this portrayal was characterized by a negative and deforming image of medieval monasticism and its philosophical conceptions. By contrast the scholastic Middle Ages were looked upon by Eco with very (...) modern —even “postmodern”— eyes, so that very little was left of the Middle Ages themselves. (shrink)

A assim chamada “Doação de Constantino”, pela qual o papa ter-se-ia tornado senhor temporal, foi julgada, geralmente, de forma negativa pelos pensadores do século XIV, ou como uma ação de duplo efeito. Marsílio de Pádua a encara sob outro aspecto: a doação mostra que o imperador era superior ao papa e aos demais hierarcas da Igreja. Daí ele deduz que, dentro da sociedade, também da sociedade cristã, o imperador é a autoridade coativa suprema, da qual promana o poder coativo eventualmente (...) exercido pelo papa e os bispos. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Doação de Constantino. Poder coativo. Imperador. Papa. ABSTRACT The so called “Constantine Donation”, by which the pope would have become the temporal Lord, was usually regarded negatively by XIV century thinkers, or as a double effect action. Marsilius of Padua faces such problem in a different approach: the donation shows that the emperor was superior to the pope and to the others in Church hierarchy. Hence he deduces that inside society, also Christian society, the emperor is the supreme coactive authority, from whom all coactive power eventually enforced by the pope and the bishops arise. KEY WORDS – Constantine donation. Coactive power. Emperor. Pope. (shrink)

This article presents the ethical concept of service as a way of specifying higher ethical principles in business practice. We set out from the work of a number of scholars who have found some shared ethical principles for doing business in a context of cultural diversity. Love, benevolence, consideration, and other related concepts are considered to be important guiding concepts for business but it is not clear how they are to be operationalized. We argue that the ethical concept of service (...) can act as a bridge for bringing those higher principles into business practice. The article explains and refines the ethical concept of service, which has received little attention. In particular, we address the ethical ambiguity implicit in the common meaning of service, explain how service shows love in business, and offer an account of how service provides ethical growth through virtue. Finally, this work presents a variety of examples from business which illustrate how the ethical concept of service can be put into practice. To achieve the aim of this study we draw inspiration from Catholic social teaching. This source provides useful insights into service and can be understood and accepted without requiring that particular faith. (shrink)

We explore offshore outsourcing through the lenses of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). First, we review the outcomes of the 30-year debate in business ethics on issues related to offshore outsourcing. We then cluster authors into two groups—the justice-centered approach and the welfare-centered approach—corresponding to different perspectives on the ethical challenges of offshoring. In the second part, we present and apply the four fundamental principles of the CST (human dignity, subsidiarity, solidarity and the common good) to offshoring, in dialogue with the (...) previous debate. The unity and interconnection among the CST’s fundamental tenets provide a cohesive framework that integrates the points made by the justice-centered and welfare-centered approaches, while introducing the principle of solidarity, more focused on the worker as a person and their flourishing. CST also stresses the need to initiate processes oriented toward structural changes for the sake of human dignity and the common good. (shrink)

Ernst Haeckel was convinced that the origin of language was the keyto understand human evolution. The distinguished slavist AugustSchleicher was his original inspiration on that matter but hiscousin Wilhelm Bleek was the deciisive source for his views of human language. Bleek lived in Southern Africa, studied Xhosa andZulu, and had the rare opportunity to learn the bushman languagewhich, with its characteristic clicks, suggested the form of theoriginal human language in its evolution from ape-like sounds.Haeckel's view of anthropology based on cultural (...) elements ratherthan physical characters alone was shared by other scholars includingthe Vienna-based Friedrich Mueller who applied Haeckel's approachin his studies during the voyage of the Habsburg ship ``Novara.'' Haeckel's anthropological views were heavily entangled with contemporaryconceps of race so that he and Mueller related different languages todifferent human groups both from a cultural and racial angle. Suchracialist attitude presented obvious political implications which allauthors mentioned denied vehemently. (shrink)

Databases where different types of information from different sources can be integrated, cross‐referenced and interactively accessed are necessary for building a quantitative understanding of the molecular and cell biology intrinsic to the morphogenesis of an embryo. Tassy and colleagues1 recently reported the development of software tailor‐made to perform such a task, along with the generation and integration of three‐dimensional anatomical models of embryos. They convincingly illustrated the utility of their approach by applying it to the early ascidian embryo. BioEssays 28: (...) 874–879, 2006. © 2006 Wiley periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

No presente texto mostra-se comoAgostinho e Isidoro são os dois autores funda-mentais de que se valeram os medievais em suaselaborações do que seria uma 'história da filosofi-a'. Tanto um como outro não é original em suasclassificações. Entretanto, Agostinho é muitomais especulativo e possuí um conceito bemdefinido de verdade e de filosofia, a partir do qualjulga a contribuição dos pensadores pagãos.Isídoro, que muito se utiliza da obra do bispo deHipona, mostra-se mais um compilador enciclo-pédico.