The advance of medical and biological science and technology has presented us with new ethical and legal issues. Is embryonic stem cell research morally justified and legally allowed? What moral status do embryos have? Who can be a morally appropriate user of In Vitro fertilization? Who can use donated sperm and/or egg? What is the scope of reproductive liberty?” What is the meaning of a family and that of reproduction? How far does our genetic intervention go?”Scientists, lawyers, and laymen are (...) waiting for clear answers from philosophers. Unfortunately, philosophers have not seemed to give satisfactory answers to them. We may have various reasons. One of main reasons, however, seems to me that the above philosophical questions have not been the main research topics for philosophers since philosophy gave up metaphysical and/or religious questions. Thus, I argue that biomedical ethical issues urge philosophers tochange the philosopher’s attitude of doing philosophy. Those issues make them consider and rethink our fundamental concepts of life, death, family, and values pursued by human beings. In addition, it is easy to find conflicting ethical and philosophical answers to the above questions. Thus, it is very hard to reach consensus on the above ethical issues. This makes philosophers consider how we make a group decision over ethical issues showing conflicting but reasonable ethical answers in a plural society. This requires philosophers, especially scholars of ethics, develop a new ethics and its relevant concepts. This ethics must be able to work in a plural society where reasonable comprehensive belief systems coexist. In these respects, I argue that bioethics has to struggle with a newchallenge to philosophy. (shrink)

Tandis que « Matière et mémoire » de Bergson est aujourd’hui bien connu et relativement bien analysé, « Les maladies de la mémoire » de Ribot est presque oublié malgré son originalité et nouveauté dans l’histoire de la philosophie. Mais dans le domaine de la science, notamment dans des recherches sur la mémoire, la pensée de Ribot est toujours vivante. Dans cet article, nous voulons d’abord voir la relation entre deux pensées sur la mémoire, celle de Ribot et celle de (...) Bergson, et ensuite nous vérifierons comment traiter aujourd’hui l’héritage de la pensée de Ribot et de Bergson dans le domaine de la philosophie et de la science. A travers ces recherches, nous allons comprendre que le désaccord de Bergson avec Ribot vient de la différence méthodologique entre deux philosophes et que cette différence suscite deux pensées complètement différentes l’une à l’autre. (shrink)

Why would God institute the practice of efficacious petitionary prayer? Why would God not simply give us what we need before we ask? I examine recently proposed solutions to this puzzle and argue that they are inadequate to explain why an omniscient and perfectly good God would act differently in response to prayer. I propose that God has reasons to not always maximize a creature’s good, even in a sinless world, and that petitionary prayer functions as a means to reward (...) those who trust God, to enable us to actively love those we cannot otherwise help, and to give the petitioner personal evidence of God’s existence and care for her, creating a virtuous cycle of increasing faith. I refine this proposal by responding to several objections involving human responsibility and the epistemology of divine action. Along the way, I offer several ways petitioners can recognize God’s having answered a prayer and how God might help us with some common obstacles to prayer. (shrink)

When Western Christianity came to Asia, it merged with Eastern religions and histories and developed very differently in different places. Today Asian women in each country build up very unique images of God. They practice Eastern forms of worship and liturgical rites, and do indigenized theologies. They simultaneously try to find their own ways of naming, imaging, believing in and communicating with their own God. Korean Christianity has inherited many images of God from Western Christian doctrines and theologies. However, when (...) it meets and merges with Koreanized Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shamanism, some of the images of God in Christianity are transformed and re-imagined in Korean women's social cultural and religious contexts. As an Asian woman, especially a Korean woman, I would like to introduce one of the many Asian women's theologies, Korean women's images of God. It cannot represent all Asian women's ways of doing theologies, but it will give some clues to show how Asian women do theologies in their own context. In particular, I will examine three images of God that demonstrate how Western Christianity and Eastern religions meet and are transformed in Korean Christian women's living contexts. (shrink)

_The New Bergson_ Edited by John Mullarkey Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1999 ISBN 0719053803 hb; 0719055539 pb 235 pp.

The lack of attention to sustainability, as a concept with multiple dimensions, has presented a developmental gap in green marketing literature, sustainability, and marketing literature for decades. Based on the established premise of customer–corporate (C–C) identification, in which consumers respond favorably to companies with corporate social responsibility initiatives that they identify with, we propose that consumers would respond similarly to companies with sustainability initiatives. We postulate that consumers care about protecting and preserving favorable economic environments (an economic dimension of sustainability) (...) as much as they care about natural environments. Thus, we investigate how two sustainability dimensions (i.e., environmental and economic) and price can influence consumer responses. Using an experimental method, we demonstrate that consumers favor sustainability in both dimensions by giving positive evaluations of the company and purchase intent. In addition, consumers respond more negatively to poor company sustainability than to high company sustainability. In comparison, consumers respond more negatively to the company’s poor commitment to caring for the environment than to the company’s poor commitment to economic sustainability. We also find that consumers do not respond favorably to low prices when they have information about the firm’s poor environmental sustainability. Finally, we find support for an interaction effect between consumer support for sustainability and corporate sustainability; that is, consumers evaluate a company more favorably if the company shares the consumers’ social causes. Overall, we conclude, from our empirical study, support for the idea that consumers do respond to multiple dimensions of sustainability. (shrink)

Introduction The Defining Issues Test (DIT) aimed to measure one’s moral judgment development in terms of moral reasoning. The Neo-Kohlbergian approach, which is an elaboration of Kohlbergian theory, focuses on the continuous development of postconventional moral reasoning, which constitutes the theoretical basis of the DIT. However, very few studies have directly tested the internal structure of the DIT, which would indicate its construct validity. Objectives Using the DIT-2, a later revision of the DIT, we examined whether a bi-factor model or (...) 3-factor CFA model showed a better model fit. The Neo-Kohlbergian theory of moral judgment development, which constitutes the theoretical basis for the DIT-2, proposes that moral judgment development occurs continuously and that it can be better explained with a soft-stage model. Given these assertions, we assumed that the bi-factor model, which considers the Schema-General Moral Judgment (SGMJ), might be more consistent with Neo-Kohlbergian theory. Methods We analyzed a large dataset collected from undergraduate students. We performed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) via weighted least squares. A 3-factor CFA based on the DIT-2 manual and a bi-factor model were compared for model fit. The three factors in the 3-factor CFA were labeled as moral development schemas in Neo-Kohlbergian theory (i.e., personal interests, maintaining norms, and postconventional schemas). The bi-factor model included the SGMJ in addition to the three factors. Results In general, the bi-factor model showed a better model fit compared with the 3-factor CFA model although both models reported acceptable model fit indices. Conclusion We found that the DIT-2 scale is a valid measure of the internal structure of moral reasoning development using both CFA and bi-factor models. In addition, we conclude that the soft-stage model, posited by the Neo-Kohlbergian approach to moral judgment development, can be better supported with the bi-factor model that was tested in the present study. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to introduce Robert Brandom’s Inferentialism (Inferential theory of meaning) and Fodor and Lepore’ compositionality objection, and to protect Inferentialism from the objection based on compositionality. According to Inferentialism, To grasp or understand a concept is to have practical mastery over the inferences in which it is involved. However, Fodor and Lepore oppose Inferentialism by offering the compositionality objection. They argue that compositionality is needed to explain productivity, systematicity and learnability of language, meaning is compositional. (...) Since inferential role is not compositional, however, meaning is not an inferential role. Against Fodor and Lepore’s objection, I present Brandom’s responses and develop my own views. (shrink)

This study investigated the relative contribution of perception/cognition and language-specific semantics in nonverbal categorization of spatial relations. English and Korean speakers completed a video-based similarity judgment task involving containment, support, tight fit, and loose fit. Both perception/cognition and language served as resources for categorization, and allocation between the two depended on the target relation and the features contrasted in the choices. Whereas perceptual/cognitive salience for containment and tight-fit features guided categorization in many contexts, language-specific semantics influenced categorization where the two (...) features competed for similarity judgment and when the target relation was tight support, a domain where spatial relations are perceptually diverse. In the latter contexts, each group categorized more in line with semantics of their language, that is, containment/support for English and tight/loose fit for Korean. We conclude that language guides spatial categorization when perception/cognition alone is not sufficient. In this way, language is an integral part of our cognitive domain of space. (shrink)

In this dissertation, we shall investigate whether Tennant's criterion for paradoxicality(TCP) can be a correct criterion for genuine paradoxes and whether the requirement of a normal derivation(RND) can be a proof-theoretic solution to the paradoxes. Tennant’s criterion has two types of counterexamples. The one is a case which raises the problem of overgeneration that TCP makes a paradoxical derivation non-paradoxical. The other is one which generates the problem of undergeneration that TCP renders a non-paradoxical derivation paradoxical. Chapter 2 deals with (...) the problem of undergeneration and Chapter 3 concerns the problem of overgeneration. Chapter 2 discusses that Tenant’s diagnosis of the counterexample which applies CR−rule and causes the undergeneration problem is not correct and presents a solution to the problem of undergeneration. Chapter 3 argues that Tennant’s diagnosis of the counterexample raising the overgeneration problem is wrong and provides a solution to the problem. Finally, Chapter 4 addresses what should be explicated in order for RND to be a proof-theoretic solution to the paradoxes. (shrink)

A dearth of literature focuses on the relationship between acculturation, power distance and liminality for migrant nurses entering foreign workplaces. Expectations are for migrant nurses to be practice‐ready swiftly. However, this aspiration is naïve given the complex shifts that occur in deeply held cultural beliefs and practices and is dependent on an organisational climate of reciprocal willingness to adapt and learn. This exploratory study identified that although a plethora of literature addresses challenges migrant nurses face, there are limited data that (...) link these transitional processes to concepts that might usefully guide transitions. This study draws from the overarching concept of acculturation, together with Hofstede's (2011) notion of power distance and the theory of liminality to explore the experiences of eight migrant nurses. Data highlighted that adjusting to altered hierarchical relationships took many months because negotiating power distance challenged deeply held beliefs and assumptions about professional and organisational hierarchies. Migrant nurses’ accounts indicated a paucity of organisational processes to address these difficulties; therefore, they navigated this liminal space of adjustment to power distance differences in an ad hoc manner. Their acculturation experiences, arguably unnecessarily prolonged, indicate the value in workplace commitment to exploring a collaborative, critically reflective approach to optimise transitions. (shrink)

What constitutes a good life? A hedonist’s answer to this question is rather simple— more pleasure, less pain. While hedonism was previously a widely accepted belief, it now suffers from several crucial objections. A challenge particularly vexing to hedonists is the Philosophy of Swine: could it be possible that our lives may be less than that of a theoretical swine? In this essay, I argue that lifetime hedonism, the view of hedonism concerned with one’s total lifelong well-being, does not survive (...) this objection. In particular, I will refute the counterarguments that modern-day hedonist, Ben Bramble, presents against the Philosophy of Swine objection. (shrink)

Despite the general expectation that ethical leadership fosters employees’ ethical behaviors, surprisingly little empirical effort has been made to verify this expected effect of ethical leadership. To address this research gap, we examine the role of ethical leadership in relation to a direct ethical outcome of employees: moral voice. Focusing on how and when ethical leadership motivates employees to speak up about ethical issues, we propose that moral efficacy serves as a psychological mechanism underlying the relationship, and that leader–follower value (...) congruence serves as a boundary condition for the effect of ethical leadership on moral efficacy. We tested the proposed relationships with matched reports from 154 Korean white-collar employees and their immediate supervisors, collected at two different points in time. The results revealed that ethical leadership was positively related to moral voice, and moral efficacy mediated the relationship. Importantly, as the relationship between ethical leadership and moral efficacy depended on leader–follower value congruence, the mediated relationship was effective only under high leader–follower value congruence. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper I put forward a counterexample against Lewis’s reformed conditional analysis of fragility and then refute a possible response by Lewis. And I go on to argue that Lewis can overcome the counterexample by excluding fragility-mimickers from the stimulus appropriate to the concept of fragility.

Meaning in life has been widely recognized as a hallmark of psychological well-being and positive youth development. The goal of this study was to validate the Korean version of the Meaning in Life in Children Questionnaire utilizing the framework suggested by the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. Data were obtained from 277 fifth graders aged 10–11 in three elementary schools in Seoul and Gyeonggi through a paper-and-pencil survey. We translated the MIL-CQ, a 21-item self-report measure developed based on Frankl’s (...) “meaning triangle,” into Korean. Psychological well-being measures were also assessed. Validity and reliability data were collected. The content of domains and items was appropriate for measuring MIL among children. A three-factor model consisting of attitude, creativity, and experience pathways was extracted via exploratory factor analysis, and a three-factor hierarchical model including attitude, creativity, and experience as first-order factors and MIL as a second-order factor was confirmed via confirmatory factor analysis. Higher levels of MIL were related to higher levels of satisfaction with life, self-esteem, positive affectivity, and lower levels of negative affectivity. All item fit statistics were acceptable based on the Rasch model. The analysis of the measurement invariance of each item showed that the responses to one item varied by gender, suggesting that additional items might facilitate better measurement of MIL in children. This study provides validity and reliability evidence that K-MIL-CQ is appropriate for measuring MIL among South Korean elementary school students. (shrink)

In this essay I examine how compulsory military service and the Roman Catholic Church uphold and perpetuate an inadequate notion of masculinity in South Korea. I argue that the militaristic and Catholic definitions of masculinity significantly and pejoratively affect Korean culture. To unlearn these definitions, I propose an educational "readjusting" program that denounces any unjust discrimination on the basis of sex and gender.

Inequality in income and wealth distribution in society is said to be a great concern to many social critics. Rarely is the issue of inequality in income or wealth distribution, as such, a concern for the majority of Americans as individuals, however.

The present paper traces the trajectory of the development of Husserl’s phenomenology from its incipient eidetic phase over the transcendental to the lifeworld-phenomenological, and ascertains that, in spite of all their complexities, the idea of Zu den Sachen selbst is the very objective of all those ‘phenomenological’ investigations. The search after the ‘immediately given’ (Vorgegebenheiten) finally discovers that the concrete cultural life-worlds are the authentically ‘immediately pre-given’ and all kinds of knowledge and sciences (higher cultural configurations) are nothing but idealizations (...) of those floor-like concrete life-worlds. Phenomenology previously as rigorous first science is now re-oriented as phenomenology as rigorous (i.e., transcendental) regional studies. Transcendental regional studies (i.e., life-world phenomenology), I’d like to argue, is the very key to the resolution of the ambiguities of the concept of life-world as well as the key to the understanding of the vague future direction of phenomenological philosophizing that Husserl himself left open. (shrink)