The proliferation of multistakeholder initiatives (MSIs) over the past years has sparked an intense debate on the political role of corporations in the governance of global business conduct. To gain a better understanding of corporate political behavior in multistakeholder governance, this article investigates how firms construct a political identity when participating in MSIs. Based on an in-depth case study of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh—an MSI established after the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory complex (...) in 2013 to improve working conditions in the Bangladeshi garment industry—we introduce the construct of a political CSR (corporate social responsibility) identity (PCSRI) and explore how firms construct their PCSRIs in MSIs. Employing a qualitative, inductive theory-building method, we analyze interviews and archival data to develop a framework that elucidates how companies construct their PCSRIs within a continuum ranging from conservative to progressive. We show that constructing a PCSRI involves enacting specific, yet interrelated, political strategies that are themselves shaped by several forces over time. This article contributes to the literature by providing a political perspective on organizational identity construction that extends the emerging integrative perspective in political corporate social responsibility (PCSR) research. We suggest that MSIs should be conceptualized as inherently political governance mechanisms that are driven by multidirectional and dynamic political processes of identity construction. Our study shows that corporate political engagement in MSIs is a more nuanced and complex phenomenon than presently theorized. (shrink)

In the first part of the paper, factual information is given about developments in European business ethics since it started on a more or less institutionalized basis, five or six years ago. In the second part some comments are presented on the meaning of the developments and the possible causes. Attention is given to resemblances and differences between American and European business ethics. In the short last part some suggestions are proposed about tasks business ethics will face in the next (...) decade. (shrink)

In this paper, the authors attempt to prove there is a relationship between Borges’ “Argumentum ornithologicum” and Anselm’s argument “Argumentum ontologicum”. We suggest Borges, using the image of a flock of birds, with oriental reminiscences, half joking, half serious attempts to prove the existence of God. We demonstrate the fallacies incurred by Borges and why his “Argumentum” has no place within the traditional set of ontological arguments. However, it would easy to forget that Borges’ claim is not philosophical, nor theological, (...) nor apologetic, but rather ironic or paradoxical. (shrink)

Such is John Stuart Mill's succinct exposition of the core of utilitarian theory. A contemporary philosopher has aptly described utilitarianism as ‘the combination of two principles: (1)the consequentialist principlethat the rightness, or wrongness, of an action is determined by the goodness, or badness, of the results that flow from it and (2)the hedonist principlethat the only thing that is good in itself is pleasure and the only thing bad in itself is pain. Although the consequentialistprinciple has attracted the most attention (...) in modern discussions of utilitarianism, it is the second principle which invites immediate comparison with the views of Plato. I propose therefore to start by comparing the Platonic and the utilitarian conceptions of the good in the hope that this will enable us to see too in what sense Plato's position is consequentialist, and whether his ethical and political theories in general can properly be described as utilitarian. (shrink)

The contributions in the first part Re-modelling logic of this volume take account of formal logic in the theory of rational argumentation.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 6, Page 35-37, June 2012.

Cells are the fundamental building blocks of organisms and their organization holds the key to our understanding of the processes that control Development and Physiology as well as the mechanisms that underlie disease. Traditional methods of analysis of subcellular structure have relied on the purification of organelles and the painstaking biochemical description of their components. The arrival of high‐throughput genomic and, more significantly, proteomic technologies has opened hereto unforeseen possibilities for this task. Recently two reports(1,2) show how much can be (...) gleaned from the combination of analytical centrifugation, mass spectrometry and advanced statistical techniques focused on a high‐throughput analysis of the content and organization of plant and animal cells. The results reveal intriguing possibilities for the future and the possibility of mapping much of the known proteome onto our current map of the cell. BioEssays 28: 780–784, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The authors argue that while meaning holism makes massive error possible, it does not, as Donald Davidson fears, threaten interpretability. Thus they hold, in opposition to Davidson, that meaning holism need not be constrained by an account of meaning according to which in the methodologically most basic cases the content of a belief is given by the cause of that belief. What ensures interpretability, they maintain, is not that speakers' beliefs are in the main true, but rather that beliefs have (...) the contents they do because of events others can in principle identify and describe. (shrink)

Chief Executive Officers and other organizational leaders can affect how corporate social responsibility initiatives are perceived in their organizations. However, in order to be successful with regard to promoting CSR, leaders need to have strong network competencies and to move beyond charismatic leadership. In this paper we offer a critique of charismatic leadership as it relates to CSR, posit that the intellectual stimulation brought about by transformational leadership is more important in this regard, propose that internal and networking is a (...) leadership competence highly relevant to CSR, and emphasize the importance of working through highly credible opinion leaders in promoting CSR. (shrink)

The importance of non-codifying DNA polymorphism for the administration of justice is now well known. In Spain, however, this type of test has given rise to questions in recent years: Should consent be obtained before biological samples are taken from an individual for DNA analysis? Does society perceive these techniques and methods of analysis as being reliable? There appears to be lack of knowledge concerning the basic norms that regulate databases containing private or personal information and the protection that information (...) of this type must be given. This opinion survey and the subsequent analysis of the results in ethical terms may serve to reveal the criteria and the degree of information that society has with regard to DNA databases. In the study, 73.20% of the population surveyed was in favour of specific legislation for computer files in which DNA analysis results for forensic purposes are stored. (shrink)

In this paper, we respond to Andrew Avins's recent review of methods whose use he advocates in clinical trials, to make them more ethical. He recommends in particular, “unbalanced randomisation”. However, we argue that, before such a recommendation can be made, it is important to establish why unequal randomisation might offer ethical advantages over equal randomisation, other things being equal. It is important to make a pragmatic distinction between trials of treatments that are already routinely available and trials of restricted (...) treatments. We conclude that unequal randomisation could, indeed, be an ethical compromise between protecting the interests of participants and those of society. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Lived Experience and Cognitive Science Reappraising Enactivism’s Jonasian Turn” by Mario Villalobos & Dave Ward. Upshot: This commentary questions an assumption in the target article to the effect that science prohibits projecting any intentional properties or entities outside of human experience.

Esta obra es un viaje por el camino recorrido por la filosofía trascendente, que pone de relieve la pervivencia de conceptos como "sujeto", "crítica" o "reflexión". El núcleo fundamental del libro está en el estudio de la situación terminal a la que conduce el planteamiento fenomenológico husserliano y en el hallazgo de nuevos ámbitos de trascendentalidad. Puede advertirse cómo la vieja filosofía de sujeto-conciencia llega a transformarse y girar, para dar cabida a nuevos temas: la corporeidad, la intersubjetividad, el lenguaje, (...) que tradicionalmente habían sido silenciados o infravalorados. (shrink)