Reorienting the Political examines the reception of two controversial German philosophers, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, in the Chinese-speaking world. This volume explores the powerful resonance of both thinkers in Chinese political thought from a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspective.

This paper will show that if we take conventional ethics seriously, then there is no moral justification for business profits. To show this, we explore three conventional ethical theories, namely Christian ethics, Kantian ethics and Utilitarian ethics. Since they essentially reject self-interest, they also reject the essence of business: the profit motive. To illustrate the relationship, we will concretize how the anti-egoist perspective expresses itself in business and business ethics. In business, we look at what many businesses regard as proof (...) of their virtue. In business ethics, we look at what many business ethicists say about the relationship between morality and self-interest and, thus, the profit motive. Ultimately, we will argue that conventional ethics can, at most, only justify the means of business, but not the end of business. (shrink)

Organizational change surrounding the security of identifiable health information has become imperative. This is a significant challenge for managers who are held responsible for loss of privacy through faulty security procedures. Management cannot completely secure the organization and still provide employees and customers with the information and services they need. Organizations must decide how much and what type of security they need, how to assign priorities, and how to manage security as the organization evolves in a competitive environment.

The notion of whether people focus on the past, present or future, and how it shapes their behaviour is known as Time Perspective. Fundamental to the work of two of its earliest proponents, Zimbardo and Boyd (2008), was the concept of balanced time perspective and its relationship to wellness. A person with balanced time perspective can be expected to have a flexible temporal focus of mostly positive orientations (past-positive, present-hedonistic, and future) and much less negative orientations (past-negative and present-fatalistic). This (...) study measured deviation from balanced time perspective (DBTP: Zhang, Howell, and Stolarski, 2013) in a sample of 243 mature adults aged 45 to 91 years and explored relationships to Retirement Planning, Depression, Anxiety, Stress, Positive Mood, and Negative Mood. Results indicate that DBTP accounts for unexplained variance in the outcome measures even after controlling for demographic variables. DBTP was negatively related to Retirement Planning and Positive Mood and positively related to Depression, Anxiety, Stress and Negative Mood. Theoretical and practical implications regarding balanced time perspective are discussed. (shrink)

Although the use of the cluster randomized trial (CRT) design to evaluate vaccines, public health interventions or health systems is increasing, the ethical issues posed by the design are not adequately addressed, especially in low- and middle-income country settings (LMICs). To help reveal ethical challenges, qualitative interviews were conducted with key stakeholders experienced in designing and conducting two selected CRTs in Malawi. The 18 interviewed stakeholders included investigators, clinicians, nurses, data management personnel and community workers who were invited to share (...) their experiences related to implementation of CRTs. Data analysis revealed five major themes with ethical implications: (1) The moral obligation for health care providers to participate in health research and its compensation; (2) Suboptimal care services compromising the integrity of CRT; (3) Ensuring scientific validity and withholding care service; (4) Obtaining valid consent and permission for waiver of consent; and (5) Inadequate risk assessment for trial participation. Understanding key ethical issues posed by CRTs in Malawi could improve ethical review and research oversight of this particular study design. (shrink)

In Minds, Brains, and Norms , Pardo and Patterson deny that the activities of persons (knowledge, rule-following, interpretation) can be understood exclusively in terms of the brain, and thus conclude that neuroscience is irrelevant to the law, and to the conceptual and philosophical questions that arise in legal contexts. On their view, such appeals to neuroscience are an exercise in nonsense. We agree that understanding persons requires more than understanding brains, but we deny their pessimistic conclusion. Whether neuroscience can be (...) used to address legal issues is an empirical question. Recent work on locked-in syndrome, memory, and lying suggests that neuroscience has potential relevance to the law, and is far from nonsensical. Through discussion of neuroscientific methods and these recent results we show how an understanding of the subpersonal mechanisms that underlie person-level abilities could serve as a valuable and illuminating source of evidence in legal and social contexts. In so doing, we sketch the way forward for a no-nonsense approach to the intersection of law and neuroscience. (shrink)

This article identifies the moral premises of contemporary business ethics. After analyzing thirty business ethics texts, the article shows that many business ethicists hold the conventional view that being moral is altruistic. This altruistic perspective logically implies a negative evaluation of self-interest and the profit motive, and business. As a result, the prevailing attitude in mainstream business ethics is that without altruistic restraints businesspeople are inclined to lie, steal, and cheat, not create and earn wealth through honest production and voluntary (...) trade. Therefore, the central concern in current business ethics is to curb businesspeople morally, not to empower them in their self-interested desire to make money. In the final analysis, the article shows how the anti-egoist assumptions manifest themselves in a moral prejudice against business, leading to a biased, unfair, and misleading account of the business world. (shrink)

Background Immense volumes of personal health information are required to realize the anticipated benefits of artificial intelligence in clinical medicine. To maintain public trust in medical research, consent policies must evolve to reflect contemporary patient preferences. Methods Patients were invited to complete a 27-item survey focusing on: broad versus specific consent; opt-in versus opt-out approaches; comfort level sharing with different recipients; attitudes towards commercialization; and options to track PHI use and study results. Results 222 participants were included in the analysis; (...) 83% were comfortable sharing PHI with researchers at their own hospital, although younger patients were more uncomfortable than older patients. While 56% of patients preferred broad consent, 38% preferred specific consent; 6% preferred not sharing at all. The majority of patients preferred to be asked for permission before entry into a contact pool. Again, this trend was more pronounced for younger patients. Approximately half of patients were uncomfortable sharing PHI with commercial enterprises. Most patients preferred to track PHI usage, with the highest proportion once again reported by the youngest patients. A majority of patients also wished to be notified regarding study results. Conclusions While most patients were willing to share their PHI with researchers within their own institution, many preferred a transparent and reciprocal consent process. These data also suggest a generational shift, wherein younger patients preferred more specific consent options. Modernizing consent policies to reflect increased autonomy is crucial in fostering sustained public engagement with medical research. (shrink)

Here I review the essays by McDowell, Dreyfus, and many others edited by Schear for "The McDowell/Dreyfus Debate". Topics include the relation between conceptuality and "non-conceptual content", the role of embodied coping in human life, the extent of continuity and discontinuity between humans and other animals, and the legacies of German Idealism and phenomenology.

This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

Social networks play a significant role in learning and thus in farmers’ adoption of new agricultural technologies. This study examined the effects of social network factors on information acquisition and adoption of new seed varieties among groundnut farmers in Uganda and Kenya. The data were generated through face-to-face interviews from a random sample of 461 farmers, 232 in Uganda and 229 in Kenya. To assess these effects two alternative econometric models were used: a seemingly unrelated bivariate probit model and a (...) recursive bivariate probit model. The statistical evaluation of the SUBP shows that information acquisition and adoption decisions are interrelated while tests for the RBP do not support this latter model. Therefore, the analysis is based on the results obtained from the SUBP. These results reveal that social network factors, particularly weak ties with external support, partially influence information acquisition, but do not influence adoption. In Uganda, external support, gender, farm size, and geographic location have an impact on information acquisition. In Kenya, external support and geographic location also have an impact on information acquisition. With regard to adoption, gender, household size, and geographic location play the most important roles for Ugandan farmers, while in Kenya information from external sources, education, and farm size affect adoption choice. The study provides insight on the importance of external weak ties in groundnut farming, and a need to understand regional differences along gender lines while developing agricultural strategies. This study further illustrates the importance of farmer participation in applied technology research and the impact of social interactions among farmers and external agents. (shrink)

Knee proprioception deficits and neuroplasticity have been indicated following injury to the anterior cruciate ligament. Evidence is, however, scarce regarding brain response to knee proprioception tasks and the impact of ACL injury. This study aimed to identify brain regions associated with the proprioceptive sense of joint position at the knee and whether the related brain response of individuals with ACL reconstruction differed from that of asymptomatic controls. Twenty-one persons with unilateral ACL reconstruction of either the right or left knee, as (...) well as 19 controls matched for sex, age, height, weight and current activity level, performed a knee joint position sense test during simultaneous functional magnetic resonance imaging. Integrated motion capture provided real-time knee kinematics to activate test instructions, as well as accurate knee angles for JPS outcomes. Recruited brain regions during knee angle reproduction included somatosensory cortices, prefrontal cortex and insula. Neither brain response nor JPS errors differed between groups, but across groups significant correlations revealed that greater errors were associated with greater ipsilateral response in the anterior cingulate, supramarginal gyrus and insula. This is the first study to capture brain response using fMRI in relation to quantifiable knee JPS. Activated brain regions have previously been associated with sensorimotor processes, body schema and interoception. Our innovative paradigm can help to guide future research investigating brain response to lower limb proprioception. (shrink)

Background Rapid ethical access to personal health information to support research is extremely important during pandemics, yet little is known regarding patient preferences for consent during such crises. This follow-up study sought to ascertain whether there were differences in consent preferences between pre-pandemic times compared to during Wave 1 of the COVID-19 global pandemic, and to better understand the reasons behind these preferences. Methods A total of 183 patients in the pandemic cohort completed the survey via email, and responses were (...) compared to the distinct pre-pandemic cohort ; all were patients of a large Canadian cancer center. The survey covered broad versus study-specific consent; opt-in versus opt-out contact approach; levels of comfort sharing with different recipients; perceptions of commercialization; and options to track use of information and be notified of results. Four focus groups were subsequently conducted to elucidate reasons motivating dominant preferences. Results Patients in the pandemic cohort were significantly more comfortable with sharing all information and biological samples, sharing information with the health care institution, sharing information with researchers at other hospitals, sharing PHI provincially, nationally and internationally compared to the pre-pandemic cohort. Discomfort with sharing information with commercial companies remained unchanged between the two cohorts. Significantly more pandemic cohort patients expressed a wish to track use of PHI, and to be notified of results. Thematic analysis uncovered that transparency was strongly desired on outside PHI use, particularly when commercialization was involved. Conclusions In pandemic times, patients were more comfortable sharing information with all parties, except with commercial entities, where levels of discomfort remained unchanged. Focus groups identified that the ability to track and receive results of studies using one’s PHI is an important way to reduce discomfort and increase trust. These findings meaningfully inform wider discussions on the use of personal health information for research during global crises. (shrink)

Without doubt Carl Gustav Jung is one of the outstanding figures of the twentieth century. The originator of a whole new epoch in our understanding of ourselves his writings have appealed to millions. Jung was a prolific writer as the Collected Works testify but his writing is often difficult. Where should the interested reader go to first? If to Jung's own writings, then which? If to some of the widespread writings about Jung's psychology, then again which are the best? (...) This choice would be difficult at the best of times but the explosion of interest in Jung's work and the increasingly wide applications that are being found for it make the task even more formidable. Renos Papadopoulos has drawn upon his expert knowledge in the academic and clinical fields to provide a hundred key papers from the vast body of work by and about Jung. Anyone wishing to find out about the main areas of Jung's work, the key issues involved, and the latest debates and applications, will find in this Critical Assessments of Carl Gustav Jung an essential guide that will provide a time-saving and reliable resource. Each volume carries an editorial introduction and each of the papers is by a leading specialist in their field. They cover a wide spectrum of approaches ranging from locating Jung within the context of European philosophy to assessing his specific psychotherapeutic techniques; from discussing his theory of personality and pathology to reflecting on the implications of his work for ecology, gender, history and other spheres of human culture. _Carl Gustav Jung: Critical Assessments_ provides an invaluable aid to all serious students of Jung, from trainee and practising Jungian analysts to academic scholars. It forms an indispensable companion to Jung's _Collected Works_. (shrink)

Var sak har sin tid -- Dansk filosofi -- Norsk filosofi -- Svensk filosofi -- Finsk filosofi -- Försök till ett bokslut.

It is shown that for any computable field K and any r.e. degree a there is an r.e. set A of degree a and a field F ≅ K with underlying set A such that the field operations of F (including subtraction and division) are extendible to (total) recursive functions. Further, it is shown that if a and b are r.e. degrees with b ≤ a, there is a 1-1 recursive function $f: \mathbb{Q} \rightarrow \omega$ such that f(Q) ∈ a, (...) f(Z) ∈ b, and the images of the field operations of Q under f can be extended to recursive functions. (shrink)

This textual analysis is a collective case study of K-12 United States History content standards in light of how they represent the historical experiences of African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. The study uses a multi-perspective critical conceptual framework to evaluate the standards for nine state-level polities on both the quality of treatment and the orientation of how African Americans are depicted in the standards. Analysis revealed that the reviewed standards tend to discourage rigorous historical thinking in favor of (...) non-conflictual narrative perspectives that accentuate the historical contributions of African Americans within a framework of linear social progress. This curricular approach is ultimately problematic because it encourages teachers and students to rely on convenient historical archetypes to construct a usable past, rather than problematizing the past and present experiences of African Americans. (shrink)

Current preoccupation with learning-theory has led psychologists, and other social scientists, to expect more from it than can presently be delivered. The subsequent reflections are submitted in order to suggest that at least some formulations of the relation between learning-theory and the “culture-concept” are somewhat defective. More specifically, I shall examine two recent contributions by O. K. Moore ), whose attempts at definition are distiguished by the employment of the formidable weapons of symbolic logic. Without denying the advantages to be (...) gained, by the sciences in general and the social sciences in particular, from the introduction of this new logic, I would justify my critical concern with Moore's definition of “culture” in terms of “learning-theory,” because it may become representative of other contributions whose partial inadequacies are easily obscured by the technicality of a symbolic language into which the actual empirical complexity of an issue could be falsely thought to have been properly translated. (shrink)

We introduce the notion of "semi-r.e." for subsets of ω, a generalization of "semirecursive" and of "r.e.", and the notion of "weakly semirecursive", a generalization of "semi-r.e.". We show that A is weakly semirecursive iff, for any n numbers x 1 ,...,x n , knowing how many of these numbers belong to A is equivalent to knowing which of these numbers belong to A. It is shown that there exist weakly semirecursive sets that are neither semi-r.e. nor co-semi-r.e. On the (...) other hand, we exhibit nonzero Turing degrees in which every weakly semirecursive set is semirecursive. We characterize the notion "A is weakly semirecursive and recursive in K" in terms of recursive approximations to A. We also show that if a finite Boolean combination of r.e. sets is semirecursive then it must be r.e. or co-r.e. Several open questions are raised. (shrink)

Ausgehend von einer Analyse des "Begründungsstreits", der in den letzten Jahren im Anschluß an H. Alberts Kritik des methodischen Prinzips der Begründung v.a. in der deutschen Philosophie geführt worden ist, werden zunächst die Positionen von K. O. Apel und J. Habermas einer immanenten methodischen Kritik unterzogen. Beide Programme erweisen sich als undurchführbar. Ausgehend von einer Präzisierung des Begriffes "Begründung" wird durch systematische Einführung begründungstheoretischer Termini ein begriffsiches Instrumentarium vorgeschlagen, das eine Rekonstruktion von Begründungssituationen erlauben soll. Mit seiner Hilfe werden die (...) im "Münchhausen-Trilemma" unterstellten Begründungssituationen genauer analysiert. Das "Münchhausen-Trilemma" wird als Argumentation für eine konstruktivistische und gegen eine reduktivistische Begründungskonzeption gewertet. (shrink)

This chapter explores Carl Schmitt’s response as a political, legal, and constitutional theorist to the permanent crisis of the Weimar Republic during its short-lived existence between 1919 and 1933. On the foundation of his conceptual edifice, it shows why Schmitt came to the conclusion that the Weimar Constitution did not provide an appropriate political system for the German people in their “natural” form. While the founders of Weimar sought to protect the polity’s diversity and contradictions, Schmitt regarded their constitution (...) as inherently nondemocratic. A focal point of the analysis is Schmitt’s claim that democracy and dictatorship are by no means mutually exclusive. The chapter demonstrates why Schmitt’s faith in the constituent power of a homogenous German people invariably led to his preference for “democratic dictatorship” and a rejection of the Weimar constitution’s system of parliamentary democracy. (shrink)

We study the proof-theoretic strength and effective content of the infinite form of Ramsey's theorem for pairs. Let RT n k denote Ramsey's theorem for k-colorings of n-element sets, and let RT $^n_{ denote (∀ k)RT n k . Our main result on computability is: For any n ≥ 2 and any computable (recursive) k-coloring of the n-element sets of natural numbers, there is an infinite homogeneous set X with X'' ≤ T 0 (n) . Let IΣ n and BΣ (...) n denote the Σ n induction and bounding schemes, respectively. Adapting the case n = 2 of the above result (where X is low 2 ) to models of arithmetic enables us to show that RCA 0 + IΣ 2 + RT 2 2 is conservative over RCA 0 + IΣ 2 for Π 1 1 statements and that $RCA_0 + I\Sigma_3 + RT^2_{ , is Π 1 1 -conservative over RCA 0 + IΣ 3 . It follows that RCA 0 + RT 2 2 does not imply BΣ 3 . In contrast, J. Hirst showed that $RCA_0 + RT^2_{ does imply BΣ 3 , and we include a proof of a slightly strengthened version of this result. It follows that $RT^2_{ is strictly stronger than RT 2 2 over RCA 0. (shrink)

This essay presents an analysis in the area of the theory of human action. Philosophers and pschologists are interested in theories of action because action defines those behaviors that are under our control as opposed to behaviors that in some sense just happen. In its wider context, a theory of action has implications for legal reasoning or moral reasoning. Throughout the history of this topic, one of the leading theories of action has been the volitional theory. Volition, in its simplest (...) sense, refers to an act of will. In this essay, I evaluate the work of Carl Ginet, who is one of the leading modern advocates of the Volitional theory of action. I argue below that Ginet's sophisticated volitional theory of action suffers from certain internal problems that result from Ginet's project of removing causal relations from his account of action. Ultimately, I argue that when he does this, Ginet reduces the theoretical resources for explaning how volition is connected to both overt behavior and to the agent. Furthermore, I belive that elucidating such problems is valuable just because this process reveals why we should focus our efforts upon a leading alternative to the volitional theory, namely the belief/desire theory of action. In the way, my analysis of Ginet reveals the strengths of an externalist rather than an internalist approach to the problem of action. (shrink)