Nonviolent action is activity undertaken to call for, struggle for, or achieve change without using violence. This paper examines St. John XXIII’s historic encyclical on world peace, Pacem in terris, and its relationship to nonviolent action. It focuses on two nonviolent actions that contributed to this historic magisterial teaching: John’s efforts to foster a resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis and a fast undertaken by the spiritual activist Lanza del Vasto during Lent 1963. It argues that the very writing of (...) this papal letter was a form of nonviolent action and that it has inspired nonviolent action around the world since it was promulgated, including Catholic leadership in the People Power Revolution in the Philippines. (shrink)

The topic of moral repair in the aftermath of breaches of trust and harmdoing has grown in importance within the past few years. In this paper, we present the results of a qualitative study that offers insight into a series of key issues related to offender efforts to repair interpersonal harm in the workplace: What factors motivate offenders to make amends with those they have harmed? In what ways do offenders attempt to make amends? What outcomes emerge from attempts to (...) make amends? Drawing from the findings, we build an inductive model intended to guide future business ethics and management inquiry and research in this area. (shrink)

There is at present a divide in the geographical literature between those interested in distributive justice as a social value and those who seek to implement distributive plans on the basis of efficiency of resource use. The former are 'social geographers' interested in equity as a social value, and the latter are 'practical' economic and locational geographers. This divide mirrors one existing elsewhere in social science between Rawlsian liberalism and utilitarian planners. Here we argue that equality and efficiency are related (...) values that cannot be separated easily in the analysis of practical problems. Data on the distribution of transplantable human organs are considered in a practical consideration of this approach. The case-study suggests that inequality of distribution appears to effect adversely the general organ supply. Stated positively, the data suggest that, to the extent that equality of service is an objective, that goal may positively impact on organ supply. More generally, the conclusion argues for a conjoining of theoretical and practical geographical approaches where a scarce resource must be allocated across a dispersed population. (shrink)

Ken Elkins retired as chief photographer of the Anniston Star in 2000, and this selection of his work demonstrates his brilliant eye for finding and capturing images of rural southern lives and landscapes in all their difficulty, candor, and humor. These are unadorned images of a timeless landscape and proud resourceful people, who know well their neighbors, honor their past, and face the tests of daily life with wit and a stoic sense of endurance.

Ever since the publication of his first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness, written when he was twenty-three, Ken Wilber has been identified as the most comprehensive philosophical thinker of our times. This introductory sampler, designed to acquaint newcomers with his work, contains brief passages from his most popular books, ranging over a variety of topics, including levels of consciousness, mystical experience, meditation practice, death, the perennial philosophy, and Wilber's integral approach to reality, integrating matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit. Here (...) is Wilber's writing at its most reader-friendly, discussing essential ideas of the world's great psychological, philosophical, and spiritual traditions in language that is lucid, engaging, and inspirational. (shrink)

If the human race comes to an end relatively shortly, then we have been born at a fairly typical time in the history of humanity; if trillions of people eventually exist, then we have been born in the first surprisingly tiny fraction of all people. According to the 'doomsday argument' of Carter, Leslie, Gott and Nielsen, this means that the chance of a disaster which would obliterate humanity is much larger than usually thought. But treating possible observers in the same (...) way as those who actually exist avoids this conclusion: our existence is more likely in a race which is long-lived, and this cancels out the doomsday argument, so that the chance of a disaster is only what one would ordinarily estimate. (shrink)

Molinism promises the strongest account of God's providence consistent with our freedom. But is it a coherent view, and does it provide a satisfying account of divine providence? The essays in this volume examine the status, defensibility, and application of this recently revived doctrine, and anticipate the future direction of the debate.

In the decades after 1944 the four nations of Britain shared a common educational programme. By 2015, this programme had fragmented: the patterns of schooling and higher education in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England resembled each other less and less. This new edition of the popular _Education in Britain_ traces and explains this process of divergence, as well as the arguments and conflicts that have accompanied it. With a reach that extends from the primary school to the university, and (...) from culture to politics and economics, Ken Jones explores the achievements and limits of post-war reform and the egalitarian aspirations of the 1960s and 1970s. He registers the impact of the Thatcherite revolution of the 1980s, and of the New Labour governments which were its inheritors. Turning to the twenty-first century, Jones tracks the educational consequences of devolution and austerity. The result is a book which is more attentive than any other to the ever-increasing diversity of education in Britain. This comprehensive and accessible overview will have a wide appeal. It will also be an invaluable resource on courses in educational studies, teacher education and sociology. (shrink)

’Tis vain to talk of adding quantities which after the addition will continue to be as distinct as they were before; one man’s happiness will never be another man’s happiness: a gain to one man is no gain to another: you might as well pretend to add 20 apples to 20 pears.

The growing availability and consumption of Fairtrade products is recognised as one of the most widespread ethically inspired market developments, and as an example of activist-driven change within the wider marketing system. The Fairtrade Towns movement, now operating in over 1700 towns and cities globally, represents a comparatively recent extension of Fairtrade marketing driven by local activists seeking to promote positive change in production and consumption systems. This paper briefly explores the conventional framing of the role that ethically related activism (...) plays in the operation of markets and in influencing market participants. It then presents key insights gathered from a grounded theory exploration of Fairtrade Towns as activist-driven marketing systems, revealing the atypical nature of the activism involved. The findings demonstrate how local activists leverage their social networks to exert pressure and generate support to promote ethical consumption. The study suggests that Fairtrade Towns offer a new role for activists as Fairtrade itself becomes more mainstream, and considers the role they are fulfilling as ‘informal’ local marketers. The marketing dynamics revealed represent a complex and distinctive form of relational activism that seeks to build Fairtrade markets and highlight their positive benefits, with potential lessons for other local ethical market-building efforts in future. (shrink)

It's hard to say exactly when modern science began. Many scholars would date it at roughly 1600, when both Kepler and Galileo started using precision measurement to map the universe. But one thing is certain: starting from whatever date we choose, modern science was, in many important ways and right from the start, deeply antagonistic to established religion.

v. 1. The spectrum of consciousness ; No boundary ; Selected essays -- v. 2. The Atman Project ; Up from Eden -- v. 3. A sociable god ; Eye to eye -- v. 4. Integral psychology ; Transformations of consciousness ; Selected essays -- v. 5. Grace and grit : spirituality and healing in the life and death of Treya Killam Wilber. 2nd ed. -- v. 6. Sex, ecology, spirituality : the spirit of evolution. 2nd, rev. ed. -- v. (...) 7. A brief history of everything ; The eye of spirit -- v. 8. The marriage of sense and soul ; One taste. (shrink)

It is widely held that Bayesian decision theory is the final word on how a rational person should make decisions. However, Leonard Savage--the inventor of Bayesian decision theory--argued that it would be ridiculous to use his theory outside the kind of small world in which it is always possible to "look before you leap." If taken seriously, this view makes Bayesian decision theory inappropriate for the large worlds of scientific discovery and macroeconomic enterprise. When is it correct to use Bayesian (...) decision theory--and when does it need to be modified? Using a minimum of mathematics, Rational Decisions clearly explains the foundations of Bayesian decision theory and shows why Savage restricted the theory's application to small worlds. The book is a wide-ranging exploration of standard theories of choice and belief under risk and uncertainty. Ken Binmore discusses the various philosophical attitudes related to the nature of probability and offers resolutions to paradoxes believed to hinder further progress. In arguing that the Bayesian approach to knowledge is inadequate in a large world, Binmore proposes an extension to Bayesian decision theory--allowing the idea of a mixed strategy in game theory to be expanded to a larger set of what Binmore refers to as "muddled" strategies. Written by one of the world's leading game theorists, Rational Decisions is the touchstone for anyone needing a concise, accessible, and expert view on Bayesian decision making. (shrink)

In his book, philosopher and law professor Ken Levy explains why he agrees with most people, but not with most other philosophers, about free will and responsibility. Most people believe that we have both - that is, that our choices, decisions, and actions are neither determined nor undetermined but rather fully self-determined. By contrast, most philosophers understand just how difficult it is to defend this "metaphysical libertarian" position. So they tend to opt for two other theories: "responsibility skepticism" and "compatibilism". (...) In opposition to both of these theories, Levy explains how free will and responsibility are indeed metaphysically possible. But he also cautions against the dogma that metaphysical libertarianism is actually true, a widespread belief that continues to cause serious social, political, and legal harms. Levy's book presents a crisp, tight, historically informed discussion, with fresh clarity, insight, and originality. It will become one of the definitive resources for students, academics, and general readers in this critical intersection among metaphysics, ethics, and criminal law. Key features: Presents a unique, qualified defense of "metaphysical libertarianism," the idea that our choices, decisions, and actions can be fully self-determined. Written clearly, accessibly, and with minimal jargon - rare for a book on the very difficult issues of free will and responsibility. Seamlessly connects philosophical, legal, psychological, and political issues. Will be provocative and insightful for professional philosophers, students, and non-philosophers. (shrink)

Wright, Ken Review of: Born bad: Original sin and the making of the western world, by James Boyce, Black Inc., Collingwood, Vic., 2014, pp. 260, $34.99.

Wright, Ken Review of: Taking god to school: The end of Australia's egalitarian education?, by Marion Maddox, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2014, pp. xxiii + 248, $29.99.

Nietzsche never presented a worked-out normative ethical theory and appeared to regard any attempt to do so as woefully misguided. He poured scorn on the main contenders for such a theory in his day, and in ours – Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. Moreover, he repeatedly referred to himself as an 'immoralist' and gave one of his books the title Beyond Good and Evil, thus seeming only to confirm the impression that he was more interested in demolishing, and even abolishing morality (...) altogether than in making any constructive contribution to the subject. While the topic of morality appears as a central and almost obsessive interest in his works – especially in the sequence of books from Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality (1881) to On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) – it generally does so as the target of relentless criticism. Many have concluded, not surprisingly, that Nietzsche, rather than being interested in replacing an existing conception of morality with a better one of his own, was in the business of advising us to abandon morality altogether – to live, in some sense, without morality. (shrink)

Nietzsche famously rails against Christian virtues such as humility and compassion. Yet he is well aware that historical Christians, especially those in positions of power, typically preached such values but did not practice them. This raises the question whom Nietzsche is really targeting in his animadversions against Christian virtues. The answer developed here is that his real targets are his contemporaries, including atheist, socialists such as Eugen Dühring, who, with their advocacy of egalitarian, democratic social and political policies, are trying (...) to implement the values Christians long preached but rarely practiced. In nominating moderns, including those who seek the realization of enlightenment liberal democratic values, rather than past Christians, as Nietzsche’s real targets we create space for reconciling Nietzsche’s claim that he accepts the past (as embodied in his doctrine of amor fati) with his project of seeking to open up new possibilities for the future. In the concluding sections the questions are raised to what extent do Nietzsche’s attacks on Christian virtues exhibit the very ressentiment he so vehemently criticises as a source of Christian values, and whether his criticism of the modern social and political implementation of those values is really supported by his own values. (shrink)

This short paper begins with a summary of the views of a sympathetic game theorist on the current state of play in what is still called the New Institutional Economics. It continues with a much abbreviated summary of my own attempts to treat justice as a kind of institution in the hope that this will serve as a case study in how game theory can serve as a useful intellectual framework for the study of human institutions.

Wilber's groundbreaking synthesis of religion, philosophy, physics, and psychology started a revolution in transpersonal psychology.

This article criticises one of Stuart Rachels' and Larry Temkin's arguments against the transitivity of 'better than'. This argument invokes our intuitions about our preferences of different bundles of pleasurable or painful experiences of varying intensity and duration, which, it is argued, will typically be intransitive. This article defends the transitivity of 'better than' by showing that Rachels and Temkin are mistaken to suppose that preferences satisfying their assumptions must be intransitive. It makes cler where the argument goes wrong by (...) showing that it is a version of Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. (shrink)

Game theory has proved a useful tool in the study of simple economic models. However, numerous foundational issues remain unresolved. The situation is particularly confusing in respect of the non-cooperative analysis of games with some dynamic structure in which the choice of one move or another during the play of the game may convey valuable information to the other players. Without pausing for breath, it is easy to name at least 10 rival equilibrium notions for which a serious case can (...) be made that here is the “right” solution concept for such games. (shrink)

Ken Safir, Rutgers University Following a line of thought initiated by Kuno (1972), it has been suggested that the coconstrual of first person pronouns is a model for the coconstrual of a logophoric pronoun with its antecedent. This particular proposal has been extended to the forms of logophoricity that have been observed in some African languages (e.g., Ewe, as remarked in passing by Clements, 1975, and Amharic, as proposed by Schlenker, 2000).

The ethical nature of transformational leadership has been hotly debated. This debate is demonstrated in the range of descriptors that have been used to label transformational leaders including narcissistic, manipulative, and self-centred, but also ethical, just and effective. Therefore, the purpose of the present research was to address this issue directly by assessing the statistical relationship between perceived leader integrity and transformational leadership using the Perceived Leader Integrity Scale (PLIS) and the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). In a national sample of (...) 1354 managers a moderate to strong positive relationship was found between perceived integrity and the demonstration of transformational leadership behaviours. A similar relationship was found between perceived integrity and developmental exchange leadership. A systematic leniency bias was identified when respondents rated subordinates vis-à-vis peer ratings. In support of previous findings, perceived integrity was also found to correlate positively with leader and organisational effectiveness measures. (shrink)

An important question in the debate over embodied, enactive, and extended cognition has been what has been meant by “cognition”. What is this cognition that is supposed to be embodied, enactive, or extended? Rather than undertake a frontal assault on this question, however, this paper will take a different approach. In particular, we may ask how cognition is supposed to be related to behavior. First, we could ask whether cognition is supposed to be behavior. Second, we could ask whether we (...) should attempt to understand cognitive processes in terms of antecedently understood cognitive behaviors. This paper will survey some of the answers that have been given in the embodied, enactive, and extended cognition literature, then suggest reasons to believe that we should answer both questions in the negative. (shrink)

Can people be relied upon to be nice to each other? Thomas Hobbes famously did not think so, but his view that rational cooperation does not require that people be nice has never been popular. The debate has continued to simmer since Joseph Butler took up the Hobbist gauntlet in 1725. This article defends the modern version of Hobbism derived largely from game theory against a new school of Butlerians who call themselves behavioral economists. It is agreed that the experimental (...) evidence supports the claim that most people will often make small sacrifices on behalf of others and that a few will sometimes make big sacrifices, but that the larger claims made by contemporary Butlerians lack genuine support. (shrink)

Article (Reprinted in "Oxford Readings in Philosophy: Nietzsche", edited by B. Leiter and J. Richardson, Oxford University Press, 2001.

The following values have no corresponding Zotero field: PB - Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Ltd Hove,, UK.

Wright, Ken Review of: Hope, by Stan Van Hooft, Acumen Publishing, Durham, 2011, pp. viii + 152.

Wright, Ken Review of: How much is Enough?: Money and the good life, by Robert and Edward Skidelsky, Other Press, New York, 2012, x + 241 pp., $20.07.

If some external enforcement agency compels us to honor deals reached in the original position, then Harsanyi has shown that the outcome will be utilitarian. Under the same hypotheses, Rawls claims that the outcome will be egalitarian. This chapter confirms that Harsanyi is correct. It goes on to use the concept of an empathy equilibrium to predict the standard of interpersonal comparison needed to operate a utilitarian norm that will evolve in the medium run.

Binmore argues that game theory provides a systematic tool for investigating ethical matters.

Ken Binmore's previous game theory textbook, Fun and Games, carved out a significant niche in the advanced undergraduate market; it was intellectually serious and more up-to-date than its competitors, but also accessibly written. Its central thesis was that game theory allows us to understand many kinds of interactions between people, a point that Binmore amply demonstrated through a rich range of examples and applications. This replacement for the now out-of-date 1991 textbook retains the entertaining examples, but changes the organization to (...) match how game theory courses are actually taught, making Playing for Real a more versatile text that almost all possible course designs will find easier to use, with less jumping about than before. In addition, the problem sections, already used as a reference by many teachers, have become even more clever and varied, without becoming too technical. Playing for Real will sell into advanced undergraduate courses in game theory, primarily those in economics, but also courses in the social sciences, and serve as a reference for economists. (shrink)

Molinism is named after Luis de Molina (1535–1600). Molina and his fellow Jesuits became entangled in a fierce debate over issues involving the doctrine of divine providence, which is a picture of how God runs the world. Molinism reemerged in the 1970s after Alvin Plantinga unwittingly assumed it in his Free Will Defense against the ‘Logical’ Argument from Evil. Molinism has been the subject of vigorous debate in analytic philosophy of religion ever since. The main aim of this essay is (...) to survey the main contours of this debate. We will visit some ‘old’ battlefields and current hot spots in the ongoing Molinism Wars. (shrink)

[Ken Gemes] In some texts Nietzsche vehemently denies the possibility of free will; in others he seems to positively countenance its existence. This paper distinguishes two different notions of free will. Agency free will is intrinsically tied to the question of agency, what constitutes an action as opposed to a mere doing. Deserts free will is intrinsically tied to the question of desert, of who does and does not merit punishment and reward. It is shown that we can render Nietzsche's (...) prima facie conflicting assertions regarding free will compatible by interpreting him as rejecting deserts free will while accepting the possibility of agency free will. It is argued that Nietzsche's advances an original form of compatibilism which takes agency free will to be a rare achievement rather than a natural endowment. /// [Christopher Janaway] This paper aims to distinguish a conception of 'free will' that Nietzsche opposes (that of the pure agent unaffected by contingencies of character and circumstance) and one that he supports. In Human, All Too Human Nietzsche propounds the 'total unfreedom' of the will. But by the time of Beyond Good and Evil and the Genealogy he is more concerned (a) to trace the affective psychological states underlying beliefs in both free will and 'unfree will', (b) to suggest that the will might become free in certain individuals, a matter of having a consistent strong character, self-knowledge, and ability to create values. The paper explores the kind of autonomy required in agents who would 'revalue' existing values. (shrink)