G. K. Chesterton's fictional detectives stand in stark methodical contrast to scientific detectives such as Sherlock Holmes. While the scientific detective focuses on external reality, seeking to reconstruct the crime, Chesterton's detectives—and Father Brown in particular—are preoccupied with inner perceptions, devoting their energy to understanding other minds. While Holmes may be seen as a positivist driven by the physical sciences, Chesterton's detectives are exegetes, perceiving human beings as a unique species demanding a distinctive approach. They thus reflect Chesterton's view that (...) the modes employed to decipher physical reality are inappropriate for comprehending social reality.Chesterton's opposition... (shrink)

Accounts of the concepts of function and dysfunction have not adequately explained what factors determine the line between low‐normal function and dysfunction. I call the challenge of doing so the line‐drawing problem. Previous approaches emphasize facts involving the action of natural selection (Wakefield 1992a, 1999a, 1999b) or the statistical distribution of levels of functioning in the current population (Boorse 1977, 1997). I point out limitations of these two approaches and present a solution to the line‐drawing problem that builds on the (...) second one. (shrink)

Abstract:Extrapolating from Carroll’s four domains of corporate social responsibility (1979) and Pyramid of CSR (1991), an alternative approach to conceptualizing corporate social responsibility (CSR) is proposed. A three-domain approach is presented in which the three core domains of economic, legal, and ethical responsibilities are depicted in a Venn model framework. The Venn framework yields seven CSR categories resulting from the overlap of the three core domains. Corporate examples are suggested and classified according to the new model, followed by a discussion (...) of limitations and teaching and research implications. (shrink)

Are corporate codes of ethics necessarily ethical? To challenge this notion, an initial set of universal moral standards is proposed by which all corporate codes of ethics can be ethically evaluated. The set of universal moral standards includes: (1) trustworthiness; (2) respect; (3) responsibility; (4) fairness; (5) caring; and (6) citizenship. By applying the six moral standards to four different stages of code development (i.e., content, creation, implementation, administration), a code of ethics for corporate codes of ethics is constructed by (...) which companies can be ethically audited for compliance. The newly proposed code of ethics for corporate codes of ethics was then applied to four large Canadian companies representing a variety of industries: telecommunications; banking, manufacturing, and high technology. The ethical audit of the four companies' ethics programs based on the proposed code indicates that all four companies have room to improve the ethical nature of their codes of ethics (i.e., content, creation, implementation, administration). (shrink)

There appears to be an implicit assumption by those connected with the ethical investment movement (e.g., ethical investment firms, individual investors, social investment organizations, academia, and the media), that ethical investment is in fact ethical. This paper will attempt to challenge the notion that the ethical mutual fund industry, as currently taking place, is acting in an ethical manner. Ethical issues such as the transparency of the funds and advertising are discussed. Ethical mutual fund screens such as tobacco, alcohol, gambling, (...) and the military are preliminarily examined to better determine whether they can actually be defined as "ethical" screens as opposed to merely social, political, or religious screens. A code of ethics for ethical investment is constructed by which ethical mutual fund firms can be audited for ethical compliance. (shrink)

A productive way to think about imagistic mental models of physical systems is as though they were sources of quasi‐empirical evidence. People depict or imagine events at those points in time when they would experiment with the world if possible. Moreover, just as they would do when observing the world, people induce patterns of behavior from the results depicted in their imaginations. These resulting patterns of behavior can then be cast into symbolic rules to simplify thinking about future problems and (...) to reveal higher order relationships. Using simple gear problems, three experiments explored the occasions of use for, and the inductive transitions between, depictive models and number‐based rules. The first two experiments used the convergent evidence of problem‐solving latencies, hand motions, referential language and error data to document the initial use of a model, the induction of rules from the modeling results, and the fallback to a model when a rule fails. The third experiment explored the intermediate representations that facilitate the induction of rules from depictive models. The strengths and weaknesses of depictive modeling and more analytic systems of reasoning are delineated to motivate the reasons for these transitions. (shrink)

'Modern History' views claim that in order for a trait X to have the proper function F, X must have been recently favored by natural selection for doing F (Griffiths 1992, 1993; Godfrey-Smith 1994). For many traits with prototypical proper functions, however, such recent selection may not have occurred, since traits may have been maintained owing to lack of variation or selection for other effects. I explore this flaw in Modern History accounts and offer an alternative etiological theory, which I (...) call the 'Continuing Usefulness' account. According to my view, a trait has the proper function F if and only if, first, the trait was favored by selection for doing F at some point (perhaps far in the past), and, secondly, the trait has recently contributed to survival and reproduction by doing F. This separates the requirement involving natural selection from the one involving the recent past, two issues that the Modern History account conflates. The clear separation allows a detailed analysis of the causal judgments and form of adaptationism that ground the etiological approach to function. (shrink)

The principle of necessity as applied to self-defence requires the use of the least harmful defensively effective means of thwarting a wrongful threat. Yet –so I argue – a harm can be excessive even when it is the least harmful way of dealing with the threat at the time of the attack. I therefore propose a historical view of the requirement of necessity. Historical necessity requires the selection of the least harmful means to thwart a future attack at the point (...) in time at which we have a solid presumption that the future attack will take place. This may happen considerably before the time of the attack. Once you fail to acquire or preserve the least harmful defensive option for thwarting a future attack you may come to be irrevocably in breach of necessity. The paper tackles a number of objections to the view proposed. (shrink)

The paper explores the ongoing debate between the narrow version of CSR proposed by Milton Friedman and the broader version of CSR, which includes additional ethical and/or philanthropic obligations. Implications are then discussed.

The present article examines the contemporary stakes and “application” of The Differend with particular attention to neo-fascist denialism, trolling, and alt-right “free speech” discourse. This entails investigating the text’s own rhetorical performance as well as the shifting attitudes towards the sophistic tradition in The Differend and its precursor text, “On the Force of the Weak.” The article thus also takes up in detail three examples of the characteristic sophistic form of the dilemma or double-bind, two of which are drawn from (...) Lyotard: the Holocaust denialist Robert Faurisson’s infamous dilemma of “the witness to the gas-chambers”; the canonical ancient dilemma through which Protagoras wins his fee from his student Euathlus despite seemingly never having helped him win a dispute; and “if you can speak, you can breathe,” the contemporary denialist’s rejoinder to “I can’t breathe.” Lyotard’s arguments are briefly compared to those of other thinkers. (shrink)

A number of business ethics theorist have highlighted the potential for economics to contribute to the advancement of business ethics. In response, this article emphasizes the insights of a particular area of economics that could provide such expansion and development. Subjectivist economics may yet provide an effective analytical framework through which to investigate and evaluate business decision making, and hence the ethics of business. Integrating the concepts of uncertainty, time and imagination, subjectivist economic theory contributes to a greater appreciation of (...) economic choice and behaviour. While such notions are often effectively omitted from modern economic analysis to aid formal representation, business ethicists could utilize such concepts more effectively than their colleagues in economic theory. Significantly, the well-known economists who have championed the insights of subjectivist economics have themselves recommended its extension to an analysis of ethics. (shrink)

Discussions of both personal responsibility and the importance of trust in health-care settings are increasingly prominent in the bioethics literature. In this paper I link the two discussions and argue that health policies that include personal responsibility ought to address climates of social trust. Trust is a social good that is not always fairly distributed. Disadvantaged social groups often face default distrust. I suggest that agent-centered models in which responsibilities are negotiated do a better job of repairing social distrust than (...) authoritative models in which responsibilities are assigned. Attending to climates of trust, distrust, or antitrust is essential for addressing health inequalities. (shrink)

_Rethinking Pragmatism_ explores the work of the American Pragmatists, particularly James and Dewey, challenging entrenched views of their positions on truth, meaning, instrumentalism, realism, pluralism and religious beliefs. It clarifies pragmatic ideas and arguments spelling out the significant implications they have for present-day philosophical controversies. Explores the work of the American Pragmatists, especially James and Dewey, on the issues of truth, reference, meaning, instrumentalism, essences, realism, pluralism and religious beliefs. The only available publication to provide a detailed commentary on James's (...) book, _Pragmatism_, while exploring the implications of the American Pragmatists' ideas and arguments for contemporary philosophical issues Challenges standard readings of the American Pragmatists' positions in a way that illuminates and questions the assumptions underlying current discussions of these topics. Coherently arranged by structuring the book around the themes discussed in each chapter of James's original work. Provides a new analysis and understanding of the pragmatic theory of truth and semantics. (shrink)

Is the family subject to principles of justice? In "A Theory of Justice", John Rawls includes the (monogamous) family along with the market and the government as among the, "basic institutions of society", to which principles of justice apply. Justice, he famously insists, is primary in politics as truth is in science: the only excuse for tolerating injustice is that no lesser injustice is possible. The point of the present paper is that Rawls doesn't actually mean this. When it comes (...) to the family, and in particular its impact on fair equal opportunity, (the first part of the Difference Principle, Rawls' second principle of justice), he abandons the priority of justice. I also argue that he is right to do so. -/- The central argument is simple. As Rawls admits, what family one is raised by profoundly affects one's life chances: a child raised by a family has far greater life chances on every dimension than one raised in a poorer family that may lack books, education, and time to give the child attention. But the prevailing family arrangements in the industrialized West, assigning children to be raised by their biological parents, is guaranteed to perpetuate this injustice. While Rawls says an unjust institution in the basic structure of society, in which he includes the family, must be, "reformed or abolished," he refrains from calling for the reform or abolition of the family. We must simply work around it to compensate for the injustices he admits it involves. And this despite the fact that alternative arrangements involving communal child-rearing (Plato) or assigning children to those best qualified to raise them (Rousseau) are common in the philosophical literature. Moreover, the practice of having children raised by their biological parents is a relatively recent one, at least in the West, where, before the late 18th century, fostering-out or apprenticeship arrangements were normal and expected for both rich and poor for centuries. -/- Much of the paper is devoted to fine-grained textual analysis of Rawls' attempts to avoid the devastating implications of this argument for his theory of justice -- much of which are stated only in the original edition of "A Theory of Justice" and simply deleted, without substitution by anything better, in the second edition. In the end, Rawls has no way out. He cannot keep the priority of justice, fair equality of opportunity, and the monogamous family in which children are raised by their biological parents. As he admits, these are mutually inconsistent. -/- In the final part of the paper, I argue that Rawls should give up on the priority of justice. While child-rearing by the biological parents is a historical anomaly, in the real modern world it would be politically unfeasible to institute Platonic, Rousseauean, or similar legislation that purportedly assigned children to those best able to raise them, regardless of biological relationship. Since Rawls is committed to principles of political stability and feasibility, as he should be, and since ought implies can, such proposals are off the table. I concur with Rawls that we must work around this injustice, even those there are more just arrangements available in principle. But the cost of this -- less high than Rawls suggests -- is abandoning the principle of the priority of justice. Justice is one of a number of considerations that we must or may balance in deciding on the best attainable social relations. It is not a trump. However, this comes a great cost for Rawls: he must also abandon the lexical ordering of principles of justice or, in general, right or good principles of social order, in favor of the messy intuitionist balancing that his theory is designed to avoid. -/- One feature of the paper that is worth independent attention is a discussion of Marx's rejection of justice in the Critique of the Gotha Program, which I explicate, and urge, without adopting it, that it has a great deal more force than is widely understood. (shrink)

Francis Bacon’s method of induction is often understood as a form of eliminative induction. The idea, on this interpretation, is to list the possible formal causes of a phenomenon and, by reference to a copious and reliable natural history, to falsify all of them but one. Whatever remains must be the formal cause. Bacon’s crucial instances are often seen as the crowning example of this method. In this article, I argue that this interpretation of crucial instances is mistaken, and it (...) has caused us to lose sight of why Bacon assigns crucial instances a special role in his quest for epistemic certainty about formal causes. If crucial instances are interpreted eliminatively, then they are subject to the two problems related to underdetermination raised by Duhem: (1) that it is impossible to be certain one has specified all of the possible alternatives and (2) that an experiment falsifies a whole theory, not just a single hypothesis in isolation. I show that Bacon anticipates and aims to dodge both of these problems by conceiving of crucial instances as working, in the ideal case, through direct affirmations that are supported by links to more foundational knowledge. (shrink)

For observers of pharmaceutical regulation and the Food and Drug Administration, these are uncertain times. Events in late 2016 raised concerns that the FDA's evidentiary standards were being weakened, compromising the agency's ability to adequately perform its regulatory and public health responsibilities. Two developments most directly contributed to these fears—the approval of eteplirsen, a treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, against the recommendations of both FDA staff and an advisory committee and the December 2016 signing of the 21st Century Cures Act, (...) which encouraged greater use by the FDA of “real-world” evidence not obtained through randomized controlled trials. The arrival of the Trump administration—with its deregulatory, industry-friendly approach—has only amplified concerns over the future of the FDA. It is too early to know whether the recent developments are truly harbingers of an FDA less likely to prevent unsafe or ineffective products from reaching the market. But elements in the two events—the role of patient narratives in deliberations regarding eteplirsen and the enthusiasm for real-world evidence in the 21st Century Cures Act—raise critical issues for the future of evidence in the FDA's work. The rigorous, inclusive approach under way to consider issues related to real-world evidence provides a model for a similarly needed inquiry regarding public participation in FDA decision-making. (shrink)

As ethics committees become involved in discussing the propriety of euthanasia and assisted suicide, and as healthcare providers begin to seriously consider whether they might ever have a role in hastening the dying process, many have looked to The Netherlands as the only real example of a nation that permits euthanasia in limited circumstances. Unfortunately, partisans in the Dutch debate have often written about the Dutch experience as advocates rather than as neutral observers. Some have argued that euthanasia, which, they (...) claim, is rarely actually practiced, is universally accepted within The Netherlands; others have reported that the Dutch social fabric has been rended irreparably by what they claim, is a practice far more widespread than is generally understood. The debate in the United States has also been colored by a misunderstanding of the legal regulation of euthanasia in The Netherlands. (shrink)

As rationing decisions become more of an immediate reality for healthcare practitioners it is important to design mechanisms that facilitate carefully deliberated outcomes. No individual can be expected to be able to cover wide debate on their own, so an exercise has been designed that helps generate consensus decisions from diverse opinions. The exercise was piloted with two groups, an undergraduate medical class and the members of a general practice. Though the aims were different for each group, the tool was (...) useful to both for producing the desired outcomes. Expert and non-expert knowledge were drawn upon and rationing prioritisation lists regarding funding of infertility treatment were generated. A description of the exercise and the results produced by the two groups are provided, as well as the theoretical placement for the significance of forming consensus from diversity. (shrink)

This paper reexamines an early article by Noam Chomsky and Israel Scheffler concerning the proper formulation and status of Quine's criterion for ontological commitment. ( What is Said to Be,' "Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society", 69, 1958-59; reprinted in Scheffler, "Inquiries".) Somewhat different formulations of the criterion are proposed and their implications explored. It is also argued that Chomsky and Scheffler's views may be seen to foreshadow and lead to some of Quine's later more radical doctrines regarding ontological commitment.

Flirtations: Rhetoric and Aesthetics This Side of Seduction, opens by asking a fundamental first question: What is flirtation, and how does it differ from seduction? The essays thereby address the under-theorized terrain of flirtation not as a subgenre of seduction but rather as a phenomenon in its own right.

Shepard has challenged psychologists to identify nonarbitrary principles of mind upon which to build a more explanatory and general cognitive science. I suggest that such nonarbitrary principles may fruitfully be sought not only in the laws of physics and mathematics, but also in the logical entailments of different categories of representation. In the example offered here, conceptualizing mental events as indexical with respect to the events they represent enables one to account parsimoniously for a wide range of empirical psychological phenomena. (...) [Shepard]. (shrink)

“Business Ethics in Developing Countries: A Response to Rossouw” examines Gedeon J. Rossouw’s account of business morality and those preconditions that he seeks in order to develop a moral business culture in South Africa, given the historical reality in that country. The paper argues that Rossouw does not take cognisance of history. Particularly of the decade after the election of the Nationalist Party Government in 1948, when that government strove to impose its ideology upon South African Society. If he did (...) take cognisance of that history, then he would not be able to proffer those proposals which he believes would improve business morality there. The paper also extends a caution against the acceptance of economic advancement as a pre-condition for the appearance of moral business practices. Likewise for the contrary view that economic growth is the harbinger of moral decay. (shrink)