More than half of the S&P 500 and the Fortune 500 companies publish corporate social responsibility reports. CSR is at the heart of a new form of corporation, the benefit corporation, which requires the pursuit of a social purpose as well as pursuit of profit. Thirty-four states, plus the District of Columbia, have enacted benefit corporation legislation. Most laws require that benefit corporations publish reports on their social purpose performance using a third-party assessment format. The purpose of this paper is (...) to analyze 1,530 benefit corporations identified by B Lab and the state of Minnesota for proof of social purpose performance, as demonstrated in reports on their websites. The study found some companies with excellent reports, but those had had a CSR focus prior to becoming benefit corporations or had been Certified B Corporations. However, most benefit corporations in the study had no published reports; many have no websites. (shrink)

Porter and Kramer are very clear that shared value is not corporate social responsibility. Not only do they criticize the four principles on which CSR rests: moral obligation, sustainability, license to operate, and reputation, as ineffective and vague, they maintain that the only reason for companies to engage in sustainability projects is to decrease costs and thus increase profits, not because they have a corporate responsibility to help protect the environment the people who dwell in it. Because social problems cause (...) extra costs for companies and thus decrease profits, they say that companies should have strategies that might appear to be socially responsible, but are not because the intent is to improve profits. This paper will describe the current definitions and focus of CSR, explain shared value, and then propose ways that commitment to CSR can be made public by leaders and their businesses, such as using social license to operate, third-party assessors, and new business structures. (shrink)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 edition. Excerpt:...but it does not follow that knowledge is not good. It is more needful that I should be a good Christian, than that I should be able to make good shoes. But this, too, is needful for one who is a shoemaker, and his Christianity is to show (...) itself in his earthly calling, and not to be an excuse for unskilfulness therein. And here, too, the case is similar. It is true that knowledge puffs up, that is, superficial knowledge, the appearance of knowledge, where its reality and solidity are wanting; while true knowledge, and earnest genuine research, makes a man humble and modest. For the more we learn, the more we perceive what we owe to others, and the more we know, the more we perceive how little we know. Heal research, moreover, is impossible without self-denial, devotion, and a feeling for truth which will not be ashamed to confess its errors to itself and others. To investigate is a moral labour, and not a mere exercise of the mind. True science cannot be separated from morality, and true morality has always a religious root, even when this is unconfessed. When we investigate, too, we owe our best discoveries to God; our best possessions are a gift from above. When Pythagoras had discovered his famous geometrical theorem concerning the squares of a right-angled triangle, he sacrificed a hecatomb to the gods. And Kepler concluded his famous work on the motion of the planets with hearty thanksgiving to God. The true disciples of science have ever been the pupils of that heavenly wisdom of which St. James says that it is " peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." And does not all knowledge, when we go deeply into it, lead is to God? What Bacon said of philosophy, that " a little inclineth mens minds... (shrink)

Every kind of ‘ought’ implies some kind of ‘can’ – but there are many kinds of ‘ought’ and even more kinds of ‘can’. In this essay, I shall focus on a particular kind of ‘ought’ – specifically, on what I shall call the “rational ‘ought’”. On every occasion of use, this kind of ‘ought’ is focused on the situation of a particular agent at a particular time; but this kind of ‘ought’ is concerned, not with how that agent acts at (...) that time, but with what beliefs or intentions the agent has at the time, or with the sort of reasoning by means of which the agent at that time forms or revises those beliefs or intentions. (shrink)

This article proposes a new theory of rational decision, distinct from both causal decision theory (CDT) and evidential decision theory (EDT). First, some intuitive counterexamples to CDT and EDT are presented. Then the motivation for the new theory is given: the correct theory of rational decision will resemble CDT in that it will not be sensitive to any comparisons of absolute levels of value across different states of nature, but only to comparisons of the differences in value between the available (...) options within states of nature; however, the correct theory will also resemble EDT in that it will rely on conditional probabilities (not unconditional probabilities). The new theory gives a prominent role to the notion of a “benchmark” for each state of nature, by comparison with which the value of the available options in that state of nature are measured, and so it has been called the Benchmark Theory (BT). It is argued that BT gives the right verdict on the cases that seem to be counterexamples to CDT and EDT. Finally, some objections to BT are considered and answered. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the way that web documents seeking to persuade readers of certain science claims provide information about the sources of the arguments. Our quantitative analysis reveals that web documents in our sample include hundreds of examples in which the reader is provided information regarding the trustworthiness of sources. The web documents also contain a large number of examples in which the reader is provided with information about how many individuals hold a particular belief. We discuss ad (...) hominem, ad verecundiam, and ad populum arguments, and the way that the examples found in our sample of documents are related to these argumentation schemes. (shrink)

This is an electronic edition of the combined Essays, First and Second Series published in Australia.

This essay gives a new interpretation of some of the central ethical doctrines of Bishop Butler's Sermons -- in particular, of his claim that a review of the empirical facts of human nature shows that we have "an obligation to the practice of virtue", and of the precise claims that he makes about the relations between morality and self-interest.

This paper gives a new interpretation of the central section of Plato's Symposium (199d-212a). According to this interpretation, the term "καλóν", as used by Plato here, stands for what many contemporary philosophers call "intrinsic value"; and "love" (ἔρως) is in effect rational motivation , which for Plato consists in the desire to "possess" intrinsically valuable things - that is, according to Plato, to be happy - for as long as possible. An explanation is given of why Plato believes that "possessing" (...) intrinsically valuable things, at least for mortals like us, consists in actively creating instantiations of the intrinsic values, both in oneself and in the external world, and in knowing and loving these intrinsic values and their instantiations. Finally, it is argued that this interpretation reveals that Plato's "eudaemonism" is a different and more defensible doctrine than many commentators believe. (shrink)

Volume 13 in The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899–1924, series brings together Dewey’s writings for 1921 and 1922, with the exception of Human Nature and Conduct. A Modern Language Association Committee on Scholarly Editions textual edition. Ralph Ross notes in his Introduction that the 53 items constituting this volume “defend Dewey’s beliefs at 63 and look forward to what he was yet to write.” The essays to which Dewey responded, as well as abstracts of articles that have been (...) published only in Japanese, appear as appendixes. The article “Valuation and Experimental Knowledge” treats a favorite Dewey theme: “Most of the important crises of life are cases where tastes are the only things worth dis­cussing, and where, if the life of reason is to exist and prevail, judgment must be per­formed with regard for its logical implica­tions.” The philosophical articles stress Dewey’s view that, as Ross remarks, “philosophies are not timeless and universal, but speak to times, places and conditions.”. (shrink)

A recent scientifically and historically grounded theory on human genetic and cultural evolution suggests why the religious elements of culture became the primary source of both peaceful cooperation within societal ingroups and at the same time of destructive wars with outgroups. It also describes the role of religion in the evolution of ape‐men into humans. The theory indicates why human societal life is not long viable without the underpinning of a healthy, noncoercive, religious faith; why sound religious faith is weak (...) now; and why we may hope both for better morals and for worldwide cooperation in peace. (shrink)

Contributions from an international team of experts revisit and update the concept of linguistic ecology in order to critically examine current theoretical approaches to language contact. Language is understood as a part of complex socio-historical-cultural systems, and interaction between the different dimensions and levels of these systems is considered to be essential for specific language forms. This book presents a uniform, abstract model of linguistic ecology based on, among other things, two concepts of Edmund Husserl's philosophy. It considers the individual (...) speaker in the specific communication situation to be the essential heuristic basis of linguistic analysis. The chapters present and employ a new, transparent and accessible contact linguistic vocabulary to aid reader comprehension, and explore a wide range of language contact situations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific. This book will be fascinating reading for students and researchers across contact linguistics and cultural studies. (shrink)

This is a review of Ruth Garrett Millikan's 1993 book, White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice.

The problem of consciousness, as I present it here, is the problem of reconciling our understanding of consciousness with (i) the evidence for phenomenal transparency and (ii) the evidence that the physical world is causally closed. We might hope that idealism will do this. For idealism is just as hospitable to phenomenal transparency as dualism. And there is a sense in which idealism posits no physical world to be causally closed in the first place. But I argue that idealism has (...) no advantage over dualism and physicalism in the face of this problem. In approaching this issue I also make some taxonomical suggestions that help clarify the options left open by the causal closure argument against dualism. I would urge these on theorists dealing with that argument generally, not just those interested in idealism. (shrink)

This book is Emerson's portrait of the England and the English.

Normal agents in the actual world are limited: they cannot think about all the options that are available to them—or even about all options that are available to them according to their evidence. Moreover, agents cannot choose an option unless they have thought about that option. Such agents can be irrational in two ways: either by making their choice too quickly, without canvassing enough options, or by wasting time canvassing ever more options when they have already thought of enough options. (...) This chapter proposes an account of this kind of rationality for limited agents. To be rational, such agents need a kind of background sensitivity to whether or not continuing to search for more options has greater expected value than deciding right away. According to this proposal, it is the unavoidable predicament of choice that all rational decision-making depends on the unconscious operation of mental dispositions. (shrink)

This article is about scriptural reasoning, a relatively new trend in philosophical theology, and more specifically about the possibility of including Confucianism in this endeavor. Scriptural reasoning is an explicitly normative endeavor arguably claiming value at three different levels: a better understanding of one's own scriptural tradition, increased wisdom through inter-faith dialogue and redemption for all humanity The question whether Confucianism could be participating in scriptural reasoning may accordingly be answered differently relative to these three normative levels To approximate an (...) answer, I proceed by subjecting the notion of a "Confucian scripture" to a conceptual analysis based on the English word "scripture" and based on the Chinese character jing, which is frequently said to be the classical Chinese equivalent of English "scripture." The conceptual analysis will allow for some comparative observations and will prepare the ground for a critical assessment of the possibility of including Confucianism within practices of scriptural reasoning. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson has presented several arguments that seek to cast doubt on the idea that cognition can be factorized into internal and external components. In the first section of this paper, I attempt to evaluate these arguments. My conclusion will be that these arguments establish several highly important points, but in the end these arguments fail to cast any doubt either on the idea that cognitive science should be largely concerned with internal mental processes, or on the idea that cognition (...) can be analysed in terms of the existence of a suitable connection between internal and external components. I shall present an argument for the conclusion that cognition involves certain causal processes that are entirely internal. (shrink)

A theologian answers the question: What is the relationship between the hallucinogenic drugs, such as hashish, marihuana, mescaline, psilocybin, LSD, and both mysticism and morality?

Although MOOCs have not lived up to previously breathless predictions of disruption, they have had an outsized influence on university administrators who see online learning as a “savior solution” for ever-shrinking budgets. Despite lower student persistent rates, faculty skepticism, and burdensome faculty workloads, the general public and administrative embrace of online learning has been enthusiastic, which may be explained in part using Foucault’s concept of the episteme to view the convergence of the parallel tracks of educational and technological development--the idea (...) of a kind of mechanism for learning. While MOOCs once promised “best professors,” other institutions now promise the “best designed” mechanisms for learning, certified through corporatized quality assurance programs and learning management systems. While this may be appropriate for shopping educational products in a neoliberal marketplace, it seldom addresses human needs. Moreover, the temporal and human constraints that online... (shrink)

In this article, I defend the possibility of understanding the resurrection of Jesus as an event within the framework of natural laws. In this way, the resurrection is not necessarily contrary to Natural Science or belief in the existence of Natural laws. I offer, at the same time, a critique of one of David Hume's arguments against the belief in miracles.

Contemporary proponents of Confucian political philosophy often ignore the fact that any sizeable future Confucian political order will have to accommodate many “non-Confucians.” The guiding question of this paper is therefore the following: how could a Confucian political philosophy, if it can at all, adequately take into account a plurality of comprehensive worldviews? I first turn to John Rawls and his account of these terms and of reasonable pluralism more generally. I then examine some particularly relevant developments and criticism of (...) Rawls’ account. Finally, I offer a discussion of some recent proposals for a Confucian political philosophy, and examine to what extent each recognizes the fact of pluralism, sees it as a challenge, and deals with it in a persuasive manner. The paper concludes with a depiction of two major stumbling blocks that might stand firmly in the way of such a pluralism-accommodating political Confucianism. (shrink)