Quite often the compatibility of the EPR correlations with the relativity theory has been questioned; it has been stated that “the first in time of two correlated measurements instantaneously collapses the other subsystem”; it has been suggested that a causal asymmetry is built into the Feynman propagator. However, the EPR transition amplitude, as derived from the S matrix, is Lorentz andCPT invariant; the correlation formula is symmetric in the two measurements irrespective of their time ordering, so that the link of (...) the correlations is the Feynman zigzag, and that causality isCPT invariant at the microlevel; finally, although the Feynman propagator has theP andCT symmetries, no causal asymmetry follows from that. As for Stapp's views concerning “process” and “becoming,” and his Whiteheadean concept of an advancing front, I object that they belong to “factlike macrophysics,” and are refuted at the microlevel by the EPR phenomenology, which displays direct Fokker-like space-time connections. The reason for this is a radical one. The very blending of a space-time picture and of a probability calculus is a paradox. The only adequate paradigm is one denying objectivity to space-time—but this, of course, is also required by the complementary of the x and the k pictures, which only “look” compatible at the macrolevel. Therefore, the classical “objectivity” must yield in favor of “intersubjectivity.” Only the macroscopic preparing and measuring devices have “factlike” objectivity; the “transition” of the “quantal system” takes place beyond both thex and thek 4-spaces. Then, the intrinsic symmetries between retarded and advanced waves, and statistical prediction and retrodiction, entails that the future has no less (but no more) existence than the past. It is the future that is significant in “creative process,” the “elementary” forms of which should be termed “precognition” or “psychokinesis”—respectively symmetric to the factlike taboos that “we can neither know into the future nor act into the past.” It is gratifying that Robert Jahn, at the Engineering School of Princeton University, is conducting (after others) conclusive experiments demonstrating “low level psychokinesis”—a phenomenon implied by the very symmetry of the negentropy-information transition. So, what pierces the veil of “maya” is the (rare) occurrence of “paranormal phenomena.” The essential severance between “act” and “potentia” is not a spacelike advancing front, but the “out of” and the “into” factlike space-time. Finally, I do not feel that an adequate understanding of the EPR phenomenology requires going beyond the present status of relativistic quantum mechanics. Rather, I believe that the potentialities of this formalism have not yet been fully exploited. (shrink)

In an age characterized by impersonality and a fear of individuality this book is indeed unusual. It is personal, individualistic and idiosyncratic - a record of the scientific adventure of a single mind. Most scientific writing today is so depersonalized that it is impossible to recognize the man behind the work, even when one knows him. Costa de Beauregard's scientific career has focused on three domains - special relativity, statistics and irreversibility, and quantum mechanics. In Time, the Physical Magnitude (...) he has provided a personal vade mecum to those problems, concepts, and ideas with which he has been so long preoccupied. Some years ago we were struck by a simple and profound observa tion of Mendel Sachs, the gist of which follows. Relativity is based on very simple ideas but, because it requires highly complicated mathe matics, people find it difficult. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, derives from very complicated principles but, since its mathematics is straightforward, people feel they understand it. In some ways they are like the bourgeois gentilhomme of Moliere in that they speak quantum mechanics without knowing what it is. Costa de Beauregard recognizes the complexity of quantum mechanics. A great virtue of the book is that he does not hide or shy away from the complexity. He exposes it fully while presenting his ideas in a non-dogmatic way. (shrink)

How does personality influence the relationship between appraisals and emotions? Recent research suggests individual differences in appraisal structures: people may differ in an emotion's appraisal pattern. We explored individual differences in interest's appraisal structure, assessed as the within-person covariance of appraisals with interest. People viewed images of abstract visual art and provided ratings of interest and of interest's appraisals (novelty–complexity and coping potential) for each picture. A multilevel mixture model found two between-person classes that reflected distinct within-person appraisal styles. For (...) people in the larger class (68%), the novelty–complexity appraisal had a stronger effect on interest; for people in the smaller class (32%), the coping potential appraisal had a stronger effect. People in the larger class were significantly higher in appetitive traits related to novelty seeking (e.g., sensation seeking, openness to experience, and trait curiosity), suggesting that the appraisal classes have substantive meaning. We conclude by discussing the value of within-person mixture models for the study of personality and appraisal. (shrink)

Spiritual values in the workplace, increasingly discussed and applied in the business ethics literature, can be viewed from an individual, organizational, or interactive perspective. The following study examined previously unexplored workplace spirituality outcomes. Using data collected from five samples consisting of full-time workers taking graduate coursework, results indicated that perceptions of organizational-level spirituality (“organizational spirituality”) appear to matter most to attitudinal and attachment-related outcomes. Specifically, organizational spirituality was found to be positively related to job involvement, organizational identification, and work rewards (...) satisfaction, and negatively related to organizational frustration. Personal spirituality was positively related to intrinsic, extrinsic, and total work rewards satisfaction. The interaction of personal spirituality and organizational spirituality was found related to total work rewards satisfaction. Future workplace spirituality research directions are discussed. (shrink)

Recently, a number of philosophers of biology have endorsed views about random drift that, we will argue, rest on an implicit assumption that the meaning of concepts such as drift can be understood through an examination of the mathematical models in which drift appears. They also seem to implicitly assume that ontological questions about the causality of terms appearing in the models can be gleaned from the models alone. We will question these general assumptions by showing how the same equation (...) — the simple 2 = p2 + 2pq + q2 — can be given radically different interpretations, one of which is a physical, causal process and one of which is not. This shows that mathematical models on their own yield neither interpretations nor ontological conclusions. Instead, we argue that these issues can only be resolved by considering the phenomena that the models were originally designed to represent and the phenomena to which the models are currently applied. When one does take those factors into account, starting with the motivation for Sewall Wright’s and R.A. Fisher’s early drift models and ending with contemporary applications, a very different picture of the concept of drift emerges. On this view, drift is a term for a set of physical processes, namely, indiscriminate sampling processes. (shrink)

While the ethical use of deception has been discussed in literature, the ethics and acceptability of nursing deception has yet to be studied. The current study examined nurses’ and nursing students’ ratings of the ethics and acceptability of nursing deception. We predicted that nurses and nursing students would rate a truthful vignette as more ethical than a deceptive vignette. We also predicted that participants would rate nursing deception as unethical and unacceptable. A mixed design was used to examine ethics scores (...) as a within-subjects factor and order as a between-groups design factor. A total of 131 nurses and nursing students were recruited from university nursing programs and hospitals in Texas. Participants were provided with a truthful vignette and deceptive vignette and used the Multidimensional Ethics Scale-Revised 1 to rate each vignette. Participants also completed the Lies in Nursing Ethics Questionnaire. The truthful nursing vignette was rated as more ethical than the deceptive vignette. Results indicated that most participants rated nursing deception as unethical, unacceptable, and a violation of the ANA ethical code. Some participants deemed that nursing deception may be acceptable within some cases. Age and years of experience were not related to the perceived ethics and acceptability of nursing deception. Nurses and nursing students believe that using deception with patients is unethical and unacceptable. However, some participants believed that deception may be warranted within some cases. These findings may reflect nurses’ placing the patient at the core of their values and viewing honesty as important for the nurse-patient relationship. Further implications and directions are discussed. (shrink)

This volume of twelve specially commissioned essays about species draws on the perspectives of prominent researchers from anthropology , botany, developmental psychology , the philosophy of biology and science, protozoology, and zoology . The concept of species has played a focal role in both evolutionary biology and the philosophy of biology , and the last decade has seen something of a publication boom on the topic (e.g., Otte and Endler 1989; Ereshefsky 1992b; Paterson 1994; lambert and Spence 1995; Claridge, Dawah, (...) and Wilson 1997; Wheeler and Meier 1999; Howard and Berlocher 1998). (shrink)

Individuals are a prominent part of the biological world. Although biologists and philosophers of biology draw freely on the concept of an individual in articulating both widely accepted and more controversial claims, there has been little explicit work devoted to the biological notion of an individual itself. How should we think about biological individuals? What are the roles that biological individuals play in processes such as natural selection (are genes and groups also units of selection?), speciation (are species individuals?), and (...) organismic development (do genomes code for organisms)? Much of our discussion here will focus on organisms as a central kind of biological individual, and that discussion will raise broader questions about the nature of the biological world, for example, about its complexity, its organization, and its relation to human thought. (shrink)

Questions of Miracle will be a valuable reference book and teaching tool for scholars and students of theology, religious studies, and philosophy. Contents The Logic of Probabilities in Hume's Argument against Miracles - Fred Wilson David Hume and the Miraculous - Robert Larmer Miracles and the Laws of Nature - Robert Larmer Against Miracles - John Collier Against "Against Miracles" - Robert Larmer Miracles and Conservation Laws - Neil MacGill Miracles and Conservation Laws: A Reply to Professor (...) MacGill - Robert Larmer Miracles and Criteria - Robert Larmer Miracles and Natural Explanations - David Basinger Miracles and Natural Explanations: A Rejoinder - Robert Larmer Miracles as Evidence for Theism: A Surrejoinder - David Basinger Miracles, Evidence, and Theism: A Further Apologia - Robert Larmer Authenticating Biblical Reports of Miracles - Phillip Wiebe Miracles and Testimony: A Reply to Wiebe - Robert Larmer Miracles as Evidence against the Existence of God - Christine Overall Miracles and the Existence of God: A Reply - Robert Larmer. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory has become a central issue in the literature on business ethics / business and society. There are, however, a number of problems with stakeholder theory as currently understood. Among these are: 1) the lack of a coherent justificatory framework, 2) the problem of adjudicating between stakeholders, and 3) the problem of stakeholder identification. In this essay, I propose that a possible source of obligations to stakeholders is the principle of fairness (or fair play) as discussed in the political (...) philosophic literature of Rawls, Simmons, and Cullity among others. The principle of fairness states that, “Whenever persons or groups of persons voluntarily accept the benefits of a mutually beneficial scheme of co-operation requiring sacrifice or contribution on the parts of the participants and there exists the possibility of free-riding, there exist obligations of fairness on the part of these persons or groups to co-operate in proportion to the benefits accepted.” In this essay I discuss the gaps in the current stakeholder literature, elucidate and defend a principle of fairness that fills the gap, compare the fairness model to other similar models of business ethics, and draw some conclusions for the future of stakeholder theory. (shrink)

The nature and diversity of moral codes can be understood in terms of a few basic propensities honed by diachronic dialectics between what people do and what they are supposed to do in the culture in question. Many of the moral heuristics presented by Sunstein can be seen as by-products of these processes.

... Sword of the Lord Foundation PO Box 1099 Murfreesboro, Tennessee 37133 Dr. Shelton Smith I have read the message by Robert A. Laidlaw, "The Reason Why. ...

This paper considers recent heated debates led by Jerry A. Coyne andMichael J. Wade on issues stemming from the 1929–1962 R.A. Fisher-Sewall Wrightcontroversy in population genetics. William B. Provine once remarked that theFisher-Wright controversy is central, fundamental, and very influential.Indeed,it is also persistent. The argumentative structure of therecent (1997–2000) debates is analyzed with the aim of eliminating a logicalconflict in them, viz., that the two sides in the debates havedifferent aims and that, as such, they are talking past each other. (...) Given aphilosophical analysis of the argumentative structure of the debates,suggestions supportive of Wade's work on the debate are made that areaimed, modestly, at putting the persistent Fisher-Wright controversy on thecourse to resolution. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: The Willowbrook Wars: A Decade of Struggle for Social Justice. By David J. Rothman and Sheila M. Rothman.

Research on positive psychology demonstrates that specific individual dispositions are associated with more desirable outcomes. The relationship of positive psychological constructs, however, has not been applied to the areas of business ethics and social responsibility. Using four constructs in two independent studies (hope and gratitude in Study 1, spirituality and generativity in Study 2), the relationship of these constructs to sensitivity to corporate social performance (CSCSP) were assessed. Results indicate that all four constructs significantly predicted CSCSP, though only hope and (...) gratitude interacted to impact CSCSP. Discussion focuses upon these findings, limitations of the study, and future avenues for research. (shrink)

I am grateful to Philip Quinn for his thorough and penetrating critique of my paper on classical theism and pantheism. He has given me much to think about, and it would be philosophically remiss of me not to acknowledge that – in the light of his remarks – the argument which I employed in defence of the thesis that classical theism implies a version of pantheism might well benefit from some amendment. However, the purpose of this brief counter-rejoinder is to (...) establish that the nexus of my argument has emerged from his commentary in reasonably robust health, i.e., to demonstrate that if the argument of my former paper is to be rejected, it will take something more than Professor Quinn's critique to make that clear. Very concisely, then, my response is as follows: At a preliminary point, Professor Quinn claims that my argument ‘merits careful scrutiny’ because, if it succeeds, ‘something shockingly at variance with received views’ will have been established . I find this to be somewhat odd. For it seems clear that St Paul was a ‘classical theist’, indeed a very special one in so far as the shaping of Christian theism is concerned. And while his famous and oftcited dictum that God is the One in Whom ‘we live, move, and have our being’ may be such that it is permissible to construe it in ways which do not imply any version of pantheism, it clearly seems unjustified to maintain that pantheistic doctrines are ‘shockingly at variance’ with that most intriguing statement of St Paul's. (shrink)

This book presents the major teachings of Mahāyāna Buddhism in a precise, dramatic, and even humorous form. For two millennia this Sūtra, called the “jewel of the _Mahāyāna Sūtras_,” has enjoyed immense popularity among Mahāyāna Buddhists in India, central and southeast Asia, Japan, and especially China, where its incidents were the basis for a style in art and literature prevalent during several centuries. Robert Thurman’s translation makes available in relatively nontechnical English the Tibetan version of this key Buddhist scripture, (...) previously known to the English-speaking world only through translations from Chinese texts. The _Tibetan_ version is generally conceded to be more faithful to the original Sanskrit than are the Chinese texts. The Tibetan version also is clearer, richer, and more precise in its philosophical and psychological expression. The twelve books of the Sūtra are accompanied by an introduction and an epilogue by Dr. Thurman and by three glossaries: Sanskrit terms, numerical categories, and technical terms. (shrink)

This paper argues that the metarepresentational systems we posses are wide or extended, rather than individualistic. There are two basic ideas. The first is that metarepresentation inherits its width from the mental representation of its objects. The second is that mental processing often operates on internal and external symbols, and this suggests that cognitive systems extend beyond the heads that house them.

Followers of traditional modes of ethical thinking rightly approachpostmodern philosophical methodologies with a certain enigma andsuspicion due to the latter’s tendency to swipe clean basic assumptionswhich had been historically accepted without question. Contemporarytheorists conceptually dig their way into complex labyrinths of noveldefinitions not only to establish the neotericity of their paradigms but also to disengage themselves from the tyranny of dogmatic conclusions that may inhibit their suppositions from being enclosed by established systems of thought. When the Principle of Generic Consistency (...) was introduced by Alan Gewirth in his most popular work Reason and Morality, it spurred numerous reactions, both pros and cons,1 as the principle offered to fulfill the utopian dream of establishing a rational foundation for human rights. The latter part of the book, together with subsequent articles and works, explained in detail how the principle could be applied to the intricacies of applied morality, such as the promotion of man’s well-being, and consequently, the fulfillment of his existence. This paper deals with the same path of Gewirth; only this time, it seeks to construct a rational bridge between a PGC-basedhuman self-fulfillment and the creation of a habitat that embodies hope for political harmony. Moreover, the PGC would not only be construed as the foundation for human rights, but also as a rational trail by which man’s relation with his fellow could serve to develop an intersubjective enhancement of freedom and well-being. (shrink)