This study examines executive perceptions of business information control. Specifically, the study explores (a) whether executives perceive certain types of information control being practiced within their businesses; and, (b) whether the executives regard such practices as ethical. In essence, the study suggests that both superiors and subordinates selectively practice information control. Even more importantly, however, executives see such practices as ethically acceptable on the part of superiors but as ethically questionable on the part of subordinates. A closer look at the (...) responding executives' profile characteristics – age, gender, education and salary – reveals the complexity of these perceptions. Most importantly, gender and age emerge as two prime factors influencing executive perceptions regarding both the practice and the ethics of information control. Suggestions for future research are included at the end of the article. (shrink)

Illness is a reality that affects all people, and healing is the main reason why people attend worship services in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the Ritual Studies scholar Ronald Grimes, illness is a social reality; it is socially imagined and constructed. Healing in the church is something that many believers experience, also in the context of worship and liturgy. In order to explore such healing as it occurs in liturgy a research project was undertaken making use of both empirical (...) work and a literature study. The aim of this research was to take the light off of direct pastoral care and investigate how the liturgy affects individuals within the congregation with regard to healing. A praxis-theory cycle was followed in the research, and a preliminary liturgical theory for praxis was developed based on the insight from the empirical study and ritual theory that healing through worship entails either transformation or reconciliation. (shrink)

While the notion of the mind as information-processor--a kind of computational system--is widely accepted, many scientists and philosophers have assumed that this account of cognition shows that the mind's operations are characterizable independent of their relationship to the external world. Existential Cognition challenges the internalist view of mind, arguing that intelligence, thought, and action cannot be understood in isolation, but only in interaction with the outside world. Arguing that the mind is essentially embedded in the external world, Ron McClamrock provides (...) a schema that allows cognitive scientists to address such long-standing problems in artificial intelligence as the "frame" problem and the issue of "bounded" rationality. Extending this schema to cover progress in other studies of behavior, including language, vision, and action, McClamrock reinterprets the importance of the organism/environment distinction. McClamrock also considers the broader philosophical question of the place of mind in the world, particularly with regard to questions of intentionality, subjectivity, and phenomenology. With implications for philosophy, cognitive and computer science, AI, and psychology, this book synthesizes state-of-the-art work in philosophy and cognitive science on how the mind interacts with the world to produce thoughts, ideas, and actions. (shrink)

The arbitrariness of a signal has long been seen as a theoretically important but difficult to pin down notion. In this article, we suggest there are at least two different notions of arbitrariness at play in philosophical and scientific debates concerning the use of arbitrary signals, and work towards improved analyses of both. We then consider how these different types of arbitrariness can co-occur and come apart. Finally, we examine the connections between these two types of arbitrariness and the cognitive (...) complexity of signal users with an eye towards better evaluating one possible form of human-nonhuman communicative continuity. We show that each type of arbitrariness bears its own nuanced relationship to cognitive complexity, demonstrating the theoretical importance of keeping these two notions separate. (shrink)

In earlier works, I have argued that it is useful to think of much scientific activity, particularly in experimental sciences, as involving the operation of distributed cognitive systems, as these are understood in the contemporary cognitive sciences. Introducing a notion of distributed cognition, however, invites consideration of whether, or in what way, related cognitive activities, such as knowing, might also be distributed. In this paper I will argue that one can usefully introduce a notion of distributed cognition without attributing other (...) cognitive attributes, such as knowing, let alone having a mind or being conscious, to distributed cognitive systems. I will first briefly introduce the cognitive science understanding of distributed cognition, partly so as to distinguish full-blown distributed cognition from mere collective cognition.1. (shrink)

Modeling work by Brian Skyrms and others in recent years has transformed the theoretical role of David Lewis's 1969 model of signaling. The latter can now be understood as a minimal model of communication in all its forms. In this article, we explain how the Lewis model has been generalized, and consider how it and its variants contribute to ongoing debates in several areas. Specifically, we consider connections between the models and four topics: The role of common interest in communication, (...) signaling within the organism, meaning, and the evolution of human communication and language. (shrink)

Diane Vaughan’s analysis of the causes of the Challenger accident suggests ways to apply science and technology studies to the teaching of engineering ethics. By sensitizing future engineers to the ongoing construction of risk during mundane engineering practice, we can better prepare them to address issues of public health, safety, and welfare before they require heroic intervention. Understanding the importance of precedents, incremental change, and fallible engineering judgment in engineering design may help them anticipate potential threats to public safety arising (...) from routine aspects of workplace culture. We suggest modifications of both detailed case studies on engineering disasters and hypothetical, ethical dilemmas employed in engineering ethics classes. Investigating the sociotechnical aspects of engineering practice can improve the initial recognition of ethical problems in real-world settings and provide an understanding of the role of workplace organization and culture in facilitating or impeding remedial action. (shrink)

Business schools have a responsibility to incorporate applied business ethics courses as part of their undergraduate and MBA curriculum. The purpose of this article is to take a background and historical look at reasons for the new emphasis on ethical coursework in business schools. The article suggests a prescription for undergraduate and graduate education in applied business ethics and explores in detail the need to increase applied business ethics courses in business schools to enhance the ethical development of students.

ABSTRACT As bioethics emerged in the 1960s and 1970s and began to have enormous impacts on the practice of medicine and research – fuelled, by broad socio‐political changes that gave rise to the struggle of women, African Americans, gay men and lesbians, and the antiauthoritarian impulse that characterised the New Left in democratic capitalist societies – little attention was given to the question of the ethics of public health. This was all the more striking since the core values and practices (...) of public health, often entailing the subordination of the individual for the common good, seemed opposed to the ideological impulses of bioethics. Of what relevance is autonomy‐focused bioethics for public health, with its mix of justifications including those that are either implicitly or explicitly paternalistic or that seek to impose strictures on individuals and communities in the name of collective welfare? To examine the deep divide between the central commitments of bioethics and the values that animate the practice of public health, we focus on a series of controversies implicating the concepts of privacy, liberty, and paternalism. Recognising the role of moral values in decision‐making was a signal contribution of bioethics in its formative period. Over the past three decades a broad array of perspectives emerged under the rubric of bioethics but individualism remains central. As we commence the process of shaping an ethics of public health, it is clear that bioethics is the wrong place to start when thinking about the balances required in defence of the public's health. (shrink)

According to one currently influential line of thinking, the evolution of ostensive communication was a prerequisite for the evolution of human language. In this article, I distinguish between a strong and a weak version of this view and offer a sustained argument against the former. More specifically, the strong version of this view would have it that ostensive communication was a prerequisite not just for the evolution of fully modern language but for any language-like system of communication. I argue that (...) this version is too strong: I show how some distinctive and important features of language may well have been assembled prior to the evolution of ostensive communication. Put another way, I argue that a protolanguage before ostensive communication scenario is a real possibility. I conclude by briefly arguing that such an evolutionary scenario coheres better with archaeological evidence from the early Pleistocene as well as evidence from developmental psychology pertaining to the nature of our mind reading abilities. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of whether early Pleistocene hominins are plausibly viewed as having possessed a protolanguage, that is, a communication system exemplifying some but not all of the distinctive features of fully modern human language. I argue that the answer is “yes,” mounting evidence from the early Pleistocene “lithics niche.” More specifically, I first describe a cognitive platform that I think would have been sufficient, given appropriate socio-ecological conditions, for the creation and retention of a protolanguage. Then, using (...) archaeological evidence pertaining to hominin lithic behavior from the early Pleistocene, I attempt to make plausible the idea that each of these cognitive abilities were in fact in place by this point in hominin evolutionary history and also that the requisite socio-ecological conditions were satisfied. (shrink)

Logical models of argument formalize commonsense reasoning while taking process and computation seriously. This survey discusses the main ideas which characterize di erent logical models of argument. It presents the formal features of a few main approaches to the modeling of argumentation. We trace the evolution of argumentationfrom the mid-80's, when argumentsystems emerged as an alternative to nonmonotonic formalisms based on classical logic, to the present, as argument is embedded in di erent complex systems for real-world applications, and allows more (...) formal work to be done in different areas, such as AI & Law, case-based reasoning and negotiation among intelligent agents. (shrink)

Some recent physiological data indicate that the “subjective timing” of experiences can be “automatically referred backwards in time” to represent a sequence of events even though the earlier portions of associated neurophysiological activity are themselves insufficient to elicit the experience of any sensation. The challenge, then, is to explain how subjects can experience what they do in the reported ways when, if one looked just at certain neurophysiological activity, it would seem that perhaps subjects should report their sensations differently. The (...) phenomenon has seemed sufficiently remarkable to the neurobiologist John Eccles to count as evidence for mind-body dualism. This dualistic interpretation has resulted in a spirited attack by P. S. Churchland on both the physiological research and the dualistic interpretation. Her attack resulted in an equally spirited defense of the research by the primary investigator, B. Libet, where he reaffirmed his more guarded interpretation that “the temporal discrepancy creates relative difficulties for identity theory, but that these are not insurmountable”. In turn, Churchland has defended her criticism of Libet's research so that, for her, Libet's hypothesis remains “infirm and unconfirmed”. (shrink)

We conducted a rapid review and quantitative summary of meta-analyses that have examined interventions which can be used by individuals during quarantine and social distancing to manage anxiety, depression, stress and subjective well-being. A literature search yielded 34 meta-analyses (total number of studies k = 1,390, n = 145,744) that were summarized. Overall, self-guided interventions showed small to medium effects in comparison to control groups. In particular, self-guided therapeutic approaches (including cognitive-behavioral, mindfulness, and acceptance-based interventions), selected positive psychology interventions, and (...) multi-component and activity-based interventions (music, physical exercise) showed promising evidence for effectiveness. Overall, self-guided interventions on average did not show the same degree of effectiveness as traditional guided individual or group therapies. There was no consistent evidence of dose effects, baseline differences and differential effectiveness of eHealth interventions. More research on the effectiveness of interventions in diverse cultural settings is needed. (shrink)

My thesis is that, although medicine is scientific, it is not and can not become a science. After rejecting as flawed an argument attempting to show that medicine is already a science, I argue that a comparison of such basic, defining features as internal aims, criteria of success, and principles regulating the enterprises demonstrate that medicine and science are inherently different. I then argue that while it may be possible to reduce the cognitive content of medicine to biology, medicine itself (...) cannot be reduced, for as an enterprise it possesses features that make it an inappropriate subject of reduction. I conclude by indicating four results that emerge from recognizing that medicine and science are basically distinct. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This article explores the issue of rebuilding an organization’s reputation following an ethical scandal. We divide our discussion into four parts. First, we discuss the concept of reputation. We note its relevance to today’s organizations, offer several contemporary definitions along with highlighting its benefits and downsides. In the second section, we offer the work of anthropologist, Victor Turner, on social drama along with other views on organizational efforts to rebuild their reputation to include reputation management routines. In the third section, (...) Turner’s redressive actions are integrated with Edgar Schein’s leadership mechanisms for building or changing culture to provide further understanding of organizational efforts to rebuild reputation following ethical scandals. Finally, in the fourth section of the article, we extend the integration of the Turner and Schein work with single- and double-loop redressive actions for rebuilding reputation. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to that part of science studies known as 'the cognitive study of science'. The general goal of such studies is to understand cogni-.

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

One can determine the nature of something by asking what it is for. For example one understands what a chair is when one understands it is for sitting on. This involves understanding its purpose. One type of corporation is the for-profit-corporation. This seems to indicate that this type of corporation, the business corporation, has as its purpose to make a profit. Is that as obvious as it first appears? The favorite way for philosophers to arrive at the "purpose" of anything (...) is to ask the question "Why?" But there are at least two answers to the question "Why"? when addressed to a social practice such as business. One might be asking for a psychological account (explanation) of "Why" a person does business, and this is primarily answered by discovering the motives behind business activity; or one might be asking for a justificatory reason (justification) for the practice – what purpose legitimates business as a human activity. These two answers are often conflated and thus the purpose of business is often considered to be answered by giving the psychological account of the self-interested profit-making motive. This paper will attempt to highlight the importance of making the distinction between motive and purpose clearly, show what confusions arise when the distinction is ignored, and hint at some of the structural philosophical reasons why the distinction got blurred in the first place. (shrink)

Exploring the concept of citizenship from the history of political philosophy provides suggestions about what corporate citizenship could mean. The metaphor of corporate citizenship suggests an institutional approach to corporate social responsibility. Citizenship is a social role, characterized by an orientation towards the social contract, collective and active responsibility, as well as a positive attitude towards the juridical state. By analogy, corporate citizenship is a social role, characterized by the social contract of business, a participatory ethics of business, the precautionary (...) principle and the promotion of just international institutions. It is considered that corporate citizenship depends on a number of interacting institutional conditions that hold society partly responsible for the social performance of their companies. Finally, the problem of the dissolution of corporate social responsibility is reviewed in an institutional environment where everyone is considered responsible. (shrink)

Analyzed F. Galton's data on the sensory, psychomotor, and physical attributes of 1,639 females and 4,849 males. The reliability of the measures, developmental trends in mean scores, correlations of the measures with age, correlations among measures, occupational differences in scores, and sibling correlations are described. Developmental trends during later childhood, adolescence, and early maturity are compared to those described in contemporary developmental psychological literature.

Nothing seems to follow strictly from 'X believes that p'. But if we reinterpret it to mean: 'X can consistently be described as consistently believing p'--which roughly renders, I think, Hintikka's notion of "defensibility"--we can get on with the subject, freed from the inhibitions of descriptive adequacy. But defensibility is neither necessary nor sufficient for truth: it tells us little, therefore, about the concept of belief on which it is based. It cannot, in particular, specify necessary conditions for the consistent (...) ascription of belief--as opposed to rational belief. If there are no such conditions, all belief ascriptions must be treated as atomic: which is implausible. If there are some, they must be settled on before an account of consistency can be complete. The reason is simple: it is that we have beliefs about our own beliefs. A set of first order beliefs is consistent if they can all be true together; but it is a lesson of Moore's paradox that consistency of second-order beliefs requires additional constraints. If someone both believes that p and that he does not believe that p, the propositions he believes might all be true together, yet he is inconsistent. And the characterization of second order consistency will remain incomplete, so long as nothing is said about the consistency of first order belief ascriptions. Suppose someone says and believes: "I am inconsistent: I believe both p and ~p." This is "indefensible": but is it insight, or nonsense? Breast-beating of this sort is guaranteed success: something he believes is bound to be false. But that remains diagnostically frustrating: is he inconsistent because what he said is true, or on the contrary because it is inconsistent? (shrink)

All these specialist aspects of one life are different facets of the intellectual diamond which scintillates in the huge quarry of The Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. This is the quintessential man, the bundle of contradictions passionately dedicated to intellect, at times carrying the rational argument to irrational extremes; the natural-born emotional adventurer forever hampered by orphaned youth and too-early marriage. This Russell in the round is greater than the sum of his constituent parts, a man of (...) epic proportions, struggling through a lifetime beset with frustration and near-disaster; in youth the constitutional sceptic, in old age the sometimes splendid figure with "courage never to submit or yield.". (shrink)

While the term “metacognition” is sometimes used to refer to any form of thinking about thinking, in cognitive psychology, it is typically reserved for thinking about one’s own thinking, as opposed to thinking about others’ thinking. How metacognition in this more specific sense relates to other-directed mindreading is one of the main theoretical issues debated in the literature. This article considers the idea that we make use of the same or a largely similar package of resources in conceptually interpreting our (...) own mind as we do in interpreting others’. I assume that a capacity for other-directed mindreading is minimally shared with our great-ape relatives, but I argue that the architecture of this system had to be substantially modified before it could efficiently and adaptively be turned inwards on one’s own mind. I contend that an important piece of the overall evolutionary explanation here likely concerns selection pressures arising from the domain of conversational interaction. Specifically, drawing on work carried out in the human interaction studies tradition (e.g., conversation analysis), I argue that the smooth to-and-fro of conversational interaction can be seen to heavily depend on metacommunicative capacities, which, in turn, are underpinned by metacognitive capacities. I conclude with a thumbnail sketch of an evolutionary account of the emergence of these metacognitive capacities in the human line. Their appearance and spread – whether via genes, cultural learning, or more likely, some combination of the two – helps to explain the transition from great-ape communication to human conversation. (shrink)

The paper argues that the point of a business ethics course is to improve behavior in business, and that an essential ingredient in thatimproved behavior is knowing what's right or wrong. To make that claim, the paper attempts to dispose of three arguments which support the contrary claim, that business ethics courses are useless. First, it is argued that morals can't be taught, since they only result from training. Second, it is argued that such courses are unnecessary because business executives (...) already know right from wrong. Third, it is argued that ethical knowledge is impossible, so there is nothing to teach. The first two arguments are dealt with briefly, and the third is addressed extensively. The paper argues that the scepticism about ethical knowledge is part of a pervasive "relativism" in our society, but shows that such a relativism/scepticism is untenable and indicates how ethical knowledge is possible. If, then, knowledge of rightand wrong is an essential ingredient for improving business behavior, and such knowledge can be imparted in an ethics course, there is some point to teaching business ethics. (shrink)

Kinship plays a foundational role in organizing human social behavior on both local and more global scales. Hence, any adequate account of the evolution of human sociality must include an account of the evolution of human kinship. This article aims to make progress on the latter task by providing a few key pieces of an evolutionary model of kinship systems. The article is especially focused on the connection between primate social cognition and the origins of kinship systems. I argue that (...) early conceptions of kinship in our line were very likely scaffolded by preexisting forms of primate social cognition. It was only later, as linguistic resources increased in our line, and as human social life grew more complex, that these conceptions came to resemble kin categories as we now know them. I conclude by situating “kin cognition” within a broader cognitive science framework for studying capacities that reflect both innate knowledge and human cultural learning. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

The paper begins with an example of the accounting treatment afforded an Indefeasible Rights Use Swap by Global Crossing. The case presents a typical example of ways in which accounting firms contributed to the ethical scandals of the early 21st century. While the behavior of Arthur Andersen, the accounting company in the case, might have met the letter of the law, we argue that it violated "the spirit of the law," which can be discovered by looking at the legitimate goals (...) of a company which give it its ethical direction and the responsibilities of the accounting professionals who serve the company and the general public. Those professional responsibilities are determined by looking at the legitimate function those professionals fulfill in the economy. A further claim is that Andersen and other accounting firms are motivated to abandon the responsibilities derived from pursuing their proper goals by falling into the trap of accumulating wealth for its own sake. We argue that the ultimate responsibility of internal auditors is to develop statements that give as reasonably true and fair a picture of the financial situation to any user having a claim to that knowledge. Further we argue that the major responsibilities of the external auditor are: first, to be responsible to the using public for evaluating financial statements and declaring that they represent a fair picture of the financial situation of a company, and second, to be a watchdog of financial markets and call into question irregular practices that would distort those pictures. Such due professional care requires the auditor to exercise "professional skepticism": an attitude that includes a questioning mind and a critical assessment of audit evidence. The paper concludes by giving particular examples of how Arthur Andersen LLP failed to meet those responsibilities. (shrink)

The present research was guided by the important need for a diversion from an economistic to a humanistic management perspective of sustainability. It concentrates on the current importance of digital strategic communication, particularly regarding the concept of corporate sustainability in the context of the conflict arena of the oil industry. The focus is on the comparison of the persuasive effectiveness of the framings of corporate versus activist NGO website communications and their impacts on the perception of the triple pillars of (...) sustainability and, corporate greenwashing with respect to a proposed bituminous oil pipeline in Canada. The results of these pro and con messages were analyzed within the Elaboration Likelihood Model demonstrating a “non expert” peripheral route to a positive persuasion from exposure to the corporate communication versus an “expert” central route to a negative persuasion from the activist NGO communication. Subsequent exposure to the opposite website communication further emphasized the predominance of a negative persuasion based on both groups now being motivated as “expert” viewers of these strategic communications, leading to an important perception of greenwashing by participants resulting from vague claims, visual and linguistic contents of the corporate communication versus the mainly verifiable factual ones in that of the activist NGO. (shrink)

This article examines some recent work by Berwick and Chomsky as presented in their book Why Only Us? Language and Evolution. As I understand them, Berwick and Chomsky’s overarching purpose is to explain how human language could have arisen in so short an evolutionary period. After articulating their strategy, I argue that they fall far short of reaching this goal. A co-evolutionary scenario linking the mechanisms that realize the language system, both with one other and with cognitive mechanisms capable of (...) exploiting linguistic expressions, is surely unavoidable. And yet this is precisely what Berwick and Chomsky in effect rule out. (shrink)

The idea that cognition makes use of one or more “languages of thought” remains central to much cognitive-scientific and philosophical theorizing. And yet, virtually no attention has been paid to the question of how a language of thought might evolve in the first place. In this article, I take some steps towards addressing this issue. With the aid of the so-called Sender–Receiver framework, I elucidate a family of distinctions and processes which enable us to see how languages of thought might (...) evolve via a series of small, incremental changes. While much work doubtlessly remains to be done in this area, I hope to at least show that there need be nothing mysterious about the existence of languages of thought on evolutionary grounds. (shrink)

This paper describes and discusses the Enron Corporation debacle. The paper presents the business ethics background and leadership mechanisms affecting Enron''s collapse and eventual bankruptcy. Through a systematic analysis of the organizational culture at Enron (following Schein''s frame of reference) the paper demonstrates how the company''s culture had profound effects on the ethics of its employees.

Although the first human embryonic stem cells were produced in 1998, the direction of U.S. policy on stem cell research was set nearly 20 years earlier when the recommendations of a congressionally established Ethics Advisory Board were ignored by the Reagan administration. Thus began an unprecedented and unparalleled 30-year-long history of political intrusions in an area of scientific and biomedical research that has measurable impacts on the health of Americans. Driving these intrusions were religiously informed public policy positions that have (...) usually escaped critical ethical analysis. Here I record my own encounters with this history of intrusions and the thinking behind them.My most abrupt encounter with the politics of stem cell research occurred on September 6, 2006, at a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Related Agencies, chaired by Senator Arlen Specter. Just a week before, scientists at Advanced Cell Technology, a small Massachusetts biotech company, had published a paper in the journal Nature in which they described a method for extracting stem cells from early human embryos while leaving the embryos intact and viable. As head of ACT’s Ethics Advisory Board, I had supported this research. (shrink)

With higher education around the world in a period of extreme flux, this volume explores its underlying philosophy, a core element of the ongoing debate. Offering a diverse range of perspectives from an international selection of renowned scholars of higher education, the book is full of imaginative insights that add up to a substantive contribution to the discussion. As universities attempt to adapt to a new environment characterized by stiff international competition, networked remote learning, burgeoning student numbers, and comparative performance (...) assessment, how we conceptualize the purpose and ethos of our higher learning institutions is more important than ever. This publication features a multitude of distinctive approaches that illuminate potential solutions to the complex issues universities must grapple with in these uncertain times. Rather than espousing a singular philosophical approach, the editors have assembled views from across the spectrum and from differing national contexts, representing a multidisciplinary response to the situation. This collection of papers aims thus to inspire fresh developments in the way we think about the complexities of, and options available to, higher education. (shrink)