A sensible, workable approach to the teaching of business ethics, based on an understanding of how people actually learn and on the need to start with a clear ...

This work develops an approach to the emotions suitable for addressing issues in moral psychology. It tries to answer two questions: What is an emotion? What are the functions of emotion? The proposed theory is based in part on the Cartesian theory of the passions and is developed within the framework of a functionalist analysis of mental states. Its central claims are: that an emotional state involves a person being affected in typical ways; that 'being affected emotionally' involves tendencies: to (...) be preoccupied with, or have one's attention focused on, the object of emotion; to overevaluate the object of emotion, where this overvaluation is relative to one's nonemotional beliefs; 'mental' feelings which are aspects of intentional states like evaluations and desires. ;The work contains six chapters. The first discusses sceptical doubts about the possibility of a general theory of emotion and suggests a way of drawing a distinction between emotions and attitudes. The second chapter considers a traditional analysis of BAE--the so-called feeling theory of emotion--and three standard objections to that theory. The chapter goes on to investigate a contemporary approach, the 'comprehensive theory of emotion' , which seeks to avoid these objectives. CT, endorsed by William Alston and William Lyons , is an amalgam of the cognitive view and the feeling theory; it analyses an emotion in terms of several casually related components: evaluative beliefs, desires, physiological changes and bodily sensations. ;Chapter Three offers a critique of CT, on the grounds that CT's explanation of emotional action is inadequate. CT analyses BAE in terms of bodily changes and sensations, but these components of emotion have no central role in causing action; rather CT holds that the evaluational and appetitive aspects of emotion give rise to action. This account, it is argued, underestimates the degree to which emotional action is frequently unreasonable or irrational, and severs the intuitive link between BAE and action. ;The remaining chapters develop a neo-Cartesian theory as an alternative to CT. Chapter Four defends Descartes' theory of the passions against traditional objections, and shows how two aspects of emotion he discusses--focus of attention and overvaluation--offer a more promising explanation of emotional action. Chapter Five explores the relation between feelings and emotions, and argues that many emotions essentially involve 'mental' pain or pleasure. In Chapter Six some consideration is given to the implications of the proposed theory for moral issues, and it is suggested that commonly held views on responsibility for emotions and the value of the emotional life bear re-examination. (shrink)

From "Materialism and Revolution" through _Hope Now_, Jean-Paul Sartre was deeply engaged with questions about the meaning and justifiability of violence. In the first comprehensive treatment of Sartre’s views on the subject, Ronald Santoni begins by tracing the full trajectory of Sartre’s evolving thought on violence and shows how the "curious ambiguity" of freedom affirming itself against freedom in his earliest writings about violence developed into his "curiously ambivalent" position through his later writings.

Somewhere along the course of evolution, and at some time in any one of us on the way from zygote to adult, some forms of detection became beliefs, and some tropisms turned into deliberate desires. Two transitions are involved: from functional responses to intentional ones, and from non-conscious processes to conscious ones that presuppose language and are powered by neocortical re- sources. Unconscious and functional mental processes remain and constitute an 'intuitive' system that collaborates uneasily with the conscious intentionality of (...) the 'analytic' system. Emotions bridge these divides: in particular, specifc feelings affect inference, cognition and metacognition. In what follows, after a brief reminder of the crucial role of emotions to rational thought and action in general, I first look at how fear affects belief. I then narrow my focus to some examples of what I shall refer to as epistemic feelings. These include specialized variants of fear and greed; and feelings of doubt, certainty, knowing and familiarity. I shall also describe some surprising recent findings about the influence of oxytocin on trust and about the direct influence of social conformity on perception and belief. (shrink)

Critical discussion of Quine's concepts of purely referential occurrence/position. It is argued from the perspective of a Russellian view of truth that existential generalization and substitutivity of identity are non-equivalent tests for referential occurrence/position, and that the former rather than the latter is the appropriate test.

While ethicists have directed much attention to controversial biomedical issues--including euthanasia, abortion, and genetic engineering--they have largely ignored the less obvious, but more pervasive, everyday ethical problems faced by family physicians. Ethical Issues in Family Medicine addresses these problems, offering an ethics that reflects the distinctive features of family practice, and helping family physicians to appreciate the extent to which ethical issues influence their practice.

Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.--Harvard University, 1985).

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

As the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology works to encourage greater genuine dialogue among proponents of disparate philosophical positions and traditions related to psychology, I am pleased for the second time in three years to have the opportunity to publish another set of commentaries on a paper previously published in Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology , together with the author's reply. I am also delighted to know that the future of the Journal has been placed in the wise (...) and energetic care of Thomas Teo, but more of that in the announcement to follow. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

A method of phylogenetic reconstruction as proposed by a number of scientists of the Senckenberg Research Institute is discussed. The method is based on functional-morphological studies, the evolutionary adaptation principle of Bock and Von Wahlert (1965) and so-called model reconstruction. It is argued in this paper that direction of the adaptation process cannot be determined because of lack of knowledge about particular selective forces and that theories of model reconstruction are not open to contradiction in the sense of Popperian falsification. (...) Although it has been claimed that the method provides the only valid directional argument for morphoclines in cladistic studies, it remains unclear how to proceed when morphoclines show contradictory polarities. Moreover, it is doubtful whether polarities of morphoclines can be determined independently of phylogenetic hypotheses, and also whether the use of multistate morphoclines is methodologically valid. By relying on a particular evolutionary theory, i.e. the neo-Darwinian theory, and consequently assigning natural selection as the major agent of directional progress, the Senckenburg method of phylogenetic reconstruction restricts itself to microevolutionary change and, therefore, cannot be used when other hypotheses on the evolutionary process appear to explain the speciation process more plausibly, i.e. hypotheses on macroevolution. Furthermore, it is an unproved statement that evolution always proceeds according to the principle of economy. (shrink)

Cracks in the one‐gene, one‐band paradigm for polytene chromosome organization are widening. At the same time evidence is accumulating suggesting that decondensed regions of the chromosomes (puffs, diffuse bands, interbands and possibly vacuoles within some bands) are generally associated with gene transcription. A model, now on the ascendancy, is based on the proposal that the band‐interband pattern is primarily a reflection of local transcriptional state, rather than the distribution of genic and non‐genic material.

ExcerptI. Introduction The German political philosopher Carl Schmitt belongs to the class of political theorists, who maintain a tradition of separating the political from the moral.1 Drawing on the standard interpretation of Machiavelli2 and following the thinking of Hobbes,3 Schmitt makes two central claims that define his political theorization. The first claim is that the sovereign should possess “the monopoly to decide” what constitutes public order and security; the second claim is the use of the “friend-enemy” metaphor to characterize the (...) political.4 If the two claims are taken together, the logical corollary is that, on the…. (shrink)

Religious beliefs and attitudes have long been recognized as playing an important role in sexual functioning, but the relationship between religion and sexual behavior has rarely been studied in a comprehensive way. The essays in this volume bring the views of sex counsellors, therapists. theologians, and bioethicists to bear on the relationship between religion and sexuality. A major theme emerging from these essays is that religion and counselling need to learn from one another. Religious traditions, at the popular or theological (...) levels, are often marked by ignorance and misinformation about sexuality and can benefit by the insights of those who work closely with patients in medical and counselling settings. Counsellors, in turn, need to develop a sensitivity to past and present religious attitudes toward sexuality in order to assist their patients achieve sexual health. (shrink)