This paper argues how boards of directors of three Icelandic oil companies were kept in the dark while the companies were collaborating in illegal competitive behaviour. The paper offers a unique view into a situation where information or lack thereof has played a key part in corporate governance, exploring the relationship between management and the board of directors and how information filtering can go wrong to the extent that vital information does not reach the board. The paper is based on (...) a case study of the illegal collaboration of the oil companies. It furthermore surveys the literature on information flow and information asymmetry for explanations of what happened in the case of the Icelandic oil companies. (shrink)

Ismael traces our sense that the past is fixed and the future open to what she calls ‘the practical arrow’ – ‘the sense that we can affect the future but not the past.’ In this piece I draw a sharper distinction than Ismael herself does between agents and mere observers, even self-referential observers; and I use it to argue that Ismael’s explanation of the practical arrow is incomplete. To explain our inability to affect the past we need to appeal to (...) our own temporal orientation as agents, and not merely to the ingredients from physics that allow us to predict the consequences of our actions. [This piece is a commentary on J Ismael’s ‘The Open Universe: Totality, Self-Reference and Time’, to appear in the Australasian Philosophical Review.]. (shrink)

The Wall Street Journal article “Putting a Price on a Human Egg” triggered extensive media coverage of a rather unusual challenge to payments made to women providing ova for use in assisted reproduction. In Kamakahi v. American Society for Reproductive Medicine and Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies, plaintiffs claim that ASRM and SART policies adopting limits on such payments violate the federal antitrust prohibition against price fixing.In 2007, an ASRM Ethics Committee Report, confirming a 2000 report, asserted (...) that, “[a]lthough there is no consensus on the precise payment that oocyte donors should receive, at this time sums of $5,000 or more require justification and sums above $10,000 are not appropriate.” SART is an affiliate organization of ASRM and counts as its members 90 percent of the clinics providing assisted reproductive technologies in the United States. SART requires that its members “[adhere] to all ASRM/SART Guidelines including ethical, practice, advertising, and laboratory.” The plaintiffs in Kamakahi claim that the agreement among SART members to abide by the ASRM policy restricts competition among agencies procuring oocytes and produces lower payments than women would otherwise be able to negotiate. It is through the requirement that SART members adhere to ASRM ethical guidelines that ethics goes to market and encounters antitrust law. Ethicists continue to debate whether payment for oocytes inappropriately commodifies the human body, and ASRM policy consistently refers to their procurement as the “donation process” and to women who participate as “donors.” Nevertheless, in the context of antitrust law, the procurement of oocytes is a business and clearly falls within the reach of antitrust restrictions on business conduct. (shrink)

Pricing algorithms are computerized procedures a seller may use to adapt instantaneously its price to market conditions, including to prices quoted by its rivals. These algorithms are related to the extensive use of web-collectors which contribute in many industries to identifying the best price. In such settings, price competition operates between algorithms, no longer between executives of brick and mortar companies. In this context, the question is to know how implicit forms of collusion may arise between the (...) sellers. This paper is aimed at discussing this conceptual issue in a price-setting homogeneous product oligopoly with decreasing returns to scale where algorithms implement matching policies. Using fixed point argument, we find a family of equilibrium prices encompassing Cournot and Pareto efficient solutions, if matching is allowed upward and downward. Dynamical stability is studied in the linear demand constant return case. When matching operates only for price undercutting, this family is extended up to a bottom value of the market price, close to the Walrasian price. Pricing algorithms may solve the Bertrand–Edgeworth paradox. (shrink)

The marketization of interest rate is an inevitable requirement for China’s financial reform and joining the WTO to connect with the international financial market. It is also an important link to improve the marketization degree of China’s financial system. The marketization of interest rate in China is gradually advancing according to its preset mode. In the process of interest rate marketization, an unavoidable problem is that while the interest rate marketization gives the commercial banks the autonomy of capital pricing, the (...) fluctuation of interest rate is more and more frequent. However, due to the fluctuation of interest rate, the loan as the main assets of commercial banks will be prepayed by borrowers, and the time deposit as the main liabilities of commercial banks will be withdrawn by depositors in advance; that is, embedded options are implied in asset liability items, which makes it difficult for commercial banks to accurately calculate the actual interest margin of deposits and loans and manage the interest rate risk. Therefore, it is of great significance to identify and price such embedded option value. On the basis of identifying and decomposing the embedded options in deposit and loan of commercial banks, according to the change characteristics of deposit and loan interest rate of Chinese commercial banks, this paper chooses jump-diffusion interest rate model to describe the change of benchmark interest rate of deposit and loan in China and demonstrates the advantages of this model compared with other models. Based on Monte Carlo simulation technology, the embedded options of five-year fixed deposit and ten-year prepayable loan in China are priced. On this basis, it points out that the real interest margin of commercial bank’s deposit and loan should be the nominal interest margin minus the value of deposit and loan’s embedded options. In the process of interest rate risk management, we should pay attention to the existence of embedded options and carry out effective management. (shrink)

Following Thomas Aquinas, Francisco de Vitoria's analysis of justice in exchanges takes place by commenting on the corresponding questions of the Summa Theologica. The identification of the just price with that of common estimation occurs under a sufficient concurrence of sellers and buyers. A high level of concurrence limits the ability to take advantage of the need on the other side of the market. This fact guaranties a full consent of the parties involved in trading. Under conditions of market (...) power or when some authority fixes a legal price, just price should also be taken as a normative ideal. (shrink)

The Big Fix is, as Greider describes, “the utter folly of allowing a profit-driven industry to name its price, while quietly making over our public-health agenda in its own image”—the theme of the book. Written in an easy-to-understand, conversational manner targeted to the American consumer, The Big Fix is a comprehensive description of the commonly held views of critics of the pharmaceutical industry, although most of the points made are not novel. In eight chapters, each given a catchy descriptive (...) title, Greider does a good job of detailing the issues and citing well-known experts and critics of the industry, such as Marcia Angel and Thomas Bodenheimer, even though she does not always provide the exact sources of these citations for those academic types who may want to know more. (shrink)

The theory of the just price is commonly assumed to have three sources: Political philosophy of Greek antiquity, scholastic ethics of the High Middle Ages, and the Roman law of obligations of late antiquity. While closer inspection confirms this holds for the first two worlds of thought the latter assumption seems ultimately unfounded. The paper claims that the evidence notoriously presented on behalf of that assumption – two rescripts attributed to Roman emperor Diocletian, namely Codex Iustinianus 4.44.2 and 4.44.8 (...) – ultimately points in another direction. Offering both an analysis and an alternative reading of the rescripts an integrated interpretation is given that reconciles them with the “liberalistic spirit of Roman law”. Also, it is explained why, from the point of view of legal and social philosophy, the fact that Roman law refrains from introducing a moral aspect to the institute of price fixing speaks in favour of Roman law rather than against it. [in German]. (shrink)

Originally published as a French edition in 1991, and first translated into English for this Cambridge edition in 2004, in this exhaustive study Christian Bidard develops a theory of prices of production. This theory breaks down the symmetry between producers and consumers and gives more importance to reproduction rather than scarcity. In his analysis of multiple-product systems, Bidard focuses on the notion of an all-engaging system which elucidates the link with von Neumann's theory; examines the notions of sector and vertical (...) integration which make possible an elegant treatment of fixed capital; clarifies the status of the internal rate of return; proposes a general theory of rent. In the discussion of capital theory and marginal equalities or, more specifically, the treatment of exhaustible resources, Bidard compares different readings of Sraffa's work and revisits the question of relationships between classical theory and the general equilibrium theory. (shrink)

We study a joint pricing and inventory control problem for perishables with positive lead time in a finite horizon periodic-review system. Unlike most studies considering a continuous density function of demand, in our paper the customer demand depends on the price of current period and arrives according to a homogeneous Poisson process. We consider both backlogging and lost-sales cases, and our goal is to find a simultaneously ordering and pricing policy to maximize the expected discounted profit over the planning (...) horizon. When there is no fixed ordering cost involved, we design a deep reinforcement learning algorithm to obtain a near-optimal ordering policy and show that there are some monotonicity properties in the learned policy. We also show that our deep reinforcement learning algorithm achieves a better performance than tabular-based Q-learning algorithms. When a fixed ordering cost is involved, we show that our deep reinforcement learning algorithm is effective and efficient, under which the problem of “curse of dimension” is circumvented. (shrink)

This article argues that the field of asset pricing theory is undergoing a scientific revolution in Kuhnian terms. The orthodox view is one of determinate change in causal processes and inherent stability whereby financial markets, left unfettered, allocate nearly perfectly society's scare capital. However, decades of mounting anomalous evidence against the implications of stable causal processes perpetuated by conventional models based on efficient markets and the rational expectations hypothesis have paved the way for alternative avenues of research. Although various approaches (...) are being developed, the imperfect knowledge economics class of models has emerged as a potential new paradigm in the field of macro-finance. By stopping short of fixing in advance the specification of individual forecasting behavior and the causal process, the IKE class of models has been able to reconcile many of the puzzles found within the literature on asset price behavior and risk. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to attack some of the conceptual problems that arise when the framework of mathematical learning theory is applied to the description of the behavior of the firm, in setting prices and production quotas, in a competitive market. The goal is to depict the process by which the firm fixes prices and production quotas as a stochastic learning process. A solution to such problems is proposed which is based on statistical-decision concepts. The conceptualization of (...) the behavior of the firm by means of concepts pertaining to mathematical learning theory gives rise to certain mathematical problems, which are formulated here in rather precise terms. (shrink)

Every day we hear stories about the consequences of human frailties for individuals, their families, friends, and organizations. These involve alcohol and drug addiction and other harmful lifestyle choices, and all kinds of unethical and illegal behaviour, including bribery and corruption, price fixing, theft and fraud, sexual harassment and abuse of authority, fiddling expenses and cheating at sport and in exams. Efforts to teach ethical behaviour in business schools make little difference. The media who report others' frailties are (...) themselves unethical and engage in illegal conduct. This book places the spotlight on individuals, their behavioural choices and the consequences that follow for theirs and others' lives and careers. The conclusion is that people have real choices and options and that successful avoidance of the worst outcomes can be achieved where there is a proper sense of proportion, of what is important, and of how each of us is doing. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to attack some of the conceptual problems that arise when the framework of mathematical learning theory is applied to the description of the behavior of the firm, in setting prices and production quotas, in a competitive market. The goal is to depict the process by which the firm fixes prices and production quotas as a stochastic learning process. A solution to such problems is proposed which is based on statistical-decision concepts. The conceptualization of (...) the behavior of the firm by means of concepts pertaining to mathematical learning theory gives rise to certain mathematical problems, which are formulated here in rather precise terms. (shrink)

According to the so-called Lockean thesis, a rational agent believes a proposition just in case its probability is sufficiently high, i.e., greater than some suitably fixed threshold. The Preface paradox is usually taken to show that the Lockean thesis is untenable, if one also assumes that rational agents should believe the conjunction of their own beliefs: high probability and rational belief are in a sense incompatible. In this paper, we show that this is not the case in general. More precisely, (...) we consider two methods of computing how probable must each of a series of propositions be in order to rationally believe their conjunction under the Lockean thesis. The price one has to pay for the proposed solutions to the paradox is what we call “quasi-dogmatism”: the view that a rational agent should believe only those propositions which are “nearly certain” in a suitably defined sense. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Welcome To The Pharmacy: Addiction, Transcendence, and Virtual RealityAnn Weinstone (bio)1. The Question of Addiction and TranscendenceIt has become a truism to say that virtual reality (VR) is addictive. Case, the protagonist of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, dreams of connection to the net like a junkie jonesing for a fix. In Jeff Noon’s novel Vurt, you get to cyberspace by tickling the back of your throat with addictive, government-produced feathers. (...) Verity of Kathleen Ann Goonan’s Queen City Jazz sports nanotechnology implants that compel her to enter virtual worlds into which she sinks with feelings of deep bliss. As in Vurt, in Pat Cadigan’s Synners, everything’s an addiction: cyberspace, people, rock and roll.But let’s move away from fiction. Graphic cyberartist Nicole Stenger, a self-professed neo-Platonist, writes, “[a]nd what if the passage to a new level of humanity actually meant abolishing indeed the natural one, or at least some part of it?... Will it not require immense effort to recover from this enhancement of the senses, from this habit of perfection? [Stenger 57]. Michael Benedikt, editor of Cyberspace: First Steps, deems VR “a new and irresistible development in the elaboration of human culture and business under the sign of technology” [1; my emphasis]. Ad copy for “Origin,” a VR game, reads, “You must die to learn how to live.... Death is not an option. It’s an addiction.” And an article in the New York Times titled “The Lure and Addiction of Life on Line” displays a graphic of a bespectacled male, tapping away at a computer located inside of a panopticon-sized rendering of a globe to which the avid user is happily chained [see Asciu]. From advertisements to scholarly texts, it is difficult to find any writing about VR that does not engage in and, as I will argue, rely upon the rhetorics of addiction. William Gibson dubbed cyberspace a “consensual hallucination.” That was 1984. In 1996, critic Robert Markley rechristened VR “a consensual cliché” [56]. Surely, the “addictiveness” of cyberspace contributes to the sense of tired familiarity. My question is this: Why does cyberspace have to be addictive? What work is addiction doing in discourses of virtual reality?In this essay, I’m concerned with the production of what might be called hyper-real transcendence. Jean Baudrillard, in his influential schema “three orders of simulacra,” identifies a first, “natural” order in which “a transcendent world, a radically different universe, is portrayed... in contrast to the continent of the real” [309]. I propose that a third-order, hyper-real, transcendence has survived the collapse of the distance between the model and the original. This transcendence relies on rhetorics of disembodiment, [End Page 77] immortality, and extra-human reproductive and generative powers within virtual spaces. Such spaces include scholarly and technical essays about VR or cyberspace, science fiction, advertisements for VR games, VR game narratives, and other advertising copy that borrows from current discourses of virtuality. My discussion takes place in a field crowded with talk of the death of logocentrism and the end of phonocentric culture. 1 Derrida has written that “scientific language [e.g. computer code] challenges intrinsically and with increasing profundity the ideal of phonetic writing” [Grammatology 10], the logocentric relation of voice to mental experiences. Baudrillard writes mournfully that the “third-order” world of simulated simulacra, of hyper-reality, leaves “no room for any kind of transcendentalism” [310]. Baudrillard and Derrida write with differing affects of the same effect—the waning or death of the foundation of Western notions of transcendence. In this tradition, transcendence commences with the penetration of the self by a supra-enlivened Other, whether that other be a king, a god, nature, the voice of logos, the Law, or an abstracted version of vitality itself. Particularly, I question the persistent coupling of rhetorics of transcendence with rhetorics of addiction. My initial point will be that following the established Western logocentric tradition, rhetorical relationships of addiction between VR users and VR narratives are the “software” with which hyper-real transcendence is produced and sustained. In other words, VR demands, as the price of transcendence, that the user become of the medium... (shrink)

We analyze the relationship between corporate social responsibility and the stock market performance in the post-global financial crisis period. A new measure of social responsibility by Thomson Reuters, called the ESG Combined Score, is used. As a novel feature of our analysis, socially responsible engagement is divided into the strategic activities closely related to the examined companies’ core business and the remaining secondary activities. The results of the fixed effects regression show a positive and statistically, as well as economically, significant (...) impact of the strategic activities on the corporate stock market performance of companies. This impact is up to 103% higher compared to the secondary activities. The empirical results suggest that if companies aim to increase their share prices via the corporate social responsibility channel, they should strategically select their socially responsible initiatives. (shrink)

We largely agree with Grimwade et al ’s1 conclusion that challenge trial participants may ethically be paid, including for risk. Here, we add further arguments, clarify some points from the perspective of economics and indicate areas where economists can support the development of a framework for ethically justifiable payment. Our arguments apply to carefully constructed and monitored controlled human infection model trials that have been appropriately reviewed and approved. Participants in medical studies perform a service. Outside the domain of research (...) participation, there is nearly universal agreement that workers providing a service should be compensated fairly, and that work involving more discomfort and risk should be compensated more generously. Accordingly, labour regulations impose floors, not caps on compensation. Caps, even if intended to protect against undue inducement, also raise concerns about illegal price-fixing that disadvantages workers. Such limits on payment for egg donors have successfully been challenged in court.i Moreover, caps on compensation may harm everyone at risk of infection, not just potential participants. Insufficient compensation may impede the recruitment of enough suitable subjects, for example, when representativeness of the subject sample is required. Delays in vaccine development not only prolong disruption of social, educational and economic activity but also lead to excess infections and deaths. Unlike paid CHIM participants, individuals exposed to such infection do not accept it voluntarily, are not compensated for it, and are unlikely to receive the level of medical supervision afforded to closely monitored CHIM participants. Payment caps can lead to attempts to circumvent the regulation. For example, many countries …. (shrink)

The paper critiques two recent suggestions, by Lei Zhong and Thomas Kroedel, about how to apply the interventionist theory of causation to cases where supervenient properties, particularly mental properties, are involved. According to both suggestions, we should hold variables corresponding to supervenient properties fixed when intervening on the subvenient properties with respect to a putative effect variable and vice versa. The paper argues that both suggestions are problematic. Zhong’s suggestion ultimately requires ad hoc exemptions from the holding-fixed requirement. Kroedel’s suggestion (...) entails severe constraints on the construction of causal models. Overall, retaining the holding-fixed requirements of interventionism for cases of supervenient properties comes at a significant price. (shrink)

Emotion is at the centre of our personal and social lives. To love or to hate, to be frightened or grateful is not just a matter of how we feel on the inside: our emotional responses direct our thoughts and actions, unleash our imaginations, and structure our relationships with others. Yet the role of emotion in human life has long been disputed. Is emotion reason?s friend or its foe? From where do the emotions really arise? Why do we need them (...) at all? In this accessible and carefully argued introduction, Carolyn Price focuses on some central questions about the nature and function of emotion. She explores the ways in which emotion contrasts with belief and considers how our emotional responses relate to our values, our likes and our needs. And she investigates some of the different ways in which emotional responses can be judged as fitting or misplaced, rational or irrational, authentic or inauthentic, sentimental or profound. Throughout, she develops a particular view of emotion as a complex and diverse phenomenon, which reflects both our common evolutionary past and our different cultural and personal histories. Engagingly written with lots of examples to illuminate our understanding, this book provides the ideal introduction to the topic for students and scholars and anyone interested in delving further into the intricate web of human emotion. (shrink)

Originally published in 1954, on behalf of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, this book presents a general review of British economic statistics in relation to the uses made of them for policy purposes. The text begins with an examination, in general terms, of the ways in which statistics can help in guiding or assessing policy, covering housing, coal, the development areas, agricultural price-fixing, the balance of external payments and the balance of the economy. The problems (...) of statistical application are then separately discussed under the headings of quality, presentation and availability, and organization. A full bibliography and reference table of principal British economic statistics are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in British economic history and statistics. (shrink)

This essay is my contribution to a celebratory volume for Mr Peter Ho, former head of Singapore's Civil Service, from whom I learned the phrase ‘black elephant’. I reflect on four elephants among my own interests: in other words, big things (in my estimation), in clear sight but invisible to many eyes. They are: (i) retrocausality in quantum theory; (ii) child conscription and the monarchy; (iii) AI risk; and (iv) cold fusion. As I say in the piece, my little herd (...) is big enough to make some comparisons – though this may be the only occasion on which they congregate in the same room. (shrink)

Price replies to Sciabarra's criticism that Carol Selby Price and Robert Price's Mystic Rhythms erroneously classifies Rush lyricist Neil Peart as "conservative." "Conservative" may imply limitation of individual freedom by the government—or by organized religion. Peart leans more toward a non-religious libertarianism and Rand's Objectivism, which may be considered "conservative" in the same narrow sense. Ironically, Randian thinkers share with religion the use of the Hero Myth archetype. Price focuses on recent Rand-type comic book superheroes, including (...) Steve Ditko's Mister A and The Question, and Alan Moore's parody on diese, Rorschach. (shrink)

Employers must determine the types of health care plans to offer and also set employee premiums for each plan provided. Depending on the structure of the employee share of premiums across different health insurance plans, the incentives to choose one plan over another are altered. If employees know premiums do not fully reflect the risk differences among workers, such pricing can give rise to a so-called “death spiral” due to adverse selection. This paper uses longitudinal information from a natural experiment (...) in the management of health benefits for a large employer to explore the impact of moving from a fixed-dollar contribution policy to a partially risk-adjusted employer contribution policy. Our results show that implementing a significant risk adjustment had no discernable effect on adverse selection against the most generous indemnity insurance policy. This stands in stark contrast to previous studies, which have tended to estimate large impacts attributed to selection when employers move to a fixed-dollar policy from one with some risk adjustment. Further analysis suggests that previous studies, which appeared to detect plans in the throes of a death spiral, may instead have been reflecting an inexorable movement away from a non-preferred product, one that would have been inefficient for nearly all workers even in the absence of adverse selection. (shrink)

Dominick T. Armentano 's book, Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure, 2nd ed., has serious limitations as a scholarly work. Monopolistic price?raising is even more objectionable under plausible interpretations of Armentano 's subjectivist criterion than in the standard case, which assumes equal subjective value for all consumers? dollar expenditures. Armentano 's historical review of leading antitrust cases is also faulty. His evidence on the alleged failure of price?fixing schemes is defective, and his approach to judging (...) whether monopoly power existed proceeds from an inappropriately static theory. (shrink)

In this adventurous contribution to the project of combining philosophy and biology to understand the mind, Carolyn Price investigates what it means to say that mental states--like thoughts, wishes, and perceptual experiences--are about things in the natural world. Her insight into this deep philosophical problem offers a novel teleological account of intentional content, grounded in and shaped by a carefully constructed theory of functions. Along the way she defends her view from recent objections to teleological theories and indicates how (...) it might be applied to notable problems in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The first half of Mr. Burgener's article is a very clear and very just exposition of my views. There is, however, one point which he may not have appreciated fully, and that is the "climate of opinion" in which I was writing, and against which I was reacting. One of my main aims was to protest against the transformation of the empiricist epistemology into a linguistic epistemology, a transformation initiated by the Logical Positivists of the 1930's, and completed by Wittgenstein (...) and his disciples. Hence the amount of space devoted to sign-cognition, to the intelligence of animals, and to image-thinking, all of which are non-verbal or pre-verbal. But, as he has surmised, I am really just an old-fashioned British empiricist. I am fighting on two fronts, as it were, throughout the book: against a purely linguistic conception of thinking on one side, and against the "classical" inspective conception of it on the other. And in this two-fold battle, I am taking just the line which Locke, Berkeley, and Hume would have taken if they had been alive today: one which they do in fact suggest in their writings, though of course they could not anticipate the lengths to which the purely linguistic or verbalistic conception of thinking would go, or how it would ally itself with a behavioristic conception of human personality. One of the things I most object to in current British philosophy is the attack which is made on all sides of the "inner life," the attempt to show that there is no such thing, or that it is a mere muddle to suppose there is, or that to the extent that it does exist it is of no importance. Perhaps there is some connection between this attack on the inner life and the attack on private life which is made by the politicians, social reformers, and economic planners. Perhaps they are only two aspects of the same thing. Anyway, between them they have gone a long way towards a kind of "dehumanisation" of man; and this seems to me one of the darkest features of the very dark age in which we live. I feel concerned about it not only as an epistemologist, but also as a religious person, or at least as a person who is interested in religion in a very undenominational way. Religion, as I view it, is very closely connected with the "inner life"; and if one is forbidden to take an interest in the "inner life," religion will wither away from sheer inanition. At any rate, the most mystical types of religion will, and these are the ones which seem to me the most important. (shrink)

Concepts employed in folk descriptions of the world often turn out to be more perspectival than they seem at first sight, involving previously unrecognised sensitivity to the viewpoint or 'situation' of the user of the concept in question. Often, it is progress in science that reveals such perspectivity, and the deciding factor is that we realise that other creatures would apply the same concepts with different extension, in virtue of differences between their circumstances and ours. In this paper I argue (...) that causal concepts are perspectival in this way, and describe the 'situation' on which they depend in terms of an abstract characterisation of the viewpoint of a deliberating agent. I argue that this approach makes better sense than rivals of the apparent asymmetry and temporal orientation of the causal relation. (shrink)

Be an ethical manager, or face dangerous consequences! In today's business climate, firms need to be wary of practices that may provoke criticism and scandals. Investigative reporters, eager lawyers, and zealous governmental agencies are lurking in the wings. These lessons of the past give you an inside look at some of the biggest mistakes of recent history. You can ponder not only how they might have been avoided, but also how their resolution might have been better handled. Robert Hartley, author (...) of the popular Marketing and Management Mistakes and Successes books, brings you face-to-face with major players and the temptations, crises, and torments they experienced. Thought-provoking discussion questions, role-playing exercises, and debates present you with key ethical concerns that may help you avoid similar situations in your own career. Take a behind-the-scenes look at: Deceptive sales tactics at MetLife The killer scenario of Ford Explorers with Firestone tires Price fixing at ADM Al Dunlap savaging Sunbeam and Scott Paper Massive accounting fraud at WorldCom Exxon's Alaskan oil spill Union Carbide's Bhopal catastrophe Shenanigans of defense contractors, such as Lockheed and General Dynamics Ethical question marks: Wal-Mart, Nike, DaimlerChrysler Paragons: Johnson & Johnson, Herman Miller As well as other ethical mistakes. (shrink)

Volume 18, Issue 3, June 2019, Page 221-238.

The moral intuitions and arguments of some prominent business ethics authors regarding the ethics of monopoly are drenched with contestable economic theory. Discussions too typically ignore theoretical alternatives and debates about the nature of monopolies, their assets and liabilities. I review the theoretical debates and show why they matter to business ethics. That there may be genuine cases of rivalrous monopoly, that monopolies might in the odd circumstance prove more efficient or become advantageous in contests with labor or useful in (...) respect of a nation''s international affairs does not imply we should unwary of monopolies. However, not only the best theory to date, but also the mere fact of serious disagreement in the field suggests that there is no necessary connection between monopolies and practices such as price discrimination, price fixing, bribery, collusion, and so on. This frustrates the most pervasive and most prominent argument so far for the claim that monopolies are intrinsically unethical. (shrink)

There are grave issues with how the U.K. government approaches the issue of wellbeing. Specifically, policy interventions that might improve the material conditions of citizens are being down-played, and at times out-rightly dismissed. Instead, an individualist, instrumental message is being promoted, namely, that the best way to improve wellbeing is by improving individual happiness and mental health. I argue that this instrumental message – which in practice blames the victims for their lack of happiness and removes state responsibility – can (...) be made to sound feasible because of a reliance on positivist-based research, whether obtained objectively or subjectively. In this paper, I therefore detail the failings of mainstream wellbeing research and its policy conclusions, and argue that critical realism offers solutions. (shrink)

A. W. Price explores the varying ways in which context is relevant to our reasoning about what to do.

Properly understood, the instrumental rule says to take means that actually suffice for my end, not, as is nearly universally assumed, to intend means that I believe are necessary for my end. This alternative explains everything the standard interpretation can—and more, including grounding certain correctness conditions for exercises of our will unexplained by the standard interpretation.

Understanding the nature of pain at least partly depends on recognizing its inherent first person epistemology and on using a first person experiential and third person experimental approach to study it. This approach may help to understand some of the neural mechanisms of pain and consciousness by integrating experiential–phenomenological methods with those of neuroscience. Examples that approximate this strategy include studies of second pain summation and its relationship to neural activities and brain imaging-psychophysical studies wherein sensory and affective qualities of (...) pain are correlated with cerebral cortical activity. The experiential paradigm of Price and Barrell offers the possibility of improved designs and methods for investigating neural mechanisms underlying pain and consciousness. (shrink)

In Expressing Our Attitudes, Mark Schroeder speculates about the relation between expressivism and relativism. Noting that “John MacFarlane has wondered whether relativism is expressivism done right,” he suggests that this may get things back to front: “it is worth taking seriously the idea that expressivism is relativism done right”. In this piece, motivated both by Schroeder’s suggestion and by recent work from Lionel Shapiro, I compare and contrast my version of expressivism with MacFarlane’s version of relativism. I identify some significant (...) differences concerning the treatment of linguistic disagreement, but conclude that despite these differences, MacFarlane’s version of relativism counts as a version of expressivism in my sense, in most of the respects that matter. (shrink)

During the final months of Sri Lanka's 2006–2009 civil war, Sri Lankan armed forces engaged in a disproportionate and indiscriminate shelling campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which culminated in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. Conventional wisdom suggests that Sri Lanka undermined international humanitarian law. Significantly, however, the Sri Lankan government did not directly challenge such law or attempt to justify its departure from it. Rather, it invented a new set of facts about its conduct (...) to sidestep its legal obligations. Though indirect, this challenge was no less significant than had Sri Lanka explicitly rejected those obligations. Drawing on Clark et al.'s concept of denialism, this article details the nature of Sri Lanka's challenge to the standing of IHL. At the core of its denialist move, Sri Lanka maintained that while the LTTE was using civilians as human shields, government forces were adhering to a zero civilian casualty approach. With this claim, Sri Lanka absolved itself of any responsibility for the toll inflicted on civilians and sealed its conduct off from the ambit of IHL. This case illustrates how actors can considerably undermine the law using strategies of contestation far more subtle than direct confrontation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journey to WellnessRoberta PriceI should preface this by saying that as a child and early teen years I was lean, well within my weight range for my height of 5’3”. I was physically active as a snow skier, swimmer, hiker and biker. I started running in high school until I got pregnant at the age of 17 in 1988, but even then, my family and I had a gym (...) membership and I worked out with a trainer until my belly got too big and complications from pre–eclampsia forced me to bed rest the last four weeks of my pregnancy. I gained about 80 pounds, mostly water, during this time. Post pregnancy, I lost all my weight and resumed my active lifestyle of walking etc. It wasn’t until I got married in 1990 that I found my weight creeping up on me, slowly, every year. I was still active with three kids and a husband by then, but bad eating habits and cheap carbohydrates were not my friend.My efforts to return to leanness started a few years ago, about 2006. At that point, I weighed at least 200 pounds and I was not happy. Everyone knows the best way to lose weight is to exercise and watch what you eat, so I start daily walks. While walking I started having problems with my legs going numb to the point that I could not feel my feet hit the ground. At first I thought this feeling was due to a pinched nerve as a result of a single–vehicle car accident I was in earlier that year. Some days my legs would not bother me while walking and other days only a few steps would bring on the numbness. Also, I was susceptible to feelings of panic and a racing heart beat. My doctor at the time never once mentioned my weight being an issue. The nurse would write my weight on the chart, I would cringe as I waited for the lecture from my doctor about my weight to start. It never did. It was a strange, sort of “non–issue” with him as I had three kids so I was fat from that. My physician just said, “Lose the weight, I have no idea what is causing the numbness in your legs.”Fast forward to 2011, I am now under the care of a chiropractor in hopes of relieving the numbness that is happening all too frequently now. An ultrasound of my veins showed good blood flow so that ruled out a circulation issue. The chiropractor prescribed physical therapy to help ease my lower back pain hoping that would relieve the nerves I thought were pinched. I was prescribed high blood pressure medication by my doctor, with adverse side effects such as a nagging cough that would not go away—no matter how much cough medicine I consumed. It was during these sessions with my physical therapist that I was able to lose 10 pounds.There is a lot of self–talk in the life of an overweight or obese person. Everyday I woke up, knowing I had to lose weight. Every single time I looked in any mirror or saw any photo (which I was careful to be the photographer and not a subject as denial had become my best and worst friend). It was the subject of many a late night conversation with my husband, whom by the way, at his worst weight was 30 pounds over his preferred height to weight ratio. Not a single doctor I saw previous to this offered any hope for weight loss other than to shove a piece of paper at me telling me to eat these “healthy foods” listed. Since I was the family chef and chief purchaser of food, I was buying and eating vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and attempting to cut down on the processed foods—although, we were heavy eaters of potatoes, pastas, bagels, pizzas and other high carbohydrate foods. Over the years, [End Page 112] the most weight I had lost “counting calories” or portioning out “slow carbs” over “fast carbs” only afforded me a 15 pound loss, to be gained... (shrink)