In Japan, although many people are interested in corporate governance and business ethics, there is little consensus on what good corporate governance entails. The Japanese Commercial Code (revised in 2003) enables Japanese companies to introduce a board committee system and abolish the company auditor system. After the recent exposure of various corporate malpractices, many Japanese companies have started institutionalizing business ethics in their organizations. Nevertheless, ethical issues such as death from overwork (karoshi), harassment at work, illegal collusion (dangou), and defrauding (...) consumers and governments still remain prominent. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Demise of the Aesthetic in Literary StudyEugene GoodheartAnumber of years ago at an MLA convention I was on a search committee interviewing candidates for a position in Victorian literature in our department. One of the candidates had done a dissertation on Christina Rossetti in which “Goblin Market” played a prominent role. As I recall, the candidate was putting forth a New Historicist or feminist argument about the (...) poem, when one of my colleagues on the committee interrupted her with the question: “But is it a good poem?” The question took me by surprise, for I didn’t remember such a question having been asked of students in years. It dumbfounded the candidate. She had apparently never considered the question. The poem was there as an occasion for... I was about to write interpretation or analysis, but it would be more accurate to say: a placement in a particular discourse—historicist, feminist, deconstructionist, ideological. The candidate’s fluency about the poem came to a halt. She spluttered a few phrases about the power of the poem. She was unprepared to answer the question, having never been asked or taught to ask it by her teachers of any poem or novel or play that she had read.We may not have been fair in our judgment of her. If we had been consistent and asked the same question of all the candidates, I don’t think we would have met with greater success. Our candidate’s disability was, indeed still is, built into the profession of literary studies at the present time. That aesthetic judgment is not one of the current professional practices is clear not only from its absence in the content of literary study but from the styles of the discoursers. No longer written [End Page 139] in a vernacular style, criticism has become a species of sociological prose once held in contempt by literary scholars: ponderous, abstract, obscure, ungainly, jargonish. There are practitioners of New Historicism, ideology critique, and deconstruction who write well, but who seem to regard their own gifts of expression as incidental, and are not in the least discomfited by the bad writing of others.Style is not an incidental matter. Orwell made a compelling case for its political and moral significance. In his classic essay “Politics and the English Language,” he preaches the virtues of plain speech, the transparent and elegant style as a mark of self-honesty. (Transparency makes it difficult to conceal your ideas from yourself.) In Writing Degree Zero and subsequent writings, Barthes deconstructed, so to speak, the Enlightenment myth of transparency as a guarantor of honesty and truth. Reality was not as perspicuous to “natural” plain writing as the Enlightenment believed. Barthes’s own style (rich, inventive, personal, alternately perspicuous, and obscure) is that of an imaginative writer. I don’t want to adjudicate the differences between Orwell and Barthes, but I should note what may not be obvious: they have a shared aesthetic concern with style, a concern that has virtually disappeared from academic discourse.It has become almost an embarrassment to speak in behalf of aesthetic value in the academy. One of the few unembarrassed exceptions is the voice of Harold Bloom whose jeremiad The Western Canon begins defiantly with an affirmation of the aesthetic against its demystifiers. “‘Aesthetic value’ is sometimes regarded as a suggestion of Immanuel Kant’s rather than an actuality, but that has not been my experience during a lifetime of reading.” 1 I take it that Bloom is saying that aesthetic value is an experience and not a theory. Indeed, if we insist on a theoretical justification of the aesthetic, we will end up speaking as does Barbara Herrnstein Smith of its contingent and subjective status (it is in the eye of the beholder and every beholder sees things differently) or we may find that the aesthetic is inescapably contaminated by political, moral, and philosophical interests. “Contaminated” perhaps, but as Bloom says, not reducible to these interests. It is useful to remember that aesthetics has been traditionally associated with the idea of disinterestedness. As Jerome Stolnitz remarks, we perceive beauty when it is the object of a “disinterested and sympathetic attention... (shrink)

This article contains the preface, introduction, and epilogue of Zhu Xueqin’s influential book The Demise of the Republic of Virtue: From Rousseau to Robespierre. In the preface, Zhu describes Chinese and international scholarship on Rousseau, his own intellectual formation as a member of the Cultural Revolution generation, and the overall purpose of the book. In the introduction, Zhu briefly outlines the transformation of medieval “theological politics” into modern “political theology,” or his central concern of the merger between moral idealism (...) and the political state. Finally, in the epilogue, Zhu nevertheless still seeks to rescue Rousseau by arguing that history is created by both a priori and empirical forces and that a dialogue between deconstruction and construction is required. However, for “political theology” to end, boundaries have to be set to moral idealism and it needs to be disconnected from the political state. (shrink)

How does a social enterprise pursue its ethical mandate of social impact growth while navigating the perils of the most vulnerable stage in a venture’s life—scaling up? We observe a small inclusivity social enterprise attempting to scale up rapidly to create equality for people with disabilities throughout the world. Our embedded, ethnographic study is terminated with the venture’s unfortunate demise after their dramatic effort to scale up failed. By examining scaling decision-making and conflicts around creation reasoning longitudinally, our study (...) identifies over-use of effectual logic—a creation reasoning type considered more ethical and more appropriate for high-innovativeness contexts than causal logic—as a major factor in the venture’s failure. From this insight, we extend the parameters of effectuation theory to scaling up and dimensionalize its ethical implications. Guidance for social entrepreneurs to scale up successfully while maintaining ethical integrity is also provided. (shrink)

Acknowledgments1. If Liberalism is a Faith, What Becomes of the Separation of Church and State?2. Pragmatism, Liberalism, and the Quarrel between Science and Religion3. Rorty's Repudiation of Epistemology4. Rortian Irony and the "De-divinization" of Liberalism5. Religion and Rawls's Freestanding Liberalism6. Stanley Fish and the Demise of the Separation of Church and State7. Fish, Locke, and Religious Neutrality8. Reason, Indifference, and the Aim of Religious FreedomAppendix: A Reply to Stanley FishNotesBibliographyIndex Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, moral philosophy enjoyed enormous prestige in colleges throughout the United States: through its alliance with moral theology, it sought to forge the conscience of the nation. It lost this status in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. One of the reasons for this was the growing secularization of society, but one should not underestimate the impact of its failure to serve as the conscience of the nation on the issue of slavery. (...) From being a practical discourse aimed at creating good citizens, moral philosophy retreated into a highly theoretical endeavor divorced from society. Returning to practical affairs is not the answer for moral philosophy unless it is accompanied by a new form of writing its history, one that takes a broader view of its context, including understanding the institutional pressures that impact philosophy when it is done in academic settings. (shrink)

How are we to understand the multiple overlapping crises of the present? In a superbly enlightening synthesis of Marxian (critique of) political economy and systems theory, Robert Biel presents a compelling case for the importance of an entropic perspective, regarding both thermodynamic and informational flows that constitute and transform social systems. This perspective offers an insightful analysis of neoliberalism as an attempt to harness the entropic benefits of spontaneous and complex emergence for the purposes of capitalist accumulation. The current crises (...) may thus be understood as the overflowing of the resulting complexity and the pathological response of neoliberal powers, further accelerating this process. But is capitalism itself thus exhausted? An alternative scenario of rejuvenated capitalism is outlined, together with the implications of Biel’s analysis for critical realism, critical social theory and a politics of the Left. Content Type Journal Article Category Review Essay Pages 112-128 Authors David Tyfield, Lancaster University Journal Journal of Critical Realism Online ISSN 1572-5138 Print ISSN 1476-7430 Journal Volume Volume 12 Journal Issue Volume 12, Number 1 / 2013. (shrink)

Fifty years have passed since brain death was first proposed as a criterion of death. Its advocates believe that with the destruction of the brain, integrated functioning ceases irreversibly, somatic unity dissolves, and the organism turns into a corpse. In this article, I put forward two objections against this assertion. First, I draw parallels between brain death and other pathological conditions and argue that whenever one regards the absence or the artificial replacement of a certain function in these pathological conditions (...) as compatible with organismic unity, then one equally ought to tolerate that function’s loss or replacement in brain death. Second, I show that the neurological criterion faces an additional problem that is only coming to light as life-supporting technology improves: the growing sophistication of the latter gives rise to a dangerous decoupling of the actual performance of a vital function from the retention of neurological control over it. Half a century after its introduction, the neurological criterion is facing the same fate as its cardiopulmonary predecessor. (shrink)

Understanding spirituality may serve as a foundation for developing new approaches to managerial action, organizational learning, social change and leadership. This article explores this phenomenon by hermeneutically tracing the demise and reawakening of spiritual entrepreneurship in Western life over the past 200 years. Spiritual aspects of entrepreneurial organizations are also framed via the lens of critical management theory as reflected in literature spanning four social epochs: federalist reality, the Industrial Revolution, disciplinary society, and the post-industrial milieu. The resulting themes (...) highlight the interconnectedness and reciprocal influences between social reality and spiritual leadership in Western entrepreneurial enterprises. Drawn from the author's doctoral research (Jue 2004), the article suggests a need for reintegrating spiritual leadership among post-modern organizations and entrepreneurial firms in the achievement of more sustainable futures. (shrink)

The new regulations on xenotransplantation pay insufficient attention to the broad ethical problems raised by this technique and that the abandonment of a national body with overall regulatory authority in this area is a mistake.Following reports from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics1 and, most importantly, the Advisory Group on the Ethics of Xenotransplantation2 , the UK Xenotransplantation Interim Regulatory Authority was established in 1997. The existence of a national body to govern xenotransplantation was deemed to be of critical importance by (...) the Kennedy report given the practical and ethical issues associated with xenotransplantation. Indeed, the Kennedy report recommended that ultimately UKXIRA should be placed on a statutory footing.2 The remit of UKXIRA was to advise the Secretary of State on particular applications, gather information on issues such as safety, and assess whether the preconditions identified by the Kennedy report had been met.3In December 2006, UKXIRA was quietly disbanded, and the Department of Health issued a statement of guidance, the terms of which now govern xenotransplantation in the UK. This document superseded procedures that had been in place since 1998, which had placed the overall regulation of applications to conduct xenotransplantation in the hands of UKXIRA and, ultimately, the Secretary of State.4 The revised guidance defines xenotransplantation as being: “… any procedure that involves the transplantation, implantation, or infusion into a human recipient of either live tissues or organs retrieved from animals, or, human body fluids, cells, tissue or organs that have undergone ex vivo contact with live non-human animal cells, tissues or organs.”5 . Given the range and nature of the procedures covered by the guidance, it is surprising, not to say a little worrying, that it is so …. (shrink)

Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug breathed her last after 42 years of being in a persistent vegetative state. Euthanasia in any form is not permitted in India and it was only in the year 2011 that a petition was filed in the court that urged the cessation of her force feeding with a nasogastric tube and the request for her peaceful death. What followed was a string of arguments and counter arguments relating to Euthanasia. The sad demise of Aruna Shanbaug is (...) not the end of an individual, but may be the end of the road for clear cut guidelines and legislation on Euthanasia in India. (shrink)

The article presents Gogol as marking the end of a century-long phase of secularism in Russian culture, from Peter the Great to Pushkin, and as the first writer to represent the cultural phenomenon of the ‘New Middle Ages’ and renewed religious zeal, first described by Berdyaev; further, it highlights some commonalities between Gogol and Belinsky and takes Belinsky as a leading instance of ‘religious atheism’. The article goes on to consider Russian culture’s need for neutral ‘middle ground’ between its multiple (...) and extreme polarities and, in this context, highlights Sergej Averintsev’s plea for an orientation towards Aristotelianism. (shrink)

Context and theory : Molefi Kete Asante and the Afrocentric idea -- Reason and analysis : Africana and new interpretations of reality -- Afrocentricity and modernism : innovation encounters and traditions -- Afrocentricity and post modernism : the moment of truth -- The paradigmatic rupture : critical Africology.

Addressing the end-of-philosophy debate and the challenge it presents to contemporary philosophy, this book draws on Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson, Habermas and Foucault, among others. It develops the implications of Richard Rorty's arguments in particular.

The paper briefly reviews the main formulations of the incommensurability thesis by Feyerabend and Kuhn, as well as the main criticisms leveled against it. The question is then raised of whether there is a "phenomenon" of incommensurability that has been "discovered". It is argued that there is no such phenomenon.

The Stalin Years: A Reader. Edited by Christopher Read (Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), xv?+?241 pp. ?14.99 paper. The Russian Revolution from Lenin to Stalin, 1917?1929. By E. H. Carr, with a new introduction by R. W. Davies (Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), xxxix?+?200 pp. ?14.99 paper.

Numerous ethical issues have emerged from the industrialization of animal agriculture. Those issues ultimately rest in large measure upon overuse of antibiotics. How this has occurred is discussed in detail in this paper.

This chapter contains sections titled: * I Refutation: some preliminaries * II Foundations – Deep Conflict? * III Epistemic Undertows: Dissolving Rationality * IV Conflicting Mindsets * V Historical Erosion * VII Conflict and Rational Justification * VII Conclusion * Acknowledgments * Notes.

A refutation of the doomsday argument is offered. Through a simple thought experiment analysed in Bayesian terms the fallacy is shown to be the assumption that a currently living person represents a random sample from the population of all persons who will ever have existed. A more general version of the counter argument is then given. Previous arguments that purport to answer this concern are also addressed. One result is determining criteria for the applicability of time sampling arguments, i.e., under (...) what conditions can a specific instant in time be regarded as a random sample from a time span. Given this new understanding, the incredible consequences of the doomsday and related arguments evaporate. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Much has been written about the deplorable state of American health care, but rarely with the wealth of historical and political information packed into Peter Swenson’s Disorder: A History of Reform, Reaction, and Money in American Medicine (2021). In this meticulously researched and comprehensive study of the role of organized medicine, particularly the American Medical Association (AMA) and affiliated state and county medical societies, Swenson provides detailed insight into the AMA’s political evolution from a force advocating progressive reforms to a (...) protective guild backed by powerful economic and ideological interests. Swenson addresses the conflicts leading to and arising from these movements, always with an eye on the profession’s failure over the last century to fulfill its implicit social contract. Swenson describes the American medical disorder without fear or favor, including a public health system in disarray, defective government regulation of drugs, unchecked and concealed commercial influence on medical research, publications, and clinical guidelines. Swenson’s hope is clear: that a progressively reformed AMA—combined with a broad coalition of concerned citizens and legislators—will lead the medical profession back to its rightful mission. (shrink)

Two streams of political thought will be presented: metaphysics of State and metaphysics of Power . An impact of globalization concealing both traditions will be analyzed, with the present evolution of European Union as an example. Structural violence will be shown in a post-communist context.

This book explores the circumstances surrounding Socrates' death, critically analysing conflicting sources to establish a framework for understanding his intellectual activities in the cultural, political, and religious context of 5th-century BC Athens. What were the circumstances surrounding the death of Socrates? What do we know of his life and ideas? This book offers readers an understanding of the history and current landscape of Socratic studies while guiding them through the intricate historical context of Socrates' life, death, and philosophy. By closely (...) examining the reasons behind his trial and conviction for impiety in 399 BCE, we can develop a more thorough understanding of Socrates' philosophy, as well as address the contradictions and fictional elements in his portrayals. Socrates and his Demise provides a fascinating re-assessment of Socrates and his death, of interest to students and scholars of Socrates and Socratic philosophy, as well as those working on the intellectual culture of 5th-century Athens and Classical Studies more broadly. (shrink)