This chapter explores the nature of moral rights by examining their formal structure, their status within morality, and rival theories concerning their content. Moral rights are construed as ones which legal systems ought to embody. As such, it is argued that consideration of the possibility of conflicts between rights and other moral values, and among rights themselves, serves to illuminate issues surrounding their content and moral status.

While most scholars readily recognize that Alfred North Whitehead had deep and penetrating misgivings about the substantial view of individuality, fewer note that these misgivings stem as much from axiological considerations as ontological ones. I contend that, taken in the context of the “classical interpretation” of his metaphysics, Whitehead’s bold affirmation that actuality and value are coextensive introduces a potentially serious problem for the adequacy and applicability of his axiology. For if actuality is coextensive with valuebut actuality is itself (...) limited to subjects of experience, then the objective world can have no intrinsic value. My aim is to demonstrate that, in order to respond to the very serious challenge which the problem of subjectivism represents and save Whitehead’s intendeduniverse of value, we must seek an alternative to the classical interpretation of Whitehead’s metaphysics. I refer to this alternative as the “ecstatic interpretation.”. (shrink)

We can speak about individual and social (characteristic for a population) values, but it is difficult to present universal, specifically human values, except for biological needs. The reason of it follows from the fact that superior values, related to two human needs (world model cognition and the meaningful sense of life) depend upon a world-view, in advance accepted and inculcated in us. From this world-view we as its followers draw our notions of good and bad, we shape our ideas on (...) proper human relations and on what for us should be the most important. So what can be of universally human character? It seems that only the possibility of possessing a system of values, of forming its features and defining its components. (shrink)

How can one establish if a corporate code of ethics is ethical in terms of its content? One important first step might be the establishment of core universal moral values by which corporate codes of ethics can be ethically constructed and evaluated. Following a review of normative research on corporate codes of ethics, a set of universal moral values is generated by considering three sources: (1) corporate codes of ethics; (2) global codes of ethics; and (3) the business ethics literature. (...) Based on the convergence of the three sources of standards, six universal moral values for corporate codes of ethics are proposed including: (1) trustworthiness; (2) respect; (3) responsibility; (4) fairness; (5) caring; and (6) citizenship. Relying on the proposed set of universal moral values, implications are discussed as to what the content of corporate codes of ethics should consist of. The paper concludes with its limitations. (shrink)

La educación de valores es una exigencia clave para el siglo XXI dado los imperativos del mundo contemporáneo. El presente artículo tuvo como objetivo determinar los presupuestos teóricos de la educación en valores en estudiantes universitarios. La concepción de valores está dirigida al desarrollo de la cultura profesional como proceso activo, complejo y contradictorio en el que intervienen diversos factores socializadores. Es un proceso sistemático, pluridimensional, intencional e integrado que garantiza la formación y desarrollo de la personalidad del estudiante universitario. (...) The education of values is a key demand in the XXI century due to the imperatives of the contemporary world. The objective of the present article was to determine the theoretical foundations of values education in university students. The concept of values is directed towards the development of professional culture as an active, complex and contradictory process in which different factors take place. It is a systematic pluridimensional, intentional and integrated process that guarantees the formation and development of university students´ personalities. (shrink)

The existence of conflicting messages on the role and status of the university is linked to a wider paradox of values about science in society. Value is attributed to science and assumed by the university in the context of the move to knowledge‐based economies and societies, yet this has not been accompanied by a systematic and balanced debate about the values that should underpin socio‐economic change. Questions are then raised about both the effectiveness of public policy and the role (...) of universities in society. A reconnection between the application and production of knowledge is needed, as well as the reinsertion of a normative framework for guiding and shaping change within universities. Only under such conditions can a meaningful debate on the roles of universities as places of expectation and spaces for reflection be realized. (shrink)

Universal human values-this is one of the most frequently encountered phrases today; we are constantly coming across it on the pages of newspapers and magazines. Its frequency creates the illusion that its content is intuitively clear, attractive, and shared by everyone. However, the various versions of what is understood by universal human values-the good, truth, beauty, freedom, or civil society, a non-nuclear world, ecological protection, pluralism, etc.-show that this is by no means the case.

ABSTRACT: In its strongest unqualified form, the principle of wholistic reference is that in any given discourse, each proposition refers to the whole universe of that discourse, regardless of how limited the referents of its non-logical or content terms. According to this principle every proposition of number theory, even an equation such as "5 + 7 = 12", refers not only to the individual numbers that it happens to mention but to the whole universe of numbers. This principle, its history, (...) and its relevance to some of Oswaldo Chateaubriand's work are discussed in my 2004 paper "The Principle of Wholistic Reference" in Essays on Chateaubriand's "Logical Forms". In Chateaubriand's réplica (reply), which is printed with my paper, he raised several important additional issues including the three I focus on in this tréplica (reply to his reply): truth-values, universes of discourse, and formal ontology. This paper is self-contained: it is not necessary to have read the above-mentioned works. The principle of wholistic reference (PWR) was first put forth by George Boole in 1847 when he espoused a monistic fixed-universe viewpoint similar to the one Frege and Russell espoused throughout their careers. Later, Boole elaborated PWR in 1854 from the pluralistic multiple-universes perspective. (shrink)

"Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) was America's most profound, versatile, and original philosopher, the originator of pragmaticism and one of the most remarkable minds that the nineteenth century produced. This collection introduces the general reader to the many sides of his work and reproduces, along with the nine famous essays, unpublished or otherwise inaccessible material in which Peirce presented the humanistic and cultural aspects of science and philosophy as he saw them." --.

The existence of conflicting messages on the role and status of the university is linked to a wider paradox of values about science in society. Value is attributed to science and assumed by the university in the context of the move to knowledge-based economies and societies, yet this has not been accompanied by a systematic and balanced debate about the values that should underpin socio-economic change. Questions are then raised about both the effectiveness of public policy and the role (...) of universities in society. A reconnection between the application and production of knowledge is needed, as well as the reinsertion of a normative framework for guiding and shaping change within universities. Only under such conditions can a meaningful debate on the roles of universities as places of expectation and spaces for reflection be realized. (shrink)

In Spain before the 1990s there was no clear and explicit comprehensive training for future engineers with regard to social responsibility and social commitment. Following the Spanish university curricular reform, which began in the early 1990s, a number of optional subjects became available to students, concerning science, technology and society (STS), international cooperation, the environment and sustainability. The latest redefinition of the Spanish curriculum in line with the Bologna agreements has reduced the number of non-obligatory subjects, but could lead to (...) improving preparation for social responsibility due to the requirement that the design of curricula and the assessment of students should be based on competencies, some of which include human values and attitudes. (shrink)

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, which are presented annually at each of nine universities in the United States and England, are among the most prestigious and notable events of the academic year. This volume inaugurates a new interdisciplinary series of books based on the Tanner Lectures given at the University of California, Berkeley. The series aims to make these distinguished lectures, and the lively debates stimulated by their presentation in Berkeley, available to a broad readership.The Practice of Value (...) explores the nature of value and its relation to the social and historical conditions under which human agents live. At the core of the book are the Tanner Lectures delivered at Berkeley in 2001 by Joseph Raz, who has been one of the leading figures in moral and legal philosophy since the 1970s. Raz argues that values depend importantly on social practices, but that we can make sense of this dependence without falling back on cultural relativism. In response, three eminent philosophers, Christine Korsgaard, Robert Pippin, and Bernard Williams, offer their own distinctive reflections on the connections between value and practice. The book begins with an introduction by Jay Wallace, setting the scene for what follows, and ends with a response from Raz to his commentators. The result is a fascinating debate, accessible to readers throughout and beyond philosophy, about the relations between human values and human life. (shrink)

This article describes the history of the City University of New York (CUNY), demonstrating its value as a model for the creation of the Virtual University. Since the establishment of City College in the mid-19th Century, CUNY has continually confronted the challenge of providing quality, low-cost higher education to generations of diverse students. Today CUNY has come to serve as a model not only for effective urban education, but also as an approach to preparing an international student body for (...) a global future. This article details the challenges CUNY has confronted along the way. (shrink)

Student support services are the cardinal features of the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) System. In India, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), 13 state open universities and over 200 Distance Education Institutes (DEIs) attached to conventional universities and private/autonomous institutes offering programmes through the distance mode ( MHRD, 2013 ) have all created adequate provisions for learner support services and the systems, rules, regulations and norms have been put in place. However, it is significant that a learner in (...) the ODL system remains away from the teacher and the peer group. Thus, the learner feels isolated ( Das & Ghosh, 2011a ) and needs the empathy of all the functionaries concerned. It has been our experience at IGNOU that more often than not the functionaries fail to realize the value of a learner and the learner fails to understand the value attributed to him by the ODL system. Without such realization the rules and regulations lose their significance. Hence, inculcation of values is of paramount importance in the functioning of the ODL system. In this article we have discussed about ‘inculcation of values’ among the ‘learners’ as well as the ‘functionaries’ for developing ‘best practices’ in learner support services in the ODL system. The inputs are based primarily on direct experiences of the authors. (shrink)

Our universe supports life because of some rather remarkable coincidences. If the values of the physical constants that govern the fundamental forces and interactions in our universe were just a bit different, then life (or at least, life as we know it) would be impossible. I devoted a previous column (“The ‘Real World’ and The Standard Model”, Analog, May 1996) to a discussion of some of the consequences of tinkering with some of the physical constants, but let me give some (...) further examples here. (shrink)

During his lifetime Peirce was appreciated for his erudite and accurate thinking by experts in a few borderline philosophical subjects—in particular the history and philosophy of physics, semeiotics, mathematical logic, the theory of probability—and was suspected by a few prescient souls to be a general philosopher of outstanding genius; but by academic and other publishers he was consistently regarded as a bad bet. These facts largely explain the history of Peircean publication in the last few decades. It was only in (...) 1958, nearly fifty years since Peirce stopped writing, that the wealthiest university in the wealthiest nation in the world was able to complete its eight volume edition of his Collected Papers; but in the meanwhile at least three useful smaller anthologies of Peirce’s writings had been put before the public. Professor Wiener’s volume makes a fourth. And the obvious initial question is: was this additional anthology really necessary? (shrink)

Robert Stecker investigates the universal human need for aesthetic experience of the world around us. He examines three contexts where aesthetic value plays a central role: art, nature, and the everyday. He explores how the aesthetic interacts with moral, cognitive, and functional values, and considers the place of the aesthetic in a good life.

Value pluralism is the idea, most prominently endorsed by Isaiah Berlin, that fundamental human values are universal, plural, conflicting, and incommensurable with one another. Incommensurability is the key component of pluralism, undermining familiar monist philosophies such as utilitarianism. But if values are incommensurable, how do we decide between them when they conflict? George Crowder assesses a range of responses to this problem proposed by Berlin and developed by his successors. Three broad approaches are especially important: universalism, contextualism, and conceptualism. (...) Crowder argues that the conceptual approach is the most fruitful, yielding norms of value diversity, personal autonomy, and inclusive democracy. Historical context must also be taken into account. Together these approaches indicate a liberal politics of redistribution, multiculturalism, and constitutionalism, and a public policy in which basic values are carefully balanced. The Problem of Value Pluralism: Isaiah Berlin and Beyond is a uniquely comprehensive survey of the political theory of value pluralism and also an original contribution by a leading voice in the pluralist literature. Scholars and researchers interested in the work of Berlin, liberalism, value pluralism, and related ideas will find this a stimulating and valuable source. (shrink)

There has recently been a reappraisal of value in UK construction and calls from a wide range of influential individuals, professional institutions and government bodies for the industry to exceed stakeholders’ expectations and develop integrated teams that can deliver world class products and services. As such value is certainly topical, but the importance of values as a separate but related concept is less well understood. Most construction firms have well-defined and well-articulated values, expressed in annual reports and on (...) websites; however, the lack of rigorous and structured approaches published within construction management research and the practical, unsupported advice on construction institution websites may indicate a shortfall in the approaches used. This article reviews and compares the content and␣structure of some of the most widely used values approaches, and discusses their application within the construction sector. One of the most advanced and empirically tested theories of human values is appraised, and subsequently adopted as a suitable approach to eliciting and defining shared organisational values. Three studies within six construction organisations demonstrate the potential application of this individually grounded approach to reveal and align the relative values priorities of individuals and organisations to understand the strength of their similarity and difference. The results of these case studies show that this new universal values structure can be used along with more qualitative elicitation techniques to understand organisational cultures. (shrink)

Despite powerful strategic approaches in the health systems in many afTluent countries, the pandemic that has hit us has cascaded beyond the imagination of many civil societies around the world. There is a call for a higher understanding and practice as the contents in the social media reTlected an urgency to understand more on the healing effects of the body, mind and spirit. In fact, contents in social media highlighted many coping mechanisms which were related to religious, cultural and spiritual (...) values. The public expressed information that included remedies for the body, mind and the spiritual aspects of humanity and their interconnectedness with the environment. These narratives were equally as signiTicant as the logistic arrangements, professional and political decision making among the healthcare professions and members of other inter-related health networks. The results of the COVID-19 outbreak has crea ted a deeper unders tanding, o f a higher consciousness as populations around the world recognize that the world works as one large organism trying to balance the ethical and unethical practices rampant in our societies. This paper proposes the integration of “change theory” to explore the various existing elements in narratives of the public and research studies from healthcare practices. An exploratory analysis of contents in social media and the related literature in healthcare and nursing studies has revealed speciTic patterns which helped put the theory in perspective and to formulate a model for future understanding on what common universal values exist in the commonly existing patterns. (shrink)

Horizons is a critical inventory of value-related thinking, demonstrating that the mind has the ability to profile a distinctive circumstance in diverse ways. Readers are first invited to a historical inquiry into typical configurations of values, their collisions, and the worldviews that drive them. They are then introduced to the epistemologies employed by the social sciences, so that they are better able to gauge the potential of these disciplines for coming to terms with values. Axiology is portrayed as a (...) field that has broken free from its neo-Kantian roots, benefiting from challenging new conceptual frames based in documents with global reach-mainly the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After scrutiny of what various sociological models claim about values and the way in which empirical surveys approach them, Horizons reaffirms the assumption that social life and its dynamics condition the fate of values. Yet, for the sake of more accurate accounts, research should consider to a greater extent social stratification, and pressing macrosocial problems such as environmental protection, sustainable development, and attainment of some form of global equity. Social sciences' limitations modulate their ability to serve as an unequivocal guide for value choices. These limitations are a problem because of the significance of the process of dialogue and deliberation in value-related fields. Rather than advancing the allegedly universal characteristics of any one culture, in a world consisting of many civilizations, the imperative is to acknowledge pluralism and discern what is held in common. (shrink)

Originally published in 1933, this book was developed from a dissertation written at Cambridge University in 1929. The text provides a concise discussion regarding the nature of value and value theories, taking the view that an understanding of value is 'a no less necessary part of the equipment of every competent philosopher, than is epistemology'. This book will be of importance to anyone with an interest in theories of value and the history of philosophy.

Taking as his starting-point the emerging scientific view of the universe as a free, unpredictable, self-ordering evolutionary process in which human cultural history plays a leading part, Turner (arts and humanities, U. of Texas at Dallas) ...

The basic concept of Bentham's moral and political philosophy was public utility. He linked it directly with the concept of the universal interest, which comprises a distinctive partnership of the interests of all members of the community. The ultimate end of government and aim of all of morality is ‘the advancement of the universal interest’. This essay articulates the structure of Bentham's notion of universal interest and locates it in his theory of value.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 411-412 [Access article in PDF] Deborah Achtenberg. Cognition of Value in Aristotle's Ethics: Promise of Enrichment, Threat of Destruction. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 218. Paper, $20.95.Deborah Achtenberg argues that, for Aristotle, virtue is a disposition to respond to situations with the appropriate emotions, where emotions are understood as perceptions of the (...) class='Hi'>value of particulars. To perceive the value of a particular is to perceive that particular as a limit; some limits enable what they limit to be more fully what it is, while other limits do the opposite. My activity in writing this review, for example, is "limited" both by the rules of grammar and by my computer's tendency to crash frequently; one kind of limit enriches my activity, while the other hinders and threatens it (hence Achtenberg's subtitle). An enabling limit is a telos or end; something is a telos of yours if it connects you to a larger context that in some way fulfills or completes you.Achtenberg's interpretation enables her to steer Aristotle clear of a number of persistent false dichotomies. For example: is the doctrine of the mean an uninspiring counsel to do the middling thing, or a vacuous counsel to do whatever one ought to do? Neither, says Achtenberg; rather, it is Aristotle's way of insisting on the flexibility of the virtuous person's [End Page 411] responses. Is Aristotle siding, then, with Odysseus, who suppressed his emotions in order to suit his actions to the demands of the occasion, as against Achilles, who stubbornly followed his emotions regardless of circumstance? No, that dichotomy falls as well: the virtuous person has flexible emotional (not just behavioral) responses, and so can be as adaptable as Odysseus yet as sincere as Achilles.Does Aristotle's ethics have a metaphysical foundation, or is it autonomous? Achtenberg dissolves that dichotomy by distinguishing two different ways in which Aristotle takes ethics to be an "imprecise" science. First, ethics and metaphysics are both imprecise, because they share a common subject-matter (final causation) that is an analogical equivocal and so indefinable. Second, ethics is less precise than metaphysics because ethics can establish that, but not explain why, its claims are true. Metaphysics can explain the why of ethics, but for practical purposes the why is not necessary; so metaphysics is explanatorily but not epistemically prior to ethics.How can Aristotle's particularist-sounding denial that the virtuous person needs rules be reconciled with his insistence that the virtuous person follows a logos? Must we play down the logos passage, or instead conclude that Aristotle is a rule-theorist after all? Once again, neither: in this context, Achtenberg suggests, logos means "analogy," not "rule." Since goodness is an analogical equivocal, perceiving goodness means perceiving analogies. Being transcategorial, these analogies are not definable or codifiable, so the rule-theorists are wrong; but we are grasping something common to all good things, so the particularists are wrong too.Let me close with a couple of criticisms. Once the notion of an enabling limit has been established, Achtenberg seems to accept as unproblematic the inference to the legitimacy of paternalistic legislation: citizens are more free, not less, for being subjected to such coercion. Now on a view that regarded persons primarily as moral patients or recipients, it might be reasonable enough to elide in this way the difference between imposing limits on oneself and having them imposed by external compulsion; but it is harder to see how forcibly imposed limits could be constitutive of a life's being happier when happiness is defined, with Aristotle, as a self-generated activity.I think Achtenberg also fails to catch one false dichotomy. She contrasts Aristotle's theory, which seeks to increase and enhance emotional awareness, with the Stoic theory (as represented by Marcus Aurelius), which seeks to decrease or suppress such awareness. The contrast seems to me misleading. Both Aristotle and the Stoics agree that moral maturation involves... (shrink)

This is a study that investigated the extent of use of the three principles of ethics – utility, morality, and justice – in managerial ethical decision making, in addition to the personal attitude towards them. It involved undergraduate and graduate business students (total N=163) from the Olayan School of Business in the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Two kinds of measurements were done: self assessment, and testing with the Saschkin’ s Managerial Value Profile (1997). It showed that morality was (...) the overriding ethical principle used, especially in the graduate group (professionals). Business students still believed in the justice system despite the weakness of the country’s law. Utility was the least used, although males were found to be more utilitarian than females. Finally there was no relation between personal attitudes toward the three ethical principles, and the intentional behavior when faced with ethical dilemmas. The findings were discussed and recommendations were given. (shrink)

Science, material, idealism, pragmaticism, history of scientific thought.

There is a need to provide an appropriate normative conception of the modern university: a conception which identifies its unifying purposes and values and, thereby, gives direction to institutional role occupants, governments, public policymakers and other would-be institutional designers. Such a conception could admit differences between modern universities; differences, for example, between so-called universities of technology and other universities. Indeed, it is preferable to frame the issue at the level of higher education or university systems rather than at the level (...) of individual universities. According to the teleological normative theory of social institutions, social institutions are organizations or systems of organizations that provide collective goods by means of joint activity; universities are no exception. So what are the fundamental collective good that universities of technology, or the larger systems of which they are a part, ought to be providing and how are they travelling in this regard? This is the question addressed in this paper. (shrink)

In the applied sciences and in engineering there is often a significant overlap between work at universities and in industry. For the individual scholar, this may lead to serious conflicts when working on joint university–industry projects. Differences in goals, such as the university’s aim to disseminate knowledge while industry aims to appropriate knowledge, might lead to complicated situations and conflicts of interest. The detailed cases of two electrical engineers and two architects working at two different universities of technology illustrate the (...) kinds of problems individual scholars face in university–business collaborations. These cases are based on qualitative interviews and additional data and demonstrate that, while value conflicts emerge on the organizational level, it is primarily the individual researcher who must deal with such conflicts. This analysis adds to existing studies in two ways: first, it explicitly addresses normative issues framed in terms of ethical and social values, thereby going beyond the common social-science perspective of university–business collaboration. Secondly, it provides qualitative insights, thereby identifying details and issues not apparent in quantitative studies. In particular, it is evident that university–industry collaborations are prone to value conflicts not only in research but also in education and job training. (shrink)

This book is based on arguments presented in Achtenberg’s 1982 doctoral dissertation and several of her recent articles. In this book, Achtenberg forcefully and convincingly argues that a crucial connection exists between Aristotle’s metaphysics and ethics and that Aristotle’s ethics can be read on two levels—“in terms of its imprecise but fully justified claims,” or “in terms of the more precise metaphysical, physical, and psychological principles and arguments consideration of which gives the ethics greater articulation or depth”. She argues that (...) ethical virtue and emotions for Aristotle are cognitive: they involve cognition, not simply of particulars, but of the value of the particulars. In this, Achtenberg presents a sort of value realism that is, paradoxically, relative and relational at the same time. For Aristotle, she contends, “there are two principal types of value,” “the good and the beautiful”. The good is an analogical equivocal, that is, an imprecise universal that shares some important similarity among its instantiations but will show up in the particulars in varied and oftentimes wholly unexpected ways. Achtenberg further argues that the good and the beautiful can be understood in terms of metaphysical concepts of telos, entelecheia, or energeia of a thing, a person, or an act because telos is what makes a thing complete, truly being “what it is.” In sum, “[a] telos is a principle of preservation or enrichment” for the things of which it is the telos, just as sight is the telos of the eyes, and virtue is “energeia of the soul”. Although telos sets a limit concerning what is to be done and what is not, it is the kind of limit that is properly called “constitutive limit” as opposed to harmful or destructive limit. Ethical virtue, friendship, and just government are examples of telos as constitutive limitation because they make the subjects that possess them flourish, whereas moral vice, animosity, and unjust government are examples of destructive limitation. In light of this, Achtenberg offers a new interpretation of the Aristotelian “mean,” which denotes neither a trivial middling amount nor an uninspiring routinized behavior, but what is “the appropriate or the needed” in each situation. She concludes that, contrary to many other moral theorists, Aristotle’s appreciation of the perception of the value of the particulars as constituents of a flourishing life is an example of “imaginative construction” that makes parts meaningful in light of the whole, rather than an imaginative deconstruction that reduces a whole into senseless parts. She sums up the book by providing an assessment of Aristotle’s ethics in terms of its strengths and weaknesses. (shrink)

Adam Sedgwick's complaint that Darwin's rejection of final causes indicated a "demoralized understanding" cannot easily be dismissed: if nothing happens because it should, our opinions about what is morally beautiful are no more than projections. Darwin was carrying out an Enlightenment project — to exclude final causes or God's purposes from science because we could not expect to know what they were. That abandonment of final causes was an episode in religious history, a reaction against complacent idolatry, an attempt to (...) purify the soul. By not moralizing the universe we were to be released to see the beauty in all its parts, and in the whole, and so to acknowledge our own selves as fragments or facets of a cosmos whose value transcends our petty purposes. Unfortunately, later thinkers, forgetful of the priority of value (both in human life and in the universe at large), supposed that merely material causes could and (weirdly) should explain away the very recognition of value which drives us and the world. If Darwin had been right — if we value what we do solely because our ancestors somehow outbred their cousins — there could be no authority in science, nor any real distinction between savages and sages (except, no doubt, that savages have more descendants). If he is wrong, then the way is open to consider that archetypes and values, as partial realizations of the single, simple, transcendent One, have had an effect on Nature as well as on our attitudes. The 'moral', so to speak, is always breaking in on the 'material', and always losing its way, to be renewed again. The real explanation of the world's existence, and of life's, is that God wills it so. This does not enable us to predict what else He wills, any more than Darwinian theory itself can actually predict in anything but the broadest, emptiest of terms. Without an appeal to that, broadly Platonic, picture there can be no genuine explanation of the world's variety, nor any duty to seek one. (shrink)

In addition to a code of conduct for researchers, it is desirable to implement a code of conduct for funders of research. This is because researchers often behave unethically as a result of direct and/or indirect pressure from funders. The paper provides an expansion of the first proposal for such a code of conduct and includes several elements such as “policy relevant research should not be contracted and supervised by a client with an interest in the outcomes”, and “policy relevant (...) research should always be examined by an independent institute”. (shrink)

1. When we face a choice among conflicting actions, it is necessary to prioritize one action over others. This paper explores the issue of whether there is a universal priority, and if so, how we c...