In professional medical ethics, the physician traditionally is obliged to fulfil specific duties as well as to embody a responsible and trustworthy personality. In the public discussion, different concepts are suggested to describe the desired moral attitude of physicians. In a series of three articles, three of the discussed concepts are presented in an interpretation that is meant to characterise the morally emotional part of this attitude: “empathy”, “compassion” and “care”. In the first article of the series, “empathy” has been (...) developed as a mainly cognitive and morally neutral capacity of understanding. In the second article, the emotional and virtuous core of the desired professional attitude—compassion—has been presented. Compassion as a professional attitude has been distinguished from a spontaneous feeling of compassion, and has been related to a general idea of man as vulnerable and solidary being. Thus, the dignity of the patient is safeguarded in spite of the asymmetry of compassion. In this article, the third concept of the triad—“care”—is presented. Care is conceived as an attitude as well as an activity which can be directed to different objects: if it is directed to another sentient being, it is regarded as intrinsically morally valuable; implying (1) the acceptance of being addressed, (2) a benevolent inclination to help and to foster, and (3) activity to realize this. There are different forms of benevolence that can underlie caring. With regard to the professional physician’s ethos, the attitude of empathic compassion as developed in the two previous articles is proposed to be the adequate underlying attitude of care which demands the right balance between closeness and professionalism and the right form of attention to the person of the patient. ‘Empathic compassionate care’ does not, however, describe the whole of the desired attitude of a physician, but focuses on the morally-emotive aspects. In order to get also the cognitive and practical aspects of biomedicine into the picture, ‘empathic compassionate care’ has to be combined with an attitude of responsibility that is more directed to decision-making and outcome than a caring attitude alone can be. The reconstruction of the desired professional attitude in terms of “empathic compassionate care” and “responsibility” is certainly not the only possible description, but it is a detailed proposal in order to give an impulse for the discussion about the inner tacit values and the meaning of medicine and clinical healthcare professions. (shrink)

This paper surveys some of the central issues in the philosophy of creativity and argues that an adequate treatment of them requires attention to the rich psychological literature on creativity. It also shows that the range of interesting philosophical questions to be raised about creativity is much wider than concerns its role in art. Issues covered include the definition of ‘creativity’; the relation of creativity to imagination; whether the creative process is rational; whether it is teleological; the relation of creativity (...) to knowledge; whether creativity can be explained; computational and Darwinian theories of creativity; whether creativity is a virtue; the relation of creativity to tradition; the aesthetic value of creativity; and whether creative activity is different in science and art. (shrink)

Prompted by Derrida's work on the animal-fable in eighteenth-century debates about political power, this article examines the role played by the fiction of the animal in thinking of pity as either a natural virtue (in Rousseau's Second Discourse) or as a natural passion (in Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees). The war of fables between Rousseau and Mandeville – and their hostile reception by Samuel Johnson and Adam Smith – reinforce that the animal-fable illustrates not so much the proper of (...) man as the possibilities and limitations of a moral philosophy that is unable to address the political realities of the state. (shrink)

Teamwork in sport presents a variety of special challenges and satisfactions. It requires an integration of talents and contributions from individual team members, which is a practical achievement, and it represents a shared pursuit, which is a moral achievement. In its best instances team sport allows members to transform individual interests into a common interest, and in the process discover of part of their own identities. Teamwork is made intelligible by the collective pursuit of victory, but moral requirements importantly condition (...) that activity. To some extent, the dynamic of team sport instantiates a basic experience of human sociality. (shrink)

This paper argues that trustworthiness is an epistemic virtue that promotes objectivity. I show that untrustworthy imposture can be an arrogant act of privilege that silences marginalized voices. But, as epistemologists of ignorance have shown, sometimes trickery and the betrayal of epistemic norms are important resistance strategies. This raises the question: when is betrayal of trust epistemically virtuous? After establishing that trust is central to objectivity, I argue for the following answer: a betrayal is epistemically vicious when it strengthens or (...) promotes oppressive, exclusive networks of trust, and a betrayal is epistemically virtuous when it expands trust networks to involve the oppressed. These criteria correctly account for both the epistemic vice of a recent case of Internet imposture and the epistemic virtue of resistant tricksters. (shrink)

Can men who dominate women nevertheless be happy or lead flourishing lives? Building on Claudia Card's exploration of moral luck, this paper considers the belief that male dominators cannot be happy. The discussion ranges over both virtue theory and empirical research into the "belief in a just world." I conclude that there are reasons to avoid believing that male dominators cannot be happy or flourish, and that feminism does not need that belief.

Responding to Derrida's Death Penalty Seminar of 1999–2000 and its interpretation by Michael Naas, in this paper I argue that Derrida's deconstruction of the theologico-political concept of the sovereign right over life and death in view of abolishing capital punishment should be understood in terms of the unconditional renunciation of sovereignty that dominates Derrida's later political writings, Rogues (2005) in particular. My reading takes seriously what I call the functional need for a “theological” moment in sovereignty beyond a merely historicist (...) or genealogical interpretation of the European monotheistic heritage. Further, I ask how Derrida can follow through on his goal of developing the allegedly first principled philosophical stance against capital punishment. To this end, I assemble some ingredients of this complex but “unconditional” abolitionism, one that doubts our comprehension of and active relation to death to the point of questioning the commonsense distinctions among murder, suicide, and legal putting to death. I conclude that, for Derrida, letting another die of hunger or AIDS may be understood as a form of a death sentence, so that a deconstructive abolitionism leaves no room for the development of a good conscience. (shrink)

Research into the proper mission of business falls within the context of theoretical and applied ethics. And ethics is fast becoming a part of required business school curricula. However, while business ethics research occasionally appears in high‐profile venues, it does not yet enjoy a regular place within any top management journal. I offer a partial explanation of this paradox and suggestions for resolving it. I begin by discussing the standard conception of human nature given by neoclassical economics as disseminated in (...) business schools; showing it is a significant obstacle to an accurate conception of ethics and how this limits consideration of sustainability and corporate social responsibility. I then examine the scope of the top management journals, showing how their empirical and descriptive focus leaves little room for ethics, which is an essentially conceptual and prescriptive discipline. Finally, I suggest avenues for research into the ethical mission of business, generally—and sustainability and CSR, in particular—by appeal to the precepts of Harvard Business School’s Master’s in Business Administration ethics oath modeled on the medical and legal professions. (shrink)

Developing themes in the work of Thomas Hill, I argue that servility is an underappreciated but pervasive reason for moral transgression. Recognizing servility as a basic cause of immorality obliges us to reconsider questions about the rationality of morality. Traditional answers to the problem of the immoralist, which tend to be stated in terms of enlightened self-interest, fail to properly engage the problems posed by 'servile immorality.' In response to these problems, I develop a Humean version of a traditionally Kantian (...) strategy for substantiating the rationality of morality: (i.e.) agents' conceptions of themselves commit them to accepting morality's authority. Servile behavior implies cognitive dissonance, which can restructure or dissolve those particular desires, beliefs, and projects that constitute agents' most highly valued contingent conceptions of themselves. I conclude that agents have reason to abstain from servility even on a parsimonious Humean account of practical reasons. (shrink)

Because of its reliance on a basically Aristotelian conception of virtue, contemporary virtue ethics is often criticised for being inherently elitist. I argue that this objection is mistaken. The core of my argument is that we need to take seriously that virtue, according to Aristotle, is something that we acquire gradually, via a developmental process. People are not just stuck with their characters once and for all, but can always aspire to become better (more virtuous). And that is plausibly the (...) basic normative requirement of virtue ethics. Philosophical Papers Vol. 37 (1) 2008: pp. 131-155. (shrink)

In business schools, there is a persistent myth according to which management education is, and should be, ‘value-free’. This article reflects on the experiences of two business schools from Finland and Australia in which the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education have been pragmatically used as a platform for breaking with this institutionalized guise of positivist value neutrality. This use of PRME makes it possible to create learning environments in which values and value tensions inherent in management education can be (...) explored and exposed. Inspired by Rorty’s understanding of ethics—notably his discussion of ‘final vocabularies’ and ‘moral imagination’—and Flyvbjerg’s reading of phronēsis, the article discusses an approach to learning that helps both teachers and students in exploring and exposing values in management education by problematizing dominant business school vocabularies, thereby leading to moral development, in the Rortian sense. The article presents a number of final vocabularies that business students come to class with, some learning methods used to challenge these vocabularies through discussion of alternative vocabularies, and the new directions for moral imagination that may result. (shrink)

What types of unity and disunity belong to a group of people sharing a culture? Husserl illuminates these communities by helping us trace their origin to two types of interpersonal act—cooperation and influence—though cultural communities are distinguished from both cooperative groups and mere communities of related influences. This analysis has consequences for contemporary concerns about multi- or mono-culturalism and the relationship between culture and politics. It also leads us to critique Husserl’s desire for a new humanity, one that is rational, (...) cooperatively united, and animated by a universal philosophical culture. Reflecting on culture, a spiritually shaped and shared domain of the world, draws us to reflect also on ourselves as social and rational animals, and to ask, what should we reasonably hope for—and aim for—in a human culture that expresses and supports our shared lives of reason? Aristotle is used for occasional comparisons and contrasts. (shrink)

McKay & Dennett (M&D) argue that positive illusions are a plausible candidate for a class of evolutionarily misbeliefs. I argue (Flanagan 1991; 2007) that the class of alleged positive illusions is a hodge-podge, and that some of its members are best understood as positive attitudes, hopes, and the like, not as beliefs at all.

As one component of a broader social and normative response to the problem of suicide, scientism served to minimize sociopolitical and religious conflict around the issue. As such, it embodied, and continues to embody, a number of interests and values, as well as serving important social functions. It is thus comparable with other normative frameworks and can be appraised, from an ethical perspective, in light of these values, interests, and functions. This work examines the key values, interests, and functions of (...) scientism in suicidology and argues that although scientism has had some social benefit, it primarily serves to maintain political and professional interests and has damaging implications for suicide research and prevention. (shrink)

Abstract: The notion that philosophy can be practised as a kind of therapy has become a focus of debate. This article explores how philosophy can be practised literally as a kind of therapy, in two very different ways: as philosophical therapy that addresses “real-life problems” (e.g., Sextus Empiricus) and as therapeutic philosophy that meets a need for therapy which arises in and from philosophical reflection (e.g., Wittgenstein). With the help of concepts adapted from cognitive and clinical psychology, and from cognitive (...) linguistics, the article shows that both philosophical projects address important and literally therapeutic tasks and explains how they can do so with genuinely philosophical argument and analysis. This brings into view new applications for philosophy, a need for therapy in core areas of the subject, and the outline of a new approach to meet what will be shown to be a central need. (shrink)

Nel Noddings claims that there is an important normative element in happiness. For support, she points to the Aristotelian idea of the eudaimonic life, a concept that is often translated into English as ‘the happy life’. However, in light of the wide divergence between the Aristotelian view of eudaimonia as a life of virtuous activity and most contemporary psychologists’ and lay people’s view of happiness as subjective wellbeing, the authors of this article believe that Noddings’s merging of the two has (...) several shortcomings. Aside from ambiguity and confusion, it encourages us to deny that, given the human condition, we must sometimes choose between happiness as pursuit of positive emotion and personal satisfaction and happiness as pursuit of the common good and the virtuous life. (shrink)

A standard thesis of contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics and some recent Heideggerian scholarship is that virtuous behavior can be performed immediately and spontaneously without engaging conscious processes of deliberative thought. It is also claimed that phronēsis either enables or is consistent with this possibility. In the Nicomachean Ethics, however, Aristotle identifies phronesis as the excellence of the calculative part of the intellect, claims that calculation and deliberation are the same and that it is the mark of the phronimos to be (...) able to deliberate well. He also insists that for an action to count as virtuous it must issue from rational choice, which he characterizes as determined by deliberation. It thus seems that any exegetically respectable attempt to explain virtuous action within an Aristotelian framework would need to integrate with some account of deliberative choice. This creates a tension in Aristotelian scholarship. In this paper, I shall formalize this tension in terms of an apparently inconsistent triad of claims and shall examine the merits of at least one prominent interpretation of phronesis with respect to its reconciliation. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is generally recognized as one of the three major schools of ethics, but is often waylaid by utilitarianism and deontology in business and management literature. EBSCO and ABI databases were used to look for articles in the Journal of Citation Reports publications between 1980 and 2011 containing the keywords ‘virtue ethics’, ‘virtue theory’, or ‘virtuousness’ in the abstract and ‘business’ or ‘management’ in the text. The search was refined to draw lists of the most prolific authors, the most (...) cited authors, the most cited articles, and the journals with the most virtue ethics publications. This information allows one to chart how virtue ethics articles have evolved through the decades and to establish ‘schools’ or clusters of authors as well as clusters of themes. The results of this quantitative analysis of authors, ‘schools’, themes, and publications provide a foundation for the future study of virtue ethics in business and management, identifying its achievements and potentials. (shrink)

The most popular concepts of happiness among psychologists and philosophers nowadays are concepts of happiness according to which happiness is defined as " satisfaction with life as a whole ". Such concepts are " Whole Life Satisfaction " concepts of happiness. I show that there are hundreds of non-equivalent ways in which a WLS conception of happiness can be developed. However, every precise conception either requires actual satisfaction with life as a whole or requires hypothetical satisfaction with life as a (...) whole. I show that a person can be "happy" at a time even though he is not actually satisfied with his life as a whole at that time. I also show that a person can be "happy" at a time even though it is not correct to say that if he were to think about his life at that time, he would be satisfied with it as a whole. My thesis is that if you think that happiness is the Good, you should avoid defining happiness as whole life satisfaction. (shrink)

Following the revival of virtue theory, some moral theorists have argued that virtue ethics can provide the basis for a radical politics. Such a politics essentially departs from the liberal model of the moral agent as an autonomous reason-giver. It instead privileges an understanding of the agent as conditioned by her community, and in the case of social oppression and marginalization, communal virtues may become a vehicle for social change. This essay compares political appropriations of virtue theory by Christian theologian (...) Stanley Hauerwas and secular feminist thinkers Lisa Tessman and Margaret Urban Walker. Hauerwas and feminist theorists both embrace a kind of embodied vulnerability as a political virtue, arguing that it enables more genuine social recognition. The virtue feminist critique is more robust than Hauerwas's, however, insofar as it understands mutual recognition to involve acknowledgment of social difference and the concomitant pursuit of justice. (shrink)

The paper begins with the plausible view that criminal responsibility should track moral responsibility, and explains its plausibility. A necessary distinction is then drawn between liability and answerability as two dimensions of responsibility, and is shown to underpin the distinction in criminal law between offences and defences. This enables us to distinguish strict liability from strict answerability, and to see that whilst strict criminal liability seems inconsistent with the principle that criminal responsibility should track moral responsibility, strict criminal answerability is (...) not. We must ask, therefore, whether, when and why strict criminal responsibility is unacceptable. (shrink)

Evidence exists that behavioral and social science researchers have been frustrated with regulations and institutional review boards (IRBs) from the 1970s through today. Making matters worse, many human participants protection instruction programs - now mandated by IRBs - offer inadequate reasons why researchers should comply with regulations and IRBs. Promoting compliance either for its own sake or to avoid penalties is contrary to the developmental aims of moral education and may be ineffective in fostering the responsible conduct of research. This (...) article explores the concept of professional virtue and argues that compliance is capable of becoming a professional virtue like scientific honesty. This requires, however, that regulatory and IRB demands contribute to human well-being and to the aims of research as a profession and that researchers, therefore, internalize the norms that underlie regulatory and IRB demands. This, in turn, requires a series of changes in the way society develops, promulgates, and enforces regulatory and IRB rules. The challenge is, simply put, to embed compliance into the world of living morality. (shrink)

Technological advancements in information systems over the past few decades have enabled firms to work with the major suppliers and customers in their supply chain in order to improve the performance of the entire channel. Tremendous benefits for all parties can be realized by sharing information and coordinating operations to reduce inventory requirements, improve quality, and increase customer satisfaction; but the companies must collaborate effectively to bring these gains to fruition. We consider two alternative methods of managing these interfirm supply (...) chain relationships in this article. The first, which we have named “dictatorial collaboration,” occurs when a dominant supply chain entity assumes control of the channel and forces the other firms to follow its edicts. We compare and contrast this method with “sustainable collaboration,” in which the parties share resources and engage in joint problem solving to improve the performance of the system as a whole. We use a virtue ethics lens to describe these methods of relationship management to suggest that sustainable collaboration is preferable to dictatorial collaboration both operationally and ethically in the long run. (shrink)

This article surveys the recently established field of enquiry called 'development ethics' - that is, ethical enquiry into the normative basis of socio-economic development. This covers two levels of enquiry. First, it involves enquiry into the nature of human well-being and the social norms within which the conditions of well-being should be promoted, and includes consideration of both the means and the ends of development. Second, it involves the ethical basis of the wider global framework within which the development of (...) countries takes place. This covers both the normative basis of international relations and the global relations between individuals in different parts of the world as expressed in the idea of global responsibility. (shrink)

This paper argues that most contemporary accounts of weakness of will either implicitly or explicitly assume that regret is a typical or even necessary element of standard cases of weakness of will and that this assumption is mistaken. I draw on empirical and philosophical work on self-assessment to show that regret need not accompany typical weak-willed behavior, and that we should therefore revise the dominant account of the difference between weakness of will and changes of mind.

Abstract: This paper argues that instances of what are typically called ‘epistemic irresponsibility’ are better understood as instances of moral or prudenial failure. This hypothesis covers the data and is simpler than postulating a new sui generis form of normativitiy. The irresponsibility alleged is that embeded in charges of ‘You should have known better!’ However, I argue, either there is some interest at stake in knowing or there is not. If there is not, then there is no irresponsibility. If there (...) is, it is either the inquirer's interests—in which case it is a prudential shortcoming—or someone else's interests are at stake—in which case it is a moral shortcoming. In no case, I argue, is there any need to postulate a form of normativity in epistemology other than the traditional epistemological norm that one's attitudes should fit the evidence one has. (shrink)

James Rachels argued against the possibility of finding some moral capacity in humans that confers upon them a unique dignity. His argument contends that Darwinism challenges such attempts, because Darwinism predicts that any morally valuable capacity able to bestow a unique dignity is likely present to a degree within both humans and non-human animals alike. I make the case, however, that some of Darwin's own thoughts regarding the nature of conscience provide a springboard for criticising Rachels's claim here. Using Darwin's (...) thoughts regarding conscience, I begin the project of grounding a revised account of human dignity in the human tendency to enshrine products of conscience within institutions. Specifically, I argue that this new account of human dignity is partly contingent upon humans creating institutions morally respectful of the values present within non-human nature. (shrink)

In this paper I interpret Montaigne’s essay, “On Educating Children”, as a pedagogical text through its performance of a distinct epistolary function, one that addresses the letter-recipient for the purpose of shaping the ideas, actions, and beliefs of that individual. At the same time, I also read “On Educating Children” within the context of the wider project of Montaigne’s Essays, which, as I suggest, is an ethical-aesthetic project of self-fashioning and self-cultivation. The net result is an interpretation of teaching as (...) an ethical-aesthetic practice of the self, one that is in concert with the interpretation of Montaigne’s writing of the Essays as a similar practice of the self. In order to build this case, I employ Michel Foucault’s fourfold schema of ethical subjectivity, mapping that schema onto “On Educating Children”, so as to reveal a unique pedagogy of self-formation—a pedagogy that works as much upon the self of the teacher as it does the self of the student. (shrink)

The Greek poets and philosophers, united in a belief that men and women perceive the world around them very poorly, for this reason describe much of human behavior as fumbling for happiness in the dark. By contrast, perception failure is anathema to the modern tradition, as even the most innocent sort plays havoc with modern preference axioms.

Jeffrey Stout's "Democracy and Tradition" puts forward a complex argument in favor of American democracy as a healthy and legitimate moral and political tradition in itself. Stout does not dwell on the place of his own work in the "pragmatic" approach to the study of religion in the last thirty years. This paper attempts to situate Stout's work in the approach to religion identified with Mary Douglas and Wayne Proudfoot and to suggest some of the consequences for comparative religious ethics (...) of his making that "pragmatic turn.". (shrink)

Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger and Herbert Fingarette's Confucius: The Secular as Sacred have had a continuous impact on cultural anthropology and the study of ancient Chinese thought, respectively, but neither has typically been read as a contribution to comparative religious ethics. This paper argues that both books developed from profound dissatisfaction with the empiricist presuppositions that dominated their fields into the 1970s and that both should be associated with the revival of American pragmatism that is currently driving a reinterpretation (...) of ethics as a social practice embedded in historically contingent discourse about agency, virtue, and social organization. This pragmatic turn results in a shift of comparative ethics away from issues of methods and metaethics in the direction of history and fieldwork as the preconditions for useful comparison. (shrink)

Robert P. George, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, xvi + 241 pp.

Cultural diversity is an inescapable reality and a concern in many businesses where it can often raise ethical questions and dilemmas. This paper aims to offer suggestions to certain problems facing managers in dealing with cultural diversity through the inspiration of Thomas Aquinas. Although he may be perceived as a voice from the distant past, we can still find in his writings helpful and original ideas and criteria. He welcomes cultural differences as a part of the perfection of the universe. (...) His systemic approach leads one to place the problem in its proper context, and to reflect on it from the perspective of virtue ethics, with a central role for practical wisdom and giving primacy to neighborly love and natural moral law. Rather than a set of rigid standards with no consideration of diversity Aquinas focuses on the common human ground, which allows for the indispensable dialogue between different positions. When dealing with practical questions, the problem is one of finding the right balance between general principle and cultural specifics, tolerance, and dialogue, always guided by practical wisdom. In this way, Aquinas’ approach is neither rigid ethical universalism with no consideration for diversity nor moral relativism with no place for any transcultural and absolute morals. (shrink)

Most modern ethicists and ethics textbooks assert that religion holds little or no place in ethics, including fields of professional ethics like medical ethics. This assertion, of course, implicitly refers to ethical reasoning, but there is much more to the ethical life and the practice of ethics—especially professional ethics—than reasoning. It is no surprise that teachers of practical ethics, myself included, often focus on reasoning to the exclusion of other aspects of the ethical life. Especially for those with a philosophical (...) background, reasoning is the most patent and pedagogically controllable aspect of the ethical life—and the most easily testable. And whereas there may be powerful reasons for the limitation of religion in this aspect of ethics, there are other aspects of the ethical life in which recognition of religious belief may arguably be more relevant and possibly even necessary. I divide the ethical life into three areas—personal morality, interpersonal morality, and rational morality—each of which I explore in terms of its relationship to religion, normatively characterized by the qualities of devotion, diversity, and reasoning, respectively. (shrink)

The leading accounts of respect for others usually assume that persons have a rational nature, which is a marvelous thing, so they should be respected like other objects of ‘awesome’ value. Kant's views about the ‘value’ of humanity, which have inspired contemporary discussions of respect, have been interpreted in this way. I propose an alternative interpretation in which Kant proceeds from our own rational self‐regard, through our willingness to reciprocate with others, to duties of respect for others. This strategy, which (...) shares some similarities with moral contractualism, offers a way to justify other‐regarding moral requirements from self‐regarding rational dispositions. (shrink)

Management scholars and social scientists investigate dynamics of subjective fairness perceptions in the workplace under the umbrella term “organizational justice.” Philosophers and ethicists, on the other hand, think of justice as a normative requirement in societal relationships with conflicting interests. Both ways of looking at justice have neither remained fully separated nor been clearly integrated. It seems that much could be gained and learned by more closely integrating the ethical and the empirical fields of justice. On the other hand, it (...) may simply not be possible to bridge the divide between the subjective empirical and the normative prescriptive justice as both fields pose different questions and rely on different assumptions and methods. In this paper, we propose a “reconciliation” model, as a third way of considering justice in the workplace, taking into account normative and psychological issues pertaining to justice. Through applying a reconciliation model, we provide a new way of looking at the interconnections between justice philosophy and organizational justice that could advance future research in both fields. Our model also implies that justice researchers can and should be concerned with the moral implications of their own subject of research. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to test the claim that epistemologists—virtue epistemologists in particular—have much to learn from virtue ethics. The essay begins with an outline of virtue ethics itself. This section concludes that a pure form of virtue ethics is likely to be unattractive, so the virtue epistemologist should examine the "impure" views of real philosophers. Aristotle is usually held up as the paradigm virtue ethicist. His doctrine of the mean is described, and it is explained how that (...) doctrine can provide a framework for an account of epistemic virtue. The conclusion of the essay is that a virtue epistemology based on analogies with virtue ethics, though well worth developing and considering, will face several challenges in fulfilling the significant promises that have been made on its behalf. (shrink)