Kant's Moral Religion argues that Kant's doctrine of religious belief if consistent with his best critical thinking and, in fact, that the "moral arguments"--along with the faith they justify--are an integral part of Kant's critical thinking.

Die"Vorlesung über Moralphilosophie" aus den 1770er Jahren ist eine wichtige Erläuterung und Ergänzung zur "Grundlegung der Metaphysik der Sitten"von 1785. Die Neuedition der so genannten Menzer-Vorlesung präsentiert diese Vorlesung auf dem aktuellen Stand der Forschung. Zugrunde gelegt ist die Nachschrift Kaehler, die seit 1997 zum Kant-Archiv in Marburg gehört. Abgeglichen ist der Text mit mehreren Handschriften des Archivs der Berlin-Bandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Staatsbibliothek Berlin. Ein Anhang mit textkritischem Apparat und Erläuterungen zu Literatur und Personen sowie eine Einleitung (...) von Manfred Kühn erschließen die Vorlesung für alle, die sich für die Kant'sche Philosophie der Ethik interessieren. (shrink)

The foundation for a system of morals, this 1749 work is a landmark of moral and political thought. Its highly original theories of conscience, moral judgment, and virtue offer a reconstruction of the Enlightenment concept of social science, embracing both political economy and theories of law and government.

This book explores Kant's views on the concept of God and on the attempt to demonstrate God's existence as a means of understanding Kant's work as a whole and of achieving a proper appreciation of the contents of Kant's moral faith.

Within certain philosophical debates, most notably those concerning the limits of our knowledge, agnosticism seems a plausible, and potentially the right, stance to take. Yet, in order to qualify as a proper stance, and not just the refusal to adopt any, agnosticism must be shown to be in opposition to both endorsement and denial and to be answerable to future evidence. This paper explicates and defends the thesis that agnosticism may indeed define such a third stance that is weaker than (...) scepticism and hence offers a genuine alternative to realism and anti-realism about our cognitive limits. (shrink)

As global business operations expand, managers need more knowledge of foreign cultures, in particular, information on the ethics of doing business across borders. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to share the Islamic perspective on business ethics, little known in the west, which may stimulate further thinking and debate on the relationships between ethics and business, and to provide some knowledge of Islamic philosophy in order to help managers do business in Muslim cultures. The case of Egypt illustrates some (...) divergence between Islamic philosophy and practice in economic life. The paper concludes with managerial implications and suggestions for further research. (shrink)

Fodor argues that our minds must have epistemic limitations because there must be endogenous constraints on the class of concepts we can acquire. However, his argument for the existence of these endogenous constraints is falsified by the phenomenon of the deferential acquisition of concepts. If we allow for the acquisition of concepts through deferring to experts and scientific instruments, then our conceptual capacity will be without endogenous constraints, and there will be no reason to think that our minds are epistemically (...) bounded. (shrink)

Human beings have the unique ability to view the world in a detached way: We can think about the world in terms that transcend our own experience or interest, and consider the world from a vantage point that is, in Nagel's words, "nowhere in particular". At the same time, each of us is a particular person in a particular place, each with his own "personal" view of the world, a view that we can recognize as just one aspect of the (...) whole. How do we reconcile these two standpoints--intellectually, morally, and practically? To what extent are they irreconcilable and to what extent can they be integrated? Thomas Nagel's ambitious and lively book tackles this fundamental issue, arguing that our divided nature is the root of a whole range of philosophical problems, touching, as it does, every aspect of human life. He deals with its manifestations in such fields of philosophy as: the mind-body problem, personal identity, knowledge and skepticism, thought and reality, free will, ethics, the relation between moral and other values, the meaning of life, and death. Excessive objectification has been a malady of recent analytic philosophy, claims Nagel, it has led to implausible forms of reductionism in the philosophy of mind and elsewhere. The solution is not to inhibit the objectifying impulse, but to insist that it learn to live alongside the internal perspectives that cannot be either discarded or objectified. Reconciliation between the two standpoints, in the end, is not always possible. (shrink)

Media reporting of recent business scandals, ranging from systemic accounting fraud to individual executive greed, has shed new light on the urgent need for organizational ethics in corporate America. The essay argues that organizational ethics can foster virtuous organizations by developing their sense of stewardship and integrity. This approach can inspire the ethical decision-making processes and standards of conduct for personnel throughout the organization. Another crucial role for organizational ethics is to regain lost trust and to recover the confidence of (...) our communities, whether we are discussing the business community or the health care community. Corporate America and organizations in health care need to win back the respect of skeptical customers, disheartened patients, and distrusting communities. But this task can be accomplished properly only when organizations and their business practices have a renewed commitment to ethics. The essay discusses how organizational ethics can permeate the entire organization in order to instill trust and confidence among its constituencies. Although the focus of the essay is upon the role of organizational ethics in health care, the argument also applies to the renewal of business practices in corporations across the nation. (shrink)

There are two ways that we might respond to the underdetermination of theory by data. One response, which we can call the agnostic response, is to suspend judgment: "Where scientific standards cannot guide us, we should believe nothing". Another response, which we can call the fideist response, is to believe whatever we would like to believe: "If science cannot speak to the question, then we may believe anything without science ever contradicting us". C.S. Peirce recognized these options and suggested evading (...) the dilemma. It is a Logical Maxim, he suggests, that there could be no genuine underdetermination. This is no longer a viable option in the wake of developments in modern physics, so we must face the dilemma head on. The agnostic and fideist responses to underdetermination represent fundamentally different epistemic viewpoints. Nevertheless, the choice between them is not an unresolvable struggle between incommensurable worldviews. There are legitimate considerations tugging in each direction. Given the balance of these considerations, there should be a modest presumption of agnosticism. This may conflict with Peirce's Logical Maxim, but it preserves all that we can preserve of the Peircean motivation. (shrink)

Hegel seeks to overturn Kant's conclusion that our knowledge is restricted, or that we cannot have knowledge of things as they are in themselves. Understanding this Hegelian ambition requires distinguishing two Kantian characterizations of our epistemic limits: First, we can have knowledge only within the "bounds of experience". Second, we cannot have knowledge of objects that would be accessible only to a divine intellectual intuition, even though the faculty of reason requires us to conceive of such objects. Hegel aims to (...) drive a wedge between these two characterizations, showing that we can have knowledge beyond Kant's bounds of experience, yet without need of divine intuition. And attention to such knowledge is supposed to show that we have no legitimate need to even conceive of divine intuition and its objects - and no need to conclude that our own knowledge is restricted by comparison, or that we cannot know things as they are in themselves. I focus here on the initial case Hegel uses to introduce this extended argument strategy: we can have more knowledge of natural kinds and laws than would be allowed by Kant's bounds of experience. (shrink)

John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza have constructed a theory of moral responsibility according to which agents are responsible only if they take responsibility in a particular way. Crucial to taking responsibility is coming to adopt a certain set of beliefs about oneself, such as the belief that one is a legitimate target of attitudes like gratitude and resentment, praise and blame. Moreover, agents must come to adopt this belief in a way that is ‘appropriately based’ upon their evidence, if (...) they are to be genuinely responsible for what they do. In this paper I argue that agents need not meet these conditions in order to be morally responsible. I offer a case in which the agent thinks of himself as responsible, appears to be responsible, but fails to take responsibility in Fischer and Ravizza’s sense. I then argue that Fischer and Ravizza’s account of responsibility for consequences is in conflict with their contention that individuals who reject the justifiability of responsibility ascriptions fail, thereby, to be morally responsible agents. (shrink)

Recent policy developments within the public service sector have led to widespread de-professionalisation and a general loss of motivation and morale within education, health and social work. This state of affairs has been brought about by the imposition of a social market on public sector professions and through the introduction of competence-based education and training (CBET) strategies into professional studies. These developments are criticised for their failure to capture the essential epistemological and moral dimensions of the work of professionals, and (...) programmes for professional regeneration are recommended through the renewed emphasis on the workplace as the site of professional learning. Work-based learning may enable professionals to re-affirm the importance of experiential learning and reinforce the centrality of the ethical bases of professional practice. (shrink)

Laws, codes, and rules are essential for any community, public or private, to operate in an orderly and productive fashion. Without laws and codes, anarchy and chaos abound and the purpose and role of the organization is lost. However, danger is significant, and damage serious and far-reaching when individuals or organizations become so focused on rules, laws, and specifications that basic principles are ignored. This paper discusses the purpose of laws, rules, and codes, to help understand basic principles. With such (...) an understanding an increase in the level of ethical and moral behavior can be obtained without imposing detailed rules. (shrink)

This paper develops a typology of moral problems in business. The cross-classification of two fundamental dimensions of ethical conduct: judgment and motivation, is employed to distinguish four types of moral problems: genuine dilemmas, compliance problems, moral laxity, and no-problem problems. Actual cases are brought to illustrate each type of problem, and corresponding coping strategies are presented. The paper highlights the need to design a dynamic strategy that will take into account the relationships among different types of ethical problems. In its (...) capacities as both an analytical tool for identifying and clarifying an ethical problem and a strategic tool for handling it, the typology has direct implications for developing ethical awareness, assigning accountability, and unfolding typical rationalizations in business activity. (shrink)

One of the most notable aspects of Fodor's work is that it articulates features not only of speculative cognitive architectures but also of current research in ...

This study responds to suggestions that business-school faculty are promoting distorted views of human nature and out-dated notions of ethics. Specifically, the paper examines in-depth interviews with a sample of 15 faculty centrally-positioned within the field’s symbolic market, namely, academics who completed their Ph.D. programs in the same institutional space as the editors of five top accounting journals. The paper finds that ethics are for the most part important to these individuals, but that the field’s general adherence to the neoclassical (...) economic model creates pressures that militate against a deeper concern for and more adequate treatment of the topic. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to advance research on CSR beyond the stalemate of economic versus ethical models by providing an alternative perspective integrating existing views and allowing for more shared dialog and research in the field. It is suggested that we move beyond making a normative case for ethical models and practices of CSR by moving beyond the question of how to manage organizational self-interest toward the question of how accurate current conceptions of the organizational self seem to (...) be. Specifically, it is proposed that CSR is not a question of how self-interested the corporation should be, but how this self is defined. Economic and ethical models of CSR are not models of opposition but exist on a continuum between egoic and post-egoic, illusory and authentic conceptions of the organizational self. This means that moving from one to the other is not a question of adopting different paradigms but rather of moving from illusion and dysfunction to authenticity and functionality, from pathology to health. (shrink)

Abstract:This study explores a phenomenon that has been shown to adversely affect managers’ decisions—competitive irrationality. Managers are irrationally competitive in their decisions when they focus on damaging the profits of competitors, rather than improving their own profit performance. Studies by Armstrong and Collopy (1996) and Griffith and Rust (1997) suggest that the phenomenon is common but not universal. We examine the question of why some individuals exhibit competitive irrationality when making decisions, while others do not by focusing on four aspects (...) of moral philosophy—deontological orientation, cognitive moral development, idealism, and relativism. Results suggest that individuals high in deontological orientation, high in cognitive moral development, high in idealism, and low in relativism will be less competitively irrational than those who are not. (shrink)

This book addresses Muslim business community members who have to deal with ethical situations on a day-to-day basis. It gives key principles of management from an Islamic point of view. Its goal is to help Muslims engaged in business to act in accordance with the Islamic system of ethics. The writer’s experience with different Islamic activities give him a practical background that supports and enlightens his academic knowledge in the vital fields of business management and administration.

Peter Byrne presents a detailed study of the role of the concept of God in Kant's Critical Philosophy. After a preliminary survey of the major interpretative disputes over the understanding of Kant on God, Byrne explores his critique of philosophical proofs of God¿s existence. Examining Kant¿s account of religious language, Byrne highlights both the realist and anti-realist elements contained within it. The notion of the highest good is then explored, with its constituent elements - happiness and virtue, in pursuit of (...) an assessment of how far Kant establishes that we must posit God. The precise role God plays in ethics according to Kant is then examined, along with the definition of religion as the recognition of duties as divine commands. Byrne also plots Kant¿s critical re-working of the concept of grace. The book closes with a survey of the relation between the Critical Philosophy and Christianity on the one hand and deism on the other. (shrink)

This study synthesizes current information from the various fields of cognitive science in support of a new and exciting theory of mind. Most psychologists study horizontal processes like memory and information flow; Fodor postulates a vertical and modular psychological organization underlying biologically coherent behaviors. This view of mental architecture is consistent with the historical tradition of faculty psychology while integrating a computational approach to mental processes. One of the most notable aspects of Fodor's work is that it articulates features not (...) only of speculative cognitive architectures but also of current research in artificial intelligence. (shrink)

This is the most up-to-date, brief and accessible introduction to Kant's ethics available. It approaches the moral theory via the political philosophy, thus allowing the reader to appreciate why Kant argued that the legal structure for any civil society must have a moral basis. This approach also explains why Kant thought that our basic moral norms should serve as laws of conduct for everyone. The volume includes a detailed commentary on Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant's most widely studied (...) work of moral philosophy. The book complements the author's much more comprehensive and systematic study Immanuel Kant's Moral Theory, a volume that has received the highest critical praise. With its briefer compass and non-technical style this new introduction should help to disseminate the key elements of one of the great modern philosophies to an even wider readership. (shrink)

Alain Badiou, one of the most powerful voices in contemporary French philosophy, shows how our prevailing ethical principles serve ultimately to reinforce an ...

First published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Upon what kind of moral order does capitalism rest? Conversely, does the market give rise to a distinctive set of beliefs, habits, and social bonds? These questions are certainly as old as social science itself. In this review, we evaluate how today's scholarship approaches the relationship between markets and the moral order. We begin with Hirschman's characterization of the three rival views of the market as civilizing, destructive, or feeble in its effects on society. We review recent work at the (...) intersection of sociology, economics, and political economy and show that these views persist both as theories of market society and moral arguments about it. We then argue that a fourth view, which we call moralized markets, has become increasingly prominent in economic sociology. This line of research sees markets as cultural phenomena and moral projects in their own right, and seeks to study the mechanisms and techniques by which such projects are realized in practice. (shrink)