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Full-Text Articles in Ethics and Political Philosophy

On The Ethics Of Capitalism, Stanislaw Cichocki, Boguslawa Lewandowska Sep 2008

On The Ethics Of Capitalism, Stanislaw Cichocki, Boguslawa Lewandowska

Bogusława Lewandowska

The aim of the paper is to present some reflections on the ethics of capitalism – the economic, social and political system which dominates today’s world and is seen by many as the only proper system. However there existed many critics (Saint-Simon, Simonde de Sismondi, Marks) of this system who called it inhuman, unjust, exploitive etc. and who proposed alternatives for capitalism. These were then challenged by advocates of capitalism (Hayek, Mises, Berger). They criticized alternatives of capitalism and tried to prove that freedom, individualism, initiative, economic growth and wealth can be best achieved in capitalism. They admitted that capitalism …


The Immigration Paradox: Alien Workers And Distributive Justice, Howard F. Chang Jul 2008

The Immigration Paradox: Alien Workers And Distributive Justice, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

The immigration of relatively unskilled workers poses a fundamental problem for liberals. While from the perspective of the economic welfare of natives, the optimal policy would be to admit these aliens as guest workers, this policy would violate liberal ideals. These ideals would treat these workers as equals, entitled to access to citizenship and to the full set of public benefits provided to citizens. If the welfare of incumbent residents determines admissions policies, however, and we anticipate the fiscal burden that the immigration of the poor would impose, then our welfare criterion would preclude the admission of relatively unskilled workers …


De Paradojas Y Neocons, Mario Šilar Jan 2008

De Paradojas Y Neocons, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.


Political Liberalism And Public Reason, Mario Šilar Jan 2008

Political Liberalism And Public Reason, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

The paper explores John Rawls´s idea of public reason, as reflected in Political Liberalism and The Idea of Public Reason Revisited. In Rawls’s later works, public reason acquires fundamental significance as a criterion by which the principles to be assumed from the outset in a theory of political justice may be determined. The starting-point for Rawls´s theory -the idea of citizens as free and equal reveals- that this abstraction falls short of an authentic conception of human beings as social by nature. A brief study of key issues concerning marriage and the family shows the difficulties that underlie this question. …


The Practical Value Of Natural Law Theory In The Work Of St Thomas Aquinas, Mario Šilar Jan 2008

The Practical Value Of Natural Law Theory In The Work Of St Thomas Aquinas, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.


Perspectives On Social Cognition, Leslie Marsh, Christian Onof Jan 2008

Perspectives On Social Cognition, Leslie Marsh, Christian Onof

Leslie Marsh

No longer is sociality the preserve of the social sciences, or ‘‘culture’’ the preserve of the humanities or anthropology. By the same token, cognition is no longer the sole preserve of the cognitive sciences. Social cognition (SC) or, sociocognition if you like, is thus a kaleidoscope of research projects that has seen exponential growth over the past 30 or so years. That so many disciplines now invoke the term ‘‘social cognition,’’ shouldn’t tempt one into thinking that they are all denoting the same idea. On the contrary, with such methodologically and perspectivally diverse interests involved, there is every chance that …


Perspectives On Social Cognition, Leslie Marsh, Christian Onof Jan 2008

Perspectives On Social Cognition, Leslie Marsh, Christian Onof

Leslie Marsh

No longer is sociality the preserve of the social sciences, or ‘‘culture’’ the preserve of the humanities or anthropology. By the same token, cognition is no longer the sole preserve of the cognitive sciences. Social cognition (SC) or, sociocognition if you like, is thus a kaleidoscope of research projects that has seen exponential growth over the past 30 or so years. That so many disciplines now invoke the term ‘‘social cognition,’’ shouldn’t tempt one into thinking that they are all denoting the same idea. On the contrary, with such methodologically and perspectivally diverse interests involved, there is every chance that …


On Being Stuck: Looking For The Limits Of Ethics In The Built Environment, Robert Kirkman, Douglas S. Noonan Jan 2008

On Being Stuck: Looking For The Limits Of Ethics In The Built Environment, Robert Kirkman, Douglas S. Noonan

Douglas S. Noonan

We seek here to lay the groundwork for a multi-disciplinary inquiry into one aspect of the phenomenology of moral experience, which is a general project of elucidating what it is like for people to make ethical decisions in particular contexts. Taking urban and suburban environments as the context for decision making, we focus in particular on the common human experience of being stuck. Just as a person can get physically stuck while trying to crawl through a hole that is too small, people can get ethically stuck when some feature of their relationship with their context blocks or deflects their …


The Ethical Lacunae In Friedman's Concept Of The Manager, Jonathan B. Wight, Martin Calkins Jan 2008

The Ethical Lacunae In Friedman's Concept Of The Manager, Jonathan B. Wight, Martin Calkins

Economics Faculty Publications

This article challenges along two lines Milton Friedman's injunction that the sole role of the business manager is to maximize profits for shareholders using all legal and ethical means. First, it shows how Friedman overly narrows the manager's moral duties to consequentialist profit maximization and thereby fails to account for a wide range of values and virtues necessary for good management. Second, it illustrates how more oblique approaches to management as well as Adam Smith's virtue-based model better capture the moral imagination and relational aspects of leadership that are critical to good management today. In the end, this article suggests …


The Economics Of International Labor Migration And The Case For Global Distributive Justice In Liberal Political Theory, Howard F. Chang Jan 2008

The Economics Of International Labor Migration And The Case For Global Distributive Justice In Liberal Political Theory, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

Estimates of the magnitude of the gains that the world could enjoy by liberalizing international migration indicate that even partial liberalization would not only produce substantial increases in the world’s real income but also improve its distribution. Although the economic effects of immigration on native workers and distributive justice among natives are often advanced as reasons to reduce immigration, these concerns do not provide a sound justification for our restrictive immigration laws. Instead, the appropriate response to concerns about the distribution of income among natives is to increase the progressivity of our tax system. Protectionist immigration policies are not only …


The Effect Of Conflicting Moral And Legal Rules On Bargaining Behavior: The Case Of Divorce, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, Jonathan Baron Jan 2008

The Effect Of Conflicting Moral And Legal Rules On Bargaining Behavior: The Case Of Divorce, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, Jonathan Baron

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


The Disadvantages Of Immigration Restriction As A Policy To Improve Income Distribution, Howard F. Chang Jan 2008

The Disadvantages Of Immigration Restriction As A Policy To Improve Income Distribution, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I argue that tax and transfer policies are more efficient than immigration restrictions as instruments for raising the after tax incomes of the least skilled native workers. Policies to protect these native workers frol1'l immigrant competition in the labor market do no better at promoting distributive justice and are likely to impose a greater economic burden on natives in the country of immigration than the tax alternative. These immigration restrictions are especially costly given the disproportionate burden that they place on households with working women, which discourages fel1'wle participation in the labor force. This burden runs contrary …


Guest Workers And Justice In A Second-Best World, Howard F. Chang Jan 2008

Guest Workers And Justice In A Second-Best World, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay offers a defense of guest-worker programs and a critique of the objections raised by Michael Walzer and by other critics of such programs. Although critics commonly complain that guest workers are vulnerable to exploitation by employers, we can design guest-worker programs that minimize the risk of such exploitation. Ready access for relatively unskilled guest workers to citizenship and to public benefits, however, generates a fiscal burden for the public treasury. A right to equal treatment for aliens yields perverse results unless aliens are also entitled to equal concern when the host country decides whether to admit the alien …


Ferrying Across The Flood: The Ethics Of The Dhamma-Vinyana As The Basis Of Buddhist Development Theory And Practice, Sam Grey Dec 2007

Ferrying Across The Flood: The Ethics Of The Dhamma-Vinyana As The Basis Of Buddhist Development Theory And Practice, Sam Grey

Sam Grey

Buddhist development theory and practice establishes that it is possible to deliberately ground theoretical and actual socio-economic change in clear normative principles, joining the inwardly-oriented realm of personal morality and the outwardly-oriented realm of ethical social engagement. Further, it reveals the sought-after link between theory and practice, the element that gives rise to consistency, to be ethics, which “translate thought into action, world views into movements” (Merchant, 1992, p.62). In Buddhist development theory and practice, as in Buddhist ethics, intention is carried forward to consequence in a clear, ‘mappable’ fashion, so that that the fruits of any goal, strategy, or …


Analytical Thomism: Traditions In Dialogue, Mario Šilar Dec 2007

Analytical Thomism: Traditions In Dialogue, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.