Treading the lines between self-interest, cultural relativism and universal principles: ethics in the global marketplace

Purpose: This paper introduces this special issue of Management Decision by exploring the themes of the issue and the contribution of each of the articles in the collection. Approach: The paper reviews notions of ethics, justice and responsibility. It then uses the framework developed through this review as the basis for an appreciation of the articles that constitute the issue. Value: This article provides an introduction to, and suggests an overarching framework for, this special issue on questions we ask about ethics in a global marketplace. It is also an important reminder to managers and employees who constitute the entities to which “responsibility” is generally attached, that responsibility, ultimately, is irreducible beyond the individual, who cannot simply “follow orders”

Legislative Intent: The Use of Positive Political Theory in Statutory Interpretation

The usefulness of legislative history has been brought into question concerning how judges interpret the intent of legislation. The structure of the legislative process is examined in order to identify how legislators solve the problem of instability of majority rule

The Promise at Hand

Based on a former RWJF vice president's seminar, gives an overview of the history and role of foundations in U.S. society, their uncertain status as social institutions, and their regulatory history. Urges foundations to see themselves as a public trust

Legislative Intent: The Use of Positive Political Theory in Statutory Interpretation

The usefulness of legislative history has been brought into question concerning how judges interpret the intent of legislation. The structure of the legislative process is examined in order to identify how legislators solve the problem of instability of majority rule

Looking at the Montreux Document from a Maritime Perspective

The Montreux Document on Private Military and Security Companies was drafted with a view to apply to land-based settings. However, one of the prime markets of the private security industry today is the protection of merchant ships from criminal threats like piracy and armed robbery at sea. This warrants a discussion on the pertinence and applicability of the Montreux Document to security services provided in the maritime environment. Accordingly, this article engages a maritime perspective, exploring the implications that the maritime context and its specificities have on the underlying assumptions and concepts of the Montreux Document – most notably the three-fold structure of addressees, which are the Territorial, Contracting and Home States – as well as on selected substantive rules. It concludes that the Montreux Document is pertinent to maritime security services, but that it needs to be interpreted specifically with regard to its effective application at sea

Abandoned coal mines: From environmental liabilities to low-carbon energy assets

No abstract available

Sofia A. Yanovskaya: The Marxist Pioneer of Mathematical Logic in the Soviet Union

K. Marx’s 200th jubilee coincides with the celebration of the 85 years from the first publication of his “Mathematical Manuscripts” in 1933. Its editor, Sofia Alexandrovna Yanovskaya (1896–1966), was a renowned Soviet mathematician, whose significant studies on the foundations of mathematics and mathematical logic, as well as on the history and philosophy of mathematics are unduly neglected nowadays. Yanovskaya, as a militant Marxist, was actively engaged in the ideological confrontation with idealism and its influence on modern mathematics and their interpretation. Concomitantly, she was one of the pioneers of mathematical logic in the Soviet Union, in an era of fierce disputes on its compatibility with Marxist philosophy. Yanovskaya managed to embrace in an originally Marxist spirit the contemporary level of logico-philosophical research of her time. Due to her highly esteemed status within Soviet academia, she became one of the most significant pillars for the culmination of modern mathematics in the Soviet Union. In this paper, I attempt to trace the influence of the complex socio-cultural context of the first decades of the Soviet Union on Yanovskaya’s work. Among the several issues I discuss, her encounter with L. Wittgenstein is striking

The Kantian Grounding of Einstein’s Worldview: (I) The Early Influence of Kant’s System of Perspectives

Recent perspectival interpretations of Kant suggest a way of relating his epistemology to empirical science that makes it plausible to regard Einstein’stheory of relativity as having a Kantian grounding. This first of two articles exploring this topic focuses on how the foregoing hypothesis accounts for variousresonances between Kant’s philosophy and Einstein’s science. The great attention young Einstein paid to Kant in his early intellectual development demonstrates the plausibility of this hypothesis, while certain features of Einstein’s cultural-political context account for his reluctance to acknowledge Kant’s influence, even though contemporary philosophers who regarded themselves as Kantians urged him to do so. The sequel argues that this Kantian grounding probably had a formative influence not only on Einstein’s discovery of the theory of relativity and his view of the nature of science, but also on his quasi-mystical, religious disposition

Some resonances between Eastern thought and Integral Biomathics in the framework of the WLIMES formalism for modelling living systems

Forty-two years ago, Capra published “The Tao of Physics” (Capra, 1975). In this book (page 17) he writes: “The exploration of the atomic and subatomic world in the twentieth century has …. necessitated a radical revision of many of our basic concepts” and that, unlike ‘classical’ physics, the sub-atomic and quantum “modern physics” shows resonances with Eastern thoughts and “leads us to a view of the world which is very similar to the views held by mystics of all ages and traditions.“ This article stresses an analogous situation in biology with respect to a new theoretical approach for studying living systems, Integral Biomathics (IB), which also exhibits some resonances with Eastern thought. Stepping on earlier research in cybernetics1 and theoretical biology,2 IB has been developed since 2011 by over 100 scientists from a number of disciplines who have been exploring a substantial set of theoretical frameworks. From that effort, the need for a robust core model utilizing advanced mathematics and computation adequate for understanding the behavior of organisms as dynamic wholes was identified. At this end, the authors of this article have proposed WLIMES (Ehresmann and Simeonov, 2012), a formal theory for modeling living systems integrating both the Memory Evolutive Systems (Ehresmann and Vanbremeersch, 2007) and the Wandering Logic Intelligence (Simeonov, 2002b). Its principles will be recalled here with respect to their resonances to Eastern thought

A History of Tax Regulation Prior to the Administrative Procedure Act

The relationship of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to tax administration has been the subject of increasing scrutiny from scholars and courts. Some of this scrutiny has critiqued the long-held view of the Department of Treasury that tax regulations issued under the general grant of authority in I.R.C. § 7805(a) are interpretative regulations within the meaning of the APA. This Article reviews the almost 150–year history of tax administration before the enactment of the APA to show the origins and basis for this long-held view. The Article also argues that the application of the general terms of the APA to tax administration must be informed by this pre–APA history of tax regulation