This paper presents the critical role of corporate responsibility in the sustainability of health care programs in lower income communities mostly located in the rural areas. The Leaders for Health Program (LHP)—a tri-partite partnership between the Philippine Department of Health, the Health Unit of the Ateneo de Manila University Graduate School of Business, and Pfizer Philippines, Inc.—is an innovative approach focusing on health promotion and education as the cornerstone for community development. LHP adopts a systemic and comprehensive approach that takes (...) into consideration all the major stakeholders in health, especially in rural communities. This paper aims to support the viability of education as the main catalyst for community empowerment and self-sufficiency. (shrink)

For the most part, the primary driver for international businesses in establishing operations in other countries is the reduction of overall operating costs. Host countries, especially developing nations, welcome multinational corporations (MNCs) because of the perceived economic benefits that international businesses can bring to their local communities. Surprisingly, one of the most understudied, under-analyzed, and sometimes even completely neglected factors when international businesses consider setting up shop in other countries is the local culture of their chosen destination country. This paper (...) substantiates the thesis that international businesses should adapt their corporate practices to the local cultures in which they operate to achieve effective and superior businessperformance. The paper goes further in identifying corporate practices that were adapted or revised by international businesses to respond to the culture of local communities in the Philippines. (shrink)

The development of the CRISPR gene editing technique has been hyped as a technique that could fundamentally change scientific research and its clinical application. Unrecognized is the fact that it joins other technologies that have tried and failed under the same discourse of scientific hype. These technologies, like gene therapy and stem cell research, have moved quickly passed basic research into clinical application with dire consequences. Before hastily moving to clinical applications, it is necessary to consider basic research and determine (...) how CRISPR/Cas systems should be applied. In the case of single gene diseases, that application is expected to have positive impacts, but as we shift to more complex diseases, the impact could be unintentionally negative. In the context of common disabilities, the level of genetic complexity may render this technology useless but potentially toxic, aggravating a social discourse that devalues those with disabilities. This paper intends to define the issues related to disability that are associated with using the CRIPSR/Cas system in basic research. It also aims to provide a decision tree to help determine whether the technology should be utilized or if alternative approaches beyond scientific research could lead to a better use of limited funding resources. (shrink)

From a traditional moral point of view, business practitioners often seem overly concerned about the behavior of their peers in deciding how they ought to act. We propose to account for this concern by introducing a mutual trust perspective, where moral obligations are grounded in a sense of trust that others will abide by the same rules. when grounds for trust are absent, the obligation is weakened. We illustrate this perspective by examining the widespread ambivalence with regard to deception about (...) one's settlement preferences in negotiation. On an abstract level, such deception generally seems undesirable, though in many individual cases it is condoned, even admired as shrewd bargaining. Because of the difficulty in verifying someone's settlement preferences, it is hard to establish a basis for trusting the revelations of the other party, especially in competitive negotiations with relative strangers. (shrink)

In “Punishing Intentions and Neurointerventions”, Birks and Buyx (2018) provide a novel argument on why the use of mandatory neurointerventions on convicted criminals is morally objectionable “in a...

Social poetics as research and practice: living in and learning from the process of research This paper is both a report of research work carried out by one author of the paper with the other involved in a supervisory role, and a reflection on methodology that was an emergent property of the research process. The research question arose when professional preunderstandings about schizophrenia as a biological disturbance were bracketed as a Husserlian form of phenomenology was adopted. The initial study focused (...) on the meanings three individuals attached to being diagnosed with a mental illness and being involved in psychiatric treatment systems. The exploration of meanings led to the researcher being guided by one study participant in relation to a suitable framework for making sense of her lived experience of being entangled in psychiatric systems. This involved an appreciation of the poetics of interpersonal interaction that was simultaneously fuelled by the researcher’s reading of social poetics in psychology. Thus, the research became a hermeneutic inquiry, focused upon the text of one participant (Beth)1 and the psychiatric system that she and colleagues encountered. Beth’s psychiatric predicament was described by a loss of ‘self’, psychiatric interrogation, and positive and negative features of immersion in the system. A byproduct of taking a poetic approach was that the participant found the research process therapeutic. Thus, social poetics encouraged a beneficial blurring of the boundaries between research and practice. In both arenas, social poetics can lead to a different level of understanding. This is contradictory to mainstream approaches to research that value objectivity with a strict division between the researcher and the subjects, with the aim of producing scientific knowledge. (shrink)

What does it take for a property to be a social property? This question is different from questions about what it takes for a property to be socially constructed. That is: it is one thing to be social, it is another to be socially constructed. Compared to questions about social construction, this question about sociality has received relatively little attention in social metaphysics. Here, I work from a very specific set of observations which arise from the social metaphysics literature to (...) uncover a sufficient condition on sociality for properties, a condition which I argue all non-social properties fail to satisfy. (shrink)

Christianity's relationship with the environment is considered. From the seventeenth century, Christianity contributed to the legitimization of scientific developments that had injurious consequences for the environment. These developments were secularizing; hence the ecological crisis participates in the broader problems of secularization. Under secular hegemony, the normative model of the person as atomistic individual is integral to the problem itself as well as bereft of the spiritual resources to challenge abusive attitudes that profane God's creation. This paper proposes that responses to (...) the ecological situation should be sought in a richer understanding of the human being: an anthropology that is not only part of the Christian legacy but also offered by contemporary sociobiology. (shrink)

While it is widely assumed that greater diversity in corporate governance will enhance a firm’s corporate social performance, this study considers an alternative thesis which relates managerial control to corporate philanthropy. The study empirically evaluates both board diversity and managerial control of the board as possible predictors of corporate philanthropy. The demonstration of a positive relationship between managerial control and corporate philanthropy contributes to our understanding that corporate social performance results from a complex set of economic and social motives. Possible (...) future research and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

The common discourse on intellectual property rights rests mainly on utilitarian ground, with implications on the question of justice as well as moral significance. It runs like this: Intellectual property rights are to reward the originators for his/her intellectual labour mainly in monetary terms, thereby providing incentives for originators to engage in future innovative labouring. Without such incentives, few, if not none, will engage in creative activities and the whole human community will, thereby, suffer because of reduced inventions. However, such (...) utilitarian argument on piracy as de-motivation may not be necessarily justified. In fact, intellectual property arrangement is one among different institutions concerning how the society may handle new ideas and creative works. In reality, private ownership over one's intellectual product is merely a modern western concept that is being ' advertised' as being normative, which, by itself, is highly debatable. Alarming still, such normative argument assumes both justness and moral dimensions. This article will analyse whether such argument is philosophically sound. (shrink)

While it is widely assumed that greater diversity in corporate governance will enhance a firm’s corporate social performance, this study considers an alternative thesis which relates managerial control to corporate philanthropy. The study empirically evaluates both board diversity and managerial control of the board as possible predictors of corporate philanthropy. The demonstration of a positive relationship between managerial control and corporate philanthropy contributes to our understanding that corporate social performance results from a complex set of economic and social motives. Possible (...) future research and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

Faith (Islam); liberty; religious aspects; Islam.

Ryan Darby, Judith Edersheim, and Bruce Price (DEP) argue that patients with Behavioral-Variant Frontotemporal Dementia have intact moral knowledge. In effect, they assume a motivational externalist understanding of moral knowledge. We question this by probing the cases they present as evidence for their position.

Human reproductive technology; law and legislation; religious aspects; Islam.

This book presents an innovative analysis of the role of imagination as a central concept in both literary and art criticism. Dee Reynolds brings this approach to bear on works by Rimbaud, Mallarme;, Kandinsky, and Mondrian. It allows her to redefine the relationship between Symbolism and abstract art, and to contribute new methodological perspectives to comparative studies of poetry and painting. The late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a crucial period in the emergence of new modes of representation, and (...) is currently at the forefront of critical enquiry. This is the first book to examine Symbolism and abstraction in this way, and the first to treat these poets and painters together. It is an original contribution to interdisciplinary scholarship in art history, literary history, and comparative aesthetics. (shrink)

Cells live in dynamic environments that necessitate perpetual adaptation. Since cells have limited resources to monitor external inputs, they are required to maximize the information content of perceived signals. This challenge is not unique to microscopic life: Animals use senses to perceive inputs and adequately respond. Research showed that sensory‐perception is actively shaped by learning and expectation allowing internal cognitive models to “fill in the blanks” in face of limited information. We propose that cells employ analogous strategies and use internal (...) models shaped through the long process of evolutionary adaptation. Given this perspective, we postulate that cells are prone to “misperceptions,” analogous to visual illusions, leading them to incorrectly decode patterns of inputs that lie outside of their evolutionary experience. Mapping cellular misperception can serve as a fundamental approach for dissecting regulatory networks and could be harnessed to modulate cell behavior, a potentially new avenue for therapy. (shrink)

This study asked managers with different educational backgrounds and experience from a variety of industries of a variety of sizes representing both genders and various predominant managerial functions at different levels to “describe the skills they think are necessary to perform their jobs effectively”. In particular, they were asked to rank 178 behavioral skills presented under 22 different categories that described different aspects of management. Data were then examined first to determine the importance of ethics or integrity overall in the (...) group of managerial activities and then to explore how specific ethical activities of managers differ across various managerial and organizational characteristics. Findings indicate that ethics is still considered one of the least important skills necessary in managers’ daily work. However, once specific ethical activities are analyzed separately, significant differences are found across characteristics of managers, as well as those of the organizations at which they work. (shrink)

"Children live in a realm of direct experience, engaged with their senses and absorbed in events as they occur. But as adults, we've come to depend on our acquired skills of language, logic, and familiar thinking strategies to get things done and get through our days. For decades, innovative neuroscience educator Dee Joy Coulter has been treasure-hunting for fresh insights into learning that we can actually use-to transform the way we perceive, think, feel, and learn. Original Mind guides us into (...) her expansive vision for unfolding our natural brilliance. Applying the findings of scientists, artists, and cultures across the globe-and illuminated with stories and hands-on practices from her own work-readers will explore:. How to see, listen, feel, and taste again with childlike wonder. The oral tradition-reclaiming the cognitive power of storytelling and metaphor. Problem-solving and learning at the deepest levels. Empty mind -the art of rejuvenation as taught by the Buddha, composers and artists, and children across the globe. Boredom, Complexity, Ambiguity, Permeability, and Novelty-five tolerances essential to fulfillment. Surfing the edges of inner chaos-the theta-gamma states of inspired genius, and many other topics Readers both new and well-versed in brain training, meditation, and stress reduction will find here a wealth of inspiration to amplify the richness of their perceptions, intuition, creativity, emotional balance-and the untapped wonder hidden within each moment of our lives."--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Amongst the multiple key philosophers who have addressed critical issues pertaining to music education since the mid-1900s, Bennett Reimer was one voice that began a systematic examination of the nature and value of music and music education as a foundation for a philosophy of music education. With the musical experience at the center of his philosophy, Reimer sought to explain how music articulates feeling, a core of who we are as human beings. Over the sixty years of writing, Reimer’s thinking (...) continued to be influenced by other disciplines including the literature on creative thinking and cognitive neuroscience. The impact of his writing on the field is multifarious, including philosophy, advocacy, curriculum, and the role of music in school-based programs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Art of Teaching MusicBetty Anne YounkerEstelle R. Jorgensen, The Art of Teaching Music(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008)I have had the pleasure of reading the book manuscript, The Art of Teaching Music, by Estelle Jorgensen. The content explores a variety of ideas that are covered in the myriad of courses experienced by undergraduate students and introduces new ones that are critical to the development of musicians and (...) prospective teachers. Some of these ideas might be alluded to or briefly discussed in methods classes, but not at the level of thoughtful detail as they are entertained and examined in the book. This level of depth would require students and teachers to discuss, dialogue, debate, and reflect over time within and across semesters and courses. I dare to suggest that some of the ideas might not be brought to students’ attention at all throughout the undergraduate experience, which is of a concern and suggests an even greater need for such a book.My overall impression of the book is that the content and the depth of writing would serve the undergraduate students throughout their undergraduate experience and the graduate population for similar and yet different reasons. In terms of the undergraduates, there are parts of the book that would be relevant during their first year in a foundations class, second year in technique classes, third year in methods (for lack of a better word) classes, and student teaching [End Page 109] seminar experiences as they prepare to enter the profession. Utilizing a book across an undergraduate’s experience could generate interesting conversation amongst faculty members as discussions about why, how, what, and when parts of the book would be relevant would need to evolve. Some chapters could be revisited while others visited for the first time at differing places and spaces across the four years. I cannot think of another book that could be utilized in this way and thus serve the undergraduate student throughout her four-year experience and this prospect I find exciting.The book is organized around fourteen chapters, all of which are followed by an afterward. The flow of the chapters invites the reader to examine aspects of becoming and being a music educator at various levels of growth and understanding.The first chapter is titled “Teacher” and requires the reader to think at broader and deeper levels when discussing the notions of role and identity, self-awareness, motivation to enter the profession, and reflective practice. While reading the text, I imagined conversations that would include a comparative analysis of students’ experiences, which could in turn provide larger contexts for the topics. Such a discussion is necessary when examining aspects of being and becoming a teacher in various contexts. The notion of situatedness is highlighted when individual cases are heard and examined and compared across other cases, carefully noting what might or might not be comparable and taking that bit of analysis into consideration. Having such discussions across the four years of undergraduate life allows students to re-visit what was and is, and to speculate about what is to come. Such reflection can be just as fruitful at the graduate level. Students enter graduate school with a variety of teaching experiences and time is needed to reflect on the transition from being a teacher to being a student again. Realization of the continuum on which they travel between learner and teacher becomes apparent in that the place on the continuum shifts regardless of their present position; that is, as a student or teacher. For doctoral students, this reflection is rich as they begin to engage with undergraduate students and forge a new path as budding teachers of teachers and researchers and continue to be musicians.Chapter Two took me to the writings of Dewey1 particularly as I read about a student-centered focus and the experience-based approach. So much of our profession has been driven by content and theories that the student has been removed from the center of the focus and thought of as peripheral. I welcome the idea of placing the students at the center of our thinking and conversations. These ideas have been articulated in... (shrink)

This article asserts that European and North American feminisms are colonial discursive elaborations that defined what it was to be a woman and a feminist. The categories of gender and patriarchy established both what the subordination of women was as well as the possibilities for their emancipation. They're colonial discourses in the sense that they have construed women of the third world, or of the global South, as “other.” The specific case examined in this article questions the Euro-US-centric feminist construction (...) of women and Afro-descendant feminists. In resignifying the categories of analysis proposed by feminism, such as gender and patriarchy, Afro-descendant feminists assert themselves as diverse Black women who build proposals subverting the social order that oppresses them, without needing to resort to feminism's central categories. Women belonging to ethnic communities elaborate a new type of feminism constructed in relation to the community's collective actions in vindicating their rights. Finally, Black or Afro-Colombian women, based on the legacy of their maroon or runaway slave ancestors, construct feminism otherwise, challenging universalist claims by Eurocentric and Andean-centric feminism, transforming and enriching it. (shrink)

This book's importance is derived from three sources: careful conceptualization of teacher induction from historical, methodological, and international perspectives; systematic reviews of research literature relevant to various aspects of teacher induction including its social, cultural, and political contexts, program components and forms, and the range of its effects; substantial empirical studies on the important issues of teacher induction with different kinds of methodologies that exemplify future directions and approaches to the research in teacher induction.