This policy perspective paper is premised on the governance philosophy that prudent use of natural resources wealth is an important engine for sustainable social and economic growth in any country. In Uganda, the philosophy is traced in The National Oil & Gas Policy (2008), objectives 9(c) & 10(f) which calls for embracing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. That is, CSR activities that promote this philosophy become a priority as Uganda pursues its third National Development Plan (NDP-3)’s goal of “Increased Household (...) Incomes and Improved Quality of Life of Ugandans.” This “Policy Perspective Paper” is intended to assess the impact of the current CSR entry points indicated in “National Oil and Gas Policy for Uganda, 2008” to provide room for scaling up O&G player’s CSR interventions and activities that engage women, youth, and the elderly persons in efforts to promote social-economic inclusion, environmental responsibility, and community development. That is, this policy perspective’s goal is to contribute to realization of Uganda’s development priorities as enshrined in NDP-3, priority of “Community Mobilization and Mindset Programme,” and “Natural Resources, Environment, Climate Change, Land and Water Management Programme.” As an innovation, this policy perspective intertwines these two NDP-3 priorities providing policy entry points for engagement into CSR activities and CSR decision-making of Oil and Gas (O&G) upstream and downstream companies. The policy perspective paper ends by promoting and advocating for the need to ensuring that O&G players in Uganda’s Albertine districts (including among others, Hoima, Kikuube, and Buliisa), to proactively undertake transformative CSR programs. This Policy Analysis is to guide policy makers to improve their capacity in assessing the quality of annual reporting of O&G players by additionally demanding performance data on CSR and Social Compliance aspects. The Local Government officials/policy implementers in the Albertine, and Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development will also use this research output to: (i) monitor the relevance of O&G companies and their allies to policy instruments that promote CSR, social inclusion, and sustainable development. (ii) make an informed decision about the readiness of these players before entering Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for potential CSR and PPP projects. Lastly, (iii) make CSR strategic plans for social development and gender mainstreaming. (shrink)

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly proposed as scalable solutions to the global mental health crisis. But their deployment in psychiatric contexts raises a distinctive ethical concern: the problem of atypicality. Because LLMs generate outputs based on population-level statistical regularities, their responses—while typically appropriate for general users—may be dangerously inappropriate when interpreted by psychiatric patients, who often exhibit atypical cognitive or interpretive patterns. We argue that standard mitigation strategies, such as prompt engineering or fine-tuning, are insufficient to resolve this structural (...) risk. Instead, we propose dynamic contextual certification (DCC): a staged, reversible and context-sensitive framework for deploying LLMs in psychiatry, inspired by clinical translation and dynamic safety models from artificial intelligence governance. DCC reframes chatbot deployment as an ongoing epistemic and ethical process that prioritises interpretive safety over static performance benchmarks. Atypicality, we argue, cannot be eliminated—but it can, and must, be proactively managed. (shrink)

This study investigates the effectiveness of pedagogical practices used to teach business ethics. The business community has greatly increased its demands for better ethics education in business programs. Educators have generally agreed that the ethical principles of business people have declined. It is important, then, to examine how common methods of instruction used in business ethics could contribute to the development of higher levels of moral judgment competence for students. To determine the effectiveness of these methods, moral judgment competence levels (...) for undergraduate and graduate students from three institutions were measured and compared based upon the pedagogical method used in a business class. Significant differences were found for moral reasoning and moral competence scores depending on the method used for ethics instruction. Students in classes with more highly integrated ethics coverage scored higher in moral reasoning and moral competence. (shrink)

A large body of literature agrees that persons with schizophrenia suffer from a Theory of Mind deficit. However, most empirical studies have focused on third-person, egocentric ToM, underestimating other facets of this complex cognitive skill. Aim of this research is to examine the ToM of schizophrenic persons considering its various aspects, to determine whether some components are more impaired than others.We developed a Theory of Mind Assessment Scale and administered it to 22 persons with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia and (...) a matching control group. Th.o.m.a.s. is a semi-structured interview which allows a multi-component measurement of ToM. Both groups were also administered a few existing ToM tasks and the schizophrenic subjects were administered the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale and the WAIS-R.The schizophrenic persons performed worse than control at all the ToM measurements; however, these deficits appeared to be differently distributed among different components of ToM.Our conclusion is that ToM deficits are not unitary in schizophrenia, which also testifies to the importance of a complete and articulated investigation of ToM. (shrink)

In the provocative discussions comprising this collection, scholars Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson and Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda explore the multifaceted, enduring legacy of Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman. In the process they challenge and inspire the reader to do as these great figures once did—to look deep inside oneself to discover potential for growth, to encounter the natural world with reverence and delight, and to express themselves with poetry and imagination. With great appreciation for the timeless and universal (...) relevance of the American Renaissance, Bosco, Myerson, and Ikeda encourage each person to lead lives of greatness and to do nothing less than create Waldens of their own. (shrink)

_Abstract_: The aim of this paper is to challenge Michael Smith’s influential “fetishism charge” against motivational externalism – the view that moral judgments motivate only in the presence of a distinct conative state. Smith argues that externalists must explain the reliable connection between moral judgment and moral motivation by attributing to the morally good agent a de dicto desire to “do whatever is right”, a desire he regards as morally defective or fetishistic. On the other hand, the virtuous agent, according (...) to Smith, responds directly to the right-making features of actions, such as charity, kindness, or fairness. If the externalist is indeed committed to portraying good agents as moved primarily by the abstract status of rightness, then externalism yields an implausible moral psychology and should be rejected. I argue that Smith’s central assumption – what I call the fetishist platitude, the claim that de dicto motivation is intuitively vicious – is far less secure than he suggests. After outlining the internalism/externalism debate and surveying responses to Smith from Svavarsdottir, Olson, Dreier, Miller, and others, I offer two novel objections. First, I show that in non-moral normative domains (such as prudence or health), de dicto motivation is not normally regarded as fetishistic; thus, Smith’s purported conceptual truth about virtue cannot be taken for granted. Second, I present cases in which a de dicto moral motivation is precisely what enables an agent to act rightly in the face of conflicting non-moral reasons. In such scenarios, it is counterintuitive to describe the agent as vicious or morally flawed. Taken together, these objections weaken Smith’s claim that de dicto motivation is inherently defective and therefore challenge his reductio of externalism. If de dicto motivation can be permissible – or even admirable – then externalists can avoid the fetishism charge without losing a plausible account of moral psychology. _Keywords_: Moral Motivation; Fetichism; Externalism; Internalism; De Dicto _ La motivazione “de dicto” è manifestamente inutile? _ _Riassunto_: L o scopo di questo articolo è mettere in discussione l’influente “accusa di feticismo” di Michael Smith contro l’esternalismo motivazionale — la posizione secondo cui i giudizi morali motivano solo in presenza di un preciso stato conativo. Smith sostiene che gli esternalisti devono spiegare la connessione affidabile esistente tra giudizio morale e motivazione morale, attribuendo all’agente moralmente buono un desiderio di “fare ciò che è giusto” _de dicto_, desiderio che egli considera moralmente difettoso o feticista. L’agente virtuoso, ribadisce Smith, risponde direttamente alle caratteristiche che rendono giuste le azioni, come, per esempio, la bontà, la gentilezza o l’equità. L’esternalismo dovrebbe quindi essere respinto, poiché richiede di rappresentare l’agente moralmente buono come mosso principalmente dallo status astratto del bene, descrivendo una psicologia morale inverosimile. Sostengo che l’assunto centrale di Smith – ciò che chiamo la “banalità feticista”, ovvero l’affermazione che la motivazione _de dicto_ è intuitivamente viziosa – sia molto meno ovvio di quanto egli suggerisca. Dopo aver delineato il dibattito tra internalismo ed esternalismo e aver esaminato le risposte a Smith di Svavarsdottir, Olson, Dreier, Miller e altri, propongo due obiezioni originali. In primo luogo, discuto come, nei domini normativi non morali (come la prudenza o la salute individuale), la motivazione _de dicto_ non è normalmente considerata feticista. In secondo luogo, presento casi in cui una motivazione morale _de dicto_ è esattamente ciò che consente a un agente di agire moralmente, quando vi è un conflitto di motivazioni non morali. In tali scenari, è controintuitivo descrivere l'agente come vizioso o moralmente imperfetto. _Parole chiave_: Motivazione Morale; Feticismo; Esternalismo; Internalismo; De Dicto. (shrink)

This article delves into Blaise Pascal’s religious philosophy, focusing on his use of the phrase “Scio cui credidi” (I know whom I have believed) to explore his understanding of faith. It analyzes Pascal’s “Memorial” and the “Summary of the Life of Jesus Christ”, highlighting how Christ is central to Pascal’s belief system. The discussion reveals the transformational nature of Pascal’s faith, particularly after his mystical experience on November 23, 1654. This experience is crucial in understanding his shift from a philosophical (...) to a deeply personal, Christ-centered faith. The article underscores Pascal’s journey from a scientific and philosophical perspective to an intimate, emotional resonance with Christian faith, demonstrating how his personal encounters with the divine profoundly shaped his religious perspective. (shrink)

This article aims to clarify facts and contribute reasons that could lead one to consider the possibility of the existence of natural dispositions which, in that case, should be considered as ethical precursors. Given that the neuroethics proposal focuses attention and studies on the human brain in order to carry out the search of those natural dispositions, this text suggest an initial question: is it possible to go beyond the brain in that search? Or even better, before it? In this (...) regard, Baruch Spinoza proposes lines of reflection in his Ethics which appear susceptible to be taken into account and that, interestingly, connect with the recent works of the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. (shrink)

Réunit des textes d'auteurs français des XVIIe et XVIIIe s. évoquant Saint-Augustin.

This article examines religious socialism as an American social movement. It focuses on the most recent iteration of this tradition, the Religion and Socialism Commission, formed in the 1970s as a subgroup of the Democratic Socialists of America. Drawing on concepts from social movement theory such as frame alignment and political opportunity structure, it argues that the Religion and Socialism Commission ultimately failed in its attempt to transition from an organization into a social movement. It then considers various possibilities for (...) the future of religious socialism in the United States, given new variables such as a changing political opportunity structure and the rise of social media. (shrink)

1. Itinerari cinquecenteschi -- 2. Itinerari secenteschi.