The Anvil of Neglect and the Hammer of Exploitation

This chapter explores tensions in research ethics between three moral pitfalls: sanctioning wrongdoing, avoiding the ravages of neglect, and not saddling a narrow range of actors with overly demanding moral requirements. These tensions are illustrated by the way an argument from Alan Wertheimer repurposes core commitments of the field to argue that research ethics should avert the harms of widespread neglect by weakening some of the protectionist demands of morality and permitting the violation of norms against exploitation, unfairness, and injustice. Although Wertheimer’s proposal is likely to be met with skepticism in the field, the problems it raises reflect shortcomings in research ethics and, most importantly, the failure of the field to connect this activity to social institutions that serve a larger moral purpose.

Conceptualising Corruption in Office

This chapter tracks the evolution of the word and concept of ‘corruption’. Having explored personal, institutional and systemic types of corruption, the next two sections outline key influences on pre-modern ways of thinking about it, highlighting the role of religion and civic humanism or the ‘republican tradition’. These influences put different emphases on personal, institutional, and systemic corruption, even if they shared a common moral purpose. Focus on that moral dimension leads to a discussion about the relationship between corruption and sexual immorality, and between anti-corruption and campaigns for the reformation of manners. The second half of the chapter focuses on the legal framework to show changes in the legal definitions of corruption, which increasingly defined corruption in terms of various forms of monetary forms of crime.

L’evolució de les bèsties. A propòsit del Bestiari de Pere Quart i les Histoires naturelles de Jules Renard

This paper has two aims: on the one hand, to compare Joan Oliver’s Bestiari with works such as Bestiaire ou cortège d’Orphée by Guillaume Apollinaire (1911), “Bestiario” by Ramón del Valle-Inclán (in La Pipa de Kif, 1919), The animaux et leurs hommes. The hommes et leurs animaux by Paul Éluard (1920) and, above all, Histoires naturelles by Jules Renard (1896), in search of possible influences and coincidences. The other aim is to classify and analyze the poems in order to clarify the intention with which Oliver wrotethe Bestiari and to relate it to the didactic and moral purpose of medieval Bestiaries and ancient Fables.

The Christian Legacy in the Age of Science

The era after the Civil War saw growing efforts to turn the old-style colleges into modern universities. Particularly important was the scientific ideal, not only promoting science and technology but also promoting scientific standards as the model for most of academic thought. Andrew Dixon White, who with the financial backing of Ezra Cornell founded Cornell University, was a leading proponent of the idea that Darwinism provided scientific justification for freeing academic thought from traditional Christian theology–related restrictions. White faced criticism that his Cornell University was “godless.” However, he still recommended a broadly Christian moral purpose for the modern universities.

“God save us always from the innocent and the good”: American versus European Exceptionalism in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American

This essay argues that by challenging the rectitude of American intervention in Vietnam, The Quiet American is the means by which Greene criticises the American exceptionalism of the post-World War 2 era. It shows how the nation’s exceptionalism is built upon a fantasy of American idealism that masks the true intentions hidden behind America’s crusade against Communism. It proposes also that Greene uses his novel to highlight the existence of a European exceptionalism as potent as its transatlantic equivalent, and one much overlooked in contemporary discourse on Vietnam. The crux of Greene’s critique is located in Alden Pyle. Propped up by what Said describes as “structures of attitude and reference”, the article argues that Pyle’s rhetoric and actions demonstrate the blind commitment to American exceptionalism that Greene challenges in the text. The essay uses Donald Pease’s concept of the State of Exception to draw a parallel between the British journalist Thomas Fowler and Pyle to argue that in orchestrating the assassination of the latter, Fowler adopts the moral purpose that had prompted much of the American aid worker’s actions throughout the novel. It argues that this European version of exceptionalism comes from what Greene believed to be the suitability of European powers to oversee change in Vietnam, one that America was ill-equipped to handle. The essay ends by suggesting that The Quiet American was not so much what Diana Trilling described as “Mr Greene’s affront to America”, but an attempt to defend Europe amidst the onset of American dominance.

Concerning suffering: Philosophical perspectives in the current Novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) Outbreak

Humanity's basic virtue is the recognition and acceptance of reason as a guide to action. In this vein, this paper contributes to the reader a better understanding of existence as this paper analyses the different views of suffering and coping, which also includes the reflections and examples of the author. Though happiness is the moral purpose of life, this research lays the groundwork for realization as we affirm the reality of suffering, especially in the present challenges of the Corona Virus 19 pandemic. As humans, we need not inhibit ourselves but rather affirm our potentialities. This research uses parallelism of philosophies, both Western and Eastern that expounds and argues on human adaptation vis-à-vis suffering that can be seen as antagonistic or can fulfill our potentialities. Further, the philosophical views can be viewed in a holistic approach—metaphysical, psychological, and ethical. This paper unfolds important questions that contribute to the quest for philosophical truth, broadening and deepening the meaning of life at the present predicament. Finally, amidst the world's dust and grime, this work imparts compassion, care, optimist, and hope.

“These Dead Have Not Died in Vain”

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, delivered on November 19, 1863, included several biblical themes; it even sounded like the King James Bible. The opening—“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty”—recalled texts from the Bible, including the book of Revelation (Revelation 12:5). The Gettysburg Address assessed a year of unprecedented sacrifice on the battlefield. This was also a year of conflicting viewpoints of the war’s moral purpose, especially as deaths multiplied and battles continued with no end in sight. Loss cries out for meaning, and Americans sensed that in 1863. When Americans saw loss on a scale like they did that year, they turned to the Bible to give meaning to the war, much as Lincoln did at Gettysburg.