The perplexing nature of time has been more contemplated, speculated, written, and debated about over the ages than virtually any other subject, with the possible exception of religion. Yet time seems more elusive than the vast majority of other metaphysical concepts. Time remains mysterious, for we lack an understanding of time at a basic physical level. Concepts of time in theories of modern physics and time as found in contemporary western analytic philosophy are discussed.

Section 1 of this thesis investigates one issue in meta-ethics, namely, the nature of moral judgments. What are moral judgments? What does it mean by "wrong" when we assert "Killing is wrong?" Neo-sentimentalism is a meta-ethical theory which holds that the judgment that killing wrong is the judgment that it is appropriate to have a particular negative emotion towards the action. In other words, to judge that murder is wrong is to judge that we have a right reason for having (...) a negative emotion towards the behavior. In the framework of neo-sentimentalism, the concepts of wrongness consist of negative emotions. If the moral judgment is the judgment that it is appropriate to have a negative emotion towards the action, and the concept of wrongness contains a negative emotion, then the following question is what emotions are. In section 2, I endorse the bodily attitudinal theory of emotions, a view which holds that a conscious physiological reaction which induces behavior disposition and the change of facial expression and internal organs is necessary for having an emotion. This section also articulates and replies to three major objections towards the bodily attitudinal theory of emotion. (shrink)

This volume presents research that integrates decision making and creativity within the social contexts in which these processes occur. The volume is an essential addition to and expansion of recent approaches to decision making. Such approaches attempt to incorporate more of the psychological and socio-cultural context in which human decision making takes place. The authors come from different disciplines and also belong to a broad spectrum of research traditions. They present innovative chapters dealing with both theoretical and empirical aspects of (...) decision making in different personal and organizational contexts. All chapters are written from the perspective that human decision making is inherently social and more or less creative. The volume addresses fundamental questions about the nature of human decision making as it occurs in different social contexts. Thereby, it becomes essential reading for researchers in decision making and for advanced students in psychology, management science, informatics, and related disciplines. (shrink)

El presente artículo nos interpela acerca de si vivimos en un período de transición epocal que requiere nuestra inmediata atención. La crisis financiera de 2008 y sus dramáticas consecuencias en la vida de millones de ciudadanos de las dos principales potencias económicas del planeta —la Unión Europea y Estados Unidos— han revelado, para quien todavía necesitara pruebas de ello, la naturaleza global de los cambios sistémicos operados en el mundo desde la década de 1980. Todos los indicadores señalan que el (...) período histórico conocido como modernidad ha llegado a su fin. (shrink)

This article suggests that the introduction of employment protection rights for whistleblowers has implications for the way in which trust and loyalty should be viewed at the workplace. In particular, it is argued that the very existence of legislative provisions in the United Kingdom reinforces the notion that whistleblowing should not be regarded as either deviant or disloyal behaviour. Thus, the internal reporting of concerns can be seen as an act of trust and loyalty in drawing the employer's attention to (...) wrongdoing. Equally, external whistleblowing may result from a worker's belief that he or she also has a loyalty to the wider society. Given that the interests of employees do not necessarily coincide with those of their employer and that whistleblowers sometimes suffer reprisals, the author concludes that it is inappropriate to impose a contractual duty to report concerns. Instead, employers should endeavour to promote a culture of openness and create confidence in the mechanisms they provide for whistleblowing. (shrink)

This paper will explore some of the implications of attending to the performative aspects of language for the sociological understanding of issues of risk and trust among lay communities. Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens have alerted us to the way that in late or reflexive modernity trust in authority cannot be taken for granted, but increasingly has to be actively earned and actively invested. For his part, Brian Wynne has pointed out that lay judgements are relational and hermeneutic, including as (...) they do judgements about the behaviour of relevant expert institutions, and about the risk to one's self-identity incurred by being caught up in relationships of dependency. Wynne has also argued that public avowals of trust can often mask deep private distrust, and thus be expressions more of fatalistic acceptance than of genuine trust. However, all of these analyses work from a basic model of ' trust ' as being the result of a cognitive process – as a judgement as to the trustworthiness of others. Yet trust is frequently 'active' in an even stronger sense than this. To take a posture of trust towards another can often be best understood not just as a cognitive judgement but as an attempt to bind the 'trusted' into a relationship and attitude of responsibility – and thus perhaps to alter their behaviour – through the taking up of a position in a social ritual. Speech act theory can help us be sensitive to this sort of use of the language of ' trust ', by reminding us that language can perform a number of different functions – not just that of describing the world, or of acting out ascribed roles and identities, but also that of trying to change the world. The analysis of public discourse about risk, trust and mistrust must thus be sensitive to the range of things that people might be attempting to do when they are saying things if it is to avoid drawing misleading conclusions about public attitudes to risk. (shrink)

This paper will discuss the introduction of Restorative Approaches (RA) in schools, contextualising this within a discussion of international concerns about school safety, (in)discipline and school violence. It will explore questions about the compatibility of RA with zero tolerance and positive/assertive discipline approaches and the use of disciplinary exclusion in a ‘risk society’.

This paper draws on recent work by John Clarke and Janet Newman and their colleagues to analyse a relatively coherent governmental project, spanning the decades of Conservative and New Labour government in England since 1979, that has sought to render teachers increasingly subservient to the state and agencies of the state. Under New Labour this has involved discourse and policies aimed at transforming teaching into a 'modernised profession'. It is suggested that this appropriation of both the concept and substance of (...) professionalism involves an attempt to silence debate about competing conceptions of what it might to be a professional or to act professionally. The overall process is thus arguably one of de-professionalisation in the guise of re-professionalisation. (shrink)

It has been argued that globalization assists the USA to gain a hegemonic position, allowing it to export its culture. Because this exportation leads to the domination by American culture of the local cultures of importing countries, which are the key element in sustaining their citizens’ national identity, citizens of these countries are unable to protect state sovereignty from this cultural invasion. In order to prevent a political crisis arising from such an invasion, these countries will adopt the strategy of (...) cultural localization. However, this top-down approach overestimates the influence of hegemonic cultures and, thus, overlooks the dynamic nature of cultural development that is generated by people’s agency. This essay rejects this top-down model by arguing that texts cannot dominate people, and that people influence their existence and value. (shrink)

This article offers a reassessment of the relationship among nationalism, globalization and glocalization. Conventionally, globalization is viewed as a historically recent challenge to the nation. It is argued that globalization, in contrast, is a long-term historical process. The emergence and perseverance of the nation is linked to outcomes of global processes, such as the experience of globality. Two conceptual links among the nation-form, historical globalization and cultural glocalization, are presented to demonstrate the salience of this perspective. First, globalization’s dialectic of (...) homogeneity and heterogeneity influences the nation in a two-fold manner: whereas cultural and institutional isomorphism causes the homogenization of national symbols and institutions, cultural glocalization preserves the specificity of individual national identities. Second, transnational nationalism has played an important role in shaping the nation through the construction of various categories of ‘aliens’ and the subsequent pressure put onto cultural groups to adjust their identities vis-à-vis the nation-state. (shrink)

This article will discuss the ongoing development of a Marxist theory of international relations. Examining the work of Hannes Lacher and that of the contributors toMarxism and World Politicsreveals an overarching concern amongst this group of scholars to engage with the central concerns of the discipline of International Relations – the nature of the state, anarchy, and war. Their analysis provides an excellent starting point for the development of a Marxist approach to international relations.

Credibility is particularly important in organic food systems because there are only marginal visual and sensorial differences between organic and conventionally produced products, requiring consumers to trust in producers’ quality claims. In this article I explore what challenges the credibility of organic food systems and I explore how credibility of organic food systems can be maintained, using the Danish organic food system as a case study. The question is increasingly relevant as the sale of organic food is growing in Denmark (...) as well as globally, and consumers’ expectations of organics continuously evolve. The inquiry is threefold, first I outline a conceptual framework for understanding trust and credibility in the food system, secondly I explore the developments in Danish organic food systems and thirdly discuss the challenges and opportunities for maintaining trust in the Danish organic food system. In the analysis I indicate eight key challenges: unrealistic expectations, blind trust and little motivation for extending their knowledge, consumers assess the overall credibility of organic products, ambitious ethical principles, new consumer groups introduce new expectations, frozen requirements in a changing world, growing imports and labelling and multiple versions of organics and the diversity is growing, as well as four aspects which may maintain the credibility of organics if implemented: coordinate expectations, communicate requested information, institutional reform and open communication of pros and cons of organic production. (shrink)

This thesis explores how we might think the relation between psychoanalysis and the cultural field through Donald Winnicott’s concept of the environment, seeking to bring the concept into dialogue with more “classical” strands of psychoanalytic theorizing. A substantial introduction sets out the rationale behind the thesis by reading Freud and Winnicott in relation to the “classic” and the “romantic”, or the “negative” and “positive”, in psychoanalytic thought. It goes on to outline the value of bringing these tendencies together in order (...) to think the relationship between psychoanalysis, culture and change. The chapters which follow move from psychoanalysis as a “cultural cure” – a method and discourse drawing on and feeding into a broad conception of cultural life – towards a notion of “culture as cure” informed by Winnicott’s theory of the environment. Chapter one examines Freud’s refusal of the “culture”/ “civilization” distinction and considers what it means for the idea of a cultural cure. Chapter two considers whether Winnicott’s thinking about “culture” ultimately prioritises the aesthetic over the political. Chapter three uses Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to explore an analogy between totalitarianism, technology and maternal care. Chapter four turns to the series In Treatment to think about the intersections of therapy and technology in terms of reflection and recognition. Chapter five employs Ian McEwan’s Saturday as a means to reflect on the capacity of culture to cure. Ultimately, I suggest that social “cure” may require more than “good-enough” cultural forms and objects, but Winnicott’s “romantic” theorization of the aesthetic, coupled with a “classic” attention to structures of power and oppression may offer a means of thinking the relationship between psychoanalysis and culture in potentially transformative ways. (shrink)

Despite the flood of philosophical texts on postmodernism, relatively few attempts have been made to gauge the importance of postmodern ideas for the philosophy of science. However, Lyotard's enormously influential text The postmodern condition (1979) focussed on science and knowledge. He put the term metanarrative (grand narrative) into circulation. Lyotard defines the term modern to refer to the way in which science tries to legitimate its own status by means of philosophical discourse which appeal to some kind of grand narrative (...) (Lyotard 1984:xxiii). Science needs to legitimate itself as being true knowledge by making use of another kind of knowledge, which Lyotard calls narrative knowledge (Lyotard 1984:29,30). Without this legitimation science would presuppose its own validity and proceed on prejudice (Lyotard 1984:29). He examines two such grand narratives that previously legitimated science in the modern world, but now have lost their credibility. One is science as the liberator of humanity and the other science as a good influence on the character of its participants. He describes his now famous definition of the concept postmodern, namely an incredulity toward metanarratives, as being extremely simplified (Lyotard 1984:xxiv). Lyotard (1984:18-27) also strongly focuses attention on the important role of narratives in human life in that narratives provide a certain kind of knowledge that cannot be had in any other way. He regards narrative and scientific knowledge as two distinct species of discourse (Lyotard 1984:26-27), which both fulfill legitimate functions and no one's existence is more or less necessary than the other's. Lyotard himself sees the function of legitimation as the primary role for narrative knowledge, and discusses it mostly in that context (1984:27-37). In this article I want to look at philosophers who give different appraisals of the merits of postmodern ideas - with Lyotardian ones featuring prominently - for philosophy of science and our understanding of science. I will examine the attempts by Nancey Murphy (1990), Pauline-Marie Rosenau (1992), Zuzana Parusnikova (1992) and Joseph Rouse (1990, 1991a, 1991b) to develop (or reject) a postmodern philosophy of science. In a final section I will determine the worth of their views for our understanding of science and philosophy of science. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a rapidly growing body of work in the social sciences that underscores the prevalence of the phenomenon of ‘social acceleration'—the speeding up of social life— in many parts of the Western world. Although research on social acceleration has tended to analyze the phenomenon on a social-structural level, there is also a need to investigate how social acceleration has ‘ramifications for the socially dominant forms of self-relation’. One way to gain a more in-depth understanding of (...) this facet of social acceleration is to investigate the speeding up of social life through the prism of the self. The central argument of this article is that there are at least five images of the self which can be associated with the social acceleration phenomenon: the ‘detached’ self, the ‘reflexive’ self, the ‘reinventive’ self, the ‘stationary’ self and the ‘decelerating’ self. By explaining how these kinds of self relate to the speeding up process, we seek to advance a more nuanced and sophisticated theory of social acceleration, which captures some of the complexities and paradoxes that the phenomenon involves. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the issue of immorality, an issue that has largely been understudied in anthropology. It examines two types of immoral behavior in contemporary Chinese society, drawing on cases widely agreed upon by ordinary people to be morally wrong. Next, it analyzes moral experiences and moral sentiments among individuals who either were victims of immoral acts or recalled their own feelings of being immoral. Ethnographic evidence shows that immorality tends to be intuitive and emotional in actual social actions (...) but in recollections of moral experiences it is reflected upon with rational reasoning and justification. Immorality is essentially the violation of the social, which may explain why ordinary people use immorality to define and defend their social behavior in everyday life. The recent emphasis on moral reasoning and ethical choice in anthropological studies of moralities has overlooked the social in the moral as well as the role of moral sentiments and intuitions in social actions. (shrink)

Medical and non-medical experts increasingly argue that individuals, whether they are diagnosed with a specific chronic disease or condition or not (and whether they are judged at minimal risk of these consequences or not), have an obligation to make ‘healthy’ food choices. We argue that this obligation is neither scientifically nor ethically justified at the level of the individual. Our intent in the article is not simply to argue against moralization of the value of prudential uses of food for nutritional (...) health, but to situate nutritional advocacy in the context of Western liberal democracy that values free choice. We have two objectives: (i) to untangle and examine the substance of discourses on ‘healthy’ food choice that simplify nutrition science and place a moral obligation on individuals and (ii) to establish a more comprehensive view of the relationship among food, ethics and health. Although critical of certain features of the liberal political and moral tradition, we argue that John Stuart Mill’s notion of experiments in living provides fertile ground for an improved ethical understanding of individual obligation and of the interconnections among food, health and well-being. (shrink)

This special issue of Science and Engineering Ethics is devoted to the ethical, societal and political implications of new and emerging technologies in the area of Human Security. Its aim is to address the wider implications of an altered security landscape. Specifically, and in accordance with SEE’s main area of interest, contributions to this special issue focus on those ethical considerations warranted by scientific and technological advances in the field of human security. This includes, but is not restricted to, issues (...) of privacy and data protection, control, trust, surveillance, authority, and freedom. Papers consider some of the ethical and societal challenges related to new and emerging technologies in the context of the Human Security Doctrine (HSD), as it has been initially formulated by the United Nations Commission on Human Security (UNCHS 2003). The HSD argues for a paradigm shift from understanding security based on tangible assets (e.g., national borders, goo .. (shrink)

This article focuses on the philosophy underpinning the non-mainstream body modification practices of `Modern Primitives'. This subculture seeks inspiration in the body modification techniques and bodily rituals of so-called `primitive societies'. Establishing their prioritization of body, sexuality, community and spirituality as analytical links, the author shows that these self-perceived radical opponents of Western modernity nonetheless remain captured in its foundational discursive assumptions. The author argues that the movement's enthusiastic turn towards `primitivism' represents a particular identity strategy within the late modern (...) condition. Drawing on colonial discourse analysis, the author argues that the primitivist discourse originated as an ideology within colonialism and has informed the construction of the Western self-image. Modern Primitives' notion of `primitivism' is seen as a postcolonial legacy of this tradition of `othering', which inevitably reproduces stereotypes of racialized people. (shrink)

In this article, the sociocultural meanings and social relations and expectations that cohere around `road rage' and serve to invest it with its particular resonance in contemporary Western societies are examined. It is argued that the combination of car and driver in the driving experience produces a cyborg body, which influences the ways in which people experience, perceive and respond to driving and other cars/drivers. But in contemporary societies the expression of such `negative' emotions is problematic and complex. In this (...) context, `road rage' is deemed to evidence loss of appropriate self-control and as `uncivilized'. (shrink)

The general idea developed in this paper from a sociological perspective is that some of the foundational categories on which the debate about privacy, security and technology rests are blurring. This process is a consequence of a blurring of physical and digital worlds. In order to define limits for legitimate use of intrusive digital technologies, one has to refer to binary distinctions such as private versus public, human versus technical, security versus insecurity to draw differences determining limits for the use (...) of surveillance technologies. These distinctions developed in the physical world and are rooted in a cultural understanding of pre-digital culture. Attempts to capture the problems emerging with the implementation of security technologies using legal reasoning encounter a number of problems since law is by definition oriented backwards, adapting new developments to existing traditions, whereas the intrusion of new technologies in the physical world produces changes and creates fundamentally new problems. (shrink)

Trust has been widely investigated both theoretically and empirically. Whether thought of as the result of a calculation of costs/benefits, a shared identity, or a leap of faith, there always seems to be an ‘as if’ rhetorical gesture which is ultimately needed to explain how actors move from the base of trust to expectations of trust via suspending judgment on uncertainty and fear of vulnerability to betrayal and exploitation — the actors ultimately act ‘as if’ they do not fear uncertainty (...) and vulnerability to betrayal. Yet this ‘as if’ element has remained seriously under-theorised. Drawing on Derrida's deconstruction, I propose a way of thinking this ‘as if’ element of trust. I thus argue that the decision to trust occurs in a terrain of structural undecidability. The latter is thought of as the possibility condition of trust as well as the subject of trust and a sense of responsibility for this trust. The aporiatic nature of undecidability makes this trust an auto-immune trust which obeys the tripartite logic of ‘without’ which both negates and affirms trust. (shrink)

This article offers a political reading of Franz Kafka's posthumous work The Trial. In this novel, the main protagonist is subject to an arrest and trial conducted by the ambiguous authority of a shadowy court and its officials. This article explores Joseph K.'s experience of being subject to the Law, and relates this to our own understanding and experience of political subjectivity in modern times. K.'s doomed search for order through a ‘permanent resolution’ of his case is related to the (...) modern desire for order: Specifically, the desire for both philosophical and political frameworks that provide narratives or certainty. Here modernity is understood to be characterized by an anxiety brought about by a crisis in authorship and authority. The article then considers K.'s desire for justice and the Law, and his entanglement with the power of the court, as analogous to the modern experience of the triad of justice–law–power, which is subsumed under the banner of ‘sovereignty’. In particular, the article explores K.'s inability to locate, read, or fix the Law; a problem that is also reflected in the aporia of sovereignty as justice–law–power. K.'s experience alerts us to the contradictions in the triad justice–law–power; contradictions that occur as although each member of the triad is dependent upon the other two, each member of the triad also seeks to exclude or deny this dependency. Thus, read politically, K.'s struggle in The Trial can be seen as a reflection of the modern struggle with sovereignty as the triad justice–law–power, and the impasse that K. reaches is also the impasse that modernity has reached. (shrink)

The dynamic differentiation of various social spheres in modernity has not been matched by any similarly dynamic development of new forms of trust which would help to maintain the connection between the impersonal/ systemic forms and the personal ones. Instead, we face today an increasing gap between the forms of trust related to the proliferating ‘abstract systems’ and the personal forms of trust. It is, above all, in this context that the topic of friendship became reintroduced into theoretical debates in (...) search for a model of human relationships which might bridge this gap. It is argued that such transformation of friendship into a ‘radical utopia’ is only the latest phase in the long series of historical transformations it has undergone in the context of changing social articulation of the relation between privacy and publicness. (shrink)

This paper examines discourses of stakeholders regarding global climate change to assess whether and how they construct industrial animal agriculture as posing a risk. The analysis assesses whether these discourses have shifted since the release of Livestock’s Long Shadow, a report by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which indicated that the industrial animal agriculture sector as a whole contributes more to global climate change than the transportation sector. Using Ulrich Beck’s theorizing of the “risk society,” this paper examines (...) how various animal rights and welfare groups, environmental organizations, meat industry stakeholders, governmental agencies, and newspapers in Canada, the United States, and internationally investigate and construct industrial animal agriculture as a risk, if at all, and how their respective discourses conflict. The findings indicate that while some stakeholders acknowledge industrial animal agriculture’s contribution to global climate change, for the most part the problematization of animal agriculture has not increased since the release of Livestock’s Long Shadow, and the animal agriculture industry has seemingly not lost its power to “rationalize risk.”. (shrink)

La respuesta a los efectos no deseados de la tecnología ha consolidado un amplio conjunto de bases legales e instrumentos análiticos ligados a la evaluación de los riesgos. Este artículo plantea que buena parte de las controversias sobre los riesgos tecnológicos más que a la ausencia de su regulación se debe paradójicamente a la generalización de las políticas basadas en la ciencia. En el origen encontramos una concepción equívoca del conocimiento científico. La ciencia como gobierno de la sociedad requiere previamente (...) una reflexión sobre las dinámicas del conocimiento y su gobierno. (shrink)

The critical studies in the Sociology of Agriculture can be generally divided into four questions: Agrarian, Environmental, Food, and Emancipatory. While the four questions overlap and all address social justice concerns, there is a chronological sequence to the studies. In this presidential address presented at the joint meetings of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society and the Association for the Study of Food in Society held in June 2008 in New Orleans, LA, I provide an overview of the four (...) questions and call for researchers and activists in agrifood studies to engage as public social scientists to bring about a more just and equitable agrifood system. (shrink)

This article outlines aconceptual framework for examining recentoutbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 infectionassociated with the consumption of beef in theUnited States. We argue that beef produced inthis country is generally safer frombacteriological contamination than in the past.Paradoxically, increasing intensification andconcentration in the meat subsector since theearly 1980s has (a) altered agro-food ecology,including characteristics of foodborne bacteriaand human physiology; (b) created conditionsfavorable for the rapid amplification of lowconcentrations of pathogens; and (c) reducedthe beef industry's flexibility to introducechanges necessary to preclude and/or (...) controlthe rapid spread of pathogens in meat and meatproducts. As a result, beef industry currentlyis capable of producing large quantities ofbacteriologically safe meat whilesimultaneously becoming more vulnerable to foodcontaminations that can be fatal in some cases.The limitations and effectiveness of a newregulatory regime, the HACCP (Hazard Analysisand Critical Control Points) system as well asother efforts to decontaminate the beef supplyare discussed. (shrink)

Unlike some western scholars who limit their interpretation of modernity and its source to conceptual, cultural, value, and psychological dimensions, Marx pointed out that modernity came mainly from modern production system. Starting from the historical context of his time, Marx explored various aspects of modernity and pointed out that modernity was inherent in the logic of capital, resided in the process of historical evolution, arose in social conflicts and segmentation, and presented itself in a global horizon. The logic of capital, (...) the historical viewpoint, the theory of contradiction and a global perspective are fundamental in Marx's analysis of the problems of modernity. Marx's ideas of modernity are methodologically significant to the construction of modernity in contemporary Chinese society. (shrink)

When Durkheim (1933) wrote that the introduction of technologies had produced “profound changes... in the structure of our societies in a very short time”, he was warning against the unqualified acceptance of rapid technological change before a knowledge base had had time to develop from the existing values and shared experiences of individuals. This paper will consider how the technologising of society, in the context of work, is at once a suppression of knowledge and a reaffirmation of its power. Interpretive (...) analysis of office-based employees in three organisations reveals how the abstraction, the alienation, the anomie that disorientates, invades, isolates and ultimately separates individuals from the conditions of their work, are symptoms of this assault on knowledge. Paradoxically, the analysis also disputes the pre-eminence of this view. It considers the technologising of society to be establishing a prevailing knowledge base that provides a range of new opportunities for not only communicating at work, but also increasing mobility within and without the workplace, raising employment prospects, and nurturing a greater sense of self-sufficiency, accountability and responsibility. This paper contends that these are factors, which indicate that the technologising of society, by cultivating fresh sources of knowledge, is also empowering individuals through the facilitation of new autonomous working practices. (shrink)

Emotions are understood sociologically as experiences of involvement. Emotion regulation influences the type, incidence, and expression of emotions. Regulation occurs through physical processes prior to an emotions episode, through social interaction in which a person’s emotions are modified due to the reactions of others to them, and by a person’s self-modification or management of emotions which they are consciously aware of. This article goes on to show that there are emotions which the emoting subject is not consciously aware of. Therefore, (...) a certain class of emotions function by foregrounding external objects of attention while remaining outside the emoting subject’s consciousness. The nature and significance of such backgrounded emotions beyond explicit emotion regulation are explored through consideration of their role in theory choice in science and in trust relations. (shrink)

Evidence evinced primarily from the visual arts suggests that the term `postmodernism' is unlikely to survive as a general description of contemporary culture beyond the year 2000. The concepts of both post-industrialism and postmodernism are examined as presented by six major writers. None makes a convincing case for the establishment of an historical disjunction that separates modernism from postmodernism either during the 1960s or at any other time. There is a need to recognize that the modernism of the late 19th (...) and early 20th century is no longer modern. It would be better described as the formalesque. This will make it possible to recognize the `postmodern' as the true modernism of the 20th century, the prime sources of which lie in Dada, surrealism and the Neue Sachlichkeit. (shrink)

This paper calls attention to some basic problems and inner contradictions in the German sociologist Ulrich Beck’s theory of the ‘(world) risk society’ or reflexive (second) modernity. A main thread in the critique is that of addressing the theoretical ambiguities that seem to characterize Beck’s at the same time ‘social constructivist’ and ‘realist’ notion of risk – ambiguities that seem to be repeated on the one hand in Beck’s view on the relation between knowledge and unawareness in reflexive modernity and (...) on the other hand in his view on the role of the mass media in the ‘(world) risk society’. Moreover, Beck’s notions of second modernity, reflexivity, rationality and critique are critically examined. With the alternative positions discussed in the paper – represented by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Niklas Luhmann and Mitchell Dean – some indications are given as to how one might fruitfully elaborate on the problem of risk. Thus, rather than a mainly technology-driven new type of social reality, the ‘(world) risk society’ could perhaps better be seen as indicating a changing cultural self-understanding of late modern society, a new ‘semantics of crisis', or the emergence of new forms of governmentality in the contemporary welfare state. In conclusion, some indications are given as to how an analysis of more specific ‘risk logics' or ‘rationalities' could be elaborated on, and a terminology that reflects this more differentiated approach to risk in late modern society is suggested. (shrink)

Although enterprise risk management (ERM) has many benefits for corporations, there has been virtually no discussion of the extent to which its practice may be said to constitute corporate social responsibility. This article presents a prima facie case for the convergence of the two and examines this case through a consideration of four possible objections or challenges. The conclusion of this article is a tempered optimism that ERM has the significant, but as yet untapped, potential to constitute socially responsible activity, (...) which, if realized, would enable Adam Smith's invisible hand of the marketplace to have an expanded sweep. (shrink)

Affirmative globalization studies stress positive aspects of global capitalism, while critical globalization studies use notions such as "Empire" and "new imperialism" to analyze the global economy's negativity. Critical globalization studies, however, frequently lack a precise theoretical notion of imperialism. This absence can be corrected by connecting the notion of a "new imperialism" to the classical theory of imperialism, as found in Lenin's canonical work. Empirical analysis of data from recent decades shows that Lenin's aspproach remains broadly correct, and that adaptation (...) of his method to new realities strengthens the theoretical foundation of recent work on global capitalism. (shrink)

Even before trust became a buzzword, theoretical developments were made, which have instigated the development of two forms of trust which are described as personal trust and system trust/confidence. However, this distinction remained rather secondary in the overall literature. There is an overall lack on the historical developments of these forms of trust, their internal logic and how they interlink, overlap, or work against each other. The paper aims to advance these three aspects: first through a historical overview of the (...) semantic of this distinction, followed by a theoretical reconstruction of the historical material and third by demonstrating how these theoretical concepts can be applied to political crises (Revolutions of 1989), thus revealing their logic and mutual interlocking. (shrink)

The emerging epistemic community of ecosemioticians and the multidisciplinary field of inquiry known as ecosemiotics offer a radical and relevant approach to so-called global environmental crisis. There are no environmental fixes within the dominant code, since that code overdetermines the future, thereby perpetuating ecologically untenable cultural forms. The possibility of a sustainability transition (the attempt to overcome destitution and avoid ecocatastrophe) becomes real when mediated by and through ecosemiotics. In short, reflexive awareness of humankind's linguisticality is a necessary condition for (...) transforming ecologically maladaptive cultural forms. As a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary research program integrating the human and natural sciences, ecosemiotic inquiry closes the gap between biophysical ecology and human ecology. A provisional outline of a pragmatic theory of ecoserniotics attempts to describe the processes by which adaptive cultural changes might be facilitated and points toward substantive content areas that constitute sites for further research. Ecosemiotic inquiry frames cultural codes as these shape and reproduce the ongoing stream of individual and societal choices that shape distinctively human existence in a larger context of biophysical realities that drive natural selection. However, while ecosemiotics is a necessary condition for the sustainability transition, it is not a sufficient condition. (shrink)

Increasing attention to existentialist thought by criminologists and other social scientists in recent decades has created an opportunity to envision new possibilities in critical theoretic inquiry that extend well beyond the classical formulations of this tradition. In this essay, I draw on existentialist ideas to outline a critical perspective rooted in recent developments associated with Ulrich Beck's notion of "risk society" and the related theory of reflexive modernization. I argue that, though the detraditionalization consequences of reflexive modernization give greater scope (...) to agency in the risk society, transcendence in the existentialist sense is found in the hermeneutic reflexivity one experiences in high risk practices I call "edgework". Finally, I explore several options for using existential transcendence in hermeneutic reflexivity as a reference for critical analysis and, in doing so, suggest an alternative to Beck's own critical approach—cosmopolitanism—as a foundation for a critical theory of the second modern social order. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ (AICPA) efforts to conceal the offshoring of tax return preparation services by U.S. Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) through recommending an inadequate disclosure format for this type of work. We draw on Giddens’ theory of trust and expert systems, the professionalism literature, and Flyvbjerg’s concept of power to analyze the underlying agenda behind the revised ethics rulings (AICPA Ethics Ruling No. 112 under Rule 102, No. 12 under Rule 201, (...) and No. 1 under Rule 301). Specifically, we examine (1) the AICPA leadership’s stated professional justifications for outsourcing and its recommended client disclosures, (2) risks associated with outsourcing tax return preparation work overseas and the trust issues that result, and (3) the resistance to the AICPA leadership’s recommended outsourcing disclosure rules within the rank and file of the CPA profession. We argue that our analysis reveals the AICPA’s on-going promotion of their private interests, thus continuing to raise systemic concerns regarding the public’s trust in the U.S. public accounting profession. (shrink)

Recent social theory has identified various institutional forces operating at a global level promoting novel trends towards “individualization”, “reflexive self-identity” and “new individualism” (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2001; Giddens, 1991, 1992; Elliott and Lemert, 2009, 2009a). This article develops an exploratory overview of the theory of new individualism with reference to Japanese sociologies of self specifically and contemporary Japanese society more generally. Detailing the large-scale societal shift in Japan from traditional forms of identity-construction (based on a citizenship model of social order) (...) to post-traditional forms of identity-construction (promoted by globalization and neoliberal policies), the article distinguishes between four discourses of the self in post-war Japanese society: the age of the ideal; the age of the dream; the age of fiction; and, the age of fragmentation. Moreover, the article examines the Japanese employment system and the emergence of new individualist employment, as well as considering the emotional impacts of a rise in suicides in contemporary Japan. The argument is that the new individualist thesis can contribute to a sociological understanding of recent social transformations in Japan. However, situating new individualism in the context of Japan also highlights significant tensions in processes of new individualism, tensions between individual initiatives and institutional pressures. (shrink)

This thesis inquires into our ‘human nature’ through an interdisciplinary approach that considers some of the radical changes in intellectual thought at those key points in Western culture in which this concept has been centrally deployed. The broad historical sweep that this study covers finds the preoccupation with defining who we are and what we are capable of inextricably linked with the focus, at most of the pivotal moments examined, on a dominant impulse to conceive human beings as moral creatures.

The present article is devoted to the problem which is debated actively to-day, namely whether Greek poleis and the Roman Republic were early states or they represented a specific type of stateless societies. In particular, Moshe Berent examines this problem by the example of Athens in his contribution to this volume. He arrives at the conclusion that Athens was a stateless society. However, I am of the opinion that this conclusion is wrong: and I believe that Athens and Rome were (...) early states. Therefore the present article is in many respects a direct discussion with Berent (as well as with other supporters of this idea). (shrink)