Public relations practitioners place a premium on loyalty - particularly in terms of cultivating relationships. However, little scholarly research has been done on the subject. This essay analyzes loyalty in terms of organizational deterioration and decline. The ethical dimensions of Hirschman's concept of "exit, voice, and loyalty, " and Royce's notion about loyalty, are explored, as is the concept of "loyalty to loyalty. " The essay concludes with a 7-step model intended to help practitioners determine the demands of ethical loyalty.

SUMMARYHistorians of historiography have recently adopted the language of ‘epistemic virtues’ to refer to character traits believed to be conducive to good historical scholarship. While ‘epistemic virtues’ is a modern philosophical concept, virtues such as ‘objectivity’, ‘meticulousness’ and ‘carefulness’ historically also served as actors' categories. Especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, historians frequently used virtue language to describe what it took to be a ‘good’, ‘reliable’ or ‘professional’ scholar. Based on three European case studies—the German historian Georg (...) Waitz, his French pupil Gabriel Monod and the Belgian historian Henri Pirenne —this article argues that such virtues cannot neatly be classified as ‘epistemic’ ones. For what is characteristic about virtue language in historical scholarship around 1900 is an overlap or entanglement of epistemic, moral and political connotations. The virtues embodied by, or attributed to, Waitz, Monod and Pirenne were almost invariably aimed at epistemic, moral and political goods at once, though not always to the same degrees. Consequently, if ‘epistemic virtues’ is going to be a helpful category, it must not be interpreted in a strong sense, but in a weak one. (shrink)

The use of agency theory remains highly controversial among business ethicists. While some regard it as an essential tool for analyzing and understanding the recent spate of corporate ethics scandals, others argue that these scandals might not even have occurred had it not been for the widespread teaching of agency theory in business schools. This paper presents a qualified defense of agency theory against these charges, first by identifying the theoretical commitments that are essential to the theory (in order to (...) distinguish between agency theory itself and certain incorrect interpretations that have been widely promulgated), and second, by specifying more clearly the different ways that agency theory can be used to analyze relations within the firm. The recommendation that follows from this analysis is that agency theory be used as a critical-diagnostic tool, to identify the points at which both firms and markets will be vulnerable to breakdown in the absence of moral constraint. (shrink)

Applying a philosophical perspective to the concept of loyalty, I consider how the commodification of education may affect the ties between people. Using both theories of brand loyalty and Albert Hirschman's distinction between exit and voice, I examine how human loyalties may be formed in general and also in the field of education. I conclude that the overemphasis on ‘vertical’ loyalty demanded by marketisation can undermine and may, under certain conditions, erase the very structures of ‘horizontal’ loyalty essential for the (...) civic arena. These structures are also necessary for schools to function in their civic task of educating the future citizenry. (shrink)

This study will answer the question, what do students expect to learn from philosophy teachers in the 21st century. by framing a response based on the following: The researcher’s teaching philosophy developed over 30 years, a survey conducted of UAEU students, and a discussion of the changing role and purpose of philosophy in the academy and current pedagogical philosophy in teaching. The study has focused on how philosophical questions have been changed over time, using new technology to teach philosophy, what (...) are the characteristics of philosophy teachers and students, the new direction for teaching philosophy, and career opportunities. The practical frame of this research will be analyzed students survey conducted on female students from United Arab Emirates University. I will use the method of content analysis to investigate and trace this phenomenon to determine its meaning, developing philosophical questions, and the new direction for teaching philosophy. Then I will examine the data taken from the theoretical and practical sources for the purpose of diagnosing and reaching conclusions a process which is called in philosophy synthesis, therefore the approach of the research would be analysis and synthesis. (shrink)

I wish to begin my paper with a statement by Foucault, how considers, in concluding his Histoire de la folie, madness as a graft onto the world of reason. The social implications of this thesis cross all of his work: as a plant grafted onto another plant not only produces a new species but also depends on the host for nutrition, so happens with madness. There is no autonomous space for something like an identity of madness in the contemporary culture. (...) The social body defines its reason setting against an excluded background and affirming itself in a negative fashion. This social graft has an important echo in each individual be it sane or insane. The age of the asylum opened the gates to the so called positivist psychiatry. In turn, this current could be said to graft onto man’s nature mental illness, rendering him corrupt and dangerous in his very essence. In order to overcome this discriminating reductionist naturalism, phenomenological psychiatry introduces a new relationship between the physician and the patient, modelled on the idea that both their subjectivities have to be called into question. This is achieved primarily through and epoché: the psychiatrist has to bracket all his illusions of objectivity, as well as any organicist categories, in order to approach a fellow human being. This perspective is adopted and yet surpassed by Franco Basaglia, the psychiatrist who reformed Italian psychiatric health care. Not only should the psychiatrist bracket his assumptions in order to avoid treating madness as a graft onto the nature of man, but also he has to fight the asylum, that physical and metaphorical space from which madness could live only grafted, according to Foucault, onto the world of reason. Therefore, if there is something like an identity of madness, from these three perspectives we understand that it has to be sought to a paradoxical return: a return from a state in which it is grafted; a return to a state in which it has never been. (shrink)