We study the impact of social capital and perceptions about corporate ethical behaviour on the use of collateral in corporate borrowing. Using a dataset of more than 17,500 firms operating in over 100 transition and developing countries, we find evidence that country-level social capital and better perceptions about corporate ethical behaviour are negatively associated with the likelihood to pledge collateral. In addition, these country-level characteristics influence the value of collateral relative to the loan value.

Human activity has reshaped all parts of the Earth system. For this reason, a vast majority of geologists at the 35th International Geological Congress in Cape Town (September 2016) spoke out in favor of changing the classification of geological epochs and of declaring a new world age – the Anthropocene. This chapter points at implications that the proclamation of the Anthropocene should have for the currently relevant concept of democracy. In particular, it is argued that the transition into a new (...) phase of geology also necessitates a further advancement of our form of government. Democracy, as it has been conceived of and practiced until now, has to a large extent ignored the problem of ‘presentism’. This chapter suggests an extension of the 300-years-old separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branch. It is argued that in order to make our political system more future-oriented, there is a need for a new (fourth) branch which ensures that the interests of future generations be taken into account within today's decision-making process. A newly-established ‘future council’ should have the right to introduce legislation, integrating the competences of this new institution with those of parliament. The chapter concludes with a discussion about the legitimacy of offices for future generations (OFGs) as the embodiment of the proposed future branch. (shrink)

In contrast to eminent historical philosophers, almost all contemporary philosophers maintain that slavery is impermissible. In the enthusiasm of the Enlightenment, a number of arguments gained currency which were intended to show that contractual slavery is not merely impermissible but impossible. Those arguments are influential today in moral, legal and political philosophy, even in discussions that go beyond the issue of contractual slavery. I explain what slavery is, giving historical and other illustrations. I examine the arguments for the impossibility of (...) contractual slavery propounded in the Enlightenment and their offspring expounded in recent writings, including those by Barnett, Cassirer, Ellerman, Rawls, Roberts-Thomson, Satz and Steiner. I show that they involve confusions between abilities and rights, free will and freedom, directing and doing, what may be true sequentially and what may be true simultaneously, default rights and universal rights, impermissibility and impossibility, and metaphorical and literal uses of language. (shrink)

In this article I suggest that section VIII of Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding could be read as a contribution to the foundational issues of a characteristic 18th-century enterprise, namely the ‘science of man’. More specifically, it can be read as a summary of his attempt to place this science on an experimental footing, with an awareness of the lessons he has drawn in the previous sections of the Enquiry. This interpretation fits with an overall reading of the work as (...) responding to the epistemological problems that arise in the context of then-contemporary ways of knowledge production. As I argue, this section is relevant for the methodology of a science of human nature. The main problems it addresses are the following. What kind of knowledge can we hope for about human beings, and how should we pursue it? What are the meaningful questions that can be asked, and what is beyond the reach of this kind of inquiry? Answering these questions sets the scope and limits of this science. (shrink)

The growing appreciation of the global environmental crisis has generated what should have been a predictable response: those with power are using it to appropriate for themselves the world’s diminishing resources, augmenting their power to do so while further undermining the power of the weak to oppose them. In taking this path, they are at the same time blocking efforts to create forms of society that would be ecologically sustainable. If there is one word that could bring into focus what (...) is wrong with this response it is ‘democracy’. Democracy means power in the hands of the people, which, by definition, means opposition to the concentration of power. It is inconceivable that if we had genuine democracy, where people were fully informed of the issues, they would not choose to share the burdens of scarcity and organize to live in accordance with the limits of their environment. Yet the notion of democracy is problematic. Those striving to concentrate power are pursuing this in the name of democracy. They have identified democracy with the imposition of free markets and the freedom of people to use their wealth to dominate others. In this paper I will show how process philosophy provides the basis for justifying and further developing the traditional notion of democracy to counter this reformed notion, providing a vision of a democratic form of society that could address environmental problems. To achieve this, I will argue, it is necessary to reformulate the grand narrative of civilization on the basis of human ecology, a science which, construing humans as participants in a creative nature, can replace economics as the master science for formulating public policy. (shrink)

The development of the individual attributes of ethics of responsibility in conjunction with the principles of civic liberalism in Slovak political thought is associated with the thinking of Ján Palárik. His political ideas published in the second half of the 19th century come out of an effort to characterize and achieve reform of the Habsburg monarchy on the basis of constitutionalism and federalism. These attributes, in Palárik’s opinion, were to bring more effective solutions to the issue of educating people in (...) their mother tongue and the creation of civic culture. A part of Palárik’s approach to the formation of civic skills is also the advocating of free expression, the idea of pluralism and gradualism within the idea of the unity of the different. His realistic approach to politics was framed by knowing and respecting the objective limits when implementing the aims of national civic freedom. Palárik linked the development of the state and the process of acculturation of the people with application of the principles of practical reasonableness and ethics of responsibility. He found its essence in understanding the interconnectedness of political goals and ideals, which were to be reflected in close association with the real limitations of the capabilities of individuals and social circumstances. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to reconstruct different aspects of the history of ideas of suicide, from antiquity to late modernity, and contemplate their dialectical tension. Reflexive suicide prevention, drawing on the ancient wisdom that the art of living is inseparable from the art of dying, takes advantage, it is argued, of the contradictory nature of suicide, and hence embraces, rather than trying to overcome, death, pain, grief, fear, hopelessness and milder depressions. This approach might facilitate the transformation (...) of inner shame to inter-personal guilt, which is the precondition for coping with losses through grieving that is shared with others. The traditional projection of suicide on the ‘Other’, reinforced by modernity’s bio-political suppression of death, has inhibited development of good suicide prevention. Awareness of the ambiguity and ambivalence found in suicide may work as a resource when measures are taken to address as many causal mechanisms as possible, and bringing special emphasis to external factors. (shrink)

The prevailing justification for constitutional institutions is that such institutions reflect and enable rational solutions to social problems. However, constitutions are constructed through emotionally driven processes that reflect both the public sentiments of the day and, at least to some extent, basic moral emotions. Historical examples from France and the United States demonstrate the role of such emotional processes in shaping the design of liberal constitutionalism. Further, constitutional law both sets and regulates emotional display rules; favors or disfavors certain emotional (...) commitments; and, particularly through the formulation of fundamental human rights, reflects and shapes emotional moral judgments. The emotional contributors to constitutional design and interpretation may be called “constitutional sentiments.”. (shrink)

Are hierarchies necessary in human relationships? This issue is a central one for feminist theory, and there is a continuing need to rethink relationships and to envision what they might be like without any sort of dominance of some over others. To aid this process of envisioning alternatives, this paper examines more closely the way one of the most intimate of hierarchies - marriage - has been argued and envisioned historically.

Endorsing Bill Readings’ argument that there is an intimate relationship between the dissolution of the nation-State, the undermining of the Humboldtian ideal of the university and economic globalization, this paper defends both the nation-State and the Humboldtian university as core institutions of democracy. However, such an argument only has force, it is suggested, if we can revive an appreciation of the real meaning of democracy. Endorsing Cornelius Castoriadis’ argument that democracy has been betrayed in the modern world but disagreeing with (...) his analysis of modernity, it is argued that the tradition of modern democratic thought can only be properly comprehended in relation to the ‘radical enlightenment’ originating in the Renaissance, efforts to subvert this by the ‘moderate enlightenment’, and the revival and reformulation of the radical enlightenment in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century. It is shown that subsequent political thought only becomes fully intelligible in relation to the on-going struggle between the radical and the moderate enlightenments, and that it is necessary to appreciate that the moderate enlightenment, manifesting itself in neo-liberal thought, is profoundly anti-democratic. While the radical enlightenment was developed in the nineteenth century by philosophical idealists, it is suggested that the achievements of the idealists can be successfully defended now only on naturalistic foundations through process metaphysics. Process metaphysics, it is shown, provides the basis for reviving the Humboldtian model of the university, the democratic nation-State, and a vision of the future as ‘communities of communities’ to counter the dissolution of all communities into the global market promoted by neo-liberals. (shrink)

This paper offers a genealogy of anti-polygamy sentiment in North America, elucidating certain racist and nationalist formations that are implicit in the historical valorization and enforcement of heterosexual monogamy. It tracks the white supremacist and heteronormative logic that conditions the widespread disdain toward polygamy, and that renders it fundamentally different from familial configurations that are associated with national identity. Relating political and philosophical doctrines to the archival documentation and insights of contemporary legal and cultural historians of anti-polygamy sentiment, it elucidates (...) the racial Anglo-Saxonism of Hegel's ruminations on marriage and on the state, and highlights its reverberation within the political philosophy that justified the criminalization of polygamy and its supporting institutions in the nineteenth century and in contemporary immigration policy and same-sex marriage advocacy in Canada and the United States. (shrink)

Traditionally, debates over the issue of representation in liberalism and in socialism focused on such questions as who or whose interests should be represented in order to attest to the legitimacy of representation. In this article, a different and more fundamental approach is achieved by asking how the representation is accomplished. At this methodological point, liberalism and socialism diverge in their understanding of representative government: Each follows its own philosophical paradigm(s) that underly and justify its position. Differences between liberal and (...) socialist understandings of representation are analytically compared in three pairs of categories: (a) micro versus macro, (b) individual versus class, and (c) the formalistic versus the substantive. The most crucial differences between the social systems are found in the last pair of categories-the formalistic versus the substantive approach to representation—because different understandings of central concepts such as democracy, freedom, and equality stem from these two frameworks. (shrink)

Beginning with the sources of the dispute over the meaning of the modern democratic ideal, this article shows two opposing, anthropological positions pr...

Dhall (2010) posited that quantum holism can provide an alternate justification for human rights. This article explores how such a foundation challenges aspects of international law and assertions of cultural relativism that have stymied the ongoing development of a universal human rights culture.