In this issue of CQ we introduce a new feature, in which noted bioethicists are invited to reflect on vital current issues. Our first invitee, John Harris, will subsequently assume editorship of this section.

A salient if under researched feature of the new age of global inequalities is the rise to prominence of entrepreneurial philanthropy, the pursuit of transformational social goals through philanthropic investment in projects animated by entrepreneurial principles. Super-wealthy entrepreneurs in this way extend their suzerainty from the domain of the economic to the domains of the social and political. We explore the ethics and ethical implications of entrepreneurial philanthropy through systematic comparison with what we call customary philanthropy, which preferences support for (...) established institutions and social practices. We analyse the ethical statements made at interview by 24 elite UK philanthropists, 12 customary and 12 entrepreneurial, to reveal the co-existence of two ethically charged narratives of elite philanthropic motivations, each instrumental in maintaining the established socio-economic order. We conclude that entrepreneurial philanthropy, as an ostensibly efficacious instrument of social justice, is ethically flawed by its unremitting impulse toward ideological purity. (shrink)

Historically, philosophers have had little to say about justice and disability. However, in recent years and in response to disability rights movements, philosophers have started to consider the claims to justice of persons with mental and physical impairments. Importantly, some have charged that without extensive revision, social contract accounts of justice – which enjoy immense popularity among political philosophers – cannot address the needs and interests of persons with disabilities. In this article, I explain why social contract accounts are thought (...) to flounder when it comes to justice for persons with disabilities. Then I assess the merits of recent attempts to construct theories of justice inclusive of persons with disabilities. In particular, I consider Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, Kittay’s justice as caring, and various restatements of the social contract. (shrink)

It is a crucial question whether practicalities should have an impact in developing an applicable theory of human rights—and if, how (far) such constraints can be justified. In the course of the non-ideal turn of today’s political philosophy, any entitlements (and social entitlements in particular) stand under the proviso of practical feasibility. It would, after all, be unreasonable to demand something which is, under the given political and economic circumstances, unachievable. Thus, many theorist—particularly those belonging to the liberal camp—begin to (...) question the very idea of social human rights on grounds of practical infeasibility. This new minimalism about human rights motivates an immanent critique arguing that even if we were to proceed from a liberal framework, we would still wind up with a justification of the full list of social human rights. In the first part of this article, I will present the central positions of the debate presented by Amartya Sen, Maurice Cranston and Pablo Gilabert. Initially arguing that a minimalism of human rights on grounds of practical infeasibility alone proves unjustifiable, however, I shall open up two further perspectives, which allow practical infeasibilities to become normatively determinate. Discussing contributions by James Griffin and Charles Beitz, I will defend the thesis that certain feasibility constraints on (social) human rights can be justified on the condition that they are grounded either in a normative idea of the appropriate implementation of these rights or in reflection of the practical function of a theory of human rights. (shrink)

In this paper, we have two goals. First, we argue for a blueprint for hermeneutical injustice that allows us to schematize existing and discover new varieties of hermeneutical injustices. The underlying insight is that Fricker provides both a general concept of hermeneutical injustice and a specific conception thereof. By distinguishing between the general concept and its specific conceptions, we gain a fruitful tool to detect such injustices in our everyday lives. Second, we use this blueprint to provide a further example (...) of hermeneutical injustice that draws our attention to yet another distinction: Some hermeneutical injustices result from a lack or distortion in the collective conceptual resource and some are due to problems in the application of existing concepts. We argue that to combat hermeneutical injustices, we have to make sure not only that individuals have accurate concepts at their disposal but that they have the capabilities to use these concepts adequately. (shrink)

Resilienz wird in der Psychologie und Sozialpädagogik häufig als positiv angesehen. In der Armutsbekämpfung ist diese Sichtweise durchaus nachvollziehbar, insbesondere in der Prävention von Kinderarmut: wenn Resilienz das ist, was ein Kind in die Lage versetzt, die Risiken und negativen Folgen von Armut besser zu bewältigen, scheint es sinnvoll, diese Fähigkeit bei Kindern zu fördern. Mein Beitrag befürwortet diesen Befund, plädiert aber dafür, dass die Resilienzdebatte der Untermauerung durch Argumente aus der praktischen Philosophie bedarf, da das, was häufig als Resilienz (...) bezeichnet wird, nicht immer positiv zu bewerten ist. Ziel meines Beitrags ist es, den Resilienzdiskurs im Rahmen der Kinderarmutsbekämpfung in einer normativen Theorie zu verankern: im Capability Ansatz von Amartya Sen. Resilienz wird damit, so meine These, zu einem fundamental normativen Begriff. Mein Beitrag gliedert sich in drei Teile: Zuerst wird auf die Grundideen des CA und die Stellung von Kindheit darin eingegangen. Im zweiten Teil wird der Resilienzbegriff im Kontext von Kinderarmutsprävention charakterisiert. Der dritte Teil widmet sich den Verbindungslinien zwischen der Resilienzdiskussion und dem CA. Leitgedanke ist dabei, dass der CA die menschliche Handlungsfähigkeit als normativ grundlegend auszeichnet. Auf dieser Basis lässt sich überzeugend beurteilen, warum Armut bei Kindern höchst problematisch ist und welches Ziel in der Resilienzförderung verfolgt werden soll. Wie ich argumentieren werde, ist die Bereitstellung von capabilities auch die gerechtigkeitstheoretische Basis von Resilienzförderung in der Praxis. Der Beitrag schließt mit Impulsen, welche, so meine Hoffnung, für eine weitere Diskussion der Normativität von Resilienz dienlich sein können. (shrink)

The complexity of industrial reality, the plurality of legitimate perspectives on risks and the role of emotions in decision-making raise important ethical issues in risk management that are usually overlooked in engineering. Using a questionnaire answered by 200 engineering students from a major engineering school in Canada, the purpose of this study was to assess how their training has influenced their perceptions toward these issues. While our results challenge the stereotypical portrait of the engineer, they also suggest that the current (...) engineering education might fail to empower engineers to engage in ethical risk management. We therefore propose an active-learning method to help in this matter. Carried out through workshops with 34 students in chemical engineering, the effectiveness of this method has been evaluated using group interviews and questionnaires. Our results suggest that such an approach is effective, at least in the short run, to motivate students to engage in ethical risk management and to trigger reflectivity on what it means to be an engineer today. (shrink)

In our time there is growing interest in developing a systematic approach to oncologic patients and end-of-life care. An important goal within this domain is to identify the values and ethical norms that guide physicians’ decisions and their recourse to technological aids to preserve life. Though crucial, this objective is not easy to achieve.

The special issue focuses on the impact of antipoverty measures—accounting for social and structural dimensions in the poverty experience and moving beyond an income-only focus—in five country cases: China, India, Norway, Uganda, and the United States. Particularly, we focus on the implications of shame in the delivery of antipoverty measures, as an individual and social phenomenon that relates to feelings of self-inadequacy, as well to a lack of dignity and recognition. We analyze delivery interactions through an analytic framework of rights, (...) discretion and negotiation, as this enables us to parse out how policy delivery interactions presumed or enabled individual choice, ability, control, and voice. We suggest social citizenship can structure the relationships between welfare recipients and administrators. As a concept, it expands the objects of social rights beyond the materiality of human life to include intangible processual elements in the construct of rights. (shrink)

At present, the debate on global justice, a debate which is at the core of global ethics, is largely being conducted by European and American scholars from different disciplines without taking into account views and concepts from other regions of the world, particularly, from the Global South. The lack of a truly intercultural, interreligious, and international exchange of ideas provokes doubts whether the concepts of global justice introduced so far are able to transcend regional and cultural horizons. The article introduces (...) concepts of justice from African scholars, whose voices have remained marginal until now, like the Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka, the Ethiopian philosopher Teodros Kiros, and the debate on ubuntu, one of the most controversial concepts in southern Africa today. These concepts focus on issues that are seldom considered in the debate on global justice, such as the importance of bodily needs as a prerequisite for human beings to act as moral beings and the importance of human rel.. (shrink)

During the course of life, it is common to make some decisions that prove to be correct. Some of these choices are made without a specific reason, but only out of habit or intuitively, while others are based on judgments and motivations. However, when we claim that a decision is “right”, what kind of judgment are we referring to? On the one hand, the term “right” (or “wrong”) often refers to abstract norms. Usually, truth and falsehood serve as criteria in (...) these cases. In such situations, judgments about what is “right” or “wrong” depend strictly on an accurate rational evaluation, which is instrumental in guiding individuals to undertake or avoid certain actions. On the other hand, there is a sense of justice that concerns ethics and values. In these circumstances, a decision is generally considered “right” if it is based on a criterion of judgment that allows individuals to make a decision freely, without being bound by an abstract norm, but rather by elaborating the choice as the realization of what they consider good and just. In this paper will examine and redefine the concept of “right choice”, acknowledging the above mentioned dual nature of its meaning. It will be argued there is a link between what abstract norms dictate to do, in order to reach a formally correct decision, and what, instead, depends on merely reasons and attitudes. This connection is indeed ensured by wise decisions. (shrink)

The capability approach is gaining momentum as a theory of corporate responsibility and business ethics at a time when the UN Guiding Principles have become a most important framework. A novel approach is now emerging that seeks to understand and specify human rights obligations of businesses within the framework provided by the capability approach. This article partially examines the triad corporate responsibility–human rights–capability approach by exploring the relationship between human rights and capabilities. Thus, it offers conceptual and practical implications for (...) a human rights perspective on corporate responsibility. The bulk of our thesis focuses on studying Nussbaum’s and Sen’s claim that human rights are entitlements to capabilities by means of a discussion of the notion of human dignity. In particular, we show the capability approach’s ability to dissipate theoretical and practical challenges posed by the notion of dignity. This article does not offer a detailed explanation of the implications of our investigation for human rights responsibilities of business. However, an outline of its potential contribution toward unfolding those obligations, conceptually and practically, is provided. (shrink)

Smith defines the business enterprise primarily as the endeavor of an individual who remains fully embedded in the broader society and subject to its moral demands. For him, the conceptions of the local community and its normative framework, of the enterprise, and of the individuals within it need to be aligned with each other and developed together. Over time, four processes have, however, led to a widening gap between the business world and the local community. These are the dissemination of (...) the corporate model, the transformation of the entrepreneurial role toward an agency role, changes in the ownership structure, and changes in the relation to the local community. This article presents Smith’s integrative conception of business and its contributions to the development of integrative theories of organizations and of business–society relations in the twenty-first century. Among others, it discusses the necessity to develop a normative-relational dimension of organizations that addresses the relations between the organization, its members, and the normative framework of the local community. This integrative approach of business–society relations challenges current business ethics research which often suggests that solutions to the current scandals lie either within the framework, the organization, or the individuals. (shrink)

In this book, the author proposes an understanding of corporate responsibility that can be captured in the answer to the following question: What are the implications for companies, as main drivers of economic activity (Part III), of the idea that the purpose of the economy is to create wealth (Part I) within the normative-ethical framework of human rights (Part II)? Enderle crafts a solid, well-thought and comprehensive account of corporate responsibility as a means to create wealth, understood in an expansive (...) manner. His notion of wealth encompasses social capital, natural, economic and human wealth, both at the public and private levels. To substantiate those dimensions, Enderle draws on the capability approach. Enderle proposes human rights – and, more specifically, the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights – as normative framework to guide corporate responsibility in its wealth creating endeavor. Enderle’s work is innovative in many respects. But, eventually, the book does not put forward a viable solution to major challenges affecting today’s world. By staying within the framework of voluntariness in an economic system driven by the profit motive and shareholder capitalism, his proposal falls short of the task. (shrink)

I question the notion of food choice and consider how much food choice someone living on low income actually has. In my fieldwork, it became clear that food choices, and hence one’s nutritional and health state, cannot be viewed in separation from the participants’ individual stories and the complexities of their lives. Daily routines, financial situation, and food accessibility have an impact on people’s food choices. In realising this, I found Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach useful, which moves beyond food entitlements. (...) More specifically, a health capabilities approach as introduced by Venkatapuram and the association made between health and capabilities by others : 3, 2003) views health as the combination of the influence of socio-economic structures, as well as personal agency resulting in choices. I present the main learnings from viewing Foodways and Futures through the ‘capabilities lens’ and thus view food choices as the combination of the complex interrelations between socio-economic structures and agency. (shrink)

Martha C. Nussbaum, in the context of ancient philosophy, formulated ethics of human development based on 10 basic human capabilities as a precondition of meaningful human development, i.e. the ability to live a dignified human life. The paper, thus, deals with a capabilities approach with the aim of analysing the content of the idea of human dignity in Nussbaum’s understanding and its place in the conception of ethics of human development, since human dignity is the very core of the conception (...) in question. (shrink)

As part of our exploration of a new conceptual framework for an economy that works for 100% of humanity, this conceptual paper asks why all talk about the purpose of organizations seems to suffer from a certain bias, namely the bias of scarcity, and how this myth of scarcity influences our understanding of corporate responsibility. The mainstream understanding of corporate purpose always contains partly normative and partly functional aspects designed to cope with the purported problem of scarcity. According to economic (...) and CSR reasoning, this bias concerning the purpose of business organizations triggers two quite distinct understandings of the essence of corporate responsibility. The economic view interprets it as responsibility towards the company, while CSR and business ethics argue that it reflects, or at least ought to reflect, a broader responsibility towards society. To overcome this responsibility gap, we need to affect a paradigm shift in economic reasoning, a shift which reconciles economic responsibility on the micro-level logic of raising profit with the greater demands of the meso, macro, and supra levels. Only then do we obtain a truly meaningful lever for changing real-world business practice from within the micro-logics of running a corporation. This paradigm shift requires a different mental model - a model of resource growth and natural abundance, rather than of scarcity - on the part of both economists and business ethicists. It can be labeled the economic model of future viability. This paper develops a conceptual argument for a future viable model of business practice which, first and foremost, takes seriously the need for the kind of micro-level decision-making which keeps individual organizations afloat, but which also, and crucially, delivers a solution for future viable business models and business behavior which breaks the apparent downward spiral of modern wealth creation, i.e. the spiral of continuous acceleration, disruption, concentration and resource exploitation, and which, thirdly, delivers a proper definition of purpose which can be applied in measurement systems which are free of biased assumptions of scarcity. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical exploration of the capability approach to human rights (CAHR) with the specific aim of developing its potential for achieving a synthesis between “humanist” or “naturalistic” and “political” or “practical” perspectives in the philosophy of human rights. Section II presents a general strategy for achieving such a synthesis. Section III provides an articulation of the key insights of CAHR (its focus on actual realizations given diverse circumstances, its pluralism of grounds, its emphasis on freedom of choice, (...) its demand for public reasoning, its context-sensitive universalism, and its broad view of obligations). These insights go some way toward the achievement of the desired synthesis. But, as explained in IV.1, in its current form CAHR faces two serious objections by the defenders of the political perspective: the Gap Between Capabilities-Interests and Rights Objection and the Disconnect From Practice Objection. Answering these criticisms requires some amendments to CAHR. Section IV.2 suggests a response to the first objection based on the introduction of a contractualist framework of justification. Sections IV.3 and IV.4 tackle the second objection by introducing a re-characterization of the cosmopolitan standard underlying the humanist perspective and by identifying the differences and relations between various dimensions of a conception of human rights and their significance for actual political practice. The paper illustrates the practical implications of CAHR, in its modified form, for the pursuit of some important rights. (shrink)

What is a duty of justice? And how is it different from a duty of beneficence? We need a clear account of the contrast. Unfortunately, there is no consensus in the philosophical literature as to how to characterize it. Different articulations of it have been provided, but it is hard to identify a common core that is invariant across them. In this paper, I propose an account of how to understand duties of justice, explain how it contrasts with several proposals (...) as to how to distinguish justice and beneficence, respond to some objections and suggest further elaborations of it. The conceptual exploration pursued in this paper has practical stakes. A central aim is to propose and defend a capacious concept of justice that makes a direct discussion of important demands of justice (domestic and global) possible. Duties of justice can be positive besides negative, they can be imperfect as well as perfect, they can range over personal besides institutional contexts, they can include multiple associative reasons such us non-domination, non-exploitation and reciprocity, and they can even go beyond existing national, political, and economic associative frameworks to embrace strictly universal humanist concerns. We should reject ideological abridgments of the concept of justice that render these possibilities, and the important human interests and claims they may foster, invisible. (shrink)

What should our theorizing about social justice aim at? Many political philosophers think that a crucial goal is to identify a perfectly just society. Amartya Sen disagrees. In The Idea of Justice, he argues that the proper goal of an inquiry about justice is to undertake comparative assessments of feasible social scenarios in order to identify reforms that involve justice-enhancement, or injustice-reduction, even if the results fall short of perfect justice. Sen calls this the “comparative approach” to the theory of (...) justice. He urges its adoption on the basis of a sustained critique of the former approach, which he calls “transcendental.” In this paper I pursue two tasks, one critical and the other constructive. First, I argue that Sen’s account of the contrast between the transcendental and the comparative approaches is not convincing, and second, I suggest what I take to be a broader and more plausible account of comparative assessments of justice. The core claim is that political philosophers should not shy away from the pursuit of ambitious theories of justice (including, for example, ideal theories of perfect justice), although they should engage in careful consideration of issues of political feasibility bearing on their practical implementation. (shrink)

When we make public policy choices, is it helpful to know how utopia would look? Amartya Sen argues that it is neither necessary, nor sufficient, nor even contributory. He claims that before making a policy choice one should compare several feasible institutional designs to see which promotes justice most, and that it is misleading to use the perfect design as a standard in those comparisons. Principles of justice are the proper standard. The present article contends that the perfect design has (...) nevertheless an important role to play in the prior task of identifying and refining our principles of justice. It also shows that the perfect design—in at least one sense of this term—may be a legitimate long-term goal for present policy choices. (shrink)

Arrow’s impossibility result not only had a profound influence on welfare economics, but was, as this paper shows, also widely discussed in philosophy of science and in the engineering design literature.

Following John Rawls, nonideal theory is typically divided into: (1) “partial-compliance theory” and (2) “transitional theory." The former is concerned with those circumstances in which individuals and political regimes do not fully comply with the requirements of justice, such as when people break the law or some individuals do not do their fair share within a distributive scheme. The latter is concerned with circumstances in which background institutions may be unjust or may not exist at all. This paper focuses on (...) issues arising in transitional theory. In particular, I am concerned with what Rawls’ has called “burdened societies," that is, those societies that find themselves in unfavorable conditions, such that their historical, social or economic circumstances make it difficult to establish just institutions. The paper investigates exactly how such burdened societies should proceed towards a more just condition in an acceptable fashion. Rawls himself tells us very little, except to suggest that societies in this condition should look for policies and courses of action that are morally permissible, politically possible and likely to be effective. In this paper I first try to anticipate what a Rawlsian might say about the best way for burdened societies to handle transitional problems and so move towards the ideal of justice. Next, I construct a model of transitional justice for burdened societies. Ultimately, I argue for a model of transitional justice that makes use of a nonideal version of Rawls’ notion of the worst-off representative person. (shrink)

The task of this article is to outline foundations of a Marxist-humanist approach to communication justice, media justice, and digital justice. A dialectical approach to justice is outlined that di...

Joshua Anderson argues that Amartya Sen’s reading of the Bhagavadgītā is not accurate and so it cannot serve as an example of Sen’s comprehensive consequentialism. This article presents Sen’s reading of the Bhagavadgītā and Anderson’s criticisms of Sen’s readings. It discusses three types of readers: history readers, activist readers, and interventionist readers. It gives an interventionist reading of the Bhagavadgītā, supplementing Arjuna’s reasons and contesting those of Kṛṣṇa. It shows that Arjuna’s reasons are cogent and it respectfully argues that Kṛṣṇa’s (...) arguments are incomplete and unconvincing. Even if Arjuna’s reasons are not ultimately decisive, they legitimately feature in his deliberations. It responds to Anderson, urging that Sen correctly advocates comprehensive consequentialism and agent-relativity, rather than cumulative outcomes and agent-neutrality, and that Sen correctly sees these contrasts exemplified in the Bhagavadgītā. It concludes with a discussion of the impartial spectator, kin,.. (shrink)

Fears about the sustainability of oil-rich communities and hopes that petroleum would fuel financial, social, and moral renewal have accompanied the oil industry since its inception in the mid-nineteenth century. With each successive ecological disaster caused by oil spills, debates over the industry's ecological sustainability sharpen. Discussions about the geological sustainability of the petroleum industry intensify when oil supplies tighten, and dissipate when they increase. Although concerns about the moral viability of communities dependent on oil have become radically unfamiliar since (...) the late nineteenth century, these, too, were once central to debates about the effects of oil on human society. In the nineteenth century, the progress that oil promised to bring was to be measured not only in material wealth, but in the attainment of social harmony and the attenuation of political strife. (shrink)

This special edition brings together (1) the recent methodological worries of the moralism/realism and ideal/non-ideal theory debates with (2) the soaring ambition of work in international or global political theory, as found in, say, theories of global justice. Contributors are as follows: Chris Bertram, Jonathan Floyd, Aaron James, Terry MacDonald, David Miller, Shmulik Nili, Mathias Risse and Matt Sleat.

This article takes a new idea, ‘normative behaviourism’, and applies it to global political theory, in order to address at least one of the problems we might have in mind when accusing that subject of being too ‘unrealistic’. The core of this idea is that political principles can be justified, not just by patterns in our thinking, and in particular our intuitions and considered judgements, but also by patterns in our behaviour, and in particular acts of insurrection and crime. The (...) problem addressed is ‘cultural relativism’, understood here not as a meta-ethical doctrine, but as the apparent ‘fact’ that people around the world have culturally varying intuitions and judgements of a kind that lead them to affirm different political principles. This is a problem because it seems to follow (1) that global agreement on any substantial set of political principles is impossible, and (2) that any political theory in denial of this ‘fact’ would be, for that reason, deeply unrealistic. The solution argued for here is that, if domestic political principles (i.e. principles intended to regulate a single state) could be justified by normative behaviourism, and in reference to culturally invariant behaviour, then an international system supportive of such principles is justifiable by extension. (shrink)

This paper poses questions regarding the ethical prioritisation in qualitative research studies on assessing a person's or a group's fitness to provide informed consent, arguing that this may have unwanted as well as desirable consequences, particularly in relation to rights of citizenship for socially marginalised populations who tend to be labelled vulnerable. Drawing on three theoretical perspectives (Arendt, Honneth and Bourdieu), it is suggested that the emphasis placed on a research participant's capacity to provide informed consent cannot be regarded solely (...) as a protective measure for ?vulnerable? groups, but is also bound up with their social positioning as socially ?deficient? according to liberal (classical and neo-liberal) models of citizenship. Participation in a qualitative study can be seen as a dimension of the civil and human right to freedom of expression, and this can be particularly important for those labelled vulnerable as freedom of expression is a precondition for recognition and parity of status. Nevertheless, the importance of informed consent is not rejected; instead, it is posited that the protective rights accorded to vulnerable groups in qualitative research need to be considered alongside other human goods, such as the promotion of voice, agency and active citizenship. (shrink)

By considering what we identify as a problem inherent in the ‘nature of the firm’—the risk of abuse of authority—we propound the conception of a social contract theory of the firm which is truly Rawlsian in its inspiration. Hence, we link the social contract theory of the firm with the general theory of justice. Through this path, we enter the debate about whether firms can be part of Rawlsian theory of justice showing that corporate governance principles enter the “basic structure.” (...) Finally, we concur with Sen’s aim to broaden the realm of social justice beyond what he calls the ‘transcendental institutional perfectionism’ of Rawls’ theory. We maintain the contractarian approach to justice but introduce Sen’s capability concept as an element of the constitutional and post-constitutional contract model of institutions with special reference to corporate governance. Accordingly, rights over primary goods and capabilities are granted by the basic institutions of society, but many capabilities have to be turned into the functionings of many stakeholders through the operation of firms understood as post-constitutional institutional domains. The constitutional contract on the distribution of primary goods and capabilities should then shape the principles of corporate governance so that at post-constitutional level anyone may achieve her/his functionings in the corporate domain by exercising such capabilities. In the absence of such a condition, post-constitutional contracts would distort the process that descends from constitutional rights and capabilities toward social outcomes. (shrink)

In the educational sphere, the concept of democracy is used in many and varied ways, though the hegemonic school culture often starts from a concept of democracy that is taken for granted, and it is understood that the entire educational community shares a similar concept. As a result of the research project “Democracy, participation and inclusive education in schools” we realized that the above-mentioned concept is used without being accurately defined in the school setting. This observation is what has prompted (...) us to write this article, basically structured in two parts. In the first part, based on the theoretical debate occurring in the field of social sciences, we delimit the concept of democracy and structure it in four basic dimensions: governance, inhabitance, otherness and ethos. In the second part, we specify and examine in depth these four dimensions in the school setting in order to construct a broad and transversal, yet specific, definition, with which to be able to develop ambitious democratic projects and, in turn, contribute to scientific debate. (shrink)

En este trabajo se ofrece un acercamiento desde el derecho a los análisis promovidos por las teorías institucionalistas, y conecta esos análisis con una concepción esencial de democracia y dos problemas de las democracias latinoamericanas: la subrepresentación de las mujeres en los parlamentos y el clientelismo político en el marco de la distribución de planes sociales. Para ello, se comienza con una aproximación al concepto de instituciones informales, que es central en los análisis institucionalistas, y se reconocen dos diferentes tipos (...) de instituciones informales con distintas características. Luego de ofrecida una concepción esencial de democracia y sus condiciones y condicionantes, se realiza un análisis de cómo las instituciones informales han afectado la eficacia y efectividad de las normas jurídicas dictadas para promover las cuotas de género en las elecciones parlamentarias y, como contracara, se muestra cómo un diseño adecuado de los programas de distribución de planes sociales ha logrado neutralizar instituciones informales tales como el clientelismo y la pequeña corrupción, que afectaban de manera directa a las democracias latinoamericanas. Finalmente se proponen ciertas ideas sobre la relevancia del buen diseño legislativo y su vinculación con las instituciones informales. (shrink)

In this paper we claim that Rawls’s theory is compatible with the absence of rectification of extremely important historical injustices within a given society. We hold that adding a new principle to justice-as-fairness may amend this problem. There are four possible objections to our claim: First, that historical rectification is not required by justice. Second, that, even when historical rectification is a matter of justice, it is not a matter of distributive justice, so that Rawls’s theory is justified in leaving (...) it unaddressed. Third, that dealing with historical injustice is outside of the scope of ideal theory, so that even when historical rectification is required by justice, Rawls’s theory starts with the assumption that no such historical injustice has occurred. Fourth, that while historical injustice is within the scope of Rawls’s theory, there is no need for further principles of justice to deal with it, so that the correct regulation of the principles of justice-as-fairness would ensure the rectification of all relevant historical injustices of a particular society. While we offer several arguments against the first and second objections, we address the last two at length and show that both fail. (shrink)

The question of what role social and political practices should play in the justification of normative principles has received renewed attention in post-millennium political philosophy. Several current debates express dissatisfaction with the methodology adopted in mainstream political theory, taking the form of a criticism of so-called ‘ideal theory’ from ‘non-ideal’ theory, of ‘practice-independent’ theory from ‘practice-dependent’ theory, and of ‘political moralism’ from ‘political realism’. While the problem of action-guidance lies at the heart of these concerns, the critics also share a (...) number of methodological assumptions. Above all, their methodology is practice-dependent in the sense that an existing practice is assumed to put substantial limitations on the appropriate normative principles for regulating it. In other words, we cannot formulate and justify an appropriate principle without first understanding the practice this principle is supposed to govern. The aim of this paper is to map out and analyze the common denominators of these debates with regard to methodological commitments. We will investigate how this practice-dependent method may be understood and motivated. In particular, we point to challenges that must be met in order for the position to remain both distinct and attractive. (shrink)

Although the discussion about feasibility in political theory is still in its infancy, some important progress has been made in the last years to advance our understanding. In this paper, we intend to make a contribution to this growing literature by investigating the proper place of feasibility considerations in political theory. A motivating force behind this study is a suspicion that many presumptions made about feasibility in several current debates—such as that between practice-independence and practice-dependence, ideal and non-ideal theory, and (...) political moralism and political realism—are too rigid and underestimate the numerous different ways in which feasibility concerns may enter into our theorizing. To chisel out this feasibility space, our aim is to suggest two metatheoretical constraints on normative political principles as intuitively plausible, the so-called ‘fitness constraint’ and the ‘functional constraint’, through which we elucidate five central aspects for determining proper feasibility constraints of an account in political theory. (shrink)

Health services internationally struggle to ensure health care is “person-centered” (or similar). In part, this is because there are many interpretations of “person-centered care” (and near synonyms), some of which seem unrealistic for some patients or situations and obscure the intrinsic value of patients’ experiences of health care delivery. The general concern behind calls for person-centered care is an ethical one: Patients should be “treated as persons.” We made novel use of insights from the capabilities approach to characterize person-centered care (...) as care that recognizes and cultivates the capabilities associated with the concept of persons. This characterization unifies key features from previous characterisations and can render person-centered care applicable to diverse patients and situations. By tying person-centered care to intrinsically valuable capability outcomes, it incorporates a requirement for responsiveness to individuals and explains why person-centered care is required independently of any contribution it may make to health gain. (shrink)

There are various reasons why efforts to promote “support for self-management” have rarely delivered the kinds of sustainable improvements in healthcare experiences, health and wellbeing that policy leaders internationally have hoped for. This paper explains how the basis of failure is in some respects built into the ideas that underpin many of these efforts. When support for self-management is narrowly oriented towards educating and motivating patients to adopt the behaviours recommended for disease control, it implicitly reflects and perpetuates limited and (...) somewhat instrumental views of patients. It tends to: restrict the pursuit of respectful and enabling ‘partnership working’; run the risk of undermining patients’ self-evaluative attitudes ; limit recognition of the supportive value of clinician-patient relationships; and obscure the practical and ethical tensions that clinicians face in the delivery of support for self-management. We suggest that a focus on enabling people to live well with their long-term conditions is a promising starting point for a more adequate conception of support for self-management. We then outline the theoretical advantages that a capabilities approach to thinking about living well can bring to the development of an account of support for self-management, explaining, for example, how it can accommodate the range of what matters to people for living well, help keep the importance of disease control in perspective, recognize social influences on people’s values, behaviours and wellbeing, and illuminate more of the rich potential and practical and ethical challenges of supporting self-management in practice. (shrink)

Although measurement is widely misused in education, it is indispensable in addressing the problems of injustice in global educational opportunity. Considering how the case can be made for legitimate use of measurement in normative analysis and argument, we explore ways in which metrics have featured in the formulation of theories of justice, with particular attention to resourcist and capabilities approaches. We then consider three means of addressing global inequality and defend a reconstruction of the public sphere in which objective measures (...) of justice, deliberatively constructed, could supersede prevalent assumptions about measurement. (shrink)

In the last 30 years, China has experienced an astounding economic development that calls for a differentiated understanding of this complex process of wealth creation. In the first section of this article, I present a new concept of wealth creation that goes beyond making money, maximizing profit and adding value and serves as a framework to address the article's main topic.In the second section, I investigate in what ways and to what extent this new concept might apply to China's economic (...) reform and development, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. In the third section, I attempt to draw a couple of lessons for development ethics in general. (shrink)

Given the enormous changes in the ways we will live together on the planet Earth, business and economic ethics, with its considerable developments since the1980s, is called to ask itself what major challenges lay ahead for it in the next ten years. It seems three major challenges have emerged with increasing clarity, urgency, and importance. They concern all levels of business, from the personal to the organizational and the systemic level and likely will become even more important in the future. (...) In three sections, the paper explicates the following challenges: (a) a rich and comprehensive understanding of wealth creation as the purpose of business and economics; (b) the guarantee of securing all human rights to all people; and (c) the active involvement of the world’s religions in meeting the challenges of creating wealth and securing human rights. (shrink)