I examine in this paper deification and demonisation – the social attribution of absolute ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ to individuals or individual entities. Specifically, I unpack ways that evilness and goodness have become personified in the figure of the chief executive officer in contemporary, particularly US, business culture. Showing both the readily accessible and widely used nature of these religious tropes, I nevertheless argue that both deification and demonisation have ethically and politically disempowering effects for organisational members, the wider citizenry, and (...) for critique within the field of business ethics. (shrink)

A common reaction to crises experienced within or brought about by business is to identify a corollary ‘crisis of leadership’ and to call for better (stronger, more thoughtful or, indeed, more ethical and responsible) leaders. This paper supports the idea that there is a crisis of leadership – but interprets it quite differently. Specifically, I argue that the most ethically debilitating crisis is the fact that we look to leadership to solve organisational ethical ills. There is, I argue, a pressing (...) need to conceptualise a business ethics that is not constrained by the straitjacket of official hierarchy – a need to denaturalise ‘leadership’ as the normal or rightful locus of ethical regulation and renewal in business organisation. To this end, I explore a Levinasian ethico-politics of responsibility and proximity as the basis of an alternative, anti-sovereign, ethics of organisation. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for the ethics of business based on the way that business activity may embody a vocation to partake in “the Good.” Following a Platonist framework for ethics and recent work on vocations by Robert M. Adams, I argue that understanding the ethics of vocations allows us to avoid the charges that business persons have to do something more for others—often couched in terms of social responsibility, sustainability, or consideration of stakeholders—in order to legitimize their careers (...) ethically. Rather, I claim, the ethics of a business vocation, as in any vocation, rests first and foremost in the way that a person pursues projects that answer an invitation to partake in the good things of this world. Thus, the promotion of the well-being of others, while ethically admirable and constitutive of some vocations, is not fundamental for understanding the ethics of vocations themselves, even in business. There are important implications for the ethics of markets, and I also consider a recent challenge to my approach that claims that true business vocations demand a more direct promotion of the well-being of others. (shrink)

This paper explores the political import of Husserl’s critical discussion of the epistemic effects of the formalization of rational thinking. More specifically, it argues that this discussion is of direct relevance to make sense of the pervasive processes of ‘technization’, that is, of a mechanistic and superficial generation and use of knowledge, to be observed in current contexts of governance. Building upon Husserl’s understanding of formalization as a symbolic technique for abstraction in the thinking with and about numbers, I argue (...) that processes of technization, while being necessary and legitimate procedures for the reduction of complexities, also may give rise to politically unresponsive and ultimately dysfunctional ‘economies of thinking.’ This paper is structured in three parts. In the first part I outline Husserl’s account of the formalization and technization of thought and knowledge. In the second part I make my case for the political import of this account, departing in this context from positions that (a) regard Husserl’s discussions of formalization and its effects as merely epistemological, or that (b) try to mobilize Husserl for a one-sided critique of instrumental reason. In the final part I address a major shortcoming of Husserl’s account, namely its neglect of the concrete and historically evolving technological infrastructures of processes of formalization/technization. (shrink)

The unmanaged organization is moving from coffee corners to social networks. This means not only a change of media, but also a transformation in how organizations exert control over workers and how workers resist the commodification of emotions. After analyzing instances of the online publication of images and texts that escape organizational control, we identified three main ambiguities helpful in framing future studies about organizational control and resistance: ambiguity between private and public spheres, ambiguity between spontaneous and performed manifestations, and (...) ambiguity between the distribution and control of power. Our main contribution is to understanding the Internet, particularly social networks, as a medium for employee resistance through distance, and in using the three aforementioned ambiguities to help analyze this phenomenon. (shrink)

Catholic Social Teaching has taken a remarkable turn with the May 1991 document on economic ethics,Centesimus Annus. During their one hundred year history, church documents were notable for their courageous championing of the rights of the least advantaged; they were much less distinguished for their understanding of how markets and incentives function in capitalism. Most business leaders admired church teaching for its compassion but had little respect for its competence. With this most recent document, however, there is a growing conviction (...) that the church may have come of age in economic ethics. Even theWall Street Journal has celebratedCentesimus Annus. The article outlines the highlights of the document and its points of continuity with the tradition. Responses from business and the academy are also briefly considered. (shrink)

Based on the results of open ended interviews with managers in a variety of organizational positions, moral questions encountered in everyday managerial life are described. These involve transactions with employees, peers and superiors, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. It is suggested that managers identify transactions as involving personal moral concern when they believe that a moral standard has a bearing on the situation and when they experience themselves as having the power to affect the transaction. This is the first in (...) a research series of three papers. (shrink)

“There are strong temptations for those at the top of an organisational hierarchy to appropriate to themselves a disproportionate share of the resources of the organisation and to exercise too much power over the activities of other organisational members.” Hence the case for taking a cool look at executive remuneration and other possible breaches of applying the classical virtue of temperance to corporate behaviour. The author is Principal Lecturer in the Business Studies Department, Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building, Aytoun Street, (...) Manchester M1 3GH. (shrink)

“There are strong temptations for those at the top of an organisational hierarchy to appropriate to themselves a disproportionate share of the resources of the organisation and to exercise too much power over the activities of other organisational members.” Hence the case for taking a cool look at executive remuneration and other possible breaches of applying the classical virtue of temperance to corporate behaviour. The author is Principal Lecturer in the Business Studies Department, Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building, Aytoun Street, (...) Manchester M1 3GH. (shrink)

Weiming’s notion of transcendence in terms both of its legitimacy as an interpretation of Confucianism and of its viability as an answer to modern challenges. An examination of Tu’s hermeneutical assumptions in his Zhongyong commentary leads to a discussion of his locating transcendence in the subjectivity of the junzi, the profound person. Calling the self-cultivation self-knowledge, Tu makes explicit the religious character of the xin, the basis of self-cultivation, and its transcendent character, because it is endowed from heaven. However, because (...) the xin is irreducibly human, this transcendence is also immanentized. From the xin a fiduciary community is formed, hence the covenantal nature of Confucian religiousness. The essay ends with the question: Because Tu does not elaborate on cultivating a community’s intersubjectivity, does it make the realization of the transcendent xin a deferred potentiality, without mooring in the actual formation of human community? (shrink)

This study tests the effects of top management team member collectivistic values and TMT dissatisfaction with the financial situation on the environmental ethics of TMT members. We also examine the moderating effect of collectivistic values on the relationship between financial dissatisfaction and environmental ethics. Analyses of multi-level and source data show that financial dissatisfaction of the TMT negatively affects TMT members’ environmental ethics. However, TMT members’ individual collectivism can increase TMT members’ environmental ethics. Analyses also show that TMT members’ collectivism (...) moderates the relationship between financial dissatisfaction and environmental ethics across individual and team levels. (shrink)

We examine three assumptions commonly held in the corporate reputation literature: (1) reputation ratings of owners and investors are generally representative of all stakeholders; (2) stakeholders will generally provide a higher reputation rating to firms that emphasize corporate social responsibility versus firms that do not; and (3) profitability is the primary criterion of importance to all stakeholders when rating a firm's reputation. Using an exploratory in‐class exercise, our findings suggest that: (1) there are significant differences among stakeholder groups in their (...) reputation ratings; (2) firms that emphasize corporate social responsibility are not rated more highly across all stakeholder groups; and (3) for all stakeholder groups, the ethicality criterion explained more of the variance in firms' reputation ratings than the profitability criterion. (shrink)

In this article I consider the uses of the concepts ‘society’ and ‘culture’ in various sociological and anthropological traditions, arguing that sociology needs to learn from the division between social anthropology and cultural anthropology. First I distinguish the social and the cultural sciences: the former use ‘society’ as leading concept and ‘culture’ as a subordinate concept; the latter do the contrary. I discuss the origins of the terms société and Kultur in the classical French and German traditions respectively, and their (...) subsequent uptake in Anglo-American sociology and anthropology, ‘society’ becoming the leading concept for sociology and social anthropology, ‘culture’ the leading concept for cultural anthropology. I contrast the sociology of culture with the cultural anthropological consideration of society. I next examine the terms for ‘society’ in the classical German tradition, especially Weber, pointing to interpretivism as a cultural theory of society. I then consider Weber’s Kultursoziologie, arguing that it is culture (Kultur) not society (Gesellschaft) that is the ultimate object of Weber’s sociology. I conclude that sociology needs to identify classical German sociology and its derivatives as cultural science not social science, and to make comprehensive adjustments to its methodological debates accordingly. The implications of this for the problem of sociology’s encounter with the natural world are noted. (shrink)

This article explores how the shift from print to electronic calendars materializes and exacerbates a distinctively quantitative, “spreadsheet” orientation to time. Drawing on interviews with engineers, I argue that calendaring systems are emblematic of a larger design rationale in Silicon Valley to mechanize human thought and action in order to make them more efficient and reliable. The belief that technology can be profitably employed to control and manage time has a long history and continues to animate contemporary sociotechnical imaginaries of (...) what automation will deliver. In the current moment we live in the age of the algorithm and machine learning, so it is no wonder, then, that the contemporary design of digital calendars is driven by a vision of intelligent time management. As I go on to show in the second part of the article, this vision is increasingly realized in the form of intelligent digital assistants whose tracking capacities and behavioral algorithms aim to solve life’s existential problem—how best to organize the time of our lives. This article contributes to STS scholarship on the role of technological artifacts in generating new temporalities that shape people’s perception of time, how they act in the world, and how they understand themselves. (shrink)

The intent of this study is to examine the adaptive responses of Hong Kong transmigrants and their transnational and transcultural practices in terms of their consequent behavioral and emotional patterns. Their transnational practices and relative adaptability can be explained with Robert Merton's (1957) “strain theory.” More specifically, the study aims to identify, describe, and explain the variety of behavioral patterns and modes of emotional manifestations of adaptation of Hong Kong returnees, and to identify their individual and collective strategies of adaptation (...) to help them solve their adjustment and integration problems in their adopted countries. (shrink)

The twin theories of late 20th-century societal constellations, functionalist modernization theory and neo-Marxist theories of late capitalism, fell into crisis and disrepute during the 1970s and 1980s. Social theory responded to such double crisis of the theorizing of `capitalism' and of `modernization' by embracing the term `modernity', a term that, almost unknown in social thought before the end of the 1970s, appeared to provide a new common ground in terms of representing the present societal constellation. At the same time, however, (...) the move towards such a common reference term appeared to entail the loss of all possibility of critique. Traditionally, critique used to embrace modernity (even without using the term) and to denounce capitalism because of its inability to complete the project of modernity - or rather: because of the obstacles it posed to such completion. To use the term `modernity' for a contemporary reality that was without doubt capitalist as well, made such a conceptual strategy impossible. Instead of returning to standard theories of capitalism, however, it is argued here that both capitalism and critique need to be reconceptualized in the light of their relation to modernity if the both intellectual and sociopolitical transformations since the 1970s are to be taken seriously. (shrink)

The article suggests that in a modern context, where value pluralism is a prevailing and possibly, even ethically desirable interaction condition, institutional economics provides a more viable business ethics than behavioural business ethics, such as Kantianism or religious ethics. The article explains how the institutional economic approach to business ethics analyses morality with regard to an interaction process, and favours non-behavioural, situational intervention with incentive structures and with capital exchange. The article argues that this approach may have to be prioritised (...) over behavioural business ethics, which tends to analyse morality at the level of the individual and favours behavioural intervention with the individual’s value, norm and belief system, e.g. through ethical pedagogy, communicative techniques, etc. Quaker ethics is taken as an example of behavioural ethics. The article concludes that through the conceptual grounding of behavioural ethics in the economic approach, theoretical and practical limitations of behavioural ethics, as encountered in a modern context, can be relaxed. Probably only then can behavioural ethics still contribute to raising moral standards in interactions amongst the members (stakeholders) of a single firm, and equally, amongst (the stakeholders of) different firms. (shrink)

The paper maps out an alternative to a behavioural (economic) approach to business ethics. Special attention is paid to the fundamental philosophical principle that any moral ‘ought’ implies a practical ‘can’, which the paper interprets with regard to the economic viability of moral agency of the firm under the conditions of the market economy, in particular competition. The paper details an economic understanding of business ethics with regard to classical and neo-classical views, on the one hand, and institutional, libertarian thought, (...) on the other hand. Implications are derived regarding unintentional and passive intentional moral agency of the firm. The paper moves on to suggest that moral agency can be economically viable in competitive ‘market’ interactions, which is conventionally disputed by classical/neo-classical and institutional, libertarian economics. The paper here conceptualises active moral agency of the firm as the utilisation of ethical capital in firm--stakeholder interactions. This yields a reinterpretation of instrumental stakeholder theory. (shrink)

This article explores enchantment, disenchantment, and re-enchantment in reference to modern medicine’s view of the body. Before considering Weber’s enchantment paradigm, I question some core assumptions regarding sociology as methodologically scientific and value-free. Furthermore, I draw on Jenkins who helps to illustrate the difficulty of rooting terms such as enchantment, disenchantment, and re-enchantment; the question remains “which” historical and cultural period is employed as the basis for such sociological terms. Such questions are critical, but not entirely dismissive of modern medicine (...) as “disenchanted”; with some more explicit foundational and presuppositional context, disenchantment can be a helpful notion for approaching questions of the “new body.” St. Gregory Palamas’ Christian materialism and mystical anthropology present such an explicit foundation. Moreover, this Patristic foundation moves past the postmodern aporia of emphasizing either immanence or transcendence—two polar attractions that factor heavily in the way modern medicine views the body. (shrink)

Culture is, in many ways, implicated in and shapes technology design and use. Inspired by Stuart Hall’s conception of encoding/decoding, we maintain that technological artefacts reflect the cultural values of their creators, while users, in their encounters with the technological artefacts, may decode those artefacts in various ways that are shaped by the users’ cultural values. In this article, we apply this lens to study a decade-long urban computing project that took place in the wild. We focus on the project’s (...) development team and on how their cultural values shape technology design. We also acknowledge that such an urban computing project involves many other stakeholder groups that affect the course of events. In our analysis, we examine how these stakeholders shaped and interpreted the technology in question. Although the development project had a seemingly generic “for all” ethos, the various stakeholders pulled the focus in different directions. The trajectory of the project can be characterized as reacting to these competing influences—sometimes achieving fit, while other times resulting in conflicts. The contribution of this paper is a structured analysis and reflections on cultural issues in community technology design in the wild, with a focus on the role of the developers’ cultural values and other stakeholders’ technology-related requirements and interpretations. This study has implications for subsequent studies in the wild by framing them as fluid settings of a great variety of stakeholders with a multiplicity of values, requirements, and interpretations. (shrink)

Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, Volume 6, Issue 1, Page 90-94, February 2012.

During the last ten or fifteen years of his life, Talcott Parsons (1902–79) discussed religion and secularization in a number of papers and essays. This work was left unfinished; in the last book that he saw into print, Parsons depicted these papers and essays as work-in-progress. This article focuses on Parsons’ approach to secularization in this late work. Building upon his AGIL-scheme, Parsons analyzed the relation between processes of inclusion and increasing differentiation, on the one hand, and secularization at the (...) value-oriented level, on the other. This article presents a reconstruction and an immanent critique of Parsons’ approach, which highlights both its possibilities and its limitations in order to contribute to the development of a contemporary social theory of secularization and religious change. (shrink)

In his late work on Christianity, Talcott Parsons obviously built upon the writings of both Durkheim and Weber. While he departed from the idea that increasing differentiation of the system of action did not have to threaten the unity of the system as a whole, his emphasis on structural differentiation was also complemented by one on value integration. He believed that, especially in the New World, religion has gradually become able to impose its definition of the situation in highly different, (...) highly heterogeneous contexts of action. In this paper, I reconstruct Parsons’ historical-sociological analyses of the relation between Christianity and modern society. I discuss how Parsons appropriated the writings of Durkheim and Weber – in ways which did not fully exploit the potential of some of these writings. I suggest some alternatives, which rely less on a concern with value integration but more on one with the differentiation of meaning systems. (shrink)

As capitalist economies have shifted their primary focus from providing goods and services for all, to concentrating wealth at the top echelons of societies, social entrepreneurs have been one source of re-capturing the original intent of capitalism. Social entrepreneurs have combined the efficiency and effectiveness of business organizations with the social concerns of many non-profit and governmental agencies. As a result, social entrepreneurship is viewed as having significant potential for alleviating many of the social ills we now face. To accomplish (...) this mission, however, will require expansion of social enterprises beyond their current footprints. We explore alternate methods of expansion, scaling and replication, and then examine potential catalysts, which can enable social entrepreneurs to attain their goals of social improvement. The catalysts we identify are effectual logic, enhanced legitimacy through appropriate reporting metrics, and information technology. We conclude with two brief case studies that exemplify how these catalysts are currently working to enhance the effectiveness of social start-ups. (shrink)

Criteria for the evaluation of most scholars’ work have recently received wider attention due to high-profile cases of scientific misconduct which are perceived to be linked to these criteria. However, in the competition for career advancement and funding opportunities almost all scholars are subjected to the same criteria. Therefore these evaluation criteria act as ‘switchmen’, determining the tracks along which scholarly work is pushed by the dynamic interplay of interests of both scholars and their institutions. Currently one of the most (...) important criteria is the impact of publications. In this research, the extent to which publish or perish, a long standing evaluation criterion, led to scientific misconduct is examined briefly. After this the strive for high impact publications will be examined, firstly by identifying the period in which this became an important evaluation criterion, secondly by looking at variables contributing to the impact of scholarly papers by means of a non-structured literature study, and lastly by combining these data into a quantitative analysis. (shrink)

This paper examines why fundamental freedoms are so unevenly distributed across the earth. Climato-economic theorizing proposes that humans adapt needs, stresses, and choices of goals, means, and outcomes to the livability of their habitat. The evolutionary process at work is one of collectively meeting climatic demands of cold winters or hot summers by using monetary resources. Freedom is expected to be lowest in poor populations threatened by demanding thermal climates, intermediate in populations comforted by undemanding temperate climates irrespective of income (...) per head, and highest in rich populations challenged by demanding thermal climates. This core hypothesis is supported with new survey data across 85 countries and 15 Chinese provinces and with a reinterpretative review of results of prior studies comprising 174 countries and the 50 states in the United States. Empirical support covers freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of expression and participation, freedom from discrimination, and freedom to develop and realize one's human potential. Applying the theory to projections of temperature and income for 104 countries by 2112 forecasts that (a) poor populations in Asia, perhaps except Afghans and Pakistanis, will move up the international ladder of freedom, (b) poor populations in Africa will lose, rather than gain, relative levels of freedom unless climate protection and poverty reduction prevent this from happening, and (c) several rich populations will be challenged to defend current levels of freedom against worsening climato-economic livability. (shrink)

This paper draws from the fields of history, sociology, psychology, moral philosophy, and organizational theory to establish a theoretical connection between a social/organizational influence (ethical work climate) and an individual cognitive element of moral behavior (moral awareness). The research was designed to help to fill a gap in the existing literature by providing empirical evidence of the connection between organizational influences and individual moral awareness and subsequent ethical choices, which has heretofore largely been merely assumed. Results of the study provide (...) evidence that ethical work climate (EWC) is a primary predictor of individual moral awareness, and that the influence of social factors often overrides the effects of individual differences in a work group setting. Implications for future research are provided. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to explore the influence of religious beliefs on the work-related attitudes of Turkish SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) owner-managers. In this research, the emergence of pious or devout business people is considered as a phenomenon, and special attention is paid to religious transformation and secularism in Turkey. Both concepts, religion and secularism, are considered within the Turkish context. For the research, in-depth interviews were conducted with 32 Turkish business people from religious and secular backgrounds, (...) respectively. The study investigates the so-called “Islamic work ethic” values and Islamic business principles from a critical perspective and argues that they do not seem to be as significant factors as predicted in the emergence of pious or devout business people in Turkey. (shrink)

Norbert Elias (2001) produced one of the most influential theories on the history of violence in human societies in terms of ‘the civilizing process’. With the transformation of feudalism, the rise of bourgeois society and the development of the modern state, interpersonal violence was increasingly regulated by social norms that emphasized self-restraint and personal discipline. His theory was a moral pedagogics of the body in which the ‘passions’ are self-regulated through detailed social regimes. While his theory is influential, it has (...) also been the subject of systematic criticism. I examine three obvious lacunae in Elias’ theory. First, his theory does not provide an adequate account of the role of religion in the civilizing process, particularly with respect to controlling human violence, and I examine Elias’ theory through a commentary on charisma and the sacred in human society, namely the role of sacred violence. Second, Elias had relatively little to say about the interaction between military technology and interpersonal norms. Modern technology has made it possible, both in peace and war, for the state and modern military institutions to gain control of forms of mass violence that were unimaginable in less civilized societies. We could accept Elias’ proposition about constraint in terms of interpersonal violence, but argue that modern technology has obviously enhanced the capacity of the means of violence in society. This ‘de-personalization’ of violence is consistent with aspects of Elias’ civilization theory. However, the theme of technology was completely understated. Third, apart from Elias’ interest in art and society as a consequence of his teaching appointment in Ghana (1962–4), his theory was primarily concerned to explain aspects of social change in European society. An exploration of the evolution of military violence and charisma among American Plains Indians, especially the Cheyenne, is intended as an elaboration of the debate around Elias’ ‘figurational sociology’. Through an examination of the training of warriors in nomadic Plains culture, their mode of warfare is defined as a form of spiritual violence, because warfare was bound up with religious norms of conduct and their military interaction was highly ritualized. These spiritual technologies are an important illustration of military technologies of self-creation. My account concludes with an examination of the nature of modern conflict between professional armies within an international human rights framework. The democratization of warfare results in the routinization of military charisma and the charismatic hero survives primarily in popular culture as a celebrity. (shrink)

This article argues that tattooing and body piercing in modern societies cannot be naively innocent acts; such activities cannot recapture primitiveness, because they take place within a social context, where social membership is not expressed through hot loyalties and thick commitments. Body marks in primitive society were obligatory signatures of social membership in solidaristic groups, wherein life-cycle changes were necessarily marked by tattooing and scarification. Modern societies are metaphorically like airport departure lounges where passengers are encouraged to be cool and (...) distant, orderly and regulated. The article is thus critical of recent attempts to discover and unearth Dionysian moments of creative tribalism in modern youth groups or working-class communities. Body marks are commercial objects in a leisure marketplace and have become optional aspects of a body aesthetic, which playfully and ironically indicate social membership. They cannot serve as charismatic entrance points to the primitive. (shrink)

The sociological debate about globalization has often neglected the place of religion in a global age. This absence is problematic, given the creative role of the world religions in the shaping of the modernization and globalization processes. This article treats globalization as a particular phase of the general process of modernity, and considers religion in terms of four paradoxes. The first (the Nietzsche paradox) argues that, against the received wisdom, fundamentalism is a form of modernization. Although religious fundamentalism may be (...) a reaction to the hybridity brought about by globalization, it is not a traditional reaction. The second (the Parsonian paradox) argues that modernization and globalization constitute religion as a special and separate institutional sphere of society, and hence transform religion into a problem of modernity. Fundamentalism attempts to reverse this pattern and, in the marginal societies of the global system, fundamentalist religion challenges this western version of modernized religion. The third (the McLuhan paradox) is that religious values in a global village expose the incommensurability of cultural systems, but relativism is not easily sustained in practice and globalization paradoxically increases the need for human rights universalism. While nationalism as a framework for cultures conflicts with attempts to develop general systems of rights discourse, it is not evident that the creation of alternative rights systems (such as Confucian codes) appears to be immediately viable. The final (the Montaigne paradox) explores the contradiction between Orientalism as a necessary consequence of the discovery of Otherness and Otherness as a necessary experience of cosmopolitan humanism. The article concludes with a discussion of the possibilities of cosmopolitan virtue in the context of these paradoxes of globalization and religion. (shrink)

This article explores the implications of Gillian Rose's social and political theory of modernity. For Rose, modernity not only construes `the autonomous moral subject as free within the order of representations and unfree within its preconditions and outcomes' (1996: 57), it is also `the working out of that combination' (ibid.). The implications of this view are explored below, concentrating in particular on the way Rose tackled the aporias and contradictions of modern sociology and social theory. Its conclusion is twofold. First, (...) that Rose retrieves the absolute as fundamental to the meaning of social and political critique, and second that, in the face of demands for radical political action, not least in Marx's 11th thesis on Feuerbach, it is the religious dimension of our political experience that has been consistently overlooked. It is my argument that, in her concept of `the broken middle', Rose does not overcome the gap between theory and practice, but she does comprehend it as a way of life, one characterized by human struggling and failing. This way of life calls us to `mind the gap'. (shrink)

Departing from Richard Florida's theory of the Creative Class, this article attempts to delineate the Greek creative ethos. The research involved in-depth interviews with knowledge and service workers in Greece. Adopting an existential view of creativity, which emphasizes the natural human inclination to create and engage with one's acts, and using valuing processes as tools to analyze workers? discourses opens up the elements that underpin workers? efforts to experience authenticity across life spheres and construct the meaning of work and good (...) living. These efforts were sketched against a backdrop of adverse lived realities and intersected with anxious, alienated, and disempowered constructions of selfhood. Contrary to Florida's claims, the present article goes beyond positions of more or less creative workers and examines the various meanings of creativity underpinned by different lived realities. (shrink)

This is an existential-phenomenological reading of Max Weber’s “Class, Status, Party” that seeks a fuller understanding of meaning accomplishment in a stratified World. I appropriate stratification as a single meaning structure ontically defined by domination, intersubjectivity, and life-chances and ontologically determined by the power-to-be (Seinkönnen), There-being-with-others (Mitdasein), and potentiality (Möglichkeit). I then discuss the significance of these structures in finite transcendence (There-being, Dasein) and describe ways they factually unfold in World achievement. I conclude with logotherapeutic reflections concerning meaning accomplishment in (...) a stratified World and a summary of key questions facing existential-phenomenology in light of the likelihood that There-being must embrace, indeed, live, the inherent equality of Being (Gleichheit des Seins) among Daseins to accomplish its authenticity. (shrink)

This is an existential-phenomenological reading of Max Weber's "Class, Status, Party" that seeks a fuller understanding of meaning accomplishment in a stratified World. I appropriate stratification as a single meaning structure ontically defined by domination, intersubjectivity, and life-chances and ontologically determined by the power-to-be, There-being-with-others, and potentiality. I then discuss the significance of these structures in finite transcendence and describe ways they factually unfold in World achievement. I conclude with logotherapeutic reflections concerning meaning accomplishment in a stratified World and a (...) summary of key questions facing existential-phenomenology in light of the likelihood that There-being must embrace, indeed, live, the inherent equality of Being among Daseins to accomplish its authenticity. (shrink)

This contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Peace by Other Means” rereads the works of J. R. R. Tolkien as a study of pyrrhic victory. It argues that the origin of Tolkien's cycle of tales is inseparable from his experience of World War I, which ended in anomie and widespread fear of the coercive power of modern society. The price of the victory over evil, in these tales, is disenchantment. Tolkien is the first author to imagine disenchantment on a near-global (...) scale, using literal disenchantment as a metaphor for a kind he could expect his readers to know firsthand. Like disenchantment, this-worldly evil, centralized in a single figure such as Mordor, is a twentieth-century idea, an emanation of totalitarianism: the transformation of Elves into orcs is a horror that only our knowledge of the Nazi death camps and the Soviet gulag has equipped us to imagine. If disenchantment is the price of victory over absolute evil, few would doubt that it was worth paying—within the framework of the tales. For the far future of Middle-Earth, however, the implications are less benign. The Elves accept their fate and either dwindle or depart. But the orcs, personifying disenchantment in its most radical and terrifying form, are routed but not all killed, and they do not depart. (shrink)

The idea of a market in human organs has traditionally met with widespread and emphatic rejection from both secular and religious fronts alike. However, as numerous human beings continue to suffer an uncertain fate on transplant waiting lists, voices are beginning to emerge that are willing at least to explore the option of human organ sales. Anyone who argues for such an option must contend, however, with what seem to be largely emotional rejections of the idea. Often it seems that (...) rebuffs offered on a secular ground are rooted in nothing more than vague discomforts. We suspect that these discomforts are often based in religious sentiments that have wound their way into the fabric of secular America. Therefore, in order to contribute further to those voices heard in favor of human organ sales, it is worthwhile to show that from a religious perspective, it is just as possible to affirm the appropriateness of human organ sales as it is from a secular basis. Since Protestantism has historically had a powerful influence in American society it is a proper starting point for such an investigation. (shrink)

Museum professionalism remains an unexplored area in museum studies, particularly with regard to what is arguably the core generic question of a sui generis professional knowledge base, and its necessary and sufficient conditions. The need to examine this question becomes all the more important with the increasing expansion of the museum’s roles and functions. This paper starts by mapping out the policy and organizational context within which the roles of museums have expanded in the UK. It then situates the discussion (...) of museum professional knowledge within a cross-disciplinary matrix bearing on the question of what is professional about occupations classified—or classifiable—as professions. Against the backdrop of the current organizational context of the museum as well as theories of professional knowledge, it highlights the ways in which museum work, more specifically museography, poses a distinctive set of questions compared to other ‘professional’ fields; the paper thus homes in on the question of what it is that constitutes the uniqueness of museum professional knowledge in relation to museographic practice and the type of professional knowledge and expertise that can sustain it and enact its creative and educational potentials and affordances. (shrink)

This paper explores how Islam is understood by Muslim women entrepreneurs and considers its influence on their entrepreneurial experiences in the country-specific context of Lebanon. In so doing, we adopt a qualitative interpretative approach, drawing upon 21 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with women entrepreneurs. Accordingly, we present empirical evidence detailing how Muslim women entrepreneurs utilise various aspects and teachings of Islam to make sense of their entrepreneurial decisions. We thus provide insight into how women’s entrepreneurship interlocks with Islamic teachings and the (...) restrictions imposed by patriarchal socio-cultural values in Lebanon. This paper advances entrepreneurship research by demonstrating how Islam unfolds as a source of inspiration and resilience for women entrepreneurs, if and when equipped with an Islamic feminist interpretation. (shrink)

Michel Foucault acknowledged that the Reformation was a pastoral battle and a reorganization of pastoral power. He did not, however, analyze Protestantism much further. This article broadens the scope of critical research on Protestantism, focusing on Lutheranism. Preaching is a fruitful way to overcome overemphasis on confession. In this endeavor I apply Foucault’s concept of “master’s discourse.” I argue that while, in Lutheranism, conversion through comprehensive soul-searching is an individual matter, at the same time it relies on technologies aimed at (...) a collective audience, such as preaching. Since preaching is divine speech, the Lutheran priest wields enormous spiritual power: the preacher is the truth-teller and the subject is required to listen to and internalize the proclaimed truth, instead of confessing their sins. (shrink)

Pupils—the learners of both educational thought and of educational practice—exist ever more as data, as do the strictures and goals through which these pupils are pedagogically managed. I elaborate this thought by way of a single example: a particular kind of pupils whose number is reportedly on the increase, namely pupils diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In my analysis I combine Hacking’s nominalist conception of human kinds and Weber’s instrumental rationalism with recent thinking about the effects of digital technologies (...) on social organising. Discussed in more detail is a key consequence from data playing a primary role in bringing together ADHD as coherent idea and practice: if ADHD is primarily the digital and instrumental product of psychiatry and education, so that ADHD is only secondarily a reliable description of behaviour, then what is to count as valid description of ADHD as behaviour will depend firstly upon the character and application of the existing database and not on actual behaviours among pupils. The article concludes with the observation that such technological products as ADHD seem notably at odds with traditional values in education. Traditional notions of education as a form of personable nurture for example seem to contrast with the instrumental disinterestedness of managing pupils as data flows. Given the latter, there seems rising need to theorise social reproduction by data and of data in contemporary education. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that while Christians should share Engelhardt’s disappointment in how bioethics functions in the world, they should not share his exasperation. I begin by outlining the general argument in After God, its understanding of secularism, and of how such secularism has impacted bioethics. Next, I suggest that Englehardt appears to lean toward disengagement or at least an extremely suspicious sectarianism. Rather, I claim that it is possible for Christians to morally engage in a useful way with (...) others and still base their own moral activity on proper life telos. Such cooperation is not to serve a commonly-held ultimate purpose, but shared proximate ends. That said, the moral discourse with those outside the Church may be necessarily limited by shallow moral acquaintanceship. I argue that the concept of “middle axioms” can be used as a mechanism for engagement with others in this society. Importantly, this approach does not require abandoning distinctive Christian commitments and foundational assumptions. (shrink)