Explains the social theories of contemporary German intellectual Jurgen Habermas.

This paper presents an argument for reconceptualizing (human) intelligence as intellectual virtue, and makes some proposals as to how we would understand intellectual virtue if feminist values were taken into account. Several abilities are identified which are closely connected to one aim that is common to most feminists: the building of communities in which well-being is possible.

The following is a defense of Jurgen Habermas' argumentational consensual procedure against Keith Lehrer and Carl Wagner's weighted averaging consensual procedure (and, I tentatively claim, against any weighted averaging consensual procedure). The argument is twofold: if Lehrer and Wagner intend, implicity, to replace what is for Habermas the metatheoretical stage of a discussion with the aggregation of judgments of respect, then their procedure fails to make use of all available information and the participants are not committed to the weighted average (...) position on these grounds; if, on the other hand, they do not intend to replace metatheoretical discussion by aggregation, then the conditions under which the discussion could conceivably have come to a halt are such as to provide no support for the claim that it is rational to aggregate, rather than to consider the discussion unresolved until more information is available. (shrink)

Effective corporate social responsibility policies are a requirement for today's companies. Policies have not only to be formulated, they also have to be delivered by corporate employees. This paper uses existing research findings to identify two types of factors that may impact on employee motivation and commitment to CSR ‘buy-in’. The first of these is contextual: employee attitudes and behaviours will be affected by organizational culture and climate, by whether CSR policies are couched in terms of compliance or in terms (...) of values, and by whether such policies are integrated into business processes or simply an ‘add-on’ that serves as window-dressing. The second set of factors is perceptual. Motivation and commitment will be affected by the extent to which they can align personal identity and image with that of the organization, by their perceptions of justice and fairness both in general and in terms of how CSR performance is rewarded, and by their impressions concerning the attitude of top management to CSR issues and performance. (shrink)

"It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that "Ethics" is but another word for "righteousness," that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless. Certain forms of personal righteousness have become to a majority of the community almost automatic. But we all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements. (...) To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation. This book is a study of various types and groups who are being impelled by the newer conception of Democracy to an acceptance of social obligations involving in each instance a new line of conduct."--. (shrink)

In _Vibrant Matter_ the political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on nature, ethics, and affect, shifts her focus from the human experience of things to things themselves. Bennett argues that political theory needs to do a better job of recognizing the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Toward that end, she theorizes a “vital materiality” that runs through and across bodies, both human and nonhuman. Bennett explores how political analyses of public events might change were we (...) to acknowledge that agency always emerges as the_ _effect of ad hoc configurations of human and nonhuman forces. She suggests that recognizing that agency is distributed this way, and is not solely the province of humans, might spur the cultivation of a more responsible, ecologically sound politics: a politics less devoted to blaming and condemning individuals than to discerning the web of forces affecting situations and events. Bennett examines the political and theoretical implications of vital materialism through extended discussions of commonplace things and physical phenomena including stem cells, fish oils, electricity, metal, and trash. She reflects on the vital power of material formations such as landfills, which generate lively streams of chemicals, and omega-3 fatty acids, which can transform brain chemistry and mood. Along the way, she engages with the concepts and claims of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Darwin, Adorno, and Deleuze, disclosing a long history of thinking about vibrant matter in Western philosophy, including attempts by Kant, Bergson, and the embryologist Hans Driesch to name the “vital force” inherent in material forms. Bennett concludes by sketching the contours of a “green materialist” ecophilosophy. (shrink)

"It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that "Ethics" is but another word for "righteousness," that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless. Certain forms of personal righteousness have become to a majority of the community almost automatic. But we all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements. (...) To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation. This book is a study of various types and groups who are being impelled by the newer conception of Democracy to an acceptance of social obligations involving in each instance a new line of conduct."--. (shrink)

Effective corporate social responsibility policies are a requirement for today's companies. Policies have not only to be formulated, they also have to be delivered by corporate employees. This paper uses existing research findings to identify two types of factors that may impact on employee motivation and commitment to CSR ‘buy‐in’. The first of these is contextual: employee attitudes and behaviours will be affected by organizational culture and climate, by whether CSR policies are couched in terms of compliance or in terms (...) of values, and by whether such policies are integrated into business processes or simply an ‘add‐on’ that serves as window‐dressing. The second set of factors is perceptual. Motivation and commitment will be affected by the extent to which they can align personal identity and image with that of the organization, by their perceptions of justice and fairness both in general and in terms of how CSR performance is rewarded, and by their impressions concerning the attitude of top management to CSR issues and performance. (shrink)

The Aesthetics of Design offers the first full treatment of design in the field of philosophical aesthetics, challenging the discipline to broaden its scope to include the quotidian objects and experiences of our everyday lives and concerns ...

This is part of a complete set of Jane Austen's novels collating the editions published during the author's lifetime and previously unpublished manuscripts. The books are illustrated with 19th century plates and incorporate revisions by experts in the light of subsequent research.

A paradigm for peace discovered in the cosmopolitan neighborhoods of poor urban immigrants.

A century ago, John Dewey remarked that when home changes radically, school must change as well. With home, family, and gender roles dramatically altered in recent years, we are faced with a difficult problem: in the lives of more and more American children, no one is home. The Schoolhome proposes a solution. Drawing selectively from reform movements of the past and relating them to the unique needs of today's parents and children, Jane Martin presents a philosophy of education that (...) is responsive to America's changed and changing realities. As more and more parents enter the workforce, the historic role of the domestic sphere in the education and development of children is drastically reduced. Consequently, Martin advocates removing the barriers between the school and the home--making school a metaphorical "home," a safe and nuturant environment that provides children with the experience of affection and connection otherwise missing or inconsistent in their lives. In this proposition, the traditional schoolhouse where children are drilled in the three Rs is transformed into a "schoolhome" where learning is animated by an ethic of social awareness. At a time when many school reformers are calling for a return to basics and lobbying for skills education and quick-fix initiatives, Martin urges us to reconsider the distinctive legacies of Dewey and Montessori and to conceive of a school that integrates the values of the home with those of social responsibility. With cultural diversity and gender equality among its explicit goals, the schoolhome expands upon Dewey's edict to educate the "whole child," seeking instead to educate all children in the culture's whole heritage. Martin eloquently challenges reformers to reclaim the founding fathers' vision of the nation as a domestic realm, and to imagine a learning environment whose curriculum and classroom practice reflect not merely an economic but a moral investment in the future of our children. More than a summons to action, this remarkable book is a call to rethink the assumptions we bring to the educational enterprise, and so, to act wisely. (shrink)

The absoluteness of Christianity is a predicate of the God of the eschatological kingdom proclaimed by Jesus, a kingdom embracing the power of a universal future which also includes the entire sweep of the history of religions.

The rediscovery of the force and scope of apocalypticism in primitive Christianity can help systematic theology to find new openings for thoughts of faith that have long languished in systems that obstruct their expression.

A longstanding problem in the teacher workforce, internationally and in the UK, is the continuing and substantial numbers of qualified teachers who leave the profession within five years. This paper uses data collected from a survey to the last five years of teacher education graduates of UCL Institute of Education (IOE) in London, to explore what originally motivated them to teach, and the reasons why they have left or may consider leaving in the future. We discovered that despite claiming to (...) be aware of the challenges of workload before entering teaching, workload was the most frequently cited reason for having left, or for leaving in the future. The data spoke to the reality of teaching being worse than expected, and the nature (rather than the quantity) of the workload, linked to notions of performativity and accountability, being a crucial factor. This paper draws on a substantial new source of data and explores reasons for leaving in the context of reported initial motivation of individuals who have left teaching, individuals who are planning to leave and individuals who are planning to stay in teaching. (shrink)

This paper explores the type of stakeholder engagement currently being undertaken by many organisations as part of social and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting processes. Specifically, the paper seeks to determine the extent to which current corporate practice iteratively promotes stakeholder participation in collaboratively designing accountability programmes, or whether it merely is a new term for canvassing stakeholder opinions. Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation is used as a conceptual model for positioning contemporary methods of stakeholder dialogue. The findings from interviews (...) with representatives from twenty‐nine UK and transnational organisations actively engaged in stakeholder dialogue are presented. This paper concludes that contemporary organisations seem to be seeking to engage with stakeholders in partnerships, yet their attempts still fall short of what Arnstein called Citizen Control, the level of achievement that non‐governmental organisations would like stakeholder engagement to attain. (shrink)

The tales they shared with Addams in the wake of the Devil Baby were more personal and revealing than any they had previously told her: stories of abusive mates ...

In _influx & efflux_ Jane Bennett pursues a question that was bracketed in her book _Vibrant Matter_: how to think about human agency in a world teeming with powerful nonhuman influences? “Influx _& _efflux”—a phrase borrowed from Whitman's "Song of Myself"—refers to everyday movements whereby outside influences enter bodies, infuse and confuse their organization, and then exit, themselves having been transformed into something new. How to describe the human efforts involved in that process? What kinds of “I” and “we” (...) can live well and act effectively in a world of so many other lively materialities? Drawing upon Whitman, Thoreau, Caillois, Whitehead, and other poetic writers, Bennett links a nonanthropocentric model of self to a radically egalitarian pluralism and also to a syntax and style of writing appropriate to the entangled world in which we live. The book tries to enact the uncanny process by which we “write up” influences that pervade, enable, and disrupt us. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper examines some arguments which deny the existence of an individual right to remain ignorant about genetic information relating to oneself – often referred to as ‘a right to genetic ignorance’ or, more generically, as ‘a right not to know’. Such arguments fall broadly into two categories: 1) those which accept that individuals have a right to remain ignorant in self‐regarding matters, but deny that this right can be extended to genetic ignorance, since such ignorance may be harmful (...) to others, particularly those to whom one is genetically related (the ‘harm to others objection’) and 2) those which contend that, even if genetic ignorance is only self harming, it is not something to which individuals can rationally or morally claim to have a ‘right’ at all, since they defend their claims on autonomy‐respecting grounds and ignorance is inimical to autonomy (the ‘incoherence objection’). I argue that defenders of a right not to know have some plausible responses to the ‘harm to others objection’, but that in trying to respond to the ‘incoherence objection’, they and their opponents reach an impasse in which both sides are left voicing concerns about the paternalistic implications of the other's point of view. I conclude that defenders of a right not to know would, therefore, advance their position further by analysing it in terms of values other than those of autonomy and rights. (shrink)

Thirty-five current therapy clients, 47 former clients, and 42 college students with no therapy experience rated 27 items in terms of importance for inclusion in informed consent discussions. The current and former client samples rated information about inappropriate therapeutic techniques, confidentiality, and the risks of alternative treatments as most important, and information about the personal characteristics of the therapist and the therapist's degree as least important. The results of this study provide evidence for differential informed consent disclosure practices.

A comforting, gentle introduction to the concept of God for young children.

There has been much discussion about whether traditional epistemology's doxastic attitudes are reducible to degrees of belief. In this paper I argue that what I call the Straightforward Reduction - the reduction of all three of believing p, disbelieving p, and suspending judgment about p, not-p to precise degrees of belief for p and not-p that ought to obey the standard axioms of the probability calculus - cannot succeed. By focusing on suspension of judgment (agnosticism) rather than belief, we can (...) see why the Straightforward Reduction is bound to fail. I argue that, in general, suspending about p is not just a matter of having some specified standard credence for p, and in the end I suggest some ways to extend the arguments that will put pressure on other credence-theoretic accounts of belief and suspension of judgment as well. (shrink)