Poverty, inequality, violence, environmental degradation, and tyranny continue to afflict the world. Ethics of Global Development offers a moral reflection on the ends and means of local, national, and global efforts to overcome these five scourges. After emphasizing the role of ethics in development studies, policy-making, and practice, David A. Crocker analyzes and evaluates Amartya Sen's philosophy of development in relation to alternative ethical outlooks. He argues that Sen's turn to robust ideals of human agency and democracy improves (...) on both Sen's earlier emphasis on 'capabilities and functionings' and Martha Nussbaum's version of the capability orientation. This agency-focused capability approach is then extended and strengthened by applying it to the challenges of consumerism and hunger, the development responsibilities of affluent individuals and nations, and the dilemmas of globalization. Throughout the book the author argues for the importance of more inclusive and deliberative democratic institutions. (shrink)

This essay formulates eight goals that have emerged from worldwide moral deliberation on "transitional justice" and that may serve as a useful framework when particular societies consider how they should reckon with violations of internationally recognized human rights.

Crocker concludes that international and regional progress are closely interrelated. Universalists and ethnocentrists must converge to "think and act globally, regionally, nationally, and locally.".

In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology—examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world.

As a broad concept, 'globalization' denotes the declining significance of national boundaries. At a deeper level, globalization is the proposition that nation-states are losing the power to control what occurs within their borders and that what transpires across borders is rising in relative significance. The Ethical Dimensions of Global Development: An Introduction, the fifth book in Rowman & Littlefield's Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy Studies series, discusses key questions concerning globalization and its implications, including: Can general ethical principles be (...) brought to bear on questions of globalization? Do economic development and self-government require a duty of care? Is economic destiny crucial to individual autonomy? This collection provides readers with current information and useful insights into this complex topic. (shrink)

Purpose: Our aim was to determine if self-determined motivation (SDM) in elite, men’s soccer changes over time and differs as a function of age, skill-grouping, and engagement in soccer play and practice. We tested predictions from the Developmental Model of Sport Participation (DMSP) regarding relations between practice and play and SDM among both elite and non-elite samples. Methods: Elite youth soccer players in the UK (n = 31; from the Under 13/U13 yr and U15 yr age groups) completed practice history (...) and motivation questionnaires at time1 (T1) and ~2 years later (T2: now U15 yr & U17 yr). Non-elite players (n = 32; from U15 yr and U17 yr) completed the same questionnaires at T2 only. Results: For the elite groups, global SDM decreased over time for the current U17 group (from U15), but no change was seen for the current U15 group (from U13). Age group differences at T2 mirrored these data, with U17 players showing lower global SDM and higher controlled motivation than U15 elites. The non-elite players did not show age group differences, but elites scored higher for global SDM and autonomous motivation than non-elites. The recent hours accumulated in practice negatively correlated with global SDM in elite and non-elite groups, but play was unrelated to measures of motivation. Conclusions: Differences in SDM as a function of age and skill point towards the dynamic nature of these motivations over time, likely a result of proximity to external rewards related to professional status. Although high volumes of practice are related to lower global SDM in both skill groups, the absence of any relations between SDM and soccer play does not support a key prediction related to the DMSP. (shrink)

The chapters in this volume deal with timely issues regarding democracy in theory and in practice in today's globalized world. Authored by leading political philosophers of our time, they appear here for the first time. The essays challenge and defend assumptions about the role of democracy as a viable political and legal institution in response to globalization, keeping in focus the role of rights at the normative foundations of democracy in a pluralistic world.

In this paper’s first section, I briefly discuss the Journal’s Global Ethics Forum and various ways development ethics has been related to global ethics . Regardless of which of these three conceptions of DE and GE one adopts, I believe that we should avoid two partial views of the causes of injustice: “explanatory nationalism,” which “makes us look at poverty and oppression as problems whose root cause and possible solutions are domestic” ; and “explanatory globalism” in which local and national (...) problems are ultimately due to global factors . In the second section I identify five topics and argue that development and global ethicists should emphasize them and their relations in future work. These future foci should be the following: inequality of power, agency and empowerment, democracy and development, corruption, and transitional justice. A final section concludes. (shrink)

This study elucidates and appraises a conception of praxis developed by the Yugoslav Marxist Mihailo Markovi . This notion is first distinguished from everyday and alternative theoretical uses of 'practice', 'practical', and 'praxis' . Markovic's view is then characterized as a normative, pluralistic theory of both human being and doing. Praxis , for Markovi , is activity which realizes one's best potentialities: (i) the humanly generic dispositions of intentionality, self-determination, creativity, sociality, and rationality, and (ii) one's relatively distinctive abilities and (...) bents compatible with (i). Following a critical analysis of Markovic's attempts to justify praxis as norm, two substantive criticisms are advanced. The theory needs (i) priority rules for the relative weighting of praxis components when they cannot all be (fully) realized in an action, and (ii) a specification of the genus praxis so as to recognize important differences among optimal activities which shape things, construct theories, rear children, and share with mature persons. (shrink)

Development ethicists from one society may help understand and evaluate social change in another society. After examining several types of such cross-cultural assessments, the author argues that insider-outsider hybrids are the most promising cross-cultural dialogue partners.

En este trabajo identifico cuatro temas que, considero, deberían ser más prominentes en el enfoque de las capacidades para el desarrollo internacional y la reflexión ética respecto de los fines, medios y procesos del desarrollo: desigualdad de poder, agencia y empoderamiento, democracia y desarrollo y corrupción. Sostengo que el primero y el cuarto son desafíos de urgencia para la campaña del enfoque de las capacidades, y que el segundo y tercer temas son importantes maneras en las cuales los desafíos pueden (...) y deberían ser enfrentados. In this paper I identify four topics that I argue should be more prominent in the capability approach to international development and in ethical reflection on the ends, means, and processes of development: inequality of power, agency and empowerment, democracy and development, and corruption. I argue that the first and fourth are urgent challenges for the capability approach ad the second and third topics are important ways in which the challenges can and should be met. (shrink)

In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology—examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world.

In a hyper-consuming society, what questions should we ask ourselves as we survey the increasingly crowded planet on which we find ourselves? What are the moral effects of living amid unprecedented material plenty? With David Crocker, Lisa Newton, and Judith Lichtenberg.

I discuss the nature and genesis of international development ethics as well as its current areas of consensus, controversies, challenges, and agenda. A relatively new field of applied ethics, international development ethics is ethical reflection on the ends and means of socioeconomic change in poor countries and regions. It has several sources: criticism of colonialism and post-World War II developmental strategies; Denis Goulet's writings; Anglo-American philosophical debates about the ethics of famine relief; and Paul Streeten's and Amartya Sen's approaches to (...) development. Development ethicists agree that the moral dimension of development theory and practice is just as important as the scientific and policy components. What is often called "development" may be bad for people, communities, and the environment. Hence, the process of development should be reconceived as beneficial change, usually specified as alleviating human misery and environmental degradation in poor countries. (shrink)

This book is an attempt to show how innovation in the "post-Google generation" is often catalyzed by those who cross a conventional line so firmly drawn between ...

Arguing about origins' great theater and a grand distraction -- Ideas and idea making -- Beauty and the arts -- Suffering and sensation -- The justice paradox -- Life and afterlife.

In the twenty-first century, the debate about life on other worlds is quickly changing from the realm of speculation to the domain of hard science. Within a few years, as a consequence of the rapid discovery by astronomers of planets around other stars, astronomers very likely will have discovered clear evidence of life beyond the Earth. Such a discovery of extraterrestrial life will change everything. Knowing the answer as to whether humanity has company in the universe will trigger one of (...) the greatest intellectual revolutions in history, not the least of which will be a challenge for at least some terrestrial religions. Which religions will handle the discovery of extraterrestrial life with ease and which will struggle to assimilate this new knowledge about our place in the universe? Some religions as currently practiced appear to only be viable on Earth. Other religions could be practiced on distant worlds but nevertheless identify both Earth as a place and humankind as a species of singular spiritual religious importance, while some religions could be practiced equally well anywhere in the universe by any sentient beings. Weintraub guides readers on an invigorating tour of the world's most widely practiced religions. It reveals what, if anything, each religion has to say about the possibility that extraterrestrial life exists and how, or if, a particular religion would work on other planets in distant parts of the universe. (shrink)

This is a book about evolution from a post-Darwinian perspective. It recounts the core ideas of French philosopher Henri Bergson and his rediscovery and legacy in the poststructuralist critical philosophies of the 1960s, and explores the confluences of these ideas with those of complexity theory in environmental biology. The failings in the development of systems theory, many of which complex systems theory overcomes, are retold; with Bergson, this book proposes, some of the rest may be overcome too. It asserts that (...) Bergson’s ideas can further our understanding of evolution, and of complex systems, and aid the work of scientists working in the field of ecological complexity. See http://www.creativeemergence.info/ for more detail and sample chapter. "The claim is that Bergson's notions of duration and élan vital resonate with and provide interesting metaphysical speculations complementing a process structuralist biology of the Goodwin and Kauffman stripe. This is certainly provocative and worth further thought. The key claim is that the openness and unpredictability of systems "at the edge of chaos" (where a system can be said to "choose" at bifurcation points in its state space) meets the Bergsonian desideratum of an open universe that takes irreversible time and evolutionary difference seriously. In particular, Kreps stresses the way Bergson's insistence on the differentiating force of élan vital (which Kreps successfully defends from the charge of a substantialist vitalism along the lines of Hans Dreisch) puts him in line with those who see natural selection as a secondary pruning of a primary differentiation." -John Protevi, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2016.01.20 'This is no ordinary introduction to Henri Bergson. What David Kreps' excellent study gives us is Bergson, complexe: first, because there is no simple way to take (or leave) Bergson's ideas - his thought of durée, élan, and 'multiplicity' demands the most subtle and nuanced reading to give them their full justice; and second, because only by intertwining his ideas with the most up-to-date research in systems thinking, complexity theory, and poststructuralism can we begin to understand their absolute contemporaneity. Kreps' work does all this and more: it gives us the Bergson we need for today.' -John Mullarkey, author of Bergson and Philosophy 'Kreps' book is a thoroughly researched and well-written work that shows how Bergson's philosophy of evolution and time can also reinvigorate our ideas about complexity and organization in the natural and physical sciences.' -Stephen Crocker, author of Bergson and the Metaphysics of Media. (shrink)

Jared Diamond and other leading scholars have argued that the domestication of animals for food, labor, and tools of war has advanced the development of human society. But by comparing practices of animal exploitation for food and resources in different societies over time, David A. Nibert reaches a strikingly different conclusion. He finds in the domestication of animals, which he renames "domesecration," a perversion of human ethics, the development of large-scale acts of violence, disastrous patterns of destruction, and growth-curbing (...) epidemics of infectious disease. Nibert centers his study on nomadic pastoralism and the development of commercial ranching, a practice that has been largely controlled by elite groups and expanded with the rise of capitalism. Beginning with the pastoral societies of the Eurasian steppe and continuing through to the exportation of Western, meat-centered eating habits throughout today's world, Nibert connects the domesecration of animals to violence, invasion, extermination, displacement, enslavement, repression, pandemic chronic disease, and hunger. In his view, conquest and subjugation were the results of the need to appropriate land and water to maintain large groups of animals, and the gross amassing of military power has its roots in the economic benefits of the exploitation, exchange, and sale of animals. Deadly zoonotic diseases, Nibert shows, have accompanied violent developments throughout history, laying waste to whole cities, societies, and civilizations. His most powerful insight situates the domesecration of animals as a precondition for the oppression of human populations, particularly indigenous peoples, an injustice impossible to rectify while the material interests of the elite are inextricably linked to the exploitation of animals. Nibert links domesecration to some of the most critical issues facing the world today, including the depletion of fresh water, topsoil, and oil reserves; global warming; and world hunger, and he reviews the U.S. government's military response to the inevitable crises of an overheated, hungry, resource-depleted world. Most animal-advocacy campaigns reinforce current oppressive practices, Nibert argues. Instead, he suggests reforms that challenge the legitimacy of both domesecration and capitalism. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill thought himself more indebted to Plato for his mental culture than to any other author. A study of his Gorgias translation and notes shows that arguments in On Liberty and Utilitarianism for individuality, freedom of discussion and the superiority of higher pleasures were probably shaped by that dialogue.

Wilkinson's (1) critique of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy is weakened by inconsistent use of crucial terms, a systematically biased selectivity in reviewing empirical evidence and prior debates, and a failure to address issues crucial for a scientific understanding of psychotherapy.

_Comparative Education: A Field in Discussion_ is a personal reflection on the field of comparative education from the perspective of one scholar who has been active in the field since the 1980s.

This chapter begins by debunking some of the myths and misconceptions surrounding placebo effects, through a survey of some of the discoveries that have been made in the last fifty years about the range, frequency, and potency of placebo effects in medicine and psychiatry. It then looks at how placebo effects make an appearance in psychiatry and psychotherapy, particularly in the case of treatments of depression that involve psychoactive medication and/or talk therapy. Following this is a survey of some of (...) the leading definitions of the placebo effect, as well as a survey of some of the leading explanatory theories. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some new directions in placebo research: namely, open-label placebos and the evolutionary origins of placebo effects. (shrink)

Plato's dialogue "The Statesman" has often been found structurally puzzling because of its apparent diffuseness and disjointed transitions. This book interprets the dialogue in ways which account for this problematic structure, and which also connect the primary themes of the dialogue with two subsequent dialogues "The Philebus" and "The Laws.".

_Twenty-First Century Inequality & Capitalism: Piketty, Marx and Beyond_ is a collection of critical essays on the economist’s iconic 2014 book, from the perspective of critical theory, global political economy or public sociology, mostly drawn from the Marxist tradition.

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective (...) autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. (shrink)