This special issue is devoted to highlighting thinkers who have been overlooked within business ethics and who have important contributions to make to our field. We make the case that, as scholars of a hybrid discipline that also aims to address important issues of business practice, we need to look continually for new sources of insight and wisdom that can both enrich our discourse and improve our ability to generate ideas that have a positive impact on business practice. In this (...) introductory essay, we discuss our rationale for creating this special issue, summarize the articles contained within, and close with thoughts on its significance for the field going forward. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Drawing upon cross-sectional research with pre- and in-service police officers in the U.K. (N = 571), this paper reports on the moral reasoning strategies favored by the respondents in dealing with bespoke work-related moral quandaries specific to the professional practice of policing. The dominant form of moral reasoning in dealing with those dilemmas was deontological (rule-based). The second most frequently selected reasoning strategy was virtue ethical. Further analysis of the police research data indicated that those with an undergraduate degree (...) were significantly more likely to adopt virtue ethical and consequentialist-utilitarian reasoning strategies than those who did not have an undergraduate degree. (shrink)

The essays in this collection step back to ask: Do the complex components of Dennett's work on intentionality, consciousness, evolution, and ethics themselves ...

An assessment of Dennett's philosophy by various philosophers. Includes Dennett's responses.

A growing body of literature critical of ethics review boards has drawn attention to the processes used to determine the ethical merit of research. Citing criticism on the bureaucratic nature of ethics review processes, this literature provides a useful provocation for (re)considering how the ethics review might be enacted. Much of this criticism focuses on how ethics review boards _deliberate,_ with particular attention given to the lack of transparency and opportunities for researcher recourse that characterise ethics review processes. Centered specifically (...) on the conduct of ethics review boards convened within university settings, this paper draws on these inherent criticisms to consider the ways that ethics review boards might enact more communicative and deliberative practices. Outlining a set of principles against which ethics review boards might establish strategies for engaging with researchers and research communities, this paper draws attention to how _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ for the ethics review might be enacted in the day-to-day practice of the university human ethics review board. This paper develops these themes via a conceptual lens derived from Habermas’ (The theory of communicative action. Volume 1: Reason and the rationalization of society, 1984 ) articulation of ‘communicative action’ and Fraser’s (Social Text, 25(26), 56–80, 1990 ) consideration of ‘strong publics’ to cast consideration of the role that human ethics review boards might play in supporting university research cultures. _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ provide useful conceptual prompts for considering how ethics review boards might undertake their work. (shrink)

Despite increasing scientific interest in self-generated thought-mental content largely independent of the immediate environment-there has yet to be any comprehensive synthesis of the subjective experience and neural correlates of affect in these forms of thinking. Here, we aim to develop an integrated affective neuroscience encompassing many forms of self-generated thought-normal and pathological, moderate and excessive, in waking and in sleep. In synthesizing existing literature on this topic, we reveal consistent findings pertaining to the prevalence, valence, and variability of emotion in (...) self-generated thought, and highlight how these factors might interact with self-generated thought to influence general well-being. We integrate these psychological findings with recent neuroimaging research, bringing attention to the neural correlates of affect in self-generated thought. We show that affect in self-generated thought is prevalent, positively biased, highly variable (both within and across individuals), and consistently recruits many brain areas implicated in emotional processing, including the orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, and medial prefrontal cortex. Many factors modulate these typical psychological and neural patterns, however; the emerging affective neuroscience of self-generated thought must endeavor to link brain function and subjective experience in both everyday self-generated thought as well as its dysfunctions in mental illness. (shrink)

The evolution of modern human life history has involved substantial changes in the overall length of the subadult period, the introduction of a novel early childhood stage, and many changes in the initiation, termination, and character of the other stages. The fossil record is explored for evidence of this evolutionary process, with a special emphasis on middle childhood, which many argue is equivalent to the juvenile stage of African apes. Although the “juvenile” and “middle childhood” stages appear to be the (...) same from a broad comparative perspective, in that they begin with the eruption of the first molar and the achievement of the majority of adult brain size and end with sexual maturity, the detailed differences in the expression of these two stages, and how they relate to the preceding and following stages, suggest that a distinction should be maintained between them to avoid blurring subtle, but important, differences. (shrink)

On the eve of the 2016 election, which ushered in the Trump era, an article by Alan Jacobs in Harper's Magazine lamented the decline of the Christian public intellectual and noted the need for such figures today—what Jacobs describes as the "'Where Is Our Reinhold Niebuhr?' Problem." Jacobs has in mind the Christian social and political thinkers of the early and mid-twentieth century, such as Niebuhr, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, "and their fellow travelers," who were willing to challenge (...) the prevailing social order of the time. He characterizes Christian public intellectuals—what others might call public theologians—as follows: "They should be intellectuals who speak the language of other intellectuals, including the... (shrink)

This paper explores John Dewey’s debt to Hegel by examining the relationship between his conception of growth and Bildung. Dewey’s notion of the progressive subject takes the project of education as unending—it is both a personal and collective process that strives to synthesise competing social values democratically. Despite Dewey’s rejection of absolutism and idealism, his teleological commitment to democracy reveals his tendency to revert to Hegel’s philosophical ideals. Although Dewey was aware of capitalism’s power to eclipse the advance of democracy, (...) the Deweyan subject is no less a rational actor than homo economicus, making educational and democratic growth easily susceptible to market forces. This examination questions the extent to which our contemporary understanding of educational growth, inherited from Dewey, grounds itself in self-limitation—a quality that is central to the degrowth movement. This paper will evaluate whether Dewey’s concept of growth is compatible with economic degrowth and its understanding of finite natural resources and the environmental dangers of capitalist expansion. An answer lies in the philosophy of Cornelius Castoriadis, who contended that self-limitation is essential for democracy to thrive and for the character of the social imaginary to shift. As we face a global environmental crisis, this shift is necessary. This article investigates whether Bildung, growth, and Castoriadis’ concept of paideia are all the same idea by different names, equally prone to neoliberal ‘reconciliation’ or able to penetrate the current dominant imaginary towards degrowth. (shrink)

Novel ecosystems represent the challenge of the Anthropocene epoch on a local scale. In an age where human agency is the defining ecological factor, ecological discourse and practice finds itself in its own “non-analog” conditions. In this context, good work can be an important place for developing answers to these questions. The fields of ecological practice, such as restoration and management, with their characteristic orientation toward objectives, lack a substantive understanding of what good work entails. Consequently, these fields are unable (...) to articulate what distinguishes moral and immoral human interventions in the nonhuman world and they turn instead to ambiguous categories such as “natural,” “historic,” and “pre-disturbance” for benchmarks. In contrast, a substantive conception of good work can name and clarify the sorts of intentions and behaviors that characterize positive human intervention in ecosystems, rather than simply rejecting those that are apparently “unnatural” or “novel.” From a phenomenological perspective, good ecological work demands accountability not only for the kinds of ecosystems we create or restore, but ultimately for the meanings we construct for our world and for ourselves. (shrink)

Presents a comprehensive set of basic ethical principles for the professional practice of psychotherapy. Defines unethical practices; refers to relevant portions of existing professional codes; and provides guidelines for behavior not covered by current codes. Also discusses legal matters that may arise in the practice of psychotherapy, noting the distinction between what is legal and what is ethical.

Recent approaches to studying argumentation in institutions have pointed out the role of institutional rules in constraining argumentation that takes place in institutional contexts. However, few studies explain how these rules concretely affect actual argumentation. In particular, little work has been done as to the consequences of interactional asymmetry which often exists between participants in institutional contexts. While previous studies have suggested that this asymmetry exists as an aberration in the deliberative process, this paper argues that asymmetry is built into (...) day-to-day institutional practices as a means of achieving institutional agendas. This article draws upon findings from workplace and discourse studies to explicate particular dimensions of asymmetry that commonly occur within institutional settings, and establishes a methodological framework to account for how this asymmetry can be operationalized for arguments that favor institutional interests regardless of the underlying strength of the arguments being made. Drawing on a controversial case of institutional argumentation during a hearing of the US House Committee on Un-American Activities in the mid-1950s, this article demonstrates how in using these advantages, HUAC is able to overcome legitimate witness counterarguments to its claims and achieve its institutional goals for the hearing. Though the testimony is admittedly 60-years old, HUAC is a useful case study: the asymmetry in the exchange is clear and we have a historical record to verify the factual accuracy of the claims being made. Additionally, we can see how the subsequent legal reforms that reduced conditions of asymmetry for witnesses were responsible for HUAC’s eventual demise as an institutional force. Though this paper analyzes one particular interaction, these findings are applicable to analysis of argumentation in many institutional settings. (shrink)

Max Skjönsberg’s contribution to the “Ideas in Context” series represents a serious, intelligent and insightful attempt to gather together thinking about political parties in Britain from a series...

Population-level biomedical research offers new opportunities to improve population health, but also raises new challenges to traditional systems of research governance and ethical oversight. Partly in response to these challenges, various models of public involvement in research are being introduced. Yet, the ways in which public involvement should meet governance challenges are not well understood. We conducted a qualitative study with 36 experts and stakeholders using the World Café method to identify key governance challenges and explore how public involvement can (...) meet these challenges. This brief report discusses four cross-cutting themes from the study: the need to move beyond individual consent; issues in benefit and data sharing; the challenge of delineating and understanding publics; and the goal of clarifying justifications for public involvement. The report aims to provide a starting point for making sense of the relationship between public involvement and the governance of population-level biomedical research, showing connections, potential solutions and issues arising at their intersection. We suggest that, in population-level biomedical research, there is a pressing need for a shift away from conventional governance frameworks focused on the individual and towards a focus on collectives, as well as to foreground ethical issues around social justice and develop ways to address cultural diversity, value pluralism and competing stakeholder interests. There are many unresolved questions around how this shift could be realised, but these unresolved questions should form the basis for developing justificatory accounts and frameworks for suitable collective models of public involvement in population-level biomedical research governance. (shrink)

Experiential evidence shows that pain is associated with common meanings. These include a meaning of threat or danger, which is experienced as immediately distressing or unpleasant; cognitive meanings, which are focused on the long-term consequences of having chronic pain; and existential meanings such as hopelessness, which are more about the person with chronic pain than the pain itself. This interdisciplinary book - the second in the three-volume Meanings of Pain series edited by Dr Simon van Rysewyk - aims to better (...) understand pain by describing experiences of pain and the meanings these experiences hold for the people living through them. The lived experiences of pain described here involve various types of chronic pain, including spinal pain, labour pain, rheumatic pain, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, endometriosis-associated pain, and cancer-related pain. Two chapters provide narrative descriptions of pain, recounted and interpreted by people with pain. Language is important to understanding the meaning of pain since it is the primary tool human beings use to manipulate meaning. As discussed in the book, linguistic meaning may hold clues to understanding some pain-related experiences, including the stigmatisation of people with pain, the dynamics of patient-clinician communication, and other issues, such as relationships between pain, public policy and the law, and attempts to develop a taxonomy of pain that is meaningful for patients. Clinical implications are described in each chapter. This book is intended for people with pain, their family members or caregivers, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and policy makers. (shrink)

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

Strangers to Nature brings together many of the leading scholars who are working to redefine and expand the discourse on animal ethics. This volume will engage both scholars and lay-people by revealing the breadth of theorizing about the human/non-human animal relationship that is currently taking place.

Thomas Jefferson and Philosophy: Essays on the Philosophical Cast of Jefferson’s Writings is a collection of essays on topics that relate to philosophical aspects of Jefferson’s thinking over the years. Much historical insight is given to ground the various philosophical strands in Jefferson’s thought and writing on topics such as political philosophy, moral philosophy, slavery, republicanism, wall of separation, liberty, educational philosophy, and architecture.

The Issue of Abortion in America is an interactive multi-media CD-ROM created by the award winning Carnegie Mellon team that brought us A Right to Die?: The Dax Cowart Case. In this ground breaking CD-ROM, The Issue of Abortion in America gives users an opportunity to see and hear women and couples speak of the emotional struggles and moral dilemmas they face in their consideration of continuing or terminating a pregnancy. It also places the issue of abortion in the larger (...) social context of medical, legal, philosophical, and religious considerations. The information on the CD is presented in three student friendly sections: * Introduction: offers an introduction to the project as well as an overview of the program. * Case Histories: a set of interactive multimedia modules present situations in which women and couples describe their decisions to continue or terminate a pregnancy. * Resources: Reviews the background context that informs the discussion of the issue of abortion in America along with a summary section of the case histories. (shrink)

This paper reports a literature review on the topic of ethical issues in in-depth interviews. The review returned three types of article: general discussion, issues in particular studies, and studies of interview-based research ethics. Whilst many of the issues discussed in these articles are generic to research ethics, such as confidentiality, they often had particular manifestations in this type of research. For example, privacy was a significant problem as interviews sometimes probe unexpected areas. For similar reasons, it is difficult to (...) give full information of the nature of a particular interview at the outset, hence informed consent is problematic. Where a pair is interviewed (such as carer and cared-for) there are major difficulties in maintaining confidentiality and protecting privacy. The potential for interviews to harm participants emotionally is noted in some papers, although this is often set against potential therapeutic benefit. As well as these generic issues, there are some ethical issues fairly specific to in-depth interviews. The problem of dual role is noted in many papers. It can take many forms: an interviewer might be nurse and researcher, scientist and counsellor, or reporter and evangelist. There are other specific issues such as taking sides in an interview, and protecting vulnerable groups. Little specific study of the ethics of in-depth interviews has taken place. However, that which has shows some important findings. For example, one study shows participants are not averse to discussing painful issues provided they feel the study is worthwhile. Some papers make recommendations for researchers. One such is that they should consider using a model of continuous (or process) consent rather than viewing consent as occurring once, at signature, prior to the interview. However, there is a need for further study of this area, both philosophical and empirical. (shrink)

Formal, informal and material institutions constitute the framework for human interaction and communicative practice. Three ideas from institutional theory are particularly relevant to technical change. Exclusion cost refers to the effort that must be expended to prevent others from usurping or interfering in one’s use or disposal of a given good or resource. Alienability refers to the ability to tangibly extricate a good or resource from one setting, making it available for exchange relations. Rivalry refers to the degree and character (...) of compatibility in various uses for goods. The paper closes with a note on how attention to these factors might be useful ways to conceptualize what Langdon Winner has called “the technological constitution of society,” and what Andrew Feenberg has theorized as “secondary rationalization,” as well as within more practical contexts of technical research, development and design. (shrink)

Herbert Marcuse examined the subjective and material conditions of radical social change and developed the "Great Refusal," a radical concept of "the protest against that which is." The editors and contributors to the exciting new volume The Great Refusal provide an analysis of contemporary social movements around the world with particular reference to Marcuse's revolutionary concept. The book also engages-and puts Marcuse in critical dialogue with-major theorists including Slavoj Žižek and Michel Foucault, among others. The chapters in this book analyze (...) different elements and locations of the contemporary wave of struggle, drawing on the work and vision of Marcuse in order to reveal, with a historical perspective, the present moment of resistance. Essays seek to understand recent uprisings-such as the Zapatistas in Mexico, the Arab Spring, and the Occupy movement-in the context of Marcuse's powerful conceptual apparatus. The Great Refusal also charts contemporary social movements against global warming, mass incarceration, police brutality, white supremacy, militarization, technological development, and more, to provide insights that advance our understanding of resistance today. Contributors include: Kevin B. Anderson, Stanley Aronowitz, Joan Braune, Jenny Chan, Angela Y. Davis, Arnold L. Farr, Andrew Feenberg, Michael Forman, Christian Fuchs, Stefan Gandler, Christian Garland, Toorjo Ghose, Imaculada Kangussu, George Katsiaficas, Douglas Kellner, Sarah Lynn Kleeb, Filip Kovacevic, Lauren Langman, Heather Love, Peter Marcuse, Martin J. Beck Matuštík, Russell Rockwell, AK Thompson, Marcelo Vieta, and the editors. (shrink)

This article investigates the use of wolves to enchant the rationalization of Thompson Manitoba. The city attempted to refocus towards a more touristic economy based around the large wolf population in the surrounding regions. The paper also examines why this attempt at a tourist economy has not produced its intended results. I accomplish this by first discussing the McDonaldization and enchantment of the city. This discussion is framed through George Ritzer and Jeffery C. Alexander’s work. I then integrate Umwelt (...) analysis by focusing on Timo Maran’s Umwelt mapping to create a comparative approach in which wolf Umwelts within rationalized and enchanted settings can be compared to those in situ. I then make use of qualitative data analysis (QDA) to code a corpus of 50 articles from a local online newspaper that discuss the development of the tourism economy. Accordingly, I apply the theoretical perspectives mentioned to the QDA codes and themes. In the discussion section and conclusion of this paper, I note that wolf Umwelt was largely incompatible with the rationalizing system created within the city and that the use of wolves as enchantment relied on motifs of overly hyperreal intersubjectivity between humans and wolves. Consequently, collective representation regarding the tourist initiative was not constructed by this rationalization and enchantment. (shrink)

This essay examines the reception of Ivan Pavlov’s work on conditioned reflexes in early to mid-twentieth century Britain. Recent work on the political interpretation of biology has shown that the nineteenth-century strategy of “making socialists” was undermined by August Weismann’s attacks on the inheritance of acquired characters. I argue that Pavlov’s research reinvigorated socialist hopes of transforming society and the people in it. I highlight the work of Pavlov’s interpreters, notably the scientific journalist J. G. Crowther, the biologist Lancelot Hogben, (...) and the science writer H. G. Wells, who made Pavlov’s work accessible to a British audience and embraced the socialist implications of his research – especially the idea that people could be persuaded to become socialists through science writing for a nonspecialist audience and through use of a simplified language such as Basic English. They saw, in the followers of National Socialism, how Pavlovian conditioning could create a national movement, and believed that this could be used for their own more democratic form of socialism. In the final part of the essay, I suggest that this broad socio-cultural movement to reshape humanity proved controversial, especially in the post-war period and in light of Soviet use of brainwashing. The likes of Aldous Huxley and F. A. Hayek feared that conditioning could only lead to totalitarianism, while the historian E. P. Thompson put forward a socialist humanism that left room for human agency. (shrink)

Introduction: thinking about globalization -- Systemic thinking: Immanuel Wallerstein -- Conceptual thinking: Anthony Giddens -- Sociological thinking: Manuel Castells -- Transformational thinking: David Held and Anthony McGrew -- Sceptical thinking: Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson -- Spatial thinking: Peter Dicken and Saskia Sassen -- Positive thinking: Thomas Friedman and Martin Wolf -- Reformist thinking: Joseph Stiglitz -- Radical thinking: Naomi Klein, George Monbiot and Subcommandante Marcos -- Revolutinary thinking: Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri -- Cultural thinking: Arjun Appadurai -- (...) Conclusion: rethinking globalization again. (shrink)

This title sees the re-emergence of the seminal 1970s magazine Curtains edited by Paul Buck. With its early promotion of French writers such as Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Pierre Faye and Edmond Jabès, Curtains’ re-appearance in 2016 arrives after an exhibition at Focal Point Gallery in 2012 that was recreated from an earlier 1992 work at Cabinet Gallery around the concept of ‘disappearing’. The invited contributions come from thirteen artists with whom the editor has engaged over the years. (...) In addition, Buck has returned to pull threads from the earlier editions of his magazine to explore ideas with writers encountered in the intervening years, making all appear in a consolidated grouping as a final gesture, one that refuses to disappear. Contributions include those by: Kathy Acker, Anne-Marie Albiach, Mireille Andres, Stephen Barber, David Barton, Diane Bataille, Georges Bataille, Mathieu Bénézet, Jean-Pierre Bobillot, Joë Bousquet, Michael Camus, Danielle Collobert, David Coxhead, John Cussans, Tatjana Doll, Jerry Estrin, Ulli Freer, Margarita Gluzsberg, Paul Green, Anouchka Grose, Pierre Guyotat, Susan Hiller, Andrew Hunt, Franz Kamin, Chris Kraus, Liane Lang, Roger Laporte, Francesca Lisette, Lucy McKenzie, Bernard Noël, Hestia Peppe, Holly Pester, Perle Petit, Richard Prince, Pascal Quignard, Clunie Reid, Mitsou Ronat, Claude Royet-Journoud, Eugène Savitzkaya, Will Shutes, Sophie Sleigh-Johnson, Miroslav Tichy, Colette Thomas, Simon Thompson, Sophie von Hellermann, and Gabrielle Wittkop. (shrink)

A review‐article of Loren Baritz, City On a Hill, A History of Ideas and Myths in America, John Wiley and Sons C. Wright Mills, Sociology and Pragmatism, Paine‐Whitman Publishers Roderick M. Chisholm, Herbert Feigl, William K. Frankena, John Passmore, Manley Thompson, Philosophy, Prentice‐Hall Max Black, Philosophy in America, Cornell University Press.

The essays in this book - all of them published here for the first time - provide a long-overdue critical discussion of Jürgen Habermas's cascade of ideas. These are topped off by a freshet of original Habermas: in the final essay, he replies to the criticism developed in the preceding contributions and to other recent assessments of his work, provides an important clarification of his earlier views, and reveals the direction of his current thought.Each essay probes a particular theme in (...) Habermas's work, and each presents both an exposition and a critique. Among the subjects covered are Habermas's theory of knowledge-constitutive interests, his account of language and truth, his "overcoming" of hermeneutics, the concept of universal pragmatics, the orientation of his thought relative to the Marxist tradition, and his project of analyzing the crisis tendencies of capitalism within the context of evolutionary theory.The contributors are philosophers and social theorists of international standing, most of them affiliated with German, English, and American universities. They are Agnes Heller, Rudiger Bubner, Thomas McCarthy, Henning Ottmann, Mary Hesse, Steven Lukes, Anthony Giddens, Michael Schmid, Andrew Arato, and the editors. The editors have also contributed a substantial introduction outlining the central contours of Habermas's work and summarizing the main arguments of the essays.John B. Thompson is a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and David Held is Lecturer in Politics, University of York. (shrink)

This paper reports on a study of ethical decision-making in a fair trade company. This can be seen to be a crucial arena for investigation since fair trade firms not only have a specific ethical mission in terms of helping growers out of poverty, but they tend to be perceived as (and are often marketed on the basis of) having an "ethical" image. Eschewing a straightforward test of extant ethical decision models, we adopt Thompson''s proposal for a more contextualist (...) understanding rooted in ethnographic data. Our findings suggest that the fair trade mission of the firm is experienced as an over-riding ethical claim, which is often invoked to justify potentially ethically questionable decisions. Moreover, decision precedents emerge which can mean that the decision process is bypassed or hurried through. Finally we provide evidence that the significance of these precedents, and indeed, even moral intensity itself, could be actively shaped and constructed by organization members to support different, even shifting, conceptions of what is a morally acceptable decision for a fair trade company to make. (shrink)

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-4, Ahead of Print.

Scrutiny (1932-1953) was one of the most important critical reviews of the last century. Its editors and contributors included F. R. Leavis, Q. D. Leavis, Denys Thompson, L. C. Knights, D. W. Harding, W. H. Mellers, H. A. Mason, among others. In recasting Scrutiny’s critique of mass culture by way of Alisdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue (1981), I hope to show that the Scrutiny project not only dramatizes the conflicts internal to what MacIntyre calls emotivist culture, but provides a new (...) way of looking at the group’s relation to the culture industry, its purported elitism, and its deep ties with a communitarian rather than socialist politics. (shrink)

Formal, informal and material institutions constitute the framework for human interaction and communicative practice. Three ideas from institutional theory are particularly relevant to technical change. Exclusion cost refers to the effort that must be expended to prevent others from usurping or interfering in one’s use or disposal of a given good or resource. Alienability refers to the ability to tangibly extricate a good or resource from one setting, making it available for exchange relations. Rivalry refers to the degree and character (...) of compatibility in various uses for goods. The paper closes with a note on how attention to these factors might be useful ways toconceptualize what Langdon Winner has called “the technological constitution of society,” and what Andrew Feenberg has theorized as “secondary rationalization,” as well as within more practical contexts of technical research, development and design. (shrink)