There is an extensive body of work that has previously examined the teaching of ethics in business schools whereby it is hoped that the values and behaviours of students might be provoked to show positive and enduring change. Rather than dealing with the content issues of particular business ethics courses per se, this article explores the philosophical foundations and the structural conditions for developing ethical training programs in business schools. It is informed by historical analysis, specifically, an examination of Platonic (...) and Aristotelian philosophies that inspires virtue ethics, and together provides four conditions for consideration: respect for law, dialectics, imitation and deliberation. We outline the necessary structural conditions for implementing these requirements as well as suggesting the necessary pedagogical protocol applicable to all courses. It is argued that reference to our two ancient Greek philosophers provide many valuable and insightful lessons for the implementation of ethical training today including choice of theoretical content and the approach towards learning. Further, the enactment of a pedagogical protocol requires a policy of recruiting and managing business school teachers-instructors that takes into account, and consciously encourages, intellectual, relational and spiritual pedagogical qualities. (shrink)

Workplace spirituality deals with paradoxes. This concept has been taken on board since the late 1980s, but very few human resource managers have realised that workplace spirituality could make an essential contribution to a better understanding of workplace and corporate reality. Increasing numbers of academic papers are being published on this subject but mere remain many grey areas for researchers. The aim of this paper is to use Simone Weil’s philosophy as a reading grid to get an insight into workplace (...) spirituality as a new paradigm of management. Initial studies attempting to apply Weil’s philosophy to management highlight the necessity for all the actors within the organisation to define their job tasks and contents according to their own way of thinking. Our interpretation of Weil’s philosophy also sheds light on the impossibility of dissociating thinking and acting and reminds us that work is done to nourish both the body and the soul. By concentrating on the spirituality of work, we can establish new links between ethics and human resource management. (shrink)

Simone Weil was a sustained and trenchant critic of Marxism from 1930 till her death. In her writings as a philosopher she proposes a rereading of the Marxist analysis of the alienation of work, pointing to the inadequacies and illusions of Marx’s project. Whereas Marx locates the origins of alienation (defined as the human subject’s incapacity to comprehend its work) in the structure of the capitalist market, Weil is convinced that alienation stems from the very nature of the organization of (...) work. The points of convergence between Marx and Weil are essential to an understanding of the philosophy of Simone Weil and to a fuller grasp of its originality and current relevance. (shrink)

Si l’œuvre de Nietzsche présente une familiarité étonnante avec la pensée de Dostoïevski, le rapport du philosophe allemand au romancier russe est plus complexe qu’il n’y paraît. En effet, Nietzsche découvre par un heureux hasard, vers la fin de sa vie, les écrits de Dostoïevski. En quelques mois, il passe d’un enthousiasme absolu à l’aveu d’une déception à l’égard de celui qu’il considère comme un simple décadent chrétien. Comment interpréter ce retournement de Nietzsche vis-à-vis de Dostoïevski? Est-ce simplement un nouvel (...) exemple de la versatilité du philosophe allemand? Ou peut-on y déceler quelque chose de plus profond? Cet article tente de reconstituer la chronologie du rapport de Nietzsche à Dostoïevski et les indices permettant d’éclairer l’apport réel du romancier russe à la philosophie nietzschéenne. (shrink)