ABSTRACTThe responsibility of the food and beverage industry for noncommunicable diseases is a controversial topic. Public health scholars identify the food and beverage industry as one of the main contributors to the rise of these diseases. We argue that aside from moral duties like not doing harm and respecting consumer autonomy, the food industry also has a responsibility for addressing the structural injustices involved in food-related health problems. Drawing on the work of Iris Marion Young, this article first shows how (...) food-related public health problems can be understood as structural injustices. Second, it makes clear how the industry is sustaining these health injustices, and that due to this connection, corporate actors share responsibility for addressing food-related health problems. Finally, three criteria are discussed as grounds for attributing responsibility, allowing for further specification on what taking responsibility for food-related health problems can entail in corporate practice. (shrink)

In this article, we critically reflect on the responsibilities that the food industry has for public health. Although food companies are often significant contributors to public health problems, the mere possibility of corporate responsibility for public health seems to be excluded in the academic public health discourse. We argue that the behavior of several food companies reflects a split corporate personality, as they contribute to public health problems and simultaneously engage in activities to prevent them. By understanding responsibility for population (...) health as a shared responsibility, we reassess the moral role of the food industry from a forward-looking perspective on responsibility and ask what food companies can and should do to promote health. (shrink)

Food and beverage firms are frequently criticised for their impact on the spread of non-communicable diseases like obesity and diabetes type 2. In this article we explore under what conditions the sales and marketing of unhealthy food and beverage products is irresponsible. Starting from the notion of ordinary morality we argue that firms have a duty to respect people’s autonomy and adhere to the principle of non-maleficence in both market and non-market environments. We show how these considerations are relevant when (...) thinking about immoral behaviour in the food and beverage industry, and identify under what conditions sales and marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to adults and children is wrong. Based on this analysis we argue that firms should take into account: whether consumers are able to identify manipulative marketing, the degree of manipulation, as well as the negative impact a product has on health. We hold that for the food industry to act responsible it should re-evaluate the marketing of unhealthy products to adults and refrain from marketing to children. We conclude this study by making several recommendations on how the food industry should interact with consumers and highlight what changes need to be made in corporate practice. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article, we explore the debate on corporate citizenship and the role of business in global governance. In the debate on political corporate social responsibility it is assumed that under globalization business is taking up a greater political role. Apart from economic responsibilities firms assume political responsibilities taking up traditional governmental tasks such as regulation of business and provision of public goods. We contrast this with a subsidiarity-based approach to governance, in which firms are seen as intermediate actors who (...) have political co-responsibilities in society endowed upon them by national governmental institutions. We argue that both approaches face conceptual and empirical problems, and do not make clear the content and scope of political corporate responsibility. Based on Iris Marion Young’s account of political responsibility we argue that corporate actors and governmental actors have a shared responsibility to tackle societal problems. Taking political corporate responsibility not only entails engaging in private action or engaging in public–private partnerships, but it also includes aiding governmental actors to remedy injustice or even create public institutions where they do not yet exist. By adding this perspective we contribute to the debate on responsibility in corporate citizenship and clarify the political role business can play in global governance. (shrink)

The title of the article in the initial online publication was mixed up with copy editing information. The original article has been corrected.

In order to strengthen RI in the private sector, it is imperative to understand how companies organise this process, where it takes place, and what considerations and motivations are central in the innovation process. In this chapter, the questions of whether and where normative considerations play a role in the innovation process, and whether dimensions of RI are present in the innovation process, are addressed. In order answer these research questions, a theoretical framework is developed based on Jones’s theory of (...) ethical decision making and Cooper’s stagegate model of innovation management. In order to answer the research questions, a specific case of innovations that contribute to public health is explored, namely, that of food companies that participate in a Front-of-Pack logo for healthier food. As the use of healthy food logos does not necessarily have a positive impact on sales and profits, it is expected that in the decision-making process, as part of their innovation process, companies make several trade-offs between economic, technical and moral factors. As the social-ethical values at stake in corporate innovation processes have remained to a large extent unexplored in research on innovation management, the aim of this chapter is to identify the motivations and barriers for companies embracing and continuing a FoP logo for healthier food, and to assess whether ethical considerations play a role in this innovation process. From the findings in this research, it will become clear that although the studied companies participated in a programme for healthy food and thus are responsive to the needs of society, and although the companies feel responsible for public health, ethical considerations do not play a central role in the operational innovation process. Instead, technical and economic considerations seem to prevail in the operational innovation process. Furthermore, none of the procedural dimensions of RI seems to be present at this level in the innovation trajectory. It is argued that this may be an indication that the ethical decision-making process for RI is not located at the level of the operational innovation process itself, but is something that might be located on a higher strategic level in the company. It is at this level that the moral decision is taken to adopt the FoP logo and to engage in the RI process. The findings cast a new light on the discourse on RI in general, and in the private sector in particular. (shrink)

Placide Tempels’ Bantu Philosophy has largely been met with hostility from African philosophers. Whilst Tempels intended to show that the Bantu were not only capable of thinking, but also that they had a distinct and coherent philosophy of their own, his project seems to have achieved exactly the opposite. Temples’ project sought to expose the racism of thinkers such as Lucien Levy-Bruhl, thereby raising the African to the same status as the Westerner. However, his efforts have been rejected (...) for a number of reasons ranging from the view that it is a theory of magic, freely generalized to the Bantu, to the accusation that his project fails to speak on behalf of the oppressed Bantu and furthermore, that he is overly obsessed with finding the African difference at the cost of reason. In this paper, I seek to argue that a neglected critique of Tempels is one that has to do with the basis of his philosophical racialism. I seek to show that at the root of Bantu Philosophy is racialism grounded in the same assumptions as those made by Levy-Bruhl. I seek to argue that the categories that Tempels creates for Bantu thought do not simply seek to articulate a genuine difference from Western categories. The Bantu categories are coined as inferior, incoherent, inarticulate, illogical, and mystified. I argue that it is for reasons of philosophical racialism that Tempels urges his Western audience to overthrow their logical and articulable systems if they ever want to understand the Bantu system of thought. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung In Deutschland heimisch gewordene Hindus aus Südasien, die für ihre Götterverehrung bisher Räumlichkeiten in vorhandenen Gebäuden benutzten, haben begonnen, eigene Tempel zu errichten. Bisher wurden drei derartige Verehrungsstätten fertiggestellt, zwei weitere befinden sich im Bau. Die äußere Gestaltung orientiert sich in allen Fällen an traditionellen hinduistischen Sakralbauten, wie sie vor allem auf Sri Lanka und in Südindien begegnen. Dieser Stil zeichnet sich vor allem durch Aufbauten auf den Tempeldächern und über dem Eingang aus, an denen vielfältige Skulpturen göttlicher Wesen (...) angebracht sind. Gründe für die Entscheidung für solche aufwendigen und kostspieligen Projekte sind im Wunsch nach Gebäuden zu suchen, Bezüge zur ehemaligen Heimat herzustellen und eigene kunstvolle Baukunst zu demonstrieren. Sie speisen sich aber auch aus dem Bedürfnis, die Gottheiten in Gebäuden verehren zu können, die überkommenen hinduistischen Vorstellungen von sakralen und sakralisierbaren Götterbehausungen entsprechen. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Millennium Jahrgang: 12 Heft: 1 Seiten: 155-178.

Destroy this temple’: Ethical dimensions in John 2:13–22? The question asked is to what extent could one speak of ethical dynamics in the Gospel of John, even in cases where there is no surface level textual evidence for the presence of ethical material? It is argued that through the process of rereading, which is invited by the Johannine text as performative text, ethical dimensions are highlighted in texts where such emphases were not apparent at the first reading. As example the (...) events at the temple, narrated in John 2:13–22, are analysed. (shrink)

10. Ägyptologische Tempeltagung: Ägyptische Tempel zwischen Normierung und Individualität. Edited by Martina Ullmann. Königtum, Staat und Gesellschaft Früher Hochkulturen, vol. 3.5. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2016. Pp. xiii + 194, illus. €48.

Thinking of an academic discipline in terms of a ‘social practice’ (MacIntyre) helps in formulating what the ideal captured in the slogan ‘African scholarship’ can contribute to the discipline. For every practice is threatened by the attractiveness of goods external to the practice – in particular, competitiveness for its own sake – and to counter this virtues of character are needed. African traditional culture prioritizes a normative picture of the human person which could very well contribute here to upholding the (...) values internal to scholarship. I argue, contrary to Matolino, that for these purposes Tempels’ notion of the transactional process of becoming more of what you are by virtue of the human insertion in nature, is a useful starting point. But the dominant way philosophy is framed today, the human person outside of ‘nature’, omitting the key notion of presence-to-self, disallows this dialogue between the dominant tradition and African thought culture. I show, by interrogating what I take to be an impoverished understanding of objectivity in the dominant philosophical approach, how the idea of personal, subjective, growth is crucial to introductory philosophy if the project of African scholarship is to find purchase. As an example I look at rival ways of understanding the value of justice, procedurally or, alternatively, substantively and hence foregrounding participation. (shrink)