Dialogic or dialogical education is an umbrella term that encompasses a myriad of different and at times conflicting approaches. As there is no agreed-upon definition of ‘dialogue’ (not that there is or should be one unified definition), and even fewer clear and systematic guidelines for application, researchers and practitioners in the DE field are faced with countless questions and dilemmas. My aim in this paper is therefore to offer some ideas for a general outline of how to employ systematic thinking (...) on DE. This outline can serve as a basis for the development of a methodological tool that can enable researchers and practitioners to think about and apply dialogical practices with greater clarity, coherency and consistency. Following a normatively oriented (rather than instrumental) systematic line of reasoning, this paper will begin by discussing the basic values of three central dialogical approaches and then move on to discuss more practical parameters that surpass strictly pedagogical and didactic concerns. (shrink)

This study examined the challenges for supervisors and managers of managing sick leave within a New Zealand university. We used a qualitative research design, interviewing 20 university staff across the academic and service divisions who had managerial roles. We applied Habermas’ distinctions of technical instrumental, practical relational, and emancipatory critical transformative interests, and his twofold distinction of system and lifeworld to our analysis. The primary findings suggest that while the technical instrumental discourses were dominant within the university bureaucracy, managers drew (...) upon practical relational and emancipatory critical transformative discourses to justify the considerable discretion they exercised in managing sick leave. Far from being incidental, these humanistic elements are as much a part of the bureaucracy as the rational elements and are fundamental to the system’s equilibrium. (shrink)

There are studies on the normative ethical frameworks used by long-term care staff and studies proposing how staff should reason, but few studies explore how staff actually reason. This study reports on the ethical reasoning process and experiences of moral distress of long-term care staff in the provision of social care. Seven interdisciplinary focus groups were conducted with twenty front-line staff. Staff typically did not have difficulty determining the ethical decision and/or action; however, they frequently experience moral distress. To manage (...) these experiences of moral distress in making ethical decisions, staff 1) comply with being told what to do out of fear of consequences, 2) defer decisions to family, 3) “have a meeting,” 4) socialization into and acceptance of workplace culture. Findings suggest that to better understand how and why staff make ethical decisions and improve quality and ethical care, we must explore the interaction between front-line practice and organizational and public policy. (shrink)

We critically assess integrative social contracts theory (ISCT) and show that the concept particularly lacks of moral justification of substantive hypernorms. By drawing on Habermasian philosophy, in particular discourse ethics and its recent application in the theory of deliberative democracy , we further advance ISCT and show that social contracting in business ethics requires a well-justified procedural rather than a substantive focus for managing stakeholder relations. We also replace the monological concept of hypothetical thought experiments in ISCT by a concept (...) of practical discourse to better govern business activities on the macro-level of organizational actors such as firms, governments, and NGOs. (shrink)

The digital economy has provided opportunities for new forms of economic practice. At their purest, these forms deliver economic benefits as gifts and depend on cooperation without authority. Drawing loosely on Habermas, we may call this a lifeworld economy – an economy that is coordinated by communicative interaction – as opposed to the systems economy of market and state, coordinated by money and power. This formulation, however, faces both theoretical and practical challenges. On the theoretical side, the notion of a (...) lifeworld economy does not sit easily with Habermas’s own formulation of the distinction between lifeworld and systems. On the practical side, the digital lifeworld economy has been steadily colonized by capitalist businesses, which have frequently found ways to incorporate forms of gift and cooperation into profit-oriented business models. This article proposes to reformulate Habermas’s distinction as a reference to different kinds of causal mechanisms, detaching it from his functionalist framework and enabling a more flexible application to empirical cases. It then applies it to a series of iconic cases from the digital economy: Amazon, Wikipedia, and open source software, to demonstrate its continuing relevance to very current issues. (shrink)

Although Jürgen Habermas has a strong argument to link reason and philosophy, he also thinks that religion has a legitimate place in the (rational) public sphere. The question, though, is: what does this legitimate place entail? Is the power of religious language due to the fact that modern culture is not sufficiently secularized, that is, not yet sufficiently philosophic? Or is the power of religious language due to the fact that it successfully articulates certain widely shared moral (and substantive) intuitions? (...) In addressing these questions, this contribution has four parts. In the first section the issue of Critical Theory and religion will be briefly examined. The point here is that where religion (like aesthetics) plays a more central role amongst the thinkers of the first movement of Critical Theory (theorists such as Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, and Benjamin), this is not the case with Habermas (the leading exponent of the second movement). In the second section, this aspect is further explored by reconstructing Habermas’s intellectual project (with its religious implications) in six steps. Finally (in the third and fourth sections) some critical remarks (inter-paradigmatic and extra-paradigmatic) will be made on Habermas’s view of religion. (shrink)

This dissertation attempts to preserve the central tenets of a global moral theory called “the capabilities approach” as defended by Martha Nussbaum, but to do so in a way that better realizes its own goals of identifying gender injustices and gaining cross-cultural support by providing an alternative defense of it. Capabilities assess an individual’s well-being based on what she is able to do (actions) and who she is able to be (states of existence). Nussbaum grounds her theory in the intuitive (...) idea that each and every person is worthy of equal respect and dignity. The problem with grounding a theory in a version of intuitionism is that it runs the risk of authoritarian moral reasoning. I argue Nussbaum, in fact, is the final arbiter who decides which intuitions are mistaken, which are not, and how to interpret what people say to fit into her own framework. This method of justifying capabilities is most problematic in cases of social inequality whereby dominant group members do not feel they need to check their intuitions against non-dominant group members, and even if they did, they are not forced to take the non-dominant group’s intuitions seriously. I find capabilities as a global moral theory to be very promising, and I agree with Nussbaum that a list of capabilities is beneficial for identifying people who are not able to live a truly dignified human life. However, I am also sympathetic to the criticism of defending capabilities using a version of intuitionism. So, I offer an alternative method of justifying the capabilities rooted in the discourse ethics tradition. This method seeks all persons that are affected by the outcome to freely and equally share their opinion. This avoids the charge of authoritarian moral reasoning, because (1) it seeks perspectives other than simply one’s own, but unlike traditional ethics, it (2) pays special attention to the ways in which power relations shape dialogue. Ultimately, I hope to have preserved the central tenets of the capabilities approach while better realizing Nussbaum’s commitment to defending a theory that is gender sensitive and has gained cross-cultural support. (shrink)

Gender greatly impacts access to opportunities, potential, and success in corporate leadership roles. We begin with a general presentation of why such discussion is necessary for basic considerations of justice and fairness in gender equality and how the issues we raise must impact any ethical perspective on gender in the corporate workplace. We continue with a breakdown of the central categories affecting the success of women in corporate leadership roles. The first of these includes gender-influenced behavioral factors, such as the (...) requirements and expectations of gendered verbal and nonverbal communication styles as well as appearance. We move on to address the impact of family on corporate leadership opportunities and success, discussing the asymmetrical evaluation of an individual’s potential, authority, and competence based on gender stereotypes of familial obligations and expectations. Finally, we address how gender impacts access to networking and sponsorship opportunities and the long-term effects of systematic limitations on women’s inclusion in the upper echelons of corporate leadership. We conclude with a summary of the questions and issues raised by our discussion and direct individuals to consider how different ethical systems and moral requirements might influence their interpretations of gender and leadership in the corporate workplace. (shrink)

Taking the use of the logos in Ratzinger's Regensburg Lecture as its starting point, the thesis expands three horizons in Ratzinger studies. Firstly, it extends the understanding of Ratzinger as the author of a logos theology. Secondly, it shows how the Regensburg theme of the full breadth of reason, represented by the logos, is applied by Ratzinger in a critique of secular modernity. Thirdly, it claims that the logos theology of Joseph Ratzinger can provide a repair of the culture of (...) human rights. The thesis argues that if human rights are set exclusively within the framework of secular modernity, they fall sick and fail to meet the criterion of inclusivity and universality. Set within the framework of a Ratzingerian logos theology, their power is strengthened and their promise of inclusivity and universality restored. The thesis calls for a mutually reparative dialogue about human rights, based on the full breadth of reason, between the three constituencies of Christianity, the religions and secular modernity. The thesis concludes that the Regensburg Lecture, far from damaging the dialogue with Islam, and with secular modernity, opens up a new intercultural bridge based on a mutually enriching engagement with a logos-based culture of human rights. (shrink)

This article critically exposes Habermas’ discussion of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of Being and George Bataille’s heterology as a way of identifying the postmetaphysical stance as the guiding spirit of Habermas’ modernity. In his work The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Habermas argues that whereas Heidegger’s Being sacrifices actuality in the name of interpretation, Bataille’s heterology sets up the unlimited experience which fails to provide an impetus for societal critique. Here a postmetaphysical approach is envisaged by Habermas as a way of going (...) beyond the confines of the metaphysical tradition, although it also needs to pay attention to charges of misreading in its attempt to deconstruct the discourse of the modern. (shrink)