The recent financial crisis has prompted questioning of our basic ideas about capitalism and the role of business in society. As scholars are calling for “responsible leadership” to become more of the norm, organizations are being pushed to enact new values, such as “responsibility” and “sustainability,” and pay more attention to the effects of their actions on their stakeholders. The purpose of this study is to open up a line of research in business ethics on the concept of “ authenticity (...) ” as it can be applied in modern organizational life and more specifically to think through some of the foundational questions about the logic of values. We shall argue that the idea of simply “acting on one’s values” or “being true to oneself” is at best a starting point for thinking about authenticity. We develop the idea of the poetic self as a project of seeking to live authentically. We see being authentic as an ongoing process of conversation that not only starts with perceived values but also involves one’s history, relationships with others, and aspirations. Authenticity entails acting on these values for individuals and organizations and thus also becomes a necessary starting point for ethics. After all, if there is no motivation to justify one’s actions either to oneself or to others, then as Sartre has suggested, morality simply does not come into play. We argue that the idea of responsible leadership can be enriched with this more nuanced idea of the self and authenticity. (shrink)

In the midst of greed, corruption, the economic crash and the general disillusionment of business, current conceptions of leadership, organizational values, and authenticity are being questioned. In this article, we fill a prior research gap by directly exploring the intersection of these three concepts. We begin by delving into the relationship between individual values and organizational values. This analysis reveals that the “value fit” approach to creating authenticity is limited, and also indicates that a deeper exploration of the nature of (...) values and the role of leadership is necessary. More specifically, we propose that organizational values should be viewed as an opportunity for ongoing conversations about who we are and how we connect. Through this type of dialogue which we define as “value through conversation”, we can create what we call poetic organizations. A typology of four interconnected values each of which forms a foundation for the critical questioning and inquiry that might be found in poetic organizations is developed. We suggest that this conceptualization offers a new and dynamic approach for thinking about the relationships between leadership, values, and authenticity and has important implications for both research and practice. (shrink)

According to Herman Cappelen’s Austerity Framework, conceptual engineering doesn’t involve concepts, and barely involves engineering. I begin by raising two objections to the Austerity Framework as it stands: the framework cannot account for important normative aspects of conceptual engineering; and it doesn’t give us an adequate response to Strawson-style objections that conceptual engineering serves only to change the subject. I then supplement the Austerity Framework with an account of semantic normativity, which builds on the speaker/semantic meaning distinction, (...) and show that so-supplemented the Austerity Framework successfully overcomes the two objections. I tentatively conclude that semantic normativity should play a key role in how we understand conceptual engineering. (shrink)

The authors of Austere Realism describe and defend a provocative ontological-cum-semantic position, asserting that the right ontology is minimal or austere, in that it excludes numerous common-sense posits, and that statements employing such posits are nonetheless true, when truth is understood to be semantic correctness under contextually operative semantic standards. Terence Horgan and Matjaz [hacek over z] Potrc [hacek over c] argue that austere realism emerges naturally from consideration of the deep problems within the naive common-sense approach to truth and (...) ontology. They offer an account of truth that confronts these deep internal problems and is independently plausible: contextual semantics, which asserts that truth is semantically correct affirmability. Under contextual semantics, much ordinary and scientific thought and discourse is true because its truth is indirect correspondence to the world. After offering further arguments for austere realism and addressing objections to it, Horgan and Potrc [hacek over c] consider various alternative austere ontologies. They advance a specific version they call "blobjectivism"--the view that the right ontology includes only one concrete particular, the entire cosmos, which, although it has enormous local spatiotemporal variability, does not have any proper parts. The arguments in Austere Realism are powerfully made and concisely and lucidly set out. The authors' contentions and their methodological approach--products of a decade-long collaboration--will generate lively debate among scholars in metaphysics, ontology, and philosophy. Terence E. Horgan is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. Matjaz [hacek over z] Potrc [hacek over c] is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana. (shrink)

A provocative ontological-cum-semantic position asserting that the right ontology is austere in its exclusion of numerous common-sense and scientific posits and that many statements employing such posits are nonetheless true. The authors of Austere Realism describe and defend a provocative ontological-cum-semantic position, asserting that the right ontology is minimal or austere, in that it excludes numerous common-sense posits, and that statements employing such posits are nonetheless true, when truth is understood to be semantic correctness under contextually operative semantic standards. Terence (...) Horgan and Matjaz Potrc argue that austere realism emerges naturally from consideration of the deep problems within the naive common-sense approach to truth and ontology. They offer an account of truth that confronts these deep internal problems and is independently plausible: contextual semantics, which asserts that truth is semantically correct affirmability. Under contextual semantics, much ordinary and scientific thought and discourse is true because its truth is indirect correspondence to the world. After offering further arguments for austere realism and addressing objections to it, Horgan and Potrc consider various alternative austere ontologies. They advance a specific version they call "blobjectivism"--the view that the right ontology includes only one concrete particular, the entire cosmos, which, although it has enormous local spatiotemporal variability, does not have any proper parts. The arguments in Austere Realism are powerfully made and concisely and lucidly set out. The authors' contentions and their methodological approach--products of a decade-long collaboration--will generate lively debate among scholars in metaphysics, ontology, and philosophy. (shrink)

Many contemporary theorists charge that naïve realists are incapable of accounting for illusions. Various sophisticated proposals have been ventured to meet this charge. Here, we take a different approach and dispute whether the naïve realist owes any distinctive account of illusion. To this end, we begin with a simple, naïve account of veridical perception. We then examine the case that this account cannot be extended to illusions. By reconstructing an explicit version of this argument, we show that it depends critically (...) on the contention that perceptual experience is diaphanous, or more minimally and precisely, that there can be no difference in phenomenal properties between two experiences without a difference in the scenes presented in those experiences. Finding no good reason to accept this claim, we develop and defend a simple, naïve account of both veridical perception and illusion, here dubbed Simple, Austere Naïve Realism. (shrink)

Selected as a Financial Times Best Book of 2013Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of (...) government spending, but as the direct result of bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debt was rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer. That burden now takes the form of a global turn to austerity, the policy of reducing domestic wages and prices to restore competitiveness and balance the budget. The problem, according to political economist Mark Blyth, is that austerity is a very dangerous idea. First of all, it doesn't work. As the past four years and countless historical examples from the last 100 years show, while it makes sense for any one state to try and cut its way to growth, it simply cannot work when all states try it simultaneously: all we do is shrink the economy. In the worst case, austerity policies worsened the Great Depression and created the conditions for seizures of power by the forces responsible for the Second World War: the Nazis and the Japanese military establishment. As Blyth amply demonstrates, the arguments for austerity are tenuous and the evidence thin. Rather than expanding growth and opportunity, the repeated revival of this dead economic idea has almost always led to low growth along with increases in wealth and income inequality. Austerity demolishes the conventional wisdom, marshaling an army of facts to demand that we austerity for what it is, and what it costs us. (shrink)

Fraser highlights an unattractive feature of Mohist ethics: the Mohists, while criticizing their Confucian contemporaries, restrict one’s pursuits to the most basic sorts of goods. Fraser suggests that the Mohists assume the perpetuity of scarce resources, which leads to a commitment to austerity, which in turn leads them to deny a plausible third way between austerity and excess. In their defence, I argue that the Mohists do not assume perpetuity of scarce resources but rather the hedonic treadmill. And (...) instead of begging the question by assuming austerity and then denying a moderate alternative to excess, the Mohists take the hedonic treadmill to preclude a principled stopgap between austerity and excess, leaving austerity as the only acceptable option. Finally, these dynamics illuminate a feature that should make us wary of parallels to Millian utilitarianism: the maximization principle of the latter is absent from Mohism, and this goes hand-in-hand with austerity. (shrink)

Resumo: Para Paul Auster, um quarto é, em essência, “a própria substância da solidão”, uma solidão espacialmente definida. Nesse sentido, o fenômeno transcendeu suas limitações físicas e assumiu significado existencial e filosófico. Em seus escritos, uma sala é, antes de tudo, um espaço arquitetônico que um escritor solitário ocupa; além disso, é metaforizado como a mente que é a sala - um espaço construído intelectualmente; e, por fim, é um lugar narrado em suas histórias, onde seus personagens meditam e compõem, (...) um espaço que existe em palavras. O artigo realiza estudos sobre os escritos da vida de Auster e uma de suas ficções, Homem no Escuro, para apresentar a complexidade das três formas de quartos solitários e sua mútua inclusão na solidão intersubjetiva. (shrink)

This paper explores difficulties that resolute readers of the early Wittgenstein face, arising out of what I call the ‘sheer lack’ interpretation of their ‘austere’ conception of nonsense, and the intelligibility of philosophical confusion—there being a sense in which we rightly talk of a ‘grasp’ of philosophical nonsense and indeed of its ‘logic’. Such readers depict philosophical and ‘plain’ nonsense as distinct psychological kinds; but I argue that the ‘intelligibility’ of philosophical confusion remains invisible to the kind of psychology that (...) the ‘sheer lack’ interpretation would make available to Wittgenstein. These concerns relate to well-established worries concerning whether the Tractatus’s ‘ladder’ can be climbed by thinking through arguments—or indeed by thinking full stop—if it is austerely nonsensical. Though I argue that these worries can be met, doing so requires another interpretation of ‘austerity’, which I call the ‘equivocation’ interpretation, and reveals the difference between resolute and non-resolute readings to be less clear cut than has been thought. Key here is the failure of some hard-and-fast distinctions that inform the literature—distinctions shaped by intuitions about mind, meaning, inference, logic, and nonsense—to serve us well. (shrink)

During the “age of austerity” the UK government has progressively limited free health services for “overseas visitors” on the grounds of fairness and frugality. This is despite the fact that the cost of the additional bureaucracy required by the new system and the public health consequences are expected to exceed the sums saved. In this article I explore the interaction between the discourses of austerity and xenophobia as they relate to migrants’ access to healthcare. By examining the available (...) data and adjudicating various moral arguments, I cast doubt on the claim that the current charging regulations are cost-effective and fair. I instead contend that if the UK is concerned with running a health service that is economically-sustainable and morally-defensible, it is critical that migrants are welcomed, both as staff and as patients. I conclude by arguing that xenophobia has precipitated changes to the health service which do not qualify as “austerity” in the way that is claimed, but rather deliberately produce a “hostile environment” for migrants, despite this very likely generating economic losses. (shrink)

_In times of economic crisis austerity becomes a rallying cry, but what does history tell us about its chances for success?_ Austerity is at the center of political debates today. Its defenders praise it as a panacea that will prepare the ground for future growth and stability. Critics insist it will precipitate a vicious cycle of economic decline, possibly leading to political collapse. But the notion that abstinence from consumption brings benefits to states, societies, or individuals is hardly (...) new. This book puts the debates of our own day in perspective by exploring the long history of austerity—a popular idea that lives on despite a track record of dismal failure. Florian Schui shows that arguments in favor of austerity were—and are today—mainly based on moral and political considerations, rather than on economic analysis. Unexpectedly, it is the critics of austerity who have framed their arguments in the language of economics. Schui finds that austerity has failed intellectually and in economic terms _every time_ it has been attempted. He examines thinkers who have influenced our ideas about abstinence from Aristotle through such modern economic thinkers as Smith, Marx, Veblen, Weber, Hayek, and Keynes, as well as the motives behind specific twentieth-century austerity efforts. The persistence of the concept cannot be explained from an economic perspective, Schui concludes, but only from the persuasive appeal of the moral and political ideas linked to it. (shrink)

_In times of economic crisis austerity becomes a rallying cry, but what does history tell us about its chances for success?_ Austerity is at the center of political debates today. Its defenders praise it as a panacea that will prepare the ground for future growth and stability. Critics insist it will precipitate a vicious cycle of economic decline, possibly leading to political collapse. But the notion that abstinence from consumption brings benefits to states, societies, or individuals is hardly (...) new. This book puts the debates of our own day in perspective by exploring the long history of austerity—a popular idea that lives on despite a track record of dismal failure. Florian Schui shows that arguments in favor of austerity were—and are today—mainly based on moral and political considerations, rather than on economic analysis. Unexpectedly, it is the critics of austerity who have framed their arguments in the language of economics. Schui finds that austerity has failed intellectually and in economic terms _every time_ it has been attempted. He examines thinkers who have influenced our ideas about abstinence from Aristotle through such modern economic thinkers as Smith, Marx, Veblen, Weber, Hayek, and Keynes, as well as the motives behind specific twentieth-century austerity efforts. The persistence of the concept cannot be explained from an economic perspective, Schui concludes, but only from the persuasive appeal of the moral and political ideas linked to it. (shrink)

Greek eudaimonists often discuss the nature and value of friendship. The prominence of such discussions results from the utility of the conception of friendship in formulating and testing central ethical doctrines. As they engage in a radical revision of ordinary ethical concepts, the Stoics challenge us to relinquish conventional beliefs about friendship. Ideal Stoic moral agents are passionless and austere. Yet, the Stoics not only contend that these relatively affectless temperaments have friends but that, in fact, friendship is possible for (...) no one else. Their extraordinary detachment from the external world also seems to disqualify sages from real friendship. This essay examines the Stoic conclusions about friendship and the coherence of their distinctive view. (shrink)

The austere view of nonsense says that the source of nonsense is not a violation of the rules of logical syntax, but nonsense is always due to a lack of meaning in one of the components of a sentence. In other words, the necessary and sufficient condition for nonsensicality is that no meaning has been assigned to a constituent in a sentence. The austere conception is the key ingredient of the resolute reading of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that presents a therapeutical interpretation (...) of the work, and rejects a possibility of conveying some ineffable truths by means of nonsensical sentences. In this paper, I defend the austere view against the most important objections. Firstly, I discuss textual sources for ascribing to Wittgenstein the austere view that have not been sufficiently thoroughly discussed yet. Next, I indicate that the apparent occurrence of words out of the context of a sentence on lists of verbs and in definitions is not in conflict with the version of the context principle recommended by austere theorists, since this argument does not sufficiently take into account the distinction between sign and symbol. Furthermore, I argue that the austere conception and the principle of compositionality are jointly tenable, for the former view does not exclude the existence of syntactic and semantic rules, but only shows that they are recognizable conditionally. Finally, I indicate that the austere view of nonsense should be seen as a viable option by a contemporary theorist of nonsense, for it helps us to avoid making controversial assumptions about the nature of meaning and content. (shrink)

As necessary austerity measures make major inroads into western health services, this paper investigates the philology of austerity and finds that there are two subtly similar yet importantly different derivations from the Latin and the Greek. The Latin austerus is an abstract term meaning dry, harsh, sour; whereas the Greek austeros has a more embodied and literal meaning of making the tongue dry. What seems an initially subtle difference between the metaphorical and the metonymic plays out as involving (...) seriously different outcomes between harsh economic measures and the literal effects on the people suffering under measures that actually make the tongue dry. The paper argues that between the trope and the literal that which Wittgenstein described as ‘a language game’ ensues wherein the metaphorical through a sleight of grammar is passed off as being real while, the literal effects on real people is downplayed as metaphorical ‘collateral damage’. The paper further argues that within this grammar that forces itself upon us, the game of capital is played out through what the author terms an austerity bargain that is levelled by the financial elites: healthy capitalism equals a healthy society. The paper then examines the six elements of the social determinants of health and what actually contributes to a healthy society. Rather than being under an individual threat of exclusion from what Marx termed a superabundance, the paper considers the irreducible differences between the game of capital's individualism, and, the social determinants of health's social inclusion, legitimization and that which Habermas termed public authentication. The paper concludes that not only do necessary austerity measures need to be critiqued but that they radically undermine what determines a healthy society. It follows also that the social determinants of health, radically undermine the bargain inherent for the privileged few within the game of capital. (shrink)

In the wake of the financial crisis, many developed countries have embarked upon ambitious fiscal consolidation programs. While the success of austerity programs is still unclear, it is also an open question what success would mean for activist government in the long run. This study rejects the progressive belief that successful fiscal consolidation will strengthen fiscal capacity, arguing that consolidations transform the political context in which fiscal policy is made. By analyzing public expenditure in six countries with sustained budget (...) surpluses, we show that surpluses were mostly achieved through expenditure cuts but predominantly used for tax cuts. While fiscal crises abated, their collateral damage to public expenditure remained. This result is further elaborated by a case study of the Swedish budget surplus. We conclude that consolidations can create a new fiscal regime and thus have long-term consequences for the fiscal capacity of the state. (shrink)

This paper analyses Richard Bader’s ‘operational’ view of quantum mechanics and the role it plays in the the explanation of chemistry. I argue that QTAIM can partially be reconstructed as an ‘austere’ form of quantum mechanics, which is in turn committed to an eliminative concept of reduction that stems from Kemeny and Oppenheim. As a reductive theory in this sense, the theory fails. I conclude that QTAIM has both a regulatory and constructive function in the theories of chemistry.

For Rousseau, the primary function of the republican constitution is not to contain state power, but rather to cultivate certain personal dispositions and social forms through which the stability of a political order based on the general will can be realised. Thus, his constitutional projects for Corsica and Poland formulate peculiar constitutional devices aimed at fostering a distinctive vision of austerity as the social horizon of republican politics. I outline how Rousseau's political thought translates to a peculiar conception of (...) constitutionalism as cultivating stability conditions for the realisation of his principles of political right. In particular, I focus on how Rousseau's conception of austerity illustrates his prescient sense of the source of inequality and domination in liberal societies, insidiously embedded in symbolic and ritual forms. I also address the limitations of austerity as a constitutional antidote to domination in liberal societies. (shrink)

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This volume explores the ways in which civil society and governments employ transformative tactics of direct engagement in coordinating efforts toward the common good. Increasingly, these collaborative endeavors seek to share power and break down role boundaries in the pursuit of abundant human flourishing, as opposed to cost-saving austerity"--Provided by publisher.

In this paper we argue that austerity creates working conditions that can undermine professionalism in healthcare. We characterise austerity in terms of overlapping economic, social and ethical dimensions and explain how these can pose significant challenges for healthcare professionals. Amongst other things, austerity is detrimental to healthcare practice because it creates shortages of material and staff resources, negatively affects relationships and institutional cultures, and creates increased burdens and pressures for staff, not least as a result of deteriorating (...) public health conditions. After discussing the multiple dimensions of austerity, we consider the challenges it creates for professional ethics in healthcare. We highlight three mechanisms—intensification of work, practitioner isolation, and organisational alienation—which pose acute problems for healthcare professionals working under conditions of austerity. These mechanisms can turn ‘routine moral stress’ into moral distress and, at the same time, make poor care much more likely. While professionalism clearly depends on individual capabilities and behaviours, it also depends upon a complex sets of social conditions being established and maintained. The problems caused by austerity reveal a need to broaden the scope of professional ethics so that it includes the responsibilities of ‘role constructors’ and not just ‘role occupiers’. Austerity therefore presents opportunities for health professionals and associated ‘role constructors’ to contribute to a reimagining of future models of healthcare professionalism. (shrink)

Epistemic entitlement is a species of internalist warrant that can be had without any evidential support. Unfortunately, for this kind of warrant the so-called problem of demarcation arises, a form of epistemic relativism. I first present entitlement theory and examine what the problem of demarcation is exactly, rejecting that it is either based on bizarreness or disagreement in favour of the thesis that the problem of demarcation is based on epistemic arbitrariness. Second, I argue that arbitrariness generates a problem for (...) entitlement because it undermines epistemic warrant. Third, I draw out some of the consequences that arbitrariness has for an entitlement epistemology, notably that it threatens to generalise to all our beliefs. Finally, I examine how different solutions to the problem of demarcation fare with respect to the danger of arbitrariness. I argue that none of the considered options succeeds in dealing with the risks of arbitrariness. (shrink)

This article investigates media representations of the European financial crisis in Greece and Italy. We study the Euro crisis as an ‘emergency situation’ with domino effects, where media played a central role in shaping communication practices at the national level as well as between the two countries. Drawing upon vertical and horizontal dynamics of Europeanization, we map the convergences and divergences in media discourses that surround the period 2011–2015. In doing so, we elaborate a qualitative analysis of newspaper articles focusing, (...) in particular, on the themes of austerity and the fragmentation of Europe. Our argument suggests that national public spheres in times of transnational crisis become increasingly nationalized; yet under certain circumstances such as when the supranational infrastructure is the target of blame, they converge, opening the path toward a transnational discursive dialogue. (shrink)

Two views are central to ‘New’ or ‘Resolute’ readings of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: that Wittgenstein did not hold that some insights are ineffable; and that Wittgenstein did hold an austere view of nonsense . Adrian Moore, in his paper ‘Ineffability and Nonsense’, offers an argument that seems to show that austerity in fact involves a commitment to the existence of ineffable understanding, and so that Resolute readers cannot hold both and . Hence, Resolute readers would have to give up one (...) or other core commitment. Neither option is attractive. Against Moore’s argument, I show that austerity does not involve commitment to ineffable understanding. (shrink)

This book focuses on resource allocation in military and humanitarian medicine during times of scarcity and austerity. It is in these times that health systems bend, break, and even collapse and where resource allocation becomes a paramount concern and directly impacts clinical decision-making. Such times are challenging and this book covers this very important, yet, scarcely researched topic within the field of bioethics. This work brings together experts and practitioners in the fields of military health care, philosophy, ethics, and (...) other disciplines to provide analysis on a variety of related topics ranging from case studies and first-hand experiences to policy and philosophical analysis. It is of great interest to to academics, practitioners, policy makers and students who are looking for analyses and guidance regarding the fair provision of medical care and the use of medical rules of eligibility under adverse conditions. (shrink)

How can we distinguish the permissible use of aesthetic features in persuasive communication from their manipulative misuse? The paper reconstructs the basic argument (proposed by Stoics and others in antiquity) that persuasive speech should be aesthetically austere. The argument, it is suggested, is fundamentally sound. But the view it sustains is subject to challenge, on the grounds that it is implausible and impractical in the real world. By making clear the grounds on which the “austere” view is justified, and by (...) making precise the arguments that underlie those challenges, the paper identifies and evaluates three different possible responses to those challenges. The most promising of these accepts the argument for “austerity” but proposes a more moderate interpretation of its conclusion. In doing so, it takes up the challenge of providing a defensible rationale for distinguishing the permissible from the impermissible use of aesthetic features in persuasive communication. (shrink)

This book examines the link between sensual austerity and moral leadership—a topic largely neglected in contemporary academic scholarship and public policy—by exploring the comparative cross-cultural perspectives of Plato, Confucius, and Gandhi, on this theme. Despite the diverse cultural contexts that gave rise to their respective philosophical perspectives, they shared similar views on what might constitute a universal and perennial basis for individual moral development in any harmonious political order. They all agreed that sensual austerity is necessary for the (...) realization of a flourishing society and political culture: recognizing that control over sensual desire is both a vehicle for individual moral self-cultivation and social-political progress. Sensual austerity is thus an essential aspect of any morally governed person, institution, state, or society. The book also argues that further examination of this theme may assist scholars and policymakers in developing more peaceful and harmonious national and global communities. (shrink)

Inferential statistical tests-such as analysis of variance, t-tests, chi-square and Wilcoxin signed ranks-now constitute a principal class of methods for the testing of scientific hypotheses. In this paper I will consider the role of one statistical concept (statistical power) and two statistical principles or assumptions (homogeneity of variance and the independence of random error), in the reliable application of selected statistical methods. I defend a tacit but widely-deployed naturalistic principle of explanation (E): Philosophers should not treat as inexplicable or basic (...) those correlational facts that scientists themselves do not treat as irreducible. In light of (E), I contend that the conformity of epistemically reliable statistical tests to these concepts and assumptions entails at least the following modest or austere realist commitment: (C) The populations under study have a stable theoretical or unobserved structure that metaphysically grounds the observed values; the objects therefore have a fixed value independent of our efforts to measure them. (C) provides the best explanation for the correlation between the joint use of statistical assumptions and statistical tests, on the one hand, and methodological success on the other. (shrink)

Feminist scholars have been highly attentive to the ways that crises have become an everyday technique of global governance. They are particularly sensitive to the mechanisms through which ‘crisis management’ entrenches the power of particular economic orders and constrains the possibilities, and space, for contestation and critique. This paper seeks to contribute to but also to extend existing feminist research on financial crisis by arguing that, over the course of what has commonly been labelled the ‘global financial crisis’, the emergence (...) of ‘crisis governance feminism’ has enabled existing structures and mechanisms of gendered privilege, such as the global financial industry, to suppress calls for their overhaul and to re-entrench their power in the global political economy. Adopting a discursive approach to gender and governance that situates gender centrally in understanding governance discourses and their reproduction of common sense (about what people do, how they labour, where they invest and so on), this paper argues that the governance of crisis in the contemporary era, in particular the various actors, institutions, policies and ideas that have sought to describe and ‘contain’ the global financial crisis, are gendered. Gender has become, in the contemporary global political economy, a technique of governance, and with deleterious effects. Despite inciting more discussion of ‘gender’ in economic systems than ever before (particularly in terms of discussions of ‘economic competitiveness’), this paper argues that the ‘global financial crisis’ has precipitated and continues to reproduce techniques of governance that trivialise feminist concerns while further embedding a masculinised, white and elitist culture of global financial privilege. (shrink)

Austerity, by its very nature, imposes constraints by limiting the options for action available to us because certain courses of action are too costly or insufficiently cost effective. In the context of healthcare, the constraints imposed by austerity come in various forms; ranging from the availability of certain treatments being reduced or withdrawn completely, to reductions in staffing that mean healthcare professionals must ration the time they make available to each patient. As austerity has taken hold, across (...) the United Kingdom and Europe, it is important to consider the wider effects of the constraints that it imposes in healthcare. Within this paper, we focus specifically on one theorised effect—moral distress. We differentiate between avoidable and unavoidable ethical challenges within healthcare and argue that austerity creates additional avoidable ethical problems that exacerbate clinicians’ moral distress. We suggest that moral resilience is a suitable response to clinician moral distress caused by unavoidable ethical challenges but additional responses are required to address those that are created due to austerity. We encourage clinicians to engage in critical resilience and activism to address problems created by austerity and we highlight the responsibility of institutions to support healthcare professionals in such challenging times. (shrink)

The links between the crisis of subprime mortgages and the so-called crisis of European sovereign debt are sometimes concealed, so as to create a veritable sense of shared guilt meant to sanction the legitimacy of the austerity policies that have been imposed by virtuous Northern European countries on the undeserving countries of Southern Europe. We will analyse three main aspects of the current crisis: we will interpret the austerity policies that today characterize the eurozone as the result of (...) financialization; we will define the state of permanent crisis as an instrument of governance characterized by specific economic policies; we will show how all this unfolds at a stage of capitalist development wherein a new constituent process begins to take shape in a fragmented but nonetheless significant manner, and how this process is reclaimed by the very subjectivities upon which the accumulation of cognitive and relational skills depends in order to reproduce itself: the Welfare of the Common. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is often proposed as a third way in health‐care ethics, that while consequentialism and deontology focus on action guidelines, virtue focuses on character; all three aim to help agents discern morally right action although virtue seems to have least to contribute to political issues, such as austerity. I claim: This is a bad way to characterize virtue ethics. The 20th century renaissance of virtue ethics was first proposed as a response to the difficulty of making sense of (...) ‘moral rightness’ outside a religious context. For Aristotle the right action is that which is practically best; that means best for the agent in order to live a flourishing life. There are no moral considerations besides this. Properly characterized, virtue ethics can contribute to discussion of austerity. A criticism of virtue ethics is that fixed characteristics seem a bad idea in ever‐changing environments; perhaps we should be generous in prosperity, selfish in austerity. Furthermore, empirical evidence suggests that people indeed do change with their environment. However, I argue that virtues concern fixed values not fixed behaviour; the values underlying virtue allow for different behaviour in different circumstances: in austerity, virtues still give the agent the best chance of flourishing. Two questions arise. In austere environments might not injustice help an individual flourish by, say, obtaining material goods? No, because unjust acts undermine the type of society the agent needs for flourishing. What good is virtue to those lacking the other means to flourish? The notion of degrees of flourishing shows that most people would benefit somewhat from virtue. However, in extreme circumstances virtue might harm rather than benefit the agent: such circumstances are to be avoided; virtue ethics thus has a political agenda to enable flourishing. This requires justice, a fortiori when in austerity. (shrink)

If you’re thinking ethically you ought to try to take the point of view from which you consider whether you could prescribe the action if you were in the position of all of those affected by it. I think that if you consider the situation of poverty and affluence, if you were really to put yourself in the position of the poor person and the affluent person, and ask yourself whether you could support the view that the affluent person doesn’t (...) give anything to the poor, you couldn’t. (shrink)

If you’re thinking ethically you ought to try to take the point of view from which you consider whether you could prescribe the action if you were in the position of all of those affected by it. I think that if you consider the situation of poverty and affluence, if you were really to put yourself in the position of the poor person and the affluent person, and ask yourself whether you could support the view that the affluent person doesn’t (...) give anything to the poor, you couldn’t. (shrink)

If you’re thinking ethically you ought to try to take the point of view from which you consider whether you could prescribe the action if you were in the position of all of those affected by it. I think that if you consider the situation of poverty and affluence, if you were really to put yourself in the position of the poor person and the affluent person, and ask yourself whether you could support the view that the affluent person doesn’t (...) give anything to the poor, you couldn’t. (shrink)