The question of how democracy can deal with cultural diversity has become more central than ever. The increasing flow of people to many Western democratic countries indicates that our societies will become more and more multicultural. But what is the best way for democracy to deal with cultural diversity? It has been argued that, given its communicative core, the Habermasian model of deliberative democracy provides a platform where cultural groups can concur on peaceful agreements. In this paper, I show the (...) limits of this model of democracy in relation to diverse cultural traditions to public interactions. I will discuss the case of societies and ethnic groups of a Confucian heritage and show that Habermas’ account of public deliberation is not a neutral method for facilitating political decision making, but is culturally biased. (shrink)

These essays explore the continuities and discontinuities between the Neo-Confucian thought of Ming China and early Tokugawa Japan and the "practical learning" of the 17th and 18th centuries, underlining the need for a deeper examination of the complex relationship between "traditional" and "modern" thoughts and values.

Before the intervention of the missionaries in Bapedi society, the traditional beliefs, customs and practices, such as traditional healing, circumcision, polygamy, indigenous music and rituals, had a vibrant existence. These practices had been prevalent for centuries before the arrival of Christianity. After the missionaries of all church denominations were welcomed in Bapedi society to establish churches and schools as the main vehicles for the dissemination of European culture, confusion started to build. In this article, I will highlight the reaction (...) of Bapedi people of Sekhukhune district, Limpopo province, South Africa, to the missionary activities of Berlin Mission Society, Germany, from 19 July 1860 to 08 July 2018. The purpose of this study was to explain the conflict or integration of different cultural norms and the missionary influence on the Bapedi indigenous way of life. The questions that I attempt to answer in this article are: how do people understand one another when they do not share a common cultural experience? and who are to blame, the missionaries or the Bapedi people themselves? I address this question by analysing the missionary influence on Bapedi traditional beliefs, customs and practices. Primary data were collected through video recordings of cultural and religious rituals, interviews and observations. Secondary data include publications. It was concluded that in spite of fundamental and multi-consequential changes that Christianity brought about in Bapedi society, a large percentage of Bapedi people, independent churches inclusive, have used and are still following their traditional beliefs, taboos, customs and practices. (shrink)

Culinary traditions and food practices are at the center of our daily lives and therefore constitute an important part of culture. Whether they are part of significant rituals or simply routinely enacted, they tell us something about the way we relate to each other and to the non-human world. In other words, food practices have an ethical dimension. Our paper focuses on the possibility to make objective ethical assessments of problematic cultural practices rooted in culinary traditions as a reply to (...) arguments associated with an ethical relativism according to which cultures produce ethical systems that are self-validating and therefore that cannot be criticized objectively. Drawing from examples involving animal cruelty and production methods harmful to the environment, we argue that it is possible to judge ethically questionable food practices from an objectivist standpoint inspired by moral progress, in contrario to a relativist point of view. Following a short discussion of ethical relativism, we present the outline of an acceptability test for questionable food practices and use it to analyse the case of the dog meat industry in South Korea. (shrink)

In the regime of Anglo-American tort law, every person has a responsibility to comport him- or herself with “due care” in going about day-to-day activities so as not to imperil the health, safety, or general welfare of others. The gold standard for determining what constitutes due care in any particular situation is what a reasonable person, similarly situated, would do. Determinations of due care are necessarily fact specific. Nevertheless, the general objective is to strike an appropriate balance between an unrealistically (...) high standard of caution and one that fails to take into account the known or foreseeable risks of any human endeavor. The same standard applies to individuals regardless of their age, gender, race, and level of education or economic status. The standard also applies to fictional “persons” such as corporations. The usual or prevailing custom and practice in an industry or occupation may provide relevant evidence of what constitutes “due care” in the activities common to it, but that evidence can be effectively overcome or rebutted by competent, credible evidence that the custom and practice either diverges from what it has been asserted to be or that the custom and practice is itself unsafe or otherwise poses an unreasonable risk of harm to others. Until quite recently, a singular exception to this general principle of tort law was made for the medical profession. We will consider this exception in the next section. (shrink)

Some democratic theorists have argued that contemporary people should practice only a civility that recognizes others as equal persons, and eschew any form of deference to authority as a feudalistic cultural holdover that ought to be abandoned in the modern era. Against such views, this essay engages early Confucian views of ethics and society, including their analyses of different sorts of authority and status, in order to argue that, properly understood, deference is indeed a virtue of considerable importance for contemporary (...) democratic societies and the citizens who constitute them. (shrink)

I propose that Confucianism incorporates a latent commitment to the closely related epistemic virtues of curiosity and inquisitiveness. Confucian praise of certain people, practices, and dispositions is only fully intelligible if these are seen as exercises and expressions of epistemic virtues, of which curiosity and inquisitiveness are the obvious candidates. My strategy is to take two core components of Confucian ethical and educational practice and argue that each presupposes a specific virtue. To have and to express a ‘love of (...) learning’ requires the virtue of curiosity, while the normative practice of good questioning requires exercise of the virtue of inquisitiveness. Taken together, people engaging in the foundational Confucian project of moral self-cultivation must desire and acquire a range of epistemic goods, a set of dispositions that manifest in the virtues of curiosity and inquisitiveness, possession of which is admirable and excellent. Such, at least, is the claim defend in this chapter, which is an exercise in cross-cultural virtue epistemology. (shrink)

This paper discusses the impact of East Asian philosophical ideas on the origins and development of martial arts. The article argues that the ideas of Daoist philosophy were developed into ‘soft styles’ or ‘internal schools’ that are based on the doctrine of ‘wuwei’ (action through non-action, effortless action) which follows the path of Yin. These styles are in opposition to ‘external’ or ‘hard styles’ of martial arts that follow the path of Yang. Daoist philosophy of ‘ziran’ (naturalness, spontaneity) influenced ‘animal’ (...) or ‘imitation styles’ and the paradigm of natural, unplanned, and unforced combat movements. The influence of Buddhism on martial arts is found in techniques of mental tranquillity training for the extreme conditions of combat. The work also shows the significance of Confucianism for the formation of a code of honor for warriors, which includes the ethics of duty and respect. (shrink)

The ArgumentIn this we explore some of the ways in which a state scientific laboratory (Daresbury SERC) reacted to the rtetoric and forces of the marketpace in the 1980s. We describe laboratory attempts to create what we call “good customers” while converting itself into a “good seller” by developing a particulat set of costing practicting that were closely related to the implementation of a management accounting system. Finally, we consider how Daresbury response to “market forces” influenced scintific and organzational practice, (...) and arsponse that the social technologies of governmentality performed by accountancy — but also by scientific and bureaucratic practice are complex, discursively heterogeneou, and used in context-sensitive ways. This means, or so we suggest, that it is difficult to mount general argunents about “science” and “the market,” and that the use of such large-scale institions impedes impedes analysis. (shrink)

The recent crisis in a prominent German car manufacturer generated by unethical leadership practices has brought into sharp focus, once again, the need for radical and fundamental ethical transformation among members of capitalism’s leadership elite. The divide between ethics and business needs to be closed and to do this effectively in a globalized world, cross-cultural aspects of moral sentiment need to be better understood. The current paper contributes to the extant literature in this regard by describing and analyzing cross-cultural aspects (...) of German and South African student’s ‘sympathy’ towards business ethical phenomena, using Adam Smith’s ‘Theory of Moral Sentiment’ as a theoretical framework and qualitative methods. The paper constructs a heuristic device based on Adam Smith’s theoretical framework and then proceeds to empirically analyze the theory by investigating German and South African student moral sentiments towards specific ethical leadership behaviors. The study indicates that while there is general cross-cultural homogeneity in moral approbation among students for fundamental aspects of ethical leadership behavior, nuanced custom-based differences emerge from the qualitative analysis. Following Adam Smith, fine grained differences in moral sentiment arising from ‘custom’ are evident. Thus, although ethicality of specific leadership behavior is found to be viewed similarly by both groups of students, significant nuanced differences arise in German students who emphasize intellectual autonomy over the conservatism favored by their South African counterparts. Practical aspects of these findings are briefly discussed. (shrink)

Every year, the Vietnamese people reportedly burned about 50,000 tons of joss papers, which took the form of not only bank notes, but iPhones, cars, clothes, even housekeepers, in hope of pleasing the dead. The practice was mistakenly attributed to traditional Buddhist teachings but originated in fact from China, which most Vietnamese were not aware of. In other aspects of life, there were many similar examples of Vietnamese so ready and comfortable with adding new norms, values, and beliefs, even contradictory (...) ones, to their culture. This phenomenon, dubbed “cultural additivity”, prompted us to study the co-existence, interaction, and influences among core values and norms of the Three Teachings –Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism–as shown through Vietnamese folktales. By applying Bayesian logistic regression, we evaluated the possibility of whether the key message of a story was dominated by a religion (dependent variables), as affected by the appearance of values and anti-values pertaining to the Three Teachings in the story (independent variables). Our main findings included the existence of the cultural additivity of Confucian and Taoist values. More specifically, empirical results showed that the interaction or addition of the values of Taoism and Confucianism in folktales together helped predict whether the key message of a story was about Confucianism, β{VT ⋅ VC} = 0.86. Meanwhile, there was no such statistical tendency for Buddhism. The results lead to a number of important implications. First, this showed the dominance of Confucianism because the fact that Confucian and Taoist values appeared together in a story led to the story’s key message dominated by Confucianism. Thus, it presented the evidence of Confucian dominance and against liberal interpretations of the concept of the Common Roots of Three Religions (“tam giáo đồng nguyên”) as religious unification or unicity. Second, the concept of “cultural additivity” could help explain many interesting socio-cultural phenomena, namely the absence of religious intolerance and extremism in the Vietnamese society, outrageous cases of sophistry in education, the low productivity in creative endeavors like science and technology, the misleading branding strategy in business. We are aware that our results are only preliminary and more studies, both theoretical and empirical, must be carried out to give a full account of the explanatory reach of “cultural additivity”. (shrink)

Transdisciplinarity includes the assumption that within new institutional settings, scientific research becomes more closely responsive to practical problems and user needs and is therefore often subject to considerable application pressure. This raises the question whether transdisciplinarity affects the epistemic standards and the fruitfulness of research. Case studies show how user-orientation and epistemic innovativeness can be combined. While the modeling involved in all cases under consideration was local and focused primarily on features of immediate practical relevance, it was informed by theoretical (...) insights from basic research. Conversely, industrial research turns out sometimes to produce theoretical understanding. These findings highlight an interactive relationship between science and technology (moderate emergentism), which is distinct from the traditional view of a one-sided dependence of technology on science (cascade model) and from the newly received independence account (emergentism). (shrink)

This volume presents a collection of refereed papers reflecting the state of the art in the area of over-constrained systems. Besides 11 revised full papers, selected from the 24 submissions to the OCS workshop held in conjunction with the First International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, CP '95, held in Marseilles in September 1995, the book includes three comprehensive background papers of central importance for the workshop papers and the whole field. Also included is an introduction by (...) one of the volume editors together with a bibliography listing 243 entries. All in all this is a very useful reference book relevant for all researchers and practitioners interested in hierarchical, partial, and over-constrained systems. (shrink)

Abstract:Opportunism impacts the behavior of firms in market situations where they purchase goods and services externally and create dependency relationships with other firms. Opportunism as a business issue is addressed in economics and marketing literature as an important factor in transaction cost analysis and market governance. Management and business ethics scholars, however, do not address this issue in depth, if at all.The recent bankruptcy of MCI WorldCom highlights some of the risks inherent in a world economy where customers and companies (...) of one society are dependent upon the business practices of partner companies in other societies. Telecommunications customers and companies in Asia, Europe and other places, who depended upon MCI WorldCom for connections to North America, now have important areas of their business in jeopardy because of the uncertainty about the fate of a critical business partner.MCI WorldCom’s situation appears to be the result of an attempt to obtain personal gain, at the expense of others, by at least one senior manager. This is called opportunism. Williamson (1985) defined opportunism as “self-interest seeking with guile.” It can wreak havoc with companies, customers, stock markets and economies and is demonstrated regularly in press accounts of misstatements on financial reports and other ways senior managers use their positions to enhance their personal wealth and influence.This paper will focus on the ethical issues surrounding business relationships and how Confucianism, with its focus on trust, reciprocity and mutual benefit in relationships, can offer a moral foundation to the inter-firm arrangements that are so much a part of the contemporary business landscape. (shrink)

Abstract:Opportunism impacts the behavior of firms in market situations where they purchase goods and services externally and create dependency relationships with other firms. Opportunism as a business issue is addressed in economics and marketing literature as an important factor in transaction cost analysis and market governance. Management and business ethics scholars, however, do not address this issue in depth, if at all.The recent bankruptcy of MCI WorldCom highlights some of the risks inherent in a world economy where customers and companies (...) of one society are dependent upon the business practices of partner companies in other societies. Telecommunications customers and companies in Asia, Europe and other places, who depended upon MCI WorldCom for connections to North America, now have important areas of their business in jeopardy because of the uncertainty about the fate of a critical business partner.MCI WorldCom’s situation appears to be the result of an attempt to obtain personal gain, at the expense of others, by at least one senior manager. This is called opportunism. Williamson (1985) defined opportunism as “self-interest seeking with guile.” It can wreak havoc with companies, customers, stock markets and economies and is demonstrated regularly in press accounts of misstatements on financial reports and other ways senior managers use their positions to enhance their personal wealth and influence.This paper will focus on the ethical issues surrounding business relationships and how Confucianism, with its focus on trust, reciprocity and mutual benefit in relationships, can offer a moral foundation to the inter-firm arrangements that are so much a part of the contemporary business landscape. (shrink)

A collection of original essays developing a Confucian political and legal theory, focusing on South Korea, traditionally the most Confucian East Asian country in its legal, political, and cultural practices.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and History, Customs and EthicsHui-Chieh Loy (bio)Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China: Contestation of Humaneness, Justice, and Personal Freedom. By Tao Jiang. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.Tao Jiang's Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China is a serious tour de force of a study. In many ways, I am reminded of Angus Graham's Disputers of the Tao and Benjamin Schwartz' The World of Thought in (...) Ancient China—but updated. A signal difference is that it is more constrained in its coverage of figures, texts, and especially in having the topical focus upon moral-political philosophy. At the same time and within the chosen (narrower) confines, it often examines its subject in greater detail and draws on more recent discussions.One neat thing that Jiang does is to deliberately weave in explicit discussions of how each subsequent thinker or text incorporated or criticized ideas associated with earlier thinkers. (I formulated it this way since there isn't enough historical evidence about who-actually-read-what in the ancient world, citation practices being what they were.) In this regard, I am especially heartened to read, for example, the sections on "Traces of Mohist Elements in the Laozi" (3.3.2), and "Mohist Elements in Han Feizi's Thought" (7.3.3).By no means should the desultory remarks below be counted as a full review or assessment (impressionistically, this is the sort of book I will recommend that my grad students read—there, I've said it). Think of them as humble shards of pottery thrown in the hope for some jade in response. To make my task more focused, I will comment on the Sinology versus Philosophy distinction, and Jiang's treatment of the Mohists.I. Philosophy and History of PhilosophyAn important part of Jiang's Introduction is devoted to discussing the situation of Chinese Philosophy as a field in the Western Academy, caught between Sinology on the one hand and academic Philosophy on the other. Due to the different scholarly objectives and norms in the two disciplines, scholars working on Chinese Philosophy often find themselves caught [End Page 420] between two distinct audiences who demand different things. Jiang's aim is to propose an "interpretive model to distinguish two sets of scholarly objects operative in Sinology and philosophy. These objects are related and at times overlap, but they are also often irreducibly distinct, i.e., original text versus inherited text, historical author versus textual author, and authorial intent versus textual intent, with the former in the pairs belonging to Sinologists and the latter to philosophers" (p. 7). In general, I am highly sympathetic to the distinctions Jiang draws. But I do wonder if we need to step back and start from a wider context involving what is potentially a deeper divide.Now, it is entirely a caricature but the joke around the water cooler is that philosophers—especially those of a more "analytic" bent—often exude the attitude that they are not in the business of reading old books. Their project is one focused on issues and problems and puzzles that are ultimately about the natural and human world, rather than about texts and their interpretation, or even the historical thinkers themselves. To give some obvious examples, the intellectual questions they see themselves as answering are the likes of:• Can we know that God exists, if God exists at all?• What is the nature of moral claims? Do they admit of truth and falsity?• How is causation related to possibility?• Is a logic that dispenses with the law of non-contradiction viable?• What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge?• Is abortion morally justifiable?Sometimes the questions they ask even infringe on the results and insights from nearby fields, for instance linguistics and the natural and empirical sciences:• What is time?• Can a presentist conception of time be made consistent with contemporary physics?• What is the nature of consciousness? How is it related to physical neural states or informational computational processes?• Can computers be sentient?• How is morality related to the passions?• In what sense is a political order that does justice to diversity of moral beliefs... (shrink)

The Confucian culture, rich in its contents and great in its significance, exerted on the thinking, culture and political life of ancient China immense influences, unparalleled by any other school of thought or culture. Confucian theories on morality and ethics, with 'goodness' as the core and 'rites' as the norm, served as the 'key notes' of the traditional medical ethics of China. The viewpoints of Confucianism on benevolence and material interests, on good and evil, on kindheartedness, and on character (...) cultivation were all inherited by the medical workers and thus became prominent in Chinese traditional medical ethics. Hence, it is clear that the medical profession and Confucianism have long shared common goals in terms of ethics. Influenced by the excellent Confucian thinking and culture, a rather highly-developed system of Chinese traditional medical ethics emerged with a well-defined basic content, and the system has been followed and amended by medical professionals of all generations throughout Chinese history. This system, just to mention briefly, contains concepts such as the need: to attach great importance to the value of life; to do one's best to rescue the dying and to heal the wounded; to show concern to those who suffer from diseases; to practise medicine with honesty; to study medical skills painstakingly; to oppose a careless style of work; to comfort oneself in a dignified manner; to respect local customs and to be polite; to treat patients, noble or humble, equally, and to respect the academic achievements of others, etc. Of course, at the same time, Confucian culture has its own historical and class limitations, which exerted negative influences on traditional medical ethics. Now, if we are to keep up with the development of modern medicine, a serious topic must be addressed. That is how to retain the essence of our traditional medical ethics so as to maintain historic continuity and yet, at the same time, add on the new contents of medical ethics so as to incorporate modern features into our system. Therefore, when trying to reform medical practice in China, we are faced with the urgent need to inherit and promulgate the essence of Confucian ethics--discarding its obsolete concepts--while at the same time building up the new medical ethics that can meet the requirements of the outside world and the future. (shrink)

This paper argues Confucianism is a compelling managerial ethic for several reasons: 1) Confucianism is compatible with accepted managerial practices. 2) It requires individuals and organizations to make a positive contribution to society. 3) Recognizes hierarchy as an important organizational principle and demands managerial moral leadership. 4) The Confucian "golden Rule" and virtues provide a moral basis for the hierarchical and cooperative relationships critical to organizational success. The paper applies Confucianism to the H. B. Fuller in Honduras: (...) Street Children and Substance Abuse case. (shrink)

There is a sizeable group of self-described Christian companies which have declared their belief in the successful merging of biblical principles with business activities. As these companies have become more visible, an increasing number of anecdotal newspaper and magazine articles about these companies have appeared. Surprisingly, no rigorous research has been conducted prior to our recent study. This article provides national estimates of the size and predominant characteristics of self-identified Christian companies. In addition, the study investigated the types of relationships (...) these companies maintained with their employees, customers, communities, and suppliers. (shrink)

Chinese traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism have a profoundly philosophical dimension. The three traditions are frequently referred to as three paths of moral teachings. In this book, Mou provides a clear account of the textual corpus that emerges to define each of these traditions and how this canonical axis was augmented by a continuing commentarial tradition as each generation reauthorized the written core for their own time and place. In his careful exegesis, Mou lays out the differences between (...) the more religious reading of these traditions with their defining practices that punctuate the human journey through life, and the more intellectual and philosophical treatment of the texts that has and continues to produce a first-order culture of annotation that become integral to the traditions themselves. At the center of the alternative religious experience reflected throughout the teachings of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism is the project of personal cultivation as it comes to be expressed as robust growth in family and communal relations. For Mou, these three highly distinctive and yet complementary ways of thinking and living constitute a kind of moral ecology, wherein each of them complements the others as they stand in service to a different dimension of the human need for an educated spirituality. (shrink)

The _Biakē _custom, an ancient practice among the Ogoni indigenous people, refers to a system by which certain girls or women are not allowed to marry, but are legitimately allowed to raise children for their parents or family, because of some peculiar circumstances of the household, thus the idea of ‘mothers but not wives.’ However, the _Biakē _practice has been misconstrued with the malapropism called ‘_Sira_-Custom,’ implying a system in which the first daughters are not given out for marriage. This (...) study focused on the philosophical foundation of _Biakē _and its implications on the Ogoni contemporary society. The study discovered that there was never a time in Ogoni history when _Sira _(first daughters) was denied the right to marry out. Every Ogoni daughter is eligible for marriage. The study argues that though the philosophy of _Biakē _emphasizes the continuity of the family/lineage, women serving under _Biakē _and their children may experience psychological trauma due to the absence of a “father figure” and other unmet needs. Using the prescriptive method, this paper advocated for the promulgation of laws, and regulations to modify the _Biakē _custom to accommodate the Ogoni modern-day reality. (shrink)

This ambitious book examines the notion of legal transparency from a unique cultural and historical perspective. Drawing from their combined academic and practical experience with both Chinese and Western legal traditions, authors John Head and Xing Lijuan explore how an intense debate — pitting legal transparency against legal opaqueness — unfolded in dynastic Chinese law, which began in the dark mists of history and ended formally just over a hundred years ago. They rely on a wide range of both Western (...) and Chinese sources to explain how that great debate was resolved in the early Han Dynasty (around the third century BCE) in a way that molded Chinese law into a sophisticated legal system that for roughly two millennia balanced definitiveness with vagueness, predictability with flexibility, and egalitarianism with privilege — and that reflected cultural values still resonating in China today. Legal Transparency in Dynastic China presents a clear narrative that assumes no prior expertise in Chinese law or history, and it caters to readers interested in issues of good governance, comparative studies, China, history, and law. The book begins by defining “legal transparency” and explaining where it fits into the larger context of the transparency-in-government movement that has gained such momentum in recent years, especially at the urging of Western powers. Then the book explains the fundamentally different values espoused by early Confucianists, for whom society is best governed not through written law but through the exemplary behavior of a highly educated, virtuous, and enlightened elite. After tracing the political and ideological challenges that the Confucianists faced from the Legalists, Head and Xing examine the compromise that resulted in the so-called “Confucianization of the Law” around 200 BCE. They then show how that alloy of competing ideologies characterized Chinese dynastic law for many centuries, resulting in what some would consider the most enduring and effective legal system in human history. (shrink)

Ethics is one of the oldest scholarly topics, whether in Eastern Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, or Western Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Theory, among others. Traditional ethics focuses on providing guidelines for behavior at a personal level. However, business ethics focuses more on corporations, with related studies addressing why corporations should practice social responsibility and embed ethics in business practices. Applying ethics to firms requires a variety of considerations in many areas. This is especially the case in Confucianism, which (...) emphasizes self‐cultivation, self‐reflection, and self‐discipline. This study investigates two modern representative cases of Confucian firms and observes how they integrate Confucianism into their business practices. It finds that despite the prevalence of a complex environment, Confucianism can still be adopted by them if they use certain methods. Besides, we also identify the common outcomes across these companies. These findings provide a reference for companies that want to incorporate Confucianism in their operations. (shrink)

Much of the debate about post-secularism has presumed a background of Western countries and the sort of statutory law that legislatures should make, and how they should make it, in the light of residents’ religious attitudes and practices. In this chapter I address a fresh context, namely, that of South Africa and the way that courts have interpreted, and should interpret, law in the face of African traditional religions. Specifically, I explicate the fact that, by South Africa's famously progressive Constitution, (...) religious customs already count as law, and I illustrate how such customary law could work with three court cases related to indigenous African spirituality. Then, I lay out and evaluate the two central arguments that jurists have made in favour of South Africa's Constitutional practice of deeming long-standing religious ways of life to be sources of law. I contend that these influential arguments for customary law, which are substantially individualist, are weak, and also sketch more promising rationales, which invoke more communitarian considerations. My aim is not so much to convince the reader that South Africa’s approach to post-secularism is justified as to identify some argumentative strategies that particularly promise to justify it. (shrink)

1. Kwŏnil - Kwŏno -- 2. Kwŏnyuk - Kwŏnsip-il -- 3. Kwŏnsip-i - Kwŏnsip-ch'il.

Given that services differ from goods in terms of intangibility, heterogeneity, and inseparability, customers may evaluate green services differently from how they evaluate green goods. Previous research has investigated customers’ perceptions and purchase decisions regarding green products. However, limited attention has been paid to the impact of green practices on customer evaluations of the service experience as well as important contingencies that bear on this relationship. Drawing on stakeholder theory, our study examines the impact of green practices on customer evaluations (...) and further considers the influences of environmental- and firm-level contingencies. We test our model with a multi-source dataset in the Chinese hotel industry. The findings indicate that green practices improve customer evaluations of the service experience. This positive impact is, however, weaker in external environments characterized by high internet penetration and market complexity but is stronger for hotels with innovative services and for business hotels. Our findings provide novel insights into the environmental ethics and stakeholder management literatures by revealing the role of green practices in promoting positive service evaluations as well as the contingent influences of external environments and internal firm-level characteristics. (shrink)

Four Testaments brings together four foundational texts from world religions--the Tao Te Ching, Dhammapada, Analects of Confucius, and Bhagavad Gita--inviting readers to experience them in full, to explore possible points of connection and divergence, and to better understand people who practice these traditions.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cognition and Practice: Li Zehou's Philosophical Aesthetics by Rafal BankaJana S. Rošker (bio)Cognition and Practice: Li Zehou's Philosophical Aesthetics. By Rafal Banka. Albany, New York: SUNY, 2022. Pp. vii+ 230. Hardcover $95,00, isbn 978-1-4384-8923-4. In his book Cognition and Practice: Li Zehou's Philosophical Aesthetics, Rafal Banka delves into the cognitive philosophy of Li Zehou, one of the most significant and influential Chinese philosophers of our time. Banka not (...) only provides a deeper understanding of Li's work, but he also places his studies on beauty and aesthetic experience in close proximity to current international research in philosophical aesthetics that places great importance on the embodiment and embeddedness of the subject. By delving into Banka's analysis of the cognitive dimensions of Li Zehou's aesthetics, readers can gain a deeper understanding of how this philosopher approaches the intersection of aesthetics and cognition. Through Banka's interpretation, Li's specific view on the intricate relationship between sensory perception and mental processes is highlighted, offering readers the potential for a more nuanced conception of his philosophical perspective. Banka's contribution to our understanding of Li's theories of cognition is deeply intertwined with the methodological framework and theoretical approach used in his work. The former is based upon an analytical perspective that enables him to identify key themes and concepts in Li's cognition theory, as well as to critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of his approach. By employing this framework, Banka provides a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of Li's cognitive dimensions that is grounded in rigorous examination. In addition to the methodological framework, the comprehensive theoretical approach that Banka applies in his study is also integral to understanding Li Zehou's contribution to the theory of perception on an international level. The book is divided into three distinct parts, each of which explores a different aspect of Li's philosophy. In the first part, Banka examines Li's main sources of inspiration, specifically the philosophers and philosophies that have significantly influenced and contributed to his own work. This section primarily focuses on classical Confucianism, Marxist historical materialism, and Li's unique reinterpretations of Immanuel Kant's philosophies, particularly those presented in his second and third critiques. [End Page 1]In the first three chapters that constitute this first part, Banka offers a clear and comprehensive analysis of how Li Zehou has viewed Kant's apriorism through the lens of Confucianism and integrated it with Marxist materialist foundations, revealing the coherence with his theory of anthropological ontology. By highlighting the interconnectedness of these diverse influences, Banka illuminates the unique synthesis of ideas that form the foundation of Li's philosophy. Through his detailed analysis, Banka shows how Li Zehou managed to create a synthesis between the dynamic elements of historical materialism on the one hand, and Kant's transcendentalism on the other. In Li's system, the concepts of the empirical and the transcendental are interacting in a dynamic, correlative and mutually complementary way. They are both parts of a processual philosophy in which movement is always followed by a standstill. In such a worldview, they always appear as essentially interrelated and interdependent realms of life. Banka provides a comprehensive explanation of the theoretical foundations that underpin the interactive and complementary nature of these two systems. This has culminated in the development of Li's groundbreaking new theory on the transformation of the empirical into the transcendental. In the second part of the book, the author delves into Li's own philosophical system, specifically focusing on his concepts of "subjectality" and beauty. These concepts are not axiologically theorized but instead arise from subjective interactions between human beings and the external world. Through a detailed and logically consistent analysis, the author demonstrates how Li's aesthetics is compatible with contemporary experience-oriented theories that are redefining the discipline on an international level. In chapters 4 and 5, the much-discussed concept of subjectality is viewed from a highly productive perspective, starting from the very center of the notion itself, where a subject actively interacts with the external reality, which in turn shapes its inwardness. The author convincingly demonstrates... (shrink)

This paper explores the nature of the relationship between reasonable variations in moral justifications and universal moral principles. It examines Wiredu’s distinction between custom and morality, and its implications for the issue of moral justification in African cultures. It argues that Wiredu’s distinction does not adequately articulate how universal moral principles are employed in different circumstances to justify actions and judgments. Wiredu’s distinction implies that a conceptual account of moral justification does not involve custom regarding relative facts and cultural norms. (...) The paper defends a variant of the relativism about moral justification that does imply relativism of truth and incommensurability between two culturally relative moral perspectives. It argues that the plausibility of such relativism is contingent on the possibility of conceptual, cognitive, and epistemic universals, and the idea that moral reasoning is a kind of practical reasoning that does not necessarily depend on intellectual rationality. (shrink)

This paper explores the nature of the relationship between reasonable variations in moral justifications and universal moral principles. It examines Wiredu’s distinction between custom and morality, and its implications for the issue of moral justification in African cultures. It argues that Wiredu’s distinction does not adequately articulate how universal moral principles are employed in different circumstances to justify actions and judgments. Wiredu’s distinction implies that a conceptual account of moral justification does not involve custom regarding relative facts and cultural norms. (...) The paper defends a variant of the relativism about moral justification that does imply relativism of truth and incommensurability between two culturally relative moral perspectives. It argues that the plausibility of such relativism is contingent on the possibility of conceptual, cognitive, and epistemic universals, and the idea that moral reasoning is a kind of practical reasoning that does not necessarily depend on intellectual rationality. (shrink)

The identities, customs and habits of religious congregations are tightly connected to the history of these congregations and to the specific religious tradition or denomination they consider themselves to be a part of. They are also shaped by the legislative and bureaucratic regulations and processes of the secular society that is surrounding them. The aim of this study is to further our knowledge of some of these aspects of Jewish life as they relate to the Jewish Community of Helsinki (...) in the period 1930–70 by showcasing two examples that emerged as a result of the rising number of intermarriages in the congregation. (shrink)

This paper focuses much-needed attention on the ethical nature of customer relationship management (CRM) strategies in organisations. The research uses an in-depth case study to reflect on the design, implementation and use of ‘best practice’ associated with CRM. We argue that conventional CRM philosophy is based on a fairly narrow construct that fails to consider ethical issues appropriately. We highlight why ethical considerations are important when organisations use CRM and how a more holistic approach incorporating some of Alasdair MacIntyre's ideas (...) on virtue ethics could be relevant. (shrink)

This paper focuses much‐needed attention on the ethical nature of customer relationship management (CRM) strategies in organisations. The research uses an in‐depth case study to reflect on the design, implementation and use of ‘best practice’ associated with CRM. We argue that conventional CRM philosophy is based on a fairly narrow construct that fails to consider ethical issues appropriately. We highlight why ethical considerations are important when organisations use CRM and how a more holistic approach incorporating some of Alasdair MacIntyre's ideas (...) on virtue ethics could be relevant. (shrink)

This book reinterprets classical Chinese philosophical tradition along the conceptual line of human dignity. Through extensive textual evidence, it illustrates that classical Confucianism, Mohism and Daoism contained rich notions of dignity, which laid the foundation for human rights and political liberty in China, even though, historically, liberal democracy failed to grow out of the authoritarian soil in China. The book critically examines the causes that might have prevented the classical schools from developing a liberal tradition, while affirming their positive (...) contributions to the human dignity concept. Analysing the inadequacies of the western concept of human dignity, the text covers relevant teachings of Kongzi, Mengzi, Xunzi, Mozi, Laozi and Zhuangzi (in comparison with Rousseau). While the Confucian notions of humanity (Ren), righteousness (Yi), and gentleman (Junzi) bear most directly on the conception of dignity, Mohism and Daoism provide salutary corrections to the ossification of the orthodox Confucian practice (Li). (shrink)