Psychologists and moral philosophers have much to say about self-awareness and so it is no surprise that in leadership research self-awareness also has come to play an important role. For some time now, leadership research has been dominated by psychologists and we argue that their version of the self-awareness is very thin. It is empty of morality and therefore offers only a partial understanding of humanity. That make its conclusions for leadership ineffective and unethical. Psychology-driven approaches to leadership stress effectiveness: (...) leaders make followers work towards a given goal in an effective manner. Self-awareness, to them, is a thorough understanding of one’s strengths, weaknesses, values, how others see one, all with the goal of turning people into followers. Since ethics is excluded, this view of self-awareness lacks a foundational moral concept: respect/dignity and is closer to self-assessment. Building on Immanuel Kant and other German Idealists, Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel proposed a theory of the development of self-awareness that is more holistic as it situates the individual in a social and moral context and thus transcends the purely functional view of the self-other relationship propagated in psychological approaches. We concretely argue that psychological approaches to leadership systematically drive managers into a catastrophic situation that Hegel describes in the Master-Slave Dialectic. Understanding Hegelian self-awareness prevents leaders becoming self-less masters. Truly self-aware leaders heed the warning of the Humanity Formulation of Kant’s Categorial Imperative, namely that they must always treat humanity, whether in their own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end. They understand their self, they understand its social and moral dimension, and they see their self-reflected in the other. (shrink)

Over the past decade, radical questioning of the grounds of Western epistemology has revealed that some antinomies of the aesthetic experience can be viewed as a general, yet necessarily open, model for human understanding. This book is a rigorous _explication de texte_ of a central text for this thesis, Kant's Analytic of the Sublime.

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him." This is the book in which Nietzsche put forth his boldest declaration. It is also his most personal. Essential reading for students of philosophy, history, and literature, it features some of Nietzsche's most important discussions of art, morality, knowledge, and, ultimately, truth.

Researchers investigating gender and anger have consistently found that White women, but not White men, are evaluated unfavorably when experiencing anger in the workplace. Our project originally aimed to extend findings on White women’s, Black women’s, and White men’s workplace anger by examining whether evaluations are exacerbated or buffered by invalidating or affirming comments from others. In stark contrast to previous research on gender stereotyping and anger evaluations, however, results across four studies (N= 1,095) showed that both Black and White (...) women portrayed as experiencing anger in the workplace were evaluatedmore favorablythan White men doing so. After Study 1’s initial failure to conceptually replicate, we investigated whether perceivers’ evaluations of women’s workplace anger could have been affected by the contemporaneous cultural event of #MeToo. Supporting this possibility, we found evaluations were moderated by news engagement and beliefs that workplace opportunities are gendered. Additionally, we found invalidating comments rarely affected evaluations of a protagonist yet affirming comments tended to favorably affect evaluations. Overall, findings suggest the need for psychologists to consider the temporary, or perhaps lasting, effects of cultural events on research outcomes. (shrink)

One hundred years after his death, Friedrich Nietzsche remains the most influential philosopher of the modern era. Basic Writings of Nietzsche gathers the complete texts of five of Nietzsche's most important works, from his first book to his last: The Birth of Tragedy; Beyond Good and Evil; On the Genealogy of Morals; The Case of Wagner; and Ecce Homo. Edited and translated by the great Nietzsche scholar Walter Kaufmann, this volume provides a definitive guide to the full range of (...) Nietzsche's thought. Included also are seventy-five aphorisms, selections from Nietzsche's correspondence, and variants from drafts for Ecce Homo. (shrink)

This paper argues that the MBA, probably the most successful academic program of the last 50 years, negatively affects the theory and practice of management with regard to ethics through its pedagogy, structure, and its underlying epistemic assumptions. In particular I seek to demonstrate how the syllabus, the pedagogy and the epistemological assumptions of MBA programs together make managers/leaders unable and unwilling to deal with ethics. I also argue that while the what and the how play a very important role, (...) it was only the emergence of a radical philosophical underpinning that has put management education on a negative trajectory. The paper thus examines MBA education from a meta-level perspective, connecting the pedagogical model with epistemological beliefs. (shrink)

Published posthumously in 1908, Ecce Homo was written in 1888 and completed just a few weeks before Nietzsche’s complete mental collapse. Its outrageously egotistical review of the philosopher’s life and works—featuring chapters called Why I Am So Wise and Why I Write Such Good Books—are redeemed from mere arrogance by masterful language and ever-relevant ideas. In addition to settling scores with his many personal and philosophical enemies, Nietzsche emphasizes the importance of questioning traditional morality, establishing autonomy, and making a commitment (...) to creativity. Essential reading for students of philosophy, this unique memoir is crucial to an understanding of Nietzsche’s other works. (shrink)

The paper takes a fresh look at two essays that Adam Smith wrote at the very beginning of his career. In these essays, Smith explains his philosophy of science, which is social constructivist. A social constructivist reading of Smith strengthens the scholarly consensus that The Wealth of Nations needs to be interpreted in light of the general moral theory he explicates in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, as the two essays and TMS stress the importance of the same concepts: e.g., (...) moral imagination, the socially embedded individual, and humility. The connecting tissue between all three works is made up of sentiments and values. Smith regards the socially embedded human as the agent in all three realms, and humans are always driven by values. Smith not only conceives of economics as an applied moral philosophy, but also bases both research areas on a view of knowledge creation that stresses specific epistemic values. If mainstream economic theory wants to have any claim to Adam Smith, it would have to change not only what it argues but also how it argues. Economists would have to replace the language of mathematics with the language and logic of moral philosophy and give values centre stage. (shrink)

In both the public and the business world, in academe as well as in practice, the ideas of Adam Smith are regarded as the bedrock of modern economics. When present economic conditions and management practices are criticised, Adam Smith is referred to by defenders and detractors of the current status quo alike. Smith, it is believed, defined the essential terms of reference of these debates, such as the rational pursuit of self-interest on part of the individual and the resultant optimal (...) allocation of goods in free markets thanks to the workings of an “invisible hand.” In this article, we question whether this standard view of Smith, the economist, is tenable. We provide an extensive review of the extant secondary literature from economists, business ethicists, and philosophers, comparing their assessments to crucial elements of Smith’s theoretical system. As a result, we show that Smith, far from being an advocate of a value-free or even value-averse conception of economic transactions, stood for a virtue-based and values-oriented model of business. Accordingly, we argue current management education and the pedagogy of business ethics ought to be changed, and certain strategic conclusions drawn for business practice. (shrink)

Nietzsche called The Gay Science "the most personal of all my books." It was here that he first proclaimed the death of God -- to which a large part of the book is devoted -- and his doctrine of the eternal recurrence. Walter Kaufmann's commentary, with its many quotations from previously untranslated letters, brings to life Nietzsche as a human being and illuminates his philosophy. The book contains some of Nietzsche's most sustained discussions of art and morality, knowledge and truth, (...) the intellectual conscience and the origin of logic. Most of the book was written just before Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the last part five years later, after Beyond Good and Evil. We encounter Zarathustra in these pages as well as many of Nietzsche's most interesting philosophical ideas and the largest collection of his own poetry that he himself ever published. Walter Kaufmann's English versions of Nietzsche represent one of the major translation enterprises of our time. He is the first philosopher to have translated Nietzsche's major works, and never before has a single translator given us so much of Nietzsche. (shrink)

In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche expounds on the origins of Greek tragedy and its relevance to the German culture of its time. He declares it to be the expression of a culture which has achieved a delicate but powerful balance between Dionysian insight into the chaos and suffering which underlies all existence and the discipline and clarity of rational Apollonian form. In order to promote a return to these values, Nietzsche critiques the complacent rationalism of late nineteenth-century German culture (...) and makes an impassioned plea for the regenerative potential of the music of Wagner. A wide ranging discussion of the nature of art, science, and religion, The Birth of Tragedy's argument raises important questions about the problematic nature of cultural origins which are still valid today. (shrink)

In the leadership literature of the past 100 years or so, rhetoric has been a topic for a long time and ethics was introduced some 30 years ago. However, the three topics, leadership, rhetoric, and ethics, have not been connected. This is astonishing because when ethical leadership made its comeback, scholars acknowledged the debt that ethical leadership owes to Aristotelian ideas. For Aristotle, leadership, ethics, and rhetoric were inseparable: without ethics, there could neither be good leadership nor rhetoric, and rhetoric (...) was the bridge from leader to follower and back. Aristotle is known as the practical philosopher and we argue that closing this major lacuna in leadership theory, would be beneficial for practice too and would help prevent Theranos-like scandals. The lacuna lies in what some call a Machiavellian view of leadership and rhetoric: both are regarded as amoral tools to achieve given ends. Aristotle would bristle at that idea. Both, leadership and rhetoric, to be good, must aim at the noble. The noble is not dictated by a heroic despot nor by a selfless saint but is understood by a leader because s/he is a socially embedded individual. We argue that leadership should be understood as personal development, that organisational rules must not inhibit virtue, that leadership is more about listening than talking, that synthesising that which is heard is central, and finally, that the common, not the collective, good is the goal of leadership. (shrink)

This paper argues that economics, over the past 200 years, has become steadily more anti-philosophical and that there are three stages in the development of economic thought. Adam Smith intended economics to be a descriptive social science, rooted in an understanding of the moral and psychological processes of an individual’s decision-making and its connection to society in general. Yet, immediately after Smith’s death, economists made a clean cut and invented a totally new discipline: they switched towards a physicalist understanding of (...) human nature. Humans, like atoms, follow a natural law: they are driven by an emotion (defined as a non-emotion, rationality), namely selfishness. Thus economics became a ‘natural’ science. In the 20th century, the second reinterpretation removed all traces of humanity from the study of economics and declared economics to be a formal science like mathematics and logics. The actor in Phase 3 economics is homo economicus syntheticus, a postulate whose only connection to real humanity is the word homo. The paper asks what the results of this dramatic relocation are and why Phase 3 economics still claims descent from Smithian economics, despite the massive differences. (shrink)

Divided into three essays, this title offers an investigation into the origins of our moral values, or as the author calls them 'moral prejudices'. It addresses the concept of guilt and its role in the development of civilization and religion. It also considers suffering and its role in human existence.

Adam Smith’s is often falsely portrayed as having argued that radical selfishness is a force for the good and that this “invisible hand’ is his market mechanism. This paper argues that Smith’s real market mechanism, the sympathy manoeuvre, is a viable alternative to Schumpeterian and mainstream models of innovation in economics and also could help build a firmer theoretical basis for other approaches such as Responsible Innovation. To Smith all human activity was social and must be understood and explained in (...) terms of the sentiments involved. Discovery, for instance, is driven by three sentiments (wonder, surprise, admiration), economic activities by sympathetic imagination, the need for exchange, the need to better one’s position in life, and the need for gratitude. Through sympathetic imagination, his famous model of the impartial spectator, Smith elegantly connects the individual and society. Smith’s innovation process is thus an exercise in social construction and not a destructive process based on radical selfishness. The paper argues that this social innovation process is a viable alternative to the extant approaches that are essentially asocial and amoral (economism) or ideologically normative (Responsible Innovation). (shrink)

Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most scathing and powerful critiques of philosophy, religion, science, politics and ethics ever written. In it, Nietzsche presents a set of problems, criticisms and philosophical challenges that continue both to inspire and to trouble contemporary thought. In addition, he offers his most subtle, detailed and sophisticated account of the virtues, ideas, and practices which will characterize philosophy and philosophers of the future. With his relentlessly energetic style and tirelessly probing manner, Nietzsche embodies (...) the type of thought he wants to foster, while defining its historical role and determining its agenda. This edition offers a new and readable translation, by Judith Norman, of one of the most influential texts in the history of philosophy, together with an introduction by Rolf-Peter Horstmann that sets it in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)

This abridged and revised edition of the original book (Springer-Verlag Vienna, 2001) offers the only comprehensive history and documentation of the Vienna Circle based on new sources with an innovative historiographical approach to the study of science. With reference to previously unpublished archival material and more recent literature, it refutes a number of widespread clichés about "neo-positivism" or "logical positivism". Following some insights on the relation between the history of science and the philosophy of science, the book offers an accessible (...) introduction to the complex subject of "the rise of scientific philosophy" in its socio-cultural background and European philosophical networks till the forced migration in the Anglo-Saxon world. The first part of the book focuses on the origins of Logical Empiricism before World War I and the development of the Vienna Circle in "Red Vienna" (with the "Verein Ernst Mach"), its fate during Austro-Fascism (Schlick's murder 1936) and its final expulsion by National-Socialism beginning with the "Anschluss" in 1938. It analyses the dynamics of the Schlick-Circle in the intellectual context of "late enlightenment" including the minutes of the meetings from 1930 on for the first time published and presents an extensive description of the meetings and international Unity of Science conferences between 1929 and 1941. The chapters introduce the leading philosophers of the Schlick Circle (e.g., Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Felix Kaufmann, Edgar Zilsel) and describe the conflicting interaction between Moritz Schlick and Otto Neurath, the long term communication between Moritz Schlick, Friedrich Waismann and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as between the Vienna Circle with Heinrich Gomperz and Karl Popper. In addition, Karl Menger's "Mathematical Colloquium" with Kurt Gödel is presented as a parallel movement. The final chapter of this section describes the demise of the Vienna Circle and the forced exodus of scientists and intellectuals from Austria.The second part of the book includes a bio-bibliographical documentation of the Vienna Circle members and for the first time of the assassination of Moritz Schlick in 1936, followed by an appendix comprising an extensive list of sources and literature. (shrink)

CST is widely disregarded in the academic and public discourse. This essay argues that this is the case for two related reasons. Firstly, CST is based on the pre-Enlightenment approach to moral philosophy, virtue ethics, while the mainstream in business ethics favours the rule-based approaches consequentialism and deontology and their variants. Secondly, mainstream approaches also have adopted a positivist epistemology where theories represent the Truth that must not be questioned: they have become ideologies. This paper argues that CST, mainly through (...) the virtue ethical doctrine of the mean, is saved from having become an ideology and is much closer to the ideal of science as a self-questioning system than the mainstream in business ethics. This essay explains this counter-intuitive conclusion by tracing the history of CST and embedding it in an epistemic discussion and then suggesting what business ethics could take from CST to regain the all-important discursiveness it once had. (shrink)

His introduction offers a comprehensive chapter-by-chapter survey of the work, and there are also explanatory notes.

The biggest research programme within business ethics is arguably Corporate Social Responsibility and all its related streams (Corporate Citizenship, Social Justice, etc.) While there seems to be widespread agreement that business ethics is situated between the amoral or even immoral view of Milton Friedman as explicated in his 1970 New York Times paper, and the moral view expounded by R. Edward Freeman, this essay challenges that view. Friedman, maybe owed to his flamboyant writing style and crude and purely rhetorical oversimplifications (...) has been misinterpreted to advocate for managers to be completely amoral maximisers of profitability. This misinterpretation has become common wisdom, despite him clearly stating that the law and the moral standards of surrounding society must limit profit-seeking behaviour. Freeman's stakeholder theory, on the other hand, is seen as being on the other end of the continuum, arguing for selflessness—another misinterpretation, as I argue with Ed Freeman's help. Instead, I suggest that both Friedman and Freeman represent the virtuous mean of the business ethics continuum and not its extremes because they both base their theories on the idea of the free and socially embedded individual. The two vicious ends of the continuum are inhabited by the unreal, atomised, completely a-social and selfish individual on the one end, and by the equally unreal collectivised self-less individual on the other. The mainstream in business ethics has declared the collective and selfless end to be the ideal that must guide practice and research. The selfish and the selfless strawmen have prevented a proper debate in business ethics for too long. (shrink)

Throughout his career, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche explored the concept of the will to power, interpreting it variously as a psychological, biological, and metaphysical principle. This posthumously produced volume, drawn from his unpublished notebooks, collects the nineteenth-century philosopher's thoughts on the force that drives humans toward achievement, dominance, and creative activity. Misunderstandings of Nietzsche's previous works compelled the author to attempt to express his doctrines in a more unequivocal form. These writings elucidate the principle that he held to be the (...) essential factor of all existence — the drive and energy to develop independently according to one's nature, rather than being dominated by outside forces. A work that both illuminates and extends our understanding of Nietzsche's earlier books, this volume offers reflections on art, morality, Christianity, nihilism, and other topics that provide absorbing glimpses into the mind of one of philosophy's great thinkers. (shrink)

Corporate/collective moral responsibility is a thorny topic in business ethics and this paper argues that this is due a number of unacknowledged and connected epistemic issues. Firstly, CSR, Corporate Citizenship and many other research streams that are based on the assumption of collective and/or corporate moral responsibility are not compatible with Kantian ethics, consequentialism, or virtue ethics because corporate/collective responsibility violates the axioms and central hypotheses of these research programmes. Secondly, in the absence of a sound theoretical moral philosophical foundation, (...) business ethicists have based their ideas on legal and political epistemologies, yet still claim to be ethics-based. Thirdly, research is often driven by an intention to prove that a specific social goal is right, not by open and critical inquiry. Finally, today, corporate/collective moral responsibility is widely accepted as the Truth as most researchers are unaware of any issues because they are untrained in philosophy. The paper identifies the confusion about the epistemic basis as a major impediment for delivering a thick concept of the role of corporations as moral agents. Thus, the paper does not argue against corporate or collective agency as such, but points out an obvious but forgotten paradox: corporate and collective personhood cannot, at the moment at least, be epistemologically grounded in the field in which business ethics claims to operate: moral philosophy. (shrink)

Since the seminal 1955 habilitation by Heidegger's pupil, Walter Schulz, it has become an open secret that Schelling's philosophy, more than that of any of the other German Idealists, is an immediate antecedent to Heidegger's thought. For this reason, it is all the more fascinating that to this day research is still lopsidedly concerned with the interpretation of Heidegger's reading of Schelling's Freedom Essay and that a thorough and overarching investigation into the idealistic inheritance of Martin Heidegger's thought remains wanting. (...) The same applies to the debates that Heidegger's students began in the twentieth century. The traditions of modern nature ethics and the criticism of technology, which derive from Schelling, were interpreted and mediated through Heidegger to his students Hans Jonas, Hannah Arendt, and Günther Anders. This essay attempts to delineate some of the basic features of a more bilateral or dialogical relationship between these two philosophers and to more fully appreciate Heidegger's relationship to German Idealism in general and Schelling in particular. (shrink)

The great German philosopher and aesthetic theorist Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno was one of the main philosophers of the first generation of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. An accomplished musician, Adorno first focused on the theory of culture and art. Later he turned to the problem of the self-defeating dialectic of modern reason and freedom. In this collection of essays, imbued with the most up-to-date research, a distinguished roster of Adorno specialists explore the full range of his contributions to philosophy, (...) history, music theory, aesthetics and sociology. New readers will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to Adorno currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Adorno. (shrink)

“Supposing that truth is a women-what then?” This is the very first sentence in Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil . Not very often are philosophers so disarmingly explicit in their intention to discomfort the reader. In fact, one might say that the natural state of Nietzsche’s reader is one of perplexity. Yet it is in the process of overcoming the perplexity that one realizes how rewarding to have one’s ideas challenged. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche critiques the mediocre in (...) modernity and challenges the reader to accept their state of becoming and accept improvisation and creativity of the process. Nietzsche’s book is carefully designed to disorient the reader, to systematically provoke and tease her to the point of stealing away her certainties. It is challenging yet rewarding to overcome the perplexities of Nietzsche’s teachings. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most influential thinkers of the past 150 years and On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) is his most important work on ethics and politics. A polemical contribution to moral and political theory, it offers a critique of moral values and traces the historical evolution of concepts such as guilt, conscience, responsibility, law and justice. This is a revised and updated edition of one of the most successful volumes to appear in Cambridge Texts in (...) the History of Political Thought. Keith Ansell-Pearson has modified his introduction to Nietzsche's classic text, and Carol Diethe has incorporated a number of changes to the translation itself, reflecting the considerable advances in our understanding of Nietzsche in the twelve years since this edition first appeared. In this new guise the Cambridge Texts edition of Nietzsche's Genealogy should continue to enjoy widespread adoption, at both undergraduate and graduate level. (shrink)

Nietzsche wrote The Gay Science, which he later described as 'perhaps my most personal book', when he was at the height of his intellectual powers, and the reader will find in it an extensive and sophisticated treatment of the philosophical themes and views which were most central to Nietzsche's own thought and which have been most influential on later thinkers. These include the death of God, the problem of nihilism, the role of truth, falsity and the will-to-truth in human life, (...) the doctrine of the eternal recurrence, and the question of the proper attitude to adopt toward human suffering and toward human achievement. This volume presents the work in a new translation by Josefine Nauckhoff, with an introduction by Bernard Williams that elucidates the work's main themes and discusses their continuing philosophical importance. (shrink)

The Birth of Tragedy is one of the seminal philosophical works of the modern period. Nietzsche's discussion of the nature of culture, of the conditions under which it can flourish and of those under which it will decline, his analysis of the sources of discontent with the modern world, his criticism of rationalism and of traditional morality, his aesthetic theories and his conception of the 'Dionysiac' have had a profound influence on the philosophy, literature, music, and politics of the twentieth (...) century. This edition presents a new translation by Ronald Speirs and an introduction by Raymond Geuss that sets the work in its historical and philosophical context. The volume also includes two essays on related topics that Nietzsche wrote during the same period, and that throw further light on the themes treated in the main text. (shrink)

Never one to back away from controversy, Friedrich Nietzsche assails the Christian church in Twilight of the Idols. In this classic work, he sets out to substitute the morality of the Catholic and Protestant churches with that of Dionysian morality. Twilight of the Idols furthermore lays the foundation for key arguments that Nietzsche more fully develops in later writings.

Rationality and reason are often used as synonyms, although they are very different concepts. In this article we argue that rationality is the concept of reason that has been stripped of its human elements. Ancient and medieval philosophers such as Aristotle and Aquinas stressed that the concept of reason is composed of sensitive, discursive, and moral elements. Post-Enlightenment thinkers instead, building on the works of René Descartes and Isaac Newton, took these out and claimed that rationality must be based on (...) an external logic devoid of value-concepts such as perfection, harmony, meaning and aim (Koyré in From the closed world to the infinite universe, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1957). The purpose of this essay is to highlight this shift in Western thought and its consequences for management theories. While explaining the ancient concept of reason in contrast with modern rationalism (Klein in: Williamson RB, Zuckerman E (eds) Jacob Klein—lectures and essays, St. John’s College Press, Annapolis, 1985), we aim at raising awareness of the differences between building a research programme (especially in business sciences like economics and management) on rationality or on reason. (shrink)

On the future of our educational institutions -- Lecture I (January 16, 1872) -- Lecture II (February 6, 1872) -- Lecture III (February 27, 1872) -- Lecture IV (March 5, 1872) -- Lecture V (March 23, 1872).

This collection of more than two hundred of Nietzsche's letters offers a representative body of correspondence on subjects of main concern to him--philosophy, history, morals, music and literature. Also included are letters of biographical interest which, in Middleton's words, mark the stresses and turnings of his life. Among the addressees are Richard Wagner, Erwin Rohde, Jacob Burkhardt, Lou Salome, his mother, and his sister Elisabeth. The annihilating split in Nietzsche's personality that has been associated with his collapse on a street (...) in Turin in 1889 is described in a moving letter from Franz Overbeck which forms the Epilogue. Index. (shrink)

This collection of more than two hundred of Nietzsche's letters offers a representative body of correspondence on subjects of main concern to him--philosophy, history, morals, music and literature. Also included are letters of biographical interest which, in Middleton's words, mark the stresses and turnings of his life. Among the addressees are Richard Wagner, Erwin Rohde, Jacob Burkhardt, Lou Salome, his mother, and his sister Elisabeth. The annihilating split in Nietzsche's personality that has been associated with his collapse on a street (...) in Turin in 1889 is described in a moving letter from Franz Overbeck which forms the Epilogue. Index. (shrink)