English summary: The idea of a negative dialectics encapsulates the critical theory of Theodor W. Adorno in its entirety. In a critical engagement with Hegel's philosophy, Adorno develops a dialectic that is no longer tied to the idealistic concept of a speculative identity of subject and object, yet nevertheless aims at a concept of the absolute. So far neither the scope nor the argumentative consistency of this model of dialectics has been taken into account. Marc Nicolas Sommer reconstructs (...) negative dialectics through its engagement with Hegelian dialectics and defends its central claim: that negative dialectics liberates dialectics from its idealistic shackles and in doing so develops a viable concept of the absolute after Auschwitz. German description: Die kritische Theorie Theodor W. Adornos findet ihre vollstandige Artikulation im Konzept einer negativen Dialektik. In kritischer Auseinandersetzung mit der hegelschen Philosophie entwickelt Adorno die Idee einer Dialektik, die nicht mehr an das idealistische Konzept einer spekulativen Identitat von Subjekt und Objekt gebunden ist, deren gedankliche Bewegung dennoch auf einen Begriff des Absoluten ausgerichtet ist. Konzeptueller Anspruch, begrifflicher Umfang und argumentative Konsistenz dieses zweiten grossen Modells dialektischen Denkens sind bis heute nicht geklart.Marc Nicolas Sommer rekonstruiert negative Dialektik aus der Auseinandersetzung mit Hegel und verteidigt ihren Anspruch, den eigentlichen Gehalt der hegelschen Dialektik von seinen idealistischen Schlacken befreit zu haben und aus dieser Denkbewegung einen nach Auschwitz tragfahigen Begriff des Absoluten zu entwickeln. (shrink)

This article looks at Adorno’s negative dialectics by focusing on the concepts of negativity and utopia. Against later Critical Theory and social theories similarly oriented towards emancipation, which tend to discredit the concept of utopia in favor of an orientation towards pragmatic goals, I want to show that Adorno’s negative dialectics formulates a position that surpasses the antithesis of realism and utopia by presenting us with pragmatic goals while still retaining a strong concept of utopia.

Metaphysics is, as Adorno once notes, the nuisance of philosophy. On the one hand, metaphysics is the reasons of philosophy's existence; on the other hand, it is nearly impossible to characterise metaphysics precisely. This tension is reflected with reference to the contemporary political and cultural situation in Adorno's "Meditations on Metaphysics", the last part of his opus magnum *Negative Dialectics*. The essays in this volume are devoted to different facets of Adorno's examination of metaphysics. They do, however, not only concern (...) themselves with Adorno's metaphysical reflections in a narrow sense, but also extend to other themes Adorno relates to metaphysics: critique of concepts, history, truth, and materialism. Thereby, they render a hardly investigated topic of the *Negative Dialectics* accessible. -/- Contributors: Emil Angehrn, Dirk Braunstein, Peggy H. Breitenstein, Gunnar Hindrichs, Axel Hutter, Philip Hogh, Christian Iber, Julia Jopp, Guido Kreis, Ansgar Martins, Brian O'Connor, Mario Schärli, Marc Nicolas Sommer, Tilo Wesche. (shrink)

George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, was an Irish philosopher and divine who pursued a number of grand causes, contributing to the fields of economics, mathematics, political theory and theology. He pioneered the theory of 'immaterialism', and his work ranges over many philosophical issues that remain of interest today. This volume offers a complete and accurate edition of Berkeley's extant correspondence, including letters written both by him and to him, supplemented by extensive explanatory and critical notes. Alexander Pope famously said 'To (...) Berkeley every virtue under heaven', and a careful reading of the letters reveals a figure worthy of admiration, sheds new light on his personal and intellectual life, and provides insight into the broad historical and philosophical currents of his time. The volume will be an invaluable resource for philosophers, modern historians and those interested in Anglo-Irish culture. (shrink)

This paper argues that Rawls’ principles of justice provide a normative foundation for stakeholder theory. The principles articulate (at an abstract level) citizens’ rights; these rights create interests across all aspects of society, including in the space of economic activity; and therefore, stakeholders – as citizens – have legitimate interests in the space of economic activity. This approach to stakeholder theory suggests a political interpretation of Boatright’s Moral Market approach, one that emphasizes the rights/place of citizens. And this approach to (...) stakeholder theory – in terms of citizens – raises a further question, what rights and obligations do economic agents have, beyond those attached to their roles as citizens? Rawls would reject additional rights and obligations of this sort for two reasons, one tied to freedom and one tied to pluralism. Rawls’ work therefore presses us to re-conceptualize the place of ethical claims in the economic context. (shrink)

Donald Davidson's work has been of seminal importance in the development of analytic philosophy and his views on the nature of language, mind and action remain the starting point for many of the central debates in the analytic tradition. His ideas, however, are complex, often technical, and interconnected in ways that can make them difficult to understand. This introduction to Davidson's philosophy examines the full range of his writings to provide a clear succinct overview of his ideas. This book begins (...) with an account of the assumptions and structure of Davidson's philosophy of language, introducing his compositionalism, extensionalism and commitment to a Tarski-style theory of truth as the model for theories of meaning. It goes on to show how that philosophical framework is to be applied and how it challenges the traditional picture. Marc Joseph examines Davidson's influential work on action theory and events and discusses the commonly made charge that his theory of action and mind leaves the mental as a mere 'epiphenomenon' of the physical. The final section explores Davidson's philosophy of mind, some of its consequences for traditional views of subjectivity and objectivity and, more generally, the relation between minded beings and the physical and mental world they occupy. (shrink)

Across the management, social science, and business ethics literatures, and in much of the philosophy literature, trust is characterized as a disposition to act given epistemic states—beliefs and/or expectations about others and about the risks involved. This characterization of trust is best thought of as epistemological because epistemic states distinguish trust from other dispositions. The epistemological characterization of trust is the amoral one referred to in the title of this paper, and we argue that this characterization is conceptually inadequate. We (...) outline and defend an alternative conception of trust as a moral phenomenon: when A trusts B to do something, A invites B to acknowledge and accept an obligation; when B accepts the invitation, B takes on an obligation; in that way trust creates an obligation. We conclude with an application, drawing out the difference between the epistemological conception of trust and our own in the context of Ghoshal et al.'s (Sloan Management Review 40:9—20, 1995, Academy of Management Learning & Education 4:75—91, 2005) critique of transaction cost theories of the firm. (shrink)

Joseph Heath defends competitive markets and conceptualizes business ethics with reference to Pareto efficiency, which he takes to be the “implicit morality of the market.” His justification for markets is that they generate Pareto efficient outcomes, meaning that markets optimally satisfy consumer preferences. And, for Heath, business ethics is the set of normative constraints—regulation and beyond-compliance norms—needed to preserve that outcome. The present paper accepts Heath’s claim that the economic justification for markets is ethical, in that satisfying consumer preferences is (...) a good. But, contra Heath, the ethical consideration at work is a consequentialist one; and acknowledging this consequentialism exposes limitations of Heath’s “market failures” approach to business ethics. We suggest two limitations, and we expect many will accept our argument that Heath’s conception of business ethics is too narrow. The present paper outlines two broader implications. First, acknowledging that the justification for markets is ethical eliminates the apparent—and false—conflict between purportedly amoral economic activity on one hand and ethical considerations on the other; instead, business ethics is a matter of weighing the consequentialist ethical benefit of economic activity and markets against other moral arguments/other ethical considerations. Second, Heath restricts business ethics to the constraints needed to protect the market’s ability to efficiently satisfy consumer preferences, constraints he calls “efficiency imperatives”; this restriction supports the widespread tendency to think that all social problems are economic; and, a business ethics so-conceived diminishes the perceived importance of noneconomic values—this attitude is dangerous. (shrink)

Conflicts of interest are rampant in the American medical community. Today it is not uncommon for doctors to refer patients to clinics or labs in which they have a financial interest (40% of physicians in Florida invest in medical centers); for hospitals to offer incentives to physicians who refer patients (a practice that can lead to unnecessary hospitalization); or for drug companies to provide lucrative give-aways to entice doctors to use their "brand name" drugs (which are much more expensive than (...) generic drugs). In Medicine, Money and Morals, Marc A. Rodwin draws on his own experience as a health lawyer--and his research in health ethics, law, and policy--to reveal how financial conflicts of interest can and do negatively affect the quality of patient care. He shows that the problem has become worse over the last century and provides many actual examples of how doctors' decisions are influenced by financial considerations. We learn how two California physicians, for example, resumed referrals to Pasadena General Hospital only after the hospital started paying $70 per patient (their referrals grew from 14 in one month to 82 in the next). As Rodwin writes, incentives such as this can inhibit a doctor from taking action when a hospital fails to provide proper service, and may also lead to the unnecessary hospitalization of patients. We also learn of a Wyeth-Ayerst Labs promotion in which physicians who started patients on INDERAL (a drug for high blood pressure, angina, and migraines) received 1000 mileage points on American Airlines for each patient (studies show that promotions such as this have a direct effect on a doctor's choice of drug). Rodwin reveals why the medical community has failed to regulate conflicts of interest: peer review has little authority, state licensing boards are usually ignorant of abuses, and the AMA code of ethics has historically been recommended rather than required. He examines what can be learned from the way society has coped with the conflicts of interest of other professionals --lawyers, government officials, and businessmen--all of which are held to higher standards of accountability than doctors. And he recommends that efforts be made to prohibit and regulate certain kinds of activity (such as kickbacks and self-referrals), to monitor and regulate conduct, and to provide penalties for improper conduct. Our failure to face physicians' conflicts of interest has distorted the way medicine is practiced, compromised the loyalty of doctors to patients, and harmed society, the integrity of the medical profession, and patients. For those concerned with the quality of health care or medical ethics, Medicine, Money and Morals is a provocative look into the current health care crisis and a powerful prescription for change. (shrink)

Through the 1960s, many people claimed that drug advertising was educational and physicians often relied on it. Continuing Medical Education (CME) was developed to provide an alternative. However, because CME relied on grants, industry funders chose the subjects offered. Now policymakers worry that drug firms support CME to promote sales and that commercial support biases prescribing and fosters inappropriate drug use. A historical review reveals parallel problems between advertising and industry-funded CME. To preclude industry influence and improve CME, we should (...) ensure independent funding by taxing medical industries, facilities and physicians. Independent public and professional authorities should create CME curricula. An independent agency should allocate all funds to educational institutions for approved curricula. (shrink)

The Problem of Doxastic Shift may be stated as a dilemma: on the one hand, the distribution of nominal complements of the form `the ψ that p’ strongly suggests that `that’-clauses cannot be univocally assigned propositionaldenotations; on the other hand, facts about quantification strongly suggest that `that’-clauses must be assigned univocal denotations. I argue that the Problem may be solved by defining the extension of a proposition to be a set of facts or, more generally, conditions. Given this, the logical (...) operation of descriptive predication can be introduced in a way that resolves the dilemma withoutsacrificing the singular term analysis of `that’-clauses. (shrink)

Bernard Williams briefly discusses agent regret in his broader account of moral luck. The present paper first outlines one way to develop Williams’s notion with reference to the unintended harm; it then suggests that agent regret can be counteracted by externalizing the action that caused unintended harm, in Harry Frankfurt’s sense of externalization; and then the present paper argues that apology is a mechanism by which a person can externalize an offending action/effect—in that way counteracting agent regret. This function for (...) apology—self-repair—is different from others described in the literature, which address the role of apology in repairing relationships. The present paper describes a nonfictional example, that of a veteran of the U.S. war in Iraq who contacts a family gravely injured by him and his combat unit; the veteran is motivated to contact the family to apologize. The example serves as a prototypical case of agent regret. The example is taken from a recent literature on the clinical psychology of self-inflicted “moral injury”; categorizing this example of moral injury as agent regret also helps broaden our understanding of moral injury as a philosophical category and as a psychological phenomenon. (shrink)

Public policy tries to promote appropriate drug use by allowing firms to market drugs in interstate commerce only for uses that the Food and Drug Administration has found to be safe and effective. Because of their medical knowledge, physicians are authorized to prescribe drugs even for uses unapproved by the FDA. Nevertheless, physicians have relied on drug firms for information on appropriate prescribing despite the inherent tension between drug firm dissemination of information to promote sales and rational prescribing. In the (...) past, physicians often relied particularly on drug firm advertising for information on drug use. Today, physicians rely on drug firms to finance continuing medical education. A historical review reveals connections between these two different ways commercial interests have influenced the information that physicians receive and points the way to needed reforms. (shrink)

Improper dependencies slant policy over a drug's life span, biasing the development of new drugs, the testing and marketing approval for new drugs, and the monitoring of patient safety after drugs are marketed. This article examines five ways in which the public improperly depends on pharmaceutical firms that compromise the integrity of pharmaceutical policy. Today the public relies on pharmaceutical firms: (1) to set priorities on drug research and development; (2) to conduct clinical trials to test whether drugs are safe (...) and effective; (3) to decide what clinical trial data to disclose to the public; (4) to monitor post marketing drug safety; (5) to supply product information to physicians and to finance continuing medical education and other professional activities. The article suggests options to overcome each of these dependencies. (shrink)

Prescribing drugs for uses that the FDA has not approved — off-label drug use — can sometimes be justified but is typically not supported by substantial evidence of effectiveness. At the root of inappropriate off-label drug use lie perverse incentives for pharmaceutical firms and flawed oversight of prescribing physicians. Typical reform proposals such as increased sanctions for manufacturers might reduce the incidence of unjustified off-label use, but they do not remove the source of the problem. Public policy should address the (...) cause and control the practice. To manage inappropriate off-label drug use, off-label prescriptions must be tracked in order to monitor the risks and benefits and the manufacturers’ conduct. Even more important, reimbursement rules should be changed so that manufacturers cannot profit from off-label sales. When off-label sales pass a critical threshold, manufacturers should also be required to pay for independent testing of the safety and effectiveness of off-label drug uses and for the FDA to review the evidence. Manufacturers should also finance, under FDA supervision, programs designed to warn physicians and the public about the risks of off-label drug use. (shrink)

The heart of the matter -- The evolution of the French medicine -- Coping with physicians' conflicts of interest in France -- The rise of a protected medical market : the United States before 1950 -- The commercial transformation : the United States, 1950-1980 -- The logic of medical markets : the United States, 1980 to the present -- Coping with physicians' conflicts of interest in the United States -- The evolution of Japanese medicine -- Coping with physicians' conflicts of (...) interest in Japan -- Reforms -- Professionalism reconsidered. (shrink)

"A wide-ranging study of the 'way of ideas' and its metaphysics, culminating in a bold reinterpretation of Berkeley.".

The federal government indirectly subsidizes the pharmaceutical industry by funding basic research, various tax credits and deductions, patent rules, grants of market exclusivity, and other means, in order to spur drug development, promote public health, and improve medical care. But today, the pharmaceutical industry often neglects these goals and sometimes even undermines them, due to what Lawrence Lessig refers to as institutional corruption — that is, widespread or systemic practices, usually legal, that undermine an institution’s objectives or integrity. A key (...) source of institutional corruption is improper dependence by the institution or its key actors on the actions of third parties that have fundamentally different interests. It is the health care system’s improper dependency on pharmaceutical firms that allows them to displace some public policy goals and to compromise the attainment of others. (shrink)

This paper addresses the tactical question of how we ought to proceed in teachingbusiness ethics, taking as a starting point that business ethics should be concerned with cooperative,mutually beneficial outcomes, and in particular with fostering behavior that contributes to thoseoutcomes. This paper suggests that focus on moral reasoning as a tactical outcome—as a way ofachieving behavior in support of cooperative outcomes—is misplaced. Instead, we ought to focuson cultivating empathetic experiences. Intuitively, the problem we need to address in business ethicsis not (...) that our students (and that we ourselves) sometimes reason poorly, or that moral decisionmakingis subject to characteristic kinds of errors. The problem is that our students (and—again—we ourselves) do not always care enough, we do not modify our behavior consistently enough. (shrink)

The Food and Drug Administration authorizes the marketing of a drug only for uses that the manufacturer has demonstrated to be safe and effective, based on evidence from at least two clinical trials. However, the FDA does not regulate the practice of medicine, so physicians may prescribe drugs in any manner they choose. Prescribing drugs in ways that deviate from the uses specified in the FDA-approved drug label, package insert, and marketing authorization is referred to as off-label prescribing. This occurs (...) when physicians prescribe a drug for a therapeutic purpose other than the one approved by the FDA; treat patients in a different age cohort or gender than the population on which it was tested; or prescribe a different dose, for a different duration of use, or a different mode of administration than indicated on the label. (shrink)

The prevailing view about the history of early modern philosophy, which the author dubs “the early modern tale” and wants to convince us is really a fairy tale, has it that the focus on ideas as a solution to various epistemological puzzles, first introduced by Descartes, created difficulties for the traditional ontological scheme of substance and mode. The early modern tale depicts the development of “the way of ideas” as abandoning ontology at least by the time of Berkeley. This, in (...) turn, fostered an antimetaphysical bias as modern philosophy developed further, elevating epistemology to its current primary status in the field. Marc Hight challenges this account by showing how, though the conception of ideas changed over time, the ontological status of ideas remained a central part of the discussion about ideas and influenced how even later thinkers like Locke, Berkeley, and Hume thought about them. By his reading of important texts in early modern philosophy, Hight aims not only to provide a more accurate history of philosophy for this period but also to resuscitate the value of metaphysics for philosophical analysis today.��. (shrink)

This work studies early modern thought concerning the ontology of ideas. I endeavor to establish, contrary to some current scholarship, that the Early Moderns remained firmly in the grip of a substance/mode ontology narrowed from the substance/property distinction inherited from Aristotle. I argue that this traditional dichotomy provides the most philosophically and historically fruitful approach to understanding early modern thought. In particular, I demonstrate how the increasing radicalization in the metaphysics of the moderns is best explained by remaining within the (...) substance/mode ontology. Competing contemporary approaches, especially ones that attempt to employ concepts such as reification and object talk in place of the traditional ontology, do not sufficiently penetrate to the core issues facing the Moderns. Rather than seeking to abandon the categories of substance and mode, the Moderns sought, perhaps vainly, to find room for ideas within it. I proceed by providing background from Aristotle and the Medievals, go on to discuss the philosophical views of Descartes, Malebranche, Arnauld, Locke and Berkeley. The development of idea philosophy culminates in Berkeley, who creates a hybrid ontic category I call 'quasi-substance.' Ideas for Berkeley are ontically dependent on minds , but external to them in the sense that the relationship between ideas and minds are two-place . I demonstrate how this understanding explains the radical metaphysical positions he takes, especially his commitment to perceptual heterogeneity. I conclude that rather than abandoning the traditional ontic categories, the Moderns adhered to them desperately, and thus are best understood through them. (shrink)

Why do physicians have financial conflicts of interest? They arise because society expects physicians to act in their patients’ interest, while simultaneously, financial incentives encourage physicians to practice medicine in ways that promote their own interests or those of third parties. Because physicians’ clinical choices, referrals, and prescriptions affect the fortune of third parties, these third parties may offer physicians financial incentives to make income-driven clinical choices. In the past, physicians and scholars typically conceived of conflicts of interest as an (...) ethical issue to be resolved according to individual judgment or professional and organizational norms. However, society can mitigate or eliminate conflicts of interest by changing financial and organizational arrangements in medicine. Conflicts of interest, therefore, are as much matters of public policy and management as individual choices or social norms. (shrink)

The case "Caprica Energy and Its Choices" concerns a fictionalized energy corporation choosing between three potential drilling sites. According to the published Teaching Note, the case is an exercise in the stakeholder approach to business: it requires balancing profit considerations with potential harm to those who live near those drilling sites. Though unintended, the case raises a further question not addressed in the case or in the Teaching Note: what gives Caprica Energy the right to impose risk on members of (...) the communities surrounding its drilling sites? The first section of the present article argues that, in such cases, manage- ment can only justify imposing risk on the local community by securing those stakeholders' consent. The second section outlines the implications for stakeholder theory and stake- holder management. The third section outlines one con- nection between this material and recent literature on the imposition of risk and moral theory; that section offers an account of what make this particular instance of imposing risk morally problematic, with reference to the directedness of the imposition. (shrink)

Bryan Norton proposes a "convergence hypothesis'* stating that anthropocentrists and nonanthropocentrists can arrive at common environmental policy goals if certain constraints are applied. Within his theory he does not, however, address the consideration ofnonconsequentualist issues, and, therefore, does not provide an argument for the convergence between consequentualist and nonconsequentualist ethical positions. In the case of biotechnology, nonconsequentualist issues can dominate the debate in both the fields of environmental ethics and bioethics. I argue that, the convergence hypothesis must be rejected when (...) tested against the case of biotechnology, and this limitation of convergence applies to any theory of reconciliation within the "health" concept because the achievement and preservation of "health "emphasizes a consequentualist outlook. I conclude that an inclusive ethics for ecosystem and human health should be explicit about this limitation. (shrink)

There are two constraints on any functionalist solution to the Mind-Body Problem construed as an answer to the question, “What is the relationship between the mental properties and relations (hereafter, simply the mental properties) and physical properties and relations?” The first constraint is that it must actually address the Mind-Body Problem and not simply redefine the debate in terms of other, more tractable, properties (e.g., the species-specific property of having human-pain). Such moves can be seen to be spurious by the (...) very multiple-realizability intuitions that motivate functionalism in the first place. For, according to those intuitions, it is possible for a being to experience pain, have beliefs, etcetera, and yet not only to be of a different species, but to have an entirely different material constitution from human beings. (shrink)

Experiential evidence shows that pain is associated with common meanings. These include a meaning of threat or danger, which is experienced as immediately distressing or unpleasant; cognitive meanings, which are focused on the long-term consequences of having chronic pain; and existential meanings such as hopelessness, which are more about the person with chronic pain than the pain itself. This interdisciplinary book - the second in the three-volume Meanings of Pain series edited by Dr Simon van Rysewyk - aims to better (...) understand pain by describing experiences of pain and the meanings these experiences hold for the people living through them. The lived experiences of pain described here involve various types of chronic pain, including spinal pain, labour pain, rheumatic pain, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, endometriosis-associated pain, and cancer-related pain. Two chapters provide narrative descriptions of pain, recounted and interpreted by people with pain. Language is important to understanding the meaning of pain since it is the primary tool human beings use to manipulate meaning. As discussed in the book, linguistic meaning may hold clues to understanding some pain-related experiences, including the stigmatisation of people with pain, the dynamics of patient-clinician communication, and other issues, such as relationships between pain, public policy and the law, and attempts to develop a taxonomy of pain that is meaningful for patients. Clinical implications are described in each chapter. This book is intended for people with pain, their family members or caregivers, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and policy makers. (shrink)

The singular term theory maintains that that-clauses are complex singular terms which designate propositions. Though extremely well-supported, the theory is endangered by the existence of oblique that-clauses; that is, that-clauses occurring in what appear to be nonargument positions (e.g., ‘Lola was upset that Slick Willy had all the fun’). In this paper I argue that the best solution to the problem consistent with the singular term theory, invokes a construction-based grammatical theory. Such an approach challenges traditional views of semantic compositionality (...) by rejecting a central dogma of semantics, namely, that linguistic constructions contribute only trivial logical or quasi-logical information to semantic interpretation (e.g., function-application relations). (shrink)

My original paper (Cohen 2012) argued that business ethics education should focus on cultivating empathetic concern. This response clarifies terminology used in that paper and responds to criticisms presented by David Ohreen (2013).

In this article we argue that an immaterialist ontology -- a metaphysic that denies the existence of material substance -- is more consonant with Christian dogma than any ontology that includes the existence of material substance. We use the philosophy of the famous eighteenth-century Irish immaterialist George Berkeley as a guide while engaging one particularly difficult Christian mystery: the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ. The goal is to make plausible the claim that, from the analysis of this one example, (...) there are strong reasons for thinking that if one wants to be a Christian one ought to be an immaterialist. (shrink)

Why is female violence a taboo? We suggest that both men and women actively contribute to the creation of this stigma. Men may benefit because nonaggressive women may make better mothers and be more faithful and fertile. Females may benefit by downplaying their aggressive nature because they will be perceived as more valuable mates and because they will be more accepted within female social groups.

Dissent and Philosophy in the Middle Ages offers scholars of Dante's Divine Comedy an integral understanding of the political, philosophical, and religious context of the medieval masterwork. First penned in French by Ernest L. Fortin, one of America's foremost thinkers in the fields of philosophy and theology, Dissidence et philosophie au moyen-%ge brings to light the complexity of Dante's thought and art, and its relation to the central themes of Western civilization. Available in English for the first time through this (...) superb translation by Marc A. LePain, Dissent and Philosophy will make a supremely important contribution to the discussion of Dante as poet, theologian, and philosopher. (shrink)

The most recent restatements of stakeholder theory formulate that approach in terms of the distribution of value: “A stakeholder approach to business is about creating as much value as possible for stakeholders, without resorting to tradeoffs” (Freeman et al. 2010: 28). This formulation marks a shift from earlier work, which included a procedural dimension—a requirement that stakeholders participate in organization decision making. The present paper pushes back against this shift: it argues that orienting the stakeholder approach around the participation requirement (...) provides for a different moral logic, one not available to (now) conventional stakeholder theorizing (without that requirement), and one that may be more compelling to many. This argument requires critical re-examination of the moral arguments offered in the most recent restatements of the stakeholder approach. (shrink)

This short essay argues for a thematic connection between Emmanuel Levinas’s Time and the Other and his Totality and Infinity. Time and the Other directly addresses the problem of salvation, and this concern with salvation can be traced through Totality and Infinity, where it is implicit in Levinas’s conception of desire—so there is a religious concern at the core of that (purportedly) secular work. And this thematic connection suggests a further interpretive question about the role of fecundity in both books, (...) which is addressed in the final section. (shrink)