This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Jacotot's Experiment The Stultifying Master The Ignorant/Emancipating Master The Public Role of the Teacher Conclusion Notes References.

In this article, I turn my attention to the figure of the ignorant master, Joseph Jacotot, that is depicted in The Ignorant Schoolmaster. Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation (1991). I will show that the voice of Jacotot can actually be read as a reaction against the progressive figure of the teacher which, following Rancière's view, can be seen as effecting a stultification. In some respects, however, Rancière's analysis of the pedagogical order no longer seems to be valid in today's partly (...) reconfigured, pedagogical order that depicts the teacher in terms of facilitation. Yet, the figure of the facilitator can be seen as effecting a stultification as well. Therefore, I will stress that Jacotot's voice is highly relevant today. The most important difference between the figure of the (old and current) figure of the stultifyer and that of the ignorant master is identified in their starting point. The stultifying master starts from the assumption of inequality. S/he transforms taught material (words, text, images, etc.) into objects of knowledge or resources for competence development that open the door to another world. The ignorant master (Jacotot) assumes equal intelligence and draws attention to a thing in common. According to Rancière, the ignorant master keeps the door closed and puts his/her students in the presence of a thing in common. (shrink)

This paper makes a bold attempt to make sense of contemporary Koreans’ common expectation of the educational role of public school teachers by tracing its historical and cultural roots to the neo-Confucian humanistic tradition of the Joseon dynasty in Korea that lasted for about 500 years until Korea began to modernize in the late nineteenth century. In this attempt, the key concepts to be explored as equivalent to the Western idea of ‘liberal learning’ are the Confucian ethics of (...) ‘learning for oneself’ and its relation to schooling and teaching. The discussion focuses on whether and how this ethics of learning can be recovered in such a way as to accommodate the postmodern condition of our society, as the educational legacy of the humanistic tradition of East Asia that can keep the public spirit alive in modern schooling. (shrink)

The role of rules in moral education has often been recognised by moral philosophers, but sometimes with the implication that this role is rather unimportant from the moral philosopher's point of view. Thus Geoffrey Warnock (1971, p. 51): It is often said, reasonably enough, that the moral education of children at any rate may include, at a certain stage, the promulgation to them by parents and teachers of rules for their conduct on certain moral matters.… However, if it (...) is to be admitted that there are moral rules in this sense, it must surely be added at once that they are of no great theoretical importance. (shrink)

The role of rules in moral education has often been recognised by moral philosophers, but sometimes with the implication that this role is rather unimportant from the moral philosopher's point of view. Thus Geoffrey Warnock (1971, p. 51): It is often said, reasonably enough, that the moral education of children at any rate may include, at a certain stage, the promulgation to them by parents and teachers of rules for their conduct on certain moral matters.… However, if it (...) is to be admitted that there are moral rules in this sense, it must surely be added at once that they are of no great theoretical importance. (shrink)

The role of rules in moral education has often been recognised by moral philosophers, but sometimes with the implication that this role is rather unimportant from the moral philosopher's point of view. Thus Geoffrey Warnock (1971, p. 51): It is often said, reasonably enough, that the moral education of children at any rate may include, at a certain stage, the promulgation to them by parents and teachers of rules for their conduct on certain moral matters.… However, if it (...) is to be admitted that there are moral rules in this sense, it must surely be added at once that they are of no great theoretical importance. (shrink)

This brings together moral, social and political philosophers from Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States who explore a wide range of issues under the three headings of Philosophy, Society and Culture; Ethics, Economics and Justice; and Rights, Law and Punishment. The topics discussed range from the public responsibility of intellectuals to the justice of military tribunals, and from posthumous reproduction to the death penalty.

The role of rules in moral education has often been recognised by moral philosophers, but sometimes with the implication that this role is rather unimportant from the moral philosopher's point of view. Thus Geoffrey Warnock (1971, p. 51): It is often said, reasonably enough, that the moral education of children at any rate may include, at a certain stage, the promulgation to them by parents and teachers of rules for their conduct on certain moral matters.… However, if it (...) is to be admitted that there are moral rules in this sense, it must surely be added at once that they are of no great theoretical importance. (shrink)

The role of rules in moral education has often been recognised by moral philosophers, but sometimes with the implication that this role is rather unimportant from the moral philosopher's point of view. Thus Geoffrey Warnock (1971, p. 51): It is often said, reasonably enough, that the moral education of children at any rate may include, at a certain stage, the promulgation to them by parents and teachers of rules for their conduct on certain moral matters.… However, if it (...) is to be admitted that there are moral rules in this sense, it must surely be added at once that they are of no great theoretical importance. (shrink)

The role of rules in moral education has often been recognised by moral philosophers, but sometimes with the implication that this role is rather unimportant from the moral philosopher's point of view. Thus Geoffrey Warnock (1971, p. 51): It is often said, reasonably enough, that the moral education of children at any rate may include, at a certain stage, the promulgation to them by parents and teachers of rules for their conduct on certain moral matters.… However, if it (...) is to be admitted that there are moral rules in this sense, it must surely be added at once that they are of no great theoretical importance. (shrink)

This is the third in a series of essays on the seminal role of the paradigms of essence-function and interpenetration in East Asian religious and philosophical thought. The first article, entitled "The Composition of Self-Transformation Thought in Classical East Asian Philosophy and Religion"[1] was a general introduction to these paradigms over the broad expanse of indigenous East Asian thought religious/philosophical thought. The second article, entitled "Essence-Function (t'i-yung): Early Chinese Origins and Manifestations,"[2] examined the earliest precursors of these notions in (...) classics such as the Book of Changes, the Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean , paying special attention to the unique role played by the concept of "sincerity" in manifesting and mediating presence of essencefunction and interpenetration. In this essay, we look at the role essence-function and interpenetration play in the Analects (Lunyu ). (shrink)

The article presents an introduction to the Special Issue on the French philosopher Jacques Rancière who raises a provocative voice in the current public debate on democracy, equality and education. Instead of merely criticizing current practices and discourses, the attractiveness of Rancière's work is that he does try to formulate in a positive way what democracy is about, how equality can be a pedagogic or educational (instead of policy) concern, and what the public and democratic role of (...) education is. His work opens up a space to rethink and to study, as well as to 're-practice', what democracy and equality in education are about. He questions the current neutralisation of politics that is motivated by a hatred of democracy. This questioning is for Rancière also a struggle over words. Against the old philosophical dream of defining the meaning of words, Rancière underlines the need for the struggle over their meaning. The aim of the article is to clarify how and why education, equality, and democracy are a major concern throughout his work and to offer an introduction to the articles collected in the Special Issue. (shrink)

This article argues that Hayden White's vision of historiography can be appropriated for the “public use of history” in many ethnic and nationalist conflicts today. That is, it can be used to provide the theoretical arguments that justify the instrumentalization of historical memory by nationalist elites in their sometimes genocidal struggles with their opponents. Historians so far have not adequately understood the implications or possible uses of White's historiography, and therefore to that extent his case remains unrefuted. In the (...) event, White has anticipated and held his ground against possible counter-arguments. The only way to answer him is to ask the question that he poses of historians: what is the purpose of history for “life”? The essay argues that Max Weber's advice to scholars to pose difficult questions and demand clarity about the implications and consequences of specific commitments is morally more responsible than White's in the current climate of ethnic and national conflict. The historical is not opposed to the ethical, as White maintains; the historical is the ethical. Historians should engage in “strong evaluations” in the construction of “bridging” narratives between historical communities, rather than redemptive narratives of liberation that often entail zero-sum claims to contested land. (shrink)

The article presents an introduction to the Special Issue on the French philosopher Jacques Rancière who raises a provocative voice in the current public debate on democracy, equality and education. Instead of merely criticizing current practices and discourses, the attractiveness of Rancière's work is that he does try to formulate in a positive way what democracy is about, how equality can be a pedagogic or educational (instead of policy) concern, and what the public and democratic role of (...) education is. His work opens up a space to rethink and to study, as well as to ‘re-practice’, what democracy and equality in education are about. He questions the current neutralisation of politics that is motivated by a hatred of democracy. This questioning is for Rancière also a struggle over words. Against the old philosophical dream of defining the meaning of words, Rancière underlines the need for the struggle over their meaning. The aim of the article is to clarify how and why education, equality, and democracy are a major concern throughout his work and to offer an introduction to the articles collected in the Special Issue. (shrink)

The article presents an introduction to the Special Issue on the French philosopher Jacques Rancière who raises a provocative voice in the current public debate on democracy, equality and education. Instead of merely criticizing current practices and discourses, the attractiveness of Rancière's work is that he does try to formulate in a positive way what democracy is about, how equality can be a pedagogic or educational (instead of policy) concern, and what the public and democratic role of (...) education is. His work opens up a space to rethink and to study, as well as to ‘re‐practice’, what democracy and equality in education are about. He questions the current neutralisation of politics that is motivated by a hatred of democracy. This questioning is for Rancière also a struggle over words. Against the old philosophical dream of defining the meaning of words, Rancière underlines the need for the struggle over their meaning. The aim of the article is to clarify how and why education, equality, and democracy are a major concern throughout his work and to offer an introduction to the articles collected in the Special Issue. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show that, in order to understand the new public role of religion, we need to rethink the nexus, often neglected by contemporary philosophy, between politics and imagination. The current resurrection of religion in the public sphere is linked to a deep transformation of political imagination which has its roots in the double process of the reduction of politics to mere administration, on the one hand, and to spectacle, on the other. (...) In an epoch when politics is said to be simply a question of ‘good governance’, of good administration within a neo-liberal consensus, the paradox is that of a lack of political imagination which goes hand in hand with its hypertrophy through the media. This article tackles this paradox, by firstly discussing the nexus of politics, imagination and religion and, secondly, by analysing their contemporary transformations. In conclusion, the thesis is illustrated through the analysis of some contemporary examples. (shrink)

As a result of workplace clean air regulations and strict guidelines imposed by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations in 1993, most hospitals in the United States are now virtually smoke free. Although evidence suggests that these restrictions both cause smoking employees to consume fewer cigarettes per day and induce some employees to quit smoking entirely, the policies have also driven many healthcare providers—including physicians—onto the public sidewalks for their cigarette breaks. Patients entering many hospitals pass white-coated (...) medical students and residents puffing away at the curbside. (shrink)

The chapter suggests principles that are fairly flexible in context and that can give way in light of other powerful considerations. The chapter presents two incidents, personal illustrations that show how self-restraint works, why self restraint in advocacy is much more attainable than self-restraint in decision or judgment, and why exercising greater self-restraint in advocacy need not amount to insincerity. The chapter concludes that people have great difficulty trying to face particular political issues free of the push of their religious (...) or other comprehensive views. This requires an exceptional discipline to achieve this with any success. It is doubtful whether one should recommend to ordinary people a self-restraint that is so hard to perform. The chapter also set the stage for the following chapters by outlining briefly various roles and functions in liberal democratic governance. (shrink)

Frank Sherwood Taylor was director of the Science Museum London for just over five years from October 1950. He was the only historian of science ever to have been director of this institution, which has always ridden a tightrope between advocacy of science and advocacy of its history, balancing differently at different points in its history. He was also president of the BSHS from 1951 to 1953. So what happened when a historian got his hands on the nation's pre-eminent (...) class='Hi'>public museum of science? To what extent did his historian's training and instincts affect his policies whilst director, and with what effect in the longer term? Taking this exceptional case, I suggest, enables us to consider how museum accounts of the past of science relate to historiographies of science otherwise available in the culture. In this discussion, drawing on new archival research, I consider the role of history within a key policy paper he wrote in 1951. I analyse and contextualize its main themes before considering, by way of conclusion, his legacy. (shrink)

Economist-philosopher Amartya Sen's writings on social and political issues have attracted wide audiences. Section 2 introduces his contributions on: how people reason as agents within society; social determinants of people's (lack of) access to goods and of the effective freedoms and agency they enjoy or lack; and associated advocacy of self-specification of identity and high expectations for ‘voice’ and reasoning democracy. Section 3 considers his relation to social theory, his tools for theorizing action in society, and his limited degree of (...) attention to work by sociologists and to capitalism and power structures. Section 4 characterizes a style marked by conceptual refinement, emphases on complexity and individuality, including personal individuality, and reformist optimism. Section 5 shows the features from Sections 3 and 4 at work in his conception of personhood that advocates freedom to make a reasoned composition of personal identity. Similarly, Section 6 addresses his conception of public reasoning and neglect of the sociology of democracy. It contrasts the ideal of a reasoning polity with features in many countries. Sen's programmes for critical autonomy in personhood and for reasoned politics play, nevertheless, a normic role, while his analytical formats help investigation of obstacles to more widespread agency, voice, and democratic participation. (shrink)

Over the last decade, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been defined first as a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and cleaner environment and, second, as a process by which companies manage their relationship␣with stakeholders (European Commission, 2001. Nowadays, CSR has become a priority issue on governments’ agendas. This has changed governments’ capacity to act and impact on social and environmental issues in their relationship with companies, but has also affected the framework in which CSR (...) public policies are designed: governments are incorporating multi-stakeholder strategies. This article analyzes the CSR public policies in European advanced democracies, and more specifically the EU-15 countries, and provides explanatory keys on how governments have understood, designed and implemented their CSR public policies. The analysis has entailed the classification of CSR public policies taking into consideration the actor to which the governments’ policies were addressed. This approach to the analysis of CSR public policies in the EU-15 countries leads us to observe coinciding lines of action among the different countries analyzed, which has enabled us to propose a ‹four ideal’ typology model for governmental action on CSR in Europe: Partnership, Business in the Community, Sustainability, and Citizenship, and Agora. The main contribution of this article is to propose an analytical framework to analyze CSR public policies, which provide a perspective on the relationships between governments, businesses, and civil society stakeholders, and enable us to incorporate the analysis of CSR public policies into a broader approach focused on social governance. (shrink)

Sustainable Public Food Procurement (SPFP) is gaining recognition for its potential to improve the sustainability of food systems and promote healthier diets. However, SPFP faces various challenges, including coordination issues, actor dynamics, infrastructure limitations, unsustainable habits, and institutional resistance, among others. Drawing upon insights from the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) on socio-technical transitions and the X-curve model on transition dynamics, this study investigates the role of transition intermediaries in facilitating SPFP-induced transformations in food systems. Focusing on four case studies (...) in Spain, we identify common barriers encountered in SPFP and analyse how distinct types of transition intermediaries contribute individually and collectively to address these challenges. Additionally, we explore how intermediary networks evolve throughout different phases of the transition process. Our findings reveal that SPFP barriers are systemic and interconnected, emphasizing the necessity of collective intermediation to overcome these obstacles. Furthermore, our results reveal how collective intermediation is orchestrated by pivotal intermediaries who mobilize diverse transition intermediaries, shaping multiple transition pathways. These intermediaries operate at both food system regimes and niches, challenging the conventional notion that transformative change can only originate from niche efforts. Lastly, we highlight the dynamic and flexible nature of intermediation in SPFP transitions, underscoring the importance of adaptability in strategies as these transitions evolve over time. Practical implications include the need for context-specific, adaptive approaches and strategies that leverage intermediary diversity. This research offers insights for policymakers, practitioners, and scholars into SPFP and broader transitions towards food systems transformation, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of these transition processes. (shrink)

Our concern in this essay are the roles of religious conviction in what we call a “publicly justified polity” — one in which the laws conform to the Principle of Public Justification, according to which (in a sense that will become clearer) each citizen must have conclusive reason to accept each law as binding. According to “justificatory liberalism,”1 this public justification requirement follows from the core liberal commitment of respect for the freedom and equality of all citizens.2 To (...) respect each as free and equal requires that no one simply be forced to submit to the judgments of others as to what she must do. Laws must be justified to those subject to them — each must accept grounds that justify the law. As Kant indicated, if such a condition is achieved, each is both subject and legislator: each is subject to the law, yet each legislates the law, and so all our free and equal under the law.3 Now it would appear that if we are to justify laws to each and every person, the reasons for these laws must be “accessible to all.”4 Religious reasons, however, are not shared by everyone, and may be inaccessible to some: they would thereby seem inappropriate in public justification. On the face of it, justificatory liberals seem committed to expunging religious-based reasoning from political justification. Not surprisingly, this apparent commitment of justificatory liberalism is adamantly rejected by many citizens of faith who consider themselves liberals. These citizens embrace the traditional liberal freedoms and rights and, moreover, reject any suggestion that a legitimate polity might seek to establish a religion, much less a theocracy. Yet they.. (shrink)

The OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (the OECD Convention) obligates signatory nations to make bribery of foreign public officials a criminal act on an extraterritorial basis. The purposes of this article are to describe the nature and consequences of bribery, outline the major provisions of the OECD Convention, and analyze its role in promoting transparency and accountability in international business. While the OECD Convention is not expected to totally eliminate (...) the seeking or taking of bribes, there are hopes that a uniform set of rules will curtail corrupt behavior, as long as those rules are both enforceable and enforced. (shrink)

Previous studies on corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication suggest that firms’ social initiatives should be communicated through third-party, non-corporate sources because they are perceived as unbiased and therefore reduce consumer skepticism. In this article, we extend existing research by showing that source effects in the communication of social sponsorships are contingent on the brand’s pre-existing reputation. We argue that the congruence between the credibility and trustworthiness of the message source and the brand helps predict consumer responses to a social sponsorship. (...) The results show that a non-corporate source (publicity) generates more positive brand evaluations than a corporate source (advertising) when the sponsor has a positive reputation. However, the converse effect occurs when brand reputation is low: when the sponsor has a poor reputation, a corporate source generates more positive brand evaluations than a non-corporate source. Mediation analyses show that the interaction effect between CSR information source and brand reputation can be explained by sponsorship attitude, persuasion knowledge, and perceived fit between the brand and the cause. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Of Masters, Intellectuals and Inequality On Lessons, Equality, Democracy Focus and Contributions to the book Notes Acknowledgement References Bibliography Jacques Rancière.

The article deals with the role of public addresses delivered by the US first lady Michelle Obama in forming the presidential image. Special attention is paid to communicative strategies, stylistic and lexico-grammatical means used in public addresses for influencing the electorate. It is shown that both Obama and his spouse’s speeches play an important role in the electorate consciousness manipulation in the USA.

Observers call for companies to establish codes of corporate social responsibility, but few have studied how companies become aware of and codify standards. This study of the practitioner's role in developing standards suggests that practitioners often are left out of ethical decision making, and that persons who prepare codes of ethical performance typically view external publics as less important than internal publics. Social science methods are widely recognized as helpful in identifying and establishing standards, although they are not actually (...) used very much. (shrink)

Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs)—private governance mechanisms involving firms, civil society organizations, and other actors deliberating to set rules, such as standards or codes of conduct, with which firms comply voluntarily—have become important tools for governing global business activities and the social and environmental consequences of these activities. Yet, this growth is paralleled with concerns about MSIs’ deliberative capacity, including the limited inclusion of some marginalized stakeholders, bias toward corporate interests, and, ultimately, ineffectiveness in their role as regulators. In this article, (...) we conceptualize MSIs as deliberative systems to open the black box of the different elements that make up the MSI polity and better understand how their deliberative capacity hinges on problems in different elements. On the basis of this conceptualization, we examine how deliberative mini-publics—forums in which a randomly selected group of individuals from a particular population engage in learning and facilitated deliberations about a topic—can improve the deliberative capacity of MSIs. (shrink)

Public Libraries (PLs) continue to contribute a great deal to user education in local communities. This paper analyzes the importance of PLs in driving community literacy through promotion of user education for the progressive improvement of the society. The paper stresses the relevance and value of PLs by reassessing the benefits they accrue by analyzing the impact of PLs on community and social education. As indigenous knowledge repositories, PLs play a significant role as community information service providers by (...) driving community literacy. The goal of this paper is to analyze the role played by PLs in driving community education and promoting information literacy in the society. PLs, being storehouses of knowledge, support user education by undertaking active part in community information services. The model helps in explaining and analyzing the efficiency of information search and retrieval process in PLs and how it affects user education and community literacy. The paper also discusses the relevance and value of PLs in this age of digital technology. The findings reinforce the claim that PLs are relevant even in this digital age, and they indeed support user education for the progressive improvement of the society. (shrink)

This paper discusses the role of religious speech in the public square and the common school. It argues for more openness to political theology than many liberals are willing to grant and for an educational strategy of engagement over one of avoidance. The paper argues that the exclusion of religious debate from the public square has dysfunctional consequences. It discusses Rawls’s more recent views on public reason and claims that, while they are not altogether adequate, they (...) are consistent with engagement. The outcome of these arguments is applied to three ‘hot button’ issues in US education: creationism, an issue of gay rights, and teaching the Bible in schools. (shrink)

: National bioethics commissions have been critiqued for a variety of structural, procedural, and political aspects of their work. A more recent critique published by Dzur and Levin uses political philosophy to constructively critique the work of national bioethics commissions as public deliberative forums. However, this public forum critique of bioethics commissions ignores empirical research in political science and normative claims that suggest that advisory commissions can and should have diverse of functions beyond that of being public (...) forums. The present paper argues that the public forum critique too narrowly considers the roles that bioethics commissions can play in public bioethics and ignores the moral obligation of commissions to fulfill their mandates. Evaluations of commissions must consider that these institutions can serve in capacities other than those of a public deliberative forum and use additional measures to evaluate the multiple roles and successes of bioethics commissions in public policy. (shrink)

This chapter reflects on public apologies as means of moral repair by considering the various roles the public might play in these moral dramas. Audiences to public apologies include people who are related to the transgression in different ways. This chapter focuses on those parties in front of whom public apologies are intentionally performed but who are neither victims nor wrongdoers. Do such third parties add something of value to the apology? If so, how? How might (...) they play their role well? Under what circumstances might they forgive? How might things go poorly? This chapter argues that public apologies face a problem of “mission creep.”. (shrink)

_The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere_, co-edited by Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, represents a rare opportunity to experience a diverse group of preeminent philosophers confronting one pervasive contemporary concern: what role does, or should, religion play in our public lives? Reflecting on her recent work concerning state violence in Israel-Palestine, Judith Butler explores the potential of religious perspectives for renewing cultural and political criticism, while Jürgen Habermas, best known for his seminal conception of the (...) public sphere, thinks through the ambiguous legacy of the concept of "the political" in contemporary theory. Charles Taylor argues for a radical redefinition of secularism, and Cornel West defends civil disobedience and emancipatory theology. Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen detail the immense contribution of these philosophers to contemporary social and political theory, and an afterword by Craig Calhoun places these attempts to reconceive the significance of both religion and the secular in the context of contemporary national and international politics. (shrink)

Abstract The role accorded to the public by scientists and philosophers of science has undergone an essential historical change in the last three centuries. Public participation in (witnessing of) scientific experiments was considered an important requirement for 17th century experimenters (e.g. for Boyle or Pascal). The cognitive role played by lay persons was later substantially downgraded; witnessing went out of fashion, while science became more and more esoteric and a matter for experts only. Part of this (...) process was that all scientific disciplines became intensively compartmentalized and in consequence a rather puzzling or even paradoxical situation appeared: that the scientists themselves were and are being reduced epistemically to the status of lay persons, outside of their proper field of expertise (as was pointed out by J. Hardwig). The paper deals with some cognitive aspects of this historical process. (shrink)

Using a scenario approach involving hypothetical moral decisions, the study aims to (1) compare managerial professionals' ethicality judgments with those made by the general public, and (2) ascertain the roles of perceived intensity (Jones, 1991) as well as perceived fairness of the moral issue in judgments of ethicality. While the two respondent groups made similar ratings on variables of moral intensity, fairness, and ethicality; the evaluation processes underlying their ethicality judgments were different. Empirically, the study has also established a (...) link between judgments of fairness and judgments of ethicality. (shrink)

Governments have used several mechanisms to deal with intractable policy conflicts about issues in bioethics. One mechanism is the installment of an ethics committee and another one is the organization of public debates. Often, ethics committees have an implicit or explicit role in the stimulation of such public debate. However, this role is not self-evident and we therefore analyse the relation between committees and public debate. What should the function of biotechnology ethics committees be, how (...) does this relate to their composition, and to what extent are these functions met in practice? To this end, we have examined the three national committees of the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Australia in the field of animal and plant biotechnology. We argue that there is often a mismatchbetween the goals one wants to reach by stimulating public debate and the way this has been given shape, partly through ethics committees. In fact, installing (biotechnology) ethics committees is to a certain extent a premature move that contains rather than stimulates public debate. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to describe the mechanism of the public perception of risk of artificial intelligence. For that we apply the social amplification of risk framework to the public perception of artificial intelligence using data collected from Twitter from 2007 to 2018. We analyzed when and how there appeared a significant representation of the association between risk and artificial intelligence in the public awareness of artificial intelligence. A significant finding is that the image of (...) the risk of AI is mostly associated with existential risks that became popular after the fourth quarter of 2014. The source of that was the public positioning of experts who happen to be the real movers of the risk perception of AI so far instead of actual disasters. We analyze here how this kind of risk was amplified, its secondary effects, what are the varieties of risk unrelated to existential risk, and what is the dynamics of the experts in addressing their concerns to the audience of lay people. (shrink)

Scientific societies can have a powerful influence on the professional lives of scientists. Using this influence, they have a responsibility to make long-term commitments and investments in promoting integrity in publication, just as in other areas of research ethics. Concepts that can inform the thinking and activities of scientific societies with regard to publication ethics are: the “hidden curriculum” (the message of actions rather than formal statements), a fresh look at the components of acting with integrity, deviancy as a normally (...) occurring phenomenon in human society, and the scientific community as an actual community. A society’s first step is to decide what values it will promote, within the framework of present-day standards of good conduct of science and given the society’s history and traditions. The society then must create educational programs that serve members across their careers. Scientific societies must take seriously the implications of the problem; set policies and standards for publication ethics for their members; educate about and enforce the standards; bring the issues before the members early and often; and maintain continuing dialogue with editors. (shrink)

Greenblum and Hubbard argue that physicians are duty-bound by the constraints of Rawlsian ‘public reason’ to avoid engaging their patients’ religious considerations in medical decision-making.1 This position offers a number of appealing benefits to physicians. It will appear plausible because Rawls’s philosophical tradition of Political Liberalism enjoys the status of ideological orthodoxy in institutions tasked with forming the moral imaginations of physicians and other elites.2 3 It casts the physician in the role of a ‘reasonable person’ occupying the (...) space of public reason whose medical and ethical judgments are opposed by ‘sectarian’ religious patients who refuse to be reasonable. This narrative authorises the exclusion of patient religious considerations from medical decision making when they do not ‘translate’ into reasons recognised by ‘reasonable’ medical professionals and manages the trauma of overwhelmed physicians by legitimising disengagement from difficult interactions with religious patients. The authors’ arguments depend on concepts from Rawls’s Political Liberalism 4 and are presented as if the premises of Liberal theory are incontestable—despite the fact that a large body of philosophical literature challenging its premises and core concepts has existed for decades.3 5–7 This ‘nothing to see here, move along’ approach saves more space for anecdotes about religious people, at which …. (shrink)

This article contains reflections on the further structural transformation of the public sphere, building on the author’s widely-discussed social-historical study, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, which originally appeared in German in 1962 (English translation 1989). The first three sections contain preliminary theoretical reflections on the relationship between normative and empirical theory, the deliberative understanding of democracy, and the demanding preconditions of the stability of democratic societies under conditions of capitalism. The fourth section turns to the implications (...) of digitalisation for the account of the role of the media in the public sphere developed in the original work, specifically to how it is leading to the expansion and fragmentation of the public sphere and is turning all participants into potential authors. The following section presents empirical data from German studies which shows that the rapid expansion of digital media is leading to a marked diminution of the role of the classical print media. The article concludes with observations on the threats that these developments pose for the traditional role of the public sphere in discursive opinion and will formation in democracies. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe private provision of security services has attracted a great deal of recent attention, both professional and popular. Much of that attention suggests the questioned moral legitimacy of the private vs. public provision of security. Linking the literature on moral legitimacy and responsibility from new institutional and stakeholder theories, we examine the relationship between moral legitimacy and responsible behavior by both private security companies and their stakeholders. We ask what the moral-legitimacy-enhancing responsibilities of both might be, and contribute to (...) both literatures and their managerial implications by detailing the content of those responsibilities, emphasizing the reciprocal nature of moral obligations. We suggest that the moral legitimacy of the industry depends upon responsible behavior by both PSCsandtheir stakeholders. (shrink)