Many of the items that humans consume are produced in ways that involve serious harms to persons. Familiar examples include the harms involved in the extraction and trade of conflict minerals (e.g. coltan, diamonds), the acquisition and import of non- fair trade produce (e.g. coffee, chocolate, bananas, rice), and the manufacture of goods in sweatshops (e.g. clothing, sporting equipment). In addition, consumption of certain goods (significantly fossil fuels and the products of the agricultural industry) involves harm to the (...) environment, to future persons, and to current persons in low-lying and developing countries, by way of their impacts on climate change. When it comes to such large-scale harms, it's easy for the individual to feel helpless. Even if she sincerely wishes things were otherwise, she may wonder what she could possibly do to make them so. In this paper I briefly explore several promising avenues for generating duties in individuals to consume ethically, and develop one in particular: that an individual ought to signal her commitments to others, as a first step in collectivizing to act against unjust global labour practices. (shrink)

This article analyzes the distribution of benefits from Fair Trade between producing and consuming countries. Fair Trade and conventional coffee production and trade were examined in Nicaragua in 2005-2006 and 2008. Consumption of the respective coffees was assessed in Finland in 2006-2009. The results indicate that consumers paid considerably more for Fair Trade-certified coffee than for the other alternatives available. Although Fair Trade provided price premiums to producer organizations, a larger share of the retail prices remained in (...) the consuming country relative to conventional coffee trade. Paradoxically, along with the certified farmers and cooperatives, Fair Trade empowers roasters and retailers. (shrink)

Coffee is an important commodity and an important comestible, one that is momentous not only for nations’ economies but also, at the micro-social level, as a resource for interpersonal sociability. Among a subculture of certain coffee connoisseurs, the coffee itself is a topic that is an organizing focus of, and for, that sociability. This paper is an empirical investigation of online narratives produced by hobbyist participants in what coffee aficionados refer to as the third wave (...) class='Hi'>coffee phenomenon and engages and challenges extant perspectives social aspects of taste by inspecting members’ insights concerning their conceptions of taste and their participation in a subculture that comprises taste as an important, central defining aspect. The analytic point of view deployed in this paper is ethnomethodological, one that, instead of emphasizing a priori the social structural characteristics of these connoisseurs as do Bourdieu (In: Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, tr. Richard Nice, Routledge, New York 1984) and those who work in his tradition, emphasizes discovery of members’ own displayed understandings of the topic at hand. As such, this paper is more than an investigation of the coffee geek subculture but is also an invitation to an ethnomethodologically-informed sociology of taste. (shrink)

Emerging markets are a growing force, and the resulting increase in wealth—especially among the middle class—promotes conspicuous consumption with potentially negative impacts for societal and environmental well-being. Efforts to encourage ethical consumer behavior in emerging markets often meet various forms of consumer resistance. One reason that ethical consumption may suffer in emerging markets is because consumers have difficulty considering ethical other-focused attributes, such as Fair Trade or eco-friendly options, especially if those attributes do not directly benefit the self. (...) Our research demonstrates a simple way to encourage more ethical consumption in emerging markets, without economic incentives. In particular, when consumers see narrow (vs. broad) product categories, they are more likely to incorporate both salient (self-focused) and non-salient (other-focused) attributes into their decision. Thus, narrow product categories encourage consumers to consider ethical attributes to a greater extent than they normally would. This finding holds in private settings, across various product categories (i.e., coffee, tea, juice) and contexts (i.e., online and in the field), and in different emerging markets (e.g., India, South Africa, and Iran). (shrink)

Turkey has passed the import substitution economic model to a new model of the economy called open out since 1980. Along with the neoliberal policies implemented, the process of integration with the global economy has begun. The incomes of the religious people who cannot be excluded from the effects of this articulation also increased and their consumption behaviors has changed. On the other hand, some transport elements, especially the media, have enabled consumption codes to reach different segments. The (...) new values emerged in this process also caused transformations in individual consumption trends. In this study, the "Scale of Consumption Dynamics" (SCD) was developed in order to identify the trends of consumption of devotees and to find out how they changed. Quantitative research approach was adopted in the study and the datas were collected by face-to-face survey technique. The individuals included in our sample were selected by quota sampling. In this study, an expression pool was created as a result of literature review, expert opinion consultation, brainstorming with academicians and observations. The validity and reliability analysis of the scale was made using different statistics through the SPSS program. As a result of these steps, the dimensions of the scale consisting of 16 items and 3 dimensions are called "showy consumption", "wasteful consumption" and "religious priority consumption". Summary: The first studies on consumption history and sociology belong to Marx, Weber, Veblen and Simmel. In these studies consumption is examined as a part of production process and consumption forms were investigated as a social class aspect. Consumption phenomenon was later studied under critical approach (Frankfurt School) with Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm’s theories. Theorists at Frankfurt School study how social structure steers individuals to consumption. After the 1970’s, the meaning of consumption phenomenon has changed. There are studies by Jean Baudrillard, Mike Featherstone, George Ritzer, and Zygmunt Bauman on changing phenomenon of consumption. It is widely believed that modern consumption phenomenon was originated in the USA after the World War II. After the war Keynesian economic policies and Fordist consumption forms later influenced other Western nations. After 1950’s and 1960’s mass consumption was initiated in the USA and except very poor sections of the nations, other social classes, it started to spread out in Europe, the USA, and other countries. In 1970’s and 1980’s, it has merged with individuals’ identity definitions. After 1980’s in Turkey a new economic policy instead of import substitution was adopted. In application along with neo liberal policies, Turkey started to integrate to the rest of the World. Religious people as well influenced these changes and their incomes have increased along with their consumption habits. In addition to media, some other forms of communication channels have carried new consumption habits to other sections of the society. With the increased effects of mass communication media, new social sections have emerged and their cultural characteristics have become the norms of the whole society. A new values created in this process also transformed the consumption habits. In this article, in order to assess consumption habits of religious people as it is now and to understand which direction these habits evolve, Consumption Dynamics Scale (CDS) has been developed. Scales are widely used when a researcher tries to identify and measure respondents’ feelings and ideas on a subject matter. There are different scales used in social sciences such as Thurstone, Likert, Guttman, and Bogardus that are among the most widely used ones. A Likert Type scale has been used in this study. In the first phase of the study and pilot study 5 point Likert scale and in the second phase of the study 10 point Likert scales was used to collect the data. We could not come across with any study in the literature on investigating consumption characteristics Dynamics of individuals with a formal religious education. In the study, quantitative research method has been adopted and the research data has been collected with face to face administration of the survey instrument. The scale development phase lasted about 6 months from August, 2016. Based on 3% error rate, we determined to sufficient sample size as 516, yet we reached 600 individuals and end up with 563 usable responses. Sample has been determined with quota sampling methodology. We formed a pool of statements based on literature review, expert opinion, brain storming with academicians. 49 questions have been selected from the question pool where 93 questions were found, then they are merged, some questions are changed or totally eliminated and final 30 questioned questionnaires made ready for pilot study. Two pilot studies have been carried out. In the first pilot study, 47 people are reached and 30 questions with Likert scales have been administered. In the second phase of the study, 10 point Likert scales with 57 questions has been given to 54 individuals. After pilot studies, data was analyzed with SPSS 20 version and 32 questioned final survey instrument has been formed. In order to check sufficiency of data set for Factor Analysis Kaisser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test and the relationships among variables Bartlett test were used. Sample composed of 563 responses revealed significant results (3358,808, p=0,000) and KMO test revealed (KMO=0,812) value. After expletory factor analysis, factor loading less than 0,40 were deleted from the scale. Hence the final structure is composed of 29 questions with 8 different factors. The reliability of scales were calculated with Cronbach Alfa analysis separately for each dimension. After reliability analysis, items with 0,60 and less reliability score were taken out from the scales. Finally 16 items were made up 3 dimensions namely “ostentatious consumption”, “wasteful consumption”, and “religious priority consumption”. The items in Factor 1 are related with luxury, fashion and statue, in Factor 2 desire to make more shopping, purchase without need, advertisement and showcase, and factor 3 religious sensitive reference focus and religion first purchasing are decided as appropriate names. Based on the analysis, measurement was decided valid and sound. Therefore, this study is believed to contribute significantly to the existing literature. (shrink)

This paper extends arguments about the potential for reflexive governance in agri-food sustainability by linking food ethics to the notion of ‘unintended consequences’ and ‘responsibilisation’. Analysis of sustainable consumption governance shows the way authorities and intermediaries use food waste reduction projects to ‘responsibilise’ the consumer, including recent examples of shared responsibility. This paper takes this argument further by developing a ‘strategies of responsibilisation’ framework that connects relations between food system outcomes, problematisation in public discourse and strategies of responsibilisation in (...) agri-food governance. A food and drink waste case study of strategies to introduce reusable coffee cups in UK coffee shops and food retail chains is examined to exemplify relations between problematisation and responsibilisation. We examine problematisation and responsibilisation discourses that have emerged in relation to the issue, particularly in relation to single-use plastics, together with emerging governance arrangements and their underlying rationalities. The case study shows two key things: firstly, how ethical questions about food in public discourses connect to wider environmental planetary concerns ; and secondly, how responsibility has emergent and dynamic properties, which we term ‘cycles of responsibilisation’. The paper concludes by assessing the wider value of applying a responsibility framework to examine governance responses to increasingly complex agri-food system sustainability challenges. (shrink)

Consumption has emerged as an important historical subject, with most scholars explaining it as a vehicle for therapeutic regeneration, community formation, or economic policy. This work all but ignores how consumption begins with changes to the material world, to physical nature. While environmental historians have something important, even unique, to say about consumption, the split between materialist and cultural analyses within the field has dulled its ability to study consumption as a process and phenomenon that (...) unfolds over space and time. By borrowing techniques from geography and ecology, environmental historians can analyze how space is socially produced through time, an insight that can help to connect material and cultural change in a sustained manner. Spatial histories can also unmask the relationships between production and consumption, and nature and culture, and thereby transcend and subvert seemingly fixed boundaries, from the local to the global. They can also further propel environmental historians into new realms of inquiry, such as international trade and the human body. Historicizing the spaces of consumption may also help to foster a more radical and democratic environmentalism, especially in developed nations, by compelling environmentalists to reassess the distancing effects of consumption upon their politics and attitudes toward those who produce commodities and consumer goods. (shrink)

This is the thirty-first volume in Religion and Public Life, formerly This World, a series on religion and public affairs. This ongoing series seeks to provide a wide-ranging forum for differing views on religious and ethical considerations. The essays grouped together in Culture and Consumption discuss the phenomenon of consumption, an identifiable and pervasive feature of American culture that distinguishes it from other national cultures. The lead article provides an insight into the long-standing pattern of consumption (...) that has been progressively elevated into social policy in America. This is a balanced analysis of the history of the consumption cultural ethos beginning with the undermining of the Native American Culture and ending with Wilsonian Liberal-Internationalism and the demise of the moral authority of organized labor. This commercialization of culture has always competed with the funding vision of a dispassionate social order in which custom, deferential politics, and continuation of traditional hierarchal values would be the constitutional agenda. Another contributor argues that the emergence of the democratic-consumer state in America was anticipated in de Tocqueville's observation that "in democracies nothing has brighter luster than commercea." Other contributor essays treat issues such as the New Class and the consumer state; technology's triumph at the expense of the social and natural worlds; and argue against the materialist perspective in addiction. Culture and Consumption includes the following major contributions: "The Dialectic of Consumption: Materialism and Social Control" by David Brown; "Religion, Social Science and the Ironies of Parasitic Modernity" by Guy Alchon; The Dilemma of Hypermodernity" by Mark Wegierski; "Toward an Epistemology of Addiction" by Leonard Kaplan and Vince Rinella. Also included are book reviews by Martha Davis and Conrad Kanagy. In a concluding essay, Gabriel Ricci reviews Jerome Bruner's The Culture of Education. Culture and Consumption is part of an annual survey of religion and public life that provides relevant information and ideas about significant issues of the day. (shrink)

Environmental sustainability is an increasingly important issue for many business and social actors. This has led many scholars to research the effects of this phenomenon from various points of view trying to understand whether green attitudes can influence consumer behaviours in sustaining consumer–brand relationships. Accordingly, this paper aims to explore the impact of green consumer values on consumer–brand relationships in driving intentional behaviour. The authors developed an empirical study based on a research framework with six latent variables and 43 (...) manifest variables using a partial least squares-structural equation (PLS-SEM). A survey was given to a sample of Italian consumers (n = 661) to explore mobility choices from a sustainability perspective (i.e. car and motorcycle users). The main findings show that green consumption values positively impact offline and online brand responses. Moreover, the research outcomes are discussed and evaluated in terms of theoretical, managerial and policy implications. Finally, we present the main limits and future research opportunities. (shrink)

With the breakdown of traditional racial boundaries in many areas of the world, the widespread and growing consumption of skin-lightening products testifies to the increasing significance of colorism—social hierarchy based on gradations of skin tone within and between racial/ethnic groups. Light skin operates as a form of symbolic capital, one that is especially critical for women because of the connection between skin tone and attractiveness and desirability. Far from being an outmoded practice or legacy of past colonialism, the (...) use of skin lighteners is growing fastest among young, urban, educated women in the global South. Although global in scope, the skin-lightening market is highly segmented by nation, culture, race, and class. This article examines the “yearning for lightness” and skin-lightening practices in various societies and communities and the role of transnational pharmaceutical and cosmetic corporations in fueling the desire for lighter skin through print, Internet, and television ads that link light skin with modernity, social mobility, and youth. (shrink)

Consumption is essentially an institutional action. While both the formal institutional environment and cultural embeddedness shape consumption, individuals may reciprocally amend the institutional setting through consumption choices that challenge the prevalent institutional constraints. This paper reconciles theoretical and conceptual premises from institutional and practice theory literature to study the sustainability of consumption. Using institutional ethnography as a methodological approach, the study explores the pendulum between embeddedness and agency in shaping the sustainability of day-to-day consumption of (...) necessary goods; and further, how the external institutional environment may interact with human behaviour to contribute towards sustainability. The study finds a hierarchy of informal institutions, each level of which interacts differently with external changes. For example, sustainability is found to be more widespread the more it is embedded in practices, and this is a result of overall institutional development beyond regulation and choice editing. The results also highlight the importance of understanding unintentional sustainability in consumption practices. (shrink)

Health behaviours of preschool children have a considerable impact on the shaping of habits later on in their lives. Parents’ and guardians’ role is to develop positive health patterns and represent exemplary models to be followed by children. The aim of the paper is to present the use of correspondence analysis for the assessment of the relationship between eating habits of parents and children, as well as for the determination of the most common situations in which preschool children consume fast-food (...) products and to find the relationship between the frequency of fast-food consumption and BMI values in preschool children. The tests were carried out with the use of an own survey carried out in kindergartens in Białystok among parents dropping off and picking up children. 149 correctly filled questionnaires were obtained. The statistical analysis employs the chi-squared test and correspondence analysis. Among the tested children, a statistically significant relationship between body weight and sex was obtained. In the group of children and parents consuming fast-foods, a statistically significant relationship between the frequency of children’s and parents’ consumption of the products in question was noticed. A statistically significant relationship between the age of introduction of fast-food products into the child’s diet and their BMI was found. A situation that was statistically significant as far as contribution to frequent consumption of fast-food products by children, i.e. at least once a week, were children and parents shopping together. The relationship between the frequency of fast-food consumption by parents and children was presented in the form of correspondence maps, as well as the relationship between the child’s BMI and the age when the first fast-food product is served, and the relationship between the child’s BMI and the frequency of their consumption of fast-foods. Unfortunately, despite the high awareness among parents of the harmful effects of fast-food products and the widespread health education programmes, a number of the children in kindergartens were overweight or even obese. For this reason, the quality of the educational programmes in kindergartens, as well as in various media outlets, needs to be improved, with emphasis put on their effectiveness, in order to minimise the problem of the occurrence of overweight and obesity in children. It is also important for parents rearing children to pay special attention not only to their children’s menus, but also to foods consumed in the presence of children. (shrink)

This article situates the analysis of fair-trade consumption in the context of debates about civic activism and political participation. It argues that fair-trade consumption should be understood as a political phenomenon, which, through the mediating action of organizations and campaigns, makes claims on states, corporations, and institutions. This argument is made by way of a case study of Traidcraft, a key player in the fair-trade movement in the United Kingdom. The study focuses on how Traidcraft approaches and (...) enrolls its supporters. (shrink)

Even long after their formal exclusion has come to an end, members of previously oppressed social groups often continue to face disproportionate restrictions on their freedom, as the experience of many women over the last century has shown. Working within in a framework in which freedom is understood as independence from arbitrary power, Mary Wollstonecraft provides an explanation of why such domination may persist and offers a model through which it can be addressed. Republicans rely on processes of rational public (...) deliberation to highlight and combat oppression. However, where domination is primarily social rather than legal or political (such as where cultural attitudes, traditions and values exert an arbitrary and inhibiting force) then this defence against domination is often negated. Prejudice, she argues, ‘clouds’ people’s ability to reason and skews debate in favour of the dominant powers, thereby entrenching patterns of subjection. If they are to be independent, then, citizens require not only political rights but a platform from which to add their perspectives and interests to the background social values which govern political discussion. (shrink)

While it is widely assumed that greater diversity in corporate governance will enhance a firm’s corporate social performance, this study considers an alternative thesis which relates managerial control to corporate philanthropy. The study empirically evaluates both board diversity and managerial control of the board as possible predictors of corporate philanthropy. The demonstration of a positive relationship between managerial control and corporate philanthropy contributes to our understanding that corporate social performance results from a complex set of economic and social motives. Possible (...) future research and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

Republicans understand freedom as the guaranteed protection against any arbitrary use of coercive power. This freedom is exercised within a political community, and the concept of arbitrariness is defined with reference to the actual ideas of its citizens about what is in their shared interests. According to many current defenders of the republican model, this form of freedom is understood in strictly negative terms representing an absence of domination. I argue that this assumption is misguided. First, it is internally inconsistent. (...) The central republican focal point of arbitrariness is a necessarily socially constructed ideal that only exists as the creation of the citizens themselves. Second, republican freedom operates in two distinct realms or spheres. There is freedom under a law that is required to uphold the collective good as reflected in society’s norms, and there is freedom within that very system of norms. The threats to freedom from within each sphere are different and must be addressed accordingly. The negative approach, however, conflates the two and emphasises only the dangers faced under the law. This exposes citizens – especially those from marginalised social groups – to domination in the second realm from oppressive social norms. Only by clearly recognising the nature of both kinds of threats can a comprehensive republican freedom be formulated. (shrink)

Mary Wollstonecraft was a significant and wide-ranging moral and political philosopher of the late Enlightenment period whose work remains relevant today. She is most well-known as an early feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and her analysis of the social condition of women, and the structural nature of their subjection, retains much of its radical force. Her feminist arguments, of course, are both derived from, and in turn shape, her overall philosophical framework which is often (...) seen as being located within the liberal tradition. (shrink)

In Wollstonecraft’s early writings, she articulates the foundational theological and philosophical principles that would underpin her work throughout her career. One difference between her early and later work lies in the way that the values to which she refers are combined. Whereas Wollstonecraft at first appeals to the separate ideals of independence, equality, and virtue, from the 1790s onwards she integrates these into a characteristic republican framework that was in common use amongst dissenting theorists at the time. The set of (...) values on which Wollstonecraft draws, and the version of the republican framework that she develops, closely resemble those of Richard Price with whose work she was familiar. Examining the structural similarities between their respective models, I argue, gives us an insight into the systematic manner of aspects of Wollstonecraft’s own thought. It also allows us to see how Wollstonecraft goes beyond the republicanism of Price and others as she develops her own feminist solutions to the problems of structural domination. (shrink)

In spite of its everyday connotations, the term independence as republicans understand it is not a celebration of individualism or self-reliance but embodies an acknowledgement of the importance of personal and social relationships in people’s lives. It reflects our connectedness rather than separateness and is in this regard a relational ideal. Properly understood, independence is a useful concept in addressing a fundamental problem in social philosophy that has preoccupied theorists of relational autonomy, namely how to reconcile the idea of individual (...) human agency with the inevitable and necessary influence of other people, both directly and indirectly. I derive my account from the work of Mary Wollstonecraft and Catharine Macaulay, whose contributions have remained largely overlooked by current republican theorists. I have three purposes in this chapter. First, I set out the relational character of independence. Secondly, I outline a republican approach to the problem of structural social threats to agency. Finally, I hope to establish the basis for a fruitful dialogue between republicans and relational autonomy theorists on the requirements and dynamics of individual agency and freedom in oppressive social situations. I identify three distinctive features of the internal logic of freedom as independence that give it a relational character: it always locates the person within a community; there is a mediating role played by the notion of arbitrariness in connecting individual and collective perspectives; a causal relationship exists linking each person’s freedom as independence such that that the dependence of one class of persons jeopardizes the independence of the whole community. (shrink)

Independence is a central and recurring theme in Wollstonecraft’s work. Independence should not be understood as an individualistic ideal that is in tension with the value of community but as an essential ingredient in successful and flourishing social relationships. I examine three aspects of this rich and complex concept that Wollstonecraft draws on as she develops her own notion of independence as a powerful feminist tool. First, independence is an egalitarian ideal that requires that all individuals, regardless of sex, are (...) protected to a comparable extent in all areas of social, political and economic life, no matter whether this is in the public or private sphere. Secondly, so long as this egalitarian condition is not compromised, independence allows for individuals to perform differentiated social roles, including along gendered lines. Finally, the on-going and collective input of both women and men is required to ensure that the conditions necessary for social independence are maintained. In Wollstonecraft’s hands, then, independence is a powerful ideal that allows her to argue that women must be able to act on their own terms as social and political equals, doing so as women whose perspectives and interests may differ from men’s. (shrink)

Although they were never to meet and corresponded only briefly, Catharine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft shared a mutual admiration and a strong intellectual bond. Macaulay’s work had a profound and lasting effect on Wollstonecraft, and she developed and expanded on many of Macaulay’s ideas. While she often took these in a different direction, there remains a great synergy between their ideas to the extent that we can understand Wollstonecraft’s own feminist arguments by approaching them through the frameworks and ideas that (...) Macaulay provided. These included the principles of classical republicanism, particularly in its understanding of the values of freedom, equality and virtue, and an understanding of reason as grounded in immutable principles that apply equally to both sexes. On the question of women’s freedom and social equality with men, I argue that though Macaulay sets up the problem in far richer and more detailed philosophical terms, in the end it is Wollstonecraft that has the more compelling account of its far-reaching social implications and of how this might be addressed. (shrink)

Catharine Macaulay was one of the most significant republican writers of her generation. Although there has been a revival of interest in Macaulay amongst feminists and intellectual historians, neo-republican writers have yet to examine the theoretical content of her work in any depth. Since she anticipates and addresses a number of themes that still preoccupy republicans, this neglect represents a serious loss to the discipline. I examine Macaulay’s conception of freedom, showing how she uses the often misunderstood notion of virtue (...) to reconcile the individual and collective elements inherent in the republican model. In her own analysis of the deep-rooted social obstacles that stand in the way of women becoming free, Macaulay identifies a serious problem that confronts all republicans, namely how to secure freedom in the face of entrenched structural imbalances that systematically disadvantage certain classes of person. In the end, I conclude that Macaulay herself cannot overcome the issues she raises. This in no way diminishes the importance of her work since her diagnosis is as relevant today as in her own time. (shrink)

Republicans are divided on the question of whether domination is best understood in terms of capacities to act intentionally or of certain structural aspects of society. I offer a model combining each aspect derived from Frederick Douglass’s philosophy. Douglass referred to slavery in both interpersonal terms (to individuals) and structural (to the community), focussing on the unique and pervasive role played by social prejudice which distorts public reason thereby disabling the functioning of republican institutions. While Douglass’s insights constitute a significant (...) contribution to neo-republican theory in their own right, they also offer a slave’s perspective on the central republican concept of domination and shows how historic African American writers made innovative theoretical contributions to republicanism. Both of these have long been overlooked by republican scholars to the philosophical detriment of the tradition. (shrink)

There has been a rising interest in the study of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) in philosophy, political theory, literary studies and the history of political thought in recent decades. The Wollstonecraftian Mind seeks to provide a comprehensive survey of her work, not only placing it in its historical context but also exploring its contemporary significance. Comprising 38 chapters by a team of international contributors this handbook covers: the background to Wollstonecraft’s work Wollstonecraft’s major works the relationship between Wollstonecraft and other major (...) philosophers Wollstonecraftian philosophy Wollstonecraft’s legacy Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, Wollstonecraft’s work is central to the study of political philosophy, literature, French studies, political thought, and feminism. (shrink)

While many historians and philosophers have sought to understand the ‘failure’ of the French Revolution to thrive and to avoid senseless violence, very few have referred to the works of two women philosophers who diagnosed the problems as they were happening. This essay looks at how Mary Wollstonecraft and Olympe de Gouges theorised the new tyranny that grew out of the French Revolution, that of ‘petty tyrants’ who found themselves like ‘cocks on a dunghill’ able to wield a new power (...) over those less fortunate than themselves. Both offer diagnoses and prognoses that revolve around education. Wollstonecraft argues that a revolution that is not backed by a previous education of the people is bound to result in chaos and violence. Such education, however, must be slow, and it necessitates the reform of the institutions that most shape the public’s character. A revolution, perforce, is fast, and it often takes several years, or even generations before the spirit of the reforms finds itself implemented into new institutions. Olympe de Gouges shares Wollstonecraft’s worry and she observes that the men who were once dominated quickly become tyrants themselves unless their moral character is already virtuous. But the state of being dominated leaves little room for virtue; hence, newly minted citizens need to be educated in order not to replicate the reign of tyranny onto other. Gouges suggests that the answer to the difficulty she and Wollstonecraft highlighted was to educate the people where they could be found: on the streets, or, where they could easily and willingly be gathered: in theatres. By helping organise revolutionary festivals, highlighting the ways in which citizens could be virtuous, and writing plays to awaken their virtue, and proposing a reform of the theatre, so that the production of such plays would be possible, Gouges offered a plan for the civic education of French citizens in the immediate aftermaths of the Revolution. Unfortunately, the chaos she and Wollstonecraft had sought to remedy, led by the cocks or petty tyrants, ensured that they were unable to see through their plans, with Wollstonecraft having to leave Paris and Gouges being sent to the guillotine. (shrink)

Balancing citizens’ freedom thought, conscience and religion with the authority of the law which applies to all citizens alike presents an especial challenge for the governments of European nations with socially diverse and pluralistic populations. I address this problem from within the republican tradition represented by Machiavelli, Harrington and Madison. Republicans have historically focused on public debate as the means to identify a set of shared interests which the law should uphold in the interests of all. Within pluralistic societies, however, (...) a greater attention must be paid to the background social conditions that may disrupt the deliberative process and lead to factionalism and instability. This includes certain changes in perspectives by both religious and secular citizens. (shrink)

There seems to be some initial evidence that team captains are selected based on non-leadership factors such as team tenure, technical abilities, being the daughter of the club president, or playing position. This is concerning since players expect their ideal team captain to have superior motivational and social skills. Adding to this literature on captain selection, the present study investigates relationships between the reasons for which team captains are selected and their perceived leadership quality; and perceived acceptance. To accomplish this, (...) we recruited 450 coaches and 198 players from Flemish football and volleyball teams. Participants evaluated 41 reasons on the extent to which they played a role in the selection of their team captain. Additionally, participants rated their team captain’s leadership quality and level of acceptance. The results consistently indicated that captains who were selected for having good motivational and social competencies were given higher ratings on perceived leadership quality and acceptance by participants. In conclusion, athletes who are motivated, good at motivating others and have superior social skills tend to be better suited for captaincy than those selected based on non-leadership factors. (shrink)

Minsky proposed classifying firms in three categories: hedge finance units which borrow no more than they are able to service in interest and principal out of operating cash flows, speculative finance units which are overleveraged to the point where they can service interest on their debt out of operating cash flows, but cannot repay the principal, and thus must continually roll over their existing debt, and Ponzi finance units, whose operating cash flows are inadequate even to service interest on their (...) debt. In Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis protracted prosperity leads endogenously to firms overleveraging themselves and transforming a market dominated by hedge finance into one dominated by speculative and Ponzi finance. Since Ponzi finance units are forced to sell off assets to service their existing interest payments, once the market is sufficiently dominated by Ponzi finance units, this creates an oversupply of assets offered for sale, and the resulting debt deflation causes a financial crisis and drastic shortage of liquidity. It appears this crisis state can be brought about by a deceptively low critical mass of Ponzi and speculative finance units. This paper uses a large 2002–2009 quarterly data set of all publicly traded North American firms and foreign firms traded on North American exchanges, a total of 8,905 stocks. Financial ratios are used to classify these firms in each quarter according to Minsky’s FIH categories. Market value is used to weight the categories, and average betas are computed as measures of volatility. Results provide dramatic support for the FIH. The FIH is then reinterpreted in terms of Austrian business cycle theory, which depends on inflationary credit expansion to drive the unsustainable prosperity. According to Minsky’s FIH, unsustainable prosperity emerges endogenously as long periods of economic expansion make borrowers and lenders alike more willing to engage in investment activities for which they fail to see the inherent risk. It becomes clear that this process is amplified and exacerbated by credit expansion. Minsky’s FIH helps flesh out some of the missing dynamics of the malinvestment liquidation phase of ABC theory, and the two views turn out to be surprisingly complementary. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:When the writings of Nancy Kingsbury Wollstonecraft surfaced in 2019, having been almost wholly neglected by scholars since their publication in the 1820s, they invited an inevitable and tantalizing comparison with her far more famous sister-in-law, Mary Wollstonecraft, especially since Kingsbury had written an article on "The Natural Rights of Woman." Irrespective of the Wollstonecraft connection, however, Kingsbury's writing stands on its own merits as deserving of serious scholarship by historians of women in philosophy. Nevertheless, reading Kingsbury in the light (...) of her predecessor is highly instructive and helps both bring out what is distinctive about her conclusions and place her in the context of post-Wollstonecraftian thought in the nineteenth century. Kingsbury draws on a similar set of foundational principles as Wollstonecraft, which I place within the republican tradition of political philosophy—freedom, equality, virtue, the common good. Together, these make up an ideal of freedom as independence. Focusing on the issue of education, she argues that increasing women's access to education will do little to improve their intellectual development unless there is an accompanying and extensive restructuring of social and economic norms. In applying the logic of freedom as independence, Kingsbury takes further this aspect of Wollstonecraft's thought and anticipates and prefigures some of the later arguments of feminists and abolitionists writing in the same tradition, including especially Frederick Douglass. (shrink)

Although ‘virtue’ is a complex idea in Wollstonecraft’s work, one of its senses refers to the capacity and willingness to govern one’s own conduct rationally, and to employ this ability in deliberating about matters of public concern. Wollstonecraft understands virtue to be integral to the meaning of freedom rather than as merely instrumentally useful for its preservation. It follows, therefore, that a free republic must be a virtuous one. The first virtue of social institutions, we might say, is ‘virtue’ itself. (...) In a virtuous republic all citizens, from no matter which social group, are able to represent themselves in law and in public debate. This is a demanding condition, requiring not just suitably robust republican institutions but an open and accommodating public culture in which sufficient numbers of citizens are positively engaged in ensuring that the available stock of background ideas and values is representative, diverse and inclusive. (shrink)

In the Thebaid, Statius follows Vergilian epic precedent in using economic language, including prosaic financial terms, for its ethical connotations. These connotations are based in Roman notions of how improper modes of commodity and reciprocal exchange can disrupt society and lead to violence. This article considers how Statius uses this language to provide further insight into his characters' motivations and, in particular, to distinguish between the warring brothers of the Thebaid by assimilating the behavior of Eteocles to that of a (...) stereotypical merchant and Polynices to a young Roman prodigal. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment by Karen GreenAlan CoffeeKaren Green. Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment. London: Routledge, 2020. Pp. 276. Hardback, $160.00.Though she was once one of the most recognizable and celebrated public intellectuals in Britain and was read avidly in both revolutionary America and France, after her death in 1791, Catharine Macaulay's work fell into almost total obscurity for around two hundred years. This began to change in the (...) 1990s, since which time interest in Macaulay from historians, philosophers, and feminist scholars has gathered pace. In the last decade and a half, no one has likely done more to advance this scholarship than Karen Green, who has published numerous journal articles and book chapters probing deeply into Macaulay's thought and intellectual context, and who helpfully edited The Correspondence of Catharine Macaulay (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), which had not previously been easily available to readers. As one would expect, Green's Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment builds on this depth of research. For a relatively slim volume, this is the most complete and detailed intellectual biography of Macaulay that I know of, an impressive feat given Macaulay's voluminous output.The aims of the book are twofold: first, to provide a narrative biography following Macaulay's life and the development of her works as they unfolded across her life, and second, to offer an overview and exposition of her ideas in their social and political context (4). These aims are important to bear in mind, since they establish what the book [End Page 158] is able to do and what it stops short of giving us. The volume is organized chronologically, divided into seven main chapters, each representing a short period in Macaulay's life, with an introduction and concluding chapter that considers her legacy, bringing the total chapters to nine. In each of the substantive chapters, Green mixes a biographical account of Macaulay's life with an often detailed analysis of one or more of her main works written during that period, as well as an assessment of how these works both engaged with, and were received within, some of the political and intellectual debates at the time. This is expertly done, with Green drawing on her intimate acquaintance with Macaulay's correspondence with many of the key figures of the period. The book, therefore, would make an excellent companion to anyone reading through the Correspondence as well as for those studying any of Macaulay's historical volumes, treatises, and tracts.An especially strong aspect of Green's book is the way she weaves an ongoing dialogue between Macaulay and several influential figures from her intellectual world across the chapters. One of these is David Hume, who, like Macaulay, had written an ideologically situated—even if both authors claimed impartiality—multivolume History of England. Though Hume's series was completed before Macaulay's had begun, hers can be seen as a philosophical and political rival to his. While the two would only correspond directly once on the subject, Green compares the impact that their respective philosophies have on their resulting political positions. In the 1760s, Green argues, Hume's naturalism, empiricism, and skepticism gave rise to a social conservative politics, whereas Macaulay's theological rationalism provided the basis for her optimistic and radical politics (50). By the 1790s, however, when Macaulay was writing her Letters on Education, Green detects some elements of a Humean philosophy of mind coming to influence Macaulay, albeit likely through David Hartley, particularly concerning the importance of sympathy on our moral psychology, even if there remain important differences between them (180–82). Green also analyzes Macaulay's engagement with Thomas Hobbes in her Loose Remarks and her two formal Observations on writings by Edmund Burke. Of particular value to historians of republicanism is Green's tracing and examination of Macaulay's ongoing intellectual relationship with key political figures, such as John Wilkes in Britain; Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, John and Abigail Adams, James Otis, Mercy Otis Warren, and George Washington in America; Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot and Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville in France, among many others. Though Macaulay's reputation as an influential political writer... (shrink)

Interest in the contribution made by women to the history of philosophy is burgeoning. At the forefront of this revival is Mary Wollstonecraft. While she has long been studied by feminists, and later discovered by political scientists, philosophers themselves have only recently begun to recognise the value of her work for their discipline. This volume brings together new essays from leading scholars, which explore Wollstonecraft's range as a moral and political philosopher of note, both taking a historical perspective and applying (...) her thinking to current academic debates. (shrink)

Psychological stress can be both a help and a hindrance to wellbeing and performance in sport. The provision and receipt of social support is a key resource for managing adaptations to stress. However, extant literature in this area is largely limited to the recipient’s perspective of social support. Furthermore, social support is not always effective, with evidence suggesting it can contribute to positive, negative, and indifferent adaptations to stress. As such, we do not know how social support influences adaptations to (...) stress in sport. The social identity approach may explain how social support can lead to both positive and negative adaptations to stress. Our purpose in this study was to explore how social support and social identities influence adaptations to stress in a Rugby Academy Programme. Using qualitative methods within a naturalistic research paradigm, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Rugby Academy co-ordinators and players, and four focus groups were conducted with teams of support staff. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, which generated seven sub-themes categorized into two higher-order analytical themes. Our results demonstrate that group-based perceptions of social support influence adaptations to stress. Specifically, whether social support influences positive, negative, or indifferent adaptations to stress depended on social factors influencing the nature of social support, and social factors influencing the provision and receipt of social support. These findings advance our understanding of how adaptations to stress are influenced by social support. Implications are offered for how organizations, teams, and practitioners can facilitate positive adaptations to stress in sport. (shrink)

Currently, it can be seen that the theory of mass narcissism is gaining popularity in various scientific circles. If narcissism was previously a part of psychoanalytic theory, then over time this concept became the subject of research by some philosophers. One of these researchers was Jean Baudrillard. This philosopher not only made up his own idea of modern society, but also demonstrated the fact that narcissism plays a rather significant role in it because many human desires and drives strongly resemble (...) what is commonly considered narcissism. This article attempts to show exactly how, from the point of view of the French thinker, the phenomenon of mass narcissism manifests itself in modern society. In addition, the difference between the classical understanding of narcissism in psychoanalytic theory and its more modern interpretation is considered. Such an approach can demonstrate how Baudrillard himself understands the phenomenon of mass narcissism, what exactly he puts into this concept and why, despite some similarities with classical psychoanalytic theories, it is not necessary to identify his idea of narcissism with the psychoanalytic understanding of this phenomenon. Starting from the philosopher’s ideas about the structure of modern society (about the influence of information technology on personality and the consequences that the growing philosophy of consumption brings for a person), it is possible to understand quite clearly why Baudrillard turned to this phenomenon and decided to use it to describe a modern person. (shrink)

The fundamental changes that took place at the beginning of the 21st century in all spheres of public life actualized the personalized trend of the modern personality, namely its social and professional development, which is associated with the concept of “career”. The purpose of the article is to characterize the pool of factors that determine a career as a socio-cultural phenomenon of modern society. Based on macro- and microsociological approaches, the parameters of career transformation are determined. Economic ones consist (...) in the transition from working professions to expert-type professions that require a high level of education and specialization. Technological - in the development of information technologies, which led to changes in the technical and technological component of social production and the growth of a separate social group of intellectual workers. The transformation of interests and value orientations of a person has led to a shift in the emphasis of personal performance from external signs to individualistic factors. The patterns of new realities in the world of work, which led to the transformation of the concept of career and new trends, are characterized. The first model includes the presence of higher education, intellectual work in the specialty and a fairly low level of income. The second model is based on ideas about the American dream and the unlimited possibilities of the individual, where the main component is a high material status and own business as a symbol of success. The third model is a highly paid professional with a high level of prestigious education and a good profession. A new type of career is defined - “polyvariant”. These days, success in career strategies requires constant professional development and gaining experience. Through the individualization and pluralization of lifestyles and consumption, people are more able to choose their own path to success, including various forms of life and career development. The tendencies of the spread of self-employment and the development of professional qualities in the career strategies of a modern person are determined. Through the individualization and pluralization of lifestyles and consumption, people are more able to choose their own path to success, including various forms of life and career development. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Coffee or Tea? The American Coffeehouse Individual Choice, Social Meaning.

The modern realities of life in Ukraine, plunged into war by the Russian Federation, as well as those countries that are in a state of ontological threat, with new force actualize the problem unfolding in the social plane (we are talking about the antinomy of “chaos – stability”). In other words, modern social cataclysms – COVID-19 and war – have disrupted the stability of everyday life. The presence of the threat of nuclear escalation of the international conflict expands the metaphysical (...) horizons of thanatological and suicidal problems, the aggravation of which can destroy the established order of the civilized world, which has found itself in a borderline situation. In view of the above, the purpose of this study is to clarify the essence of the phenomenon of chaos and social processes derived from it – the end, catastrophe, according to the philosophical views of the French thinker J.Baudrillard. Achieving the specified goal will contribute to the development of modern methods and technologies of social work in the community to minimize/overcome difficult life circumstances determined by the war situation. J.Baudrillard was deeply convinced that chaos is not completely opposed to rationality. The thinker believed that the dominance of rationality over reality is limited, because in reality it is not the subject who dominates the objective world, but the competition between the subject and the object. This study is focused on the actual existential problem of a person being in a borderline situation of chaos, determined by the reality of a thanatological situation, which enables the perspective of an ontological threat of a planetary scale, the origins of which are contained in the obsessive idea of total control, the realization of which leads to the disappearance of the social and the replacement of reality with an illusion, including even the illusion of security as a fundamental basis of the rescue economy, which is clearly observed in the ideology of the russian federation, which is based on the consumption of disaster in everyday life. The social work specialist’s awareness that chaos is not the end of everything (it is better to define this phenomenon as the end of the old order transformed into disorder, an example of which can be anomie), but the beginning of a new order, will directly contribute to the achievement of effective results in his professional activities in the community, in particular, in the direction of minimizing/overcoming the consequences of anomie as a type of chaos. (shrink)

While the image of the slave as the antithesis of the freeman is central to republican freedom, it is striking to note that slaves themselves have not contributed to how this condition is understood. The result is a one-sided conception of both freedom and slavery, which leaves republicanism unable to provide an equal and robust protection for historically outcast people. I draw on the work of Frederick Douglass – long overlooked as a significant contributor to republican theory – to show (...) one way why this is so. Focusing the American Revolution, the subsequent republican government established new political institutions to maintain the collective interests of the whole population. The political revolution was held in place by processes of public reason that reflected the values and ideas of the people that had rebelled. The black population, however, had not been part of this revolution. After emancipation, black Americans were required to accept terms of citizenship that had already been defined, leaving them socially dominated, subject to the prejudices and biases within the prevailing ideas of public discourse. Douglass argued that republican freedom under law is always dependent on a more fundamental revolution, that he calls a ‘radical revolution in thought’, in which the entire system of social norms and practices are reworked together by members of all constituent social groups – women and men, black and white, rich and poor – so that it reflects a genuinely collaborative achievement. Only then can we begin the republican project of contestatory freedom as independence or non-domination that today’s republicans take for granted. (shrink)

There is widespread consensus that present patterns of consumption could lead to the permanent impossibility of maintaining those patterns and, perhaps, the existence of the human race. While many patterns of consumption qualify as ‘sustainable’ there is one in particular that deserves greater attention: virtual consumption. We argue that virtual consumption — the experience of authentic consumptive experiences replicated by alternative means — has the potential to reduce the deleterious consequences of real consumption by (...) redirecting some consumptive behavior from shifting material states to shifting information states. (shrink)

Feminist anthropologists have evidenced the social and cultural aspects of motherhood and have challenged the universality of the nuclear family as the basis for residential and child-rearing practices. From a feminist anthropological perspective, the concept of the household has thus been redefined to capture the ways in which different principles of household recruitment and residence shape the activities and access to resources of women and men of different ages and status. This paper examines the relationship between household composition and (...) class='Hi'>coffee production in Ocotal Grande, a Popoluca community in the Sierra de Santa Marta in Southern Veracruz, Mexico. It shows that polygamous households are larger and have higher yields of coffee than other types of households. However, this does not mean that all members of the household profit equally from their contribution to coffee production. While some relationship exists between labor input and returns, the distribution of benefits is based on gender and age hierarchies and is open to conflict and dispute. (shrink)

Coffee and tea are two beverages commonly-consumed around the world. Therefore, there is much research regarding their physiological effects. However, less is known about their psychological meanings. Derived from a predicted lay association between coffee and arousal, we posit that exposure to coffee-related cues should increase arousal, even in the absence of actual ingestion, relative to exposure to tea-related cues. We further suggest that higher arousal levels should facilitate a concrete level of mental construal as conceptualized by (...) Construal Level Theory. In four experiments, we find that coffee cues prompted participants to see temporal distances as shorter and to think in more concrete, precise terms. Both subjective and physiological arousal explain the effects. We situate our work in the literature that connects food and beverage to cognition or decision-making. We also discuss the applied relevance of our results as coffee and tea are among the most prevalent beverages globally. (shrink)

Offering philosophical insights into the popular morning brew, _Coffee -- Philosophy for Everyone_ kick starts the day with an entertaining but critical discussion of the ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and culture of coffee. Matt Lounsbury of pioneering business Stumptown Coffee discusses just how good coffee can be Caffeine-related chapters cover the ethics of the coffee trade, the metaphysics of coffee and the centrality of the coffee house to the public sphere Includes a foreword by Donald (...) Schoenholt, President at Gillies Coffee Company. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Two concepts of consumption Historical background Why do we consume so much? How much do we need to consume? Consumption and the environment Are resources limited? The difference between nature and the environment.

The variety of devices and the socialization of consumption have decentralized access to online information which is not retrieved directly from media websites but through social networks. These same factors have driven user interest towards a wider range of both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ topics. The aim of this article is to identify the consumption of news on these topics among digital users in Spain. The methodology used is based on an analysis of the survey conducted as part of (...) the Digital News Report 2017. Following this analysis, a conclusion has been reached that the most popular hard news stories in Spain are those related to the local and regional community itself, and to health and education, while the most popular soft news stories relate to lifestyles and arts and culture. The analysis has revealed that increased interest in news and greater topic specialization result in more diversified use of sources, formats, and complementary routes. (shrink)

In his paper, ‘The Aroma of Coffee’, H. O. Mounce wants to expose what he takes to be a deep prejudice in philosophy, one which is at work in our culture more generally. Philosophers are reluctant to admit that there is anything which passes beyond human understanding. Of course, they are quite ready to admit that there are plenty of things that they fail to understand but this they would say simply happens to be the case. It does not (...) mean that what they fail to understand is something which is beyond human understanding. Thus even when they fail to understand something, that ‘something’ remains, in principle, within the reach of their understanding. For Mounce this prejudice flies in the face of what is platitudinously obvious: that there is much that passes beyond human understanding. (shrink)