Applying a philosophical perspective to the concept of loyalty, I consider how the commodification of education may affect the ties between people. Using both theories of brand loyalty and Albert Hirschman's distinction between exit and voice, I examine how human loyalties may be formed in general and also in the field of education. I conclude that the overemphasis on ‘vertical’ loyalty demanded by marketisation can undermine and may, under certain conditions, erase the very structures of ‘horizontal’ (...) class='Hi'>loyalty essential for the civic arena. These structures are also necessary for schools to function in their civic task of educating the future citizenry. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to enrich the care ethics framework by uncovering the relationship between care and loyalty, offering insights into the complexities of children’s experiences of care in school. Through twelve interviews with pupils in sixth grade, I analyse the intersection of loyalty and care. The findings reveal two dimensions, conceptualized as internal care loyalty and external care loyalty. Internal care loyalty involves the relationship between the one-caring and the cared-for, shaping the (...) (1) motivation, (2) understanding, and (3) reciprocity of care. External care loyalty extends beyond this relationship, encompassing (1) social inclusion and (2) conflict support. Employing a perspective grounded in care ethics, deepens the understanding of the interconnection between care and loyalty among peers and actualize the question of partiality in an educational context. This article blends feminist philosophical theory with qualitative empiricism, shedding light on the complexity and nuances of caring in peer-relations. (shrink)

Purpose Online education can facilitate inclusive societal development. In emerging countries with low investment per capita in school and universities, it helps students overcome infrastructure constraints to continue their learning and reach their full potential, and it helps educational institutes to save costs and improve quality of learning. This study aims to develop and empirically evaluate a conceptual model for predicting digital loyalty (DL) among participants in online accounting courses, as a key lever to execute an inclusive societal development (...) agenda and ensure sustainability of education in an emerging country. Design/methodology/approach The study used quantitative primary data collected from survey questionnaires administered to 167 respondents in India and employed partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS SEM) to analyse the data. Findings We observed that perceived learning (PL) significantly mediated the relationship between learning performance (LP) and digital loyalty to an online accounting programme. Research limitations/implications Students’ attitudes and preferences have changed remarkably in recent years. Online education encourages participants to complete their courses, learn new and relevant skills, improve their quality of life and recommend online education to others. This facilitates an inclusive, open society with opportunities for all. The results of this study have certain implications. First, as a novel extension of Abrantes et al.’s (2007) work, the DL construct added a new key dimension to the model. Second, the use of PLS Predict introduced methodological rigour to measures such as R2 and blindfolding processes, improving the understanding of the PLS Predict algorithm’s application to prediction studies. Practical implications The study established PL as a mediating variable in the associations between LP and DL and between pedagogical affect (PA) and DL. These findings have practical implications for course design and execution programmes in educational institutes, especially those aiming to democratise education and ensure inclusivity. Online education service providers should focus on equipping students with updated, cross-functional and integrated skills. Originality/value Online education can foster an inclusive and open society by overcoming the twin limitations of geographical distance and infrastructure constraints resulting from scarce learning resources, especially in emerging markets, such as India. The study makes an original contribution by collecting participant data for online accounting courses in India to establish clearly the antecedents of DL. This study empirically demonstrates the role of LP as the most significant antecedent of PL and DL. (shrink)

This essay addresses the question: given the flattening out of the cultural hierarchy that was the vestige of colonialism and nation-building, is there anything that might be uniquely common about the common school in this postmodern age? By ‘uniquely common’ I do not mean those subjects that all schools might teach, such as reading or arithmetic. Nor do I mean just subjects that might serve a larger public purpose, but that might be taught in either publicly supported or privately (...) supported schools. Rather I mean subjects that speak to the shaping of a child’s identity as a member of a common community in the way that the common school was intended to create when its commission was to develop and maintain a single national or colonial identity and loyalty. I argue that there is a kind of connectivity that common schools should foster even as the nation-building and colonial past is rejected, and that this connectivity is what is common about the common schools. I argue that any concept of culture that merely flattens out the normative dimension of educating is deficient as an educational theory, and propose a conception of culture that is educationally productive. (shrink)

The consideration of how societies hold together and function as one with the coexistence of potentially conflicting ideas and commitments remains a topic of crucial importance. This paper advocates a renewed interest in the subject of loyalty as one of the bonds tying us together in society. It acknowledges that the nature of loyalty has often been seen as problematic, particularly where ties to some affect our abilities to make moral judgements. It purports that the area of conflicting (...) loyalties needs greater philosophical attention within our understanding of the moral life. Using two literary exemplars, Antigone and Lord of the Flies, the paper explores how loyalties play a fundamental part in our psyche and our social lives. With this in mind, it suggests that greater consideration should be paid to how schools should support children in coping with competing loyalties and with making judgements required by loyalty claims. (shrink)

Drawing substantially on the arguments put forward by the contributors to this Special Issue, this final article examines the two main purposes of the common school in contemporary western societies: to develop a set of shared values and a unified sense of citizenship, on the one hand, and to iron out disadvantage and equalise opportunities, on the other. Four main justifications for the common school are discussed—its symbolic value, its compatibility with liberal values, its inclusiveness and its provision of practical (...) opportunities to learn to live together. Nevertheless, the common school faces a number of challenges, including how much freedom of choice to allow parents, how to interpret the principle of equality in practice, how to devise a common curriculum that meets the needs of all students and how to respond to the apparent inequalities of the neighbourhood school. It is argued that the biggest dilemma facing the common school is a cultural one: that is, finding a balance between the need to respect the diverse cultural identities of its students and the need to develop a common set of loyalties and shared national identity at the same time. An examination of the case of Muslims in England suggests that intentionally or otherwise the common school is still in the business of assimilating minorities into a new identity through processes very similar to those of the melting pot. The article concludes by warning that continuing this policy may result in stronger resistance in the future. (shrink)

This paper takes as its starting point the phenomenon of young lawyers in ethical crisis. The teaching of ethics in the classroom and the ethos and environment of the law firm have created dissonance: knowing what it is right to do but being unable to do it. In examining this phenomenon, we develop the idea of commitment as a source of duty, loyalty, and courage that enables someone to accept and overcome reluctance to act ethically. Our conceptual framework combines (...) two models: Fineman’s radical view that vulnerability is universal, but ameliorated by the assets available to the individual, and Rest’s four component model that provides a taxonomy of precursors for ethical action and resilience. We consider how the structures and the relationships between law schools, regulators and law firms, acting in combination, support or degrade ethical resilience and development of a commitment to ethical action. We close by considering how changes to the structure planned by one regulator in England and Wales deplete the assets available to the young lawyer and thereby the profession. (shrink)

We examined developmental changes in British children’s (8- to 10-year-olds) and adolescents’ (13- to 15-year-olds,N = 340; FemaleN = 171, 50.3%) indirect bystander reactions (i.e., judgments about whether to get help and from whom when witnessing social exclusion) and their social-moral reasoning regarding their reactions to social exclusion. We also explored, for the first time, how the group membership of the excluder and victim affect participants’ reactions. Participants read a hypothetical scenario in which they witnessed a peer being excluded from (...) a school club by another peer. We manipulated the group membership of the victim (either British or an immigrant) and the group membership of the excluder (either British or an immigrant). Participants’ likelihood of indirect bystander reactions decreased from childhood into adolescence. Children were more likely to get help from a teacher or an adult than getting help from a friend, whereas adolescents were more likely to get help from a friend than getting help from a teacher or an adult. For both indirect bystander reactions, children justified their likelihood of responding by referring to their trust in their teachers and friends. Adolescents were more likely to refer to group loyalty and dynamics, and psychological reasons. The findings support and extend the Social Reasoning Developmental (SRD) approach by showing the importance of group processes with age in shaping children’s judgments about how to respond indirectly by asking for help from others, when they are bystanders in a situation that involves exclusion. The findings have practical implications for combating social exclusion and promoting prosocial bystander behavior in schools. (shrink)

For Israel, the demographic significance of Christians in sub-Saharan Africa presents an opportunity to exchange development aid, trade deals and military agreements for votes in global forums. In this article, the author examines the idea of Israel as a trustworthy diplomatic partner of African countries by considering the impact of Zionism on Christian views. The author drew on media articles for examples of initiatives with African countries, and on reports, calls and minutes of global bodies to reflect on ecclesial and (...) spiritual identities. In contrast to the prevailing perception among Christians in Africa, Zionism cannot be associated with liberation theology. Loyalty to Zionism undermines indigenous spiritual notions, the ideal of an authentic African identity, and Christianity itself. There is an urgent need for theological schools, church leaders and clergy to familiarise themselves with the reality and take the lead in critically assessing and reviewing any hermeneutics and beliefs that inform support for Zionism. Contribution: This article highlights the threat of Israel’s diplomacy in Africa to religious identity, integrity and freedom. As an interdisciplinary, contextual contribution to the sociology of religion, it reveals that loyalty to Israel, a Zionist State, jeopardises Christ’s message of inclusive compassion, justice and equality. (shrink)

This chapter examines the normative question of whether the cultivation of patriotic and nationalist ideals and attachments should have a central place in programs of civic education. It argues that the most useful way to draw the distinction between patriotism and nationalism focuses on their respective objects of loyalty; patriotism is loyalty to a country while nationalism is loyalty to a people. This way of distinguishing between patriotism and nationalism forms the background for the discussion of a (...) variety of instrumental and non-instrumental arguments for cultivating patriotic and nationalist political attachments in schools. It also examines an assumption common to these programs of civic education: that a shared identity is crucial for citizens to have a sense of belonging that supports social stability and desirable forms of political change. The final part of the chapter introduces a number of alternative educational proposals that aim to avoid some of the difficulties faced by patriotic and nationalist strategies. These alternative proposals aim to encourage good citizenship while taking into account new challenges generated by the political, social, and economic conditions of an increasingly globalized world. (shrink)

Employees of large blue chip corporations in the 1950s through the mid-1960s demonstrated great loyalty to their employers. In return, those employers provided cradle to grave job security and benefits for their workers. During the 1980s, however, this social contract between employees and employers seems to have undergone a change. The norms of the organization man of the earlier period passed from use and a new normative framework seems to have developed. The norm of loyalty on the part (...) of both parties seems to have passed from practice. Employers would now terminate employees if it was in their short term interest to do so, while employees began to move from company to company, no longer making a career with one employer. Many writers have attributed this new employment relationship to the dynamics of the times, as we move from modern to late modern/early post-modern times. This paper reports the findings of a pilot qualitative study done with graduating seniors from an AACSB accredited business school. The subjects were asked to write self-reflective essays on the following themes: Given the nature of the new employment contract, are careers a vestige of the past? How do you feel about such concepts as career self reliance and career resiliency? Do you feel "at risk" in the new world of work? If so why, if not why not? If so, how do you plan to deal with it? The paper reports the critical response patterns of these graduating seniors and draws insights and conclusions from the literature illuminating the student reflections. (shrink)

In this book I argue that school integration is not a proxy for educational justice. I demonstrate that the evidence consistently shows the opposite is more typically the case. I then articulate and defend the idea of voluntary separation, which describes the effort to redefine, reclaim and redirect what it means to educate under preexisting conditions of segregation. In doing so, I further demonstrate how voluntary separation is consistent with the liberal democratic requirements of equality and citizenship. The position I (...) defend is not opposed to integration but rather is a justified response to the daily experience of frustration and disappointment with a system that has failed members of marginalized groups for too long. I argue that most voluntary separation experiments in education, far from being motivated by a sense of racial, cultural or religious exclusion, are in fact driven among other things by a desire for a quality education, not to mention community membership and self respect. As such, voluntary separation represents a morally robust pragmatic strategy that is able to answer liberal challenges concerning involuntary stratification, ethnocentrism and democratic deliberation. (shrink)

The teaching of religion in public schools – whether the subject should or should not be included in the school curricula, what the content structure should be and which approach the teacher should adopt – led to various ethical dilemmas and conflicts in many regions of the world. Our article aims at reviewing, from the perspectives of numerous authors, the different topics as well as the ways in which aspects related to the impact of religious teaching and to specific (...) approaches could be taught to economics students in a democratic society. At the same time, we underline different dilemmas and preoccupations resulting from religious values in the organizational management and in marketing, but also the synergies that could be capitalized from this standpoint, in order to obtain a competitive advantage in a context where diversity, and religious diversity in particular, is a reality that gets more and more obvious, while a good capitalization of it can bring forth loyalty in organizations and competitive advantages on the market. (shrink)

The last years of the 20th Century have been somewhat contradictory with respect to values like loyalty, trust or truthfulness. On the one hand, (often implicitly, but sometimes very explicitly), self-interest narrowly defined seems to be the dominant force in the business world, both in theory and in practice. On the other hand, alliances, networks and other forms of cooperation have shown that self-interest has to be at least "enlightened".The academic literature has reflected both points of view, but frequently (...) in an ambiguous way, since the concepts of loyalty and trust are somewhat elusive and equivocal. This paper attempts to analyze the concept of loyalty in depth, examining the different conceptions about the word that can be found in the literature. We begin by going to the management classics (specifically, Follett, Barnard and Simon), and we then turn to the anthropological approach of Pérez López (1993), with its built-in ethical analysis, and show how trust and loyalty are crucial to the development of organizations. We end by suggesting in what ways loyalty and trust can be created and fostered in organizations. (shrink)

Dual loyalty issues confront health and welfare professionals in immigration detention centres in Australia. There are four apparent ways they deal with the ethical tensions. One group provides services as required by their employing body with little questioning of moral dilemmas. A second group is more overtly aware of the conflicts and works in a mildly subversive manner to provide the best possible care available within a harsh environment. A third group retreats by relinquishing employment in the detention setting. (...) A fourth group is activist in intent and actions. Derived from research and ethnography conducted in Australia, the article explores the moral dilemmas confronting those who are duty-bound by professional codes of ethics while also bound by loyalty to their employers and silenced by confidentiality statements. It provides particular focus on psychiatry, nursing and social work. We conclude by speculating whether a politics of compassion and acts of solidarity can forge a pathway through the ethical terrain. In doing so we draw upon human rights considerations as well as on the works of Joan Tronto and Elisabeth Porter. (shrink)

In the wake of business scandals at Enron, Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing, Tyco—the list grows daily—there is an increasing sense among employees, executives, investors, and the public that the “anything goes” culture of the New Economy is over. Today, businesses must act responsibly, transparently, and with integrity. Using in-depth case studies and examples from over 50 companies that range from Starbucks to Citigroup, General Motors to General Electric, DuPont to Dell, Ira A. Jackson, former director of the Center for Business (...) and Government at Harvard’s Kennedy School, shows the quantifiable and enduring business advantage to “doing the right thing.” Companies that give back to their employees and society—focusing on values and purpose as well as profitability—often gain commpetitive advantage and improve their brand image, consumer loyalty, and employee satisfaction. Identifying seven principles of making values integral to business processes and practices, PROFITS WITH PRINCIPLES opens the door to a new kind of capitalism, providing a wealth of practical recommendations companies of all sizes can model their own efforts after. (shrink)

Cosmopolis A Review of Cosmopolitics -/- 2015/3-4 -/- Editorial Dominique de Courcelles & Paul Ghils -/- This issue addresses the general concept of “spirituality” as it appears in various cultural contexts and timeframes, through contrasting ideological views. Without necessarily going back to artistic and religious remains of primitive men, which unquestionably show pursuits beyond the biophysical dimension and illustrate practices seeking to unveil the hidden significance of life and death, the following papers deal with a number of interpretations covering a (...) wide field extending from belief to theory, from emotions to concepts, from the wisdom of personal experience to the most sophisticated doctrines. Spirit and spirituality are indeed many-faceted notions. They may refer to the intricate world of the interacting spirits which inhabit living beings in animistic traditions, without excluding a “grand force” linking human beings within a dynamic whole on which their very existence rely . They also bear upon more atomistic and either/or approaches of Western philosophy, which have become embodied in Cartesian dualism against a monotheist background, to the point of freezing the essence of individuals and culminating in the extreme individualism that characterizes our contemporaries. However, this equally refers to the opposite conception of materialism, across times and cultures, from ancient India and Greece (Cārvāka, originally known as Lokāyata, or some Buddhist doctrines for the former, Democritus or Lucretius for the latter) to more contemporary materialistic schools, whether modern or postmodern. -/- The following papers look at the contrasting forms of the philosophy and spirit of the human factor set into a whole, with no artificial disjoint between the psychical and the physical levels, as Wittgenstein put it: “And how can a body have a soul?”. This approach is not unrelated to the notion of anthropocene examined in a recent issue of Cosmopolis, with provides another comprehensive framework open to a spiritual life emerging from the very environment that generated it. -/- *** The first section of this issue was edited by Dominique de Courcelles, director at the National French Research Centre (CNRS), whom we wish to thank for collecting relevant studies relating to the religious and political questions, with a view to focusing on the war of ideas inevitably waged behind images, concepts and perceptions, taking an asymmetrical approach. To the extent that they are mindful of global/local interactions and include representations, opinions and beliefs, such disciplines as philosophy, philology, history and social sciences can provide useful studies accounting for new practices in geopolitics and a fair diplomacy. -/- In her introduction, Dominique de Courcelles first poses the question of how the religious and political spheres interrelate, with their corresponding religious demands and humanistic values. She then suggests that the right question today may be breaking with the philosophy of human rights concerned with the defense of human beings against the hazards of arbitrary politics or the instrumental use of religion, in favour of a fair philosophy of humankind, a new humanism. This would consist in recognizing a common loyalty of all towards one interhuman, not only interstate community, to protect it from both the autonomy demanded by individuals and the instrumental use of minorities. -/- Considering the fact of diversity, so important today in terms of both politics and religion, Abdelhai Azarkan looks at the conditions under which tolerance could obtain the double status of right and duty. He revisits to two philosophers, John Locke and Voltaire, who thought about it from the historical reality of religious wars. The former made tolerance into a right, basing his analysis on the political-legal level, while the latter saw tolerance as a duty, from an analysis based on ethical-political criteria. -/- Mathieu Guidère examines what he calls semantic denominationalism, a term which implies religious attributes and identities, whichever national loyalties or personal belonging they may have at the same time. Since the early 2000s, thie phenomenon has expanded tremendously, compounded by the “war on terror” and the over media-oriented terrorist actions. Denominational expressions act as formal names for ordinary and high-profile players in domestic and foreign policies of democratic states. These systems reveal a receding secularization, while the powerful comeback of religious identities signals the failure of nation-states and the weakening of the humanist spirit. -/- Barbara De Poli retraces the history of a contemporary jihadism claiming its Islamic essence and asserting the truth of genuine coranic principles via the war on infidels, with a view to restoring the Caliphate. After defining the term jihad, she shows that even if this contemporary jiadism is spreading in the Muslim world, it radically departs from Islamic law and the received use of the term jihad, in so far as it is rooted in the early radical thinking of Islamic ideologues in the 20th century, starting with with Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. This current has been fueled by by international conflicts since the outbreak of the war in Afghanistan, in which the so-called Western countries bear a major responsibility. -/- Abderrazak Sayadi starts from the Tunisian experience to ask the question of humanist values and democracy within the relationships between the religious and political spheres. As a historian of religion, he is brought to demystify certain islamic principles and to paying attention to the reform of law, seeing the separation of religion and politics as a precondition to a successful democratic gamble and the establishment of a renewed humanism. -/- Dominique de Courcelles reminds us that getting a better knowledge of narrations and words makes it possible to better understand how logical and rhetorical thinking works for those who wage an asymetriccal war, re-enchanting and mystifying the world to better take control. As soon as 1932, an exchange of letters between Einstein and Freud made it clear that, in order to free man from fatality and war, education understood as culture was fundamental. Such illustrations as the exécution of Oussama ben Laden and the Caliph’s speech in Mossoul show that a premiminary analysis of images and words is essential to a fair diplomacy conducted by people from civil society, whose culture and wisdom allow justice and force to speak together and better resist war. -/- Marcel Boisard thinks that on the day the guns fall silent, exhausted by war, we will not return to the state borders that have prevailed for a century as an outcome of the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. It is time to prepare the “day after”, which will be a huge challenge. To this end, a summit of Middle-East nations is urgently needed to globally decide the fate of those peoples. On the condition that we know who the enemy is and accept to name it, to understand the history of the countries, groups and alliances, and to question any false or self-interested sense of certainty. -/- *** In the second section, Paul Schafer provides the author’s experiences to explain how culture, from the artistic to the biological, has the power to to open the doors to spirituality, from the inner self to the global environment. He asks himself whether a relative permanence of spirituality can arise from the specific moments that characterize it. Laurent Ledoux synthesizes the conclusion of a symposium held on 22 January 2015 on the links between philosophy and management, on the basis of the spiritual dimension conceived as “natural” and the answers it may suggest to the issues that face the organizations in a “contemporaniversal” world. Jacques Rifflet makes that question in a secular perspective, based on the wellsprings of personal commitment before it can be caught by any religious creed or scientific theory. In this sense spirituality, in alliance with reason, both inspires human consciousness and illuminates its destiny. Sami Aldeeb asks himself whether Islam can be reconciled with human rights. Caught between the belief in an absolute and final Word descended from the sky, and evidence showing that any religion is the creation of a given culture and a society situated in time and space, the Makkan and … contexts et médinois call for differentiated, if not opposite answers and exegeses. Bernard Carmona provides the outline of a dialogical framework, which is known to be a feature of debates between the various philosophical schools of classical India, exemplified here by the transdisciplinary perspective of debates within a Buddhist context. *** The articles not focused on the previous topic include a study by Landry Signé on China’s strategy, competing with the United States to control African resources. The author deals with the specific case of China’s rapprochement with Southern Sudan since Sudan was broken up. In the last paper, Goran Fejić and Rada Iveković, return to the essential role that women should play, and comments upon the role of some international legal instruments related in particular to the elimination of all forms of discrimination. The perspective is transnational and transethnic and is based on secular criteria, as regards nation-building and more generally society-building. Considering the persistence of widespread violence, whether in times of armed conflict or in times of peace, the question remains whether it is possible to fully implement rights and justice instruments. (shrink)

The first comprehensive analysis of the philosophical issues raised by the hijab controversy in France, this book also conducts a dialogue between contemporary Anglo-American and French political theory and defends a progressive republican solution to so-called multicultural conflicts in contemporary societies. It critically assesses the official republican philosophy of laïcité which purported to justify the 2004 ban on religious signs in schools. Laïcité is shown to encompass a comprehensive theory of republican citizenship, centered on three ideals: equality (secular neutrality (...) of the public sphere), liberty (individual autonomy and emancipation) and fraternity (civic loyalty to the community of citizens). Challenging official interpretations of laïcité, the book then puts forward a critical republicanism which does not support the hijab ban, yet upholds a revised interpretation of three central republican commitments: secularism, non-domination and civic solidarity. Thus, it articulates a version of secularism which squarely addresses the problem of status quo bias - the fact that Western societies are historically not neutral towards all religions. It also defends a vision of female emancipation which rejects the coercive paternalism inherent in the regulation of religious dress, yet does not leave individuals unaided in the face of religious and secular, patriarchal and ethnocentric domination. Finally, the book outlines a theory of immigrant integration which places the burden of civic integration on basic socio-political institutions, rather than on citizens themselves. Critical republicanism proposes an entirely new approach to the management of religious and cultural pluralism, centred on the pursuit of the progressive ideal of non-domination in existing, non-ideal societies. (shrink)

This paper makes the two following claims: 1) The legal dimension of loyalty within organizations goes beyond duties. The governance design aimed at ensuring loyalty may strongly affect standards that characterize each layer of the organization. The interaction between standards of duty and the governance dimension of loyalty should, therefore, be more tailored to specific legal forms and their functional correlation with ownership and financing. 2) There is a greater divergence than has so far been acknowledged between (...) the function of loyalty in vertically integrated firms and in networks of small firms. This difference, created by the relationship between the duty and the governance dimensions, should have repercussions on the definitions of legal standards. In particular, it should reflect the different relationships between hierarchy, monitoring, and loyalty and the choice between prohibitory, authorization-based, and compensatory rules. The analysis concentrates on the key variables that may affect the choice between vertical and horizontal monitoring to ensure compliance with loyal behavior in two polar models: hierarchical firms and networks of small firms. It reveals the importance of considering the governance design when defining duties of loyalty and related standards to evaluate party-related transactions in both cases but, at the same time, the necessity of using different interpretive categories. (shrink)

In this article I argue that while an attachment to one's country is both natural and even partially justifiable, cultivating loyal patriotism in schools is untenable insofar as it conflicts with the legitimate aims of education. These aims include the epistemological competence necessary for ascertaining important truths germane to the various disciplines; the cultivation of critical thinking skills ; and developing the capacity for economic self‐reliance. I argue that loyal patriotism may result in a myopic understanding of history, an (...) unhealthy attitude of superiority relative to other cultures, and a coerced sense of attachment to one's homeland. (shrink)

Muʽtazilah is one of the kalām schools in which intellectual freedom is seen the most and therefore divergences within the sect are the most common. Although al-usûl al-ḥamsa/five principles constitute the main framework on which Muʽtazilah has agreed, opposing ideas have emerged within the sect on the principles of ʽadl (divine justice) and al-manzilah bayna al-manzilatayn and on the issues of nature and imamah. As a matter of fact, Muʽtâzilī scholars wrote many refutations to each other on the disputed (...) issues. One of those who have opposing views within the Muʽtazilah is Muḥammad b. Shabīb al-Baṣrī (d. mid 3rd/9th century), who lived between the end of 2nd and the middle of the 3rd century of hijra. Ibn Shabīb is one of the students of Ibrāhīm Ibn Sayyār al-Naẓẓām (d. 231/845), who was one of the leading scholars of Muʽtazilah. He initially opposed the principle of al-manzilah bayna al-manzilatayn, while he was Muʽtezilî, and accepted the Murji’ah approach on this issue. However, after he accepted the idea of irjā’, he continued his loyalty to Muʽtazilah with regard to the principles of tawhīd (divine unity) and ʽadl. Ibn Shabīb, who had a theological assembly of his own and is respected by the people in Baṣra, was an important scholar who stands out with his comprehensive knowledge of religious and philosophical schools of his time. In the doxographical tradition, his adoption of Murjī’ ideas is generally emphasized, except that he has not been referred to much. However, when the sources of kalām are examined meticulously, it is understood that he influenced many Muslim theologians with his works and views and that he was a source for them regarding many topics. The most important reason for this is that he was one of the first scholars to defend the Islamic belief against various philosophical and religious movements. Naturally, this situation provided him with a wide knowledge of religious and philosophical trends. Considering the quotations made from him, it is understood that he recorded this accumulation in a doxographical work. Another remarkable feature of Ibn Shabīb is that he was one of the first scholars to write in the genre of Kitāb al-Tawhīd. It is possible to see both contextual and methodological effects of this work in the quotations and narratives of Al-Māturīdī's book with the same name. What makes him different is that he adopts Muʽtazilī and Murjī’ ideas at the same time and develops a unique discourse on the subjects of grave sins and waʽīd (divine warning). Although he was raised in a strong tradition of thought such as Muʽtazilah, his ability to oppose his sect and his teacher Al-Naẓẓām and also to develop a different definition of faith despite accepting the doctrine of irjā’, makes him stand out as an original and intellectual personality. His different definition of faith is important in that it represents a more moderate approach to the issue of takfīr. For, he drew an encompassing framework based on the Quran and the Sunnah regarding the definition of faith and the conditions of takfīr, thus, he tried to preserve the unity of Muslims. He did not consider the denial of controversial issues that are not explicitly included in the Quran and Sunnah as a reason for takfīr. With this attitude, Ibn Shabīb took an important approach in ensuring social peace and free thought. In this article, all the information contained in Muʽtazilī sources, and doxographical works related to the life, scientific personality and theological views of Ibn Shabīb are gathered and analyzed, and then his theological thought is reconstructed based on these data. From this point of view, identifications and evaluations have been made regarding the issues that make him different and unique in the history of Muslim thought. (shrink)

How do individuals respond when they perceive that their family business has been built upon unethical business conduct? Drawing on an expanded version of Hirschman’s typology of generic responses to declining situations (Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1970), which includes responses of Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and Neglect, we offer a model that predicts probability of intended response behavior as a function of normative obligation (i.e., what one (...) perceives ought to be done), managerial discretion (i.e., what one perceives can be done), and successor commitment to the firm. The model is tested on 124 business school students exposed to a scenario depicting an inherited ethical dilemma occurring in a family business from Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons, and shows support for elements of the proposed framework. Most notable is a significant negative relationship between normative firm-directed commitment and the response of Neglect. (shrink)

In addition to the traditional reliance on rules and codes in regulating the conduct of military personnel, most of today’s militaries put their money on character building in trying to make their soldiers virtuous. Especially in recent years it has time and again been argued that virtue ethics, with its emphasis on character building, provides a better basis for military ethics than deontological ethics or utilitarian ethics. Although virtue ethics comes in many varieties these days, in many texts on military (...) ethics dealing with the subject of military virtues the Aristotelian view on virtues is still pivotal. Developing virtues is by some authors seen as the best way to prevent misconduct by military personnel, it being considered superior to rules or codes of conduct imposed from above. The main argument these authors offer is that these solutions are impotent when no one is around, and lack the flexibility often thought necessary in today’s world. Finally, rules and codes try to condition behavior, leaving less room for personal integrity. At first sight, then, there is a great deal to say in favor of virtue ethics as being the best way of enhancing the chances of soldiers behaving morally. However, this preference for steering conduct by means of promoting certain desirable dispositions is not without any problems that, as it stands, are hardly ever addressed. To begin with, there are a few practical concerns. For instance, even if we assume that military virtues can assist military personnel to do their work in a morally sound manner, it is still not clear to what extent virtues can, in fact, be taught to them. It is an assumption of virtue ethics that they can, but is this really the case? And if so, how should they be taught? – virtues are supposedly developed by practicing them, yet how much room is there for practicing virtues in for instance the ethics education as followed in military academies and school battalions? Secondly, it appears that the traditional military virtues, such as honor, loyalty, courage, and obedience, are, especially in their common interpretation, mainly beneficial to colleagues and the organization, not so much to the local population of the countries military personnel are deployed to. Changes in the military’s wider environment have led to a shift from traditional of self-defense tasks to new, more complex tasks, and especially in today’s missions one could expect that the proper virtues are not necessarily solely the more martial ones. (shrink)

This essay investigates Josiah Royce's sustained interest in the Platonic dialogues by focusing not only on Royce's explicit commentary on Socrates and Plato but also on significant philosophical connections between Royce and these figures. In section 1, we explain the nature of loyalty according to Royce and how Socratic loyalty exemplifies Royce's ideas in both evident and surprising ways. In section 2, we claim that Royce's treatment of “lost causes” (particularly truth as a lost cause) relates to Socrates' (...) dedication to the logos; the Platonic dialogues are reinvestigated in order to make this point. In section 3, we explain the nature of “cause” both in Royce's thought and in the Platonic dialogues in order to see how loyalty to a cause culminates in the art of wise living—Socrates' philosophical practice. (shrink)

When loyalty is discussed, a very rare thing in recent years, it is sometimes listed as one of the virtues and just as often derided. Its relationship to the virtues, or to the other virtues, is difficult to discern, and that is at least partly because the role that judgement plays in loyalty seems odd. The argument of this paper is that there is a core value to loyalty, and that understanding this core value is of critical (...) importance in understanding the virtues despite the fact that loyalty is not itself one of them. I shall suggest at the end of the paper that it is the raw material of the virtues and of at least some vices. (shrink)

While communities engaged in liberatory struggles have valued group loyalty and condemned betrayal, loyalty itself may be problematic, because remaining loyal to a community may require that one refrain from deconstructing the group identity on which the community is based. This essay investigates what loyalty is and whether loyalty is a virtue, and considers why, if loyalty is indeed a virtue, it may be one that is difficult to maintain in a context of oppression.

In England and Wales we have had a National Curriculum since 1988. How can it have survived so long without aims to guide it? This IMPACT pamphlet argues that curriculum planning should begin not with a boxed set of academic subjects of a familiar sort, but with wider considerations of what schools should be for. We first work out a defensible set of wider aims backed by a well-argued rationale. From these we develop sub-aims constituting an aims-based curriculum. Further (...) detail is provided here on one of the most central educational aims, to do with equipping each child to live a flourishing personal and civic life. [A later, more detailed account of an aims-based curriculum is available in Reiss, M and White J <An Aims-based Curriculum: the significance of human flourishing for schools> Institute of Education Press 2013]. (shrink)

This volume explores at length the contours of an important and troubling virtue -- its cognates, contrasts, and perversions; its strengths and weaknesses; its awkward relations with universal morality; its oppositional form and limits; as well as the ways in which it functions invarious associative connections, such as friendship and familial relations, organizations and professions.

This work by an accomplished and respected comparative philosopher criticizes the Western ideology of individualism from the perspective of a Confucian morality of the family. Individualism is a name for the Enlightenment era ideology of the autonomous individual. The philosophical pillars of this ideology are Locke and especially Kant, and it runs through practically all modern moral philosophy. It is the moral psychology of classical liberalism, no less than of its libertarian and communitarian critics. They are different politically, but ontologically (...) of a piece. Individual selves—rational, calculating, selfish, autonomous—are what we are. Rosemont thinks this ideology is philosophically wrong, morally, politically, and ecologically destructive, but also optional. We sometimes feel painted into a corner where the only alternatives seem to be unrestrained freedom or totalitarian dictatorship. Moral philosophy still awaits the end of the Cold War. It would be good for people to understand that there are more options. Rosemont thinks Confucianism is one of them—a Confucianism for post-modern or even post-Western Westerners, with an ideology of the family that Rosemont thinks is more amenable than indigenous alternatives to our moral and ecological crises. “The vision of classical Confucianism can be reclaimed today with its integrity basically intact.” Rosemont advances two points. First, Confucian moral psychology conceives of the person as the bearer of roles. We are our roles as the onion is its leaves, without a an essential core self. Placing roles at the center of moral psychology eliminates the value of impersonal rules or universal principles. There are many ways to be a good father, teacher, friend, or son. Moral decency acquires an almost aesthetic quality, as our approach to roles (our own and those of others) expresses such qualities as zest, grace, or tenderness. His second point is that the moral center of Confucian philosophy is the family. The family is largely ignored in Western ethical tradition. Plato wanted to eliminate family life for his guardians. Kant, Bentham, and Mill have nothing useful to say about the family. For Rosemont the family is the first and best school for morality. It is there, if at all, that we learn to love, trust, cooperate, and obey. Rosemont’s best pages describe the important Confucian concept of family reverence (xiao). The gist is unswerving loyalty to parents, obligations extending even beyond death. It is easy for Western people to misunderstand that. Confucian tradition has a carefully worked out idea of filial reverence, and it should not be dismissed with a label (paternalistic, dogmatic, Asiatic). Obedience is expected, but not servility. In the inter-generational family, the child obeys the parents, but also sees parents obeying grandparents. Remonstrance is expected when appropriate. Deference motivated by gratitude can be genuinely appreciative without fawning, and dissent can remain respectful and polite. Rosemont believes that filial reverence is a way of life as open to anyone today as it was to Chinese two thousand years ago. Confucianism is a relentlessly secular philosophy. It entails practically no theological or metaphysical commitments, and contains little if anything to offend modern scientific sensibilities. This moral philosophy is at once remote (from individualism) and close, familiar, a fairly straightforward account of how we actually live our lives. Rosemont carefully argues that Confucian ideas of family are flexible enough to accommodate progressive ideals, and may even be our best hope against sexism, racism, homophobia, and other anti-humanistic altitudes and behaviors. He urges this version of Confucianism as a human-centered spirituality for a global civilization suspicious of discredited universalism. All cultures are made of families. How alien can they be? Respect for and accommodation with diversity begins in the family, when people learn from infancy to enjoy contributing to the well-being of others. While it would be wrong to expect Western people to abandon their Greek or Abrahamic heritage, those values might be reordered in light of Confucian thought, which deserves to be better understood in the West. A traditional Confucian might be baffled and dismayed by things that pass for normal in modern families, but our families could be better at what they have to be anyway by absorbing Confucian wisdom. There is a growing body of literature on Confucianism and virtue ethics. It is worth noting that Rosemont’s thought is probably the leading alternative to this paradigm in comparative moral philosophy. He takes an uncompromisingly critical attitude toward this particular effort to build a bridge from West to East by attributing to the Confucians a Western virtue ethics, which is, he thinks, objectionably individualistic in all its usual forms. (shrink)

This paper investigates the relationship between two outcomes of relationship marketing – affective commitment and behavioral loyalty – and consumers' unethical behavior. The main objective of the study is to assess whether affective commitment and behavioral loyalty to a store translate into more ethical behavior towards that store, controlling for the variables of age, gender, and ethical beliefs. The study does not rely on a single measurement tool, but is based on ten months' panel data and three different (...) mail surveys targeted at 359 Belgian households. The results provide support for our hypothesis that affective commitment is indeed negatively correlated with consumers' unethical behavior. The same conclusion could not be drawn for the relationship between behavioral loyalty and consumers' unethical behavior. No significant relationship was detected, not even in situations where affective commitment was high. The results hold major implications for retailing practice. (shrink)

Loyalty, by making us identify with others, takes us beyond the very limited self (roughly the self of the Hobbesian natural condition) that is involved in selfishness and that is usually involved when people consider that self-concern, that aspect of human nature that must be limited if we are to live peaceably, is the main stumbling block to morality. Loyalty can thus be thought of as a version of altruism, as an inclination to identify with others and to (...) share their good. That is to say, loyalty seems opposed to the troublesome aspects of self-concern. We would, nevertheless, be mistaken to conclude that it must simply be a good in people, something to be encouraged. The primary issue is: Which loyalties should be encouraged? There is no general truth about the value of loyalty as such. (shrink)

Political liberals are primarily concerned with the roles played by the government and public schools in civic education. In policies related to religious schools, political liberals often use a strategy of regulation that aims to restrict religious schools. I argue that, although this strategy is effective in eliminating bad religious schools, it alone is unable to ensure that all (or most) reasonable citizens achieve full justification, which is a necessary condition for the stability of a just (...) society. I, therefore, suggest that this strategy should be supplemented with a strategy of promotion. This strategy implies that a government should use policies, such as tax exemption, subsidy, national prize, and advertisement, to encourage good religious schools that teach students to reconcile religious beliefs and political ideas. While the government remains neutral and offers a citizenship curriculum that teaches political ideas, religious schools teach theological beliefs that provide students with comprehensive reasons to affirm political ideas. This division of labor facilitates students from different religious backgrounds to attain full justification. Religious schools have often been regarded as posing a threat to cultural balkanization. It is, however, an overlooked grain of truth that religious schools could be essential cornerstones of a stable liberal democracy. (shrink)

Graham Harman’s “Whitehead and Schools X, Y, and Z,” distinguishes among three schools of contemporary philosophy according to their respective positions on process, becoming, and relations: the schools of Whitehead and Latour, of Deleuze, Bergson, Simondon, and other philosophers of becoming, and of object-oriented philosophy. One of the goals of the essay is to challenge those who would too quickly align Whitehead with Deleuze.

Identity and Schooling Among the Naxi examines the identity construction of Naxi students in Lijiang No.1 Senior Secondary School in China, focusing on the changing roles of school, community, and family in the identity construction of the students.

This chapter presents an argument about constructivism, schooling and reason. A central argument of the chapter is that the representationalist paradigm referred to by Brandom underpins much of the discussion of Vygotsky, with consequences for the way in which sociogenesis is theorised. It plays a decisive if undeclared role in the conceptualisation of pedagogy in contemporary schooling and has decisive consequences for the way that constructivist positions are taken in relation to the active participation of learners, both in their learning (...) and also more radically in the constitution of knowledge. This is considered in the latter part of the chapter. The chapter talks about Robert Brandom whose work is especially relevant to the distinction between causes and reasons. Constructivism is influential in the appropriation of Vygotsky, yet at the same time a tension arises as a result of the importance Vygotsky attached to instruction. (shrink)