The essays presented in this collection set out to explore various aspects of the issue of governance and to reflect on how governance in Africa can be made to be more responsible. All the contributors exhibit clear awareness of the stupendous problems confronting governance in Africa, and make different suggestions aimed at obviating the difficulties. The volume is a timely and welcome contribution to the never-ending discussions about Africa, its problems, its leaders and managers, and the possible ways of drawing (...) it out of the quagmire into which decades of bad governance, in addition to many other factors, have thrown most countries of the continent. (shrink)

Examination of the subversive nature of philosophy as its students challenge the authority and practices of government agencies and organizations. Draws a series of connections between philosophically oriented protesters and questioners of authority ranging from Socrates to 2004 protesters at the U.S. Republican party’s presidential convention in 2004.

Philosophy studies the relation between random, routine, and reflective thought and action. It is in essence the reflective study of routine. No one can survive a random world, but a routine world will generate the same randomness it is intended to avoid owing to the inevitable errors associated with routines. The prime function of reflective inquiry is to identify and explain the logical foundation of these errors. While governments depend on strict routine to prevent anarchy, it is only with (...) the maintenance and adaptive revision of those routines that they are able to serve that purpose. Thus philosophy is essential even to preserve routine, aside from facilitating the building of better routines. To advance global understanding philosophers need to use informal means to communicate to all people everywhere the distinction between randomness and routine, and the transcending of routine by reflective study. I add a concluding note of advocacy for UNESCO’s Strategy on Philosophy. (shrink)

John Locke is widely perceived as a foundational figure within the liberal tradition. This book investigates the competing purposes that informed Locke's political philosophy, not all of which resulted in outcomes consistent with what we today understand as "liberal" ideals. Locke himself was unaware that he belonged to a "liberal" tradition. Traditions only acquire meaning in retrospect. But many have perceived the development of Locke's political philosophy as involving a smooth evolution from "authoritarian" origins to "liberal" conclusions, beginning (...) with Locke's Two Tracts on Government (1660-62) and culminating in his later political works, the Two Treatises of Government (1689) and A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689). This book advances an interpretation of this development which reveals how, by the time of his mature political writings, Locke sought to advance three competing imperatives within his political philosophy, only two of which were consistent with ideals of individual liberty. The other imperative sustained purposes much more aligned with the "authoritarianism" with which Locke's political philosophy began. The result is a much more complex and variegated understanding of Locke's political philosophy, focusing on its competing purposes. Liberty, Governance and Resistance will be of interest to researchers studying Locke, liberalism, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

John Locke is one of the most important figures in the history of political thought. His Second Treatise on Government was one of the most significant political statements of its time and provides the foundations of liberal political thought. His views on the social contract, political obligation, rebellion, revolution and property remain strikingly relevant today. Locke on Government introduces and assesses: * Locke's life and the background to the Second Treatise on Government *The text and ideas of (...) the Second Treatise *The continuing importance of Locke's work to philosophy For student's coming to Locke for the first time, Locke on Government will be an invaluable guide to his political thought. (shrink)

In this paper, I reflect on whether the new Zimbabwe government under the presidency of Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa has the capacity to arrest the developmental challenges facing the country in order to bring about inclusive development which will see the needs of the marginalized or excluded groups such as the poor, women, children, the elderly and people living with disabilities being addressed. I argue that two of the biggest problems bedeviling Zimbabwe today are chronic poverty and disease, which are (...) a legacy of the Zimbabwe government led by ousted former President Robert Gabriel Mugabe. I contend that Mugabe’s government failed to manage its politics, which, in turn, resulted in the decline of Zimbabwe’s economy in the last two decades leading to high unemployment, hyperinflation, brain drain, cash crisis and the outbreak of diseases among a host of problems. My claim is that the effects of the problems listed above are still being felt today. I submit that although the philosophy of hunhu/ubuntu became endangered during Mugabe’s reign, it can still be deployed in the new dispensation to bring about inclusive development by coming up with policies that will attract investors through improving relations with the developed world as well as dealing with the problem of corruption. Keywords : Governance, Development, Inclusive Development, Marginalization, Hunhu/Ubuntu. (shrink)

Muratori has often been portrayed as a moral philosopher who represented the traditional neo-Aristotelian mainstream of Italian intellectual life in the early part of the eighteenth century. His loyalty to Christianity as a basis from which societies ought to be reformed has determined his reputation as a ‘pre-enlightened’ thinker. Yet, it is argued here that not only was Muratori very much in touch with the state of the art of early eighteenth-century moral philosophy, but also that he was really (...) a historian with political interests who came to develop a renewed Christian moral philosophy as a tool to respond to the political challenges of the time. Fallen man's preference for self-preservation to natural freedom prepared him for engaging in increasingly sociable contexts that required further self-disciplining and moral improvement. Thus, man cultivated his fallen condition into prudence and ultimately developed a capacity both for charity and for functioning in modern commercial societies. (shrink)

The legislature and the judiciary have been a constant focus of contemporary political philosophy. However, the executive – ‘the government’ itself – has been comparatively neglected. Today, this is changing with a well-spring of new work that bears upon what we might call the ideal of ‘good governance’, that is, how governments (and/or their agents) should exercise their powers. This review paper begins by clarifying the concepts of ‘governance’ and ‘good’ governance (§1). It then highlights five sets of (...) values, working nominally from the most foundational constraints on the exercise of government power to those that should guide the exercise of discretion: legitimacy and rule of law (§2); respect and trustworthiness (§3); efficiency and rationality (§4); public participation and accountability (§5); and the public interest and fiduciary duties (§6). (shrink)

This book makes Calhoun's philosophy accessible to contemporary thinkers and shows what Calhoun thought about issues such as world government.Topics discussed ...

Zhu, Cheng 朱承, Governing the Mind and Governing the World: The Political Dimension of W ang Yangming’s Philosophy 治心與治世——王陽明哲學的政治向度 Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11712-010-9194-x Authors Yun Huang, College of Political Science and Law, Jiangxi Normal University, 99 Ziyang Ave, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province 330022, China Journal Dao Online ISSN 1569-7274 Print ISSN 1540-3009 Journal Volume Volume 9 Journal Issue Volume 9, Number 4.

This chapter aims to shed new light on Mencius’s political philosophy by focusing on his idea of the ren government. It argues that the Mencian ren government is not so much a mere political expression of the ruler’s ren heart, but a system of distributive justice that requires both a special sense of political responsibility from the ruler for the material and moral well-being of the people and a constant and reliable maintenance of rules and regulations that (...) promote the people’s material sufficiency and moral enhancement. It will be shown that Mencius’s concern with distributive justice stems from his foundational normative belief in human dignity and his idea of rule for the people is accordingly guided by the moral requirement that government exists to enhance a dignified life for all. (shrink)

Over Plato's Academy in ancient Athens, it is said, hung a sign: "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." Plato thought no one could do philosophy without also doing mathematics. In The Waltz of Reason, mathematician and philosopher Karl Sigmund shows us why. Charting an epic story spanning millennia and continents, Sigmund shows that philosophy and mathematics are inextricably intertwined, mutual partners in a reeling search for truth. Beginning with-appropriately enough-geometry, Sigmund explores the power and beauty of (...) numbers and logic, and then shows how those ideas laid the ground work for everything from the theory of a fair election, to modern conceptions of governance, cooperation, morality, and even of reason itself. Did you know, for example, that John Locke, author of some of the most important texts in the Western theory of government, was motivated in his work by his study of geometry? Or, that Locke was actually terrible at geometry, a seventeenth-century mathematical laughingstock? He was, a fact that might want us to think again about the logic of his life's work. And Locke wasn't the only one! Sigmund reveals how many of our modern ideas about what is true and what is reasonable are based on similarly shaky grounds. The economists and other thinkers who promulgated game theory, classical economics, and behavioral economics-the basis of so much in modern life-were not necessarily good at either math or philosophy, or both. The result is a remarkable book: accessible, funny, and wise, it tells an engrossing history of ideas that spins as dizzyingly and beautifully as a ballroom full of expert dancers. But it doesn't just celebrate the past. Instead, by making all these great ideas accessible to all, The Waltz of Reason empowers as it entertains, giving each of us the tools to ask, what do we know, how do we know it, and what do we want to do, with all these ideas? (shrink)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Why do we need government? A common view is that government is necessary to constrain people's conduct toward one another, because people are not sufficiently virtuous to exercise the requisite degree of control on their own. This view was expressed perspicuously, and artfully, by liberal thinker James Madison, in The Federalist, number 51, where he wrote: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” Madison's idea is shared by writers ranging across the political spectrum. It finds (...) clear expression in the Marxist view that the state will gradually wither away after a communist revolution, as unalienated “communist man” emerges. And it is implied by the libertarian view that government's only legitimate function is to control the unfortunate and immoral tendency of some individuals to violate the moral rights of others. (shrink)

An exceptional contribution to the teaching and study of Chinese thought, this anthology provides fifty-eight selections arranged chronologically in five main sections: Han Thought, Chinese Buddhism, Neo-Confucianism, Late Imperial Confucianism, and the early Twentieth Century. The editors have selected writings that have been influential, that are philosophically engaging, and that can be understood as elements of an ongoing dialogue, particularly on issues regarding ethical cultivation, human nature, virtue, government, and the underlying structure of the universe. Within those topics, issues (...) of contemporary interest, such as Chinese ideas about gender and the experiences of women, are brought to light. -/- Introductions to each main section provide an overview of the period, while brief headnotes to selections highlight key points. -/- The translations are the works of many distinguished scholars, and were chosen for their accuracy and accessibility, especially for students, general readers, and scholars who do not read Chinese. Special effort has been made to maintain consistency of key terms across translations. -/- Also included are a glossary, bibliography, index of names, and an index locorum of The Four Books. (shrink)

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Citation Information -- Introduction -- 1 Philosophy and Performance of Neoliberal Ideologies: History, Politics and Human Subjects -- 2 Neo-Liberal Education Policy and the Ideology of Choice -- 3 Varieties of Neo-Liberalism: a Foucaultian Perspective -- 4 The Labouring Sleepwalker: Evocation and Expression as Modes of Qualitative Educational Research -- 5 The Learning Society, the Unfinished Cosmopolitan, and Governing Education, Public Health and Crime Prevention at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century (...) -- 6 What Were You Thinking? A Deleuzian/Guattarian Analysis of Communication in the Mathematics Classroom -- 7 (Re)Visioning the Centre: Education Reform and the 'Ideal' Citizen of the Future -- 8 Biopolitical Utopianism in Educational Theory -- 9 A Place Pedagogy for 'Global Contemporaneity' -- 10 Antonio Gramsci and Feminism: The Elusive Nature of Power -- 11 Foucault, Educational Research and the Issue of Autonomy -- Index. (shrink)

While scholarship on Livy’s political thought has concentrated on the 1st decade, this article takes up the 3rd decade to argue that Livy makes the case for Republican Rome at the time of the 2nd Punic War as the best form of government. The excellence of Republican Rome is seen in its superiority to the imaginary cities of Greek political theory, and in its mixed constitution, which provides remedies for the pitfalls of the simple forms of democracy and aristocracy. (...) Livy makes the latter case through allusions to Thucydides, whose implications I draw forth to show that Livy is contrasting Republican Rome with Athens and Sparta, and comparing Scipio Africanus with Alcibiades. Livy’s claim that wisdom is to be found in the study of the past, and his preference for the concrete as a means of investigating politics, suggest that his history is a form of political philosophy. (shrink)

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the name of Adam Smith was popularly associated with the sort of ‘laissez faire’ policy that is expounded with all the fervour of a religious faith. Smith, so the story ran, in his eagerness to combat the excessive mercantilist government intervention of his day, had resorted to supra-natural claims in his general onslaught against central control and planning by governments. Such intervention was ‘unnatural’ and conflicted with Deistic Design. Only through private (...) actions could mankind reach satisfying and ‘natural’ fulfillment. Action through private self-interest was twice blessed; it. blessed him who profited and his fellows who were ‘profited from’. True there was a kind of central planning that was of supreme importance; but it had a divine origin and it worked not through governments but through individual free trade. Private actions in fact were directed by an Invisible Hand which brought society into a grand and spontaneous Natural Harmony. (shrink)

Completing the translation of Derrida’s monumental work Right to Philosophy (the first part of which has already appeared under the title of Who’s Afraid of Philosophy?), Eyes of the University brings together many of the philosopher’s most important texts on the university and, more broadly, on the languages and institutions of philosophy. In addition to considerations of the implications for literature and philosophy of French becoming a state language, of Descartes’ writing of the Discourse on Method (...) in French, and of Kant’s and Schelling’s philosophies of the university, the volume reflects on the current state of research and teaching in philosophy and on the question of what Derrida calls a “university responsibility.” Examining the political and institutional conditions of philosophy, the essays collected here question the growing tendency to orient research and teaching towards a programmable and profitable end. The volume is therefore invaluable for the light it throws upon an underappreciated aspect of Derrida’s own engagement, both philosophical and political, in struggles against the stifling of philosophical research and teaching. As a founding member of the Research Group on the Teaching of Philosophy and as one of the conveners of the Estates General of Philosophy, Derrida was at the forefront of the struggle to preserve and extend the teaching of philosophy as a distinct discipline, in secondary education and beyond, in the face of conservative government education reforms in France. As one of the founders of the Collège International de Philosophie, he worked to provide a space for research in and around philosophy that was not accepted or legitimated in other institutions. Documenting and reflecting upon these engagements, Eyes of the University brings together some of the most important and incisive of Derrida’s works. (shrink)

The research analyzes the process of formation of the ethics committee as a new institution in the system of regulation of genetic research. The external factors of this process are the increasing digitalization of medical and research practices, as well as the special situation that is developing in the field of genomic research and the use of genetic technologies, where issues of philosophy, jurisprudence and administration have generated many fundamentally new, and sometimes unexpected contexts. The author shows the similarity (...) and difference of approaches to the inclusion of the ethics committee in the national regulatory systems of different countries and determines the prospects for further integration of the new institution into normative and administrative-regulatory and law enforcement practices. The research applies all the main methods of system analysis and structural and functional analysis, as well as the comparative legal method. At the stage of generalization of empirical material, the author turns to the means and methods of philosophical phenomenology and phenomenological sociology. The study revealed that the ethics committee may have different institutional and regulatory functions in a variety of management and legal systems. Being hybrid in nature, the ethics committee performs various functions, and in various state legal systems and traditions it can combine elements of legislative, executive and judicial power. At times, the ethics committee may go beyond the scope of both a purely administrative and exclusively legal regulator. All this indicates that the integration of this institution into the legal system and into a variety of social practices is far from being completed. (shrink)

Freedom of information laws promote transparency by permitting individuals and organizations to obtain government documents. However, exemptions from disclosure are necessary to protect privacy and to permit government officials to deliberate freely. Deliberative language is often the most challenging and burdensome exemption to detect, leading to high processing costs and delays in responding to open-records requests. This paper describes a novel deliberative-language detection model trained on a new annotated training set. The deliberative-language detection model is a component of (...) a decision-support system for open-records requests under the US Freedom of Information Act, the FOIA Assistant, that ingests documents responsive to an open-records requests, suggests passages likely to be subject to deliberative language, privacy, or other exemptions, and assists analysts in rapidly redacting suggested passages. The tool’s interface is based on extensive human-factors and usability studies with analysts and is currently in operational testing by multiple US federal agencies. (shrink)

Comparative political theory is at best an embryonic and marginalized endeavor. As practiced in most Western universities, the study of political theory generally involves a rehearsal of the canon of Western political thought from Plato to Marx. Only rarely are practitioners of political thought willing (and professionally encouraged) to transgress the canon and thereby the cultural boundaries of North America and Europe in the direction of genuine comparative investigation. Border Crossings presents an effort to remedy this situation, fully launching a (...) new era in political theory. Thirteen scholars from around the world examine the various political traditions of West, South, and East Asia and engage in a reflective cross-cultural discussion that belies the assumptions of an Asian "essence" and of an unbridgeable gulf between West and non-West. The denial of essential differences does not, however, amount to an endorsement of essential sameness. As viewed and as practiced by contributors to this ground-breaking volume, comparative political theorizing must steer a course between uniformity and radical separation--this is the path of "border crossings.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.2 (2002) 261-282 [Access article in PDF] The "Progress of Ambition": Character, Narrative, and Philosophy in the Works of William Robertson Neil Hargraves In his biography of William Robertson, Dugald Stewart claimed that by "few writers of the present age has [the] combination of philosophy with history been more often attempted than by Dr. Robertson; and by none have the inconveniences (...) which it threatens been more successfully avoided." 1 At first sight Stewart's assertion seems puzzling. Arnaldo Momigliano considered Robertson to be less successful than Edward Gibbon in his integration of the three elements of eighteenth-century historical writing, philosophy, narrative, and erudition. 2 Despite Robertson's stated belief that "arrangement" was the principal task of the historian, his organizational framework appeared to foster separation rather than integration. 3 Thus, his central work, The History of the Reign of Charles V (1769), is divided into three discrete parts. An apparently conventional narrative of high politics and diplomacy is prefaced by an essay on medieval Europe, A View of the Progress of Society in Europe, which was regarded by his contemporaries as a classic of "philosophical" history, 4 while [End Page 261] Robertson appended to both copious "Proofs and Illustrations." The structure of The History of America (1777) is even less integrated, despite criticalpraise of its "regular plan... complete narration and perfect whole." 5 To other critics his interpolation of dissertations upon the "condition and character" of the Americans, Mexicans, and Peruvians, seemed to sever the thread of the narrative and consequently to break up the unity of the work. 6 Yet as this paper will seek to demonstrate, there was a vital connection between the narrative and "philosophical" components of Robertson's major histories: the theoretical dissertations served recognizably narrative purposes. The bridge between them lies in the complex notion of character created by the expansion of historical forms in the eighteenth century."Philosophical" history defined itself in opposition to the vacuities and muddles of conventional political-diplomatic historical narrative. Its advantages over narrative were various: the revelation of general rather than particular causes, grounding the history on more certain and less random principles: 7 the penetration of causes "insensible" and invisible to the eyes of a careless observer, obscured by the "great theatre of the world"; 8 a broadening of the subject-matter, away from the mere rehearsal of the struggles between crown and nobility or fixation with constitution and government, towards a more inclusive and heterogeneous history of "manners, including arts, sciences, society" and what today would be termed "mentalities," and, related to the last point, a principle of organization that would reduce the apparent chaos and multiplicity of the past to a simple and luminous plan of arrangement. 9 This was the most exacting requirement for the philosophical historian. As a critic wrote of Robertson's View, its value lay most in its "vast and magnificent plan... that profound and easy art of classing [facts], in such a manner that... the accumulated multiplicity of events is gradually reduced to a small number." It [End Page 262] required a more "elevated view... above all discussions and disputes." 10 Philosophic history aimed to strip away the illusion of appearances and substitute an unseen but more regular and systematic history. In its more ambitious formulations it aimed not simply at a universal history of mankind but at no less than a "history of the human mind": an attempt to explain through historical description the enormous gulf that separated modern man from his savage ancestor. As Robertson himself famously declared in Book IV of America, In order to complete the history of the human mind, and attain to a perfect knowledge of its nature and operations, we must contemplate man in all those various situations wherein he has been placed. We must follow him in his progress through the different stages of society, as he gradually advances from the infant state of civil life towards its maturity and decline. (VIII, 49-50) This was a history of progress... (shrink)

This article discusses various arguments for and against treating equality as a fundamental norm in law and political philosophy, combining prior arguments to the effect that equality is essentially an empty idea with arguments that treat it as a non‐empty but mistaken value that should be rejected. After concluding that most of the arguments for treating equality as a fundamental value fall victim to one or both of these arguments, it considers more closely arguments made by philosophers such as (...) Ronald Dworkin and Thomas Nagel that base a duty of promoting equality on the fact that governments impose a legal order on persons without their consent. It concludes that these arguments are mistaken: if the legal order imposed by government is justified then imposing it is not wrongful and generates no duty of equal treatment, while if that order is not justified no requirement of equality of treatment would cure the lack of justification. It concludes that equality should not be a value in law or political theory, but in some cases other considerations may justify particular rules that are sometimes mistakenly thought to be based on equality. (shrink)

This major new contribution to our understanding of European political theory will challenge the perspectives in which political thought is understood. Framed as a general account of the period between 1572 and 1651 it charts the formation of a distinctively modern political vocabulary, based on arguments of political necessity and raison d'etat in the work of the major theorists. While Dr. Tuck pays detailed attention to Montaigne, Grotius, Hobbes and the theorists of the English Revolution, he also reconsiders the origins (...) of their conceptual vocabulary in humanist thought--particularly skepticism and stoicism--and its development and appropriation during the revolutions in Holland and France. This book will be welcomed by all historians of political thought and those interested in the development of the idea of the state. (shrink)

The victory of realism over idealism at the start of the twentieth century, and of scientific realism over logical empiricism and pragmatism in the mid twentieth century, is a striking phenomenon that calls for historical explanation. In this paper I propose an externalist account, looking at the social and political reasons why realism became attractive, rather than considering the internal factors–the merits of the arguments in favour of realism. I look at the agenda of Roy Wood Sellars’critical realismwhich was not (...) narrowly theoretical, but very much related to his concerns for the development of American society post WW1, as expressed inThe Next Step in Democracy(1916b) andThe Next Step in Religion(1918). I discuss the significance of technocracy in America – not only the increasing influence of scientists and engineers in government, but also the diffusion of the view that social issues are best addressed by scientific, technical means. Counter-cultural critics of technocracy, such as Roszak (1969) claimed that a “scientific world-view” provided an “ideology” for this system of governance. We will see that RW Sellars was explicitly involved in the task of building a scientific world-view, but with political goals that were probably not realised by the post-war establishment. (shrink)

"All political action has . . . in itself a directedness towards knowledge of the good: of the good life, or of the good society. For the good society is the complete political good. If this directedness becomes explicit, if men make it their explicit goal to acquire knowledge of the good life and of the good society, political philosophy emerges. . . . The theme of political philosophy is mankind's great objectives, freedom and government or empire--objectives (...) which are capable of lifting all men beyond their poor selves. Political philosophy is that branch of philosophy which is closest to political life, to non-philosophic life, to human life."--From "What Is Political Philosophy?" What Is Political Philosophy? --a collection of ten essays and lectures and sixteen book reviews written between 1943 and 1957--contains some of Leo Strauss's most famous writings and some of his most explicit statements of the themes that made him famous. The title essay records Strauss's sole extended articulation of the meaning of political philosophy itself. Other essays discuss the relation of political philosophy to history, give an account of the political philosophy of the non-Christian Middle Ages and of classic European modernity, and present his theory of esoteric writing. (shrink)

The Courage of the Truth is the last course that Michel Foucault delivered at the College de France before his death in 1984. In this course, he continues the theme of the previous year's lectures in exploring the notion of "truth-telling" in politics to establish a number of ethically irreducible conditionsbased on courage and conviction.

I owe you a dinner invitation, you owe ten years on your mortgage, and the government owes billions. We speak confidently about these cases of debt, but is that concept clear in its meaning? This book aims to clarify the concept of debt so we can find better answers to important moral and political questions. This book seeks to accomplish two things. The first is to clarify the concept of debt by examining how the word is used in language. (...) The second is to develop a general, principled account of how debts generate genuine obligations. This allows us to avoid settling each case by a bare appeal to moral intuitions, which is what we seem to currently do. It requires a close examination of many institutions, e.g. money, contract law, profit-driven finance, government fiscal operations, and central banking. To properly understand the moral and political nature of debt, we must understand how these institutions have worked, how they do work, and how they might be made to work. There have been many excellent anthropological and sociological studies of debt and its related institutions. Philosophy can contribute to the emerging discussion and help us to keep our language precise and to identify the implicit principles contained in our intuitions. (shrink)

In the two related works in this volume, Bentham offers a detailed critique of William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England. He provides important refelctions on the nature of law, and more particularly on the nature of customary and statute law, and on judicial interpretation.

In contemporary discussions on practical ethics, the concepts of autonomy and dignity have frequently been opposed. This tendency has been particularly visible in controversies regarding cloning, abortion, organ sales, and euthanasia. Freedom of research and freedom of choice, as instances of professional and personal autonomy, have been cited in arguments favouring these practices, while the dignity and sanctity of human life have been evoked in arguments against them. In the moral theory of Immanuel Kant, however, the concepts of autonomy and (...) dignity seem to coexist in mutual harmony. Respect for the freely chosen moral law and respect for the absolute value of humanity coincide, and give rise to a unified understanding of our duties toward ourselves and others. My question in this paper is, was Kant on to something here? Can autonomy and dignity, in the sense in which they are used in current debates, be brought together, and can the arguments be settled in a way that would satisfy both disagreeing parties? My answer to the question is, yes and no. Kant was definitely on to something in that he recognized two competing views in modern moral philosophy, and tried to consolidate them in an attempt to create a universal model of ethics. But in the end, he failed to fuse the two views together on equal terms. Instead, he sacrificed the modern idea of the self-governance of individuals on the altar of the premodern notion of the absolute inner worth of humanity. (shrink)

This study delves into the significant ethical criteria in the context of global standards. It addresses the moral wrongdoings and adverse side effects associated with global value chains as discussed in the business ethics literature. The methodology involves theoretical application and synthesis. The study employs ethical principles from deontology, consequentialism, and political cosmopolitanism to establish normative criteria such as “injustice and harm to others” and “bad outcomes.” It further investigates how these criteria should influence consumers' decisions, actions, and responsibilities. These (...) criteria are then used to examine the moral wrongdoings and negative effects mentioned in global standards. The study explores how global standards implicitly express consumers' roles in governing global value chains. It scrutinizes consumers' actions and decisions by applying ethical frameworks to global standards. The study outlines consumers' individual and political responsibilities in achieving the goals of global standards. The research findings have implications for governments, consumers, and organizations in practicing shared responsibility. The aim of this research is to provide normative guidance for responsible actions. (shrink)

Abstract.This introduction outlines key elements in a recent United Kingdom Department of Health report that, it is hoped, will change attitudes, expectations and practices in the care of patients with chronic illness [Department of Health: 2001, The Expert Patient: A New Approach to Chronic Disease Management for the 21st Century. London: Department of Health.]. The findings of the Task Force are summarised as accurately as possible and without comment. Analysis and comment can be found in the accompanying papers.