Why is it so plausible that business organisations in contemporary society use values in their communication? In order to answer this question, a sociological, system theoretical approach is applied which approaches values not pre-empirically as invisible drivers for action but as observable semantics that form organisational behaviour. In terms of empirical material, it will be shown that business organisations resort to a communication of values whenever uncertainty or complexity is very high. Inevitably, value semantics are applied in (...) organisations first when the speakers are uncertain about which stakeholders to whom they have to address or when different stakeholder groups have to be addressed simultaneously ; second, when the identity of the organisation has to be described; and third, when future strategic options that cannot be expressed by quantitative terms have to be communicated. Values accordingly play a role in organisational practice when certain aspects are indeterminate. Therefore, they are a means for organisations to communicate under fuzzy circumstances. On the basis of these findings, new approaches to value management can now be formulated. (shrink)

This article develops a sociological theory of ambivalence to explain several puzzling and contradictory ethical attitudes of business people: (1) a simultaneous disposition to comparatively more self-interested and more charitable behavior than many other occupational groups and (2) a moderate level of receptiveness to inculcation of moral principles through social channels such as higher education. We test the theory by comparing the way that business students rate the ethical acceptability of various ethically challenging scenarios with the way that criminal justice (...) students rate these same scenarios. We also explore the malleability of ethical views by measuring differences between the responses of sophomores and seniors. The data generally support hypotheses based on a theory of ambivalence. At the same time, however, we also report on findings that suggest alternative explanations to ambivalence. (shrink)

Religion and Laughter in a Digital Society.

This paper proceeds from an analysis (Callaway 1992, pp. 239-240) of a role of conflict in the origin of value commitments, a pervasive sociological pattern in the development of unifying group values which transforms personal conflicts, or differences, into large-scale collective conflicts. I have urged that these forces are capable of distorting even the cognitive processes of science and that they are a chief reason why value claims are regarded as incapable of objective evaluation. The thesis of the (...) present paper is that romantic collectivism (uncritical attachment to an identification group) renders members passive with respect to the ideals or content embodied in collective identity and that this is often exploited to convert groups into instruments of personal power. The issue is examined by reference to Reinhold Niebuhr's 1932 thesis of the inevitability of group egoism and inter-group conflicts and an opposing pragmatist conception of moral development, self-identity, and the individual's relationship to reference communities. (shrink)

_Purpose_ of the article is to find out the main content and ways of embodying freedom as a value of the volunteer movement in the context of analyzing the social motivation of human behavior in general. _Theoretical basis._ The theoretical basis of the research is the philosophical and anthropological understanding of freedom as a person’s creative overcoming of obstacles to establish his or her eccentric essence. Such a vision is embedded, in particular, in Karl Jaspers’ philosophy of existence, Helmuth Plessner’s (...) philosophy of positioning in the world, and Paul Ricœur’s philosophy of rational choice of life path. _Originality__._ The importance of freedom as a value, as well as other social values, is revealed and specified through the analysis of the values of the volunteer movement. In the desire of people engaged in volunteer work to achieve freedom through other values, the content of freedom as a basis for self-reproduction of the individual, community and society is revealed. _Conclusions._ Representatives of various humanities and social sciences have distinct research interests in analyzing the values inherent in volunteers. As members of a certain society and certain communities in this society, volunteers do not act outside the economy, politics and other spheres of public life, but reveal their freedom through creative and non-standard solutions to economic, political, and other problems. At the same time, research psychologists focus attention on the personal self-realization of a person, theorists and practitioners of social work study volunteers’ desire to gain recognition from peers and other small social groups, and representatives of sociology, political science and other social sciences focus their attention on such socially significant values of volunteering as patriotism, solidarity, etc. The task of social philosophy is to justify the desire to contribute to the public good, which is common to all volunteers. Representatives of philosophical anthropology look for the best social intentions inherent in a person as a member of society in volunteering. Analysis of the values of volunteering as a motivator of human behavior provides knowledge of socially significant values inherent in every member of society to a greater or lesser extent. (shrink)

Sociologists often ask why particular groups of people have the moral views that they do. I argue that sociology’s empirical research on morality relies, implicitly or explicitly, on unsophisticated and even obsolete ethical theories, and thus is based on inadequate conceptions of the ontology, epistemology, and semantics of morality. In this article I address the two main problems in the sociology of morality: (1) the problem of moral truth, and (2) the problem of value freedom. I identify two (...) ideal–typical approaches. While the Weberian paradigm rejects the concept of moral truth, the Durkheimian paradigm accepts it. By contrast, I argue that sociology should be metaphysically agnostic, yet in practice it should proceed as though there were no moral truths. The Weberians claim that the sociology of morality can and should be value free; the Durkheimians claim that it cannot and it should not. My argument is that, while it is true that factual statements presuppose value judgments, it does not follow that sociologists are moral philosophers in disguise. Finally, I contend that in order for sociology to improve its understanding of morality, better conceptual, epistemological, and methodological foundations are needed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 15.2 (2007) 177-179MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Reviewed byLise Vaugeois University of TorontoHildegard C. Froehlich, Sociology for Music Teachers:Perspectives for Practice (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007)Hildegard Froehlich's book, Sociology for Music Teachers, provides an important and much needed resource for undergraduate and advanced music education programs. Music students tend to see their interests and goals within a narrow framework, one (...) that is reinforced by the intensely personal nature of music-making as well as the material and psychological separation that inheres from our location in physically detached faculties of music. Froehlich's book provides a resource that directly addresses this tendency towards narrowness by inviting students to engage with sociological questions as they affect us personally, professionally, and in the context of questions much larger than ourselves.The book is organized into eight chapters, each of which explores a particular set of questions and introduces related studies and resources. She recommends that students actively engage with the material and provides suggestions for group discussion throughout the book. Each chapter introduces a comprehensive survey of related questions and the body of literature that investigates these questions. Thus, it can be used as the basis to structure an undergraduate course as well as a literature guide for graduate students.Undergraduate students are often resistant to exploring ideas beyond their [End Page 177] immediate conceptions of themselves as musicians and Froehlich addresses this resistance by discussing concepts about identity formation in the first chapter. Students are thus asked to consider a series of questions they can easily recognize as relevant to their own lives. She begins with the personal and the familiar and then brings in ideas that broaden the range of inquiry, gradually introducing concepts that challenge many of our assumptions about the meaning of music in different people's lives; the range of meanings possible within sounds and musical practices; the role of public education and various ways that music education functions within this larger system, and important questions about how we might conceive of ourselves as transmitters of extant cultural values or transformers of values and social relations.The chapter headings give an indication of the range of material introduced in her text: "The Performer and Teacher in You: A Matter of Identity"; "Teaching as Work: What Educational Sociologists Tell Us"; "Music Learning and Teaching as Socially Situated Acts"; "Music and Social Context: Macro, Micro, and Interactive Perspectives in Selected Texts on the Sociology of Music"; "Musical Meaning and Social Context: Thoughts by Selected Ethnomusicologists and Cultural Theorists"; "Sociology of Education: Major Theories and Their Connection to School Practice"; "Application of Sociological Constructs in Education to Music Schooling"; "Conclusion: You and the Big Picture." Each chapter gives a historical survey of the literature pertaining to the area of inquiry plus an introduction to contemporary writing. Competing discourses are introduced throughout.Froehlich's survey of disciplines that intersect with sociology is quite comprehensive. Amongst other disciplines, she includes foundational literature from musicology, philosophy of music education, sociology of education, and social psychology. The book is thus valuable as a resource for its bibliography alone. She also includes a glossary of terms, another feature that makes the book particularly helpful to undergraduate students. One writer I was surprised not to see included is Jacques Attali. His theoretical arguments on the relations of musical culture to economy provide a significant lens for considering the influence of music on social development and would have been an appropriate addition to the chapter on "Music and Social Context." I also missed work by musicologists and human geographers who have explored the role of race in music and music education.Related to these missing discourses, I have a major concern that is less a critique of Froehlich than an acknowledgement that this position has not yet been given sufficient consideration in our field, and to which Deborah Bradley refers as the "normative centering of whiteness."1 Froehlich bases her work on the assumption that her audience consists of a... (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to examine the explanatory power of the concept of “generational social group”. With this aim, we will analyze the three main meanings of “generation”, namely cohort, kinship, and social group. Among them, the social group meaning appears to be the most promising one, as it enables us to understand group behavior and its normative implications. However, some clarifications are necessary. Firstly, the conventional understanding of social groups within social ontology needs (...) to be supplemented with a sociological analysis that recognizes them as peer groups. This entails considering shared characteristics, social interaction, and the sharing of values, which contribute to the recognition of belonging within the group by both insiders and outsiders. Secondly, in literature, the concept of generation inherently implies the existence of generational conflicts. However, these conflicts can be mitigated and reconceptualized within the framework of the advantaged-disadvantaged dichotomy, which is, to some extent, independent of age. (shrink)

The following paper explores the categorisation of groups. Indeed, there are different ways to distinguish human groups from one another: on the one hand, sociological analyses focus their attention on the distinction between being inside and outside of groups; on the other hand, collective action theories mainly focus on the distinction between collectives and aggregates, based on the kind of action that groups can perform, i.e., joint or not. In this paper, we offer an alternative view by adopting the agent’s (...) perspective and creating a scale based on the importance the agent attributes to his or her membership to different groups. While this perspective seems to lose objectivity as it does not allow the formulation of an unambiguous scale that applies to all individuals, it does allow us to understand the process of identification and the consequent phenomenon whereby very often we act in accordance with other people’s actions, in a collective way, without prior coordination. A practical example based on the so-called “acting white” will be explored in order to test the paper’s proposal. The analysis intends to offer a common ground on the basis of which it would be possible to have further inquiries on the social dimension of self-experience. (shrink)

The present study explores the social and economic dimensions affecting the poverty culture existing in the slum areas of Karachi, Pakistan. The significance of the study highlights the major causes of hindrance in community development poverty and lack of social indicators-which are becoming a culture of the people as their value system along with feelings of powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation, social exclusion, and self-estrangement in their group relations. This is a qualitative as well as an exploratory research that highlights the (...) emergence of poverty culture in Pakistan for which the researchers have developed an idiographic model to identify the major variables of poverty culture. The researchers in the present study provide the positive and constructive counter-narratives and recommendations against myths about the culture of the poor people. In the present study, researchers have used facts and figures from the United Nations and World Bank Report of Poverty Reduction. (shrink)

Over the last several years, regular evaluation of development programs has become essential in measuring and understanding their true impact. Feminist and gender-sensitive evaluations have gradually emerged, drawing attention to existing inequities--gender, caste, class, location, and more--and the cumulative effect of these biases on daily life. Such evaluations are also deeply political; they explicitly acknowledge that gender-based inequalities exist, show how they remain embedded in society, and articulate ways to address them. Based on four years of research, Voices and (...) class='Hi'>Values offers critical insight into how gender, class, and nationality inflect and affect sociological research. It examines how feminist evaluations could make an effective contribution to new policy formulations oriented to gender and social equity. The essays here focus centrally on the structural roots of inequity: giving weight to all perspectives; adding value to marginalized groups and people under evaluation; and taking forward the findings of evaluation into advocacy for change. In doing so, each essay advances the understanding of feminist evaluation both conceptually and as practice. (shrink)

Interpretation groups, which meet on a regular basis for jointly analysing qualitative data, are well-established in sociology and related disciplines. There are currently at least 71 interpretation groups in German-speaking countries, and there are more if one includes project teams, which meet on a regular basis for data sessions. Yet, there is relatively little knowledge based on empirical research about these groups and their practices. Inspired by studies on social sciences and humanities, this article examines how “good” interpretations are (...) jointly created in these groups. Prior studies underlined that social scientific methods are productive, i.e., performative. Following this lead, my study turns data analysis in qualitative research into an object of inquiry by investigating how interpretation groups work on textual data. More specifically, this article discusses how these groups negotiate different interpretative options and at the same time evaluate the quality of their results as well as the interpretation process as a whole. In this regard, the approach presented in this article also contributes to the growing literature on valuation and evaluation in science by focusing on communicative devices for valuing and evaluating interpretations. (shrink)

The shareholder value conception of the firm and its consequences for the functioning of corporations have been studied from a variety of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives. In this article we examine in more detail than has been done sofar the origins and early adoption of this particular conception. By investigating public business sources from the perspective of field theory, we argue that the rise and early diffusion of “shareholder value” are best understood as a function of the changing power relations (...) in the economic field during the first half of the 1980s. The deep economic recession at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s led to a crisis in the prevailing management beliefs, offering newcomers the opportunity to promote alternative business strategies, among which the shareholder value conception became dominant. The sources studied indicate that the spokespersons of the new business conception were initially wealthy outsiders, corporate “raiders,” who used the economic crisis to oppose management and acquire shares in undervalued firms with the threat of restructuring and selling parts of them in the name of shareholders’ interests. Although these hostile take-overs, or threats of take-overs, were widely contested, the Reagan administration blocked regulation and stimulated the take-over market. The rivalry between “raiders” and public pension funds over the profits of these takeovers led to the founding the Council of Institutional Investors (1985), which adopted the shareholder value doctrine inaugurating the organized activism of public pension funds with regard to the management of firms. It was thus in all likelihood the competition and conflict among different groups of shareholders, primarily corporate raiders and pension funds, that triggered the shift in the balance of power between managers and shareholders. Since managers found profitable ways to adapt to the new balance of power, the shareholder value ideology spread rapidly through the economic field, becoming the dominant business model of North American firms in the second half of the 1980s. (shrink)

Benedikt von Liel provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of the concept of Creating Shared Value (CSV). In the theoretical analysis, the author assesses the uniqueness of the theory of Creating Shared Value by comparing it to other relevant social responsibility concepts. The empirical analysis provides insights from over 60 industry case studies of Creating Shared Value. The assessment includes the influence of geography as well as a range of other relevant external and internal factors. As a result, the author (...) identifies critical success factors for the creation of shared value. Contents Theoretical introduction into Creating Shared Value Comparative analysis of CSV theory and related concepts Empirical study of CSV's unique elements < Impact of geography and other success factors for CSV Target Groups < Researchers and students in the field of business ethics and corporate social responsibility Businessmen interested and responsible for the social activities of companies The Author Benedikt von Liel studied Business and Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Karlsruhe before gaining industry experience at an international management consulting company. The practical experience triggered further interest in the combination of profit maximization and ethical driven business decisions. For this reason, the author researched the field of Creating Shared Value obtaining his PhD at the Technical University of Munich. (shrink)

In his earlier work Robert Bellah coined the concept of ‘civil religion’ for that ‘unique American combination of secularization, individualism and pluralism’. Such a civil religion is supposed to work as an integrative factor on the level of societies and as a motivational factor on the level of individuals. At both levels, it supplies the meaning of meaning, a meaningful ‘ultimate reality’ which draws people together and delivers them with a personal idea of vocation or ‘calling’.Unfortunately, as Bellah and his (...) research team state in books such as Habits of the Heart and The Good Society, this balanced normative pattern is waning. Societal self-descriptions in the U.S. are confined to a vocabulary of ‘Lockean individualism’. They are no longer balanced by biblical and republican traditions, which provided ‘the language needed to make moral sense of one’s life’. At the same time, however these field studies observed that many urged “for a renewal of commitment and community.” Bellah and his research team conclude: “such a renewal is indeed a world waiting to be born if we only had the courage to see it.” Because of the erosion of the shared symbolic system that provided some ‘ultimate social meaning’, Bellah conceives society to be disintegrating. Group solidarity cannot be mobilized any more, individuals feel atomized and lack trust and belief. Well-versed in the Durkheimian tradition, Bellah can only observe society in terms of normative integration. If shared values and beliefs are being hollowed out, social order can only be plunged into a crisis.The following analysis will not proceed along this Durkheimian path. We see no compelling reason to conceive of society in terms of normative integration alone. Instead we plug into the vocabulary of Luhmann’s systems theory and observe society as synonymous with all ongoing communications. Society only consists of communications and nothing else. This implies for example that human beings do not belong to society, . For psychic systems can only process thoughts, feelings, desires, but no communications! (shrink)

This book considers the place and value of knowledge in contemporary society. “Knowledge” is not a self-evident concept: both its denotations and connotations are historically situated. Since the Enlightenment, knowledge has been a matter of discovery through effort, and “knowledge for its own sake” a taken-for-granted ideal underwriting progressive education as a process which not only taught “for” and “about” something, but also ennobled the soul. While this ideal has not been explicitly rejected, in recent decades there has been a (...) tacit move away from a strong emphasis on its centrality, even in Higher Education. The authors address the values that inform knowledge production in its present forms, and seek to identify social and cultural factors that support these values.Against the background of increasingly restrictive conditions of academic work, the first section of this volume offers incisive critiques of Higher Education, with examples drawn from Australia and New Zealand. The second group of chapters considers how academics have viewed, and have tried to adapt to, present circumstances. The third section comprises papers that consider epistemological issues in the generation and promulgation of knowledge. The chapters in this volume are indicative of the work that needs to be done so that we can come to comprehend – and perhaps try and improve – our relationship to learning and knowledge in the 21st Century.This timely book will be of particular interest to workers in higher education; it should also inform and challenge all those who have concerns for the future of the intellectual life of our civilization. (shrink)

This paper focuses on what could be learned about statuses and status groups from the work of Randall Collins in the 1980s, and in particular from Weberian Sociological Theory (1986). I mention how I myself found this book useful at that time to further my own work in the sociology of science and in sociological theory, and emphasise its value in appreciating the fundamental and irremediable deficiencies of individualistic rational choice theory in both contexts. I go on to note (...) how Collins, a ‘macro’ sociologist in the 1980s, was nonetheless well aware of the indispensable role of micro-sociology in advancing the fundamental understanding of the field as a whole, and his singling out of Erving Goffman and Harold Garfinkel as primus inter pares for their special theoretical importance at this time. I say a little about why these two did indeed have much to contribute to an understanding of statuses and of status groups and still do even today, and end by noting how effectively Collins has used and built upon the work of Goffman in particular since the 1980s. (shrink)

Transitioning to ecoagriculture is a crucial strategy for addressing the problem of a rapid decline in global biodiversity. Scholars have increasingly considered how relational values (RVs) can support a transition to ecoagriculture, with a focus on integration of these values into governance methods. We conducted a case study of the Green Conservation (GC) participatory guarantee system (PGS) in Taiwan, using semi-structured interviews and participatory observations to investigate the RV–PGS synergistic effect. Our findings indicate that different forms of RV (...) motivated a farming promotion group and farmers to endorse and participate in the PGS. Additionally, we discovered that RVs can create mutual attractions and shared values and thereby foster collective actions in the PGS. These actions subsequently enhance stakeholders’ RVs through human–nature and human–human interactions. Such interactions involve ecoagricultural practices sharing, wildlife observation, and mutual affirmation. The findings also reveal that the PGS led to a shift in the stakeholder role from auditor to long-term companion, which enhanced the socialization processes within the system and led to the development of a community characterized by shared collective RVs. This community dynamic led to an intrinsic commitment to ecoagriculture among members influenced by a benevolent relationship with nature. On the basis of these observations, we recommend a stewardship governance approach to PGSs, highlighting the importance of integrating RVs into ecoagriculture governance. (shrink)

Diversity is an important ethical concept, but it is almost exclusively studied within two domains: biodiversity and diversity of sociological attributes such as race and gender. We provide a general study of the intrinsic value of diversity. We survey prior literature on the intrinsic value of biodiversity and sociological diversity in search of insights relevant to the intrinsic value of all types of diversity. We then present three thought experiments designed to clarify intuitions about the intrinsic value of small amounts (...) of diversity, large amounts of diversity, and diversity as compared to other intrinsic values. We find that many types of diversity are intrinsically valuable at both small and large amounts, but that diversity may be a weak intrinsic value in comparison to others. Noting that diversity can be defined in many ways, we propose that, for purposes of moral evaluation, diversity should be defined to include both a diversity of individual elements within a group and a diversity of the overall patterns or structures of the group. Some of our findings about the intrinsic value of diversity are tentative, indicating that moral intuitions about diversity are sometimes ambiguous and would benefit from further study. (shrink)

Farmers markets have traditionally served as a space for farmers to sell directly to consumers. Recently, many FMs in the US and other regions have experienced a renaissance. This article compares the different value sets embedded in the rules and norms of two metropolitan FM regions—Minneapolis, Minnesota and in Vienna, Austria. It uses a values-based framework that reflects the relationships among FM operating structures and their values reflected by the key FM participants—i.e., farmer/vendors, consumers and market managers. The (...) framework allows us to focus on two very contrasting value sets of metropolitan FM regions in presenting and discussing the values found and embedded in the two metropolitan market regions; illustrating how the values found are embodied as rules and norms in each FM region; considering the alignment or not of FM participant values with their corresponding FM values; and the differences and commonalities as well as the benefits and challenges of the two market regions. In contrasting metropolitan FMs we explain that FM value sets are complex and differ among and within FM participant groups and are dependent on their respective OS. We show that contrasting two metropolitan FM regions can be useful in understanding beneficial and disadvantageous relationships between the values and structures of, and in FMs, and specifically in examining institutional impediments such as governance. Thus we illustrate the possibilities and limitations of values for and within metropolitan FMs. (shrink)

Having lived in Rita Caccamo's Rome and other Italian cities for long periods, I was intrigued by Arthur J. Vidich's foreword, which notes the sociologist Caccamo's Roman background and hence her ability to see Middletown as an anthropologist might, from “the perspective of an ‘other’”—a position, he explains, very different from that of Robert S. and Helen M. Lynd, who made Muncie, Indiana, famous in their 1929 and 1937 studies. There are hints of that perspective in these pages. In the (...) preface to this edition, Caccamo remarks on the sense of alienation she felt while living in Muncie as she worked in the archives; and in a very brief concluding chapter, “The Nineties in Middletown,” she suggests that Muncie suffers, like the rest of the country, from “the lack of cumulative experience” of the sort that Rome has plenty of. But that's about it for anthropology and the “other,” at least on the surface. “We European scholars,” she writes, “need to look at these phenomena without our European points of reference” .What stands out in this assessment of Middletown , Middletown in Transition , and Theodore H. Caplow's late‐1970s investigation is Caccamo's deep affinity with the Lynds' radical, pessimistic argument: that Middletown's community life was rapidly being eroded by limited economic mobility and, especially, by a consumer culture that increasingly valued money and the things it would buy above all else—and that Munsonians, in the grip of a power elite and overwhelmed by mass culture, were helpless to do anything about it. Although Caccamo sees weaknesses in the Lynds' schema—a simplistic two‐class model, a lack of attention to immigrants and outsiders, the failure to appreciate the adventurousness that comes with modernity, little recognition of the potential of Muncie's residents to challenge and resist power—none of these arguments is pursued with much conviction. Instead, she presents the Lynds as part of a larger group of interwar sociologists who understood the American experience very well. By the same token, she takes Caplow's “Middletown III” to task for its unwarranted optimism about family life, religion, class, and other matters. In a final assessment, she underscores Muncie's obsessions with privacy and marriage and disregard for single people. Caccamo believes that late twentieth‐century Muncie manifests the same maladies that the Lynds uncovered some seventy years ago.Those familiar with the literature on Middletown will not, I suspect, find much that is new here, except perhaps for an extensive discussion of the Lynds' controversial dependence on, and use of, the work of Lynn Perrigo for their chapter “The X Family” in the 1937 volume. What they will find is part biography, part history of sociology, part polemic: an effort to understand the Lynds as “committed intellectuals” and to appreciate what it was they found so repugnant about life in a city they had decided was typical of the American experience. That Caccamo succeeds so well has much to do with what some may see as an uncritical acceptance of Marxist theory and Frankfurt school arguments about the mass media that underpinned or reinforced the Lynds' work, but much to do also with the outsider Caccamo's Rome, whose coffee bars, neighborhoods, and vibrant streets bear witness to what Muncie once was, and could have been. (shrink)

Participation is an important but little understood concept in science and innovation. While participation promises the production of new knowledge, social justice, and economic growth, little research has been done on its contribution to innovation processes at the group level. The concept of imaginaries can provide a window into these processes. Adopting a micro-sociological perspective, we examined the interplay between imaginaries of participation and group development within a long-term ethnographic observation study of an initiative, Energy Avant-garde, as it (...) pursued the development of a decentralized, self-contained, and entirely renewable energy system in one German region. We scaled down the macrolevel concept of imaginaries to the group level. We found that group imaginaries are a resource for bringing order to a group and that a group is a resource for creating, operationalizing, revising, and sustaining imaginaries. We describe a “failure-through-success” story: while imaginaries initially promoted group cohesion, creativity, and productivity, in later stages, these effects were impeded by group dynamics. We therefore distinguish between process imaginaries and outcome imaginaries and conclude that, inherently, participation must be managed and employed at the appropriate stages to make valuable contributions. (shrink)

Prior research has shown a pronounced self-orientation in students of business and economics. This article examines if self-orientation can be alleviated by a focus on prosocial values in business education. In a cross-sectional design, we test the prosocial behavior and values of bachelor students at the beginning and the end of a traditional 3-year business administration program. We compare their behavior with the behavior of two different groups: students from an ethically-oriented international management school and students from a (...) social work program of equal length. The results showed that students of business administration show less prosocial behavior in a dictator game than students in the other two groups. This difference is larger between final-year students than between first-year students. According to the results of the Schwartz Value Survey, the Inglehart Index, and a scale for preferences for distributive justice, students in the three disciplines differ substantially in prosocial values, but there is no significant difference between first and last semester students of the same discipline. We conclude that there is no transmission of self-oriented behavior through self-oriented values emended in traditional business education curricula. Instead, students seem to select academic programs according to their personal and preexisting social orientations. (shrink)

This volume presents the theory of culture of the Russian‑born German Jewish social philosopher David Koigen (1879-1933). Heir to Hermann Cohen's neo‑Kantian interpretation of Judaism, he transforms the religion of reason into an ethical Intimitätsreligion. He draws upon a great variety of intellectual currents, among them, Max Scheler's philosophy of values, the historical sociology of Max Weber, the sociology of religion of Émile Durkheim, Ernst Troeltsch and Georg Simmel and American pragmatism. Influenced by his personal experience of (...) marginality in German academia yet the same time unconstrained by the dictates of the German Jewish discourse, Koigen shapes these theoretical strands into an original argument which unfolds along two trajectories: theodicy of culture and ethos. Distinguished from ethics, ethos identifies the non-formal factors that foster a group's sense of collective identity as it adapts to continuous change. From a Jewish perspective, ethos is grounded in the biblical covenant as the paradigm of a social contract and corporate liability. Although the normative content of the covenantal ethos is subject to gradual secularization, its metaphysical and existential assumptions, Koigen argues, continue to inform Jewish self-understanding. The concept of ethos identifies the dialectic of tradition as it shapes Jewish religious consciousness, and, in turn, is shaped by the evolving cultural and axiological sensibilities. In consonance, Jewish identity cannot be reduced to ethnicity or a purely secular culture. Urban develops these fragmentary and inchoate theories into a sociology of religious knowledge and suggests to read Koigen not just as a Jewish sociologist but as the first sociologist of Judaism who proposes to overcome the dogmatic anti-metaphysical stance of European sociology. (shrink)

The relationship betweendiscourse and ideology can be described as thatof process and effect [Purvis and Hunt (1993)British Journal of Sociology 44: 473–499].Discourse, used within relations of domination,can result in the formation of ideology. Tostudy this relationship systematically requiresa methodology that contextualizes discoursewithin social relations and examines when suchdiscourse becomes an ideology. I use Thompson'stheory/methodology of ``depth hermeneutics'' tostudy documents produced by agriculturalinterest groups concerning the 1996 FederalAgriculture Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Actand I assess the ideological status of thediscourses contained (...) in these documents. Thefindings suggest that the organizationsrepresenting the small-to-medium-sized farmerstended to use more agrarian themes, fewermarket themes, and fewer linguistic strategiesindicative of ideology. The organizationsrepresenting more concentrated,vertically-integrated interests andagribusinesses use fewer agrarian themes, moremarket themes, and more linguistic strategies.Therefore, market themes, not agrarian themes,form an ideology in this context. (shrink)

This volume addresses whether, how, and where laws (variously defined) teach values and shape moral character in late modern liberal societies. Each author recognizes the essential value of state law in fostering peace, security, health, education, charity, trade, democracy, constitutionalism, justice, and human rights, among many other moral goods. Each author also recognizes, however, the grave betrayals of law in supporting fascism, slavery, apartheid, genocide, persecution, violence, racism, and other forms of immorality and injustice. They thus call for state (...) laws that set a basic civil morality of duty for society and for robust freedoms that protect private individuals and private groups to cultivate a higher morality of aspiration"--Back cover. (shrink)

This paper develops an algebraic formulation summarizing various forms of socioeconomic interaction in and across individuals, groups, corporations, and states. The proposed articulation accelerates the understanding that coordination among economic agents leads to the efficient allocation of resources in society. The study considers an approach whereby the State has a regulatory role which helps attain responsible consumption and production choices (RCP). This study has the potential to encourage the use of resources in a way that promotes RCP decisions based on (...) an understanding of values. The fundamental structure of socioeconomic interaction is described in work using finite algebra. It presents how governance structure comprising intra- and interactions involving the State, corporation, groups, and the individual will attain (RCP). The prevailing economic structures functioned lower than the projected level, with enormous damage to the environment. It is deduced that the final level of the economy depends crucially on the initial injection of socioeconomic actions. Furthermore, diverse socioeconomic position patterns are possible depending on the nature of activity impulses undertaken at different levels. The world needs to decouple environmental degradation from economic growth to evolve towards a sustainable and collectively inclusive economy. For that purpose, mutual trust-based coordination among all stakeholders is vital to attain sustainable objectives. (shrink)

In this article, we expand the analytical and theoretical foundations of the study of knowledge commons in the context of more classical agrarian commons, such as seed commons. We show that it is possible to overcome a number of criticisms of earlier work by Ostrom (Governing the commons. The evolution of institutions for collective action, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990) on natural commons and its excludability/rivalry matrix in addressing the inclusive social practices of “commoning”, defined as a way of living (...) and acting for the preservation of the commons. Our empirical analysis emphasizes, using the most recent advances in the IAD/SES framework, the distributed and collaborative knowledge governance in a French peasant seed network as a key driver for reintroducing cultivated agrobiodiversity and on-farm seed conservation of ancient and landrace varieties. These inclusive peasant seed groups developed alternative peer-to-peer models of collaborative peasant-led community-based breeding and grassroots innovations in the search for more resilient population varieties. Our results highlight the various models of collective action within the network and discuss the organizational tradeoffs of opting out of peasant seed activities and recreating a shared collective knowledge base on the benefits of restoring cultivated agrobiodiversity. It helps us better understand how modern peasant seed groups function as epistemic communities which contributes to envisioning alternative agricultural systems. (shrink)

A common and driving assumption in agricultural research is that the introduction of research trials, new practices and innovative technologies will result in technology adoption, and will subsequently generate benefits for farmers and other stakeholders. In Lao PDR, the potential benefits of introduced technologies have not been fully realised by beneficiaries. We report on an analysis of a survey of 735 smallholder farmers in Southern Lao PDR who were questioned about factors that influenced their decisions to adopt new technologies. In (...) this study, we have constructed measures or states of adoption which identify key elements of an adoption decision-making nexus. Analysis was conducted to statistically group explanatory factors of adoption. The key explanatory factors represented attributes of the farmer, the factors considered when undertaking production decisions and elements of the agricultural value chain that present as opportunities or constraints. We describe the combination of farmer’s personal attributes, perceptions of the value chain, and the introduction of new technologies by external actors as an “agricultural research value chain”, where agricultural research activities intervene to derive greater benefits for local farmers. A generalised linear model, via Poisson regression analysis on the identified explanatory factors, was applied to explore how they influence adoption measures and we found several significant relationships. (shrink)

How are “interesting” research problems identified and made durable by academic researchers, particularly in situations defined by multiple evaluation principles? Building on two case studies of research groups working on rare diseases in academic biomedicine, we explore how group leaders arrange their groups to encompass research problems that latch onto distinct evaluation principles by dividing and combining work into “basic-oriented” and “clinical-oriented” spheres of inquiry. Following recent developments in the sociology of valuation comparing academics to capitalist entrepreneurs in (...) pursuit of varying kinds of worth, we argue that the metaphor of the portfolio is helpful in analyzing how group leaders manage these different research lines as “alternative investment options” from which they were variously hoping to capitalize. We argue portfolio development is a useful concept for exploring how group leaders fashion “entrepreneurial” practices to manage and exploit tensions between multiple matrices of valuation and conclude with suggestions for how this vocabulary can further extend analysis of epistemic capitalism within science and technology studies. (shrink)

Football fandom in Morocco leads to collective actions performed by fan-groups or ultra-groups. Admittedly, this particular type of collective expression reflects young Moroccans’ commitment to the values and events of their football team. However, ultra-groups tend to act out with violence, and their actions often cause collateral damage. I first aim to show how ultra-groups help to forge a sense of personal and collective identity in young Moroccans. Then, I refer to the theoretical framework of interactionism in order to (...) explain the reciprocal actions and rivalries between ultra-fans of the Raja Club Athletic (the “Green Boys”) and of the Wydad Athletic Club (the “Winners”). Eventually, I highlight that the collective actions of fan-groups also reflect young Moroccans’ concerns regarding social and political issues in their country. (shrink)

Community supported agriculture programs are transforming the way people relate to food and agriculture. Many researchers have considered the transformative potential of CSAs on economic, social, and environmental relations. They illustrate how participants are embedded in broader political economic transformations. The same focus, however, has not been given to CSAs’ transformative impact on individual shareholders—especially in terms of their relationship to food and health. We draw together literatures from behavioral economics, econometrics, and political ecology to evaluate the potential impacts of (...) CSA participation on food lifestyle behaviors. Using primary data drawn from a survey of four groups with distinct food acquisition environments, we compare respondents’ self-assessed food-related behaviors along three different categories: produce versus processed food consumption, food away from home consumption, and food acquisition and interest in nutrition. By documenting between-group differences, we confirm that shareholders display significant absolute differences to other groups along numerous indicators related to the above-stated categories and in general assessments of health. These differences correspond directionally to behaviors public health officials identify as correlated to beneficial health outcomes. We conclude by theorizing how the food environments delineated by a CSA exchange relationship provide unique reflexive opportunities for participants to develop diverse food-related skills and behaviors. (shrink)

"This is a most timely, intelligent, well-written, and absorbing essay on a central and painful social and political problem of out time."--Sir Isaiah Berlin"The major achievement of this remarkable book is a critical theory of nationalism, worked through historical and contemporary examples, explaining the value of national commitments and defining their moral limits. Tamir explores a set of problems that philosophers have been notably reluctant to take on, and leaves us all in her debt."--Michael WalzerIn this provocative work, Yael Tamir (...) urges liberals not to surrender the concept of nationalism to conservative, chauvinist, or racist ideologies. In her view, liberalism, with its respect for personal autonomy, reflection, and choice, and nationalism, with its emphasis on belonging, loyalty, and solidarity are not irreconcilable. Here she offers a new theory, "liberal nationalism," which allows each set of values to accommodate the other. Tamir sees nationalism as an affirmation of communal and cultural memberships and as a quest for recognition and self-respect. Persuasively she argues that national groups can enjoy these benefits through political arrangements other than the nation-state. While acknowledging that nationalism places members of national minorities at a disadvantage, the author offers guidelines for alleviating the problems involved using examples from currents conflicts in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe.Liberal Nationalismis an impressive attempt to tie together a wide range of issues often kept apart: personal autonomy, cultural membership, political obligations, particularity versus impartiality in moral duties, and global justice. Drawing on material from disparate fields--including political philosophy, ethics, law, and sociology--Tamir brings out important and previously unnoticed interconnections between them, offering a new perspective on the influence of nationalism on modern political philosophy. (shrink)

Western society today is less unified by a set of core values than ever before. Undoubtedly, the concept of moral consensus is a difficult one in a liberal, democratic and pluralistic society. But it is imperative to avoid a rigid majoritarianism where sensitive personal values are at stake, as in bioethics. Bioethics has become an influential part of public and professional discussions of health care. It has helped frame issues of moral values and medicine as part of (...) a more general effort to find consensus about some of the most perplexing questions of our time. But why is it thought that a moral consensus is important or that it deserves respect? How does moral consensus acquire legitimacy in a society that includes diverse value systems? How is moral consensus possible and how do small groups help create or distort consensus processes? Written by a medical school professor trained in philosophy, this timely work tackles these questions from philosophical, historical, and social scientific standpoints. It begins by describing the traditional ambivalence about consensus in Western culture as well as the uncertain relationship in modernity between consensus and expertise. After outlining the current bioethical consensus, the book gives philosophical and political analyses of the idea of consensus, then assesses the role of consensus in national ethics commissions and in the ethics committee movement. Moreno constructs an original, naturalistic philosophy of moral consensus, referred to as "bioethical naturalism", and then applies sociology and social psychology to actual consensus processes. The book concludes with an account of bioethics as a consensus-oriented social reform movement. This insightful volume will be essential reading for bioethicists, philosophers, physicians, members of ethics committees, and all those concerned with ethical and social issues in health care. (shrink)

In this volume Axel Honneth deepens and develops his highly influential theory of recognition, showing how it enables us both to rethink the concept of justice and to offer a compelling account of the relationship between social reproduction and individual identity formation. Drawing on his reassessment of Hegel’s practical philosophy, Honneth argues that our conception of social justice should be redirected from a preoccupation with the principles of distributing goods to a focus on the measures for creating symmetrical relations of (...) recognition. This theoretical reorientation has far-reaching implications for the theory of justice, as it obliges this theory to engage directly with problems concerning the organization of work and with the ideologies that stabilize relations of domination. In the final part of this volume Honneth shows how the theory of recognition provides a fruitful and illuminating way of exploring the relation between social reproduction and identity formation. Rather than seeing groups as regressive social forms that threaten the autonomy of the individual, Honneth argues that the ‘I’ is dependent on forms of social recognition embodied in groups, since neither self-respect nor self-esteem can be maintained without the supportive experience of practising shared values in the group. This important new book by one of the leading social philosophers of our time will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, sociology, politics and the humanities and social sciences generally. (shrink)

In the edited book “Bourdieu and Chinese Education”, a group of scholars in China, Australia, Canada, and the USA engage in a dialogue with Bourdieu and raise persistent questions not only about issues of equity, competition, and change in Chinese education, but also about the value, venture, and violence in using established Western intellectual frameworks for analysing Chinese education. In response to these questions, this special issue analyses and discusses Chinese rural education, teacher education, language education, health and physical (...) education, and transnational education; and proposes a series of new conceptualisations, for example, regression- and network-based field analysis, Bourdieu-Chinese philosophy encounter, field of mediation, localised pedagogical capital, and new Chinese habituses (e.g., contemptuous habitus, diasporic cosmopolitan habitus, habitus (re)structuring). Such collective effort responds to the strident, and sometimes misleading, castigation of Bourdieu for determinism; and also disputes the non-reflexive, celebratory tone that consecrates the French sociologist and his canonical theorem, and hence reproduces the symbolic violence in the doxic academia. In this vein, the special issue is respectful for, but not restricted to, Bourdieu’s sociology, showing no timidity in questioning and contesting the framework of the famed thinker when research problems and findings demand so. (shrink)

An international group of distinguished scholars brings a variety of resources to bear on the major issues in the study and teaching of mathematics, and on the problem of understanding mathematics as a cultural and social phenomenon. All are guided by the notion that our understanding of mathematical knowledge must be grounded in and reflect the realities of mathematical practice. Chapters on the philosophy of mathematics illustrate the growing influence of a pragmatic view in a field traditionally dominated by (...) platonic perspectives. In a section on mathematics, politics, and pedagogy, the emphasis is on politics and values in mathematics education. Issues addressed include gender and mathematics, applied mathematics and social concerns, and the reflective and dialogical nature of mathematical knowledge. The concluding section deals with the history and sociology of mathematics, and with mathematics and social change. Contributors include Philip J. Davis, Helga Jungwirth, Nel Noddings, Yehuda Rav, Michael D. Resnik, Ole Skovsmose, and Thomas Tymoczko. (shrink)

The practice of making datasets publicly available for use by the wider scientific community has become firmly integrated in genomic science. One significant gap in literature around data sharing concerns how it impacts on scientists’ ability to preserve values and ethical standards that form an essential component of scientific collaborations. We conducted a qualitative sociological study examining the potential for harm to ethnic groups, and implications of such ethical concerns for data sharing. We focused our empirical work on the (...) MalariaGEN Consortium, one of the first international collaborative genomics research projects in Africa. (shrink)

The American Medical Association enacted its Code of Ethics in 1847, the first such national codification. In this volume, a distinguished group of experts from the fields of medicine, bioethics, and history of medicine reflect on the development of medical ethics in the United States, using historical analyses as a springboard for discussions of the problems of the present, including what the editors call "a sense of moral crisis precipitated by the shift from a system of fee-for-service medicine to (...) a system of fee-for-system medicine, better known as 'managed care.'" The authors begin with a look at how the medical profession began to consider ethical issues in the 1800s and subsequent developments in the 1900s. They then address the sociological, historical, ethical, and legal aspects of the practice of medicine. Later chapters discuss current and future challenges to medical ethics and professional values. Appendixes display various versions of the AMA's Code of Ethics as it has evolved over time. Contributors: George J. Annas, J.D., M.P.H., Arthur Isak Applbaum, Ph.D., Robert B. Baker, Ph.D., Chester R. Burns, M.D., Ph.D., Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D., Alexander Morgan Capron, J.D., Christine K. Cassel, M.D., Linda L. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D., Eliot L. Freidson, Ph.D., Albert R. Jonsen, Ph.D., Stephen R. Latham, J.D., Ph.D., Susan E. Lederer, Ph.D., Florencia Luna, Ph.D., Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D., Charles E. Rosenberg, Ph.D., Mark Siegler, M.D., Rosemary A. Stevens, Ph.D., Robert M. Tenery, Jr., M.D., Robert M. Veatch, Ph.D., John Harley Warner, Ph.D., Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D. (shrink)

Pt. 1. Disempowering civilians -- Who dies in armed conflicts? -- Distinguishing the enemy from the innocent in war -- Deportation from Crimea -- Genocide in Rwanda -- The Second Lebanon War -- Better safe than dead in Iraq -- part 2. Conflict theory as value theory -- Limitations of social identity theories in relation to conflict analysis -- Understanding group identity as collective axiology -- The normative dimensions of identity conflicts -- Causality in explanations of civilian devastation.

The slogan “Do Your Own Research” (DYOR) is often invoked by people who are distrustful, even downright sceptical, of recognized expert authorities. While this slogan may serve various rhetorical purposes, it also expresses an ethic of inquiry that valorises independent thinking and rejects uncritical deference to recognized experts. This paper is a qualified defence of this ethic of inquiry in one of the central contexts in which it might seem attractive. I use several case studies of patient activist groups to (...) argue that these groups often engage in valuable independent research that advances biomedical knowledge. In doing so they demonstrate the value of “lay expertise” and the epistemic as well as political necessity of not simply deferring to recognized experts. I also give some reasons why patient activist groups often produce valuable biomedical knowledge: they are examples of what I call “research collectives”. Research collectives are research communities that differ from the traditional research communities we find in universities and research institutes in that their members typically lack formal relevant scientific credentials and training. But they are similar in that they have internal structures—training procedures, norms of discussion, venues for holding discussions—that facilitate the production of knowledge. I finish by suggesting that future research into the differences and similarities between research collectives and traditional research communities is required. (shrink)

Definition of the problem Few concepts in recent ethical debates have enjoyed as much popularity as the concept of discrimination. However, a comparative discussion of the concept, including its conceptual nuances and its ethical significance for health care, has so far been lacking. The aim of this paper is to develop a nuanced understanding of discrimination based on the philosophical and sociological literature against the background of ethically relevant medical and nursing scenarios. Methods Using practical examples from health care, we (...) discuss direct, indirect, and statistical discrimination; we examine the importance of intentions and the role of collective actors. In addition, we analyze which social groups may experience discrimination and the respective importance of forms of epistemic injustice. Conclusions We argue that despite its complexity, the concept offers significant added value because it allows us to highlight forms of disadvantage that go beyond the violation of individual specific rights or interests. As a knowledge-based system of great societal influence, health care exhibits some characteristics that can foster discrimination. Acknowledging this fact is essential in order to effectively address discrimination. (shrink)

This paper gives a critical evaluation of the philosophical presuppositions and implications of two current schools in the sociology of knowledge: the Strong Programme of Bloor and Barnes; and the Constructivism of Latour and Knorr-Cetina. Bloor's arguments for his externalist symmetry thesis (i.e., scientific beliefs must always be explained by social factors) are found to be incoherent or inconclusive. At best, they suggest a Weak Programme of the sociology of science: when theoretical preferences in a scientific community, SC, (...) are first internally explained by appealing to the evidence, e, and the standards or values, V, accepted in SC, then a sociologist may sometimes step in to explain why e and V were accepted in SC. Latour's story about the social construction of facts in scientific laboratories is found to be misleading or incredible. The idea that scientific reality is an artifact turns out to have some interesting affinities with classical pragmatism, instrumentalism, phenomenology, and internal realism. However, the constructivist account of theoretical entities in terms of negotiation and social consensus is less plausible than the alternative realist story which explains consensus by the preexistence of mind-independent real entities. The author concludes that critical scientific realism, developed with the concept of truthlikeness, is compatible with the thesis that scientific beliefs or knowledge claims may be relative to various types of cognitive and practical interests. However, the realist denies, with good reasons, the stronger type of relativism which takes reality and truth to be relative to persons, groups, or social interests. (shrink)

The volume brings together a collection of original papers on some of the main tenets of Joseph Raz's legal and political philosophy: Legal positivism and the nature of law, practical reason, authority, the value of equality, incommensurability, harm, group rights, and multiculturalism.

This overview presents the most authoritative publications, theories and reflections of contemporary philosophers, culturologists and sociologists working on the study of cultural exclusion zones. There is a short introduction module, in which we have endeavoured to collate and highlight on the principal themes, terms, concepts and technical vocabulary developed to describe the specific phenomena of cultural exclusion zones. It is not intended as an exhaustive review of all aspects of the large agglomeration of themes related to Cultural Exclusion studies, but (...) focuses in particular on materials from the international “Mechanisms of Formation Zones of Cultural Exclusion and Frontier Areas” conferences (St. Petersburg, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017), some of which have also been selected for this edition of Rivista di Estetica. In this introduction we will present a selection of trends and individuals relating to the Russian and international interdisciplinary research project directed by the Centre for Cultural Exclusion and Frontier Zones of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the St. Petersburg State University as institutions, and by Sergey Troitskiy as theorist and visionary.In the following review we put forth the reflections of contemporary scientists on the phenomena of exclusion and re-actualization in conjunction with historical processes, along with an analysis of the origins and current state of the problem, and suggest ways to overcome cultural exclusion between various socio-demographic, national and socio-professional groups, as well as the social experience of separation from existing cultural values and norms through the development of a community’s cultural identity. The ideas reviewed propose various approaches to analysing the functional mechanisms of cultural exclusion, such as ontological, sociological, and humanitarian. (shrink)

Business ethics seeks to apply diverse ideas about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, the ‘good life’ and the ‘good society’ to the decisions, attitudes and behaviour of people and institutions in profit-making business, and it does so in order to understand or evaluate, and to improve. In the broad sense, this has been a millennial activity, coterminous with the very existence of ‘business’ , and it has gone on under diverse rubrics including those of social ethics, social thought, political economy or economic (...) ethics, and within the disciplines of history, literature, sociology and politics. In the 20th century, and especially since the 1960s, a narrower-gauge subject has employed ‘business ethics’ as its explicit title.This has developed its own literature, journals and courses, academics, experts, networks and promoting bodies, usually within business schools or management studies, and with a markedly pedagogic or even ‘missionary’ tone. It is this more explicit, institutionalized and in a sense more ‘proprietary’ stream of ‘business ethics’ that I intend to criticize in this paper. Let us call it ‘conventional business ethics’ . I believe that this subject makes unwarranted claims for itself, while remaining somewhat insular and neglecting fundamental issues vital to ‘business ethics’ in the wider sense, and that it badly needs reconstruction.My criticisms are threefold and partly interrelated. They apply in varying degrees to all the current approaches, whether substantive or procedural in emphasis, whether related to utilitarian, deontological or other traditions in ethics, whether structured around social values, policy areas, management functions or stakeholder groups, and whether ‘problem-solving’ or more wisdom encouraging or ‘philosophical’. My first charge is of a-historicity. Far from ‘currentism’ assisting realism, it shortchanges proper empirical understanding of business persons, firms, sectors and decisions. My second charge is of a weak approach to the methods of ‘improvement’; a narrow view of the dynamics of desirable change. My third charge relates to a grave neglect of socio-political issues of mainly collective business influence. At issue here is a problem of micro market entrapment. Some of the most central ethical problems of business behaviour and belief are thereby bypassed, those relating to overall business roles, power and resources. (shrink)

« Rites » sont d'abord de séquences d'actions corporelles définies socialement plus ou moins strictement. Très souvent, mais pas toujours les sociétés attendent qu'aux actes extérieurs correspondent des motivations, des croyances et des émotions intérieures ou « psychiques ». Il ya des sociétés où l'efficacité supposée des rites dépend de la correspondance entre mouvements corporels et «réalité » intérieure. Mais il y en a d'autres où ce qui compte c'est uniquement l'exécution minutieuse des gestes corporels en tant que tels. De (...) toute façon, des actions rituelles ne sauraient être interprétées comme suivant exclusivement un calcul rationnel, bien qu'un observateur sociologique pourrait constater une fonction objectivement positive d'un rite sur le plan social ou psychique sans qu'il y ait une relation causale sur le plan physique. C'est surtout dans le cas des rites de deuil où on observe que des actions objectivement ineffectives, donc symboliques, « répondent » à une situation qui ne peut être altérée sur le plan « réel », mais qui aident à supporter l'insupportable. On constate quand même la possibilité que ce qui n'était d'abord qu'un mouvement extérieur s'imprègne de valeurs symboliques, comme si par exemple une douleur rituellement infligée devient le symbôle de l'appartenance à un groupe social. Les rites sont donc l'incarnation du social dans les corps des sujets. Ils s'y inscrivent. Surtout dans les grandes civilisations les rites deviennent un système administré par des spécialistes, qui développent un « code élaboré » qui n'est déchiffrable que par les experts. L'article montre qu'il ya une certaine opposition entre contrôle rituel et moral de comportements humains."Rites" are first sequences bodily actions socially defined more or less strictly. Very often, but not always expect companies as external acts are the motivations, beliefs and inner emotions or "psychic". There are societies where the supposed efficacy of rites depends on the correspondence between body movements and "reality" inside. But there are others where what counts is only the meticulous execution of bodily gestures as such. Anyway, ritual actions can not be interpreted exclusively as following a rational calculation, although a sociological observer could see a positive function objectively a rite of social or psychic without a causal relationship to the physical plane. It is especially in the case of mourning rites which we observe that actions objectively ineffective, so symbolic, "respond" to a situation that can not be altered on the "real", but help to bear the unbearable. There is still the possibility that what was at first a movement outside soaks symbolic values, such as if ritually inflicted pain becomes the symbol of belonging to a social group. The rites are the incarnation of social issues in the body. They enroll. Especially in the great civilizations rituals are a system administered by specialists who develop "elaborated code" that is decipherable only by experts. The article shows that there is a tension between moral and ritual control of human behavior. (shrink)

This article presents a critical analysis of the views of Michael Sandel on human enhancement in his book The Case Against Perfection (2007). Sandel argues that the use of biotechnologies for human enhancement is driven by a will to mastery or hybris, leading to an ‘explosion of responsibility’ and a disappearance of solidarity. I argue that Sandel is using a traditional concept of solidarity which leaves little room for individual differences and which is difficult to reconcile with the modern trend (...) towards individual autonomy and cultural heterogeneity. With reference to the sociology of Giddens, I argue that the ‘explosion of responsibility’ can be considered an expression of the insecurity in modern society and the need for reflexivity in personal and social life. I argue that the need for reflexivity is a driving social and cultural force behind the interest in human enhancement, and that this trend can go together with a commitment to take care of the needs of others. I agree with Sandel that there is a risk that human enhancement may develop into ‘hybris’, particularly when enhancement is driven by scientism and a naturalist reduction of human values to neurological processes. Enhancement based on scientism will threaten solidarity defined by Honneth as an interactive relationship aimed at the mutual recognition of individual identities in relation to a shared value horizon. I will call for a reflective approach in which human enhancement technologies are explored in the context of a ‘system of reference’. Such a reflective approach will help to protect against the hybris of scientism and to maintain solidarity with vulnerable groups. (shrink)

Background. The study of entrepreneurial activity has undergone intense development in recent decades. Traditionally this topic has been addressed from three approaches: economic, sociological and psychological. In the study of enterprising personality, two fundamental perspectives stand out: the use of general personality traits, like the Big Five, and the use of more specific traits related to entrepreneurial spirit, such as self-efficacy, autonomy, innovation, optimism, and others. The objective of this study is to provide validity evidence for a new instrument for (...) measuring eight specific dimensions of entrepreneurial personality (BEPE). Method. The sample was composed of 1,170 adults from the general population (59.9% women). The average age was 42.34 years with a standard deviation of 12.96. Of the sample, 13% were self-employed. Internal factorial structure and reliability of BEPE were examined. The relationships with other variables and the discriminative capacity of the BEPE between different groups of workers were analyzed. Results. First order factor analyses show the essential unidimensionality of each of the eight proposed sub-scales, with factorial weights ranging between 0.341 and 0.825. A second-order factor analysis was carried out, obtaining a general dimension of entrepreneurial personality. With regards to reliability, the eight BEPE sub-scales gave high alpha coefficient values, between 0.825 and 0.899, as did the total battery (0.97). BEPE sub-scales show a high canonical correlation with the Big Five personality factors (.795), and with the sub-scales of the Measure of Entrepreneurial Talents and Abilities questionnaire (.815). Conclusions. The BEPE questionnaire for the evaluation of the eight fundamental specific dimensions of the entrepreneurial personality presents adequate psychometric properties. Its relationships with other measures of personality traits are in line with what is expected. Therefore, the BEPE is a new measurement instrument that can be used with confidence both in the applied field and in research. (shrink)