Corporate sustainability reports are supposed to provide a complete and balanced picture of corporate sustainability performance. They are, however, usually voluntary and thus prone to interpretation and even greenwashing tendencies. To overcome this problem, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) provides standardized reporting guidelines challenging companies to report positive and negative aspects of an organization’s sustainability performance. However, the reporting of “negative aspects” in particular can endanger corporate legitimacy if perceived by the stakeholders as not being in line with societal norms (...) and values. Starting from the theoretical lenses of economics-based disclosure theories and socio-political theories of disclosure, the focus of this study therefore was to analyze the communicative legitimation strategies companies use to report “negative aspects,” i.e., negative ecological and social impact caused by corporate activity. Using qualitative content analysis of GRI-oriented sustainability reports from companies listed on the US Dow Jones Industrial Average Index and on the German DAX Index, we identified six legitimation strategies. We discuss these strategies regarding to symbolic and substantial management of legitimacy. We show that symbolic legitimation strategies aiming at modifying the perception of legitimizing stakeholders dominate in the reports at hand. Such persuasion, however, does not meet the requirement of impartiality as postulated by the GRI guidelines. Building upon this conclusion we propose a concise characterization of “negative aspects” and develop a GRI-compliant schema of reporting about them. In doing so, we offer a way to improve the overall “balance” of sustainability reporting contributing to a true and fair view in sustainability disclosure. (shrink)

In recent years, a considerable amount of research on adapted business for developing countries focused on the impact such endeavours have on the respective companies as well as on the affected people. However, the main emphasis within management sciences was on the economic outcomes or (even more distinct and often) on the question of how to integrate the poor into business models and value chains. Until now, further aspects of a dignified human existence were merely covered as a side note. (...) The article focuses on the influence of inclusive business approaches on various aspects of human dignity and provides explorative insights as a basis for future theory building. The aim is to uncover how human dignity is affected by different business approaches for the poor including and beyond economic outcomes. After giving an insight into the essence and meaning of human dignity in connection to various human rights, the articles refers to a number of illustrative cases of inclusive business. The analysis culminates in the insight that dignity can be (and sometimes already is) assured and promoted by deliberately including the poor into relevant value-added business processes. If this is the case, an enhanced dignity is not merely the result of increased incomes but stems from a variety of effects. However, such positive effects are not an inevitable outcome of any inclusive business initiative. (shrink)

Extant research underlines the critical challenge for firms to rigorously and consistently evaluate their growing number of cross-sector partnerships for sustainability and suggests formalizing evaluation processes by introducing formal practices. However, empirical research is scant and inconclusive. This study aims to develop an empirically grounded understanding of how firms formalize the evaluation processes of such partnerships and of what drives this formalization, to complement the so far mostly conceptual literature. We inductively analyzed 31 semi-structured interviews with 33 experts from firms (...) and their partnering nonprofits and further secondary data on organizations’ partnerships. We contribute to the cross-sector partnership research by analyzing firms’ practices related to the formalization of the internal as well as the joint partnership evaluation process with nonprofits. We propose a conceptual framework to explain why firms implement different formal practices to reduce the dependency on individuals’ skills, experiences, or judgments in evaluating partnerships. (shrink)

Rüdiger Bittner argues that the aim of thinking about what to do, of practical reason, is to find, not what we ought to do, but what it is good to do under the circumstances. Neither under prudence nor under morality are there things we ought to do. There is no warrant for the idea of our being required, by natural law or by our rationality, to do either what helps us attain our ends or what is right for moral reasons. (...) While common moral understanding is committed to there being things we ought to do and to our being guilty and deserving blame if we fail to do them, we can lay aside these notions without loss, indeed with benefit. The volume also explains what it is for something to be good to do under the circumstances and argues for understanding practical reason in these terms. What is good to do we find by experience: what we go through teaches us what helps and what hinders, and helps us figure out what is prudentially useful and what is morally right to do-although ultimately this difference itself gives way, and morality turns out to be a part of prudence. (shrink)

Why does world hunger hold an inferior place on the contemporary moral agenda? Proposed answer: because it is a political, not a moral problem. It is not a moral problem, because morality needs two conditions fulfilled: that those be in some way close to the agent unto whom that agent is doing something that is to be morally assessed; and that the relevant good or bad states or events can be clearly credited to some particular agent or agents. Neither condition (...) is fulfilled in the case of world hunger. This explains morality's failure to come to grips with it. Yet, while lacking morality's endorsement, the abolition of world hunger may still be a political goal. (shrink)

One of the century's greatest philosophers, without whom there would be no Sartre, no Foucault, no Frankfurt School, Martin Heidegger was also a man of great failures and flaws, a Faustus who made a pact with the devil of his time, Adolf Hitler. The story of Heidegger's life and philosophy, a quintessentially German story in which good and evil, brilliance and blindness are inextricably entwined and the passions and disasters of a whole century come into play, is told in this (...) brilliant biography. Heidegger grew up in Catholic Germany where, for a chance at pursuing a life of learning, he pledged himself to the priesthood. Soon he turned apostate and sought a university position, which set him on the path to becoming the star of German philosophy in the 1920s. Rüdiger Safranski chronicles Heidegger's rise along with the thought he honed on the way, with its debt to Heraclitus, Plato, and Kant, and its tragic susceptibility to the conservatism that emerged out of the nightmare of Germany's loss in World War I. A chronicle of ideas and of personal commitments and betrayals, Safranski's biography combines clear accounts of the philosophy that won Heidegger eternal renown with the fascinating details of the loves and lapses that tripped up this powerful intellectual. The best intellectual biography of Heidegger ever written and a best-seller in Germany, Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil does not shy away from full coverage of Heidegger's shameful transformation into a propagandist for the National Socialist regime; nor does it allow this aspect of his career to obscure his accomplishments. Written by a master of Heidegger's philosophy, the book is one of the best introductions to the thought and to the life and times of the greatest German philosopher of the century. (shrink)

The Enlightenment regarded language as one of the most significant achievements of man. Consequently inquiries into the origin and development of language play a central role in eighteenth-century moral philosophy. This new science of man consciously adopts the method of analysis and synthesis used in the natural sciences of the time. In moral philosophy, analysis corresponds to the search for the basic principles of human nature. Synthesis is identified with the attempt to interpret all artificial achievements of man (arts, sciences (...) and institutions) as the effect of these principles and of man's physical and social environment - an attempt known as theoretical history. The type of explanation envisaged by theoretical historians is based on the principle of causality. It consists in a genetic reconstruction of the social phenomenon under investigation. Inquiries into the origin of language follow this pattern of explanation. They form part of theoretical history and thus represent a major aspect of the eighteenth-century scientific study of man. (shrink)

The influence of the Platonic theory of forms is to be found in nearly all periods in the history of Western philosophy. Much less well known is the fact that in all ages Arabic philosophers also discussed Platonic forms in their written works, although they had no access to Plato s Dialogues. This study analyses how this conception was given doctrinal content without recourse to Plato s works, and presents the relevant Arabic works in German translation for the first time. (...) They offer a first insight into a branch of the reception of Platonism that has not yet been researched, but which is often clearly influenced by Islam.". (shrink)

In this compelling new book, the philosopher Rudiger Safranski grapples with the pressing problems of the global age: 'Big Brother' states, terrorism, ...

The first United Nations Millennium Development Goal calls for a distinct reduction of worldwide poverty. It is now widely accepted that the private sector is a crucial partner in achieving this ambitious target. Building on this insight, the ‹Bottom of the Pyramid’ concept provides a framework that highlights the untapped opportunities with the ‹poorest of the poor’, while at the same time acknowledging the abilities and resources of private enterprises for poverty alleviation. This article connects the idea of business with (...) the poor to sustainable development and especially to the notions of inter- and intragenerational justice. These principles of justice can be linked with the ‹Bottom of the Pyramid’ approach directly through the Rawlsian principles to foster holistic thinking. On this basis, the article offers a normative-ethical reasoning of corporations’ possible responsibilities for the poorest of the poor. Today’s state of worldwide inequalities is likely to generate future tensions between the privileged western world and the uncounted mass of poor (let alone the ethical dubiousness of this status). However, it is at the same time problematic if not even impossible to improve the situation of the poor by simply copying the resource intensive western way of living to the ‹Bottom of the Pyramid’ due to the limited carrying capacity of the earth. After highlighting possible moral dilemmas which may occur through such a potential trade off, this article concludes with an outlook on how the concepts ‹Bottom of the Pyramid’ and sustainable development could be combined. (shrink)

Collaborative consumption is proposed as a potential step beyond unsustainable linear consumption patterns toward more sustainable consumption practices. Despite mounting interest in the topic, little is known about the determinants of this consumer behavior. We use an extended theory of planned behavior to examine the relative influence of consumers’ personal norms and the theory’s basic sociopsychological variables attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control on collaborative consumption. Moreover, we use this framework to examine consumers’ underlying value and belief structure regarding (...) collaborative consumption. We measure these aspects for 224 consumers in a survey and then assess their self-reported collaborative consumption behavior in a second survey. Our structural model fits the data well. Collaborative consumption is more strongly—through intentions—influenced by personal norms and attitudes than by subjective norms. Personal norms to consume collaboratively are determined by consumers’ altruistic, biospheric, and egoistic value orientations. Cost savings, efficient use of resources, and community with others are found to be consumers’ attitudinal beliefs underlying collaborative consumption. We conclude that collaborative consumption can be pin-pointed neither as a mere form of economic exchange nor as a primarily normative form of sharing resources. Instead, collaborative consumption is determined by economic/egoistic (e.g., cost savings) and normative (e.g., altruistic and biospheric value orientations) motives. Implications for collaborative consumption research, the theory of planned behavior, and practitioners are discussed. (shrink)

In this communication recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience is presented showing that believing is a fundamental brain function. It integrates the perception of information from the environment with personal perspective taking (“what does it mean to me?”) as the basis for predictive coding of action. Observing that another person becomes injured can make one believe that the pain in the injured person is similar to pain that oneself has experienced previously. This first-person perspective has been called empathy and includes primal (...) beliefs about potentially pain eliciting objects and painful events in the sense of “what does it mean to you?”. Furthermore, observing other people to suffer involves the conceptual belief that their condition is aversive and burdensome. Believing in love and peace involves the perspective of “what does it mean to us?”. Contradictory events may cause the sensation of pain and suffering in the afflicted individuals resulting in mutual distrust and eventually disruption of social bonds. In conclusion, beliefs play an important, though long underestimated role in cognitive neuroscience of pain and suffering and more generally for the cultural notions of deities and evil. (shrink)

Two broad views on how agents are related to their actions are distinguished, agents as origins and agents as rulers. This paper focusses on the second. First it argues that a view of agents as rulers is attractive because a view of agents as origins seems incapable of accounting for the difference between actions and mere doings. Second, various attempts to spell out the idea of agents as rulers are examined, none of them proving successful. Thus the final suggestion is (...) to renounce the search for a basic pattern of how agents are related to their actions and settle for the historically ascertainable significance of individual actions in the context of individual lives. (shrink)

Matthias Schramm, a well-known historian of science and professor at the University of Tübingen from 1966 to 1996, died in Dusslingen near Tübingen on 24 January 2005, shortly before his 77th birthday. He was born on 6 February 1928 in Paris as a child of painters. Due to wartime difficulties, most of his education was acquired at home. In spite of this, he passed the examination of a high-school prior to his matriculation. Although Schramm's school had a pure classical orientation, (...) he read on his own initiative Euclid in Greek. (shrink)

Die Vorstellung von einer Ewigen Wiederkehr des Gleichen ist uralt. FriedrichNietzsche hat sie übernommen, radikalisiert und vor allem ihre anthropologi-schen, psychologischen und existenziellen Aspekte ausgelotet, im Nachlass aberauch als physikalische Hypothese formuliert. Nachdem das physikalischeWeltbild der Statistischen Mechanik die Ewige Wiederkehr noch zu NietzschesLebzeiten denkbar oder sogar wahrscheinlich machte – allerdings unter anderenPrämissen –, geriet sie in der Kosmologie mit der Entdeckung der Expansionund Evolution des Alls spätestens seit den 1960er-Jahren in Misskredit, weil siemit der Urknall-Hypothese kaum zu vereinbaren schien. (...) Umso überraschenderist es daher, dass in der aktuellen physikalischen Kosmologie eine zeitliche und /oder räumliche Ewige Wiederkehr erneut unvermeidlich erscheint – jedenfallsim Rahmen mehrerer unabhängiger und überdies konkurrierender kosmologi-scher Modelle, die die Urknall-Theorie erweitern. Dies bedeutet auch eine neueAktualität Nietzsches: Der ,Ewige-Wiederkunfts-Gedanke‘ und seine Implika-tionen sind wichtiger denn je für ein Verständnis der Welt, in der wir leben. (shrink)

Der oft schon totgesagte Leviathan des Thomas Hobbes ist so lebendig, aber auch so umstritten wie bei seiner Geburt. Carl Schmitt ist als der "Hobbes des 20. Jahrhunderts" bezeichnet worden. Er selbst sah sich gern als Nachfolger und Erben des Begrunders der neuzeitlichen Staatsphilosophie. In dem "Hobbes-Kristall" kommt Schmitts eigenwillige Hobbes-Interpretation besonders deutlich zum Vorschein. Denn in diesem Diagramm wird der Mikrokosmos Schmittschen Denkens sichtbar. Es enthalt funf Achsen, deren oberste die Wahrheit und deren unterste Gehorsam und Schutz des Einzelnen (...) sind. In drei Teilen setzen sich Philosophen, Staats- und Politikwissenschaftler mit der Interpretation des Leviatahn im Allgemeinen und der Schmittschen Hobbes-Interpretation im Besonderen auseinander. (shrink)

Despite a long tradition of dealing with problems of optimal intergenerational allocation, economists are rarely integrated into debates about strategies to cope with decisions with long-term effects. Cost-benefitanalyses as typical economic methods to evaluate long-term investment strategies mostly neglect the need for basic normative decisions, e.g. about the definition of future generations and their interests. This paper presents first steps of an institutional economics' framework to overcorne these shortcornings and to improve the opportunities of an integrated interdisciplinary approach.

The present reply to Peter Schaber’s critique of my paper Achtung und ihre moralische Bedeutung argues, first, that Schaber has no good grounds for maintaining that we have an obligation to respect every human being. Second, it explains why respect is not a fruitful attitude to take in the face of social divisions.

The central idea of the book is this: a reason for which people do things is a state of affairs or event in the world, and the action is a response to that state of affairs or event. The present chapter introduces this idea by means of examples. It explains the term “response” and argues that it is historical knowledge that allows us to tell what some action is a response to. It argues, moreover, that this idea makes the best (...) sense of how we ordinarily think and speak of reasons for which people do things. (shrink)

Freud’s concept of repression should be discarded because we do not understand what supposedly is being repressed, nor what is repressing, nor why it is done. Freud’s answers to the first two questions fall short of the dynamic picture of forces and counterforces implicit in the idea of repression. The answer to the last question invokes an unacceptable separation of agencies in the person.