Some observers regard South Africa as one of the most violent, lawless and morally depraved societies in the world. Several other countries around the world can be shown to be similarly afflicted. In South Africa's case, this condition might be because of political transformation, particularly the lingering effects of the struggle against past injustices inflicted on sections of the population. The social instability has been exacerbated by an influx of migrants and a resultant increase in diversity. One way of attempting (...) to assuage this situation is to harness the school subject known as 'citizenship education' for guiding the upcoming generations into committing to a new moral compass, that is, awareness or consciousness with a conscience, and to an accompanying new social contract. Finding a rationale for such a moral compass and social contract that all the citizens of South Africa and of other similarly stricken countries would be prepared to commit to is a daunting task because people tend to be subjective in reflecting about their personal and group views, particularly about their religious beliefs and convictions. Closer examination reveals, however, that despite all the diversity, differences and conflict prevalent in societies, people are potentially able to share a set of basic values that arguably could form the core of the sought-for moral compass. Citizenship education could be functional in bringing home to the next generation the notion of henceforth living in accordance with the precepts of such a moral compass and social contract. (shrink)

Since the Brexit-vote and the election of a far-right businessman as President of the United States, the social sciences have been struggling to explain the societal conditions that nourish the increasing appeal of far-right parties and leaders in the Western world. The article’s main thesis is that the currently leading sociological paradigm, the theory of globalization losers, is not sufficient to understand the social dynamics in question. Starting from a discussion of the recent work of German sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer, it (...) is argued that the best insight in far-right voter’s motivations and emotions can be found in the work of Margaret Canovan. The article shows further that a sociological investigation into the socio-psychological dynamics of the rise of the far-right should take into account broader cultural transformations that have been weakening the social world of Western democracies in the past 30 years, namely individualization, acceleration and demographic decline. In times of crisis (the ‘modernization’ of Eastern Europe and the financial crisis of 2007), these transformations become manifest as a general crisis of advanced capitalism. (shrink)

The Rawlsian conception of constituent power in Alessandro Ferrara’s Sovereignty Across Generations is burdened by a deep contradiction that renders the central argument in the book highly questionable. On the one hand, Rawls is (correctly in my view) presented as the thinker that confronted contemporary political theory with the problem of divisive pluralism. On the other hand, Rawls is also presented (incorrectly in my view) as the thinker who then suddenly found a solution for this divisive pluralism in the ‘common (...) values’ that all the members of these divisively pluralist societies share ‘unproblematically’. The combination of these two moves leaves one with the sense that Rawls rather frivolously put up the problem of divisive pluralism like a strawman that he could shoot down again without much ado. This article proposes a different reading of Rawls that considers him a serious thinker who did not amuse himself and his readers with strawman-problems. For this reading of Rawls, guidance is drawn from Hans Kelsen, the very thinker whom Sovereignty Across Generations casually dismisses for failing to grasp or appreciate the ‘common values’ that pluralist societies share so ‘unproblematically’. (shrink)

One of the ways in which sexual transmission of AIDS is addressed is through moral interventions by organisations affiliated with Christian churches. However, this approach has been heavily criticised in recent literature, implying that moral interventions by church-affiliated organisations generally lead to stigmatisation which is one of the major obstacles to their involvement in HIV prevention. This article explores the origin of this accusation and discusses the Christian-ethical aspects related to HIV or AIDS. The conclusion is that the fact that (...) churches take the Word of God and Christian morality as point of departure in HIV or AIDS intervention programmes does not imply that people who transgressed religious moral teachings may be condemned. On the contrary, the church preaches Christian forgiveness, mercy and empathy. Churches and organisations affiliated with churches should therefore be regarded as valuable partners in the fight against AIDS, for while propagating a normative lifestyle, they also preach love, compassion and support for people living with HIV. (shrink)

Although generational differences have been studied in developed countires, not much information is available about generational cohorts and how they differ in terms of work ethics in developing countries. A cross-sectional study was conducted with a sample of 301 respondents from South Africa. Work ethics of three generational cohorts were measured, namely the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y. The main finding of this research was that statistically significant differences and similarities were found between the various generational cohorts in (...) terms of work ethics facets. Statistically significant generational differences were indicated for hard work and delay of gratification. (shrink)

Academics and/or scholars increasingly feel that their academic voice (combined or individual) has been squelched by the demands of performativity in its various guises, and resultantly, that they have been caught up in a process of steady disempowerment. Rather, it should be their right to be free to use their positions in the pursuit of scholarship as their conscience and their expert knowledge of their subject dictate. Academics should be free to question for themselves the boundaries of their limitations, and (...) not have these i mposedon them by the state or government bureaucracy. In order to help empower academics to regain their academic voice and identity, this article transposes six of the philosophical ideas of Belgian philosopher Rudi Visker to the world of academia. It explores the possibilities of using these ideas as instruments for the promotion and maintenance of academic freedom. Key concepts: academic freedom, managerialism, institutions of higher learning, Rudi Visker. (shrink)

Swords turning into ploughshares is not peace – Peace (שָׁלֹום) in Isaiah 40−44. ‘Swords being turned into ploughshares’ are often portrayed as being tantamount to peace. Peace though has got a more extensive meaning than only the absence of war. Whilst war and destruction is on the forefront in Isaiah 1–39, the opposite is true in Isaiah 40–66. The intention of this article is therefore to demonstrate the extensive meaning of peace (שָׁלֹום) as it unfolds as a motive in Isaiah (...) 40–66. Because of a lack of space, only the first three passages directly mentioning שָׁלֹום [peace] will be discussed. Even though this discussion will be incomplete, it will reveal that peace is not part of man’s normal state, that not everyone will experience peace and that there is a direct link between peace and the rule of God. (shrink)

Why is a Reformational philosophy needed in Africa? It is necessary, because something is missing in African Christianity. Most Western missionaries taught Africans a “broken” or dualistic worldview. This caused a divorce between traditional culture and their new Christian religion. The Christian faith was perceived as something remote, only concerned with a distant past and a far-away future. It could not become a reality in their everyday lives. It could not develop into an all-encompassing worldview and lifestyle. Because Reformational philosophy (...) advocates the Biblical, holistic approach of a comprehensive worldview, it is welcomed on our continent. It contains a healing and liberating message to our bleeding and lost continent. What Africans, however, neither want nor can afford, is an ivory tower philosophy, playing intellectual games; a philosophy which does not do or change anything. They want a philosophy which is a “marriage” between abstract ideas and the facts on the ground. They need a Christian philosophy with compassion that may even contribute to the alleviation of their poverty! (shrink)

Although normative systems, or social laws, have proved to be a highly influential approach to coordination in multi-agent systems, the issue of compliance to such normative systems remains problematic. In all real systems, it is possible that some members of an agent population will not comply with the rules of a normative system, even if it is in their interests to do so. It is therefore important to consider the extent to which a normative system is robust, i.e., the extent (...) to which it remains effective even if some agents do not comply with it. We formalise and investigate three different notions of robustness and related decision problems. We begin by considering sets of agents whose compliance is necessary and/or sufficient to guarantee the effectiveness of a normative system; we then consider quantitative approaches to robustness, where we try to identify the proportion of an agent population that must comply in order to ensure success; and finally, we consider a more general approach, where we characterise the compliance conditions required for success as a logical formula. We furthermore introduce a logic for specifying properties of norm compliance in general and norm robustness in particular. (shrink)

Qualitative Coalitional Games are a variant of coalitional games in which an agent's desires are represented as goals that are either satisfied or unsatisfied, and each choice available to a coalition is a set of goals, which would be jointly satisfied if the coalition made that choice. A coalition in a QCG will typically form in order to bring about a set of goals that will satisfy all members of the coalition. Our goal in this paper is to develop and (...) study logics for reasoning about QCGs. We begin by introducing a logic for reasoning about “static” QCGs, where participants play a single game, and we then introduce and study Temporal QCGs , i.e., games in which a sequence of QCGs is played. In order to represent and reason about such games, we introduce a linear time temporal logic of QCGs, called ℒ. We give a complete axiomatisation of ℒ, use it to investigate the properties of TQCGs, identify its expressive power, establish its complexity, characterise classes of TQGCs with formulas from our logical language, and use it to formulate several solution concepts for TQCGs. (shrink)

Adopting a descriptive phenomenological approach, this study explores the experiences of discrimination of white women in committed interracial relationships with black men within the South African context. Three white females in committed interracial relationships with black males were recruited and interviewed. Open-ended interviews were conducted in order to elicit rich and in-depth first-person descriptions of the participants’ lived experiences of discrimination as a result of being in committed interracial relationships. The data analysis entailed a descriptive phenomenological content analysis and description. (...) The results of this study suggest that white women in committed interracial relationships with black men experience discrimination in various contexts, where discrimination manifests as either a negative or a positive encounter; in addition, discrimination evokes various emotional responses and is coped with in either maladaptive or adaptive ways. Finally, the experience of discrimination, although personal, necessarily impacts on the interracial relationship. The nature and impact of discrimination experienced by white women in committed interracial relationships with black men is thus multi-layered and both an intra-personal and an inter-personal phenomenon. (shrink)

In January and February 2023, the University of Luxembourg hosted a series of four online seminars on Frank Michelman’s then just recently published book Constitutional Essentials ( CE), a book which in Frank’s own words aimed to work out the implications of Rawls' theory of political liberalism for constitutional theory and debates between constitutional lawyers regarding a number of constantly recurring questions of constitutional law. Eleven of the invited contributions to the four seminars (presentations of 15–20 minutes) plus one additional (...) contribution by Silje Langvatn, are now collected in this special issue of Philosophy & Social Criticism, followed by a response by Michelman. This introduction to the discussions between Michelman and his interlocutors begins with a brief synopsis of some of the key lines of argument that Michelman develops in CE and then moves on to survey all the arguments offered in response. The last section takes a briefly look at Michelman’s replies to these responses. (shrink)

Optimism has reigned supreme for a long time regarding the potential of education (schooling) to address the many societal ailments that humankind has had to deal with. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 shifted all such aspirations to the back-burner. Now, after just more than a year after the initial outbreak of the pandemic, the question can be raised whether those who managed the pandemic in the educational context followed the correct policies and instituted the correct (ethical, (...) moral) measures in combatting the pandemic. This comparison between the situation in the Netherlands and South Africa reveals that although the role-players in both countries had a good understanding of the situation and of their duties in such conditions, they tended to treat education as just another facet of society, thereby demonstrating a lack of empathy with the unique demands of education (schooling). CONTRIBUTION: In this article, the authors investigate the governance performance of two different countries during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic concerning education and judge that performance based on a Biblically driven ethical-moral-pedagogical framework. (shrink)

We add a limited but useful form of quantification to Coalition Logic, a popular formalism for reasoning about cooperation in game-like multi-agent systems. The basic constructs of Quantified Coalition Logic (QCL) allow us to express such properties as "every coalition satisfying property P can achieve φ" and "there exists a coalition C satisfying property P such that C can achieve φ". We give an axiomatisation of QCL, and show that while it is no more expressive than Coalition Logic, it is (...) nevertheless exponentially more succinct. The complexity of QCL model checking for symbolic and explicit state representations is shown to be no worse than that of Coalition Logic, and satisfiability for QCL is shown to be no worse than satisfiability for Coalition Logic. We illustrate the formalism by showing how to succinctly specify such social choice mechanisms as majority voting, which in Coalition Logic require specifications that are exponentially long in the number of agents. (shrink)

In recent years, schools and education authorities world wide have been paying increasing attention to issues surrounding diversity and religious tolerance. The term 'tolerance' is, however, clouded by considerable confusion and vagueness. This article seeks to contribute to recent scholarly attempts at understanding tolerance and the term that denotes it. After a brief semantic analysis of the term 'tolerance', arguments concerning the onticity of tolerance as phenomenon or entity are discussed. By examining its onticity we explore and explain some of (...) the essential features of tolerance. The article ends with a brief discussion of some of the implications of our examination that we foresee for education. (shrink)

The rise of unethical leadership practices suggests a need to emphasise value-based workplaces and leadership, encompassing workplace spirituality and spiritual leadership. Most previous research focusing on ethical behaviour in the work context has been conducted with larger organisations. This study examines the influence of workplace spirituality and spiritual leadership on ethical behaviour within the small business context. A quantitative survey research design was employed. The final sample consisted of 385 employees of small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in various industries (...) in a central district of South Africa. Structural equation modelling was utilised during the data analysis process. The study revealed that workplace spirituality and spiritual leadership had a positive and statistically significant influence on ethical behaviour in SMMEs, and workplace spirituality mediates the relationship between spiritual leadership and ethical behaviour. The study extends on existing literature as this relationship has previously not been investigated in the African small business context. Also, the findings hold practical significance for small businesses struggling with unethical behaviours and leadership. The findings of the study imply that a culture of spirituality in the workplace enhances the impact of spiritual leadership in promoting ethical behaviour in the small business environment. (shrink)

We define a multi-modal version of Computation Tree Logic (CTL) by extending the language with path quantifiers $E^\delta $ and $E^\delta $ where δ denotes one of finitely many dimensions, interpreted over Kripke structures with one total relation for each dimension. As expected, the logic is axiomatised by taking a copy of a CTL axiomatisation for each dimension. Completeness is proved by employing the completeness result for CTL to obtain a model along each dimension in turn. We also show that (...) the logic is decidable and that its satisfiability problem is no harder than the corresponding problem for CTL. We then demonstrate how Normative Systems can be conceived as a natural interpretation of such a multi-dimensional CTL logic. (shrink)

‘Homophobia’ is shorthand for stigmatising attitudes and practices towards people who demonstrate sexual diversity. In this article, we reflect on how African Christian faith may become redemptive rather than violent in the context of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex forms of sexuality.