In this theoretical paper, motives for CSR are considered. An underlying assumption is that the commercial imperative is not the sole driver of CSR decision-making in private sector companies, but that the formal adoption and implementation of CSR by corporations could be associated with the changing personal values of individual managers. These values may find expression through the opportunity to exercise discretion, which may arise in various ways. It is suggested that in so far as CSR initiatives represent individuals' values, (...) so the responsibility in evidence is less obviously corporate. Our emphasis on personal initiative is intended to counter a tendency to view the corporation as the agent, and may serve to remind us that individuals can, indeed, make a difference. (shrink)

This article uses the life stories approach to leadership and leadership development. Using exploratory, qualitative data from a Forbes Global 2000 and FTSE 100 company, we discuss the role of the turning point as an important antecedent of leadership in corporate social responsibility. We argue that TPs are causally efficacious, linking them to the development of life narratives concerned with an evolving sense of personal identity. Using both a multi-disciplinary perspective and a multi-level focus on CSR leadership, we identify four (...) narrative cases. We propose that they helped to re-define individuals’ sense of self and in some extreme cases completely transformed their self-identity as leaders of CSR. Hence, we also distinguish the momentous turning point that created a seismic shift in personality, through re-evaluation of the individuals’ personal values. We argue that whilst TPs are developmental experiences that can produce responsible leadership, the MTP changes the individuals’ personal priorities in life to produce responsible leadership that perhaps did not exist previously. Thus, we appropriate Maslow’s metaphorical phrase ‘A falling of the veils’ from his discussion of peak and desolation experiences that produce personal growth. Using a multi-disciplinary literature from social theory moral psychology Personality, identity and character: explorations in moral psychology, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2009) and social psychology Prosocial motives, emotions, and behaviour: the better angels of our nature, American Psychological Association, Washington, 2010), we present a theoretical model that illustrates the psychological process of the TP, thus contributing to the growing literature on the microfoundations of CSR. (shrink)

American criminal justice has undergone a sad odyssey over the last 175 years. In the early nineteenth_century, when Alexis de Tocqueville arrived to study American prisons, American criminal punishment was regarded as a model for the civilized world. Today, by contrast, America is widely regarded with horror. What happened? This Article focuses on some Tocquevillean themes. The roots of the harsh criminal punishment regime of the contemporary United States have to do with some of the aspects of "Democracy in America" (...) that Tocqueville found most entrancing. These include traditions of popular sovereignty, religious freedom and social equality. It may be painful for Americans to acknowledge the possibility that some of their most cherished ideals may have ugly consequences for criminal punishment, but they must do so. (shrink)

Why is American punishment so cruel? While in continental Europe great efforts are made to guarantee that prisoners are treated humanely, in America sentences have gotten longer and rehabilitation programs have fallen by the wayside. Western Europe attempts to prepare its criminals for life after prison, whereas many American prisons today leave their inhabitants reduced and debased. In the last quarter of a century, Europe has worked to ensure that the baser human inclination toward vengeance is not reflected by state (...) policy, yet America has shown a systemic drive toward ever increasing levels of harshness in its criminal policies. Why is America so short on mercy? In this deeply researched, comparative work, James Q. Whitman reaches back to the 17th and 18th centuries to trace how and why American and European practices came to diverge. Eschewing the usual historical imprisonment narratives, Whitman focuses instead on intriguing differences in the development of punishment in the age of Western democracy. European traditions of social hierarchy and state power, so consciously rejected by the American colonies, nevertheless supported a more merciful and dignified treatment of offenders. The hierarchical class system on the continent kept alive a tradition of less-degrading "high-status" punishments that eventually became applied across the board in Europe. The distinctly American, draconian regime, on the other hand, grows, Whitman argues, out of America's longstanding distrust of state power and its peculiar, broad-brush sense of egalitarianism. Low-status punishments were evenly meted out to all offenders, regardless of class or standing. America's unrelentingly harsh treatment of trangressors--this "equal opportunity degradation"-- is, in a very real sense, the dark side of the nation's much vaunted individualism. A sobering look at the growing rift between the United States and Europe, Harsh Justice exposes the deep cultural roots of America's degrading punishment practices. (shrink)

The literature acknowledges a distinction between immoral, amoral and moral management. This paper makes a case for the employee (at any level) as a moral agent, even though the paper begins by highlighting a body of evidence which suggests that individual moral agency is sacrificed at work and is compromised in deference to other pressures. This leads to a discussion about the notion of discretion and an examination of a separate, contrary body of literature which indicates that some individuals in (...) corporations may use their discretion to behave in a socially entrepreneurial manner. My underlying assumption is that CSR isn’t solely driven by economics and that it may also be championed as a result of a personal morality, inspired by employees’ own socially oriented personal values. A conceptual framework is put forward and it is suggested that individuals may be categorized as Active or Frustrated Corporate Social Entrepreneurs; Conformists or Apathetics, distinguished by their individualistic or collectivist personal values. In a discussion of the nature of values, this paper highlights how values may act as drivers of our behavior and pays particular attention to the values of the entrepreneur, thereby linking the existing debate on moral agency with the field of corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

Why battles matter -- Accepting the wager of battle -- Laying just claim to the profits of war -- The monarchical monopolization of military violence -- Were there really rules? -- The death of pitched battle.

This paper examines how slippery slope arguments are used, and misused, in many public policy debates -- especially in the area of bioethics. I divide the various kinds of slippery slope arguments into the following categories: 1) the logical form vs the conceptual form, and 2) the theoretical context vs the practical context. While all these various types of slippery slope arguments are found wanting, I nonetheless find a valuable role for slippery slope arguments in public debate. In that they (...) give expression to certain of our moral emotions, slippery slope arguments should not be dismissed out of hand by philosophers. (shrink)

This work presents an alternative reading of the respective works of Moses Maimonides and Baruch Spinoza. It argues that both thinkers are primarily concerned with the singular perfection of the complete human being rather than with attaining only rational knowledge. Complete perfection of a human being expresses the unique concord of concrete activities, such as ethics, politics, and psychology, with reason. The necessity of concrete historical activities in generating perfection entails that both thinkers are not primarily concerned with an “escape” (...) to a metaphysical realm of transcendent or universal truths via cognition. Instead, both are focused on developing and cultivating individuals’ concrete desires and activities to the potential benefit of all. This book argues that rather than solely focusing on individual enlightenment, both thinkers are primarily concerned with a political life and the improvement of fellow citizens’ capacities. A key theme throughout the text is that both Maimonides and Spinoza realize that an apolitical life undermines individual and social flourishing. (shrink)

Predictive uses of data are becoming widespread in institutional settings as actors seek to anticipate people and their activities. Predictive modeling is increasingly the subject of scholarly and public criticism. Less common, however, is scrutiny directed at the data that inform predictive models beyond concerns about homogenous training data or general epistemological critiques of data. In this paper, I draw from a qualitative case study set in higher education in the United States to investigate the making of data. Data analytics (...) projects at universities have become more pervasive and intensive to better understand and anticipate undergraduate student bodies. Drawing from 12 months of ethnographic research at a large public university, I analyze the ways data personnel at the institution—data scientists, administrators, and programmers—sort student data into “attributes” and “behaviors,” where “attributes” are demographic data that students “can’t change.” “Behaviors,” in contrast, are data defined as reflective of what students can choose: attending and paying attention in class, studying on campus, among other data which personnel categorize as what students have control over. This discursive split enables the institution nudge students to make responsible choices according to behavior data that correlate with success in the predictive model. In discussing how personnel type, sort, stabilize, and nudge on behavior data, this paper examines the contingencies of data making processes and implications for the application of student data. (shrink)

E. H. Gombrich in 1968: Methodological Individualism and the Contradictions of Conservatism The commonalities Gombrich affirmed between his own positions on science, politics, and art and those of his friend Karl Popper are key to understanding both his work on the history of style and the conservative fulminations on method he published from the early 1950s onwards. United with Popper by their shared experience of exile from fascism, Gombrich failed to register the amateurish character of Popper's political theory and that (...) his aversion to notions of social determination disabled the historian. Popper's skepticism regarding the ontological status of social collectivities and rejection of the concept of totality reinforced Gombrich's suspicions of holistic analysis and led him to fall back on naturalistic descriptions of individuals acting in a social world glued together by such commonsensical categories as "traditions" and "institutions". In this regard he is representative of the common aversion to sociology of the British intellectual establishment in the early Cold War. (shrink)

In order the combat the growing apathy, cynicism, and indifference observed among students, the author developed a course designed to make the study of philosophy relevant, applicable, and personal for students. This paper is a detailed exposition of the structure and content of this course. Build around the theme “Exploring Moral Character,” this course focuses on the role of moral character in ethical decision making and the nature of students’ own moral character. The course is divided into four units. Designed (...) as a voyage of personal discovery for students, each unit concludes with a non-traditional writing assignment (the moral reasoning unit, for example, concludes with students writing letters to the Admiralty as witnesses to the conviction and sentencing of Billy Budd). The author discusses why the course structure and paper assignments facilitate students’ ability to make explicit and to reflect on their own moral values. Appended to the article is a list of the course’s non-traditional paper assignments. (shrink)

Abstract In Myth & Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage, David Card and Alan Krueger assemble a variety of evidence purporting to weaken the case that minimum wages lead to unemployment among low?wage workers. Although the authors succeed in casting doubt on some previous studies that supported the standard view, they fail to provide compelling evidence for their alternative model. The methodological errors in their showcase study of minimum wages in New Jersey and Pennsylvania render it nearly worthless, (...) and the remainder of the book's arguments are not weighty enough to reverse the conventional economic wisdom on minimum wages. (shrink)

How should we react to philosophical skepticism? Whitman answers this question by examining analytic and post-analytic responses to the problem. He tests analytic theories of knowledge and the post-analytic responses of Donald Davidson and Richard Rorty against skeptical arguments. Whitman concludes that embracing a theoretical version of philosophical skepticism has advantages over post-analytic responses—both in the realm of philosophical inquiry and in everyday life.

Though rapid collection of big data is ubiquitous across domains, from industry settings to academic contexts, the ethics of big data collection and research are contested. A nexus of data ethics issues is the concept of creep, or repurposing of data for other applications or research beyond the conditions of original collection. Data creep has proven controversial and has prompted concerns about the scope of ethical oversight. Institutional review boards offer little guidance regarding big data, and problematic research can still (...) meet ethical standards. While ethics seem concrete through institutional deployment, I frame ethics as produced. Informed by my ethnographic research at a large public university in the U.S., I explore ethics through two models: ethics as institutional procedures and ethics as acts and intentions. The university where I conducted fieldwork is the development grounds for a predictive model that uses student data to anticipate academic success. While students consent to data collection, the circumstances of consent and the degree to which they are informed are not so apparent, as many data are a product of creep. Drawing from interviews and participant observation with administrators, data scientists, developers, and students, I examine data ethics, from a larger institutional model to everyday enactments related to data creep. After demonstrating the limits of such models, I propose a remodeling of ethics that draws on recent works on data, justice, and refusal to pose generative questions for rethinking ethics in institutional contexts. (shrink)

In recent years there has been increased recognition of the importance of high standards in ethics, governance and the integrity of research. This paper is a case study of the University of Bristol's approach to address these important activities in a Higher Education Institution. It will highlight the importance of working closely with the academic research community to ensure maximum engagement, leading to a sustained culture change that recognizes faculty and departmental specific needs. A key tool to ensuring high standards (...) of research integrity and compliance with the legislative framework is the development of a supportive quality assurance programme. (shrink)

Behavioral paternalism raises deep concerns that do not arise in traditional welfare economics. These concerns stem from behavioral paternalism’s acceptance of the defining axioms of neoclassical rationality for normative purposes, despite having rejected them as positive descriptions of reality. We argue that behavioral paternalists have indeed accepted neoclassical rationality axioms as a welfare standard; that economists historically adopted these axioms not for their normative plausibility, but for their usefulness in formal and theoretical modeling; that broadly rational individuals might fail to (...) satisfy the axioms for various reasons, making them unpersuasive as normative criteria; and that even if their violation did constitute irrationality, that would not justify paternalists’ choosing among inconsistent preferences to define an individual’s “true” preferences. (shrink)

This paper examines the phenomenon of moral luck and how it can effect professional practice. Using both Thomas Nagel’s and Bernard William’s exposition on moral luck, this paper first demonstrates the close relationship between moral luck and epistemic luck. Then, drawing on some of the lessons one might learn from the epistemologist’s treatment of epistemic luck, particularly in the debate between internalists and externalists in epistemology, strategies are developed that professionals and professional organizations might use to avoid and/or mitigate the (...) problem moral luck presents to professional practice. Examples from various professions—the military, engineering, medicine, journalism, business—are use to illustrate both the problem of moral luck and the strategies useful in avoiding it. (shrink)

Western literary, philosophical, and religious traditions from Plato and Paul to Augustine and Avicenna have utilized, exploited, or been subjected to allegorical interpretation. Naturally developing a composite picture of interpretive allegory from such a large landscape faces numerous difficulties. As the editor puts it, “to imagine a ‘definitive’ account of the theory and practice of allegorical interpretation in the West would require something of an allegorical vision in its own right.” With that caveat in mind, however, the international team of (...) contributors—from a variety of disciplines—offers a “historical and conceptual framework” for understanding interpretive allegory in the West, from antiquity through the early and late medieval and renaissance periods, and from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries._ This publication has also been published in hardback, please click here_ for details. (shrink)