This book provides a theory of the juridification of business ethics. Ethical codes pop up everywhere in the business world and increasingly resemble the code of law. A focus on compliance rather than reflection becomes the norm. Legal perspectives replace ethical perspectives, turning ethicists into lawyers without a law degree. This juridification of business ethics conceals a diminishing trust in ethics, as legal reasoning substitutes philosophical thinking. By appealing to the critical study of law, Bart Jansen advocates for a renewed (...) focus on the ethical side of business. This book shows the importance of a good balance between law and ethics in business and is of great interest to both academics and professionals. (shrink)

This contribution delves into the concept of ‘corporate sovereignty’, where companies, akin to states, function not only as economic entities but also as political actors exercising a novel form of sovereignty. Although business ethics typically approaches corporate power from ethical, legal, and economic perspectives, these viewpoints prove inadequate in conceptually grasping the specific form of power, namely sovereignty. In an era of escalating corporate influence and contested state authority, political theology becomes indispensable. The political theology of Carl Schmitt, though not (...) prominently featured in business ethics, provides valuable insights into how corporate power manifests in contemporary reality, particularly as ‘corporate sovereignty’. Schmitt contends that sovereignty reveals itself in exceptional circumstances, a concept paralleled by companies exercising sovereignty. Political theology unveils the political concepts and power dynamics behind corporate sovereignty, necessitating a broader approach in business ethics where political philosophy and theology play a crucial role. (shrink)

While digitization claims to provide efficiency, accessibility, expansion, speediness, and profit accumulation, it is actually colonizing every human activity. It has even become a purpose in itself. In this essay we focus on the digitization of legal practices and contents. We describe what digitization encompasses, how digitalization processes work, and to what extent they are able to replace juristic processes and produce legal outcomes. We are inspired by Walter Benjamin’s essay on the influence of mechanical reproduction of the works of (...) Art. Parallel to Benjamin’s work on Art, we will analyze Law and the consequences of innovations such as mechanical mass (re)production and computerized digitization. (shrink)

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is a collective noun for all kinds of alternative methods to formal dispute resolution. Business ethics attempts to theorize the different forms of normative coordination of corporate acts that remain within the lifeworld and outside the formal sphere of the legal system. In this context, business ethics could offer a positive approach to ADR, as ADR would be an effective, practical form of casuistry ethics. In this manner, concrete conflicts of interest and disagreements between economic actors (...) could be resolved based on moral intentions and moral validity claims. This approach of ADR through business ethics is confirmed by many articles in business ethical journals. In two important aspects, namely justice and autonomy, law is contrary to ethics. ADR lacks exactly these ethical characteristics; thus the idea that ADR belongs to the discourse of business ethics is misleading. This article will argue that ADR is not in the realm of the ethical, but in the realm of the legal. This critical analysis of ADR will show a deeper dimension in the relationship between business ethics and law, namely the systematic colonization of ethical methods by law. (shrink)

Ecce Homo Videns, or How a Person Becomes What He Beholds: Synchronicity between Bourdieu and Sartori on Television and Democracy What role does television play in liberal democracy? This topical question is the focus of two essays, one by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and another by the Italian political philosopher Giovanni Sartori. Bourdieu’s position, in short, is that the television medium manipulates information from which a structural corruption emerges. Sartori, in turn, argues that television modifies thought at best and (...) impoverishes it at worst. In this contribution, the essays of both authors are taken as the starting point for a comparison. First the article discusses the ‘primacy of the image’, and it elucidates how both thinkers relate to the ubiquitous visual culture. It then examines ‘tele-directed opinion’ and offers a deeper insight into the ‘public opinion’, and in turn the ‘opinion poll’. Here their thinking on what is called media logic unfolds: the idea that media, instead of merely reporting the course of things, influence it. In the third part, the article explores the question of what Bourdieu’s and Sartori’s insights imply for politics and democracy. It discusses the electoral and political influence that television exerts in their view. The article concludes the discussion by asking to what extent Bourdieu’s and Sartori’s essays are still relevant and whether their commentary on television can be applied one-to-one to social media. Thus, the authors are compared not only textually, but also temporally (1990s and 1920s). Despite their differences, we have found that there are striking resemblances between television and social media, especially when it comes to the influence both media have on society and liberal democracy. (shrink)

Giorgio Agamben Thrown Down to Earth This article reflects on Giorgio Agamben’s work Where Are We Now? The Epidemic as Politics (2021), a collection of essays examining the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of the state of exception. Agamben argues that liberal democracies are shifting towards normalising the state of exception, leading to an erosion of democratic principles. While his insights offer a critical perspective on state power and public health, his analysis fails to address the role of corporations, particularly (...) Big Pharma and Big Tech, in producing and regulating pandemic measures such as vaccinations and QR codes. This omission overlooks the growing power of corporations, which increasingly act like sovereign entities. Agamben’s critics argue that his reflections remain overly abstract and pessimistic, particularly in the context of concrete policy measures. This article attempts to bridge Agamben’s theories with expert insights from Dutch institutions such as the WRR and KNAW, but finds that translating his abstract critiques into practical policies diminishes their appeal. Nonetheless, the role of philosophy and ethics, as argued here, is not to offer solutions but to critically interrogate the ethical implications of policy decisions. (shrink)

This article introduces a computational model which illustrates how a population of agents can coordinate a vocabulary for goal oriented behavior through repeated local interactions, called “Action Games”. Using principles of self organization and specific assumptions on their behavior, the agents learn the goals and a vocabulary for them. It is shown that the proposed model can be used to investigate the coordination of vocabularies for goal oriented behavior both in a vertical and in a horizontal transmission scheme. Furthermore, it (...) is shown that in this model shared vocabularies can only be learned from multiple demonstrations consisting of exactly these actions that are strictly required to reach the goal. Keywords: robot imitation; self organization; vocabularies. (shrink)