This dissertation challenges the common belief that the value of emotions, if any, lies chiefly in their ability to motivate. It argues that emotions are vital to being able to properly evaluate what one encounters in the world. The dissertation focuses on moral evaluation, examining the role of emotion in determining moral character by way of the effect of emotion on moral perception. The term "moral perception" refers to an evaluative apprehension or "taking in" of a situation, where this apprehension (...) includes a morally relevant aspect. Moral perceptions are a determinant of moral character, and are often the foundation of other determinants of moral character, namely moral beliefs and dispositions to act. ;The dissertation argues that emotions are related to moral character because, by directing and focusing our attention, they affect the makeup and experiential significance of these moral perceptions. This in turn affects the other determinants of moral character---namely moral beliefs and dispositions to act. The conclusion of this investigation is that having the right emotions is essential to good moral character because of the effects of emotion on moral perception. Devaluing emotion is misdirected because emotions are needed for a full understanding of what is significant, morally or otherwise, and because emotions accordingly have vital positive effects as well as potential negative effects. Emotions are an integral part of human functioning and flourishing, and we need the right ones at the right times to function well. (shrink)

Many theories of meaning hold that meaning is found in some sort of subjective state. However, subjective accounts of meaning have not engaged in a systematic analysis of the subjective state or presented a sustained argument for why meaning is found in that particular state and not some other type of subjective state. This paper argues that emotions play a fundamental role in the meaningfulness of activities in our lives. It contends that emotions are essential to meaning because they are (...) constitutive of two separate subjective states that are necessary for meaning. The paper thus identifies the particular subjective responses upon which meaning depends. (shrink)

In this essay I focus on two areas discussed in Michael Brady’s Emotion: The Basics, namely perceptual models of emotion and the relation between emotion and virtue. Brady raises two concerns about perceptual theories: that they arguably collapse into feeling or cognitive theories of emotion; and that the analogy between emotion and perception is questionable at best, and is thus not an adequate way of characterizing emotion. I argue that a close look at perception and emotional experience reveals a structure (...) of emotion that avoids these problems. I then explore other ways in which emotions can be operative in virtuous acts and virtue traits outside of their relation to motivation. The patterns of emotional response that we have can affect virtue because they affect the way in which we see and take-in information about the world, and the gravity that such perceptions have for us. In addition, emotions are critical to virtue because they maintain the level of importance that values have for us, and in doing so forestall axiological entropy, namely the fading of the importance that values have for us, and thus the virtues that are dependent on those values. (shrink)

This paper highlights the dark side of power imbalance regarding its consequences in agri-food supplier–buyer relationships. We report on findings from two studies. The first study is based on a sample of 105 key informants, while study 2 is based on a sample of 444 key informants, all from the cocoa agri-food supply market of Ghana. While the first study focuses on the antecedents of power imbalance and its consequences, the second study explores the role of cooperatives/collective action in minimizing (...) supplier exploitation. Data from these studies were analysed using the partial least squares technique. Analysis of these findings shows switching costs’ impact on power imbalance to be curvilinear, while power imbalance has a curvilinear relationship with opportunism. The negative consequences of power imbalance are further exacerbated by dependency and the lack of joint action. Furthermore, we found the negative impact of power imbalance on financial performance to be stronger for non-cooperative members than for cooperative members, while, counterintuitively, we found the positive impact of economic satisfaction on financial performance to be stronger for non-cooperative members than for cooperative members. (shrink)

The paper examines the contribution of the French philosopher Michel Foucault to the subject of ethics in organizations. The paper combines an analysis of Foucault’s work on discipline and control, with an examination of his later work on the ethical subject and technologies of the self. Our paper argues that the work of the later Foucault provides an important contribution to business ethics theory, practice and pedagogy. We discuss how it offers an alternative avenue to traditional normative ethical theory that (...) both converges and diverges with other extant alternatives. By situating ethics as practices of the self, and by demonstrating the conditions under which freedom in organizations can be exercised, Foucault’s ethics attempt to connect an understanding and critique of power with a personal project of self. He therefore provides a theory of subjectivity that potentially informs a reshaping of contemporary virtue ethics theory, value-based management, and business ethics teaching. (shrink)

Was ist Wahrheit? Zufolge welcher Standards erkennt man, was wahr oder falsch ist? Wie lassen sich derartige Kriterien rechtfertigen? Die vornehmlich durch die Wende zur Sprache und die Ausbildung einer Metatheorie der analytischen Wissenschaften geprägte neuere Erörterung dieser Hauptfragen zur Wahrheit führt auf Vorfragen: Von welchen Gebilden sagen wir in welcher Weise, sie seien wahr oder falsch? Was sind und was leisten Definitionen, Kriterien, Regeln, Bedingungen der Wahrheit und Falschheit? Die vorliegende Schrift entfaltet einen systematischen Rahmen, in dem die Vorfragen (...) zur Wahrheit beantwortet und die Hauptfragen in neuer Weise organisiert werden. (shrink)

This article seeks to advance connecting the two societal priorities of environmental protection and what has been called ‘Indigenous reconciliation’ through arts-based communication (and particularly arts-based research), to help engage and inspire people towards sustaining a healthy planet and a just society. Through lenses of social justice, decolonizing critique and holistic environmental ideologies, this work explores theoretical and practical, real-world intersections of environmentalist, Indigenous and arts-based imperatives and ways of knowing. The goal is twofold: first, to seek to engage readers (...) in viewing the colonization of the planet and its First Peoples as intimately related, and ultimately, to bring together diverse literatures to suggest ideas, language and a model to foster communication aimed at redressing both of those colonialist evils. To acknowledge this intersection of environmental and Indigenous approaches in arts-based settings, the term ‘environmental conciliation’ is proposed and defined as ‘environmental protection in ways that acknowledge, address, and aim to redress imbalances in power among Indigenous people and non-Indigenous settlers honestly, respectfully, openly, creatively and positively. (shrink)

Aristotle has famously made the claim that having the right emotion at the right time is an essential part of moral virtue. Why might this be the case? I consider five possible relations between emotion and virtue and argue that an adequate answer to this question involves the epistemic status of emotion, that is, whether the perceptual awareness and hence the understanding of the object of emotion is like or unlike the perceptual awareness of an unemotional awareness of the same (...) object. If an emotional awareness does not have a unique character, then it is unlikely that emotions provide an understanding that is different from unemotional states of awareness: they are perhaps little more than “hot-blooded” instances of the same understanding. If, on the other hand, an emotional state involves a perceptual awareness that is unique to the emotion, then emotions are cognitively significant, providing an understanding of the object of the emotion that is absent in a similar but unemotional episode of awareness. I argue the latter and substantiate the claim that emotions are essential to moral virtue because they can be essential to a full understanding of the situations that they involve. In such cases, emotions are not merely a symptom of the possession of an adequate understanding, but are rather necessary for having an adequate understanding. (shrink)

Anticolonial theorists and revolutionaries have long turned to dialectical thought as a central weapon in their fight against oppressive structures and conditions. This relationship was never easy, however, as anticolonial thinkers have resisted the historical determinism, teleology, Eurocentrism, and singular emphasis that some Marxisms place on class identity at the expense of race, nation, and popular identity. In recent decades, the conflict between dialectics and postcolonial theory has only deepened. In _Decolonizing Dialectics _Geo Maher breaks this impasse by bringing the (...) work of Georges Sorel, Frantz Fanon, and Enrique Dussel together with contemporary Venezuelan politics to formulate a dialectics suited to the struggle against the legacies of colonialism and slavery. This is a decolonized dialectics premised on constant struggle in which progress must be fought for and where the struggles of the wretched of the earth themselves provide the only guarantee of historical motion. (shrink)

One of the most significant developments in the area of emotion theory in recent years is the revival of the psychoevolutionary approach to classification. This essay appraises the prospects for such an approach. The first contention is that the supposed advantages of psychoevolutionary classification over functional classification in scientific psychological research is less than presumed , particularly with respect to the utility of the classification , which is the basis of the argument for the superiority of psychoevolutionary classification. The second (...) and central contention is that classification in terms of mechanisms proposed by empirical psychology and neuroscience has better prospects than psychoevolutionary classification with respect to both the utility for psychological research and the ability to carve psychological systems at their joints , that is , to produce natural kind divisions that distinguish emotions from other psychological traits. (shrink)

Though courage is widely regarded as a core virtue there is controversy over what kinds of acts are courageous. Moreover, some see courageous acts as necessarily good, whereas others believe that some acts can be both courageous and bad. We examine this disagreement and argue that it largely rests on two sorts of confusion or misunderstanding. We examine this disagreement and argue that it largely rests on two sorts of confusion or misunderstanding. One regards differences in the descriptor under which (...) the act is seen: acts can be comprehended under several different descriptors, all of which may be appropriate but support different courage evaluations. The other involves differences in uses of the term courage: the term serves two fundamentally different functions and involves two different concepts. One, process courage, is the use of the term to refer to the psychological mechanisms or processes whereby people act in the face of risk for perceived good. The other, accolade courage, is a form of acknowledgment - the use of the term to draw attention to the action or the actor and commend one or the other. We identify various sorts of support for this process/accolade distinction. We then conclude by outlining several important contributions these distinctions offer for research and social debate. Attention to differences in descriptors and functions of the term courage will improve both research and social discourse on the virtue of courage. (shrink)