Three experiments were conducted in order to validate 56 musical excerpts that conveyed four intended emotions (happiness, sadness, threat and peacefulness). In Experiment 1, the musical clips were rated in terms of how clearly the intended emotion was portrayed, and for valence and arousal. In Experiment 2, a gating paradigm was used to evaluate the course for emotion recognition. In Experiment 3, a dissimilarity judgement task and multidimensional scaling analysis were used to probe emotional content with no emotional labels. The (...) results showed that emotions are easily recognised and discriminated on the basis of valence and arousal and with relative immediacy. Happy and sad excerpts were identified after the presentation of fewer than three musical events. With no labelling, emotion discrimination remained highly accurate and could be mapped on energetic and tense dimensions. The present study provides suitable musical material for research on emotions.Keywords. (shrink)

An emotion-based lengthening effect on the perception of durations of emotional pictures has been assumed to result from an arousal-based mechanism, involving the activation of an internal clock system. The aim of this study was to systematically examine the arousal effect on time perception when different discrete emotions were considered. The participants were asked to verbally estimate the duration of emotional pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). The pictures varied either in arousal level, i.e., high/low-arousal, for the same (...) discrete emotion (disgust or sadness) or in the depicted emotion, e.g., disgust/fear for pictures matched for arousal (high-arousal). The results systematically revealed a lengthening effect on the perception of the duration of the emotional compared to the neutral pictures and indicated that the magnitude of this effect increased with arousal level. Nevertheless, variations in time perception were observed for one and the same arousal level, with the duration of disgust-inducing pictures (e.g., body mutilation) being judged longer than that of fear-inducing pictures (e.g., snake). These results suggest that arousal is a fundamental mechanism mediating the effect of emotion on time perception. However, the effect cannot be reduced to arousal, since the impact of the content of pictures also plays a critical role. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Singer has recently argued that questions related to corporate governance are beyond the reach of Rawls’s political conception of justice. This is because justice applies to the basic structure of society, understood as society’s legally coercive structures, and because corporate governance cannot be considered part of this structure in political liberalism. This commentary challenges the second part of the argument. First, it suggests that the criterion used to exclude corporate governance from the basic structure—whether employees can exit economic organizations—is not (...) conclusive for corporate governance, notably as institutionalized in corporate law. Second, even if the focus were on corporate governance, it would still be possible to argue that it legally coerces citizens, if not employees, in a relevant way. Thus, the argument is not successful in demonstrating that political liberalism goes beyond its legitimate boundaries when considering that aspects of corporate governance may be matters of justice. (shrink)

Les progrès de la physique et l’essor des sciences cognitives dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle ont remis au centre de la réflexion philosophique la question de la nature du mental et de sa relation avec le physique : et si Descartes s’était trompé en distinguant radicalement l’esprit et le corps? Si nos croyances, nos désirs, nos douleurs, nos craintes, nos espoirs, et plus généralement l’ensemble de notre vie mentale, n’étaient rien de plus que des processus physiques-cérébraux? Cela n’aurait-il (...) pas en outre l’avantage de résoudre le problème des rapports entre corps et esprit, en levant définitivement les difficultés associées au « dualisme » cartésien? L’abandon du dualisme des substances n’a pourtant pas suffi à supprimer le problème corps-esprit, qui continue d’alimenter aujourd’hui les plus vigoureux débats. Bien que le contexte des réflexions actuelles soit différent de celui de l’âge classique, la référence à Descartes est constante et sert une formulation plus précise des défis que la philosophie de l’esprit et les sciences cognitives contemporaines se doivent de surmonter. Comment l’expliquer et quel rôle l’histoire de la philosophie a-t-elle ici à jouer? (shrink)

ABSTRACTDrawing upon the theoretical debate on the concept of common good involving, in particular, Sison and Fontrodona, I aim to show how the common good principle can serve as the basis for a new diversity perspective. Each of the three dominant diversity approaches—equality, diversity management, and inclusion—runs the ethical risk of focusing on community or individual levels, or on particular disciplines—economic, social, or moral. This article demonstrates that the common good principle could mitigate the ethical risks inherent to each of (...) these diversity approaches. There are three positive aspects to a comprehensive common good perspective: 1) it includes considering different community levels, which it connects by subsidiarity, 2) it embraces the moral, social, and economic fields, which it connects by teleological hierarchy, and 3) it avoids the risk of exclusion by generating a sense of solidarity. (shrink)

An important part of making philosophy as a discipline gender equal is to ensure that female authors are not simply wiped out of the history of philosophy. This has implications for teaching as well as research. In this context, I reflect on my experience of teaching a text by medieval philosopher Christine de Pizan as part of an introductory history of philosophy course taught to Turkish students in law, political science, and international relations. I describe the challenges I encountered, the (...) ways in which I dealt with them, and draw some conclusions based on my observations and feedback obtained at the end of the course. (shrink)

Proponents of the capabilities approach claim that it should be used to give guidance for the implementation of good constitutional laws. This suggests that it also gives us grounds to support attempts to create or protect constitutions based on something like the capabilities approach. The Turkish Republic claims that in order to protect secularism and the equal status of women, it needs to keep certain Islamic practices away from the public domain. The wearing of the headscarf has been singled out (...) as such a practice, and the Turkish Republic has therefore legislated against headscarf wearing in schools, universities, and government buildings. In consequence many women are forced to choose between religion over education and politics in a way that curtails central human capabilities. Nussbaum claims that the best way to help states resolve the dilemma presented by the conflict between religious choice and other central capabilities is to refer to principles embodied in to the US Religious Freedom Restoration Act 1993, which states that a law can burden a person's exercise of religion only when the burden is a furtherance of a compelling state interest. In this paper I consider how this advice partly vindicates the Turkish case and how the solution it yields is in many ways more satisfactory than that of more traditional approaches in political philosophy. (shrink)

Sen and Nussbaum's capability approach has in the past twenty years become an increasingly popular and influential approach to issues in global justice. Its main tenet is that when assessing quality of life or asking what kind of policies will be more conducive to human development, we should look not to resources or preference satisfaction, but to what people are able to be and to do. This should then be measured against a more or less narrow conception of what any (...) human being should be able to be and do, i.e. which functions are essentially human. To have a capability is to be able to function in that way. Thomas Pogge has recently argued that despite its many attractions, the capability approach did not present a sufficiently strong challenge to Rawlsian resourcism. In this paper, I address Pogge's criticisms of the capability approach, and I argue that from the point of view of Nussbaum's Aristotelian version of the approach, his objections are not successful. (shrink)

Early mathematical abilities matter for later formal arithmetical performances, school and professional success. Accordingly, it seems central to accurately assess numerical school readiness at school entrance. This is a prerequisite for identifying school-starters who are at risk to encounter difficulties in mathematics and stimulate their acquisition of mathematical fundamentals as soon as possible. In the present study, we present a new test which allows professionals working with children (e.g., teachers, school psychologists, speech therapists, school doctors) to assess children’s numerical school (...) readiness when they enter formal schooling in a simple, rapid and efficient manner. 346 children were assessed at the entrance of 1st grade (6-to-7-year-olds) with the novel numerical school readiness test (T1). In addition, children’s numerical skill levels were evaluated with classical arithmetical tests at T1 and a year later in 2nd grade (T2, 7-to-8-year-olds). Performance in these classical tests in 1st and 2nd grade systematically related to their early mathematical abilities assessed with the numerical school readiness test. By using the present test to evaluate numerical school readiness it is possible to identify pupils at risk for developing poor mathematical skills right from the start of formal schooling. Such a tool is needed, as a child’s scholastic level in mathematic at school entrance (or school readiness) is known to be critical for his or her future school and professional carrier (Currie & Thomas, 1999; Duncan et al., 2007; Pagani, Fitzpatrick, Archambault, & Janosz, 2010; Rivera-Batiz, 1992; Romano, Babchishin, Pagani, & Kohen, 2010). (shrink)

I argue that Plato holds a medical model of virtue as health which does not have themorally unacceptable implications which have led some to describe it as authoritarian.This model, which draws on the educational virtues of the elenchos, lacks anyimplication that all criminals are mad or all mad people criminals – this implication beingat the source of many criticisms of Plato’s analogy of virtue and health. After setting upthe analogy and the model, I defend my argument against two objections. The (...) firstclaims that Plato's picture of virtue as health is unacceptable because it entails that vice isa defect and therefore that criminals are all mad. The second resists Kenny'sinterpretation but does so by attacking its first premise, i.e. that Plato believes virtue issome kind of health. I reply that both objections are misguided. (shrink)

Deliberation has faced criticism with regard to its application to business, on the basis that it can be misused to disseminate an ideology, divert attention from genuine debates, or strengthen the power of certain people. We suggest that Aristotle’s notion of deliberation can mitigate these ethical risks and help companies strengthen their deliberative practices. A comprehensive perspective based on Aristotelian deliberation reveals the relevance of (a) individual and collective deliberation, promoting a virtuous and meaningful reflection, free from ideological conditioning; (b) (...) deliberation on ends and means that facilitates a transcendental and rooted reflection, thereby avoiding artificial debates; and (c) deliberation that is decisive and cooperative and thus prevents instrumentalization of deliberation by the strongest. We contribute to the discussion of the relationship between business and society by identifying the different steps in the deliberative process and promoting a dynamic perspective on deliberation. (shrink)

In this article, I present the arguments of three republican women philosophers of eighteenth-century France, focusing especially on two themes: equality (of class, gender, and race) and the family. I argue that these philosophers, Olympe de Gouges, Marie-Jeanne Phlipon Roland, and Sophie de Grouchy, who are interesting and original in their own right, belong to the neo-republican tradition and that re-discovering their texts is an opportunity to reflect on women’s perspectives on the ideas that shaped our current political thought.

ABSTRACT:This paper re-examines the import of Rawls’s theory of justice for private sector institutions in the face of the decline of the welfare state. The argument is based on a Rawlsian conception of justice as the establishment of a basic structure of society that guarantees a fair distribution of primary goods. We propose that the decline of the welfare state witnessed in Western countries over the past forty years prompts a reassessment of the boundaries of the basic structure in order (...) to include additional corporate institutions. A discussion centered on the primary good of self-respect, but extensible to power and prerogatives as well as income and wealth, examines how the legislator should intervene in private sector institutions to counterbalance any unfairness that results from the decline of the welfare state. (shrink)

This article asks whether firms should contribute to the costs of procreation and parenthood. We explore two sets of arguments. First, we ask what the principle of fair play – central in parental justice debates – implies. We argue that if one defends a pro-sharing view, firms are required to shoulder part of the costs of procreation and parenthood. Second, we turn to the principle of fair equality of opportunity. We argue that compensating firms for costs they incur because their (...) employees decide to procreate or parent may undermine some of the incentives leading to (statistical) discrimination in the workplace. (shrink)

Businesses have long been admonished for being unduly focused on the pursuit of profit. However, there are some organizations whose purpose is not exclusively economic to the extent that they seek to constitute common good. Building on Christian ethics as a starting point, our article shows how the pursuit of the common good of the firm can serve as a guide for humanistic management. It provides two principles that humanistic management can attempt to implement: first, that community good is a (...) condition for the realization of personal good, and second, that community good can only be promoted if it is oriented towards personal good. To better understand which community good can favor personal good and how it can be achieved, we examine two recent humanistic movements—Conscious Capitalism and Economy of Communion—that strive to participate in the common good. From the analysis of these two movements, we identify a shared managerial willingness to adopt the two principles. Moreover, we also reveal that Conscious Capitalism and Economy of Communion present different ways of linking community good and personal good, and therefore, different means exist for firms to participate in the common good. (shrink)

Is there such a thing as evil character? Philosophers and social psychologists have cast doubt on the idea that evil behaviour is due to a defect in character formation, which some people have, and some have not. I will argue that their claims are misguided by putting forward the following thesis: evil character traits exist, but they are typically less stable, albeit more prevalent, than good character traits. This is because they typically do not receive the backing of formation, which, (...) in the Aristotelian sense, is responsible for the development of firm character traits such as virtues. (shrink)

La doctrine de l'État de Cari Schmitt, souvent délaissée au profit d'autres facettes de son œuvre, constitue pourtant le lieu où s'incarnent ses théories du politique et de la Constitution. Le juriste allemand y consigne les bouleversements institutionnels traversés par l'Allemagne au XXe siècle. En 1914, il pense encore l'État dans sa conformité à la légalité, alors qu'à la chute de l'Empire, il ne considère les organes étatiques que dans leur usage de la décision et leur aptitude à affronter les (...) situations d'exception. Dans une perspective inédite, à partir d'une étude systématique de ses écrits relatifs à l'État, cet ouvrage relie la théologie politique de Schmitt, son anti-individualisme, comme sa définition singulière du politique, à ses propositions de refonte des institutions. La reconstitution de sa doctrine de l'État éclaire d'un jour nouveau l'affrontement entre ses partisans et ses adversaires et explique, malgré les compromissions avérées de Cari Schmitt avec le nazisme, la persistance de sa pensée dans la vie intellectuelle après Nuremberg. (shrink)

One noticeable omission in the otherwise ever flourishing literature on Plato's Crito is the recognition that Plato is presenting a problem from a virtue ethical angle. This is no doubt due to the fact that Aristotle, rather than Plato is regarded as the originator of Virtue Ethics as a branch of philosophy.1 Plato's own contribution to the discipline is more often than not bypassed.2 This has unfortunate consequences not only for Platonic scholarship, but also for the study of Virtue Ethics. (...) What the latter loses by not considering the Crito as a central text is an opportunity to expand into the domain of political philosophy.3.. (shrink)

István Hont identified a point in the history of political thought at which republicanism and commercialism became separated. According to Hont, Emmanuel Sieyès proposed that a monarchical republic should be formed. By contrast the Jacobins, in favour of a republic led by the people, rejected not only Sieyès’s political proposal, but also the economic ideology that went with it. Sieyès was in favour of a commercial republic; the Jacobins were not. This was, according to Hont, a defining moment in the (...) history of political thought. In this article, I offer a different analysis of that particular moment in the history of the commercial republic, one that instead of focusing on Sieyès and the Jacobins, looks at the thought of Girondins philosophers Nicolas de Condorcet and Sophie de Grouchy. I argue that their arguments provide sound models for a commercial republic, reconciling late 18th century republican ideals in which virtue was central, with the need for a flourishing and internationally active market economy. (shrink)

Ce matin-là, le coq chanta moins fort, et nettement plus faux. C'était au début de la 95e olympiade. Socrate était condamné à mort dans sa propre Cité. Figure magnétique de notre panthéon, Socrate est pourtant un être de la subversion et de l'inconvenance: il dit et fait des choses qui heurtent les institutions. Et c'est lui, dans sa bizarrerie, qui donne naissance à la philosophie. À travers le récit de sa dernière journée, Sandrine Alexandre donne vie à un Socrate (...) en décalage permanent avec les normes et les usages. Sous son égide, la philosophie ne peut être qu'une activité subversive. C'est cette dimension que retrouveront Nietzsche ou Foucault. Elle est ici restituée dans ce qui fait sa force et son originalité."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The writings of women philosophers have often been neglected in the discipline of virtue ethics. In this historical survey of feminist virtue ethics, Sandrine Berges redresses the balance by focusing on key writings of important women philosophers, including Perictione, Heloise, Christine de Pizan, Mary Wollstonecraft and Sophie de Grouchy. A Feminist Perspective on Virtue Ethics first applies the findings of its historical survey to questions on the ethics of care, gender and the public life, and global justice. In what (...) follows, it is argued that the ethical theorizing of women in the past can and should be brought to bear on current philosophical debates. (shrink)

Political writings of eighteenth-century France have been so far mostly overlooked as a source of republican thought. Philosophers such as Condorcet actively promoted the ideal of republicanism in ways that can shed light on current debates. In this paper, I look at one particular source: Le Republicain, published in the summer 1791, focusing on previously unattributed articles by Condorcet’s wife and collaborator, Sophie de Grouchy. Grouchy, a philosopher in her own right, is beginning to be known for her Letters on (...) Sympathy, a response to Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiment, which she published at the same time as her translation of that text into French. I argue, further, that in the texts, which I attribute to Grouchy, we can find the early development of a commercial republican theory, a belief, which is reflected in her discussion of the ‘cost’ of tyranny. (shrink)

Free riding involves benefiting from common resources or services while avoiding contributing to their production and maintenance. Few studies have adequately investigated the propensity to overestimate the prevalence of free riding. This is a significant omission, as exaggeration of the phenomenon is often used to justify control and coercion systems. To address this gap, we investigate how the common good approach may mitigate the flaws of a system excessively focused on free-riding risk. In this conceptual paper featuring illustrative vignettes, we (...) argue that the common good perspective is realistic and effective in preventing this excessive attention by promoting trust as an unconditional gift and a response to vulnerability. We discuss the common good perspective’s originality over the dominant approaches and propose a set of ethical and managerial recommendations that may be the best protection against this excessive focus and maybe even against free riding itself. (shrink)

This paper assesses employees’ moral agency within corporate capitalism from a politically liberal standpoint. While political liberalism has spelt out its key institutional implications at state level, it has neglected moral agency at work, assuming that a rights-based state that secures freedom of contract, free choice of occupation and a free labour market within a fair context would protect it sufficiently. Yet two features of corporate capitalism constrain employees’ moral agency: the relation of authority that forms part of the work (...) contract and organisations’ fragmented decision-making processes. Both seem at odds with the liberal ideal of allowing people to live by their own conception of the good. Consequently, this paper examines whether political liberalism should recommend greater safeguards for protecting workers’ moral agency. It proposes a criterion for assessing corporate capitalism: the ‘moral space’ defined as the socially shaped opportunities for action that can be enacted or endorsed from a comprehensive perspective. It argues that liberals should favour arrangements that widen workers’ moral space and suggests institutional designs that may achieve this while remaining within liberal boundaries. (shrink)

In the early modern period, ignorance was commonly perceived as a sin, a flaw, a defect, and even a threat to religion and the social order. Yet praises of ignorance were also expressed in the same context. Reclaiming the long-lasting legacy of medieval doctrines of ignorance and taking a comparative perspective, Sandrine Parageau tells the history of the apparently counter-intuitive moral, cognitive and epistemological virtues attributed to ignorance in the long seventeenth century (1580s-1700) in England and in France. With (...) close textual analysis of hitherto neglected sources and a reassessment of canonical philosophical works by Montaigne, Bacon, Descartes, Locke, and others, Parageau specifically examines the role of ignorance in the production of knowledge, identifying three common virtues of ignorance as a mode of wisdom, a principle of knowledge, and an epistemological instrument, in philosophical and theological works. How could an essentially negative notion be turned into something profitable and even desirable? Taken in the context of Renaissance humanism, the Reformation and the "Scientific Revolution" - which all called for a redefinition and reaffirmation of knowledge - ignorance, Parageau finds, was not dismissed in the early modern quest for renewed ways of thinking and knowing. On the contrary, it was assimilated into the philosophical and scientific discourses of the time. The rehabilitation of ignorance emerged as a paradoxical cornerstone of the nascent modern science. (shrink)

Telling the story of three overlooked revolutionary thinkers, Liberty in Their Names explores the lives and works of Olympe de Gouges, Sophie de Grouchy and Manon Roland. All three were thinking and writing about political philosophy, especially equality and social justice, before the French Revolution. As they became engaged in its efforts, their political writing became more urgent. At a time when women could neither vote nor speak at the Assembly, they became influential through their writings. Yet instead of Gouges, (...) Grouchy and Roland, we speak of Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot. -/- Sandrine Bergès examines the lives and writings of these trailblazing women philosophers, and their impact on philosophical thought during the French Revolution. Featuring pictures, a timeline and a bibliography of their works, this book offers exciting new insights into the history of political philosophy and of the French Revolution. (shrink)

The rapid generation of new shapes observed in the living world is the result of genetic variation, especially in “morphological” developmental genes. Many of these genes contain coding tandem repeats. Fondon and Garner have shown that expansions and contractions of these repeats are associated with the great diversity of morphologies observed in the domestic dog, Canis familiaris.1 In particular, they found that the repeat variations in two genes were significantly associated with changes in limb and skull morphology. These results open (...) the possibility that such a mechanism contributes to the diversity of life. BioEssays 27:581–587, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The dynamics of knowledge transmission and acquisition, or how different aspects of culture are passed from one individual to another and how they are acquired and embodied by individuals, are central to understanding cultural evolution. In small-scale societies, cultural knowledge is largely acquired early in life through observation, imitation, and other forms of social learning embedded in daily experiences. However, little is known about the pathways through which such knowledge is transmitted, especially during middle childhood and adolescence. This study presents (...) new empirical data on cultural knowledge transmission during childhood. Data were collected among the Baka, a forager-farmer society in southeastern Cameroon. We conducted structured interviews with children between 5 and 16 years of age about group composition during subsistence activities. Children’s groups were generally diverse, although children tended to perform subsistence activities primarily without adults and with same-sex companions. Group composition varied from one subsistence activity to another, which suggests that the flow of knowledge might also vary according to the activity performed. Analysis of the social composition of children’s subsistence groups shows that vertical and oblique transmission of subsistence-related knowledge might not be predominant during middle childhood and adolescence. Rather, horizontal transmission appears to be the most common knowledge transmission strategy used by Baka children during middle childhood and adolescence, highlighting the importance of other children in the transmission of knowledge. (shrink)

Women philosophers of the past, because they tended not to engage with each other much, are often perceived as isolated from ongoing philosophical dialogues. This has led—directly and indirectly—to their exclusion from courses in the history of philosophy. This article explores three ways in which we could solve this problem. The first is to create a course in early modern philosophy that focuses solely or mostly on female philosophers, using conceptual and thematic ties such as a concern for education and (...) a focus on ethics and politics. The second is to introduce women authors as dialoguing with the usual canonical suspects: Cavendish with Hobbes, Elisabeth of Bohemia with Descartes, Masham and Astell with Locke, Conway with Leibniz, and so on. The article argues that both methods have significant shortcomings, and it suggests a third, consisting in widening the traditional approach to structuring courses in early modern philosophy. (shrink)

We encounter autonomy in virtually every area of philosophy: in its relation with rationality, personality, self-identity, authenticity, freedom, moral values and motivations, and forms of government, legal, and social institutions. At the same time, the notion of autonomy has been the subject of significant criticism. Some argue that autonomy outweighs or even endangers interpersonal or collective values, while others believe it alienates subjects who don’t possess a strong form of autonomy. These marginalized subjects and communities include persons with physical or (...) psychological disabilities, those in dire economic conditions, LGBTI persons, ethnic and religious minorities, and women in traditional communities or households. This volume illuminates possible patterns in these criticisms of autonomy by bringing to light and critically assessing the contribution of women throughout the history of philosophy on this important subject. The essays in this collection cover a wide range of historical periods and influential female philosophers and thinkers, from medieval philosophy through to contemporary debates. Important authors whose work is considered, among many others, include Hildegard of Bingen, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Mary Wollstonecraft, Susan Moller Okin, Hélène Cixous, Iris Marion Young, and Judith Jarvis Thomson. Women Philosophers on Autonomy will enlighten and inform contemporary debates on autonomy by bringing into the conversation previously neglected female perspectives from throughout history. (shrink)

Cet article montre que les discours qui rendent compte de l’usage sexuel des psychoactifs révèlent tout autant les règles sociales dominantes qui assignent à chaque sexe un code de conduite spécifique dans l’acte sexuel que l’idéologie normative en vigueur dans un sous-groupe particulier. L’analyse, centrée sur l’usage de psychoactifs associé à la pénétration anale entre hommes, s’appuie sur cinquante entretiens ouverts et semi-directifs avec des usagers de psychoactifs s’identifiant comme gay et des informateurs clés, dans le cadre de l’enquête ethnographique (...) Homosexualité masculine et usage de substances psychoactives en contextes festifs gais (OFDT). On voit dans ce contexte, comment la consommation de psychoactifs, par ses effets attendus sur les inhibitions sexuelles, “autorise” l’actualisation de fantasmes ou de pratiques contrevenant aux prescriptions sociales en matière de genre ou de sexualité, et permet de répondre à l’injonction de performance valorisée dans ce sous-groupe. (shrink)

Cette étude examine la diffusion de la théorie du droit de Hans Kelsen en France. Cette réception débute dès les années 1920 avec les travaux de Charles Eisenmann, Léon Duguit ou encore Raymond Carré de Malberg. Il faut aussi évoquer le rôle joué par les jeunes théoriciens du droit travaillant alors avec les concepts kelséniens. Après une période d'indifférence, la doctrine kelsénienne renoue avec le succès à partir des années 1990. Cet article met en exergue la réception récente et le (...) développement des traductions. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Hans Kelsen’s reflections on political parties. During the interwar period, Kelsen participated in a controversy over whether political parties were a necessary part of the democratic process. The debate forced Kelsen to produce a defence of political parties to emphasise their functionality and define their place in his particular definition of democracy. This contribution considers the following aspects. First, the reasons why Kelsen thought political parties are necessary for democratic life are explained. Second, the doctrinal oppositions (...) against which he elaborated his defence of political parties are clarified. Third, the programme that Kelsen conceived of to enhance political parties in a constitutional democracy is examined. Finally, the contemporary questions that have arisen in relation to Kelsen’s conception of political parties are scrutinised. Kelsen’s contribution to the debate about the role of political parties was intimately related to the presence of strong criticisms of that role. This makes his reflections even more interesting today, considering the present relative decline of the political role and appeal of parties. (shrink)

There is an extensive body of work that has previously examined the teaching of ethics in business schools whereby it is hoped that the values and behaviours of students might be provoked to show positive and enduring change. Rather than dealing with the content issues of particular business ethics courses per se, this article explores the philosophical foundations and the structural conditions for developing ethical training programs in business schools. It is informed by historical analysis, specifically, an examination of Platonic (...) and Aristotelian philosophies that inspires virtue ethics, and together provides four conditions for consideration: respect for law, dialectics, imitation and deliberation. We outline the necessary structural conditions for implementing these requirements as well as suggesting the necessary pedagogical protocol applicable to all courses. It is argued that reference to our two ancient Greek philosophers provide many valuable and insightful lessons for the implementation of ethical training today including choice of theoretical content and the approach towards learning. Further, the enactment of a pedagogical protocol requires a policy of recruiting and managing business school teachers-instructors that takes into account, and consciously encourages, intellectual, relational and spiritual pedagogical qualities. (shrink)

How can you act ethically in a publication system that attempts to regulate research activity in a way that you might find, in many respects, to be unethical? In this article, we address this question by drawing on the Aristotelian perspective of practical wisdom. Drawing on thirty semi-structured interviews with academics working in French business schools, we outline different means through which they act ‘wisely’ by deliberating and focusing on what is within their power and in line with their best (...) judgment. In particular, we show how some of them succeed in performing virtuous actions both within the publication system and beyond. (shrink)

Social relations are predominantly influenced by an exchange paradigm whereby the logic of reciprocity shapes behaviour. If the notion of exchange instrumentalism is common across different business disciplines, this does not deny attempts – such as through gift exchange theory – to present different conceptions of traditional exchange-based relations. Gift exchange theory appears promising as it seeks to establish more meaning and significance to the nature and context of exchange relations between human actors or parties. The underlying processes may be (...) different for gift exchange and more traditional economic-based exchanges, but the general outcome remains the same – the obligation of reciprocity between actors. In this article, we develop an alternative conception of social and business experience that transcends the dominant logic of exchange: the existential gift. Firmly embedded in the idea of giving for its own sake, the existential gift suggests that for some individuals the expectations of reciprocity are neither sought nor established. Generosity that is expressed in both tangible and intangible ways need not depend on the response of intended receivers or recipients to precipitate future acts of giving. Based on the logic of unconditionality, the existential gift provides human actors with greater freedom in their choices and relationships. It may well be that this freedom, in turn, creates a new ‘ethic of generosity’ whereby significant progress can be made towards developing more human models and practices in business. (shrink)

In his Politics, Aristotle decreed that human beings needed to take part in politics to flourish, but that women, despite being human, needed to stay at home and away from politics. This paper offers an overview of how early modern women philosophers worked to makes their lives more political despite being constricted to the domestic sphere. Lucrezia Marinella argued that the home was like a small city, requiring quasi political skill to run, Cavendish believed that politics should cover the home (...) and its inhabitants, not just the so-called ‘public domain’. Mary Astell, less optimistic, thought that women could compensate for the urge to be political by retreating into a well-educated mind. (shrink)