In recent years, the effective altruism movement has generated much discussion about the ways in which we can most effectively improve the lives of the global poor, and pursue other morally important goals. One of the most common criticisms of the movement is that it has unjustifiably neglected issues related to institutional change that could address the root causes of poverty, and instead focused its attention on encouraging individuals to direct resources to organizations that directly aid people living in (...) poverty. In this article, I discuss and assess this ‘institutional critique’. I argue that if we understand the core commitments of effective altruism in a way that is suggested by much of the work of its proponents, and also independently plausible, there is no way to understand the institutional critique such that it represents a view that is both independently plausible and inconsistent with the core commitments of effective altruism. (shrink)

Drawing on Deleuze’s ‘Postscript on Control Societies’, our initial focus in this article will be on the role of institutions within societies of control, an analysis which brings Deleuze into the orbit of Ervin Goffman’s famous ethnographic work on total institutions. This cross-comparative analysis of Deleuze and Goffman will allow us to show how institutions of control function by sequencing ‘dividuals’ across institutional domains in a continual process of totalization. Inspired by James Williams’s recent work on the ‘process philosophy (...) of signs’, we then argue that a critique of totalizing institutions can be positively articulated as a process-oriented challenge to algorithmic technologies and as a counter-sequencing of institutional control. We conclude with some reflections on the emergent modes of resistance that challenge both institutional and technological control, and we will proffer criteria for assessing such practices in relation to the two-sided nature of critique they enact, both processual and counter-sequential. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Alexander Dietz argues that what I have called the ‘institutional critique of effective altruism’ is best understood as grounded in the claim that ‘EA relies on an overly individualistic approach to ethics, neglecting the importance of our collective obligations’. In this reply, I argue that Dietz’s view does not represent a plausible interpretation of the institutional critiques offered by others, primarily because, unlike Dietz, they appear to believe that their critiques (...) provide reasons to reject the EA view about the content of our individual obligations. I also argue that EA’s identity as a social movement provides grounds for denying Dietz’s claim that it is objectionably incomplete. (shrink)

During 2018, as part of a research project funded by the Deviant Practice Grant, artist Bruno Moreschi and digital media researcher Gabriel Pereira worked with the Van Abbemuseum collection (Eindhoven, NL), reading their artworks through commercial image-recognition (computer vision) artificial intelligences from leading tech companies. The main takeaways were: somewhat as expected, AI is constructed through a capitalist and product-focused reading of the world (values that are embedded in this sociotechnical system); and that this process of using AI is an (...) innovative way for doing institutional critique, as AI offers an untrained eye that reveals the inner workings of the art system through its glitches. This paper aims to regard these glitches as potentially revealing of the art system, and even poetic at times. We also look at them as a way of revealing the inherent fallibility of the commercial use of AI and machine learning to catalogue the world: it cannot comprehend other ways of knowing about the world, outside the logic of the algorithm. But, at the same time, due to their “glitchy” capacity to level and reimagine, these faulty readings can also serve as a new way of reading art; a new way for thinking critically about the art image in a moment when visual culture has changed form to hybrids of human–machine cognition and “machine-to-machine seeing”. (shrink)

Proximate Difference in Aesthetics explores the interconnections of the philosophy of Jacques Derrida and the artistic practices comprising Institutional Critique as a means of both providing a framework for this heterodox approach to art and examining Derrida's contributions to contemporary aesthetics.

My paper argues that Luc Boltanski’s pragmatic sociology makes an important contribution to two central concerns of critical theory: the empirical analysis of the contradictions and conflicts of capitalist societies and the reflexive clarification of the epistemological and normative grounds of critique. I show how Boltanski’s assessment of the limitations of Bourdieu’s critical sociology significantly influenced his pragmatic sociology of critique and explication of the political philosophies present in actors’ practices of dispute and justification. Although pragmatism has revealed (...) how social life involves considerable uncertainty, Boltanski contends that critique needs to take into account how institutions generate semantic security, as well as symbolic violence. Boltanski’s endeavour to reformulate critique is compared with influential alternative conceptions, notably those of Habermas, Castoriadis, and Honneth. Despite its potential deficiencies and weaknesses, Boltanski’s reformulation of critique is found to be of considerable theoretical significance. In particular, Boltanski’s analysis of the role critique has played in the reorganization of capitalism can be extended, and his work is suggestive of how some of the intentions of critical theory can be pursued in new ways. (shrink)

"Y a-t-il une intelligibilité spécifique du problème de l'institution chez Sartre? La question est rarement posée car, trop souvent, on la considère comme d'emblée réglée: Sartre n'aurait pas été capable d'envisager la dimension institutionnelle autrement que sous une forme négative, celle de la pétrification et de la bureaucratisation de l'action insurrectionnelle d'un groupe. Fruit d'un travail collectif, cet ouvrage explore différentes déclinaisons de la notion d'institution dans la réflexion sartrienne des années 1950 et 1960, en montrant son importance pour articuler (...) la question de l'histoire, de la transformation politique et d'une éthique matérialiste. Au fil de ce parcours qui fait dialoguer Sartre avec Merleau-Ponty, Mauss, Lévi-Strauss, Derrida, Riesman, Guattari et bien d'autres, se dessine une conception originale de l'institution. En tant que dynamique historique d'invention collective, elle est porteuse d'une normativité ouverte : c'est moins la stabilité figée que l'instabilité créatrice qui la définit. C'est ce paradoxe d'une 'institution instable' que les contributions ici réunies proposent d'élucider."--. (shrink)

It is argued that John Rawls’ theory of social justice as well as the contract argument for it are misleading, if not actually mistaken, in that they appear to take institutional features of societies as fundamental objects of moral evaluation. An alternative view: is expounded. Principles involving institutional features are only contingently related to principles involving the distribution of things people care about. These distributions are taken as the fundamental objects of moral evaluation. Social, political and economic institutions (...) are means to achieve more desirable distributions. It is argued that the alternative provides a more accurate reconstruction of the moral foundations of social-democratic liberalism than does Rawls’ theory. (shrink)

The issue of the institution is not addressed systematically anywhere in the literature on Foucault, although it is everywhere to be found in Foucault's writings._ Foucault and the Critique of Institutions_ not only interprets the work of Foucault but also applies it to the question of the institution. Foucault is a master at analyzing the web of social relations that effectively shape the modern individual. While these social relations are smaller and finer than institutions, institutions are, by Foucault's account, (...) saturated with such relations. This study is the first sustained account to follow up the implications of Foucault's provocative theses about power for the analysis of institutions. _Foucault and the Critique of Institutions _offers a set of preliminary essays that raise basic questions about the theoretical character of Foucault's thought and then several groups of other essays that go on to take up the practical issues raised by his work. Joseph Margolis and Jitendra Mohanty address one of the most complex problems posed by Foucault's texts: his status as a philosopher. Mark Poster explores the problem of the "self" in Foucault, while Judith Butler focuses her searching investigation of the self on its gendered nature. Joseph Rouse examines the functioning of the natural sciences within the institutional setting of the university and the academic profession, while Chuck Dyke and Mary Schmelzer present vigorous critiques of the normalizing power of the university. Robert Moore and Mark Yount offer original studies of the implications of Foucault's work for the workplace, labor law, and affirmative action. Finally, John Caputo studies Foucault's famous history of madness and raises the question of the possibility of exercising a "healing" and not merely a "normalizing" power in the mental hospital and the church. (shrink)

L’article fait Je point sur les thèses néo-institutionnalistes et sur la théorie des jeux telles qu’elles ont été «appliquées» à l’histoire. L’analyse des marchés principaux (travail, terre, crédit) et leur impact sur la théorie du développement sont également présentés. L’auteur prend ensuite en considération la théorie des jeux, il en discute les hypothèses et les présupposés de manière à rendre explicites les usages qui en ont été faits en histoire. La dernière partie introduit des notions plus complexes de rationalité économique, (...) distingue entre information et connaissance et propose un schéma heuristique permettant d’intégrer certains éléments de l’économie de l’information et des jeux dans des démarches qui tiennent compte des notions temporelles propres à l’historiographie. (shrink)

Steven Lee critiques an essay by Allen Buchanan and Robert Keohane on the preventive use of military force.

This text examines recent illiberal trends in traditionally liberal institutions. Specifically, it critiques radical “anti-racism” approaches based on critical race theory (CRT) and the ideas of academics such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. It also focuses on Unitarian Universalism, a historically liberal church whose national leadership has adopted an extreme version of critical race theory. -/- Racial and other inequities are problems in all societies and all of human history, and there are no simple, easy or objectively correct (...) solutions. While critical race theory (CRT) offers important insights on racism and racial disparities, I believe in liberalism, freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas, things that extreme CRT adherents, Kendi and DiAngelo oppose. -/- Freedom of speech and expression and the free exchange of ideas support diversity, multiculturalism and marginalized groups. Illiberalism, dogmatism and authoritarianism are oppressive of all groups, minority and majority, and should be rejected wherever they appear. (shrink)

The dominant “harmonious” notion of a social institution used by Searle in the discussion of social facts is critically reconsidered. It is argued that an essential ingredient is missing from this notion, namely the harming feature of power. The harmonious view treats power as an important part of social institutions, but takes into account only its beneficial side. This led to a thoroughly positive notion of social institutions which makes us blind to the harm they inflict, the duality of those (...) who benefit from exerting power and those who suffer from the power being exerted upon them, and the asymmetry between leading groups and those which “are lead”. It turns out that Searle's notion of social facts is robust and compatible with a more adequate notion of social institutions emerging from the investigation. (shrink)

Re-examining the stakes of critique in the twenty-first century, this book contends with the complex socio-political realities of a globalized world and the changing role that critique and the academy have to play.

In this paper, I examine Foucault’s conception of agency by reconstructing two complementary approaches he takes: the ‘analytics of power’, which examines the relation between norms and practice by charting the institutional development within which a set of norms emerge, and the concept of ‘problematization’, which examines reason-giving practices, or varieties of normative justification that legitimize rational institutions and agents’ participation in them. Contrary to the standard caricature, Foucault’s analysis of the relation between norms and institutions does not merely (...) reduce the former to relations of ‘power’. In short, he also thinks standards of justification are just as revisable as social practices themselves, and the focus here will be on the relation and importance of these two complementary approaches to his critique of normativity. Key Words: agency • critique • Foucault • normativity • social practice. (shrink)

This essay seeks to demonstrate that the practice of phenomenological philosophy entails a practice of social and political criticism. The original demand of phenomenology is that theoretical and scientific judgments must be based upon the giving of the ‘things themselves’ in self-evident intuition. The continuous radicalization of this demand is what characterizes phenomenological philosophy and determines a practice of social and political criticism which can be traced through four phases: 1. a critique of institutions through the method of unbuilding (...) (Abbau, Destruktion, déconstruction); 2. presencing, or coming into presence, that directs one’s attention to the social movements of one’s time through which that which is pressed-out of the social form manifests itself; 3. authentic being-with (Mitsein) in which the sociality of human life is brought to the limit-condition of human life in being-toward-death; 4. nothingness, or negation, in which that which withdraws in any manifestation is incapable of a Hegelian re-immanentization as negation of the negation and thus points to an ethical dimension outside of history. (shrink)

Kolbe and de Melo-Martin (2023) raise important concerns about the limited usefulness of measures of moral distress. They propose that moral distress is best measured in terms of “illegitimate inst...

When we criticize social institutions and practices, what kinds of reasons can we offer for such criticism? Political philosophers often assume that we must rely on universal moral principles that are not necessarily connected to the particular social practices of our communities. Traditionally,continental critical theory has rejected this claim through its endorsement of the method of immanent critique. Immanent critique is a critique of social practices that draws on norms already present within these practices to demand social (...) change, rather than merely conservatively reproducing them. This book defends the claim that such a critique is not only possible, but also has politically powerful potential. Taking up recent developments in analytic collective intentionality theory and in the philosophy of language, the book argues that all social practices rest on structures of mutual recognition between persons that allow social theorists to reconstruct hidden norms present within these practices. Starting from a comprehensive critique of contemporary critical theory, the book also spells out the consequences of this line of thought for the practice of social critique, for the social sciences and for political philosophy. (shrink)

Åsa Burman has recently introduced the important notion of telic power and differentiated it from deontic power in an attempt to build a bridge between ideal and non-ideal social ontology. We find Burman’s project promising but we argue that more is to be done to make it entirely successful. First, there is a palpable tension between Burman’s claim that telic power can be ontologically independent of deontic power and her examples, which suggests that these forms of power share the same (...) basis. Second, it is not completely clear how telic power specifically helps non-ideal social ontologists explain oppression. We offer solutions to both problems. First, we argue that Burman’s arguments for the conclusion that telic power can exist without deontic power are unsuccessful. Burman contends that this is possible because some social roles involving telic power can exist independently of institutions as sets of constitutive rules, which are––in her opinion––the source of deontic power. Burman’s arguments are not persuasive because she disregards the plausible view that all social roles involve deontic power, whether or not they are institutional. Second, we argue that while the exercise of deontic power requires a collective recognition of the social roles of the interacting agents and, therefore, a recognition of the associated norms, the exercise of telic power does not require recognition of the relevant norms. This is why invoking telic power is particularly useful in explaining how oppression and injustice can arise. Lastly, we suggest that the relation between teleological normativity and the forms of telic power has not been fully clarified by Burman and requires a deeper analysis. (shrink)

One challenge for those reading methodological debates in low consensus fields is determining the outcome when participants do not share standards. When parties to a debate do not agree on the standards to be used in assessing their arguments (i.e., quality), it may be useful to ask first if parties’ contributions meet their own expectations (i.e., integrity). Most protocols for review of qualitative research specify some form of quality assessment. These protocols normally require some test of internal coherence. Coherence is (...) also relevant when describing the match between a rebuttal and the argument it answers. In 2019,Nursing Inquirypublished a critique and rebuttal of the methods used by the Joanna Briggs Institute. In this essay, we attempted to use the Joanna Briggs Institute's own quality assessment standards to assess their rebuttal of this fundamental critique. We found it possible to use the Joanna Briggs Institute's own quality assessment standards to assess this rebuttal, and we found that JBI's rebuttal did not meet their own standards. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to outlining the research topic to be dealt with by the author in the incoming period within the project of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory. Starting from "globalization" as the keyword of current debates on political, economic and cultural destiny of contemporary world, the author delineates the subject matter of his research as the critiques of the globalization process formulated in Russia and Serbia. In terms of contents, the research will be devoted to analyzing (...) and interpreting different philosophical-theoretical, political and ideological arguments used by the critics of the globalization process in political and cultural life of Russia and Serbia. The proposed comparative approach ought to provide an insight into the influence exerted by Russian opponents of globalization on domestic critics of the process, as well as to help understand the differences in resisting globalization that stem from different political, economic, military, cultural and international positions of the two countries in today's world. The basic aim of the research is to asses theoretical-argumentative and practical-political potentials of the critiques of globalization in these two post-communist countries. U radu je izlozen nacrt teme kojom ce se autor baviti u narednom istrazivackom ciklusu u okviru projekta Instituta za filozofiju i drustvenu teoriju. Polazeci od "globalizacije" kao kljucne reci tekucih debata o politickoj, ekonomskoj i kulturnoj sudbini savremenog sveta, autor je predmet svog istrazivanja ogranicio na kritike procesa globalizacije koje su formulisane u Rusiji i Srbiji. Sadrzinski, planirano istrazivanje ce biti posveceno analizi i interpretaciji razlicitih filozofsko-teorijskih, politickih i ideoloskih argumenata kriticara procesa globalizacije u politickom i kulturnom zivotu Rusije i Srbije. Predlozeni komparativni pristup treba da omoguci sagledavanje uticaja koji na domace kriticare globalizacije imaju protivnici tog procesa u Rusiji, kao i da olaksa razumevanje razlika u opiranju procesima globalizaciji koje su posledica razlicitog politickog, ekonomskog, vojnog, kulturnog i medjunarodnog polozaja ove dve zemlje u savremenom svetu. Osnovni cilj istrazivanja je procena teorijsko-argumentativnih i prakticno-politickih kapaciteta kritika globalizacije u ove dve postkomunisticke zemlje.. (shrink)

Foucault’s theory of power and subjectification challenges common concepts of freedom in social philosophy and expands them through the concept of ‘freedom as critique’: Freedom can be defined as the capability to critically reflect upon one’s own subjectification, and the conditions of possibility for this critical capacity lie in political and social institutions. The article develops this concept through a critical discussion of the standard response by Foucault interpreters to the standard objection that Foucault’s thinking obscures freedom. The standard (...) response interprets Foucault’s later works, especially The Subject and Power, as a solution to the problem of freedom. It is mistaken, because it conflates different concepts of freedom that are present in Foucault’s work. By differentiating these concepts, this article proposes a new institutionalist approach to solve the problem of freedom that breaks with the partly anarchist underpinnings of Foucault scholarship: As freedom as critique is not given, but itself a result of subjectification, it entails a demand for ‘modal robustness’ and must therefore be institutionalized. This approach helps to draw out the consequences of Foucault’s thinking on freedom for postfoundationalist democratic theory and the general social-philosophical discussion about freedom. (shrink)

"Si le "jargon de l'authenticité" a sans doute rendu nombre de phénoménologies incapables de penser l'histoire et le politique, Merleau-Ponty a su le faire au coeur des textes étrangement les moins commentés, dans leur lien même, ceux des cours au Collège de France de 1954-1955: L'Institution et La Passivité. Des cours que cet ouvrage se propose enfin de relire, en discussion serrée avec l'ensemble de l'oeuvre merleau-pontienne, tant celle qui les précède que celle qui leur succède, pour la dévoiler autrement. (...) Cela, en trois temps, qui sont autant de "lectures de Merleau-Ponty", et de portes d'entrée dans son oeuvre la moins connue. Trois temps formant les parties de cet ouvrage qui suivent l'élaboration du concept merleau-pontien d'institution dans son rapport même à la passivité, sans chronologie fixe, et sans voeu de systématicité, mais en tentant d'être fidèle à la rédaction même de ces notes de cours d'une rare densité. Des cours qui foisonnent de références, tant à son oeuvre propre qu'aux nombreux auteurs avec lesquels Merleau-Ponty dialogue, tissant ainsi de nouveaux liens thématiques, et n'hésitant pas, par exemple, au coeur même d'un chapitre sur le vivant, à évoquer la question de la révolution marxiste. De Ruyer, Gesell, Lévi-Strauss, Alquié, Lachièze-Rey, à Sartre et Freud, etc., ce sont autant de dialogues qui éclairent en effet l'oeuvre et l'auto-critique de Merleau-Ponty, qui se confronte ici, mieux que nulle part ailleurs, à l'échec de son oeuvre passée, comme au contexte de l'époque. Plutôt qu'une exégèse ou qu'une interprétation orthodoxe, il s'agit au fond de continuer la pensée de Merleau-Ponty en questionnant ses dilemmes, ceux de la praxis mais aussi et en amont ceux de la méthode entre analogie et métaphore, en puisant à des essais qu'il aura en partie abandonnés, et qui nous semblent pourtant les plus prometteurs. D'où le pluriel, encore, de ces lectures."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This paper argues that the concept and role of ‘institutional racism’ in contemporary discussions of race should be reconsidered. It starts by distinguishing between ‘intrinsic institutional racism’, which holds that institutions are racist in virtue of their constitutive features, and ‘extrinsic institutional racism’, which holds that institutions are racist in virtue of their negative effects. It accepts intrinsic institutional racism, but argues that a ‘disparate impact’ conception of extrinsic conception faces a number of objections, the most (...) serious being that it has no plausible account of what it is that makes extrinsically racist institutions racist. It also argues that claims about the explanatory indispensability of institutional racism are overstated (individual racism is at least as important), critiques structural approaches to racial inequality, and suggests that there is reason to doubt whether institutional reform can provide us with all that morality may require in the racial domain. (shrink)

Institutional ethical oversight of research involving humans conducted at Canadian universities is guided by the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS2). Beginning in 2010, the TCPS2 included a chapter specific to research involving First Nations, Inuit, and Metis Peoples of Canada, which is intended to provide a framework for the ethical conduct of research with Indigenous communities. These institutional guidelines reflect progress in the way research is done with Indigenous communities. However, concerns remain about (...) the ways in which these guidelines are taken up, interpreted, and operationalized by institutional research ethics boards, which include creating tensions and challenges for Indigenous scholars conducting research together with their own communities. The purpose of this paper is to describe some of the challenges and conflicting expectations we faced as an Indigenous doctoral student and non-Indigenous academic supervisor, navigating the axiological differences between institutional ethical oversight and community relational ethics with the aim of supporting other Indigenous scholars who may experience similar challenges and influencing policy change and relational engagement in ethical review processes in university settings. We outline the various critiques of institutional oversight of Indigenous research, share several examples of how we experienced the tensions and potential/actual harm that institutional power interference caused in the review process and how we worked through them, and demonstrate how, in our experience, it was not bureaucratic institutional procedures that protected community participants from risk, it was community relationships. We conclude by discussing implications and offering our suggestions for change. (shrink)

Book jacket: From postmodernist and post-philosophical quarters we now hear that philosophy is at the end of its rope, that modern philosophy is just another modernist product which has outlived its usefulness. Whatever the precise merits of the various postmodernist critiques, they have certainly compelled many philosophers to take notice, and to concede that their enterprise has reached an impasse. The essays in this volume mark a new stage in the debate. Though divergent in their philosophical -- or post-philosophical -- (...) standpoints, the authors all share the view that philosophy is at a fateful juncture. Postmodernism, pragmatism, feminism, and historicism are some of the tendencies scrutinized in this wide-ranging symposium on the past, present, and many possible futures of the 'institution of philosophy.'. (shrink)

Peter Morton provides in these pages a fundamental critique of the assumptions of positivist jurisprudence and also puts forth an attack on the foundationalism of contemporary legal philosophy. His prime concern is to distinguish between the different fields of law--penal, civil, and public--taking as his starting point a careful analysis of those institutions in a democracy wherein legal language and norms are in fact generated. Offering an original, coherent, and systematic exposition of law in today's society, Morton sheds new (...) light on legal practices and relations by way of a comparison with an ideal type of legal system. (shrink)

Much of the work in professional ethics sees ethical problems as resulting from ethical ignorance, ethical failure or evil intent. While this approach gets at real and valid concerns, it does not capture the whole story because it does not take into account the underlying professional or institutional culture in which moral decision making is imbedded. My argument in this paper is that this culture plays a powerful and sometimes determinant role in establishing the nature of the ethical debate; (...) i.e., it helps to define what are viable action options, what is the organization’s genuine mission, and what behaviors will be rewarded or criticized. Given these conclusions, I also argue that consulting ethicists need more than an understanding of ethics theory, concepts and principles; they also need a sufficiently rich understanding of organizational culture and a willingness and an ability to critique that culture. (shrink)

While philosophical engagement with ideology once necessitated a “critique of critics” and their social context, today the emphasis often lies in analyzing common and unreflective errors – whether espoused by unrepentant racists, conspiracy theorists, or others in the grip of ignorance. Though cases like these might help us understand the prevalence and persistence of modes of thought that strengthen an exploitative social order, an exclusive focus on such unambiguous examples of false consciousness leaves the reflexive character of social (...) class='Hi'>critique out of the picture. Since its earliest philosophical treatments, however, ideology was understood not simply as the absence of education, but as a problematic form of consciousness produced and maintained through educational institutions. As a contribution to this tradition, my dissertation explores the relationship between critical social philosophy and the illusions of critics. If ideological delusion designates the tendency to self-deception accompanying any attempt to learn about society from within it, the critique of ideology demands a self-transformative assessment of ourselves, our context, and our forms of life and thought. I develop my account through an historical exploration of programs of social thought in which the educational dimension of criticism was overlooked. In the authors I examine – Karl Popper, Theodor Adorno and Karl Mannheim – I find three influential social philosophies identifying a role for critique as a tool for social transformation, but nonetheless failing in various ways to appreciate the development of their own perspective. In these theoretical programs, critique seems to issue from intellectuals whose process of becoming critical is either of little interest, incapable of being planned, or uncritically endorsed. By implicitly or explicitly excluding the educational development of the critic from the domain of critique, these social philosophies reveal the methodological and substantial obstacles confronting philosophy as the cultivation of critical consciousness today. Attending to this latter project in the writings of a few political educators, I argue in closing that understanding critique as a process of education allows us to better recognize how our own forms of life and institutional conditions work to stabilize the society in which we live. As a process of political struggle, the critique of ideology is not merely a theoretical undertaking, but a practical task in the most basic sense, aiming first and foremost at the self-conscious development of new intellectuals. (shrink)

Integrative social contracts theory (ISCT) uses empirical methods to develop guidelines for international business ethics. This article criticizes ISCT in terms of the way people actually think about contracts and agreements around the globe. Differences in orientations to communications context, moral reasoning, and institutional and structural conditions make the identification of authentic norms, hypernorms, and relevant communities problematic. The difficulties of the empirical methods suggest recourse to more traditional theoretical approaches for the identification of hypernorms as well as a (...) stronger test for the compatibility of authentic norms with hypernorms. (shrink)

In this article, I consider the role of institutions in Jacques Derrida’s political engagement. In spite of Derrida’s significant involvement with political causes throughout his life, his engagements have received little sustained attention, and this is particularly true of his work with institutions. I turn to two such cases, the Collège international de philosophie and the Parlement international des écrivains and argue that these represent an alternative mode of institutionalisation. These institutions seek to destabilise other institutions as well as themselves.Looking (...) closely at the institutions that Derrida founded, we see three common characteristics emerge. These institutions are anti-hegemonic,self-reflexive and international. I then connect these to Derrida’s thought, offering a reading of the undecidable, which brings forth the importance of conventions in the decision. Finally, I demonstrate that the three shared characteristics of Derrida’s institutions form part of an effort to open up space for the possibility of alterity. Through this, and beyond a distinction between theory/practice, we come to see Derrida’s institutional engagements as an active form of critique, both of other institutions and themselves. (shrink)

Today, capitalism functions as a very complex tool of colonisation capturing our desires, dreams, and putting life itself at risk. Its effects lead us all to times of extreme anxiety increasing the number of people with mental health problems. This paper is concerned with the question of ‘critique’ within this context. How can critical legal scholarship engage with a theoretical mode that allows us to confront the politics of law with today’s capitalism? This analysis shows that contemporary capitalism, which (...) operates as an immanent desiring-machine, is investing in our unconscious. In this sense, we aim to rethink the idea of ‘critique’ as an opportunity to make it creative and effective. As such, this paper argues that the Deleuzian concept Critical and Clinical is particularly useful, as it opens new roots for the critical movement. Taking the literary strategy of Masochism and the experience of the Institutional Psychotherapy movement in France, the clinical–critical practice contributes to push and expand critical scholarship into new terrains of thought and practice. (shrink)

In contemporary societies, there is a strong push toward seeing education as an instrument for the delivery of particular societal agendas. On such a view, the only questions that remain are how effective education is at delivering such agendas and how its effectiveness can be increased. While this might be a desirable way forward for those who believe that a consensus about the agenda for education can easily be achieved, it is at odds with the idea that a democratic society (...) is characterized by a fundamental plurality of visions about what schools are supposed to be for. Yet the democratic critique of educational instrumentalism cannot be confined to giving each and every vision its own school, as this would simply multiply educational instrumentalism rather than oppose it. A true democratic response thus needs to take education's own interest seriously as well, which, as Gert Biesta argues in this paper, amounts to a defense of the school as institution. (shrink)

The paper goes beyond critique to read institutional approaches, specifically institutional logics of CSR in India and their management by Indian firms, from a post-colonial location, to explore decolonising possibilities. Drawing on post-colonial approach of catachrestic reading, it reads institutional logics of CSR literature to argue against a linear hierarchical travel of western CSR logic into India, which is then adapted/adopted/translated or decoupled, along with the secondary status this implies for India; and suggests that Indian and (...) western CSR logics are competing logics. It argues that these competing logics are non-core, but significant and need to be managed by Indian firms. An exploratory survey supports this argument. It also suggests a few testable propositions for CSR institutional logics using “deferment of routine development” and “strategic ambiguity in meanings” as mechanisms. In addition, it shows that decolonising purpose can also be realised by having cross-paradigmatic engagements with mainstream management and organisation studies scholarship such as institutional approaches. (shrink)

La comparaison entre Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse de Durkheim et le Cours de linguistique générale (CLG) fait apparaître la fameuse critique adressée par Lévi-Strauss à la tradition sociologique française à front renversé : que fait en effet Durkheim dans ce texte sinon « chercher une origine symbolique de la société »? Inversement, Saussure ne dit-il pas de son côté que la langue n’existe que comme « fait social » ou « dans la collectivité »? Cet article (...) montre que, bien qu’ils partagent le même nouage intime entre ces deux propositions, « le signe est social » et « le social est réel », Durkheim et Saussure ont des notions diamétralement opposées du symbolique et du social, et même de ce qu’être veut dire. Matériel, extérieur, identique pour tous selon Durkheim, le signe peut représenter la transcendance et l’unité de la réalité collective. Mais la révolution saussurienne commence avec la découverte que le signe linguistique lui-même (et pas seulement le sens) est « incorporel », spirituel, toujours en variation, et s’achève par l’affirmation de son être « de masse », en passant par la construction d’un concept radicalement nouveau : celui d’« institution pure ». (shrink)

This paper examines whether Kok-Chor Tan’s institutional luck egalitarianism is successful as a pluralist luck egalitarian theory of justice and morality. In recent years, pluralist luck egalitarianism has become a salient theory of justice. Tan’s pluralist proposal for institutional luck egalitarianism is attractive because it seems to refute the metaphysical and practical challenges against luck egalitarianism. This paper demonstrates that, although Tan’s institutional luck egalitarianism is indeed a most sophisticated systematic pluralist theory of justice and morality, his (...) argument fails because the application of luck egalitarianism to the domain of distributive justice and to the basic institutions of society is not justified from the luck egalitarian point of view. This paper concludes that Tan’s institutional luck egalitarianism does not succeed in demonstrating that his theory is an outstanding achievement of luck egalitarianism. (shrink)

Using the Western tradition of metaphysical and political thought as a backdrop, Critique of Sovereignty (a work in 4 volumes) re-examines the concept of sovereignty in order to better understand why our ethical values and technical capacities often seem so divorced from our lived realities. On the one hand, ostensibly self-enclosed entities like the nation-state and the person are rhetorically bolstered as sites of technical agency and/or moral responsibility. On the other hand, these same entities appear fragile -- if (...) not purely fictional -- in relation to ever ongoing tidal processes such as the migration, diffusion, and conglomeration of bodies, capital, ideas, etc. While some of our institutions might work some of the time, they always seem to work differently than we like to think they do. Accordingly, the forging of more humane institutions might very well entail if not require ways of thinking that strive to undo the self-imagined binds, exceptions, and sureties of thought for the sake of embracing a continuity with all that withers, decays, and falls away. Book I, "Contemporary Theories of Sovereignty," compares the varied interpretations of sovereignty given by a range of 20th-century political theorists (Maritain, Foucault, Derrida, Schmitt, Agamben, Hardt, and Negri) with Jean Bodin's initial outline of the concept, rendered at the outset of modern political thought in the 16th century. The analytic framework of sovereignty encountered in these comparative readings provides an initial point of departure for unfolding a method of critique appropriate to the concept of sovereignty. Sovereignty is an ideal starting point for a critique of the deadlocks between thought and reality for a simple reason: it doesn't actually exist. When it serves as a guide to action, sovereignty may be regarded as a particularly captivating fantasy. The closer it appears, the further it recedes, and, too often, the more vigorously it is pursued. (shrink)

This paper presents an overview of my work in philosophy from my first book on Friedrich Schiller and the political sublime to my most recent project on listening to traumatic forms of violence. Starting with a reflection on the autobiographical character of philosophy, I propose to take up the question of an aesthetic dimension of philosophical critique, where aesthetics is understood as an always already embodied perspective on the world, on truth, and on philosophical activity, as well as an (...) always already political realm, where the distribution of sense pre-determines our approach and articulation of experience. Departing from aesthetics understood and deployed as critique, the paper moves on to ask about the specific frameworks of sense or grammars that determine in advance the conditions of audibility in the realms of memory-building and history-making—particularly in those contexts where historical, political, and institutional forms of violence produce silencing and erasure. Putting in dialogue the latter with decolonial studies, I interpret “traumatic violence” as a colonizing form of violence, understanding that one of its central aspects is that it is not only an assault on life but on the conditions of production of sense that make life legible as such. In this context, my project on grammars of listening seeks to carefully unpack these complex intersections while also explaining why I believe that a radical form of listening is an essential subversive/imaginative strategy against traumatic/colonial violence. (shrink)

Realist ideology critique (RIC) is a strand of political realism recently developed in response to concerns that realism is biased toward the status quo. RIC aims to debunk an individual's belief that a social institution is legitimate by revealing that the belief is caused by that very same institution. Despite its growing prominence, RIC has received little critical attention. In this article, I buck this trend. First, I improve on contemporary accounts of RIC by clarifying its status and the (...) role of motivated reasoning. Second, I show that realist ideology critics face a dilemma: either their account makes deeply implausible epistemological assumptions, or they temper its epistemology at the expense of rendering it toothless. I argue for each horn in turn before revealing the dilemma to be a false one by making a novel distinction between varying strengths of RIC based on their underlying epistemological assumptions. I propose Moderate RIC as a solution: upon discovering that one reason for your belief that a social institution is legitimate is likely malignantly epistemically circular, the belief should undergo further epistemic testing. I respond to three potential objections and suggest that Moderate RIC would make a fruitful addition to political theorists' methodological toolkit. (shrink)