Adam Smith’s Foundations for Political Philosophy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schliesser
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
The Status ◽  
Normative Significance ◽  
Order Reflection

This chapter sketches Adam Smith’s political philosophy, which is the activity of a citizen belonging to a particular community at given time and place. This project is neither exclusively descriptive nor only focused on what is commonly thought attainable. For Smith, the historical baseline of one’s time has normative significance. He does not resist changes from the status quo, but whatever changes he proposes are constrained by existing institutional arrangements. Part of the philosopher’s task is to offer visions of society that, while not impossible, are more just and more reasonable. One way in which such a vision can be offered is via historical narrative, which reveals the nature of that baseline and makes visible a second-order reflection on the ways it might be altered. In doing so, the philosopher offers an image that may speak simultaneously to one’s own society and those in others, including future ones.

Mind the Gap

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Standard Of Living ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Rich

This chapter considers Thomas Nagel's approach to political philosophy and argues that his various statements about reasonable rejection generate an inconsistency at a politically sensitive point. Nagel is aware that his endorsement of rich people's opposition to radical redistribution “may seem to authorize pure selfishness,” but, he says, “that is too harsh a word for resistance to a radical drop in the standard of living of oneself and one's family.” That word might be too harsh, but Nagel's verdict that the rich need accept only a moderate (that is, nonradical) drop in their wealth is too soft. Officially, and, in Cohen's view, rightly, he depreciates the moral weight of the status quo, but the status quo seems, in the end, to preponderate in his judgment.

Organizations in Society: How Good Can It Get?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Herzog
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Corporate Form ◽  
The Status ◽  
Induce Change ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Access To Knowledge

This chapter concludes the book by sketching a vision of what it would take to re-embed organizations in a just society. In doing so, it connects to a number of recent debates in political philosophy. It calls for a rethinking of the corporate form and the privileges and responsibilities that come with it. It points to the distribution of access to knowledge as a field that has an enormous impact on how easy or difficult it is to induce change or to defend the status quo. It discusses worries about the division of labour and meaningful work. To address the imbalance of power between individuals and organizations, it calls for experiments with more democratic forms of governance. These various levers could contribute to ‘reclaiming the system’ both in theory and in practice.

scholarly journals Unpacking the Narrative Decontestation of CSR: Aspiration for Change or Defense of the Status Quo?

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurélien Feix ◽  
Déborah Philippe
Keyword(s):  
Multinational Firms ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Corporate Profit ◽  
Doing Business ◽  
Societal Needs ◽  
The Status ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
Substantial Change ◽  
Essentially Contested Concept

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has repeatedly been described as an “essentially contested concept,” which means that its signification is subject to continuous struggle. We argue that the “CSR institution” (CSRI; i.e., the set of standards and rules regulating corporate conduct under the banner of CSR) is legitimized by narratives which “decontest” the underlying concept of CSR in a manner that safeguards the CSRI from calls for alternative institutional arrangements. Examining several such narratives from a structuralist perspective, we find them to be permeated with six recurrent ambiguities that we show to be reflective of three deep-set taboos: the taboo of the noncongruency between corporate profit objectives and societal needs, the taboo of multinational firms’ continued contribution to the emergence of global socioenvironmental issues, and the taboo of the CSRI’s moderate results in solving these problems. We contend that the perpetuation of these taboos contributes to inhibiting substantial change in the way of doing business, and we sketch out possibilities for initiating a “recontestation” of CSR’s meaning.

scholarly journals Konsep Pemikiran Ibn Taymiyah Tentang Kepemimpinan Politik Dalam Islam

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-42
Author(s):  
Moch. Azis Qoharuddin
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
The Status ◽  
Text Reading ◽  
Descriptive Method

Abstract Ibn Taymiyah's thoughts on political leadership in Islam include the form of leadership, the requirements of a leader, and the electoral procedures of the leader. Also Besides, what are the differences and similarities and the advantages and disadvantages of political leadership from the viewpoint of political philosophy?. The research data is compiled through text reading and study (text reading) and subsequently analyzed by the approach of political philosophy, descriptive method, comparative and content analysis. The results of the study concluded in Ibn Taymiyah's thought, leadership forms tended to maintain the status quo of the autocracy kingdom, the requirements of the leader were people who had strengths (quwwah) and Integrity (trust), and leaders Elected or shadowed by Ahl-Shawkah, but it does not explain in detail how the institution was formed and how it was chosen. Ibn Taymiyah did not use the term imamate or caliphate in leadership, not requiring the leader to be of the tribe of Quraish, emphasized the importance of deliberation and alluded to the figure of Fir'aun and Qarun as the disgraceful man. Ibn Taymiyah's thought lies in the guidance to elect state officials, there should be a harmony between the leader and his deputy, the terms of strength (quwwah) and Integrity (trust), these terms are the same as that of Plato, the self-control, wisdom, courage, and justice.  

Preliminaries

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Knight ◽  
James Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Collective Decision ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Heavy Burden ◽  
Normative Significance

This introductory chapter presents the book's argument about the normative significance of democracy. Democracy is a set of institutions. It has an important priority among the available institutional alternatives. The priority of democracy derives from its fundamental features. Three such features include voting, argument, and reflexivity—each of which relates to the positive effects of democratic processes on collective decision making. These effects distinguish democracy from other ways of coordinating ongoing social interaction. These qualities lend democratic arrangements presumptive priority of a particular sort. In any effort to negotiate unavoidable social disagreement over institutional arrangements, democracy enjoys a second-order priority precisely because it operates in ways that potentially meet a heavy burden of justification.

scholarly journals When a Ban Is Not a Ban: Institutional Work and the Russian Doping Scandal

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Mathew Dowling ◽  
Spencer Harris ◽  
Marvin Washington
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Institutional Work ◽  
Institutional Perspective ◽  
Institutional Infrastructure ◽  
The Status ◽  
Key Events ◽  
International Sport

There are fewer cases of such blatant acts to defy and subsequent heroic efforts to rearrange institutional norms than the Russian doping scandal. In adopting a neo-institutional perspective, the authors theorize the scandal as a case of attempted but failed institutional disruption. More specifically, the authors draw upon the institutional change literature and the institutional work perspective to explain the key events surrounding actors’ response to the scandal. The analysis utilized Gioia’s methodological approach to examine secondary empirical data. Findings reveal how stakeholders circumvented traditional governance structures in an attempt to disrupt institutional arrangements, but despite this, much of the preexisting institutional infrastructure has remained intact. The authors explain this outcome, in part, as a consequence of the counter-institutional work of key governing agencies and other actors to maintain the status quo within international sport.

With radicals like these, who needs conservatives? Doom, gloom, and realism in political theory

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 264-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Finlayson
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Real World ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Status

This paper attempts to get some critical distance on the increasingly fashionable issue of realism in political theory. Realism has an ambiguous status: it is sometimes presented as a radical challenge to the status quo; but it also often appears as a conservative force, aimed at clipping the wings of more ‘idealistic’ political theorists. I suggest that what we might call ‘actually existing realism’ is indeed a conservative presence in political philosophy, and that its ambiguous status plays a part in making it so. But I also argue that there is no necessary connection between realism and conservatism. This paper describes the three contingent and suspiciously quick steps which lead from an initial commitment to being attentive to the real world, via a particular kind of pessimism about political possibilities, to an unnecessarily conservative destination. In the process, I try to show how the ubiquitous trinity of realism, pessimism and conservatism might be pulled apart, thus removing the artificial tension between ‘being realistic’ and the demand for far-reaching social change.

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