Theorizing the Firm

2019 ◽  
pp. 187-201
Author(s):  
Mathias Risse ◽  
Gabriel Wollner
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Internal Structure ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Moral Responsibilities ◽  
Market Pressure ◽  
Moral Requirements

This chapter explores the corporation as a subject of moral and political theory. Companies have been neglected as a subject of political philosophy and of theories of trade in particular. This chapter defends the idea that firms are actors with moral responsibilities and subject to trade justice. It identifies questions about both the moral requirements applying to the corporation’s internal structure, including treatment of employees, and its responsibility to outside actors, including communities, other firms, or states as matters of trade justice. Firms ought to refrain from violations, and they ought to respect and they ought to support the principles of trade justice. Arguments that firms are, morally speaking, off the hook in matters of trade justice do not succeed. With regards to trade, arguments about market pressure, adversarial practices, obligations to shareholders and a division of labor fail. The chapter introduces a case study about Nike that allows the formulation of several questions about obligations of firms that the remaining chapters answer.

From Crusades to Colonization: Violence in Secular and Religious Political Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Xavier Scott
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
State Power ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Beliefs And Values

This paper examines the transition in political philosophy between the medieval and early-modern periods by focusing on the emergence of sovereignty doctrine. Scholars such as Charles Taylor and John Rawls have focused on the ability of modern-states to overcome conflicts between different religious confessionals. In contrast, this paper seeks to examine some of the peace-promoting features of Latin-Christendom and some of the conflict-promoting features of modern-secular states. The Christian universalism of the medieval period is contrasted with the colonial ventures promoted by the Peace of Westphalia. This paper’s goal is not to argue that secularism is in fact more violent than religion. Rather, it seeks to demonstrate the major role that religion played in early modern philosophy and the development of sovereignty doctrine. It argues against the view that the modern, secular state is capable of neutrality vis-à-vis religion, and also combats the view that the secular nature of modern international law means that it is neutral to the different beliefs and values of the world’s peoples. These observations emphasize the ways in which state power and legitimacy are at the heart of the secular turn in political philosophy. 

Between Specters of War and Visions of Peace

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald M. Mara
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Democracies

This book examines how ideas of war and peace have functioned as organizing frames of reference within the history of political theory. It interprets ten widely read figures in that history within five thematically focused chapters that pair (in order) Schmitt and Derrida, Aquinas and Machiavelli, Hobbes and Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche, and Thucydides and Plato. The book’s substantive argument is that attempts to establish either war or peace as dominant intellectual perspectives obscure too much of political life. The book argues for a style of political theory committed more to questioning than to closure. It challenges two powerful currents in contemporary political philosophy: the verdict that premodern or metaphysical texts cannot speak to modern and postmodern societies, and the insistence that all forms of political theory be some form of democratic theory. What is offered instead is a nontraditional defense of the tradition and a democratic justification for moving beyond democratic theory. Though the book avoids any attempt to show the immediate relevance of these interpretations to current politics, its impetus stems very much from the current political circumstances. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century , a series of wars has eroded confidence in the progressively peaceful character of international relations; citizens of the Western democracies are being warned repeatedly about the threats posed within a dangerous world. In this turbulent context, democratic citizens must think more critically about the actions their governments undertake. The texts interpreted here are valuable resources for such critical thinking.

Politics and Kingship in the Historical Books, with Attention to the Role of Political Theory in Interpretation

2020 ◽  
pp. 186-200
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Parsons Miller
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Abstract Ideas ◽  
Theological Message

This chapter explores the thesis that the historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible address abstract ideas about politics, government, and law. Taking issue with critics who view the Bible’s spiritual and theological message as incommensurable with political philosophy, the chapter argues that the stories of politics and kingship in the Hebrew Bible’s historical books set forth set forth an impressive political theory that rivals, in some respects, the work of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek thinkers. The key is to bring out the general ideas behind the specific narrative elements. The chapter illustrates this thesis by examining the Hebrew Bible’s treatment of a number of classic problems of political theory: anarchy, obligation and sovereignty, distributive justice, and the comparative analysis of political organizations.

Literal Media Ecology: Crisis in the Conditions of Production

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 486-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett R. Caraway
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Media Ecology ◽  
Environmental Responsibility ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
Matter Energy

This article outlines a socio-political theory appropriate for the study of the ecological repercussions of contemporary media technologies. More specifically, this approach provides a means of assessing the material impacts of media technologies and the representations of capitalist ecological crises. This approach builds on the work of ecological economists, ecosocialist scholars, and Marx’s writings on the conditions of production to argue that capitalism necessarily results in ecological destabilization. Taking Apple’s 2016 Environmental Responsibility Report as a case study, the article uses the theory to analyze Apple’s responses to ecological crises. The article asserts that Apple’s reactions are emblematic of the capitalist compulsion for increasing rates of productivity. However, unless the matter/energy savings achieved through higher rates of productivity surpass the overall increase in the flow of matter/energy in production, ecological crises will continue. Ultimately, capital accumulation ensures continued ecological destabilization.

scholarly journals The Concept of Feasibility: A Multivocal Account

Res Publica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Guillery
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Common View ◽  
The World ◽  
Common Objection ◽  
The Common

AbstractA common objection to a proposal or theory in political philosophy is that it is not feasible to realise what it calls for. This is commonly taken to be sufficient to reject a proposal or theory: feasibility, on this common view, operates as a straightforward constraint on moral and political theory, whatever is not feasible is simply ruled out. This paper seeks to understand what we mean when we say that some proposal or outcome is or is not feasible. It will argue that no single binary definition can be given. Rather, there is a whole range of possible specifications of the term ‘feasible’, each of which selects a range of facts of the world to hold fixed. No single one of these possible specifications, though, is obviously privileged as giving the appropriate understanding of ‘feasibility’ tout court. The upshot of my account of feasibility, then, will be that the common view of feasibility as a straightforward constraint cannot be maintained: in order to reject a moral theory, it will not be sufficient simply to say that it is not feasible.

Kierkegaard's Socratic Alternative to Hegel in Fear and Trembling

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Matthew Dinan
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Fear And Trembling

Abstract Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling has traditionally attracted interest from scholars of political theory for its apparent hostility to political philosophy, and more recently for its compatibility with Marxism. This paper argues for a reconsideration of Kierkegaard's potential contributions to political theory by suggesting that the work's shortcomings belong to its pseudonymous author, Johannes de Silentio, and are in fact intended by Kierkegaard. Attentiveness to the literary development of the pseudonym allows us to see a Kierkegaard who is a deeper and more direct critic of Hegel's political philosophy than is usually presumed. By creating a pseudonym whose argument ultimately fails, Kierkegaard employs Socratic irony in order to point readers to the need to recover Socratic political philosophy as the appropriate adjunct to the faith of Abraham, and as an alternative to Hegelian, and post-Hegelian, political thought.

‘Inevitable and Unacceptable?’ Methodological Rawlsianism in Anglo-American Political Philosophy

1998 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne Norman
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Parallel Tasks ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
English Speaking World

This article attempts two parallel tasks. First, it gives a sympathetic explication of the implicit working methodology (‘Methodological Rawlsianism’) of mainstream contemporary political theory in the English-speaking world. And second, principally in footnotes, it surveys the recent literature on justification to see what light these debates cast on the tenets of this methodology. It is worth examining methodological presuppositions because these can have a profound influence on substantive theories: many of the differences between philosophical traditions can be traced to their methodologies. My aim is to expose the central features of methodological Rawlsianism in order to challenge critics of this tradition to explain exactly where and why they depart from the method. While I do not defend it at length, I do suggest that methodological Rawlsianism is inevitable insofar as it is basically a form of common sense. This fact should probably lower expectations about the amount of progress consistent methodological Rawlsians are likely to make in grounding comprehensive normative political theories.

COLLABORATECOM SPECIAL ISSUE ANALYZING DISTRIBUTED WHITEBOARD INTERACTIONS

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (03) ◽  
pp. 199-220
Author(s):  
LUTZ GERICKE ◽  
RAJA GUMIENNY ◽  
CHRISTOPH MEINEL
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Team Work ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Distributed Work ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Work Settings ◽  
Simplified Analysis ◽  
Digital Whiteboard

We present the digital whiteboard system Tele-Board, which automatically captures all interactions made on the all-digital whiteboard and thus offers possibilities for a fast interpretation of usage characteristics. Analyzing team work at whiteboards is a time-consuming and error-prone process if manual interpretation techniques are applied. In a case study, we demonstrate how to conduct and analyze whiteboard experiments with the help of our system. The study investigates the role of video compared to an audio-only connection for distributed work settings. With the simplified analysis of communication data, we can prove that the video teams were more active than the audio teams and the distribution of whiteboard interaction between team members was more balanced. This way, an automatic analysis can not only support manual observations and codings, but also give insights that cannot be achieved with other systems. Beyond the overall view on one sessions focusing on key figures, it is also possible to find out more about the internal structure of a session.

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