The Moral Conditions of Work

Author(s):  
Joanne B. Cuilla

The characterization of meaningful work as objective or subjective is subject to considerable disagreement. While broadly agreeing that meaningfulness has both objective and subjective aspects, this chapter seeks to transcend this debate by separating the moral conditions of work from the concept of meaningful work. Workplace ethics are important pathways for experiencing meaningfulness in work and in life. The chapter argues that most of the objective features of meaningful work are related to the moral conditions of work. These include, for example, being treated fairly and with respect, having personal autonomy on the job, and working in safe environments. When the moral conditions of work are present, then work becomes worthy of a human being. By teasing out the moral from the meaningful, the author shows us how advances in humanizing the conditions of work arise out of struggles between employers and workers over who controls the work process.

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-301
Author(s):  
Christelle Lacassain-Lagoin

Abstract Perception verbs prototypically occur with a grammatical subject NP referring to a person. However, see and witness also license an inanimate grammatical subject, more precisely a spatial or temporal setting, in a “setting-subject construction” (Langacker 1991, 2008). The present study addresses this kind of variation, and demonstrates how the two alternate constructions reveal shifts from an egocentric perspective to an anthropocentric perspective. It sets out to accomplish three main goals: first, to establish whether each construction aligns perfectly with one particular perspective; second, to identify the semantic and syntactic characteristics of setting-subject constructions and explain how an inanimate subject NP can be favored over a human subject NP; third, to determine what can motivate speakers’ choices between the two alternate constructions licensed by see and witness. To achieve this, a qualitative, corpus-based analysis is carried out, which helps to understand to what extent the grammatical coding embodies a specific way of viewing the scene. First, the cognitive theoretical concepts (e.g., the Extended Animacy Hierarchy (Croft, 2003), egocentric and canonical viewing arrangements, cognitive schemas and models) that are helpful for the proper characterization of the two structures are presented, as well as the methodology employed to collect data for the present study. I then focus on prototypical, human subject NP constructions which reveal either an egocentric or an anthropocentric point of view of the scene. Finally, setting-subject constructions are addressed: not only are the characteristics of such structures highlighted but also the parameters and factors that contribute to their occurrence are identified. The study shows that such constructions convey the conceptualizer’s assessment of a situation, as the viewing relationship is construed subjectively. A setting-subject construction thus reveals a perspective that indirectly turns out to be more anthropocentric than ‘setting-centric’, as the inanimate locative subject, ranking at the bottom of the Animacy hierarchy, winds up alluding to any possible human being, including the speaker, the addressee and the Other.


Slavic Review ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 525-533
Author(s):  
Gary Rosenshield

Ever since its publication the success of Fedor Dostoevskii's first novel Poor Folk has been ascribed primarily to the characterization of its “naturalistic” hero, Makar Devushkin, not to its sentimental heroine, Varen'ka Dobroselova. Although critics have continued to discover new merits in Poor Folk, in the end it is Devushkin who dominates the novel and on whom, in one way or another, most of its virtues depend. Not only is Devushkin the protagonist, he is also at the center of the novel's important innovations in style, theme, and characterization. Dostoevskii took the poor copying clerk, a type that for a decade had been used as a stock device—and most often the butt—of Russian comic fiction, and transformed him into the hero of a tragi-comic sentimental novel. This transformation was much abetted by Dostoevskii's use of the epistolary form— a form common to the sentimental novel of the eighteenth century, but long outdated in Russia by the 1840s—for it permitted the hero to tell his own story and, by so doing, to reveal the sensitive human being behind the comic mask.


1975 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Ehrenreich ◽  
John H. Ehrenreich

There is a real and conscious need for hospital workers to have meaningful work and to be adequately recognized for this work, both materially and in terms of respect and status within the institutions in which they are employed. These needs are frustrated by the conditions of work in the large modern hospital. Two main stabilizing forces, operating in part on different sets of workers, prevent hospital workers from collectively asserting their needs against the hospital's priorities. For the unskilled and semiskilled workers there are forces which lead to a typical industrial work ethic–alienation from the content of their work. For the skilled workers, there is the ideology of professionalism. The result is an increasing division of the nonmanagerial hospital work force into two groups with opposing class identifications: a proletarianized body of semiskilled and unskilled workers and a large group of skilled workers who are allowed to participate, through the ideology of professionalism, in the real status of the doctors.


ICONI ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 38-45
Author(s):  
Anastasia L. Kucherenko ◽  
◽  
Nina A. Konopleva ◽  

The article examines the fl amenco dance as a means of expression of the dancer’s emotions and development of emotional intellect. It has been noted that up to the present time in scholarship there has not been any unifi ed approach towards the essence of the concept of “emotion” and the characterization of emotional intellect. The authors of the article note that emotions demonstrate the experience of various types of situations by the subject, evaluation of their meaning, as well as transformations and regulations of behavior in consideration of the achieved evaluation. The article substantiates the meaning of human existence in the context of the affective-emotional nature of individuals and people’s belonging to the category of emotional-social beings. It is shown that emotions serve not only as an organizing and motivating factor of behavior, but also as a factor of personalized development and relationship with the surrounding world. Analysis is made of the views on emotions of a number of authors, including Wilhelm Reich, who presumed that chronic tension in the human being’s organism negatively affects his energetic fi eld, at the basis of which lie strong emotions, not allowing him to experience these emotions and distorting the expression of feelings. The human being can free himself of such energy blocks only after having fully experienced these emotions. In its turn, the experience of these emotions and, consequently, their discharge may be carried out by means of art and artistic creativity. Hereinafter the fl amenco dance is examined as a means not only of remittal of the dancer’s and the audience’s psycho-emotional tension, but also the development of emotional intellect.


Author(s):  
Zohreh Ramin ◽  
Alireza Shafinasab

When writing Macbeth, Shakespeare faced a moral and aesthetic challenge. On the one hand, he had drawn the story of Macbeth from Holinshed's Chronicles, in which Banquo is depicted as an accomplice in the murder of King Duncan. On the other hand Banquo was believed to be the ancestor of King James, Shakespeare’s patron. Shakespeare had to write a play that at once pleased King James, remained true to the spirit of history, and could be a popular hit in the commercial world of Jacobean theatre, all seemingly contradictory ends because of the problem with the character of Banquo. So Shakespeare characterizes him in a different manner from his sources. The new characterization served a number of purposes. The most important reason for the alternation was to please King James, the alleged descendant of Banquo. Other than that, there is the dramatic purpose of creating a foil character for Macbeth, who can highlight Macbeth's characteristics. The presence of a noble Banquo also shows that human being can resist evil, as does Banquo. These points have been emphasized in many writings on Macbeth, which mean that Shakespeare's Banquo is an innocent man, a seemingly deviation from history. The present paper, however, tries to examine Shakespeare's complex characterization of Banquo which must meet those seemingly contradicting ends, a characterization far more ambivalent and artful than simple political affiliations might suggest. It will be shown that Shakespeare's Banquo not only is not simply an innocent man he seems to be at the first reading, but he could be as murderous as Macbeth himself. The only difference between the two is that one acts sooner than the other.


2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Omar Saadi Abbas

The human being is the basis of philosophy, and this concept has crystallized mainly in most philosophical currents. Therefore, we see that these trends fall into one subject, which is (man), and every philosophy of these philosophies and currents or philosophical trends tries to set a concept for the human being of its own, and therefore we see a clear difference in Interpretations of these conflicting philosophical currents among themselves, which consider the human being and problems are the core of the topics of their thinking and with this research which is (the human being in the philosophical thought), so we see that Jaroudi's cognitive, philosophical and cultural system is poured into one topic, which is the human being, and this is what we found when talking about the concept of the human in Marxist thought, which was embodied in the principle of freedom, equality and respect for the other, then moving to the concept of man in existential philosophy, with its atheistic and believing parts, and its characterization of the human being because it is considered the fundamental difficulty in existential philosophy, and after that, Jarudi moved to the study of man to the personal philosophy of Jean Lacroix and Monet, which emphasizes the individual's responsibility and emphasis On a position on nature and history, and finally he studied man in structural philosophy. We see that the research began with a general introduction in which the human being is its main focus, and many researchers attribute their writing on the subject of man and humanity to Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi and Ibn Miskawayh, as two of the flags of humanism in the Islamic civilization, and how these successive currents have looked at the human being and have been interested in all aspects of man Not only what he is aware of and what he thinks about or what he intends, because there are things in him that always go beyond awareness, thought and intent, and we see from the important results at the beginning of the conversation the consequences of studying a person from the deep crisis that he lived with all his conscience due to his presence in a concerned world, a world from which there is no way out. Likewise, Arkoun stems from the necessity of re-regard for philology as an indispensable approach in establishing the scientific approach to texts as a primary entry point for dropping sacredness from it and thus liberating the Islamic mind from the mythical thought that was associated with it with the Islamic vision of the phenomenon of revelation. On the other hand, existential philosophy emphasized the ability of man to conquer reality, transcend it and give it a special meaning.


Author(s):  
Dennis J. Baker

In this paper I aim to examine the objective limitations of consent as a defense to criminal harmdoing. This paper starts by briefly outlining the idea of objective morality (critical morality) as the proper basis for criminalization decisions and argues that there are also objective rather than mere conventional reasons (positive morality) for limiting the scope of consent as a defense in the criminal law. The idea of consent is in itself an objective reason for excusing wrongful harmdoing to others. However, it can be overridden by other objective considerations of greater importance. In this paper, I argue that it is only wrongful harmdoing that is criminalizable, as we do not criminalize mere accidents. Furthermore, I argue that a person can as an exercise of her personal autonomy consent to certain harms. But I note that there is a crucial difference between waiving rights that are grounded in an exercise of personal autonomy and waiving rights that violate a person's human dignity: rational autonomy. I conclude that regardless of consent, certain grave harms violate a person's dignity as a human being and therefore are wrongful and criminalizable.


Nowadays the human being of in this world with faced many troubles that can manage by theory of soft set. We can develop the analysis of medical field using fuzzy soft matrices (FSM). And apply IFSM. Here we establish the characterization of intersection and union of IIVFSM with examples. And the end, we can study about how to develop medical analysis using IIVFSM.


1975 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-80
Author(s):  
Jens Kruuse

Andreas Haar der: Beowulf. The Appeal of a. PoemReviewed by Jens KruuseDr. Jens Kruuse’s review of this doctorate, which was defended with great distinction at Aarhus University in March 1975, consists partly of a brief characterization of the poem itself, and partly of a summary of Haarder’s interpretation seen in relation to the highly divergent assessments of the poem by recent English and French critics. The doctorate is shown to be particularly relevant in its debt to Grundtvig’s repeated discussions of the poem. Beowulf is not just a museum piece but a mythical picture of a philosophy of life that still concerns both researchers and readers of tne poem to a considerable degree.The life of man is presented as a well-ordered room with fixed limits, surrounded by a chaotic world in which inhuman monsters play their foul tricks. There is a risk that a monster can take control over human life; even worse, a human being may become a monster. But it is always possible for the hero to defeat, wound and kill the monster – in the end losing his own life, however.The basic principle of the doctorate is that the poem came into being as a living expression of the interplay between the creating poet and the listening audience, a consideration that immediately recalls Grundtvig. The book, according to Jens Kruuse, is »a rare thing - a piece of solid humanistic research sustained by a spiritual integrity«.


Author(s):  
Titin Kristiyaningsih ◽  
Ambar Andayani

Abstract. This study is about Annie de Leeuw’s struggle for freedom in Johanna Reiss’ The Upstairs Room. Annie de Leeuw and her sister, Sini find themselves separated from their Jewish family during the Second World War. The Germans always look for them because they are Jews. Annie struggles to gain her free living like others by hiding in a Gentile family’s small room in upstairs for almost three years. Through the characterization of the main character, this study is analyzed intrinsicly. Apart from intrinsic approach, this study also applies extrinsic approach to strengthen the analysis. The extrinsic approach is needed since it also discussesthe concept of freedom.Annie de Leeuw gains her freedom when they are finally liberated by Canadian troops. Surviving in hiding for a very long time, Annie has almost lost the ability to walk. She gets her freedom in the end after facingmanyhard obstacles in her struggle. It is concluded that freedom is an essential need of human being that has to be struggled. Keywords: struggle for freedom, freedom, character


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