Articulating virtue: Planning ethics within and beyond post politics

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-299
Author(s):  
Katie McClymont
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Ethical Judgement ◽  
Political Condition ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Value Judgement

Post-foundationalist political theories have provided some of the most radical tools of critique in recent years. As well as challenging the dominant orthodoxy of achieving consensus in decision-making, they give voice to claims that the world can be conceived differently than how it is expressed in contemporary neoliberal hegemony by the reassertion of disagreement as fundamental to democratic politics. However, this conflict itself is a means not an end: it provides the intellectual tools to dissemble the dominant qua hegemonic version of contemporary society and its concomitant framing of values, but it does not provide a way in which to assess the validity of any counterclaims to the contemporary hegemony. Post-foundationalist approaches can critique the status quo for its practice and ontology, but do not offer substantive grounds for an alternative. This is of particular importance for planning as an outcome-based activity; engaging daily with ideas of better or worse developments. If planning is to be conceived as ‘the art of situated ethical judgement’, questions of value judgement are central to any theoretical conceptualisation or critique. The article develops this argument by considering the contribution that Alasdair MacIntyre’s ethical and political thought could make to this debate. MacIntyre’s notion of virtue ethics demonstrates how ethical judgement can be made without the need for an enlightenment foundationalist ontology to underpin its claims. The article demonstrates how this approach allows for new ways of thinking through the ethical questions implicit in much of the post-foundationalist critiques of planning practice and, in turn, offers a situated way of judging outcomes, which is not constrained by the post-political condition.

The Powers Metaphysic

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil E. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Potential Interaction ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Repeated Application ◽  
Fundamental Ontology ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Foundational Ontology ◽  
Interaction Types

Systematic metaphysics is defined by its task of solving metaphysical problems through the repeated application of a single, fundamental ontology. The dominant contemporary metaphysic is that of neo-Humeanism, built on a static ontology typified by its rejection of basic causal and modal features. This book offers and develops a radically distinct metaphysic, one that turns the status quo on its head. Starting with a foundational ontology of inherently causal properties known as ‘powers’, a metaphysic is developed that appeals to powers in explanations of causation, persistence, laws, and modality. Powers are properties that have their causal natures internal to them: they are responsible for the effects in the world. A unique account of powers is developed that understands this internal nature in terms of a blueprint of potential interaction types. After the presentation of the powers ontology, it is put to work in offering solutions to broad metaphysical puzzles, some of which take on different forms in light of the new tools that are available. The defence of the ontology comes from the virtues of metaphysic it can be used to develop. Particular attention is paid to the problems of causation and persistence, simultaneously solving them as it casts them in a new light. The resultant powers metaphysic is offered as a systematic alternative to neo-Humeanism.

THE INNOVATIVE TOURIST PRODUCT IN THE FUNCTION OF THE HOTEL INDUSTRY

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-95
Author(s):  
Slobodan Ivanović
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Hotel Industry ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Strategic Thinking ◽  
Tourism Product ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Way Of Thinking

Very often, there are more imitators than innovators in the hotel industry. There are very few hotel enterprises engaged in continually innovating their services. Creative imitators help to diffuse innovations and to meet the needs of certain segments o f the tourist market. They realise the improvement possibilities of the tourism product or service, which requires innovation. Changes to certain features o f the product or service can help to increase their value for both domestic and foreign tourists. Hence, it is maintained that creative imitation is sooner to take hold on the tourist market than on the tourism product or service. The globalisation process of the world economy, as well as the hotel industries, has imposed a certain way of thinking referred to in journalism as "change as a constant necessity" or putting it harshly "innovate or disappear from the business scene”. Anything that is different represents change. Innovation means accepting ideas for services which are new to hotel enterprise. Because innovations disturb the status quo of the hotel enterprise, they are met with resistance by some members of the organisation. Strategic thinking is what every hotel enterprise needs to prevent it being caught off guard by the affects of changes in its micro and macro environment. Namely, troubles begin for the hotel enterprise when it fails to adapt in an adequate and acceptable way to the changes occuring within the hotel industry. Adverse changes in the environment and the inability of the hotel enterprise to respond to these changes are the cause of incongruity between the hotel’s potential (accommodation and other facilities) and the demands of the hotel industry i.e. the tourist markets on which it is present.

scholarly journals Transformative Contextual Realism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manon Westphal
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
The Status

AbstractRealist political theory is often confronted with the objection that it is biased towards the status quo. Although this criticism overlooks the fact that realist political theories contain various resources for critique, a realist approach that is strong in status quo critique and contributes, constructively, to the theorising of alternatives to the status quo is a desideratum. The article argues that contextual realism, which sources its normativity from particular contexts, harbours an underexploited potential to establish such a form of political theorising. By drawing on ideas and principles that have guided critical engagements with social and political forms in a particular context, and on widely shared views of need for reform, realists can identify deficits of the status quo and contribute to a debate on how these deficits might be addressed. This article describes and illustrates the idea of a transformative contextual realism, and defends it against some potential objections.

scholarly journals „Efekt aureoli” i „efekt uczestnictwa” a niezależność prawników-naukowców

2017 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 133-148
Author(s):  
Jolanta Jabłońska-Bonca
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Occupational Roles ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Ethics Of Research ◽  
The Mass Media

“THE EFFECT OF AUREOLE” AND “EFFECT OF PARTICIPATION” IN THE LIGHT OF INDEPENDENCE OF LAWYERS-SCIENTISTSThe purpose of the text is to signal the need to investigate the conditions for the preserva­tion of the independence of lawyers who practice and simultaneously engage in science. Research independence is understood in the text as loyalty to the principles of methodology and ethics of research. There have been, and will be, lawyers-scientists who are creative, well-skilled to do re­search, and also autonomous, capable of criticizing the status quo, striving for truth no matter what the consequences. In the 21st century, being in such aposition is getting harder and harder. This is due to the fact that many lawyers-scientists concurrently perform important social and occupational roles besides scientific research. The article focuses on two examples of conditions that hinder the preservation of independence and entice lawyers-scientists into the world of politics and ideology. It is: a the activity of lawyers-scientists in the mass media and the consequences of the so-called “aureole effect”, as well as b the “dual occupancy” and the meaning of “participation effect”.

scholarly journals Discourse of globalization

2006 ◽  
pp. 131-149
Author(s):  
Milan Balazic
Keyword(s):  
Market Economy ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Symbolic Order ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Proletarian Revolution

Since the fall of the Berlin wall, the process of globalization has been understood as a necessary fate. The myth of the almightiness of the market economy, liberalization and deregulation is revitalized. Before us, there is a phenomenon Lacan?s discourse of University, which in 20 century was firstly given as a Stalinist discourse and today is given as a neo-liberal discourse of globalization. From underneath og a seeming objectivity, a Master insists-either the Party and the Capital. Just as the utopia of the world proletarian revolution has fallen apart, the utopia of globalize capitalism and liberal democracy is also falling apart. The 9/11 event is opening opportunities for a construction of the field of social and political, out of the contour of the status quo. The coordinates of the possibility has changed and if we take the non-existence of the grand Autre on ourselves, then the contingence interference in the existent socio-symbolic order is possible.

Marginalized Voices in the Global Media Dialogue

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theresa Carilli
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Mainstream Culture

Marginalization, a fluid concept, challenges status quo understandings and representations of individuals throughout the world. Considered to reference individuals who have been excluded from the mainstream dialogue, marginalization has developed into a term that evokes an examination of the master narrative, also known as the metanarrative. In a world where the master narrative predominates, individuals are systematically excluded based on a characteristic or characteristics they possess that disrupt a specified system of cultural norms. In relation to the global media, marginalized voices represent groups that have self-contained cultural norms and rules that differ from mainstream norms and rules. While marginalized groups may share some norms, rules, and values with the mainstream culture, they possess differences that can be viewed as transgressive, existing outside the mainstream norms, rules, and values. Media representations of groups that are globally marginalized, and sometimes stigmatized, include but are not limited to race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, class, ableism, and religion. A study of these marginalized groups reveals an implied system of privilege that reifies the status quo and supports the master narrative. Media invisibility results from marginalization, and when marginalized groups are represented, often those representations are through a marketable, stereotypical lens. As a result of the dearth of images, and a system of privilege, few studies examine marginalized groups in countries throughout the world. By creating a global dialogue about marginalized voices, images, and self-representations, advocacy for difference and understanding allows these voices, images, and self-representations to become expressive renderings of specific transgressive cultural norms.

Writing Generation: Revolutionary Bodies and the Poetics of Political Economy

2018 ◽  
pp. 135-161
Author(s):  
Annika Mann
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
William Blake ◽  
Thomas Paine ◽  
Poetic Discourse ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status

This chapter reconsiders the emergence of political economy, biology, and literature as separate fields of research—disciplines—by examining representations of noxious generation in the politics and poetry of the late eighteenth century. In the debate between Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine over the status of the French Revolution, both writers collapse biological theories of reproduction and political theories of social collectivity, depicting generation as the proliferation of embodied collectives stimulated by print. In their poems The First Book of Urizen (1794) and “To a Little Invisible Being, Soon to Become Visible” (probably composed in 1799), William Blake and Anna Barbauld critique that collapse, even as they reflect upon how that collapse is itself facilitated by the tools of poetic discourse, by form and figure. Both poets explore how the “visible form” of writing, the structure of the book, and the figure of the womb are complicit in the generation of new kinds of bodies in the world. In so doing, Blake and Barbauld expose the unavoidably shared ground of poets, political economists, and scientists at the very moment those writers began increasingly articulating their own separateness.

Human Cartography: When it is Good to Map

1998 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
D Dorling
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Human Geography ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Social Landscapes ◽  
Alternative Mapping

In recent years quantitative geography and cartography have been devalued within human geography. This process has often been led by writers who have questioned the extent to which researchers who analyse numbers about people ignore other ways of studying society. Often examples of the ‘unsympathetic’ mapping of people's lives or the conspiratorial creation of particular statistical social landscapes are given as reasons to avoid quantitative research. In this paper I concentrate on some visual approaches to understanding society, in particular, the view of ‘human cartography’. I argue, through a series of examples, that there is much more to mapping society than simply reinforcing an image of the status quo. There are many people involved in alternative mapping, few of whom would see themselves as geographers. Perhaps human geography should consider why mapping is now so popular, how mapping is changing, and the part geography could play in redrawing the world, before dismissing mapping as a means to understanding?

How much is global governance changing? The G20 as international practice

2015 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 334-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew F Cooper ◽  
Vincent Pouliot
Keyword(s):  
Global Governance ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Evolutionary Change ◽  
The Other ◽  
Stability And Change ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
The One ◽  
Rules Of The Game

Is the G20 transforming global governance, or does it reinforce the status quo? In this article we argue that as innovative as some diplomatic practices of the G20 may be, we should not overstate their potential impact. More specifically, we show that G20 diplomacy often reproduces many oligarchic tendencies in global governance, while also relaxing club dynamics in some ways. On the one hand, the G20 has more inductees who operate along new rules of the game and under a new multilateral ethos of difference. But, on the other hand, the G20 still comprises self-appointed rulers, with arbitrary rules of membership and many processes of cooption and discipline. In overall terms, approaching G20 diplomacy from a practice perspective not only provides us with the necessary analytical granularity to tell the old from the new, it also sheds different light on the dialectics of stability and change on the world stage. Practices are processes and as such they are always subject to evolutionary change. However, because of their structuring effects, diplomatic practices also tend to inhibit global transformation and reproduce the existing order.

scholarly journals Science is perception: what can our sense of smell tell us about ourselves and the world around us?

2010 ◽  
Vol 368 (1924) ◽  
pp. 3491-3502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer C. Brookes
Keyword(s):  
Signal Transduction ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Quantum Mechanical ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Right ◽  
Sensory Processes ◽  
Scientific Tool ◽  
Mechanical Phenomena

Human sensory processes are well understood: hearing, seeing, perhaps even tasting and touch—but we do not understand smell—the elusive sense. That is, for the others we know what stimuli causes what response, and why and how. These fundamental questions are not answered within the sphere of smell science; we do not know what it is about a molecule that … smells. I report, here, the status quo theories for olfaction, highlighting what we do not know, and explaining why dismissing the perception of the input as ‘too subjective’ acts as a roadblock not conducive to scientific inquiry. I outline the current and new theory that conjectures a mechanism for signal transduction based on quantum mechanical phenomena, dubbed the ‘swipe card’, which is perhaps controversial but feasible. I show that such lines of thinking may answer some questions, or at least pose the right questions. Most importantly, I draw links and comparisons as to how better understanding of how small (10’s of atoms) molecules can interact so specially with large (10 000’s of atoms) proteins in a way that is so integral to healthy living. Repercussions of this work are not just important in understanding a basic scientific tool used by us all, but often taken for granted, it is also a step closer to understanding generic mechanisms between drug and receptor, for example.

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