scholarly journals Political Philosophies and Positive Political Psychology: Inter-Disciplinary Framework for the Common Good

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masaya Kobayashi
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interdisciplinary Framework ◽  
The Common ◽  
Liberal Perfectionism ◽  
The Relationship

This manuscript explores the relationship between positive psychology and political philosophy, revealing an inter-disciplinary approach that speaks to the concerns of the common good. Since positive psychology has been expanding its reach into social and political spheres, its relationship to philosophical arguments has been worthy of exploration. Positive psychology is associated with utilitarianism, and aspects of hedonic psychology. However, an alternative concept of eudaimonic well-being has enabled this psychology to have links to other political philosophies. Therefore, this manuscript provides an overview of contemporary political philosophies: first, it discusses the debate between liberalism and communitarianism, and secondly, it summarizes the subsequent developments of liberal perfectionism, capability approach, and deliberative democracy. Then, the configuration of these political philosophies is indicated by the figure of two axes of “individual/collective” and “ethical/non-ethical.” The following section compiles the inter-relationships between the conceptions of citizenship, justice, and well-being, regarding the main political philosophies: egoism, utilitarianism, libertarianism, liberalism, communitarianism, and conservatism. Utilitarianism is associated with happiness, while liberalism and libertarianism rely on the concept of rights, which is almost equal to the idea of justice. Accordingly, utilitarianism is a philosophy of well-being, while liberalism and libertarianism are philosophies of justice. However, there is little connection between well-being and justice in these philosophies because the two kinds of philosophies are incompatible. The latter kind criticizes the former because the maximization of happiness can infringe on people’s rights. Moreover, these philosophies do not particularly value citizenship. In contrast, communitarianism is intrinsically the political philosophy of citizenship most attuned to increasing well-being, and it can connect an idea of justice with well-being. The final part offers a framework to develop an inter-disciplinary collaboration. Positive psychology can provide the empirical basis of the two axes above concerning political philosophies. On the other hand, the correspondence makes the character of political philosophies clearer. While libertarianism and liberalism correspond to psychology as usual, utilitarianism and communitarianism correspond to positive psychology, and the latter can be regarded as positive political philosophies. This recognition leads to the interdisciplinary framework, enabling multi-disciplinary collaboration, including work with the social sciences, which could benefit the common good.

scholarly journals Performing the common good: volunteering and ethics in non-state crime prevention in South Africa

Africa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 496-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas G. Kirsch
Keyword(s):  
Crime Prevention ◽  
South African ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Eastern Cape ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractUsing fieldwork data from South Africa's Eastern Cape Province, this article highlights ambiguities of volunteering as idea and practice by exploring discursive strategies used by volunteers in the field of civic crime prevention when the ethical honesty and selflessness of their commitment to volunteering is questioned by others. These ambiguities relate to asymmetries in the relationship between donors and recipients of volunteering, as well as, most importantly, the challenge to determine what constitutes the ‘common good’. This article demonstrates that these strategies entail the accommodation of contentions about: (1) the social identity of the volunteer by stressing the volunteer's commitment to abstract causes and objectives; (2) powerful asymmetries between donors and recipients of volunteering by invoking an encompassing sociality; and/or (3) the (alleged) self-interest of volunteers by defining the personal benefits achieved by volunteering not as an end in themselves but as ‘private means’ to ‘public ends’. All three strategies have in common that volunteers as ‘ethical subjects’ can here be shown to be co-produced with South African ‘communities of ethics’ on different social scales.

Monti di Pietà of 1500 and the Islamic banks as models of common good

2021 ◽  
pp. 9-42
Author(s):  
Stefano Coronella ◽  
Paolo Biancone ◽  
Silvana Secinaro ◽  
Valerio Brescia
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Current System ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Islamic Banks ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship

Introduction: The study compares two banking systems that have marked and mark the current system in Europe and the Middle East. The Monti di Pietà of 1500 and the Islamic banks which have developed several key features of the past, present the pillars of the Neo-Aristotelian concept of common good. Aim of the work: The study aims to identify the historical, cultural, and accounting factors, similarities, and ethical principles of the two models to identify key ele-ments supporting the common good concept. Methodological approach: This study adopts a historiographical approach that delves into the relationship between narrative, interpretive, and explanatory history, in which it argues that the historical narrative involves elements of interpretation and explanation. Furthermore, a considerable importance is given to the banking environment's political, religious, and regulatory aspects. Main findings: The analysis conducted traces ethical, cultural, and religious components, highlighting many aspects that confirm the starting theory and enrich its conception through financial models that are apparently distant from each other. The study highlights how reciprocity, solidarity, and support for the social fabric of growth have joint agreements and aspects characterizing the two models. Originality: The study provides and integrates significant elements on which the concept of the common good is based.

Public Policy and the Common Good

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Jo Bane
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Wealth Inequality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common

Although the common good, particularly from a theological perspective, entails dimensions of life beyond the ken of the social sciences, public policy analysis has much to contribute to a religious assessment of and recommendations for achieving the common good. It can provide an empirical complement to theological understandings of human flourishing by examining how people behave and articulate their aspirations and values. It provides both data for deciding what is important and urgent as well as an assessment of alternative policy approaches to promote the common good, particularly concerning poverty, wealth, inequality, and the fraying of traditional institutions like marriage and religious communities. Critically, it can clarify the trade-offs that inevitably accompany efforts to improve human well-being, whether by government or by voluntary associations.

Hope as the Prudent Art of Potentialities: Its Significance for a Christian Economics of Human Flourishing

2018 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-245
Author(s):  
Patrick Nullens
Keyword(s):  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Moral Orientation ◽  
Economic Paradigm ◽  
Christian Worldview ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship

Hope is a complex and multifaceted syndrome, an emotion as well as a virtue. It requires attention in a Christian economic paradigm oriented at justice and human flourishing. This article makes a case for this type of interdisciplinary research. Our focus lies on hope with a high (aspirational) agency and prudence. In recent economics, with increasing appreciation for relationships, well-being, and the common good, there is an openness to motivational concepts such as hope. Positive psychology has also given attention to hope as a form of well-being and resilience. We stress the importance of embedding hope in a Christian worldview in the tradition of Abraham Kuyper’s Pro Rege and the work of Nicholas Wolterstorff. Christian thinking fosters the relationship between hope, faith, moral orientation, and worship as imagining a different future. Hope as a prudent art of potentiality is a transformational power, creating a society where humans can flourish and fight off anxiety and despair.

What Theology Should and Should Not Learn from the Social Sciences About the Common Good

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary L. Hirschfeld
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Catholic Social Thought ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common

There are two ways to answer the question, What can Catholic social thought learn from the social sciences about the common good? A more modern form of Catholic social thought, which primarily thinks of the common good in terms of the equitable distribution of goods like health, education, and opportunity, could benefit from the extensive literature in public policy, economics, and political science, which study the role of institutions and policies in generating desirable social outcomes. A second approach, rooted in pre-Machiavellian Catholic thought, would expand on this modern notion to include concerns about the way the culture shapes our understanding of what genuine human flourishing entails. On that account, the social sciences offer a valuable description of human life; but because they underestimate how human behavior is shaped by institutions, policies, and the discourse of social science itself, their insights need to be treated with caution.

Gross National Happiness (GNH)

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gene R. Laczniak ◽  
Nicholas J. C. Santos
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Gross National Happiness ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Classical Utilitarianism ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
The Common ◽  
National Happiness ◽  
Essential Contribution ◽  
Purpose Of Business

This theoretical commentary explores the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) and connects it with several central macromarketing concepts such as QoL, ethics, the common good, the purpose of market activity as well as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The paper portrays GNH as a normative concept that captures collective well-being; it categorizes GNH, at least from the standpoint of Western moral philosophy, as most closely aligned with classical utilitarianism, and it distinguishes GNH from QoL on the basis of its predominantly aspirational and subjective orientation. It asserts that GNH can be seen as one manifestation of the common good, and, in that manner can be perceived as a ‘more ethical’ conception of the purpose of business activity. Finally, it links GNH to promising areas of Macromarketing scholarship. One essential contribution of this commentary is that it differentiates subjective community happiness from more objective measures of QoL familiar to macromarketing studies.

scholarly journals Dobro wspólne okiem socjologa — kilka uwag porządkujących

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 49-63
Author(s):  
Bartosz Mika
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Social Good ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Collective Ownership ◽  
The Third ◽  
Contemporary Sociology ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common

This text can be defined as an attempt to look at the question of the common good through sociological glasses. The author suggests that many of the issues subsumed under  the term “the common good” have already been elucidated and described in detail on the basis of classical and contemporary sociology. If it is assumed that the common good can be understood triply, as (1) a postulate of the social good, (2) materially, as an object of collective ownership, and (3) as an effect of the individual’s life in society, then it must be admitted that, at least in the third case, reference to the collected achievements of sociology is necessary in order to describe the common good properly.

The Breath of Life

2019 ◽  
pp. 1574-1592
Author(s):  
Gönül Kaya Özbağ
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Corporate Citizenship ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Ethical Concept ◽  
Global Corporate Citizenship ◽  
The Common ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter aims to contribute to the debate about corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainable development (SD) and global corporate citizenship (GCC) that is becoming increasingly an important issue for the human well being as well as that of ecological systems. It contains three sections. The first section looks at the concept of CSR with a historical perspective. The dimensions of CSR and its relationship with ethical theories is investigated in the second section since CSR is an ethical concept. Throughout this chapter three main groups of ethical theories classified by Garriga and Mele (2004) will be presented such as normative stakeholder theory, universal rights, the common good approach. Based on the relationship between common good approach and sustainable development, the author will discuss a requirement for global corporate citizenship approach in the third section.

Managing Social Innovation Through CSR 2.0 and the Quadruple Helix

2019 ◽  
pp. 228-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Manuel Saiz-Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Industry 4.0 ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Emerging Countries ◽  
Quadruple Helix ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Novel Model

The quadruple helix models are widely used when you want to have an integrating vision of the strategies used to combat poverty in emerging countries, including Mexico. The objective of this chapter is to propose a novel model of quadruple helix based on ethics and CSR 2.0 that can lay the foundations to develop the Industry 4.0 in emerging countries. To achieve this objective, the author distinguishes between CSR 1.0 and 2.0. Second, these concepts are united with the economy of the common good and the economy of solidarity. These conceptual bases will allow us to develop the relationship between business ethics and the Industry 4.0 to reach some conclusions.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document