Showing papers on "Value (ethics) published in 2003"

Class, Self, Culture

Abstract: Class, Self, Culture puts class back on the map in a novel way by taking a new look at how class is made and given value through culture. It shows how different classes become attributed with value, enabling culture to be deployed as a resource and as a form of property, which has both use-value to the person and exchange-value in systems of symbolic and economic exchange.The book shows how class has not disappeared, but is known and spoken in a myriad of different ways, always working through other categorisations of nation, race, gender and sexuality and across different sites: through popular culture, political rhetoric and academic theory. In particular attention is given to how new forms of personhood are being generated through mechanisms of giving value to culture, and how what we come to know and assume to be a 'self' is always a classed formation. Analysing four processes: of inscription, institutionalisation, perspective-taking and exchange relationships, it challenges recent debates on reflexivity, risk, rational-action theory, individualisation and mobility, by showing how these are all reliant on fixing some people in place so that others can move.

Time for action: Science education for an alternative future

Abstract: Following a brief historical survey of the popular 'slogans' that have influenced science education during the past quarter century and a review of current international debate on scientific literacy and science pedagogy, the author takes the view that while much of value has been achieved, there is still considerable cause for concern and that it is time for action in two senses. First, it is time to take action on the school science curriculum because it no longer meets the needs, interests and aspirations of young citizens. Second, it is time for a science curriculum oriented toward sociopolitical action. The author argues that if current social and environmental problems are to be solved, we need a generation of scientifically and politically literate citizens who are not content with the role of 'armchair critic'. A particular concern in North America is the link between science education, economic globalization, increasing production and unlimited expansion - a link that threatens the freedom of ind...

The value of knowledge and the pursuit of understanding

Abstract: Epistemology has for a long time focused on the concept of knowledge and tried to answer questions such as whether knowledge is possible and how much of it there is. Often missing from this inquiry, however, is a discussion on the value of knowledge. In The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding Jonathan Kvanvig argues that epistemology properly conceived cannot ignore the question of the value of knowledge. He also questions one of the most fundamental assumptions in epistemology, namely that knowledge is always more valuable than the value of its subparts. Taking Platos' Meno as a starting point of his discussion, Kvanvig tackles the different arguments about the value of knowledge and comes to the conclusion that knowledge is less valuable than generally assumed. Clearly written and well argued, this 2003 book will appeal to students and professionals in epistemology.

Managers Doing Leadership: The Extra-Ordinarization of the Mundane

Abstract: Based on a case study of managers in a large, international knowledge-intensive company this article suggests a rethinking of leadership, taking the mundane, almost trivial, aspects of what managers/leaders actually do seriously. In the study, the managers interviewed emphasized the importance of listening and informal chatting. Managers listening to subordinates are assumed to have various positive effects, e.g. people feel more respected, visible and less anonymous, and included in teamwork. Rather than certain acts being significant in themselves, it is their being done by managers that gives them a special, emotional value beyond their everyday significance. Leadership is conceptualized as the extra-ordinarization of the mundane.

Moral value transfer from regulatory fit: what feels right is right and what feels wrong is wrong.

Abstract: People experience regulatory fit (E. T. Higgins, 2000) when the strategic manner of their goal pursuit suits their regulatory orientation, and this regulatory fit feels right. Fit violation feels wrong. Four studies tested the proposal that experiences of fit can transfer to moral evaluations. The authors examined transfer of feeling wrong from fit violation by having participants in a promotion or prevention focus recall transgressions of commission or omission (Studies 1 and 2). Both studies found that when the type of transgression was a fit violation, participants expressed more guilt. Studies 3 and 4 examined transfer of feeling right from regulatory fit. Participants evaluated conflict resolutions (Study 3) and public policies (Study 4) as more right when the means pursued had fit. To begin with, if we ask how a person comes to have a sense of guilt, we arrive at an answer which cannot be disputed: a person feels guilty (devout people would say “sinful”) when he has done something which he knows to be “bad.” But then we notice how little this answer tells us. (Freud, 1930/1961a, p. 84) What makes a decision good or bad? The most obvious quality of a good or bad decision is its hedonic value: A good decision is one that has desired outcomes, and a bad decision is one that has undesired outcomes. No principle in psychology has been more central to understanding human motivation than the hedonic principle. The hedonic principle has produced many insights into the

Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx's Method

Abstract: Bertell Ollman, Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx's Method. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003,232 pages (paper).Bertell Ollman has spent the past three decades reconstructing Marx's methodology and finding the most approachable ways to present it to audiences not necessarily trained in the specialist language of Marxist philosophy. It was Ollman, after all, who in 1978 released the anti-Monopoly board game "Class Struggle" to help, says the game box, "kids from 8-80" "prepare for life in capitalist America." Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx's Method continues this project. This book is a compilation of selections taken from Ollman's previously published books and articles, re-arranged as a general primer on the dialectical method that he claims to be both indispensable for understanding Marx's analysis and necessary now for demystifying the hidden workings of 21st-century capitalism. As a treatise on method stripped of many of the technical discussions that have long occupied Marxist scholarship (such as value), this potted version of Ollman's theories shows just how provocative his work can be for anthropologists seeking to throw our own methodological heritage up for reconsideration.Ollman has always wanted to distinguish sharply between the tools investigators use to interpret social reality and those they use to explain it. With respect to Marx's work, this translates to reading the Grundrisse and the 1844 Manuscripts differently from Capital since they were written for different purposes: the former to identify the objects of analysis, the latter to help others understand these findings. Ollman is more interested in the former, where he sees Marx using dialectics like a geneticist might use a microscope, an instrument that in the right hands makes the invisible visible. The central objects thrown to light by dialectics, however, are not objects at all but relations and histories sedimented for the moment as "things." As the author explains, "Dialectics restructures our thinking about reality by replacing the commonsense notion of 'thing' (as something that has a history and has external connections with other things) with notions of 'process' (which contains its history and possible futures) and 'relation' (which contains as part of what it is its ties with other relations)" (p. 13).Where Ollman's work becomes most useful for anthropologists is in his ability to translate this focus on "social relations as subject matter" (p. 23) from epistemology into a research program, from methodology to method, without losing any of its richness. The core sections of the book, chapters 2 through 5, offer a new coupling of Ollman's trademark "philosophy of internal relations" with the process of abstraction as an instruction for, in his words, "putting dialectics to work" (p. 59). This involves commencing a to and fro procedure which entails first of all abstracting things and social positions into the relations that constitute them, secondly tracing how the transformations of each over time involve changes in the interconnections between them, and finally re-abstracting them into some level of generality to identify latent patterns, tendencies and points of conflict. …

Risk and morality

Abstract: Risk and Morality examines how decisions about risk and uncertainty relate to moral principles and ethical conduct. Editors Richard Ericson and Aaron Doyle have brought together in this volume a selection of original essays on the topic by renowned scholars in the disciplines of philosophy, sociology, law, political science, geography, criminology, and accounting from Canada, the United States, England, France, and Australia. Presenting cutting-edge theory and research, the essays analyse the broader social, political, economic and cultural dimensions of risk and morality. The concept of risk has become pervasive in recent years in political discourse, popular culture, organizational communications, and everyday life. The contributors' respective research projects on risk and morality in politics, business, legal regulation, crime prevention, insurance, extreme sports, and biotechnology provide original empirical evidence to substantiate their theories and address the ideological and policy relevance of their work. Collectively, the contributors explain why risk is such a key aspect of Western culture, and demonstrate that new regimes for risk management are transforming social integration, value-based reasoning and morality. Further, they illustrate that these new regimes do not necessarily foster more responsible conduct or greater accountability in institutions.

Where job values come from: Family and schooling background, cognitive ability, and gender

Abstract: This paper develops a framework for conceptualizing preferences for different job properties in terms of a tradeoff between risk and return in the pursuit of economic welfare. Following portfolio theory, job properties are viewed as having mean-variance properties with respect to the distribution of rates of growth in economic welfare. Actors may pursue a high-return, high-risk "entrepreneurial" strategy, or a low-return, low-risk "bureaucratic" strategy. An actor's choice is determined by "entrepreneurial ability" and risk preferences, which in turn are rooted in the major dimensions of family and schooling background, cognitive ability, and gender. This theory is tested by anchoring it in the Wisconsin status attainment model and then fitting rank-ordered logit models to data from the 1957 and 1992 Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey. The findings support the theory: Actors who are "advantaged" with respect to family background, schooling, cognitive ability, and gender express a preference for "entrepreneurial" as opposed to "bureaucratic" job properties. Findings also highlight the strong parallels between the process generating adult job values and the process of socioeconomic achievement itself.

Valuing the future: recent advances in social discounting

Abstract: The perplexing issue of discounting Prescriptive economics requires that, unless there are very good reasons to the contrary, economic policy should be based on the principle that individuals’ preferences should count. Indeed, the entire body of ‘ welfare economics’ centres round the formal identity of the statement “ X prefers A to B” and the statement “ X has higher welfare in A rather than B” . This combination of a seemingly innocuous and democratic value judgement— preferences should count— and a formal definition about the meaning of welfare improvement involves many complications. The entire history of policy analysis focuses on those complications. Whose preferences should count? Over what time period? What constitutes a legitimate attenuation of the basic value judgement? One of the problem areas concerns timediscounting— the process whereby society places a lower value on a future gain or loss than on the same gain or loss occurring now. The rationale for time-discounting follows logically from the basic value judgement of welfare economics. If people’ s preferences count and if people prefer now to the future, those preferences must be integrated into social policy formulation. Time-discounting is thus universal in economic analysis, but it remains, as it always has, controversial. The controversy has a parallel in another form of discounting— spatial discounting. When translated into economic terms, the ethical principle

Getting Even: Forgiveness and Its Limits

Abstract: We have all been victims of wrongdoing. Forgiving that wrongdoing is one of the staples of current pop psychology dogma; it is seen as a universal prescription for moral and mental health in the self-help and recovery section of bookstores. At the same time, personal vindictiveness as a rule is seen as irrational and immoral. In many ways, our thinking on these issues is deeply inconsistent; we value forgiveness yet at the same time now use victim-impact statements to argue for harsher penalties for criminals. Do we have a right to hate others for what they have done to us? The distinguished philosopher and law professor Jeffrie Murphy is a skeptic when it comes to our views on both emotions. In this short and accessible book, he proposes that vindictive emotions (anger, resentment, and the desire for revenge) actually deserve a more legitimate place in our emotional, social, and legal lives than we currently recognize, while forgiveness deserves to be more selectively granted. Murphy grounds his views on careful analysis of the nature of forgiveness, a subtle understanding of the psychology of anger and resentment, and a fine appreciation of the ethical issues of self-respect and self-defense. He also uses accessible examples from law, literature, and religion to make his points. Providing a nuanced approach to a proper understanding of the place of our strongest emotions in moral, political, and personal life, and using lucid, easily understood prose, this volume is a classic example of philosophical thinking applied to a thorny, everyday problem.

The Search for the Source of Epistemic Good

Abstract: Knowledge has almost always been treated as good, better than mere true belief, but it is remarkably difficult to explain what it is about knowledge that makes it better. I call this "the value problem." I have previously argued that most forms of reliabilism cannot handle the value problem. In this article I argue that the value problem is more general than a problem for reliabilism, infecting a host of different theories, including some that are internalist. An additional problem is that not all instances of true belief seem to be good on balance, so even if a given instance of knowing p is better than merely truly believing p, not all instances of knowing will be good enough to explain why knowledge has received so much attention in the history of philosophy. The article aims to answer two questions: (1) What makes knowing p better than merely truly believing p? The answer involves an exploration of the connection between believing and the agency of the knower. Knowing is an act in which the knower gets credit for achieving truth. (2) What makes some instances of knowing good enough to make the investigation of knowledge worthy of so much attention? The answer involves the connection between the good of believing truths of certain kinds and a good life. In the best kinds of knowing, the knower not only gets credit for getting the truth but also gets credit for getting a desirable truth. The kind of value that makes knowledge a fitting object of extensive philosophical inquiry is not independent of moral value and the wider values of a good life.

Political Economy: The Contest of Economic Ideas

Abstract: In this second edition of "Political Economy: The Contest of Economic Ideas", Frank Stilwell provides a fully updated overview of the political economy and its connection with social concerns. The book investigates the main traditions of economic ideas and provides a 'big picture' overview of the analytical tools and value judgments associated with competing schools of economic thought. "Political Economy: The Contest of Economic Ideas" features a clear and engaging writing style which makes the complexities of contesting economic ideas - such as classical political economy and Marxist economics, neoclassical economies and neo-liberalism - easier to grasp.

Subsumption or Consumption? The Phantom of Consumer Revolution in "Globalizing" China

Abstract: If subalterns cannot speak, they can still work and consume.! Or to put it more accurately, they have no choice but to produce and consume as if they were driven to do so, as if production and consumption were the two necessary sides of their fate, as if these dual imperatives could guarantee their survival in the age of global capital. There are risks of attributing telos to capital as if, for subaltern subjects, the drive toward production and consumption was their destiny. Nevertheless, subalternity is never underestimated of its value nor is it seen as possessing no value. Its worth need not be transvaluated, because it lies exactly in its presence or willingness to keep silent and surrender its gains and prestige to those who consume its labor power (cf. Anagnost in press; Yan H. 2003). Its predication, with or without voice, multifaceted and transfiguring, highlights the intriguing relationship between production and consumption in the circuit of global capitalism. The subsumption of production allows consumption to appear as if it were a "democratic show"-a consumer "revolution" in which all could participate. By subsumption, I refer to the process whereby the extraction of the surplus value of labor is hidden and suppressed by the overvaluation of consumption and its neoliberal ideologies of self-transformation. The significance of production is displaced by consumption as representing the motive force in the drive to modernity. Developmentalism has been thereby colonized by consumerism in China as both the motive force and the measure of development. Thus the subaltern subject is not to be pitied but is to be instead dressed with a chimeric cloth, gorgeous enough to render her articulation as sweated labor invisible. In this article I contrast the experience of dagongmei (women migrant laborers from the countryside) with that of urban residents in the consumption showbiz that has emerged in China since the mid-1990s.2 The dagongmei, whose body is the site of both production and consumption in the circuit of global capital, offers a means through which to engage with the recentyet already not-so-new-debates on global capital sans production.

Food regimes and the production of value: Some methodological issues

Abstract: In critically re-examining the concept of food regime this article argues for an alternative formulation thatposits the concept on the foundation of the theory of value, rather than the developmentalist framework of the regulation theory within which it was originally posed. This is possible because while the insights of food regime analysis were rooted in a world historical perspective on global value relations, its presentation always subordinated the latter to the more abstract stage theory of the regulation school. Disentangled from regulationism, the concept of food regime is central for a labour-oriented perspective on imperialism as a relation of production embedded in global value relations. This is part of a broader methodological critique that locates the problematic of development (and consumption, in the postdevelopmentalist era) within the discourses of bourgeois modernity (and postmodernity) and seeks to differentiate these from the problematic of labour and labour emancipation. The article ...

Against ‘creativity’: a ­philistine rant

Abstract: The aspiration to be creative seems today to be more or less compulsory in an increasing number of areas of life. In psychological vocabularies, in economic life, in education and beyond, the values of creativity have taken on the force of a moral agenda. Yet creativity is a value which, though we may believe we choose it ourselves, may in fact make us complicit with what today might be seen as the most conservative of norms: compulsory individualism, compulsory ‘innovation’, compulsory per­formativity and productiveness, the compulsory valorization of the putatively new. This article suggests that, in order to escape the moralizing injunction to be creative, we need to cultivate a kind of ethical philistinism, albeit disaggregating such philistinism from the negativism of outright cynicism or fatuity. However, there is not much use in outlining an abstract model of philistinism. Instead, we take some ‘exemplars’ of a philistine attitude to creativity – Gilles Deleuze, F. R. Leavis, and Paul Cezanne – in ...

Sharing the Corporate Crown Jewels

Abstract: Intellectual property assets now account for 50% to 70% of the market value of all public companies, and corporate America is intensifying efforts to maximize the return on those assets. That explains why a small but growing number of Fortune 500 enterprises are moving away from a strict reliance on the "exclusivity value" of their patents and other intellectual property ? that is, their power to exclude or hinder competitors ? and are instead seeking to tap the often enormous financial and strategic value of their core technology assets by licensing them to other companies, including competitors. The practitioners of this strategic licensing, as it is called, are betting that any loss of market exclusivity that may result from making available their "crown jewel" technologies will be more than offset by the financial and strategic benefits gained. For this article, the author interviewed some of the pioneer practitioners of this emerging approach and got them to explain the nature and degree of the benefits their companies are now reaping. Although patent rights should always remain an important weapon in a company's competitive arsenal, strategic-licensing initiatives are encouraging managers to rethink what it means to create and sustain competitive advantage in business.

Habermas: Discourse and Cultural Diversity:

Abstract: Habermas's vision of discourse ethics can be reconciled with many of the concerns of proponents of diversity whose demands for recognition are rooted in liberal values. However, his account underestimates the challenge that diversity poses to collective identity and the fundamental nature of value conflict. If discursive approaches to justice are to accommodate such claims, they must abandon the Habermasian search for consensus in favour of a vision of liberalism which acknowledges the plurality and incommensurability of fundamental values and which consequently accepts the pervasiveness of value conflict. Whereas Habermas fears that such a perspective will reduce political disputes to purely strategic struggles for power, such worries can be addressed through innovative forms of joint governance.

The Body Impolitic: Artisans and Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of Value

Abstract: "The Body Impolitic" is a critical study of tradition, not merely as an ornament of local and national heritage, but also as a millstone around the necks of those who are condemned to produce it.

(De)commodification, Consumer Culture, and Moral Economy

Abstract: In this paper I attempt to develop understanding of commodification and consumption by relating ideas from the moral philosophy of Adam Smith and Alasdair MacIntyre to recent research on consumer culture by Pierre Bourdieu and Daniel Miller. I focus on how commodification affects how people value things, practices, themselves, and others. It is argued that, although traditional critiques of consumer culture have often been both elitist and weakly supported empirically, some of their normative distinctions can be used to illuminate more positive aspects of consumption. In particular, the distinction between internal and external goods enables us to appreciate that much consumption is not primarily a form of status seeking but a means to the development of skills, achievements, commitments, and relationships which have value regardless of whether they bring participants external rewards. Although Bourdieu's analysis of inequalities and the struggles of the social field misses this distinction, use of it helps to illuminate how the struggles are for internal goods as well as for status and power. Finally, by reference to recent work by Miller on altruistic shopping, I question the common related criticism of consumer culture as individualistic, and conclude.

The Difficulty of Tolerance: Essays in Political Philosophy

Abstract: 1. A theory of freedom of expression 2. Rights, goals, and fairness 3. Due process 4. Preference and urgency 5. Freedom of expression and categories of expression 6. Human rights as a neutral concern 7. Contractualism and utilitarianism 8. Content regulation considered 9. Value, desire and the quality of life 10. The difficulty of tolerance 11. The diversity of objections to equality 12. Punishment and the rule of law 13. Promises and contracts.

Globalization and Cultural Trends in China

Abstract: Liu Kang argues that globalization is not simply a new conceptual framework through which cultural change in China can be understood; it is a historical condition in which the country's "gaige kaifang" (reform and opening up) has unfolded, and a set of values or ideologies by which it and the rest of the globe is judged. In five clear and concise chapters, Liu examines China's ideological struggles in political discourse, intellectual debate, popular culture, avant-garde literature, the news media and the internet. He constructs an understanding of post-revolutionary Chinese culture, making the case that Mao's ideology has been gutted, and arguing for its value in providing China with its own cultural identity, curbing the excesses of capitalism, and putting forward and alternative model of modernaization.

Ethics as a risk management strategy: the Australian experience

Abstract: This article addresses the connection of ethics to risk management, and argues that there are compelling reasons to consider good ethical practice to be an essential part of such risk management. That connection has significant commercial outcomes, which include identifying potential problems, preventing fraud, the preservation of corporate reputation, and the mitigation of court penalties should any transgression arise. Information about the legal position, examples of cases, and arguments about the potential benefits of ethics are canvassed. The orientation of this article is essentially Australian. It is hoped that it may provide some insights of value to other countries.

A new approach to eliciting meaning in the context of breast cancer.

Abstract: A semistructured measure was developed from early descriptive work by Lipowski to elicit the meaning of breast cancer using eight preset categories: challenge, enemy, punishment, weakness, relief, strategy, irreparable loss, and value. This measure was applied in two studies: a cross-sectional survey of 1012 Canadian women at various points after diagnosis and a follow-up study 3 years later of 205 women from the previous study who were close to the time of diagnosis at the first testing. The majority of the 1012 women chose "challenge" (57.4%) or "value" (27.6%) to describe the meaning of breast cancer, whereas fewer chose the more negative "enemy" (7.8%) or "irreparable loss" (3.9%). At the 3-year follow-up assessment, 78.9% of the women who had indicated positive meaning by their choices of "challenge" or "value" did so again. Verbal descriptions provided by the women were congruent with those reported in previous qualitative studies of meaning in breast cancer with respect to the two most prevalent categories: challenge and value. At follow-up assessment, women who ascribed a negative meaning of illness with choices such as "enemy," "loss," or "punishment" had significantly higher levels of depression and anxiety and poorer quality of life than women who indicated a more positive meaning. The meaning-of-illness measure provides an approach that can be applied in large surveys to detect women who ascribe less positive meaning to the breast cancer experience, women who may be difficult to identify in the context of small, qualitative studies.

Contribution to the Critique of the Aesthetic Economy

Abstract: This article charts the emergence since the 1950s of a new value category, staging value, which arises when capitalism moves from addressing people's needs to exploiting their desires. Staging valu...

Development as Freedom. And as What Else

Abstract: To what extent can Amartya Sen's ideas on freedom, especially his conceptualization of development as freedom, enrich feminist economics? Sen's notion of freedom (as the capability to achieve valued ends) has many attractions and provides important opportunities to analyze gender inequalities. At the same time, Sen's recent emphasis on freedom as the dominant value in judging individual well-being and societal development also contains risks, not least for feminist analysis. We characterize the risks as an underelaboration and overextension of the concept of freedom. Drawing on Sen's earlier work and various feminist theorists, we suggest instead a more emphatically pluralist characterization of capability, well-being, and value, highlighting the distinct and substantive aspects of freedom, as well as of values besides freedom, in the lives of women and men. We illustrate this with reference to women's economic role as caregivers.

The Difficulty of Tolerance: Value, desire, and quality of life

Abstract: The notion of the quality of life suffers from an embarrassing richness of possibilities. First, there are a number of related but distinct questions with which this notion might be associated. What kinds of circumstances provide good conditions under which to live? What makes a life a good one for the person who lives it? What makes a life a valuable one (a good thing, as Sidgwick put it, “from the point of view of the universe”)? Second, each of these questions admits of different interpretations and a number of possible answers. Finally, there are a number of different standpoints from which the question of what makes a person's life better, in any one of these senses, might be asked. It might be asked from the point of view of that person herself, who is trying to decide how to live. It might be asked from the point of view of a benevolent third party, a friend or parent, who wants to make the person's life better. It might be asked, in a more general sense, from the point of view of a conscientious administrator, whose duty it is to act in the interest of some group of people. It might be asked, again in this more general sense, by a conscientious voter who is trying to decide which policy to vote for and defend in public debate and wants to support the policy which will improve the quality of life in her society.

Privacy: Its Meaning and Value

Abstract: Bodily privacy, understood as a right to control access to one’s body, capacities, and powers, is one of our most cherished rights − a right enshrined in law and notions of common morality. Informational privacy, on the other hand, has yet to attain such a loftily status. As rational project pursuers, who operate and flourish in a world of material objects it is our ability control patterns of association and disassociation with our fellows that afford each of us the room to become distinct individuals. Privacy, whether physical or informational, is valuable for beings like us. Establishing the truth this claim will be the primary focus of this article. Providing reasons, evidence, and support for this claim will take us into the historical and cultural dimensions of privacy.