The deficiencies of objectivity & detachment in the social sciences are identified in relation to the desirability of subjective & ethically motivated forms of knowledge & research. Drawing on the theory of Max Weber, traditional science is depicted as detached observation that seeks objectivity through the absence of cognitive, moral, or emotional judgment. This goal is deemed both impossible & misleading as social analysts can never completely distance themselves from the objects of analysis, & recognition of the emotional, moral, & subjective dimensions of research can in fact facilitate understanding. Individuals must be seen as a conglomeration of multiple & often contradictory identities & communities, a process inhibited by the traditional scientific method. It is concluded that social analysts synthesize their work with localized & context-specific conceptions of social justice, transformative action, human dignity, & equality. T. Sevier
Political judgement is considered an important goal of civics lessons. When judging moral, political, or literary content, the focus is always on discovering connections between aspects that were originally not related. Existing knowledge about a domain-specific area is the basis for drawing conclusions about other knowledge. In this paper, it is showed how difficult it is to determine the quality of a political judgement in terms of content analysis or from a philosophical perspective. Political judgement is here understood as a competence. Judgement competence is the ability to argue based on justifications, weigh the facts, and decide about political matters in a way that is correct from a factual perspective. ln conclusion, the findings from two political didactics studies on political judgements are presented which reveal that quality is a problem in civics lessons.
The foundations of Enlightenment thought & the nature of a postmodern approach to human studies are discussed. Although modernization is a fundamental goal in many developing nations & remains a central component of developed Western nations, it is argued that postmodern themes have taken hold in the US, France, GB, Federal Republic of Germany, & Australia, especially within academic communities. These themes include diverse challenges to Enlightenment thought, redefinition of traditional conceptions of knowledge, & blurring of disciplinary & social boundaries. Following a review of the historical development of Enlightenment social analysis, postmodern empirical social analysis is characterized by an emphasis on the aims & effects (rather than the nature) of knowledge; consideration of the social, moral, & political implications of thought & action; synthesis of science, literature, history; & the development of new languages, conventions, & skills to accommodate these new ways of thinking, analyzing, & acting. 49 References. T. Sevier
Varieties of environmentalist thought & their affinities with the core moral & epistemological tradition of modernity are examined. Thinking about environmental crises is dependent on the perceived relationship between language & the world. Prior to the seventeenth century, language, culture, & the natural order were embedded in the word & natural meaning stemmed from interpreting signs in nature & the environment. Modernity brought differentiation of cultural spheres & the separation of language from the world. Language became a vehicle for self-certain apodictic knowledge that legitimated human domination of nature. Two reactions of the ecology movement to this modernity discourse are neomodernism, which rejects assumptions about the correspondence between language & nature, & deep green romanticism. Problems with both of these are highlighted, & a third alternative is proposed in which social practices & nature are viewed as intersecting & ongoing forms of life. 107 References. D. Generoli
"As early as in the mid-1930s, the world went towards eliminating the foundations of the classical doctrine of ius ad bellum and enforcing legal norms to restrain the violence of war. However, at the same time the world experiences the release of unbounded violence, epitomized by the rise of total war in the 20th century. Total war does not know any difference between combatants and non-combatants. Atrocities and war crimes are not just rare exceptions. How was it possible that in the modern age we are confronted with such an irreconcilable opposition between the morals and norms of war and the practice of war? The article will deal with this question by way of reconstructing essential elements of the discursive conditions of the 'dissociation mentality' (Bernd Hüppauf). This way of asking assumes that discourses on war, that is organized knowledge structures gained from texts, myths, images and collective symbols dealing with the experience of violence in the context of war, considerably influence the views, mentalities, moral orientations and behaviour of humans. In the article, the analysis will be restricted to one certain discourse which developed in Germany in the interwar period. The thesis is that the 'discourse of martial society' must be counted among the institutional preconditions of unbounded violence in World War II, because it was systematically severing the commitment to civilized norms. The discourse comprised a fundamental criticism of those barriers to violence as gained by civilization, which becomes particularly obvious by a criticism of the political philosophy of the Romantic period and Western civilization. It aimed at heroic individualization, the modernization of social structures according to military patterns and at total mobilization. And not the least, it led into an apology of violence." (author's abstract)
Personal recollections of a former developmental biologist focus on the intellectual alliances & boundary-crossing paths of an academic career that led to pedagogical reform involving a linkage of molecular biology, political theory, & feminist studies. The impact of B. Latour's (1993, 1996, 1999) notions of disciplinary boundaries as actor-networks, D. Haraway's (1988, 1997) theoretical framework of material-semiotic apparatuses, & M. Foucault's conception of freedom is discussed in relation to the formation of complex, boundary-crossing assemblages. The moral & political dimensions of questioning why humans are at liberty to realize how & why matter matters, & to whom, are explored. It is maintained that liberty has the properties of "making" rather than "made" &, as such, is not made practical with the help of science or technology. Rather, scientists are said to be "makers of liberty" by virtue of producing knowledge that allows freedom, even though scientists themselves are never totally free of the relations of politics & power. 26 References. J. Lindroth
Discusses the results & implications of a science studies perspective regarding the high-energy physics field, based on 20 years personal research including 6 years of fieldwork at major US & Japanese labs. It is suggested that the international community of high-energy physicists is characterized by the production of privileged knowledge founded in biased gender & cultural norms that have the potential to marginalize & close the field to much needed diversity of opinions. Japanese women physicists fall into three generational groups: the senior generation, which was educated in Japan & holds low-level jobs; the young generation, which is benefiting from changing attitudes regarding working women; & the mid-career group, which received upper-level education in Europe, yet has been relegated to mid-range opportunities in Japan. It is argued that although military funding is condemned in both Japan & the US, most US physicists reject such funding due to a dislike of applied research, rather than as a result of personal moral or political obstructions. Further, many of the best high-energy physicists in the US have been coaxed into military research by money. T. Sevier
"Climate change adaptation has been called a 'wicked problem par excellence.' Wicked problems are hard to define because the formulation of the problem is the problem; they are considered a symptom of another problem; they are highly resistant to solutions and extremely interconnected with other problems. Climate change problems are even more complex because they lack a well-structured policy domain, and knowledge about climate change is uncertain and contested. Given the wicked characteristics of the climate issue and its particular challenges, the question is which theories are useful starting points for the governance of climate adaptation? The chapter distinguishes between theories and concepts that focus on reflexivity, on resilience, on responsiveness and on revitalization. Instead of integrating these theories in one overarching governance approach, the chapter suggests an approach of theoretical multiplicity. It proposes that exploiting the variety of concepts and strategies based on the different theories can increase the governance capacity to deal with climate change. Finally, it addresses the moral dimension of wicked problems, which suggests that it is unacceptable to treat a wicked problem as though it were a tame one. Governance scholars nowadays risk raising expectations far beyond their ability to deliver, and thus enhance confusions over whether wicked problems are in fact tame ones." (author's abstract)
A dominant phenomenon in the last decades of the past century and the first decades of the 21st century is that of globalisation. The European Union emphasises more and more the role of education as a real element of reducing the distances between the member states, while stimulating the economic, social and cultural development of the community states. At the European Unions' policies, the universities are called to prepare the students for an independent life in a multicultural environment, to support the improvement of knowledge, skills and competences that are necessary for an efficient functioning in a pluralist and democratic society, to interact, negotiate and communicate with people from different groups in order to create a civil society functioning on moral principles and common values. The instrument, put at the disposal of the national education systems by the European Committee, is the initiation of action programmes in this domain. The actions that take place in these programmes are based on collaboration relationships between the member states of the European Union. They are also extended to non-community states or even to non-European ones. Among these programmes, emphasis is placed upon those designated to learning during one's entire lifespan (LLP), the most popular being the Socrates-Erasmus Programme. In these 52 higher education institutions from Romania, which take part to this programme, the University of Oradea has constantly occupied, in the last five years, on the 7th place, and this is due to the number of mobilities put at the students' and teachers' disposal every academic year. The objectives proposed by the European Committee, once starting this programmes, were successfully accomplished, as conditions have been created for building a real intercultural dialogue between the 27 countries of the European Union and not only.
Business enterprises are increasingly regarded as key actors of sustainable development. The development towards sustainable business is even more fostered by the spreading of business rankings based on corporate sustainability indexes, which assess the overall sustainable performance. But despite these trends the awareness of the necessary sustainability shift within business enterprises is rather moderate. At least to some extent this can be explained by the lack of instruments to teach sustainable development in business schools and in advanced business training. This holds especially true for the ethical questions of sustainability. This is amazing since the concept of sustainable development is strongly bound to moral principles (e.g. social justice, dignity of man, human rights, ethical concepts of a good life and of solidarity). Relying on these implicit principles sustainability indexes demand for sustainable products and services, for ecological management, for social reporting, for codes of conduct for suppliers, for equal rights and non-discrimination etc. Consequently some business enterprises have started to establish corporate value management to cope with theses challenges. Taking the ethical demands for sustainable corporate performance serious practising and teaching sustainability has to comprise ethical reflections on the relevant moral ideas for sustainable development, too. Thus this paper wants to put forward neo-Socratic dialogue (NSD) as a didactic method to teach fundamental ethical questions of sustainable development for business enterprises. A NSD is an inquiry into ideas, originally meant to find consensus on some topic through a joint deliberation and weighing-up of arguments. The dialogue aims at visioning, explaining values and clarifying fundamental concepts. It implies a systematic investigation of our assumptions, reasons and viewpoints, and a cooperative testing of their validity. In the dialogue participants attempt to formulate legitimate principles and develop a shared and inspiring perspective. A second aim of the NSD is to learn to have a dialogue instead of a discussion. This requires adequate command of a number of dialogical roles, skills and attitudes, especially suspending judgements and keeping a balance between taking position and resigning. Both aims are intimately connected to the development of strategy, organisational learning and knowledge management. The NSD has been successfully applied so far in medical ethics, university teaching, organisational learning, business ethics, as well as in primary education. A NSD is focussed on a single fundamental ethical question. A NSD is applied to a concrete experience of one of the participants that is accessible to all other participants. Systematic reflection upon this experience is accompanied by a search for shared judgments and underlying reasons for these. In the case of sustainable development examples for such fundamental questions are the following: What does it mean to conduct a good life? Is luxury unnecessary? What does participation in the context of business enterprises mean? How can business enterprises realize solidarity? What is basically Socratic in the NSD is the method of rigorous inquiry into the thoughts, concepts and values we hold as true. The NSD is a joint investigation into the assumptions we make when we formulate our thoughts. The proposed paper will give an overview on this method and its application for teaching ethical questions of sustainable development. The article will elaborate especially the business applications of NSD to teach sustainability. Besides describing the more theoretical background of NSD, the paper will present a case study of a NSD held with an interdisciplinary group of students studying sustainable development at the University of Vienna.
