Alle Publikationen
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2016
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(2016): Obligation and Impersonality. In: Philosophy of the Social Sciences 46 (6), S. 604-623. DOI: 10.1177/0048393116649970
Abstract: Although sociologists conceive obligation as an objective force (the social) that compels individuals to act and think according to pre-defined norms of conduct and ways of reasoning, philosophers view it as an imperative that is met through the agent's deliberation. The aim of this article is to undermine the standard dichotomy between the deterministically sociological and the moral-philosophical views of obligation by way of contending that Wittgenstein's view on blind obedience (as analyzed by Meredith Williams) bears a conception of the social. I will then argue that Wittgenstein's notion of forms of life and the sociological notion of situation refer to the same encompassing phenomenon: obligation. I will finally claim that this phenomenon should be re-specified in terms of impersonality to devise a shared dynamic conception of obligation admitting that a plurality of contextual normative orders monitor collective and individual action in ordinary life.
2013
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(2013): Social Freedom, Moral Responsibility, Actions and Omissions. In: The Philosophical Quarterly 63 (253), S. 716-739. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9213.12067
Abstract: This article addresses the question of what history an obstacle that stands in the way of our performing a certain action (x) must have in order to render us socially unfree to x. The most promising view on this question is the moral responsibility view, according to which such an obstacle renders us socially unfree to x, if and only if another person is morally responsible for its existence. The main challenge of this view is to identify a serviceable test for establishing when someone is morally responsible for the existence of an obstacle. Numerous attempts to do so have been made over the years, but none of them proved to be successful. In my discussion of the moral responsibility view I will expose the failure of the most recent and powerful attempt to identify such a test. Then I will suggest a more plausible test and defend it from a few possible objections. Before discussing the moral responsibility view I will discuss its main rivals and show why it is superior to them in the first place.
2007
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(2007): The Moderators and Mediators of Door-in-the-Face Requests. Is it a Negotiation or a Helping Experience?. In: Communication Monographs 74 (3), S. 333-356. DOI: 10.1080/03637750701543469
Abstract: The Door-in-the-Face ( DITF) compliance-gaining tactic occurs when a large request, expected to be rejected, is followed by a more reasonable request that is granted. The mechanisms underlying the DITF strategy remain unclear. Researchers have posed different explanations for the effectiveness of DITF, including the reciprocal concessions and the social responsibility models. These theoretical rationales for DITF were tested in a 3 ( request type: initial request only, DITF sequence, small request only) x 2 ( initial request size: moderate, large) x 2 ( solicitor familiarity: friend, stranger) between-participants experiment. Findings from the compliance data are mostly consistent with the reciprocal concessions model; but, findings from the cognitive and affective data were mixed. It appears that DITF messages are perceived as a helping situation for friends, but not for strangers. Strangers view request messages of all sizes to be a negotiation, but friends see these requests as a negotiation only when the initial request is large.
2005
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(2005): On Complainability. In: Social Problems 52 (4), S. 449-476. DOI: 10.1525/sp.2005.52.4.449
Abstract: Two common components of social problems are their grounding in the differential categorization of people and the treatment of some forms of conduct as "complainable." This article begins by introducing some ways in which the categorization of people and the complainability of conduct are problematic-both in the conduct of ordinary interaction and in social scientific analysis of ordinary interaction. It then addresses this problematicity by examining how ordinary conduct in interaction can display participants' tacit orientation to the relevance of unspoken categories and to the complainability of one's own or others' conduct. It concludes by inviting attention to recent work on well-recognized topics of inquiry in the social problems literature, and encourages the advancement of such work by combining new analytic resources with longstanding social problems themes and topics.
2004
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(2004): Business ethics is a matter of good conduct and of good conscience?. In: Journal of Business Ethics 53 (1-2), S. 9-16
Abstract: The myth of an economy where nobody could have a predominant position, has lost its credibility. The presentiment of a high risk of social explosion makes companies undertake tentative moral legitimation. Thus, a new paradigm develops according to which the firm has to care for the satisfaction of public interest if “it wants to try to win forgiveness” for misbehavior towards the decorum rules of the atomicity of competition. Thus, there is a wave of “business ethics industry” building up. However, the stock exchange performances considered as ethical, are not different from others! The market does not seem to be able to say why it might be interesting to invest in stock considered as ethical. Moreover, opinion polls reveal a very significant discrepancy between the characterization of “the responsible company” as defined by itself or by notation agencies and, on the other hand, the hierarchy of criteria according to the answers of polled people. When companies and agencies favor sustainable development and good governance, rejecting child labor and so on, polled people consider that the paramount criterion of ethical conduct is personnel management. The problem is right here. Such is the view of a positively critical economist, situated at the point where macroeconomics meets corporate management.
1998
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(1998): From control to values-based management and accountability. In: Journal of Business Ethics 17 (13), S. 1379-1394. DOI: 10.1023/A:1006079110633
Abstract: In recent years a series of developments in apparently loosely coupled domains have contributed to the development of new and vital perspectives on how to manage complex social systems such as corporations. These developments include improved communications technologies, increased awareness by constituencies of their potentials for influencing corporate behaviour, increased complexity and reduced transparency in large, heterogeneous organisations, a corresponding reduction in the capacity of traditional accounting and reporting systems to reflect organisational performance, new demands from employees as to their work environments, from customers as to ecological and ethical sensitivity, from civil society and governments as to social and environmental accountability etc. A result is a major shift in the way organisations are choosing to observe themselves and to describe, measure, evaluate and report on their performance. From a focus on efficiency and control to a values-based perspective on management, corporate identity and success. And from a focus on legal compliance and financial performance to a focus on corporate social and ethical responsibility and accountability. The introduction provides a background for this transformation while the body of the paper motivates the on-going shift from control to values-based management. The article concludes with reflections on corporate accountability and the emerging practices of social and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting.
1994
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(1994): Culture, Responsibility, and Affected Ignorance, S. 291-309
Abstract: Few theorists concerned to understand human behavior would deny that the capacity to be influenced by the specific culture of a given social group is an important part of what it is to be human. As Clyde Kluckhohn argued in his "layman's introduction" to anthropology, Mirror for Man, "to be human is to be cultured. There is culture in general and then there are the specific cultures such as Russian, American, British, Hottentot, Inca. The general abstract notion serves to remind us that we cannot explain acts solely in terms of the biological properties of the people concerned, their individual past experience, and the immediate situation."' Moreover, as Kluckhohn suggests in this passage, if being human involves being cultured, there must then be a crucial connection between culture and agency. An important consequence of this connection is that much of our behavior can be intelligible only by reference to generally approved cultural practices. For example, only by reference to participation in a marriage ceremony can we coherently account for what happens when two people appear together to pronounce certain expressions of their language and exchange circular pieces of a yellow metal. Further, every culture develops intricate patterns of normative expectations about emotion, thought, and action that help to structure each person's formative experiences. The motivation of people who marry, for instance, will be partly influenced by such patterns of cultural approval. Recognizing the link between culture and agency clearly reveals that cultures powerfully shape even the most fundamental desires and purposes that influence human action
1964
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(1964): Social Roles and Moral Responsibility. In: Philosophy 39 (147), S. 29-36
Abstract: THE concept of moral responsibility has many applications. We speak, for example, of a person's responsibilities, and mean his pro- fessional or domestic commitments. In this sense a person can be said to have too many responsibilities, or none at all, and he can be said to be responsible to or for another person. Again, we can speak of the person himself as being responsible or irresponsible, and mean that he is conscientious and trustworthy in the performance of his duties or that he has a sense of responsibility. Finally, we can speak of a person as accepting responsibility for an action or another person. A thorough analysis of these complexities of usage would require the investigation of a number of background concepts, but in this paper I have the more limited object of classifying some of the usages. I propose to do this by constructing three analytical models based on the concept of a social role.
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