Online research in philosophy

Historically the professions have maintained a commitment to what MacIntyre calls the “internal goods of practice” as opposed to the external goods of practice associated with monetary compensation and activities directly related to monetary compensation. This paper argues that the growing financialization of the economy has fostered a climate of managerial control exemplified in the proliferation of auditing and procedures associated with auditing. Accordingly professionals, whose organizational function includes responsibility for the internal goods, are thereby frustrated in so far as (...) they have been forced to become preoccupied with performance indicators and the goals of financial efficiency imposed by hierarchies founded on managerial expertise rather than professional achievement and competence. A reaffirmation of professional commitment to the internal goods may well require a communitarian approach that entails a reorganization of society around the common good rather than the efficiency ethos that has displaced it. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the managerial template that has become the normative model for the organization of the university. In the first part of the paper I explain the corporatization of academic life in terms of the functional relationships that make up the organizational components of the commercial enterprise and their inappropriateness for the life of the academy. Although there is at present a significant body of literature devoted to this issue, the goal of this paper is to explain (...) the genesis of this phenomenon through a reference to the ideology that characterizes our modern secular age. This is the subject of the second part of the paper. Most texts seek to explain this ideological development either through the ever increasing dominance of economic rationalism, perceived conservatism of collegial forms of governance, the necessity to transfer fiscal responsibility in tight budgetary periods, the decline of the Keynesian ‘welfare consensus’, or the legacy of the power regimes that began to take shape in the liberal societies of the 19th century. I trace this development to the beginnings of Modernity and the Cartesian bifurcation that separated the material world from its spiritual and intellectual source and thereby overthrew the hierarchy of related values that informed both nature and human organization. In articulating this argument I make reference to the thought of Jacques Maritain, Charles Taylor and René Guénon. (shrink)

In this paper we begin with a reference to the work of Hernando de Soto The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, and his characterization of the Western institution of formal property . We note the linkages that he sees between the institution and successful capitalist enterprise. Therefore, given the appropriateness of his analysis, it would appear to be worthwhile for developing and less developed countries to adjust their systems of ownership to conform (...) more closely to the Western system of formal property. However, we go on to point out that property relationships within the Western system have become subject to redefinition through the expansion of Intellectual Property (IP) rights in ways that ultimately work to the disadvantage of the developing and less developed countries. We point out that this restructuring has been given global application through the implementation of the TRIPS agreement by the WTO. In the final section of the paper I suggest ways in which IP rights and relevant institutions can be reformed in order to avoid the disadvantages to the developing and less developed countries. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper considers the arguments that could support the proposition that intellectual property rights as applied to software have a moral basis. Undeniably, ownership rights were first applied to chattels and land and so we begin by considering the moral basis of these rights. We then consider if these arguments make moral sense when they are extended to intellectual phenomenon. We identified two principal moral defenses: one based on utilitarian concerns relating to human welfare, the other appeals to issues (...) of individual autonomy and private control. We conclude that intellectual property rights could not be defended from a moral perspective that emphasizes autonomy and individual control because copyright and patent restrict fundamental freedoms to transfer and redistribute one’s property. We also find it difficult to defend intellectual property in software from a utilitarian perspective because of the current structure of the market. We mention two characteristics of the software market that make it distinct and promote monopolistic conditions and excessive profit taking: the facility of replication, and the need for compatibility in operating systems. We conclude that there are good reasons to reverse the current market’s structure. We suggest three possible remedies. The government could rigorously enforce antitrust legislation, impose greater monitoring and price controls, or obviate the commercial aspect altogether by denying the application of intellectual property rights to software. (shrink)

In this paper, I specifically consider the issue of corporate governance and normative stakeholder theory. In doing so, I arguethat stakeholder theory and responsibilities to non-shareholder constituencies can be made more intelligible by reference to Kant’sconception of perfect and imperfect duties. I draw upon Onora O’Neill’s (1996) work, Towards Justice and Virtue: A Constructivist Account of Practical Reasoning. In her text O’Neill underlines a number of relevant issues including: the integration of particularist and universalist accounts of morality; the priority of (...) obligations over rights; the importance of the distinction between imperfect and perfect duties; and the relation between the virtues and imperfect duties. On the basis of the foregoing analysis, the paper argues that business ethicists should avoid recommending the institutionalising of stakeholder responsibilities in terms of legally defined sets of stakeholder rights. Instead, we should regard stakeholder responsibilities as uniformalised imperfect duties. Conceiving responsibilities to all stakeholder groups in this manner, allows the firm the freedom to perfect these duties in ways appropriate to cultural and societal setting, and in accordance with the capacity to do so. (shrink)

In a recent paper Allen Buchanan makes a basic distinction between two types of ethical problems which arise in business: “genuine ethical dilemmas, in which the problem is to discover what one ought to do, when two or more valid ethical duties (or values orprinciples) conflict, and compliance problems, which occur when one knows what one’s moral obligations are, but experiences difficulty in fulfilling them due to pressures of self-interest or loyalty to group or organization.” Buchanan argues that most business (...) ethicists believe that this simple dichotomy is exhaustive. He claims it is not and argues that there is a third area of concern that involves perfecting imperfect duties, or coming to “have definite ethical duties, where before there were at best vague ethical goals.” However, I wish to argue that there is a further area of concern in business ethics and this area does not involve deciding between competing moral principles, values etc, attempting to comply with known principles, or imparting determinate content to vague, non-specific imperfect principles of obligation (the subject of Buchanan’s recent paper). This sort of problem occurs frequently in the third world in circumstances in which the agent entirely fails to recognize the normative structure that underpins the considered options. (shrink)

It is the contention of this paper that some progress in alleviating the social and environmental problems which are beginning to face Papua New Guinea can be achieved by supporting traditional Melanesian values through maintaining the customary system of communal land tenure. In accordance with this aim, I will proceed to contrast certain Western attitudes towards individual freedom, selfinterested behaviour, individual and communal interests and private ownership with attitudes and values expressed in the traditional Melanesian approach. In order to demonstrate (...) the latter, I will briefly touch upon the phenomenon of wantokism and indicate how the Melanesian values associated with this concept find their locus in the system of customary communal ownership. Subsequently, I will describe how the emergence of a cash economy and the attachment to Western gadgetry and products have effected injury to the environment and undermined values which have previously maintained Melanesian social cohesion. While admitting that little can be done to eradicate the desire for cash and the products it can buy, I suggest that Melanesian communities and the environment itself would receive more protection if future development in Papua New Guinea embraced a system which incorporated certain of the traditional Melanesian values through the preservation of the communal form of land tenure. Ultimately, I suggest a way in which customary communal land tenure can be integrated into the established Anglo-Australian legal system. (shrink)