We tested whether the impact of an organizational transgression on consumer sentiment differs depending on whether the organization is a nonprofit. Competing hypotheses were tested: that people expect higher ethical standards from a nonprofit than a commercial organization, and so having this expectation violated generates a harsher response and that a nonprofit’s reputation as a moral entity buffers it against the negative consequences of transgressions. In three experiments participants were told that an organization had engaged in fraud, exploitation of (...) women, or unethical labor practices. Consistent with the moral disillusionment hypothesis, decreases in consumer trust post-transgression were greater when the organization was described as nonprofit, an effect that was mediated by expectancy violations. This drop in trust then flowed through to consumer intentions and consumer word of mouth intentions. No support was found for the moral insurance hypothesis. Results confirm that nonprofits are penalized more harshly than commercial organizations when they breach consumer trust. (shrink)

This open access book offers four ways to enrich traditional research methods in business ethics. By looking at critical jokes and cartoons on management consultants, their business practice and their clients’ demands, many ethical transgressions in business get addressed. By illustrating and criticizing such transgression, jokes can serve as an example in a theoretical argument, as a prompt to reflect on in an open interview, as a statement to assess in an enquiry or as basis for qualitative content (...) analysis. By adding jokes to the conversation on ethical transgressions in business much depth and honesty can be added, resulting in better research data. Jokes can help to surpass social desirability bias included in answers given in traditional interview settings or enquiries. This book is of interest to consultants, researchers, educators and students in business ethics and management. The book showcases what kind of practical and ethical wisdom is embedded in business jokes and how this knowledge can be made productive in the context of business ethics. (shrink)

Scatological shock-merchants, untrained social workers, conflict-zone tourists: from a certain standpoint the relationship between contemporary art and ethics involves a string of negative conjunctions. At their center stands the artist, whose personality and intentions often serve as an ethical measure of the work. This book operates on the basis of a different premise: that artworks themselves have ethical effects, and looking at these effects can tell us about wider processes of social change. As the first full-length study of its (...) kind to outline a positive vision of the ethics of contemporary art, this book distances itself from previous accounts that focus on transgression. The critique of transgressive art is not made on the basis that it is wrong, but that it no longer succeeds on its own terms in societies where language, prohibition and morality are more plastic than they once were. By drawing on the work of Félix Guattari and Jacques Lacan, the book develops a novel theoretical framework that emphasizes the effect of art on subjectivity. Along the way artworks by Kader Attia, Artur Zmijewski, Dora Garcia and others serve as springboards launching discussions of the varied pathways along which a renewed ethics of contemporary art might develop. (shrink)

This study examines ethical transgressions of school psychology graduate students using the critical incidents technique. Program directors of school psychology programs listed in the Directory of School Psychology Graduate Programs were asked to describe ethical violations committed by their students during the past 5 years. Violations dealt primarily with issues involving confidentiality, competence, and professional and academic honesty. Directors believed that the majority of students would not find most ethical issues problematic. Implications for training are discussed.

Through examples of embodied and learning -centered pedagogy, we discuss transformative learning of transgressive topics. We begin with a taxonomy of types of learning our students undergo as they resolve inconsistencies among their pre-existing beliefs and the material they confront in our course on feminist ethics and epistemology. We then discuss ways to help students maximize their learning while confronting internal inconsistencies. While we focus on feminist topics, our approach is broad enough to be relevant to anyone teaching a (...) transgressive or controversial topic. (shrink)

In light of continuing corporate scandals, the study of ethical leadership remains an important area of research which helps to understand the antecedents and consequences of ethical behavior in organizations. The present study investigates how social distance influences ethical leadership evaluations, and how in turn ethical leadership evaluations affect leader-member exchange (LMX) after a leader's moral transgression. Based on construal level theory, we propose that higher social distance will lead to more severe evaluations of immoral behavior and therefore entail (...) lower ethical leadership ratings. Moreover, we hypothesize that ethical leadership will positively affect LMX. Participants read a scenario describing a moral situation in which a leader, who was presented in either high or low social distance, behaves unethically toward an employee. We tested our predictions using a structural equation modeling approach. As expected, participants in the high social distance condition judged leaders more harshly (i. e., they gave lower ethical leadership ratings) than in the low social distance condition. Thus, social distance moderated the extent to which leaders are perceived as ethical leaders after moral transgression. Moreover, in accordance with our proposition, ethical leadership ratings had a positive influence on LMX. (shrink)

Through examples of embodied and learning-centered pedagogy, we discuss transformative learning of transgressive topics. We begin with a taxonomy of types of learning our students undergo as they resolve inconsistencies among their pre-existing beliefs and the material they confront in our course on feminist ethics and epistemology. We then discuss ways to help students maximize their learning while confronting internal inconsistencies. While we focus on feminist topics, our approach is broad enough to be relevant to anyone teaching a transgressive (...) or controversial topic. (shrink)

Since the turn of the millennium South Korea has continued to grapplewith transgressions that shook the nation to its core. Following the serial killings of Korea's raincoat killer, the events that led to the dissolution of the United Progressive Party, the criminal negligence of the owner and also the crew members of the sunken Sewol Ferry, as well as the political scandals of 2016, there has been much public debate about morality, transparency, and the law in South Korea. Yet, despite (...) its prevalence in public discourse, transgression in Korea has not received proper scholarly attention. Transgression in Korea challenges the popular conceptions of transgression as resistance to authority, the collapse of morality, and an attempt at self- empowerment. Examples of transgression from premodern, modern, and contemporary Korea are examined side by side to underscore the possibility of reading transgression in more ways than one. These examples are taken from a devotional screen from medieval Korea, trickster tales from the late Choson period, reports about flesheating humans, newspaper articles about same- sex relationships from colonial Korea, and films about extramarital affairs, wayward youths, and a vengeful vigilante. Bringing together specialists from various disciplines such as history, art history, anthropology, premodern literature, religion, and film studies, the context- sensitive readings of transgression provided in this book suggest that transgression and authority can be seen as forming something other than an antagonistic relationship. (shrink)

This book critically examines the philosophy of the term 'transgression' and how it shapes the utopian vision of contemporary urban design scenarios. The aim of this book is to provide scholarly yet accessible graphic novel illustrations to inform narratives of urban manifestos. Through four select case studies from the UK, Cyprus and Germany, the book highlights the paradoxes and contradictions in architecture and provides detailed evaluation of the limits and contemporary forms of sustainable urban regeneration. The book proposes an (...) 'utopian urban vision' approach to social, political and cultural relations, trends and tensions both locally and globally, and seeks to inspire an awakening in architectural discourse. The book argues that the philosophical undermining of transgression is the result of a phenomenon from a different perspective -- its philosophical background, its social construction, its experimental research process and its design implications on the city. As such, the book provides a critical examination of how architectural design interventions contribute to sustainable urban regeneration, gentrification and can impact local communities. This book provides a significant contribution to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as early career researchers working in architecture, planning and sustainable urban design. It offers effective guidance on adopting the state-of-the-art graphical illustrations into their own design projects, while considering contradictions between architectural discourse and the philosophy of transgression. (shrink)

Corporate transgression is a well-known phenomenon in today's business world. Some corporations are involved in violations of law and moral rules that produce organizational practices and products that take a toll on the public. Social cognitive theory of moral agency provides a conceptual framework for analyzing how otherwise pro-social managers adopt socially injurious corporate practices. This is achieved through selective disengagement of moral self-sanctions from transgressive conduct. This article documents moral disengagement practices in four famous cases of corporate transgressions (...) and discusses some implications for business ethics on how to counteract organizational use of moral disengagement strategies. (shrink)

Science is a discipline defined by empiricism and reliable methodologies that result in predictable outcomes. Yet, cutting-edge experiments inevitably involve an element of the unknown, an aspect which science fiction exploits for dramatic effect. Furthermore, fictional science is freed from the ethical constraints that regulate real-world experimentation and is therefore often transgressive. Even as films capitalize on unethical practices and cutting-edge scenarios for dramatic and commercial reasons, the origin of the filmmaker and/or place of production may affect a film’s content. (...) A film is also obviously subject to legal constraints, according to the country of origin, and classification codes in its place of exhibition. Thus, while the very nature of science fiction may cause it to appear morally unbridled, there are nonetheless multiple inhibitions entrenched in such depictions. By drawing on relevant cinematic examples, including Prometheus, The Hunger Games and District 9, and scientific scenarios on which these films are based, this essay explores how the unpredictable nature of advances in science, in combination with a lack of ethics, foregrounds the dangerous dimensions of science fiction. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In this article we set the context for this special issue focusing on individual and organizational reintegration in the aftermath of transgressions that violate ethical and legal boundaries. Following a brief introduction to the topic we provide an overview of each of the four articles selected for this special issue. We then present a number of potentially fruitful empirical, theoretical, and normative directions management and ethics scholars might pursue in order to further advance this evolving literature.

Transgression in Games and Play is a collection of original research that explores what transgression means in the context of videogames and play, how boundaries are being crossed by game content as well as by player actions, and how players respond to different kinds of infringements. It explores questions such as: How are controversial game content experienced during the course of gameplay? Why would players intentionally put themselves or others under distress when playing games, and how does such (...) content affect the playful attitude? Are there any ethical or aesthetical limits for what type of contents that can be presented in games? If so, are these limits different from other media? What are the means and motivation for designers to create transgressive game content. (shrink)

Providing an inter-disciplinary base to the notion of transgression, this set includes a history of ideas, a résumé of the major contributory theorists, and a thematic discussion of the key moments and substantive concerns of these various debates.

In the following essay I explore some implications of Kieran Cashell’s notably original recent book Aftershock. This is a searching examination of how we might treat transgressive artwork by exploring certain shortcomings of the aesthetic tradition and equally certain shortcomings of those who speak with artistic authority (critics, commentators, and artists themselves). Cashell cuts through a grossly impacted volume of subterfuge in order to advance arguments that question how we have come to appreciate artwork and which show how some transgressive (...) artwork challenges conventional ways of considering art. This he achieves by deploying an impressive roster of theorists, commentators, critics and artists, dismissing various kinds of hyperbole and revealing what is left standing after a vigorous clearance. Cashell strikes at the foundations of the aesthetic tradition and locates some instances of transgressive art in a pivotal position where they may be appreciated not through the aesthetic tradition of disinterestedness but through the traditionally compromising (for aesthetics) paradigm of ethics. I illustrate this with specific reference to Cashell’s Chapter Two where he discusses Marcus Harvey’s publicly and critically reviled painting Myra. Cashell defends this painting, not through any appeal to the liberal-minded ‘freedom-of-speech’ principle, but for its sheer resistance to processing via the traditional idea of aesthetic disinterest. He recommends that the painting be regarded – without any loss of aesthetic worth – as immoral and disturbing and for just this reason as inviting us to join in human solidarity with those who were affected by the crimes associated with Myra Hindley. By thus merging ethical consideration with the response to an aesthetic artform the merits of the painting are preserved while its full force is sustained against the morally enfeebling aspect of Kantian aesthetic disinterest. (shrink)

In this article we set the context for this special issue focusing on individual and organizational reintegration in the aftermath of transgressions that violate ethical and legal boundaries. Following a brief introduction to the topic we provide an overview of each of the four articles selected for this special issue. We then present a number of potentially fruitful empirical, theoretical, and normative directions management and ethics scholars might pursue in order to further advance this evolving literature.

Unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) is unethical behavior driven by an intention to assist an organization. This study is one of the first attempts to examine the consequences of UPB. We argue that such types of behaviors can induce failure in self-regulation and thereby give rise to counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Based on self-regulation theory, we theorize that the breakdown in three fundamental mechanisms (i.e., moral standards, monitoring, and discipline) explains the link between UPB and CWB. Moreover, moral identity internalization can (...) temper these breakdown processes such that employees with higher levels of moral identity internalization are less likely to experience moral disengagement, workplace entitlement, or self-control depleting after enacting UPB, and therefore, will engage in less CWB. We conducted a 7-day experience sampling study of 95 financial service employees in a Chinese bank to test our theoretical model. The results indicated that transgressions committed with the intention of helping the organization would ultimately harm the organization, especially for those with lower moral identity internalization. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

La transgression est une posture critique. On peut l'associer à l'audace, à la subversion, à la révolte. La transgression s'affiche, elle est revendiquée. Elle remet en cause ce qui est considéré comme acquis, accepté par tous, et ébranle la légitimité d'un système de valeur. Elle est donc contestation. La transgression est à la fois une forme de résistance et la proposition d'autre chose. Elle ouvre de nouveaux espaces, de nouvelles aventures, débouche sur de nouvelles expériences. Transgresser, c'est (...) donner à voir et à penser autrement. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to examine to what extent patients remained silent to the health care system after they experienced abusive or wrongful incidents in health care. Female patients visiting a women’s clinic in Sweden (n = 530) answered the Transgressions of Ethical Principles in Health Care Questionnaire (TEP), which was constructed to measure patients’ abusive experiences in the form of staff’s transgressions of ethical principles in health care. Of all the patients, 63.6% had, at some point, experienced (...) staff’s transgressions of ethical principles, and many perceived these events as abusive and wrongful. Of these patients, 70.3% had remained silent to the health care system about at least one transgression. This silence is a loss of essential feedback for the health care system and should not automatically be interpreted as though patients are satisfied. (shrink)

The urgency of the ecological crisis, described as a ‘code red for humanity’, is also a call to the business ethics community to work even harder for a safe space for humanity. This commentary suggests two specific domains of engagement, with the aim of having more impact in mitigating the ecological crisis: (1) the empirical fact of non-negotiable biophysical thresholds to convey the status and severity of the crisis, and (2) the need for strong laws and regulations—and compliance with (...) these—to guide the aggregated economic activity away from further transgressing biophysical thresholds. Traditionally, business ethics focusses on why and how business can contribute beyond compliance with laws and regulations. By engaging more explicitly with the other two domains, our business ethics community can contribute to distinguish between which are value discussions and which are not, and to the necessity and legitimacy of laws and regulations. This text is a proposal on how we can use business ethics, hence the form of a commentary. (shrink)

In 1963, inspired by Bataille, Foucault proposes a critical ontology based upon the idea of transgression. This one is neither an attitude nor a behavior, and hence it belongs neither to the field of ethics nor to the one of morals. On the contrary, transgression is an ontological event which takes place on the limits of being. In this event these limits are simultaneously violated, revealed and abolished. Twenty years later, after having returned to classical antiquity, Foucault (...) proposes a new critical ontology, this time founded upon ethics. In both cases it is a question of thinking about being and limits. However, if the transgression violently disrupts the subject, ethics forms it and protects it.Sob a inspiração de Bataille, Foucault propõe, em 1963, uma ontologia crítica fundada na ideia de transgressão. Esta não é nem uma atitude, nem um comportamento, e não pertence por conseguinte nem ao domínio da ética, nem ao da moral. Pelo contrário: a transgressão é um acontecimento do ser que ocorre nos limites do ser, acontecimento no qual esses limites são simultaneamente violados, revelados e abolidos. Vinte anos mais tarde, depois de seu regresso à antiguidade clássica, Foucault propõe uma outra ontologia crítica, que se apoia desta vez sobre a ética. Em ambos os casos, trata-se de pensar o ser e os limites. Porém, a transgressão despedaça o sujeito, ao passo que a ética o molda e o protege. (shrink)

The Paradox of Transgression in Games looks at transgressive games as an aesthetic experience, tackling how players respond to game content that shocks, disturbs, and distresses, and how contemporary video games can evoke intense emotional reactions. The book delves into the commercial success of many controversial videogames: although such games may appear shocking for the observing bystander, playing them is experienced as deeply rewarding for the player. Drawing on qualitative player studies and approaches from media aesthetics theory, the book (...) challenges the perception of games as innocent entertainment, and examines the range of emotional, moral, and intellectual experiences of players. As they explore what players consider transgressive, the authors ask whether there is something about the gameplay situation that works to mitigate the sense of transgression, stressing gameplay as an aesthetic experience. Anchoring the aesthetic game experience both in play studies as well as in aesthetic theory, this book will be an essential resource for scholars and students of game studies, aesthetics, media studies, philosophy of art, and emotions. (shrink)

La loi, civile ou religieuse, fait partie du cadre de stabilité dont nous avons besoin pour exercer notre liberté. Quand ses normes sont compatibles avec la dignité humaine, le droit est notre premier référent. Mais les normes juridiques et morales, si nombreuses, entrent fatalement en conflit. Nous devrons nous en déprendre, mais seulement en raison de valeurs que nous jugeons supérieures. En situation, nous sommes seuls à même de reconnaître nos intentions, nos facultés et nos limites, donc de hiérarchiser les (...) normes qui nous motivent. Notre conscience éclairée devient notre référent ultime. Au risque de la transgression. Ce jugement est fragile mais notre dignité humaine est à ce prix. (shrink)

Le mot anagogia, « anagogie » serait une mauvaise traduction latine du grec a. L'équivalent latin serait, selon les philologues, sursumductio. D'abord conçue comme un voyage, l'anagogie prendra le sens d'ascension, de montée. Le mot anagogie est plus fréquemment employé pour désigner le quatrième sens de l'Écriture, le terme s'inscrit dans l'histoire de l'exégèse sacrée et plus généralement de l'herméneutique.Les études qui composent cet ouvrage (sur l'obscénité, Alfred Jarry, Georges Bataille, René Daumal, Pierre Klossowski, Maurice Blanchot, Pierre Guyotat, Jean-Noël Vuarnet (...) ou Platon) traitent, de près ou de loin, de cette ascension, souvent entendue ici comme transgression : l'esprit sursoit aux limites de la matière, dont il ne s'émancipe jamais totalement, dans un mouvement vers le sommet (mort, rire divin, « communication », révélation, soleil). (shrink)

Ancient monism matters today because it reveals an alternative answer to a problem faced by ontology “after the death of god,” namely, how to distinguish between good and bad actions after the disappearance of transcendence. The modern answer in Continental philosophy was systematized by Heidegger and consists in positing that the everyday is permeated by instrumentality whereas there is a different kind of action that is noninstrumental, such as art or the thinking of being. By contrast, ancient monism holds that (...) all actions are instrumental and employs on a typology of action that relies on the distinction between techne and phronesis. Recognizing a different answer from the dominant Heideggerian one has the potential to renew the conception of the ethical and the political in Continental philosophy. (shrink)

Limit Cinema explores how contemporary global cinema represents the relationship between humans and nature. During the 21st century this relationship has become increasingly fraught due to proliferating social and environmental crises; recent films from Lars von Trier's Melancholia (2011) to Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) address these problems by reflecting or renegotiating the terms of our engagement with the natural world. In this spirit, this book proposes a new film philosophy for the Anthropocene. It (...) argues that certain contemporary films attempt to transgress the limits of human experience, and that such 'limit cinema' has the potential to help us rethink our relationship with nature. Posing a new and timely alternative to the process philosophies that have become orthodox in the fields of film philosophy and ecocriticism, Limit Cinema revitalizes the philosophy of Georges Bataille and puts forward a new reading of his notion of transgression in the context of our current environmental crisis. To that end, Limit Cinema brings Bataille into conversation with more recent discussions in the humanities that seek less anthropocentric modes of thought, including posthumanism, speculative realism, and other theories associated with the nonhuman turn. The problems at stake are global in scale, and the book therefore engages with cinema from a range of national and cultural contexts. From Ben Wheatley's psychological thrillers to Nettie Wild's eco-documentaries, limit cinema pushes against the boundaries of thought and encourages an ethical engagement with perspectives beyond the human. (shrink)

L’inceste, comme transgression en acte, et l’incestuel, comme séduction narcissique et aliénante, constituent des figures d’une causalité que Spinoza et Freud, dans des perspectives différentes, ont explorée. Appuyée sur les grands principes qui fondent leurs démarches respectives, la confrontation de leurs analyses du procès d’individuation, de la filiation et de la transgression conduit à un éclairage réciproque des deux doctrines : apparaissent alors nettement certains de leurs points de convergence théorique comme leurs dissemblances. Elle permet aussi la reconstitution (...) théorique de la genèse et de la nature de l’inceste dans ses trois principales formes, en tant qu’objet d’interdit social, inceste psychique et inceste en acte. Loin d’être l’effet de désirs sexuels conduisant à la transgression de la loi, l’inceste résulte de son absence, et de la persistance de liens fusionnels qui manifestent à la fois les difficultés et l’immaturité des individus qu’ils unissent. (shrink)

L’inceste, comme transgression en acte, et l’incestuel, comme séduction narcissique et aliénante, constituent des figures d’une causalité que Spinoza et Freud, dans des perspectives différentes, ont explorée. Appuyée sur les grands principes qui fondent leurs démarches respectives, la confrontation de leurs analyses du procès d’individuation, de la filiation et de la transgression conduit à un éclairage réciproque des deux doctrines : apparaissent alors nettement certains de leurs points de convergence théorique comme leurs dissemblances. Elle permet aussi la reconstitution (...) théorique de la genèse et de la nature de l’inceste dans ses trois principales formes, en tant qu’objet d’interdit social, inceste psychique et inceste en acte. Loin d’être l’effet de désirs sexuels conduisant à la transgression de la loi, l’inceste résulte de son absence, et de la persistance de liens fusionnels qui manifestent à la fois les difficultés et l’immaturité des individus qu’ils unissent. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response 3: Transgressive Utopianism and Direct ActivismHeather AlberroThis is an important time to revisit questions concerning the historical underpinnings of utopianism as a mode of praxis and theoretical endeavor, its potential oversights and where it ought to venture in the decades to come. The multidisciplinary Hispanic utopian project Histopia discussed by Ramirez-Blanco offers a helpful starting point for this discussion. Especially noteworthy, in my view, is Histopia’s recognition of (...) and interest in engaging with manifestations of utopianism beyond academia and examining the full spectrum of the utopian imaginary, from texts to social movements. Similarly important is what Ramirez-Blanco alludes to as Histopia’s laudable attempts to “decenter” the discipline toward the Spanish-speaking world. This recalls the wider, vital work of decolonizing utopian studies highlighted by Edwards and others in this piece so that it is inclusive of the immeasurably diverse array of utopian imaginaries and modes of praxis around the globe. To reduce such diverse manifestations to the lens of a single medium or cultural-historical context would be a profound intellectual and ethical misdeed.A related example of such decolonial work is Histopia’s emphasis on history as opposed to the canon’s traditional emphasis on texts. Here, I was [End Page 550] wondering if you (Ramirez-Blanco) could elaborate further on what this entails. That is, what is Histopia’s conceptualization of history vis-à-vis the now and “to-come,” and their relation more generally to the utopian impulse? Is this conceptualization akin to the (Western) utopian conception of time as a linear progression from an archaic past toward a radiant future toward some “advanced” end state?1 Or does it depart from this modernist construct and, if so, in what ways? What is the role of prefigurative (utopian) activist movements in the history of social transformation, in your view?With movements like 15M in Spain that you discuss, what do you see as the transformative utopian potential of their denunciations of the status quo, however fleeting? What of their annunciations? That is, what were they gesturing toward, and what did their imaginings of “a better” consist of? How do public assemblies as “performances” factor into these visions? I’m curious to know what patterns, if any, can be traced across contemporary left-social movements. My own research with radical environmental activists has found that they exhibit the former aspect of the utopian mode—denunciation—with immense power and potency. Like the 15M movement, their direct activism is postparliamentary given their profound disaffection with the capitalist state and its perceived collusion with extractive industries driving ecological breakdown. The aspect of annunciation for them, however, is much more complex and fragmented. They are similarly engaged in constant deliberations over the relative strengths and weaknesses of alternative modes of political organization and participation, particularly concerning which actors may be excluded. However, they do exhibit a consensus on certain things—especially their fervent desire for a renewed abundance of terrestrial life forms and an equally fervent refusal of the worst of possible worlds consisting of substantially diminished other-than-human life forms.The question raised by Antonis concerning blueprints, or utopian modalities that provide fleshed-out visions of better worlds, is a similarly pertinent one for two key reasons: (1) in connection with the aforementioned vital work of decolonizing the utopian canon and imaginary, and (2) as a possible response to the mounting socio-ecological depredations of late-stage capitalism and the theft of the now and to-come from growing portions of the earth’s inhabitants. As Antonis highlights, some have suggested that utopianism’s pursuit of human and societal perfectibility—especially “blueprint” modalities aiming to implement a particular conception of “the good society”—harbor seeds of totalitarianism and intolerance of difference.2 [End Page 551] Indeed, inklings toward domination can be seen within some totalizing/blue-printing utopias and their cultural-historical links to Enlightenment projects of universal conquest, namely the hegemonic “utopias” of Western modernity in the form of colonial-capitalism.3 These totalizing visions of progress and “the good life” have been systematically ending other-than-Western worlds for centuries, leading to our present state of ruination.Hence why subsequent modalities... (shrink)

How can firms mitigate the impact of moral violations on consumer evaluations? This question has pervaded the business ethics literature. Though prior research has identified decoupling as a moral reasoning strategy where consumers separate moral judgments from evaluations, it is unclear what motivates individuals to decouple. It is the objective of this research to explore regulatory focus theory as a motivating factor for moral decoupling. Three experiments are undertaken. Study one demonstrates that with a prevention mindset as opposed to (...) promotion mindset, moral decoupling can be achieved. Specifically, those in a prevention mindset report more favorable evaluations when information about a violation explicitly lowers consequences of moral violations. However, when the violation is related to the business functionality of the brand, those in a prevention mindset report less favorable evaluations, except when consequences are lowered. This indicates an inability to decouple, and results in negative emotions. The research shows that inability to decouple for those in a prevention mindset leads to negative emotions, lowering evaluations. These results contribute to the moral reasoning literature by linking regulatory focus to decoupling strategies. Further, the research bridges literature on norm activation, moral foundation, regulatory focus, and moral decoupling to reconcile theoretical differences in judgment styles. Implications for businesses and brands are discussed. (shrink)

I maintain that Hegel’s reading of the Antigone underestimates the power of the negativity to which Antigone’s action is dedicated. I argue that the negativity of death and the sacred cannot, contrary to Hegel, to be sublated and thus incorporated into the progression of Spirit. Bataille’s treatment of the sacred better characterizes the unworldly force and the otherness with which Antigone and Creon are confronted when their actions bring the divine and the human into conflict. Antigone’s obedience to what she (...) understands to be her divine obligation is a devotion to a negativity which exceeds and subverts all dialectical comprehension. Although her action brings the divine and the human political sphere into a moment of identity, allowing for the sublation of the ethical world, Antigone’s action is a transgression in Bataille’s sense of the term, and it points toward the limits of reason. The Antigone narrative thus exceeds Hegel’s use of it and is ultimately more consistent with Bataille’s understanding of the sacred. (shrink)

At their basic level, sporting events are about numbers: wins and losses, percentages and points, shots and saves, clocks and countdowns. However, sports narratives quickly leave the realm of statistics. The stories we tell and retell, sometimes for decades, make sports dramatic and compelling. Just like any great drama, sports imply conflict, not just battles on the field of play, but clashes of personalities, goals, and strategies. In telling these stories, we create heroes, but we also create villains. This book (...) is about the latter, those players who transgress norms and expectations and who we label the "bad boys" of sports. Using a variety of approaches, contributors examine the cultural, social, and rhetorical implications of sports villainy. Each chapter focuses on a different athlete and sport, questioning issues such as how notorious sports figures are defined to be "bad" within particular sports and within the larger culture, the role media play in creating antiheroes, fan reactions when players cross boundaries, and how those boundaries shift depending on the athlete's gender, sexuality, and race. (shrink)

This article theorizes and exemplifies reconceptualized teaching practices, both in early childhood education 1 and in a couple of programs within the new Swedish Teacher Education . 2 These programs are tightly knit to the last 12 years of reconceptualized early childhood education practices in and around Stockholm, built on deconstructive, co‐constructive, and re‐constructive principles, inspired by poststructural and feminist poststructural theories. The aim is foremost to work towards a dissolution and/or transgression of the modernist theory‐practice binary that dominates (...) ECE and teacher education practices, where theory is meant to be applied to practice. Student teachers, as well as pre‐school teachers, use what I have conceptualized as deconstructive talks, as a possibility of making visible the dominant discourses of childhood, identity, learning, play, and gender in the performed and documented teaching practices. In teacher education, students’ narratives are also deconstructed. The aim is to transgress teaching‐as‐usual; i.e. dominant and normative ways of thinking and acting in teaching and learning situations. I will suggest an ethics of ‘resistance’, affirmation and becoming, inspired by Derridean deconstructionist thinking, as a professional attitude and reflexive mode for teachers, teacher students and teacher educators. (shrink)

'Risquons-Tout' is an ambitious, thematic group exhibition that explores the potential of transgression and unpredictability. It examines how art challenges the homogenisation of thought in the now infamous echo chambers of our overcrowded info-sphere. 'Risquons-Tout' presents some of the most innovative and influential artists and authors from the Eurocore region, which extends between Amsterdam, Paris, Cologne, Düsseldorf and London, with Brussels at its centre. The title is borrowed from a place located on the Belgian-French border, a real yet liminal (...) space of transition, passage and informal exchanges, notably smuggling. The invited artists negotiate different dynamics of bridging, passing, translating and transgressing. In doing so they burst the safe bubbles generated by prediction algorithms, designed to avoid any risk, whether intellectual, financial, emotional or physical. The exhibition's geographic and political scope addresses today's global connectivity, trans-national circulation and diasporic movements. 'Risquons-Tout' will occupy the entire WIELS building and range out into neighbouring exhibition and performance spaces. It will present the works of 38 internationally recognised or emerging artists. The exhibition proposes a rich array of practices that defy easy categorisation. 'Risquons-Tout' will also include a performative section and an Open School that will serve as a laboratory for artists and scholars to draw upon questions of risk, unpredictability and borders through a range of alternative methods for the transmission of knowledge. Exhibition: WIELS, Brussels, Belgium (12.09.2020 - 10.01.2021). (shrink)

UTILIZING MICHEL FOUCAULT'S CONCEPTION OF "PLAGUE" AS A DESCRIPtion of states of exception, this essay analyzes America's plans to genetically screen illegal immigrants. It argues that liberal democratic theory presupposes the exceptionalism of the nation-state and hence justifies sacrifices to appease the tragic order of things. The use of genetic technology in current American immigration policy instantiates these "necessary" sacrifices, extending agency and visibility in a never-ending struggle to foreclose every manner of contingency. In contrast, I offer a "doxological" view (...) of space that, eschewing this tragic economy, re-imagines the world by resisting foreclosure and "laboring" to remain open. After theorizing the genetic screening of illegal immigrants through Foucault's "plague" and Hans Jonas' work on sacrifice, I articulate the globalized nation-state as the exception for violence and conclude with political theology's more capacious view of space and cultural identity. (shrink)

This article theorizes and exemplifies reconceptualized teaching practices, both in early childhood education (ECE) and in a couple of programs within the new Swedish Teacher Education (since 2001). These programs are tightly knit to the last 12 years of reconceptualized early childhood education practices in and around Stockholm, built on deconstructive, co‐constructive, and re‐constructive principles, inspired by poststructural and feminist poststructural theories. The aim is foremost to work towards a dissolution and/or transgression of the modernist theory‐practice binary that dominates (...) ECE and teacher education practices, where theory is meant to be applied to practice. Student teachers, as well as pre‐school teachers, use what I have conceptualized as deconstructive talks, as a possibility of making visible the dominant discourses of childhood, identity, learning, play, and gender in the performed and documented teaching practices. In teacher education, students’ narratives are also deconstructed. The aim is to transgress teaching‐as‐usual; i.e. dominant and normative ways of thinking and acting in teaching and learning situations. I will suggest an ethics of ‘resistance’, affirmation and becoming, inspired by Derridean deconstructionist thinking, as a professional attitude and reflexive mode for teachers, teacher students and teacher educators. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to understand and critically appraise science-based transgression dynamics in their whole complexity. It includes contributions from experts with different disciplinary backgrounds, such as philosophy, history and sociology. Thus, it is in itself an example of boundary transgression. Scientific disciplines and their objects have tended to be seen as permanent and distinct. However, science is better conceived as an activity that constantly surpasses, erases and rebuilds all kinds of boundaries, either disciplinary, socio-ethical or (...) ecological. This transgressive capacity, a characteristic trait of science and its applications, defines us as "knowledge societies." However, scientific and technological developments are also sources of serious environmental and social concerns. Contents Disciplinary Transgression of Boundaries - Extra-Disciplinary Transgression of Boundaries - Radical Transgression of Boundaries Target Groups Scientists and students of philosophy, sociology, history of science, and interdisciplinary fields such as technology assessment, sustainable development, science and technology studies - Practitioners in research management Editors Bettina-Johanna Krings (MA in sociology, political science and anthropology; PhD in sociology) is head of the research department "Knowledge Society and Knowledge Policy" at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Hannot Rodríguez (PhD in philosophy) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy of the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU. Anna Schleisiek (Dipl.-Soz.) is doing research on the role of economic principles in the scientific practice of research teams for her PhD project in sociology. <. (shrink)

One of the main fields of research in genome editing is the manufacture of transgenic organisms. If this includes genetically human components, then we must not only ask whether such techniques should be allowed, but also what the moral status of “cross species beings” with a genetically “human” component would be and whether the possibility to manufacture them affects the validity of bioethical arguments from species affiliation. In my chapter I want to show that the two latter questions are less (...) dramatic than it might seem, because most, if not all transgenic organisms are not real “interspecies beings”, but rather belong to one of the original species, or constitute a new species. As for the first question, possible epistemic uncertainties about the status of transgenic organisms call for a precautionary approach. (shrink)

This paper explores the interconnectedness of persons with disabilities, technologies and the environment by problematizing Western notions of the independent, autonomous subject. Drawing from Deleuze and Guattari’s reconfiguration of the static subject as active becoming, prevailing discourses valorizing independence are critiqued as contributing to the marginalization of bodies marked as disabled. Three examples of disability “dependencies”—man-dog, man-machine, and woman-woman connectivities—are used to illustrate that subjectivity is partial and transitory. Disability connectivity thus serves a signpost for an expanded understanding of subjectivity (...) and suggests a radically altered ethics that is no longer premised on individual rights. (shrink)

This paper examines Simone de Beauvoir’s reading of the 18th century writer and libertine Marquis de Sade, in her essay “Must we Burn Sade?”; a difficult and bewildering text, both in pure linguistic terms and philosophically. In particular, Beauvoir’s insistence on Sade as a “great moralist” seems hard to reconcile with her emphasis, in The Ethics of Ambiguity, on the interdependency of human beings and her exhortation to us to promote other people’s freedom, as well as the aspiration of (...) The Second Sex to equal relations between the genders. While earlier scholars addressed the ethico-political implications of Beauvoir’s essay, they insisted that the ambiguity so fundamental in her philosophy is denied by the Sadean hero, and that the Other can never be attained in his system. In this essay, I argue that Sade paradoxically emerges as an ethical model in Beauvoir’s text: as a writer, he assumes the ambiguity of the human condition in the extreme. Further, Sade reveals the potential of sexuality if it is explored in a form of eroticism that largely transgresses behavior constructed as normal: his writings open up new forms of existence, where, contrary to prevailing ideas, woman’s sexual freedom is claimed as equal to man’s, where genders are unstable and heterosexuality no longer the standard. Beauvoir’s fascination with Sade in this essay can be linked with the seemingly unresolvable asymmetry in the relation between men and women in The Second Sex: in his writings is revealed sexuality’s potential to subvert patriarchal norms and mystifications, and perhaps, in the end, even gender itself. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Workplace transgressions elicit a variety of opinions about their meaning and what is required to address them. This diversity in views makes it difficult for managers to identify a mutually satisfactory response and to enable repair of the relationships between the affected parties. We develop a conceptual model for understanding how to bridge these diverging perspectives and foster relationship repair. Specifically, we argue that effective relationship repair is dependent on the parties’ reciprocal concern for others’ viewpoints and collective engagement in (...) the justice repair process. This approach enhances our understanding of the interdependency between justice and reconciliation/reintegration, while also providing theoretical insight into the processes underlying restorative conferencing, innovations that promise to help managers heal damaged organizational bonds. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate the implications that a general view of complexity - i.e. the view that complex phenomena are irreducible - hold for our understanding of ethics. In this view, ethics should be conceived of as constitutive of knowledge and identity, rather than as a normative system that dictates right action. Using this understanding, we elaborate on the ethics of complexity and the complexity of ethics. Whilst the former concerns the nature and the status (...) of our modelling choices, the latter denotes a contingent and recursive understanding of ethics. Although the complexity of ethics cannot be captured in a substantive normative model, we argue that this view of ethics nevertheless commits one to, what we term, ‘the provisional imperative’. Like Kant’s categorical imperative, the provisional imperative is substantively- empty; however, unlike Kant’s imperative, our imperative cannot be used to generate universal ethical principles. As such, the provisional imperative simultaneously demands that we must be guided by it, whilst drawing attention to the exclusionary nature of all imperatives. We further argue that the provisional imperative urges us to adopt a certain attitude with regard to ethical decision-making, and that this attitude is supported and nurtured by provisionality, transgressivity, irony, and imagination. (shrink)