This issue starts with an analysis of ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ (CSR). CSR is a much debated concept within the world of business and business ethics, but there is no agreement on its definition. While some hold that CSR is a moral duty, others think that it refers to extra-legal commitments that corporations voluntarily take upon themselves. Wim Dubbink and Luc van Liedekerke argue that neo-Kantianism is best able to provide a foundation for CSR. Neo-Kantian theories distinguish between Right and morality, and within the domain of morality, between general moral principles and the pursuit of moral virtuousness. The general moral principles constitute public morality. According to Dubbink and Van Liedekerke, CSR should be situated within the domain of public morality. The concept of CSR expresses that, in Thomas Scanlon’s terminology, corporations owe more to other moral subjects than is required by the law.

In his article, Yuval Eylon discusses John McDowell’s claim that the virtuous person (VP) knows no temptation: his perception of the normative requirements of a situation silences all competing motivations. Eylon argues that the opposite is true: virtue requires a vulnerability to temptation. The VP, as such, must be able to recognize reasons for performing non-virtuous actions as reasons (to act non-virtuously), and be inclined to perform them. He must find nothing human alien. This is so because the VP must possess the ability to understand non-virtuous agents, and such understanding necessarily involves vulnerability to temptation. Otherwise, the VP views the actions of others as determined from outside the space of reasons.

Harry Frankfurt says in his book The Reasons of Love, that love for a person has four main conceptually necessary features: Love is disinterested, it is ineluctably personal, the lover identifies with his beloved, and love is involuntary. In his paper, Gary Foster examines Frankfurt’s view of love and argues that there are three related aspects which render his account problematic. First, his account of love is too general. Secondly, Frankfurt’s characterization of love overemphasizes the role of bestowal at the expense of the part played by appraisal. Thirdly, his account of personal identity, which grounds his concept of love, is insufficiently social. Foster argues that a certain account of romantic love as well as standard accounts of friendship overcome these deficiencies by recognizing the importance of both appraisal and bestowal as well as the social dimension of identity.

Ishtiyaque Haji argues that determinism expunges alternative possibilities and thus undermines the truth both of judgements of practical reason and of rationality judgements. Practical reasons are reasons to have our desires and goals, and to do what might secure these goals. Judgements of practical rationality relate to what one perceives or believes one’s reasons for action to be. In a world in which we are unable to do otherwise (in the categorical sense of ‘unable’), no judgements of moral obligation or practical reasons are true. Such a world is, according to Haji, also a world devoid of various sorts of reasons.

There is still extensive disagreement about the precise content of particularism, and whether it is a viable alternative to traditional moral theories. The most prevalent objections to particularism are that particularism is demonstrably false and that particularism is unmotivated. In his article, Uri Leibowitz states that we must not forget that particularism is a budding research program—it promises an account of morality, but it has not yet delivered a full-fledged theory. At present, then, it would be rash to endorse particularism. However, we should also keep in mind that generalism is only a promise of a theory as well. A full-fledged generalist theory will consist of a principle, or a set of principles, that provides an adequate account of morality. At present, no such principle has been found. So it is equally rash to endorse generalism for the very same reasons it is rash to endorse particularism, and consequently, the claim that particularism is only a promise of a theory has no dialectical force in the context of the particularism-generalism debate.

Most often privacy has been discussed as an area within which individuals rightfully may expect to be left alone and in terms of certain data that they should be entitled to control. The sphere in which individuals should be granted freedom from intrusion has typically been equated with the indisputably private domestic sphere. In the last article of this issue, Eline Palm says that privacy claims in the semi-public area of work have not been sufficiently investigated. She argues that employees have reasonable expectations on privacy at work and explicates the reasons for these expectations. The main thrust of the article is to provide a more inclusive privacy concept and hence, a more adequate basis for privacy protection legislation and codes in the area of work. Contrary to prevailing workplace privacy protection, employees’ need for local privacy as well as for informational privacy should be accommodated.

Amsterdam/Utrecht, April 2009