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General ethics

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Normativity is what gives reasons their force, makes words meaningful, and makes rules and laws binding. It is present whenever we use such terms as ‘correct,' ‘ought,' ‘must,' and the language of obligation, responsibility, and logical compulsion. Yet normativists, the philosophers committed to this idea, admit that the idea of a non-causal normative realm and a body of normative objects is spooky. Explaining the Normative is the first systematic, historically grounded critique of normativism. It identifies the standard normativist pattern of argument, and shows how this pattern depends on circularities, assumptions about the unique correctness of preferred descriptions, problematic transcendental arguments, and regress arguments that end in mysteries. The book considers in detail a paradigm case: legal normativity as constructed by Hans Kelsen. This case exemplifies the problems with normativist arguments. But it also shows how normativism was constructed as an alternative to ordinary social science explanation. The normativist argument is that social science explanations themselves are forced to rely on normative conceptsÑminimally, on normative rationality and on a normative view of ‘concepts' themselves. Empathic understanding of the reasoning and meanings of others, however, can solve the regress problems about meaning and rationality that are central to the appeal of normativism. This account has no need for a parallel normative world, and has a surprising and revealing lineage in the history of philosophy, as well as a basis in neuroscience.

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"Complexity" has been part of the academic discourse for a decade or two. Texts on Complexity fall mainly in two categories: fairly technical and mathematical on the one hand, and fairly and general on the other. Paul Cilliers' book Complexity and Postmodernism (Routledge 1998) constituted an attempt to bridge this divide by reflecting more rigorously on the philosophical implications of complexity, and by making it accessible to the social sciences. This edited volume is a continuation of this project, with specific reference to the ethical implications of acknowledging complexity. These issues are pertinent to our understanding of organizations and institutions and could contribute significantly to the development of a richer understanding of ethics in business. Such an understanding would be a useful tool for teachers, researchers and post-graduate students with ethical concerns in disciplines ranging from Philosophy, Applied Ethics, Sociology, Organisational Studies, Political Science, Anthropology and Cultural Studies. The central theme which binds all the contributions together is the inevitability of normative and ethical issues when dealing with complex phenomena. The book should thus be useful in the development of Business Ethics on two levels: in the first place on the level of developing a strong theoretical foundation, in the second place in providing specific examples of this theory in action in the real world.

General ethics

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General ethics

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General ethics