Notion Of Commitment Research Articles

How to Make Impossible Decisions

In this paper, I propose that Derrida’s writing on the impossibility of justice has the potential for fruitful dialogue with Ruth Chang’s contemporary account of practical rationality. For Derrida, making a just decision must always come with a moment of undecidability, a “leap” into the unknown with an experience of doubt and anxiety that continues to “haunt” the decision-maker. By contrast, in her work on rationality, Chang proposes that hard decisions are difficult to make because the alternatives are “on a par,” such that there are no rational differences between the alternatives that would contribute to choosing one over the other. Hard decisions are made by expressing one’s own rational agency, generating will-based reasons to commit to or “drift” into one of the alternatives. Derrida writes of anxiety, doubt, and impossibility, yet Chang writes of commitment, agency, and rationality. Despite these differences, there are important comparisons and connections between the two accounts that are worth exploring. I suggest that the moment of the decision which Derrida describes as heterogeneous to knowledge can be understood as a moment of parity in which there is a lack of given reasons, as explained by Chang. Chang’s account of rational agency provides an interpretation of how decision-making is possible despite the undecidability as described by Derrida. This notion of commitment and agency as explained by Chang is not incompatible with Derrida’s insistence that the responsible decision is haunted by anxiety and doubt. Instead, I suggest that Derrida’s writing highlights uncertainty as central to understanding the nature of hard choices and how to navigate the demands of justice.

What I Think about When I Think about Teaching Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration in Pedagogy

What I Think about When I Think about Teaching Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration in Pedagogy

Civil–Military Relations During the Trump Administration: Rejection of Military Professionalism and the Deterioration of Civil–Military Relations

The period of Donald Trump’s term in office was one of the most contentious periods of American civil–military relations. Both active-duty and retired officers rebuffed and castigated the president’s actions, policies, and character. Such public criticism of a sitting president has no real parallel in American history. This breakdown in civil–military relations was caused by the president’s lack of respect and in fact disdain for the contours of military professionalism. Those contours are expressed by the attributes of expertise, corporateness, and responsibility. The military’s notion of commitment to the Constitution, an apolitical ethos, as well as its willingness to sacrifice for the national good were all part of the military’s own sense of professional values. In this case, the sitting president shared none of those values and tried to politicize the military, ignored their expertise, and disparaged their selfless sacrifice.

Getting Ready to Share Commitments

Paul Grice’s theory of meaning has been widely adopted as a starting point for investigating the evolutionary and developmental emergence of linguistic communication. In this picture, reasoning about complexes of intentions is a prerequisite for communicating effectively at the prelinguistic level, as well as for acquiring a natural language. We argue that this broadly ‘Gricean’ picture rests on an equivocation between theories of communication and theories of cognition, and that it leads to paradoxical or implausible claims about human psychology. We defend an alternative conception of prelinguistic communication, inspired by Bart Geurts and based on the notion of commitment. Adopting a commitment-first approach makes it possible to avoid the pernicious equivocation, and it provides a better systematization of the key empirical findings. We develop our argument with respect to (1) infants’ sensitivity to ‘ostensive signals’; (2) infants’ pointing; (3) and infants’ endorsement of normative attitudes in joint activities. Finally, adopting a commitment-first approach makes it possible to argue that sophisticated forms of psychological reasoning are enabled by the mastery of a rich natural language, rather than being a prerequisite for acquiring one.

From Marx and Engels to Sino-Marxism Focusing on Communist and Confucian (rujia) Notions of Loyalty and Self-Criticism

The paper sketches and compares main components of Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, and Sino-Marxism, especially Maoism. In particular, it deals with the relation between Maoism and so-called Confucianism (rujia). It is argued that this relation has been—and still is—characterized by both Maoist criticism of Confucius as well as absorption of ‘Confucian’ ideas. In briefly analysing commonalities and differences between the various theories and ‘practices’, especially the ways the Communist Party of China conceived of and asked for loyalty to the Party, reasons are given for their development, achievements, and failures.

Um antropólogo entre dedicação científica e compromisso social

Baseando-me principalmente na minha experiência pessoal, são três dúvidas que queria explorar nesse artigo, encontradas no meu longo percurso de pesquisador, estreitamente ligadas ao tema geral dessa edição: o papel da universidade na sociedade. A primeira questão diz respeito à noção de dedicação ou de compromisso, encarada seja como cientista, seja como cidadão. Conflitos aparecem entre as exigências intelectuais dessas duas posturas. A segunda questão, que pode ser vista como outra face da prévia, questiona a independência do pesquisador, enquanto produtor de conhecimento, quando toma em conta as demandas que se originam na sociedade. Como preservar a imprescindível liberdade de pensamento que constitui a chave de sua criatividade? Enfim, a última dúvida remete ao destino e ao percurso do saber científico na sociedade. Percurso que conduz inevitável-mente as ideias e os achados científicos a viverem uma vida própria, fora do controle dos cientistas.

Percepciones sobre amor, compromiso, fidelidad y pareja en jóvenes universitarios de Quito

El objetivo de la investigación fue explorar las percepciones del amor, compromiso, fidelidad y pareja en estudiantes universitarios. En este estudio descriptivo de corte transversal, 590 jóvenes (56,4% mujeres y 43,6% hombres), respondieron a una encuesta de 77 ítems. Los resultados indican que en este grupo existe una versión “mixta” del amor, que combina el rechazo de la versión tradicional del amor con nociones del amor deseo, racional, romántico y posmoderno. Las nociones de compromiso, fidelidad y constituyentes de la pareja permanecen intactas, excepto en lo concerniente a la perdurabilidad del vínculo. Se encontraron diferencias por género: las posturas femeninas tienden a ser más marcadas que las masculinas, evidenciando un posicionamiento más fuerte de las mujeres en los temas analizados.

Digitizing Service Level Agreements in Service-Oriented Enterprise Architecture

As service-orientation gathers traction in enterprise engineering, more and more business processes and capabilities alike are wrapped up and viewed as services in today’s digital enterprises. Digital servitization is neither a rebranding nor a syntax sugar in enterprise engineering. It opens the door to innovative business models, novel system architecture, to name just a few. Central to service provisioning is the notion of commitment that captures contractual agreements between the provider and the consumer of the service in question, describing not only computer-interpretable factors (e.g., reliability, payment), but also business rules (e.g., service penalty) of the commitment. Widely known as the service level agreement, this building block of service-oriented enterprise engineering is pushed towards virtual when it comes to digital servitization. In this article, we propose a descriptive framework for digital enterprise services together with devised techniques for the alignment and reinforcement of the service level agreement. The relevance and applicability of the multi-perspective approach to service engineering are among our findings, which are illustrated using a few examples and a real-life case-study.

Lojalność pracownika: trwała wartość czy anachroniczna cnota?

The article tries to answer the question whether employee’s loyalty has any sense in the present day reality, when people change their job much more often than ever before and firms can appear and disappear very quickly. As the notion of loyalty is complex and polysemous, the first part of the article is devoted to the philosophical reflection on this issue. Next, the main arguments in the discussion on the employee’s loyalty are reconstructed and the pattern of loyal employees based on managerial experience is shown. This leads to the conclusion that there is no universal answer to the question about the sense of employee’s loyalty because it depends on the meaning of the term of loyalty and specific attributes of the organization for which the employee works. However, in some circumstances loyalty has the potential to contribute significantly to the employee’s fulfillment and to enhance the economic results of the organization. The main challenge for researchers is to identify these circumstances and conditions.

Developing a Poverty-Aware Pedagogy: From Paradigm to Reflexive Practice in Post-Academic Social Work Education

Abstract Social work scholars have argued that poverty reminds us of the necessary commitment to educate professional social workers. Being inspired by a conceptual framework that captures how poverty-awareness can be the subject of teaching in social work programmes, this article offers a qualitative analysis of the reflections being made by a cohort of students about their learning process in a post-academic course. Five common themes are discussed: (i) from recognising micro-aggressions to tackling macro-aggressions; (ii) poverty is an instance of social injustice and requires collective indignation; (iii) notions of commitment and solidarity are ambiguous; (iv) poverty is an instance of social inequality rather than merely social exclusion; and (v) from being heroic agents to social change ‘from within’. Based on these findings, we raise the lessons learned for social work educators. First, they should invite students to reinvigorate the social justice aspirations of social work practices and take a stance in relation to their environment and the wider historical and socio-political circumstances. Secondly, a poverty-aware pedagogy requires collective and long-lasting supervision at the frontline individual, organisational and societal/social policy level. Collective critical reflection and supervision might open up avenues to collectively challenge and change socially unjust rhetoric and practice.

‘Smell Your Sheep, Shepherd’: What Does It Mean to Be Catholic for the Dalit?

The anthropology of Christianity has emerged as an exciting field in the last decade or so. Themes of interest for us in India and South Asia in general include issues of caste, conversion and belief, the ideas of sin and morality, individualism, and the like. As part of this growing field, the issue of belief in particular has gained considerable importance. It has been argued that the strict reliance on belief is obstructive and counterproductive for the understanding of non-Western Christianity, particularly where religious affiliations may be shifting rather than stable. Moreover, it has been suggested that belief could be laid aside in favor of the notion of commitment, wherein the latter term encompasses presence, embodiment, shared social location, and the like. This paper argues that while the discourse oscillates between belief on the one hand and commitment on the other, the intermediating term between these might be community. There are social and spiritual divisions, which the available discourse does not immediately allow us to contend with. In the words of one Dalit Catholic, the church must be with its people, the Bishop-Shepherd must ‘smell’ his sheep. This paper will explore how it is precisely the absence of community that Dalit Catholics experience when they find that Christian equality becomes physical separation and Christian fraternity remains outside the social domain and will suggest the implications this has for the anthropology of Christianity.

Moral Character, Commitment, and Persistence

Virtue ethicists assume that the notion of (moral) character should hold a prominent place in our moral thought. In this paper, I offer an argument in support of this view. Central to my argument is a reflection on what it means to be committed to a principle of action. I argue that the notion of commitment is inherently connected to the notion of moral character in two ways. The first is based on the idea that an action that expresses our character is an action that we own in the most substantial way. I suggest that the notion of owning one’s action can be cashed out through the idea of committing to a practical principle. The second connection arises from the thought that the notion of moral character refers to a persistent, enduring moral identity. I argue that in order for a person to be genuinely committed to a principle, she must act in accord with it in a way that is not merely consistent, but persistent across a number of situations. Accordingly, to say of someone that they are committed to a principle of action is eo ipso to ascribe them an enduring moral character. Against this background, I turn to a reading of Aristotle’s notion of virtue as hexis prohairetike as a paradigm example of how the idea of enduring moral commitment may be spelled out in more specific detail.

Local and Universal Citizenship in Works of the Cappadocian Fathers

ABSTRACT The idea of citizenship (politeuma) was a useful way for the Cappadocian Fathers to talk about identity, and thus about belonging. A prestigious and long-running discourse in Christian and non-Christian culture, it was connected to notions of loyalty to a homeland (patris) or city (polis), and to membership in a community (politeia). These could be both temporal and local on the one hand, and spiritual and universal on the other. Both implied certain differing relationships between the individual and the community, and thus could be causes of tension. In the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers, these concepts assumed markedly antagonistic aspects. Although the phenomenon of martyr cults went some way towards marrying these two concepts of citizenship, they could also throw up tensions between local and universal themselves, indicating that this divergence remained a significant tension for the Cappadocians, and within fourth-century Greek Christianity more generally.

Furs in early twentieth-century New Zealand: ecology, war and fashion to the 1930s

ABSTRACTThe First World War was a complex moment in the history of dress and garment manufacture. Materials and textile production were diverted largely to war manufacturing, and the meanings of clothing became caught up in particular notions of loyalty and patriotism. One change in dress that has received little attention was the growth of the fur garment and trim industry in these years of fashion austerity. New Zealand provides a fascinating case study of the blossoming of the ‘new world’ fur trade and garment industry from 1914 because, despite its small size and remoteness from Britain and Europe, it became an important player in the international fur trade and the democratization of fur that occurred in these years. This article examines three facets of New Zealand’s fur trade that illuminate the complex forces of war, ecology, and the meanings of buying and wearing clothing in this particular trade at this particular time.

Co-constructing loyalty in an era of digital music fandom

PurposeThis paper aims to answer the following question: How can a discursive approach to how music fans construct loyalty in a digital context contribute to a theoretical understanding of brand loyalty?Design/methodology/approachDrawing on insights from theories of brand loyalty and fandom, this interpretive inquiry makes use of data from an online forum dedicated to the rock music band, U2, and interviews with forum members. A combination of online ethnography and discourse analysis are used.FindingsThe analysis shows that music fans mobilise particular discursive resources in constructing loyalty in the digital context, specifically length of time spent as a fan, obsession and the opposition of obligation and choice. These discursive resources reflect a grounded account of an experientially rooted brand loyalty that extends beyond attitudinal and behavioural loyalty and which is particularly salient in music consumption.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a single case study, but as a rich and vibrant online community, it provides fruitful insights into the discursive construction of loyalty. The processes of negotiation, accommodation and conflict, engaged in through online discourse, are important in laying bare the preferences, value systems and meanings that frame the experiences of loyal consumers.Practical implicationsThis socially constructed view of loyalty facilitates a more sensitive and nuanced application of brand loyalty, with implications for segmentation and targeting activities. It provides a possible basis through which precise insights can be gained into the meanings and practices of loyal fans and consumers.Originality/valueExamining loyalty through the lens of online music fandom enables a discursive understanding of consumers’ experience of brand loyalty. It shows how online engagement with other consumers of a brand facilitates a deep engagement with the notion of loyalty.

Dodatni glasovi kao nagrada lojalnim akcionarima - predlog za reformu

In this paper, the author analyses shareholders' multiple voting rights as a reward for their loyalty. Firstly, the definition of loyalty shares is provided both in the narrow and wider sense. Furthermore, the notion of loyalty as a condition for being rewarded, as well as the criteria for determining loyalty in company law, is specially examined. Bearing in mind the solutions in representative comparative legal systems, the author proposes the reform of national company law. Finally, the author points to the fact that the reward provision should be included in the Serbian Companies Act while the relevant provisions of the Capital Market Act and Takeover Act should be amended in order to allow successful reform. Implementation of the reform would allow loyalty in company law, not only linked to special duties, but also to special rights that a shareholder can acquire as a reward for loyalty to the company.

Loyalty, Justice, and Rights: Royce and Police Ethics in Twenty-First-Century America

The killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and others have instigated widespread debate concerning the ethics and politics of police behavior toward young black men in America. In this article, I show how Josiah Royce’s philosophy of loyalty provides a useful theoretical framework for diagnosing and working to overcome strained relations between police and black citizens in the United States. I begin by establishing the relevance of Royce’s thought to the realm of police ethics. Then, I argue that Royce’s notion of loyalty to loyalty is a useful and powerful lens through which we can examine the practice of police discretion, particularly as it comes to bear on racial profiling and use of force. I conclude by offering what I regard as Roycean recommendations aimed at ameliorating the fractured relationship between police and blacks in America today.

Komagata Maru episode and the veteran Sikh British soldier’s revolt in the history of Indian nationalism

ABSTRACTThe paper discusses the role of the rural Sikh soldier passenger in the Komagata Maru journey in 1914. During the First World War, it generated widespread unrest amongst Sikh soldiers of the British army. The discriminatory racist treatment meted out to the military peasantry instigated radical Ghadar revolutionaries to challenge their colonial essentializing notions of loyalty. The paper critiques traditional historiography by re-evaluating contemporary Punjabi anti-colonial consciousness, and the relevance of such provincial movements. By tracing specific historicities of subaltern nationalist resistances, it intends to enrich our understanding of the larger, synthetic mosaic of narratives in the historiography of Indian nationalism.

‘I Have Māori in Me’: Shades of Commitment and Negotiation of Subjectivity in an Aotearoa/New Zealand School

ABSTRACTBased on ethnographic fieldwork (1997–1998) at a secondary school with a Māori−English bilingual unit in Aotearoa/New Zealand, this article examines two different ways students with Māori ancestry identified themselves contextually: those in the bilingual unit identified themselves mostly as being Māori, while those in mainstream classes identified themselves mostly as Pākehā (white New Zealander) but occasionally as being Pākehā but having Māori in them. Existing analytical frameworks, such as symbolic ethnicity (Gans 1999) or citizenship (Ong 2003), fail to capture the contextual and dialogic display of these different shades of identification practices. Applying the notion of commitment and its disavowal proposed by Doerr for this special issue (2013), this article analyses these two identification practices as a proactive commitment and a hedging commitment linked to institutional belonging to the bilingual unit and mainstream classes, respectively, and to the wider cultural politics of the official yet tokenistic biculturalism of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Normativity without normativism

Stephen Turner’s book Explaining the Normative (Polity, Oxford, 2010) constitutes a powerful onslaught against one of the main intellectual havens where the thesis of something like a transcendental foundation for rationality is still alive and flourishing. During the two last centuries, naturalism has been conquering one territory after another, but there was a portion of philosophical land where it seemed that ordinary scientific research would necessarily be insufficient to offer us an account of what happened there. This thesis has often been expressed as the ‘irreducibility of normativity’ (see Parfit 2011 for a recent exposition), and Turner’s book aims at showing that the arguments supporting this thesis are not defensible. I am absolutely sympathetic to the claim that the normative is just an ordinary citizen of the natural world, though probably more complex than other vulgar things like neutron stars, hurricanes or lizards, but my own impression reading the book has been that Turner tries perhaps to go a little bit farther than where I would be happy to take company with him, and I shall try here to explain the slight differences I see in our ways of understanding the question, albeit running the risk of misinterpreting some of his claims of course. I have to make a confession to begin with. A large part of my own work in analytical philosophy of science has been inspired by the idea that, besides analysing the ‘internal’ structure and dynamics of ‘purely epistemic states’ (i.e., what makes of something a theory, or a case of empirical confirmation, or a case of approximation to the truth, etc.), it was convenient to look at ‘scientific objects’ as the result of the decisions of human agents (i.e., scientists), and those decisions would not only be guided by ‘epistemic interest’, but also by ‘social’ ones. Most of the work done in the sociology of scientific knowledge in the last quarter of the past century tended to interpret the ‘epistemic’ and the ‘social’ as not only different, but usually conflicting aspects and forces within the possible motivations of scientists, with an increasingly smaller space left to the former as we approached the more radical, relativistic brands within the discipline. Looking for some approach in which the ‘epistemic’ and the ‘social’ could be conceived as coherent, complementary, and even interdependent elements of the process of scientific research, I came across Robert Brandom’s breathtaking theoretical fabric as disclosed in his book Making it Explicit, and found in his notions of commitment, entitlement and scorekeeping a particularly apt methodological tool to represent the dynamics of scientific research in terms of a ‘conversation’ governed by a system of inferential rules. These are rules that