Value Pluralism Research Articles

The Moral Authority of Consensus.

Prompted by recent comments on the moral authority of dialogic consensus, we argue that consensus, specifically dialogic consensus, possesses a unique form of moral authority. Given our multicultural era and its plurality of values, we contend that traditional ethical frameworks or principles derived from them cannot be viewed substantively. Both philosophers and clinicians prioritize the need for a decision to be morally justifiable, and also for the decision to be action-guiding. We argue that, especially against the background of our pluralistic society, it is only via unforced dialogue and properly founded argumentation, aiming for consensus, that we can ascribe rightness or wrongness in a normative fashion to dilemmatic situations. We argue that both the process of dialogue, properly constituted, and the consensual outcome itself have moral authority vested within them. Finally, we argue that the consensual decision made is able to withstand moral scrutiny and is action-guiding, without claiming absolute moral authority in other contexts.

Developing youth toward pluralistic environmental citizenship: a Taiwanese place-based curriculum case study

Environmental and sustainability education cannot disconnect itself from politics. In order to achieve sustainable societies, we need approaches that educate students capable of coping with the political complexities of environmental issues in a civic environmental context. This study proposes a pluralistic environmental citizenship approach based on the exploration of a 13-month long curriculum case study that engaged Taiwanese youth in deliberating over a highly controversial wetland policy related to their community. By tracing five focal students’ learning trajectories in depth, this study revealed that students conceptualize their roles toward a pluralistic environmental citizenship including four elements: conception of community, conception of environment, legal and institutional knowledge, and pluralistic values. This study showcases the potential power of integrating deliberative pedagogies in place-based education and how they can enrich environmental citizenship education.

Peran Guru Pendidikan Agama Islam Dalam Menanamkan Pendidikan Multikultural Berbasis Nilai-Nilai Kearifan Lokal

This study aims to determine the role of Islamic Religious Education teachers in instilling multicultural education based on local wisdom values ​​in Indonesia State Junior High School 15 Surakarta. Method The research used is a descriptive qualitative method with data sources obtained from the principal, teachers, and students. The data analysis used is data collection, data reduction, data presentation, and concluding. Data collection techniques are observation, interviews, and documentation as for the analysis technique through the reduction stage, data presentation stage, and stage conclusion. The results of the study indicate that the role of Islamic Religious Education teachers in instilling multicultural education based on local wisdom values ​​in Indonesia State Junior High School 15 Surakarta is teachers as educators, motivators, facilitators, with multicultural education based on local wisdom in the form of values ​​of equality, tolerance, democracy, pluralism and human values ​​(morals). Planting multicultural education based on local wisdom values is also influenced by supporting factors, namely first, support from all parties, and secondly, the school facilities are adequate. While the inhibiting factor namely the lack of good cooperation between the school and parents and guardians in shaping the character and personality of noble character in children or students.

Value negotiation and professional self-regulation – Environmental concern in the design of the built environment

Built environment design professionals balance competing requirements for human comfort, aesthetics and ecological integrity in their projects. Among them, landscape designers play an important role in optimising the benefits derived from urban green spaces. This study critically considers value dimensions and domains that impinge on professionals’ decision making and environmental values that are applicable to built environment design. It specifically identifies the dominant group-based value domains and environmental values in local practice and examines how landscape designers determine the relative importance of competing values in urban South Africa. The study made use of semi-structured interviews with long-standing figures in the industry. The findings indicate that the political change, the economy and the varied climate and landscape character are contextual influences that strongly shape regional social constructions of urban nature. These constructions emphasise instrumental utility values that juxtapose fundamental values and overshadow less urgent eudemonistic and intrinsic environmental values. In the design process, designers trade off artistic pursuits for utility values, with implications for aesthetics and quality. The contextual influences undermine value pluralism. Current trade-offs arguably perpetuate a local legacy of the uneven distribution of quality green spaces. Promisingly, designers show environmental concern and value for sustainability, indigenous plants, utility, quality and safety. The potential for designers to strengthen bonds with urban nature lies in the creation of aesthetic experiences that build on existing local affinities to landscape character and indigenous species. Professional bodies have an important task to assist built environment designers in creating cities that preserve human-nature relationships.

Experiences of afroreferenced plural bodies in the terreiro of Candomblé

This text presents the discussion about different processes of discrimination along with plural bodies and their afro-referenced experiences present in terreiro of candomblé, where they actively resist with their existence and the plural position they assume politically and identity. In this sense, we demarcate the theoretical constructions in which bodies (transsexuals, transvestites, transgenders, women, blacks, mulattos, indigenous peoples) are activated according to their constitutive cultural, social and biological forms, according to feminist and decolonial theories, since these theoretical movements come from the daily practices carried out in the different colonized territories. In this way, as a major agenda, we contest the Eurocentric hegemony and defend freedom in its broad expression, according to the desire that each body has and is constituted, since the existence of these bodies educates us about the human and social values of cultural plurality and assumes the activist role of defending human rights in an anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-homophobic campaign.

Artificial Intelligence, Value Alignment and Rationality

Abstract The problem of value alignment in the context of AI studies is becoming more and more acute. This article deals with the basic questions concerning the system of human values corresponding to what we would like digital minds to be capable of. It has been suggested that as long as humans cannot agree on a universal system of values in the positive sense, we might be able to agree on what has to be avoided. The article argues that while we may follow this suggestion, we still need to keep the positive approach in focus as well. A holistic solution to the value alignment problem is not in sight and there might possibly never be a final solution. Currently, we are facing an era of endless adjustment of digital minds to biological ones. The biggest challenge is to keep humans in control of this adjustment. Here the responsibility lies with the humans. Human minds might not be able to fix the capacity of digital minds. The philosophical analysis shows that the key concept when dealing with this issue is value plurality. It may well be that we have to redefine our understanding of rationality in order to successfully deal with the value alignment problem. The article discusses an option to elaborate on the traditional understanding of rationality in the context of AI studies.

Artificial Intelligence, Humanistic Ethics

Abstract Ethics is concerned with what it is to live a flourishing life and what it is we morally owe to others. The optimizing mindset prevalent among computer scientists and economists, among other powerful actors, has led to an approach focused on maximizing the fulfilment of human preferences, an approach that has acquired considerable influence in the ethics of AI. But this preference-based utilitarianism is open to serious objections. This essay sketches an alternative, “humanistic” ethics for AI that is sensitive to aspects of human engagement with the ethical often missed by the dominant approach. Three elements of this humanistic approach are outlined: its commitment to a plurality of values, its stress on the importance of the procedures we adopt, not just the outcomes they yield, and the centrality it accords to individual and collective participation in our understanding of human well-being and morality. The essay concludes with thoughts on how the prospect of artificial general intelligence bears on this humanistic outlook.

The framing of urban values and qualities in inter-organisational settings: The case of ground floor planning in Gothenburg, Sweden

This article’s overall purpose is to contribute to the recent discussion between the literatures of valuation studies and urban studies. The paper aims to do this by generating knowledge on the framing of urban values and qualities in inter-organisational settings making up wider urban development projects. The paper makes use of a recent framework by Metzger and Wiberg published in 2017 in Urban Studies, although employing it in inter-organisational settings, rather than in the intra-organisational settings of those authors. It also adds a systematic focus on issues of value plurality. The paper pursues its aim by interrogating a recent case of inter-organisational ground floor planning in Gothenburg, Sweden. The article demonstrates how several organisational actors with different reasons for joining the scheme, repeatedly came to shift between different practices, scales, and devices of valuation. One implication of the paper is that the study of inter-organisational valuation allows the researcher to explore the plurality of ways in which actors with different goals evaluate development alternatives to keep the process going. Having said this, the paper also touches upon the fact that the value-agnostic sensibility of valuation studies risks making the researcher neglect power asymmetries.

Moderasi Beragama Nahdlatul Ulama dan Muhammadiyah dalam Konsep Islam Nusantara dan Islam Berkemajuan

This study aims to determine the religious moderation teachings of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah in the concepts of Nusantara Islam and Progressive Islam and their relation to the verses of the Qur'an. The type of research is literature study with a qualitative approach that describes and analyzes library data, in the form of books, journals, magazines, and news relevant to the research theme. The results showed that; first, the teachings of religious moderation in NU are illustrated through the jargon of Islam Nusantara, while Muhammadiyah is through Progressive Islam. Second, the alternation of religious moderation between NU and Muhammadiyah is related to the Koranic verse, namely they both uphold an attitude of peace (Al Baqarah: 143), help each other (Al-Maidah: 2), and obey the leader (Annisa 59). Third, the symbol of religious moderation of NU and Muhammadiyah is more directed to pluralistic values ​​that are in accordance with the context of Islam in Indonesia which is plural so that it does not conflict with the contents of the QS. Al-Hujurat Paragraph 13. This research can be used as a means of expanding views so that people think more intelligently and clearly, and avoid acts of violence that are very contrary to Wasathiyah values.

What does value pluralism mean in practice? An empirical demonstration from a deliberative valuation

Abstract The intensified call for value pluralism within research on valuation in environmental decision‐making responds to the recognition that neoclassical economic approaches to environmental valuation do not sufficiently account for important aspects of human–nature relations. However, few studies have explored how value plurality actually plays out in social deliberative reasoning and decision‐making in practice, and these studies have mostly been deductive and quantitative. In his essay ‘Are choices trade‐offs?’ Alan Holland (2002) goes to the heart of differences in conceptions of value and rationality between neoclassical and ecological economics. These conceptions differ in terms of whether values are seen as commensurable or incommensurable, whether people's choices amount to willing exchanges of gains and losses between different values and whether unwillingness to trade values off for net gain is irrational. Addressing Holland's question, we present a quasi‐experimental study on deliberative valuation of marine issues on the Swedish west coast, where we considered how local citizens and politicians approached values in their reasoning and choice‐making. Mixing quantitative and qualitative empirical material, we used an abductive analytical approach, iterating between data and theory to link our observations and interpretations to prevalent understandings of value, valuation and deliberation in the literature. The results demonstrate the relevance of value pluralism for environmental policy by showing the prevalence of preference uncertainty and intrapersonal value conflicts in participants' reasoning and interaction. Value conflicts played out as the inability to achieve multiple transcendental values that participants aspired to, including conflicts between social and environmental goals. Rather than attempting to commensurate different value dimensions, participants sought to avoid moral conflicts, showed emotional anguish when value conflicts came to the fore and tried to bridge conflicting aspirations and experiences through inclusive reason‐giving and compromise. Thus, choices were not resolved through rational trade‐offs, supporting Holland's claim and challenging the neoclassical trade‐off model of choice. Incommensurability appeared as deliberate positions grounded in participants' experiences rather than as irrationality. Legitimately resolving value conflicts thus demands reason‐sensitive means for deciding upon the sacrifices to be made and supporting public participation in environmental decision‐making in ways that reveal peoples' actual moral considerations. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Accounting infrastructures and the negotiation of social and economic returns under financialization: The case of impact investing

Impact investing has emerged as a topical subject-matter for scholars working at the intersection between finance and social policy. By and large, it is seen as a product of financialization: some argue that the social is colonized by financial actors and methods, others see it as a site where boundary work produces a state of value plurality in which competing values—social and financial—co-exist. This article takes the latter perspective further and unpacks the endogenous dynamics underpinning the creation of social values in impact investing programs. It analyzes how high-level organizations in the field prescribed specific social impact valuation processes and mechanisms for collecting, measuring, and reporting data about value creation. It argues that the social values circulating in the impact investing field emerge from the interplay between a wide array of stakeholders, impact investors included. The social impact accounting tools that capture them materialize therefore as sites of political battles and negotiations between stakeholders, with both emancipatory but also exploitative potential. This has consequences upon our understanding of how financialization travels and how the social dynamics underpinning accounting devices (re)draw boundaries between competing values and fields.

The Main Reasons for the Revival of Islam in Independent Kazakhstan

In the modern world history, we notice such phenomena as; globalization, digitalization, value pluralism, mass migration, terrorism, post-secularity, etc., which characterize the current nature of human civilization. Recently, among these trends, the phenomenon of the “revival of Islam” has emerged. Therefore, the systematic discussion relating to the phenomenon of Islam in the socio-cultural processes of the society has prevalent in religious studies. This topic has gained considerable attention by Kazakh researchers have also paid attention to this topic. The society of Kazakhstan has closely related to Islam in aspects of culture, history, personality, and morality. Since the collapse of the United Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR), Kazakhstan has gradually been becoming one of the fastest growing countries in Central Asia, focusing on modernization processes. Even though it follows secular nature of constitution, it has not only allowed the reentrance of traditional religious presence, but scholars have also noticed features of religious revival. Purpose of the article analyze the main factors that activated the mass- revival of Islam within the Kazakh society after the country's independence. Leading methods − conceptual analysis, structural analysis, and comparative analysis. Thanks to a systematic generalization of domestic and foreign researchers’ views, as well as sociological data, it became possible to form common knowledge about the causes of the revival of Islam in Kazakhstan.

The Idea of Civil Society in the Enlightenment Age

The authors emphasise two necessary conditions for civil society: the existence of a public space and a social activism culture that protects personal autonomy. The last condition was substantially developed in the Enlightenment Age, when the belief that civil society was a counterbalance to the state became widespread. In this article the authors justify point of view according to which the connection between the state and the civil society is subject to the dialectics of unity and struggle of opposites. The formation of civil society is closely linked to the development of the bourgeois class under the aegis of the state during the industrial revolution, which was the main focus of Enlightenment thinkers from T. Hobbes to H. Hegel. The social structures growing complexity and the bourgeois society conflict potential was reflected in the liberal constitutionalism which was the basis for diverse political changes leaded to formation of the civil society institutions. The authors conclude that a contemporary civic culture is all the more likely to be successful the deeper Enligtenment’s ideological potential, which includes the pluralism values, the free and self-governing citizen associations ideological diversity is realised .

Valuing beyond economics: A pluralistic evaluation framework for participatory policymaking

The sustainability challenges facing societies call for policies and governance systems that are attuned to the diversity of goods that support and enrich human life via ecological, technical and other kinds of systems, and to the plurality of values that people hold across diverse cultures and belief systems. A pluralistic evaluation framework (PEF) is here presented as a tool for considering diverse kinds of goodness as perceived by diverse stakeholders in the design and evaluation of policies or projects. It arises from considering a suite of aspects of meaning (biotic, economic, aesthetic, etc.) at each of three stages, namely: identifying relevant stakeholders, mapping real-world systems and assessing modes of valuing. This framework, drawing on the philosophical work of Herman Dooyeweerd and Dirk Vollenhoven, offers a joined-up, participatory approach to policymaking. We report pilot trials of the PEF with groups of policymakers at a series of workshops, demonstrating that it provides additional perspectives and unification of core issues and can be used in a wide range of areas of policymaking and project assessment. We also illustrate its potential application to a controversial environmental project and outline how a pluralistic evaluation framework can be used in tandem with existing frameworks.

The proactive strategy of educational policies to combat terrorism in Iraq

Terrorism is a product of intellectual extremism, which is the first enemy of humanity, and that there must be a comprehensive treatment of this phenomenon based on education. It requires spreading and strengthening the culture of positive thinking, practicing the values of tolerance and pluralism, strengthening the principle of moderation and the values of moderation, and strengthening the role of women in the family, family upbringing and parental care.

Farmers’ values for land, trees and biodiversity underlie agricultural sustainability

Tree-dominated, forest gardens (FGs) are an ancient, tropical agricultural land use that farmers continue to practice and value. Knowing why farmers value FGs is important because this can increase livelihood security and the skillful governance of land. We chose Sri Lanka to investigate farmers’ values for land, contextual factors that effect valuation, stressors that impact agriculture, and farmers’ current and future response strategies. Mixed methods were used to collect data from 85 farming households in landholdings across nine locations of the Intermediate agroecological zone (1750–2500 mm). Landholdings comprise land uses with short-term, annual, and semi-perennial crops (paddy, swidden, and cash crop plots) and long-term, perennial or tree crops (FGs, plantations). Farmers’ values were categorised, ranked, and aligned with Utility, Environmental, Aesthetic, Intrinsic, Option and Bequest themes of the Total Economic Value framework (TEV). Farmers give the highest importance to Utility (income, food) and Environmental (friendly biodiversity, leaf litter and soil fertility) values mainly from tree crops. Timber and fuelwood are biological assets that can be optionally converted to cash. Farmers have Intrinsic values (contentment, tranquility, pride) for land bequeathed to future generations. Nevertheless, since livelihoods are stressed by climate variability and extreme events, animal and insect pests, and labour scarcities, farmers adopt diverse response strategies. Of these, farmers favour long-term crop cultivation because trees are relatively resilient to droughts, floods, animal, and insect pests, and require less labour. This study validates why farmers’ pluralistic values for land, trees, and biodiversity must be integrated into national decision- and policy-making for agriculture, forest and biodiversity conservation.

Black Universals and Alain Locke's Notion of Value

Black Universals and Alain Locke's Notion of Value

From growth coalition to development coalition: A case study of urban renewal governance transformation in Southern Area of Nanjing (SAN), China

The context of urban development in China has undergone a remarkable transformation in the latest decade. In the course of this, the central government has gradually narrowed its early flexible policies and discretionary powers for local urban development, changing from the style featuring the growth-orientated values in the early phase to a new development concept of Urban Renewal Action highlighting plural values in the new era. Different from being promoted by the local-government-led growth coalition during the previous rapid development, Urban Renewal Action emphasizes the bottom-line constraints imposed by the central government, advocating an overall reconstruction in a combination of the renewal goals, the renewal mechanism, and the renewal objects. In this sense, urban renewal can no longer be explained only through the perspective of the growth coalition. This paper, through the re-interpretation of the urban renewal in the Southern Area of Nanjing (SAN), not only demonstrates the changes in the value context of China’s urban development in the past decade, but also proposes the development coalition, as a new approach, to decode the urban renewal governance transformation under the new development discourse in China. In the process, the central government promotes such transformation through policies and regulations while considering sustainable social development as the new goal of urban renewal locally. During this nationwide transformation, residents and intellectuals are functioning as new core members.

The tolerance of the despised: Atheists, the non-religious, and the value of pluralism

Central to the debate of what constitutes tolerance has been what is tolerable—and who is tolerant. While the existing literature has engaged with the role of religion in tolerance, there is almost no empirical work on individuals without religion. Not surprisingly, theory relevant to this question is largely absent in the current literature. Therefore, using extensive work in political theory, we derive the notion that the non-religious and atheists will show greater tolerance given a stronger adherence to the value of pluralism. We merge this theory with the modern empirical literature and use four waves of the World Values Survey (waves 3, 4, 5, and 6) to provide a substantive test using a novel measure of tolerance as a crucial individual value. We find that the value of pluralism does distinguish tolerance levels among the self-identified non-religious, although less so for atheists.

Feeling Fallible, Being Wrong

AbstractThis essay foregrounds the survival of literary criticism as a profession and argues that a lack of shared criteria in literary studies is not a problem to be solved but a condition that should provoke an openness to change, even if it often does the opposite. Beginning with recent debates over weak theory, postcritique, aesthetic judgment, and computational literary analysis, Maurice Lee brings a pragmatist approach to the crisis in the humanities—one that values pluralism, affect, fallibilism, and experimentation over epistemological certitude.