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1 – 10 of 260This article examines the multiple ways in which Hannah Arendt’s thought arose historically and in international context, but also how we might think about history and…
Abstract
This article examines the multiple ways in which Hannah Arendt’s thought arose historically and in international context, but also how we might think about history and theory in new ways with Arendt. It is commonplace to situate Arendt’s political and historical thought as a response to totalitarianism. However, far less attention has been paid to the significance of other specifically and irreducibly international experiences and events. Virtually, all of her singular contributions to political and international thought were influenced by her lived experiences of, and historical reflections on, statelessness and exile, imperialism, transnational totalitarianism, world wars, the nuclear revolution, the founding of Israel, war crimes trials, and the war in Vietnam. Yet, we currently lack a comprehensive reconstruction of the extent to which Arendt’s thought was shaped by the fact of political multiplicity, that there are not one but many polities existing on earth and inhabiting the world. This neglect is surprising in light of the significant “international turn” in the history of thought and intellectual history, the growing interest in Arendt’s thought within international theory and, above all, Arendt’s own unwavering commitment to plurality not simply as a characteristic of individuals but as an essential and intrinsically valuable effect of distinct territorial entities. The article examines the historical and international context of Arendt’s historical method, including her critique of process- and development-oriented histories that remain current in different social science fields, setting out and evaluating her alternative approach to historical writing.
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The purpose of this paper is to revisit philosopher Hannah Arendt's classic study of the banality of evil in light of posthumously published works bearing on moral…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to revisit philosopher Hannah Arendt's classic study of the banality of evil in light of posthumously published works bearing on moral psychology and philosophy.
Design/methodology/approach
Largely expository and interpretive, this conceptual paper articulates Arendt's approach to morally responsible thinking, with an emphasis on managerial decision making. Arendt's practical ethics draws, in part, on Kantian aesthetic theory, providing an original but unfinished account of “the life of the mind” and personal responsibility in community.
Findings
Arendt contends that humans can, and are morally obliged to, use conscience, imagination and reason to avoid evil‐doing; that self‐critical introspection, active imagination and representative judgment are essential for moral decision making, especially in times of moral crisis; and that neither profit nor pressure can justify breaching fundamental responsibilities to humanity.
Research limitations/implications
This paper discusses, but does not critique, Arendt's oeuvre. It interprets, connects and applies ideas from disparate works relating to responsible moral psychology.
Practical implications
Confronting a “modern crisis” in values, Arendt acknowledged pressures on leaders to fulfill organizational objectives, even those effecting harm which violate deeply‐held personal ethics. Warning against temptations to divide selves into a “personal” moral self and a compartmentalized “organisational self,” she prescribed ways of thinking and judging to counteract thoughtless evil‐doing.
Originality/value
The paper connects Arendt's privative analysis of evil‐doing in Eichmann in Jerusalem with later works which delineate shared human mental capacities and processes which facilitate morally responsible leadership, independent of culture or context.
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Models can be a beneficial planning tool to evaluate real alternatives. However, the user must avoid some common traps, including the temptation to have the model validate…
Abstract
Models can be a beneficial planning tool to evaluate real alternatives. However, the user must avoid some common traps, including the temptation to have the model validate management's preconceived notions and the allure of overly elaborate and complex models.
Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, this essay seeks to show (illegal) alienage in U.S. law in new lights. First, this essay demonstrates how the emergence of a positive…
Abstract
Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, this essay seeks to show (illegal) alienage in U.S. law in new lights. First, this essay demonstrates how the emergence of a positive law of citizenship, through which the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the importance of citizenship for rights, is a relatively recent and historically contingent development in U.S. law. Second, this essay shows how the concept of “sovereignty” plays different roles in the U.S. positive law of citizenship and (illegal) alienage. This essay seeks also to evaluate the limits and possibilities of alternatives to “sovereignty” as grounds for the rights of noncitizens in the United States. And it seeks to make the point that the apolitical valences of “territoriality” and “social productivity” vis-à-vis “sovereignty” in U.S. law render illegal alienage in particular misleadingly outside the realm of the political. Ultimately, this essay seeks also to challenge understandings of “sovereignty” in political theory by integrating law and political theory, and to recast legal discourse on illegal alienage by turning attention to “sovereignty.”
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Valerio Antonelli, Raffaele D’Alessio, Roberto Rossi and Warwick Funnell
The purpose of this paper is to identify the significant role of accounting in the expropriation of Jewish real estate after the enforcement of race laws under Benito…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the significant role of accounting in the expropriation of Jewish real estate after the enforcement of race laws under Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime in Italy.
Design/methodology/approach
Hannah Arendt’s understanding of government bureaucracy in the twentieth century totalitarian regimes informs the research which draws upon a wide range of primary sources.
Findings
Implementation of the program of expropriation was the responsibility of a government body, EGELI, which was created specifically for this purpose. The language of accounting provided the means to disguise the nature and brutality of the process and allow bureaucrats to be removed from the consequences of their actions. Accounting reports from EGELI to the Ministry of Finance confirmed each year that those who worked in EGELI were devoted to its mission as an agency of the Fascist State.
Research limitations/implications
The findings of this study recognize the need for further research on the role played by servicemen, bureaucrats and accounting as a technology of government in the deportation of Italian Jews to Germany. The study also provides impetus to examine how other countries managed the properties confiscated or expropriated from the Jews in the earlier stages of the Final Solution.
Originality/value
The study is the first to identify the significant role played by accounting and accountants in the persecution of Italian Jews under the Fascism.
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In order to consider fiction’s contribution to understanding organizations and their ethics, we need to examine the connection between creativity and morality. This…
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In order to consider fiction’s contribution to understanding organizations and their ethics, we need to examine the connection between creativity and morality. This chapter explores six possible relations, drawing upon a variety of works (creations) from a poet, a playwright, and several philosophers. I argue that any relationship between fiction/creativity and morality is multi-dimensional and should be treated as such in future research in business ethics and organizational studies. In particular, we are not entitled simply to assume that fictive creativity will bolster existing norms or engender virtues. On the contrary, in some cases, fiction reveals just how difficult it is to apply norms or to identify the virtuous course of action, given that we often do not have an accurate understanding of what is going on in an organizational or business setting, much less a cogent grasp on whether the behavior is right and good.
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