The Neo-Socratic Dialogue (NSD): a method of teaching the ethics of sustainable development

Business enterprises are increasingly regarded as key actors of sustainable development. The development towards sustainable business is even more fostered by the spreading of business rankings based on corporate sustainability indexes, which assess the overall sustainable performance. But despite these trends the awareness of the necessary sustainability shift within business enterprises is rather moderate. At least to some extent this can be explained by the lack of instruments to teach sustainable development in business schools and in advanced business training. This holds especially true for the ethical questions of sustainability. This is amazing since the concept of sustainable development is strongly bound to moral principles (e.g. social justice, dignity of man, human rights, ethical concepts of a good life and of solidarity). Relying on these implicit principles sustainability indexes demand for sustainable products and services, for ecological management, for social reporting, for codes of conduct for suppliers, for equal rights and non-discrimination etc. Consequently some business enterprises have started to establish corporate value management to cope with theses challenges. Taking the ethical demands for sustainable corporate performance serious practising and teaching sustainability has to comprise ethical reflections on the relevant moral ideas for sustainable development, too. Thus this paper wants to put forward neo-Socratic dialogue (NSD) as a didactic method to teach fundamental ethical questions of sustainable development for business enterprises. A NSD is an inquiry into ideas, originally meant to find consensus on some topic through a joint deliberation and weighing-up of arguments. The dialogue aims at visioning, explaining values and clarifying fundamental concepts. It implies a systematic investigation of our assumptions, reasons and viewpoints, and a cooperative testing of their validity. In the dialogue participants attempt to formulate legitimate principles and develop a shared and inspiring perspective. A second aim of the NSD is to learn to have a dialogue instead of a discussion. This requires adequate command of a number of dialogical roles, skills and attitudes, especially suspending judgements and keeping a balance between taking position and resigning. Both aims are intimately connected to the development of strategy, organisational learning and knowledge management. The NSD has been successfully applied so far in medical ethics, university teaching, organisational learning, business ethics, as well as in primary education. A NSD is focussed on a single fundamental ethical question. A NSD is applied to a concrete experience of one of the participants that is accessible to all other participants. Systematic reflection upon this experience is accompanied by a search for shared judgments and underlying reasons for these. In the case of sustainable development examples for such fundamental questions are the following: What does it mean to conduct a good life? Is luxury unnecessary? What does participation in the context of business enterprises mean? How can business enterprises realize solidarity? What is basically Socratic in the NSD is the method of rigorous inquiry into the thoughts, concepts and values we hold as true. The NSD is a joint investigation into the assumptions we make when we formulate our thoughts. The proposed paper will give an overview on this method and its application for teaching ethical questions of sustainable development. The article will elaborate especially the business applications of NSD to teach sustainability. Besides describing the more theoretical background of NSD, the paper will present a case study of a NSD held with an interdisciplinary group of students studying sustainable development at the University of Vienna

Sustainable work - and women? Pleading for gender-sensitive socio-ecological research

This article deals with the emerging discourse on sustainable work, which has been triggered by the ecologically initiated discussions on sustainable development. It gives a critical overview of the most important approaches to this subject from a feminist perspective. From a feminist point of view many of the current concepts of 'sustainable society' and 'sustainable work' have several deficiencies. The main point of criticism is that these approaches do not consider gender differences appropriately, especially with regard to the gendered division of work. Feminist approaches to the sustainable redefinition of work, on the other hand, tend to be essentialist and therefore have to be looked upon critically, too. Trying to escape both of these pitfalls, the author suggests a gender-sensitive socio-ecological approach to the complex field of sustainable work. This approach views socio-ecological problems as gendered problems and appreciates a transdisciplinary access to questions of sustainable development

Work Life Balance - catchword or catalyst for sustainable work?

'The origin of the formula work-life balance (WLB) can be seen in at least three social contexts: the increasing labour market participation of women, demographic changes and corporate interests in flexible labour. WLB seems to be attractive for all stakeholders, despite the resulting tensions between corporate driven flexibility and the need for individual balancing and self-organisation. It reflects changes in the sphere of paid labour on the one hand and the increasing demand for individual time arrangements to achieve quality of life on the other hand. For the purpose of this paper WLB will be connected to policies of social sustainability, especially sustainable work.' (author's abstract)

Participatory technology assessment of xenotransplantation: experimenting with the Neo-Socratic Dialogue ; Austrian experiences

Like many developments in modern science and technology (Bonß 1995) xeno- or animal to human transplantation involves enormous potentials as well as high risks and serious ethical problems (e.g. OECD 1997, Hüsing 1998 et al. Schicktanz 2002). Such ethical problems are a major challenge to political decision-making mechanisms: how can they be appropriately and legitimately discussed and resolved? Are the usual democratic institutions adequate and is it sufficient to include only (bioethics)-experts in decision-making? Or do we need broader debates on ethics, involving also other actors as well as civil society. However, if a broad public discussion is necessary, how can we debate and resolve these questions, and which decision-making procedures can we use? This article presents first results of the Austrian part of an ongoing EU research project, which experiments with the Neo-Socratic Dialogue, (in the following NSD), a method for resolving ethical questions primarily used in teaching and consultancy, as a means of discussing ethical problems of xenotransplantation with the respective stakeholders. In this discussion paper we will first sketch several ethical problems of xenotransplantation. Drawing on Marteen Hajer (2003), we will then distinguish several aspects of "institutional void" in the Austrian xenotransplantation "debate". In the next part we will outline the concept of NSD and we will describe the Austrian experiment to discuss ethical problems of xenotransplantation using the instrument of NSD. In the subsequent part we will present first evaluation results of this experiment and in the last part we will draw preliminary conclusions from our experiment

Arbeit neu - erweiterte Arbeitskonzepte im Vergleich: Literaturstudie zum Stand der Debatte um erweiterte Arbeitskonzepte

Die vorliegende Studie gibt einen Überblick über den Stand der Debatte zu erweiterten Arbeitskonzepten. Sie fokussiert auf Entwicklungen der Debatte aus Sicht verschiedener Forschungs- und Denkansätze seit dem Jahr 2000: zunächst neue Arbeitskonzepte in der Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, dann in der arbeits- und industriesoziologischen Debatte und zuletzt aus dem Nachhaltigkeitsdiskurses.Die Konzepte, die in der vorliegenden Studie im Hinblick auf eine Erweiterung des Arbeitsbegriffs diskutiert werden, problematisieren alle den vorherrschenden engen, primär auf Erwerbsarbeit konzentrierten Arbeitsbegriff als normatives Leitbild gegenwärtiger Arbeitsgesellschaften. Verlangt wird eine Erweiterung des Arbeitsbegriffs, der Tätigkeiten jenseits der Erwerbswirtschaft - Hausarbeit, Care, Eigenarbeit oder bürgerschaftliches Engagement - mit einbezieht und als gesellschaftlich wertvolle Arbeit anerkennt.Die feministische Arbeitsforschung und die überwiegend sozialwissenschaftlich geführte Debatte über die Krise und Zukunft der Arbeit liefern wichtige theoretische Grundlagen für die neueren Entwicklungen zum Thema aus dem Bereich der Nachhaltigkeitsforschung, der solidarischen Ökonomie oder sozialen Bewegungen. Die Grundzüge dieser Theoriedebatten werden deshalb in der Studie kursorisch ausgeführt, bevor die neuen Ansätze im Umfeld des Nachhaltigkeitsdiskurses vorgestellt werden.Die Erweiterung der Debatte durch neue Akteure innerhalb und außerhalb der Wissenschaft, die neuen Konfliktlinien, die dadurch innerhalb der politischen Debatte aufgebrochen sind und auch die Wirtschaftskrise haben es letztendlich jedoch nicht vermocht, dass erweiterte Arbeitskonzepte zu einer ernsthaften politischen Alternative geworden wären

Social sustainability: a catchword between political pragmatism and social theory

The sustainability concepts of the 'Brundtland-Report' and the 'Rio documents' call for a combination of ecological, economic, social and institutional aspects of social development. This paper describes briefly several models of sustainability and discusses social sustainability as conceptualised in selected sustainability indicators. In an attempt to remedy the lack of sociological theory, the paper proposes a sustainability concept, which is based on the concepts of needs and work, as an activity to fulfil these needs and as the principal exchange process between society and nature. Moreover, this paper argues to recognize social sustainability as both a normative and analytical concept as well

Gemeinsame Nutzung und ökoeffiziente Dienstleistungen im privaten Haushalt: Bestandsaufnahme und weiterführende Fragestellungen

'Im Kontext der Diskussionen um eine nachhaltige Entwicklung wird die gemeinsame Nutzung von Alltagsgegenständen - sei es als privates Ausborgen, als kommerzielles Mieten oder als genossenschaftliches Sharing - als energie- und ressourceneffizient und deshalb umweltschonend angesehen. So plausibel die Argumente für die nutzenorientierten Servicekonzepte aus ökologischer Sicht auch sein mögen, sie werfen eine Reihe ungeklärter (sozialwissenschaftlicher) Forschungsfragen auf, die bislang nur unzureichend beachtet wurden. Die Darstellung verschiedener gemeinsamer Nutzungskonzepte sowie ihre kritische Diskussion sind Gegenstand der Ausführungen dieses Berichts. Die Ergebnisse eines Wiener Forschungsprojekts über die Motive der NutzerInnen ökoeffizienter Dienstleistungen, werden in diese Überlegungen miteinbezogen.' (Autorenreferat)'The discussions about sustainable development are dominated by preventive, environmentally sound measures to reduce material flows and energy consumption. The reductions should be achieved through technical and organisational means: the technical optimisation of the production process, the development of environmental compatible products and through utility-oriented design. The technical improvements should be entirely supported by the introduction and dissemination of new eco-efficient service concepts (sharing, leasing or renting of products, repair-services, re-marketing etc.). Eco-efficient services are offered to firms as well as to private users. But especially in the case of eco-efficient services geared toward households, little is known about the needs, motives, attitudes, knowledge, experiences, restrictions etc. of the private consumers. The paper summarizes the results of recent investigations which have been conducted on these questions. Additional to that, it points out further sociological research questions in the field of eco-efficient services.' (author's abstract)