'A habitual disposition to the good': on reason, virtue and realism

Amidst the crisis of instrumental reason, a number of contemporary political philosophers including Jürgen Habermas have sought to rescue the project of a reasonable humanism from the twin threats of religious fundamentalism and secular naturalism. In his recent work, Habermas defends a post-metaphysical politics that aims to protect rationality against encroachment while also accommodating religious faith within the public sphere. This paper contends that Habermas’ post-metaphysical project fails to provide a robust alternative either to the double challenge of secular naturalism and religious fundamentalism or to the ruthless instrumentalism that underpins capitalism. By contrast with Habermas and also with the ‘new realism’ of contemporary political philosophers such as Raymond Geuss or Bernard Williams, realism in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle can defend reason against instrumental rationality and blind belief by integrating it with habit, feeling and even faith. Such metaphysical–political realism can help develop a politics of virtue that goes beyond communitarian thinking by emphasising plural modes of association (not merely ‘community’), substantive ties of sympathy and the importance of pursuing goodness and mutual flourishing

What is progressive business?

This introductory chapter signposts the rationale, framework and case study contents of the book. Firstly, we offer an overview of the need for new more progressive business models than the mainstream which exists at present, identifying the current challenges facing business in Europe and beyond in its international ramifications. To remedy these challenges, we present our alternative vision of progressive business functioning, whose basic criteria comprise ecological sustainability, respect for future generations, and pro-socialness. Then, synopses of our case examples follow

Moral economies of consumption

The aim of this article is twofold: first, to bring together debates about enduring normative concerns surrounding the morality of consumption with more recent concerns about the ways specific moralities are constituted in and through markets. The second aim is to develop the concept of ‘moral economy’ and call for an approach to its study, attentive to how moralities of consumption develop through interactions between instituted systems of provision, forms of state regulation, customs within communities and the everyday reflections of consumers about the things that matter to them. As consumers are increasingly asked to factor environmental and fair labour concerns into their purchase and post-purchase habits, there is a real need to understand how moralities of consumption are both formatted through institutional frameworks and shaped everyday by actors from within. After developing a framework for the study of moral economies, this article explores in depth the experiences of one couple in relation to the cessation of a cardboard recycling collection in Shropshire (England) to show why a multilevel perspective is needed to appreciate the place of morality within the market

Economies of Recycling, ‘Consumption Work’ and Divisions of Labour in Sweden and England

The recycling of domestic waste has become increasingly significant over recent years with governments across the world pledging increases in their recycling rates. But success in reaching targets relies on the input and effort of the household and consumer. This article argues that the work consumers regularly perform in sorting their recyclable waste into different fractions and, in some cases, transporting this to communal sites, plays an integral role in the overall division of labour within waste management processes. We develop the concept of ‘consumption work’ drawing on comparative research in Sweden and England to show how the consumer is both at the end and starting point of a circular global economy of materials re-use. The work that consumers do has not been systematically explored as a distinctive form of labour, and we argue that treating it seriously requires revision of the conventional approach to the division of labour

A tale of two capitalisms: preliminary spatial and historical comparisons of homicide rates in Western Europe and the USA

This article examines comparative homicide rates in the United States and Western Europe in an era of increasingly globalized neoliberal economics. The main finding of this preliminary analysis is that historical and spatial correlations between distinct forms of political economy and homicide rates are consistent enough to suggest that social democratic regimes are more successful at fostering the socio-cultural conditions necessary for reduced homicide rates. Thus Western Europe and all continents and nations should approach the importation of American neo-liberal economic policies with extreme caution. The article concludes by suggesting that the indirect but crucial causal connection between political economy and homicide rates, prematurely pushed into the background of criminological thought during the ‘cultural turn’, should be returned to the foreground

Literary ethnography of evidence-based healthcare : accessing the emotions of rational-technical discourse

In this article I revisit the idea of literary ethnography (proposed by Van de Poel-Knottnerus and Knottnerus, 1994) as a method for investigating social phenomena constituted principally through literature. I report the use of this method to investigate the topic of evidence-based healthcare, EBHC. EBHC is a field of discourse much built upon a dichotomy between rationality and emotionality. In this context literary ethnography, a particular type of discourse analysis, is valuable for allowing researchers to bring the emotional currents of technical-rational discourse into conscious awareness. In such discourses, emotions are not written out by name. The researcher must discern emotional phenomena by experiencing the discourse, and (try to) bring them into intelligible expression. As I clarify this process I develop Van de Poel-Knottnerus and Knottnerus’ method theoretically, look to destabilise the rationalityemotionality dichotomy foundational to discourse around EBHC, and so transgress its conventional lines of thought.PostprintPeer reviewe

Interrogating networks: towards an agnostic perspective on governance research

Networks have rapidly become the dominant trope in governance theory and practice. While scholarship highlights important benefits, there has been insufficient systematic interrogation of the potential pathologies in network governance. This paper addresses the lacuna. We begin by discussing different kinds of network analysis and distinguishing the specific claims of network governance theory. We then pull together the scattered critically oriented literatures on the topic, identifying major problems with network modes of governance: hypocrisy, distrust, marketization, subjugation, antiproceduralism, fragmentation, and ‘netsploitation’. We finally argue for a more agnostic approach to governance research, capable of taking account of these pathologies and thereby putting networks in their place. This means avoiding the fetishization of particular modes of governance and giving more careful attention to the settings in which they each can be useful

Class talk: habitus and class in parental narratives of school choice

© 2016 Westburn Publishers Ltd. This article explores how social class is linguistically negotiated and contested in parental narratives of school choice in the British education marketplace. Our study reveals prevalent yet obscured vestiges of ‘class talk’, and in doing so, unmasks ‘micro-political’ acts of status claiming. Using interactional narrative interviewing with 30 parents, we explore how inter- and intra-class differences are emotionally expressed, thus exposing the embodied dispositions of parents’ habitus and its’ subtle influence on school choice. The parental narratives also unveil a moral and political tension between the neoliberal ideal of entrepreneurial self-advancement and an egalitarian sentiment for social equality. Our study therefore challenges the neoliberal educational policy of market choice in closing the attainment gap

Reinventing grounded theory: some questions about theory, ground and discovery

Grounded theory’s popularity persists after three decades of broad-ranging critique. In this article three problematic notions are discussed—‘theory,’ ‘ground’ and ‘discovery’—which linger in the continuing use and development of grounded theory procedures. It is argued that far from providing the epistemic security promised by grounded theory, these notions—embodied in continuing reinventions of grounded theory—constrain and distort qualitative inquiry, and that what is contrived is not in fact theory in any meaningful sense, that ‘ground’ is a misnomer when talking about interpretation and that what ultimately materializes following grounded theory procedures is less like discovery and more akin to invention. The procedures admittedly provide signposts for qualitative inquirers, but educational researchers should be wary, for the significance of interpretation, narrative and reflection can be undermined in the procedures of grounded theory