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1

CSR i etyka przekonań

100%

Soin M.

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nr 2

55-69

EN

Examples of scandals related to exposing the unethical practices of companies which are classified as CSR leaders include cases where their declarations on undertaking social responsibility, as well as spending a lot of money on spectacular social campaigns and then rigorously reporting it in the appropriate documents, are accompanied by acts of abusing workers’ and environmental rights, misleading customers, i.e., abusing consumer rights, and finally “tax optimisation”, which generates measurable losses to the local communities. These cases raise the question about the reason for corporate social responsibility not being immune to abuse or opportunities to treat it as merely an image-related issue. The problem is presented using Max Weber’s widely known typology. It contrasts the ethics of conviction (ruled by the principle of intentionally keeping to the rules which have been adopted as being right) with the ethics of responsibility for the consequences of actions, including those that were undertaken in good faith but which have unintentional consequences. The usefulness of Weber’s typology when considering CSR problems becomes evident when we notice that the dominant interpretation of the corporate social responsibility concept, with its characteristic emphasis on voluntariness and positivity of actions within CSR, brings this concept closer to the ethics of conviction model. Voluntary actions in the field of CSR should go beyond carrying out regular goals of economic activities, i.e., the maximisation of profits, by providing good quality, desirable goods and services. However, what should be considered a prosocial activity –and thus, social responsibility –remains unclear in some companies. In accordance with the thesis of the paper, this ambiguity is one of the important factors that create discrepancies between declarations and real corporate activities. As we can see, the focus on voluntarily doing good which has been adopted in the current interpretation of CSR pre-empts the pursuit to avoid bad practices, both in theory and in the implementation of CSR programmes. Moreover, the CSR-dominant interpretation leads to a particular terminological confusion and replaces the companies’ responsibility towards concrete stakeholders, which is appropriate for the economic activity, with an abstractly understood responsibility towards an abstractly understood society. In this sense, the conceptual analysis of the relationship between CSR and ethics reveals that one of the important sources of problems with CSR is joining this concept with an unsuitable model of ethics. This is not because of the alleged defects of the ethics of conviction, appreciated by Weber, among other thinkers, but because it is a model that, in fact, is not suitable for business ethics. If the ethics of conviction is private, then it cannot be used to regulate social relations. In conclusion, it may be stated that, paradoxically, a dominant way of thinking about the social responsibility of corporations leads more to separation than to bringing together ethics and business. CSR, in its current form, cannot be an efficient means of implementing ethical objectives in business because it defines the issue of social responsibility as a sphere of private beliefs and arbitrary interpretations. Therefore, it undermines the relevance of the proper and socially significant notion of responsibility for economic activities and their consequences. Of course, the CSR concept can and should be modified; the question remains as to whether eliminating the elements that bring it closer to the ethics of conviction does not actually translate into giving it up entirely.

2

Personality and Institution - Reflections on paradigmatic structures in Max Weber’s thinking

88%

Rehberg K.-S. , Aliberti S. M.

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nr 21

131-141

EN

The structure of scientific revolutions - if we follow Thomas Kuhn - is characterized by crises of knowledge and chances by changes of paradigm, a term that is mostly outside the natural sciences only used metaphorically. But also, in sociology, there are something like paradigmatic premises, questioning, research strategies, conceptual structures and perspectives of research in the competition between successful major theories. At least that could be said of Talcott Parsons’s system theory in the period after the Second World War, maybe also of the Critical Theory or later of the approaches of Niklas Luhmann or Pierre Bourdieu. Against this background, the publishers of the Max Weber complete edition, especially Wolfgang Schluchter and his students, were concerned with establishing a “Weber paradigm” more than half a century after the death of this “Myth of Heidelberg”. The essay proposes a combination of Weber’s concept of action with the development of (institutional) forms of order and their enforcement. The prerequisites of the Weber Renaissance since the 1970s are discussed and then a systematization of Weber’s questions based on its “basic sociological concepts” and their logic of grading are proposed. Aspects of a Weber Paradigm are developed from a presentation of the basic principles of the “Theory and Analysis of Institutional Mechanisms”, because the institutional analytical method was proven in various research contexts, especially in the interdisciplinary research of historians and social scientists.

3

Secularizing Asceticism. Arnold Gehlen’s Philosophical Conception of the Good Life

75%

Jędrzejek M.

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nr 61

19-33

EN

Asceticism as a part of the good life is often discussed in the contemporary philosophy (Foucault, Agamben, Sloterdijk). The aim of this article is to analyze and criticize the encouragement to ascetic practices which was formulated by a German conservative sociologist and philosopher, Arnold Gehlen (1904-1976). In my text, I track the history of the philosophical concept of asceticism and describe Gehlen’s anthropological suggestion that ascetic practices should be actualized and secularized. The author of Der Mensch claimed that the return to asceticism can become an utopian answer to the imperatives of the consumer society. I analyze his distinction of three types of askesis as stimulans, disciplina and sacrificium. Subsequently, I criticize Gehlen’s belief that asceticism has not been secularized in the modern age by showing that he ignored the phenomenon of “wordly ascetiscism” described by Max Weber and his followers. In the final section, I point out some authoritarian and elitist moments in Gehlen’s image of asceticism and I suggest alternative possibilities of developing his intuitions.

PL

Praktyka ascezy jako możliwy element dobrego życia jest częstym przedmiotem dyskusji we współczesnych pracach filozoficznych (Foucault, Agamben, Sloterdijk). Celem artykułu jest analiza i krytyka wcześniejszej zachęty do ascezy sformułowanej przez konserwatywnego niemieckiego filozofa i socjologa, Arnolda Gehlena (1904–1976). Po przedstawieniu dziejów filozoficznego pojęcia „ascezy” scharakteryzowana zostaje propozycja Gehlena, który zachęca do aktualizacji i sekularyzacji ascezy jako utopijnej, ale ugruntowanej w założeniach antropologii filozoficznej, odpowiedzi na imperatywy społeczeństwa konsumpcyjnego. Analizuję zaproponowane przez niego rozróżnienie jej trzech form: stimulans, disciplina i sacrificium. Następnie poddaję krytyce tezę Gehlena, iż asceza nie została zsekularyzowana w świecie nowożytnym, pokazując, że pomija on fenomen „ascezy wewnątrzświatowej” opisany przez Maxa Webera i jego późniejszych komentatorów. W zakończeniu wskazuję na autorytarne i elitarystyczne rysy Gehlenowskiej interpretacji, sugerując alternatywne możliwości rozwinięcia jego propozycji.

4

Weberowska zasada wolności od sądów wartościujących. Interpretacja

63%

Kaczmarczyk M.

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2014

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nr 1(6)

24-86

PL

Sformułowany przez Maxa Webera, słynny postulat wolności od sądów wartościujących jest do dziś ważnym wyzwaniem dla socjologii, która zarazem pragnie zachować epistemiczną obiektywność oraz nie tracić swego krytycznego ostrza pozwalającego jej odgrywać inspirującą i mediującą rolę w debacie publicznej. W prezentowanym tekście autor proponuje interpretację tekstów Webera poświęconych temu problemowi i opowiada się za interpretacją, zgodnie z którą koncepcji Werturteilsfreiheit oraz Wertbeziehung nie należy traktować odrębnie czy też jako sprzecznych ze sobą, lecz raczej postrzegać postulat wolności od sądów wartościujących jako wynikający z idei odniesienia do wartości. Wedle propozycji autora Weber przedstawia w swych tekstach obraz ludzkiej drogi poznania, która stanowi odpowiedź na dylematy perspektyw wartościujących.

EN

Max Webers’ idea of value neutrality has been an important challenge for sociology. As a science of practical aspirations sociology has aimed to maintan a balance between epistemic objectivity and social criticism. The latter was hoped to provide public debate with inspiration and mediating social discourse. The author of the paper is advocating for an interpretation of Webers’ relevant texts that would deny the apparent contadiction between the concepts of Wertfreiheit and Wertbeziehung, and view them as logically interrelated. He suggests that the idea of value neutrality, as formulated by Weber, follows from his concept of value reference. As claimed in the paper, in his texts Weber outlined a picture of the human way of cognition that may be interpreted as a response to the dilemmas of value-oriented points of view.

5

Siódme: „Nie kradnij”. O średniowiecznym odkrywaniu rynku na marginesie książki Paola Prodiego

36%

Bukała M. W.

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tom 7

177-192

EN

In the article, the topic of the medieval „discovering” of the market is discussed, with the references to the Paolo Prodis’ book Settimo non rubare. Furto e mercato nella storia dell’Occidente. The author of the book, following Harold Berman, finds the changes in the 11th and 12th century Church, as the decisive mile stones in the development of the civilization of Western Christianity. The mentioned „papal revolution” led to the historical distinction between the spiritual and the political sphere, and later, to the autonomy of economic one. Accordingly, the Italian historian rejects the thesis that Enlightenment was the new beginning in the European history. In the P. Prodi’s analysis, the Latin term forum plays the crucial role. The word signified the place, square, especially the place where court proceedings occurred. Therefore, in the later abstract sense forum signified criteria or rules of judgement: both in the juridical meaning (forum civile, f. canonico, f. consciantiae), and the economic one, in which forum meant exactly „the market”. The “discovering” of the market rules was a consequence the development of the theoretical reasoning about mercantile activity. It was essentially related to the concepts of the just price (iustum pretium) and the common estimation (communis aestimatio). According to P. Prodi the common character of the estimation was of essential importance, as well as the new version of the Roman rule Res tantum valet, quantum vendi potest, with the medevial addendum: scilicet communiter. The author criticised the view, that the process of defining of the market was mainly the result of reception of Aristotelian Ethics and Politics. He underlined that in the penitential handbooks of the 12th and 13th century the focus was significantly shifted from the vice of avarice to the commandment „You shall not steal”; moreover the significant violation of the rules of fair market exchange begun to be considered as a sin against this commandment. In the article, the significance of the application of the notion forum commune by Thomas Aquinas (in the treatise on credit sale) was underlined. The interconnection between the concept of the market and the idea of common good was expressed in the juxtaposition of terms: forum commune – bonum commune. M. W. Bukała observes that the thesis about the limited influence of Aristotelian thought on the examined issue can be additionally confirmed by the analysis of the Article on mercantile profit in Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas (II-II, q. 77, a. 4), where Aquinas distances himself from the Philosopher’s view. The P. Prodi discourses were amended by the significant distinction: not every violation of ethics of economic life was considered as the theft by the medieval moralists – e.g.: the determinatio of the casus of buying grain with the deferred delivery for an undercut price, in canon „Naviganti” (X 5.5.19, 2do), and in the related comments of the 13th century canonist, Clarus Florentinus. Moreover, the Jacques Le Goff’s critique of the Prodi’s approach was undermined.