8th session of the Reading Group in Philosophy of Economy

Discussion session on the text by Marc Fleurbaey “Workplace Democracy, the Bicameral Firm, and Stakeholder Theory” (2023), published in Politics & Society.
The session will be held in hybrid mode : Marc Fleurbaey will attend on Zoom.

To participate, have the Zoom link and/or receive the artcile by email, contact the organizers (Morgane Delorme: morgane.delorme.1@umontreal.ca; or Gabriel Monette: gabriel.monette@hec.ca).

As part of the CRÉ lunchtime conferences, Julia D. Hur (NYU) will offer us a presentation entitled « Money on Mind: Performance Incentive, Attention to Money, Environmental Sustainability ».

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Abstract

Environmental sustainability is one of the most pressing problems of our time, raising significant questions as to how to motivate organizational decision-makers to make substantive investments in environmental protection. The current work identifies performance incentives as a critical barrier that prevents organizational decision-makers from supporting sustainability initiatives. We also offer a novel psychological mechanism of how monetary incentives activate managers’ attentional fixation on money, intensifies their zero-sum mindset, and ultimately undermines commitment to investing in sustainability. Across two laboratory experiments (n = 702) and one archival study with a combination of data on executive compensation, corporate annual reports, and environmental performance (n = 14,126), we show that decision-makers whose pay is more contingent on financial performances are more likely to develop attentional fixation on money and less likely to support sustainability initiatives of their organization. Together, our findings demonstrate a novel pathway of how one of the most prevalently used types of financial incentives inadvertently undermine progress toward one of the most urgent organizational changes.

We’re delighted to welcome Richard Healey (LSE) for a lunch talk on immoral promises.

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Abstract

It is a familiar part of common-sense morality that we are duty bound to keep our promises. However, the creative nature of promissory duties – the fact that the promisor and promisee choose the content of the promises they make – prompts a natural question: Are there substantive constraints on the content of the promises we can make? For instance, can we make binding promises to murder, maim, and steal? Many have the intuition that such promises fail to bind. Taking this intuition as my starting point, this paper develops a novel account of the nature and explanation of the constraints that apply to our power to promise. Most existing views attempt to explain these constraints by appeal to independent duties to which the promisor or promisee are subject. Yet while initially appealing, these views struggle to achieve extensional adequacy, and lack a clear rationale. On the account that I develop, we should instead appeal to the values that underpin the power to promise itself. I argue that a promise creates a form of special relationship between promisor and promisee, and the constraints that apply to that power track the value of this promissory relationship.

Members of the CRÉ and GREÉEA are delighted to welcome Angie Pepper (University of Roehampton) and Richard Healey (LSE), who will offer a presentation titled “Animals, Inferiory, and Abolition.”

To participate via Zoom, please click here.

Abstract

In The Pecking Order, Niko Kolodny argues that natural persons have an irreducible claim against inferiority: a claim “that we not be set beneath another in a social hierarchy” (p. 5).  Such social hierarchies, Kolodny suggests, are constituted by untempered disparities in power, authority, and regard. Though Kolodny acknowledges that the lives of many social animals are organised around the “pecking order” (p. 1, p. 87), other animals barely feature in his analysis of relations of inferiority. This omission is striking because many of our relations with nonhuman animals, especially those who have been domesticated, do not arise in “chance, one-off encounters”, but are rather “entrenched in an established, ongoing social structure” (p. 98). Think, for example, of our relations to livestock animals, laboratory animals, and pets. In each of these cases, animals are systematically subordinated by a pattern of social and legal norms that involve untempered asymmetries in power, authority, and regard.

These observations raise the question: Do non-human animals have a claim against inferiority within human-animal communities and hierarchies? In this paper, we argue that they do. Moreover, we suggest that nonhuman animals’ complaint against inferiority supports an abolitionist approach to animal rights. The basic idea is that to fully respect the rights of other animals, we must desist from using them as means to our ends. Importantly, the claim against inferiority not only supports the abolition of practices that clearly cause animals suffering but also those that need not, such as pet keeping.

The paper is structured as follows. First, we defend the claim that sentient nonhuman animals can have claims against inferiority against humans. We consider the view that only those capable of adequately recognising their position within a social hierarchy can have claims against inferiority. In response, we observe that while one’s ability to recognise one’s social position will likely have implications for what constitutes appropriate treatment, nothing in Kolodny’s account necessitates a recognition condition for the claim against inferiority. We further argue that the lack of a recognition condition is independently plausible if we wish to allow, for example, that young children in lower castes and individuals with severe cognitive disabilities can have claims against inferiority. Second, we argue that some nonhuman animals do have claims of inferiority against us. To illustrate this we show that animals have a complaint against being socially positioned as pets, which is grounded in a claim against inferiority. Specifically, we contend that the practice of pet-keeping is a socio-political institution which is constituted by untempered asymmetries in power, authority, and regard between humans and nonhuman animals. Furthermore, we argue that it is not possible to effectively temper these asymmetries while maintaining the practice of living with pets. This is because the tempering factors that undercut objections to social hierarchy in the human case (see Kolodny §5.2 and Ch. 8) either cannot be made to work for other animals (e.g., democratic governance) or otherwise require that the practice be dismantled. If our argument is correct, the implications are significant. Not only does this give us a further reason to abandon practices that harm other animals such as farming and biomedical research, but it suggests that the seemingly more benign practice of keeping animals as pets should be abolished.

As part of the activities of the Philosophy of Work Network , W. Jared Parmer (RWTH Aachen University) will offer a presentation entitled: “Meaning and Alienation in Work”.

The activities of the Philosophy of Work Network are open to researchers and graduate students with research interests in this area. Please write to the organizers, Denise Celentano (denise.celentano@umontreal.ca) and Pablo Gilabert (pablo.gilabert@concordia.ca), to receive the zoom link.

Abstract

In this talk, I give a synoptic view of philosophical treatments of meaning in work, and how these treatments point to varieties of alienation in work, too. I suggest that there are neoliberal, liberal, and perfectionist approaches of meaningful work. These approaches distinguish themselves by how they answer two key questions: first, must meaningful work be in some way objectively good? and, second, is work somehow special when it comes to living a meaningful life? They generate different paradigm cases of alienated work as the opposite of meaningful work. I will finally offer some reasons for why I, tentatively, endorse a perfectionist approach to meaningful work.

Junior Thierry Tatsi Tsifo will give a presentation titled “L’urgence autour de la libre disposition de son corps : repenser le ‘contrat’ grâce à la gestation pour autrui” in the Midis de l’éthique series.

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