Towards an Immanent Business Ethics?

I just published the paper “Towards an Immanent Business Ethics?” in Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Studies.

Abstract – The aim of this paper is to explore the possibilities for an immanent ethics for business. The paper has three parts. In the first part, I make some general and critical comments about the nature of business ethics. In the second part, I outline the immanent ethics as presented by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Then, I positioning immanent ethics within business, primarily in relation to the terms “best practice” and “best fit.” The main claim here is that an immanent ethics encourages a shift from a merely reactive approach toward an active. This shift opens up the field for an affirmative practice that aims at enlarging the discussion within business ethics as such.

The paper can be read here.

 

Glæden ved børn

Fornylig skrev Anne Glad, strategisk direktør for Envision: “Når forældre er mest stressede på de tidspunkter, hvor de er sammen med børnene, er der noget mere fundamentalt bekymrende for familiens fremtid.” Ja, det er et problem. Ikke desto mere debatteres det sjældent, hvorvidt de, der får børn, reelt orker at være sammen med dem.

Jeg tror, at alt for mange får børn, fordi de keder sig …

Læs videre i Politiken.

 

Dear all

It’s tempting to write down all the examples of injustice, discrimination and abuse that a woman suffers from, only because she is born a woman. The problem is that this blog is far too little for such a list.

Why does so many men still think that they are superior human beings just because they were born with a penis?

Of course, the job for all human beings is to stop being bystanders and act. The wise person acts, whereas the fool reacts. In other words, don’t pass on today’s problems to future generations because you’re too weak to stop it.

This video is called “Dear dad”, but it could also have been called “Dear all.”

See it here.

 

Review – The Happiness of Burnout

Philosopher Michael Klenk has written a thorough and clear review of The Happiness of Burnout.

He writes, “Janning’s book stands out because of its unconventional but forceful potpourri of philosophical, psychological, and literary anecdotes added to an emphatically written case-study of Jeppe Hein, a Danish artist of international acclaim, who was diagnosed with burnout at the age of 35. Janning’s focus and grand ambition is to draw a broader lesson from a Hein’s path to recovery. Beyond, say, a mere enumeration of syndromes or recommendations of efficacious therapies, Janning intends the book to serve as an inspiration for people’s “quest toward a happy and flourishing life.”

You can read the rest of the review at Metapsychology.

Empati er betingelse for at underminere terror

Empati et kraftfuldt redskab til at fremme en forståelse for de andre. Og er der noget, som verden i dag mangler er det en gensidig forståelse af vores forskelligheder. Der mangler empati og medfølelse.

Empati er kunsten at træde i en anden persons krop og sind. Forstå den andens følelser, tanker og perspektiver. Denne indsigt om den anden eller de andre, kan fortælle os noget om de andre, set fra deres ståsted.

Empati fremmer indsigt. Det adskiller empati fra sympati, hvor man føler medlidenhed med de andre. Eller ligefrem har ondt af de andre.

Læs resten af essayet  her.

Wittgenstein and therapy

Psychotherapist John M. Heaton has written an interesting book about practical philosophy and the use of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s thoughts on psychology. The book is called Wittgenstein and Psychotherapy. From Paradox to Wonder. In a way, it moves from the paradoxes of the early Wittgenstein to the wonder of the latter, although the book addresses the paradoxes of many theories in psychology.

The aim of the book is to move psychotherapy away from its particularly Freudian doctrines and dogmatic norms toward the therapist acting “like a mirror.” An eventual cure, Heaton points out, doesn’t only depend on theories and techniques, but much more on the relationship between therapist and patient.

The therapist, therefore, doesn’t guide the patient toward what the therapist believes to be an accurate picture of reality; rather, he or she pays attention, and then mirrors how the patient makes sense (or fails to make sense). Therapy becomes a way of allowing the patient to see and hear what he or she is saying. Encourage the patient to express him or herself. Heaton is pleading for a more humble and curious approach. The author uses his practical experience to emphasize how the therapist will achieve a better result if one has a better understanding of language (e.g., how language can produce false appearances that may separate the patient from the world).

The book is scattered with illuminating quotes from Wittgenstein, just as it raises a serious and severe critique toward Freudian so-called scientific psychoanalysis. “A philosophical problem has the form: “I don’t know my way around,” says Wittgenstein.

The paradoxes in psychoanalysis are that a too rigid theory leads to less acceptable suggestions. Our relationship with life becomes limited. For example, “We tend to picture thought as representation that reality must fit or fail to fit. . . . It is assumed that what the analyst thinks must be true.” However, sometimes our capacity to use language is sufficiently limited. And yet, just because we can’t articulate it, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. This experience can lead to wonder and how to make sense of these.

Unfortunately, “Our disease is one of wanting to explain,” Wittgenstein is quoted for saying. Therefore, the therapist’s ear and vision is clouded by the theoretical ideals. How does one open his or her senses?

“To recognize something as true,” Heaton writes, “is to make a judgment and this involves making sense.” Make sense of sense, that is. How? Heaton, in continuation of Wittgenstein, suggests that in order to understand people, we must be able to read and understand the context because then, we can better understand their intention of saying or doing what they do. His approach is based on compassion for the others’ form of life. For this reason, the relationship between therapist and patient is crucial, not the theoretical armor that a therapist hides behind. It’s the relationship that facilitates the possibility of living in the world with the patient.

A happy person lives in a happy world because of his or her form of life. Similarly, an unhappy person lives in a different world–so it seems, although the world is the same, due to his or her form of life.

The book is for everyone who is interested in psychology or practical philosophy (including therapists, students, and the many consultants who implement Wittgenstein’s teachings). Heaton encourages the reader to unfold the process of sense-making–that is, to see it as a process without an ultimate reference. If one can do that then the patient will be free to find or create the form of his or her life.

The book is a well-composed mixture of theory and practice with a slant in favor of theory. It doesn’t require knowledge of Wittgenstein, but it helps if the reader is familiar with Freudian theory and practice in order to qualify the critique that Heaton raises. It’s a highly welcome approach that challenges a growing tendency–perhaps due to a growing insecurity–to see psychological experts as infallible.

This review was first published in Metapsychology, Volume 19, Issue 47, 2015.

 

A Scientific Buddha?

”… this belief in essences that must be destroyed in order to bring an end to suffering and rebirth.” – D.S. Lopez, The Scientific Buddha

Donald S. Lopez has written a clear book on Buddhism called The Scientific Buddha. Although it aims to critically scrutinize the notion of “The Scientific Buddha,” it comes across as a positive and very stimulating read, placed somewhere between science and religion.

The Scientific Buddha is based on several lectures, which gives the book a cozy feel. It begins with an introduction to Buddhism and from there, it moves on to the birth of the scientific Buddha. The problem, for Lopez, is that “some even went as far as to declare that Buddhism was not a religion at all, but was itself a science of the mind.” The author tries to convince the reader that Buddhism really is a religion. Partly he succeeds.

The debate is not new, but due to the increased focus on Buddhism and mindfulness in the West, many are trying to locate the real Buddha. Perhaps to gain authority. Personally, I don’t share this need for locating an origin, so in part, I am not convinced that it is such a big problem. And perhaps for this reason, I don’t find his argument that effective. After all, Buddhism may or may not be a religion (many scholars agree and disagree), but it has never been a religion in a Christian or Muslim sense. For example, the Dalai Lama has beautifully stated, “My religion is kindness.” The Buddha responded to life, not some transcendent demands. Furthermore, science can become a religion for some as well. So for me there is plenty of room for the Buddha somewhere in the middle.

The historical Buddha was a prince born into wealth and decadence, until he one day left his castle and experienced life in its full, that is, as suffering.He then began a journey, that was either religious or scientific, to create a way out of suffering. This journey he later shared as his teachings. Thus, the Buddha as scientist requires that the Buddha really was once a man called Gautama Siddhartha before he woke up under the Bodi tree.

Lopez shows how some have tried to place Buddhism in various scientific contexts, for example, evolutionary theory. While I agree that these contexts don’t make much sense, it doesn’t make the Buddha more religious either. However, once Lopez started talking about the problem with karma, mediation and the contemporary use/misuse of Buddhism, it became obvious that he knows his Buddha from the depth of his heart to the tips of his fingers writing this book. This embedded knowledge of Buddhism makes the book a very enlighten read.

From the third chapter onwards, Lopez goes more directly into the heart of Buddhism. ”The cause of the world is karma.” He discusses about the four noble truths, the cultivation of seeds, the three forms of sufferings, how nirvana is the end of rebirth, and how truth is something we have lost and now must find again. He mentions this to emphasize his point that the Buddha is religious, not a scientist, and yet it seems like the real Buddha is neither of the two extremes. There is an element of experimentation in Buddhism. Whoever the Buddha was and is – real or abstract – there is something in the practice related to his name that makes both religion and science too rigid or limited to grasp. He appears to more like a philosopher, for example, like Pierre Hadot understands “philosophy as a way of life,” not some abstract exercises.

Regardless of the debate whether Buddhism is religion or science, there has been a tendency to overemphasize the positive elements of Buddhism without paying enough attention to the role of suffering, including the suffering caused by some Buddhists. For example, the process of cultivation also means that creation goes hand in hand with destruction. Recently, the Buddhist majority in Myanmar has been critiqued for discriminating against the Muslim minority. Thus, perhaps not all Buddhists show loving-kindness and compassion.

Still, the reader may ask: Was the Buddha a scientist or a God? This either-or thinking is what causes suffering, I think. Following the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, I would rather ask, “What does the Buddha make possible?”

Let me give an example. If mindfulness is the heart of Buddhism, then, at least, it shows that the heart of the Buddha was pure. That, however, does not suggest that all teachers of mindfulness are pure rather than strategic business consultants; it just means that such forms of “mindfulness” only leads to mindlessness. A few rotten apples don’t cause a heart failure. In light of this, then, I am most comfortable with the Buddha being neither a scientist nor a God, but an extraordinary human being. He, or his followers, showed what the human being is also capable of doing. That’s enough.

What kind of book is it? The Scientific Buddha debates the role of the Buddha, but it also serves as a very clear introduction to Buddhism. And it does so exemplarily. It opens a debate further. Yet, although Lopez tries to convince me wrong, I am not converted. I think the problem with extraordinary human beings being put into categories is that so many have a need for a God or a Guru in their life. There are no God’s only different forms of life.

When Stupidity Rules

Most of the fathers in my six-year-old son’s class use an instant messaging service called WhatsApp. The idea was to share information regarding school issues, but in reality it became a way of passing on jokes and pictures of women. In the beginning, the pictures were harmless, that is to say, no nudity. However, the other day, a father, who by the way is the father of two girls, sent a photo that was pure porn…

… read the rest of the essay in THE TRANSNATIONAL: A Literary Magazine

Everything is fucking

The second season of True Detective, written by Nic Pizzolatto, is about caring and being fucked. To put it simply, only those who care survive, but the survivors need to run away to avoid being fucked. The rest—that is the non-caring—well, they all get fucked, sooner or later.

So in a way the moral is sad, and no less sad in that it’s a pretty accurate picture of contemporary capitalist society. Corruption, loneliness, fights for possessions—whether land, kids, property, even fights for the right to deal or not deal with one’s past.

“[T]here is no outside to the world market: the entire globe is its domain,” Michael Hardt and Toni Negri wrote in Empire. The two writers stress that there is no outside to capitalism, that there is no other world we can refer to as being better, more beautiful, more righteous, and so on. A possible change of an ethical approach in business comes from within as a kind of counter-actualization of something overlooked or neglected, for example from the few human beings who have the capacity to care for life not money.

In True Detective a missing girl says – as a reply to the question whether she shouldn’t aim for more in life than just fucking: “Everything is fucking.”

It is, since everything is business, and is cool and calculated transactions. Fucking is not making love; it is just one’s person assumed right to use another person to fulfill his or her desires. And here, True detective shows us that it apparently is more acceptable when men fuck than when women do.

The sadness of gender inequality is still here in 2015!

“I support feminism, mostly for having body image issues,” says detective Ray Velcoro to his female colleague, Antigone. This can be interpreted in many ways, but women are under more pressure from men, society, and, perhaps, themselves to live up to a sexy ideal, whereas men, apparently, can still be old, fat, and ugly and be sexy, as long as they have money or power. Also, many men can’t avoid seeing the body rather than the person when they speak with a woman. Of course, this is black and white; but in the end, it seems like Pizzolatto puts all the blame on capitalism, not men per se.

It makes you wonder: Will business corrupt women, like it did with the men?

Let me draw a parallel between death, capitalism, and sex. Climbing Mount Everest, one will at one point enter “the death zone” (above 8,000 kilometers). In this zone, the level of oxygen is so low that only very experienced mountaineers can survive with this level of oxygen. And common for many human beings in “the death zone” is that they become much more selfish. There are many stories of people passing dead bodies, or passing people asking for help but are left because the others are so seduced by their objective: to reach the top. Capitalism is similar to the death zone. Most people forget all about moral responsibility; they focus on the ends not the means. To be rich is to be on the top of the world. And sex… it has always been a good business—just see how the porn industry helped establish the Internet, together with the military. Sex and war—there you have it. Once upon a time, it was war and peace.

What happened with peace of mind?

And it doesn’t stop there. To add another moral: those who are capable of confronting their own nightmares—in the second season, related to past experiences of solitude or abuse—learn to care and then move on. The positive moral is that moving on and caring go hand in hand. We are offered a way out. However, caring is something more than self-compassion; rather, caring as in having compassion for others.

Nic Pizzolatto knows—or I assume he knows—that each of us is always secondary to life. Life came before us, and it will still be here when we are gone. It is ‘others’ who make us alive, and in that sense we all need one another. Those who care as elements of their own interests and egoism, like Ray and Paul (custody of his son and less heterosexual pressure), here fate catch up with them.

The caring element is one of two things that ties the second season with the first (see more of this here: True Detective: Pessimism, Buddhism or Philosophy?). A true detective cares . The other element that ties the seasons together is one of the many celebrated statements from Rust Cohle, that the “world needs bad men to keep the other bad men from the door.” It still does. Now, however, the world is just getting worse and worse, so it is not just a job for bad men but also for bad women to clean out. Thus, we need bad men and women. Paul, Ray, and Frank can’t do it alone; they need Jordan and Antigone.

Perhaps there is a reason why only the women survive, not the men. Is it because no one gets away with anything? Do men always fuck up?

The second season is about karma, the Buddhist concept that emphasizes our actions bring results. Each moment we plant seeds, those seeds will bear fruits depending on various circumstances. One can’t control the outcome, only one’s motive for planting this seed. Therefore, one’s intention becomes important.

The last and most important moral of True Detective: try to bring a moment of awareness and reflection to your actions, basically to make wise choices.

Is it wise of Paul to hide his sexuality? Apparently not.

Is it wise of Frank to want to kill everyone and get all the money before he escapes? Apparently not.

Is it wise of Ray first to abandon his kid and then to return and say good-bye while being on the run? Apparently not.

Is it wise of Antigone to share her story with another, like sharing the responsibility to make one’s own burden lighter? Apparently so.

No one survives alone (was that yet another moral?).

Ray Velcoro dies out in nature under a big tree, the Bodhi spot. He dies peacefully, perhaps because we are told that he already lived many lives and that he is tired. Frank dies in the desert. Often we associate the desert as being a limitless space, a kind of freedom. But those are just delusions: deserts are full of sand and have a lot of heat, but are devoid of water and people; nothing but death. Frank was already dead. He already died a long time ago, when he decided to enter the business world where legitimate businessmen can’t be distinguished from illegitimate. Business is entering “the death zone.”

Antigone is the only true detective in the second season. Next time, we need both bad men and women to keep the bad men and women from our doors. In the end, if everything is fucking, then not only men fuck.

true-detective

Earning to Give

In The Most Good You Can Do, philosopher Peter Singer tells us how we can all do better through “effective altruism”, which he describes as a solidly ethical way of living.

For those who are unfamiliar with Singer, he is a prominent ethicist, a utilitarian who has written about animal liberation and practical ethics, which is the practice of applying ethics to our daily decisions.

Singer describes “good” as a world with less suffering and more happiness. If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands…the more people clappinimages-1g, the better.

In The Most Good You Can Do, Singer takes on the roles of preacher, salesman and philosopher. The book is not about philosophy; instead, Singer writes to inspire people to become more qualified philanthropists. He wants to convince us that we should earn more money so we can donate more money. The premise is that living a fully ethical life involves doing the most good we can.

What is the most good? Effective altruists think more about the number of people they can help than about helping particular individuals. The numbers are reflected in their donations; they give money to those organizations which they believe will do the most good. Effective altruism is ethical investment where the return on investment is the greater good of the many.

Singer mentions several individuals who are effective altruists and lists organizations that can help one decide where and how much money to donate. His message is that it is ethically good to earn to give, and one should use one’s reason more than one’s emotions when deciding where to donate.

“Earning to give is a distinctive way of doing good,” Singer writes. When I read that I can’t help thinking of the Catalonia region of Spain. Around 50 percent of the voting Catalans seek independence from Spain because, for example, the region pays 10 percent of its gross national product to the rest of Spain. Few mention that the rest of Spain is less fortunate compared with Catalonia, with its attractive Costa Brava coastline, numerous museums and frequent great football games. Sharing with non-Catalans doesn’t seem to be an attractive option.

Another way of illustrating this involves different forms of empathy, such as:

Empathic concern– the tendency to experience feelings of warmth and compassion for other people.

Personal distress– feelings of personal unease and discomfort in reaction to the emotions of others.

Perspective taking– tendency to adopt the point of view of other people.

Fantasy– tendency to imagine oneself experiencing the feelings of other people.

The first two terms refer to emotional empathy, or one’s manner of feeling about others. The last two refer to cognitive empathy, or “knowing what something is like for another being.”

Emotional empathy can be related to Catalans who want to become an independent country; they still seem traumatized by the Spanish Civil War, and define themselves negatively, as not Spanish. They feel warm toward full-blooded Catalans, but have varying degrees of discomfort about the rest.

Singer contrasts emotional empathy with cognitive empathy. This is where numbers affect us more than the individuals with whom we identify. For example, a cognitive empathizer would recognize that during the Spanish Civil War, the entire country suffered. The war was not a football match. Spain bled, not just one region.

Singer quotes psychologist Paul Bloom: “Our best hope for the future is not to get people to think of all humanity as family–that’s impossible. It lies, instead, in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we don’t empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love.”

Singer argues convincingly in favor of reason over emotion, but reason and emotion are not necessarily contradictory. Let me use Catalonia again as an example. Communism did not work worldwide because it was not based on compassion and love; it was based on class struggle and dictatorial control, which in the end failed, as the Dalai Lama once pointed out. Similarly, the Catalan project is based more on financial greed than compassion. If the Catalans were effective altruists they would still be proud of their industrious attitude, but only because they could do good with their money, for example, donating to regions in greater need. More developed empathy–all four varieties–combined with reason would make Catalans less protective. More generous.

Altruism, Singer writes, is contrasted with egoism. However, altruism does not require unrealistic self-sacrifice. One may realize that it is possible to share one’s fortune with those less fortunate. Perhaps, one might even realize how everything is interconnected.

Thomas Aquinas was quoted as saying “It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another’s property in a case of extreme need, because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need.”

In that vein, Aquinas would not likely have thought it wrong of anybody to take what they need from Singer’s book, particularly if it meant learning how to help others. If you would like to see whether Singer’s book has something in it for you, visit these homepages:

http://www.effectivealtruism.org/

http://www.givewell.org/

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