Morality without Intention

Abstract

An examination of how, in literature, silence and veiling are related to moral significance. The paper emphasizes Walter Benjamin’s essay on Goethe’s Elective Affiniites and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil” and poses the question of how the literary can possess moral meaning or effect when, as in these two works, silence and veiling appear as a means of refusing or denying intention. Benjamin’s and Hawthorne’s different critiques of the symbol are presented as the central issue around which the possibility of moral meaning is decided as an intentionless act. Benjamin’s preservation of the moral is interpreted as the cause of the paradoxical and contradictory sources of the expressionless and its critical violence as well as the veiling and secrecy he identifies as forming the true work of art. Against this account, Hawthorne’s story is read as the refusal of any preceding secret as the basis of a moral claim and thus as the defining category of the work of art.     

Governmentalities without policy capacity

The professional community of policy experts takes it for granted that all governments seek to strengthen their policy capacity, considering it a key indicator and requisite of their success. Yet this assumption is far from universal, even in some European Union countries with long and complex institutional histories. If we look at the informed and explicit use of policy analysis tools in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, we have to conclude that this paradigm is not completely integrated into their governmentality. In these countries, three disciplinary approaches warrant especial attention as generators of competencies recognized as usable knowledge for public decisions: ‘law,’ ‘public finance’ and ‘public administration.’ Where the standard operating procedures of democratic institutions appear to be fully defined on the basis of these three categories, the inclusion of the policy perspective encounters major difficulties. In these contexts, the most important obstacle is the fear that the new paradigm will threaten the balance among the constitutional bodies, especially to the detriment of the legislature, and that it will constrict the political leadership. This explains why some countries, such as France and, most recently, Italy, have attempted to resolve the impasse by resorting to the strongest of legitimations: inclusion in their constitutions of public policy evaluation as a function of Parliament. This choice is certainly important, but in itself it does not guarantee recognition of the policy paradigm as a science for democratic institutions.     

Regression without a model

Frequently in public policy analysis, researchers and decisionmakers confront the problems of building, testing, and interpreting a regression equation. This paper examines these general problems in the context of the efficiency of secondary schools in Karachi, Pakistan. It displays some of the tools of exploratory data analysis in constructing a regression model in the absence of a convincing, a priori specification. A simple and useful technique is presented for testing, after numerous statistical explorations, the model one has constructed. Finally, the paper takes seriously the differences between the policymaker's questions and the statistician's, providing some guidelines of general relevance for the interpretation of regression-based studies of public policy.     

Politics without a centre

The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy. By SUSAN STRANGE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp.xvii + 218, biblio., index. £14.95 (paper). ISBN 0–521–56440–9.

Uncertain Boundaries: The Social and Political Construction of European Economies. By MARINO REGINI. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp.x + 164, biblio., index. £30 (cloth). ISBN 0–521–47371–3

Internationalization and Domestic Politics. Edited by ROBERT O. KEOHANE and HELEN V. MILNER. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. x + 308, biblio., index. £14.95 (paper). ISBN 0–521–565587–1.

Balancing State Intervention: The Limits of Transatlantic Markets. Edited by ROGER BENJAMIN, C. RICHARD NEU and DENISE QUIGLEY. Pp. xiv + 274, index. Houndmills: Macmillan, 1995. £40 (cloth). ISBN 0–333–64162–0.

Cash, Crisis, and Corporate Governance: The Role of National Financial Systems in Industrial Restructuring. By VICTORIA MARKLEW. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1995. Pp.viii +260, biblio, index. $44.40 (cloth). ISBN 0–472–10504–3.     

Teaching management without cases

Many of the qualities of case method teachitig stem from the classroom method and not merely from the case. This article describes five noncase exercises designed to achieve purposes that cases are often used to accomplish, but which experience indicates, can do the job more easily. They are all based on the proposition that attention to the classroom method and not merely to the case will allow instructors to teach public management more effectively.     

Conceiving human rights without ontology

Conclusion In his book, World Poverty and Human Rights, Pogge sets out to articulate an approach to basic justice that is inversal and cosmopolitan. This notion of justice is to be articulated through the language of human rights. Pogge’s arguments about justice, moral universalism and cosmopolitanism are impressive and reward serious study. It is to be hoped. indeed, that many aspects of his argument might be adopted by the elite ruling classes of world politics; they have much to offer in the project of creating a world that is humane for all. The issues that I have raised in the foregoing argument however are central to the integrity of Pogge’s project. I have argued, in sum that it is not possible to advance a program for the expansion of justice and the implementation of human rights in world politics without making an appeal to a specific account of the nature of justice and of human rights. The account that informs Pogge’s argument is that of political liberalism, and this is an account that has much in its favor as a preferred vehicle for justice in world politics. However, this account makes itself vulnerable when it argues for universal principles without acknowledging their partisan and normative base. My argument has been that this issue is at the center of Pogge’s attempt to isolate the conception of human rights he explicates, which he wants to serve as the language for his global ethical universalism, from the ontological affirmations which make that conception of human rights possible, and which of necessity tie human rights to a specific conception of the nature of the good for human persons and groups. The attempt to establish a single, universal criterion of justice, and to express it in the language of human rights, is undermined from within for as long as it fails to engage with ontological concerns.