Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Volume 33 Issue 1

Issue of Analyse & Kritik

Contents
Journal Overview

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Page range: i-ii

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Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Editorial: Work and Cooperation

Page range: 1-4

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On the Logic and Ethics of Cooperation

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Potentials of Cooperation

Anton Leist

Page range: 7-34

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Abstract

Since Hobbes' Leviathan was published in 1651, the 'problem of order' has been known for some time. Despite this long gestation period for social theory even today we do not have a universally agreed upon answer to this 'problem'. One of the reasons behind this lacuna may be the overly dispersed work being done in the economic and sociological traditions. Whereas one tradition favours 'collective action' as a central answer, the other thinks of the problem itself being dissolved by the acceptance of 'socialized man'. Here, an attempt is made to offer the phenomenon of 'cooperation' as a promising middle ground for both traditions. To underline the importance of cooperation as an elementary social activity, first, cooperation is shown as working in tandem with its rival 'competition'. Secondly, several conceptual analyses of what is included in collective action and cooperation are offered. These analyses, thirdly, are deepened by an overview of the motivational bases potentially advancing cooperation. Overall, an awareness of the self-creating character of cooperation is explored, and put forward as the most feasible way of answering the classical problem of order.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

The Idiocy of Strategic Reasoning. Towards an Account of Consensual Action

Hans Bernhard Schmid

Page range: 35-56

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Abstract

Practical reasoning is an agent's capacity to determine her course of behavior on the base of some evaluation of available alternatives. Reasoning is instrumental insofar as an agent decides over available alternatives by aiming to choose the best means to realize her own goals. Reasoning is strategic if the agent assumes that what the best means to realize her own goals is depends on what other agents will do. Strategic reasoning still plays a central role in influential accounts of social action. This paper first argues for the view that purely strategic reasoners are unable to achieve even the most basic and unproblematic forms of mutually beneficent coordination, and then gathers some elements of a richer account of relevant forms of practical reasoning.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Comment on Hans Bernhard Schmid. Coordination, Cooperation and the Origin of Normative Expectations

Fabian Schuppert

Page range: 57-64

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Abstract

This comment suggests that coordination and cooperation are very different things, as the former simply is a device for problem-solving, while the latter relies on the existence of some shared intentionality. Similarly there exist different origins for the normative expectations an agent might form. Hence the comment argues that Schmid's taxonomy of action types, though helpful, needs to be extended and revised.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Cooperation as Joint Action

Raimo Tuomela

Page range: 65-86

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Abstract

The paper studies cooperation as joint action, where joint action can, first, be conceptualized either individualistically in terms of the participants' individual goals and beliefs that the joint action is taken to serve. This is individualistic or ‛I-mode’ cooperation. Special version of it is ‛ pro-group I-mode’ cooperation, where the goals are shared. Second, cooperation can be of the kind where a group of persons act together as a group in terms of the non-aggregative ‛ we’ that they form. The results of the paper support the conjecture that we-mode conceptualization and an account of cooperation is needed to complement the individualistic (pro-group) I-mode account(s) in social science theorizing and experimentation.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Comment on Raimo Tuomela. Joint Action: How Rational? How Irreducible?

Cédric Paternotte

Page range: 87-92

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Abstract

In his ‘Cooperation as joint action’, Tuomela presents a we-mode account of cooperation, which he argues has several advantages over an individual account. This commentary examines to what extent this is true. In particular, I assess three related characteristics of we-mode joint action: its possible rationality, its greater efficiency, and its alleged irreducibility to purely individual properties, which are recurring points of the article.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Justice as Fairness and Reciprocity

Andrew Lister

Page range: 93-112

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Abstract

This paper tries to reconcile reciprocity with a fundamentally ‘subject- Centred’ ethic by interpreting the reciprocity condition as a consequence of the fact that justice is in part a relational value. Duties of egalitarian distributive justice are not grounded on the duty to reciprocate benefits already received, but limited by a reasonable assurance of compliance on the part of those able to reciprocate, because their point is to constitute a valuable relationship, one of mutual recognition as equals. We have unconditional duty to help establish just global institutions, institutions which would allow us to share fairly in the burdens and benefits of global economic cooperation, but no unilateral duty to share fairly, where such institutions are not in place. Since non-contribution on the part of those unable to contribute involves no failure of recognition, the disabled do not fall outside the scope of distributive justice.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Comment on Andrew Lister. Just Distribution(s) for Mutual Recognition

Ivo Wallimann-Helmer

Page range: 113-122

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Abstract

This comment questions Lister's reading of the reciprocity condition in three respects. First, it challenges the view that this condition necessarily leads to egalitarian claims about just distribution. Secondly, it questions Lister's argument that the reciprocity condition is linked to substantial schemes of egalitarian distribution irrespective of context. Thirdly, it claims that entitlements to justice for people with mental or psychological impairments cannot be based on a distinction between willingness and unwillingness to contribute to the cooperative venture of a society.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Cooperating to Promote the Good

Robert H. Myers

Page range: 123-140

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Abstract

I argue that the aim of moral activity is to cooperate with others in the promotion of value, where the concept of cooperation denotes not a formal ideal to be given content through reasoning but a substantive way of engaging with others. I show how this approach to ethical theory can provide better accounts of many of our moral convictions than consequentialist or contractualists approaches can, and defend it against the objection that, by downplaying moral reasoning, it robs itself of any explanatory force.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Comment on Robert H. Myers. Finding Out What is Substantive in Cooperation

Anton Leist

Page range: 141-148

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Abstract

Myers' offer of cooperation as a medicine for ailing moral theories is welcomed as potentially helpful, even if his handling of it is diagnosed as implicitly one-sided consequentialist. His search for an ethically “substantive way of engaging with others” is shown as not coherent with his remarks on the tasks cooperation as an ethical concept has to fulfil. Instead, it is proposed that the concept be disentangled from the micro- problems Myers' wants it to solve, and that it be read more freely, from the perspective of Rawls' conception of cooperation.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Reply to Anton Leist. Keeping Constructivism in Its Place

Robert H. Myers

Page range: 149-154

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Abstract

Leist worries that by tying the ideal of cooperation to the aim of promoting the good I exhibit a bias towards consequentialism, and that this in turn leads me to downsize the role to be played by the ideal of cooperation within moral theory. I maintain that no bias is exhibited towards consequentialism but acknowledge that realism is being favoured over constructivism. I further argue that the role assigned to the ideal of cooperation is as large as realism permits.

Cooperation and Efficiency in Economic Contexts

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Cooperation for Economic Success: The Mondragon Case

Ramon Flecha, Ignacio Santa Cruz

Page range: 157-170

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Abstract

The Mondragon Corporation, a group of cooperatives, is a thriving example of how cooperatives can succeed. The authors describe six features of the corporation and five 'successful cooperative actions' that they consider to be crucial in explaining its accomplishments. Both the specific features and the successful actions are contrasted with those of standard capitalist companies, to show how this case is unique in the field of corporate organization and management. Through a combination of democratic principles, the values of solidarity, and strong competitiveness, Mondragon has simultaneously achieved both efficiency and equity and has become an alternative to the organizational and governance models of traditional capitalist firms.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Comment on Ramon Flecha and Ignacio Santa Cruz. The Priority of Labor and Capital Accounts

David Ellerman

Page range: 171-174

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Abstract

Two aspects of the fine Flecha-Cruz paper can be usefully elaborated. The Mondragon cooperatives differ not only from capitalist firms but also from most other cooperatives in the doctrine of the 'priority of labor over capital' which means that the people working in any sort of cooperative will be members and will not be rented as employees. Also the Mondragon system of internal capital accounts solves the equity-structure problem that has plagued many modern cooperatives structured as non-profits or traditional worker cooperatives with 'membership shares'.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Are Multinational Companies Responsible for Working Conditions in Their Supply Chains? From Intuition to Argument

Sonja Dänzer

Page range: 175-194

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Abstract

Although many people seem to share the intuition that multinational companies (MNEs) carry a responsibility for the working conditions in their supply chains, the justification offered for this assumption is usually rather unclear. This article explores a promising strategy for grounding the relevant intuition and for rendering its content more precise. It applies the criteria of David Miller's connection theory of remedial responsibility to different forms of supply chain governance as characterized by the Global Value Chains (GVC) framework. The analysis suggests that the criteria for identifying MNEs as remedially responsible for bad working conditions in their direct suppliers are fulfilled in many cases, even though differentiations are required with regard to the different supply chain governance structures. MNEs thus have a duty to make sure currently bad working conditions in their suppliers are changed for the better. Moreover, since production in supply chains for structural reasons continuously generates remedial responsibility of MNEs for bad working conditions in their suppliers, it puts the prospective responsibility on them to make sure that their suppliers offer acceptable working conditions. Further, it is suggested that the remedial responsibility of MNEs might require them to make financial compensation to victims of bad working conditions and in grave cases initiate or support programs to mitigate disastrous effects suffered by them.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Comment on Sonja Dänzer. Structural Injustice in Global Production Networks: Shared Responsibility for Working Conditions

Mark Starmanns

Page range: 195-212

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Abstract

This commentary's claim is that Dänzer's argument does not sufficiently take into account the complexities of the global production of goods, the current corporate responsibility practices and the problems of attributing responsibility to single actors. I argue in favour of a shared responsibility and briefly present a discursive approach for attributing MNE's share of responsibility in global supply chains, which requires obligatory transparency.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

From Niche to Mass Markets: Rival Strategies in Promoting Fair Trade Organic Commodity Chains

Winfried Ruigrok

Page range: 213-234

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Abstract

This article examines rival strategies employed by public, private and civil society actors to promote fair trade organic commodity chains. The article analyses the case of fair trade organic cotton as a produce that is on the brink of reaching a mass market, and compares this with patterns of the more widely documented fair trade organic fruit case. It is shown how variations in commodity chain configurations and interfaces reflect different stakeholder positions and interests, as well as development philosophies. The case of fair trade organic cotton chains illustrates how stakeholder involvement may speed up learning and thus facilitate mass-market entry. Finally, it is argued that rival commodity chain configurations make it difficult to agree upon common fair trade organic cotton certification strategies.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Recognition, Cooperation and the Moral Presuppositions of Capitalist Organization of Work

Hermann Kocyba

Page range: 235-260

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Abstract

Starting from the current debate on work and recognition, the article describes how shifts within the cultural frames of work, the transformation of hierarchies into internal markets and the development of a service economy lead to problems which can take the form of a 'paradox of recognition'. This paradox cannot be dissolved simply by a conceptual distinction between equal respect for persons and qualifying esteem of performance and efficiency, at least as long as we are interested in a matching of empirical analysis and normative critique. The normative claims for visibility and transparency of work are described as a paradigmatic case for the entanglement of questions of respect and esteem. With respect to recent developments within critical theory, the article argues that the idea of immanent critique needs further elaboration in order to accentuate the relation between normative critique and functional analysis.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Comment on Hermann Kocyba. The Regime of Esteem, or Recognition as Affirmation

Christoph Henning

Page range: 261-270

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Abstract

This comment on Kocyba's article discusses both his economic and moral assumptions, arguing that the shift from industrial capitalism towards a 'new spirit' of more autonomous forms of work is not captured by Kocyba's comparison between producing things alone and creating services together. Consequently, the main problem is not, as Kocyba believes, the determination of an individual's share in the (intangible) product, but the competitive mindset of this new spirit, which has many undesired consequences. Concerning the 'moral presuppositions' it is argued that the questionable self-restriction to 'immanent norms' induces a strong affirmative tendency which is at odds with Kocyba's critical aspirations. The idea that critical theory can only refer to norms which are already institutionalized needs to be dropped in order to revive the critical dimension. It is argued that Kocyba is already half way there and needs to make this break more explicit.

Fairness and Cooperation in Experimental Research

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Contractarian Compliance and the 'Sense of Justice': A Behavioral Conformity Model and Its Experimental Support

Lorenzo Sacconi, Marco Faillo, Stefania Ottone

Page range: 273-310

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Abstract

The social contract approach to the study if institutions aims at providing a solution to the problem of compliance with rational agreements in situations characterized by a conflict between individual rationality and social optimality. After a short discussion of some attempts to deal with this problem from a rational choice perspective, we focus on John Rawls's idea of 'sense of justice' and its application to the explanation of the stability of a well-ordered society. We show how the relevant features of Rawls's theory can be captured by a behavioral game theory model of beliefs dependent dispositions to comply, and we present the results of two experimental studies that provide support to the theory.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Comment on Lorenzo Sacconi, Marco Faillo and Stefania Ottone. Contractarian Compliance, Welfarist Justice, and Conformist Utility

David Copp

Page range: 311-324

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Abstract

This comment addresses two issues that arise in Sacconi/Faillo/Ottone's essay. The first is the problem of compliance as it arises in social contract theory. The second is the problem of avoiding an incoherence that arises in the formulation of welfarist principles of distributive justice if these principles are taken to be concerned with the distribution of welfare without restriction. Sacconi, Faillo, and Ottone define an interesting class of principles that govern only the distribution of 'material utility', which they distinguish from 'conformist utility'. Sacconi, Faillo, and Ottone are primarily concerned, however, to argue that there is a need to revise 'the utility maximization model of a rational economic man'. I discuss this claim briefly, in concluding the paper.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Equity and Efficiency in Multi-Worker Firms: Insights from Experimental Economics

Johannes Abeler, Steffen Altmann, Sebastian J. Goerg, Matthias Wibral

Page range: 325-348

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Abstract

In this article, we discuss recent evidence from experimental economics on the impact of social preferences on workplace behavior. We focus on situations in which a single employer interacts with multiple employees. Traditionally, equity and efficiency have been seen as opposing aims in such work environments: individual pay-for-performance wage schemes maximize of efficiency but might lead to inequitable outcomes. We present findings from laboratory experiments that show under which circumstances partially incomplete contracts can create equitable work environments while at the same time reaching surprisingly efficient outcomes.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Reciprocity in Economic Games

Julian Culp, Heiner Schumacher

Page range: 349-364

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Abstract

The evidence of laboratory experiments of behavioral economists shows that individuals behave reciprocally. These data put into question the pure self-interest thesis of human motivation of the homo oeconomicus model and call for alternative models. Focusing on the explanation of reciprocal behavior in Trust Games, this article proposes two directions that economists and other social scientists might want to consider in order to establish a more solid foundation for economic theory. First, it presents models that economic theorists developed to explain the laboratory evidence of reciprocal behavior. It highlights that all of these models subscribe to the Humean view that desires are at the source of any human motivation and suggests an alternative Kantian model where reasons have the capacity to motivate human action. Second, it emphasizes that a supplementary examination of the social background conditions would illuminate the analysis of the findings because of the connection between the 'local' and society-wide demands of reciprocity.

Publicly Available January 12, 2016

Authors

Page range: 365-367

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About this journal

ANALYSE & KRITIK

is devoted to the fundamental issues of empirical and normative social theory
is directed at social scientists and social philosophers who combine commitment to political and moral enlightenment with argumentative rigour and conceptual clarity
develops social theorizing in connection with analytical philosophy and philosophy of science
promotes the dialogue between Anglo-American and Continental traditions in the social sciences and ethics
publishes articles in English

Volume 33 Issue 1

Issue of Analyse & Kritik

Contents

Editorial: Work and Cooperation

Potentials of Cooperation

Abstract

The Idiocy of Strategic Reasoning. Towards an Account of Consensual Action

Abstract

Comment on Hans Bernhard Schmid. Coordination, Cooperation and the Origin of Normative Expectations

Abstract

Cooperation as Joint Action

Abstract

Comment on Raimo Tuomela. Joint Action: How Rational? How Irreducible?

Abstract

Justice as Fairness and Reciprocity

Abstract

Comment on Andrew Lister. Just Distribution(s) for Mutual Recognition

Abstract

Cooperating to Promote the Good

Abstract

Comment on Robert H. Myers. Finding Out What is Substantive in Cooperation

Abstract

Reply to Anton Leist. Keeping Constructivism in Its Place

Abstract

Cooperation for Economic Success: The Mondragon Case

Abstract

Comment on Ramon Flecha and Ignacio Santa Cruz. The Priority of Labor and Capital Accounts

Abstract

Are Multinational Companies Responsible for Working Conditions in Their Supply Chains? From Intuition to Argument

Abstract

Comment on Sonja Dänzer. Structural Injustice in Global Production Networks: Shared Responsibility for Working Conditions

Abstract

From Niche to Mass Markets: Rival Strategies in Promoting Fair Trade Organic Commodity Chains

Abstract

Recognition, Cooperation and the Moral Presuppositions of Capitalist Organization of Work

Abstract

Comment on Hermann Kocyba. The Regime of Esteem, or Recognition as Affirmation

Abstract

Contractarian Compliance and the 'Sense of Justice': A Behavioral Conformity Model and Its Experimental Support

Abstract

Comment on Lorenzo Sacconi, Marco Faillo and Stefania Ottone. Contractarian Compliance, Welfarist Justice, and Conformist Utility

Abstract

Equity and Efficiency in Multi-Worker Firms: Insights from Experimental Economics

Abstract

Reciprocity in Economic Games

Abstract

Authors