In a world where every person is exposed daily through the mass media to images of violence and suffering, as most dramatically exemplified in recent years by the ongoing tragedy in Darfur, the question naturally arises: What responsibilities do we, as bystanders to such social injustice, bear in holding accountable those who have created the conditions for this suffering? And what is our own complicity in the continuance of such violence&—indeed, how do we contribute to and benefit from it? How is our responsibility as individuals connected to our collective responsibility as members of a society? Such questions underlie Stephen Esquith&’s investigation in this book. For Esquith, being responsible means holding ourselves accountable as a people for the institutions we have built or tolerated and the choices we have made individually and collectively within these institutional constraints. It is thus more than just acknowledgment; it involves settling accounts as well as recognizing our own complicity even as bystanders.

Scholars in the humanities and social sciences have turned to ethics to theorize politics in what seems to be an increasingly depoliticized age. Yet the move toward ethics has obscured the ongoing value of political responsibility and the vibrant life it represents as an effective response to power. Sounding the alarm for those who care about robust forms of civic engagement, this book fights for a new conception of political responsibility that meets the challenges of today's democratic practice. Antonio Y. Vázquez-Arroyo forcefully argues against the notion that modern predicaments of power can only be addressed ethically or philosophically through pristine concepts that operate outside of the political realm. By returning to the political, the individual is reintroduced to the binding principles of participatory democracy and the burdens of acting and thinking as a member of a collective. Vázquez-Arroyo historicizes the ethical turn to better understand its ascendence and reworks Adorno's dialectic of responsibility to reassert the political in contemporary thought and theory.

The Routledge Handbook of Collective Responsibility comprehensively addresses questions about who is responsible and how blame or praise should be attributed when human agents act together. Such questions include: Do individuals share responsibility for the outcome or are individuals responsible only for their contribution to the act? Are individuals responsible for actions done by their group even when they don’t contribute to the outcome? Can a corporation or institution be held morally responsible apart from the responsibility of its members? The Handbook’s 35 chapters—all appearing here for the first time and written by an international team of experts—are organized into four parts: Part I: Foundations of Collective Responsibility Part II: Theoretical Issues in Collective Responsibility Part III: Domains of Collective Responsibility Part IV: Applied Issues in Collective Responsibility Each part begins with a short introduction that provides an overview of issues and debates within that area and a brief summary of its chapters. In addition, a comprehensive index allows readers to better navigate the entirety of the volume’s contents. The result is the first major work in the field that serves as an instructional aid for those in advanced undergraduate courses and graduate seminars, as well as a reference for scholars interested in learning more about collective responsibility.

Noting the pervasiveness of the adoption of "responsibility" as a core ideal of neoliberal governance, the contributors to Competing Responsibilities challenge contemporary understandings and critiques of that concept in political, social, and ethical life. They reveal that neoliberalism's reification of the responsible subject masks the myriad forms of individual and collective responsibility that people engage with in their everyday lives, from accountability, self-sufficiency, and prudence to care, obligation, and culpability. The essays—which combine social theory with ethnographic research from Europe, North America, Africa, and New Zealand—address a wide range of topics, including critiques of corporate social responsibility practices; the relationships between public and private responsibilities in the context of state violence; the tension between calls on individuals and imperatives to groups to prevent the transmission of HIV; audit culture; and how health is cast as a citizenship issue. Competing Responsibilities allows for the examination of modes of responsibility that extend, challenge, or coexist with the neoliberal focus on the individual cultivation of the self. Contributors Barry D. Adam, Elizabeth Anne Davis, Filippa Lentzos, Jessica Robbins-Ruszkowski, Nikolas Rose, Rosalind Shaw, Cris Shore, Jessica M. Smith, Susanna Trnka, Catherine Trundle, Jarrett Zigon

In this provocative work, Lorraine Code returns to the idea of "epistemic responsibility," as developed in her influential 1987 book of the same name, to confront the telling new challenges we now face to know the world with some sense of responsibility to other "knowers" and to the sustaining, nonhuman world. Manufactured Uncertainty focuses centrally on the environmental and cultural crises arising from postindustrial, man-made climate change, which have spawned new forms of passionately partisan social media that directly challenge all efforts to know with a sense of collective responsibility. How can we agree to act together, Code asks, even in the face of inevitable uncertainty, given the truly life-threatening stakes of today's social and political challenges? How can we engage responsibly with those who take every argument for an environmentally grounded epistemology as an unacceptable challenge to their assumed freedoms, comforts, and "rights?" Through searching critical dialogue with leading epistemologists, cultural theorists, and feminist scholars, this book poses a timely challenge to all thoughtful knowers who seek to articulate an expanded and deepened sense of epistemic responsibility—to a human society and a natural world embraced, together, in the most inclusive spirit.

Making the Case brings together established and emerging philosophers who use case studies to address a variety of contemporary social justice causes. The contributors show both the depth and breadth of work in this area and highlight the distinctive approaches that feminist and critical race theorists, in particular, have pursued. For these theorists, the choice of the kinds of cases analyzed matters, not only pushing philosophy as a field to foreground the challenges facing marginalized groups but also affecting the kind of philosophy that results. This ensures that their theories do not reproduce the conceptual frameworks of dominant groups. By using thickly described cases, as opposed to the thinly described or hypothetical situations that have been the historic mainstay of philosophy, the contributors strive to create philosophy that never strays too far from the complexities of people's lives on the ground. The book provides philosophers with a host of methodologies, theories, and practical examples for use in social justice case work, with topics ranging from census design and gender bias in science to incarceration and the spate of recent police killings of black men and women.

The Routledge Critical Companion to Leadership Studies offers a rich and insightful overview of critical leadership studies for students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners. The volume draws together 35 chapters from 56 authors who represent the vibrant diversity of the critical leadership community. It includes chapters from emerging and preeminent scholars who share an interest in directing leadership theorizing, development and practice toward the aims of liberation, justice, and equity. The Companion is organized into six themes: (1) philosophical perspectives on leadership; (2) processes, practices, and power dynamics in leadership; (3) diversity and leadership; (4) leadership education and development; (5) lessons from the dark side of leadership; and (6) reimagining leadership and leadership studies. The book has been curated to serve as a "go to" resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students, academic staff, and researchers seeking to understand the current state of play on a given topic, as well as inspiration for how they might contribute to its development. Each chapter provides a comprehensive yet succinct review of contemporary literature and offers the reader avenues for future research. Leadership practitioners will also find provocative ideas among these pages to help them interrogate and transform the ways they lead.

This encyclopedia provides a premier reference guide for students, scholars, policy makers, and others interested in assessing the moral consequences of global interdependence and understanding the concepts and arguments that shed light on the myriad aspects of global justice.

This book examines the challenges of historical reconciliation in East Asia, and, in doing so, calls for a reimagining of how we understand both historical identity and responsibility. With chapters that focus on select experiences from East Asia, while simultaneously situating them within a wider comparative perspective, the contributors to this volume focus on the close relationship between reconciliation and 'inherited responsibility' and reveal the contested nature of both concepts. Finally, this volume suggests that historical reconciliation is essential for strengthening mutual trust between the states and people of East Asia, and suggests ways in which such divisive legacies of conflict can be overcome.

Global Development, Ethics, and Epistemic Injustice: Rethinking Theory and Practice presents a critical analysis of global development from a perspective that is both theoretical and practical, addressing both ethical and epistemic issues. Offering a unique perspective from having worked as a practitioner in global development for several years, then left the practice to ponder the deep ethical issues that shadow global development, Anna Malavisi argues that one of the problems in global development today is the absence of an ethical analysis; ethics in development today is overshadowed by economic and political interests, as well as national self-interest. The book describes how Chagas diseases, as a Neglected Tropical Disease, continues to plague vulnerable populations in poorer countries such as Bolivia due to a very limited way in how it has been conceived, understood, and addressed. Malavisi offers a strong ethical approach, comprising a feminist methodology, a social ethical praxis, political responsibility, epistemic justice, and deep-green theory. A strong ethical approach is necessary to address Chagas Disease as well as other development problems in a more effective way.