Shundai addresses the transition from feudal agrarianism to an urbanized commercial economy in early modern Japan. He accepted the inevitabile growth of commerce, but sought to counteract its disruption of traditional hierarchies through a series of institutional reforms to solidify state power, including policies to shift control of commerce from the ascendant merchant class to the ruling samurai class. Shundai draws on the views of Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728), who defined the Confucian Way as a set of techniques for rulership derived from the sage kings of ancient China, as opposed to the metaphysical theories and focus on personal moral cultivation promoted by Zhu Xi (1130–1200) and his Japanese followers. Shundai’s samurai authoritarianism owes much to Sorai, but he is innovative for his pragmatism and flexibility, as reflected in his willingness to employ non-Confucian methods of governing and to adapt Confucian ideals to contemporary reality. After Shundai, writers on political economy in early modern and modern Japan developed increasingly ambitious visions of state-managed economic growth, presenting such policies not merely as a pragmatic compromise, but as an unalloyed good.

Chapter 2 continues to dig into the Roman rhetorical tradition in order to clarify some aspects of the intellectual history of a pair of terms, forma and materia, which recur throughout Machiavelli’s political philosophy, allowing him to talk about the shape or form – as well as the stuff, or material – of the entities he is analysing. One prevalent assumption to be found in various parts of the relevant scholarship is that Machiavelli’s use of forma and materia indicates his reliance upon Aristotle. By way of contrast, this chapter argues that we have to turn to consider the historical fortunes of an entirely different set of classical resources. Classical Roman thought deployed the pair of Latin terms materia and forma in rhetorical, literary, architectural, and moral theory within a theoretical landscape far removed from any Aristotelian commitments. This chapter brings a greater measure of historical depth and conceptual precision to the pre-Machiavellian career of these ideas in classical and Renaissance political thought in order to illuminate what Machiavelli is doing with them, and to show why they should be identified as the theoretical foundation of ‘l’arte dello stato’.

This chapter extends our neo-Aristotelian theory of the firm by arguing that firms exist not merely to minimize transaction costs but also to foster entrepreneurial agency that contributes to human flourishing. Building on the theory-based view of the firm (Felin & Zenger, 2009; 2017), we contend that firms institutionalize eudaimonic efficiency by enabling members to specialize in value creation through collaborative experimentation and moral development. Whereas the Market Failure Approach (MFA) is bound to static efficiency and Pareto optimality, our neo-Aristotelian account emphasizes the dynamic, epistemic role of the firm in discovering new combinations of resources, which markets alone cannot coordinate. Drawing further on McDowell’s notion of Bildung, we argue that the moral formation of employees in the firm involves a range of virtues that support firm innovation, including benevolence, justice, entrepreneurial perceptiveness, and humility. This virtue-based framework offers a rich account of the way managerial authority can be morally justified, namely when it supports employees’ flourishing and the discovery of better ways to meet human needs. In short, firms are moral communities that inculcate and are sustained by virtues that support collaborative innovation.

This introductory chapter situates the book within the fragmented landscape of business ethics scholarship, where MacIntyreans, Habermasians, Rawlsians, and others conduct debates within distinct clusters that seldom engage with one another, or with mainstream management research. We argue that a neo-Aristotelian approach can provide a more integrated view of business ethics by taking seriously the gap between ethical theory and concrete moral agency in the context of the firm. Our methodology employs a form of immanent critique, taking the Market Failure Approach as its starting point but arguing that its commitment to Pareto efficiency must be replaced by an account of eudaimonic efficiency grounded in human flourishing and the virtues. Part I provides the foundations for this critique, grounding the concept of eudaimonic efficiency in an account of human flourishing and introducing market virtues that both mitigate market failures and foster higher levels of efficiency. Part II extends this framework to the firm, drawing on organization theory, strategic management, and corporate governance to show how firms, as moral communities, promote eudaimonic efficiency by fostering collaboration and moral development. Part III examines the role of the virtues in stakeholder deliberations, arguing that such deliberation is a crucial means by which market actors can mitigate harms and rectify injustices that obstruct flourishing.

This chapter seeks to trace the history of On the Parts of Animals (hereafter PA) and the impact it had up to the Byzantine era and Michael of Ephesus, the first systematic commentator of Aristotle’s biological works. The first section examines a variety of works and passages until Galen’s time, delving deeper into the case of the ps.-Aristotelian On Breath. The second section focuses on Galen’s On the Usefulness of the Parts: Despite the fact that Galen argues that this treatise is part of the tradition of the PA, it emerges that Aristotelian zoology is discussed in late antiquity and the Middle Ages based on the study of other zoological treatises (or their epitomes) and not of the PA. The third section examines Michael’s commentary and especially his comments on the marrow and the brain. It is shown that Michael’s scholiastic activity contributes genuinely and substantially to the circulation of Aristotle’s thought in philosophical circles of the time.

In a time of great contest and confusion over the future of democracy as a governing principle, the example of Abraham Lincoln continues to provide encouragement and direction about democracy’s viability in the face of immense challenges. In The Political Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Allen Guelzo brings into one volume Lincoln’s most famous political documents and speeches from his earliest days as a political candidate under the banner of the Whig Party, to his election and service as the first anti-slavery Republican president, from 1861 to 1865, and the nation’s leader in the fiery trial of civil war. While many anthologies of Lincoln’s political documents routinely concentrate on his presidential years or only on his anti-slavery writings, Guelzo concentrates on documents from Lincoln’s earliest political activity as an Illinois state legislator in the 1830s up through his presidency. The result is an accessible resource for students, researchers, and general readers.

The chapter analyzes folk music and performance practices in a contemporary Indian and South Asian context. It covers the meaning and deployment of the term ‘folk’, its wider implications relating to caste, class, and taste, as well as its status in existing practices and scholarship. Whereas colonialists saw folk song as part of the enterprise to understand indigenous minds to better control and administer them, nationalists viewed it as a great resource to reconstruct the nation. After India’s independence, the state along with its middle class tried to institutionalize and appropriate folk song to cater to their tastes, however, it remained largely outside of their control and continues to maintain local and communitarian connections. Adopting a decolonial perspective, this chapter also addresses local hierarchies based on caste and cultural dispossession. Finally, it views folk song and music both as part of everyday life as well as a critique of everyday life that opens up an emancipatory discourse for the future.

Abraham Lincoln was elected to congress as the solitary Whig congressman from Illinois, and proceeded to join his Whig colleagues in the house of representatives in condemning president Polk's conduct of a war with Mexico, in advocating the use of tariffs, and in abolishing the slave trade in the Distfrict of Columbia. He was only marginally successful in these Endeavors, and the Unpopulrity generated by his Oppoistion to the war in Mexico ended any prospect of a renomination to congress. He attempted to win a patronage appointment from newly-elected president Zachary Taylor, but failed even in that effort. He returned to the; Ractioce of law in Illinois, participating ocasionally in Whig politics, until the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act rejuventaed his political energies in oppositionm to the extension of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska territories.

In a time of great contest and confusion over the future of democracy as a governing principle, the example of Abraham Lincoln continues to provide encouragement and direction about democracy’s viability in the face of immense challenges. In The Political Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Allen Guelzo brings into one volume Lincoln’s most famous political documents and speeches from his earliest days as a political candidate under the banner of the Whig Party, to his election and service as the first anti-slavery Republican president, from 1861 to 1865, and the nation’s leader in the fiery trial of civil war. While many anthologies of Lincoln’s political documents routinely concentrate on his presidential years or only on his anti-slavery writings, Guelzo concentrates on documents from Lincoln’s earliest political activity as an Illinois state legislator in the 1830s up through his presidency. The result is an accessible resource for students, researchers, and general readers.

In a time of great contest and confusion over the future of democracy as a governing principle, the example of Abraham Lincoln continues to provide encouragement and direction about democracy’s viability in the face of immense challenges. In The Political Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Allen Guelzo brings into one volume Lincoln’s most famous political documents and speeches from his earliest days as a political candidate under the banner of the Whig Party, to his election and service as the first anti-slavery Republican president, from 1861 to 1865, and the nation’s leader in the fiery trial of civil war. While many anthologies of Lincoln’s political documents routinely concentrate on his presidential years or only on his anti-slavery writings, Guelzo concentrates on documents from Lincoln’s earliest political activity as an Illinois state legislator in the 1830s up through his presidency. The result is an accessible resource for students, researchers, and general readers.

Describes first year in wartime government service.

In a time of great contest and confusion over the future of democracy as a governing principle, the example of Abraham Lincoln continues to provide encouragement and direction about democracy’s viability in the face of immense challenges. In The Political Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Allen Guelzo brings into one volume Lincoln’s most famous political documents and speeches from his earliest days as a political candidate under the banner of the Whig Party, to his election and service as the first anti-slavery Republican president, from 1861 to 1865, and the nation’s leader in the fiery trial of civil war. While many anthologies of Lincoln’s political documents routinely concentrate on his presidential years or only on his anti-slavery writings, Guelzo concentrates on documents from Lincoln’s earliest political activity as an Illinois state legislator in the 1830s up through his presidency. The result is an accessible resource for students, researchers, and general readers.