In this chapter, we discuss five common misunderstandings about sustainability leadership - we speak of myths - that muddle the discourse and stand in the way of understanding and application. As myths to dissect, we consider the idea that sustainability leadership is all about money, that it is about perfect institutions and that expertise is the key. The idea that morality is fundamental and the narrative that prioritizes innovation are dismissed as myths as well. We look at the implications for leadership functions and roles to emerge in those myths, and try to discern, positively, what we can learn from the myths about the realities of sustainability leadership.

The earth’s shadow darkens the initial Heavens of Dante’s ascent, the shadow waning the nearer a Heaven is to that of the Sun.The inhabitants of the last earth-shadowed Heaven turn to that Heaven hoping to be free from the imperfections of terrestrial existence.But these Heavens’ vestigial earthiness exerts an effect.Each focuses on a particular imperfection: the fragility of moral vows; the defect of human law as a vehicle of justice; and the reign of “mad love.”These produce an urge to transcend this region.

But Dante has readers assess the losses as well as the gains that accrue when we leave our world behind.This assessment puts reason on trial, its inadequacies seeming to sanction reason’s subordination to faith as provided in the vision that beckons above.But these Heavens ask not only whether that’s possible but desirable.Reason’s inadequacies are shown to be inseparable from moral responsibility, from more just politics, and from the desires that generate the Comedy.Asking whether the transcendence of terrestrial existence makes for a happier life, Dante gives readers cause to consider the possibility that these earth-shadowed Heavens are more than merely a necessary step on the way to perfection.

This chapter opens the doors to kitchens and closets to recover how patients treated themselves at home. The chapter introduces a Lincolnshire man who moved to Jamaica in the 1700s to work as an overseer of a sugar plantation and relates how he came to rely on his own homemade treatments for treating his persistent pox. Because so few patients shared such intimate details in writing, the bulk of the chapter pieces together how patients produced and consumed home cures for the disease using 193 handwritten medical recipes, many penned by women. Recipes reveal the tedious and often costly labor of sourcing ingredients and making antivenereals at home. Marginal notes show that patients tried and tested these household cures, and a careful look at language and ingredients shows the moral assumptions embedded in the logic of how they were presumed to work. Long before the establishment of reforming institutions in the nineteenth century, recipes reveal how moral recuperation was a key ingredient of the disease’s cure.

This chapter frames the debate between those who think that Kant’s philosophy of Right is in some way independent from his moral philosophy and those who do not in two ways. First, the chapter argues that Kant recognizes only two forms of practical reason, namely the pure practical reason of morality and the empirical practical reason of prudential self-love, and that if his philosophy of Right is not to be a version of Hobbesian prudence, it can only be a part of morality – namely, the coercively enforceable part. It argues further that the moral foundation of Kant’s philosophy of Right is the innate right to freedom, itself the correlative of our obligation always to treat humanity as an end and never merely as a means, since humanity is equivalent to the ability of each to set his or her own ends, that is, freedom. In the second part of the chapter, it is argued that the duties of individuals and rulers alike to both institute and maintain the civil condition, namely the state, make sense only as moral and indeed ethical duties, although not duties of virtue to promote self-perfection and the happiness of others.

At the heart of this chapter lies the following question: how can the fact that lawful behaviour can be enforced be explained against the background of Kant’s moral philosophy? I argue that without grounding Right in morality we cannot even understand coercion as a normative problem. The reason is that for Kant coercion becomes problematic only vis-à-vis persons, because they – being ends in themselves – can legitimately claim not to be coerced (1). This does not mean, however, that coercion is completely inadmissible according to Kant. For by defining equal, relational freedom as a sphere of non-domination, the law also defines a sphere in which coercion is permissible because it is morally unproblematic and requires no justification (2). Tracing back coercion to the limits of autonomy, however, does not only explain why coercive force is ‘deducible’ from moral autonomy (and the Categorical Imperative as its principle). Even more, this requires us to reconsider whether Kant can consistently argue against the external enforceability of internal perfect duties (e.g. the prohibition of suicide) (3).

This chapter analyzes the “Negro Plot” of New York in 1741, in which numerous black slaves and free people, as well as Catholic whites, were accused of conspiring with and corrupting others to commit a series of arsons in New York City over a bitterly cold winter and amid the threat of war. The chapter shows how corruption accusations surrounding the plot were “promiscuous,” in the sense that, as embedded in the colonial politics of the day, accusations made in terms of corruption escalated to increasingly implausible targets, even as they served to legitimate unlikely accusations. I show that this very promiscuity linked with the construction (and disintegration) of political narratives and official careers and was tethered to moralized visions of social order.

This chapter examines how narratives of corruption are mobilized by two very different political actors in Latin America: marginalized rural farmers and free-market think tank elites. We show that, for each group, corruption is both a central element of political discourse and a tool for shaping state–society relations and advancing particular interests. Their narratives serve to define the boundaries of corruption, interpret the state, and drive and justify political action within changing historical contexts – for Colombian farmers, a state that has become newly consequential to their lives; and for right-wing think tank elites, a left turn in regional politics. The comparison demonstrates that while each group uses similar narratives, their different social positions and networks shape the actions they take in response: Farmers rely on clientelist networks to access the few state resources left to them by elite corruption, while elites engage in a hegemonic struggle against leftist populism. Paradoxically, even while sharing a strikingly similar understanding of corruption, each group condemns the practices of the other as corrupt. This analysis underscores the ubiquity of corruption as a strategic and moralizing tool in Latin American politics.

This chapter addresses three questions that arise from Hume’s observations about character in the Treatise: whether Hume can talk about enduring traits that constitute character, given his depiction of the mind as in flux; whether character is “objective” or a creation of spectators; and whether Hume’s treatment of virtue and vice is only descriptive of how we derive our moral categories. I argue, first, that since Hume distinguishes between the feeling of a motive and its causal efficacy, he can observe that, while feelings may be fluid, character is determined by which has the force to produce action consistently. Second, the contingency of moral categories on human nature is not the same as creation of the features that fall under those categories. Third, Hume both describes our process of moral discrimination and offers guidance about making judgments of virtue and vice. However, he is not defending his view of moral character but employing the norms that arise from human practices.

Mœurs, the second major censorship topic, were cornerstones of how contemporaries shaped their world, especially as regimes changed. This chapter is organized thematically around the topics of love and relationships, titles (especially ‘citoyen’ or the lack thereof), brigands, justice, and false appearances, before concluding with new material on the fate of Le Mariage de Figaro – a play that touches on many of these themes. These examples, which include major comedies as well as works at the Porte Saint Martin, the Gaité, or the Ambigu-Comique, and secondary theatres in the provinces, demonstrate how the state and contemporaries used censorship around the depiction of mœurs to advance their specific view of the world. Interestingly, when it comes to mœurs, the limit of the tolerable where lateral censorship kicks in is often within the legally permissible, revealing a gap between what people wanted and the reality of a new political regime.

This chapter examines how markets influence decisions regarding animals. It begins by analyzing the supply side, focusing on production costs associated with improving animal welfare. It then explores whether markets erode moral considerations and discusses corporate social responsibility strategies, specifically voluntary actions taken by firms to enhance animal welfare.

The other philosopher writing in Kant’s wake who figures prominently in the origins of “continental” philosophy is Hegel. Although many of the seeds of Hegel’s thought were planted by Fichte, Hegel’s works ultimately had far greater direct impact. Hegel was not, however, an ethical or moral philosopher like Fichte. T. H. Irwin plausibly claims, indeed, that Hegel actually denies that moral philosophy is “a distinct discipline.” But Hegel had a massive influence on the history of ethics even so, including on “modern moral philosophy.” Partly this was as a critic, not just of moral philosophy, but also of the modern conception of morality itself. Hegel argues that what he and other moderns call “morality” (Moralität) is a formal abstraction that is incapable of “truth” or “reality.” Moral philosophers who focus on oughts and obligation mistake, in his view, an abstract moment of practical thought for something realizable; they fasten on a desiccated abstraction rather than the “living good” that is embodied in actual modern (liberal) customs and institutions, what Hegel calls “ethical life.” Hegel’s critique of morality begins a tradition that runs through Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche in the nineteenth century and through Anscombe and Bernard Williams in the twentieth.

This chapter analyses compliance motivations and their alignment with existing taxonomies: extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivations, cooperation vs. coercion, and trust-based vs. monitoring-based approaches. It then explores the advantages of voluntary compliance over coerced compliance, both in the short term and in the long term.