Thucydides’ account of the demise of the Athenian expedition to conquer Sicily appears to vindicate the Spartans’ understanding of that which is human, that is, of the fundamental character and condition of human beings, as one according to which we are morally free beings who are ruled by just gods. However, Thucydides points to grave problems with that understanding, most clearly–but not only–from his account of the Athenian response to the Sicilian disaster through to the end of the book (8.1-109).

Even though Thucydides is the first character to appear in the book, he is extremely reticent in his account of himself in his book as a whole. Although he tells us how he felt at the beginning of the war, when he “hoped” that it would be a great war since Athens and Sparta were, he then believed, both at the peak of their greatness, Thucydides never tells us how he felt at any point later in the war, most notably, when he learned that he was afflicted with the deadly plague; when he failed to defend Amphipolis from Brasidas and was subsequently condemned to exile for twenty years by his fellow Athenians; or when, during his years of exile, his fellow Athenians set out to conquer Sicily.1 However, his book offers glimpses of his character through implicit contrasts with five other characters, all Athenian, whom he resembles: his fellow exile, Alcibiades; the three characters – or groups of characters – who share, in varying ways, his understanding of the fundamental character and condition of human beings – the Athenian ambassadors at Sparta and at Melos, and Diodotus; and the only character in the book who claims to be a lover of wisdom – that is, a philosopher – Pericles (2.40.1). By comparing and contrasting Thucydides with these figures, we may come to see his distinctive nature more clearly.2

Pericles seeks to provide the Athenians with an education that will liberate their natural reason from the constraints of piety and tradition and guide their naturally self-interested passions toward devotion to their community. In this way he hopes to secure for Athens a regime that is based on the natural energy of human beings – the “power of nature” (1.138.3) – rather than on subservience to human and divine law. Thucydides’ account indicates, however, that Pericles’ effort runs afoul of the divisive and violent character of human passion and the abiding power of piety within the human soul and, possibly, beyond it. In this way, Thucydides’ account calls into question whether any political society can be based on the liberation of human nature and hence whether human nature must not be subordinated to a higher power of some kind if political society is to endure and flourish.

The connection between Christianity and the development of Western welfare states is long-standing, albeit somewhat neglected by scholarship. Recent work has suggested the formative influence on the formation of different welfare "regimes" through different Christian ideas of work, need, poverty, and the family, as well as differnt ecclesiologies. The chapter outlines these and proceeds to examine the philsophical connection between social welfare and religion, through the work of Raymond Plant. Plant argues that welfare policy invariably draws on inherently "contestable" social concepts, such as ‘need’, ‘want’, ‘right’, ‘justice’, ‘equality’, and ‘community’. To know what kind of good social policy is pursuing, it is essential to clarify what meaning and weight we accord to such concepts. But doing this demands we have a clear idea of the kind of creatures whose goods we are pursuing. In essence, social welfare theory of this kind rests on anthropological commitments. The chapter illustrates this by reference to Richard Titmuss, Margaret Thatcher, and Frank Field, and in so doing, underlines how this entire debate is open to theological perspectives.

How should we view the relationship between ethics and economics? One of the most salient differences between the two—at least as they are traditionally conceived—involves the different intentions or motivations of agents. They are often regarded as mutually exclusive: ethical motives are other-regarding, while economic ones are self-regarding (and perhaps selfish). If markets give rise to material benefits and, furthermore, those benefits are a consequence of market agents pursuing their self-interest, does that mean we must accept the legitimacy of selfishness or greed? In this chapter we suggest that this picture is too simplistic. We accept that self-interest in the marketplace gives rise to material benefits, and hence we accept forms of behaviour that might elsewhere (in other areas of social life) be condemned, but our analysis shows that morality still has a role to play. This is the moral leeway approach at work, and it involves distinguishing between different varieties of the profit motive.

Chapter 4 shows how The Four Zoas, as an unfinished manuscript, formally registers Blake’s troubled fascination with evolutionary models of the mind. The first section of the chapter compares the images of fluidity associated with Tharmas, who continually emerges from and dissolves into the waves of the unconscious, against Erasmus Darwin’s poetic descriptions of liquid ontogeny. The next section examines how the sexual drive appears in the text as a disruptive fluid force, illustrating and criticising the materialist argument (found in Mandeville and Malthus) that love and altruism are merely the evolutionary products of libidinal self-interest. The final section returns to the textuality of The Four Zoas and shows how the nervous mind and the sinuous text work together to give unreliable body to thought. Comparing Blake’s poetics to that of Erasmus Darwin and Edward Young, the chapter discusses the mimetic qualities of Blake’s revisionary verse and ends with an analysis of the poem’s fantasies of symbolic liberation through physical destruction.

This chapter explores, in a roundabout way, whether Kant’s legal philosophy relies on his mature ethics of autonomy and respect. The normativity of the law must be externally enforced by coercive measures. The proportionate and credible threat that transgressions will be punished acts as a deterrent and make the rights of individuals comparatively secure – the law is occasionally broken. Now, the Kantian state does not concern itself with why in particular citizens break or comply with the law. In that sense, Kant’s philosophy of law does not rely on his ethical theory or moral psychology. But agents must be in a position to comply with the law. They must face a meaningful choice, which can only be secured by the availability of the motive of ethics: respect for the law. Without respect, agents would be exposed to prudential considerations only. Those who break the law take their criminal act to be prudentially justified. Viewed from this limited perspective, their actions turn out to be imprudent if they are punished for them. But punishability and imprudence are different. So, making what the law prohibits properly illegal requires an ethical foundation after all.

This chapter opens with a discussion of the Boeing Company and the 737 MAX safety testing case. It explores the concepts of moral blindness and self-interestedness with reference to Adam Smith’s contribution to ethics from the eighteenth century. We consider the power of description and discuss how this can affect role responsibility though the case of Adolph Eichmann as interpreted by Stanley Milgram. We discuss and analyse the impact on ethics of Michael Walzer’s concept of thick and thin description and we explore the development of training in moral reasoning. The chapter closes with a fuller consideration of Sam Bankman-Fried’s impact on crypto currency with FTX.

This chapter examines the views of Smith, Genovesi, and Kant on the moral principles and motivations of economic actors. Smith’s perspective emphasizes self-interest, the invisible hand, and non-tuism – a concept introduced by his interpreters. In contrast to Smith, Genovesi argues that within the framework of civil economy, self-interest serves as a primary motivation for economic agents, alongside the desire to help one another. According to Genovesi, the moral foundation for economic actors lies in mutual assistance, perceived as intended mutual benefit. Kant’s viewpoint is more aligned with Genovesi’s than with Smith’s. However, for Kant, mutual assistance is not an inherent desire among economic actors but rather a directive of practical reason. Therefore, Kant’s perspective will be expressed through the concept of the duty to uphold the spirit of mutually beneficial contracts.

This chapter analyzes the Republic’s theory of the tripartite soul regarding the question of self-rule and autonomy. Only when the soul is in the ideal position of having reason positioned as sovereign ruler can a person be seen as acting autonomously. But it is not clear that when reason rules, it also motivates actions. Christine M. Korsgaard has argued that personal decision-making should be seen as analogous to political decision-making. She conceives of political decisions as a process where requests for action spring from the people, while rulers suffice to say yes or no. This chapter claims that this analysis is inadequate as a theory of how Plato portrays the relationship between the parts of the soul and of decision-making in general, and offers an alterantive interpreation in terms of what is called the Complex Model of Decision-Making.

The Rich Fool parable entails an implicit contrast between Joseph’s splendid public handling of the grain from superabundant harvests in Egypt and a private individual’s management of his abundance of stored crops. Condemned in the parable, the rich man’s focus on his own prosperity stands in sharp contrast to Joseph’s magnanimous contribution to the wider public’s welfare and the well-being of his own family.

Chapter 3 shifts to the period in which the constitutional debates following the revolution of 1688 gave way to a long period of greater political stability. The Tories were ousted with the coming of the Hanoverian dynasty in 1714, after which the Whigs settled into power under the leadership of Robert Walpole. The chapter first shows how the Whig oligarchy was opposed by a new generation of ‘commonwealthmen’, notably Trenchard and Gordon, and by a more conservative opposition led by Bolingbroke, who appropriated many ‘commonwealth’ themes. Next the chapter surveys the success of the Whigs in countering these opponents and cementing themselves in power. After their triumph over the Jacobite rebellion in 1745 the Whigs presided over an outpouring of patriotic sentiment. They were congratulated for repudiating arbitrary power, granting the people a voice in making the laws and guaranteeing their basic rights, and thereby ensuring that Britian was genuinely a free state.

In Chapter 7, we conclude our reconceptualization of organizational control by discussing new forms of control, novel combinations of existing controls, new challenges to fundamental assumptions, and new forms of organizing – all of which represent promising directions for future organizational control research and practice.