In this essay, I explore the prospects for a virtue ethic approach to business. First, I delineate two fundamental criteria that I believe must be met for any such approach to be viable: viz., the virtues must be exercised for the sake of the good of one’s life as a unitary whole (contra role-morality approaches) and for the common good of the communities of which one is a part as well as the individual good of their members (contra egoist approaches). (...) Second, I argue that these two criteria can be met only if we are able to reconceive and transform the nature of work within contemporary business organizations. In particular, what is needed, I argue, is a retrieval of something like the older ideal of work as a “vocation”, or “calling”, whereby work can be viewed as a specific aspect of a more general calling to pursue, through the practice of the virtues, “the good life” both for ourselves and for others. Lastly, I consider some important challenges to this “vocational virtue ethic” approach to work within contemporary business organizations and offer a few suggestions for how they might be met. (shrink)

Vocational ethics and vocational moral socialization are important for the business ethical climate in a given country and in a given industry, but have not received attention in the literature. Our article suggests vocational ethics as a legitimate sub-specialty for business ethics research and development. The article addresses the exposure of vocational students to a combination of vocational school-based and workplace-based socialization, and outlines an agenda for teaching-oriented research and research-based teaching. More specifically, we first draft a conceptual frame of (...) reference and then report results and experiences from a scenario-based pilot study at one of the biggest vocational schools in the country. As a third step such a preliminary situation analysis inspires a number of suggestions for how one could start with developing this field, practically, empirically and theoretically. (shrink)

This study focused specifically on determining the extent to which duration of vocational training influence university respectively. In achieving this, two research questions were raised and two research hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The pop study include a total of 123 baking business and 208 computer business centres in the Area. Out of this population, a proportionate stratified sampling technique was used to select 10% resulting in the selection of 12 baking (...) and 21 computer adopted to select 36 and 63 graduate respectively, resulting in a sample of 99 respondents. A rating scale was used as the instrument for data collection. The instrument was administered by the researchers. The data obtained, were analysed using descriptive statistics, while the hypotheses were tested at .05 level of significance using one analysis of variance (One vocational training influenced university graduates job performance in baking and computer business enterprises respectively. Discussions, conclusion and recommendation were all made based on the findings of the study. (shrink)

Vocational education and training (VET) finds itself in an ever-deepening crisis – both in Flanders and internationally. Attendance is dwindling, labour market shortages persist, and VET is increasingly viewed as an unattractive educational path. Dominant responses frame this as an economic issue. Yet, these instrumental perspectives rarely consider what is educational about vocational labour itself. While critiques exist, few address concrete vocational practices as educational environments in their own right. This article engages with the work of Oskar Negt and Alexander (...) Kluge – particularly Geschichte und Eigensinn (1981) – to explore how vocational labour practices can function as sites of education. Drawing on their concept of Eigensinn [obstinacy], it argues for a shift in how we understand labour as educational. Using Flemish youth work as an example of a vocational labour environment, this article shows show how everyday labour practices can express forms of resistance, transformation, and suspension that are educationally significant. This reveals that obstinacy is not only possible but already occurs in everyday labour practice. Ultimately, this article calls for VET research to take such obstinate practices seriously as essential and everyday expressions of people living together in new and educational ways. By attending to this obstinacy in research, we can develop more concrete and critical understandings of vocational labour as spaces where individuals learn how to live and move together, here and now. (shrink)

Background: At a time when British nursing has been under scrutiny for an apparent lack of compassion in education and practice, this paper based offers a perspective on the notions of vocation and altruism in nursing. Objectives: To understand the vocational and altruistic motivations of nurses through the application of Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of ‘symbolic capital’, ‘field’ and ‘habitus’ through a long interview with nurse respondents. Research design: A reflexive qualitative study was undertaken using the long interview. A thematic (...) analysis of the data, using a qualitative data software package for analysis, was undertaken. The ideas of Pierre Bourdieu (Habitus, Capital and Field) were used to analyse and explain the content of community nurses' ‘talk’. Participants: Twelve Community Nurses working in a variety of local primary care settings volunteered to participate in the study. It was a self-selecting convenience sample of nurses responding to an invitation to be interviewed. Research context: A study in support of a doctoral thesis conducted within NHS primary care settings with registered nurses. Ethical considerations: The key considerations for this study were to be mindful of the possibility of emotional harm or distress being caused to the respondents during the retelling of their experiences. It was also essential to ensure that the locations or names of patients or staff (if discussed) were anonymised. Ethical approval was sought and granted by both the Local NHS Primary Care and the University Ethics committees before the study commenced. Findings: The nurse respondents had highly individual and at times contradictory views on their motivations to nurse including their views on vocation and altruism in nursing careers. Discussion: Bourdieu's ideas apply well to the nursing context and provided a useful theoretical framework to explore the social and cultural influences on nursing careers. Gender is important consideration in all aspects of nursing but class and educational experience is an important dimension in the stories nurses tell. Conclusion: The culturally determined experiences of these nurses in practice offer an authentic and realistic insight into the complex motives and predispositions of community nurses. This paper argues that nurse motivations whether vocational or altruistic, are better understood as culturally, rather than spiritually, driven. (shrink)

In a market economy, members of professions—or at least those for whom their profession is a vocation—are vulnerable to a distinctive kind of objectionable exploitation, namely the exploitation of their vocational commitment. That they are vulnerable in this way arises out of central features both of professions and of a market economy. And, for certain professions—the care professions—this exploitation is particularly objectionable, since, for these professions, the exploitation at issue is not only exploitation of the professional’s vocational commitment but (...) also of her even more basic commitment to morality. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Vocational‐Academic Distinctions Criticisms of the Vocational Education/General Education Dichotomy The Front‐end Model and its Increasing Problems Vocational Education and Training: Developments and Strategies Conclusion: Enhancing Vocational Studies.

Thomas Aquinas’ account of religious vocation has been interpreted as involving a qualified duty, where ordinary people fall short of living up to the moral ideal of becoming a monk or nun. Such an account of religious vocation makes a hash of Aquinas’ thought and misses important aspects of his ethics. Aquinas holds that religious life is praiseworthy, but not morally required, because there are multiple sources of normativity. I conclude by proposing that, while elements of Aquinas’ notion (...) of supererogation might be shared with other traditions in virtue ethics, his theological commitments are central to his notion of supererogation. (shrink)

This paper offers a new philosophical account of vocations as deeply personal but at the same time also communal and generational forms of multimodal intending. It provides a reconstruction and a systematic development of Edmund Husserl’s scattered discussions on vocations. On these grounds, the paper argues that vocational life is a general human possibility and not determined by any set of material values, religious, epistemic or moral. Rather, vocations are distinguished from other complexes of intentional acts and attitudes by certain (...) structural features of their core valuations and volitions. (shrink)

Although the language of vocation was born in a religious context, the contributors in this volume demonstrate that it has now taken root within the broad framework of higher education and has become intertwined with a wide range of concerns. This volume makes a compelling case for vocational reflection and discernment in undergraduate education today, arguing that it will encourage faculty and students alike to venture out of their narrow disciplinary specializations and to reflect on larger questions of meaning (...) and purpose. In conversation with a growing range of scholarly resources, these essays advance the cause of vocational reflection and discernment well beyond its occasional mention in general education courses and career placement offices. The book's thirteen contributors all work in higher education, but they do so as biologists and musicians, sociologists and engineers, doctors and lawyers, college presidents and deans, and scholars of history, literature, and business administration. Together, they demonstrate that vocation has an important role to play across the entire range of traditional academic disciplines and applied fields. Regardless of major, all undergraduates need to consider their current and future responsibilities, determine the stories they will live by, and discover resources for addressing the tensions that will inevitably arise among their multiple callings. Vocation across the Academy will help to reframe current debates about the purpose of higher education. It underscores the important role that colleges and universities can play in encouraging students to reflect more deeply on life's most persistent questions and to consider how they might best contribute to the common good. (shrink)

Monograph describing the theoretical basis and curriculum development of the hibernia experimental school, combining vocational education with general education and located in the ruhr region of Germany, Federal Republic - in light of rudolf steiner's integrated approach to education, traces its evolution from factory training unit to an integrated comprehensive school, reviews the structure of practical education, and applies pedagogics of steiner's "study of man" to the process of learning. Bibliography pp. 191 to 196 and diagrams.

_Contents:_ Translator's Introduction_ Selected Bibliography Note on the Text _ The Vocation of Man__ Preface Book One: Doubt Book Two: Knowledge Book Three: Faith.

ABSTRACT One strand of the church's conversation about homosexuality compares present‐day acceptance of homosexuals to the church's acceptance of Gentiles in Acts 15. In a previous article, “Gentiles and Homosexuals,” I presented the history of that strand. In a reply to my article, Olson proposes to reimagine the analogy via the “radical new perspective on Paul” and argues that doing so exposes problems with my original analysis. I defend myself against these criticisms, while also entering into the spirit of Olson's (...) reimagined analogy. Expanding the scope beyond Acts to Paul opens up important facets that might otherwise be obscured. In particular, it includes voices that are sometimes silenced, and presses both sides for an account of sexuality grounded in vocation and God's purposes in creation. (shrink)

This essay recognizes the fact that human beings are created for a purpose, and this is referred to as the human vocation. The essay examines how the text of Genesis 2-3 presents this vocation and its ecological dimensions with implications for eco-theology in Africa. The aim is to provide a theological contribution to the contemporary ecological problems with particular reference to the African continent. Contemporary Africa is faced with a myriad of problems emanating from the way people treat (...) the environment. The essay argues that eco-theology can provide a contextual theological framework for confronting the ecological challenges of the African continent. The methodology is both descriptive and analytical, and it employs the results of the historical critical method of biblical exegesis. (shrink)

By using the concepts of intrinsicality/extrinsicality as analytic tools, the theology-based nursing theories of Ann Bradshaw and Katie Eriksson are analyzed regarding their explicit and/or implicit understanding of vocation as a motivational factor for nursing. The results show that both theories view intrinsic values as guarantees against reducing nursing practice to mechanistic applications of techniques and as being a way of reinforcing a high ethical standard. The theories explicitly (Bradshaw) or implicitly (Eriksson) advocate a vocational understanding of nursing as (...) being essential for nursing theories. Eriksson's theory has a potential for conceptualizing an understanding of extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors for nursing but one weakness in the theory could be the risk of slipping over to moral judgments where intrinsic factors are valued as being superior to extrinsic. Bradshaw's theory is more complex and explicit in understanding the concept of vocation and is theologically more plausible, although also more confessional. (shrink)

Instead of denying the election of the Hebrews, Spinoza makes it natural and universal, at least as a virtuality, and he treats vocation like a specification of election. In the perspective of an analysis of memory, affects and political strategy, he especially throws light on the nature of the power of a political leader and the articulation of the ingenium of his people with his own ingenium. Finaly, he explains the exceptional character of the singular destiny of Moses, as (...) a symbolic figure of the good politic chief, and allows to think, throw the Hebrew example, what is a collective destiny. (shrink)

What is the purpose of political theoretical endeavour and what methods should the early 21st-century political theorist employ? These questions – which touch on issues which go to the very heart of the vocation of political theory – have become increasingly contentious in recent years. The period since the late 1980s has been one in which theorists have increasingly disagreed not only about conventional matters of normative contention but also about the means by which to seek to resolve them. (...) This article examines a central tension that has characterized that general methodological disagreement, namely the place of empirical inquiry within the repertoire of the professional political theorist. Having carefully examined the contentions of an eclectic range of contributors to the debate, including G.A. Cohen, Alasdair MacIntyre and David Miller, this article argues that efforts either wholly to separate empirical investigation from normative enquiry or to bind the two ever-closer together are fraught with difficulties. It concludes by contending that political theorists ought to take aspects of the empirical political and social sciences extremely seriously while avoiding the temptation to have their normative agenda dictated to them by the contingent pressures of the here and now. (shrink)

Using vocation in its core sense of a call from God to follow a personal path with a definite mission, the author reads Erasmus’ life as the progressive implementation of that heaven-assigned task; he sees no basic discontinuity between Erasmus’ youth as a student of the Brethren of the Common Life, then as an Augustinian canon, and in his independent career as a pious priest busy editing the New Testament and the Church fathers. Even his secular writings, such as (...) the Adages and the Colloquies, breathe the spirit of devotio moderna. His last masterpiece, Ecclesiastes, is a treatise on preaching. (shrink)

The 'ethical commonwealth', the central social element in Kant's account of religion, provides the church, as 'the moral people of God', with a role in establishing a cosmopolitan order of peace. This role functions within an interpretive realignment of Kant's critical project that articulates its central concern as anthropological: critically disciplined reason enables humanity to enact peacemaking as its moral vocation in history. Within this context, politics and religion are not peripheral elements in the critical project. They are, instead, (...) complementary social modalities in which humanity enacts its moral vocation to bring lasting peace among all peoples. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 56, Issue 3, Page 450-466, June 2022.

On 27 September 1943, Hans-Georg Gadamer published a brief but significant article in the conservative newspaper Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten und Handels-Zeitung, entitled ‘Wissenschaft als Beruf. Über den Ruf und Beruf der Wissenschaft in unserer Zeit’ (Science as Vocation: On the Calling and Profession of Science in Our Time). The article, which addressed the problem of the value and status of science and philosophy in the midst of the Second World War, was never reprinted in Gadamer’s work, neither in the (...) ten volumes of his collected writings published by Mohr Siebeck, nor separately in books or journals. I offer here a critical introduction to the context and main contents of this text due to its philosophical, political, and historical relevance. In particular, the introduction analyses Gadamer’s confrontation with his own time through explicit and implicit references to Max Weber’s 1917 lecture, ‘Wissenschaft als Beruf’ (Science as Vocation), and traces echoes in Gadamer’s later works that bear on contemporary challenges. Following that, I present the first English translation of Gadamer’s original German text. (shrink)

Is there a way in which we can have obligations that do not follow from general ethical principles in conjunction with non-normative facts about our situation in the world? I argue for an affirmative answer to this question, based on a divine command theory of vocation. I explore the structure of such a theory, deriving from Kierkegaard the idea that a vocation will normally be closely connected with one’s selfhood, and that it may override other prima facie obligations. (...) Epistemological issues about vocation are also discussed. (shrink)

Background “Vocation” continues to shape how nursing is talked about and valued, yet the term is theoretically underexamined and ethically ambiguous—especially where religious, cultural, and media narratives remain influential. Aim To clarify how vocational discourse operates in Spanish nursing and to reframe “vocation” as ethical praxis rather than romantic duty. Design Theoretical essay supported by a narrative, interpretive review and philosophical analysis (Ortega y Gasset, Marías, Aranguren, and Mena Malet). Synthesis integrates academic literature, public/media representations and primary philosophical (...) sources. Data sources and selection Targeted searches in Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL, and PubMed/MEDLINE, complemented by Spanish databases (e.g., Dialnet/CSIC) and media archives; primary window 2000–2024 with historically justified inclusions. Inclusion focused on explicit uses of “vocation/calling” in nursing or relevant ethical–philosophical accounts. Findings Across four domains—historical–conceptual, nursing scholarship, media narratives, and philosophical–ethical analysis—“vocation” is shown to be polysemic and pragmatically loaded. Heroisation and familialisation tropes elevate admiration but risk normalizing over-availability and masking organizational duties. A practicable reframing treats vocation as cultivable commitment enacted within adequate conditions and shared institutional responsibility. Discussion The analysis links vocational meaning to professional agency, recognition, and justice, moving beyond innate predisposition toward teachable competencies (clinical judgment, collaboration, and prudent limits) and clear organizational obligations. Conclusions Vocation should be understood and taught as ethical praxis. Ethical language and policy must disambiguate “vocation,” pairing public recognition with concrete improvements in contracts, staffing, safety, and pay. Implications for practice/education/policy Boundary setting and safe staffing are ethical requirements; curricula should interrogate vocational rhetoric and cultivate reflective commitment; institutional communications must avoid using “vocation” as a proxy for resourcing. (shrink)

Many democratic citizens, including many Christians, think that separation of religion from the state means the exclusion of religious beliefs from the political process. That view is mistaken. Both democracy and Christian faith, this 2004 book shows, call all Christians to make their beliefs effective in politics. But the discussion here differs from others. Most have trouble relating religion to democratic discussion and debate because they assume that religious differences cannot be publicly debated. Against this majority view, this book argues (...) that Christian faith belongs in politics because it shares with democracy a full commitment to rational pursuit of the truth. The book then develops ideals of justice and the common good Christians should advocate within the democratic process and shows the difference they make for contemporary politics in the United States, focusing specifically on issues of abortion, affirmative action, and economic distribution. (shrink)

Debates about the nature of practical knowledge and its relationship with declarative knowledge have, over the last ten years, been lively. Relatively little has, however, been written about the educational implications of these debates, particularly about the educational implications of the two broad families of positions known respectively as ‘Intellectualism’ and ‘Anti-intellectualism’. Neither has much appeared in the literature about what Ryle called ‘intelligence epithets’ or evaluative elaborations on attributions of know how. Yet the use of intelligence epithets is a (...) central feature of Ryle’s account of knowing how and that account cannot be adequately understood without an appreciation of their importance. The paper will offer a qualified defence of anti-intellectualism about practical knowledge, paying particular attention to the importance of intelligence epithets and, second, argue that anti-intellectualism offers the best opportunity for constructing a rationale for vocational and professional education that gives broad forms of agency, autonomous action and the pursuit of excellence their due place in such programmes. (shrink)

Weber's 'science as a vocation' has often been viewed as a therapeutic concept with no functional significance in the fully bureaucratized and professionalized modern science. However, development in the philosophy of science in the last century, especially the Kuhn thesis of the discontinuity of scientific progress and the Duhem-Quine thesis of underdetermination, shows that Weber's distinction between science as a vocation and science as a profession (career) can potentially answer one of the oldest questions in science studies: What (...) makes scientific breakthroughs possible? (shrink)

The work "Taboos on the teaching vocation" was read by the German social philosopher and representative of critical theory Theodor Adorno as a report on May 21, 1965 at the Berlin Institute for Educational Research. In this report, Adorno considered the socio-psychological and socio-cultural reasons that in the context of Western European culture have historically led to the social emergence of many psychological taboos on the pedagogical work of the school teacher. The philosopher theoretically deduced the dialectical connection between (...) human hostility and disgust for the work of the teacher from the cultural tradition of German society, which historically developed as late bourgeois. A characteristic feature of the attitude of the overly materialistic socio-cultural system was aversion to the work of the teacher as a "hungry job", that is, to a poorly paid profession. Another factor of public disgust for the work of teachers, the philosopher called the socio-cultural tradition of society, which as a closed society willingly practiced physical violence as a means of social coercion. According to this tradition, through the use of violence, the teacher must subordinate students to his authority, subordinate to social and school ideology. The historical result of such dialectics was the socio-cultural distortion of the image of the teacher, the castration of his image in social psychology, his self-alienation from the professional vocation and the ideological elimination of the power of his spirit. As an ideological alternative, Adorno suggested that society, if it consciously seeks democratic change, first of all take into account such young teachers who demonstrate the impulse of their individual spirit in the performance of their profession. According to the philosopher, only the spiritual freedom of such a young educator, a man who is capable of self-understanding, conscious of himself and his vocation, who reflects and is socially active, can democratize schools, devalue society and destroy dehumanized social traditions. First of all – in order to overcome the barbaric tradition of violence. (shrink)

RESUMEN Se descompone y explica en sus elementos básicos el fenómeno de la vocación, en tanto distintivo del ser del hombre, con el objetivo de elaborar una definición. El método utilizado en un primer momento es analítico, y sintético en un momento posterior. La definición así producida es la siguiente: la vocación constituye una forma de vida consciente y voluntaria a la que el sujeto se entrega como su fin último, siempre en el seno de una comunidad y una tradición (...) y en diálogo con estas, y en su sentido estricto incluye el talento. Como fuentes principales se utilizan obras de Eduardo Nicol, Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez y Luis Villoro. El artículo posee relevancia, entre otras razones, por enfocarse en las bases ontológicas y antropológicas del fenómeno que se estudia; por la amplitud y flexibilidad de la definición ofrecida, y porque considera las dimensiones dialógica, comunitaria y tradicional del mismo fenómeno. ABSTRACT Vocation, as the distinctive phenomenon of man's being, is broken down and explained in its basic elements to elaborate a definition. At the first moment, it is used an analytical method, and at a later moment a synthetic one. As a result, vocation constitutes a form of conscious and voluntary life to which the subject is dedicated as a final goal, always inside a community and a tradition and in dialogue with both, and in its strict sense it includes talent. Works of Eduardo Nicol, Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, and Luis Villoro are the main sources. The paper is relevant, among other reasons, by focusing on the ontological and anthropological bases of the studied phenomenon; because of the amplitude and flexibility of the definition offered, and because it takes into account the dialogical, community, and traditional dimensions of it. (shrink)

This article aims to rebut the claim about Dirty Hands in politics and reorient the issue. Allegedly, decent politicians must sometimes do what is right by means that are deeply wrong and they are morally tainted as a result. DH is here rejected as contradictory since there can be no dirtying or guilt given the presumption of ultimate rightness, and politics is demeaned by supposing otherwise. DH is not entailed by moral complexity or conflicting duties or circumstantial regret, and does (...) not hinge on utilitarianism versus deontology. A significant real-world case is explored where DH might seem manifest but is not. With DH dissolved, the refocussed and urgent question involves discerning apt personality-types for politics and its hard cases. The ideal: persons exceptional in being morally conscientious but more tough-minded than tender-hearted. (shrink)

What can one person teach another about living meaningfully? Recent discussions about the relationship between education and finding meaning in life have tended to focus on institutional and curricular matters and, as a consequence, have sidelined the importance of the vocation of teaching. Drawing on Raimond Gaita’s philosophy of education, I suggest that his view of the love of a subject embodied in and demonstrated by teachers illuminates both the nature of leading a meaningful life as well as an (...) important role that education might play in helping students to live meaningfully. I argue that a significant way for teachers to aid students in leading meaningful lives is to show them what it is to love a subject or field of inquiry. (shrink)

To have a vocation is to be called to a life of ongoing participation in the redemptive work of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Being faithful to the vocation we have received requires adopting a stance of continuing alertness, ready to notice, correctly interpret, and effectively respond to the various forms of communication by which God draws us into closer cooperation with the redemptive missions of the Son and the Spirit. In this paper I focus on a (...) particular vehicle by which the divine call is transmitted to us—namely, the God-given desire to know, which we experience whenever we wonder about something, whenever we try to solve a problem, whenever we learn or explore or plan. (shrink)

What drives a politician? The standard answer in political philosophy is Hobbes’ power, strongly supported by Max Weber. However, the emergence of the Putin regime in Russia forces us to theorize the role of economic motivation as looting. We find it in all dictatorships, e.g., Burma. The giant financial economy enhances the private prospects of looting, especially in closed societies.

Carl Schmitt's critique of liberal pluralism (of individuals and associations) was conducted in the name of a different pluralism, a truer pluralism, according to him, namely, the pluralism of equal and sovereign nation-states. His friend/enemy distinction dictates that conflict is the only legitimate model for politics, at least on the international level. By translating Schmitt's theory of politics as conflict into terms derived from the work of Lyotard and Luhmann, this article asks whether Schmitt's concept of the political has any (...) relevance for the contemporary world, especially considering that the liberal pluralism of associations (or social systems) seems to have carried the day. Such a transposition requires that the modern, horizontal structure of operationally closed (but internally bifurcated) social systems be thought of as sovereign states fiercely fighting to maintain their autonomy. Thus, the common battle fought by the anti-modernist, Schmitt, the ultra-modernist, Luhmann, and the post-modernist, Lyotard, is the one against de-differentiation and the expansion of a universalist morality and economy. (shrink)

This study explores the type-based vocational education system from the perspective of China. General education and vocational education are equal types of education in status, but not based on different levels of education in China. Specifically, the connotation of vocational education as type-based education is mainly embodied in ‘three directions’. The outstanding problems of vocational education as a type-based education include ‘four aspects’. Vocational education as a type-based education reform path is considered as ‘four reforms’. We should strengthen management, improve (...) the comprehensive quality of vocational college students and make clear the direction and explore the new path of reform and development of vocational colleges. In addition, we need to optimize investment and make innovations in the system and mechanism of funding for China’s vocational education. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss the role that vocation plays in assessing the proportion of burdens to benefits in end-of-life options. I then look at the case of patients in a persistent vegetative state. What vocational considerations are relevant for persons considering what care to accept should they ever be in a PVS or for those caring for patients in such a state? Ultimately, I argue that the vocational shape of a patient’s life ought not to be a consideration (...) for a caregiver in favor of removing artificial nutrition and hydration. (shrink)

Johann Fichte gave a lecture on The Vocation of the Scholar. The article explores its applicability for the Vocation of the Christian Scholar.

This article examines the discourse of enclosure utilized by Maria de San Jose (1656-1719, Puebla), Jeronima Nava y Saavedra (1669-1727, Bogota), and Francisca Josefa de Castillo (1671-1742, Tunja, Colombia) in their spiritual autobiographies. Despite dissimilar personal vocation narratives, these Hispanic nuns embraced enclosure as a tool of continuing spiritual advancement, both before and after actual profession of monastic vows. They portrayed the cloister simultaneously as connubial bedchamber and isolated hermitage, thus ascribing Baroque religious meaning to ancient anchoritic models through (...) intersecting discourses of desert solitude, redemptive suffering, Eucharistic devotion, and nuptial mysticism. To attain ideal enclosure for self and others, these nuns advocated for reform in New World convents, which often reproduced worldly hierarchies, conflicts, and values. Enclosure, more than a symbolic vow or ecclesiastical mandate, constituted a formative practice that fostered correct action and attitude in nuns’ lives; these women conscientiously sought a cloistered life through which they cultivated holiness and created new spiritual meaning. (shrink)

A critical analysis of the Ukrainian experience of vocational training of personnel is conducted in the work. The statistics data on the number of employees who participated in vocational training activities during 2016-2018 are presented and analyzed. Based on the analysis, the main reasons for the low interest of Ukrainian business owners in the personnel vocational training were identified. In the work, the author also has highlighted the factors that restrain and activate the development of vocational training of personnel at (...) Ukrainian enterprises. In order to increase the efficiency of professional development of personnel at Ukrainian enterprises, the author proposes to use modern methods for this purpose. Because traditional methods do not produce the desired results. Ukrainian enterprises need to invest in staff training, which is the main reserve for improving their performance. (shrink)

Sullivan argues that a central purpose of any university is the facilitation of serious reflection on vocation. He begins with a brief analysis of the multiplicity of purposes jostling for attention in a university. Then he brings out some of the differences between wisdom and knowledge, suggesting that universities should strive to go beyond a concern for developing knowledge, deliberately seeking to promote wisdom among learners. A key feature of a person with wisdom is self-knowledge. Vocation can be (...) understood in both secular and religious ways, with different understandings of vocation among Christians. Suggestions are made for appropriate ways for universities to prompt mature discernment of vocation by students, linking questions about vocation to self-knowledge and building bridges between wisdom and knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore a confrontation between Husserl’s ethical position of vocation and its absolute ought with a feminist ethical position. I argue that Husserl’s ethics has a great deal to offer a feminist ethics by providing for the possibility of an ethics that is particular rather than universal, that recognizes the role of the social through tradition in establishing values and norms without conceding the ethical responsibility of the individual, and that acknowledges the role of both reason (...) and desire in establishing moral values that has the consequence of breaking down the public/private distinction that has reigned in so many ethical theories. In order to make this case, I proceed with a review of Husserl’s position of the absolute ought, some typical criticisms that might be leveled at his position, and finally, responses to those criticisms that show ways in which Husserl’s position can be beneficial to the formulation of a feminist ethics that is inclusive of the emotional aspect of moral valuation, and the particularity of ethical commitments, while providing for a different way of evaluating thinking that accommodates what are usually understood to be “feminine” concerns. In addition to describing Husserl’s position, I show how that position meets some of the expectations for a feminist ethics as put forth by Iris Marion Young and Sara Ruddick. (shrink)