Scott Kelley

Becoming the New Operating System

Scott Kelley — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 15:03:35 PDT

Like their non-religious counterparts, institutions of Catholic higher education are becoming more interested in the notion of sustainability. Much more than merely "greening" their campuses, however, Catholic colleges and universities have the opportunity to become a living laboratory for the "new operating system" that environmentalists like Paul Hawken are demanding.

Making Decisions Based on Mission and Values

Scott Kelley — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 09:25:54 PDT

Subsidiarity: challenging the top down bias

Scott Kelley — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 09:22:38 PDT

Global poverty has received significant attention in the past decade, particularly after the adoption of the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals in 2002. Commentators and ethicists like Peter Singer have long held that the wealthy of the world have an obligation to help the poor. While the sentiments may be positive, there are real harms that have come from this kind of top down thinking. Subsidiarity, to the contrary, is a much more realistic and morally tenable approach to global poverty.

What must be done? DePaul as Sustainable Learning Community

Scott Kelley — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:01:27 PDT

In light of the challenges we face as human beings on a planet that is increasingly hot, flat, and crowded, we must revisit what it means to be an institution of higher education. Students exposed from a young age to concerns about social issues and the environment are looking for educational opportunities that will enable them to pursue meaningful careers to address them. As a leading educational institution in Chicago, DePaul has the opportunity to further implement its mission to educate members of all sectors of society in sustainable practices for our changing times. Living up to the motto it adopted in 1954, viam sapientiae monstrabo tibi, DePaul can truly be the way to wisdom that so many are seeking. It is with these pressing challenges in mind that we offer this white paper.

Formal existential ethics in the thought of Bernard Lonergan and Ignatius of Loyola

Scott Kelley — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:16:18 PDT

The underlying, operative question of my entire project concerns the formal relationship of ‘spirituality’ to ethics. I contend that spiritual experience is normative for ethics: one’s elected worldview orders feeling-values according to an appropriated scale of preference. To analyze the normative influence of spirituality on feeling-values, I begin by defining the term spirituality and then use an article written by Karl Rahner as a framework for identifying a particular form of ethics. I then examine the thought of Bernard Lonergan for an adequate account of subjectivity. With a viable anthropology in place, I examine Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises to help understand the normative function of spiritual experience. I conclude with a case study from Dorothy Day’s The Long Loneliness that illustrates the way spiritual experience is normative for moral-decision making.

Started as Customer: Confessions of a Business Ethics Teacher

Scott Kelley — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 08:16:20 PST

Speaking of Mission

Scott Kelley — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:33:37 PDT

A monthly podcast interview with members of the Vincentian family about the mission and vision of Vincent de Paul

Subsidiarity and Global Poverty: Development from Below Upwards

Scott Kelley — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:20:09 PDT

In early November of 2007 DePaul University hosted the 14th annual International Vincentian Business Ethics conference which addressed the topic of globalization and poverty. As a Catholic, Vincentian University it is quite fitting that DePaul would host such a conference. But, poverty studies are nothing new to many universities; in fact Chicago is home to the Joint Center for Poverty Research, a collaborative endeavor between Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, which has been examining pover- ty-related issues since 1996. if some, or even many, universities engage in poverty studies, is there anything unique about such endeavors at a Catholic, Vincentian University in light of its mission and/or heritage? Beneath the surface of engaging in poverty studies in any capacity, however, some approaches may be more attuned to a Catholic, Vincentian mission than others. Thus, there remains an important question: what does the Catholic, Vincentian heritage have to offer poverty studies at a university that values its mission?

To address this challenge, I will examine three perspectives on poverty alleviation: the first from a contemporary debate between two popular development economists; the second from the principle of subsidiarity from Catholic social teaching; and the third from the legacy of Frederick Ozanam. I Will conclude by identifying several exciting contemporary approaches that are particularly suited to the study of poverty alleviation at a Catholic, Vincentian University.

Alleviating Poverty Through Profitable Partnerships: Globalization, Markets and Economic Well-Being

patricia werhane et al. — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:48:47 PDT

In this book, the authors approach poverty alleviation from an atypical perspective. The thesis is that poverty can be reduced, if not eradicated, both locally and globally, but this will occur only if we change our shared narratives about global free enterprise, and only if we recalibrate our mindsets regarding how poverty issues are most effectively addressed. They argue that poverty amelioration cannot be effected by the traditional means employed during the last century—foreign aid from developed nations and/or from non-profit international organizations. Rather, the authors present evidence which demonstrates that a mindset embracing initiatives developed by global corporations in response to the poverty challenge is significantly more effective. Global companies can alleviate poverty by seizing market opportunities at the Base of the economic Pyramid (BoP) with the implementation of three key processes: moral imagination, systems thinking, and deep dialogue.

The End of Foreign Aid as We Know It: The Profitable Alleviation of Poverty in A Globalized Economy

scott kelley et al. — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:48:47 PDT

This chapter defends the following thesis: Poverty can be alleviated, if not eradicated, both locally and globally, but only if we change our narratives about global free enterprise and only if we rethink our mindsets regarding how poverty issues are is most effectively addressed. The chapter begins with an overview of the current state of the economic landscape with particular focus on – and criticism of –the failures of strategies employed since the middle of the last century. We then explore how a transfer of roles and responsibilities for global poverty from these traditional development practices to innovative, private, for-profit organizations will result in appropriate incentives, stakeholder interest maximization and the potential for the eradication of both poverty and the unfulfilled needs of the abject poor. We exemplify the power of the for-profit model through case studies based on both actual experiences and economic assumptions, as discussed in the chapter.

Saint Vincent de Paul and the Mission of the Institute for Business & Professional Ethics: Why Companies Should Care about Poverty

patricia werhane et al. — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:48:46 PDT

In 2006, following St. Vincent of DePaul’s commitment to serving the poor, the IBPE aligned its mission with that of DePaul University’s: “serving first-generation and underserved student populations and …addressing social issues.” This initiative was further promoted by DePaul’s new strategic plan, Vision Twenty12. As a result, IBPE enhanced its mission to include becoming a catalyst aimed to inspire companies to address the reduction of poverty both globally and locally through for-profit initiatives. There are many dimensions to the achievement of this mission, including teaching, research, and community outreach; and the Institute is just beginning this lifetime set of projects. As an academic institution, however, the Institute realized that, first, it needed to develop strong philosophical arguments justifying and supporting this goal. With that in mind we have developed a series of thought-provoking papers. This article summarizes some of this thinking.

Profit, Partnerships and the Global Common Good

scott kelley et al. — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:48:46 PDT

The chapter considers the reduction of poverty through for-profit initiatives, with a critique of global corporations that take goods and services out of the "bottom of the pyramid" rather than developing new markets that provide new jobs as well as export products and services. Thus, the common good is served through economic empowerment without having to appeal to global philanthropy. An inversion of intuitive thinking is proposed whereby models for for-profit initiatives are considered that will contribute to the common good rather than using a notion of the common good to inspire global companies.