Sustainability as an Ethical Aspect of the Theory-Practice Gap in Business Schools

This paper aims to reframe sustainability as an ethical aspect of the theory-practice gap in business and management education for sustainable development,which should be viewed as an integral part of knowledge produced and disseminated in business schools.The paper adopts a narrative approach to review the relevant literature on two streams of research,namely,the theory-practice gap and sustainability in reforming business schools.The synthesis and discussion of the existing literature suggest that while sustainability is frequently viewed with an ethical sentiment,the existing research overlooks its significance in bringing together knowledge and practice in business schools.This paper highlights the potential of sustainability as a theoretical lens in bridging the theory-practice gap in business schools;proposing to rethink the conceptual space that lies in ethics for further theoretical developments.The author urges business and management scholars to engage in burgeoning debates on business school reforms relating to the theory-practice gap and sustainability with an emphasis on ethics.The author contends that the neglected theoretical linkages between the theory-practice gap and sustainability provide fruitful directions for future research.Through a moral lens,business schools can move toward responsible management education for a more sustainable future.

Socrates’ Avowals of Knowledge and the Epistemic Asymmetry of Values

Socrates,taken as the figure in Plato’s so-called early dialogues,famously professes to be ignorant,but the nature and the scope of his ignorance have long been intensely debated and still remain obscure.In this paper,I try to contribute to the relevant discussions by pointing out and interpreting a generally overlooked,yet essential feature of Socrates’avowals of knowledge:in most cases,what Socrates claims to know falls under the category of(what I call)negative,as opposed to positive,ethical knowledge.The distinction between positive ethical knowledge and negative ethical knowledge is as follows:the former involves either definitions of what the good and virtues are,or knowledge that certain particular facts are good and virtuous;the latter refers to the knowledge of what the good and virtues are not,or the knowledge that certain particular facts are bad and evil.It will be argued that Socrates only avows negative ethical knowledge because he recognizes an asymmetry between the knowledge of the good and that of the bad:one may know a fact about the bad without knowing the corresponding fact about the good,but not vice versa.This epistemic asymmetry shows that knowledge of the good is more epistemically demanding than that of the bad,and thus it sheds further light on the scope of Socrates’ignorance and his view of the good and virtue.