Introduction: CSR Education Moving Towards Common Direction

Abstract

In the West, just as much as in Eastern civilisations, a concern for respect and civility, and therefore mutual and complementary development of all the parts involved in an action, has been a philosophical driver for more than two millennia. In a practical way this implies, for the ‘human individual’, that the consideration of others’ realisation and accomplishments are as equal and important as her/his own. As an example of this mutual co-development, European humanistic thinkers have written and reflected about the need of having a humanistic orientation on any social action; in this respect the work of Rousseau (1712–1778) and Montaigne (1533–1592) are especially notable. This line has also been explored more recently by the American philosopher Dewey (1909). Moreover, within this humanistic concern, other philosophers such as Socrates (in Plato's works – 399–384 B.C.) and later Kierkegaard (1851) reflected on the responsibility of action regarding the whole, for which it is necessary to consider the meaning of existence as the representation of the soul – in a spiritual context – that affects this ‘whole’ inter-related development. We talk then about the need to explore the sense of actions, the results pursued and their consequences.

Citation

Crowther, D. and Ahmad, J. (2013), "Introduction: CSR Education Moving Towards Common Direction", Ahmad, J. and Crowther, D. (Ed.) Education and Corporate Social Responsibility International Perspectives (Developments in Corporate Governance and Responsibility, Vol. 4), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2043-0523(2013)0000004003