Rossiter, Elliot

The principal thesis of this paper is that organizations, especially those affected by automation, require craft-based management to have an engaged and effective workforce. The first premise supporting this thesis is that automation reduces the algorithmic nature of work and increases the non-algorithmic nature of work involving creativity, context-sensitivity, and collaboration. The second premise supporting this thesis is that non-algothmic work cannot be managed through the model of management as craft. In the paper, I examine the nature of non-algorithmic work and craft-based management as an alternative to algorithmic work and scientific management. I conclude by considering some general implications for selecting, organizing, and educating managers.

Cicero argues that an Epicurcan, motivates by personal expediency, will act like a bandit when alone in the desert and presented with opportunity. And this influential view of Epicureanism holds that the Epicurean may behave with the semblance of virtue when the fear of punishment is present; but remove that fear and the Epicurean will be revealed to be no better than a bandit. Should this make the Epicurean blush? Is it really the case that the presence of oppotunity and the removal of possible repercussions will make an Epicurean act unjustly? Cicero certainly holds that the Epicurean's valuation of pleasure as the summum bonum will move him or her to commit injustice in the search for pleasure if it is expedient to do so (or at least that it should so motivate them if they were to act consistently with Epicurean principles).

Dr. Elliot Rossiter (Douglas College) contributed the chapter "Locke and the Jesuits on law and politics" (2019).

Dr. Elliot Rossiter (Douglas College) contributed the chapter "From Experimental Natural Philosophy to Natural Religion: Action and Contemplation in the Early Royal Society" (1st ed., 2019). This chapter explores the ways in which the project of the early Royal Society supported the transformation of religion into a practical and reasonable activity that essentially consists in a kind of natural religion wherein we focus on what can be known about God and our duties through the natural light, understood in terms of an experimental approach to nature. More precisely, Rossiter argues that the natural religion supported by figures in and around the Royal Society subverts the traditional hierarchy between contemplation and action found in the medieval period by subsuming contemplation into action—the fruit of which is a concept of religion that is above all practical. After the Introduction, the second section considers the way in which the ideal of religious contemplation is viewed differently between the Royal Society and earlier medieval perspectives that value speculative theology. He argues that figures in the Royal Society invert the traditional hierarchy found in the medieval period between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa. Instead of seeing action as dispositive and subservient to contemplation, experimental philosophers understand contemplation as an ultimately practical activity oriented toward bettering our condition on this Earth. In the third section, Rossiter shows that the proper contemplation of nature on this view yields evidence of teleological design. Contemplation of nature, then, ultimately has a practical orientation insofar as recognition of divine design in nature is intended to strengthen the conviction that God too has designed human nature for practical ends. In the fourth section, he argues that this serves to yield a ‘de-confessionalised’ conception of religion in which religious knowledge primarily consists in a minimal set of propositions about the world and the divine nature, all of which were verified by experience and oriented toward promoting ethical behaviour. Religion, in this sense, is essentially practical and has no place for contemplation as an end in itself. -- Publisher.

John Locke's comments on experimental natural philosophy can plausibly be seen as a part of the physico-theological project of certain Christian virtuosi of the Royal Society to show that the workings of nature reveal the existence of a providential God. As I make clear, Locke thinks that God providentially designs us with limited epistemic capacities in order to check our pride and to motivate us to seek perfection in God. Locke maintains that a true science of nature is possible, but he is pessimistic about the prospects of realizing such a science, given our epistemic limitations. I argue that this seeming tension can be resolved by appreciating that the horizon for obtaining this science is eschatological. In other words, Locke thinks that we will have a true science of nature in a state of perfection, as God transforms the probable knowledge we have of bodies into certain and comprehensive knowledge.

I argue that God's providential arrangement of pleasure and pain, according to Locke, gives us insight into the ends that God has set for us. And insight into these ends ultimately gives us insight into the content of the natural law. Others have convincingly argued that the moral theory of Locke the hedonist and Locke the natural lawyer represent a coherent whole. The distinctive contribution that I make in this paper is to describe the indicative role that pleasure and pain play in the promulgation of the duties of the natural law.

The focus of my dissertation is a general and comprehensive examination of Locke’s view of divine power. My basic argument is that John Locke is a theological voluntarist in his understanding of God’s creative and providential relationship with the world, including both the natural and moral order. As a voluntarist, Locke holds that God freely imposes both the physical and moral laws of nature onto creation by means of his will: this contrasts with the intellectualist perspective in which the laws of nature emerge from the essences of things. For Locke, there are no intrinsically necessary laws in the created order: both physical and moral laws are arbitrary determinations of the divine will. While these laws are not intrinsically (or absolutely) necessary, they are hypothetically necessary. Hypothetical necessity involves things that could have been otherwise, but which are necessary based on the supposition of a free action and other relevant conditions pertaining to the actor. Concerning God, we can understand hypothetical necessity in the following way: □ [(X & P) → Y]. X is a variable that ranges over a subset of contingent propositions about actions. ‘P’ is the proposition ‘God is perfect’. And Y is any proposition that is a necessary consequent of both X and P. In any possible world in which God (understood as a perfect being) performs X, it is the case that Y will obtain. Supposing that God decides to create beings like us, God must of necessity craft the moral laws of nature in a way that harmonizes with our nature. What grounds this necessity is that God must act consistently with the perfection of the divine nature: to give us a different law would be less than perfect. Furthermore, I argue that certain physical laws of nature – those that help to realize our nature – are also hypothetically necessary.

Jacqueline Lagre's, 'Justus Lipsius and Neostoicism' translated from French by Dr. Elliot Rossiter.