Symposia
The Cranlana Programme offers a range of two-day symposia designed to foster dialogue, enhance understanding and provide opportunities for creative thinking around issues of importance within Australian society. The symposia largely draw upon key Colloquium themes and explore issues concerned with justice, democracy, power and ethics, and the role of business in society.
In 2011 symposia will address the following topics:
Justice and Society
(pdf 2176kb)Is justice possible? Do we believe the rule of law to be good because it is just, or is it just because we think it is good? To what degree is our understanding of justice determined by the laws under which we live? Are there certain universal requirements that any just law or constitution must fulfil? While such questions are not confined to liberal democracy, and are as old as the political order itself, many commentators today believe that fundamental concepts of justice are failing to be incorporated into our social, economic and political arrangements.
John Rawls, the foremost theorist in the moral philosophy of justice, argues that 'justice is the first virtue of social institutions... and the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or the calculus of social interests'. According to Rawls, it is impossible to have a just society without a base of guaranteed moral rights. Is this true? What are those guaranteed moral rights?
Through this important symposium, the Cranlana Programme offers senior participants from federal and state governments, the judiciary, the private sector, churches and community organisations the opportunity to explore the meaning of justice in the contemporary world, the basic issues that frame life in a civilised democratic society, and ways by which individuals and their governments should approach fundamental questions of justice.
Dates for the Justice and Society Symposium are:
Monday 14 – Tuesday 15 November 2011
The venue is Cranlana, Melbourne.
Professor Martin Krygier and Dr David Neal SC will moderate this Symposium.
Business and Society
What is the proper and accountable role of the corporation in wealth creation? How do society's values sustain the operation of business in society and what are the reciprocal responsibilities of business in society? What are the moral and ethical frameworks within which individual and organisational responsibilities can be examined?
Whilst there is growing acceptance within business of concepts such as licence to operate and the need to balance shareholder and stakeholder value, there is a need for further examination of the leadership challenges and ethical dilemmas that arise at the intersection between business and society. Business leaders are increasingly required to make difficult decisions balancing competing demands of equity and efficiency and community and profit maximisation.
Through this important Symposium, The Cranlana Programme is inviting senior participants from the business sector and federal and state governments to examine and reflect on concepts, principles and competing perspectives central to the responsible conduct of business in society.
Participants in the Symposium will focus on:
- the legal, moral and societal frameworks within which business operates
- personal and organisational ethics and their application within a business setting
- a practical examination of ethical dilemmas in business.
Dates for 2012 Symposia
Justice and Society 2012 Thursday 22 - Friday 23 November 2012 Business and Society 2012 Dates to be confirmed Medicine and Society 2012 Dates to be confirmed
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