James Carey
Contact details
- Email: j.w.carey@sms.ed.ac.uk
Background
Before beginning my PhD, I spent five years working as a management consultant specialising in organisation design, culture, and effectiveness. Prior to that, I spent ten years working in the publishing industry.
Undergraduate teaching
I have previously tutored Introduction to History of Philosophy (Spring 2023) and Morality and Value (Autumn 2023).
Research summary
My research is on the nature and use of the concept ‘meaningful work’. I am critical of traditional accounts of meaningful work, and am working to provide an alternative account that might better explain what makes work meaningful. I am interested in how a different understanding of meaningful work might be used to understand the apparent ‘crisis of meaning’ in work-centred societies; explain why the involuntarily unemployed suffer during long-term unemployment; deepen our understanding of why ‘serious leisure’ is important (and importantly work-like); and understand to what extent meaningful work can justify changes to the way we organise labour.
Participant
Novacella Winter School 2nd Edition: Philosophy of Work and Philosophy of Leisure in the Italian Traditions. 10th-14th February 2025.
Reconceiving Business Corporations in Times of Political Contestation. ERC project ‘The Business Corporation as a Political Actor’. 22nd-24th May 2025
Papers delivered
‘Meaningful Work and Meaningful Lives’. Zicklin Center for Normative Business Ethics Workshop Series, The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. 6th December 2024.
‘Meaningful Work, Clarified: How Workplace Democracy Can Make Work ‘Meaningful’ in the Right Way’. Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT) Workshops. Panel: Workplace Democracy and Meaningful Work. 4thto 6th September 2024.
‘Meaningful Work as Recognised Contribution’. 13th Braga Meetings on Ethics and Political Philosophy. Panel 7: Justice in the Workplace, Domination, and Beyond. 15th to 16th June 2023.
‘Meaningful Work as Recognised Contribution’. London Conference in Critical Thought. Panel: Rethinking Work and Career: Resisting the Neoliberal Order. 30th June to 1st July 2023.