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Voicing Moral Concerns: Yes, But How? The Use of Socratic Dialogue Methodology

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Abstract

After a selective review of relevant literature about teaching business ethics, this paper builds on a summary of Fred Bird’s thoughts about the voicing of moral concerns provided in his book about moral muteness (Bird in The muted conscience, 1996). Socratic dialogue methodology (in the tradition of L. Nelson and G. Heckmann) is then presented and the use of this methodology is examined, for business ethics teaching in general, and for addressing our paper topic in particular. Three short form Socratic dialogues about the paper topic are summarized for illustration, together with preparation and debriefing suggestions for a Socratic dialogue unit as part of a business ethics course. In conclusion, Socratic dialogue design is related to the experiential learning approach, and characterized by a few basic traits, which imply both risks and opportunities for business ethics teaching.

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Notes

  1. See also Bird and Waters 1989, Bird 2005.

  2. The points quoted here are elaborated further in Bird 1996, Chap. 2.

  3. See Brinkmann 2013 for a reconstruction of Bird’s thoughts in 15 theses and for a visualization of their interdependencies.

  4. For a more thorough presentation, see Brinkmann 2015.

  5. L. Nelson and G. Heckmann as university teachers used typically weekly seminars of two or so hours over a whole semester. SD societies such as the German one spend typically a long weekend to a short week, i.e., 3–5 days (in practice, half days, see e.g., http://www.hilosophisch-politische-akademie.de/download/2014/Einladung_2014.pdf). While idealistic supporters spend that much time, voluntarily, there is a discussion about how short SD one should offer for reaching important target groups, without sacrificing the integrity and identity of SD as an in-depth investigation without any time constraints (see e.g., Herestad 2002 or Boers’ and Gronke’s contributions in Brune and Krohn 2005, pp. 15–23).

  6. See in addition presentations such as http://www.sfcp.org.uk/ [Accessed May 28, 2014], classic L. Nelson. http://www.friesian.com/method.htm [Accessed May 28, 2014], van Rossem http://www.dialogism.org/socratic_dialogue_KvRossem.pdf [Accessed May 28, 2014]. The classical texts are by Nelson (1922/1949) and by Heckmann (1981). For introductions to the SD methodology, see e.g., Birnbacher 2010; Hansen 2000; Kessels 1996; Kessels et al. 2009; Krohn 1998.

  7. Cf. Hansen 2000, p. 88, with six criteria for good questions: philosophical, non-empirical, simple wording, not potentially risky/embarrassing to participants, motivating and relevant to all participants, personally exemplifiable for all participants.

  8. Cf. for example, Krohn’s four indispensable features of SD in the Nelson–Heckmann tradition (see http://www.sfcp.org.uk/socratic-dialogue-2/ [Accessed May 28, 2014]. For similar guides, see esp Birnbacher’s rules of procedure (2010, pp. 223–230), summarized in Brinkmann 2015, Table 12.1, or Hansen’s 24 (!) “good advices” for participation in a Socratic dialogue (2000, pp. 116–119).

  9. The importance of experience-sharing and moral sharing can’t be overstated: cf Brinkmann and Sims 2001, p. 177, e.g., with a figure on p. 175.

  10. See for example, Krohn in Brune and Krohn 2005, p. 10 or Hansen 2000, p. 91 with five criteria each for what can be considered good examples stories.

  11. Another way of understanding SD is to read SD process descriptions such as van Hooft 1999; Siebert 2001 (pp. 285–296. 297–299), Saran http://www.sfcp.org.uk/an-example-socratic-dialogue/ [Accessed May 28, 2014], Kessels 1998 (Dismissal ethics), For listings of topics, see e.g., Krohn in Saran and Neisser 2004, pp. 17–18. See also Brinkmann 2015, referring to three self-experienced SD examples.

  12. Philosophizing through Dialogue/Dialogisches Philosophieren, 7th International Conference of PPA, GSP, SFCP and the Institute of Comparative Ethics at the Free University of Berlin.

  13. 4 males, 5 females; 4 Germans, 2 French, 1 Icelander, 1 Swedish, 1 Mexican—no native speakers of English.

  14. The dialogue question in German was “Was sind die Schwierigkeiten beim Äussern moralischer Bedenken?” In both dialogues, there was one facilitator and two of the authors were observers. In the German language dialogue, there were seven female participants and one male; in the English language dialogue five females and three males.

  15. Cf with similar thoughts Pearson and Smith 1986, p. 156 or Thatcher 1986, p. 151.

  16. All the three dialogues described above were among participants with different language backgrounds. In the dialogue in German, the participants had German as a native language or as a second (or third) language. In the two other dialogues, English was used. In the international exchange student dialogue, the selected story was told in English by a German, in the second dialogue, the story was shared in German by a Dutch participant, and in the third one shared in English by a native speaker of English.

  17. See e.g., Beschorner 2006 who compares Bird’s moral conversation approach with discourse business ethics approaches, and/or Gronke 1996 who examines Socratic dialogue methodology in its relation to discourse ethics. About the “counterfactual” (or idealistic, or counter-realistic) presuppositions made in discourse ethics see e.g., Gimmler’s presentation (Gimmler n.d.) or Bohman and Rehg 2014, who present a solid argument in their article about Habermas in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

  18. The distinction between normative and descriptive approaches in business ethics is a standard topic in introductory business ethics courses and textbooks. Their (dialectic) relationship is also and not the least among the traditional grand identity issues within our business ethics community, with trained philosophers and trained social scientists as prima facie experts (see e.g., with several classical papers Business Ethics Quarterly vol 4#2, vol 18#4, and vol 10#1). See Alzola 2011 for a thorough review (84 titles), where clear “separation” versus “integration” theses are presented first, but then transcended by a pragmatic “reconciliation” position, in order to “…preserve the identity of the normative and the descriptive inquiries to business ethics while acknowledging the limitations they reciprocally place on each other…”(2011, p. 31). Or see, perhaps, still Byrne 2002 who in his more or less descriptive review of 141 (!) titles criticizes a widespread tradition of “pro forma” or “ceremonial” references to normative philosophy, and then drafts “future possibilities” for business ethics “beyond its hybrid stage”.

  19. As preparation for a session on descriptive business ethics, one could ask the students to try to visualize and/or to verbalize in prose how (which?) assumed key elements influence one another, e.g., using a traditional dependent variable format (What increases and what decreases the likelihood of voicing a given moral concern?), or looking at the voicing of moral concern as a question of critical success factors for a communication process, in a more or less traditional format, where senders send messages to receivers who then react (or not), and where messages can be understood as a function of their semiotic contexts, i.e., as coded thoughts about referents.

  20. These eight steps are as follows: (1) An honest effort by students to come to class prepared; (2) an acute awareness that we all have moral biases, blind spots, and comfort levels with voicing moral concerns; (3) an open-mindedness by the student to the possibility of learning something from the sharing of stories and working through the SD design process; (4) a willingness to improve current moral language and skills in voicing moral concern; (5) an inclination to listen intently in order to grasp the meaning of other people’s languages for and comfort levels in expressing or voicing their moral concerns; (6) an agreement that sharing, active listening, questioning, clarifying, challenging, exemplifying, and applying ideas are activities to be done in a self- and other-respecting way; (7) a realization that we will frequently get off course in our conversations because a spirit of charity, intellectual curiosity, and even playfulness will characterize many of our discussions, or with David Bromwich’s words (1992): “The good conversation is not truth, or right, or anything else that may come out at the end of it, but the activity itself in its constant relation to life” (pp. 131–132); and (8) an appreciation of the reality that it will take time for us to get to know each other, and a realization that eventually we will find ways to engage in robust, candid, and challenging dialogue.

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Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this article has been presented by the first authors JB and BL at the 2014 EBEN Annual Conference in Berlin, June 2014.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway

    Johannes Brinkmann

  2. The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

    Beate Lindemann

  3. College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA

    Ronald R. Sims

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  1. Johannes Brinkmann
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  2. Beate Lindemann
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  3. Ronald R. Sims
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Correspondence to Johannes Brinkmann.

Appendix (source Bird 1996, p. 239)

Appendix (source Bird 1996, p. 239)

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Brinkmann, J., Lindemann, B. & Sims, R.R. Voicing Moral Concerns: Yes, But How? The Use of Socratic Dialogue Methodology. J Bus Ethics 139, 619–631 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2655-8

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