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Introduction: Ethics and Justice

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Abstract

This book collects my thoughts on the relationship between morality and economics. I have been mulling over this issue for a long time, since the mid 1980s, when I wrote the introduction to a collection of works of seminal importance [1] edited by Hopt and Teubner. It was their work which prompted my research, and its outcome was a number of papers that opened a new stage in my thoughts on this theme [2]. In essence, I realised the need to consider the philosophical dimension of the relationship between morality and the most significant, modern, social aggregate of economic action, that is, the firm.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The reference to E.F. Fama is absolutely necessary: [3]. It was Roberta Garruccio, however, who brought to my attention the historical and theoretical relevance of the transformation that she has described very well in her Prefazione to F. Novara, R. Rozzi, R. Garruccio, Uomini e lavoro all’Olivetti, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2005, pp. 13–14.

  2. 2.

    I will be forever thankful to Bernardo Bortolotti for correcting my original opinion on this work [4] and for helping me understand its importance.

  3. 3.

    One may refer, for example, to Brian Barry’s most recent contribution, see [7].

References

  1. Hopt KJ, Teubner G (eds) (1985) Corporate governance and directors’ liabilities: legal, economic, and sociological analyses on corporate social responsibility. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin (Introduction to the Italian edition by G. Sapelli, Milan, Isvet-Franco Angeli, 1986, pp 11–38)

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  2. Sapelli G (2002) Merci e persone. L’agire morale nell’economia. Con un saggio sulla santità di Adriano Olivetti. Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli

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  3. Fama EF (1980) Agency problems and the theory of the firm. J Pol Econ 88(2):288–307

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  4. Hansmann H (1996) The ownership of enterprise. Harvard University Press, Boston, p 3

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  5. Rawls J (1958) Justice as fairness. Philos Rev 67(2):164–194

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  6. Schneewind JB (1998) L’invention de l’autonomie. Une histoire de la philosophie morale moderne. Nrf Essais Gallimard, Paris. p 619

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  7. Barry B (2005) Why social justice matters. Polity, Cambridge

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Sapelli, G. (2013). Introduction: Ethics and Justice. In: Morality and Corporate Governance: Firm Integrity and Spheres of Justice. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2784-8_1

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