Abstract
To teach that being ethical requires knowing foundational ethical principles – or, as Socrates claimed, airtight definitions of ethical terms – is to invite cynicism among students, for students discover that no such principles can be found. Aristotle differs from Socrates in claiming that ethics is about virtues primarily, and that one can be virtuous without having the sort of knowledge that characterizes mathematics or natural science. Aristotle is able to demonstrate that ethics and self-interest may overlap, that ethics is largely compatible with common sense, and that Aristotle’s virtuous person can make ethical decisions rationally. Case studies can help students improve their ethical perception and keep their values from being overwhelmed by corporate culture.
Edwin M. Hartman is the Peter Schoernfeld Visiting Faculty Fellow Emeritus at the Stem School of New York University. He has degrees from Haverford, Oxford, and Wharton, and a PhD from Princeton. Hartman is author of Organizational Ethics and the Good Life (Oxford).
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Notes
- 1.
Throughout his Physics and Metaphysics Aristotle speaks of substances, including human beings as having form and matter. The central argument of De Anima, Aristotle’s great work on psychology, is that the soul is an instance of form, the body an instance of matter. His science is teleological: he holds that substances move naturally towards their end, a state that is in some way good for them. That end-state for a human being, the best state, essentially involves rationality, of which humans alone are capable. Throughout the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle calls the end-state eudaimonia, which is usually translated ‘happiness’ or, more accurately, ‘flourishing.’ It is a state of good character. As Aristotle considers this state definitive of human beings, he does not want to claim that it is beyond the reach of mere mortals.
- 2.
In my experience and that of college administrators with whom I have discussed these issues over many years, this problem is especially common among students who attend state universities and whose parents are not college graduates.
- 3.
Not only agency theory but most of social contract theory, collective action theory, most versions of the stakeholder approach, and all talk of business and government as devices for achieving mutual advantage seem to presuppose that people are motivated by self-interest of a narrow and simple kind. If this is true, then business ethics is best promoted through incentives designed to ensure compliance. I do not believe that it is true. (My thanks here to Christopher Michaelson, whose work in progress on this issue I have found most helpful.)
- 4.
Some philosophers sympathetic to business (for example, Velasquez, 2001) claim that ethics is about utility, justice, and rights and then go on to argue that free markets are ethical. They provide utility – a lot of it, since they are optimally productive. They provide justice in the sense that one reaps as one sows. They protect rights in the sense that one’s transactions are limited only by one’s resources. But clearly these claims presuppose certain views – typically capitalist views, in fact – of the nature of utility, justice, and rights. What, a socialist might ask, is the basis for those views?
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
Some instructors begin by teaching their students several ethical theories and then ask them, on exams or in class, questions like this: In this situation, what would you do if you were a utilitarian? A justice theorist? A rights theorist? That really is a disaster. (See Derry and Green, 1989.)
- 8.
Wittgenstein (1953, pp. 67–77).
- 9.
So Winter (1971) argued persuasively, using an infinite regress argument
- 10.
Aristotle argues that one’s character is formed by one’s community but that one is nonetheless responsible for one’s character. Though Aristotle is not a strict causal determinist in the modern sense, it is clear that he would not accept that determinism lets the agent off the ethical hook, as Donaldson (2007) seems to think it does. A determinist can hope that a good course in ethics will be one of the causal factors affecting an agent’s behavior.
- 11.
As Alzola (2007) and others have noted, organization theorists sometimes construe mental states or events as dispositions. For a number of reasons that we cannot explore here, that is not a good idea. In any case, it does not make individual statements about mental states and events verifiable or falsifiable; nothing can do that, and it need not be done. To try to operationalize or to give a dispositional analysis of any state or event that characteristically involves rationality is an especially bad idea.
- 12.
See, for example, his discussion of weakness of the will in Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII.
- 13.
One might respond to criticisms of philosophers (Donaldson, 2007) by asking, ironically, who should address questions of right or wrong if not philosophers. Organization theorists, perhaps? To which Rorty (2006) would reply, yes, and psychologists and literary critics and many others. It is an interdisciplinary task.
- 14.
Aristotle today would no doubt extend the point to organizations. What counts as a virtuous employee is determined in part by the requirements of the organization if it is a good organization. If so, then business ethicists ought to be aware of what organization theorists say about the structural and other characteristics of good organizations.
- 15.
To understate, the nature of rationality is a matter of controversy. Rationality has a normative aspect, and differences in definition reflect different views of how we should think.
- 16.
These words, from the beginning of the Shorter Westminster Catechism, are consistent with the unfortunate view of Aristotle, though perhaps not of Socrates, that women are morally inferior to men.
- 17.
It is not absurd, however, to allow that two people of good character might sometimes make different decisions because they have slightly different values. You might believe that justice requires blowing the whistle in a certain case, while I believe that loyalty requires finding some other way to deal with the problem. It may be a matter of what you can live with and I can’t. The difference does not imply that one of us is wrong. But blowing the whistle out of sheer vindictiveness and not blowing the whistle out of sheer cowardice are both wrong.
- 18.
The same is true in epistemology; most philosophers would now say, but they would not infer that skepticism is the right position.
- 19.
See M. Calkins (unpublished) for an application to wide equilibrium to virtue ethics.
- 20.
But remember that geometric accuracy is not possible in ethics.
- 21.
N. Gold (unpublished) includes an acute discussion of this point, and of framing in general.
- 22.
One could write a further article and much more on the subject of how language frames the world. In writing such an article, one would probably discuss the way in which even the simplest reports of our experience are “theory-laden.”
- 23.
Darley (1996) provides evidence that people in a corporate setting may undertake an activity – a cover-up, for example – that will eventually unravel and leave the situation worse than it would have been.
- 24.
Harman (2003) and Doris (2002) argue that most people are so vulnerable that there is no point in taking character seriously. For an opposing view, see Alzola (2007). The question whether factors internal or external to the agent are the real determinants of behavior is an old one. Posed that way, it invites oversimplification. The controversy is a version of the argument about free will vs. determinism. The best answer is this: it depends on the agent. Some people are better at rational self-management than others, and in that sense (the only sense worth worrying about, pace Donaldson 2007) they have more free will. One person rescues the child from the pit bull; another does not, and afterwards wishes that he had. Courage and its lack explain these actions, and it is the courageous person who acts more autonomously.
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Hartman, E.M. (2022). Socratic Questions and Aristotelian Answers: A Virtue-Based Approach to Business Ethics. In: Flynn, G. (eds) Leadership and Business Ethics. Issues in Business Ethics, vol 60. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2111-8_4
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