Abstract
This essay is an exploration of some major elements in the ethical theory and moral psychology of Robert C. Solomon. The main context for the discussion is business ethics, an area in which Solomon was a major and frequent contributor for some three decades. Special attention is given to his construction of his own version of Aristotelian virtue ethics. In building his virtue-ethical position, he gave a major place to the psychological aspects of virtue. In particular, he brought out the ethical importance of emotions as at once cognitive and affective and as major elements in both the constitution of virtue and the sustenance of ethical conduct in day-to-day life. The essay explores his treatment of certain virtues, his view of the character traits particularly important for business ethics, and the perennial question whether any virtue ethics is normatively complete.
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- 1.
There is far more to discuss in this wide-ranging essay.
- 2.
That the concept of emotion is vague and that expectations of the kind that express ardent desire have an emotional character are important points, but why strategies come in here I am not sure. Both emotions and trust can figure in strategies; but they do not seem difficult to distinguish from those. In any case, that Solomon might split the difference with me is not a mere conjecture. In a later work (referred to in note 7) he says, of both trust and empathy, that “neither one seems to be an emotion as such” (p. 20).
- 3.
A chapter that is part of a collection posted on the SSRN website in the Economics Research Network at http://papers/ssrn/abstract=927482
- 4.
Ayn Rand is a source, or anyway an influential proponent, of this view. Critical discussion of her treatment of altruism is provided (Audi 2009).
- 5.
As he suggests in Solomon (1992a) in which he says this and that individuality is also “socially situated” (p. 326).
- 6.
For an account of integrity as figuring in business ethics—including some discussion of some of Solomon’s views on the topic, see Audi and Murphy (2006).
- 7.
This essay is dedicated to the memory of Robert C. Solomon. Bob was a friend of mine at the time we were graduate students at the University of Michigan, and we kept in touch through the decades that followed. I recall many discussions during our year of overlap at the University of Texas in the early 1970s, a joint session on emotion at a conference later in the 1970s after I went to the University of Nebraska, at least one visit of Bob’s to Nebraska in the 1980s on which he gave us a essay and lecture in philosophical psychology, another such visit in the 1990s when his topic was medical humanities, and still another when he and Kathy were together and visited in our home. There were also several occasions in the past 20 years or so when I gave essays at the University of Texas, and there Bob was always both an instructive respondent and a lively conversationalist over dinner. We met regularly at meetings of the American Philosophical Association as well as at the Society for Business Ethics, and I was looking forward to closer ties through our increasingly overlapping work in business ethics. I had wanted him to speak at Notre Dame.
References
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Audi, Robert. 1994. Acting from virtue. Mind 104: 449–471.
Audi, Robert. 2006. Practical reasoning and ethical decision. London/New York: Routledge.
Audi, Robert. 2009. Objectivity without egoism: Toward balance in business ethics. The Academy of Management Learning and Education 8: 263–274.
Audi, Robert, and Patrick E. Murphy. 2006. The many faces of integrity. Business Ethics Quarterly 16: 3–21.
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Solomon, Robert C. 1993. The passions: Emotions and the meaning of life. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Solomon, Robert C. 2004. Aristotle, ethics and business organizations. Organization Studies 25: 1021–1043.
Solomon, Robert C. 2006. Free enterprise, sympathy, and virtue. In Moral markets: The critical role of values in the economy, ed. Paul J. Zak, 16–41. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Solomon, Robert C. 2007. Strategic planning – For the good life. In Honest work, ed. Robert C. Solomon, Joanne Ciulla, and Clancy Martin, 106–107. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Solomon, Robert C., and Fernando L. Flores. 1996. Rethinking trust. Business and Professional Ethics Journal 16: 47–76.
Solomon, Robert C., Joanne Ciulla, and Clancy Martin (eds.). 2007. Honest work: A business ethics reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Audi, R. (2012). Virtues, Concepts, and Rules in Business Ethics: Reflections on the Contributions of Robert C. Solomon. In: Higgins, K., Sherman, D. (eds) Passion, Death, and Spirituality. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4650-3_8
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