Definition and Introduction
In this discussion, we consider political philosophy as a branch of philosophy studying the way human communities and societies create and maintain various forms of governance for the good of constituent individuals and groups. Governance as a system of conducting the affairs of the polis, i.e., the participating community of citizens, is the basis of society’s political life. Hence, political philosophy is the practice of thinking reflectively about the nature of governance, political institutions, and power, understood as a constitutive factor in the relationship between governing and being governed.
Ontologically, political philosophy is concerned with the nature of political systems and relations, and of the values and principles that may be governing them. Epistemologically, the focus of political philosophy is on the role of knowledge and ideas in...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Boatright JR (2004) Employee governance and the ownership of the firm. Bus Ethics Q 14(1):1–21
Cragg W, Matten D (2011) Ethics, corporations, and governance. J Bus Ethics 102:1): 1–1): 4
Donaldson T, Dunfee TW (1994) Toward a unified conception of business ethics: integrative social contracts theory. Acad Manag Rev 19(2):252–284
Edwards PK (2010) Developing labour process analysis: themes from industrial sociology and future directions. In: Thompson P, Smith C (eds) Working life: renewing labour process analysis. Palgrave, Houndmills, pp 29–46
Foucault M (1975) Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. Vintage Books, New York
Foucault M (1991) Governmentality. In: Burchell G, Gordon C, Miller P (eds) The Foucault effect: studies in governmentality. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 87–104
Foucault M (2000) Power. The essential works of Foucault, vol 3. The New Press, New York
Freeman RE, Harrison JS, Wicks AC, Parmar BL, De Colle S (2010) Stakeholder theory: the state of the art. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Frederick WC (2000) Pragmatism, Nature and Norms. Business and Society Review 105(4):467–479
Friedman M (1970) The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. New York Times Magazine, 13 Sept
Gauthier D (1986) Morals by agreement. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Geare A, Edgar F, McAndrew I (2006) Employment relationships: ideology and HRM practice. Int J Hum Resour Manag 17(7):1190–1208
Greenwood M, Van Buren III HJ (2017) Ideology in HRM scholarship: interrogating the ideological performativity of ‘new unitarism’. J Bus Ethics 142(4):663–678
Habermas J (1987) The theory of communicative action. Beacon Press, Boston
Hobbes T (1651/2009) Leviathan. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Ibarra-Colado E, Clegg SR, Rhodes C, Kornberger M (2006) The ethics of managerial subjectivity. J Bus Ethics 64(1):45–55
Jensen MC, Meckling WH (1979) Rights and production functions: an application to labor-managed firms and codetermination. J Bus 52:469–506
Keane J (2009) The life and death of democracy. Simon and Schuster, London
Locke J (1689/1980) The second treatise of government. Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis
Macklin R, Mathison K (2017) Embedding ethics: dialogic partnerships and communitarian business ethics. J Bus Ethics, 1–13, First Online. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3431-0
Marx K (1867/1995) Capital, vol 1. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Palazzo G, Scherer AG (2006) Corporate legitimacy as deliberation: a communicative framework. J Bus Ethics 66(1):71–88
Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Rossi E (2014) Legitimacy, democracy and public justification: Rawls’ political liberalism versus Gaus’ justificatory liberalism. Res Publica 20(1):9–25
Rousseau JJ (1762/2003) On the social contract. Dover Publications, Mineola
Scherer AG, Palazzo G, Matten D (2014) The business firm as a political actor: a new theory of the firm for a globalized world. Business & Society 53(2):143–156
Thompson P, Vincent S (2010) Labour process theory and critical realism. In: Thompson P, Smith C (eds) Working life: renewing labour process analysis. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, pp 47–69
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Neesham, C., Macklin, R. (2018). Political Philosophy and Business Ethics. In: Poff, D., Michalos, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_174-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_174-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-23514-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-23514-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences