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Managing Ethically Cultural Diversity: Learning from Thomas Aquinas

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Abstract

Cultural diversity is an inescapable reality and a concern in many businesses where it can often raise ethical questions and dilemmas. This paper aims to offer suggestions to certain problems facing managers in dealing with cultural diversity through the inspiration of Thomas Aquinas. Although he may be perceived as a voice from the distant past, we can still find in his writings helpful and original ideas and criteria. He welcomes cultural differences as a part of the perfection of the universe. His systemic approach leads one to place the problem in its proper context, and to reflect on it from the perspective of virtue ethics, with a central role for practical wisdom and giving primacy to neighborly love and natural moral law. Rather than a set of rigid standards with no consideration of diversity Aquinas focuses on the common human ground, which allows for the indispensable dialogue between different positions. When dealing with practical questions, the problem is one of finding the right balance between general principle and cultural specifics, tolerance, and dialogue, always guided by practical wisdom. In this way, Aquinas’ approach is neither rigid ethical universalism with no consideration for diversity nor moral relativism with no place for any transcultural and absolute morals.

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Notes

  1. This may be seen as an application of the motto Alfred Marshall used in his 1919 classic Industry and Trade: “The many in the one, the one in the many” (Marshall 1919, p. 1).

  2. See, e.g., Code of Conduct of Canada Deloite: http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-Canada/Local%20Assets/Documents/Code%20of%20Conduct.pdf Accessed on January 31, 2013.

  3. See Aquinas 1981, I–II, 1, particularly article 6, on “Whether man ordains all to the last end?”.

  4. The general principle here is: “a just judge regards causes, not persons.” (Aquinas 1981, II-II 63, 1).

  5. This may remind us of the necessity to imitate the patience of the Divine Providence, which “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Bible, Matthew 5: 45).

  6. Particularly, Commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (In decem libros Ethicorum expositio) (Aquinas 1993 [1271–1272]); Summa Theologica (Summa Theologiae) (1981, 2nd part [1273]); Summa contra gentiles (1997, 3rd part [1261–1263]).

  7. That is truth about the means to the attainment of the rightly-desired End (note in the Rackham’s translation of Nicomachean Ethics).

  8. He affirms that “two kinds of precepts are not reckoned among the precepts of the Decalogue: viz. first general principles, for they need no further promulgation after being once imprinted on the natural reason to which they are self-evident; as, for instance, that one should do evil to no man, and other similar principles: and again those which the careful reflection of wise men shows to be in accord with reason; since the people receive these principles from God, through being taught by wise men.” (1981, I-II, 100, 3).

  9. For a brief presentation of the present state of the debate on natural law theory see, among many others, George (1999) and Biggar and Black (2000), Murphy (2008), and the International Theological Commission (2009).

  10. As G. K. Chesterton puts is “A false ghost disproves the reality of ghosts exactly as much as a forged banknote disproves the existence of the Bank of England—if anything, it proves its existence” (Chesterton 1908, Chapter IX, p. 160). The same may said about the violation of natural law, which proves more than disproves its existence.

  11. According to Aquinas, general principles of the natural law, in the abstract, cannot be blotted out from men’s hearts. But “natural law is blotted out in the case of a particular action, in so far as reason is hindered from applying the general principle to a particular point of practice, on account of concupiscence or some other passion” In addition, “the secondary precepts, the natural law can be blotted out from the human heart, either by evil persuasions, just as in speculative matters errors occur in respect of necessary conclusions; or by vicious customs and corrupt habits, as among some men, theft, and even unnatural vices (…) were not esteemed sinful.” (Aquinas 1981, I-II 94, 6).

  12. Thus, Apple Supplier Code of Conduct explicitly quotes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and one of the sources and has as its first rule: “Suppliers must uphold the human rights of workers, and treat them with dignity and respect as understood by the international community.” A different question is whether or not this is applied in some cases or situations. Thus, Apple has been accused by The Economist of having lied regarding its activities in China (Anonymous 2012).

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  1. CLSBE Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Palma de Cima, 1649-023, Lisbon, Portugal

    João César das Neves

  2. IESE Business School Av Pearson, 21, 08034, Barcelona, Spain

    Domènec Melé

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  1. João César das Neves
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Correspondence to João César das Neves.

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das Neves, J.C., Melé, D. Managing Ethically Cultural Diversity: Learning from Thomas Aquinas. J Bus Ethics 116, 769–780 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1820-1

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