Abstract
How can moral theory be applied to the human actions, institutions, and practices in business? Popular methods from sociology, psychology, economics, and other business school disciplines often fail because they aim at empirical truth rather than normative guidance. Researchers often err in simple ways that reflect the naturalistic fallacy and use descriptive evidence to arrive at normative conclusions. Moreover, simple methods of applying moral theories to business, methods that use standard theories such as consequentialism and deontology, fail for lack of precision. This chapter outlines three methods for successfully analyzing problems in business ethics, namely, (1) “reflective equilibrium,” (2) guiding (or “regulative”) ideals, and (3) thought experiments.
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Donaldson, T. (2022). How Methods of Moral Philosophy Inform Business. In: Neesham, C., Reihlen, M., Schoeneborn, D. (eds) Handbook of Philosophy of Management. Handbooks in Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76606-1_12
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