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.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Aristotle (1962) Nicomachean ethics (trans: Ostwald M). Macmillan Publishing Company, New York
Aristotle (1975) The politics of Aristotle (trans: Barker E). Oxford University Press, Oxford
Blachowicz J (1997) Reciprocal justification in science and moral theory. Synthese 110(3):447–468
Blachowicz J (2016) There is no scientific method. The New York Times, 4 July. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/opinion/there-is-no-scientific-method.html
Condorcet N (1976) Condorcet: selected writings, 1st edn. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis
Confucius (1989) The Analects of Confucius (trans: Waley A, 1st Vintage Books edn). Vintage Books, New York
Donaldson T (1982) Corporations and morality. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs
Donaldson T (1989) The ethics of international business. Oxford University Press, New York
Donaldson T, Dunfee TW (1994) Toward a unified conception of business ethics–integrative social contracts theory. Acad Manag Rev 19(2):252–284. https://doi.org/10.2307/258705
Donaldson T, Dunfee TW (1995) Integrative social contracts theory – a communitarian conception of economic ethics. Econ Philos 11(1):85–112
Donaldson T, Dunfee T (1999) Ties that bind: a social contracts approach to business ethics. Harvard Business School Press, Cambridge, MA
Dunfee TW (1991) Business ethics and extant social contracts. Bus Ethics Q 1(1):23–51
Dunfee TW (2006) A critical perspective of integrative social contracts theory: recurring criticisms and next generation research topics. J Bus Ethics 68(3):303–328. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9016-6
Frankena WK (1939) The naturalistic fallacy. Mind 48(192):464–477
Goodman N (1955) Fact, fiction, and forecast. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Habermas J (1973) Theory and practice. Beacon Press, Boston
Habermas J (1984) The theory of communicative action. Beacon Press, Boston
Habermas J (1996) Between facts and norms. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Habermas J (2008) Between naturalism and religion (trans: Cronin C). Polity, Cambridge
Hare RM (1964) The language of morals. Oxford University Press, New York
Hare RM (1993) Objective prescriptions. Philos Issues 4:15–32
Hobbes T (1651) Leviathan; or, the matter, form and power of a commonwealth, ecclesiastical and civil, 1946th edn. Basil Blackwell, Oxford
Hume D (1739) A treatise of human nature being an attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/ECCO?c=1&stp=Author&ste=11&af=BN&ae=T004002&tiPG=1&dd=0&dc=flc&docNum=CW118260024&vrsn=1.0&srchtp=a&d4=0.33&n=10&SU=0LRF&locID=balt85423
Hume D (1777) An enquiry concerning human understanding. A. Millar, London
Kant I (1788) Critique of practical reason (trans: Beck LW, 1956 edn). Library of Liberal Arts, New York
Kant I, Gregor MJ (1996) The metaphysics of morals. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York
Kant I, Paton HJ (1967) The moral law; Kant’s groundwork of the metaphysic of morals. Barnes & Noble, New York
Keeley MC (1988) A social-contract theory of organizations. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame
Khurana R (2007) From higher aims to hired hands: the social transformation of American business schools and the unfulfilled promise of management as a profession. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Kim TW, Donaldson T (2018) Rethinking right: moral epistemology in management research. J Bus Ethics 148(1):5–20
Locke J (1948) The second treatise of civil government and a letter concerning toleration. Basil Blackwell, Oxford
Mill JS (1859) On liberty. J.W. Parker and Son, London
Mill JS (1965) Mill’s ethical writings. Collier, New York
Moore GE (1903) Principia ethica. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
O’Connor JJ, Robertson EF (2004) Newton’s bucket. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Newton_bucket.html, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Newton_bucket.html. Retrieved 18 July 2016
Ohtani H (2010) Putnam’s moral realism. In: Paper presented at the 16th International meeting of Hongo metaphysics club, The University of Tokyo
Passmore JA (1961) Philosophical reasoning. G. Duckworth, London
Pasternack L, Rossi P (2014) Kant’s philosophy of religion. In: Zalta EN (ed) The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, Fall 2014 edn. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/kant-religion/
Plato (1954). The Republic of Plato (trans: Cornford FM, Bouwsma OK). Oxford University Press, London/New York
Popper KR (1959) The logic of scientific discovery. Basic Books, New York
Putnam H (1978) Meaning and the moral sciences. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London/Boston
Putnam H (2004) Ethics without ontology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Rawls J (1999) A theory of justice, Revised edn. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Rousseau J-J (1997) Rousseau – the social contract and other later political writings (trans: Gourevitch V). Oxford University Press, New York
Scanlon TM (1998) What we owe to each other. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Scherer AG (2015) Can hypernorms be justified? Insights from a discourse-ethical perspective. Bus Ethics Q 25(4):489–516
Searle JR (1964) How to derive “ought” from “is”. Philos Rev 73(1):43–58
Sprigge TLS (1964) Definition of a moral judgment. Philosophy 39(150):301–322
Tittle P (2005) What if – : collected thought experiments in philosophy. Pearson/Longman, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Donaldson, T. (2019). How Methods of Moral Philosophy Inform Business. In: Neesham, C., Segal, S. (eds) Handbook of Philosophy of Management. Handbooks in Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48352-8_12-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48352-8_12-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-48352-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-48352-8
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities