Abstract

One of the achievements of R. Jeurissen’s text is to have presented business ethics as a factor for social integration in a world where accelerating change is opposing this with a substantial risk of disintegration. Taking up Habermas’s distinction between, on the one hand, a systemic, anonymous and forced integration through power or money and, on the other hand, a voluntary and communicative integration implying negotiation, agreement, initiative and responsibility, Jeurissen emphasizes the social costs and the obstacles to systemic integration, and indicates the need for an integration based on exchange, communication and a reduction of responsibilities.Business ethics should play a leading role in achieving this second form of integration. In seeking to articulate the economic choices surrounding moral values and rules, business ethics provides business people with a stimulus to give meaning to all their various activities — including economic activity — to recognize their values and those of others, and to create the conditions for social integration through exchange and responsibility