This essay addresses directions for the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division from the perspective of “Back to the Future.” The author was chair of the SIM Division in 1983 to 1984 and the 1989 recipient of the SIM Division’s Sumner Marcus Distinguished Service Award. The essay reviews the general history of SIM during the 1960s and 1970s in which the University of California, Berkeley, played a key role in organizing conferences. The author explains his approach as an applied empiricist (...) to research concerning SIM. The essentials are power, legitimacy, responsibility, rationality, and values, and understanding how they impact the ongoing day-to-day interactions within, between, and among business organizations, their leadership, and other sectors of society. SIM is a field of diverse inquiry which has been the recipient of perspectives and persons drawn not only from multiple disciplines, particularly from the social sciences, law, and management, but also from the humanities and sciences. SIM is patently multi- and inter-disciplinary. (shrink)

In the opening lines of Aristophanes' Acharnians, Dicaeopolis counts first among his greatest joys ‘the five talents Cleon coughed up’, and he professes his love of the Knights for this service ‘worthy of Hellas’. The ancient scholiast gave what he thought an obvious explanation from Theopompus : he tells us that Cleon was accused of taking bribes to lighten the tribute of the islanders, and he was then fined ‘because of the outrage against the Knights’. Evidently Theopompus connected the charges (...) against Cleon with some earlier proceedings instigated by Cleon against the Cavalry. There is, as often, some difficulty in determining what Theopompus said and what the scholiast inferred, and, aside from that editorial problem, the scholiast's all-too-simple solution faces at least three major objections regarding the legal and political implications of such a trial. On the strength of such objections it was long ago supposed that Dicaeopolis rejoices not at a recent political defeat for the demagogue, but in recalling a theatrical expose in Babylonians of the previous year. This theory of a stage trial, however, encounters obstacles of its own in any reconstruction of the lost play. In recent work there have been many comments but no altogether satisfactory solution on this problem. It is the view of many that Cleon indeed suffered some political defeat in the year preceding Ach.; but, by this approach, ingenious solutions are required to make sense of the scholia. The assumption of a stage-trial, involving the Knights and Cleon in Babylonians, is still found persuasive by others, but if we are to discount the fragment of Theopompus, which has supporting testimony elsewhere in the scholiastic tradition, we would like to have something more than mere inference that Cleon was tried and convicted in Babylonians. The purpose of this paper is to find a more cogent explanation for these lines in Ach. and the equally puzzling scenario in Theopompus. It will be helpful to begin with the broad outlines of the problem , and then proceed to re-examine the prevailing views, the stage-trial theory and historical theories based upon the scholia. (shrink)

Abstract:Phillips and Margolis argue that moral philosophy is a poor basis for business ethics, but their narrow view of moral philosophy would exclude Aristotle, for one. They criticize me for assimilating states and organizations in using the Rawlsian device, but they put too much faith in Rawls’s distinction between states and voluntary organizations and pay too little attention to the continuities between them. Their plea for a conceptually autonomous ethics for organizations I interpret as reasonable and largely compatible with my (...) own stated opinion. (shrink)

To teach that being ethical requires knowing foundational ethical principles – or, as Socrates claimed, airtight definitions of ethical terms – is to invite cynicism among students, for students discover that no such principles can be found. Aristotle differs from Socrates in claiming that ethics is about virtues primarily, and that one can be virtuous without having the sort of knowledge that characterizes mathematics or natural science. Aristotle is able to demonstrate that ethics and self-interest may overlap, that ethics is (...) largely compatible with common sense, and that Aristotle’s virtuous person can make ethical decisions rationally. Case studies can help students improve their ethical perception and keep their values from being overwhelmed by corporate culture. (shrink)

We typically test norms with reference to their usefulness in dealing with social problems and issues, though sometimes we use hypernorms to evaluate them. The hypernorms that we find most acceptable do not guide action in the way local norms do. They do, however, raise challenging questions that we should ask in evaluating any practice and its associated norms. In this respect, they differ from the principles associated with traditional, as opposed to modern, morality. As societies become more alike, in (...) part as a result of globalization, they will face increasingly similar problems. Then their local norms will be more similar, and they will be more likely to share hypernorms. Insofar as we can agree to try to justify our hypernorms, we are likely to converge on the hypernorms characteristic of modern rather than traditional morality. But people are often attached to their old norms and so are not very good at seeing how hypernorms raise questions that challenge the old norms. Here moral imagination should aid in the adjustment process. A system of democratic capitalism is hospitable to a good kind of moral convergence. (shrink)

During the past decade many individuals have sought to create a connection between their work persona and their religious/spiritual persona. Management education has a legitimate role to play in introducing teachings drawn from our religious traditions into business ethics and other courses. Thereby, we can help prepare students to consider the possibility that business endeavors, spirituality and religious commitment can be inextricable parts of a coherent life.

It may be nearly impossible to use standard principles to make a decision about a complex ethical case. The best decision, say virtue ethicists in the Aristotelian tradition, is often one that is made by a person of good character who knows the salient facts of the case and can frame the situation appropriately. In this respect ethical decisions and strategic decisions are similar. Rationality plays a role in good ethical decision-making, but virtue ethicists emphasize the importance of intuitions and (...) emotions as well.Virtue ethics suggests a reconciliation of the factual and the normative. Virtues may explain as well as justify actions. The same is true of other psychological states and events. That psychological terms have normative implications does not render them useless in explanation. As Aristotle does not distinguish cleanly between the normative and empirical, so many moral philosophers today reject the is-ought dichotomy. They are prepared to learn from economists, psychologists, and other empirical scientists who offer information about the nature of the good life and of values. Social psychologists who study community or corporate culture suggest a close relationship between organizational and ethical features, much as Aristotle saw a close relationship between politics and ethics. We should infer from all this that in business ethics there is good reason for philosophers and organization scholars to work closely together. (shrink)

If social scientists take natural science as a model, they may err in their predictions and may offer facile ethical views. Maclntyre assails them for this, but he is unduly pessimistic about business, and in rejecting the separation thesis he raises some difficulties about naturalism.Aristotle's views of the good life and of the close relationship between internal and external goods provide a corrective to Maclntyre, and in fact suggest how virtues can support social capital and thus prevail within and among (...) firms in competitive markets. Aristotle's views are not necessarily inimical to those underlying modern democratic capitalism, but they raise questions about the limits to the good life. The separation thesis misses the importance of addressing the questions with both empirical and ethical resources. (shrink)

Abstract:There is good reason to take a virtue-based approach to business ethics. Moral principles are fairly useful in assessing actions, but understanding how moral people behave and how they become moral requires reference to virtues, some of which are important in business. We must go beyond virtues and refer to character, of which virtues are components, to grasp the relationship between moral assessment and psychological explanation. Virtues and other character traits are closely related to (in technical terms, they supervene on) (...) personality traits postulated by personality psychologists. They may therefore be featured in respectable psychological explanations. But good character fits no familiar psychological pattern. A person of good character is sufficiently self-aware and rational that his or her virtues are not accompanied by the vices that psychologists find usually associated with them. A course in business ethics can help develop this self-awareness, which a good life in business requires. (shrink)

Abstract:A complex organization is in effect a commons, which supervisory techniques cannot preserve from free riding. A corporate culture strong enough to create the requisite community-minded second-order desires and beliefs may be morally illegitimate. What morality requires is not local enforcement of foundational moral principles—a futile undertaking—but that the organization be a good community in that it permits the disaffected to exit, encourages reflective consideration of morality and the good life, and creates appropriate loyalty.

Christopher McMahon links political theory and business ethics and thereby takes the latter to a new level of philosophical sophistication. McMahon argues that legitimate authority, political or managerial, characteristically preempts certain of one’s judgments, so that one may reasonably submit to a directive to do something that contravenes one’s principles. Authoritative preemption does not involve weighing reasons pro and con, as one who is considering breaking a promise must do: it disqualifies competing considerations.

In this paper, I examine the thought of Descartes and Spinoza regarding the immortality of the soul. I conclude that Descartes’s argument(s) for the immortality of the soul—or at least the argument(s) that one can construct based on Descartes’s texts—are disappointing, and that Spinoza’s thought on the soul and its relation to the body leaves little room for the traditional doctrine of personal immortality.