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In their essay on recent work in ethical theory and the implications this has for business ethics, Denis Arnold, Robert Audi and Matt Zwolinski aim to provide us with scholarly resources for our own deliberation rather than seeking to persuade us of any one particular view. Thus, while neo-Kantian sympathies are in evidence in parts, there is much else besides, and the essay makes a significant further contribution to other work in the area of normative theory and business ethics?see Smith 2009, for example.

The discussion of master-principle theories of morality and their having been superseded by pluralist/particularist approaches, with which the essay begins, has echoes of the rigour/relevance debate in management research. In the rigour/relevance debate the ?Mode 2? model of knowledge production involves a constant to-and-fro between theory and practice, engages practitioners at the point of discovery, and is therefore contextspecific. This is in contrast to the ?Mode 1? model where there is an operational gap between a theoretical core and its apphcation, the latter occurring ?downstream? of its production. In Mode 1 the theoretical core?s central endeavour is essentially universalisation and thus theory is primary. Pluralism and particularism clearly share many of the characteristics of Mode 2 knowledge production but importantly, as the authors stress, this does not involve discarding theory. On this basis ethical theory would not be prior to its application, or handed down from above, but co-generated. The authors address this explicitly in the second main section. Setting aside virtue ethics, Kantianism and utilitarianism (the ?big three?), here the authors? emphasis on intuitionism draws on a ?particularistic pluralism? in identifying ten prima facie duties. These are claimed to be based on common sense ethical standards ?that thoughtful educated people find intuitive.? They argue that these need no justification from ethical business but also note their compatibility with Kantianism in particular.

This, then, is a putative exercise in Mode 2 knowledge production, even if it is closer to a thought experiment than a piece of empirical work. The key point is that this approach does not privilege theory over practice by assuming that theory, in some sense, comes first. But if that is an appropriate way of conceptualising how ethics and practice might interact, then one might ask what ethical theory has to leam, in particular, from business. Business ethics is, of course, constantly vulnerable to the ?levels? question: is it simply the application of ethical theory to individuals in their capacity as employees in, or managers or owners of, business enterprises; or is it also about business organizations as moral agents in themselves ?Indeed, Maclntyre , in one of his very occasional sorties into business ethics, has suggested that ethical issues for business are all at the organizational level?at the individual level ?lying, cheating, stealing and bribery are wrong in precisely the same way for corporate executives as they are for professors or garbage collectors? . An opportunity seems, then, to have been lost to draw out at least part of business ethics? (or, more generally, organization ethics?) particular contribution to ethical theory.

This approach to (business) ethics may have something in common with the ?reflective equilibrium? that the authors suggest is the outcome of common sense intuitionism, but virtue ethics might have offered an altemative way of approaching this.

Source: http://finance2business.com/business-articles/business-ethics-article/

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