Business Ethics

The problem business ethics—as any other applied ethics — is facing to put formal ethical considerations developed a priori into practical use in real-life situations. It becomes apparent that applied ethics in this sense must do more than just reflect on philosophical principles if it is to be of relevance in the dynamically developing real world. This means we must move away from the idea implied by the term “applied ethics” that we can simply take — from whichever source — pure ethics and apply it wherever we like. However, this makes it impossible to separate the ultimate justification of principles from practical implementation in order to solve real ethical problems, as propagated for example by transcendental pragmatics. In applied ethics there is a fundamental relationship between applying valid principles, and criticising and modifying them. In the prescriptive field this relationship exhibits structures similar to those in the field of understanding. Ethics which takes this into consideration can be called “hermeneutical ethics” (Zimmerli 1995). It can resolve the “dilemma of philosophical ethics” (Zimmerli 1990, pp. 205f.): that ethics as a theory for justifying moral norms presupposes that they are factually valid, yet must be able to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate validations. Hermeneutical ethics resolves this dilemma thus: when applying ethical principles, it presupposes their factual validity; when however, testing their suitability in altered situations, it questions it.