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2011 | Buch

Humanistic Ethics in the Age of Globality

herausgegeben von: Claus Dierksmeier, Wolfgang Amann, Ernst von Kimakowitz, Heiko Spitzeck, Michael Pirson

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Buchreihe : Humanism in Business Series

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Cultures and moral expectations differ around the globe, and so the management of corporate responsibilities has become increasingly complex. Is there, however, a humanistic consensus that can bridge cultural and ethnic divides and reconcile the diverse and contrary interests of stakeholders world-wide? This book seeks to answer that question.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Introduction

Introduction
Abstract
Globalization was yesterday (Dasgupta and Kiely, 2006). Today we are increasingly facing a world of “globality,” that is, a state of affairs where a global impact of individual actions, local business practices, and national politics is no longer the exception but has become more and more the rule (Carver and Bartelson, 2010). While numerous processes of globalization might still be stopped, and some reversed, the general trend of the developments of the last decades cannot be undone. The reach that globalization, especially economic globalization, has had in the past means that ever more people are faced with living in a state of de facto globality (Sklair, 1991). Whatever the future development of globalization, this emerging state of globality must be addressed, because its distinctive features require particular ways and modes of governance beyond those that characterized the era of the nation state.
Claus Dierksmeier, Wolfgang Amann, Ernst von Kimakowitz, Heiko Spitzeck, Michael Pirson

Pre-modern Theories

Frontmatter
1. Socrates and Plato – Applying Their Humanistic Views to Modern Business
Abstract
In Athens, in the fifth century B.C., a remarkable mind placed the human being at the center of philosophical thought and posed the important question of how a person should live in order to attain happiness. Before Socrates, philosophy had mostly focused on questions about the origin and function of the cosmos. It was with Socrates that philosophy became anthropocentric and began to examine questions about human existence and well- being. His philosophical outlook was based on an introspection of oneself with a view to improving one’s soul and getting closer to moral truth, but it also aimed at a more universal consideration of our existence as members of a moral community.
Ioanna Patsioti-Tsacpounidis
2. Aristotle’s Economic Ethics
Abstract
Aristotle has in recent years enjoyed much attention in business and management journals (Collins, 1987; Dyck and Kleysen, 2001; Solomon, 2004; Wijnberg, 2000). Whether in relation to total quality management (Schoengrund, 1996), knowledge management (Demarest, 1997), crisis management (Darling, 1994), networking (Schonsheck, 2000), in psychological literature on well- being (Waterman, 1990), or as a general reference point for business ethics scholars (for example, Fontrodona and Mele, 2002; Gimbel, 2005; Solomon, 1992; Solomon, 2004; Wijnberg, 2000), Aristotle’s philosophy enjoys enthusiastic attention in the business field. In order to understand the significance of this, it is imperative that we do not isolate the tenets of his business ethics from their wider philosophical context but, rather, explain the former by the latter.
Claus Dierksmeier, Michael Pirson
3. Stoic Humanism
Abstract
The ethics of the Hellenistic era, above all Epicurean and Stoic ethics, are the first examples in history of fundamentally universalistic ethics; that is to say, they no longer presuppose the legal framework, the special tradition, or the daily experience of the Greek polis, and they no longer focus on virtues whose features are gleaned from the contemplation of Greek polis- life. Furthermore, in their ethical aims, claims, challenges, and recommendations they no longer insist on a sharp difference between Greeks and barbarians, lords and commoners, men and women, free men and slaves, rich and poor.
Maximilian Forschner
4. Thomas Aquinas on Business and the Fulfillment of Human Needs
Abstract
In the history of Western thought, Thomas Aquinas is certainly the most influential medieval thinker. His stance on moral questions generally and his views on socio-economic justice in particular provided normative orientation to subsequent Christian thinkers, and they still influence Catholic social teaching, as exemplified in the social encyclicals of the Church. For instance, the latest papal letter, Caritas in Veritate, which addresses the moral challenges to business in the age of globalization, draws heavily upon the moral arguments of Thomas Aquinas. In this chapter, we wish to make Thomas’s stance on the ethics of business intelligible to a readership neither steeped in medieval studies, nor familiar with specifically Christian views on morality
Claus Dierksmeier, Anthony Celano

Modern Positions

Frontmatter
5. Kant’s Humanist Ethics
Abstract
In this chapter we investigate how Kant’s philosophy contributes universalistic arguments in favor of a humanistic ethics. Kant moved the idea of freedom to the center of his philosophy, arguing that from a reflection on the nature of human freedom a self- critical assessment of its morally appropriate use could be gleaned. Therein, that is, in construing his ethics from (subjective) self- reflection rather than from presumed (objective) values, and in construing norms of interpersonal validity from the individual perspective (“bottom- up”) rather than from (“top- down”) references to prearranged ethical or metaphysical orders, lies Kant’s innovation in ethics theory.
Claus Dierksmeier
6. Humanistic Values in German Idealism
Abstract
The tradition of German Idealism was one of the most fertile periods of philosophical activity in Europe. It emerged within the last decade of the eighteenth century in response to the extraordinary advance that Kant’s critical philosophy seemed to promise the human sciences, and lasted well into the mid- nineteenth century. In retrospect, it could be perceived to mark the ultimate development and flourishing of the ideals of the European Enlightenment. Inspired by the earlier revolution within the empirical sciences and Kant’s promise of a similar revolution within the metaphysical sciences, the German Idealists were motivated by unfailing optimism about the power of human reason to resolve not only theoretical questions concerning the nature of the cosmos and the human being’s place within it, but also all practical questions concerning our ethical obligations.
Richard Fincham
7. Marx and Humanism
Abstract
The economic crisis that started in 2008 has aroused new interest in Karl Marx, as he declared the recurrence of economic crises to be an inevitable property of capitalism. In the following, I attempt to examine whether this interest is well- founded. My answer is: Marx can tell us something about how to interpret modern society, but little about the kind of society that we might change the present society into. This answer may seem incompatible with Marx’s famous remark that “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.”1 Doesn’t Marx reject interpretations in favor of practical change? But as Marx produced theory all his life, we cannot reasonably assume this.
Ulrich Steinvorth
8. John Stuart Mill and the Idea of a Stationary State Economy
Abstract
John Stuart Mill was among the nineteenth century’s greatest philosophers. Perhaps best known for his defense of moral utilitarianism and individual liberty, Mill was also a leading economic thinker of his day. His major work on economics, Principles of Political Economy, built upon the insights of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Thomas Malthus in an effort to better systematize the principles of laissez faire economics and explain its “progress in wealth.” Mill also explained, like his predecessors, why laissez faire economics would eventually culminate in what was then called a “stationary state economy,” a condition of economic stagnation whereby a society, having reached the physical limits of economic growth, would simply reproduce wealth by replacing worn- out goods, maintaining capital stocks, and carefully husbanding nonrenewable resources.1
Michael Buckley

Contemporary Philosophy

Frontmatter
9. Habermas and His Communicative Perspective
Abstract
Communication together with (building) trust is a crucial and indispensable ingredient of trade, of “doing” business. In his Spirit of Law the eighteenth- century French philosopher Montesquieu had already referred to the golden rule that no trade is possible without trust. The sociologist Anthony Giddens is a contemporary exponent of the idea that trust is an indispensable ingredient in building coherent communicative communities.1 But is there, within business environments, any awareness of the societal and human fundamentals of communication as constantly used in creating business relationships, negotiating, all kinds of applications of information and communication technologies, letters, informal talks, meetings – in short, communication as the everyday baseline of human interactions? Little by little technical and interrelational communication seems to be becoming the core element of doing and organizing business
Suzan Langenberg
10. Sen and Nussbaum on Human Capabilities in Business
Abstract
In recent years there have been several important critical investigations aimed at overcoming the flaws in economics and business. With regard to economics, different approaches and criticisms have shown that cognitive, ethical, and social limits are always present when agents (and thus economic agents too) make a choice.1 These considerations also tie in with a sharp criticism of the standard notion of rationality and the idea of homo oeconomicus, as they are understood in mainstream economic theory. With regard to business, as well, many inquiries that were focused on the analysis of decision-making within organizations have shown that individual and collective choices are limited or enhanced by ethical, cognitive, and social elements that play a fundamental role in a company’s organization and activity
Benedetta Giovanola
11. Solomon on the Role of Virtue Ethics in Business
Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to outline the main tenets of the Robert C. Solomon’s modern virtue ethics. After a short explication of virtue ethics, I reconstruct the ideas of the “business- oriented” virtue theorist Robert C. Solomon and discuss how they advance a more humane understanding of the business world and how they help improve the often tense relationship between business and the rest of society
Ulrike Kirchengast
12. Wittgenstein and the Challenge of Global Ethics
Abstract
Wittgenstein took ethics extremely seriously. In fact, he took it so seriously that he gave away the bulk of his inherited family fortune to needy artists including the poets Rainer Maria Rilke and Georg Trakl, who he thought might make better use of it than himself as a salaried professor (Monk, 1990, p. 108). Paradoxically, however, he was highly critical of the academization of philosophy in general and of ethics in particular. He therefore did precious little work in ethics, traditionally conceived as an attempt to define the good and/or apply it to specific real- world contexts such as business. This is because for Wittgenstein, ethics is bound up with our natural history. It compels us by being the very lens through which we see the world (Wittgenstein, 1921, § 1, 1.1, 2.04). Hence, “man is the microcosm”(Wittgenstein, 1961, p. 84). As such, philosophy cannot itself discover and lead people to what is good (Wittgenstein, 1980, p. 3e). For we cannot, for Wittgenstein, get by means of language behind the very foundations of common sense.
Julian Friedland

Non-Western and Nontraditional Approaches

Frontmatter
13. Humanistic Values in Indian and Chinese Traditions
Abstract
The main aim of this essay will be to examine humanistic values in the Indian and Chinese philosophical traditions and to argue for the need for an awareness of these positions in business ethics. From the point of view of business, one could doubt the relevance of these traditions. Indian philosophical systems are commonly thought of as preoccupied with otherworldly concerns; moreover, the feudal backdrop of ancient Chinese positions appears unsettling today. Could anything at all, one could ask, be gleaned from them, even in debates which try, for example, to develop transnational ethical norms to guide one’s business conduct? In section four, I will attempt to dispel such doubts.
Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach
14. “African Humanism” and a Case Study from the Swahili Coast
Abstract
Humanism is, by its very nature, a term with transcultural and even universal appeal, as it invokes the inherent qualities supposedly possessed by all members of the human species. Yet what qualifies human beings generally as “human” or even “humane” may differ from one society or cultural framework to another. This applies within Africa as well as outside it. In this paper, I sketch out some comparative features from across the continent, using the term “African humanism” as pragmatic shorthand in which the adjective “African” points to a variety of regional and cultural contexts that qualify and determine the range of visions and versions of humanism that have been meaningful in, or for, Africa (for alternative discussions, see Macamo, 2009, Lategan, 2009).
Kai Kresse

Conclusions

Conclusions
Abstract
Throughout this book, our authors have reconstructed and examined ethical theories from various traditions in search of practicable models for a contemporary humanistic ethics. They had been asked to pay special attention to the interface between business and society because of the enormous impact that economic behavior has upon culture, politics, and the environment. Since the onset of economic globalization, the premises for any and all ethics changed markedly. The traditional ways (such as religious, political, or conventional) and institutions that reinforce and sanction collective values are being rapidly transformed by the forceful dynamics of the global economy. Against this changed background, the perennial question about the good has to be raised anew. In our concluding remarks, we therefore first outline the current configurations a humanistic ethics needs to address, before highlighting the main conclusions of the studies made by our authors.
Claus Dierksmeier, Wolfgang Amann, Ernst von Kimakowitz, Heiko Spitzeck, Michael Pirson
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Humanistic Ethics in the Age of Globality
herausgegeben von
Claus Dierksmeier
Wolfgang Amann
Ernst von Kimakowitz
Heiko Spitzeck
Michael Pirson
Copyright-Jahr
2011
Verlag
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN
978-0-230-31413-9
Print ISBN
978-1-349-32381-4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230314139