Mastery of one’s domain is not the essence of management

I attempt to cast doubt on Beabout’s attempt to build on MacIntyre’s ethical theory by accounting for management as a ‘domain-relative’ practice for three reasons: i) we can partially engage in practices, so if management can be accounted a practice there is no need to invoke domain-relativity; ii) management does not seem to be domain-relative in the same way that other examples of domain-relative practices might be; and iii) practical wisdom, which Beabout sees as key to management as a domain-relative practice, is adequately covered by MacIntyre’s account of politics

In Defence Of Wish Lists: Business Ethics, Professional Ethics, and Ordinary Morality

Business ethics is often understood as a variety of professional ethics, and thus distinct from ordinary morality in an important way. This article seeks to challenge two ways of defending this claim: first, from the nature of business practice, and second, from the contribution of business. The former argument fails because it undermines our ability to rule out a professional-ethics approach to a number of disreputable practices. The latter argument fails because the contribution of business is extrinsic to business in a way that distinguishes from the established professions. The article ultimately suggests we adopt a more aspirational approach to business ethics, which retains an appeal even in the face of charges of anti-capitalist irrelevance

The just world fallacy as a challenge to the business-as-community thesis

The notion that business organizations are akin to Aristotelian political communities has been a central feature of research into virtue ethics in business. In this article, I begin by outlining this “community thesis” and go on to argue that psychological research into the “just world fallacy” presents it with a significant challenge. The just world fallacy undermines our ability to implement an Aristotelian conception of justice, to each as he or she is due, and imperils the relational equality required for shared participation in communities. In the final section, I offer a description of what Aristotelian community might look like within organizations, and some suggestions about how it may be possible to resist the challenge posed by the just world fallacy

On the analogy between business and sport: towards an Aristotelian response to the market failures approach to business ethics

This paper explores the notion that business calls for an adversarial ethic, akin to that of sport. On this view, because of their competitive structure, both sport and business call for behaviours that are contrary to ‘ordinary morality’, and yet are ultimately justified because of the goods they facilitate. I develop three objections to this analogy. Firstly, there is an important qualitative difference between harms risked voluntarily and harms risked involuntarily. Secondly, the goods achieved by adversarial relationships in sport go beyond the function of sport, i.e. to entertain audiences. Thirdly, the most plausible account of the athlete’s motivational development starts with their love of the sport, which can explain a commitment to the sporting ethics in a way that is not paralleled in business. I close by drawing attention to the ways in which an Aristotelian conception of business ethics may be able to accommodate these objections

MacIntyre and Business Ethics

Entry on MacIntyre and Business Ethics forthcoming in Poff, D. C. & Michalos, A. C. (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics. Springer

Totally Administered Heteronomy: Adorno on Work, Leisure, and Politics in the Age of Digital Capitalism

This paper aims to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of Adorno’s thought for business ethicists working in the critical tradition by showing how his critique of modern social life anticipated, and ofers continuing illumination of, recent technological transformations of capitalism. It develops and extrapolates Adorno’s thought regarding three central spheres of modern society, which have seen radical changes in light of recent technological developments: work, in which employee monitoring has become ever more sophisticated and intrusive; leisure consumption, in which the algorithmic developments of the culture industry have paved the way for entertainment products to dominate us; and political discourse, in which social media has exacerbated the anti-democratic tendencies Adorno warned of in the mid-twentieth century. We conclude by presenting, as a rejoinder to these developments, the contours of an Adornian ethics of resistance to the reifcation and dehumanisation of such developments

Work

Entry on Work in M. N. S. Sellars & S. Kirste (Eds.), The Springer Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer

Equal pay as a precondition of justice?

Equality is typically presumed to be an end of justice; however, in this chapter, we argue that it is better understood as a condition of justice. Our argument draws on the Just World Fallacy, the phenomenon of people mistakenly believing fortuitous patterns of reward or harm to be reflective of justice. This phenomenon can undermine relationships of equality even where differences in reward or harm are ostensibly deserved. If everyone received equal pay, then the propensity for people to defer to the more successful or derogate the less successful would be diminished, and thus there would be greater scope for people to enter into the sorts of relationships of equal respect and regard that just communities require