Aristotle,Ethics and Business Organizations

Abstract

I have developed a theoretical framework which I call ‘an Aristotelian approach to business’ to talk about corporations and organizations in general. Although Aristotle is famous largely as an enemy of business, he was the first economist and he might well be called the first business ethicist as well. We can no longer accept the amoral idea that ‘business is business’ (not really a tautology but an excuse for being socially irresponsible and personally insensitive). According to Aristotle, one has to think of oneself as a member of the larger community—the Polis for him, the corporation, the neighborhood, the city or the country (and the world) for us—and strive to excel, to bring out what is best in ourselves and our shared enterprise. What is best in us—our virtues—are in turn defined by that larger community, and there is therefore no ultimate split or antagonism between individual self-interest and the greater public good. The Aristotelian approach to business ethics, rather, begins with the two-pronged idea that it is individual virtue and integrity that count, and that good corporate and social policy encourage and nourish individual virtue and integrity.