Towards a Postmodern Understanding of Business Ethics
In this chapter, a postmodern ethics is introduced as an alternative to the primarily modernist normative basis of business ethics. The study supports an affirmative view of postmodernism, in which value judgements are deemed possible, despite not being u
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Towards a Postmodern Understanding of Business Ethics
Abstract In this chapter, a postmodern ethics is introduced as an alternative to the primarily modernist normative basis of business ethics. The study supports an affirmative view of postmodernism, in which value judgements are deemed possible, despite not being universally justifiable. In fact, the description provided of postmodernism in this chapter serves to discredit universalism by drawing attention to the provisional, reflexive, contingent, and emergent nature of meaning and knowledge. On a postmodern reading, it is impossible to defend the rigid factvalue distinction (which also divides the fields of business ethics) because – according to this reading – ethics can neither be grounded in a transparent, objective and predictable reality, nor be justified by an appeal to a priori normative categories (since these categories are contextualised within specific practices). Postmodernism therefore has a distinctive anti-foundational slant, which has been the target of much criticism in business ethics, and which poses problems for institutionalising ethics as is explained in this chapter. The radical challenge that postmodernism poses to modernist accounts of ethics cannot however be ignored, and, as such, we need to find productive strategies for taking up the postmodern challenge. Introductory remarks concerning the conceptualisation of such strategies are also presented in this chapter.
Introduction One of the defining characteristics of the post-Enron world in which we live is the increased focus on business ethics. Today, there are few MBA programmes that do not include ethical and governance issues as part of their curricula, many professional bodies have mandated courses in business ethics, and good corporate governance and sustainable business practices are central to what is viewed as successful business. At face value, the focus on business ethics seems to represent a positive development: one that can potentially restore public trust in business dealings.
M. Woermann, On the (Im)Possibility of Business Ethics, Issues in Business Ethics 37, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5131-6_1, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
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1 Towards a Postmodern Understanding of Business Ethics
However, three quarters of a decade after Enron filed for bankruptcy, the world experienced the largest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The world is still reeling from the aftermath of the crisis and the near-global recession that followed, and although there is much debate about what caused the crisis, how best to recover from the crisis, and how to avoid a similar future financial disaster, one thing is clear: the recent focus on business ethics did very little to prevent the crisis. Consequently, many are feeling either despondent or cynical about the role that business ethics can play in tempering capitalism. For those who take a more sober stance on the matter, the relative failure of business ethics is not so surprising. In many instances, the turn
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