TALKING VIRTUE: PROFESSIONALISM IN BUSINESS AND VIRTUE ETHICS

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, the authors assert that valuable new perspectives on business practice may be gained by placing business in a ethics context. This paper first considers the arguments for viewing business as a profession and, if it may be so regarded, for whether conduct in business should be evaluated by reference to generally accepted standards or whether specific role-based criteria should be used. The usefulness in contexts such as business of talking with its emphasis on telos and character, as opposed to talking rules is examined. It is argued that business as a human practice is properly directed towards the goals of empowerment and transformation of people. A role in business should therefore be defined by reference to virtues which contribute to those goals and therefore to human flourishing. The authors explore what would count as business virtues if such an approach is adopted. They examine some advantages and disadvantages of talking virtue, concluding that virtue ethics greatly enriches the ethics conversation with reference to business. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between ethics and virtue ethics within a business context. If business is not a profession or does not consist of professionals then a core assumption of this paper becomes problematic. Consequently, the authors address this issue immediately in the introductory section. The introduction concludes with two reasons why it is timely to consider how virtue ethics might contribute to business. This paper then goes on to argue that traditional rule-based approaches to ethics should be substituted by a role morality perspective modified by Aristotelian virtue ethics. According to traditional approaches, business practitioners would not be classified as professionals because they fail to meet a set of criteria required for that status. For example, Koehn (Pritchard, 1997) defined status in terms of the desires or wants of clients. Essential elements of this relationship are the professional's desire to do for the client and to tailor the to the particular needs of the client and the public at large. Fullinwider (1996) asserts that, apart from performance for public good (Fullinwider, 1996: p. 73), two further dimensions characterize professionals: firstly, special knowledge and training and secondly, that other people are rendered especially vulnerable or dependent in their relationship to the practice of the professional. Pritchard (1997) claimed that business is an activity that has no defining interest encompassing the of others - no public it aims for. Profit, not philanthropy, is the guiding star of business. Furthermore, parties to a business relationship are not vulnerable as they would be in a traditional relationship (e.g., doctor-patient or lawyer-client). Consequently, business cannot be a profession and many of the roles in business labeled as professional are, in Pritchard's view, so considered erroneously. The authors' view however, is that this can be disputed and that business can now legitimately be considered a activity in many, though not all, senses. As far back as 1912, however, Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis argued that business should be, and to some extent already is, one of the professions. The once meager list of learned professions is being constantly enlarged. Engineering in its many branches already takes ranks beside law, medicine and theology. Forestry and scientific agriculture are securing places of honor. The new professions of manufacturing, of merchandising, of transportation and of finance must soon gain recognition. The establishment of business schools in our universities is a manifestation of the modern conception of business (Brandeis, 1912:p. …

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