A Virtue-Based Approach to Business Ethics: Insights from Aristotle and Sociobiology

Abstract

This paper starts from the Aristotelian premise that business people become good business people by doing business well. How do we become good at something, be it a craft, a technical skill, or an intellectual activity? Through practice, habituation, and experience, explains Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics. It is no different where our character is concerned: we become good people by performing good actions. Managers at all levels are no exception to Aristotle’s theory about the importance of practice. Of particular interest here is the fact that business people are called “good” not just because of their amoral, strictly “technical” or managerial skills, but because of a combination of these skills and their moral integrity.