Business Ethics as Ideology?

Abstract

Examining moral behaviour in business may be as old as business. Discussing the morality of business is one of the tasks of business ethics linking it to business and to moral philosophy. However, from the standpoint of moral philosophy, the idea of business ethics appears rather unusual. To many, business ethics might even appear as an oxymoron, being closer to business than to moral philosophy. Rather than being firmly associated with moral philosophy, business ethics might carry some connotations to something called ideology. Perhaps the danger of ideology lurks when business ethics exposes itself to losing its moral philosophical rooting. Presenting a rather challenging meta-discussion—a discussion ‘about’ business ethics—the following question emerges: is business ethics an ideology? To approximate this, the paper offers two parts: it separates moral philosophy from ideology and defines ideology by outlining two historical versions of ideology and two modern schools of thoughts. From there a threefold definition of ideology is developed leading to 12 constitutive characteristics. Upon examining standard business ethics textbooks, part two relates business ethics to those standard definitions and the 12 characteristics. A conclusion ascertains whether business ethics leans towards ideology or moral philosophy.