Can Business Ethics and Political Ethics Close/Narrow the Gap Between Morality and Economic Development-Power?

Abstract

Can business ethics and political ethics solve the problems in business and politics caused by people's lifelong pursuit of economic and political power throughout their lives? This study, which we have built around this question, basically aims to present an analysis of the ethical violations and problems encountered in business and politics, two important areas of human experience, and the ethical emphasis developed to prevent them. In business; working, doing business, trading and pursuing pure profit and taking these as ends in themselves raise a wide variety of ethical problems in society and business life. There have been some recommendations of business ethics to solve these problems. In politics, on the other hand, we also face problems caused by the notion that public morality can be ignored, lies can be told when necessary, and any path that leads to political goals can be considered legitimate. This article argues that it is not possible to fully solve moral violations and problems in the fields of economy and politics with business ethics and political ethics. This is because the understanding of morality / ethics and human understanding underlies these problems is problematic. Utilitarianism, which was developed in the 17th century and is the moral philosophy of the English-speaking world, was formulated by Bentham and Mill and takes into account the general benefit of society on the basis of pleasure. It is an approach that does not see virtues, which are the backbone of morality, as essential because it accepts social interest and pleasure as the basis. Again, an understanding of humanity that sees people as beings with pure ambition and egoism, such idea that regards man is a wolf to man, and that is based on the motto that big fish eats the litle, is an understanding of humanity that excludes the altruism, which is characteristic of morality. If we want to fundamentally solve ethical problems in the fields of economics and politics, we need an approach that considers virtues and altruism as essential. This study emphasizes that the understanding of virtue of Aristotle and Islamic philosophers should be taken as a basis in solving problems in the field of economics and politics. It concludes that elements such as property, wealth and position, which are also at stake in the fields of economy and politics, have instrumental rather than values. Our article is a problem-oriented, partly systematic analysis, compilation article. Our study is based on the idea of shaping economic and political life from the perspective of virtue ethics.