Replies and reflections on theology and business ethics

Abstract

In presenting business ethics as a field of philo sophical research and in characterizing four theological approaches to moral issues in busi ness, I attempted to solicit from theologians their views of business ethics and their ideas of the unique contribution theologians might make to the field. The responses show that contemporary theology is broader, richer, more diverse, and less traditional than my characterization indi cates. But if theology is taken so broadly that it includes all commitments to values, then it includes much that has been traditionally con sidered philosophy. Such a broad view of theology erases the distinction between much of philosophy and theology. It thus dissolves the question of whether theology has any unique contribution to make to business ethics. Philosophers will generally deny the extension of the theological domain to include philosophy. Nor do most of the papers in this symposium accept this assimilation of philosophy by theology. A few of the papers also reject any attempt to equate all rational approaches to ethics with philosophy, leaving for theology only revelation and perhaps a-rational approaches to ethics. They correctly insist that reason has a role in theology ? a claim that I do not deny. None of the papers asserts that there is a separate field of theological business ethics. All implicitly deny that there is a separate field of philosophical business ethics. Whether or not the individual authors believe there is a field of business ethics at all is difficult to determine. Professor Camenish mounts the clearest attack on my claims about the field of business ethics and about the role of philosophers in that field. His paper helps point up some of the differences as well as some of the similarities between our positions. Hence it is to his paper that I turn first.