The Kings’s Fear of the Chackmate

Abstract

The article analyses the economic ethics of Karl Homann in context with the Beck-Zabeck-dispute which seems to be resumed in the research community of vocational, business, and economic education (Berufs- und Wirtschaftspädagogik). The analysis of Homann’s normative ethics with economic method leads to the result that the application of this ethics in the sense of a so called Betriebsmoral (particular business ethics) sensu Karl Beck should be refused as an ethic foundation of reflexive education. A normative ethic systematically and essentially based on selfish instrumental rationality contradicts the fundamental ideas of pedagogy based on the entity of the human being as a social and individual, mental and material being, following responsible autonomy, participation, and solidarity.