Virtue Ethics Perspective Research Articles

East Meets West: Toward a Universal Ethic of Virtue for Global Business

Rudyard Kipling famously penned, “East is East, West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” His poetic line suggests that Eastern and Western cultures are irreconcilably different and that their members engage in fundamentally incommensurable ethical practices. This paper argues that differing cultures do not necessarily operate by incommensurable moral principles. On the contrary, if we adopt a virtue ethics perspective, we discover that East and West are always meeting because their virtues share a natural basis and structure. This article sketches the rudiments of what a universal virtue ethic might look like. Such an ethic is especially relevant and valuable in this era of global business.

Reconsidering Virtue: Differences of Perspective in Virtue Ethics and the Positive Social Sciences

This paper describes differences in two perspectives on the idea of virtue as a theoretical foundation for positive organizational ethics (POE). The virtue ethics perspective is grounded in the philosophical tradition, has classical roots, and focuses attention on virtue as a property of character. The positive social science perspective is a recent movement (e.g., positive psychology and positive organizational scholarship) that has implications for POE. The positive social science movement operationalizes virtue through an empirical lens that emphasizes virtuous behaviors. From a virtue ethics perspective, a behaviorally based account of virtue is a weak theory of virtue. Observations are suggested for integrating the two perspectives. First, virtue should always be understood as an excellence and is often an optimal point between extreme dysfunctions on continuum of potential states. Second, an empirical exploration of virtue needs to account for character and context. Finally, the properties of organization-level virtue need to be further specified and explored. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Managing Ethically Cultural Diversity: Learning from Thomas Aquinas

Cultural diversity is an inescapable reality and a concern in many businesses where it can often raise ethical questions and dilemmas. This paper aims to offer suggestions to certain problems facing managers in dealing with cultural diversity through the inspiration of Thomas Aquinas. Although he may be perceived as a voice from the distant past, we can still find in his writings helpful and original ideas and criteria. He welcomes cultural differences as a part of the perfection of the universe. His systemic approach leads one to place the problem in its proper context, and to reflect on it from the perspective of virtue ethics, with a central role for practical wisdom and giving primacy to neighborly love and natural moral law. Rather than a set of rigid standards with no consideration of diversity Aquinas focuses on the common human ground, which allows for the indispensable dialogue between different positions. When dealing with practical questions, the problem is one of finding the right balance between general principle and cultural specifics, tolerance, and dialogue, always guided by practical wisdom. In this way, Aquinas’ approach is neither rigid ethical universalism with no consideration for diversity nor moral relativism with no place for any transcultural and absolute morals.

Critical reflection on authentic leadership and school leader development from a virtue ethical perspective

Authentic leadership has attracted recent empirical research from a wide range of social science disciplines interested largely in its relationship to human resource management and organisational effectiveness. In contrast, the focus of this study is specifically on the philosophical foundations of authentic leadership and their implications for leadership practice and continuing professional development. It emphasises the contribution of virtue ethics by identifying key moral and intellectual virtues associated with authenticity and how they can provide an ethical framework for action guidance in the school leadership context. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research based on more interdisciplinary and international comparative studies, especially in non-Western societies and cultural contexts, both to deepen and broaden our understanding of authentic-ethical leadership and its impact.

In Search of Virtue: The Role of Virtues, Values and Character Strengths in Ethical Decision Making

We present a comprehensive model that integrates virtues, values, character strengths and ethical decision making (EDM). We describe how a largely consequentialist ethical framework has dominated most EDM scholarship to date. We suggest that reintroducing a virtue ethical perspective to existing EDM theories can help to illustrate deficiencies in existing decision-making models, and suggest that character strengths and motivational values can serve as natural bridges that link a virtue framework to EDM in organizations. In conjunction with the more fully formulated extant research on situational determinants, we present and discuss our model that introduces a virtue based orientation to EDM.

It’s Time for Principles-Based Accounting Ethics

The American Institute of certified public accountants (AICPA) has promulgated a Code of Professional Conduct, which has served as the primary ethical standard for public accountants in the United States for more than 20 years. It is now out of date and needs to be replaced with a code of ethics. Just as U.S. generally accepted accounting principles are being migrated toward “principles-based accounting” as part of a convergence with international financial reporting standards, a similar process needs to occur with ethics. This article organizes the primary rules of the AICPA Code around five essential virtues: objectivity, integrity, inquisitiveness, loyalty, and trustworthiness. These virtues correspond to the general principles set forth in the Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). From this virtue ethics perspective, various rules of the AICPA Code are critiqued as being inadequate at best, and poorly crafted at worst. The article concludes with the proposition that principles-based ethics serves the profession and the financial reporting process better than the current rules-based approach.

Trust and New Communication Technologies: Vicious Circles, Virtuous Circles, Possible Futures

I approach the philosophical analyses of the phenomenon of trust vis-a-vis online communication beginning with an overview from within the framework of computer-mediated communication (CMC) of concerns and paradigmatic failures of trust in the history of online communication. I turn to the more directly philosophical analyses of trust online by first offering an introductory taxonomy of diverse accounts of trust that have emerged over the past decade or so. In the face of important objections to the possibility of establishing and fostering trust in online environments—objections that emerge especially from the perspective of virtue ethics and phenomenological approaches to how we know and navigate the world as embodied beings—I then take up three major arguments in recent work in favor of the possibilities of trust online, followed by three vicious circles that run counter to more optimistic views. I close with a summary of some additional reasons for optimism regarding trust online, followed by a final question that emerges out of recent CMC research on social networking sites that poses, I argue, fundamental challenges indeed to how we understand and may foster and experience trust online.

Citizenship education in religious schools: an analysis of tolerance in Catholic schools from a virtue ethical point of view

The question explored in this article is whether religious schools can contribute to the formation of the civic virtues in pupils by means of citizenship education. It is commonly agreed that civic virtues are needed in pluriform Western societies to promote social cohesion and reduce hostile attitudes. However, some argue that religious schools cannot further this process: in such schools pupils do not learn to deal with people from other religious or cultural backgrounds, which is necessary for the development of civic virtues. In this article we investigate this supposition from a virtue ethical perspective. Using the example of a specific civic virtue (tolerance) and a specific religious educational context (Catholic schools), we argue that religious schools can make a positive and valuable contribution to citizenship education of pupils. We conclude with four implications for religious schools that wish to make such a contribution: (1) creating a moral community, (2) setting a moral example, (3) arranging moral practices, and (4) organising moral conversations.

A virtue ethical account of making decisions about risk

Most discussions of risk are developed in broadly consequentialist terms, focusing on the outcomes of risks as such. This paper will provide an alternative account of risk from a virtue ethical perspective, shifting the focus on the decision to take the risk. Making ethical decisions about risk is, we will argue, not fundamentally about the actual chain of events that the decision sets in process, but about the reasonableness of the decision to take the risk in the first place. A virtue ethical account of risk is needed because the notion of the ‘reasonableness’ of the decision to take the risk is affected by the complexity of the moral status of particular instances of risk‐taking and the risk‐taker's responsiveness to these contextual features. The very idea of ‘reasonable risk’ welcomes judgements about the nature of the risk itself, raises questions about complicity, culpability and responsibility, while at its heart, involves a judgement about the justification of risk which unavoidably focuses our attention on the character of the individuals involved in risk‐making decisions.

The Influence of Accounting Firms on Clients’ Immoral Behaviors in China

In this article, we introduce important others, accounting firms, in the ethical decision making system. The rational economic person assumption does not always provide the best choice for accounting firms in the influence mode selection on the clients’ immoral behaviors. It still leaves many arguments. From the perspective of virtue ethics, we take a step forward for the literature and propose the ethical obligations and active influence of accounting firms on clients’ immoral behaviors. We then empirically investigate the influence of accounting firms on the immoral informational disclosure of China’s listed companies. Our research goes beyond some of the traditional perceptions on accounting firms such as irrelevant excuse, capability discrimination, forced auditor rotation, and maximum audit tenure. From the perspective of business ethics, we use theory of virtue ethics to further explain the results. Conclusions and implications are presented at the end of this article.

Friends of the Unrighteous Mammon: Northern Christians and Market Capitalism, 1815–1860 , and: Buying into the World of Goods: Early Consumers in Backcountry Virginia (review)

Reviewed by: Friends of the Unrighteous Mammon: Northern Christians and Market Capitalism, 1815–1860, and: Buying into the World of Goods: Early Consumers in Backcountry Virginia Bret E. Carroll (bio) Friends of the Unrighteous Mammon: Northern Christians and Market Capitalism, 1815–1860. By Stewart Davenport. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Pp. x, 269. Cloth, $45.00.) Buying into the World of Goods: Early Consumers in Backcountry Virginia. By Ann Smart Martin. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Pp. xvi, 260. Cloth, $55.00.) Figuring prominently in recent scholarship, the "market revolution" and "consumer revolution" have operated as overarching models for historians seeking to make sense of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American life. These closely interwoven concepts have assumed paradigmatic status, or at least something approaching it, by addressing broad swaths of human experience and promising to bridge longstanding gaps separating [End Page 525] political, economic, and social history from one another as well as from the cultural and religious history that assumed new vitality in the 1990s. But scholars have also raised legitimate questions about the definition of these terms, and their timing, sources, social and geographic reach, and explanatory power. Stewart Davenport's Friends of the Unrighteous Mammon and Ann Smart Martin's Buying into the World of Goods stake out new, though widely differing, directions in studies of American consumerism and the market, providing us an opportunity to take stock of these models' current state and future prospects. Davenport approaches these models from the perspective of traditional intellectual history, exploring "issues of self and society in modernity" (12) and asking "what did Christians in America think about capitalism when capitalism was first something to be thought about?" (1). He identifies three categories of response, each grounded in a different ethical philosophy and represented by a different group of antebellum figures. The first group, a cluster of academics he calls "clerical economists," embraced the optimistic political economy of Adam Smith, seeing in its mechanisms the God of natural theology and in its unhindered operations the promise of American prosperity and social order. They elided the potential ethical pitfalls—made patent in the pessimistic assessments of David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus—by emphasizing the scientific authority of political economy, applying utilitarian standards of human happiness at the national and international levels, excluding the United States from grim Ricardian and Malthusian principles, avoiding questions of individual morality by arguing that Smithian precepts grounded love of neighbor in self-interest, and defining desire and its gratification as natural and therefore good. This approach, Davenport contends, was motivated less by the alignment of the clerical economists with the interests of the merchant elite against radical Jacksonians than by their need to defend republican morality and God's relevance against the amoral and secular implications of modern political economy. The second group, the "contrarians," grounded their ethics in deontology and took the opposite tack; they disputed political economy's claims to scientific status, contended that capitalism encourages selfishness and sinful indulgence of impulses, and critiqued on moral grounds the poverty and exploitation that capitalism generated. "Pastoral moralists," operating from the perspective of virtue ethics, took a middle route, viewing market capitalism positively but attempting to set boundaries between legitimate self-interest and sinful [End Page 526] selfishness, between legitimate gratification and sinful excess. Davenport stakes out his own moral turf, crediting the contrarians and pastoral moralists with giving the moral drawbacks of market capitalism "the care and seriousness they deserved" (84), while charging the clerical economists with "leaving significant ethical questions unanswered" (85) and taking a "naïvely optimistic and shortsighted" (96) approach to problems of poverty and inequality. By identifying a range of responses to the market revolution, Davenport attempts to move beyond Charles Sellers's more monolithic postulate of a broad shift in Protestant attitudes from anti- to pro-market (The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846 [New York, 1991]). In this, he follows such scholars as Daniel Walker Howe and Richard Carwardine, who questioned Sellers on that point in the edited collections The Market Revolution in America: Social, Political, and Religious Expressions, 1800–1880 (Charlottesville, VA, 1996) and God and Mammon: Protestants, Money, and the Market (New York, 2001...

Direct and Multiplicative Effects of Ethical Dispositions and Ethical Climates on Personal Justice Norms: A Virtue Ethics Perspective

From virtue ethics and interactionist perspectives, we hypothesized that personal justice norms (distributive and procedural justice norms) were shaped directly and multiplicatively by ethical dispositions (equity sensitivity and need for structure) and ethical climates (egoistic, benevolent, and principle climates). We collected multisource data from 123 companies in Hong Kong, with personal factors assessed by participants’ self-reports and contextual factors by aggregations of their peers. In general, LISREL analyses with latent product variables supported the direct and multiplicative relationships. Our findings could lay the groundwork for justice research from a morality perspective in future.

Some comments on the substituted judgement standard

On a traditional interpretation of the substituted judgement standard (SJS) a person who makes treatment decisions on behalf of a non-competent patient (e.g. concerning euthanasia) ought to decide as the patient would have decided had she been competent. I propose an alternative interpretation of SJS in which the surrogate is required to infer what the patient actually thought about these end-of-life decisions. In clarifying SJS it is also important to differentiate the patient's consent and preference. If SJS is part of an autonomy ideal of the sort found in Kantian ethics, consent seems more important than preference. From a utilitarian perspective a preference-based reading of SJS seems natural. I argue that the justification of SJS within a utilitarian framework will boil down to the question whether a non-competent patient can be said to have any surviving preferences. If we give a virtue-ethical justification of SJS the relative importance of consent and preferences depends on which virtue one stresses--respect or care. I argue that SJS might be an independent normative method for extending the patient's autonomy, both from a Kantian and a virtue ethical perspective.

How should a nurse approach truth‐telling? A virtue ethics perspective

Truth-telling is a key issue within the nurse-patient relationship. Nurses make decisions on a daily basis regarding what information to tell patients. This paper analyses truth-telling within an end of life scenario. Virtue ethics provides a useful philosophical approach for exploring decisions on information disclosure in more detail. Virtue ethics allows appropriate examination of the moral character of the nurse involved, their intention, ability to use wisdom and judgement when making decisions and the virtue of truth-telling. It is appropriate to discuss nursing as a 'practice' in relation to virtue ethics. This is achieved through consideration of the implications of arguments made by Alasdair MacIntyre who believes that qualities such as honesty, courage and justice are virtues because they enable us to achieve the internal goods of practices.

Reconciling situational social psychology with virtue ethics

For the past four decades, debate has occurred in respect of situational social psychology and virtue ethics. This paper attempts to reconcile this debate. Situationists propose a fragmentation theory of character (each person has a whole range of dispositions, each of which has a restricted situational application) and do not subscribe to a regularity theory of character (behaviour is regulated by long‐term dispositions). In order to support this view, they cite a number of experiments. It is proposed that the substantive claims made by situationist social psychologists, for the most part, do not undermine or disagree with an Aristotelian virtue ethics perspective, but stem from a misunderstanding of concepts of moral character, faulty conclusions and generalizations in respect of experimental results. Situationists take a narrow view of character and morality. Evidence from organizational behaviour and managerial research literature supports the view that both situational (organizational) features and inner characteristics (including virtues) are powerful influences and determinants of morally upright and morally deviant behaviour. The role of practical judgement in bridging these views is discussed. As a way forward in reconciling situational social psychology with virtue ethics, the paper proposes an Aristotelian–Thomistic framework to overcome some of the problems associated with inadequate regulative ideals in building a normative moral theory.

Alasdair Macintyre’s Aristotelian Business Ethics: A Critique

This paper begins by summarizing and distilling MacIntyre’s sweeping critique of modern business. It identifies the crux of MacIntyre’s critique as centering on the fundamental Aristotelian concepts of internal goods and practices. MacIntyre essentially follows Aristotle in arguing that by privileging external goods over internal goods, business activity – and certainly modern capitalistic business activity – corrupts practices. Thus, from the perspective of virtue ethics, business is morally indefensible. The paper continues with an evaluation of MacIntyre’s arguments. The conclusion is drawn that MacIntyre’s critique, although partially valid, does not vitiate modern business as he claims. In short, modern business need not of necessity be antithetical to individuals’ pursuit of internal goods within practices.

Endurance and non-endurance: From the perspective of virtue ethics

By analysing the two relevant psychological phenomena of “endurance” and “non-endurance,” this essay aims to reveal the ethical implications of a Confucian approach, namely regarding non-endurance as an impulse of primary virtue. Based on this case study, the author then explores the significance of moral cultivation or psychological training in establishing moral personality and the complexities of such a process. Meanwhile, “love” in Confucian ethics means sympathy for the inferior rather than affection for the revered. Hopefully, this study may deepen our understanding of virtue ethics.

An ethical basis for relationship marketing: a virtue ethics perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an ethical foundation for relationship marketing using a virtue ethics approach.Design/methodology/approachThe approach is a conceptual one providing a background on relationship marketing from both American and European perspectives. Earlier studies published inEJMon relationship marketing are featured in a table.FindingsThe proposed ethical relationship marketing approach has three stages (establishing, sustaining and reinforcing) that are paired with specific virtues (trust, commitment and diligence). These and other facilitating virtues are shown in a figure.Researchlimitations/implicationsThe model and its components have yet to be tested empirically. Some strategies for undertaking such research are discussed.Practical implicationsSeveral European and American companies that currently practice ethical relationship marketing are discussed.Originality/valueAlthough relationship marketing has been studied for a number of years by many scholars, the ethical basis of it has not been thoroughly examined in any previous work.

What the Eye Doesn't See: An Analysis of Strategies for Justifying Acts by an Appeal for Concealing Them

This article analyzes the moral reasoning implied in a very commonly used expression, namely, "What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over," or "What you don't know won't hurt you." It especially deals with situations in which it is used for trying to justify acts that are, in themselves, reprehensible. For instance, when a cheating husband tries to justify his adultery by appealing to the alleged fact that he does not tell his wife about it and thus she is not harmed by it: "If you are not informed, you are not hurt" (NINH). The components of NINH reasoning are unfolded, as well as its grounds, starting from a consequentialistic, deontological, or virtue ethics perspective. Two special characteristics of NINH reasoning are discussed, namely, that it tries to bridge deontological and consequentialistic approaches of morality in a commonsense way and that it contains a special type of paternalism. Finally, some ethical implications are discussed.

Why We Are Not Allowed to Sell That Which We Are Encouraged to Donate

The overall aim of this thesis is to show how some ideas in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics can be interpreted and used as a productive way to approach a number of pressing issues in bioethics. Articles I-II introduce, and endorse, a social constructivist perspective on rights (as opposed to the more traditional natural rights idea). It is investigated if the existence of property-like rights to biological material would include the moral right to commodification and even commercialisation. Articles III-V discuss similar questions and more specifically champion the application of an Aristotelian virtue ethics perspective. The articles are preceded by an introductory essay on some of the central themes in the Nicomachean Ethics. This section also includes a very brief account of what the connection between virtue ethics and a theory of social construction, including rights, could look like. The thesis seeks to show that if read somewhat creatively many of the ideas in the Nicomachean Ethics make for a highly useful approach to modern moral problems. It should be noted, however, that this thesis in no way claims to be an exegetic, or a complete, study of the Nicomachean Ethics. Article I deals with ownership of biological material from a philosophical, as opposed to a legal, perspective. It is argued that a strand in liberal political theory that treats property relations as socially constructed bundles of rights, as developed by e.g. Felix Cohen and Tony Honore, is well suited for discussions on ownership of biological material. Article II investigates which differences in biological material might motivate differences in treatment and ownership rights. The article draws on the social constructivist theory of ownership which was developed in Article I. Article III employs virtue ethics to explain why it is morally permissible to donate but not to sell organs such as kidneys. It is suggested that the former action will bring the agent closer to a state of human flourishing. Article IV argues that virtues like philia, justice, beneficence and generosity — traditionally all seen as other-regarding — contain strong self-regarding aspects. The central claim is that these self-regarding aspects of the other-regarding virtues are necessary components of complete virtue and thus that the fully virtuous agent has to act virtuously both in her dealings with herself and others. Article V applies the ideas that were developed in Article IV to the case of living organ donations to next of kin. It is proposed that such an act, although noble and fine, is supererogatory, rather than obligatory, as the donor is morally entitled to be partial to herself. This argument is made against the backdrop of a discussion on some Aristotelian ideas on philia and partiality.