Ethics and Economics
ISBN
3-906769-63-1
Type
book section
Date Issued
2002
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Zsolnai, Laszlo
Abstract
The article (written in English) gives the conceptual base for this handbook edited by the Inter-faculty Group in Business Ethics of the Community of European Management Schools (CEMS). The core ideas are: (1) Economic and business ethics is more than 'applied ethics.' Mainstream economics is nothing more than a strongly normative 'ideal theory' of rational action and cooperation among people - in the narrow sense of neoclassical economic rationality. The primary task of Integrative Economic Ethics is therefore to reflect on the form of economic reasoning; it is the critique of economic reason. (2) The history of economic thought reveals the 'emancipation' of economic rationality from moral philosophy, a process that mirrors the historical process of the 'great transformation' described by Karl Polanyi, through which the economy has become disembedded from its social, cultural and environmental context. Today, the problematic consequences of the unencumbered economic rationality represent a growing real-life experience. In this situation, economic ethics may fill the gap left open since the classical political economy was reduced to 'pure' economics. (3) The fundamental task of economic ethics is to ask for a new ethical foundation for economic reason itself! Economic ethics may provide a powerful critique of 'economism' including economic determinism (which argues for the 'force of circumstances' against ethical claims) and economic reductionism (which argues that the 'morality of the market' is a sufficient guarantor of ethical reason). (4) Rethinking basic ethical aspects of economic reason includes questioning the meaning of economic 'rationalization' with regard to the good human life and criticizing the politico-economic order with regard to the development of a just and well-ordered society of free and equal citizens. Moreover, an economico-ethical "topology" has to be designed, i.e. the 'loci' where moral claims can be assigned to certain players and these players are made accountable to moral standards and responsibilities.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to education
Refereed
No
Book title
Ethics in the Economy. Handbook of Business Ethics
Publisher
Lang
Publisher place
Oxford
Start page
9
End page
37
Pages
29
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
11571