The business ethics does not exist!
By Jean-Yves Naudet
Director, Center for Economic Research Ethics
For Nicolas Madelenat di Florio
who understood the importance of open dialogue between philosophers and economists
This paper is a brief development of vocabulary, which has important consequences on the approach to economic ethics. Many terms, apparently equivalent are used for what the Anglo-Saxons call "business ethics": business ethics, corporate ethics, business ethics, ethics in business, but also corporate social responsibility or corporate citizenship. The term "business ethics" is often used, and on which we focus our analysis poses a fundamental problem: a company can it be ethical?
What we said the philosopher to help us see clearly (cf. the first paper of this group: "From the ethics and morals, to end the confusion directions "by Nicolas Madelenat di Florio)? Let the key phrases: Ethics is "the universal rule," "objective," which "must guide the choice." It also unites virtue and consists of "all-weather track in his inner compass," which is so different than the Ethics. Finally, she "makes us human."
Under these conditions, that may mean the term "business ethics": Will it transform the company into a human being? The company does practice virtue? The company, as such, does she have a choice? Where is the "inner compass" of the company? These few sentences show that talk about business ethics is nonsense. The company, as an institution, even as the legal framework, or, as economists often refer to as "nexus of contracts" does not have an ethic. She does not practice virtue, it has not among its internal compass, it is not and will never become a human being.
Only men, beings endowed with reason, capable of making free decisions, able to exercise their responsibilities, have an ethic. The company, as such, has no ethics: there are no business ethics, it makes no sense, and the company is not an individual, is not a person. It is not, in itself, issues of moral acts, much less ethics. The company does not take a decision, do not think, does not act as an institution: only men in it, make decisions, after thinking, and act accordingly, with this compass What internal ethics.
course, every person who works in a company, decide and act, according to numerous criteria, including that which should be paramount, ethics. There is therefore an ethic of the contractor, who takes the ultimate decisions for the common good of the company, but there is also the ethical framework, the ethics of a worker or an employee The ethics of unionists, the ethics of a shareholder, an investor, customer, a provider, etc.. We can talk about ethics in business or the business, even if it would rather the ethics of men, each man in the company. But there are no business ethics, as such. We can see that its leaders, who take key decisions have been, or not, ethical behavior, but they are always men who decide and who are therefore responsible for the choices made ..
This question is central and we find that confusion at all levels. Thus we often speak the ethics of capitalism, the ethics of the economy but the system as such is not subject to moral acts. There is an ethic of the men who play an economic role in capitalism: the ethics of entrepreneurs, trade unionists, workers, savers, consumers, men of the State, etc.. and again he would put all these words in the singular. Even the term, fashionable and, it must be said, very convenient, "moralization of capitalism" also implies that the ambiguity between morality and ethics, is not quite correct because it would better to talk about the ethics of men who decide and act in the economic world, which make economic decisions, including but not limited to, the ethics of capitalism, of every capitalist, every business leader. Talking about business ethics is probably less correct, if we understand that term, as we do, such as ethics in economic matters concerning economic decisions and choices, each of us according to our level of responsibility .
Why this issue, apparently secondary, is so important, including in the debate of ideas? After all, these expressions have passed into everyday language. Because the confusion of words is the source of the confusion of ideas. If we talk about the ethics of an institution, as the company, this will quickly lead to the idea of collective responsibility, and therefore a denial of individual responsibility. It dilutes the responsibility and attributed the cause of all violations of basic morality, the excesses of all, (so rightly criticized these days, but if so incoherent on the logical level) to the company as such, and for the economy as a whole, the system, the "capitalism". Inverting the reality of things, we slide towards a holistic view of society, as found in Marxism or in many forms of sociology: the responsibility of the class, group, system: if everything goes wrong, it ' is the fault of capitalism.
The consequence of this shift is simple: change the system to find a satisfactory ethics. The myth of the "big night", the new social structures, new institutions, which will be to reign virtue everywhere. It's easy, because it is easier to change institutions claim that the behavior of each of us, but it is an illusion, for without just men, men without virtue, there will never be true ethics. Slide the responsibility of each man to that of the whole, whether the company or scheme in general, is to deny freedom of choice responsible for each of us in favor of widespread irresponsibility. We swim in the open Marxism in particular, since the mental and moral superstructure will change when we have changed the relations of production : Matter, material elements are first, the moral being merely a reflection, as every superstructure is only the reflection of the infrastructure. Then the notion of responsibility and freedom of choice, so anyone who disappears: when you walk into a totalitarian society is the logical outcome of this reasoning. To restore true freedom, must assert the primacy of man over the institutions or on techniques. And reaffirm that only men have an ethic, make choices with ethical implications. Responsibilities are always those individuals.
is a key point which has often been addressed by the "moral authority" as they say. The question was raised, for example, about an expression used by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical on development, "Sollicitudo Rei Socialis" of 1987: the term "structure of sin." This expression, religious connotation, seems remote from the subject (although John Paul II explicitly applies to economic issues, the theme of development), but if you think about it, sin is a theological term to talk about what is unethical, evil from the good. If sin is unethical, about structure of sin he evokes not a kind of collective responsibility or collective guilt due to the structures, institutions, thus denying personal responsibility, freedom of choice personal ethics, so all we have to say.
That's what John Paul II said "If the current situation to difficulties of various kinds, it is not amiss to speak of structures of sin which, as I shown in the Apostolic Exhortation and Reconciliatio paenitentia, are rooted in personal sin and thus always linked to concrete actions of people who create them, consolidate them and make them difficult to abolish. Thus, they grow stronger, spread, and become the source of other sins, and so influence people's behavior "(SRS § 36). That is already very enlightening: there may be situations coalition or coagulation of unethical behavior, which in turn induce other unethical behavior, but these attacks on ethics (These sins in the religious sense) are always connected "to the concrete acts of individuals."
Like the concept, relatively new and complex, might lead to erroneous interpretations, due to the reading surface, sliding structures of sin to sin and thus collective personal responsibility towards one group or institutions such as John Paul II was careful to give notes (note 65) a long excerpt of the text and Reconciliatio paenitentia December 2, 1984, n.16, in which he was referring to above: "But when she talks about situations sin or when the condemns as social sins certain situations or collective behaviors of social groups more or less extended, or even the attitude of whole nations and blocs of nations, she knows and she proclaims that such cases of social sin are the result of the accumulation and concentration of many personal sins. This is very personal sins from those who cause or support evil or who exploit it (...) from those who seek refuge in the supposed impossibility of changing the world and also from those who sidestep effort and sacrifice required, producing specious reasons of a higher order. The real responsibility, then those people. A situation-and even an institution, a structure, society-not by itself subject of moral acts, so it can be, by itself, good or bad. "
This text, if one wants to overcome the obstacle may be to some readers to use theological terms, is particularly illuminating: the social sins (the opposite of Ethics name) are the accumulation of personal sins, ie, damage to ethics on the part of many men, but this concentration does not diminish the responsibility of everyone. The key sentence is this "the real responsibility, then those people." An institution (one can think of now), a company (we can think of an economic system like capitalism) is not, by themselves, about moral acts. There is therefore no business ethics or of damage to ethics on the part of the company. There may be many individual breaches of ethics in a company, which is what John Paul II called for the sins or social structures of sin, but he is just an accumulation in one place for individual violations, and counterclockwise for ethical behavior.
This allows, in conclusion, to clarify a key issue for economists, and especially the Austrian school, as Hayek explained, that of institutions. Institutions are at the heart of the whole economic process; they provide, by their existence, information (think of property, contract, company, currency, etc.). that channel behavior, hence the importance of economic analysis of institutions. These institutions, we have just seen, are not subject of moral acts, however, they are not identical or interchangeable and better institutions, which have generally been selected by men over time are those that conform to human nature, to natural law.
private property, for example, conforms to natural law and is merely an extension of the property on the fruit of his own work and the right to use freely, and then human nature is so constituted, as already expliquât Aristotle and later St. Thomas Aquinas, that we manage better what is our own, private property, to keep this example, is more consistent with the nature of man, in search of his own property, that property Collective, which everyone loses interest in management. So there are some institutions more suited than others to human nature and that allow human to be more creative, more innovative, more so in the service of others.
institutions are not subject to moral acts, not even good in themselves, but more or less consistent with what man adapted to his behavior and nature so there are institutions that allow human beings to exercise freedom and responsibility, stating what is possible or not (this is particularly clear for the property or contract, which indicate what is to one or to another, this is possible or not, etc..) and therefore that somehow, cause man a freedom more responsibly, and therefore an ethic. This does not mean they are subject to ethical acts, but they grow through the information they provide, at a performance better than another. Conversely, there are institutions such as collective ownership, or a social system of generalized assistantship, which prompts man to laziness, denial, loss of autonomy, a-riding, short to the detriment or let live off others, helping to create structures of sin. The choice of institutions is not indifferent, even in terms of ethical behavior of men.
But whatever the institutions, it is men who decide, not the structure, not the group, not class, not different packages, even if they exist, are men who ultimately decide the good or evil, therefore be ethical or not. It is therefore an ethic of every man, who, working together, can at most be an ethical company, or better ethics men of the company, but there are no business ethics as such, as an institution.
The philosopher has reason and reflection made by the economist: ethics makes us human, and can not concern only individuals, since nothing other than an individual can become human, and not a business. The men who work there, if they have ethical behavior, can at most give it a human face, the result of all the faces of those who run this company, but the company will never become a human being. There is therefore no business ethics, taken as a whole.
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