business ethics, a new fable of Procrustes?
By
Nicolas Madelenat di Florio
From the Society of Literary History of France.
Researcher associated
Centre for Ethics Economic,
Université Paul Cézanne.
I'm certainly too hard, but we live in an intellectual universe more conformist that he believes hold a sort of monopoly of conformism. That the waiver of any real self-criticism. You spend your time to push open doors literally for centuries. This is the modern war against the banned already ridiculous at the time of the Surrealists, which continues to rage on all fronts. As in Bouphonia Greeks, it wad straw all mangy old skins sacrificial slaughter for the thousandth time.
René Girard, Things Hidden since the foundation of the world , Book I, Chapter I, fundamental Anthropology.
This article could not start without me to take care to acknowledge the thought and work of academician René Girard, theoretician of the new anthropology, otherwise called mimetic anthropology. No one knows if paid in reading my modest contribution to the understanding of this world, my commitment to this approach Rights and the mechanisms that form, and connect to others. There are several reasons: a lively interest in the Work of St. Augustine, which Girard said that everything was written, he has found the mimetic défleurée by philosopher and a proper place to concede to the person who should be the heart of any approach. Yet, talking about ethics, especially in economic matters, it sometimes seems in every way comparable to those sages who, in a city in flames, debating the sex of angels. This is a mistake, however, to consider this approach to self-report and the report to another, as a waste of time. Number of opponents to these considerations, however, argue that man is inherently corrupt, and interested, and that not taking part for himself, ethics exist outside of the human person, as the truth of philosophers, or the revelation of God through the death and transcendence. This shortcut is rapid progress is to remain in the darkness of a cave and being surprised not to find a radiant sun. I mean here in my scale and my disciplines, proving that ethics must go beyond fashion, that the organic and other nonsense will not do.
In previous articles, I took care to specify what ethics and I will not go back neither to the fact that ethics without the man can not exist, let alone the notion of conscious decision. Man can not make an ethical act unintentionally, I think I have already demonstrated. As to the argument of the report to another person, one must ask why this is unethical, and if the interest can not, quite simply, be reciprocal. To this, several illustrations. A trader has an incentive to sell its products, the consumer's interest to buy them. If both agree on the nature of the product quantity, price, both are bound by an agreement, which is based on mutual interest. There is nothing unethical, since both parties are satisfied. Then, if the consumer is looking for cheap products in large quantity, the trader is responsible to comply by offering cheap goods but also of very average quality? If the consumer is informed about the mediocrity of his purchase, he assumes the consequences, ethics is not involved here, much less violated. Finally, if the consumer, mature and responsible, bought a pair of shoes manufactured in a third world country, with a workforce as skilled or low paid, the morality of the plant manager is already committed, and to what extent? No, because it would consumers to stop buying such products as production stops as well, or it adapts to new demands (product quality, workers treated properly through a Code of Ethics, Commitment "quality work" proposed by the brand ...). The business ethics is not a paradise secluded from the world of men, a Mount Olympus reserved for a few academics and researchers initiated into the mysteries. It is a call to all human society encouraging him to consider the rightful place of the person and also with the mutual interest, the profit motive, should not exclude the human dimension. Ethics, moreover, do not reject these economic imperatives; seek profit is not immoral and cooperation between people can make profits well above those that could generate an entrepreneur known for his questionable methods. Cases, media coverage, to damage the image of a brand are many. Think of the toys made in Asia known that some components are toxic for children, or whose production is expedited, the finished products then being of poor quality. The answer is so simple from the wholesaler, he recalled the products covered by the press, and communication. The consequences are devastating, both in terms of image and financial terms. First, the merchant recognizes publicly traded have one, or, dangerous, and secondly he must take immediate financial losses (product recall has cost), and other future losses, the parents avoid buying products from a brand whose products are dangerous in part for their children. If there had been a charter Ethics in the businesses concerned, this situation would never arrive; products were in compliance with the consumer, without danger, and the workers would have adequate time to make correctly. If one superimposes now the value added to "ethical" mutual interest is still increasing. I am an entrepreneur, I am committed to producing clean and in good conditions, a quality product that I sell at a fair price. The customer prefers to buy an ethical product which he knows and the production approach, and the activist approach. I have no doubt that in future it is a method clearly and effectively to guide consumer choice.
economic ethics can have practical applications, as has been demonstrated in the preceding passage. However, this pragmatism must not forget the research needed for proper understanding of what ethics, or even how to determine an ethical choice. I spoke in a previous article by the dimension of freedom, intrinsically linked to the notion of choice, though, as the Marxists believe, man is not free, it can not make choices. It will simply replicate a model, the result of conditioning. If, as the enlightened liberals to defend the construction of the mind, and anthropologists mimetics, the individual has a share of impregnating the group, and secondly own freedom, then it may decide in its conscience purchases, it can have an ethical approach. But to clarify, and that was the reason for the title of this text, that ethics is an absolute principle, but not required; the best acts performed by mechanism is not an ethical act being dimensionless choice, and reason. In essence, want to constrain, as did the robber Procrustes, who forced people to lie on a bed, and cut the body parts that exceeded people to an ethical approach amounts to empty them all the same size. This is not about to join an ethical approach as it adheres to a far-left union, with a check and some will almost unselfish to save the world in spite of himself. The ethical approach is a real work on oneself, accessible to all, will change only the intensity of research and applications of these choices in life everyday. There is no ethics that prescribes the Procrustes and condemned, but encouraging approach to choose in good conscience. The act Ethics thus leaves the free will to everyone, the researcher ethics, Sage for the cynics, did not have to prescribe standards and codes to follow. So let us be wary of merchants who bought an ethical soul saving those of others! The ethical approach is primarily an individual approach shared or lived in a group (corporate ethics). It is therefore necessary to ensure that authorities seize it, the state did not impose a vision of a minority decide by the population. This approach is doubly empty: firstly, it does not save people against their will on the other hand, the politician he is a being better than those who elected him?
In short, ethics is expected to regain its rightful place, not in society but in the human heart. Speaking of ethics, is already pushing the excesses and errors of a system having forgotten that the rightful place of the person is at the center. That suppressing the people of our thinking in the humanities, we are depriving the machine of the spirit of its purpose. And add that thinking a bit more before the individual is not necessarily smarter, but already much more humane.
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