Abstract
In showing how the bureaucratic space negatively influences the moral conscience of managers, Robert Jackall’s sociological writings have pointed up one of the darkest sides of organizations. In fact, in the business ethics literature there is much to support Jackall’s pessimistic contentions, suggesting that bureaucracy can rob individual managers of their sense of responsibility. How then can this space for individual freedom, so essential in re-establishing responsible management, be recreated? In order to answer this question, we propose to interpret Jackall’s Moral Mazes (1988) from the standpoint of Blaise Pascal’s Jansenist ethics and conception of humankind. Our discussion here of Pascal’s “reason of effects,” his theory of “double thought” and his distinction between respect and esteem takes Jackall’s analysis forward and opens new lines of thought about managerial responsibility. The article concludes with some thoughts on further research in the field of business ethics arising from Pascalian anthropology or what we call here “skeptical humanism.”
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Notes
The quotations from Pascal’s Pense´es refer to the English translation by W.F. Trotter, New York: E.P Dutton, Pascal (1958), which uses the Brunschvicg numbering system.
A Professor of Sociology & Public Affairs at Williams College in Massachussets.
E.g. the work of Alvesson.
MM: Moral Mazes, The World of Corporate Managers, Oxford University Press.
As a sociologist, Jackall acknowledges Weber, at least indirectly, with the frequent use of the term bureaucracy. Jackall admits the validity of a Weberian analysis even in the world of late Twentieth century American business organizations, where all references to transcendence (“A calvinist world without a Calvinism God”), and indeed to any body of doctrine whatsoever, have disappeared entirely. The “Calvinism” analyzed by Jackall is of a post-modern variety which can be situated on a plane of immanence characteristic of capitalism: a movement without a cause, requiring no further justification; its only choice is to intensify in order to endure.
Though the Jansenist experiment was stopped in its tracks when Louis XIV had Port-Royal razed in 1710, its intellectual, literary, epistemological, and theological legacy remained intact and its influence in France and abroad made it one of the great intellectual adventures of the “Grand Siècle.” Its reputation flourished through such renowned authors and thinkers as Jean Racine, Saint-Simon, de la Rochefoucauld, and Boisguibert, who trained at the Petite Ecole de Port-Royal and is considered to be the first liberal economist in France.
He wrote essays on vacuum and “conics” and also invented a mechanical calculator.
See in particular Chapter 7, “The Magic Lantern”.
An other adds: "In the world of public relations, there is no such thing as a notion of truth; there are only stories, perspectives, or opinions." (id., p. 172).
"I offer no program for reform, should one think that reform is necessary". (MM, p. 6).
According to Nicole, "that there was nothing he wanted to contribute to more (referring to the education of a prince), if he were called on to do it and that he would gladly give his life for such an important thing" (1004/quote from Lafuma Edition).
As Marin explains, both Nicole and Pascal consider a "great man" to be "essentially an owner of goods: the great man is a rich man whose holdings determine his being" (1981, p. 265).
I, 8: First Discourse, paragraph 8. The numerals II and III correspond to the second and third discourses. The number that follows corresponds to the paragraph.
As Marin comments, "what the Machiavellians and tacticians of the century call the secret of the prince, state secrets, the arcana imperii to characterize the absoluteness of power, we see how Pascal turns it around and inverts it in the ethical secret" (1981, pp. 287–288).
‘Concupiscence’ (intense desire) in the original French has been rendered as ‘lust’ in English translations of the Pensées. In French, however, the term is broader than physical desire; it also encompasses the desire to possess worldly goods.
Pascal uses the term ‘l'homme' which has been rendered as ‘Man’ in contemporary English translations of his work. We prefer to use ‘humankind’ here, even if this translation, like human being tend to suggest the collective rather than the individual.
Can it be agreed that a clear relationship to oneself is a possibility? In his conflict with his contemporary Descartes, Pascal would have applied the criticism of a ‘transparent self’ to himself, like the critics of traditional humanism. The transparent self is little more than a product of custom (a ‘second-level nature’, unless nature itself is simply a ‘first-level custom’), a self which sees itself placarded with imaginary attributes. Man is subject to the constraints of time, place and applicable norms. He is “embedded” in a particular context, and only a relation-to-self will enable him to realize this.
Even if he could not imagine its extension to more or less all layers of society as a quasi established form of a “right of desires”.
Here, humanism can be defined as the belief that human nature is basically good and hence worthy of protection as an end in itself. Proponents view the human as something which should be cultivated as an essence that sets human beings apart from other beings and entities.
"The greatness of mankind even in his lust, to have known how to extract from it a wonderful code, and to have drawn from it a picture of benevolence." (Pensées 402).
His interest in Pascal is well-known (Léveillé-Mourin 1978).
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank his colleagues at EBEN France for their comments at the 2010 annual meeting in Lille when some of the ideas in this article were first communicated. He would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their invaluable suggestions throughout the review process. Finally, he wishes to extend his thanks to Pr. Laroche and Pr. Painter-Morland for their generous support, and to Andrew Beresford and Kenneth Casler for their translation of the paper into English.
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Deslandes, G. In Search of Individual Responsibility: The Dark Side of Organizations in the Light of Jansenist Ethics. J Bus Ethics 101 (Suppl 1), 61–70 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1173-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1173-6