Abstract
This chapter makes the case that economics today can benefit from the long-standing tradition of ethical thought. A first major milestone of economic ethics was reached with the “teleological paradigm” that also dominated much of classical economics. From Aristotle via Thomas Aquinas, up to and including Adam Smith, there was a consensus that both economic theory and practice needed to be legitimated as well as limited by a certain overarching goal (Greek: telos) such as the “common good.” This chapter explores in particular how teleological thinking can orient economic decision-making quantitatively (against excess, as in the philosophy of Aristotle), qualitatively (in pursuit of justice, as in the ethics of Thomas Aquinas), and in regard to the question as to how ethical business strategies can be successfully developed (based on empathy/sympathy, as in the economics of Adam Smith).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Aquinas, Thomas. 1929. Scriptum super libros Sententiarum. I and II edited by P. Mandonnet, Paris; III and IV edited by M. Moos, Paris, 1937 and 1947.
Aquinas, Thomas. 1941–1945. Summa theologiae. Ottawa: Studium dominicain.
Aquinas, Thomas. 1961–1967. Summa contra gentiles. Ed. C. Pera, P. Marc, and P. Caramello. Turin: Marietti.
Aquinas, Thomas. 1970. Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem, Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera omnia, vol. 41. Rome: Editio Leonina.
Aquinas, Thomas. 1972. Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera omnia, vol. 22. Rome: Editio Leonina.
Aristotle. 1981. Eudemian ethics. Aristotle in 23 volumes. Vol. 20. Trans. H. Rackham and W. Heinemann. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Aristotle. 1985. Nicomachean ethics. Trans. T. Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Aristotle. 1994. Rhetoric. Ed. D.C. Stevenson. The Internet Classics Archives. Available at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/rhetoric.html
Aristotle. 2001. Parts of animals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Aristotle. 2007. Politics. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Adelaide: eBooks@Adelaide.
Aßländer, Michael S. 2011. Corporate social responsibility as subsidiary co-responsibility: A macroeconomic perspective. Journal of Business Ethics 99(1): 115–128.
Bernstein, Jared, Chauna Brocht, and Maggie Spade-Aguilar. 2000. How much is enough?: Basic family budgets for working families. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.
Block, Peter. 1993. Stewardship: Choosing service over self interest. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Brown, V. 1994. Adam’s Smith discourse: Canonicity, commerce and conscience. London: Routledge.
Cahill, Lisa Sowle. 1980. Toward a Christian theory of human rights. The Journal of Religious Ethics 8(2): 277–301.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1913. De officiis. Trans. Walter Miller. London: Loeb Classical Library.
Cockfield, Geoff, Ann Firth, and John Laurent (eds.). 2007. New perspectives on Adam Smith’s the theory of moral sentiments. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Cornwall, Jeffrey R., and Michael J. Naughton. 2003. Who is the good entrepreneur? An exploration within the Catholic social tradition. Journal of Business Ethics 44(1): 61–75.
Dann, Gary E., and Neil Haddow. 2008. Just doing business or doing just business: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and the business of censoring China’s Internet. Journal of Business Ethics 79(3): 219–234.
Davis, James H., F. David Schoorman, and Lex Donaldson. 1997. Toward a stewardship theory of management. Academy of Management Review 22(1): 20–47.
Demosthenes. 1930. I Olynthiacs, Philippics Minor Public Orations I-XVII and XX. Loeb Classical Library No. 238.
Dierksmeier, Claus, and Michael Pirson. 2009. Oikonomia versus Chrematistike: Aristotle on wealth and well-being. Journal of Business Ethics 88(3): 417–430.
Donaldson, Lex, and James H. Davis. 1991. Stewardship theory or agency theory: CEO governance and shareholder returns. Australian Journal of Management 16(1): 49–64.
Dyck, Bruno, and Rob Kleysen. 2001. Aristotle’s virtues and management thought: An empirical exploration of an integrative pedagogy. Business Ethics Quarterly 11(4): 561–574.
Faccarello, Gilbert. 2005. A tale of two traditions: Pierre force’s self-interest before Adam Smith. The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 12(4): 701–712.
Fleischacker, Samuel. 2012. Sympathy in Hume and Smith: A contrast, critique, and reconstruction. In Intersubjectivity and objectivity in Adam Smith and Edmund Husserl, ed. C. Fricke and D. Føllesdal, 273–311. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag.
Forman-Barzilai, Fonna. 2010. Adam Smith and the circles of sympathy: Cosmopolitanism and moral theory, vol. 96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Freshfields, Bruckhaus, et al. 2006. A legal framework for the integration of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues into institutional investment. New York: United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI).
Friedman, M. 1970. The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits, New York Times Magazine, September 13.
Griswold, Charles L. 1999. Adam Smith and the virtues of enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Haakonssen, K. 2006. Introduction – The coherence of Adam Smith’s thought. In The Cambridge companion to Adam Smith, ed. K. Haakonssen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Haakonssen, Knud, and Donald Winch. 2006. The legacy of Adam Smith. In The Cambridge companion to Adam Smith, ed. Knud Haakonssen, 366–394. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hawken, Paul, Amory B. Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins. 2000. Natural capitalism: Creating the next industrial revolution. New York: Back Bay Books.
Heilbroner, R. 1979. Modern economics and a chapter in the history of economic thought. History of Political Economy 11(2): 192–198.
Heilbroner, Robert L. 2011. The worldly philosophers: The lives, times and ideas of the great economic thinkers. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Hoffmann, Tobias. 2011. Conscience and Synderesis. In The oxford handbook of Aquinas, ed. Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump, 255. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hühn, Matthias P. 2014. You reap what you sow: How MBA programs undermine ethics. Journal of Business Ethics 121(4): 527–541.
Hühn, Matthias P., and Claus Dierksmeier. 2015. Will the real A. Smith please stand up! Journal of Business Ethics 12:1–14.
Jacobsen, Michael, and Ole Bruun. 2000. Human rights and Asian values: Contesting national identities and cultural representations in Asia. London: RoutledgeCurzon.
Jensen, Michael C., and Kevin J. Murphy. 1990. Performance pay and top-management incentives. Journal of Political Economy 98: 225–264.
Kasser, Tim, and Aaron Ahuvia. 2002. Materialistic values and well‐being in business students. European Journal of Social Psychology 32(1): 137–146.
Koehn, Daryl. 1995. A role for virtue ethics in the analysis of business practice. Business Ethics Quarterly 5(03): 533–539.
Koslowski, Peter. 1993. Politik und Ökonomie bei Aristoteles. Tübingen: Mohr.
Lowry, S. Todd. 1987. The archaeology of economic ideas: The classical Greek tradition. Durham: Duke University Press.
Meikle, Scott. 1994. Aristotle’s economic thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Melé, Domènec. 2009a. Integrating personalism into virtue-based business ethics: The personalist and the common good principles. Journal of Business Ethics 88: 227–244.
Melé, Domènec. 2009b. Business ethics in action: Seeking human excellence in organizations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Montes, Leonidas, and Eric Schliesser (eds.). 2006. New voices on Adam Smith. Abingdon: Routledge.
Moosmayer, Dirk C. 2012. A model of management academics’ intention to influence values. Academy of Management Learning & Education 11: 155–173.
Nussbaum, Martha C. 1990. Love’s knowledge: Essays on philosophy and literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Otteson, James R. 2002. Adam Smith’s marketplace of life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Raphael, D.D., and A.L. Macfie. 1976. Introduction. In The theory of moral sentiments, ed. A. Smith. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Raphael, D.D. 1978. Adam Smith: Philosophy, science, and social science. Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures 12: 77–93.
Rick, Jon. 2007. Hume's and Smith’s partial sympathies and impartial stances. Journal of Scottish Philosophy 5(2): 135–158.
Ross, Ian S. 2004. Great works upon the anvil in 1785. Adam Smith’s projected corpus of philosophy. In The Adam Smith review, ed. V. Brown, Vol. I., 40–59. London/New York: Routledge.
Rothschild, Emma. 1994. Adam Smith and the invisible hand. The American Economic Review 84(2): 319–322.
Ryan, John A. 1942. The economic philosophy of St. Thomas. In Essays in Thomism, ed. R.E. Brennan, 239–260. New York: Sheed and Ward.
Schumacher, Leo Sebastian. 1949. The philosophy of the equitable distribution of wealth: A study in economic philosophy, Vol. 103. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1954. History of economic analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.
Seele, Peter. 2016. Business ethics without philosophers? Evidence for and Implications of the shift from applied philosophers to business scholars on the editorial boards of business ethics journals. Metaphilosophy 47(1): 75–91.
Smith, A. 1759/1976. The theory of moral sentiments, The Glasgow edition of the works and correspondence of Adam Smith. ed. David Raphael, vol. 1. Glasgow: Glasgow Publishers.
Smith, A. 1776/1976. An enquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, Glasgow edition of the works and correspondence of Adam Smith, 2 vols. Glasgow: Glasgow Publishers.
Solomon, Robert C. 1994. The new word of business: Ethics and free enterprise in the global 1990s. Lanham: Roman & Littjefield.
Solomon, Robert C. 2004. Aristotle, ethics and business organizations. Organization Studies 25(6): 1021–1043.
Soudek, Josef. 1952. Aristotle’s theory of exchange. An inquiry into the origin of the economic analysis. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 96: 55–59.
Steele, Gerry R. 2004. Understanding economic man. American Journal of Economics and Sociology 63(5): 1021–1055.
Stigler, George J. 1971. Smith’s travels on the ship of state. History of Political Economy 3(2): 265–277.
Varacalli, Joseph A. 1992. Whose justice and justice for what purpose?: A catholic neo-orthodox critique. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 6(2): 309–321.
Villa-Vicencio, Charles. 1999. Christianity and human rights. Journal of Law and Religion 14(2): 579–600.
Wang, Long, D. Malhotra, and J.K. Murnighan. 2011. Economics education and greed. Academy of Management Learning and Education 10: 643–660.
Westberg, Daniel. 1994. Aristotle, action, and Prudence in Aquinas, Oxford theological monographs 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wijnberg, Nachoem M. 2000. Normative stakeholder theory and Aristotle: The link between ethics and politics. Journal of Business Ethics 25(4): 329–342.
Williams, Oliver F. 1993. Catholic social teaching: A communitarian democratic capitalism for the new world order. Journal of Business Ethics 12(12): 919–932.
Williams, Oliver F. 2004. The UN global compact: The challenge and the promise. Business Ethics Quarterly 14(4): 755–774.
Young, Jeffrey T. (ed.). 2009. Elgar companion to Adam Smith. Cheltenham/Northampton: Edward Elgar.
Zagzebski, Linda. 2001. The uniqueness of persons. The Journal of Religious Ethics 29: 401–423.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and the Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dierksmeier, C. (2016). The Teleological Paradigm. In: Reframing Economic Ethics. Humanism in Business Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32300-8_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32300-8_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32299-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32300-8
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)