Abstract
This chapter takes note of Patricia Werhane’s leadership in business ethics as exemplified in her contribution to our understanding of Adam Smith and her development of the notion of moral imagination. The chapter begins by providing an analysis of Werhane’s inspirational account of Adam Smith. Contrary to the usual misreading of Smith as a kind of early libertarian defender of the belief that the sole purpose of business is the pursuit of profit, Werhane presents Smith as a modern capitalist. She shows how self-interest, according to Smith, is constrained by justice. This indicates that there is a need to broaden the usual notion of egoism and recognize that the self-interest that Smith refers to involves a type of egoism, rarely discussed, one that Aristotle would refer to as a “true” egoism. Werhane also analyzes Smith’s concerns about the dehumanizing influence of mass production. She concludes that neither Libertarianism nor Marxism is sufficient. The above leads to the possible conclusion that Werhane as well as Smith are more Aristotelian than one might imagine.
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Notes
- 1.
One way to view the deficiencies of Hobbesian egoism is to look at the notion of the self. As Anscombe hints, the modern notion of the self is deficient. The self is only adequately identifiable as a communal self, not as an isolated monad. Ethics comes from the Greek word “ethos’, which suggests, among other things, habits or customs. We get our ethics from our groups where we learn to play nice. The Wittgensteinian notion of “forms of life” comes to mind as a useful propadeutic here. Our languages reflect those forms of life, so that, pace Ayn Rand, “selfishness” cannot be a virtue. It is a vice in our convention.
- 2.
Other notable philosophers agree with this. The discovery of those interests happens, according to Iris Murdoch, when we “pay” attention to our true ends and goals, which happen to involve love of others since we are social animals. Henri Bergson refers to those goals as our mission, which involves the morality of aspiration and care, two attributes that add a deeper dimension to our lives and help us live well. This discovery of or perception of those true interests is the discovery of goods that constitute living well. It is what Aristotle notes is practical wisdom (phronesis) in operation. Note then, that Aristotle’s notion of practical wisdom or phronesis is quite different from the practical wisdom or prudence that Kant depicts in the Critique of Practical Reason. The prudence or phronesis of Aristotle involves discerning proper goals and cleverness in achieving them.
- 3.
A true self-interest, which involves and requires relationships with others is, for Aristotle, who reminds us that humans are bios politicos (social animals), a necessary component of a fulfilled life. We get socialized into “forms of life” – conventions – which allows some behavior and rejects other behavior as beneficial or non-beneficial to the community. We belong to several moral communities. Any community, such as our home, church, school, neighborhood, family, workplace etc. is a community which sets up prohibitions and rules for getting along, and is in that sense a de-facto moral community. We learn what is good from those communities. But, since no community is perfect, and some are corrupt, (which for Aristotle would mean, leading its participants toward a diminished life, rather than a flourishing life) we need to learn to evaluate those communities, which is the task of ethical judgment.
- 4.
It is important to note that the problems of justice “present so much variety and irregularity that some people believe that they exist only by convention and not by nature.” 1134b24 Book 5 Chapter 7. But they exist by both. Aristotle’s recognition of variety in these issues anticipates the postmodern concern for difference and marginality. But questions of justice are not merely the result of conventions about what is fair. Systems which spell out what is owed and deserved, such as capitalism, are conventions because they involve a set of rules invented by human beings, rules about who is entitled to what and why. However, for Aristotle, the natural and conventional are not strictly dichotomous. So his question would be, “Is the system (e.g. capitalism) merely a convention, or is it a convention developed not in opposition to the natural, but by building on the natural?” For example, are capitalism’s rules governing the distribution of property, developed in accord with natural human drives? So, where the justification of a system like capitalism is simply one legitimating discourse among others for post-modern philosophers such as Lyotard, for Aristotle the justification of capitalism would come by evaluating how it as an artifact would enhance human good and whether it is in accord with human nature. Since Capitalism recognizes the powerful drive of self-interest, as detailed by Adam Smith, we can see why the notion of what “true” self-interest is becomes very important.
- 5.
Anscombe “Modern Moral Philosophy” notes that Aristotle’s ethics is not based on rules. That is an addition from Judaism and Chrisitanity which adhered to a divine command theory. Hence in a secularized world the rules or “nomoi” have to come from self (autonomi). Why is it right? Not because God says so, but because I say so. I am to be the universal legislator. That makes no sense to Aristotle nor me, for that matter.
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———. 1941b. Rhetoric. New York: Random House.
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Duska, R.F. (2018). Patricia Werhane and Adam Smith, with Side Comments on Aesthetics and Wittgenstein. In: Freeman, R.E., Dmytriyev, S., Wicks, A.C. (eds) The Moral Imagination of Patricia Werhane: A Festschrift. Issues in Business Ethics(), vol 47. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74292-2_4
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