Abstract
In this chapter, which serves as the conclusion to the first part of the study, three operations are introduced, which help us to practically engage with the demands of the deconstructive and provisional account of ethics developed in this study, and which also serve to draw attention to ‘the logic of complexity’ that contaminates all conceptual schemas. These three operations, which have been termed ‘virtues’ for a complex world, are: transgressivity (which prevents us from simply reinforcing that which is current), irony (which allows us to recognise and engage with the limitations of a binary logic), and moral imagination (which allows us to successfully engage in critical meaning-producing processes that takes place within specific contexts defined by power and politics). The arguments put forward in this chapter are illustrated at the hand of examples from the organisational context, and from the management sciences and business ethics literature.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Allen, P. 2000. Knowledge, ignorance, and learning. Emergence 2(4): 78–103.
Babeau, O. 2007. Granting disorder a place in ethics: Organization’s deviant practices and ethics. In Business ethics as practice: Representation, reflexivity and performance, ed. C. Carter, S. Clegg, M. Kornbergger, S. Laske, and M. Messner, 32–48. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Badiou, A. 2009. Pocket Pantheon, trans. D. Macey. London: Verso.
Cilliers, P. 2005. Complexity, deconstruction and relativism. Theory, Culture & Society 22(5): 255–267.
Colebrook, C. 2. Irony: The new critical idiom. London: Routledge.
Croak, J. 2011. Briocoleur. Edge World Question Center. Available online at: http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_8.html.
Derrida, J. 1978. Structure, sign, and play in the discourse of the human sciences. In Writing and difference, trans. A. Bass, 278–294. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Derrida, J. 1981. Positions. In Positions, trans. A. Bass, 37–96. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Derrida, J. 1988. Afterword. In Limited Inc., ed. G. Graff and trans. S. Weber, 111–160. Evanston: Northern Western University Press.
Derrida, J. 2002. The right to philosophy from a cosmopolitical point of view: The example of an international institution. In Ethics, institutions, and the right to philosophy, ed. and trans. P.P. Trifonas, 1–18. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Derrida, J. 2. Plato’s pharmacy. In Dissemination, ed. and trans. B. Johnson, 67–186. London/New York: Continuum.
Derrida, J. and Ferraris, M. 2001. A taste for the secret, ed. G. Donis and D. Webb. Malden: Polity Press.
Duc, M. and Faïta, D. 1996. Savoir-faire d’encadrement et prescription floue. In La transgression des règles au travail, ed. J. Girin, 51–81. Paris: l’Harmattan.
Forst, R. 2007. ‘“To tolerate means to insult”: Toleration, recognition, and emancipation.’ In Recognition and power, ed. B. Van den Brink and D. Owen, 215–237. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hargrave, T.J. 2009. Moral imagination, collective action, and the achievement of moral outcomes. Business Ethics Quarterly 19(1): 87–104.
Kearney, R. 1988. The wake of imagination: Towards a postmodern culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Levi-Strauss, C. 1966. The savage mind, trans. J. Weightman and D. Weightman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Luntley, M. 2003. Ethics in the face of uncertainty: Judgement not rules. Business Ethics: A European Review 12(4): 325–333.
May, T. 1995. The moral theory of poststructuralism. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Mensch, J.R. 2003. Ethics and selfhood. New York: State University of New York Press.
Montuori, A. 2003. The complexity of improvisation and the improvisation of complexity: Social science, art and creativity. Human Relation 56(2): 237–255.
Morin, E. 1974. Complexity. International Social Science Journal XXVI(4): 555–582.
Morin, E. 1999. Seven complex lessons in education for the future, trans. N. Poller. Paris: UNESCO Publication.
Preiser, R., and P. Cilliers. 2010. Unpacking the ethics of complexity: Concluding reflections. In Complexity, difference and identity, ed. P. Cilliers and R. Preiser, 265–287. Dordrecht: Springer.
Raffoul, F. 2008. Derrida and the ethics of the impossible. Research in Phenomenology 38: 270–290.
Solomon, R.C. 1992. Ethics and excellence: Cooperation and integrity in business. New York: Oxford University Press.
Solomon, R.C. 1999. A better way to think about business. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sontag, S. 2007. At the same time: The novelist and moral reasoning: The Nadine Gordimer lecture. In At the same time: Essays and speeches, ed. P. Dilonardo and A. Jump, 210–230. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Teubner, G. 2001. Economics of gift – Positivity of justice: The mutual paranoia of Jacques Derrida and Niklas Luhmann. Theory, Culture & Society 18(1): 29–47.
Werhane, P.H. 1999. Moral imagination and management decision-making. New York: Oxford University Press.
Werhane, P.H. 2002. Moral imagination and systems thinking. Journal of Business Ethics 38(1/2): 33–42.
Williams, Z. 2003. The final irony. The Guardian, Saturday 28 June 2003.
Woermann, M. 2010. Corporate identity, responsibility and the ethics of complexity. In Complexity, difference and identity, ed. P. Cilliers and R. Preiser, 167–192. Dordrecht: Springer.
Woermann, M. and Cilliers, P. 2012. The ethics of complexity and the complexity of ethics. South African Journal of Philosophy, 31(2): 447–463.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Woermann, M. (2013). ‘Virtues’ for a Complex World. In: On the (Im)Possibility of Business Ethics. Issues in Business Ethics, vol 37. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5131-6_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5131-6_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-5130-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-5131-6
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)