Business Ethics as Applied Ethics

Abstract

In recent years there has been a growing tendency to link the words “ethics” and “business”. No doubt this might be just another of the many fashions that periodically hit business schools and the mass media. But, fashion aside, I believe that this tendency reflects concern about a problem that is as yet unresolved, a problem that is one more symptom of social and cultural changes that probably exceed the manifest demand for corporate ethics. The growth and ambiguity of this demand is evident simply in the increase of publications, courses, and seminars that have appeared in recent years. But this quantitative boom also poses a specific new challenge that simultaneously affects corporate management and applied ethics: the challenge of explaining an ethical proposal that is adequate to the contemporary reality of corporations and organizations and can be framed in both conceptual and operational terms.