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Adversarial Ethics

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Sustainable Management

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Synonyms

Competitive ethics; Ethics of adversaries

Definition

Adversarial ethics is a relatively recent field of morality, which is concerned with competitive behaviors, such as in sports, politics, business, the judiciary system, or, ultimately, war. Its aim is to determine the conditions to be imposed on competition for rendering it acceptable. It constitutes a departure from “traditional ethics” and from its focus on the principles and constraints to be applied to individuals when they cooperate or interact in a neutral manner (neither competitive nor cooperative). In contrast, adversarial ethics deals with situations where individuals and organizations should not intend to collaborate, when they unapologetically pursue their self-interests. Most of such situations are socially codified and circumscribed, e.g., sports, business, or politics. Moreover, they are accepted insofar as they generate positive outcomes of some sort (for instance, a thrilling spectacle, lower prices,...

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References

  • Applbaum, A. I. (1999). Ethics for adversaries. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, Riga, Latvia

    Xavier Landes

Authors
  1. Xavier Landes
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xavier Landes .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. London Metropolitan University, Guildhall Faculty of Business and Law London Metropolitan University, London, UK

    Samuel Idowu

  2. Cologne Business School, Ingolstadt, Germany

    René Schmidpeter

  3. College of Business, Loyola University New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Nicholas Capaldi

  4. International Training Centre of the IL, International Labor Organization, Turin, Italy

    Liangrong Zu

  5. Department of Economics, Society and Politics, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, Italy

    Mara Del Baldo

  6. Instituto Politécnico da Guarda, Guarda, Portugal

    Rute Abreu

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Economic Sciencies, University of Salento, Salento, Italy

    Andrea Venturelli

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Landes, X. (2020). Adversarial Ethics. In: Idowu, S., Schmidpeter, R., Capaldi, N., Zu, L., Del Baldo, M., Abreu, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainable Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02006-4_639-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02006-4_639-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02006-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02006-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Business and ManagementReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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