Why 3 areas of business and professional ethics?
Business and professional ethics is an applied political philosophy that owes its method of analysis to the concept of justice.
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Thus, our epistemological approach to professional and business ethics is based on the Aristotelian tradition that continues with Thomas Aquinas and various contemporary intellectuals like Karol Wojtyla, John Finnis, and Alasdair MacIntyre.
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In the Aristotelian tradition, universal justice is defined as “giving to each their due” or “giving to each their own.” Yet, these relationships of equilibrium applied to how people treat each other particularly apply to three spheres, including (I) relationships of commutative exchange, (ii) of distribution-contribution, and (iii) those regulated by law. According to this, we might consider three ambits of practice in for professional and business activities, that is, markets, organizational, and social.
Justice in Markets
In the field of business, commutative justice occurs in trade and in the market. Here, an act of justice emerges because that which is exchanged has an equivalent or proportional value. For Aristotle, in fact, this justice in exchange implies a certain degree of proportionality (for example, in the context of bartering, a cow might be considered equivalent to 10 hens), and this proportionality is reflected in money (i.e., the price of a cow is the same as that of ten hens).
Justice in Firms
In contrast, there are other relationships of justice when it comes to activities carried out in a cooperative way. This obviously applies to business because the result of organizational activity depends on the effort of all those who make up the company in terms of contribution and distribution (perhaps it is more precise, in this sense, to speak of justice of contribution and reward, than of mere distributive justice, although both concepts mean the same thing). The business context is characterized by proportionality because not everyone gives and receives equally. That is, cooperative relationships are understood as based on the merit assigned to each person with respect to an overall achievement.
Justice in Society
Finally, there is a relationship between commercial and entrepreneurial activity and society, which is usually materialized through relationships of justice that are public, urban, tax-related and, especially, legal. Legal or political justice, in fact, regulates company and market activity not just as a means to these two realities’ correct functioning, but also to channel commercial and productive activity toward the good of society.
The principle of justice that requires a company to “give each his due” makes it impossible to attend to each group with justice. Thus, fair and responsible treatment requires a distinction between groups (egalitarianism is not a sufficient criterion and is rather unjust). This theory considers, based on the parties of justice, defined groups with which the company relates. The distinctions made are summarized in the following:
