Aristotelian Foundations of Business Ethics: The Possibility of Moral Judgment in Organizations

Abstract

Ethics, decision-making, and moral judgment are interwoven issues of paramount importance in bothphilosophy and management. Understanding ethics in business has been conceptualized many different waysthroughout history depending on the standpoint. The roots of business ethics extend to the roots of business itselfwhen commercial transactions and the exchange of goods/materials (trade) started. Identical to various views onthe nature of business ethics, several different strands are found concerning the historical foundation of businessethics. Although this concept had not been described as business ethics prior to the 1970s, justifying business practiceshas been an important endeavor since much earlier. This paper aims to survey the Aristotelian foundations ofbusiness ethics and because one important strand in the history of business ethics claims that moral beliefs playa vital role in managerial decisions and eventually business practices, I will try to question the possibility of moraljudgment in organizations.