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We examine Van Wynsberghe and Robbins (JAMA 25:719-735, 2019) critique of the need for Artificial Moral Agents (AMAs) and its rebuttal by Formosa and Ryan (JAMA 10.1007/s00146-020-01089-6, 2020) set against a neo-Aristotelian ethical background. Neither Van Wynsberghe and Robbins (JAMA 25:719-735, 2019) essay nor Formosa and Ryan’s (JAMA 10.1007/s00146-020-01089-6, 2020) is explicitly framed within the teachings of a specific ethical school. The former appeals to the lack of “both empirical and intuitive support” (Van Wynsberghe and Robbins 2019, p. 721) for AMAs, and the latter opts for “argumentative breadth over depth”, meaning to provide “the essential groundwork for making an all things considered judgment regarding the moral case for building AMAs” (Formosa and Ryan 2019, pp. 1–2). Although this strategy may benefit their acceptability, it may also detract from their ethical rootedness, coherence, and persuasiveness, characteristics often associated with consolidated ethical traditions. Neo-Aristotelian ethics, backed by a distinctive philosophical anthropology and worldview, is summoned to fill this gap as a standard to test these two opposing claims. It provides a substantive account of moral agency through the theory of voluntary action; it explains how voluntary action is tied to intelligent and autonomous human life; and it distinguishes machine operations from voluntary actions through the categories of poiesis and praxis respectively. This standpoint reveals that while Van Wynsberghe and Robbins may be right in rejecting the need for AMAs, there are deeper, more fundamental reasons. In addition, despite disagreeing with Formosa and Ryan’s defense of AMAs, their call for a more nuanced and context-dependent approach, similar to neo-Aristotelian practical wisdom, becomes expedient.

We explore offshore outsourcing through the lenses of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). First, we review the outcomes of the 30-year debate in business ethics on issues related to offshore outsourcing. We then cluster authors into two groups—the justice-centered approach and the welfare-centered approach—corresponding to different perspectives on the ethical challenges of offshoring. In the second part, we present and apply the four fundamental principles of the CST (human dignity, subsidiarity, solidarity and the common good) to offshoring, in dialogue with the previous debate. The unity and interconnection among the CST’s fundamental tenets provide a cohesive framework that integrates the points made by the justice-centered and welfare-centered approaches, while introducing the principle of solidarity, more focused on the worker as a person and their flourishing. CST also stresses the need to initiate processes oriented toward structural changes for the sake of human dignity and the common good.

Financial misconduct has come into the spotlight in recent years, causing market regulators to increase the reach and severity of interventions. We show that at times the economic benefits of illicit financial activity outweigh the costs of litigation. We illustrate our argument with data from the US Securities and Exchanges Commission and a case of investment misconduct. From the neoclassical economic paradigm, which follows utilitarian thinking, it is rational to engage in misconduct. Still, the majority of professionals refrain from misconduct, foregoing economic rewards. We suggest financial activity could be reimagined taking into account intrinsic and prosocial motivations. A virtue ethics framework could also be applied, linking financial behavior to the quest for moral excellence and shared flourishing. By going beyond utilitarian thinking and considering alternative models, we offer a fuller account of financial behavior and a better perspective from which to design deterrence methods.

In 1538–39 Francisco de Vitoria delivered two relections:De IndisandDe iure belli.This article distills from these writings the topic of free trade as a “human right” in accordance withius gentiumor the “law of peoples.” The right to free trade is rooted in a more fundamental right to communication and association. The rights to travel, to dwell, and to migrate precede the right to trade, which is also closely connected to the rights to preach, to protect converts, and to constitute Christian princes. This has significant repercussions on the field of business ethics: the right to free trade is ultimately founded directly on natural law and indirectly on divine law; trade is not independent of ethics; and trade is presented as an opportunity to develop the virtues of justice and friendship, among other repercussions. Vitoria is portrayed as a defender of private initiative and free markets.

In recent years, business ethics and economic scholars have been paying greater attention to the development of commons organizing. The latter refers to the processes by which communities of people work in common in the pursuit of the common good. In turn, this promotes commons organizational designs based on collective forms of common goods production, distribution, management and ownership. In this paper, we build on two main literature streams: (1) the ethical approach based on the theory of the common good of the firm in virtue ethics and (2) the economic approach based on the theory of institutions for collective action developed by Ostrom’s research on common-pool resources to avert the tragedy of the commons. The latter expands to include the novel concepts of new commons, “commoning” and polycentric governance. Drawing on the analysis of what is new in these forms of organizing, we propose a comprehensive model, highlighting the integration of two sets of organizing principles—common good and collective action – and five problem-solving processes to explain the main dimensions of commons organizing. We contribute to business ethics literature by exploring the convergence between the ethical and economic approaches in the development of a commons organizing view.

Not only individuals and firms, but also families engage in business as a social activity and this is true beyond the case of family businesses. Cultural differences in the way families are construed might influence the way they do business. There are different types of families, and among these are those described by Aristotelian and Confucian traditions, representing the West and the East respectively. The literature on virtue in business has been dominated by a Western—mainly Aristotelian—tradition (Ferrero and Sison in Bus Ethics Eur Rev 30(1): 8–24, 2014), neglecting the role of the family and focusing on the individual. In this paper, we seek to fill this gap by explaining differences and similarities in the normative evaluation of certain family-related business attitudes and practices, in light of Confucian and Aristotelian virtue ethics standards. After comparing the structure, organization and dynamics of Aristotelian and Confucian families, we shall draw some inferences regarding “virtuous” or excellent business practices—such as nepotism, bribery, gift-giving and guanxi and attitudes—on codified rules or written norms. For this analysis we shall make use of Aristotelian and Confucian ethical accounts as well as inputs from Family Science applied to organizations, which provides conceptual categories to compare the two traditions. Thus we hope to contribute not only to the comparative study of Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics in business, but also to the understanding of the distinctive role of families, raising cultural awareness for what may be considered virtuous business practices according to the Aristotelian and Confucian traditions.

The notion that business corporations should be managed for the exclusive benefit of shareholders has been widely challenged. In particular, critics have argued that directors are authorised to serve the interests of the corporation: a legal entity that is completely separate from its shareholders. However, the premise that shareholders have sole legitimate claim to ‘membership’ has rarely been questioned. This article explores medieval thought on ownership, authority and participation in guilds, churches, towns and universities, and shows that membership can be understood as participation in, and shared responsibility for, a group's distinct collaborative activity over time. Our theory suggests that ‘membership’ in the modern corporation extends to non-shareholding stakeholders, but with the implication that ownership and authority are vested in the members as a body and not in a separate entity.

This article is motivated by certain issues for which, in current Business and Human Rights (BHR) discourse, largely framed in terms of the Ruggie reports, no satisfactory solutions have been found to date. These quandaries refer to (a) foundational matters: the link between human rights law and ethics; (b) normative force: the obligatoriness of human rights claims on corporations; and (c) scope and content of human rights claims on corporations. Turning to the virtue ethics and natural law (VENL) tradition, we encounter the following possible responses: (a) positive laws, such as those concerning human rights, ultimately require a basis in natural law; (b) although the public use of the coercive force of law belongs to the state alone, its private use by non-state actors such as individuals and corporations may be legitimate in some cases; and (c) practical wisdom is necessary in the proper interpretation and implementation of human rights claims on corporations, taking into account relevant contingencies. The blending of BHR discourse with the VENL tradition is best captured in modern Catholic Social Teaching (CST). Although historically CST has adopted the VENL language, engagement with social issues in the modern world has enabled it to reach an understanding with rights theory as well, particularly in connection with business and the economy.

In this article, we shall attempt to lay down the parameters within which the practice of the virtues may be enabled in the field of finance. We shall be drawing from the three main sources, Aristotle, Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and MacIntyre, on which virtue ethics is based. The research question is what ought to be done for financial activities to truly contribute to eudaimonia or human flourishing (Aristotle), to the achievement of three distinct kinds of goods as required of virtue, “those internal to practices, those which are the goods of an individual life and those which are the goods of the community” (MacIntyre), and to “[help] man on the path of salvation” in the midst of complex network of relationships in modern societies (CST). These parameters could then be taken as conditions financiers ought to fulfill in order to live the virtues in their work and across different life spheres.

What contributions could we expect from Catholic Social Teaching (CST) on human dignity in relation to the dignity of work? This article begins with an explanation of CST and its relevance for secular audiences. It then proceeds to identify the main features of human dignity based on the notion of imago Dei in CST. Next comes an analysis of the dignity of work in CST from which two normative principles are derived: the precedence of duties over rights and the priority of the subjective dimension of work over the objective dimension. Afterwards, the “right to work” and the “rights of workers” are engaged with from this normative perspective, particularly within the context of globalization.

This paper introduces ‘Virtue and Virtuousness: When will the twain ever meet?’ a special edition of 'Business Ethics: A European Review'. The Call for Papers invited contributions that could inform the relationship between organisational virtuousness, as conceptualised by positive organisation studies, and the classical conception of virtues pertaining to individual women and men. Whilst the resources of particular virtue traditions - Aristotelian, Catholic, Confucian and the like - could inform their own debates as to whether virtue extends beyond individuals, the debate between virtue traditions and Positive Organisation Studies has a different dimension. The question is whether the claims of positive social sciences as such are compatible with those of any virtue tradition. We argue that positive social science and virtue traditions are indeed rivals such that adherence to the claims of the one precludes adherence to the other. Resolution to such conflicts requires that one tradition is able to resolve questions that exhaust the resources of the other. This paper suggests that at least one area of incoherence in the findings of positive social sciences can be resolved by virtue traditions and introduces the remaining papers in the Special Edition.

The purpose of this article is to explain the differences between neo-Aristotelian virtue and positive organizational virtuousness from the virtue ethics perspective. Most studies use virtues and virtuousness interchangeably. A few others try to explain their differences from the positive organizational science perspective. Although closely related, we believe that these two notions are not identical. If we understand neo-Aristotelian virtue correctly, then it cannot be judged exclusively on what is externally verifiable, as is the case with virtuousness. For these reasons, we attempt our own differentiation, highlighting the gains and losses realized in the migration from neo-Aristotelian virtue to positive organizational virtuousness, and establishing guideposts to meaningfully combine the strengths of both concepts.

Virtue ethics is generally recognized as one of the three major schools of ethics, but is often waylaid by utilitarianism and deontology in business and management literature. EBSCO and ABI databases were used to look for articles in the Journal of Citation Reports publications between 1980 and 2011 containing the keywords ‘virtue ethics’, ‘virtue theory’, or ‘virtuousness’ in the abstract and ‘business’ or ‘management’ in the text. The search was refined to draw lists of the most prolific authors, the most cited authors, the most cited articles, and the journals with the most virtue ethics publications. This information allows one to chart how virtue ethics articles have evolved through the decades and to establish ‘schools’ or clusters of authors as well as clusters of themes. The results of this quantitative analysis of authors, ‘schools’, themes, and publications provide a foundation for the future study of virtue ethics in business and management, identifying its achievements and potentials.

In recent years, scholars in business ethics, management and organizational studies have paid increasing attention to ‘the language of the commons.’ In this paper, we build on the two main foundati...

In a previous essay (Sison and Fontrodona 2012), we defined the common good of the firm as collaborative work, insofar as it provides, first, an opportunity to develop knowledge, skills, virtues, and meaning (work as praxis), and second, inasmuch as it produces goods and services to satisfy society’s needs and wants (work as poiesis). We would now like to focus on the participatory aspect of this common good. To do so, we will have to identify the different members of the firm as a community, drawing from corporate citizenship literature and stakeholder theory. Afterward, we will explore both the manner and the intensity of these different members’ participation and its impact on the firm’s common good.

Studies from a variety of theoretical perspectives confirm that work organizations impact the development of employees’ moral agency. But how and in what direction? Rival answers to these and related questions include those who extol the bourgeois virtues required by market orders and those who regard business organizations as corrosive of the virtues. Empirical research into virtues in organizations has done little to resolve the issue. This paper will illustrate the dimensions of these disputes and attempt to diagnose their cause. It turns out that rival accounts of the impact of business on moral agency presuppose radically different accounts of those individual, public and common goods to whose achievement the virtues must be directed; or so I shall argue.

Virtue ethics, the authors believe, is distinct and superior to other options because it considers, in the first place, which preferences are worth pursuing, rather than just blindly maximizing preferences, and it takes into account intuitions, emotions and experience, instead of acting solely on abstract universal principles. Moreover, virtue ethics is seen as firmly rooted in human biology and psychology, particularly in our freedom, rationality, and sociability. Work, business, and management are presented as vital areas for the development of virtues, not the least with a view to human flourishing. We conclude by introducing the articles included in this special issue.

This article proposes a theory of the firm based on the common good. It clarifies the meaning of the term “common good” tracing its historical development. Next, an analogous sense applicable to the firm is derived from its original context in political theory. Put simply, the common good of the firm is the production of goods and services needed for flourishing, in which different members participate through work. This is linked to the political common good through subsidiarity. Lastly, implications and challenges arising from the positing of work as the common good of the firm are explored.

Transparency in business and society is one of the challenges raised in the encyclical Caritas in Veritate by Benedict XVI. This paper focuses on the issue by extending the literature on business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and corporate transparency in two dimensions. First, it reviews the understanding and framing of the transparency issue in Caritas in Veritate and in a selection of relevant Catholic Social Teaching (CST) publications. Second, this paper provides normative indications for corporate transparency decisions which reflect four permanent principles of CST, that is, the common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, and respect for the human being. Inasmuch as human beings are worthy of love for their own sakes, the dimension of gift should always be present in relationships among them. This paper also provides insights for further studies on corporate transparency and the impact of religion on business ethics and corporate social responsibility.

Caritas in Veritate (CV) poses a challenge to the business community when it asks for “a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise” (CV 40). The paper proposes the concept of the “common good” as a starting point for the discussion and sketches a definition of the common good of business as the path toward an answer for this challenge. Building on the distinction between the material and the formal parts of the common good, the authors characterize profit as the material part of the common good of business and work as the formal part that expresses the essential significance of business.

After defining the essential elements of Aristotelian citizenship, the article proposes to apply these criteria in its search for the equivalent of a citizen within the corporate polis. It argues that shareholding managers are the best positioned among a firm’s constituents or stakeholders in fulfilling the role of corporate citizens. Greater participation by management not only in the control but also in the ownership of firms brings about benefits for the firm as a whole and for the managers themselves, as organizational citizenship behavior literature, among others, suggests.

The paper is the introduction to a selection of papers submitted to the EBEN 25th Annual Conference which took place at IESE Business School in Barcelona from September 20 to 22, 2012. The text presents the rationale behind the program of the Conference, and summarizes the content of the selected papers.

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to present how innovations in the social action program of a Spanish savings bank produce strategic changes in the organization.Design/methodology/approachThe paper follows a historical approach, first studying Spanish savings banks in general and the Caja de Ahorros de Navarra (CAN) in particular. It then examines the strategic challenges that the CAN faced in 2002 and the organizational response through the “You choose, you decide” initiative. The implementation of the program is chronicled and results evaluated against strategic objectives.FindingsIn embodying the social action program of the CAN, the “You choose, you decide” campaign has successfully differentiated the bank. Customer‐stakeholders have acquired a high degree of identification with the bank since they now decide on the beneficiaries of the social action program as well as their level of prioritization.Originality/valueThis work is of special interest to bank managers who would like to incorporate CSR and increased stakeholder involvement into their strategic and differentiation objectives.