The Pragmatization of Ethical Concepts.

This paper is about practical moral reasoning in business and organizational context. The objectives are threefold: 1) to analyze the process of pragmatizing ethical concepts in practice, i.e. in business and economic activities; 2) to explain ethical competency in different business ethics perspectives, and 3) to describe stakeholder vision as a conceptual model for pragmatical approaches in business ethics. The view of ethics as a practice, but not only as a reflection on that practice is the starting point in this paper. Business is considered as practice in the perspective of A. Macintyre's use of this term and in the sense of social activity based on common understanding of deserved goals and common acceptance of quality standards. It is emphasized that the ethicist's professional expertise is such as the "cultural interpreter" from language of moral philosophy to organizational and business ethical discourse. In particular the process of moral rationalization and justification is considered as basic mechanism of pragmatization. Some examples of best practice in organizational ethics in different cultural contexts are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]