The Relevance of Pragmatism for Business Ethics.

The application of ethics to the business context often takes one of two approaches. One approach emphasizes studying cases without any extensive theoretical background while the other emphasizes the application of abstract ethical theories embodying universal principles to specific cases. Part of the problem of making ethical decision making relevant for the business community may be that there is perhaps an implicit, unexpressed, but nonetheless pervasive and commonsense perception by practitioners. Our concrete decision making is influenced by all sorts of conflicting guidelines, and such decision making cannot be simplified to accord with any single one of them.