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Rethinking the Purity of Moral Motives in Business
- Source :
- Journal of Business Ethics, 167, 379-393. Springer Netherlands, Journal of business ethics
- Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- Moral purism is a commonly held view on moral worthiness and how to identify it in concrete cases. Moral purists long for a moral world in which (business) people—at least sometimes—act morally worthy, but in concrete cases they systematically discount good deeds as grounded in self-interest. Moral purism evokes moral cynicism. Moral cynicism is a problem, both in society at large and the business world. Moral cynicism can be fought by refuting moral purism. This article takes issue with moral purism. The common strategy to tackle moral purism is to reject the exclusion thesis which states that self-interest and the ‘pure’ moral motive (and thus moral worthiness) exclude each other. We develop a different strategy. We argue that moral purists are mistaken in the way they judge moral worthiness in concrete cases. They employ the wrongprocedureand the wrongcriteria.We develop a proper procedure and proper criteria. We build on Kant, who we argue is unfairly regarded as the champion of moral purism. In order to see how Kant can develop a consistent (non-purist) philosophy, the exclusion thesis must be embedded in Kant’s transcendental philosophy. Properly embedded, Kant turns out to be both anti-purist and anti-cynical.
- Subjects :
- Economics and Econometrics
Economics
Philosophy
05 social sciences
Champion
General Business, Management and Accounting
Epistemology
Purism
Cynicism
Sociology
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
0502 economics and business
Wrong procedure
050211 marketing
Business and International Management
Business ethics
Transcendental philosophy
Law
050203 business & management
Order (virtue)
Quality of Life Research
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 01674544
- Volume :
- 167
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Business Ethics
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....63c9b7da74829d7c7b1538e93bcf48f9