Friendships of Virtue, Pursuit of the Moral Community, and the Ends of Business
Friendships of Virtue, Pursuit of the Moral Community, and the Ends of Business
Richard M. Robinson 0 1
0 Department of Business Administration, SUNY Fredonia , E340 Thompson Hall, Fredonia, NY 14063 , USA
1 & Richard M. Robinson
It is argued here that business firms can and do provide an incubator that enables the Aristotelian category of friendships of advantage to develop into friendships of virtue. This contradicts other literature that views acquaintances of utility as the business norm, and expresses pessimism concerning more advanced virtuous development of friendship within the business firm. It is argued here, however, that this virtuous development is integral to the Kantian social aim of pursuing a moral community, an aim which declares the appropriate moral motivation for business, and that certainly should incorporate a role for developing virtuous relations as a component of that pursuit. An atmosphere that encourages the development of relations of virtue is feasible, exists in real business, and is optimal for pursuit of moral business communities.
Kantian moral motivation; Pursuit of moral community in business; Aristotelian friendships of virtue
Introduction
The three-part title of this article suggests interactions
between a category of social relations, moral motivation,
and the ends of business organizations. It is a trite
observation that modern society is built around the social
institutions of family, church, civic, and business organizations,
with the latter certainly not being the least in either amount
or importance of activity. This places business in a
significant role for facilitating friendly social interactions,
for which
Sommers (1997)
,
Koehn (1998)
, and
Cooley
(2002)
suggest that only friendships of advantage (or
utility) are likely to result. Below, I argue against this view
of business-related friendships. I argue that friendships of
virtue are facilitated by business; that they can be, and
likely are important for facilitating the pursuit of a moral
business community. An outline of my argument is
presented immediately below. The body of this article
supports each of these three points in greater detail.
Business firms are communal activities. The proper
moral motivation for business is to pursue a moral
community as in Kant’s third formula for the
categorical imperative. If followed, this motivation focuses the
business person’s attention away from the personal
consequences of potential immoral acts, and towards a
commitment to the business community at hand and the
consequences for it. For this community focus, the
moral motivation is likely to be more effective,
certainly for those who have sympathy for the potential
suffering of business colleagues and constituents,
suffering that might result from the moral failings of
others.1 Actual full achievement of the moral
community, rather than the pursuit, cannot be the point because
the knowledge that this achievement is unlikely could
lead to discouragement, and therefore abandonment of
the motive. It is the pursuit of the Kingdom of Ends (in
Kantian terminology) that is important here. This
previously unexplored view of the appropriate
1 Kant, of course, insists that respect for the moral law must be the
moral motive, a respect that does not rely on sympathy or
consequences. See the next section where consequentialist notions
in support of the pursuit of the moral community are explored and
compared with the pure Kantian notion.
•
•
motivation for business is offered as the first of three
contributions provided by this article.
Friendships are part of any community including that of
business. The intense working and lasting relationships
found within business potentially facilitate the
development of friendships of utility, but also friendships of
virtue in the Aristotelian sense. The former category of
friendship may develop into the latter among those
motivated to pursue a moral community as referred to
above. Such friendships reinforce the morality of one
another, and also promote a wider set of, and
commitment to, positive duty, and can become essential parts
of any business community. In addition, business
people with friendships of virtue are likely to be
reluctant to alienate those relations through their own
potential moral lapses. Previous explorations of
business friendships left those of the virtue category barely
explored. The elucidation presented here is therefore
the second contribution of this article.
Because of the above, the moral motivation of the
pursuit of the moral community within business,
together with developed friendships of virtue, are likely
to interact so as to strengthen the morality of business.
In effect, the development of friendships of virtue
potentially and partially operationalize the pursuit of
the moral community for business.2 This conclusion
represents the third contribution of this article.
To explore these interrelated issues in depth, the article
first addr (...truncated)