Four Design Criteria for Any Future Contractarian Theory of Business Ethics

This article assesses the quality of Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT) as a social contract argument. For this purpose, it embarks on a comparative analysis of the use of the social contract model as a theory of political authority and as a theory of social justice. Building on this compari...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics 2008-09, Vol.81 (3), p.697-714
Main Author: Wempe, Ben
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Business and Management
Business Ethics
Business management
Business studies
Comparative analysis
Contract theory
contractarianism
Contracts
Education
Ethics
Experiments
Integrative Social Contracts Theory
International business
Management
Modeling
Morality
Norms
Philosophy
Political authority
Political theory
Qualitative comparative analysis
Quality of Life Research
Social contract
Social justice
Studies
theories of business ethics
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Summary:This article assesses the quality of Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT) as a social contract argument. For this purpose, it embarks on a comparative analysis of the use of the social contract model as a theory of political authority and as a theory of social justice. Building on this comparison, it then develops four criteria for any future contractarian theory of business ethics (CBE). To apply the social contract model properly to the domain of business ethics, it should be: (1) self-disciplined, i.e., not aspire results beyond what the contract model can realistically establish; (2) argumentative, i.e., it should seek to provide principles that are demonstrative results of the contractarian method; (3) task-directed, i.e., it should be clear what the social contract thought-experiment is intended to model; and (4) domain-specific, i.e., the contractarian choice situation should be tailored to the defining problems of business ethics.
ISSN:0167-4544
1573-0697
DOI:10.1007/s10551-007-9542-x