A theory of business ethics: A Habermasian approach to the normative analysis of capitalist business activity

This dissertation elaborates a normative theory of business ethics from the perspective of Habermasian critical theory. As such, this dissertation straddles two academic fields and seeks to make a contribution to both. On the one hand, it seeks to extend critical theory by offering a more explicit and systematic examination of the conditions for the normative acceptability of capitalist business practice. On the other hand, it offers a more systematic and rigorous approach to the elaboration and grounding of normative theory than is the norm in the field of business ethics. In making these contributions, it proceeds in the following manner. The first chapter explicates the general problematic of developing a normative theory of business ethics from a critical theory perspective. The second chapter investigates the potential "rationality" of capitalism as an economic system, arguing that, despite some antipathy, Habermas' critical theory of modernity provides an account of the rationality of capitalism that is able to ground a normative theory of business ethics. The third chapter examines normative theory in the tradition of critical theory. On the basis of two Habermasian projects of rational reconstruction, (viz., the theory of discourse ethics and the normative theory of law and democracy), a tripartite model of normativity is elaborated which distinguishes the realms of legitimacy, morality and ethics. The next three chapters investigate and establish the conditions for the normative acceptability of capitalist business activity in each of these three realms. The fourth chapter examines the normative relationship between capitalist business practice and political democracy. In so doing, it elaborates the conditions for normative acceptability that legitimacy imposes upon capitalist business practice. Similarly, the fifth chapter, in its investigation of the relationship between capitalist business practice and the common good, delineates the conditions that morality imposes upon capitalist business activity. Chapter six examines the relationship of the ethical obligations of capitalist firms to conceptions of the good life, highlighting the contextual nature of these demands vis-a-vis the universally valid demands of morality and legitimacy. Finally, the concluding chapter examines the significance of the present work for both critical theory and business ethics.