The Individual in Business Ethics

Today we are witnessing social and political dominance of large corporations. They provide for its employees moral values and business principles. Moreover, they institutionalize their codes of ethics. The theory of Business Ethics provides the moral guideline and standards for corporate life and concrete business organizations apply those standards to practice. The individual employee, as a member of a business organization, accepts those standards. Therefore, it is important to examine the foundation of the individual's moral value in Business Ethics in order to understand on what the foundation of the moral value depends on. This highly interdisciplinary text is a critique of Business Ethics as an ideology and life politics. The author discloses how contemporary business ethics grovels before corporations, how it is too weak to create a truly critical voice of American capitalist economy. The individual's treatment in corporate life is revealed through the eyes of American Protestant culture and its coercive work tradition where efficiency value usurps values of individual choice and freedom. This book suggests a new concept of an out-corporate individual.

Auteur
TOMAS KAVALIAUSKAS researcher and a lecturer at Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania. For the last five years has been teaching Business Ethics and Political Philosophy, throughout European universities has been attending conferences and workshops introducing his interdisciplinary approaches. The author is also an essayist on the portal of European intellectuals www.eurozine.com, where he writes on Euro integration and identity issues. T. Kavaliauskas is member of Lithuanian PEN club and of European SPES Spirituality in Economics and Society.

Contenu
INTRODUCTION PART I :THE EVOLVEMENT OF BUSINESS ETHICS History of Business Ethics Cultural and Political Reasons for the Evolvement of Business Ethics History of Ideas of Protestantism and Business Ethics The Breakaway of Business Ethics from Classical Ethics Aristotle's Virtue Ethics and Business Ethics Deontological Ethics and Business Ethics Utilitarian Ethics and Business Ethics Utilitarian Perspective of Corporate Social Responsibility Utilitarian Perspective of Human Resource Management and Stakeholder Theory Institutionalization of a Code of Ethics and the Politics of the Protestant Work Ethic PART II: THE INDIVIDUAL'S MORAL VALUE IN BUSINESS ETHICS Life Politics and Ideology Life Politics from Anthony Giddens' Perspective Ideology from Louis Dumont's Perspective Corporate Life Politics and Ideology: Corporate Life Politics and Ideology: a Case Study of Shell Group An Ideological Application of Aristotle's Virtue Ethics and Kant's Ethics to Corporate Life An Ideological Application of Aristotle's Virtue Ethics to Corporate Life An Ideological Application of Kant's Ethics to Corporate Life An Ideological Institutionalization of Protestant Work Ethic and the Individual's Moral Value from a Sociological/Cultural Perspective Anti-institutional Ethics of the Flower Children Protestant American Mind-set and Moral Justification of Business Purpose: The Perspectives of Richard T. De George and Ronald F. Duska The Connection between Consumption and Corporate Life Politics and Ideology Global Business Citizenship as Life Politics and Ideology Whistle Blowing as the Foundation of a Distinct Out-corporate Individual's Moral Value from the Perspective of Political Philosophy