Challenges of Capitalism for Virtue Ethics and the Common Good

Edited by Kleio Akrivou, Professor of Business Ethics and Moral Development, Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK and Alejo José G. Sison, Professor, University of Navarre, Spain

'The excellent authors in this wide-ranging but coherent body of essays largely decimate certain important ethical presuppositions of post-industrial capitalism and offer better ones. Relying on the virtue-based approach of Aristotle and like-minded moral philosophers, the authors enlighten business ethics by bringing to bear the insight that human nature and well-being essentially involve values of community.' --Edwin Hartman, retired Professor, New York University'Despite skepticism about character and virtue, virtue ethics and the common good are still among the most influential frameworks in applied ethics in general and in business ethics in particular. This is an ambitious, carefully argued and stimulating collection, which explains why character is not and cannot be dead in business and philosophical research. The Challenges of Capitalism for Virtue Ethics and the Common Good examines new and rich directions for the character approach in today's economic and political context. It is remarkably useful to all with an interest in normative business ethics and an indispensable guide for virtue ethicists in business schools.'--Miguel Alzola, Professor, Fordham University'A serious attempt to recover an understanding of the economy within the realm of human action, with the common good at the centre and under the guidance of the virtues.'--Domènec Melé, Chair of Business Ethics, University of Navarre, Spain

• Contents:Introduction Kleio Akrivou PART I THE COMMON GOOD IN HISTORY: VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY AS KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION FOR THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN INSTITUTIONS, SOCIETY AND PERSON(S)1. The merchant and the common good: social paradigms and the state’s influence in Western historyAgustín González Enciso2. The ‘medieval’, the common good and accountingAlisdair Dobie3. The civilization of commerce in the Middle AgesMark Hanssen4. Virtuous banking: the role of the community in monitoring English joint-stock banks and their managements in the nineteenth centuryVictoria Barnes and Lucy Newton5. Disposed toward self-restraint: the London clearing banks, 1946–71Linda ArchPART II ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUE, THE COMMON GOOD AND CURRENT RELEVANCE FOR CAPITALISM, INSTITUTIONS AND PERSONS’ AGENCY6. Revisiting the common good of the firmAlejo José G. Sison7. Integrated habitus for the common good of the firm – a radically humanistic conception of organizational habitus with systemic human integrity orientationKleio Akrivou, Oluyemisi Bolade-Ogunfodun and Adeyinka Adewale 8. Corporate agency, character, purpose and the common goodGeoff Moore9. Individual and organizational virtuesRon Beadle10. Corporations, politics and the common goodBrian M. McCall11. Two kinds of human integrity: towards the ethics of the inter-processual selfKleio Akrivou and José Víctor Orón12. Prudence as part of a worldview: historical and conceptual dimensions Germán R. Scalzo and Helen Alford13. Non-Western virtue ethics, commerce and the common goodDaryl Koehn14. Reflections on the concept of the common good from an economic perspectiveMark CassonIndex