文档介绍：Business ethics and virtue
This reading was selected for the ERH in part because it picks up an important theme from Section A — virtue ethics (discussed in Unit A6). However, it also brings up an important topic for business. This is a very rich article that deserves to be read carefully.
The author, philosopher Robert Solomon, begins the article with a brief philosophical orientation. He distinguishes virtue ethics from principled or action ethics. As the names indicate, the former is concerned with virtue or character while the latter centres on the principles of right action. Solomon suggests that at a minimum virtue ethics describes a part of ethics that action ethics misses.
Solomon then looks at several prominent proponents of virtues ethics: Aristotle (whose views are discussed in Unit A6), Friedrich Nietzsche, Confucius, David Hume, and Adam Smith (whose views on the market and ethics were discussed by Sen in Unit B2). Each of these offers important and distinctly different contributions to virtue theory.
To explain the role virtue could play in business ethics, Solomon uses the ideas of a practice ("a shared cooperative activity with mutually understood goals and ways of doing things") and excellence at performing a practice. Competitive games like er or hockey are good examples of practices. It should be noticed that being good at er includes petitive and coo