Foundations and Applications for Contractualist Business Ethics

Pursey Heugens (), J. Oosterhout () and Muel Kaptein ()

Journal of Business Ethics, 2006, vol. 68, issue 3, 228 pages

Abstract: Contractualism is one of the most promising ‘centers of gravity’ in business ethics. In this guest editorial we provide a concise roadmap to the field, sketching contractualism’s historic and disciplinary antecedents, the basic argumentative structure of the contract model, and its boundary conditions. We also sketch two main dimensions along which contributions to the contractualist tradition can be positioned. The first dimension entails positive versus normative theorizing – does a given contribution analyze the world as it is or how it ought to be? The second dimension involves four different levels of analysis that are commonly employed in contractualist business ethics: the nano, micro, meso, and macro levels. We then proceed to position the articles comprising this special issue along these two dimensions. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006

Keywords: behavioral characteristics; boundary characteristics; contractarianism; contractualism; integrative social contracts theory; multi-level analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-006-9011-y

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