The Ethics Best Suited to Our Time

Wayne Eastman ()
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Wayne Eastman: Rutgers University

A chapter in Lectures on Business Ethics, Political Ethics, and Reputational Ethics, 2026, pp 1-28 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The central claim of the book is that modern business ethics constitutes a highly effective four identities (conservative capitalist, liberal capitalist, conservative manager, liberal manager) system of virtue ethics, which is a worthy successor to what Tocqueville called “self-interest rightly understood” in the early Americans and hailed as the best available ethics for democratic societies. In this introduction, which like the other chapters simulates a lecture and is designed to be listened to and read by students as well as by academics, I describe how business ethics incorporates the belief in good deeds being personally profitable that Tocqueville attributed to the Americans, Adam Smith’s belief in the social value of self-interested competition, and central elements in Immanuel Kant’s deontology and Jeremy Bentham’s consequentialism, along with elements of classical virtue ethics. I also preview the next six chapter-lectures in the book: Lecture 2 on the definition of business ethics, Lecture 3 on applying the four identities approach, Lecture 4 on applying business ethics to politics, Lecture 5 on applying business ethics to education, science, and the arts, Lecture 6 on applying business ethics to everyday life and religion, and Lecture 7 on business ethics and idealistic ethics.

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-032-13618-3_1

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-13618-3_1

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