How Can Business Ethics Strengthen the Social Cohesion of a Society?

Georges Enderle ()
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Georges Enderle: University of Notre Dame

Journal of Business Ethics, 2018, vol. 150, issue 3, No 2, 619-629

Abstract: Abstract The essay aims to show how business ethics—understood as a three-level approach—can strengthen the social cohesion of a society, which is jeopardized today in many ways. In the first part, the purpose of business and the economy is explained as the creation of wealth defined as a combination of private and public wealth that includes natural, economic, human, and social capital. Special emphasis is placed on the implications of the creation of public wealth which requires institutions other than the market and motivations other than self-regarding ones. In the second part, the question of what holds a society together is discussed through different approaches: enlightened self-interest, a new game-theoretical approach, and the concept of the common good advanced by Catholic Social Teaching, followed by my own proposal. The third part presents several perspectives for business ethics to strengthen social cohesion of a society (a) by focusing on the purpose of business and the economy to create natural, economic, human, and social capital; (b) by advancing public goods that stand the test of ethical scrutiny; and (c) by securing human rights conceptualized as public goods.

Keywords: Business ethics; Capital (natural; economic; human; social); Human rights; Potential and limitations of market institutions; Self- and other-regarding motivations; Public goods; Social cohesion; Wealth creation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-016-3196-5

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