Ethics as Practice Embedded in Identity: Perspectives on Renewing with a Foundational Link

Mar Pérezts ()
Additional contact information
Mar Pérezts: ESCP Europe/Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, ESCP Europe

Chapter Chapter 7 in Leadership through the Classics, 2012, pp 93-107 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This paper explores the link between ethics and identity in the form of a theoretical working proposal. I show that this link, in spite of being at the core of a foundational conception of ethics, has been largely overlooked in business ethics literature. Renewing with it appears as essential both for the thought and particularly for the practice of ethics in organizations. I begin by exploring the genesis of a common misconception of ethics, visible in the contemporary debate on the difference between ethics and morals. The etymology of the word ethics reveals in itself an ambivalence which links it to the notion of being, or ethos. This is explained through the case of organizations, and the link between ethics and organizational identity. In the second section, I show that the ethos of ethics has been split through an organizational separation, where ethics resides either in CSR departments and is expressed by discourses and ethics statements (fundamental ethics), or in Compliance departments where it becomes a normative constraint (applied ethics). I draw on contemporary philosophers’ developments to propose a theoretical frame which would allow bridging both perspectives, through what I call the ontological or identity dimension of ethics. In the final section I discuss the implications – philosophical as well as managerial – of renewing with the original link between identity and ethics and dress the outlines of a research agenda to pursue this path.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility; Business Ethic; Organizational Identity; Practical Wisdom; Applied Ethic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-642-32445-1_7

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783642324451

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-32445-1_7

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().