Virtue Ethics, the Firm, and Moral Psychology

Abstract: Business ethicists have increasingly used Aristotelian “virtue ethics” to analyze the actions of business people and to explore the question of what the standard of ethical behavior is. These analyses have raised many important issues and opened up new avenues for research. But the time has come to examine in some detail possible limitations or weaknesses in virtue ethics. This paper argues that Aristotelian virtue ethics is subject to many objections because the psychology implicit within the ethic is not well-suited for analyzing some problematic forms of behavior. Part One offers a brief overview of the firm and of the good life from a virtue ethics perspective. Part Two develops a number of criticisms of this perspective.