The step forward
Eleni Karamali, University of Leicester
This paper discusses the way in which certain steps are required to be taken by an author wishing to contribute towards the debates taking place in the name of Business Ethics. It alludes towards the irreversibility of certain steps whilst gesturing towards the impossibility of retracing others. In so doing, the paper considers the possibility of the future of the field of Business Ethics from the point of view of the decisions required of its incumbents as well as the institutional setting within which it presently finds itself.
Steps already taken (and decisions already made) produce in those for whom they are an issue various defensive and justificatory requirements. These defences and justifications in turn create their own ways forward; ways forward for particular business ethicists as well as a way forward for business ethics in general. Hence the situation within which the field of business ethics finds itself: a multitude of writers posturing behind a variety of rigidified moral philosophies. The contemporary business ethicist finds his or herself having to write from an already existing, pre-constituted ethical ‘point of view’ or moral ‘perspective’. What will be of concern in this paper is the manner in which this supposed starting point from which one moves forward in the name of a career already pre-determines the very possibilities and limitations of that career. The ‘first’ step already leaves behind much more than s/he that takes it can possibly control.
This paper begins by introducing some of the central philosophical debates in Business Ethics. It does this in order to underline how the adoption of a certain standpoint seems to have become an unavoidable condition for the contemporary business ethicist. To agree with a moral philosopher necessarily creates disagreements with the others. Participation within a debate in which the terms of engagement have already been established is shown to be the only option for those considering making the step into Business Ethics. The paper discusses how this decision automatically requires constantly reaffirmation by its author. The author must repeatedly show how the first step must be seen to have been correct. The decision at the first step and its constant re-enforcement into the future is hence the primary focus of the paper. The assumption that this choice is freely made by the author, as if at the ‘beginning’, will be considered carefully. The paper concludes by focusing upon how the first step is itself pre-constituted heavily by the situation within which the business school of today finds itself.