POST-MODERN PERSPECTIVES OF BUSINESS ETHICS

By,Mohit Jindal

HR

Post-Modern Business Ethics What are post-modern business ethics? An approach that locates morality beyond

the sphere of rationality in an emotional moral impulse towards others. It encourages individual actors to question everyday practices and rules, and to listen to and follow their emotions, inner convictions, and gut feelings about what they think is right and wrong in a particular situation.

Continued… Postmodernism is influencing art,

architecture, literature, philosophy and is not based on universal or unchanging principles

According to Adam Phillips, “Universal moral principles must be eradicated and reverence for individual and cultural uniqueness must be inculcated”

Ronald Green’s Perspective Business ethics is postmodern because it -rejects unitary or totalizing explanations

of reality -rejects “grand” or “meta-“ narratives. Business ethics is postmodern because its

very enterprise rejects the view that any single economic or social theory can address or eliminate the ongoing ethical problems of organizational and economic life.

Clarence C. Walton’s Perspective

Walton claims that Post-Modernism fails to present any alternative replacement for what it destroys, and does not provide a basis for ethical thinking

Post-Modernism raises issues of job rights, employee privacy, respect for other cultures and minority groups, sounds alarm against illegitimate privileges

Characteristics Post-modernity as a Development, Not a

Reaction: Post-modernity should be thought of as a fruitful hybrid of modernity, not as its antithesis.

Holistic approach: A postmodern business ethics will desire wholism instead of Carr Schizophrenia: There should not be such a radical separation of personal and professional ethical behavior

Continued… Examples rather than Principles: Ethical

reasoning is not embodied in rules and principles but in peoples experiences, narratives, and inner convictions

Think local, act local: Ethics is about local rules applicable to single issues and contexts

Preliminary character: Since ethical decisions go far beyond rationality, ethical reasoning is a constant learning process

Conclusion Of the few articles written on postmodern ethics in

relation to business, many of them correctly point out that “postmodernism” cannot provide a foundation for comprehensive, unified, all-purpose, abstract formula that fits all ethical theory

If postmodern ethics has any value for business ethics, it is not in providing a foundational set of principles upon which to build an ethical structure, rather, postmodern insights are primarily questions which can be used as an ongoing strategy to be used when developing a theory. Postmodernism is not so good at providing answers, but it is good at asking questions