Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T16:03:11.453Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Thomas Aquinas on Justice as a Global Virtue in Business

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Claus Dierksmeier  and
Anthony Celano
Claus Dierksmeier
Affiliation:
Stonehill College
Anthony Celano
Affiliation:
Stonehill College
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The moral theory of Thomas Aquinas meets the present need for a business ethics that transcends the legal realm by linking the ideas of justice and virtue in an ingenious way. Thomas's virtue theory coordinates private and public activities through a set of context-invariant, justice-oriented norms with conceptual appeal to contemporary questions of global business ethics. In our article, we first sketch how Aquinas's theory can be also of relevance to a non-confessional audience through its appeal to the ‘natural light of reason.’ Then we explain how his theory of ‘natural law’ aligns his ideas of virtue and justice. From this vantage point, we address the tension between cultural diversity and moral uniformity in the economic sphere in general and in today's globalized business world in particular. Throughout the article, we aim to show how Aquinas's conception of virtuous business conduct gains inter-personal and inter-cultural validity that establishes social justice as the global virtue of business.

Keywords

Aquinasvirtuebusiness ethicscorporate social responsibilityjustice
Type
Special Issue: Reviving Traditions: Virtue and the Common Good in Business and Management
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , April 2012 , pp. 247 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2012

References

REFERENCES

Alves, A.A., and Moreira, J.M. 2010. The Salamanca School. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Aquinas, T. 1929, 1937, 1947. Scriptum super libros Sententiarum (I and II, ed. Mandonnet, P., Paris,1929); (III and IV, ed. Moos, M., Paris, 1937 and 1947).Google Scholar
Aquinas, T. 1941–1945. Summa theologiae. Ottawa: Studium dominicain.Google Scholar
Aquinas, T. 1961–1967. Summa contra gentiles, ed. Pera, C., and Caramello, P.Turin: Marietti.Google Scholar
Aquinas, T. 1970. Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem, Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera omnia. Rome: Editio Leonina, V.41.Google Scholar
Aquinas, T. 1972. Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera omnia. Rome: Editio Leonina, V.22.Google Scholar
Argandoña, A. 1998. “The Stakeholder Theory and the Common Good,” Journal of Business Ethics 17(9/10): 1093–1102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arjoon, S. 2000. “Virtue Theory as a Dynamic Theory of Business,” Journal of Business Ethics 28(2): 159–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aβländer, M. 2011. “Corporate Social Responsibility as Subsidiary Co–Responsibility: A Macroeconomic Perspective,” Journal of Business Ethics 99(1): 115–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baileys, J.P. 2010 Rethinking Poverty: Income, Assets, and the Catholic Social Justice Tradition. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BarbieriW.A., W.A., Jr. 2011. “Beyond the Nations: The Expansion of the Common Good in Catholic Social Thought,” The Review of Politicss 69(4): 723–54.Google Scholar
Bexell, M., and Mörth, U. 2010–1945. Democracy and Public–Private Partnerships in Global Governance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradstock, A., 2010. “Profits Without Honour? Economics, Theology and the Current Global Recession,” International Journal of Public Theology 4(2): 135–53 (23).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, O.J. 1981. Natural Rectitude and Divine Law in Aquinas. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies.Google Scholar
Burnyeat, M.F. 1980. “Aristotle on Learning to be Good,“ in Aristotle–s Ethics, ed. Rorty, A.O., 69–92. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cahill, L.S. 1980. “Toward a Christian Theory of Human Rights,” The Journal of Religious Ethics 8(2): 277–301.Google Scholar
Carl, M. 1997. “Law, Virtue, and Happiness in Aquinas–s Moral Theory,” The Thomist 61(3): 425–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Celano, A. 1987. “The Concept of Worldly Beatitude in the Writings of Thomas Aquinas,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 25: 215–26 (reprinted in Great Political Thinkers, ed. Dunn, J. and Harris, I. vol. 7. Cheltenham: dward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Celano, A. 2007. “Phronesis, Prudence and Moral Goodness in the Thirteenth Century Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics,” Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum 365: 5–27.Google Scholar
Cicero, 1994. De officiis, ed. Winterbottom, M.Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cima, L.R., and Schubeck, T.L. 2001. “Self–Interest, Love, and Economic Justice: A Dialogue between Classical Economic Liberalism and Catholic Social Teaching,” Journal of Business Ethics 30 (3): 213–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornuel, E., Habisch, A., and Kletz, P. 2010. “The Practical Wisdom of the Catholic Social Teachings,” Journal of Management Development 29 (7)/8: 747–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornwall, J.R., and Naughtonh, M.J. 2003. “Who Is the Good Entrepreneur? An Exploration within the Catholic Social Tradition,” Journal of Business Ethics 44 (1): 61–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cortright, S.A., and Michael, N. 2002. Rethinking the Purpose of Business: Interdisciplinary Essays from the Catholic Social Tradition Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Courcelles, D. d. 2005. “Managing the World: The Development of ‘Jus Gentium’ by the Theologians of Salamanca in the Sixteenth Century,” Philosophy&Rhetoric 38 (1): 1–15.Google Scholar
Crane, S.D., and Matten., D. 2007. Business Ethics: Managing Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability in the Age of Globalization Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Crowe, S.M. 1977. The Changing Profile of the Natural Law The Hague: Nijhoff Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cullen, P., Hoose, B., and Mannion, G., eds. 2007. Catholic Social Justice: Theological and Practical Explorations London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Dann, G.E. and Haddow, N. 2008. “Just Doing Business or Doing Just Business: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and the Business of Censoring China’s Internet,” Journal of Business Ethics 79 (3): 219–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewan, S.L. 2008. Wisdom, Law, and Virtue: Essays in Thomistic Ethics New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Dierksmeier, C. 2011. “The Freedom-Responsibility Nexus in Management Philosophy and Business Ethics,” Journal of Business Ethics 101 (2): 263–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dierksmeier, C., and Pirson, M. 2009. “Oikonomia versus Chrematistike: Aristotle on Wealth and Well-Being, Journal of Business Ethics 88 (3): 417–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elkington, J., and Hartigan, P. 2008. The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets that Change the World. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, S.A. 2009. An Economic and Social History of Later Medieval Europe, 1000–1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Finnis, J. 2005. “Aquinas‘s Moral, Political and Legal Philosophy,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas-moral-political.Google Scholar
Føllesdal, A., and Pogge, T.W.M. 2005. Real World Justice: Grounds, Principles, Human Rights, and Social Institutions. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, W.A. 2007. “Authority and the Common Good in Democratic Governance,” The Review of Metaphysics 60 (4): 813–32.Google Scholar
Franks, C.A. 2009. He Became Poor: The Poverty of Christ and Aquinas’s Economic Teachings. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.Google Scholar
González, A.M. 2003. “Ethics in Global Business and in a Plural Society,” Journal of Business Ethics 44 (1): 23–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gratian, 1879–1891. Decretum, ed. Richter, E.Leipzig: Tauchnitz.Google Scholar
Greene, R.A. 1997. “Instinct of Nature: Natural Law, Synderesis, and the Moral Sense,” Journal of the History of Ideas 58 (2): 173–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, P.M. 1992. “Towards a Narrative Understanding of Thomistic Natural Law,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 2: 53–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henle, R.J. 1980. “A Catholic View of Human Rights: A Thomistic Reflection,” in The Philosophy of Human Rights, ed. Rosenbaum, A.S., 87–94. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, T. 2011. “Conscience and Synderesis,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, ed. Davies, B. and Stump, E., 255. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Husted, B.W., and Folger, R. 2004. “Fairness and Transaction Costs: The Contribution of Organizational Justice Theory to an Integrative Model of Economic Organization,” Organization Science 15: 719–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iber, S.T. 2011. The Principle of Subsidiarity in Catholic Social Thought: Implications for Social Justice and Civil Society in Nigeria. New York: P. Lang.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobsen, M., and Bruun, O. 2000. Human Rights and Asian Values: Contesting National Identities and Cultural Representations in Asia. London: RoutledgeCurzon.Google Scholar
Jordan, M. 1994. “The Pars moralis of the Summa theologiae as Scientia and as Ars,” in Scientia und ars in Hoch- und Spätmittelalter, ed. Craemer–Ruegenberg, I. and Speer, A., 468–81. Miscellanea Mediaevalia 22. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Kelly, J.E. 2004. “Solidarity and Subsidiarity: Organizing Principles for Corporate Moral Leadership in the New Global Economy,” Journal of Business Ethics 52(3): 283–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenny, A. 1999. “Aquinas on Aristotelian Happiness,” in Aquinas’s Moral Theory: Essays in Honor of Norman Kretzmann, ed. MacDonald, S. and Stump, E., 15–81. Miscellanea Mediaevalia 22. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Keys, M.M. 2001. “Aquinas’s Two Pedagogies: A Reconsideration of the Relation between Law and Moral Virtue,” American Journal of Political Science 45(3): 519–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keys, M.M. 2006. Aquinas, Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kidder, R.M. 2009. The Ethics Recession: Reflections on the Moral Underpinnings of the Current Economic Crisis. Rockland, Maine: Institute for Global Ethics.Google Scholar
Knights, D., and O’Leary, M. 2006. “Leadership, Ethics and Responsibility to the Other,” Journal of Business Ethics 67(2): 125–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koehn, D. 1995. “A Role for Virtue Ethics in the Analysis of Business Practice,” Business Ethics Quarterly 5(3): 533–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohls, J., and Christensen, S.L. 2002. “The Business Responsibility for Wealth Distribution in a Globalized Political-Economy: Merging Moral Economics and Catholic Social Teaching,” Journal of Business Ethics 35(3): 223–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koslowski, P. 2000. “The Limits of Shareholder Value,” Journal of Business Ethics 27(1/2): 137–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Küng, H. 1990. Projekt Weltethos. München: Pipe.Google Scholar
Lottin, O. 1948. “Syndérèse et conscience aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles,” in Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles. Louvain: Abbaye du Mont César; Gembloux: J. Duculot. 2(1/2): 103–349Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A.C. 1999. Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues. New York: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Maritain, J. 1947. The Person and the Common Good. Chicago: Open Court.Google Scholar
Melé, D. 1999. “Early Business Ethics in Spain: The Salamanca School (1526–1614),” Journal of Business Ethics 22(3/4): 175–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melé, D. 2005. “Exploring the Principle of Subsidiarity in Organisational Forms,” Journal of Business Ethics 60(3): 293–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melé, D. 2009a. Business Ethics in Action: Seeking Human Excellence in Organizations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melé, D. 2009b. “Integrating Personalism into Virtue–Based Business Ethics: The Personalist and the Common Good Principles,” Journal of Business Ethics 88: 227–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melé, D. 2010. “Practical Wisdom in Managerial Decision Making,” Journal of Management Development 29(7/3): 637–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nell-Breuning, O. von. 1983. Arbeit vor Kapital: Kommentar zur Enzyklika Laborem exercens von Johannes Paul II. Wien: Europaverlag.Google Scholar
Nell-Breuning, O. von., Hengsbach, F., and Emunds, B. 2002. Grundzüge der Börsenmoral. Münster: Lit.Google Scholar
Nixon, M.G. 2007. “Satisfaction for Whom? Freedom for What? Theology and the Economic Theory of the Consumer,” Journal of Business Ethics 70(1): 39–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, M. 1978. Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
O’Brien, T. 2009. “Reconsidering the Common Good in a Business Context,” Journal of Business Ethics 85: 25–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ong, A. 2006. Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Orel, A. 1930. Oeconomia Perennis, vols. 1 and 2. Mainz: Matthias.Google Scholar
Owens, J. 1991. “Value and Practical Knowledge in Aristotle,” in Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy IV: Aristotle’s Ethics, 148–49. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Perkams, M. 2008. “Aquinas’s Interpretation of the Aristotelian Virtue of Justice and His Doctrine of Natural Law,” in Virtue Ethics in the Middle Ages: Commentaries on Aristotle’s ‘Nicomachean Ethics,’ 1200–1500, ed. Bejczy, I.P.131–52. The Hague: Nijhoff Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, J. 1997. “The Interdependence of Intellectual and Moral Virtue in Aquinas,” The Thomist 61(3): 449–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinckaers, S. 1995. The Sources of Christian Ethics. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.Google Scholar
Porter, M.E., and Kramer, M.R. 2006. “Strategy and Society: The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility,” Harvard Business Review 85(12): 78–92.Google Scholar
Reichberg, Gregory. 2002. “The Intellectual Virtues (Ia IIae, qq. 57–58),” in Essays on the Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas: 131–47. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Rivas, L.G. 1999. “Business Ethics and the History of Economics in Spain, The School of Salamanca: A Bibliography,” Journal of Business Ethics 22(3): 191–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, J.F. 1974. “Justice Is Reasonableness: Aquinas on Human Law and Morality,” The Monist 58(1): 86–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, J. 1942. “The Economic Philosophy of St. Thomas,” in Essays in Thomism, ed. Brennan, R.E.239–60. New York: Sheed and Ward.Google Scholar
Santos, J.C., and Laczniak, G.R. 2009. “‘Just’ Markets from the Perspective of Catholic Social Teaching,” Journal of Business Ethics 89 suppl. 1: 29–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schumacher, L. 1949. The Philosophy of the Equitable Distribution of Wealth: A Study in Economic Philosophy. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.Google Scholar
Sison, A.G. 2003. The Moral Capital of Leaders: Why Virtue Matters. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sison, A.G. 2008. Corporate Governance and Ethics: An Aristotelian Perspective. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solomon, C.R. 1994. The New Word of Business: Ethics and Free Enterprise in the Global 1990s. Lanham, Md.: Roman&Littjefield.Google Scholar
Stammkötter, F.-B. 2001. “Die Entwicklung der Bestimmung der Prudentia in der Ethik des Albertus Magnus,” in Albertus Magnus zum Gedenken nach 800 Jahren: Neue Zugänge, Aspekte und Perspektiven, ed. Senner, W.Berlin: Akademie Verlag.Google Scholar
Steele, G.R. 2004. “Understanding Economic Man: Psychology, Rationality, and Values,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 63(5): 1021–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stiglitz, J.E., and Ocampo, J.A. 2008. Capital Market Liberalization and Development. Oxford:: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Striker, G. 1986. “Origins of the Concept of Natural Law,” in Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, vol. 2: 79–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stump, E.S. 1997. “Aquinas on Justice,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, suppl. 71: 61–78.Google Scholar
Varacalli, J.A. 1992. “Whose Justice and Justice for What Purpose?: A Catholic Neo-Orthodox Critique,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 6(2): 309–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velasquez, M., and Brady, F.N. 1997. “Natural Law and Business Ethics,” Business Ethics Quarterly 7(2): 83–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Villa-Vicencio, C. 1999. “Christianity and Human Rights,” Journal of Law and Religion 14(2): 579–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogel, D.J. 2005. “Is There a Market for Virtue? The Business Case for Corporate Social Responsibility,” California Management Review 47(4): 20–45.Google Scholar
Westberg, D. 1994. Aristotle, Action, and Prudence in Aquinas. Oxford Theological Monographs, vol. 2: Oxford:: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, O.F. 1993. “Catholic Social Teaching: A Communitarian Democratic Capitalism for the New World Order,” Journal of Business Ethics 12(12): 919–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, O.F. 2004. “The UN Global Compact: The Challenge and the Promise,” Business Ethics Quarterly 14(4): 755–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zagzebski, L. 2001. “The Uniqueness of Persons,” The Journal of Religious Ethics 29(3): 401–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar