This special issue of BEQ presents diverse reflections on business practice from within Western patterns of theology and piety. Our goal is to help both academics and business practitioners understand the ultimate contexts in which religiously minded individuals construe their participation in business, and what these contexts then mean for moral reasoning. To keep the project manageable in scope, we have limited this foray to Western traditions, soliciting views from within representative denominations or viewpoints in Judaism, Roman Catholicism and Protestant Christianity. If this sampling is well-received, essays representing other traditions—Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism—will be sought for a later issue.

We solicited essays from nine distinct perspectives, so as to present a cross-section of religious views. One of the questions we asked our contributors was: If a person in business were to take your tradition seriously, what does it teach him or her about God’s will for how business ought to be conducted? Here we were amply rewarded in our search for diversity. The nine contributions express a wide variety of religious beliefs and dispositions: from the fervent piety of evangelicals to the moral passion of modern Judaism, from the strict rules of traditional Judaism for containing greed to the exuberant permissions to innovate afforded by Roman Catholic social teaching, from a Lutheran focus on anxiety about security to an African-American struggle with an onerous historical legacy. (An even greater diversity is represented in the enormous recent anthology, On Moral Business, reviewed at the end of this issue.) The essays forcefully point to the importance of the quest to relate faith to business practice. They provide direction for those seeking to reconnect with their traditions. And to interested observers, they provide copious data for imagining how persons adhering to these traditions might interpret the business environment in which they work.

To date, BEQ has published contributions mainly from philosophers and social scientists. With these essays, we hope to expand this interdisciplinary conversation. The origins of this special issue extend back to a DePaul University conference some ten years ago, when Richard T. De George asserted that there was little that philosophers could learn from religious thinkers that would be of value for the field of business ethics (De George, 1986a). The challenge nestled deep in this author, much like the proverbial irritating grain of sand in the shell of an oyster, and it continues to merit serious reflection: what can religious approaches offer to the field? Are there indeed any pearls of insight to be harvested? Is there even an academic field of what might be termed religious business ethics?

This discussion develops six of the most important guiding principles of classical Jewish business ethics and illustrates their application to a complex recent case of product liability. These principles are: (1) the legitimacy of business activity and profit; (2) the divine origin and ordination of wealth (and hence the limits and obligations of human ownership); (3) the preeminent position in decision making given to the protection and preservation (sanctity) of human life; (4) the protection of consumers from commercial harm; (5) the avoidance of fraud and misrepresentation in sales transactions; and (6) the moral requirement to go beyond the letter of the law. Although these Talmudic principles are clearly obligatory only for “Torah-obedient” Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, many Jews share a sensibility informed by them. Non-Jews, too, may be instructed by Jewish teachings about business ethics.

This article first describes some of the chief contrasts between Judaism and American secularism in their underlying convictions about the business environment and the expectations which all involved in business can have of each other—namely, duties vs. rights, communitarianism vs. individualism, and ties to God and to the environment based on our inherent status as God’s creatures rather than on our pragmatic choice. Conservative Judaism’s methodology for plumbing the Jewish tradition for guidance is described and contrasted to those of Orthodox and Reform Judaism.

One example of how Conservative Judaism can inform us on a current matter is developed at some length—namely, privacy in the workplace. That section discusses (1) the reasons for protecting privacy; (2) protection from intrusion, including employer spying; (3) protection from disclosure of that intended to remain private; (4) individualistic vs. communitarian approaches to grounding the concern for privacy; and (5) contemporary implications for insuring privacy in business.

Jewish business ethics in Israel addresses two major sources of economic immorality—unbounded desire and fear of economic uncertainty—through enforcement and spiritual education. Business is seen as a path to sanctity, when time is set apart for religious study, wealth is seen as originating from God, the vulnerable are protected against fraud and theft, charity is seen as an obligation, and mercy towards debtors is tempered by justice.

The paper attempts to provide a basis for exploring the continued relevance of Catholic social teaching to business ethics, by interpreting the historic development of a Catholic work ethic and the traditions of Catholic social teaching in light of contemporary discussions of economic globalization, notably those of Robert Reich and Peter Drucker. The paper argues that the Catholic work ethic and the Church’s tradition of social teaching has evolved dynamically in response to the structural changes involved in the history of modern economic development, and thus is well poised to speak to the ethical challenges implicit in the advent of a knowledge-based society. In order to test this thesis, the author sketches an approach to the ethical challenge of corporate downsizing that he believes illustrates the continued relevance of Catholic social teaching to business ethics.

Clerical workers are an important segment of the work force. Catholic social teachings and eucharistic practice shed useful moral light on the increase in contingent work arrangements among clerical workers. The venerable concept of “the universal destination of the goods of creation” and a newer understanding of technology as “a shared workbench” illuminate the importance of good jobs for clerical workers. However, in order to apply Catholic social teachings to issues concerning clerical work as women’s work, sexist elements in traditional Catholic social teachings must be critically assessed. Participation in the Eucharist helps share a moral stance of inclusivity and sensitivity to forms of social marginalization. While actual practice fails fully to embody gender or racial inclusivity, participation in the inclusive table fellowship of the Eucharist should make business leaders question treating contingent workers as a peripheral work force.

We describe the Catholic natural law tradition by examining its origins in the medieval penitentials, the papal decretals, the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and seventeenth century casuistry. Catholic natural law emerges as a flexible ethic that conceives of human nature as rational and as oriented to certain basic goods that ought to be pursued and whose pursuit is made possible by the virtues. We then identify four approaches to natural law that have evolved within the United States during the twentieth century, including the traditionalist, proportionalist, right reason, and historicist approaches. The normative implications of these approaches are discussed in relation to ethical issues in the tobacco industry, ITT under Geneen, the marketing of pharmaceuticals, affirmative action, and bribery. It is argued that Alasdair MacIntyre is correct in claiming that the natural law tradition is superior to the liberal ethics of modern deontology and utilitarianism.

Understanding the evangelical framework for business ethics is important, since business evangelicals are well positioned to exercise considerable future influence. This article develops the context for understanding evangelical business ethics by examining their history, theology and culture. It then relates the findings to evangelical foundations for business ethics. The thesis is that business ethics, as practiced by those in the evangelical community, has developed inductively from a base of applied experience. As a result, emphases on piety, witnessing, tithing, and neighborliness, important foundations in the evangelical model for business ethics, have resulted in a multitude of applied ethical strategies. This operative ethics model is then evaluated, particularly in regarding to its limited focus on the fundamental purposes and structures of business. The article concludes with several recommended sources which can enrich the evangelical tradition of business ethics, suggesting many resources from the Reformed Christian tradition as well as other ideas from contemporary Protestant and Catholic thinkers.

Fundamental theological and ethical themes of Luther’s thought and tradition provide a basis for appreciating both the role of business in God’s providential design and the importance of occupation for living out one’s Christian vocation. These same insights establish the ethical basis for a critical appraisal of the current practice of downsizing and its negative impact on the quality of individual lives and whole communities. While Lutheran ethics is realistic about the ambiguities of life, it is also an ethic of compassionate love seeking justice in the world of business as in all of life.

An analysis of the business ethics of the African-American church during and after Reconstruction reveals that it is a conflicted ethic, oscillating between two poles. The first is the sacralization of the business ethic of Booker T. Washington, in which self-help endeavors which valorize American capitalism but are preferentially oriented to the African-American community are advanced as the best and only options for economic uplift. The second is the “Blackwater” tradition, which rejects any racial discrimination and insists upon social justice. The inability of the Washingtonian business ethic to address the needs of the Black underclass are explored. A new business ethic is called for, which would be committed to meeting the basic needs of the most disadvantaged members of American society and those of the “international poor.”