TIm Fort

Bill Frederick’s work calls on business ethicists to consider religion as well as nature. Because there are naturally wired religious impulses in human beings and because of the fairness of including normative approaches meaningful for business people, Frederick suggests that the “R” in CSR4 should represent religion. This article takes up the theme in terms of the emerging field of naturalist theology, particularly (although embryonically) as stated by theologian Paul Tillich. Doing so creates (a) connections between “God as Life” and nature and (b) linkages of the notions of symbol, culture, and transcendence. In addition to avoiding the socalled “naturalistic fallacy,” this integration can foster ethical business behavior.

In this response to Paul Lawrence’s Ruffin Lecture, I assess the benefits of integrating biology into business ethics including the way in which biology counteracts conventional economic descriptions of human nature. Section II looks at the dangers of the project and offers the notion of Multilevel Selection Theory as a way to address the notion of how one balances various biological drives. Section III concludes by suggesting that in order to optimally integrate biology, one should attend to contractual notions (the deal) as well as a Sisyphean quest to engage in the task of integration. In doing so, we should also remember to draw upon the dolphin in each of us, that part that takes pleasure in doing moral acts.

It is becoming clear that many of today’s management theories are inadequate theoretically and practically to move understanding, scholarship, and practice to where it needs to be for scholars, business leaders, and policy makers to cope with an increasing fraught world. This Special Issue’s focus is on sustainability. Sustainability challenges need to incorporate multidisciplinary interventions and the trans- and interdisciplinary nature of solutions. To actively seek transformation toward sustainability, fundamental and innovative short-term as well as long-term efforts are required in society, economy, technology, and education, including our understanding of human behavior and attitudes toward the management of the environment. This introductory piece presents natural science theories as a promising approach for achieving progress toward transformation for sustainability.

In this response to Paul Lawrence’s Ruffin Lecture, I assess the benefits of integrating biology into business ethics including the way in which biology counteracts conventional economic descriptions of human nature. Section II looks at the dangers of the project and offers the notion of Multilevel Selection Theory as a way to address the notion of how one balances various biological drives. Section III concludes by suggesting that in order to optimally integrate biology, one should attend to contractual notions (the deal) as well as a Sisyphean quest to engage in the task of integration. In doing so, we should also remember to draw upon the dolphin in each of us, that part that takes pleasure in doing moral acts.

This paper argues that business can be helpfully conceived of as a mediating institution. Drawing upon neo-conservative theology, the author argues that mediating institutions serve a vital function in a free society to provide social justice out of an expanded civil society and provide a framework for a flourishing free market. Such institutions also nourish the attitudinal orientation of solidarity in applying the principle of subsidiarity by which self-interest becomes fulfilled through concern for others.The author further argues that businesses also be conceived of as mediating institutions and thereby be held to criteria of meeting associationalneeds. In addition to normative reasons for revising the social contract so that businesses do serve the role of mediating institutions, contemporary management theories demonstrate that businesses can also meet their social obligations of creating wealth while meeting associational needs.

This paper is a response to a recent colloquy among Professors David Messick, Donna Wold, and Edwin Harman. I defend Messick’s naturalist methodology, which suggests that people inherently categorize others and act altruistically toward certain people in a given person’s in-group. This paper suggests that an anthropological reason for this grouping tendency is a limited human neural ability to process large numbers of relationships. But because human beings also have the ability to modify, to some extent, their nature, corporate law can organize small mediating institutions within large corporations in order to take ethical advantage of this groupingtendency. Within a corporate law taking seriously a mediating institution’s formulation of business communities, a virtue ethicsapproach can be integrated with a naturalist approach in a way that fosters ethical business behavior while mitigating the dangers of ingrouping tendencies.

Our goals in this article are to summarize the existing literature on the role business can play in creating sustainable peace and to discuss important avenues for extending this research. As part of our discussion, we review the ethical arguments and related research made to date, including the rationale and motivation for businesses to engage in conflict resolution and peace building, and discuss how scholars are extending research in this area. We also focus on specific ways companies can actively engage in conflict reduction including promoting economic development, the rule of law, and principles of external valuation, contributing to a sense of community, and engaging in track-two diplomacy and conflict sensitive practices. We conclude by developing a set of future research questions and considerations.

This book argues that ethical business behavior can be enhanced by taking fuller account of human nature, particularly with respect to the need for creating relatively small communities within the corporation. Timothy Fort discusses this premise in relation to the three predominant theories of business ethics--stakeholder, virtue, and contract. Drawing heavily from philosophy, he analyzes traditional business ethics and legal theory. Overall, his work provides a good example of how to integrate normative and empirical studies in business ethics, a task that often receives substantial discussion in academic journals.