Virtuosity in Business
Invisible Law Guiding the Invisible Hand
Kevin T. Jackson
PENN
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2012 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104–4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jackson, Kevin T. Virtuosity in business : invisible law guiding the invisible hand / Kevin T. Jackson. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8122-4376-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Business ethics. 2. Industrial management—Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Organizational behavior—Moral and ethical aspects. 4. Goodwill (Commerce). I. Title. HF5387.J297155 2012 174'.4—dc23
2011030430
Contents
4 Trust, Personhood, and the Soul of an Enterprise
7 Moral-Cultural Undertones of the Financial Crisis
Preface
We shall judge the work of art as the living vehicle of a hidden truth to which both the work and we ourselves are together subject, and which is the measure at once of the work and of our mind. Under such circumstances we truly judge because we do not set ourselves up as judges but strive to be obedient to that which the work may teach us.
—Jacques Maritain, The Range of Reason
ASSUMING A PHILOSOPHICAL perspective on the field of business ethics reveals pressing and universal issues that, although connected to business and economics, are neither exclusively economic, nor completely related to business in their nature and origin. One of the principal concerns in this book is with the moral and intellectual health of the wider culture within which the global economy and today's business enterprises operate.
It is within this spirit that Virtuosity in Business undertakes to show that inattention to ethics has been the overriding problem for business and that attention to it is the only enduring solution. The target of my concern is real, full-blooded ethics. The brand of moral realism that I set forth is opposed to relativism and its postmodern next of kin. Throughout the text I affirm this thesis, defend it, and seek to bring out its far-reaching implications for a broad range of topics in the face of scientism and other current intellectual ills. I draw inspiration not just from Aristotle and other ancients, but also from Aquinas and fellow propounders of the natural law tradition, existentialism, legal studies, and various other disciplines extending from economics and political philosophy all the way to musicology. My aim is to deepen the reader's awareness of how ethics is crucial to virtually everything that business touches.
In some parts of the book I highlight the importance of the intellectual and moral formation of businesspeople and other professionals who are closely connected to them. I believe that the task of educating future business leaders is severely hampered by widespread intellectual weaknesses not only in schools of business but in other institutions of learning as well. These weaknesses are simultaneously causes and effects of various intellectual vices, methodologies, and ideologies that are hostile to, and incompatible with, a proper understanding of human nature and its relationship to business and economics.
At the same time, the concept of virtuosity developed in this book extends boldly beyond the sometimes pedantic treatment of moral virtue delivered by academics who are perhaps well trained in moral philosophy yet nevertheless uninformed about or excessively skeptical of how virtue realistically applies in the highly competitive world of business. Virtuosity, I maintain, is not simply about exhorting business actors to display excellence in “doing the right thing.” When considered in the context of a market economy, virtuosity is equally connected with performance, competition, success, and the creation of value for oneself and others. For this reason, at various junctures the book presents the model of musical virtuosity as an analogy for deepening our understanding of, and quest for cultivating, virtue in business.
The book pays homage to the worth and dignity of philosophy not only for understanding the significance of business as a human endeavor but also for conducting business successfully. It is an exhortation to businesspeople of all kinds and in all countries to think more broadly, to think bigger and deeper. By stressing the profound importance of philosophy for business and economics, I insist on the role of the field of business ethics as a scholarly and intellectual discipline that must be firmly rooted in questions of truth, goodness, and even beauty.
I am seeking to promote a proper understanding of the relationship between business and the wider moral and intellectual culture not primarily for the sake of solving an intriguing intellectual problem but because in a very real way the salvation of our civilization is at stake. It is of vital importance that business ethics be equipped to vigorously defend the ability of human reason to know the truth. A firm confidence in reason has been an integral part of the Western philosophical tradition, but it stands in special need of reaffirmation today. I believe that at least part of the reason for this is connected with the global financial crisis. In general, economic crises tend to be accompanied by disturbing perplexity regarding values, not only financial ones but moral, epistemological, and aesthetic ones as well. This feature renders such crises particularly disquieting not just within financial institutions, but throughout the wider culture as well. Accordingly, it is understandable