The Ethics Best Suited to Our Time

The central claim of the book is that modern business ethics constitutes a highly effective four identities (conservative capitalist, liberal capitalist, conservative manager, liberal manager) system of virtue ethics, which is a worthy successor to what Tocqueville called “self-interest rightly understood” in the early Americans and hailed as the best available ethics for democratic societies. In this introduction, which like the other chapters simulates a lecture and is designed to be listened to and read by students as well as by academics, I describe how business ethics incorporates the belief in good deeds being personally profitable that Tocqueville attributed to the Americans, Adam Smith’s belief in the social value of self-interested competition, and central elements in Immanuel Kant’s deontology and Jeremy Bentham’s consequentialism, along with elements of classical virtue ethics. I also preview the next six chapter-lectures in the book: Lecture 2 on the definition of business ethics, Lecture 3 on applying the four identities approach, Lecture 4 on applying business ethics to politics, Lecture 5 on applying business ethics to education, science, and the arts, Lecture 6 on applying business ethics to everyday life and religion, and Lecture 7 on business ethics and idealistic ethics.