A comparative analysis of different business ethics in the perspective of the Common Good

The paper concerns the connection between different tipologies of business ethics (kantian, utilitarian, aristotelic) and the alternative vision of economic development, company’s organizational and managerial context together with interest in Common Good more or less associated to profit to which they have given rise. In this comparison virtue ethics stands out for its capacity of creating, specially through the business virtue of generosity, social capital so precious to economic development at every level, for its capability of increasing people’s well-being, and for its capacity to make the production of relational goods (among which Common Good), on which people’s happiness depends, easier. Gift’s paradigm recovery can also be helpful to prevent other financial and economic crisis like the actual one which has had, like less striking but deepest cause, the triumph of avarice’s vice on the virtues of giving (generosity and justice).