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The Empirical-Normative Split in Business Ethics: A Pragmatic Alternative

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Sandra B. Rosenthal  and
Rogene A. Buchholz
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Abstract:

The empirical-normative split in business ethics is another manifestation of the fact-value problem that has existed between science and philosophy for several centuries. This paper explores classical American pragmatism’s understanding of the fact-value distinction, showing how it offers a different way of understanding the empirical business ethics–normative business ethics issue. Unfolding the pragmatic perspective on this issue involves a focus on its understanding of both the nature of empirical inquiry and the nature of normative inquiry.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , April 2000 , pp. 399 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2000

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References

Notes

1 See a fuller description of the two approaches in Linda K. Treviño and Gary R.Weaver, “Business ETHICS/BUSINESS Ethics: One Field or Two?” Business Ethics Quarterly 4 (1994): 113–128.

2 Gary R. Weaver and Linda K. Treviño, “Normative and Empirical Business Ethics: Separation, Marriage of Convenience, or Marriage of Necessity?” Business Ethics Quarterly 4 (1994): 129–143. B. Victor and C. W. Stephens call for a unification of the two domains, arguing that ignoring the descriptive aspects of moral behavior in a business context is to risk unreal philosophy, and ignoring the normative aspects is to risk amoral social science. “Business: A Synthesis of Normative Philosophy and Empirical Social Science.” Business Ethics Quarterly 4 (1994): 145–155; Thomas Donaldson and Thomas Dunfee develop their integrative social contracts theory, which incorporates empirical findings as part of a contractarian process of making normative judgments. They seek to put the ought and the is in symbiotic harmony that requires the cooperation of both empirical and normative research in rendering ultimate value judgments. “Toward A Unified Conception of Business Ethics: Integrative Social Contracts Theory,” Academy of Management Review 19 (1994): 252–284.

3 By pragmatism in this essay is intended classical American pragmatism, that position incorporating the works of its five major contributors: Charles Peirce, William James, John Dewey, C. I. Lewis, and G. H. Mead. That these philosophers provide a unified perspective is assumed in this essay, but this claim is defended at some length in Rosenthal’s book, Speculative Pragmatism (Amherst, Mass.: The University of Massachusetts Press, l986; Paperback edition, Peru, Ill.: Open Court Publishing Co., 1990).

4 In an extensive cataloguing of the ontological and epistemological assumptions that underlie diverse research methods in the social sciences, one that may at first glance seem quite exhaustive if positions are taken broadly enough, there is no slot into which the pragmatic position can be placed without grave distortion. Gareth Morgan and Linda Smircich, “The Case for Qualitative Research.” The Academy of Management Review 5 (1980): 491–500.

5 John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty, The Later Works, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), p. 163. 6Ibid., p. 165.

7 John Dewey, “Does Reality Possess Practical Character?” in The Middle Works, Vol. 4, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1977), pp. 137–138. See also Charles Peirce, Collected Papers, Vols. I–VI, ed. Hartshorne and Weiss (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1931–1935), idem., Vols. VII and VIII, ed. Arthur Burks (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), 5.181; Mead, Philosophy of the Act, p. 25.

8 Peirce, 7.675.

9 Peirce, 5.384.

10 Supra, p. 2.

11 P. H.Werhane, “The Normative/Descriptive Distinction in Methodologies of Business Ethics,” Business Ethics Quarterly 4 (1994): 175–179.

12 ”TheVirtual Reality of Fact vs. Value: A Symposium Commentary.” Business Ethics Quarterly 4 (1994): 171–173.

13 A Pluralistic Universe, p. 131. The Works of William James, ed. Frederick Burkhardt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975).