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On Social Psychology, Business Ethics, and Corporate Governance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Timothy L. Fort
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Abstract:

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 grouping tendency. Within a corporate law taking seriously a mediating institution’s formulation of business communities, a virtue ethics approach can be integrated with a naturalist approach in a way that fosters ethical business behavior while mitigating the dangers of ingrouping tendencies.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , July 2000 , pp. 725 - 733
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2000

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References

Notes

1 David M. Messick, Social Categories and Business Ethics, Bus. Ethics Q., Special Issue: The Ruffin Series #1 149 (1998).

2 Id. at 153.

3 Id. at 153.

4 With apologies to Rogers & Hammerstein’s song “My Favorite Things” from the Sound of Music. In the song, the lyric is “Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes.”

5 Messick, supra note 1, at 149.

6 Rather than altruism, Bill Frederick offers the notion of “mutualism.” Mutualism takes into account the notion that there is some benefit to an individual for offering assistance that might otherwise appear to be sacrificial. That benefit might be characterized in terms of a connection to one’s kin, genes, or group generally. It is a term that I prefer to altruism because it seems to characterize the individual’s connection to the group more directly than does altruism. More generally, it means that organisms “help each other out.” This distinction, for purposes of this paper seems a minor point in the context of Messick’s argument. For a description of mutualism, see William C. Frederick, Values, Nature & Culture in the American Corporation 157-62 (1995).

7 Messick, supra note 1, at 150.

8 It is important to note that this does not mean “survival of the fittest” a term incorrectly attributed to Darwin. Efficiency behavior does not require that the most efficient behavior take place, but that a behavior sufficient enough to survive take place.

9 Robert Trivers, The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism, 46 Q. Rev. Biology 35 (1971).

10 Messick, supra note 1, at 153.

11 Frederick, supra note 6.

12 Donna J. Wood, In-groups and Outgroups: What Psychology Doesn’t Say, Special Issue: The Ruffin Series #1, Bus. Ethics Q. 173 (1998).

13 Id. at 176.

14 Id. at 177.

15 Id. at 174.

16 Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom 61 (1983).

17 F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit (1988).

18 See Geoffey M. Hodgson, Evolution & Economics: Bringing Life Back Into Economics (1996).

19 Edwin M. Hartman, Altruism, Ingroups, and Fairness: Comments on David Messick’s “Social Categories and Business Ethics, Bus. Ethics Q. Special Issue: The Ruffin Series #1 179 (1998).

20 Id. at 179.

21 Id. at 182.

22 Id. at 183.

23 Id. at 183.

24 See, id. at 181.

25 Id. at 181.

26 Messick, supra note 1, at 166-67.

27 Messick, supra note 1, at 167.

28 Messick, supra note 1, at 168.

29 Messick, supra note 1, at 168-69.

30 Robin Dunbar, Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language (1996).

31 Id.

32 Id.

33 Kent Flannery, Prehistoric Social Evolution, in Research Frontiers in Anthropology (Carol R. Ember & Melvin Ember, eds.) 3-7 (1995).

34 Robert Jackall, Moral Mazes; The World of Corporate Managers (1988).

35 Gregory Johnson, Organization Structure and Scalar Stress, in Theory and Explanation in Archeology (C. Renfrew, M.J. Rowlands, & B.A. Segraves, eds. 1982).

36 Aristole, Politics in The Complete Works of Aristotle 1253a 30-31, 1278b 17-31 (Jonathan Barnes, ed. 1984). My thanks to Bob Solomon for first suggesting to me that I explore the connection between Aristotle and biology.

37 Larry Arnhart, Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature (1998).

38 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 80 (Martin Ostwald, trans. 1962).

39 Peter Berger & Richard John Neuhaus, To Empower People: The Role of Mediating Structures in Public Policy 28 (1977).

40 Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics 62 (R.H.M. Elwes, trans. 1955). My thanks to Tom Donaldson for suggesting that I explore the relationship of Spinoza and naturalist ethics.

41 See, e.g. Mircea Eliade, A History of Religion Ideas: Volume II, 44-46. 91-106 (Williard R. Trask, trans., 1982); Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality & Freedom (Willard R. Trask, trans., 1969); Peter J. Paris, The Spirituality of African Peoples: A Search For a Common Discourse 28-33 (1995); Vine Delore, Jr. God is Red: A Native View of Religion 88-95; Scott Cunningham, Hawaiian Religion & Magic (1994); Meister Eckhart: Selected Writings (Oliver Davies, trans. 1994).

42 Thomas Donaldson & Thomas W. Dunfee, Toward a Unified Conception of Business Ethics: Integrative Social Contracts Theory, 19 Acad. Mgmt. Rev. 252, 265 (1994).

43 Joshua D. Margolis. Psychological Pragmatism & The Imperative of Aims: A New Approach for Business Ethics 8 Bus. Ethics Q. 409, 410-11 (1998).

44 Id. at 410.

45 Timothy L. Fort, The Corporation as Mediating Institution: An Efficacious Synthesis of Stakeholder Theory and Corporate Constituency Statutes, 73 Notre Dame L. Rev. 174 (1996).

46 Johnson, supra note 35, at 392-98.