Norman Bowie and Richard Rorty on multinationals: Does business ethics need ‘metaphysical comfort?’

Abstract

Norman Bowie wrote an article on the moral obligations of multinational corporations in 1987. This paper is a response to Bowie, but more importantly, it is designed to articulate the force and substance of the pragmatist philosophy developed by Richard Rorty. In his article, Bowie suggested that “moral universalism’ (which he endorses) is the only credible method of doing business ethics across cultures and that “cultural relativism’ and ‘ethnocentrism’ are not. Bowie, in a manner surprisingly common among contemporary philosophers, lumps Rorty into a ‘bad guy’ category without careful analysis of his philosophy and ascribes to him views which clearly do not fit. I attempt to provide both a more careful articulation of Rorty's views, and to use his pragmatism to illustrate an approach to business ethics which is more fruitful than Bowie's. This brand of philosophy follows the Enlightenment spirit of toleration and attempts to set aside questions of ‘Truth,’ whether religious or philosophical, and have ethics centered around what James called ‘that which is good in the way of belief.’ Rather than looking for ‘metaphysical foundations’ or some type of external justification, ethicists perform their craft from within the cultural traditions, narratives and practices of their society.