Lying in business: insights from Hannah Arendt's 'Lying in Politics'
Business Ethics 20 (4):359-374 (2011)
| Abstract | The political philosopher Hannah Arendt develops several arguments regarding why truthfulness cannot be counted among the political virtues. This article shows that similar arguments apply to lying in business. Based on Hannah Arendt's theory, we distinguish five reasons why lying is a structural temptation to businessmen: business is about action to change the world and therefore businessmen need the capacity to deny current reality; commerce requires successful image-making and liars have the advantage to come up with plausible stories; business communication is more often about opinions than about facts, giving leeway to ignore uncomfortable signals; business increasingly makes use of plans and models, but these techniques foster inflexibility in acknowledging the real facts; and businessmen easily fall prey to self-deception, because one needs to act as if the vision already materializes. The theory is illustrated by a case study of Landis, which grew from a relatively insignificant organization into a large one within a short period of time, but ended with outright lies and bankruptcy | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,653 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesPeg Birmingham (2010). A Lying World Order : Political Deception and the Threat of Totalitarianism. In Roger Berkowitz, Jeffrey Katz & Thomas Keenan (eds.), Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics. Fordham University Press.
Cathy Caruth (2010). Lying and History. In Roger Berkowitz, Jeffrey Katz & Thomas Keenan (eds.), Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics. Fordham University Press.
Irving Louis Horowitz (2012). Hannah Arendt: Radical Conservative. Transaction Publishers.
Rachel Lynette (2009). How to Deal with Lying. Powerkids Press.
Roger Berkowitz (ed.) (2010). Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics. Fordham University Press.
Seyla Benhabib (2010). Hannah Arendt's Political Engagements. In Roger Berkowitz, Jeffrey Katz & Thomas Keenan (eds.), Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics. Fordham University Press.
Thomas L. Carson (2006). The Definition of Lying. Noûs 40 (2):284–306.
Phillip Birger Hansen (1993). Hannah Arendt: Politics, History and Citizenship. Stanford University Press.
Hannah Arendt (2000). The Portable Hannah Arendt. Penguin Books.
Leon Botstein (2010). Liberating the Pariah : Politics, the Jews, and Hannah Arendt. In Roger Berkowitz, Jeffrey Katz & Thomas Keenan (eds.), Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics. Fordham University Press.
Martin Jay (2010). The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics. University of Virginia Press.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-06-09Total downloads21 ( #58,654 of 548,984 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,327 of 548,984 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
