Abstract
This paper challenges Alasdair MacIntyre’s assertion that the modern firm — such as Google, Unilever, or Microsoft — is inimical to human flourishing within an Aristotelian framework. The paper begins by questioning MacIntyre’s rendering of utopian communities. It then addresses four specific criticisms of the modern firm to be found throughout MacIntyre’s oeuvre, namely compartmentalisation, myopia, inequality, and loss of community. Arguments are made to the effect that these criticisms do not vitiate the institutional role of the modern firm in an Aristotelian context. The paper concludes with an invocation of the modern firm as institutional ideal within an evolving utopian vision of human flourishing. This is a utopian vision in which the modern firm plays a constructive, not corruptive, institutional role.
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References
I wish to acknowledge the administrative assistance of Cassandra Depew, and the helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper from other participants in this special issue
Alasdair MacIntyre ‘Utilitarianism and Cost-Benefit Analysis: an essay on the relevance of moral philosophy to bureaucratic theory’ in Kenneth Sayre (ed.) Values in the Electric Power Industry Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press 1977; Dependent Rational Animals Illinois Open Court Publishing 1999; ‘Corporate Modernity and Moral Judgment: are they mutually exclusive?’ in Kenneth E. Goodpaster and Kenneth Sayre (Eds.) Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press 1979
Alasdair MacIntyre After Virtue 2nd Ed Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press 1985 p 187
MacIntyre Alasdair 1999a Dependent Rational Animals Illinois: Open Court Publishing p 143
Geoff Moore and Ron Beadle ‘In Search of Organizational Virtue in Business’ Organization Studies 27 no 3 2006 p 369–389 and Dobson John 1996 ‘The Feminist Firm: A comment’ Business Ethics Quarterly 6 no 2 p 227–232
Alasdair MacIntyre op cit 1999 p 145
Alasdair MacIntyre ‘Social Structures and their Threat to Moral Agency’ Philosophy 74 no 289 July 1999 pp 311- 329
Ibid and Geoff Moore ‘Re-imagining the morality of management: a modern virtue-ethics approach’ Proceedings of Alasdair MacIntyre’s Revolutionary Aristotelianism 29th June to 1st July 2007; see also Ian Mangham ‘MacIntyre and the Manager’ Organization 2 no 2 1995 pp 181–204 Stanley Deetz ‘Character, corporate responsibility and the dialogue in the postmodern context’ Organization 2 no 2 1995 pp 217–225 Laura Nash 1995 ‘Whose Character? A response to Mangham’ Organization 2 no 2 1995 pp 226–232 and George Randels ‘Morality and the Manager after MacIntyre’ Organization 2 no 2 1995 pp 205–211
Alasdair MacIntyre ‘Social Structures and their Threat to Moral Agency’ (op.cit) p 322
Ibid p 323
Alasdair MacIntyre ‘Utilitarianism and Cost-Benefit Analysis: an essay on the relevance of moral philosophy to bureaucratic theory’ (op.cit) p 218
Ibid p 237
Alasdair MacIntyre ‘Corporate Modernity and Moral Judgment: are they mutually exclusive?’ (op.cit) p 124
Ibid p 126
Alasdair MacIntyre After Virtue (op.cit) p 74
MacIntyre Alasdair ‘Why are the Problems of Business Ethics Insoluble’ in Bernard Baumrin and Benjamin Friedman (Eds.) Moral Responsibility and the Professions New York: Haven Publishing 1982 p 357–358
Eugene F Brigham, Joel F Houston Fundamentals of Financial Management Mason OH: South-Western 2007 p 448
Alasdair MacIntyre ‘Social Structures and their Threat to Moral Agency’ (op.cit) p 322
Geoff Mooore and Ron Beadle ‘In Search of Organizational Virtue in Business: Agents, Goods, Practices, Institutions and Environments’ (op.cit)
John Robert’s book was selected as ‘Business Book of the Year, 2004’ by the Economist magazine
John Roberts The Modern Firm: Organizational Design for Performance and Growth Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004 p ix
Ibid p 18
Ibid
Alasdair MacIntyre ‘A Partial Response to my Critics’ in John Horton and Susan Mendus (Eds.) After MacIntyre: critical perspectives on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press 2004 p 284
John Roberts ‘The Modern Firm: Organizational Design for Performance and Growth Oxford’ (op.cit) p 286
Michael Jensen ‘Value Maximization, Stakeholder Theory, and the Corporate Objective Function’ Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection 2001 p 16
Ibid
Alasdair MacIntyre After Virtue (op.cit) p 187
Alasdair MacIntyre ‘Why are the Problems of Business Ethics Insoluble’ (op.cit) p 357
Alasdair MacIntyre ‘Utilitarianism and Cost-Benefit Analysis: an essay on the relevance of moral philosophy to bureaucratic theory’ (op.cit) p 232
Michael Jensen ‘Value Maximization, Stakeholder Theory, and the Corporate Objective Function (op cit)
Stuart Hart Capitalism at the Crossroads New Jersey: Wharton School Publishing 2007 p 63–64
Shepard Krech III 1999 The Ecological Indian New York: Norton Paperbacks 1999 p 76
Ibid
Alasdair MacIntyre ‘Why are the Problems of Business Ethics Insoluble’ (op.cit) p 352
William J Baumaol, Robert E. Litan and Carl J. Schramm Good Capitalism Bad Capitalism New Haven: Yale University Press 2007 p 21
Alasdair MacIntyre Dependent Rational Animals (op.cit)p 144
Brittan Samuel ‘Summon the Ghost of Lloyd George’ Financial Times Friday July 20 2007 p 9
See for example: Candice Prendergast ‘The Provision of Incentives in Firms’ Journal of Economic Literature XXXVII, March 1999 pp 7–63, Jeffrey Moriarty ‘Do CEOs Get Paid Too Much’ Business Ethics Quarterly 15 no 2 April 2005 pp 257–282, John Dobson The Economics and Morality of Executive Compensation 2007 (unpublished working paper)
John Roberts The Modern Firm: Organizational Design for Performance and Growth’ (op.cit) p 174 Also anecdotally, Apple Computer’s CEO Steve Jobs’ salary is currently $1 per annum; of course he also owns many shares and stock-options in Apple, but then so do just about all of Apple’s employees. Thus the currently high value of these claims — which is generally regarded as a direct result of Jobs’ stewardship of Apple over the past decade–is a ‘good’ shared by all employees and many other stakeholders of this verymodern firm.
Alasdair MacIntyre Dependent Rational Animals (op.cit) p 117
Alasdair MacIntyre ‘Corporate Modernity and Moral Judgment: are they mutually exclusive?’ (op.cit) p 134
Ibid p 133
Karin Knorr Cetina and Urs Bruegger ‘Global Microstructure: The Virtual Societies of Financial Markets’ American Journal of Sociology 107 no 4 (January 2002) p 909
Jacques Derrida. Deconstruction in a nutshell. New York: Fordham University Press 1997, p108
Elizabeth Fraser and Nicola Lacey, 1994, “MacIntyre, Feminism and the Concept of Practice” in John Horton and Susan Mendus (op.cit) p 271.
Alasdair MacIntyre Dependent Rational Animals (op.cit) p 142
Alasdair MacIntyre ‘A Partial Response to my Critics’ (op.cit) p.284.
Alfred Lord Tennyson Enoch Arden, 1865 [1992] New York: Dover Publications, p.17.
Alasdair MacIntyre Dependant Rational Animals (op.cit) 145
Richard Layard Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, New York: Penguin Press 2005; William Baumaol, Robert E. Litan, and Carl J. Schramm Good Capitalism Bad Capitalism (op.cit) and Stuart Hart Capitalism at the Crossroads (op.cit)
Ben Friedman The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth New York: Knopf 2005
Alasdair MacIntyre Dependent Rational Animals (op. cit)
Russell Keat “Ethics, Markets and MacIntyre”, paper for the conference on Alasdair MacIntyre’s Revolutionary Aristotelianism, HRSJ Research Institute, London Metropolitan University: 29th June to 1st July 2007 p.6
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Dobson, J. Utopia Reconsidered: The Modern Firm as Institutional Ideal. Philos. of Manag. 7, 67–75 (2008). https://doi.org/10.5840/pom2008717
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/pom2008717