Abstract
The state of war is a popular metaphor employed by many business writers seeking to explain the imperatives of strategic decision-making. It is a metaphor which draws on a “realist” characterisation of war as a Hobbesian state of nature devoid of a moral dimension. However, the work of Walzer (1977) has demonstrated that rules of war, established over generations and across cultural divides, play a significant role in the conduct of warfare. Through identifying and analysing rules of war in parallel with ethical dilemmas in business life, such as whistleblowing, it is possible to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the war metaphor in place of simplified, state of nature realism. This alternative version of the war metaphor is a useful means of introducing students to Aristotlean virtues as well as challenging their preconceptions about the nature of business activity.
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MacFarlane, B. Re-evaluating the Realist Conception of War as a Business Metaphor. Teaching Business Ethics 3, 27–35 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009753807317
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009753807317