Abstract
By appealing to the religious imagination Theology can make a distinctive contribution to business ethics. In the first part of the essay I examine what is entailed by appealing to the imagination to reason in ethics: through converging arguments the imagination enables us rationally to interpret reality and to infer obligations. In the following sections I consider the relevance of the religious imagination for business ethics. In the second part I explain the imagination's use of religious metaphor to establish its theological distinctiveness in ethical inquiry. Then in the final part I illustrate Theology's contribution to business ethics by studying the imagination's use of religious metaphor with regard to profit and to third world debt.
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Gerard Magill has degrees in Philosophy and in Moral Theology, with a Ph.D. He is an Assistant Professor (Theology) at Saint Louis University, teaching Moral Theology and Business Ethics. He is a member of the Faculty Committee for the University's new Center for Business Ethics.
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Magill, G. Theology in business ethics: Appealing to the religious imagination. J Bus Ethics 11, 129–135 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00872320
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00872320