Aristotle in the modern corporation : from codes of ethics to ethical culture

Abstract

After a number of spectacular moral failures in corporations despite them having had codes of ethics and ethics programmes, it has become clear that a mere reliance on codes of ethics and ethics compliance programmes is not sufficient to safeguard organisations against serious ethical failures. The insight has dawned that transformation on the deeper level of organisational culture is required. This emphasis on corporate ethical culture is evident in the revised American Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organisations as well as in the draft of the Third King Report on Corporate Governance for South Africa. The shift from an emphasis on corporate compliance to an emphasis on corporate culture represents a shift from an actbased approach to ethics to an actor-based approach to ethics. Instead of focussing on rules of behaviour, the focus shifts to virtues of actors in the latter approach. This brings the tradition of philosophical virtue ethics into play. The question that will be addressed in this article is: ‘Can a neo-Aristotelian approach to virtue ethics be accommodated in modern capitalist corporations?’ Drawing on Alisdaire MacIntyre’s interpretation of the Aristotelian virtue ethics tradition as well as his critique of late capitalist organisations the possibilities and constraints of neo- Aristotelian virtue ethics for the cultivation of corporate ethical culture will be explored.