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The moral psychology of business: Care and compassion in the corporation

The Next Phase of Business Ethics: Integrating Psychology and Ethics

ISBN: 978-0-76230-809-5, eISBN: 978-1-84950-116-3

Publication date: 23 October 2001

Abstract

The virtue of moral psychology is that it emphasizes what is most human in business, as opposed to the more bloodless concepts of “obligation”, “duty”, “responsibility” and rights”. The heart of moral psychology is to be found in such concrete phenomena as fear, love, affection, antipathy, loyalty, jealousy, anger, resentment, avarice, ambition, pride, and cowardice. In this essay, 1 want to explore two of the core virtues of the corporation, conceived of as a community, the “sentiments” of care and compassion. These were taken to be the very core of ethics by Adam Smith. I want to distinguish care and compassion from each other and both from the more principled and rule-bound conceptions of ethics that still dominate philosophy.

Citation

Solomon, R.C. (2001), "The moral psychology of business: Care and compassion in the corporation", Dienhart, J., Moberg, D. and Duska, R. (Ed.) The Next Phase of Business Ethics: Integrating Psychology and Ethics (Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations, Vol. 3), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 417-438. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1529-2096(01)03023-1

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2001, Emerald Group Publishing Limited