Issue 2, 2009

Storchevoy M. A. Normative Business Ethics: Theoretical Drawbacks

The paper is devoted to current theoretical contradictions and white spots in normative business ethics. It is shown that modern textbooks or academic papers are dominated by a formal approach to understanding of basic normative theories which are often interpreted as epxert (guru) judgements and suffer from lack of rigour academic analysis. The paper demonstrates as basic normative theories — utilitarianism and universalism — could be represented as pure logical approaches under a general framework without any elements of subjective judgements. One of the implications of this analysis is the utilitarianism and universalism may be understood as logically consistent and compatible approaches and the traditional dichotomy of deontological and teleological approaches is superficial. Keywords: Normative Ethics, Utilitarianism, Universalism, Virtues Ethics, Egoism, Bentham, Kant, Rawls.

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