Integrative Economic Ethics: Foundations of a Civilized Market Economy »

Peter Ulrich is Full Professor of Economic and Business Ethics and Director of the Institute for Business Ethics at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland.

An analysis of foundational issues concerning the relationship between ethics and the market economy.

List of figures     viii
Preface     ix
Translator's note     xii
Introduction: orientation in economic-ethical thinking     1
Fundamental concepts of modern ethics and the approach of integrative economic ethics     11
The phenomenon of human morality: the normative logic of interpersonal relations     13
The moral disposition as part of the conditio humana     13
Morals and ethos as two sides of lived morality     19
Modern ethics and the problem of relativism     25
The humanistic core of the moral principle: the normative logic of interpersonal relations     31
The developmental stages of moral consciousness     37
The moral point of view: philosophical developmental lines of rational ethics     43
The Golden Rule and the Judaeo-Christian commandment to love one's neighbour     44
The standpoint of the impartial spectator (Adam Smith)     48
The categorical imperative (Immanuel Kant)     52
The rule-utilitarian generalization criterion     57
Discourse ethics     62
Morality and economic rationality: integrative economic ethics as the rational ethics of economic activity     79
Economic ethics as applied ethics?     80
Economic ethics as normativeeconomics?     89
The integrative approach: economic ethics as critical reflection on the foundations of economic reason     100
Reflections on the foundations of economic ethics I: a critique of economism     111
'Inherent necessity' of competition? A critique of economic determinism     115
The origins of modern market economy: the calvinistic ethos as a context of motivation     116
The systemic character of modern market economy: the 'free' market as a coercive context     120
The partiality of inherent necessity and the economic-ethical problem of reasonable expectation     131
'Morality' of the market? A critique of economic reductionism     147
Historical and doctrinal background I: the prestabilized harmony in the economic cosmos (classical period)     150
Historical and doctrinal background II: the utilitarian fiction of common good (early neoclassical period)     158
Methodological individualism and the normative logic of mutual advantage (pure economics)     166
Reflections on the foundations of economic ethics II: rational economic activity and the lifeworld     185
The question of meaning: economic activity and the good life     189
The elementary sense of economic activity: securing the means of human subsistence     191
The advanced meaning of economic activity: furthering the abundance of human life     196
The discovery of personal meaning under conditions of competitive self-assertion     207
The question of legitimation: economic activity and the just social life     216
Fundamental moral rights as the ethical-political basis of legitimation     220
The well-ordered society and the conditions of legitimate inequality: on John Rawls's principles of justice     227
Economic citizenship rights as the basis of real freedom for all     240
A topology of economic ethics: the 'sites' of morality in economic life     269
Economic citizen's ethics     273
The basic problem of civic ethics: liberal society and republican virtue     276
Deliberative politics: the public sphere as the site of economic citizens' shared responsibility     288
Professional and private life as sites of economic citizens' self-commitment     303
Regulatory ethics     315
The basic problem of regulatory ethics: market logic and 'vital policy'     319
Deliberative order politics: the market framework as a site of morality - whose morality?     341
The global question: competition of national market frameworks or supranational sites of regulatory morality?     359
Corporate ethics     376
The basic problem of corporate ethics: 'profit principle' and legitimate business activity      379
Instrumentalist, charitable, corrective or integrative corporate ethics?     398
Deliberative corporate policy-making: the 'stakeholder dialogue' as a site of business morality     418
Elements of an integrative ethical programme for corporations     437
Bibliography     443
Index of subjects     471
Index of names     479