Macintyre’s Position on Business: A Response to Wicks

Andrew Wicks recently reflected “On The Practical Relevance of Feminist Thought to Business.” Part of his reflection focussed on my contributions to this subject. In critiquing my work, Wicks notes the similarity between my views on business and those of Alasdair MacIntyre. He goes on to give a brief overview of our position as he sees it. Wicks’s overview, although insightful, is misleading in certain key respects. My purpose in this response, therefore, is to clarify MacIntyre’s views on business. In doing this I will, by default, clarify my own.MacIntyre himself might be surprised by the frequency with which his name appears in the business-ethics discourse. Although, over a period spanning nearly fifty years, he has written prolifically on the subject of ethics, he has only, as far as I am aware, written two brief articles directly addressing the subject of business ethics. Why then should we in business or in business ethics concern ourselves with his views? I think our interest in MacIntyre stems from our interest in virtue ethics, specifically our interest in the applicability of the virtues to business. When it comes to virtue ethics MacIntyre is recognized as an authority, if not the authority. Even his fiercest detractors would, I hope, admit that he has been largely responsible for the resurrection of classical philosophy in the latter half of this century. His book After Virtue, in which he criticizes modernity and praises a classical virtue-based approach to ethics, is undoubtedly one the most influential books on moral philosophy written this century. Indeed, as postmodernism gains steam as a cultural force, its full influence is perhaps yet to be determined. If MacIntyre’s critique of modernity proves correct, then much of business-ethics theory—not to mention moral theory in general—would be discredited. Thus interest in MacIntyre’s thesis, from many quarters, is understandable.