Conclusion: The Practical Ethics of Sittlichkeit and Communicative Ethics

The concluding chapter has three tasks: it sums up the core arguments presented so far, delivers a conclusion, and provides a solution to the problem of management ethics. It starts with a summary of the key elements of previous chapters and extracts the essence of what management and ethics are and how, if at all, they fit together. To do this, Hegel’s concept of the ‘Other’ is required in order to identify what is and what is not. Hegel’s ‘Other’ will also show what management and ethics are not. ‘What is’ is never just something in-itself (Kant) but always represents positives (what it is) and negatives (what it is not). In other words, we know day because we also know night. The negation of things makes them what they are. In the case of management ethics one needs to rely on the non-textbook version of real management which shows what management is and what it is not. For example, it is not predominantly an ethical enterprise. Ethics, as far as it appears in management at all, is a side-issue that may or may not service management. In Hegel’s terms, the essence of management does not contain ethics as a core element. In the philosophy of essentialism ethics for management is something accidental — something non-defining — rather than a constitutive element.