Improving Business Ethics: The President's Lonely Task
John I. Reynolds is a Professor of Management and Business Analysis and Research at Texas A&M University. He holds a B.A. in Economics from Princeton, an M.B.A. from Harvard and a D.B.A. from Harvard. His work has been published in the Academy of Management Review, Business Horizons, Logistics Spectrum and Business Logistics. There has never been a shortage of calls for the ethical improvement of business decisions. Few couch the issue, in the apocalyptic terms of Robert L. Heilbroner, as a &dquo;long-run challenge to a business civilization,&dquo;’ but no one who has thought deeply about the problem treats it lightly. Some think of it as a need for &dquo;social responsibility&dquo; in business; others are more concerned with &dquo;morality&dquo; or &dquo;justice&dquo; in an absolute sense. Few people, in or out of the ranks of management, are completely satisfied with the status quo. But there is a great deal of controversy over how to effect the needed changes. .
The Prospect of Ethical Advisors for Business Corporations
John F. Steiner is Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Department of Management, California State University, Los Angeles. He holds the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Political Science from the University of Arizona. His work has appeared in Casebook in Business and Society, Instructor’s Manual for Business and Society, Los Angeles Business and Economics, Los Angeles Times, Arizona Star and a number of other places. JOHN F. STEINER
Analogy, Supposition, and Transcendentality in Narrative Argument
Rodden writes, “How do stories persuade us? How do they ‘move’—and move us? The short answer: by analogies.” Rodden’s claim is a natural first view, also held by others. This chapter considers the extent to which this view is true and helpful in understanding how fictional narratives, taken as wholes, may be argumentative, comparing it to the two principal (though not necessarily exclusive) alternatives that have been proposed: understanding fictional narratives as exhibiting the structure of suppositional argument, or the structure of a kind of transcendental argument. Three key aspects of understanding a fictional narrative as an argument from analogy are identified. First, the argument will be relativistic or depend in an essential way upon the circumstances or intentions of the auditor or author. Second, in view of the first aspect, the argument will be loose and subjective, and accordingly less likely to yield knowledge. Third, the argument will not exhibit a distinctive structure applicable only to fictional narratives. I find that the third, and sometimes the first and second, of these same three aspects apply to understanding fictional narratives as suppositional arguments. I present considerations that point to a way of establishing that some extended fictions exhibit the structure of a kind of transcendental argument that is neither relativistic nor subjective, is knowledge-generating, and is uniquely applicable to fictional narratives. This supports literary cognitivism—the thesis that “literary fiction can be a source of knowledge in a way that depends crucially on its being fictional.”