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Reconciling Traditional Morality and the Morality of Competition
Author(s) -
Bailey Adam D.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
business and society review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.524
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 1467-8594
pISSN - 0045-3609
DOI - 10.1111/basr.12030
Subject(s) - morality , adversarial system , task (project management) , competition (biology) , epistemology , positive economics , sociology , law and economics , philosophy , law , political science , economics , biology , ecology , management
It is commonly believed that the moral norms of “everyday” or “traditional” morality apply uniformly in all business contexts. However, J oseph H eath has recently argued that this is not the case. According to H eath, the norms of everyday morality apply with respect to “administered” transactions but not “market” transactions. Market transactions are, he argues, governed by a distinct, “adversarial” morality. In this article, I argue that H eath's attempt to show that competitive contexts are governed by a distinct, adversarial morality does not succeed. I then undertake the task of showing that, contrary to what is commonly thought, competitive actions can be reconciled with the norms of traditional morality.