Premium
Human Dignity and the Common Good: The Institutional Insight
Author(s) -
Goodpaster Kenneth
Publication year - 2017
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.12107
Subject(s) - dignity , fiduciary , normative , theme (computing) , duty , business ethics , common good , sociology , environmental ethics , shareholder , law and economics , engineering ethics , epistemology , law , political science , management , economics , corporate governance , philosophy , computer science , engineering , operating system , politics
In this article, I develop the idea of the “institutional insight” as a pathway to two foundational values for applied ethics: human dignity and the common good . I explore—but do not offer a definitive analysis of—these two values that I believe are critical to the progress of business ethics (indeed to the progress of applied ethics generally). In several previous articles (Goodpaster [Goodpaster, K., 1991], [Goodpaster, K., 2009], [Goodpaster, K., 2012], [Goodpaster, K., 2013]), I have alluded to this theme, but here I hope to show that human dignity and the common good underlie both (1) management's fiduciary duty to shareholders, and (2) management's obligations to “stakeholders.” Indeed, it may be that the frequently observed tension between the latter two normative paradigms can be resolved only by engaging in the comprehensive moral thinking afforded by the institutional insight.