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Business Ethics: A Synthesis of Normative Philosophy and Empirical Social Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Bart Victor  and
Carroll Underwood Stephens
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Abstract:

A synthesis of the two theoretical bases of business ethics—normative philosophy and descriptive social science—is called for. Examples from the literature are used to demonstrate that to ignore the descriptive aspects of moral behavior is to risk unreal philosophy, and that to ignore the normative aspects is to risk amoral social science. Business ethics is portrayed as a single unified field, in which fact-value distinctions are inappropriate.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , April 1994 , pp. 145 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1994

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