Essai: Business Ethics and Bauman Ethics

Abstract

This paper relates Zygmunt Bauman's admonitions of the 'bureaucratic mentality' to business ethics. Although I am not in agreement with everything Bauman has to say, I will argue that business ethicists, consultants and others who claim to be able to do the moral thinking for others should take Bauman's worries about the moral autonomy of people working in our organizations very seriously. As long as business ethics does not enhance this moral autonomy but instead proffers a ratio nalized and rule-governed ethics, it may very well undermine the moral nature of people working in organizations.