Can We Teach Character? An Aristotelian Answer

Abstract

Business ethics courses can help improve our students' ethics by teaching them about character, as opposed to just principles, the application of which creates difficulties. In particular, we can help our students consider their values and realize them in practice. According to Aristotle, ethics is about virtue, which is a matter of one's own well-being primarily, but as we are rational and social creatures, this state of well-being entails having what we would consider good moral values. Does good character really serve the agent's interests? Yes, if the agent has the right interests, and interests can be cultivated to some degree. One's values must be coherent, and one must be able to discern the salient moral features of the situations with which one deals. These are marks of good character, which the culture of one's organization may nurture or undermine. We arrive at principles supportive of good character by reflective equilibrium, a process like what Aristotle calls dialectic. Case studies assist our students in developing good character and learning to bring it to bear in complex situations, as some recent research has suggested is possible. One way to protect one's character, our students may learn, is to choose a workplace that does not undermine it.