Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:11:22.615Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Marketplace of Morality: First Steps Toward a Theory of Moral Choice1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Thomas W. Dunfee
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

A marketplace of morality (MOM) is a place where individuals act under the influence of their moral desires. A MOM produces an output representing the aggregate acted-upon moral preferences of its participants. Individual behavior is influenced by POPs, or passions of propriety. People implement POP preferences when they buy stock, purchase goods and services, choose jobs and so on. Firms respond by social cause marketing and other devices which encourage customers to align their social preferences with those represented by the firm. The outputs of MOM constitute an important reference point for understanding business morality. Even so, the normative status of MOM outputs must be subject to principles of universal morality. A principle of greater preponderance is offered as a means for determining when a MOM output is ethically legitimate.

A theory of moral choice, based upon the concept of a MOM, may have potential for providing a unifying framework integrating moral preferences, reasoning, behaviors and organizational contexts with broader political and economic concepts.

Type
Presidential Address
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 127 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Batson, C. Daniel. 1996. “Do Prosocial Motives Have Any Business in Business?” Social Justice Research 9(1): 7–25.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. 1996. Accounting for Tastes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Birnbaum, David. 1996. “Forget MFN, the Consumers Are Coming.” The Wall Street Journal, April 9, 1996, p. A18.Google Scholar
Bowie, N. 1993. “International Business, A Universal Morality and the Challenge of Nationalism.” Business Ethics: Japan and the Global Economy, edited by Dunfee, Thomas W. and Nagayasu, Yukimasa, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Cohen, Deborah Vidaver. 1995. “Creating Ethical Work Climates: A Socioeconomic Perspective.” The Journal of Socio-Economics 24(2): 317–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derry, Robbin, and Green, Ronald M. 1989. “Ethical Theory in Business Ethics: A Critical Assessment.” Journal of Business Ethics 8(7): 521–533.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drumwright, Minette E. 1996. “Company Advertising With a Social Dimension: The Role of Noneconomic Criteria.” Journal of Marketing 60: 71–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunfee, Thomas W. 1997. “On the Synergistic, Interdependent Relationship of Business Ethics and Law.” American Business Law Journal 34(2): 317–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frederick, William C. 1995. Values, Nature, and Culture in the American Corporation. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, R. Edward, and Gilbert, Daniel R. Jr. 1988. Corporate Strategy and the Search for Ethics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen. 1990. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hanford, Desiree J. 1997. “States Face Pressure to Invest Morally.” Wall Street Journal, June 9, 1997, p. B7C.Google Scholar
Hartman, Edwin M. 1996. Organizational Ethics and the Good Life. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herzog, Don. 1989. Happy Slaves: A Critique of Consent Theory. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jackall, Robert. 1988. Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J. L., and Thaler, R. 1986. “Fairness as a Constraint on Profit Seeking: Entitlements in the Market.” American Economic Review 76(4): 728–41.Google Scholar
Knecht, G. Bruce. 1997. “Magazine Advertisers Demand Prior Notice of ‘Offensive’ Articles.” Wall Street Journal, April 30, 1997, p. A1.Google Scholar
Kolm, Serge-Christophe. 1996. “Moral Public Choice.” Public Choice 87: 117–141.Google Scholar
Keeley, Michael. 1988. A Social Contract Theory of Organizations. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Maitland, Ian. 1997. “Virtuous Markets: The Market as School of the Virtues.” Business Ethics Quarterly 7(1): 17–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messick, David M. 1996. “Why Ethics is Not the Only Thing that Matters.” Business Ethics Quarterly 6(2): 223–226.Google Scholar
Posner, Eric A. 1996. “The Regulation of Groups: The Influence of Legal and Nonlegal Sanctions on Collective Action.” The University of Chicago Law Review 63:133–197.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard A. 1983. The Economics of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard A. 1990. The Problem of Jurisprudence. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard A. 1994. “Law and Economics Is Moral.” Adam Smith and the Philosophy of Law and Economics, edited by Robin, Paul Malloy and Evensky, Jerry, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Ridley, Matt. 1996. The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Viking Press.Google Scholar
Sagoff, Mark. 1981. “At the Shrine of our Lady of Fatima or Why Political Questions are Not all Economic.” Arizona Law Review 23: 1283.Google Scholar
Sagoff, Mark. 1986. “Values and Preferences.” Ethics 96(2): 301–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaw, Bill. 1997. “Sources of Virtue: The Market and the Community.” Business Ethics Quarterly 7(1): 33–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, N. Craig. 1994. “The New Corporate Philanthropy.” Harvard Business Review 72 (May-June): 105–116.Google Scholar
Wall Street Journal. “Business Bulletin.” January 9, 1997, p. A1.Google Scholar