Abstract
The state of war is a popular metaphor employed by many business writers seeking to explain the imperatives of strategic decision-making. It is a metaphor which draws on a “realist” characterisation of war as a Hobbesian state of nature devoid of a moral dimension. However, the work of Walzer (1977) has demonstrated that rules of war, established over generations and across cultural divides, play a significant role in the conduct of warfare. Through identifying and analysing rules of war in parallel with ethical dilemmas in business life, such as whistleblowing, it is possible to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the war metaphor in place of simplified, state of nature realism. This alternative version of the war metaphor is a useful means of introducing students to Aristotlean virtues as well as challenging their preconceptions about the nature of business activity. Copyright © 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 27-35 |
| Journal | Teaching Business Ethics |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1999 |
Citation
Macfarlane, B. (1999). Re-evaluating the realist conception of war as a business metaphor. Teaching Business Ethics, 3(1), 27-35. doi: 10.1023/A:1009753807317Keywords
- Aristotlean ethics
- Corporate strategy
- Ethical relativism
- War analogy
- Whistleblowing
