PHILOSOPHY SYMPOSIUM - September 20 and 21

What is the good that a ‘good’ business does?

What is the good that a ‘good’ business does?[1]

Although the title of the book is the good that business does, Robert G. Kennedy in the sixth chapter develops an idea of ‘a good business’.  He is also developing the idea that how business is aiming at the collective or the common good to the people at large. Although the book is aimed at seeking further intercourse between the catholic teaching and business, it also leaves an open space to raise some questions with regard to the theme developed.

It is true that when a business is called good and bad, the same distinction can be applied to other spheres of human endeavor too:  in the field of aesthetics one could speak of a good art and a bad one; in the field of ethics one could speak of a good act and a bad act; in the field of medicine one could speak of a good treatment and a bad treatment or a good medicine or a bad one, at a more larger and wider context one could speak of a good religion and a bad religion as well. I think that it is a good idea [!] to make distinction between good and bad.

I think that there is a difference between asking what is business and a good business. One of the fundamental features of a business is profit-making. Hence one can speak of good that comes out of the profit-making; even within profit making how certain good is contributed to the society.

I am sure that the substantial difference lies in the answer that one gets to these questions.

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[1] This article is just a reflection on reading the following book. Cf. Robert G. Kennedy, The Good that Business Does (Acton Institute, 2006). This is not a response to the book. The questions raised here are some spontaneous questions that came to me. It is never intended to review the book, nor to refute what is suggested there.

MODERN CONDITION

There was an advertisement about an Automatic sex shop that ran like this 

– non importa se un angelo o diavolo: totalmente anonimo – 

[it does not matter whether you are an angel or devil:  totally anonymous]. 

This advertisement captures the present condition of the modern man.

Freedom today is understood to be one without constraints.[1] This is the world that has created an ambience in which one can do what one likes to do when one is being watched by the other. It is a kind of total freedom that one enjoys or wants to enjoy. This culture of freedom is expressed by many activities done by men facilitated by modern science. The automatic shops are one of the symptomatic expressions of this phenomenon. But this can also be seen to augment the condition of the modern man in which one can do what one likes freely, even without an iota of inhibition of what the other would think of it. Anybody in the liberal world can choose to buy what he or she likes to without external constraints, invisibly. I am only reminded of the mythical ring of Gyges.[2]

Further, the advertisement also captures the condition which insists on the detachability of a person’s being from his acts.[3] Modern world concentrates on what one has to do rather than what one is: it does not matter whether you are an angel or devil but you have the freedom to choose and act anonymously. This can also strengthen the view of those who are angels – to be angels and act as angels even when no one sees. In this way, this autonomy can also lead to what we call to be authentic self-realization.

Additionally, the advertisement also indicates that there are people who still feel ashamed of certain acts being done in public. This is to say that the human person has an inherent notion of the other’s credibility. Even nobody in the auto-bus knows me; I do not behave wrongly due to the fact that it can endanger my identity. My identity is also shaped by others that transcends beyond my freedom of doing. But it is not merely because the law forbids. For example no law forbids poking one’s nose with his finger, yet one does not do it in public because it does relate to his character and with his identity.

In spite of the fact that after the construal of the human person as the individual by the contractarians and liberals who appeal to the rationality of the individuals, the advertisements only appeal to the consumers emotionally. Emotions can be triggered more easily than rationality. While the business world today encourages and appeals to emotionality for its profit, it is ridiculous to say that religion appeals to emotions and therefore leads to fundamentalism. If the statement about religion is true, then it is doubly true that the capitalistic business world is more fundamentalist than religion.

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[1] Freedom today is understood in the sense of ‘negative freedom’ that is defined by Isaiah Berlin who distinguished it from ‘positive freedom.’

[2] Cf. Plato, Republic, Book II, 359d – 360c. Glaucon makes a strong case that people act justly precisely because of the law or what others think of them. Therefore when one becomes invisible with the magical ring, the claim is that even a just would act unjustly. In this advertisement, even an angel would behave in devilish ways!

[3] This can take us to further reflections. Charles Taylor is right when he says that the moral domain has given more importance what to do rather than what to be. He says we are more worried about determining our actions in terms of rules rather than the good to be.