Applying Rawlsian Approaches to Resolve Ethical Issues: Inventory and Setting of a Research Agenda

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Insights from social science are increasingly used in the field of applied ethics. However, recent insights have shown that the empirical branch of business ethics lacks thorough theoretical grounding. This article discusses the use of the Rawlsian methods of wide reflective equilibrium and overlapping consensus in the field of applied ethics. Instead of focussing on one single comprehensive ethical doctrine to provide adequate guidance for resolving moral dilemmas, these Rawlsian methods seek to find a balance between considered judgments and intuitions concerning particular cases on the one hand and general principles and theories on the other. In business ethics this approach is promising because it enables decision-making in a pluralist context with different stakeholders who often endorse different or even conflicting cultural and moral frameworks without giving priority to any of them. Moreover, the method is well founded in political theory. A taxonomy of different kinds of applications is developed, and classified according to the purpose, the content, and the type of justification. On the basis of this taxonomy an inventory of 12 recent applications is made. In terms of the purpose and content of the method the applications are rather diverse. Two conceptual obstacles for applying Rawlsian methods are identified, viz. inclusiveness and the communitarian objection that people have to become detached from their personal life. It is found that methodological questions, such as the question how to retrieve the relevant empirical data, are scarcely addressed in the literature. To advance the use of empirical approaches in general, and that of Rawlsian approaches in particular, it is important not only to use empirical data but to use methodological insights from social sciences in order to further advance the field of empirical ethics. It is recommended that stakeholders be given a more active role in the assessment and justification of these methods.

Where is “Islamic marketing” heading?

“…Ghoshal (2005) questions the immorality of amorality in business education in general. The discussions in the Journal of Business Ethics and others reflect the continuous global scholarly discourse around morality in management, which occasionally borrow from hypothetical theories such as that in John Rawl's A Theory of Justice (Doorn, 2010). In marketing, Kotler, Kartajaya, and Setiawan (2010, p. 20) reflect that "supplying meaning is the future value proposition in marketing" and that marketing 3.0 (of the future) is "values-driven" within a global and culturally-diverse society (cf.…”

Anticipatory Ethics and Governance (AEG): Towards a Future Care Orientation Around Nanotechnology

“…Research in political science [54] has shown that people confronted with opposing views are unlikely to participate actively. However, Rawls' approach to deliberative democracy is founded on four key commitments 18 and on 'justice as fairness 19 ' which may overcome this. It is not reliant on scientific certainty of highly normative principles.…”

“…NT stakeholders who hold opposing even irreconcilable conceptions of the good can find a shared basis of reasonable agreement through an 'overlapping consensus'. 20 Adapted versions of the Rawlsian approach have been applied in the development of other technologies [18][19][20]. In the context of an anticipatory governance model for NT, it is sufficiently flexible that it could be used to reach overlapping consensus on the relevant ethical issues which would then inform ethical decision-making and governance even though all of the participants may not agree on the background moral theories and ethical principles.…”

“…The 17 The ECITA approach to ethical analysis identified two stages to ethical analysis: (1) ethical issues are identified, and (2) identified ethical issues are evaluated (http://www.etica-project.eu/). 18 See footnote 12. 19 1.…”

Early engagement and new technologies: Opening up the laboratory

“…To this end we have adapted the wide refl ective equilibrium (WRE) approach, initially developed by Rawls ( 1999) and further elaborated by Daniels (Daniels 1979(Daniels , 1996, as a framework for analyzing moral deliberation (see also Doorn 2010 ). To this end we have adapted the wide refl ective equilibrium (WRE) approach, initially developed by Rawls ( 1999) and further elaborated by Daniels (Daniels 1979(Daniels , 1996, as a framework for analyzing moral deliberation (see also Doorn 2010 ).…”