A THEORETICAL GROUND FOR THE PRACTICE OF BUSINESS ETHICS: A COMMENTARY

Peter Madsen

n the second half of 1993, two articles one then published and one as yet to be published posed challenges to my presuppositions about the nature of business ethics. The first of these was Andrew Stark's "What's the Matter with Business Ethics?"' This article is now well-known in business ethics circles with many being highly critical of its philosophical content^ and Stark already having had some opportunity to reply to these critics.^ According to him, business ethics as it has developed in the literature and in academia is irrelevant to most practicing managers since what has been produced in the academy is too general, too theoretical and too impractical. No doubt there will be more said about and by Stark on whether academic business ethics can fit into the practical work world of corporate managers. For my part, I suggest that while Stark's critique of business ethics contains some flawed understanding and analysis, it is a critique that nonetheless needs to be taken seriously by those who wish to see business ethics flourish in the corporation, I will have some more to say about Stark's position later in this commentary. The second piece that forced a rethinking of the field of business ethics upon me was one that I was asked to review for Business Ethics Quarterly and which now appears in this edition, I am referring to John Dienhart's ambitious paper titled "Rationality, Ethical Codes and an Egalitarian Justification of Ethical Expertise: Implications for Professions and Organizations," In this work, Dienhart has made an important contribution to our understanding of what constitutes business ethics and how it should conducted, I will begin with a short, selective summary of Dienhart's work and then turn to examine some implications of it that Dienhart himself did not draw, but which can and should be drawn. At that juncture, we will be able to see better the relationship between what Dienhart has accomplished successfully for business ethics and what Stark has offered not so successfully as a critique of it, A Reasonable Account of Rationality and an Acceptable Conception of Ethical Expertise Dienhart divides his paper into four major parts, but for the purposes of these comments I will be concerned with only two of his treatments, namely, his analysis of rationality and his discussions about 'ethical expertise.' What he proposes in Part I is a re-evaluation (a deconstruction, perhaps) ofthe basis from which we make rational judgments in general and in business ethics in particular. He offers a substitute version of our time-honored understanding of rationality, the 'classical view,' by offering a newer version of it, first proposed by Harold Brown in his book Rationality.^
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According to Dienhart and Brown, the classical view of rationality holds that a judgment is rational only when it displays the properties of being universal, necessary and rule-governed. These have been the hallmarks of rationality since the Ancient Greeks. Those who have taught courses in formal logic will immediately recognize this classical depiction and will recall the difficulties that many students have in learning formal logic since it requires them to abstract from their experience with judgment-making and the everyday kinds of rational judgments that they form which fail to display the classical traits of universality, necessity and an overt abiding by some set of rules. The classical view falls short of everyday life, Dienhart and Brown offer what might be called a more reasonable account of rationality. In place of the classical view, they see rationality as having three completely different features. They hold that: 1) rationality is not a matter of following some set of rules, 2) rational judgments can be rational without also being necessary judgments and 3) rational judgments are produced against the backdrop of two kinds of information *a body of background knowledge' and 'information relevant to the case at hand.' As can be seen, the first two of these counter the classical view directly, thereby making room for a non-classical understanding of the nature of rational judgments. This understanding is a much more reasonable one, since it can account for much more than the classical view. It jibes with real life where the classical account seems an affront to it. If one were to view rationality strictly in the classical sense, then such reasoned judgments as deciding not to teach formal logic any longer or choosing to stop at a stop sign at a busy intersection could not be called rational since they do not bear the features of universality, necessity and being rule-governed in their formation. In fact, the classical view has trouble justifying itself since the kinds of rational judgments one would need to make about the nature of rationality would not bear the stamp of the classical version and Dienhart recognizes this problem parenthetically in a footnote. After critiquing the classical and positing the non-classical view, Dienhart then turns to setting out his thesis about 'ethical expertise' that relies heavily upon the idea of a non-classical version of rationality and rational judgments. Dienhart talks first about experts and their judgments in general and then in Part III of the paper turns his full attention to experts in ethics. Quoting Brown, he says initially that: "Experts are those who can make defensible and reliable non-rule-guided judgments in areas about which they have two types of information: 'a body of background knowledge (including techniques), and a body of information relevant to the case at hand.'"^ Identifying the notion of expertise in this fashion within the non-classical view of rationality will have some important ramifications when it comes time for Dienhart to defend his position that ethical expertise can be justified in an egalitarian way. But initially, Dienhart paints a picture of expert judgment-making that closely follows his not^-classical view of rationality. The expert makes judgments that are non-mle-guided, i, e,, there are no executive rules that the expert appeals to to get the 'right answer,' Yes, experts will have occasions to apply rules. For example, expert accountants will apply the rules found in the 'Generally Accepted

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Accounting Principles,' but they will not find any 'executive rules to which experts can appeal which tell them the how to choose the right rules [from the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles], to intercept the chosen rules, or to apply the chosen and interpreted rules to a particular case.'^ Being an expert requires more than just merely following the rules. Likewise, expert judgments are not infallible judgments. The pronouncements of experts do not automatically carry the enviable marks of universality and absolute necessity. Experts do not always get the right answer but that in no way diminishes their stature as having expertise or as being reliable. As Dienhart puts it: 'In sum, an expert is not always successful, and experts can disagree about how to handle the very same case. Further, it is possible for experts to be wrong, even when they do agree. There is no definitive, infallible answer to the question of how successful one must be to be an expert, for that itself is a matter of (non-rule-guided) judgment' The definitive trait of expertise lies in the fact that experts demonstrate a certain skill in the making of their defensible and reliable judgments. They make use of two important kinds of information. Being an expert is using information in such a way that one gets recognized as having expertise in a given field. One gets valued for being good at using this information and experts are in demand because they get so recognized and so valued. Experts have a body of background knowledge and they are in possession of information that is relevant to the matter, case or issue that they are called upon to offer their expertise. To use the example of accounting again, it can be said that the expert accountant knows the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and knows the revenues, the expenses, the assets and the debits of the firm she is accounting for. The final accounting statement she is invited to issue will be taken as a reliable and defensible one because she has these centrally important kinds of information about GAAP and about the firm under her current accountant's scrutiny. The specific questions of ethical expertise are addressed by Dienhart in Part III and it presents something of a special case since 'the notion of ethical expertise makes many uncomfortable.' I have to admit that upon my first reading of Dienhart's paper, L too, was uncomfortable, feeling that the very idea of an ethics expert was somehow counter-intuitive to the matter of ethics and ethical analysis. Is the ethics expert someone who always got the right answer to an ethical dilemma? Is it not elitist to assert that some can be an experi at ethics, while others are not? These were among some of the questions I found myself muttering to the paper in front of me. Part III of Dienhart's work is dedicated to countering those who have such difficulties with the notion of expertise in ethics as I did originally as Dienhart's "anonymous reviewer,"^ In his survey of this issue, he replies to critics of the concept and his retorts result in an "egalitarian justification" of ethical expertise what I would call an acceptable conception of ethical expertise, Dienhart demonstrates how ethical expertise does not hinge upon the possession of some special moral insight that the ethics expert has, nor does it imply the imposing ofthe ethics expert's values on others. Rather, and again thanks to the

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adoption of a non-classical view of rationality and the fact that the ethics expert functions like a consultant, the ethics expert must presuppose the autonomy of the principal with whom the ethics expert shares his or her rational judgments. It is this autonomy that Dienhart cites as the main reason for calling his justification of ethical expertise egalitarian. Given the grounding of "expertise" on a non-classical view of rationality, it can be said with Dienhart that just as there are experts in law and medicine, so too can there be experts in ethics. Like the attorney and the physician, the ethicist is a manipulator and provider of information. And the more skilled one is in applying the background body of knowledge called ethics to a case or issue about which the ethicist also has relevant information, then the more one qualifies as an ethics expert. The business ethics expert, then, is one who know ethics and how to apply it and who has relevant information about the business matter, case or issue at hand that requires the business ethics expert's attention. Although Dienhart gives an admirable reply to those who might demure from the term "ethics expert," to those who are uncomfortable with it, there are some points in his arguments with which one might still reasonably quarrel. In other words, while his egalitarian justification does result in an acceptable conception of expertise in ethics, it can be bolstered even further. For example, I think that he does not give enough emphasis to the role that public recognition plays in the establishment of expertise. It would be objectionable to hold that anyone may proclaim their expertise and hang out a shingle and practice it. Expertise, it seems to me, requires substantial recognition of others and that self-proclamations about expertise should be suspect. Expertise is not established in a vacuum and it requires more than just self-promotion. It requires the critical appraisal of the community in which it is practiced. When it comes to ethics the important role that the community plays in the establishment of expertise is even more paramount, I think. Ethics happens to be inherently a public matter and in some instances the ethical guidelines that one must follow are guidelines promulgated by a given community. So it follows, that the community and its collective judgment should have a say in determining who is or who is not qualified to be an ethics expert. And members of the community verify their judgments about ethical expertise by valuing the knowledge shared by the ethics expert and retum to him or her as their needs for this knowledge dictates. (This is a kind of consumer satisfaction theory of ethical expertise.) Ethics experts, then, are those who can both publicly demonstrate their skills of applying the requisite two kinds of knowledge and who are judged by others and recognized as so skillful. But even with this objection, Dienhart's work is original and provocative. He is, I believe, successful in providing a more reasonable account of rationality and establishing an acceptable conception of ethical expertise. What follows are some thoughts and reactions some snapshots of the ways in which Dienhart provoked me into re-thinking business ethics. I offer three implications that he did not draw but which I believe can and should be drawn given the idea of a more reasonable theory of rationality and an acceptable notion of ethical expertise.

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/. Business Ethics as a Practice

A non-classical version of rationality would seem to foster the following initial definition of what constitutes business ethics. Business ethics consists in making non-rule-guided, rational judgments based upon "a body of background knowledge and a body of information relevant to the case at hand." In other words, a business ethicist is one who has mastered that body of knowledge we call ethics and can thereby demonstrate ethical expertise and who also has acquired a body of relevant business information that is likewise central in the making of rational business ethics judgments about a specific case at hand. This will be a public demonstration of ethical expertise and the business ethics expert will be recognized as such by those in the business community. Therefore, a useful, first definition of business ethics should be to depict it as a practice because the expertise ofthe business ethicist is demonstrated within a consulting relationship between a business ethicist and a business organization and the people within it. So understood, examples of business ethics expertise would include the production of rational judgments aimed at such things as: 1) writing and revising codes of business conduct and business policies having to do with ethics in the workplace, 2) consulting with a business organization by making recommendations about how it can achieve responsible behavior and be a good corporate citizen, 3) performing ethics audits of various organizational activities, 4) assisting corporations to value its diverse workforce and customer base and to manage the diversity dilemmas that will arise given the continuing demographic shifts toward more diversity, 5) helping a corporation to identify its own values and measure whether those values are operative in the organization, 6) setting up internal corporate ethics review committees, and 7) designing and delivering ethics training and other educational activities to assist managers and employees in business organizations to be better able to make their own rational judgments when confronted with ethical issues, problems and dilemmas on the job. This is not an exhaustive list, but it does show that business ethics should be defined primarily as a practice like law and medicine when one adopts the non-classical version of rationality that Dienhart urges as the ground for business ethics. Lawyers practice their legal expertise by interpreting the law for their clients, by making recommendations to them or by defending or prosecuting alleged wrongdoers in courts of law. Physicians, nurses and other health care deliverers practice their medical expertise by interpreting the body of medical knowledge for patients, prescribing medicinal remedies and making lifestyle recommendations to them or providing medical services such as surgery or medical testing. And so too does the business ethicist practice her ethical expertise by interpreting the body of knowledge called ethics for business managers, by recommending courses of action for them to take and educating them about matters of ethics in business. To say that business ethics is a practice akin to law and medicine is to say a great deal about how we should initially define business ethics. It means that business ethics should be understood primarily as a "hands-on" activity within

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a consulting relationship. As the practices of law and medicine are client centered, hands-on kinds of professions, so too is business ethics. And, as the professional practices of law and medicine are service oriented, so too is business ethics. The business ethicist works in conjunction with a client on specific client issues, problems or dilemmas and produces rational judgments (expert advice) that will be useful to client organizations and the people in them when they engage in business. Doing business ethics is the professional practice of providing corporate consulting services. Hence, a grounding of business ethics on a non-classical view of rationality appears to yield a non-traditional view of the field of business ethics. It suggests that business ethics needs to be taken as a professional activity where business ethicists use their acquired expertise in the delivery of services to a corporate client. What Dienhart has done, then, is tantamount to establishing a theoretical ground for the practice of business ethics and in so doing his paper marks a significant turn in the field of business ethics away from the purely theoretical,

2. Theoretical Business Ethics versus Practical Business Ethics

If a non-classical version of rationality fosters a definition of business ethics as the hands-on kind of work that an expert practitioner provides to a client in a consulting relationship, then what can be said of other activities that are usually designated by the phrase "business ethics?" Here I have in mind such things as writing scholarly articles that appear in business ethics related journals and teaching college and university courses entitled "Business Ethics." Since these activities fall outside the scope of those professional consulting services rendered to a corporate client that typifies the practice of business ethics based upon a non-classical version of rationality, should we continue to place them under the rubric of "business ethics" at all? Can we continue to call those courses "Business Ethics?" And those journals should they really carry "Business Ethics" on their covers? Perhaps an examination of the practices of law and medicine will shed some light on these questions given the parallels I and Dienhart have already drawn between these two kinds of consulting practices and the practice of business ethics. Initially, it can be said that attorneys and physicians (or nurses and other health care providers) engage in the practice of law and medicine when they provide services to clients who seek them out exactly for the services they can provide. They are able to provide these services and their expertise in their practice when they have mastered a body of knowledge and when they have knowledge of the case at hand, that is, are knowledgeable about the conditions that have brought the client to seek out their services. Then, in providing these services based upon these two kinds of knowledge, they are practicing their profession and are being attorneys or physicians. What if now such a practitioner were to engage in a different activity where they were not providing consulting services directly to a client who is in need of their services? For example, what if a practicing physician were to be hired by a medical school to perform research or to teach medical students how to be

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practicing physicians, or to do both should we still refer to what the hired physician will do as practicing medicine? Strictly speaking, we should not and, in actuality, we do not. The physician who performs research may be adding to the body of knowledge we call medicine and the physician who teaches medicine may be adding to the existing pool of practicing physicians, but strictly speaking neither medical research nor the teaching of medicine constitutes the practice of medicine. This is the case because a central ingredient in professional consulting practices happens to be missing in research and teaching, namely, the providing of some hands-on services to an immediate client who has sought out the practitioner for his or her expertise given a condition that requires the assistance of that professional and his or her expertise. It is better to say that lawyers and physicians who do research or who teach are contributing to their professional field when they research and teach, but not that they are practicing law or medicine when they do so. And this is not to discount or devalue such a contribution. In fact, research and teaching are necessary to a field, if it is to progress. But while this work will contribute to the practice of a given field, it is not itself that practice. It even could be argued although I will not go into details here for the sake of brevity that it is only a convenience of nomenclature, habit and a matter of respecting their years of training and education, that we continue to call physicians who research and teach "physicians." They are really researchers and teachers engaged in more theoretical pursuits than their counterparts who are examining, testing, educating or operating upon patients. It would be a kind of category mistake to identify what these researchers and teachers do as a practice. Theorizing building theory through research and sharing it through teaching and practice are, as philosophers have said for some time, quite different. Parallels can now be drawn to the field of business ethics. Historically, the field of business ethics has been primarily populated by those who have performed the tasks of research and teaching. Business ethics has its origins in the academy and has born the trait of "academic" since then. A "business ethicist" has usually meant someone who has published his or her research in the few journals dedicated to ethical issues in business and who teaches business ethics courses at the college and university levels. And while the search for legitimacy in the academy by those who have been the leading researchers and teachers of business ethics has often been arduous, there is today something of an acceptance in some cases a reluctant acceptance of the field in philosophy departments and business schools validating this specialized research and teaching. In short, business ethics has been historically a theorizing about business, business managers and corporations and their ethical context. But if Dienhart and I are right, we should be hesitant to identify only those who have traditionally been called business ethicists by such a title any longer. As with law and medicine, while this research and teaching is an important contribution to progress in the field, these activities do not themselves constitute the practice of business ethics. Grounding business ethics in a non-classical version of rationality brings home the fact that there are at least two legitimate ways to view business ethics as there are two ways to view law and medicine.

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The first is one that would define business ethics as a doing or a practice and allow for the work of the business ethics expert in the corporate world, while the second would define it as a theorizing. While the latter has historical roots and while those who toil as theorists do make worthwhile contributions to the body of knowledge about ethics and business ethics, they are not practicing business ethicists and it would be a mistake to define business ethics solely as such a theoretical undertaking. Business ethics experts, then, are those who have a practice and provide a service to a client who seeks them out exactly because they can provide some needed ethical expertise. And since research and teaching in a field are not examples of practicing in it, we should not use them as the only (necessary and sufficient) standard to identify those who are business ethics experts. But as in law and medicine, whether out of some convenience of nomenclature, habit or respect, we will no doubt continue to refer to those who research and teach as "business ethicists." And the practicing business ethicist is in debt to the theoretical business ethicist since the latter makes important contributions to the kinds of knowledge that the practicing business ethicist relies upon in the conduct of his or her practice. Yet still, it would be wrong to say that business ethics is nothing more than a meta-activity of theorizing. Such a definition that sees business ethics as solely the production of theory that can be debated by academics in a jargon that alienates others overlooks the fact that business ethics itself is materially the product of three equal partners: business ethics theorists, business ethics practitioners atid business organizations and the people in them. Theorists-practitioners-managers, This triad formulates a more accurate and a more dynamic conception of how business ethics should be viewed. It presents a more complete picture ofthe activities that should be understood as comprising business ethics. Each partner in this triad has a proper role responsibility to carry out and each partner has an obligation to learn from the other partners if business ethics is to ever be a reality in business organizations. Much more thought and much more delineation about this triadic picture of business ethics needs to be done and said than what can be done and said in this commentary. At a bare minimum, however, what I am suggesting here is that a new relationship be formed by those who come from differing perspectives but who yet still have hopes that business ethics can flourish in the corporation, A new team needs to be forged where theory, practice and managing are on equal footing and where members of the team share common goals if not common methods. This commentary is, in one sense, then, a call for a re-engineering of this field so that theorists, practitioners and managers cooperate as equals to promote business ethics. 5. Professionalism and the Practice of Business Ethics The ligitimization of business ethics as a practice means that business ethics experts are professionals in many of the same respects as practicing attorneys and physicians are professionals. There are, of course, some respects in which they are professionally unalike. Business ethicist practitioners are not now

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required to have a license to practice, for example. And, as Dienhart points out, unlike physicians, business ethics experts will not often be in a position to perform the advice that they give. But in most concrete activities that demarcate the professions, the work of business ethics practitioners is similiar enough to other practices so that they can correctly be referred to as "professionals." If business ethics practice is a professional activity, then it will have its own ethical issues, problems and dilemmas just like practitioners in law, medicine and accounting do. Those who have provided any of the various consulting services to a corporate client that I have outlined above are aware, no doubt, of the kinds of ethical issues, problems and dilemmas that the business ethics practitioner can encounter. Among these we should identify: 1) conflicts of loyalties and interests where the practitioner has difficulty maintaining clear sight of just who the client is (the client organization? Its managers and/or employees? Its stakeholders? Its shareholders? Society? Business ethics? The truth? All of the above?); 2) qualifications and credentials where the question centers on the practitioner's expertise (how much knowledge of theory and of business should a business ethics expert have? Should there be qualifying tests? How should business ethics practitioners be credentialed, if at all? Should lawyers be business ethics practitioners?); 3) conduct and behavior issues where how the business ethics practitioner achieves professionalism is paramount (If one learns of corporate wrongdoing in the course of one's practice, what obligations does one have? What constitutes a fair fee structure? How should business ethics practitioners be governed in their practices?) This is nowhere near to an exhaustive list of issues, dilemmas and problems and there is a pressing need for more attention to the questions of the professional ethics of business ethics practitioners. While there is an ad hoc committee of the Society for Business Ethics that has been charged with posing and examining a number of the professional concerns about business ethics consulting, it is not yet clear just what recommendations this committee will reach nor how the Society will proceed with those recommendations. In any event, there must be some hard reflection from those who would call themselves business ethics practitioners (and others, e, g,. business ethics theorists and business managers) and hopefully this commentary may also serve as an invitation for more attention to this issue.

What's the Matter With Andrew Stark?

At the beginning of this commentary, I offered to say more about Andrew Stark's Harvard Business Review article "What's the Matter with Business Ethics?" If one allows defining business ethics as the productive partnership between business ethics theorists, business ethics practitioners and business organizations and the people in them, then we can begin to see what the matter is with Stark and how he has misunderstood business ethics. In his article, he says business ethics is too general, too impractical and too theoretical. He says that it is "bewildering," "off-putting" and "irrelevant" to managers. He says that there is a "gulf between business ethicists and managers and that business ethicists have themselves to blame for this hiatus.

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These are strong words. In a few quarters, they were fighting words. Yet, interestingly enough, even though some of his individual depictions of some positions of some business ethics theorists may be wrong. Stark may be right about business ethics as he defines it in his critique of it. First of all, as many have already pointed out. Stark is wrong because he does a poor job of critiquing the claims made by various business ethics theorists, I want to add that Stark is also wrong for having misunderstood business ethics by overlooking the threesided partnership that really constitutes the endeavor of business ethics. Stark focuses upon the theorists of the field at the expense of the other two partners. He never, for example, offers testimony from business managers that contains an objection to business ethics. Not one single business person is quoted in the article as having a problem with business ethics. They are left out of Stark's article. Instead, it is his own (mistaken) interpretation of business ethics theory that he critiques. Likewise, Stark does not even give a nod to the work that has been carried out by business ethics practitioners in conjunction with business organizations over the past number of years. He overlooks the contributions that practitioners have made in sharing their ethics expertise in a host of corporate ethics programs. He fails to include the role that business ethics practitioners have had in the corporate world and the various infiuences they have had on it. Instead, he focuses on the academic world and the theorizing aspect of business ethics and in so doing he misses the point. It is as if Stark was more concerned with grinding an ax about business ethics theory and theorists and used the HBR article as an occasion to do so. But his ax grinding is at the same time an ignoring of the truth of the matter about business ethics. Many business ethics practitioners have had successful relationships with business organizations and the people within them and in practical ways have brought the wisdom of theory found in the history of ethics and business ethics to corporate boardrooms and training rooms. He makes no mention of the work done by business ethics practitioners to write codes of conduct and ethics policies, or their numerous business ethics training sessions, or their significant consulting work that have helped several organizations to engage in organizational culture change. No, Stark chooses not to mention these successes nor the managers in business who have benefited from the work of business ethics practitioners, honing in on the supposed failures of theoretical business ethics instead. But, to be fair. Stark is not all wrong either. Yes, he overlooks two ofthe major components of the business ethics triad. Yes, he has made mistakes about business ethics theory and the claims of business ethics theorists. Yet, he does have his finger on the pulse of a problem that is very worthy of attention. This problem has to do with the fact that most of, probably the vast majority of, business managers are not prone to appreciate the subtleties of theory as it is played out in business ethics courses and journals. There is an aversion to business ethics theory in business and Stark rightly calls our attention to this problem. In my own experience as a business ethics practitioner, I find that what business managers seek from business ethics are some workable and usable tools

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often just a set of useful heuristics that can be of assistance to them when they are confronted with any number of moral mazes that typify business decision-making, e. g., whether to become a whistleblower, how to avoid conflicts of interest, how to manage the numerous dilemmas that arise in a diverse workforce, how to create a socially responsible organization, etc, etc. In short, managers seek tools from business ethics that can be used to help them identify the right thing to do in a difficult situation. Or to put it in the language of Dienhart's paper, managers seek ways to reach rational judgments about ethical issues in business, but they lack a mastery of one of the two kinds of knowledge required in ethical expertise. The business ethics practitioner is in a position to assist managers in this task of building their knowledge base and does so by sharing his or her ethical expertise in any number of concrete ways by providing a service to the business organization. The most comprehensive article to date on the controversy that Stark started is "What is (and Isn't) the Matter with 'What's the Matter...'" written by Joseph H, Monast,^ In his conclusion to a very astute reading of Stark, Monast accurately summarizes how he had been both wrong and right:
While Stark's concrete objections are misguided, his intuitions are not; and his article should serve as a reminder to business ethicists that their products must in some way serve their "clients" as they participate in the business world,^

Monast, after correcting Stark, is calling for a new awareness among those who would call themselves business ethicists. He seeks a more practical relationship between business ethicists and business where managers are taken as the "clients" of business ethicists who provide "products" that are useful to them in the world of work, I take this to be a call for an understanding of business ethics that urges a turn away from the purely theoretical concerns ofthe business ethics theorists to one that includes a place for understanding business ethics as a practice which recognizes the working relationship among theorists, practitioners and managers. Thanks to the provocative insights of John Dienhart and the correct intuitions of Andrew Stark, I have attempted a cali to a new awareness in this commentary, I suggest that a non-classical view of rationality leads to a new understanding of business ethics that departs from a traditional definition of it as the production of theory to one that recognizes and legitimates the work of business ethics practitioners. Further, I suggest that a more realistic and functionally more accurate and dynamic totai picture of business ethics be adopted. Business ethics needs to be seen for what it is, has been and can continue to develop to be: the rich interplay between theorists, practitioners atid managers. Each partner of this triad needs the others; each partner can learn from another, A practical charting out of the interplay between these partners, includmg their individual responsibilities and their responsibilities to one another and to society, is the work of future reflections.

Notes
'stark, Andrew, "What's the Matter with Business Ethics'?" Harvard Business Review, vol, 71 (1993), pp. 38-48,

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Society Bowie, (1994), (1993), vol. 71

^In addition to a panel discussion added to the agenda ofthe 1993 meeting of The for Business Ethics held in Atlanta, more formal responses to Stark's article include: Norman E,, "Enough Already," The Society for Business Ethics Newsletter, vol, 4 pp, 3-4, Duska, Ronald, "Letter to the Editor," Harvard Business Review, vol, 71 pp, 188-96. Werhane, Patricia, "Letter to the Editor," Harvard Business Review, (1993), p, 202,

^See: Stark, Andrew, "Response to a Rejoinder," The Society for Business Ethics Newsletter, vol, 4 (1993), pp. 12-15 and "Response," Harvard Business Review, vol, 71 (1993), pp. 198-203 " ^ n , H, I., (1988), Rationality (New York: RouUedge, 1988). ^Dienhart, John, "Rationality, Ethical Codes, and an Egalitarian Justification of Ethical Expertise' Implications for Professions and Organizations," Business Ethics Quarterly, vol 5(1995),pp 419-50 ^ , pp, 424-25, id., Business Ethics Quarterly, pp, 440-41, ^Monast, Joseph H,, "What is (and Isn't) the Matter with 'What's the Matter,,,'" Business Ethics Quarterly, vol, 4 (1994), pp, 499-512, id., p. 5U.

1995 Business Ethics Quarterly, Volume 5, Issue 3, ISSN 1052-150X, 0451-0462