Meta-Ethical Reasoning: Applied to Economics and Business Principles

I Introduction MORAL OR ETHICAL IDEAS involve the good of the society as well as the good of the individual (Buchholz, 1989; 5-16). To define ethics in terms of the individual as the absolute rationale of meaning assumes there is no good beyond the individual, whereas a definition of ethics solely in terms of the group leaves the individual without meaning. The intellectual problem with such a definition lies in the fact that ethics is not dichotomized between the good of the individual and the good of society. Admitting that both principles are critical to the definition of ethics means that the purity that flows from a single principle is not acceptable in the exercise of the reasoning process regarding ethics (Messner, 1949: 22-96). Therefore, conclusions that can be proved or supported in mutually exclusive terms of either the individual or the society are not functionally or theoretically possible. Ethical definitions that flow from the optimal economic frameworks of radical free enterprise or radical socialism are flawed insofar as each framework theoretically has refused to recognize the reality of the other (Reilly & Zangeneh, 1990: 28). Hayek dichotomized collectivism and individualism into mutually exclusive categories of reasoning, with individualism representing freedom and collectivism representing slavery (Hayek, 1972: 32-42). To Hayek, social meaning is vague and leads to deprivation of the individual's freedom and liberty. Morality should be determined as a function of economic competition, according to Hayek, since competition is the principle of social organization (Hayek, 1960: 60-68). II Intellectual Reasoning THE ETHICAL REASONING PROCESS finds unacceptable the conclusion that the good of the individual leads to the good of society, or alternatively, the good of the society leads to the good of the individual (Cavanaugh, 1984: 199). Such reasoning implicitly denies the dual reality of meaning, and assumes that one reality creates the other as a subordinate effect. Causality is assumed to exist in the single conception of meaning and effect. The acceptance of the dual reality of both the society and the individual forces the intellectual process into a nontraditional "balance" of reasoned conclusions derived from admitting two different bases of reasoning simultaneously (DeGeorge, 1990: 64-66, 453-62). Each, locked into single-meaning assumptions, is capable of conclusions that logically follow. Empirical support is readily available based on the functional reasoning within the "realities" defined (Popper, 1968: 35-38). Ethical reasoning placed into the scientific economic model will be empirical reasoning (Dyke, 1981: 129-51); each theory will be supported and therefore considered proved. However, when both dimensions--individual and society--are admitted as reality, the reasoning process becomes more complex, since reasoning is governed by two principles of reality rather than being defined as one creating the other (Durrant, 1927, 18-29). The total reality of the individual and rational self-containment leads logically to the inability to define meaning in altruism, love, heroism, nobility, social good, virtue, generosity, humanism, and the moral community (Milo, 1973, 2640). All must be reduced to the individual and self-interest. The attempt to extend the meaning of the individual to "enlightened" self-interest is tautological because it is self-interest only, nonetheless. The single reality of the society and its significance also leads logically to the inability to defend self-improvement, growth in individual material wealth, ambition for self, selfishness, personal goals, individual pleasure, self-interest, and the individual. Each reality avoids complexity by its inherent inability to accept dual realities simultaneously. Therefore, each attempts through its internal logic and reasoning to reduce the alternatives to meanings that are identical with its own basic assumptions. …