University of Pennsylvania Museum Publications Virtuosity in Business: Invisible Law Guiding the Invisible Hand

The recent global financial crisis raises pressing issues that are not exclusively economic. The health of the economy, Kevin T. Jackson contends, reflects the moral health of the wider culture: ethics must be considered along with economics to understand world markets, especially now that globalization and other forces have increasingly complicated the regulation of transnational corporate conduct. Virtuosity in Business calls on businesspeople and ethicists to expand their thinking by stressing the profound relevance of philosophy to business and economics. Virtuosity in Business shows that ethics has been the overriding problem for business and that it is the only enduring solution. Drawing on a variety of philosophical sources, including Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Jean-Paul Sartre, Jackson applies the concept of virtue to the competitive realm of the marketplace. Virtuosity, in all realms of human endeavor, is not merely a display of technical skill or adherence to conventional norms. The invisible law of virtuosity, which discourages misconduct and rewards good corporate citizenship, guides ethical firms and wise entrepreneurs toward greater success by playing a constructive part in the human enterprise. A pioneering work in the contemporary philosophy of business, Virtuosity in Business revivifies business ethics to address concerns arising from the global financial crisis, such as restoration of faith in the market, respect for human rights, and environmental sustainability. Review "Virtuosity in Business is an important book, particularly in today's troubled economy. Kevin Jackson successfully presents a model for the importance of ethics in business that integrates economics and ethics. Value creation becomes a ubiquitous term that inexorably ties these two seemingly separate modes of thinking together so that virtuosity in business inevitably entails virtue and a commitment to moral standards. A must read."—Patricia H. Werhane, Institute for Business and Professional Ethics at DePaul University "A valuable contribution to a broader, deeper, and more systematic conception of business ethics. Jackson's emphasis on virtuosity rightly makes the point that business needs to be, and to be seen as, a noble activity."—Georges Enderle, University of Notre Dame From the Author Kevin T. Jackson is Professor of Business Ethics at Fordham University School of Business and the author of Building Reputational Capital: Strategies for Integrity and Fair Play That Improve the Bottom Line. About the Author Kevin T. Jackson is Professor of Business Ethics at Fordham University School of Business and the author of Building Reputational Capital: Strategies for Integrity and Fair Play That Improve the Bottom Line. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Preface We shall judge the work of art as the living vehicle of a hidden truth to which both the work and we ourselves are together subject, and which is the measure at once of the work and of our mind. Under such circumstances we truly judge because we do not set ourselves up as judges but strive to be obedient to that which the work may teach us. —Jacques Maritain, The Range of Reason Assuming a philosophical perspective on the field of business ethics reveals pressing and universal issues that, although connected to business and economics, are neither exclusively economic, nor completely related to business in their nature and origin. One of the principal concerns in this book is with the moral and intellectual health of the wider culture within which the global economy and today's business enterprises operate. It is within this spirit that Virtuosity in Business undertakes to show that inattention to ethics has been the overriding problem for business and that attention to it is the only enduring solution. The target of my concern is real, full-blooded ethics. The brand of moral realism t