Outlook

The author of this book is confident that it contributes to defeating the claim that morality and self-interest are contradictory and that we live in a “bi-moral society” where people guide their lives by two sets of principles, as argued by John Hendry in Between Enterprise and Ethics (Hendry 2004). Why should the set of principles that “emphasizes our duties and obligations to others for treating people honestly and with respect, treating them fairly and without prejudice, helping them and caring for them when needed to” (Hendry 2004, p. 2) not guide the decisions of business leaders and of people who lead other organizations? These obligations and what has been called market morality are not opposites. The morality of the market is not based just on self-interest; market participants accept they have duties and responsibilities. The vast majority of business people abide by these duties and responsibilities and feel accountable to society, but it is the few outsiders that receive attention in the media and, unfortunately, in academic writings as well. Appeals for managing the tensions of the “bi-moral society” may be well founded, but they accept that conjoinment of morality and the free market is impossible. This book holds that conjoinment of morality and the free market is possible, with continuous dialogue and deliberative forms of engagement with stakeholders, and the book also holds that a moral consensus can always be found if people are following the human centered paradigm.