Keeping alive non-individualistic ethics in political economy: a review of concepts from Aquinas to Habermas

In recent years, ethics diffused in many business schools as a teaching subject. This commendable tendency has not been met by a parallel diffusion of an ethical teach- ing in political economy. Consequently, it is rather difficult to conceive an ethics for business in an unethical political economy.1 In any case, we face the problem of introducing a normative dimension into economic reasoning, which is almost never dealt with even in advanced textbooks.2 The aim of this chapter is to discuss a way of introducing and justifying some “non-individualistic” ethical issues into economic reasoning that can be taught in economic courses. The term “non-individualistic” ethics indicates principles deriving from the awareness of the constitutive depend- ency of individual performance and fulfilment from his/her belonging to a variety of groups. It is conceived in opposition of the individual-universal dichotomy of the majority of ethical studies.