Martin Sandbu: Aristotle – the banker’s best friend
[Martin Sandbu is the FT’s economics leader writer. His book Just Business: Arguments in Business Ethics has just been published by Prentice Hall.]
Aristotle took a dim view of business. Sometimes, of course, business people give  the impression of being equally unconcerned with Aristotle’s main concern: living a good life. Just witness the grilling Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, received this week from UK legislators angry at his bank’s bonuses. Yet today’s corporate titans would do well to pay the Greek philosopher more respect than he did to their predecessors. Indeed, reading his works may be one of the best investments they can make.
Aristotle was not against a certain degree of greed, especially in the context of managing a household: household heads accumulate possessions for their usefulness. But he saw the aim of commerce simply as increasing wealth without end, or making money for the sake of accumulation. Aristotle admonished those who were “serious about living, but not about living well”. Mr Diamond would probably not have escaped his scorn.
Beyond living well, philosophical inquiry can also be good for business. That is particularly true of moral philosophy. I do not mean here to join the soppy chorus of calls for business to be more moral or “socially responsible”. True, business does indeed need to be more moral than it often is. But much debate on business and morality is too sentimentalist to be useful. What is needed is more hard-headed thinking.
It does not occur to most people that moral philosophy should have a contribution to make to our understanding of business. This is partly the fault of Aristotle’s modern heirs...
Read entire article at Financial Times (UK)
Aristotle took a dim view of business. Sometimes, of course, business people give  the impression of being equally unconcerned with Aristotle’s main concern: living a good life. Just witness the grilling Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, received this week from UK legislators angry at his bank’s bonuses. Yet today’s corporate titans would do well to pay the Greek philosopher more respect than he did to their predecessors. Indeed, reading his works may be one of the best investments they can make.
Aristotle was not against a certain degree of greed, especially in the context of managing a household: household heads accumulate possessions for their usefulness. But he saw the aim of commerce simply as increasing wealth without end, or making money for the sake of accumulation. Aristotle admonished those who were “serious about living, but not about living well”. Mr Diamond would probably not have escaped his scorn.
Beyond living well, philosophical inquiry can also be good for business. That is particularly true of moral philosophy. I do not mean here to join the soppy chorus of calls for business to be more moral or “socially responsible”. True, business does indeed need to be more moral than it often is. But much debate on business and morality is too sentimentalist to be useful. What is needed is more hard-headed thinking.
It does not occur to most people that moral philosophy should have a contribution to make to our understanding of business. This is partly the fault of Aristotle’s modern heirs...