Twenty Years of European Business Ethics– Past Development.docx

Twenty Years of European Business Ethics
– Past Developments and Future Concerns
Luc van Liedekerke
Wim Dubbink
ABSTRACT. Over the past 20 years business ethics in
Europe witnessed a remarkable growth. Today business
ethics is faced with two challenges. The first comes from
the social sciences and consultants who have both
reclaimed the topics of business ethics, regretfully often at
the loss of the proper ethical perspective. The second
comes from the remarkable rise of corporate social
responsibility which has pushed aside the mainstream
business ethics methodology with its emphasis on moral
deliberation by the individual. These challenges can be
tackled by an institutional transformation in business
ethics that links up to the long-standing European tradi-
tion of institutional analysis of the market. The second

remedy is an enlargement of the research agenda in
business ethics by coming closer to other parts of applied
ethics where the business ethics view is at this moment
grossly neglected.
KEY WORDS: business ethics, corporate social respon-
sibility, Europe
From Europe to America and back:
the invention of business ethics
Both the greatest critics and the greatest advocates of
the free market often point out that the ‘‘moral
viewpoint in business’’ is an oxymoron. Morality does
not, should not or cannot have any business in busi-
ness because man is greedy beyond redeem or because
systemic pressure is relentless. Only strong (govern-
ment) regulation can and should curtail business in
order to safeguard our fundamental rights. Any
business ethicist, who was confronted with this type
of remarks, knows how to rebut these comments as a

mantra learned by heart. Even if man has fundamental
rights, these rights do not overrule morality, but
presuppose it. And if the last 50 years have given us
any macro-sociological truth, it is that ‘the state’ or
‘the system’ is not going to save us – at least not
without humans helping them and helping them-
selves. What is more, systemic power is not com-
pletely beyond societal control and not so relentless
that the actor perspective becomes completely trivial,
as man cannot be reduced to greediness, even if self-
interest can become at times quite dominant.
As much as business can never do without ethics,
‘‘business ethics’’ as an academic discipline is a rare
breed. It is in a sense surprising that it could develop
in Europe at all (van Luijk, 2006, p. 7). In the 60s and
70s many people were quite critical of ‘‘the corporate
interest’’ and the ‘‘profit motive’’ as such. Societal
problems such as pollution, structural poverty and

over-consumption were squarely blamed on business
but ‘‘business ethics’’ was not seen as part of the
solution by these critics. On the contrary, it was
perceived as a cover up meant to lure the public into
believing that the market and the businessman could
add something positive to society. Conversely,
business people were themselves quite suspicious of
this new breed of ‘‘business ethicists’’. What did these
academics know about practice, anyway? And, was
there any difference between them and the critics
who blamed the businessman for all the problems of
the world? But perhaps the most destructive scepti-
cism and hard opposition came from colleagues in
fundamental philosophy in the philosophy depart-
ment. For them, the core of ethics lay in meta-ethical
issues. Practice was irrelevant. Many of them lacked
the faculty of being open-minded about applied
ethics in the first place and so could only experience

downright hostility towards business ethics. Because
of its relation with money, it was the worst form in
which applied ethics could materialise. Business
ethics was – and for many of them still is – misguided,
trivial and superficial at best. The only reason to
tolerate it in the department is the promise it holds of
Journal of Business Ethics (2008) 82:273–280 � Springer 2008
DOI 10.1007/s10551-008-9886-x
some money-making project that could save the
departmental budget, next to the fact that – regret-
fully – too many students are interested in it. Add to
this the rising tide of liberalism in the 80s, the
apparent triumph of the free market in the 90s and
the overall rise of ethical relativism and you find
yourself in a quite hostile surrounding for business
ethics as an academic discipline.
And, yet the take off of business ethics as an

academic discipline came remarkably fast. The
development of EBEN over the past 20 years is
testimony to this. Started out in 1987 with a small
group of academics, it turned into an organisation
with 1200 members spread out over 40 countries
and the growth is clearly not finished. But will there
still be business ethics in Europe in – say – another
20 years? If the question simply is whether there will
be moral reflection on the free market economy, the
answer can only be affirmative. Ever since its rise in
Europe in the late Middle Ages, the free market has
elicited or even commanded moral reflection.
Medieval monks criticised the imperfectness and
injustice of the markets of their times and the im-
moral consequences thereof (Tawney, 1926/1979).
In later centuries there were others, such as Simonde
de Sismondi, Heinrich Pesch, Oswald von Nell
Breunung and of course, John Stuart Mill and Karl

Marx. All of them reflected on and often criticised
the profit motive as such, certain abuses of the sys-
tem and the system itself. It seems safe to assume that
these reflections and criticisms will continue to arise
in the future. The basic reason is that the concept of
a free market is often at odds with some deep-seated
moral intuitions and considerations. The profit
motive itself stands in need of an explanation,
especially if it ousts other concerns, motives and
reasons. What is more, particular aspects or conse-
quences of the market will always need an expla-
nation (and/or political repair), for example the
environmental degradation that is associated with it,
the inequality that it gives rise to or the sometimes
problematic effect on man’s moral development
(Mill, 1848).
Europe’s rich historical tradition on market-
reflection reached America and its many business

schools where it was eagerly taken over before
transforming itself during the 70s into what we now
know as business ethics. The early business ethicists
clearly wanted something more practical, closer to
the firm and closer to the businessperson. This had
an immediate appeal not only to students but also
outside of the faculties. Part of their success
undoubtedly was that they asked new questions and
put forward a new theoretical framework. The
typical question raised by the American academic
was whether a specified actor in a given context
morally could or could not do a particular act.
The theoretical frame of the pioneer American
business ethicists focused on the micro-level in
which concrete individuals are caught up in choice
situations. The method was case based in order to
make students feel close to the real thing. The
dominant view was that individuals are the primary

locus of both (moral) responsibility and the principal
motor behind processes of societal change. Good-
paster’s (2007) recent and highly praised Conscience
and Corporate Culture is a contribution to business
ethics, exemplary of this American tradition. Inter-
estingly, the book opens with the almost Marxist
claim that ‘‘capitalism is in crisis’’ (Goodpaster, 2007,
p. 5). But instead of fixating on the many structural
factors causing this crisis, it forcefully puts the indi-
vidual in the centre of moral discourse. According to
Goodpaster capitalism is in crisis because it suffers
from ‘‘teleopathy’’. Teleopathy is an illness that
typically befalls on individuals and consists in an
unbalanced pursuit of ends. In the business context
this often means a fixation on profit maximisation by
the individual. Curing capitalism from this illness
first and foremost calls for moral leadership, i.e.
action by (special) individuals.

When American business ethics reached Europe
in the 80s the action-oriented and case-based
structure was – and to a certain extent still is – a
relief. It showed and articulated the fact that (the
quality of) human actions and human decisions in
the market do matter. During the 1960s and 70s the
normative study of the market was still dominated by
an institutional analysis in which Marxist thinking
loomed large. The Marxist analysis shared with
Goodpaster the idea that ‘‘capitalism is in crisis’’ but
Marxism did not relate this crisis to the actions of
individuals. In terms of its underlying framework, it
fully concentrated on the system level. That pro-
vided fascinating analytical insights as to how human
conduct is structured by institutional forces. But it
allowed for little practical prescriptions at actor level
at all. Politics – radical politics – was the only way to
274 Luc van Liedekerke and Wim Dubbink

change anything in the market. The institutional
analysis still inspires many continental philosophers
today. Hidden under the flagship ‘globalisation’
comes an analysis in which markets are essentially
beyond control and individuals the victims of an
unremitting system that pushes the lives of millions
into consumption disaster. Looked upon from this
point of view American business ethics is a relief; it
saves the individual and places morality in the
limelight once again. Virtues matter, duty is real,
care is not superfluous. It is the ideal cure for an
institutional analysis that trivialised the individual.
But despite the success of Goodpasters book not
all is well with this classical form of business ethics.
At least two challenges need to be mentioned. The
first one is a clear professionalisation of business
ethics. The issues that were raised by business ethi-

cists were gradually taken up by social sciences. We
need only take a look at the content of this journal;
over the past years the philosophical contributions
have clearly been marginalised by their more
empirical counterparts. In a sense we can only hail
this development; it is clear that developing, e.g. a
proper psychological theory about what drives
people into bribery – a theory that can be experi-
mentally tested – will in the end give us much more
insight into the problem of corruption then any
philosophical reflection will ever do. The profes-
sionalisation of business ethics along academic lines,
and from another angle along consulting lines has
enlarged the range of business ethics and raised its
public as well as scientific status. But the philosopher
is left standing at the sideline. Like so many times
before in the long history of philosophy, philoso-
phers started the research field but the subjects at

hand are gradually taken over by their colleagues in
the business faculties and social science department.
One should not mourn this development too much,
as indicated above it is a natural development,
indicating that the field is maturing. The only danger
that needs to be mentioned is a marginalisation of
the normative stance. Consultants know very well
that customers do not like to be lectured in a nor-
mative way and science clearly presupposes neu-
trality, not condemnation. However, a quick
consultation of the newspapers teaches us that the
normative issues are today as burning as ever. The
ethicist has a duty to continue to speak out, science
can deepen our judgement, consultants help us
translate it into a message that can be understood by
business but it is clear that one should keep talking
about duty, virtue, justice and care. The normative
approach that started the field of business ethics in

the first place remains essential to the discipline.
CSR in Europe
A second challenge to mainstream business ethics is
the rise of ‘‘corporate social responsibility’’ (CSR) as a
dominant discourse partly ousting and partly replac-
ing business ethics. It is probably fair to say that the
sudden rise and persistence of CSR as a discourse on
corporate morality has taken many business ethicists
certainly in Europe by surprise. At the start one was
inclined either not to take CSR serious or to dismiss it
as an American fad that would soon disappear and
could never gain ground on the European continent.
The sceptics were proven wrong. By now CSR re-
search is a prominent topic in the field of business
ethics and paradoxically enough seems to flourish
even better in Europe than in the US. We will give
some tentative explanation for this hereafter.
The history of corporate social responsibility goes

back at least as long as the history of business ethics,
but it is only recently that corporate social respon-
sibility was turned into the popular CSR label.
1
CSR is visibly a cluster concept overlapping with
such diverse notions as business ethics, corporate
responsibility, corporate citizenship, sustainability,
environmental responsibility and corporate philan-
thropy. Like business ethics the CSR movement
clearly originated from the Anglo-Saxon world with
Continental Europe and Japan following much la-
ter.
2
According to Matten and Moon (2004) there is
a natural explanation for this. With its liberal tradi-
tion of self-help, individualism, strong markets and
limited or indirect government there is a larger scope
for discretionary action by companies in the US than
in Europe. European countries with their much

more heavy handed regulatory structures limit the
voluntary action field of companies. In order to
capture this institutional difference Matten and
Moon introduce the by now quite common dis-
tinction between implicit and explicit CSR. Explicit
CSR describes the American practice, implicit CSR
the European. This explanation also seems to suggest
that American companies should be the natural
Twenty Years of European Business Ethics 275
leaders when it comes to explicit, voluntary CSR
action, with Europe and the rest of the world lagging
behind. However, as we indicate below this is far
from evident.
Empirical research on this matter is scant and
seems at first sight to confirm the idea of American
dominance in CSR. Maignan and Ralston (2002)
find that 53% of American companies mention CSR

explicitly on their website, while only 29% of the
French and 25% of the Dutch do. In a US–UK
comparison Brammer and Pavelin (2005) found that
the value of corporate community contributions (a
long-standing area of CSR) was more than 10 times
greater in the US than in the UK. The figures would
be even more startling if one would compare the US
to continental Europe. In this issue Sotorrı́o and
Fernández Sanchez (2008) seem to confirm this
observation when they report higher scores for
American companies in five of the 12 indicators for
community responsibility.
However, these data are flatly denied by a number
of other observations. Studies looking at companies’
sustainability reporting consistently find that
reporting rates are highest in Europe, followed by
Japan, and with the US showing the lowest rates of
reporting among comparable companies (Kolk,

2003, 2006; KPMG, 2005; Welford, 2005). Kolk’s
most recent study shows that 90% of European
companies in the Fortune Global 250 publish sus-
tainability reports, followed by 83% of Japanese
companies, as contrasted with 35% of American
companies. Kolk suggests that this dramatic differ-
ential between Europe and the US reflects European
leadership in CSR (Kolk, 2006: 6). There might be
an alternative explanation – also recognised by Kolk
– American disclosure patterns and lack of verifica-
tion may reflect the greater concern with litigation
in the United States, and the difficulties of a purely
voluntary approach to expanded sustainability dis-
closure in such a context. In Europe by contrast
more and more governments require some form of
social and environmental reporting, albeit without
being specific about the format. But then again, the
fact that Europe requires some aspects of sustain-

ability reporting can also be understood as evidence
of its leadership on CSR.
Differences also emerge in external verification of
sustainability reports, with 45% of European reports
being externally verified, as contrasted with 24% of
Japanese reports and 3% of American reports (Kolk,
2006, Table 3). Here again the differences are
astonishing. Kolk’s impression that Europeans lead
the CSR movement is corroborated by Welford
(2005) who states that in general CSR is more active
in (Middle and Northern) Europe than in the Uni-
ted States or Canada. Accountability’s National
Corporate Responsibility Index (NCRI) puts
European countries systematically at the top of its
ranking and in this issue this opinion is further
supported by Sotorrı́o and Fernández Sanchez
(2008). In their study European companies score
systematically better for all indicators of responsi-

bility to customers and employees and on all but one
indicator for environmental responsibility. American
companies can in the end only point towards phi-
lanthropy as the field in which they clearly take the
lead.
3
At first sight this seems a counterintuitive result.
European companies living in highly regulated
countries where CSR is a relatively recent phe-
nomenon take up CSR much more easily and in
bigger numbers than their American counterparts.
What is going on?
The answer takes us back to the institutional
tradition in Europe, mentioned above. The societal
role of the economy and business in particular has
always been an important topic in the European
intellectual tradition. From the start the political role
of the corporation was never reduced to its eco-
nomic responsibility. That corporations posses obli-

gations outside the law could only be considered a
novelty in an American tradition characterised by
individualism and a large scope for discretionary
actions. In Europe, by contrast the societal respon-
sibilities of corporations were deemed so important
that we developed an extensive legal framework
around the corporation in order to make sure that
these responsibilities were taken serious. No room
for Friedman type liberalism in this world. The CSR
movement simply steps into this long tradition. It is
in this sense not surprising that the notion ‘corporate
citizenship’ as one way to understand CSR is so
popular in German-speaking countries, as it comes
close to the long tradition of institutional reflection
on the democratic role of corporations. Finally, it is
important to realise that for the larger part of
(Western) Europe it holds that this tradition is
understood not only by academics, but also by

consumers, investors and business people alike.
What Matten and Moon describe as implicit CSR is
in the end a generalised, culturally entrenched
concern with the societal responsibilities of business
which justifies the CSR efforts of the European
Commission and fuels the European CSR move-
ment fast forward.
Again this is a development we should rather
applaud. It brings many issues that are central to
business ethics closer to politics and the general
public. However, from the side of business ethics a
sceptical attitude towards CSR has always been
present. The criticism goes many ways but one
important point is that CSR seems to suggest that
the ethical responsibilities of the corporation are
situated outside its proper economic activities; it is

an extra coming on top of its core business. This
goes flatly against for instance a strategic stakeholder
model that places the ethical responsibilities of
companies inside the core business. Recently, the
interpretation of CSR has moved into a strategic
direction bringing CSR much closer to the core
activities, but even this Drucker style CSR has in-
vited serious criticism from business ethics. This
strategic form of CSR is exposed as a pure instru-
mentalisation of ethics, something that is generally
condemned by ethicists as spelling the dead of ethics.
While this criticism of CSR is certainly warranted
and needed, we believe that the CSR movement
basically invites business ethics to look for a way to
integrate the CSR idea within business ethics. The
answer can only come from a reconsideration of the
institutional dimension in business ethics.
The institutional transformation

of business ethics
Upon its introduction in Europe the action-oriented
and case-based structure of American business ethics
was certainly a relief but the approach has its one-
sidedness and limitations as well, especially in a
European context. European culture believes in
institutions more than it believes in free acting
individuals as motor of social change. It does not
believe that an individual can structurally act and
accomplish things if she acts against institutional
logic. In the market context this institutional logic is
determined by market forces and geared towards
individual profit maximisation. Besides, it will also
deny the moral reasonableness of actions that go
against this logic. It is overdemanding for the indi-
vidual concerned and its efficacy will necessary be
low. European culture is also state minded, in the
sense that there is a strong belief that some questions

are by their nature collective and thus cannot be
solved outside of the state (which is not the same as
to say that collective issues can only and exclusively
be handled by the state).
The institutional ‘‘hang up’’ of Europe means that
business ethics as an academic discipline will not be
taken serious as long as it simply copies the indi-
vidualist American framework. It will not be taken
serious by the ‘‘realist’’ public, NGOs, unions and
other stakeholders of corporations. They will ques-
tion the reach of individualist market morality in the
face of competitive forces. It will also not be taken
serious by European academics, experienced as they
are in the theories of Althusser, Habermas and
Luhmann. It will not even be taken serious by
European businesspeople who are quick to point out
that anything is possible in the market context, as
long as there is a ‘‘level playing field’’.

This implies that business ethics in Europe can
only be able to celebrate its 40th birthday if it goes
through an institutional transformation. The
founding fathers of European business ethics, such as
Horst Steinmann in Germany, Peter Ulrich in
Switzerland and Henk van Luijk in the Netherlands
already were well aware of this. They also have made
a significant start with this transformation and are still
working on it. Nevertheless, as we see it, the insti-
tutional transformation is not yet sufficiently carried
through. It is not only that too often business ethics
still simply ignores the institutional dimension. More
importantly, there does not seem to be a theory on
the market that is able to combine the institutional
dimension and the actor dimension. Such a theory
should be able to map the institutional constraints
facing actors in the market context but still be able to
describe and explain the actor perspective in a

morally appealing way.
As we see it, the institutional transformation in
business ethics must take shape at three levels. It
should provide us with a political theory of the
market, thus explaining why business ethics is
important in a liberal free market, normatively
speaking. It should also position business ethics given
a macro-sociological account of the market system
and – last but not least – it should position business
ethics at the meso-sociological level of the corpo-
ration. With regard to this last level one of the most
interesting questions for the coming years will be:
what can and must we morally require of the insti-
tutional design of the corporation in view of our
knowledge of common pattern of human behav-
iour? We are the first to admit that with regard to all

these three levels important developments have al-
ready been started. With regard to the first two levels
we can for example think of the work of Peter
Ulrich (1997) and, interestingly, with regard to the
last level we can think of the work of the Americans
Trevino and Weaver (2003). Still, as we see it, the
work of Ulrich must cope with the criticism that it is
either too radical (and thus rejects the free market
system as such) or too optimistically naı̈ ve. With
regard to the meso-level an adequate and unified
theory of institutional design is still missing.
Broadening the issues
The search for a grander, more unified theory with
an important institutional dimension is one concern
for the future of business ethics. A second concern
which we would like to point out is a relative lack of
new research programmes and new research ques-
tions in business ethics. Business ethics arose in the

wake of particular moral issues. If one skims through
a standard business ethics handbook, one quickly
gets an impression of these core issues: discrimina-
tion, sexual harassment, bribery, equal treatment of
employees, advertisement, occupational health and
safety, unjust dismissal, financial issues and pollution.
These issues were important and crucial in the last
20 years and they will undoubtedly stay important.
However, if business ethics wants to prove its rele-
vance in the next 20 years in Europe, new themes
need to be addressed. Consider for instance issues
related to the treatment of animals, technological
development or medical concerns. To be sure, the
moral dimension of all these important themes is not
completely unexplored in today’s applied ethics.
There is animal ethics, technological ethics, medical
ethics and bioethics. But it often looks as if the fields
of applied ethics are drifting apart without too much

overlap or synergy. This is not very helpful. We
need only point out that free markets play an
essential part in all these problems. There are specific
commercial aspects to medical or animal rights issues,
aspects that are often not well articulated. It is for
instance not unimportant that most animals are
domesticated in a commercial setting. Medical or-
ganisations such as hospitals are also commercial
organisations and if not outright so financial con-
cerns are increasingly relevant to them. New tech-
nologies such as genetically modified crops or
genetically modified medicines are developed by
commercial companies. Business ethicists must gain
expertise in these fields and bring their expertise on
free market morality to these research areas, thus
contributing and joining new research fields that will
undoubtedly be very important in the future. Thus,
paraphrasing Chris MacDonalds (2004) there is not

only a need for a ‘‘business ethics 101’’ in many
fields; there is also a need for many ‘‘101 courses’’ for
business ethicists.
Business ethics needs to explore new themes if it
wants to show its relevance in the next 20 years and
it needs to explore them in new ways. With regard
to many contemporary moral issues it is rather
uninteresting to analyse them only as choice situa-
tions of particular individuals who are confronted
with a hard choice. In our technology-driven world
the real moral choices are made in the process in
which a particular technology was shaped. If agri-
cultural technology forces farmers to house their pigs
so crammed that they pre-emptively have to cut of
their tails, then it is hardly an interesting question
whether it is morally permissible to do so. The
crucial morally relevant question then becomes: ‘‘do
I want to be a farmer?’’ Since, if you choose to be

farmer, you have to play along.
4
The point is that the
moral issues have to be dealt with in a very early
stage. Any technology embodies moral choice.
Complex modern technology hardly leaves less and
less discretion to its user (Swierstra, 2006). Conse-
quently, the moral issues interwoven with specific
technologies must be dealt with while these tech-
nologies are being developed. Business ethics will
need to pick up specific insights from technological
ethics, animal ethics, bioethics, etc. At the same time
these sister research areas in applied ethics should
open up much more to the economic dimension of
their research field leaving the possibility for business
ethicists to contribute to their field in an important

way. This would create real synergy and make
business ethics relevant for many different domains.
Conclusion
This special issue connected to the twentieth anni-
versary of EBEN and focusing on the European
dimension in business ethics seemed like an ideal
opportunity for a short reflection on the past and
future of business ethics in Europe. The past 20 years
have witnessed a tremendous growth in the field of
business ethics in Europe, yet the mainstream
philosophical approach that reached Europe through
the US has in many respects been marginalised. Its
topics (e.g. diversity, bribery, marketing) were taken
over by social scholars and consultants alike. Trivi-
alisation of the normative stance that stood at the
centre of mainstream business ethics was the un-
happy result of this evolution. Mainstream business
ethics was also challenged by the rise of the CSR

movement where the classical business ethics
method focusing on the individual in a moral choice
situation seemed to lose its relevance. If the next
20 years want to be as fruitful as the previous,
business ethics will need to come up with an answer.
Two developments seem crucial in this respect. The
first is the ‘‘institutional transformation’’ of business
ethics. Grand theory, gladly left behind by American
business ethics, should stand another chance. It needs
to come up with an integrated theory that provides
us with a normative theory of the free market that
gives an adequate explanation from the institutional
side for the importance of business ethics. Combine
this with a meso-theory of the organisation which
shows us what a moral organisation needs to look
like and integrate in this the role of an autonomous
individual that can make a moral choice. The second
development in business ethics that so far has failed

to materialise is a broadening of the issues involved
and knitting in with other fields in applied ethics.
Environmental ethics, bioethics, technological eth-
ics, food ethics all raise issues with a strong economic
dimension. Business ethics should take up the chal-
lenge and get acquainted with these fields while at
the same time bringing in the proper business ethics
view. This could jumpstart a completely new branch
of business ethics. If we take these challenges serious
we might be up for another interesting 20 years of
business ethics in Europe.
Notes
1
With seminal contributions by Bowen (1953), Eels
and Walton (1961) and MacGuire (1963) one could ar-
gue that the history of CSR reaches even further back
then the history of business ethics.
2
The real breakthrough for Europe situates itself only

at the end of the 90s and for the rest of the world a
breakthrough is still far away.
3
One should probably also add the domain of corpo-
rate governance. But this is a tricky issue almost as tricky
as the CSR question itself precisely because of the many
existing interpretations of corporate governance.
4
Of course: this is not to say that farmers are just vic-
tims. There are many ways ‘‘to play along’’. One can
play and ignore the animal welfare issues involved. One
can even play along and actively fight any attempt to
change things, even at a collective level. But one can
also play along and be open and involved about the
consequences of the ‘‘objectification’’ of non-human
life in contemporary society.
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Maignan, I. and D. Ralston: 2002, ‘Corporate Social
Responsibility in Europe and the U.S.: Insights from
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Matten, D. and J. Moon: 2004, ‘‘‘Implicit’’ and ‘‘Ex-

plicit’’ CSR: A Conceptual Framework for Under-
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Wegner and R. Schmidpeter (eds.), CSR Across Europe
(Springer-Verlag, Berlin), pp. 335–356.
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Sotorrı́o, L. and J. L. Fernández Sanchez: 2008,
‘Corporate Social Responsibility of the Most Highly
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E-mail: [email protected]

Jules Kouatchou ----- MATH 107 Quiz 4 Answer Sheet ----
- Spring 20171
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Jules Kouatchou MATH 107 Spring 2017
Quiz 4
INSTRUCTIONS
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Problem 1: Jules wants his house to be painted. He contacts two
companies to have estimates.
Company A charges a $250 fee plus $10 per hour. Company B
requires $20 per hour. For how
many hours Company B will be better for Jules?
Problem 2: Solve:
Problem 3: Use the Intermediate Value Theorem to determine if
the function:

has a zero in the interval [-1,2].
Problem 4: Solve:
Problem 5: Find the real zeros of the polynomial:
Problem 6: Solve the following for y:
Problem 7: Solve:
The following is needed to solve Problems 8, 9 & 10.
Consider the function:

Problem 8: Find the domain of the function.
Problem 9: Find the vertical asymptote(s).
Problem 10: Find the horizontal asymptote.
Teaching Business Ethics in Africa:
What Ethical Orientation? The Case
of East and Central Africa Christine Wanjiru Gichure
ABSTRACT. This paper starts off from what seems to be
a difficulty of ethics in African Business today. For several

years now Transparency International has placed some
African countries high on its list of most corrupt countries
of the world. The conclusion one draws from this
assessment is that either African culture has no regard or
concern for ethics, or that there has been a gradual loss of
the concept of the ethical and the moral in contemporary
African society. Equally problematic is the teaching and
promotion of Business ethics in organizations. Western
philosophical theories and systems alone have not suc-
ceeded in providing access to ethical life of people in
modern Africa. This paper is an attempt to inject an
orientation that takes into account African manners and
customs, their religious convictions and their under-

standing of the world as a whole, in the teaching of
Business Ethics. East and Central Africa have been se-
lected due to their common lingua franca, Kiswahili, and
the fact that the author has more teaching experience
within that region.
KEY WORDS: Ethics, East Africa, cultural transition,
morality, use of proverbs in teaching ethics.
Traditional African business and ethical
values
This paper starts off from what seems to be a diffi-
culty of ethics in African Business today. For several
years now Transparency International has placed

some African countries high on its list of most cor-
rupt countries of the world. The conclusion one
draws from this assessment is that either African
culture has no regard or concern for ethics, or that
there has been a gradual loss of the concept of the
ethical and the moral in contemporary African
society. This latter has been the most accepted the-
ory which, further more, suggests that this loss of the
ethical is particularly noticeable within the family
and in the exercise of public office (Dalfovo, 1992).
African scholars view this decline as underlying
most of the contemporary problems of the conti-
nent. Efforts to explain the root cause of this decline

in moral consciousness, especially with relation to
economic matters, have been abundant. Some the-
orists point to the process of social transformation
that occurred in Africa through the contact of
African cultures with external cultures, principally
the European and Asia over the last 150 years
(Kigongo, 1992). The result of that transformation,
they argue, automatically relegated the African
people to a state of poverty because there was no
Christine Wanjiru Gichure, born in Limuru, Kenya did her
undergraduate studies at the University of Nairobi before
moving on to the University of Navarre for her MA degree.

After several years teaching history and social ethics at sec-
ondary school Gichure embarked on her doctoral degree work
obtaining her PhD in 1993 at the University of Naverre.
Thereafter she moved on to tertiary education. She taught
philosophy briefly at the University of Nairobi before moving
on to the Kenyatta University where she now teaches philo-
sophy and Business Ethics. She is the author of two ethics
books: Basic Concept in Ethics by Focus Publications,
Nairobi, (1997) and Ética de la profesión docente. Es-
tudio Introductoria a la deontologı́a de la educatión, by
EUNSA-EIUNSA, Spain (1995 & 1999). She has sev-
eral published articles on business ethics, philosophy of action,
and philosophy of education in local and international jour-

nals. Between 2003 and 2004 she was a Senior Fulbright
Scholar at the Jepson school of Leadership studies of the
University of Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A. Gichure is ac-
tively involved in the promotion of business ethics and lea-
dership studies. In early 2005 business ethics was included as
a core unit in an MBA program in Kenya for the first time.
Journal of Business Ethics (2006) 63: 39–52 � Springer 2006
DOI 10.1007/s10551-005-1129-9
match between the new types of goods and lifestyles,
which the new cultures introduced and exhibited
and which most African people could not afford to
buy, and the simple goods which African people

traditionally possessed and used. Added to this
imbalance were the effects of colonialism on the
African people in some countries, such as the loss of
their ancestral lands – most of it prime farming land –
thereby losing their traditional means of economic
self-support, their simple but acceptable standard of
living, and with it their traditional social status.
With colonialism, Africa on one hand, emerged
from her traditional past and its subsistence economy
and entered suddenly, into a modern era, a new
social and economic organisation, and new eco-
nomic values to go with it. On the other hand,

colonialism was loath to provide the education and
skills needed to sustain this new economic organi-
sation to the bulk of the African people. During the
colonial period African people were used as the
farmhands or manual labourers in the new estab-
lishments, including homes, earning just a pittance
with which to pay the compulsory poll tax. Hardly
was an African ever part of any corporate manage-
ment. Thus, it has been argued that many post
independence problems in Africa, derive from the
time when she was rapidly incorporated into a world
‘‘economic system that obliged it to produce goods
it did not consume and to consume goods it did not

produce’’ (Baker, 1997, p. 69). After independence,
the economic consequences of those factors started
to reverberate. Africa was trapped by its own history;
a history largely shaped by external forces: without
sufficient knowledge or the capital with which to
manage and develop her new economic and political
set up, she remained a dependent continent, long
after the various countries gained their independence
from Europe, often in the form of donor aid.
Genesis of the ethical problems
The evolution of the ethical problems in modern
Africa can be explained within a paradigm on hun-

ger. If a person from any cultural background is
starved for a very long time, and then all of a sudden,
a lot of food is placed before him, that person can
adopt one of two kinds of reactions: either to simply
eat what food is placed before him as his share and, if
necessary, share it with other equally hungry persons;
or he may instead decide not just to take what is his
but to grab and hoard as much of that food as he can
so that she or he may never need to experience
starvation again, at least not for a long time. The
first reaction is in line with ‘‘the golden rule of
morality’’. The latter is in keeping with Hobbes
theory of self-interest, of the ‘‘man in the state of

nature’’ (Leviathan) and the modern theory of
Ethical Egoism.
Hunger here represents African peoples’ difficult
past. Her many problems which are well docu-
mented, range from climate and endemic diseases
such as malaria, to a history of displacement of
peoples especially through the 19th Century slave
trading. The gross effects of colonial rule in various
parts of the continent such as the Congo and Kenya
are still surfacing. Carol Elkin’s recent book on
Kenya is a wonderful eye opener on the matter. If
one applies the paradigm of hunger to Africa’s sit-

uation it should not be difficult to understand why
there has been a growing tendency for people who
assume public office, or find themselves in positions
which expose them to a lot of public money, to fall
into the temptation of corruption, without much
concern for the ethical significance of their actions
with regard to the whole society.
Ethical judgements in any community derive from
the ethical framework from which that community
and the individuals work. For that reason the question
of ‘‘moral value’’ has been central in all debates on
ethical issues touching on any aspect of life; private or
public. Within those debates the question of any

intrinsic and objective ethical value of actions in dif-
ferent situations remains largely unresolved. It is the
case then that when, for instance, someone says that a
person has acted well: honourably or morally, such a
judgment is made from within a framework of valuing
actions. Similarly, when someone makes an appraisal
of an action he or she does so from the conviction that,
that kind of action is praiseworthy, morally satisfactory
and an honourable thing to do. Consequently, for
somebody in similar circumstances not to act that way
would be considered to be inadequate, dishonourable,
and even scandalous conduct. When we apply this

reasoning to the African context and its history, and
then look at the framework from which praiseworthy
actions were traditionally made, it becomes easier to
understand the confusion which the cultural trans-
40 Christine Wanjiru Gichure
formation has brought to the ethical arena of African
affairs.
Like in the Greek epic stories, the model or gal-
lant in African stories was the warrior. In public life
the warrior was a candidate for fame because to excel
in that status required courage and a readiness to
hazard his own tranquillity, his life even, for the

community. He did that mostly for the sake of
honour. Honour was the mark of a real man, a mark
too, of valour, such that men who could not take
such risks were held in contempt as being ‘‘wom-
anish’’. Working from this mental framework, ‘‘va-
lue’’ is related to valour, to prowess in battle, and to
physical and mental strength. Readings of what
happened in ancient cultures of other societies seem
to suggest that in this aspect traditional Africa cannot
have been alone. Hence, it is understandable why
the term ‘‘virtue’’ from ‘‘virtus’’ in Latin also means
strength. In the African ‘‘age-set’’, and warrior cul-

ture, the most coveted achievement was to become a
gallant; a highly esteemed and influential person. A
gallant acquired many friends who lavished him with
gifts, and that made him wealthy and powerful. He
reciprocated by granting their wishes. People who
needed the great man’s help in any way went to
express those wishes with gifts. The more important
the favour desired, the more valuable was the gift
offered. This was simply protocol.
Besides having been a famous warrior, the gallant
of African epic stories was also expected to have the
ability to get whatever would lead to greater glory of
his own ‘‘age-set’’. Stories of the lives of African

great men are replete with such achievements. These
stories, often told in the evenings by the fireside,
served to communicate valour values to children as
they grew up. Sometimes they would be told in an
indirect way where the message would be passed
through the analysis of the characteristics of some
animals. The story told would centre on what hap-
pened to those animals. Thus, the hyena’s short rear
feet and queer laughter has something to do with his
treacherous character. The crow’s white spot just
below the neck is because he was burnt trying to
swallow all the hot soup in one gulp; the tortoise’s

segmented shell has to do with a tremendous fall he
experienced once when, having climbed too high
too fast, a simple slip brought him down into pieces.
He never managed to become the animal he was
before even with all the efforts to stick the different
parts of his shell together again. And, just as
Machiavelli uses the fox and the lion, to portray
leadership types, African stories use the hare, the fox,
the lion and other admired animals to depict agility
of mind, intelligence, shrewdness, and wisdom. In
the chameleon too there is something one can learn:
its two eyes see simultaneously in two different
directions so that when one eye is looking forward,

the other sees what is happening behind. These are
qualities a leader should have in order to achieve his
goal. According to the moral of those stories a great
leader went as far as to imitate the cunning habits of
the more canny animals particularly the hare, which
was known for its ability to deceive the other ani-
mals and there by always ended with the booty.
With the advent of the new social polity, or the
nation-state, and Western consumerism but without
the advantage of any strong, economic control
mechanism to match it in traditional African busi-
ness, African values gradually started to get eroded.

The presence of vastly different types of material
goods, modern technology and all the comforts and
pleasures that money can buy simply overwhelmed
the original social and economic values. Nonethe-
less, since tradition is not something that just goes
away – nor do we want it to go away completely –
the profile of the gallant of the past is still admired
and many are the individuals who would want to see
themselves ‘‘gallants’’ of today. The quests of warrior
honours and the wealth are still rife. However, in the
new social set up the place for those achievements
has shifted from war to economics. Ironically, gal-
lantly, currently understood as the ability to lay

hands on modern goods as fast as possible, when
translated into the modern business setting produces
not heroes but fraudsters, bribers and cheats of all
kinds, far removed from the gallants of old (Gichure,
2000, p. 242).
Seen from this perspective, and given the histor-
ical background of the continent, it may make it
easier to understand why corruption is deeply en-
trenched in Africa. That does not, however, make it
right or excusable; and this for two reasons: first,
because today everyone in Africa knows quite well
that we no longer function entirely within the

warrior hero framework. Secondly, today many
more people have had the opportunity for education
than 40–45 years ago when African countries started
attaining independence from European rule.
Teaching Business Ethics in Africa 41
By 2005 ethics in business remains problematic.
Equally problematic is the teaching and promotion
of Business ethics in organizations. To begin with
the invocation of Western ethical theories such as
egoism, utilitarianism or even duty based ethics has
often been futile. These theories and their methods
are easily discarded as being only workable within

the affluent Western society which is seen to be
individualistic in nature. In Africa, where nine out of
ten people live on less that $10 a day (purchasing
power-terms) while more than two thirds of its
population survives on less than $1 a day (World
Bank, UNDP Report 2002), talking ethics is held in
contempt. Many people who know quite well that
certain actions are unethical will, nevertheless, argue
that, at the end of the day it is money, and not ethics,
that will put some Ugali
1
on the table.
Traditional African business

At this stage of this paper it may help to ask: how did
traditional Africa transact business? Historical ac-
counts of traditional African activities show that
Africa was not used to a cash economy. Hence, it did
not need banks or any monetary investments. It
hardly ever made large exports. The author of the
Periplus of the Erythreian Sea
2
gives an account of
business transactions of the area around the Red Sea,
the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and the Indian
Ocean, from the western shores of India to the east
coast of Africa during the 1st Century A.D. (Reader,

1998, p. 202), in which he shows African trade with
the outside world to have been minimal. Where it
existed it offered items such as ivory, rhinoceros
horn, tortoise shell, and a little nautilus shell.
However accounts of a later period show that large
animals and even a giraffe were exported to as far
away as China (Reader, 1998, p. 204).
By the 19th Century, during what went by the
name ‘‘legitimate trade’’, to imply a replacement of
the transatlantic slave trade which had gone on for
close to 300 years, was, in a way, a new form of
human exploitation. African traders would be enticed

to take their gold, ivory, gum Arabic, timber and
foodstuffs to the coast and, by way of exchange re-
ceived liquor, cheap calico cotton, cheap metal,
beads, loads of guns and gunpowder. Historians have
shown that in a covert way the slave trade rather
increased than decreased during that period (David-
son, 1968; Reader, 1998; Were and Wilson, 1996).
During later centuries, exports from the East
African coast, now mostly in the hands of Omani
Arabs, were ivory, slaves and gold. In the interior
individuals and groups exchanged produce and ser-
vices directly among themselves, item for item: a
week’s labour for a share of the harvest; a goat for a

hoe, among others. Barter was still the principal
means of exchange. This barter trade was mostly
between local communities, and it dealt mainly in
essentials. However, some goods travelled across
Africa, from village to village. Local trade was part
and parcel of the social and food production systems
that evolved among communities. Farmers, herders,
fishermen, and smiths pursued their specialized
activity. Whether to do so at the exclusion of all
others depended absolutely upon the agreements of
exchange among the groups, and upon climatic
conditions such as the rains or drought. Among the

farmers, for example, there were those whose strat-
egy was to plant sufficient crops to enable them to
survive during the poorer years. If and when less
adept farmers failed to generate all they required
even during the rainy years, local barter systems
helped to balance the inequalities by making surplus
food available to those who had a deficit, either by
an exchange of goods or services, or in charitable
distributions, at harvest festivals or during ritual
ceremonies (Reader, 1998, pp. 263–264).
Needless to say, in traditional Africa, as in any
other ancient communities, the ideal society did not
exist. Avarice and greed, both common human de-

fects, existed. But on the whole studies show that
those imperfections and abuses were contained.
Factors such as the unpredictability of production,
and the continual need to barter for essential com-
modities, limited the chances of individuals or
groups accumulating wealth in a form and quantity
that would enable them to control the lives of
others. In addition, the collective authority of the
age-set or – age-group – reduced the possibility of
overreaching ambition. Local trade had the capacity
to reinforce both the integrity and interdependence
of groups. Goods and services were paid for

according to local custom and circulated within the
system. So long as there was no external drain on the
resources the communal and political order of
participating communities was secure.
In his study of African past, John Reader (1998,
pp. 267–269) has been able to establish that generally
local trade transactions took place within distances
which could be covered in one day by foot or by
donkey while allowing time to exchange goods and
return home. Beyond this radius it was necessary to
make special arrangements for the ‘‘safari’’, reallocate

work in the household, and sometimes hire people to
help with the load. For items that were not available
locally, it was necessary to make arrangements for
travel to get them, or for their delivery through a
relay network trade. Such items could be glass beads
and shells from distant shores which were invaluable
for the manufacture of trinkets. Other very valued
items were iron, copper and salt. Of salt, he says:
‘‘was such a precious commodity that its demands
were the first to break the barriers of self-sufficiency
in any community. It travelled long distances be-
tween source and consumer apparently exciting the

entrepreneurial ambitious individuals along the way.
Where there was wealth it was necessarily of a
kind and nature that could be seen by all. Such
possessions generally consisted of livestock, lands,
drums, certain trinkets, wives and children. An
individual’s prosperity was, therefore, a good for the
whole community. Consequently, there were few
chances, if any, for such practices as fraud and
embezzlements or conflicts of interest. Bribery may
have existed, but it is difficulty to prove it since gift
exchanges were, as we have seen, an essential part of
the social mores. The social pattern alone constituted
checks and balances for the amount of wealth a

family possessed.
Two factors which greatly shaped the social or-
der of most communities of Eastern and Central
Africa: the principle of precedence, or the fact of
having occupied a certain territory first, and the
age-set system. The principle of precedence re-
quired that communities which arrived at a certain
virgin territory first had primacy of authority over
other immigrant groups. The age-set system di-
vided all males into groups, each of which included
all individuals within a particular range of ages,
such as five, seven or fifteen years. Each age-grade

was allocated a standard set of social and political
duties. As individuals advanced in years they
changed duties until those surviving had progressed
through the complete set (Reader, 1998, pp. 264–
267).
The rites of passage through which individuals
were conveyed from one age-set to the next were
timed to occur simultaneously among groups over a
wide area, each group giving the event its own
distinctive character. Individuals with qualities of
leadership and astute judgement emerged in each
age-set. Occasionally, and at the behest of the age-
set, their talents were converted to power and

authority to be exercised with prior approval of the
age-set. Those individuals, who acted very effec-
tively on behalf of the community as they progressed
through the senior age-sets, achieved the status of
wise men whose judgements were universally
recognised and respected. These were the gallants
whose fame would be told and retold. There existed
great respect for the wisdom and judgements of the
oldest members in a set. Consequently, the age-
group system established gerontology as the domi-
nant form of political organization. Respect for the
elders and their way of doing things was the essence

of the principle. This principle automatically out-
lawed the vertical authority of family lines, and
sometimes transcended the divisive nature of ethnic
boundaries (Reader, 1998, p. 265).
Business, ethics, and social transformation
Many African languages do not have a word that can
be translated directly as ‘‘ethics’’. However, in nearly
all traditional activities there were those which, in
general, formed part of the non-material culture of
society, operating as the systemic grid for ensuring
that social life and practices were conducted along
socially acceptable patterns. Although unwritten,
those practices were understood and well respected

as the bedrock of social interaction including trade
transactions. For example, it was understood that
adherence to ethical behaviour in full view of the
wider public would elicit respect and honour
whereas failure to follow the society’s accepted
behaviour would render one to contempt and ridi-
cule or to some form of sanction, reprimand or
punishment, depending on the magnitude of the
offence. African communities therefore, were gov-
erned by well established codes of ethical behaviour
(Prah, 1993, pp. 58–72).
The contact of traditional Africa with external

cultures, and the process of social transformation that
ensued thereafter, led to two crucial effects: first, the
emergence of a diversity in the manner of under-
standing what constitutes ‘‘good’’ and ‘‘evil’’,
‘‘right’’ and ‘‘wrong’’; secondly, the formation of the
nation-state brought in a new socio-polity foreign to
the African mindset. The nation-state is still an alien
concept in the practical lives of many African
people.
By contrast to traditional trade practices, con-
temporary economic activity in Africa is one laden

with multicultural values. On one hand, everyone
wants to have the possibility to have and enjoy
modern lifestyles. It would be more correct to say
that modern Africans lay a claim to two world views
and their proper ethos: from the West, Africa has
adopted some tenets of thinking based on the indi-
vidualistic principle of ‘‘self-interest’’. At the same
time most Africans would hate to disassociate
themselves completely from their roots and tradi-
tions; a culture which believes and teaches that the
real human values are found in the family, the clan,
and among ‘‘my people’’. So, in practice at least, the

world out there, the nation-state, national develop-
ment, and in fact anything ‘‘national’’ are simply
foreign, and unreal. The city is the place where one
goes to work in order to bring a better life for people
at ‘‘home’’. This is the mental framework from
which most business and its ethos are conceived.
So far, there does not exist a typically African
business model, and so long as it does not exist,
business will continue to be conducted within this
mixture of Western and African values. At the social
and ethical levels the African businessman finds
himself torn between these two worlds. He may be
doing business with, say an American person whose

culture is rooted in individualism and self- interest,
and who, nonetheless is meticulous regarding certain
ethical issues such as giving and receiving of gifts.
The African businessman on the other hand cares
more on how to cater, not only for his ever
expanding consumer needs, but also for the equally
ever insatiable expectations of the family and the
clan, and in some cases the entire village during
some big feasts. This is partly why corruption has
persisted.
Beyond the various instances given to show that
contemporary Africa has witnessed a gradual ethical

decline, scholars point to two related issues: the
weakening of the communal spirit and its ethos, and
with it an increasing tendency to individualism and
selfishness, product of human greed, and weakened
social control of such activities. ‘‘Traditional African
culture valued the communal dimension of life and
ethics as its strong and healthiest asset’’ says Dalfovo
(1992, p. 1.). Nevertheless, today one has to reckon
with a challenging and relentless influence of indi-
vidualism brought about by contemporary social
change emerging from different quarters: Western
education, greater human mobility and urbanization,
job competition, economic management and the

on- going process of acculturation. All these factors
are made even more intense by the present global-
ization which exposes the entire world to the indi-
vidualism that characterizes Western society and its
culture where it is widely believed that morality and
ethics can be viewed as two related but different
social concerns.
Added to this modern experience are certain
contradictions regarding morality and ethics. For
example, in the social and business context, African
people point out the fact that while the West accuses
Africa of ‘‘corruption’’ their own notion of ethics

and the ethical is lost on us as we observe some
Western practices. Often cited, by way of example,
are practices that violated the stability of the family
such as divorce, the disregard for the life of the most
vulnerable such as abortion, and euthanasia, and fi-
nally the ever increasing dissemination of porno-
graphic materials, and the like. The African mind has
yet to come to grips with the reason why it should
be a serious ethical problem to, for instance, flout a
copyright to intellectual property in the Cyberspace
by downloading and sharing books, articles, music,
or other publications when little or no importance is
given to the corrosive and sometimes pornographic

‘‘content’’ of those publications, music, or videos.
(See lecture by Donaldson, 2001). As a result con-
fusion arises as to what is more serious: matters
economic or matters that refer to human life and its
integrity?
Similar clashes of values have been pointed out
in other areas of human interaction. The experi-
ence of wars during the last two decades in parts of
Africa such as the Sudan, has led to similar hard-
ened approach regarding the intrinsic value of
some of the Western theories of ethics. It is asked:
where is ethics in selling arms to a faction of

people in a developing country, such as Sudan, to
fight people of the southern part of the same
country, and at the same time promote a World
Food Program for war victims of the ensuing civil
war? Of course, this is a difficult question, but the
case is that it is relevant.
What ethical orientation in teaching business
ethics?
Some African theorists have categorically affirmed
that ‘‘Western philosophical theories and systems
alone cannot provide us access to the ethical life of

people in Africa; we also need to study in detail their
manners and customs, their religious convictions,
and their understanding of the world as a whole.
Only after such an intensive study can one employ
Western categories such as truth/lie, freedom, con-
science (...) in judgements that do justice to the
African reality’’ (Bujo, 2001, p. 73). These include,
the understanding of the person and his reciprocal
relatedness and community to all others, including
the ancestors and God. Other scholars suggest that
‘‘an intelligible African business ethics should arise
from the African anthropological presuppositions

and the implicated core ethical values (Lotriet,
2003). Consequently some of us who teach business
ethics propose that an African focused business ethics
should include a component of African traditional
worldview and teaching model which takes into
account African humanism. Such a contribution, it is
hoped, can serve to initiate some form of ethical
mindset which, given the current world economic
trends, is necessary if Africa is not to be excluded
from the pool of world business ethics (Gichure,
2005).
African societies have always believed that a hu-
man being has and will always be a neighbour, a

person from whom you ‘‘can borrow salt’’.
3
For that
reason the norms, values and choices with which
freedom deals were believed to be inter-subjective.
In administering one’s freedom, the orientation of
the community was always taken into consideration
and consulted. It was always also the case that, that
administration and that administrative wisdom were
not something that a person attained all by himself.
Just as Aristotle taught that the principles of practical
reasonableness can only be usefully discussed with
experienced and mature people – because age is a

necessary, though not sufficient condition, for the
required wisdom and maturity – (Aristotle, N.E.
I1094b28-a122001a), traditional African wisdom
held that the young must be taught in order to
transmit to them the values and administrative wis-
dom of the ancestors. Traditional Education was the
vehicle used to perpetuate these traditions. It was the
tool by which young people got to discover their
potential as well as their internal and external limi-
tations. There were various methods used for this
orientation during a person’s life. Of these, the most
important were the communal educational exercises

carried out within one’s own age-set, particularly
during the different rites of passage: namely, the
initiation to adulthood or circumcision, the prepa-
ration for marriage and the begetting of children,
and the passage to senior elder status.
The disruption of this social and educational
pattern and the lack of its substitution with any non-
relativistic ethical model in the Western educational
system adopted during colonialism and retained
afterwards, left a moral vacuum which today creates
a difficult on how to inject ethics in the society. At
the academic teaching level a consequence of this
trend has been that graduates and young profes-

sionals leave the university, or Business School,
perhaps with the knowledge of many ethical theories
and cases studies which can be resolved using any of
those ethical theories, but without having formed a
clear picture of the kind of life which they, as
individual persons want to live. To many people,
ethics understood in the Western model, is seen to
be more a matter of culture and personal taste in life
where one can choose any ethical theory of action,
provided that the theory chosen can sufficiently
justify ones actions within one’s own culture.
What ethical orientation? The possible use of ‘‘orature’’

We have already established that contemporary
Africa is an amalgam of two worldviews that live side
by side. Hence, teachers of ethics, particularly in
Eastern and Central Africa, would benefit greatly
from the use of a model that combines the best
contributions to ethics from the classic traditions of
the two worldviews. The model envisioned here is
one which, while taking into account the African
traditional socio-ethos should still be able to transmit
the Western tradition of Virtue. Such a model
should seek to synthesize the fundamental principles

of both worldviews and to identify the ultimate link
between their moral teachings.
Virtue ethic has been chosen because of it ability
to respond to the true nature of man as man in
whatever cultural environment one may happen to
have been born. In this attempt the model also
suggests making a parallelism of business ethics
programs, workshops, training sessions, together
with ethics retreats and seminars to modern business’
rites of passage, thus establishing a continuous plan of
induction courses geared toward the improvement
of ethical sensitiveness and practice in organizations.

There are many reasons to justify this option:
• First, Gyekye has (1996), already clearly
shown that while many African persons today
easily adopt Western consumer behaviour
and lifestyles, these same people ideologically
feel a strong attachment to African cultural
values and thereby urge for their relevance
for the continuity of an African identity.
• Secondly, there are sufficient reasons to show
that today Africa is entailed to modernity and
to the global village. Consequently, many
alien values have inevitably become relevant
to Africa because they address life as we now
live it. Thus, it is argued, reference to an

age-set system for the transmission of values
has become not only irrelevant but com-
pletely obsolete. This ‘thinking outside the
box’ is further supported by the consideration
of the reverence which we daily witness
regarding Western goods, Western forms of
business, Western education, Western fash-
ions, housing, transportation, all of which are
synonymous with Western civilization.
As regards the choice of virtue ethics several reasons
also come up to justify it above all other ethical
models.

• In the first place, virtue ethics has been tak-
ing a strong hold in applied ethics since the
publication of After Virtue by Alasdair Mac-
Intyre (1984).
• Secondly, by focusing more on the individ-
ual’s inner disposition rather than on the
group it is more likely to get people to
understand themselves as individuals who
are, for that reason, un-substitutable and un-
representable in their own decisions and
behaviour, rather than in losing themselves
in a communal ethos. If the responsibility of
each individual person is understood as part
of the person’s integral development, the

resultant social and corporate culture will be
defined in terms of the sum-total of personal
ethical integrity, accountability, trustworthi-
ness, transparency, and honesty, of all the
individuals who make up the society. This
translates to awareness of the common good.
The outcomes of this model should therefore
be greater corporate and individual moral
responsibility.
• Finally, virtue ethics has been preferred to
others because its humanistic character is not
only attractive but also easy to accept.
Although virtue is elaborated on the basis of

the individual, this individual is never alone.
External goods such as friendship, divine
benevolence, and one’s disposition towards
others have an important role to play in the
definition of ‘‘right’’ and ‘‘wrong’’, and of
virtue. Hence, the African proverb ‘‘a person
becomes virtuous through the virtue of oth-
ers’’. It is virtue, not malice, that pleases the
ancestors, and God, not vice or greed.
The interiorization of ethical norms within an
African context can greatly benefit from using what
people, have always known to be ‘‘human good’’.

This knowledge is locked in many African Proverbs,
tales and adages. ‘‘The use of proverbs in combina-
tion with palaver and narratives belong properly to
the traditional African educational system. Palaver is
a form of discourse for discovering and justifying
norms’’ (Bujo, 2001, p. 45).
There exist various genres of palaver covering
diverse areas of life, without the need for uniformity
among their modes of procedure. There is a form of
palaver suitable for family affairs. Another form is
appropriate for administrative purposes, and yet an-
other kind for healing. If palaver is to be used in the
teaching of business ethics, it will be necessary to

find out in subsequent publications what would be
the most appropriate mode to suit the group and the
issues at hand. But palaver may work in Africa to
instil virtue ethics in business, politics and the pro-
fessions.
The proverb
The word ‘‘proverb is often used in the more
inclusive sense to cover specific proverbs as well as
maxims, adages, aphorisms... (Healey and Sybertz,
1995, p. 35). Mwanahewa (1992) renders all these

under the term ‘‘orature’’ or African oral literature.
Proverbs and riddles are two closely related forms
of didactic literature in statement and questioning
form. ‘‘In African traditional education they played
an important role in the process by which the young
people were initiated to life or enculturated, that is
to say, educated to a cultural tradition. They taught
the young people to observe and to compare. They
reflected the participatory character of life and
encouraged the young people to explore a given
experience in the light of another related experi-
ence’’ (Aylward Shorter, 1987, p. 50). As the youths
graduated into full manhood or womanhood in their

age-sets, knowledge of proverbs was part of their
education. The young, and even not so young, de-
rived from the proverb the necessary wisdom to
enable them to answer the question: how ought we
to live? How ought we to behave in various social
circumstances and activities? This is a fundamental
question of ethics. This fundamental question of
ethics can be interpreted in two ways. In one way,
‘‘we’’ can be interpreted to mean each person
individually, or it can be interpreted to mean all of us
collectively. In the first sense we refer to the indi-
vidual. In this sense it is a question of how I should

live my life, how I should act, what I should do, and
what kind of person I ought to be.
An important part of any ethics and morality has
to do with examining principles and rules that might
help us one to decide how to act. On the other
hand, a crucial part of morals involves the exami-
nation of those character traits, or virtues that would
constitute an ideal life: the ‘‘life worth living’’.
Hence, in the collective sense, how ‘‘we ought’’ to
live translates to how ought I to live within the
bigger community? This is what makes the link
between the ‘‘I’’ and ‘‘thou’’ relationship. The
question, therefore, of ‘‘how ought we to live’’

should be interpreted both as how I as an individual
ought to live, as well as how we as a society ought to
live together.
Commenting on the role of proverbs in African
education Patrick Kalilombe sees them as ‘‘a mirror
in which a community can look at itself and a stage
on which it exposes itself to others. They describe its
values, aspirations, preoccupations and the particular
angles from which it sees and appreciates realities and
behaviour. What we call mentality or way of life is
best pictured in them’’ (Kalilombe, 1969, p. 3).
Likewise, in her research on African proverbs,

Caroline Parker describes a proverb as ‘‘a message
coded by tradition and transmitted in order to
evaluate and/or affect human behaviour’’ (Parker,
1974, p. 79).
On his part, Sango Mwanahewa in his essay on
African Logical Heritage and contemporary Life, (1992),
says of proverbs that they may not necessarily follow
a sophisticated or scientific logical sequence, but
their magic consists in the artistic arrangement of
words which enables their user to attain the set
objective. That objective is to communicate some
important teaching convincingly. To do so, the
proverb must be brief, logical, authentic and ra-

tional. It must be exposed tactfully, and contain
much wisdom within very few words. ‘‘The force of
the proverb, says Mwanahewa, resides not in the pen
but in the tongue’’ (1992, p. 2). As the sole instru-
ment traditionally available to the illiterate people,
proverbs were designed carefully using all the time
necessary to think them out, polish, fine tune and
embellish their musicality. It was also necessary to
compare each proverb with its possible negation
(antithesis), and think out a counter proverb that
would answer the first proverb (synthesis) and still
match its wisdom.

Studies have shown that there exist over 1000
written collections of African proverbs, – books,
booklets, pamphlets, articles, privately duplicated
lists – including many unpublished sources. From
their research Healey and Sybertz (1995) declare
that, ‘‘the sum total is over one million African
proverbs. When one considers current scholarly
estimates that 1200 to 1300 languages are spoken in
Africa, (the number climbs to 5000 if dialects are
included), the uncounted number of spoken Africa
proverbs yet to be collected is truly staggering’’
(1995, p. 35).

Gerald Wanjohi, in The Wisdom and Philosophy of
the Gikuyu Proverbs (1997) divides proverbs into
various categories. Among them are some which he
considers to be symbolic and wisdom proverbs.
Under the category of wisdom proverbs he places
those which, either literally or symbolically state a
universal truth or give practical counsel or advice
(Wanjohi, 1997, pp. 41–58).
Wisdom proverbs served as a test for the capacity
to relate ideas and practice. The Gikuyu of Kenya
for example, extolled rationality, intelligence, and

knowledge so much so that they went to the ex-
treme of associating them with what is good and
honourable. A person who did not capture the
meaning of a proverb was held to be either a fool or
not yet sufficiently educated or mature, and, for that
reason, not qualified to be entrusted with affairs of
the community.
Wanjohi, translates the English word ‘‘reason’’ to
Gitumi or Kihooto. In the Gikuyu-English Dictionary
kihooto is defined as ‘‘that which convinces, an
unanswerable argument, powerful plea, proof, right,
reason, justice, equity, or fairness’’. Among the
speakers of that vernacular, ‘‘Kihooto’’ proverbs are

much respected for they confer honour to the per-
son who is able to understand and use them effec-
tively. One could say that among their users they
were held with the kind of admiration which, in
other cultures, is paid to people who can quote aptly
from the works of Shakespeare, Cervantes, or
Manzoni in literature, or Plato, Aristotle, Descartes
or Kant in philosophy. Thus for a Gikuyu speaker:
Ciira wa kirimu utindaga kiharo, meaning ‘‘A fool’s
lawsuit keeps the court sitting all day’’ makes the point
that one ought to listen to reason. Or again, Mu-
ingatwo na muingatani gutiri utahumaga; literally, both

the chased and the chaser get tired, means that when
someone accuses another he should adduce good
reasons to substantiate his case.
Another two examples are Ateithagio witeithitie to
point out that before calling out for help one is
expected to have exhausted the normal means
available to everybody to get themselves out of his
trouble. Likewise, Ciira utari gitumi nducirikaga,
meaning that, a case which has no cause can not be
argued out. Note, however, that one would miss
the real meaning of a proverb if he were to remain
fixed on the literal meaning and failed to realise
that the symbols (words) of the proverb are

pointing to other meanings or realities (Wanjohi,
1997, p. 42).
For many African people proverbs and sayings are
a way of life. They ‘‘touch on every aspect of the life
of the people who create them. There are proverbs
on political, social, educational, religious and eco-
nomic issues. There are those which have been
passed down from one person to the other, for
generations, Then there are new ones which have
been created about modern and current lifestyles and
experiences of our time’’ (Odaga, 1984, p. 68).
Within some African communities three types of

proverbs for the teaching of right and wrong can be
identified: meta-ethical proverbs, those on individual
ethics, and those on social ethics. To grasp the ethical
in the proverbs was a prerogative of the adults, the
mature in mind. Hence, among the Gikuyu for in-
stance, to aspire to become an elder is to reach the
point of being a person who combines certain qual-
ities of character: honesty, generosity, self-control,
humility and diligence (Wanjohi, 1997, p. 131).
There is an interesting parallelism in the purpose
of the proverb to the aim of Rhetoric in Aristotle. In
his Rhetoric 2001b Book 1., 1. he says that ‘‘of the
modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word

there are three kinds: the first kind depends on the
personal character of the speaker; the second on
putting the audience into a certain frame of mind;
the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided
by the words of the speech itself’’ (Rh 1356a). He
goes on to point out that among these, character is
the controlling element which persuades the listeners
because ‘‘we believe good men more fully and more
readily than others’’ (Rh 1356a-5). In the same vein
Aristotle recommends that for persuasion, the man
who is to be in command, that is the leader, (in our
case the teacher of ethics) must, ‘‘be able to reason

logically, understand human character and goodness
in their various forms, understand the emotions, be
able to name them and describe them’’ (Rh. 1356a-
20–25). Similarly, the African proverb can be taken
as an already made means available to the teacher
(leader) to persuade the learners to emulate certain
qualities of character. In so doing the teacher
accomplishes at least the first and third purposes
recommended in Aristotle’s list.
By their very definition proverbs are ‘‘supposed to
play a quadruple function: expose faults of language
so that people become aware of them and thereby

correct themselves; dissuade people from becoming
victims of those faults as they see them committed by
others, and hence not to commit those same faults
themselves; to provide moral lessons; and as a chal-
lenge to make people think carefully and evaluate
what they hear before taking action’’ (Mwanahewa,
1992, p. 3). The proverb, therefore, exhorts or dis-
suades from undesirable action through a delibera-
tive mode; it approves or condemns past action
through the judicial mode; it indicates what is
honourable or shameful in a person through the

demonstrative mode.
In this too we can find a close parallelism with
Aristotle’s Rhetoric. There he enumerates three
character traits or personal qualities that a speaker or an
aspiring leader/teacher should possess in order to give
a semblance of trustworthiness before his potential
followers. These are practical wisdom, virtue, and
good will. Thus, he says: ‘‘There are three things
which inspire confidence in the orator’s (read
teacher’s) own character that induce us to believe a
thing apart from any proof of it: namely; good sense,
good moral character, and goodwill’’ (Rh 1378).
Most African proverbs seek to provide cogent

reason for action (kihooto); they identify good char-
acter by praising virtue and ridiculing stupid or
selfish behaviour; and they prepare the emotional
disposition of the learners in order to understand the
teaching through palaver. For example, the Ban-
yarwanda of Rwanda, the Barundi of Burundi, and
the Bashi of the Congo underline the ethic of the
‘‘heart’’ because, the ‘‘heart’’ is the human person’s
little king’ which means guide. Thus, a person who
incurs guilt it is because he has a dirty ‘‘heart’’. For a
Bahema (Central Africa) a person with ‘‘two hearts’’
is one who lacks generosity or who is basically

niggardly (Bujo, 2001, p. 120).
Ethnic communities of East and Central Africa see
truth as one of the qualities of the ‘‘heart’’, since the
‘‘heart’’ is linked to intelligence, memory and will. It
is the ‘‘heart’’ that either wills something or does not
will it. It is the ‘‘heart’’ that thinks or produces
something creatively. The ‘‘heart’’ speaks. The
teaching here is that the notion of the ‘‘heart’’ goes
beyond the realm of emotions or feelings alone to
embrace the intellectual dimension as well. Hence,
wisdom and prudence are not understood solely on
the basis of their rational character. They are also
considered within a broader picture: that of the

‘‘heart’’ as the centre of the person. ‘‘The ‘heart’,
occupies the primary position, not only linked to
love and hatred, but to virtually all virtues or their
absence (sin), because these are brought into relation
to it. Self-control – temperance – , justice, courage
and bravery, truthfulness or honesty and all the
opposite thoughts and actions proceed from the
‘heart’’’ (Bujo, 2001, p. 121). Not surprising then
one finds many proverbs in which truth and ‘‘heart’’
are linked. Thus, ma ndithaamaga mukaro wayo,
translated to ‘‘truth does not leave its path’’, means
that truth does not change or that truth is not rela-

tive. Or, again ma ndikuaga, which literary means
that ‘‘truth does not die’’ or that truth persists. An-
other one says: ma iri ruo, that is, to tell someone the
truth may sometimes hurt but it is better that it hurts
than that it is hidden.
It should not, however, be thought that by
‘‘heart’’ these people mean simply the material organ
of the body to be the source of the ethical vital force.
This can be seen from the way the Bahema and the
Walendu of Central and Eastern Africa use the same
term. They are convinced that the ‘‘heart’’ is the
central and most significant force for all human
conduct by calling one who acts selfishly to be

‘‘heart-less’’ (Bujo, 2001, p. 122).
Although these proverbs express kihooto which is
their object, the ‘‘heart’’, as the driving force of
willing and wanting, necessarily plays a big role in
action. For that reason one shouldn’t have two
‘‘hearts’’ for to have two ‘‘heart’’s can also mean that
someone lacks openness, is untruthful or at least
suffers from some dimension of it.
Kihooto proverbs identify desirable or praisewor-
thy traits of character such as honesty, which enable
someone to be sensitive to truth and falsity, gener-
osity – which promotes goodwill – ; reciprocity of

friendships, kindness, and self-control or modera-
tion, which restrain personal greed and sensual
appetites such as the use of food, sexual drive and
property. There are proverbs to teach self-restraint.
For example, ‘‘one who does not possess a goat does not
yearn for meat’’, meaning that if some one does not
posses a goat (property) he ought not to covet it or
try to obtain meat (goods) illegally or immorally
through theft or deceit.
But, alas, from the ‘‘heart’’, also proceed evil
desires. So how does one distinguish the good from
evil advice of the ‘‘heart’’? This too is catered for in

the proverbs. For example: ‘‘Practice self-control, do not
let yourself be led astray by the desires of your ‘heart’’’.
Thus, regarding human conduct, the ethical ideal or
excellence is a personality which displays self-control
both internally and externally, where the latter
dimension is dependent on the former. To say so we
learn that: ‘‘There is no difference between a thief and the
one who desires’’, meaning that theft is not simply the
material action of taking something: it includes
the actions of those who collude with the evil doer,
such as a thief or fraudster.

Virtue ethics: making the link
Current discussions on ethics and corporate business
culture are looking precisely for the ethical values of
trust, honesty, accountability, and transparency.
Corporations also want consumer loyalty that at-
tends such trust. Trust, based on truthfulness has
become for business the commercial equity for
fairness, justice, quality, honesty and consistency.
These, precisely, are the ethical qualities that most
proverbs seek to communicate.
All these moral values fall within the constellation
of virtues which, in the classic ethical tradition that
can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, and later to

Judeo-Christian culture, were held to be the driving
force of harmony between people in society. There
the acquisition of virtue, as an internal disposition for
action, forms the inner wealth of a person. That
wealth depends mostly on people’s free choices. But
in that choice good and evil are not equal partners. It
is rather a choice between doing the right thing and
reaping the fruits of a good life, or doing the wrong
thing and facing the negative responsibility of one’s
actions.
Between the theory and the practice of virtue,
however, certain other elements must be taken into

consideration. These include the best adjustment of
the individual to the world around him, the
interests for the welfare of the people around him
(altruism) and, in the case of many people of the
world, the recognition of God. It would be correct,
therefore, to say that where there is virtue there is
happiness not only for the acting individual, but
also for the persons who come into contact with
him. So, in virtue ethics the individual is never
alone because external goods such as friendship,
divine benevolence, and one’s own disposition to-
wards others have an important role to play in the
definition of integrity and happiness. Virtue is

unitary, not something arbitrary; it does not depend
solely on one’s good intention (subjective) but is
open to be guided by the knowledge of the
objective good and of the whole human good or
Common Good.
All these virtues fall under a constellation of four
major principles of action called cardinal virtues.
These are: Justice or rectitude in judging; Practical
wisdom, Prudence or insight; Courage, Fortitude or
firmness; and moderation, self-control or Temper-
ance. The wonderful thing about this classical view
is that the habitual practice of these principles

produces a permanent disposition or good character
in the individual. But, for that disposition to be-
come a permanent feature of someone’s personality,
a constant, and determined effort or striving is re-
quired. That effort is what draws out the desirable
personality which reflects personal integrity or
uprightness. Correspondingly, any relaxation from
making the effort to adhere to or to acquire that
uprightness leads easily to ethical insensitivity, and
ultimately to vice.
These four then are the hinges (cardos) on which
all other virtues hang, and they are shaped and re-
fined in a person by rubbing against real problems.

The integrity of a person stands out through the
constant practice of what one knows to be the
correct moral principles. A thorough investigation of
African proverbs, narrative, and song are bound to
yield good supporting fabric for virtues ethics in the
teaching of business ethics.
It has been wondered whether African proverbs
may not be just a mere relic of the past, quaint
expressions that will gradually die out with new
generations of people. To resolve that doubt, Healey
and Sybertz (1995) carried out a survey in several
African countries to find what was the general

feeling of modern Africans regarding the use of
‘‘orature’’. The results showed that many Africans
still maintain that African proverbs will have a lasting
influence; others said that proverbs are old-fashioned
and will therefore, slowly pass out of use. Among the
youth and in people living in urban situations, the
survey indicated that proverbs had less popularity.
Consequently, it is possible that African proverbs,
unless injected with new meaning and new life, will
gradually fall out of use and be forgotten (Healey and
Sybertz, 1995, pp. 35–38).

The good news, however, is that the same survey
found instances where proverbs have been used
successfully within a contemporary context. For
example, a Swahili proverb which says that: When
elephants fight the grass gets hurt has had an interna-
tional didactic usage.
During the Cold War period, this proverb was
used by Julius Nyerere, then president of Tanza-
nia, in a speech at the United Nations in New
York. It was used again by the Zairean Ambas-
sador to Great Britain in a world forum held in
London for white missionaries working in Africa.

In both cases the message was that, in the Cold
War between the two superpowers: the Unites
States and Russia, it was the poor Third World
countries such as those in Africa who suffer and
are victimized. The same proverb was used in
Somalia, 1992–1994 to say that when the local
warlords fight for power, it is the local Somalian
people who suffer and go without food. There are
versions of this proverb in nearly all Bantu lan-
guages. For example: When two bulls fight the grass
gets hurt is popularly known among the Kikuyu
and Kuria of Kenya as well as to the Ngoreme of
Tanzania.

In the fight against AIDS an old Swahili proverb:
Heri pazia kuliko bendera, meaning Better a curtain
hanging motionless than a flag blowing in the
wind, has been used to caution young people to
stay with one partner (the curtain in the house)
rather than play around with many partners (flag
blowing to and fro (Healey and Sybertz , 1995,
p. 37).
Notes
1
Ugali is a meal made from maize meal and water,
the simplest possible dish that can be served. It is eaten
in most families of East and Central Africa.

2
This work of an unnamed Egyptian author, written
in Greek, is estimated to have been written somewhere
between AD 40 and 70.
3
Means a person you can approach in a moment of
need.
References
Anderson, D.: 2005, Histories of the Hanged. Britain’s Dirty
War in Kenya and the End of Empire. (Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, London).
Aristotle: 2001a, �Nichomachean Ethics�, in Richard
McKeon (ed.), The Basic Works of Aristotle (Random
House, The Modern Library).

Aristotle: 2001b, �Rhetoric�, in Richard McKeon (eds.),
The Basic Works of Aristotle (Random House, The
Modern Library).
Aylward, S.: 1987, Songs and Symbols of Initiation
(Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi)Cited
in Healey and Sybertz (1995), p. 40.
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