Economic ethics: competition as ethical mechanism

In economics, competition is often seen as a mechanism for solving problems. In ethics, in contrast, it is mostly ignored, if not altogether rejected. Economic ethics analyses how institutions can play a role in realizing ethical principles in competitive settings.

In the future we plan to investigate the presentation of economic concepts like competition and entrepreneurship in school books and children's literature.

• Themes and projects
  
  • Institutions as ethical element in competitive settings
  • The idea of competition in children's literature
  • The logic of competition in science

• Current PhD theses
  • Business ethics in franchising (Dr. Gerd Garmaier, published: Gabler 2010)
  • Counter-intuitive consequences of moral actions flowing from normativistic fallacies (Patrick Wellas, completed 2012)
  • Business ethics, competition and global justice

Business ethics: rules and good judgment

In business ethics there is an interplay of rules and other mechanisms. Just to follow rules is not enough, neither for businesses nor for other actors in a market economy. Good judgment and trustworthiness are also needed.

• Themes and projects
  • Mental models in economic ethics
  • Virtue ethics and ethical experiments

• Current PhD theses
  • Benchmarks for fighting corruption
  • Economic ethics and volunteering
  • Corporate social responsibility and foreign direct investment
  • Age diversity in corporations

Experiments in ethics

Scientific methods and results play an increasing role in ethics. Economics, game theory, psychology and evolutionary biology can be made fruitful for research in ethics. This is especially true for business ethics. Adding to the more classical perspectives of the individual disciplines, experimental approaches can (e.g.) help in the clarification of intuitions or support the process of ethical decision making.

• Themes and projects
  • Does a society need necessary values?
  • Ethical experiments on competition and cooperation
  • Decision making from the point of view of philosophy and psychology (joint project with a psychologist)

• Current PhD theses
  • Behavioural Economics and Ethics: Interrelations and Applications (Dr. Alexander Rajko, publication: Routledge 2011)
  • Dilemmas in socio-psychology and ethics (Sabine Küchle, supported by the FAZIT foundation, submitted 2011)

Contractualist ethics

Ethical theory is divided between deontological and utilitarian approaches. Our aim is to foster the development of contractualist ethics in order to offer an alternative basis for ethics.

• Themes and projects
  • The prisoner's dilemma in a historical perspective
  • Contractarianism (Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics; 3 Volumes, 1,100 pages, published by Springer 2012)

Ethics and Risk

In ethics, discussions of risk are often dominated by the problem of how to prevent harm - less by the question of how to make use of opportunities. But these two aspects belong together. In a number of projects we pursue the development of an ethics of risk calculation.

• Current PhD theses
  • The risks of global financial markets as challenge for economic ethics
  • Certification and benchmarking as safeguards in the fight against corruption

The ethics of the internet and of technologies

The internet has brought social evolution to a new stage. Its interactivity is a challenge for ethics - in particular for the implementation of ethical norms.

• Themes and projects
  
  • On the genesis of economic ethics with regard to technological developments
  • Ethical experiments in Web 2.0