Establishing the role of empirical studies of organizational justice in philosophical inquiries into business ethics

Journal of Business Ethics · 1992 · Volume 11 · Issue 5

Abstract

The present article attempts to evaluate various tenets of moral philosophy by reviewing empirical data from the field of organizational justice bearing on: (a) people's concerns about fairness in organizations, and (b) the consequences of following or not following rules of justice. With respect to concerns about fairness in organizations, utilitarian claims that people believe that fairness requires distributions of reward based on merit were assessed. Similarly, evidence was reviewed bearing on the claim of psychological egoists that judgments of fairness reflect a self-interested bias. Finally, Kant's view that people should never lie was evaluated in light of evidence describing people's actual attitudes toward lying. In all three cases, the underlying philosophical premises were concluded to be overly simplistic in view of complexities about human nature revealed in empirical research. In addition, evidence was reviewed that shed light on the teleological claims of utilitarians regarding the purported benefits of following two common organizational practices — using merit-based pay, and punishing harmdoers. Here, too, the empirical evidence (findings that these techniques do not consistently yield the greatest good for the greatest number) suggests that the premise underlying utilitarian thought is based on unfounded, overly simplistic assumptions about the effects of following various allegedly moral ideas. It is concluded that our analyses provide a useful first step toward the desired goal of business ethicists of integrating prescriptive and descriptive approaches to justice.

Keywords

Economic Growth, Business Ethic, Empirical Data, Empirical Research, Human Nature

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