The Deliberative Test, a New Procedural Method for Ethical Decision Making in Integrative Social Contracts Theory

Journal of Business Ethics · 2019 · Volume 155 · Issue 1

Abstract

Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT) is a popular framework to assist managers in making decisions on international moral dilemmas. Although the theory has been praised for its comprehensiveness and sophistication, commentators have raised concerns regarding the justification and identification of substantive hypernorms, fundamental moral principles valid across cultures. This paper introduces the deliberative test, a new method for testing the cross-cultural validity of ethical norms in ISCT. The test relies on the concept of Deliberative Capacity, arising from new developments in system-level deliberative democracy research, which studies deliberation at the level of national societies and over time. Based on this recent stream of research, the deliberative test has the potential of providing better guidance for managers to decide which norms to follow in case of conflicting standards between home and host countries.

Keywords

Ethics, Moral philosophy, Political philosophy, International business, Cross-culture, Deliberative democracy, Habermas, Cross-discipline

Enable JavaScript for citation tools and additional paper interactions.