The attempt to privatise business ethics : a critique of the claims of contractarianism to be the ethical framework for global business

Many issues in business ethics centre on the meaning and scope of the notion; duty of care. Three major ethical frameworks have different ideas about this which are examined in the paper. In particular, the recent claims of Contractarianism in the Academy of Management Review are critically analysed and found wanting to a serious degree. The extent to which Kohlberg's paradigm shares the shortcomings of Contractarianism is then reviewed. It is argued that while Kohlberg is universalist, therefore a recognizably ethical moral framework, it shares with Contractarianism the disadvantage of a problematic a priori rationality in terms of its specifically ethical judgments. Finally, Care Theory is shown recently to have begun to acquire the universalist credentials it previously lacked and not to be subject to the shortcomings of the other two paradigms in some key aspects; but that it still has conceptual development work to do in order to become a practical framework for global business ethics. Such work was inconceivable when Care Theory was relativistic and particularistic, but it now begins to be conceivable as a practical proposition.