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Two Forms of Virtue Ethics: Two Sets of Virtuous Action in the Fire Service Dispute?

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Abstract

There has been increasing interest in the relevance of virtue approaches to ethics over the past 15 years. However, debate surrounding the virtue approach in the business, management and organisational studies literature has lacked progress. First, this literature focuses on a narrow range of philosophers, and, second, it has failed to analyse properly the consequences of virtue theory for action in practical settings other than in abstract terms. In order to begin addressing these issues, this paper compares what two virtue frameworks—one focused on virtue in the context of community and the other on individuals as virtuous agents—lead to when evaluating the actions of parties to the 2002–2004 UK Fire Service dispute. The analysis argues that the virtue frameworks proposed by MacIntyre and Slote offer different but complimentary evaluations. Both not only point to potential problems with industrial disputes, but also recognise the legitimacy of action that is based in good motivations and carried out with regard for the virtues. It seems that fire fighters and their immediate supervisors, on the whole, met the conditions of virtue, but that it is open to question if the leaders of the Fire Brigades Union and the Government did the same. The analysis goes on to suggest which modes of negotiation would be acceptable under the virtue frameworks, and the implications for those involved in industrial dispute.

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Notes

  1. Whilst it is possible to defend virtue from both utilitarianism and deontology, for the sake of space, this paper will focus on deontology in this example.

  2. It is not clear that MacIntyre would support the assumption that Fire Fighting is a practice as his views on other occupations, such as teaching, show (MacIntyre and Dunne 2002). However, it can be accepted that MacIntyre’s rejection of certain occupations as practices may lie in his misunderstanding of the occupations rather than them not being practices (Dunn 2003).

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  1. The Business School, University of Gloucestershire, The Park Campus, Cheltenham, GL50 2RH, UK

    David Dawson

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Correspondence to David Dawson.

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Dawson, D. Two Forms of Virtue Ethics: Two Sets of Virtuous Action in the Fire Service Dispute?. J Bus Ethics 128, 585–601 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2121-z

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