Title: New materialism in business ethics: the juridical form as a disciplinary apparatus

Authors: Bart Jansen

Addresses: Nyenrode Business University, Straatweg 25, 3621 BG Breukelen, The Netherlands

Abstract: This paper contributes to the philosophical approach of business ethics by inserting the current state of business ethics, which is captured by semi-legal casuistry and frameworks, and Karan Barad's posthuman theory known as 'new materialism', into a proposal for the study of business ethics. The merging of business ethics and posthuman theory results in a so-called 'posthuman approach to critical business ethics'. My proposition is that these semi-legal frameworks weaken the field of business ethics, or even make it disappear. In addition to descriptive, empirical, social-scientific business ethics, there is also philosophical, normative, critical business ethics. This paper is written in the belief that these two branches of business ethics are navel-gazing toward legal or semi-legal frameworks - such as self-regulation and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) - creating a discourse of utility and regulation, rather than a discourse of ethics.

Keywords: business ethics; new materialism; posthumanism; postmodernism; epistemology; ontology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMCP.2021.115611

International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 2021 Vol.14 No.1, pp.64 - 80

Received: 01 Oct 2020
Accepted: 06 Jan 2021
Published online: 11 Jun 2021 *

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