Economics of ethics (applied to IT)

Anton J van Reeken

Abstract

According to traditions of philosophy, morals are rules of behaviour which help an individual to distinguish between right and wrong, while ethics is the theoretical evaluation of moral rules. The approach by Peter Pruzan and Ole Thyssen (from the Copenhagen Business School), that will be taken as a starting point for the workshop, differs from traditional philosophy in the assertion that no party can justify its moral principles. If in a given context no party can prove its position then no position cana a priori be dismissed and allparties have to engage in rational discourse as to which principles and values are valid for all. This opens for the concept of ethics which has two ditinctive characteristics: it is rationalistic (but not in the logical or scientific sense) and it is formalistic (Pruzan and Thyssen, 1990, p. 136).

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