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Ethics, morality and the subject: the

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Tuomo Peltonen

Scandinavian Journal of Management

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Ethics, morality and the subject:

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 Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166

Ethics, morality and the subject: the contribution

of Zygmunt Bauman and Michel Foucault to
&postmodern' business ethics
Mihaela Kelemen , Tuomo Peltonen
*
Department of Management, Keele University, Stawordshire STS 5 BG, UK

Department of Management, Turku School of Economics and Business Administration,
Rehtorinpellonkatu 3, 20500 Turku, Finland
Accepted 9 September 1999

Abstract

This paper discusses a &postmodern' alternative to business ethics in the light of two authors:
Zygmunt Bauman and Michel Foucault. Despite their di!erent usage of the concepts &ethics'
and &morality', both o!er an approach to ethics that avoids the problems of a self-enclosed
subject inherent in liberal as well as in communal theories. Bauman and Foucault demonstrate
how the continuation of social dialogue su!ers from the postulation of "xed individual and
organizational identities. Managers and other participants cannot formulate ethical rules on
their own, but neither can they come together as a community without tensions and di!erence.
Instead, embodied engagement in the reciprocal play of interpretations and in#uences keeps us
ethically attuned to the limits of reason.  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

This paper engages with ethics and morality, concepts that have become increasing-
ly fashionable across a number of social science disciplines. At the end of a century
dominated by instrumentality and rationality, ethics and morality may be viewed by
some as technologies aimed at facilitating processes for providing accounts to oneself
and the other. Ethics and morality are also regarded as the very foundations and the
direct consequences of modernity. We unpack some of these dilemmas within the
context of organization studies, a discipline fraught with disagreements and

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: tuomo.peltonen@tukkk." (T. Peltonen).

0956-5221/01/$ - see front matter  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 5 6 - 5 2 2 1 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 3 8 - X
152 M. Kelemen, T. Peltonen / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166

controversies over its ontological and epistemological claims. Described by some as

a pre-paradigmatic discipline (Pfe!er, 1993), organization studies is an eclectic "eld in
which a cacophony of voices are being rehearsed. For some, the solution to the
perceived crisis of organization studies lies in the development of a dominant para-
digm (Pfe!er, 1993), for others the solution is to push the concept of ethics to the
forefront (Wicks & Freeman, 1998). In this paper we engage with the latter suggestion
by drawing speci"cally on the works of two writers, namely Michel Foucault and
Zygmunt Bauman. But "rst of all, we would like to explore in more detail the renewed
interest in ethics and morality in organization studies. We then discuss the place of
ethics and morality in modern and postmodern social theories, and highlight the
contributions made by Bauman and Foucault to our understanding of processes of
modernization and identity in contemporary life. We attempt to undo the conceptual
di!erences between ethics and morality by emphasizing their heuristic nature as
postmodern tools for inquiring into processes of social organization. Our analysis
unpacks some of the implications of Bauman's and Foucault's work to the practice of
organizations and propose an alternative view on organizational ethics which builds
around the ongoing dialogue and interaction between individuals in the workplace.

2. Ethics in organization studies

A great deal has been written about ethics in organizations in the last decade or so.
A search on the Internet, using the Altavista search engine, has identi"ed 20,545 web
pages and 1154 books on business ethics (2.08.1999). Business ethics is a "eld which
has grown in response to the apparent decline in ethical standards in business
(Trevino, 1986) and as a recognition that economic relations have their own morality
which needs protecting (Durkheim, 1964). Aside of business ethicists, there have been
attempts to theorize ethics and morality from a wide range of other perspectives, inter
alia, sociology, law, economics, philosophy and theology (Bowie, 1999; Rae & Wong,
1996; Wilber, 1998; White, 1993).
This interest (for some, obsession) in ethics needs to be placed within broader
ontological and epistemological arguments as well as in a historical context. From an
ontological point of view, it is argued that the explanandum of organization studies
has changed dramatically in the last few decades (Burrell, 1996). Organizations are
now seen to inhabit a so-called post-industrial world (White & Jaques, 1995) where
new forms of production and distribution have come into being. For example, the
network organization, the process-driven organization or the virtual organization is
seen to have replaced the bureaucratic organization. Fordist technologies of mass
production and distribution are thought to have given way to post-fordist technolo-
gies that allow for #exible specialization and niche distribution (Piore & Sabel, 1984).
These new organizational realities point to the importance of the consumer in
organizing both production and distribution. In the post-industrial era, the market
is heralded as the &Authority', an authority capable of deciding the best course of
action and the most appropriate behavior for the individual. Therefore, the individual
has no choice but to entrust his/her hopes to the market. While the working of the
 M. Kelemen, T. Peltonen / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166 153

markets may be indeed the most e$cient and may point the individual onto the &right
track', it is less obvious why &the right track' should also be the moral one. The
conceptualization of ethics along the logic of the market puts &e$ciency' on a pedestal
at the expense of other values; it fails to account for relationships that are not
necessarily governed by the market such as friendship and kinship, for example.
But it is not just the nature of the organizational reality that has changed: it is
suggested that new forms of knowing, or new explanans, have accompanied the move
from the industrial to post-industrial (Burrell, 1996). The move from modernist to
postmodernist epistemologies has pointed the researchers to question not only the
e$ciency of forms of production and organization, but also the conditions that made
them possible in the "rst place and the role they may have in reproducing these
conditions (Hassard & Parker, 1993; Chia, 1996). Thus postmodernist epistemol-
ogy makes central the relationship between knowledge and power. Because know-
ledge cannot escape the regime of power that makes it visible in the "rst place,
knowledge cannot be &objective' or indeed "nal. The postmodernist argument collaps-
es the foundations of any ontology or epistemology, which could grant us access to the
&truth' and could make our writing worthwhile. Thus, if we cannot ground our studies
in ontological or epistemological arguments, then, according to Parker (1998a) we
need to provide ethical}political reasons why we believe our writing is important.
It may be these post}industrial realities and postmodernist epistemologies which
have put ethics on the map of organization studies. But, ethics and morality have been
the concern of social scientists and philosophers for quite some time. One could argue
that they have accompanied the Western world since its inception, alongside the myth
of community (Nancy, 1992). There seems to be a widespread belief that earlier forms
of social organization were more moral than contemporary social arrangements.
ToK nnies (in Gusfeld, 1975) posits a clear contrast between &community' de"ned as
a naturally developed association which has intrinsic, moral values, and &society',
a deliberately formed association whose foundations lie in rational logic. A number of
dualisms accompany the split community/society, namely, a!ective/rational, non-
instrumental/instrumental, homogeneity/heterogeneity and, most recently, following
the work of Zygmunt Bauman, moral/immoral.
It would be mistaken, however, to suggest that community is entirely an a!ective,
moral and non-instrumental achievement, while society is a purely rational and
instrumental achievement (Parker, 1998b). Society cannot be entirely summed up in
terms of rational, economic contracts, as it is also experienced through moral encoun-
ters as well as random concrete experiences, which are not necessarily aimed at
a particular goal, or "nality. According to Ma!esoli (1996), while individual inten-
tionalities may play some role in the process of interaction, this process is made up of
a multitude of minuscule canals, the existence of which is most of the time, unknown

 Parker (1998c) problematizes this (earlier) position arguing that it becomes untenable if one wishes to
engage with critical management. As an alternative, he suggests that our acts of ethical judgement must be
based on a localised (a-) humanist ontology and epistemology which recognises the contextual, shifting and
tentative nature of our realities and theories. This is seen as a means for making ethical judgement central
and using its centrality to undermine any supposed connections with &truth'.
154 M. Kelemen, T. Peltonen / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166

to individual consciousness. Similarly, community is not characterized by complete

a!ective harmony and a lack of instrumentality and rationality. Communities may
pursue goals in a pragmatic fashion (including the goal of survival), in which case
division of labor is absolutely necessary and con#ict may occur. Durkheim (1964)
argues that the division of labor itself is not purely an economic phenomenon but also
a moral one in so far as the need for order, harmony and social solidarity is considered
moral. Thus, we may argue that the boundaries between community and society are
more #uid and slippery than originally suggested, and that the juxtaposition of
morality upon the communal blueprint is itself problematic. Indeed, the meaning of
morality appears to be shifting according to what is valued in cultural or economic
terms within various periods of time.

3. Ethics and morality reconstructed

So far we have used ethics and morality relatively interchangeably. We have done
so deliberately in our endeavor to use the terms as attention-seeking heuristics. At
a later stage the paper attempts to undivide the division between ethics and morality
by drawing on the works of Bauman and Foucault. Bauman (1993,1995) and his
followers posit a distinction between ethics as a normative domain and morality as
a descriptive one. They associate ethics with the modernist project of searching for
&golden rules' of conduct and morality with the postmodernist acceptance of the
individual impulses of the here and now. On the contrary, Foucault (1983, 1984) and
his followers view ethics as the ongoing construction of the self without any external
authority, while morality is associated with hidden norms of appropriate conduct.
We would like to distance ourselves from distinguishing between ethics and moral-
ity. In so doing, we compare and contrast Bauman's and Foucault's approaches to
ethics and morality. We then suggest that what binds them together is a concern with
the e!ects of modernization and rationalization upon ethics and morality in contem-
porary world. While there are some di!erences in the way they address this problem-
atic, their contribution to organization studies is remarkable and is worth unpacking
in more detail.

4. The place of ethics in modern social theories

Before moving on to unpack the contributions of Bauman and Foucault, we would

like to take a look at main philosophical positions in ethics. Because the two authors
we are interested in, are for many, examples of &postmodern' thought in the matters of
moral and identities (e.g. Falzon, 1998; Pulkkinen, 1996), a short excursion into
&modern' moral philosophies may help in seeing the radical break Bauman and
Foucault introduce with their arguments. At the same time, the questions discussed by
the classical social theories, such as the problem of self versus society, are helpful in
tracking down further some of the nuances in Bauman's and Foucault's approaches.
Pulkkinen (1996) has argued that concepts such as freedom and morality are linked
to the assumptions made in various theoretical streams about the origins and forms of
 M. Kelemen, T. Peltonen / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166 155

human agency. On the one hand, liberal theories trust the capacity of autonomous
individuals in making their own rational or optimal choices. On the other, communal
theorists, such as Hegel and Marx, do not believe that individuals can create better
worlds on their own. Instead, in these theories it is only by coming together and
formulating collective self-consciousness that ethically sustainable states can be
achieved among groups of individuals.
Let us "rst investigate the liberal view in more detail. In its British (empiricist)
version, the liberal theory assumes individuals with unchanging capacities and inter-
ests. Freedom is in this context the unhindered pursuit of individual will and compet-
ence. A moral way of life, in turn, lies in following one's desire for happiness and
achievement. Those actions that arouse guilt or unhappiness are not in line with the
optimal application of individual capacities. Additionally, social rules relating to right
and wrong exist merely to help us to choose pleasure-maximizing behavior and to
remove obstacles for individual freedom.
The German variant of liberal philosophy di!ers from its British counterpart in
stressing rational reasoning rather than utilitarian pursuit of self-interest. Kant's
idealist theory concludes that since we cannot know our innate interests and human
nature, morality cannot be based on the undisturbed pursuit of ends (MacIntyre,
1967). On the contrary, an individual develops agency by raising above the empirical
conditions. Here &freedom' is understood as self-control and mastery over the nature.
Focus is on the autonomous will, that by willing to follow a duty becomes capable of
moral actions. Duties are normative rules that apply rationally to all situations and
individuals without exceptions.
Both liberal views stress the capacity of individuals to "nd the optimum use of
human capacities. The role of ethics is to enhance individuals' use of innate capacities,
whether understood as the natural wit and interests of the empiricists or the rational
search for universal formulas of the idealists. Here, ethics is primarily concerned about
the methods which enhance the use of pre-existing, universal, subjective competencies,
while morality is the state whereby innate capacities of individuals are used in an
optimum manner.
As MacIntyre (1967) notes, this type of approach is weak in assessing the social
consequences of using certain ethical principles instead of some others. Liberal
theories are prone to assume the prevailing moral order as given and "nd it di$cult to
evaluate the limitations of the concurrent moral conventions. They also fail to see that
ethical codes in#uence the individual applying rules for self-identity and &security'
(Munro, 1998).
The weakness of social philosophies to abstract individuals in relation to the social
practices where moral order is negotiated calls for more empirical analyses of ethical
behavior. However, even classical sociology seems to assume a grounded subject in its
treatment of morality and lacks a view on ethics and subjectivity as a reciprocal
process. For example Durkheim (1930) argues that moral facts are forces which
appear in everyday life as felt conscience and as coercion of behavior. He claims that
moral forces &make' social order by the way of arousing conscience and sense of
obligation. Morality is thus embedded in social norms, but consists of more than just
contextually shifting action. Morality is normativity cleansed from the messiness of
156 M. Kelemen, T. Peltonen / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166

situated action. Moreover, the habit of following a duty is what characterizes a proper
morality. Durkheim draws implicitly on a Kantian subject who, by willing a priori
and formal laws, acts morally. Durkheim's emphasis is more on the &social', the stu!
that the subject needs to detach itself from the egoistic state of self-interest and desires.
Yet Durkheim's emphasis on morality as control or constraint of natural drives
clearly converges with Kant's view of freedom as self-mastery over the determinations
of nature and moral action as conscious disinterest.
One can also compare Weber's (1947, p. 115) distinction between formal and
substantive rationality to the Kantian program. Substantive rationality refers to
actions that are prompted by values rather than ends. In other words, substantive
rationality is guided by the value of the act itself, being an expression of an auton-
omous agent. Formal or instrumental rationality is oriented to the ends of the action,
and undermines intentions and reasoning required reaching the aspired ends. By
downplaying means or intentions, instrumental rationality urges the subject to act
without using his or her own willing process. In Kantian terms, this course of action is
not going through the test of checking whether one can will the activity to be
universally done. Hence, it is an amoral rationality.
Hegel and Marx di!er from Kantian individualism in that they concentrate on the
&social', or on the relation of the Self to the Other. Both authors note the limits of any
social order as well as the need for a society to transgress itself in order to become
a less limited order (MacIntyre, 1967, p. 211). Freedom is a negative concept that
points to the inadequacy of any socio-cultural order based on nature or trans-human
origins. Pursuing this freedom, however, becomes a process of extracting the inherent
tensions in a social order with the view of transgressing the present social relations.
While Hegel was more prone to explain the course of history up to the present point,
Marx's aspiration was to discuss how to move from the current to a better society. For
Marx, enacting moral vocabularies was in vain because any coherent moral system
presupposes an existing social order, with its limits and inherent tensions. Therefore,
to open up the way for a new type of order, one had to amplify the voice of those
currently unsatis"ed and craving for more, rather than certain moral concepts
(MacIntyre, 1967, p. 213).
Falzon (1998, p. 24) notes that the Hegelian}Marxian strand successfully takes
a collective stance in its suggestion that we are not self-su$cient beings, who by
"nding an appropriate formula can create our own completeness. In addition to
rational or categorical formulas of Kantianism there is &something else' going on
* some other forms of understanding and life. These forms challenge the idea of the
autonomous subject. The di!erent forms of life a!ect each other and act as catalysts of
transformation. In fact, the tension between the Self and the Other might be seen as
the primary &engine' of historical change. Preserving the ongoing dialogue between
various forms of life is the best we can hope for from ethics, given that all moral orders
are arti"cial closures in the midst of a variety of voices.
However, Falzon (1998) goes on to note that Marx, and more explicitly Hegel,
convert the fundamental di!erence between what is the immediate &Self' and the
absent &Other' into a positivity of the authentic self whose alienated, deviant side is
portrayed in the other. The process of confrontation leads to the return of the Other to
 M. Kelemen, T. Peltonen / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166 157

the Self. This way Hegel trades an eternal pursuit of self-transgression for the
inevitable coming of the ideal order. In other words, the ethics of Hegel and Marx
is tied to the absolute Subject, which has absorbed all the otherness and alienation
into its self-consciousness. The point is that this communal subject needs no
ethics, because it is all encompassing and in"nite. Despite the rhetoric of eternal
transgression and overcoming of &iron cages', communal theories hold on to the ideal
of a complete order. This absolute subject is in its own way self-encompassing and,
most of all, beyond ethics since it needs no further dialectics or transformation to
escape from one-sided power relations and constraints on emancipation. What is
questionable here is how Hegel articulates the conditions of the absolute subject,
a debate that has led to a critique of his followers' inclinations to equate the State with
the judge of the proper social order and to leave all other informal forms of life
unrecognized.
The absolutist way in which subjectivity is approached in the Hegelian}Marxian
tradition leads Pulkkinen (1996) to group liberal-individualist and communal moral
philosophies together. Despite their di!erences, they both assume that subjectivity is
a self-sustaining thing, whose capability for action comes from certain, timeless and
abstract properties. Pulkkinen (1996) calls the tendency to postulate attributes or
conditions for proper human or social action the &modern' approach to subjectivity.
She contrasts that with the &postmodern', a line of thought which appreciates the
&inhuman' sources of human subjectivity, such as power, desire or di!erence. The
postmodern touches on the variety of ways we can become human agents and exert
moral capacities. It directs the attention away from codes of justice or ideas of duty to
the concrete situations where individuals or groups or individuals live or work
together.
Whereas the modern moral philosophy tries to save individuals from compromises
and inadequate use of human capacities with the help of ethical standards and ideals,
the postmodern thought is more interested in the limitations that the metaphysics of
morality imposes on concrete individuals in their actual situations. The humanist
project, for example, envisages an already existing human with an exclusive set of
capacities or conditions that can make up a moral being. Yet history shows that often
those involved in totalitarianism or genocide are capable of using ethical reasoning to
convince themselves that despite their crimes they are acting in a humane way (e.g.
Parenkh, 1997). Similarly, those su!ering from terror are labeled as &less human' and
therefore incapable of articulating the immorality of the acts imposed on them. Thus,
accepted ethical codes and standards of moral subjectivity cannot guarantee a moder-
ated, terror-free society or organization.
From a postmodern perspective modernity with its rational organizations and
institutionalized capitalist system appears as the irrationality of seeming rational rules
and principles. However, the alternative for totalizing codes is not necessarily a frag-
mented collection of &voices' as some commentaries of postmodernism seem to
suggest, but an ongoing dialogue of individuals, situations and moral commitments.
As Falzon (1998) notes, some readings of the postmodern emphasize the co-existence
of multiple, incommensurable forms of life. This isolationism, in turn, is prone to
reproduce the liberal view of self-contained individuals who construct social rules
158 M. Kelemen, T. Peltonen / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166

only to preserve their own survival. This is not the line of thought we would like to
advance here. Instead, the paper is keen to unpack contributions to ethics that avoid
both traps: that of a disguised totalitarian State as featured in Hegel's work as well as
that of a sterile individualism contained in most of the classical liberalist theories. One
notable approach in this context is rendered by the writings of Zygmunt Bauman, for
whom &being for the other' is the cornerstone of moral politics.

5. Bauman's view on ethics and morality

Numerous books and articles have been published to celebrate or critique Bau-
man's approach to ethics and morality (see, for example, the edited collection by
Parker, 1998a, which does both). Generally speaking, Bauman is praised for his
sensitive analysis of modernization and its e!ects on the possibilities for the self
(Bauman, 1989,1991,1993,1995). Bauman (1989) argues that modernity pursued the
goal of shifting moral responsibilities away from the self towards socially constructed
supra-individual agencies. When this was not possible, modernity made it socially
acceptable to exempt a considerable part of human conduct from moral judgment
altogether. Thus individual morality became a residue and ethics its substitute.
For Bauman (1993) ethics was essentially a modernist project, a project which
aimed to construct a world free of moral ambiguity. Two institutions appeared to be
central to this endeavor, namely, bureaucracy and business (Bauman, 1995). Both
institutions draw on the logic of rationality and view emotions as an enemy. Bureau-
cracy is grounded in impersonal rules, in the following of scienti"c procedures,
considered as true and fair. Providing that the individual follows the rules faithfully
and do what the superiors tell them to do, it is them who bear the responsibility for the
e!ects that their actions might have. Thus, bureaucracy helps people escape from
moral evaluation, but in return they are requested to obey the rules. It is the deviation
from the scienti"c procedures that is open to being challenged, not the procedures
themselves. Bauman (1989), however, challenges the assumption that scienti"c pro-
cedures are automatically fair or moral in his analysis of the conditions that made
possible the Holocaust. Business, on the other hand, is less about following imperso-
nal procedures but more about the management of resources. The management of
resources is interwoven with rules of instrumental rationality, which put the values of
e$ciency and e!ectiveness on a pedestal.
But the market, state, or the organization cannot decide morality, according to
Bauman. It is primarily a personal pursuit and implies taking responsibility for the
other (Bauman, 1995). This means that the other is not treated like a category
anymore (in the way in which the market or the state treats it), but like an individual,
with sympathy and emotion. The Other becomes the self's responsibility and this is
where morality begins. But to be responsible for the other is also to have power over
him/her and be free vis-à-vis him/her. However, taking responsibility for the other
presupposes safeguarding the uniqueness of the other. Bauman coins this sort of
relation as &being for the other' and suggests it can only exist as a project, on its way to
be completed but never quite accomplished. For him, this is a lonely and disturbing
 M. Kelemen, T. Peltonen / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166 159

project as there are no rules by which to judge whether our acts will have positive
consequences upon others or not. The occurrence of the state of &being for the other'
cannot be predicted in any deterministic or probabilistic way as it has nothing to do
with reason, but with passion, sentiment, and emotion (Bauman, 1995).
Most of the criticisms addressed to his work concern precisely this methodological
individualism (Shilling & Mellor, 1998). Bauman (1993,1995) rejects the idea that
society could be a source of moral action. He celebrates the individual &moral
impulses' against the immoral, rationalizing impulses of totaling social order, arguing
that well before we are being socialized in rules of &proper' behavior, we are already in
the situation of moral choice, a situation de"ned as one in which we have a responsib-
ility for the other. Bauman's methodological individualism leads him to see collectivi-
ties (in the shape of communities or societies) as a threat to the individual. In his view,
collectivities are made possible by the moral competence of their members and not the
other way around (cf. Shilling & Mellor, 1998). Individuals are "rst moral and then
social (Bauman, 1993); in other words, ethics follows morality and not vice versa.
Bauman's approach draws signi"cantly on Levinas (1987) for whom the ethical
relation is an asymmetrical face-to-face relation: &the face before me summons
me2The Other becomes my neighbor precisely through the way the face summons
me, calls for me, begs for me, and in so doing recalls my responsibility, and calls me
into question' (Levinas in Hand, 1989, p. 231). The responsibility for the Other is
unlimited and is established prior to any other commitment, coming from the hither
side of one's freedom. It represents the very bond of human subjectivity, to the point of
being raised to a supreme ethical principle. Thus, the relationship with the other is
fundamentally ethical, being prior to both reason and sociality.
To a certain extent, Bauman's methodological individualism fails to convince, since
it is unclear why the conditions for &being for the other' may occur at all. However, as
the "rst part of this paper witnesses, his contribution lies in the insightful analysis he
brings to modernity and its project of legislating ethics. He suggests that ethics
removes our own individual responsibility for the other, which may lead to catas-
trophes such as the Holocaust. One may argue, however, that since we are moral
beings prior to being social beings we would know what to take and what to leave out
of the codes of ethics, irrespective of the pressures put on us by social institutions. It is
in this respect that Foucault's work provides some interesting insights.

6. Foucault and ethics

Michel Foucault's work has been highly in#uential in management studies (e.g.
Burrell, 1988; Townley, 1993) and an edited volume has recently been devoted to the
impact of his output for organization theory (McKinley & Starkey, 1998). Foucault is
still mainly read in management as a contributor to the theories of power and
subjectivity (e.g. Knights, 1992; Newton, 1998), although elsewhere his legacy has been
also evaluated from the viewpoint of moral philosophy and history of ethics (David-
son, 1994, Bernauer, 1992, Bernauer & Mahon, 1994). As Brewis (1998) notes,
Foucault uses the concepts of ethics and morality in a di!erent way compared to
160 M. Kelemen, T. Peltonen / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166

Bauman. For Foucault (1983, 1984), ethics refers to an explicit attempt to shape
oneself into a moral subject whereas morality is understood as hidden normativity of
seemingly neutral human science knowledge and expert practice. To fully grasp this
distinction, a brief but synthesizing look at Foucault's broader political and intellec-
tual project is taken next.
Foucault's a$nity to Nietzsche is manifest in the way he understands the subject.
The human individual is an active constellation of capabilities or forces, who engages
in a dialogue with other forces. Identity or agency is shaped in the interaction of
internal forces with the external in#uences. But since no form can be reduced to its
constitutive relations, the subject is never "xed or exhausted. There is always some-
thing else, an internal otherness, capable of breaking through the prevailing form and
in#uencing the other side of the dialogue. This is the dimension of social relations
being highlighted in the archaeological work of Foucault. &The Death of Man' was
Foucault's (1970) own contribution to the overcoming of the limitations that the
prevailing liberal-humanist culture has set upon our bodies. It represents an impor-
tant aspect of an alternative ethics that emerges from Foucault' work: an analysis of
our taken-for-granted habits of thought and the morality play these conventions set in
action, followed by an attempt to question and accelerate the discourse so that it
weakens its hold on us.
Foucault was also insisting that an intellectual is not of any higher caliber than
a layman in his or her work, but that both were coping with a set of constraints and
possibilities as they lived their social life. The aim of the ethics in this process is to
ensure that human activity continues, that is, that the multidimensionality and
possibilities in our corporeal existence are used. If we cease to "nd new ways of
exerting human agency (Law, 1994), we are denying the di!erence or otherness that
makes creativity and history possible. In resorting to universal images of ourselves, we
also leave the door open for asymmetrical power relations. By believing that we are
what we are, we accept the identities and positions invented by others. Instead of engaging
in interaction with the unknown * both in ourselves and in our relations to the others
* we plunge into a semi-passive state of reproducing authorial norms as moral ideals.
This is when domination and totalitarianism becomes possible, reminds Foucault.
Foucault's ethics is directed at the primary dialogue or relation of forces. As Falzon
(1998) notes, ethics is for Foucault a secondary concept, just like domination and
discipline. We are engaged in an active structuring of a "eld in which we operate. Here
we meet the other, either as a concrete, di!erent actor, but in a more general sense as
something that resists our active &powering'. Due to otherness, di!erence, resistance,
the one who is touched by this encounter is altered. He or she realizes that his or her
truths are not the only possible ways to interpret and approach the world. There is
something else, an excess that cannot be incorporated into the order proposed.
&Ethics' is an attitude of keeping oneself open to the otherness in our worldly activities.
It is not a negative orientation such as the one articulated by Hegel, but a positive
exposure by oneself to the experiences of resistance. One of the terms Foucault used to
describe this attitude was &curiosity'. By that he wanted to emphasize courage to
experience what is odd or rare in our way of life and helps us "nding new orientations
for our conduct and self.
 M. Kelemen, T. Peltonen / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166 161

&Ethics' of curiosity does not occupy a central position in the modern, rational mode
of organizing. Ancient Greek practices of the self exhibited for Foucault the kind of
educational practice that resonated with his conceptualization of ethics as an attitude
towards openness. In ancient Greece, techniques of pedagogy and training among the
elite were independent of political relations, that is, they were not part of the process in
which an individual became a legitimate agent by the way of public examinations and
confessions. Instead, they were similar to ascetic exercises where an individual exerts
one's forces towards oneself. These techniques resulted in a subjectivity that recog-
nizes the partiality of any human competence. As Townley (1995) has noticed, ascetic
exercises focused on analyzing how actual or imaginary acts were compatible or non-
compatible with the universal norms. By simulating a sequence of action, the individual
was able to feel the resistance in what he/she was doing. For example, when seeing an
attractive person in the street, one should ask, can I handle an a!air, what may result of
this in the worst case? One was in a way experiencing a meeting with the unexpected, the
resistance, instead of following one's desires or rational reasoning. The catastrophic
nature of the possible outcomes were to be judged in the exercises not as something bad,
but as something that must be accepted (Foucault, 1997, p. 240). Imagined failures were
reminders of the resistance and otherness, and the purpose of the training was to arouse
a durable attentiveness to the inherent limits of our habitual behavior. In this way,
ancient technologies of the self provide for Foucault a possible model for ethical
education that goes beyond both moral standardization and individual hedonism.
To conclude, Foucault reminds us about the subtle control accomplished in the
name of &natural' subjectivity and self. Unlike Bauman, for him the individual cannot
count on moral impulses, since our experiences are often already shaped by institu-
tional discourses such as pedagogy or psychology. What Foucault suggests as a politi-
cal alternative is a new way we could use knowledge and discourses: not to make us
more aware of ourselves, but to &release' ourselves from ourselves. Ethics of curiosity is
a more modest program than that of modernism, as it sets us in the middle of social
ordering and sees us as wholly involved with the world and the others. &Ethics' refers
to a style of engaging in the ongoing, power-laden activities, one that cherishes the
open-ended play and constant friction in organizational relations rather than accepts
ideals of complete order and ready-made subjects.

7. Conclusions

So, where does this leave us? What are the implications of theories of ethics upon
theories of organizations? Modernist theories of ethics view the individual as a coher-
ent entity who has the ability to discern between &good' and &bad' in pursuing the
universal project of human betterment. Here, the self has been seen as "xed, coherent
and accessible to the individual him/herself as well as to others. The knowledge
elicited about the self constitutes the raw material for devising ethical courses of
action. Postmodernist theories, on the other hand, view the self as decentered,
fragmented and only partially accessible or knowable to him/herself or the outside
world. Ethics is seen to be one of the many practices in which individuals engage in
162 M. Kelemen, T. Peltonen / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166

order to constitute themselves into subjects. Thus, the knowledge one can have about
the self is limited, contextual and temporal and no universal codes of ethics could be
enacted on this basis. Therefore, a concern for ethics translates into a Foucauldian
concern for the day-to-day practices and discourses that go into the making of
subjectivity or into a Baumanian concern for studying the conditions that make
possible the &being-for' form of togetherness.
Most of the contemporary debates in business ethics subscribe to a modernist view
on the self and ethics. While it is beyond the purpose of this paper to present a detailed
review of the conceptual work and empirical research carried out in the "eld of
business ethics (for thorough reviews, see Pearson, 1995; Vallance, 1995), we would
like to highlight the multitude and variety of topics which make up the "eld, for
example, ethical decision making, equal opportunities, corporate social responsibility,
whistle blowing, green management, to name only a few. Two distinct positions can be
found among writers of business ethics: some adopt a normative/utilitarian perspect-
ive on ethics, others embrace a deontologic approach. Fritsche and Becker's (1984)
research, for example, explored how individual managers think about ethical dilem-
mas at work. They found that most managers followed a utilitarian orientation,
evaluating behavior in terms of social consequences. The normative position in
business ethics presupposes that knowledge about the self is attainable and therefore,
widely available and that there are objective ways of assessing what counts as &best
consequences'. Even if one could de"ne what best consequences are, the question that
arises next is best consequences &for whom'? Who decides who is to bene"t from these
best consequences? Is it the public at large, a particular minority (as in the case of
equal opportunities policies), an individual, a group? This teleological pursuit of ethics is
grounded in modernity's hopes (accompanied by various projects) for human betterment.
Other writers of business ethics adopt an universalist deontology, subscribing to the
idea that the moral worth of an action is dependent on the intentions of the person
taking action and not the consequences. For example, some authors suggest that
ethical decisions are those based on a consistent pattern of moral values (Smedes,
1991) while others suggest that individuals' decision of what is right and what is wrong
is in#uenced by their level of cognitive moral development (Trevino, 1986). These
Kantian reverberations su!er, however, from a number of shortcomings: "rstly, moral
principles are viewed as general rules, which apply universally and impartially to all
individuals. Secondly, it is up to the individual to decide what is right and what is
wrong by the pure application of reason. As we have seen, such dogmas mistake the way
in which individual identities are made up. Finally, the goal of ethics is to recognize and
maximize each individual's absolute freedom, a practically unworkable formula.
Dissatisfaction with utilitarian and deontologic theories of business ethics needs to
be understood and addressed within the broader context of postmodernist episteme,

 One of the reviewers for this journal for example wanted to hear what using &postmodern thinking'
meant for us. We see this as indicative of a certain type of responsibilization of the self, where the value of
actions is always returned to questions of personal opinion and self-problematization. As we see it, the
&postmodern' position can also be a way to save us from the endless &will to knowledge', where the subjects
are examined thoroughly before bestowed being upon the rights of a citizen/author.
 M. Kelemen, T. Peltonen / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166 163

which denies the centrality of the subject and the possibility of unmediated knowing.
If contextually shifting, power-laden knowing is the name of the game how can
managers construct rules of ethical behavior? And what is ethical, in the "rst place? To
answer these questions we return to Bauman and Foucault, whose writings are
typically labeled &postmodern' given their engagement with critiquing the &modern'
absolutising understandings of the subject. At this point we would like to also undo
the distinction the authors make between ethics and morality. For Bauman, ethics is
a modernist project, while morality is a postmodernist one. For Foucault, ethics refers
to active self-a$rmation, morality being the normative truths that make us reactive
and subject to authority discourses. Our argument is that we need to look behind
these labels to the analysis both authors provide on the role of modernity in shaping
our choices and responsibilities (or lack of them) via various technologies and
practices.
Both Bauman and Foucault are concerned about the idea of the ethical individual
as a rule-following subject. Their &postmodern' alternative is not to invent new
metarules, but to release moral instincts and feelings that are currently domesticated
by modern institutions. At the heart of moral experiences is the meeting with the
other, the unknown or alien. By stressing this, we are not claiming that current
organizational practices do not at all arouse ethical sensitivity in individuals. Instead,
we would like to make the point that the modern way of thinking about the self in
organizations marginalizes destabilizing encounters that take place all the time.
Finding out that, even as an appointed, educated and merited manager, one still
possesses desires that can harm the other is often an experience to be pushed aside.
Management theory also "nds it hard to acknowledge that despite all the e!orts to
ensure that individuals are &good', unwanted outcomes (harassment, exclusion, in-
equality) sometimes occur.
Instead of saying &this is not me', the postmodern style of thought is in the
business of a$rming the strange in the self, thus promoting continuing preparation
for the dangers of the ideas about the right that can lead to the exclusion and
extermination of the corporeal others. If there is nothing to hate, there is no ground to
turn one's actions against those who are somehow di!erent; the other is in a way
already met in the way individuals experience worldly interaction. This way ethics is
incorporated into the very way action is taken instead of being o!ered as a set of
abstract rules or subject positions. Individuals are constantly created and creating
themselves as agents of some sort and it is the task of the postmodern perspective to
remind of the potentials of the pre-social self in refusing using identity for unethical
projects.
This alternative view on organizational ethics has been dealt with primarily in
a negative fashion by juxtaposing it against the absolutized understanding of modern

 Although, for example, Alvesson (1996) uses Foucault without emphasizing his role as a postmodern
thinker, we would like to stress Foucault and Bauman as theorists who o!er alternatives to the modern
assumptions about the subject as bounded and self-enclosed. We are not arguing that the societal problems
associated with modern institutions have disappeared; what we are serious about is the way we should
approach the ethical failures.
164 M. Kelemen, T. Peltonen / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 151}166

moral discourses. Yet there is a need to articulate an alternative politics and ethics of
managing, one that sustains the ongoing dialogue and interaction rather than denies
and conceals it. This is not an all-or-nothing attitude towards ethical codes, but
a heightened sensitivity towards the location of moralities in the concrete practices in
which they are used or enacted in organizations. Detaching ethical dialogue from
absolutist and rationalist projects, however implemented, could enhance our capacity
to live an ethical life. Actively creating oneself as an ethical subject extends rather than
narrows the coverage of ideas about the right and the wrong. As Weber (1930) notes,
the mundane methods people used to craft a life avoiding excesses and balancing the
self with moral values were subsumed with the rise of the organized capitalism.
Davidson (1994) calls the lost techniques of ethical moderation spiritual exercises and
adds that constructing a moral philosophy on the basis of such practices is unfortu-
nately very strange for the prevailing modern thought. The main task of business
ethics could now be to restore and revitalize that ordinary art of life, not to confuse it
with the puri"cation programs of bureaucracy and modernism.

Acknowledgements

Tuomo Peltonen would like to acknowledge the "nancial support of the Academy
of Finland.

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