Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations

Western societies are not “a-moralized.” We could observe “ethical etiquette” everywhere, in every social institution and concerning every human activity or field of research (codes of ethics, ethics committees, Government ethics laws and so forth). The moralization processes of Western societies appear to be actualized in a dialectical way, and that process involves three patterns of actions undertaken by most of the social groups and institutions: (1) to get rid of an external (heteronomous) morality; (2) to adopt an inner (autonomous) morality; and (3) to safeguard two equivocal attitudes: (a) excluding any moral issue from one's decision-making and paradigmatic beliefs individuals adhere to (in order to explain the systemic reality of their self, world and Nature); and (b) letting to the given social groups and institutions (professions, for instance) the responsibility to provide the moral foundations of social life. In neo-liberalistic societies, where individualism has reached its peak, moral responsibility is more and more considered as a constraint to the “desire to do what we wish to do.” Indeed, such a desire serves to define the meaning of freedom in neo-liberalistic societies, although the meaning expresses a distorted form of freedom: to do whatever we like, except if it tends to reduce others’ freedom. Such a meaning does not imply to serve society or to love each other.