Aesthetics and Business Ethics by Daryl Koehn & Dawn Elm

Author:Daryl Koehn & Dawn Elm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

Here is without doubt a man living out his passions. He loved, not wisely but too well. Here is a life certainly not seeking happiness. It is a tragic life. Othello shows that while the passions may make life full, they do not necessarily make for the best life. The passions must be evaluated.

But the evaluation of passions is by no means impossible. Certain passions are appropriate, others not. For example, there are times my anger is inappropriate. There are passions that are destructive. One could argue that Lowell’s heroine’s life is empty. We see that. Othello’s life is tragic. Why? Because jealousy is a destructive passion, just as is hate. One could even argue that Sisyphus’ obstinacy is not the best of passions.17 Even though it gets him through his burdens, it does not allow a life to flower as it might.

We make value judgments about passions easily. Lowell’s heroine needs a new passion to make her life full. Othello, on the other hand, does not need more passion; he needs better ones. In some situations passion itself is required; and in others some passion should have been checked. So three points: passion is part of a well lived life; some passions are better than others; and good literature can show this more forcefully than any philosophical treatise.

Literature has the ability to show the deficiencies and strengths of the passions. I am not sure I can solve the epistemological question of how this is possible, but it does seem to be a fact. One thought comes to mind though as worth pursuing. If living human life is like doing art in Collingwood’s sense, and if there are ways of evaluating art, perhaps we can find some clues for evaluating life in aesthetics. This is not a new suggestion. It was made by Wittgenstein when he said that ethical reasons may well be like aesthetic reasons. When one looks at the literary critic, the appreciator of art, his/her task is not to tell us whether the object of art is good or bad, but to show us how to look at it to appreciate it. Similarly, the creator of literature allows us to look at lives other than our own and see the consequences of them. Kant talks about taste being able to appreciate and judge the inner coherence of an object of art when he talks about purposiveness without purpose. Thus we see Othello’s universe and his passions without tying them to any particular end except to recognize his following his passions was tragic. However, we are not able to develop this theme further at this time, not so much for lack of space as for lack of knowing how. Consequently, I leave that as a topic to be pursued at a later time and move on to consider how literature can aid in the ethical evaluation of business.

How can literature aid in the evaluation of business? There are any number of novels which depict business and business men, from the Rise and Fall of Silas Lapham to The Firm.

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