In this paper I introduce and discuss some aspects of the business-ethical investigations of a think tank for social ethics； “Oswald von Nell-Breuning-Institut Frankfurt für Wirtschafts-und Gesellschaftsethik” and thereby research the applicability of Kantian normative theory to the business ethics. Oswald von Nell-Breuning (1890-1991), who is known as a writer of “Encyclical ” of 1931； Quadragesimo Anno, called the representative theorists of “social market economy” (Ludwig Erhard, Alfred Müller-Armack etc.) “Neu-Kantianer (new Kantian)” and argued that because they regarded economic welfare as a “regulative idea”, they could make only negative policies which control only results of free economic competitions. Nell-Breuning esteemed as roles of government the structural policies including redistribution, besides conservation of private autonomy and maintenance of market order. He suggested that the true social states (der wahre Sozialstaat) could only be realized, when economic order is integrated into “multidimensional world of values (mehrdimensionale Wertewelt)”. In his dissertation of 1928 The Main Features of Moral of Stock Market (Grundzüge der Börsenmoral) Nell-Breuning determines the stock market as “the periodical meeting for exchange of goods by merchants at a fixed place” and identifies the stock market with the capitalistic economic order. He sees (in accordance with Max Weber) not only the purpose of capitalistic production in the pursuit of profit but also the inevitable anonymity or depersonalization in stock market following the development of world economy. Stock market is - according to NB - can be further a “democratic” institution which corresponds with basic human needs (ex. needs for exchange). On the other hand he insists that it is false to assume (like utilitarian) every economic behavior as such to be value-free and to be evaluated ethically only by its results in the whole society and that all the aspects of the economic behavior must be able to be verified both by private and public benefits. Friendhelm Hengsbach (1937-), who had been the director of Nell-Breuning Institute from 1992 to 2006, proposes in his paper “Human dignity as critical benchmark of economic development (Menschenwürde als kritischer Masstab wirtschaftlicher Entwicklung)”. (1994) some ethical conditions for capitalistic economy. Because substantial capital (instruments of production) and money capital (commanding power of production ) have been separated from each other (“separation of ownership from management”), capitalism has become more and more the relation of social power, in which the fare allocation or regulation of power is of importance. In accordance with today’s gradual relativization of inner cooperative hierarchy, Hengsbach investigates the possibility of “democratic capitalism” which enables laborers as well as capital providers to be qualified to attend the enterprise in the market and to legitimize it. According to Bernhard Emunds (1962-), who is the director of the institute from 2006, making credit above equity, which had been restricted for 50 years (from 1929 to 1979), was approved in 1980s, which caused the price bubble in the estate market. The financial crisis after the subprime mortgage crisis has been damaging especially developing countries and transition economies. Emunds argues therefore that from the ethical point of view the countries integrated in the international financial market in cooperation with international organizations must make the financial economy come back to the status of a servant of substantial economy. Nell-Breuning emphasized the continuity between personal- and social ethics or private- and public interests and doesn’t accept a sharp distinction between subjectivity and objectivity as in the modern understanding of morality. When he called critically the representatives of the social market economy “Neu-Kantianer”, he intended to integrate the individual motives and the social institutions from the perspective of common good. In recent studies of nell-Breuning Institute appear arguments concerning Kantian philosophy (ex. self responsibility and personality； Hengsbach, democratic from of life； Hengsbach, international democratic order of financial economy； Emunds). For the further investigation of the theoretical- and practical activities of the institute in relation to the Kantian philosophy it would be necessary for us to reconstruct the “normative liberalism” of Kant especially on ground of the idea of human dignity.
business ethics
Nell-Breuning Institute
Kantian “normative liberalism”
moral of stock market
human dignity
democratic capitalism
international financial market
common good