Metz’s Heterochthonous Relational Moral Theory and Business Ethics

Abstract

AbstractOne of the practical ethical areas that Thaddeus Metz applied his Relational Moral Theory (RMT) to is business ethics. In this important area of applied ethics, Metz examines the question of how business owners, and related agents ought to deal with others, especially workers and consumers. He argues that the relational account of obligations recommends a stakeholder model of business and provides a plausible alternative (if not better to) familiar kinds of utilitarianism and Kantianism. In this article, I discuss and engage with this claim by raising a number of issues for RMT. For although I believe that Metz’s moral account could, in general and under certain description, be positioned as a viable competitor to utilitarianism and Kantianism, it is not clear that in certain theoretical aspects of the stakeholder account of business, it fares better than, for example, utilitarianism. Furthermore, I argue, on the one hand, that RMT should be understood as a heterochthonous account of African ethics and, on the other hand, that an autochthonous account of African ethics captures better or comes closer to the moral sensibilities of indigenous Africans. An autochthonous account of African ethics has a different take on the issue of the stakeholder model of business and does conceptualize the business relationship in terms of needs and welfare whereby a “distant” individual may be owed more duties than a “local” individual.