10 The Concept of Ethical Business in Ancient Athens
10 The Concept of Ethical Business in Ancient Athens
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Identify the role of ethics in ancient Athens
- Explain how Aristotelian virtue ethics affected business practices
It would be hard to overstate the influence of ancient Athens on Western civilization. Athenian achievements in the arts, literature, and government have molded Western consciousness. Perennial themes, such as the search for individual identity and each person’s place in the world, appear in countless novels and Hollywood screenplays. The role of Athenian ethical theories in philosophy has been profound, and Athenian principles continue to be influential in contemporary philosophy. Ethics, as a form of applied philosophy, was a major focus among the leaders of ancient Athens, particularly teachers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. They taught that ethics was not merely what someone did but who someone was. Ethics was a function of being and, as the guiding principle for dealings with others, it naturally applied as well to the sensitive areas of money and commerce.
Ancient Athens
Like a modern metropolis, the city-state (polis) of Athens in the fifth century BCE drew people from far afield who wanted a better life. For some, that life meant engaging in trade and commerce, thanks to the openness of the new democracy established under the lawgiver Cleisthenes in 508 BCE. Others were drawn to Athens’ incredibly rich architecture, poetry, drama, religious practices, politics, and schools of philosophy. Youth traveled there hoping to study with such brilliant teachers as the mathematicians Archimedes and Pythagoras; dramatists like Sophocles and Euripides; historians Herodotus and Thucydides; Hippocrates, the father of medicine; and, of course, the renowned but enigmatic philosopher Socrates. More than being the equivalent of rock stars of their day, these thinkers, scholars, and artists challenged youth to pursue truth, no matter the cost to themselves or their personal ambitions. These leaders were interested not in fame or even in personal development but in the creation of an ideal society. This was the Golden Age of ancient Greece, whose achievements were so profound and enduring that they have formed the pillars of Western civilization for nearly two and a half millennia.
Philosophy, in particular, flourished during the Golden Age, with various schools of thought attempting to make sense of the natural and human worlds. The human world was thought to be grounded in the natural world but to transcend it in striking ways, the most obvious being humans use of reason and deliberation. Philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle tackled fundamental questions of human existence with such insight that their ideas have remained relevant and universal even at the dawn of artificial intelligence. As British mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) observed, “the safest general characteriza