Abstract/Summary

While business existed for thousands of years as a social activity involving communities of persons embedded in dense relational networks and practices, the modern legal foundations of business and its theoretical and psychological moral foundations narrowed down the understanding of practical wisdom. Although practical wisdom has recently gained ground in business ethics and management studies mainly thanks to Anscombe’s recovery of virtue ethics, her observation regarding the lack of a moral psychology that genuinely complements the nuanced philosophical perspective of a virtue-centered moral philosophy has still been neglected. Herein, we aim to contribute to filling this gap by suggesting two opposing paradigms, namely the Inter-processual self and the Autonomous self, which are classified according to the assumptions they make about the self, human agency and action more broadly, as well as how they relate to practical wisdom. Upon presenting these moral psychologies, we will bring this proposal back into conversation with business ethics to show how the IPS paradigm can enable and support good management and decision-making.