Chapter 02:

The Foundation of Corporate Ethics: The Human Person

Fr. Ozzie Mascarenhas SJ June 10, 2013

Recent advances in the physical, biological and social sciences have not only spawned radical technological and market breakthroughs, but have, more importantly, unearthed tremendous human potentiality for design, creativity and innovation, for invention, discovery, venture and entrepreneurship, for capital accumulation and wealth creation, for individual self-actualization and collective common good. We are experiencing a growing consciousness of the increased power that human beings have over nature, and over the future development of the human race. This power can be both a blessing and a curse: it is a blessing if harnessed to do good, to preserve and respect human dignity, to bring about justice, and to promote peace and human solidarity; it can be a curse if the same power is abused to do evil, destroy human worth, generate unjust structures, and provoke war and terrorism, global destruction and disintegration. We can make or mar our destiny. More than at any other period in human history, humankind is currently at the cross-roads of war or peace, growth or decline, progress or regress, life or death, hell or heaven. We cannot leave these opposite polarities and possibilities to chance. We must design and invent, plan and predict, monitor and control our future and that of our posterity. In this regard, the concept of human personhood cum human responsibility is a fundamental part of this new self understanding and undertaking. Ethics and morality are a critical component on this creative journey to destiny. Corporate ethics, in particular, requires the development of a clear understanding of the relationship between executive autonomy and freedom, between human creativity and market innovation, and between human culture and corporate social responsibility. In this chapter we explore three crucial concepts in this endeavor: the corporate human personhood, the corporate human act, and the corporate human judgment. Other critical concepts such as accountability and responsibility, the ethics of rights and duties, the executive virtue of moral and ethical reasoning, the building of trusting and caring relationships, and the like will be discussed in subsequent chapters. We explore the awesome domain of the human person, the foundation of all ethics, particularly corporate ethics, under three Parts with the following topics:

Part I: The Ethics of Corporate Human Personhood

What is Human Personhood? The Value of Executive Human Personhood What Constitutes our Human Personhood? Our Unique Immanence Our Unique Individuality Our Unique Sociality Our Unique Transcendence Executive Freedom and Human Acts

Part II: The Ethics of Corporate Human Act

What is an Executive Human Act? The Phenomenology of the Executive Human Act The Order of Intention versus the Order of Execution Theory of Action: The Volitionalist Tradition

Executive Human Act versus Human Operations and Actions The Intrinsic Social Nature of Executive Action Executive Personhood and Executive Agency Agent Causality versus Event Causality The Human Act as a Creative Act

Part III: The Ethics of Corporate Judgment

The Intrinsic Task of Executive Morality Moral Discourse, Language and Reasoning Scientific, Practical, Ethical and Moral Judgments Deliberation, Explanation and Justification The Nature of Moral Deliberation The Social Factor of Moral Reasoning Quadri-Ethical-moral Reasoning

Part I: The Ethics of Corporate Human Personhood

In responding to the questions raised in the introductory paragraph of Chapter 01, our common ground, regardless of our religion and religious beliefs, ethnic and national composition or persuasion, is our recognition of the value of the human person and human personhood. The centrality of the question of human personhood is common to theology and philosophy, morals and ethics, and even laws and values. Corporate ethics and morals deal not only with executive decisions and actions, but even raise the more fundamental questions: What ought I to do? What ought I to be? What kind of executive person do I want to become? Even those who consider basing ethics on a set of universal and absolute values presuppose the necessity of the human personhood. We can never predicate moral goodness or moral badness of beings that are not human persons (Hring1978: 85; Hildebrand 1953: 167). We are human persons every moment of our being (this is the fixed nature of human personhood); yet human personhood means that we go beyond or transcend what we are at a given moment (this is the dynamic nature of human personhood). Both aspects of human personhood are necessary; they make us what we are human, personal, ethical, moral, accountable and responsible persons and personalities.

What is Human Personhood?

What is man? What is being human? What is human personhood? What is corporate human personhood? A related philosophical and more fundamental question is: what is human? Aristotles balanced formula for man was: man is a rational animal. Within ancient Greek philosophical thought and categorization this definition meant that the human being is endowed with the highest of three types of souls: as a vegetative soul, the human is capable of nutrition, growth, and reproduction; as an animal soul, the human is capable of movement and experiences; as a rational soul that unites the other two, the human is capable of knowledge and choice. That is, this rational soul expresses itself in the twofold activity of thinking and willing. We are even more: our knowledge is reflective (i.e., we know that we know) and our choices are informed and reflective (i.e., we know what we are choosing, and we know why we are choosing it). Our skills and potential for knowledge and choice empower us to be causes or authors of our own action, and hence, to be accountable and responsible for the consequences of our actions. Thus, being and action are intrinsically linked in the rational and voluntary nature of our human being. In the Aristotelian vision of human nature, corporeal matter is informed by the spiritual principle of the rational soul (Rehrauer 1996: 23-25). [See Business Executive Exercise 2.1]. On the surface, human behavior is basically a set of actions that are governed by one's feelings, emotions, attitudes and beliefs regarding proposed ends, ideals, goals and objectives. In general, most actions stem from and are affected by one's personality or character. To the extent that these actions are
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human, they are usually assessed by several dyadic qualifications such as right or wrong, good or bad, ethical or unethical, moral or immoral, just or unjust, and fair or unfair. In general, actions are praiseworthy if good, and blameworthy, if bad. If good, one should be credited for them; if bad, one must accept blame and responsibility for the intended and unintended consequences. Ethics is concerned with responsible human behavior. Corporate ethics is concerned with responsible human behavior in relation to executive decisions, actions and their outcomes. Good business executives execute good decisions and actions that generate good outcomes, and avoid bad decisions and actions that result in bad or harmful consequences.

The Value and Function of Executive Personhood

Human behavior, however, cannot be reduced to a set of decisions and actions. There is a profound unity and interrelatedness that affects four basic characteristics of what it means to be human:
We are uniquely sensitive or sense human beings fed by our five senses that are nuanced by observation, perception, internalization and pleasure; We are affective and feeling human beings also fed by our five senses, empowered and reinforced by our attitudes, beliefs, instincts and drives, needs and wants, desires and aspirations, ambitions and dreams; We are cognitive or knowing human beings with unique capacities for thinking, reasoning, explanation, experimentation, creativity and innovation, imagination and intuition, judgment and decisions; and We are volitive. voluntary and intentional human beings who can deliberate, determine, use free will, choose, select or elect among competing courses of actions, subjects, objects, properties and events.

The unity of these activities (i.e., sensitive, cognitive, affective, and volitive) has been identified by many scientists as the nexus of human personhood, the fundamental unity of activity. Contemporary science insists on the transcending unity of the human being brought about by different powers. Our thinking is an activity that is highly dependent upon choice and intimately affected by our emotional state (Strawson 1959). According to Lopez Ibor (1964: 157ff), feeling is the bridge which enables biological data of sensory perception to reach the mind of evaluation, classification, and choice of a response. I choose to accept or reject ideas based upon how I feel about them, about their source, and about their relationship to my experience and manner of thinking. That is, I feel something, I quickly interpret my feelings intellectually, and react to both by choosing a course of action. We are publicly identified by the possession of a cluster of different attributes, some bodily, some behavioral, and some mental and some volitional. [See Business Executive Exercise 2.2]. In the scholastic tradition, this human personhood is represented by the soul that unifies the body and spirit, the physical and the mental, the understanding and the will, the voluntary and the involuntary, and human instincts and human drives (Harr and Shorter 1983; Strawson 1959). Whether one holds with Socrates that all knowledge is innate ready to be drawn out through education (e-ducere in Latin), or with Plato that all knowledge is fundamentally remembering, or with Aristotle that all knowledge begins with sensation, in any case, the raw data for our reasoning is given through our sensory organs of the body working in harmony with the soul (Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, Ia: 77-78, 84-85). The unifying principle and power is the human person. While on the one hand, our human personhood is fed and molded by the internal stimuli of our sensitive, cognitive, affective, and volitive lives, on the other, it is also influenced by external stimuli whether they come from:

 Our family and school stimuli: our childhood experiences of our parents, nursery school, siblings, grandparents and relatives, our adolescent experiences of peers and teachers at middle- and highschools, colleges and universities. Our ergonomic Stimuli: experiences of the workplace in relation to gainful work, meaningful work, coworkers and labor unions, native talent perfected, new skills picked up, new sources of income and rewards merited, and the like. Our market stimuli: the whole world of supply and demand, consumer buying power and shopping, an expanding world of thousands of brands, products, services, stores, malls, supermarkets, transportation, logistics, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, movies, music, brick-and-mortar markets, internet markets, www, blogs, e-bulletins, Facebook, search, purchase and consumption experiences, our planned and unplanned shopping, our impulsive and compulsive buying, and the like. Our ideological stimuli: our unique value-experiences derived from our society, art and poetry, language and literature, science and fiction, textbooks and novels, libraries and art galleries, local, national and global governments, law and order systems, religion and religious institutions, politics and political agenda, history and culture, philosophy and theology.

Our human personhood receives, internalizes, filters, sorts, unifies, blends, lives and relives all the internal and external stimuli in a mysterious, transcending synthesis and unity that really defines us. Given the internal and external stimuli, that is, our physical, spatial and temporal worlds, our human personhood develops certain personality characteristics, behavior patterns, cultivates certain virtues (or vices), capacities or limitations, needs and wants, desires and dreams, habits and passions of heart, ethics and morals, and transforms us into responsible (or irresponsible) persons. [See Business Executive Exercise 2.3]. How this mysterious unity or self-attribution is done is still debated. Various religions attribute this to a superior power in us that some call the soul, the spirit, the mind, the atman, the transcendent, the immanent, or the divine in us. Others trace this power to our genes and chromosomes, or the mysterious neural-physical body that we are endowed and engineered with. It is because of this unity that we say: I feel, I speak, I did this, and not that our body feels, body speaks or that our body does something. More importantly, we say: I own certain actions and their consequences, and hence we assert: I did this, I chose this, I am accountable for this choice and the deed that follows, and I am responsible for the effects or outcomes. It is because of this superior power in us that we can formulate a mission (personal, corporate, social or political) for ourselves that is beyond ourselves, a vision to realize this mission, and accordingly, we can spell ideals, ends, goals, objectives and the means to achieve this mission. It is because of this body-spirit, matter-mind unity, the body becomes the home of the soul, the home of our intelligence, the home of our virtue or vice, the home of ethics and morals, and the home of our responsibility . Hence, the body becomes human, is humanized, and is sacred. Figure 2.1 is a rudimentary attempt to sketch this great phenomenon of human personhood formed by the internal (organic) and external (environmental) stimuli or influences of our daily life. As indicated by the two-way arrows linking all the stimuli, the internal and external stimuli influence and reinforce each other circularly (not necessarily linearly), and systematically impact and mold our human personhood. Ethics and morals, and therefore, corporate ethics and corporate morals, deal with both internal and external stimuli that affect the human person.

What Constitutes our Human Personhood?

Obviously, the human person is not a simple or random byproduct of the internal and external stimuli,
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such as those depicted in Figure 2.1. Our human personhood is a unique combination of four internalexternal forces that unify, interpret, internalize and respond to the internal-external stimuli: our immanence, our individuality, our sociality, and our transcendence. We explore each of these four human vectors from the view point of corporate executive ethics.

Our Unique Immanence

Etymologically, immanence (in + manere in Latin) means to remain in, or to be operating and living within something. We are living within our state that is within our country that is within this earth, which is within the solar system that is within the universe. We are immanent in the world and in the universe. The human person dwells in immanence. That is we are incarnated in a world that is physical; both humans and the world are characterized as dwelling in the universe that is in time, space, motion and gravitation. Our immanence has two aspects: a) we are corporeal-material in nature; b) we are living physical organisms made up of flesh and blood. Because of our immanence we have needs, wants and desires; we have also thereby capacities and limitations. Our needs and limitations are sourced in the interactions and unity that exist between each human being and its environment. We are bound by the physical laws of the universe, and we are limited by the physical capabilities of our muscular and skeletal structure. Needs and limitations change and differ depending upon our age, gender, education, occupation, culture, religion, and where we are at any given moment. Needs and limitations, however, do not define us. There is a unity between our corporeality and the flesh and blood living organism that we are. The body is the way in which the person is; it is the source of our being in the world. The body is the foundation for feeling and the place where feelings are experienced. It is the home of the intelligence. Without the body there cannot be a human person. On the other hand, our body cannot be the sole source and locus of our human personhood. There is a unity between the human person and the body, but also a distinction. The body needs a principle to vivify it and provide a source of unity for the body with its corporeal function, activities and processes of human nature. The Greeks and several religions call this principle of unity the soul (atman in Sanskrit, pneuma in Greek, anima in Latin). Without the soul as the unifying principle we cannot be human persons, and without the body we cannot be human persons either; we need a unique combination of the two. Only human beings composed of spirit and body, mind and matter can be human persons; to be human beings is to be both spiritual and corporeal. The soul when joined to the body becomes the unifying principle of all activities, and becomes the seat of intelligence and will. Because of this soul or spirit we are immanent in the world in a unique way: we can sense the world, feel the world, love the world, explore, study and know the world, experiment, change and manipulate the world, and control, forecast and predict the world. It is precisely this interconnectedness between the spiritual principle of the soul and the unique corporeality of our body that gives rise to the unique individuality by which we identify the presence of the human person, a nd that we own our actions as not performed by the body or by the soul in isolation, but as an unity and immanent combination of the body and the soul whereby we say I did it or we did it. In the unique joining of the soul and the body something new comes into being that is greater than the mere sum of the parts (soul and body) added together this is the unique human person. This is systems thinking applied to the human person: we are more than the efficiency of the body or the spirit, taken individually; we are an interactive whole that has energy, direction, drive, power and passion far beyond the power of the body and soul taken individually. Ethics must see the human person not only in our universal aspects but in our unique combination of mind and matter, body and soul, time and eternity, and unique immanence.
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The discussion on our unique immanence as body and soul as human persons can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the corporation as a whole, since it is composed of real human persons. Thus, we need to understand, interpret and apply the concept and construct of corporate immanence as body and soul to the corporate body and soul, reflecting on various propositions that can describe the corporation as an immanent body and an immanent soul. [See Business Executive Exercises 2.4 and 2.5].

Our Unique Individuality

We are a unique combination of body and soul, mind and matter, faculties and powers, the conscious and the unconscious, the physical and the emotional, the intellectual and the spiritual, the individual and the social, and the ethical and moral parts of our human personality.1 Such a unique combination makes knowledge, thought, talent and skills, choice and freedom possible. Such a unique process of individuation is not a simple or random byproduct of our body and genes, or a victim of biological and economic exigencies of our human world. All these (including our genes and genetic compositions) will not determine and control who we are and who we will become. Nor will our talents and skills, knowledge and thoughts, willed actions and behaviors totally determine the outcome of our individual development. They all contribute to our specific personality and uniqueness. Our unique, non-repeatable, irreducible and irreplaceable individuality cannot be fully understood and explained unless we accept that our uniqueness comes from being uniquely shaped and molded into the image of God (or some such superior being) who made us into this unique and historical (i.e., originated in specific combinations of space, time, motion and gravitation) composition of the body and soul, mind and matter, family, social and historical environments. We are a unique meeting point between soul and body, the corporeal and the spiritual, the physical and the social that we call the human personality or individuality. Each of us, accordingly, is born with a unique destiny that forges and converges each one of us into a unique transcendent openness of possibility that translates (from a near infinite number of possibilities) into a unique combination of talents and skills, knowledge and ideologies, thoughts and actions, moral qualities and events, virtues and values. That is, we are a limited but immanent and transcendent expression of unique human personhood we claim as our personal mission, vision, character and self-identity. This particular course of our growth and change, consciously or unconsciously, leads to the development of our personality, and within the structure of this personality will eventually emerge a certain character by which we designate ourselves as I, Ego, Me and experience consciously, express and project externally in society as self. As Raymond Niebuhr (1964: 55) expressed it compactly, every impulse of nature in man can be modified, extended, repressed and combined with other impulses in countless variations. In consequence, no human individual is like another, no matter how similar their heredity and environment. To apply systems thinking, the interactions of the various parts of the human person reflect and reveal the structure
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I prefer to speak of individuality than the equivocal word personality. There is hardly any convergence among psychological or human resources (HR) theories and theorists in relation to the precise meaning behind words such as ego, self, personality, character, and the like. Solomon Asch (1946: 276-289) defines ego as the psychophysical organization of the organism that refers to the individual, and defines the self as the phenomenal representation of the ego (i.e., the ego become conscious). William James, Sigmund Freud, and William McDougal, among many others, define character to represent a pattern of acts, rather consistent through time that may be said to characterize and define the human individual. This definition is obviously tautological; moreover, it does not explain what makes these actions and behavior consistent through time. These scholars, in general, emphasize the inward elements of motivation and intent as the major determinants of character (See Peck, R. and R. Havighurst (1960: 1), The Psychology of Character Development, New York: John Wiley & Sons).

of the whole. The nature of ones personality is greater that its expression in the ego; the human person is greater than its individual expression at any given moment2 this is because human personhood transcends both, a point we will discuss shortly. Like the body and the soul, the individual personality with its ego, self, and character can be a locus or the revelation of personhood, but it cannot be its only source (Rehrauer 1996: 34-36). Our human personhood characterizes this profound unity between all our powers - bodily, mental, emotional and spiritual this unity defines us (Covey 2004). For instance, perception is a combination of sense perception, intellectual abstraction and evaluation, and affective attraction. That is, choice, thought, and feelings combine to move the will to action. A human being functions as a unity whenever it acts as a human being (Rehrauer 1996). Human personhood, therefore, entails a dynamic unity of the activities of affection, cognition, and choice (Thomas Aquinas). The particular forms and patterns of interaction of these three activities congeal over time into certain more or less integrated self-structure of habits or virtues (or vices) which in turn generate or manifest as a combination we call our personality characteristics such as attitudes, beliefs, tendencies, motivations or psychological traits (Allport 1955). These behavior patterns are tested and reified over time and space and stored in human memory to form a part of the personal infrastructure for future activity within the unity of the human person. This personal infrastructure provides the foundation of an individuated personal disposition that in turn provides a source of integration for all future activity (Rehrauer 1996: 25-27). This process is individuation, the formation of an individual style of life that is self-aware, self-critical and self-enhancing (Allport 1955: 27-28). The discussion on our unique human individuality as a unique image of God can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the corporation as a whole, since it is composed of real human persons, all made in the image of God. This is the foundation for corporate executive spirituality. Thus, we can understand, interpret and apply the concept and construct of unique individuality made in the image of God to define and live our corporate spiritual individuality and personality. [See Business Executive Exercises 2.6 to 2.8].

Our Unique Sociality

We do not live, move and have our being in isolation. Because of our unique immanence and individuality we are social creatures, members of a common human species. We can sense, feel and manipulate the world around as animals do. But far more than animals we have knowledge, because the activity of knowing is dependent upon a deeper reality, that of sharing. Knowledge by its very essence is relational. Psychologists, philosophers, and sociologists are all in agreement that our immanence and individuality are inseparable from our sociality. That is, unless there is another who is like me yet distinct from me, I can never come to a full understanding of who I am and what I am. Our very existence is dependent upon this social quality of human personhood.3
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Eysenck (1947: 27) provides a rather comprehensive descrip tion of elements that construct human personality it is a sum total of the actual and potential behavior patterns of the organism as determined by heredity and environment; personality originates and develops through the functional interaction of the four main sectors into which these behavior patterns are organized: the cognitive (intelligence), the conative (character), the affective (temperament) and the somatic (physical constitution) sectors. All these definitions of personality or character describe behavioral elements that compose them without explaining how these disparate elements get organized into the individual unity that defines ones personality, character or individuality.
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Even at the biological level, the physical structure of our body or corporeality is fundamentally social. Thus, our genes exist in strands of DNA that form pairs of chromosomes; our birth is conditioned on two individuals coming together; the basic genetic material of our corporeality comes to us from others. Human reproduction, unlike animal reproduction, is not merely instinctual, but a profound social experience of courting, conceiving, nesting, birthing, parenting, nurturing, and other family activities, each of which contributes to our sociality of nurturance and dependence. From the first moment of human existence until the last,

As human beings we have two major sources of information: genetic and cultural. These two sources come together for us because of a highly specialized central nervous system. Our human nature has evolved in a unique way such that we can and must communicate in a special way with other human beings. We develop language of signs and symbols, pictography and hieroglyphics, and all these can only happen within a social nexus (Asch 1987). Language enables us to share and communicate knowledge with each other, and also to externalize our personality and our own personal experiences. Language makes interpersonal sharing of meaning possible, and so also a sharing of being in deeper human relationships. The fact that man is a speaking animal determines that we will be culturally shaped distinctly different from the animals. The rational animal (of Aristotle) can be rational precisely because he is an animal that invents and uses words. We are individuals precisely because we are social beings. By our very nature we are gregarious beings. We need contact with other beings like ourselves in order to understand that we are human and what this means. Without sociality there is no individuality. We are born and inserted into society. We cannot be personalized human persons in isolation. It is through our social contacts that we activate and develop the ability to be individual and social, to be ethical and moral . The child becomes aware as a person, as a human being of a particular individuality, as a function of its relations with other human beings. Social action precedes the self and provides the materials for it (Asch 1987: 286; Flanagan 1991: 122). In this sense, our sociality precedes and grounds our individuality. Human personhood is more than our personality. We primarily develop our human personalities precisely because all human beings share a common social being. Our fundamental nature of human personhood (expressed as being sensitive, affective, cognitive and volitive) becomes alive through our sociality. The nature and development of our individuality is a social product of both the social nature of our genetic heritage and the quality of our social interactions with others and with our cultural heritage as a whole. We carry in our bones and in our minds, in our genetic and cultural sources, something of all of those who have gone ahead of us and those who have been part of our lives. Our basic sociality takes us from the nuclear family we are born into broader groups such as ethnic, cultural, linguistic, national, religious, ergonomic, political, and other group affiliations. We learn to be a member of a given society by coming to know and practice the norms, rules, conventions and mores of that society. Societies and social regulations develop, pattern and shape our thinking, action and behavior. We not only learn about social regulations, but also learn to live within the framework and under the guidance of these social regulations (Heller 1988: 19). Social contact is necessary for our very survival as a species. Without social contact and interactions, be they physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual, we cannot develop our personality and our individuality, our community and society, and our culture and civilization. The rudiments of language, signs and symbols, expressed in data, facts, figures, subjects and objects, properties, events, knowledge and skills, virtues and vices, conversations and conflicts - are all very necessary for the development of our self-identity and self-expression, our egoism and altruism, our ethical and moral values, our leadership and followership, our personal and executive behavior. To us to be human beings is to be social beings. Our individuality and sociality are grounded on and thrive upon our shared commonality of nature and lives, our inherent and constant need for social interactions and exchanges. Our distinctiveness and individuation come into being when we are perceived by the other. As individuals we make ourselves known against the background of our sociality and universality. Without human beings around us with whom to compare ourselves, who perceive us and interact with us, our individuality really has no meaning. Our ego is fundamentally other-directed. It needs and wants to be connected, to be concerned with its surroundings, to bind itself to others, and to work with them (Asch 1987: 320).
human life is profoundly social (Rehrauer 1996: 37-38).

This is the metaphysical and transcendent foundation of our individuality and immanence, our parenthood and sociality. Our family and society, our history and culture, our values and religion, our interpersonal networking with others around us, all of these contribute to the make-up of who we are and who we are becoming, of how ethical and moral we are and can become (Flanagan 1991). In particular, social systems of language, tradition, technology and communication, signs and symbols, leaders, values and history, culture and civilization, morals and mores form an important part of our social and individual world. It is within the context of this specific community that our individuality and sociality, immanence and transcendence are situated and contextualized. The discussion on our unique and essential human sociality can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the corporation as a whole, since it is composed of real human persons, all of whom are radically social in being and becoming. Sociality can be built into our otherwise competitive and anti-social corporate personality and strategy. This is the foundation for corporate executive social spirituality. Thus, we can understand, interpret and apply the construct of our unique and necessary sociality to define and live our corporate spiritual individuality and sociality. [See Business Executive Exercises 2.9 to 2.11].

Our Unique Transcendence

Etymologically (from Latin ascendere = to climb; transcendere = to go beyond, to surpass), transcendence implies going beyond ones sense and experience, emotions and feelings, knowledge and skills, capacities and limitations, in order to achieve excellence, moral integrity, and extraordinary heights of self-actualization. In Kantian philosophy, transcendence means going beyond sense data and hypothetical imperatives to categorical moral imperatives inherent in the organizing function of the mind and the will, and which are necessary conditions for human knowledge. Accordingly, transcendentalism is a philosophy (attributed to 18th century German philosophers Kant, Hegel and Fichte) that proposes to discover the nature of reality by investigating the process of thought rather than the objects of sense experience. By extension, Emerson and other 19th century New England philosophers, defined transcendentalism as a search for reality through spiritual intuition. Human transcendence is founded on our nature as human beings, the inherent nature of our selfawareness as I am and as distinct from others, the transpersonal nature of human personhood, the externalizing expression of underlying personhood through the process of character formation, and with a world in which we are immersed yet which is totally other than us all these reveal the foundational reality or human transcendence. Human transcendence is rooted in several dichotomies that relate to our human personhood: mind-matter, soul-body, conscious-unconscious, subject-object, self-other, subjectivity-objectivity, subjectification-objectification, personal-transpersonal, individual-social, internal-external, temporal-eternal, spatial-universal, hypothetical-categorical, and the like. Our selfawareness makes us subjects; others observing us make us objects. When others study us it makes us objects, events or properties. Even when I treat myself as an object in self-reflection, I do not cease to be a subject; but it is only through my objectification that I self-reflect and understand myself that I understand my subjectification. Our self-understanding is not purely individualistic; it is relational; that is, in contact with other persons and with the world of other human beings do I begin to understand myself (Fuchs 1983: 177). As Erich Fromm (1955: 62) notes, it is only after we have conceived of the outer world as being separate and different from ourselves that we come to self-awareness as a distinct being from others. Our self-awareness and self-identity are beyond the sum total of our experiences. We do not identify ourselves with our experiences, even though they may be engaging and memorable; neither do we define ourselves by what we see since we see, understand and identify ourselves beyond and beneath our day-to9

day experiences. That is, we transcend our experiences; our self-awareness and self-identity are beyond the totality of our experiences of sensing, feeling, perceiving, observing, believing, choosing, acting and accomplishing. This is because our human being-ness and our human personhood underlie our experiences and unify them. This underlying personal being is transcendence even of our own personal identity. Our personhood as personhood is often inaccessible even to us because it is a creative reality with continuous possibility for change. But our immanence and transcendence unify all our changes and experiences into a meaningful whole which we call our character or personality or self-identity. Our transcendence also grounds are ability to hope, to dream, to design, to create, to invent, to innovate, to discover and venture all these we do for what is not yet accomplished. Our transcendence also empowers us to plan our future, to make plans not only for what we will do, but for what we will not do, and for what we want to become and not become. We are transcendent because we are temporal beings who are aware of our temporality. Our very nature as temporal beings leads to define and plan our lives in terms of meaningful past, present, and future. Our capacity for the future is the recognition of the reality of our transcendence. It is because of our transcendence we have a future, or better, we are a future, or that we can reinvent our future. In our actions we extend ourselves over a span of time from past into the future. But in our moral act and behavior we transcend even the mere span of time, as we touch on the divine and eternal in us.
All human acts and actions, activities and planned actions are stemming from our human person as individuality, sociality, immanence and transcendence. How do our individuality, sociality, immanence and

transcendence ground corporate ethical and moral decisions actions?

Our individuality as corporate executives makes our actions (decisions and strategies) personal, with obligations of due ownership of the choices of inputs, processes and outputs we make. Our sociality as corporate executives makes our acts and actions (decisions and strategies) social and society- or common-good-oriented, with summons for due diligence of the choices of inputs, processes and outputs we make. Our human immanence as corporate executives makes our decisions and strategies, acts, actions, activities concrete, historical, geographical, contextual, bounded by concrete space (spatiality) and time (temporality), and hence, uniquely situational, irreversible, existential, and accountable for their consequences. Our human transcendence as corporate executives makes our decisions and strategies, actions, activities, acts and planned actions meta-individual, trans-social and trans-organizational in relation to the choices of inputs, processes and outputs we make.

As temporal beings we are capable of many actions and choose many alternatives; we have within our grasp an enormous range of events with their specific inputs, processes and outputs. We choose some of these, and reject other competing alternatives. In the search, deliberation, choice, and subsequent actions lies our transcendence the power to bring unity, consistency and continuity in our thoughts, desires and actions, to bring forth order in otherwise chaotic choices and environments, and correspondingly, into our relationships with others (Asch 1987: 122-123). As subjects who are temporal, we transcend our activity, and this demands of us that we actively integrate every moment of our existence into a broader pattern of self-conscious awareness (Rehrauer 1996: 45-47). We often argue: I am not a bad person; I only did a bad thing. This excuse and distinction will not take us far. Most of our activities center around feeling, thinking, and choosing, and all three are connected. In every act of reason, in every act of affect or experience, and in every act of choice there is a link between the activities and the one who performs them and owns them. We are more than our thoughts, experiences and choices, even though all three activities are ours . Our transcendence unites them, owns them, and takes responsibility for them. There is an intimate connection between what we do and what we are. We transcend our actions while they still remain our actions (Flanagan 1991: 134 10

136). There is a unity between the person who acts and the actions performed that lasts over time and integrates them all into the context of what we have been before, what now, and what we will be in the future. The condition for the possibility of this abiding unity between us and all that we do over time is the transcendent principle of human personhood. This principle brings unity to our life and actions, and gives coherence and meaning to what we do and what we become. Personhood as transcendence is an existential condition for the possibility and interpretation of our personal unity, individuality, sociality, ethicality and morality (Hildebrand and Hildebrand 1966: 88). The discussion on our unique and essential experience of transcendence, in the midst of our immanence, individuality and sociality, can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the corporation as a whole, since it is composed of real human persons, all of whom are radically individual immanent and social in being and becoming. Transcendence can be experienced and incorporated into our otherwise mundane and materialistic, competitive and aggressive corporate personality and strategy. This is the foundation for corporate executive transcendent spirituality. Thus, we can understand, interpret and apply the construct of our unique and necessary transcendence to define and live our corporate spiritual individuality and immanence, individuality and sociality. [See Business Executive Exercises 2.12 to 2.14].

Executive Freedom and Human Acts

An important aspect of our transcendence and our nature as executive human persons is our free will or the realm of our freedom. Our executive freedom is twofold: a) we are free to make choices; b) we are free to determine the direction and meaning of our existence. When we categorically exercise this twofold freedom, we exercise the basic transcendental freedom, which is the freedom to create ourselves. Freedom of choice is largely dependent upon the domain and situation of choices it is situational. Our transcendental freedom whereby we determine the meaning and direction of our existence is the autonomy of character which expresses the person behind the character. My choices may be limited, but I can still be free in the autonomy of personhood that makes the choices. As Agnes Heller (1988: 54) puts it: the referent of liberty (liberum arbitrium) is action; the referent of autonomy is character. A completely autonomous person may have no choices whatever owing to circumstances, but still be totally autonomous. Often, there might be no external (e.g., market or economic or political) choices whatsoever; but there are real choices from within: to do or not to do, to become or not to become, to be or not to be. This is autonomy at its best. Personal executive autonomy is our transcendence over situations; it is mind over matter, soul over body, the absolute over relative, the eternal over temporal, and life over death. We cannot choose our birth, our genetics, our parents, our gender, our race, our nationality and culture they are the givens of our immanence. But still our transcendence enables us to go beyond these constraints to exercise our autonomous freedom to create a meaningful existence and personal history. Human transcendence may not be absolute transcendence, but it is transcendence nevertheless (John Paul II: Veritatis Splendor, 3553). All these are aspects or dimensions of our individuality and sociality, transcendence and immanence. But, in the final analysis, human transcendence is grounded primarily in its openness to the absolute transcendence of God. The human person possesses a dignity precisely in that it is a created reality which is able to open itself to the One who creates. That is, our human transcendence is properly understood only in relationship to Gods absolute transcendence (John Paul II: Veritatis Splendor: pp. 28, 67, 72, 73, and 87). Thus, our human personhood as a reality is individual and social, immanent and transcendent. Hence, given our individuality, sociality, immanence and transcendence, major values and
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responsibilities accrue. There is a multidirectional responsibility involved in being human. There is, additionally, a multidirectional responsibility involved in being an executive. We are responsible not only for what we are (immanence), but who we are (individuality), what we do (sociality), and what we have become (transcendence). That is, we are responsible for our individuality, sociality, immanence and transcendence, individually and collectively; that is, we are responsible to ourselves (individuality), to others, our community, society and culture (sociality), to the world and the universe we are immersed and living in (immanence), and to God who created us and whose absolute transcendence we share, and to something beyond ourselves, society and the universe (transcendence). Given our individuality and sociality, immanence and transcendence, several rights and duties, obligations and responsibilities follow, such as:
As corporate executives, we are responsible to our unique immanence, the way we are uniquely structured and engineered, our genetics and demographics, our psychographics (consumer lifestyles) and ergographics (work-styles), our geographics (our unique position on the planet) and cosmographics (our unique position in the solar system or the universe). While we expect others to respect our unique immanence and particularity, we must also learn to respect the unique immanence, individualization and personalization of those whom we serve as an organization and of those whom we chose to be served. As corporate executives, we are responsible to our unique individuality of talents and skills, passions and drives, attitudes and perceptions, feelings and emotions, and that is specifically individuated about us. While we expect others to respect our individuality, we must also learn to respect the unique individuality of our employees, customers, distributors, creditors, suppliers, local and national communities, and even our competitors. As corporate executives, we are responsible to our unique sociality, our social talents and skills, and our unique capacity to interact, network, bargain, negotiate, argue, persuade, and lead people. While we expect others to respect our sociality, we must also learn to respect the unique sociality of our subjects and reports, customers and partners, competitors and regulators, shareholders and all stakeholders alike. Lastly, as corporate executives, we are responsible to our unique transcendence, our unique mystique and philosophy, our unique vision and mission, our unique ideals and ideologies, our unique values and virtues, our unique brand of inspiring and moral leadership, and our unique ministry of servant leadership. While we expect others to respect our unique transcendence, we must also learn to respect the unique and inaccessible transcendence of others, our subjects and reports, our customers and partners, our employees and their families, our local and global stakeholders alike.

Figure 2.2 captures this dynamic quadric-directional moral responsibility of our human personhood. The challenge of Figure 2.1 is Figure 2.2 given our lives influenced by multiple internal and external stimuli, how do we humanize and divinize ourselves for others. All five major constituents of executive human personhood and responsibility have starry boundaries to indicate ever widening scope, scale and domain of responsibilities under individuality, sociality, immanence and transcendence, and therefore, under executive human personhood. [See Business Executive Exercises 2.15 to 2.16]. Further, we have a responsibility to actualize human personhood in a truly human way, to be truly creative and innovative, to be value-driven, be free but empowered by moral and ethical imperatives, and in sum, to be truly human. We investigate what it means to be truly human in Part II.

Part II: The Ethics of Corporate Human Act

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From our previous discussion, it should be clear that the human person (as a singular piece of creation and image of God) is a multi-polar unity of several faculties and powers:
Sensitive (5 senses, instincts, drives, passions), Affective (emotions, feelings, attitudes, beliefs), Cognitive (perceiving and conceiving, thinking and reasoning, intuition and imagination, exploration and experimentation), Volitive (deliberation and will, choice and freedom); Personhood: a unique immanent and transcendent combination and composition of the body and soul, mind and matter, self and others; Environment: a planned and highly engineered product of the internal and external stimuli and worlds.

From this unique composition and engineering of the human personhood arise certain properties such as human acts and actions that define human behavior and personality, self-identity and selftranscendence, and a strong and persistent need for self-actualization. The human person acts, and often, the actions are efficient and effective. In the process of acts and actions, the human person becomes something, often beyond oneself, and achieves higher levels of human being the final destiny of human acts being the perfection of the image of God and transcendence in us. We examine this human act as a proximate foundation for human ethics and morality in general, and for executive and corporate ethics in particular. In assessing the quality of a human act, moral or otherwise, we also make a judgment concerning the quality and identity of the person who acts.

What is an Executive Human Act?

Human acts are those that stem from human actors as human beings. Since the human personhood is basically constituted of body and soul, mind and matter, emotion and spirit, intellect and will, and because of this unique composition, it has immanence, individuality, sociality, and transcendence, it reasonably follows that human acts are those that define the human person as person, are acts that are characterized by knowledge (derived from ones intellect and rationality) and freedom (capacity for choices based on ones will). Human acts are thus freely willed acts. Two elements are essential to human acts: an element of reason and ones volition.
Human reasoning is the combined effect of the intellect via thinking, intuition, imagination, explanation and experimentation on the sense and affective stimuli. Human willing or volition is the combined effect of commitment, deliberation, and choice on the sense, affective and cognitive stimuli. Human acts are deliberate; hence, they imply human control through rationality and will; they are willed. A truly human act is deliberate and voluntary; it is not forced or unduly constrained. Deliberation implies knowledge of what one is doing, and Voluntary implies a free choice on the part of the human person to act. Hence, executive human acts are those corporate acts that are deliberate and voluntary.

They are those acts where the executive is the direct causal agent of an activity. In an executive human act, the executive in some way chooses to perform that activity. Not all acts come under the full
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control of the human person; to the extent they do not, they are called actions, activities, reflexive actions we will discuss these distinctions in a later section. The human person is whole. We are our choices, our feelings and our thoughts, our aspirations and our dreams. We are also our relationships with other persons. Our relationships with others form and mould our personality, our character, our temperament, and our self. The human person in us brings this profound unity between the internal and external parts and influences of our life; the human personhood is the reason why they fit together the way they do. But this does not define us fully. Our transcendental freedom empowers us to change ourselves, to redefine ourselves, even to reinvent ourselves and the image of God in us. We are, therefore, responsible not only for our individual acts and their consequences, but through these acts, responsible for our human personhood. This is because we image ourselves through our choices, decisions, values, acts and actions; we image ourselves through our character, personality and temperament. Hence, a creative human corporate or executive act must represent a powerful combination of our personal and organizational creativity and innovation, invention and discovery, venture and entrepreneurship, reasoning and volition, freedom and autonomy, individuality and sociality, and immanence and transcendence. The more of these elements we include in the corporate human act, the more unique it is, the more rare, non-imitable and nontransferable, and hence, generating a higher sustainable competitive advantage for ourselves and the organization (Barney 1991). Obviously, no one choice or thought or act or action can perfectly and totally image the person behind it. As human person we are wholes. As a society we image ourselves through our values, culture, history and civilization. As executives we image ourselves through our corporation, its vision and mission, its goals and objectives, its values and reasons for existence. Although the executive human person behind the action can never be fully known (qua person), we may be able to analyze the executives actions using the four classical (Aristotelian) causes:
Formal cause that gives shape (form) and identity to executive undertakings and corporate entities; Material cause that represents the stuff from which organizational things are made; Final cause, the reason for which organizations exist or are created; Efficient cause, the organizational power which brings the corporate effect.

That is, we can understand the executive human person as an agent of his actions, the reasons for these actions (the final cause), the internal dynamic of the action itself (the formal cause), the nature of what physically happens (the material cause), and the connection between the executive person and his activity (the efficient cause). All four causes can be partially known, as the human person in his executive agency can reveal something of himself as a person, because the person and the agency are one. Since the person and agent are one, our actions also define the nature of our personhood. The executive person and the executive agency are one; the one reveals the other, and vice versa. [See Business Executive Exercises 2.17 to 2.18].

The Phenomenology of the Executive Human Act

How does the corporate executive execute a human act? What happens when an executive acts, and how does it happen? In assessing the morality or ethicality of the executive act we must understand the phenomenological (structural-existential) process in which the act originates, progresses and is finally posited. Morality and ethics are implied along the entire value-chain of the executive human act.
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An act or action is specified in terms of its purpose. Most action theories consider this action to be adaptive, and rooted in our biological and ethological (history of behavioral mores and patterns) drive mechanisms. Every human act or action has typical human inputs (ends, ideals, goals), human processes (choices of means constrained by regulation, resolution and evaluation) and human outputs (social effects, outcomes, consequences and social externalities) in relation to the internal and external environments the action is situated. The epistemological/anthropological model of action theory emphasizes a data-gathering processing of the human organism. Interacting with the external and social world, the actor gathers data and receives feedback that is then compared and correlated with other data stored in the memory, and accordingly, data is classified and stored in hierarchical structures for use in future actions and interactions. Essential to this model is the ethological insight that the mechanisms and processes for gathering and processing data efficiently, on both the physiological and social levels, are developed and altered in a manner dependent on the efficacy of the processes themselves. That is, for our physiological, biological and social survival, we develop specific physiological and cognitive and volitive capacities that enable us better adapt to the environment and meet its evolutionary challenges (Reynolds 1980: 89-165). Our human motivated behavior is differentiated from that of the animal world by the level of hierarchical sophistication, and specially, by our capacity to represent. A representation is a mapping of one system into the attributes of another system for the purpose of facilitating interaction between the representation-making system and the represented system (Gallistel 1985: 54). These mappings can be quite simple (e.g., tracing memory) or highly complex (e.g., a language system). Human beings represent both their own motivational states (as experienced emotions and emotional behavior) and the consequences of their actions. Emotion in both its aspects (emotional behavior and experienced emotion) is a representational phenomenon, with motivation being the thing that is represented (Gallistel 1985: 61). This representation enables us to sense that our motivational activity stems from within ourselves and to anticipate the consequences of their action sequences. The potentiation (i.e., elevation of a units potential for becoming active; depotentiation is the opposite) of a given act-sequence by the processes governing it make use of these representations. The potentiation-depotentiation theory of human representation makes the following assumptions-based definitions:
Intentional Acts: Acts potentiated at higher levels by virtue of act-outcome (anticipatory) representations are denominated as intentional acts. Intentional Motivated Actions: These are intentional acts primarily driven by motivation. Once we are able on a higher level to formulate a plan for the attainment of a goal via cognitive (anticipatory) representations, we are capable of intentional motivated actions. Intentional actions are subset of motivated behavior. Automatic Motivated Behavior: An intentional action differs from automatic motivated behavior by its force of self-regulation and self-initiation. Intentions are motivated formulations of plans; they are plans for the attainment of specific goals. Intentionality: Is the formulation of a plan of action for the attainment of a goal that is heavily dependent upon the perceptual capacity and motivation of the one formulating the plan. Volitional Power: Motivation is converted to intention and an intention to action or behavior by our volitional power that is the power of our will aided by experience, cognition and memory. Valences: These are motivational forces surrounding the cognitive representations and are critical in moving the actor to transform the intention into behavior. This is the paradigm of motivated behavior grounding action. Motivated Behavior Action Theory: In this tradition, an action = motivation + intention + behavior, in a unified whole. As a contrast, the social-interactionist paradigm of action traces the origin of any action to its social heredity, history and environment, and only secondarily to motivation (see Rehrauer 1996: 99-114). 15

Similarly, the determinist paradigm of action denies free will and reduces all acts and actions to historical determinism (George Hegel, Karl Marx), social determinism (David Hume, John Stewart Mill), or bio-psychological determinism (Sigmund Freud, Jeremy Bentham).

The paradigm of motivated action theory postulates: a) Motivation (the setting of goals and the apportioning of energy for action toward the attainment of goals), b) Intention (transforming goals into action plans), and c) plan performance (translate intention to conduct or outcomes). How motivation is translated into intention, and how intention translates into action with desired outcomes are explained by various action theories such as follows (see Rehrauer 1996: 99-114):
The Volitionalist Paradigm: The oldest theory of human action is the volitionalist paradigm proposed by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. This paradigm of human action theory was followed by several competing and complementary paradigms, such as the motivated behavior theory. The Motivation Paradigm : According to the motivation paradigm of human action, motivation is converted to intention and an intention to action or behavior by the power of our will aided by experience, cognition and memory. The Social-Interactionist Paradigm: As a contrast, the social-interactionist paradigm of action traces the origin of any action to its social heredity, history and environment, and only secondarily to motivation. The Epistemological/Anthropological Paradigm: This paradigm or model of action theory emphasizes a data-gathering processing of the human organism; that is, human action is conditioned and defined by ones data gathering, processing, and interpreting capacities ; The determinist paradigm of action denies free will and reduces all acts and actions to historical determinism (George Hegel, Karl Marx), social determinism (David Hume, John Stewart Mill), or bio-psychological determinism or genetic heredity (Sigmund Freud, Jeremy Bentham).

In this book, we follow the volitionalist paradigm since it best safeguards the human personhood and human acts defined by the capacities of intellection, volition, and free will. Accordingly, we borrow some elements of the motivation paradigm of action. We assume executive motivation is a function of intellectual perception and judgment regarding ends and goals we choose for ourselves and/or for the organization. We assume executive intention follows and accepts the perception and judgment. We next assume that the executive fulfills his motivation by choosing appropriate means for realizing the ends and goals using the intellectual processes of deliberation and decision, and that the executive volition wills the means and chooses them. [See Business Executive Exercise 2.19]. Table 2.1 summarizes the volitionalist paradigm action theory model. In Table 2.1, we describe the phenomenology of the human act as propounded by Thomas Aquinas and subsequently endorsed by several current ethical scholars. Thomas Aquinas analyzes the structure of the human act according to two basic types of activities: those internal to the agent, and those external to the agent. To be human, the act must proceed from both the executive intellect and the executive will (Summa Theologiae, 1a, 2ae, 1a; 1c). The action is primarily related to the will and the volitive powers. Hence, this action theory is also called the volitionalist theory. Act and actions are represented as events that occur at the interface of the mental and the physical; volitions are the way the person gets things to happen in the physical world (Simon 1982: 18). The knowledge of what I choose to do, the state of change I intend to bring about when I choose to perform this act or action, is extremely important in determining the meaning and morality of this act or action (White 1968: 9).

The Order of Intention versus the Order of Execution

Corresponding to each of these internal faculties or powers (intellect and will) of the executive, there is an immanent/transcendence domain (Order of Intention) and external individuality/sociality domain of activity (Order of Execution). The executive act may be said to originate in the order of intention and
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terminate in the order of execution. In the domain of the order of intention and execution, both the intellect (reason) and the will have specific roles. The executive human intellect (or reasoning capacity) studies the act-situation, its context, variables, contingencies, facts and figures, antecedents, concomitants and consequences of the possible human act, and in conjunction with the will (volitive power or faculty), does two things: a) choosing ends; b) proposing means to achieve the end.

The Order of Intention:

First, under choosing ends, the executive act may go through at least four tasks: 1) Intellectual perception of the entire context of the act/action situation; 2) Volitive acceptance of the act given its perception; 3) Intellectual judgment about critical variables of the act/action situation, their antecedents, concomitants and consequences; 4) Volitive intention of the act/action given its perception and judgment. Secondly, under proposing means, the executive act may also go through at least four tasks: 5) 6) 7) 8) Intellectual deliberation over means to the end chosen and studied under stages 1-4. Volitive consenting to act given deliberation over means to the end under stage 5. Intellectual decision or judgment or choice over means to the end given stages 1-6. Volitive choosing to act given deliberation, consent and decision over means to the end under stages 5-7.

The Order of Execution: Thirdly, given stages 1-8, there follows the choosing of strategies and tactics given ends and means. Human behavior is directed toward the accomplishment of goals. Behavior is directed toward these goals by plans, which themselves are hierarchically arranged. Feedback from the environment streamlines with these plans for a seamless guidance and control of an action. Hence, this and the following stages may also each go through four execution tasks:
9) Given organizational skills, talent and resources, intellectual investigation of competing alternative strategies for realizing chosen ends and means under stages 1-8. 10) Given organizational skills, talent and resources, volitive assessment of the desirability and viability of the investigated alternative strategies under stage 9. 11) Intellectual selection of the best alternative strategy that best realizes chosen ends and means. 12) Volitive election of the best alternative strategy under stage 11 and being committed to it. Fourthly, and lastly, is the implementation stage. Corporate behavior can be considered as the consequence of an internal guidance system inherently present in the bioengineering of the human organism. That is, the executive act or action is goal-oriented, planned, interactive, and self-regulated behavior. Given stages 1-12, the executive could finalize the execution act through the following four stages: 13) Intellectual planning of the elected strategy implementation in terms of identifying, assessing and allocating resources. 14) Volitive election of the strategic plan of implementation under stage 13. 15) Intellectual announcement and commencement and concrete execution of the implementation plan elected under stage 14. 16) Continuous monitoring, assessment, and completion of the implementation plan and assessing the social consequences.
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Stages 1-16 may be said to characterize the value-action chain of the executive human act. Each stage, whether intellectual or volitive, has its own moral content and obligation. Table 2.1 summarizes all the sixteen steps described above under the title: The Phenomenology of the Executive Act. Every corporate executive act is human, critical, and has serious consequences to the company, the customers, and all the stakeholders. Instead of judging the act only by its consequences towards the very end of the executive act, Table 2.1 suggests a methodology to ethically and morally assess the executive human act along all its 16 intellectual and volitive executive act-in-progress stages. Table 2.1 suggests specific ethical and moral concerns for assessment along the 32 (intellectualvolitive) points or stages of the executive act. We assume that if ethics and moral content of the executive act are safeguarded at the earlier stages, say stages 1-8 along both intellectual and volitive components, the higher is the chance that the executive act will be ethical and moral in the subsequent eight stages, intellectual and moral. In general, stages 1-8 are very crucial; they define and specify the executive human act. Table 2.1 suggests a continuous ethical and moral assessment of the executive act. This is the advantage of a phenomenological approach to corporate ethics. [See Business Executive Exercise 2.20]. These sixteen stages of the executive human act must not be considered as rigid bounded sequenced actions or processes along the executive decision ladder. They are not mutually exclusive or collectively exhaustive (MECE) categories. They are best understood as flexible and fluid stages, with much back and forth between stages. They are dynamic, interactive and feedback processes within the contextual whole of the executive act, each stage influencing the others. Each stage, however, may be fraught with executive passions, impulses and instinctual drives, not to speak of stakeholder pressures and Wall Street demands. But the transcendent human personhood of the corporate executive can synthesize and harmonize these diverse polarities of human experience along the multiple stages of the executive human act-in-progress.

Theory of Action: The Volitionalist Tradition

The model in Table 2.1 assumes that humans are endowed with the intellect and volitive faculties, each characterized by autonomy or freedom. The model roots the executive act in the powers of his will (hence, called volitionalism), thus providing the executive a sense of power, agency and control along all the stages of the human act, an experience of a transcendent internal-external unity in his decisions, and a sense of responsible ownership of all the 16 stages and their consequences. Nothing is left to vagaries and chance occurrences common to the external physical world. The model reveals the basic executive action, the action that causes other actions but which in itself is uncaused (and hence, explained away) by other antecedent or concomitant actions.4 To act is to be a cause uncaused, and every executive must be capable of certain basic actions where the corporate executive is the sole author and cause. The model thus grounds executive personal ownership, accountability, and responsibility of his acts or actions. In the volitionalist paradigm depicted under Table 2.1, acts and actions primarily consist in willing;
4

Contemporary physics believes that every physical change must be the result of a prior event causally related to it. If every action is directly and physically caused by some other action previous to it, argued Arthur Danto, then no action is possible since every action is really nothing more than a cumulative effect of prior cause or causes in an infinite regression. Hence, we need to affirm a basic action" that cannot be totally explained by appeal to any other antecedent actions as cause to effect; it is an instance of a direct capacity to act. The volitionalist model of executive action portrayed in Table 2.1 explains the phenomenological ground for the basic action (Danto 1965). In this sense, acts and actions are different from occurrences. The former are often uncaused; the latter are caused or happenstances without much human intervention. An act, in its generic sense, is the exercise of human power to make it happen.

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events are caused by volitions based in desire, and the volitions are themselves uncaused (Prichard 1968: 60-65).5 That is, the central characteristic of specifically human acts and actions is that they are both willed and intentional (Taylor 1964). However, the nature of volition and how it translates into action is still vague among volitionalists and non-volitionalists alike. By whatever name we call it, volition or intellection or bodily motion, or whatever combination thereof, there must exist in us a fundamental motivational (kinetic and potential) energy or power that is rationally released into action when triggered by certain internal and external factors. This energy is directed by reason in response to certain situational stimuli (Audi 1993: 101-104). [See Business Executive Exercise 2.21]. Table 2.1 incorporates all the four aspects of a human act: immanence, transcendence, individuality and sociality, thus making it a complete human act with both internal and external orders of execution. Further, Table 2.1 is a descriptive model, not a prescriptive one. It reflects adequately how we experience ourselves as masters of our own acts, as causes of change in the world, and how we describe our creative experiences regarding human acts. It is a phenomenological analysis and not a noumenological (as required by human being-ness and human personhood). It illustrates how the human act can be characterized as an intellectual and volitive process in a given situation. The intellectual component must be supplemented by para-intellectual powers humans have such as perception, emotion, intuition, imagination, intellectual passion, exploration and experimentation. Similarly, the volitive process must be complemented by other human processes such as instinctual drives, volitive passion, will power, genetics, impulsive and compulsive behaviors, the unconscious and the preconscious. Stages 1-16 and their total 32 process points correspond to the volitionalist action theory. An action theory should explain and emphasize the immediate interaction between the individual and his context in terms of specific situational demands and the agents current states or dispositions (Chapman and Skinner 1985: 203). The biology, psychology, sociology, and ethology of human action is still studied and speculated upon with no definitive answers. For instance, the human infant is born not fully developed; hence, in order to maximize its potentiality for survival, the human species, wittingly or unwittingly, creates, develops transmits certain biophysiological and social structures, certain emotional and cognitive response patterns within the human organism, which move adults to care for helpless infants (Berger and Luckman 1966: 48-50). Similarly, in childhood, adolescence, and later development into adulthood, our educational, religious and social structures help our capacity for selective perception and defensive cognition, and for cognitive interactions with the world and others (Margolis 1987).

Human Act versus Human Operations and Actions

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There is much debate about attributing causality of an act or action to a given power of the human actor. Thus, Frankfurt (1993) argues that volition and will interact in making decisions concerning second-order choices of first-order values. Davidson (1963) claims that personal agency does not require agent causation, and so reduces actions to bodily motions caused by a primary volitional reason. Hornsby (1980) characterizes volition as a combination of trying and consequences, as an exercise of internal forces resulting in external consequences. Charles Taylor (1964) argues that action consists in rationally (intentionally) directed behavior, while Richard Taylor (1973) defines an action in terms of direct purposeful activation of personal agency or power. For Hart (1968), action is merely a generic description term for a conjunction of the minimum qualities required to make a social contribution of responsibility. Velleman (1993) sees action as the activation of agency, agency being nothing more than the possession of a motive to act according to reason. Finally, Thalberg (1977) believes action to consist in a conjunction of subevents logically and causally related, each of which is replaceable by others without altering the fundamental nature of the specific action itself. These are different understandings of human action. But they share a common commitment to personal agency or causality, and they all rely upon the existence of volition. Whatever this term volition may mean to each author , they all are trying to explain how it is that an intention formulated inside the individual is translated into physical action or activity outside the actor (see Rehrauer 1996: 90-94).

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All along, thus far, we have been using the word act and actions interchangeably. Philosophers and ethical scholars, however, distinguish between human acts, human reflexes, human activities, human operations and human actions.6 These concepts, their definitions and boundaries are still debated among ethical scholars. Since these distinctions are useful for executive moral assessment, we discuss them briefly at this juncture. Human beings generate varied responses some which we call acts, some as reflexes, some as operations and some as actions. In general, we may distinguish the following:
Human acts: these are specifically human, and we do not share them with the animal world. These are willed and deliberate human responses to the internal and external stimuli. In these human acts the human actors are in dominant control because of their rationality, freedom and free will. In order to be human acts, they must proceed from both the intellect and the will. Human acts are freely willed acts; they are deliberate because of our capacity for reasoning and willing them. They proceed from reasoning about identify and investigating alternative choices and their consequences, and accordingly, we deliberately choose the best alternative. Human acts are deliberate and voluntary choices. Deliberation implies knowledge of what one is doing, and voluntary implies a free choice on our part to perform this act. Morality can be predicated primarily about human acts since we are the direct causal agents of such acts. Human Actions: These come from human beings but in conjunction with the internal and external environment. Some actions are involuntary (e.g., reflexive actions or highly habitual, impulsive or compulsive actions); other responses are voluntary and are internal to us (we call these human operations) while other responses are external to us (and we call them human actions). Human actions do not define us as human acts do. While human acts are under dominant human control, human actions are not. Situations and contingencies, resources or lack of resources, condition and constrain these actions more than our role in them. Human acts belong to us; we own them; they are internal to us; they are our acts. Human actions, on the other hand, do not define us; we do not fully own them; they are external to us; we just do them given shareholder pressures and market opportunities, competitive threats and creditor problems.

Actions often happen to us despite ourselves. In acts we make things happen; we perform acts despite odds and oppositions from the world. Actions are events that we are involved in; acts are volitions that we originate. In this chapter, we understand a human act7 as a human blend of thought, feeling,
6

Scholars of psychology and empirical sciences distinguish between activity and behavior. The terms are used interchangeably, but often have different connotation. Thus, human actions that are overt, something externally manifested and observable, and objectively measurable, are called by the empirical sciences as behavior, in relations to animals and human beings alike. Actions that are internal (often unobservable) are called activity. Thus, according to this understanding, intellection, v olition, experiencing, imagining and dreaming will be designated as activities, while externally expressed counterparts such as thoughts, choices, experience of satisfaction/dissatisfaction, expressions of dreams and imagination will be called behavior. These distinctions, however, are hardly adequate to understand some phenomena that are both externally manifest but originated from within, such as motivation, intention, freedom, judgment, decisions, shared value and interpersonal reactions and meanings. Similar is the distinction between a movement and an action. Consider the entire movement of throwing a pitch in baseball there are tens of movements of the body, arms, head, eyes, leg and hand muscles, hips, fingers and the like. Which of these are mere movements and which are human actions? According to Simon (1982: 9), movements become actions only when they are executed in appropriate contexts. Such actions are composite units of several coordinated and purposive movements. Similarly, playing a subtle classical piano etude, carving an intricate statue, painting an outdoor exquisite scene, or cooking an exotic dish are many movements that are disciplined but complex composite of meanings, purpose and deliberate actions. Human creativity is evidenced in these activities. These are created logical patterns that become a part of who we are and how we interpret our human creativity. They become part of our world and professionalism. On the other hand, the distinction between human act and human action is much more nuanced, and we follow this discussion in the main text for a better understanding of its moral implications.
7

An act is distinct from an action. According to Thomas Aquinas, an act is a state of being (actus in Latin); God is absolute Act in this sense; we participate in his state of being when we act. Act is realized potentiality, and hence, it is the polar opposite of

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perception and choice posited with full will; an act is always intentional; actions, on the other hand, are more mechanistic, routine, habitual, and not always intentional. Thus, acts define us; actions describe us. In this sense, an act is to bring about something, to cause it to happen; while an action is the bringing about of something (White 1968: 2). A human act is part of the self who acts. Francis Bradley (1876: 33) argued thus: In a human act the human will must be in the act and the human act must be in the will; as the will is the self which remains the same self before, during and after the act, the human act, which was part of the self, is now part of the self. Table 2.2 describes and distinguishes executive human acts, human reflexes, human operations and human actions across four constitutive dimensions of human personhood: individuality, sociality, immanence and transcendence, and some of their two-way combinations. Not every action brought about by a human executive agent is self-revelatory, deliberate or expressive of our executive human personhood. For instance, our heartbeat, breathing, pulse, blood circulation, metabolism and other motor movements are involuntary and reflexive. Some responses to the internal or external stimuli are generated from within, such as sensing, perceiving, feeling, loving, knowing, willing, and the like; these are operations reflecting our internal worlds of faculties, powers and senses. Some of our responses are voluntary reactions to the external world or actions these are transactional responses of speaking, communicating, bargaining, negotiating, giving, receiving and the like. Morality and ethicality can be primarily predicated of human acts, and derivatively about human operations and human actions. Human act is different from human behavior. Human behavior is composed of human acts, human operations and human actions. Human acts originate from us as human actors; human actions originate from us as human agents. This distinction presupposes there is a difference between the human person as person, and the human person acting as agent (Simon 1982: 11). The human person is a transcendental whole, and as such cannot be the object of study; on the other hand, the human agent as part of this whole is observable and can be studied. Human actions belong to the agent, and no single or collective human actions can totally define the human person. Only a portion of his personhood is expressed and revealed within a particular configuration of his actions and activities (Heller 1988: 53). We may analyze the human person as an agent from what he or she has done, but not as who they are or what they are. From our discussions thus far, and for practical purposes, we may distinguish a hierarchy of manifestations of corporate executive behavior as follows:
A. B. C. Corporate Motor Reflexes: Pure instinctual, highly routinized motions in corporate daily life (e.g., repair, maintenance, and quick response to crisis or systems breakdown). Corporate Reactions: Spontaneous, often unconscious, responses to the environment of competition and regulation (e.g., market entry barriers, price wars, dumping, circumventing laws, postponing legal compliance). Corporate Human Operations: Given ones industry, product and process technologies, corporate assembly or line operations that involve human subjects and social consequences (e.g., built-in monopolistic or monopsonistic strategies or tactics; ones unique recruiting practices and rewards and punishment systems). Corporate Human Actions: more studied, explored, experimented choices in responding to supply and demand environments (e.g., various HR, marketing, PR, finance and revenue maximizing strategies). Corporate Human Activities: Corporate systems of treating human subjects and human stakeholders with respect, dignity, justice, and equality (e.g., employee morale strategies; employee and customer complaint redress strategies; fair treatment of suppliers and distributors; distributive justice strategies; corrective justice procedures).

D. E.

unactualized potentiality. An act in this sense can be differentiated from action, which is the concrete realization of one s potentiality. In the human person, action can be internal (operatio or an operation) when it activates an immanent human quality in ones nature such as loving, knowing, or feeling. Action can also be external (actio or an action) when it refers to the e xercise of ones capacity to initiate change and produce effects in the external world (e.g., a n instance of effective causality such as working, producing, inventing or communicating). Action in these two senses (operatio and actio) are dependent upon the act of the person, being in the state of actualized potentiality (Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia, 3a.15; De Veritate, 8a; 6c).

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F.

G.

Corporate Human Acts: Intelligence, reasoning, deliberation, commitment, and responsibility in choosing mission and vision, in selecting markets and industries, in setting goals and objectives, in choosing means to realize goals; formulating strategies to implement mission, vision, goals and objectives. Corporate Social Acts: Executive human acts that deal with all stakeholders, especially employees, customers, and local and domestic communities; monitoring ones corporate integrity, ethics and morals in all actions that have social consequences; planned strategies and acts of corporate social responsibilities.

Each executive behavioral component A to G has its own focus, domain, stimuli influences, human personhood implications, and corporate responsibility demands. Table 2.3 presents a schema of executive human behavior and its determinants and responsibility demands. A responsible corporate executive understands and hierachizes all the behavioral components in ones organization and deals with them with corporate integrity. Table 2.3 indicates the zones of responsibility under each behavior manifestation A to Z. [See Business Executive Exercise 2.22]. As persons we have an enduring unity and identity of human acts that hold us together through ever changing actions of our life, the latter deriving their source and identity from the person acting behind them. That is, human personhood is a (divinely) created unique and unchangeable identity that defines us and that we can realize all through our lives. Human agency is our creation as human agents that makes us changeable and makes our actions changeable. To be an agent means to have the capacity to bring about change in us, in others, and in the world, and through a wide variety of ways. The human person is Gods gift to us; our human agency is mediated to us through our individuality, sociality, immanence and transcendence. Our human person or personhood perdures and remains as a constant defining entity across and beyond our individual day-to-day human actions. Throughout our life the same human person is acting and defining, but human agency changes with situations and social interactions. The agent of one action is not exactly the same as the agent of the following action. The human person transcends his actions and activities and gives unity to all of them regardless of his character as agent in any or more of his actions (Rehrauer 1996: 78). [See Business Executive Exercise 2.23]. In this sense, a corporate executive confronts not the human person in his subjects, but a human agent. Our human personhood is transcendental and inaccessible to the external world; our human agency is accessible, observable, controllable and predictable to outside factors. Our personhood is the primary reality; it must exist before there can be an agent or action. Our human agency is a secondary and derivative reality. It is the personhood that gives actions their human identity and importance. Action is the fundamental experience of our transpersonal transcendence as human persons. Human persons interface or network with the world as agents, and by doing so, actualize their deeper nature as transcendental interpersonal human beings. We not only express our underlying personhood in our actions, we also actualize that personhood in our transcendence by communicating it to others who are observing or participating in our actions. [See Business Executive Exercise 2.24]. A good human act is one which enables us to authentically define ourselves as the image of God in the world, or as the image of one whom we choose as our icons. The image of God is written in our very nature every religious tradition, especially in the Oriental world, believes that we are made in the image and likeness of God and that, therefore, our actions should reflect this image of God is us and in the world. A good person is one whose actions consistently fulfill the divine calling of imaging God in the world. Every choice and action that empowers us as individuals to fulfill this task will be considered a right or moral choice. Conversely, every choice or action that disables us from fulfilling this task would be considered evil or immoral. This is because such choices and actions deny the very spiritual foundations of our human being-ness or human personhood; they work against the fulfillment of our destiny as human persons. Evil or wrong choices and actions destroy our individuality, sociality, immanence and transcendence. As human actors, we must view ourselves in the entire context of our being and life, in the entire texture of individual and social, immanent and transcendent relations which enrich our life and which offer us the opportunity to develop ourselves fully.
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The Intrinsic Social Nature of Executive Action

The human act is minimally a blend of thought, feeling, and choice brought together into a unity by intentionality. Intentionality implies that we will to think, feel and choose a certain course of action. Every act has elements of being individual, social, immanent, and transcendent. What is transcendent from one viewpoint may be considered as immanent from another; what is considered individual from one perspective can be viewed as social from another perspective. There are no clear boundaries between these polar concepts (see Figure 2.2); in the human act they seem to interpenetrate one another (Vaughan 1983: 159). The meaning of a human act lies within the agents intentionality and purpose . To be human, the act must be voluntary and deliberate, free and reasoned. It is the result of an actor who creates the pattern of action (Simon 1982: 23). In the context of the motivation action paradigm discussed earlier, an act (or action) is done for a purpose; knowledge links the act to the agent, and the agent to the person, the person to the character, the latter is a highly complex cognitive and volitive process or a project-in-progress. According to the social interaction paradigm, knowledge is a shared reality. Any act or action can be cognitively understood, categorized and assessed only within the universe of symbolic representations and shared meanings. The contextual meaning of every act/action is created interpersonally. The act is performed within a personalized world that is fundamentally and essentially social. In this sense, the paradigm of human action is not the basic action, but a social action, action whose identity depends upon personal and social meaning (Simon 1982: 25). In this sense, human choice is also an interpersonal reality. Even though most choices originate from a personal disposition made up of some want, need, desire, dream, imagination or some goal attainment, yet the underlying structure for need-want-desire recognition and evaluation is co-created through social interaction. In the volitionalist paradigm of human action, every choice of a course of action is premised on the recognized value of that action. In the motivation-action paradigm of human action, this valuerecognition is both emotional and physiological. In the social-interaction paradigm, the perception and recognition of value are structured according to personal disposition that is the result of an experience of ones life time, which, therefore, has an essentially social quality. Thus the concept of choice and action presupposes, in the final analysis, a domain of human social interaction (Simon 1982: 29). The perception of a good is dependent upon recognition in knowledge of the nature of a good, which is socially provided to the individual by means of ones culture, ones particular social life experiences, the experience of other persons translated into laws, principles, and norms. There is no such thing as an absolutely individual human action; all actions are basically social (Messner 1958: 96-97). All human acts and actions, at least those in a corporate executive context, occur in a social context and are dependent upon interpersonal experiences for their meaning (Rehrauer 1996: 120). Thus every actaction-choice has both a personal and social, ethical and moral, content and responsibility. The human personhood brings this order and unity to the extent the act is truly personal and truly human. Moreover, it is somehow distinct and separate from the person who acts; the act is transcendent to the one who acts. That is, the act has effects that extend far beyond the person who acts. On the other hand, when I act, the act is mine, it belongs to me, it reflects something of who I am; it delimits my individual identity and publicly proclaims something about my own self-understanding. It is in this double-axis quality that the person manifests oneself as personhood. Thoughts can be private (immanent), feelings can be hidden or disguised (individual); but actions are public (social) and external and impacting, irreversible and irreducible (transcendental), and one could be no longer in control. We may remedy the consequences of the action, but not change the action or take it back once it is performed or posited (Rehrauer 1996: 70-71). [See Business Executive Exercise 2.25].
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Executive Personhood and Executive Agency

There is a constant interaction between actions and the self-definition of the one who acts. Since each free human act changes our own selves, our relationships, and even the lives and reality of others, interpretation of that act never ends. We can never really encounter the person as he is in himself through his actions. We recognize persons from their presence as the source of their activities, but the person transcends what he does. Hence, as corporate executives we must avoid judging persons (as our subjects or reports) from their actions alone; we must understand and try to interpret the person behind them. The subjectivity of our subjects or employees is accessible to us, but only dependently on their objectification in external and expressive behaviors or actions. That is, we can assess people as good or bad, responsible or irresponsible, moral or immoral, ethical or unethical, only by observing their external behavior, or by what they tell us they are. In both cases, the transcendent and immanent nature of human personhood behind those actions and self-narratives can easily escape the corporate executive. On the other hand, judgments about personality are easier to evaluate we can judge them from observable and stable patterns of organized reactions, responses, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors, values and lifestyles, and accordingly, classify people by known temperament, character, self-concept, perceptual styles and personality types. To the extent that our personality is created and demonstrated by us (through our own individuality and sociality), an understanding of the nature of our personality can clue others to a moral judgment concerning the person behind that personality. But it is only a clue; perhaps, one clue among many possible clues. A persons actions are an opening, a window into his transcendence. Moreover, this judgment assumes that a person specifically chooses to act in this manner. Often, we might be conditioned or programmed to behave the way we do. Since the human person as transcendence is also an immanent being who forms part of the natural world, we are often acted upon. Further, because we are social beings (rooted in our individuality and sociality), we participate in actions events which we do not directly or personally cause, but which we nevertheless form a part of. [See Business Executive Exercise 2.26].

Agent Causality versus Event Causality

Hence, corporate executives must first understand and interpret the context in which these actions occur. They must carefully distinguish between agent causality and event causality. Persons do things, cause things, and create happenings this is agent causality. Things also happen to persons in time, space and situations - this is event causality. The distinction between what people do and what happens to them is critical in assessing morality of the act and of the person. Corporate executives must also remember that the persons behind these market-conditioned or economically determined actions still remain transcendent to what and how they present themselves. That is, even though in ones personality we can discern a pattern of actions, the person still possesses the freedom to alter radically that behavior any time. Since there is no end to the possible true descriptions of any individual, only an agent capable of infinite knowledge can know everything there is to know about any of his actions. Man is emphatically not that agent (Donagan 1977: 118). We normally communicate to others via our actions and activities which also include cognitions and verbal communications. It is through and in our actions that we express and realize our personhood. Understanding personal acts and actions is the first step toward understanding the person. However, we cannot fully describe or objectify ourselves through our acts or actions without remaining at the same time transcendent to the act of objectification. That is, there is a big difference between the actor and his activity. In assessing a good or evil act we should not only be concerned with the objective moral character of what is done, but also discern whether the objectively good or bad act can be imputed to the
24

agent in the particular context the act was posited. [See Business Executive Exercise 2.27].

The Human Act as a Creative Act

The human act is the byproduct of ones unique human personhood composed of individuality, sociality, immanence and transcendence. God created us in his own image; hence, we are also creators. Our human act can be very creative. According to Carl Rogers (1961: 350), every human person has inner tendency for self-actualization, a need to become our possibilities, to express and activate all our capacities, skills and knowledge. Every human act is and should be, therefore, unique, personal, human, creative, and a special outcome of our unique combination of individuality, sociality, immanence and transcendence. There is certain dichotomy or polarity between individuality and sociality, between immanence and transcendence, and this is reflected in every human act; but the human creative act can bridge, interpret and integrate these dichotomies by visioning new forms and juxtaposition of ideas and designs that blend these polarities. Hence, a creative human act (Rehrauer 1996: 59-66):
Moving forward and beyond itself: the creative act is the activity of our transcendence stretching the boundaries and barriers of immanence, and of individuality expanding the scope and scale of our participation in sociality. Imaginative and open: creativity requires an openness to experience, a personal extensionality marked by permeability of conceptual, perceptual, theoretical, paradigmatic and emotional boundaries that enable us to see reality as it is in its unity and diversity, order and chaos, stability and instability, uncertainty and ambiguity, convergence and divergence, congruity and conflict, rigidity and resilience. Resilience and Flexibility: In creative actions we are constantly stretching and defining the boundaries of who we are, what we are, where we act, and with whom we act. Creativity requires openness to our inner selves and openness to our outer experience, openness to our individuality and sociality, immanence and transcendence. Brings out the essence of what we perceive and experience as diversity and multiplicity, ambiguity and uncertainty into the unity and symbiosis of thinking, reasoning, conceiving, designing, innovating, inventing and discovering. Is alone and unique: since this unity is discovered by the creative individual, and in a sense, particular to us as creators, it carries with it a quality of confining aloneness. What the creative person sees, others may not see in the same light and viewpoint. Communicating and sharing: Given our aloneness in creativity, we like to share our creative acts and outcomes with others, especially with specialists in the field of our creative domain.

In the act of creation we transcend ourselves as a creature; we raise ourselves beyond the passivity and accidence of our existence into the realm of purposefulness (Erich Fromm 1955: 41). When we create, our individuated personality comes into being by means of a process of creating and expressing a personal meaning outside of ourselves. The creative spirit in us is the transpersonal link of every person with our fellow persons (and with God who created us) that makes the existence of a shared world possible. It is the source, the possibility, and the demand to participate in a community of persons that is greater that our own individual self, a participation that gives, in turn, definition to the self. It is the relationality by which we come to discover who we are at any given moment and who we can become. In that discovery a person is given the ability to become truly oneself; one discovers the power, meaning and
25

dignity of the moral imperative inscribed into our very human nature as co-creators with God and fellow human beings. The great challenge of human morality lies in the transcendental task of creating and defining the meaning of our human personhood (Rehrauer 1996: 64-65). Figure 2.2 captures this dynamic of executive human personhood.

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Part III: The Ethics of Corporate Judgment

According to Baier (1965 v-x), any form of social direction and control that morality implies must attempt to accomplish two major tasks:
a) To provide for the members of the group a simple way of understanding and responding to the question of what is required of them by this particular form and direction of control, and b) To ensure compliance with these requirements.

We can accomplish task (a) by formulating appropriate principles, precepts, rules and regulations in a way we can easily understand ourselves, and instruct people to remember them, apply them to concrete situations, and transmit them to posterity. We can fulfill task (b) by group practices designed to exert pressure on individuals to satisfy the requirements under (a). The concepts of good and evil, truth and falsehood, right and wrong, just and unjust, ethical or unethical, and moral or immoral, are primarily employed in relation to task (a), while the concepts of virtue, guilt, correction, compensation, retribution and punishment, accountability and responsibility are primarily the domain of task (b), while the concepts of duty, rights, moral worth, moral obligation, and justice are relevant under both tasks. Task (a) is more fundamental from a philosophical and doctrinal viewpoint, as task (a) determines the norms and procedures, and rules and standards by which we enforce and judge compliance or noncompliance under task (b).

The Intrinsic Task of Morality

We can assess our moral worth primarily on the basis of how we have conformed to what we judge right, and refrain from what we judge wrong, taking into account the objective care and conscientiousness with which we have arrived at these judgments of right or wrong, good or evil, fair or unfair, and the like. The central question of morality then is: what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil, and what is fair and what is unfair? Since history has come up with so many different answers to these questions, a second more important question is: How should we determine what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil, and what is fair and what is unfair? Hence, from a sociological point of view, morality as a system of direction and social control should determine not only what is right and wrong by providing the right concept and paradigm, doctrine, theory, but also provide the right practical reasons and motivation for doing right and avoiding wrong, and bringing about justice and eradicating unjust structures. We credit people with moral worth and moral desert when they persistently and consistently do what is right and consistently avoid what is wrong, especially when this may be contrary to their best interests. Such behavior is virtue, moral courage of audacity, moral responsibility and accountability. From a phenomenological viewpoint, something is right when we have very strong reasons to do it, and something is wrong when we have serious reasons to avoid it, and in both cases it may not serve our vested interests. But what are these serious reasons? Are they subjective, situational, and, therefore, relative to the individual and the circumstances, or are there reasons that we can objectively and philosophically derive that make certain actions always wrong and certain actions always right, no matter what the circumstances? The former system is relativism, situationalism, or individualism, while the latter system is absolutism, objectivism, and universalism. We uphold the latter school of thought throughout the book, given certain conditions. [See Business Executive Exercise 2.28].

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Deliberation, Explanation and Justification

Moral value judgments enable us to ask and answer normative questions such as:
What should I do? What I ought not to do? Why should I do it? What is my compelling moral reason for not doing it?

These questions are all the more serious when what we do or not do and the outcomes thereof have legal, ethical and moral implications and consequences. Espousing a moral principle and in acting in accordance with it comes from a moral value judgment, which in turn has three aspects: deliberation, explanation and justification. All three aspects are based on reasoning; they imply some good will, and some objective surveying and weighting of reasons. Moreover, moral reasoning supports and occurs under all three, but with different vantage viewpoints and persuasion. All three aspects of moral reasoning may imply some level of self-interest. It is plausible to hold that most persons would not deliberate, explain or justify anything whatsoever unless it was directly or indirectly designed to promote their own good or protect them from evil. If morality is to have the support of reason, moral reasons must somehow protect self-interest, especially enlightened self-interest (Baier 1965). Enlightened self-interest affirms that one cannot get the most out of life unless one pays attention to the needs of others on whose good will you depend. Morality is better when it serves interests of the most, self-interest included. Also, all three aspects of reasoning (deliberation, explanation and justification) imply some conflict between self-interest and the common good. In deliberation we try, before acting, to determine which course of action is open and is best under the circumstances. In deliberation, reasoning occurs as follows: One of the reasons why I do or did this is a particular fact or a moral principle; but I explored other facts and other moral principles, and in the final analysis, no particular facts or moral principles were singly decisive in motivating me to act; collectively, they do. In deliberation I am not that interested why I did not get it right as I am still trying to get it right . All behavior that follows deliberation is of necessity deliberate. The converse is not true, all behavior is not deliberate - as some behavior is reflexive, unintended, absent-minded, on the spur-of-the-moment, engaged in by mistake, being carried away by passion, or forced by habit or addiction. Deliberation is a form of reasoning that responds to two questions: a) What is the factual or moral reason why I should do a particular thing among competing others (e.g., help others in need; tell the truth; avoid hurting others; avoid hurting competition; be honest in all our corporate financial statements), and b) what is the causal efficiency of that reason in moving or obliging me to do such a thing? Both are needed in morality (Baier 1965). For instance, I may have the best of reasons why I should speak the truth in a given situation, but the reasons are not causally potent to oblige me to do it. Or, I may do a heroic deed without having cogent reasons to do it. There is deliberation when both aspects (i.e., (a) and (b)) of a moral value judgment are present. In explanation reasoning occurs as follows: The reason why I do or did this is a particular fact or a moral principle, and that was the sole or decisive factor that motivated me to do this. In explanation, I may not be interested in the right or wrong actions, but merely in what actually did move me as an agent. There always is an explanation of why the agent did something, though, of course, investigation need not always bring it to light.
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In justification we try, after acting, to argue that this was the best course of action open to me at the time and under the circumstances, and I did it, but cannot be condemned for it nor held accountable for it. In justification, I (or others) may be primarily interested in why I did not get it right, but only secondarily. Every justification looks for results of two sorts: the agent was justified or that the agent was not. In justification, you may either justify the inputs (e.g., education, expertise, skills, and experience), the process (e.g., strong advice, family or social pressure, irresistible impulse, legal interpretation and compliance, and deadlines) and/or the outputs (e.g., good effects, bad effects, unforeseen consequences, unintended consequences, and the like) of your reasoning, evidence and action. In justification, we may make two mistakes: a) the supposed fact cited as a reason for doing may not be a fact; and b) the adduced fact, even if a fact, may not be a cogent reason for behaving this way. The fact adduced by the person as a reason must be believed by the person to be a sufficient reason to act. In explanation, we may make three mistakes: c) the persons behavior was not deliberate (i.e., it could have been unintentional or forced); d) the agent did not know what the decisive factor was that led to action, and e) the agent did not think that the decisive factor was a reason for acting this way. In deliberation we face two mistakes - whether we deliberated correctly, and acted in accordance with the outcome of our deliberation. If the deliberation yielded incorrect results, then we must inquire as to how the deliberation faulted or how the incorrect results came about. If the deliberation yielded correct results, then the question is whether the agent acted contrary to the outcome of deliberation and why, or, just did not choose to act. To summarize:
In deliberation, we are primarily involved in exploring the various rights and wrongs of an action that one intends to pursue. In justification, we are primarily interested in the rights and wrongs of a given outcome or case. In explanation, we are primarily interested in what moved the agent to act (Baier 1965: 40-50).

Theoretically, deliberation should precede explanation, and justification should follow explanation. But in real life, all three interact, overlap, and dynamically go back and forth. The executive decision process may not be a linear but circular and a dynamic process. Table 2.3 summarizes the moral reasoning process in deliberation, explanation and justification. [See Business Executive Exercise 2.10].

The Nature of Moral Deliberation

Moral deliberation involves moral reasons or considerations. Moral deliberation looks for the best course of action that is supported by the best moral reasons. Moral deliberation prepares us to act in accordance with the outcome of such a deliberation. Moral reasons are moral rules or imperatives of action (e.g., stealing is wrong, or thou shall not steal; corporate fraud is wrong, or thou shall not fraud; lying is wrong, or thou shall not lie, and so on). Stealing, fraud and lying are wrong because they are all forms of deception and injustice prohibited by law, ethics and morality; they violate even conventional norms of fair market exchanges. Something is morally wrong is the same as saying that something goes against morality and hence, one is prohibited from doing it. Some moral reasons or moral rules of action are our moral convictions that can both be true or false, imperative or prohibitive, compelling or non-compelling. Our moral convictions derive from some law (e.g., natural law, divine law), some common good (e.g., common law, eminent domain, global sustainability), some conventions (e.g., social mores, social taboos, social agreements and ordinances) or
29

from some moral precepts (e.g., the Ten Commandments, the golden rule), or from our moral training (e.g., religious beliefs, religious conscience), and from our home training (e.g., admonitions of our parents, teachers, siblings and relatives). Whatever their source, our moral convictions oblige us to do certain things and empower us to avoid certain behaviors. Moral convictions also derive from ones moral point of view (Baier 1965). Each of us adopts a moral point of view in acting, becoming and being moral. Ones moral point of view is defined by one or few defining moral principles, and we look at most practical questions (personal, social, legal, ethical and moral) in the light of these defining principles. For instance, the practical moral questions that start this chapter can be answered from ones moral point of view. Such defining principles cannot be defined by self-interest; this is myopic and selfish. Such principles should be defined by a larger context of ones family, ones city or village, the society, the nation, the world of humankind, the planet, and the universe. Some moral or ethical principles are supreme and override all other principles of lesser social context. The larger the context, the more sound is the defining principle. Such moral principles are carefully selected and defined through moral deliberation and moral considerations. A turnaround or transformation executive with a defined moral point of view will search, survey and review various alternatives to a strategy in accordance with moral view point and also choose one that is the best, that is, serving greatest good to the greatest number, from ones moral point of view. For Kant a defining principle in moral reasoning is the categorical imperative which (among many of its versions) may be stated as: Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. Objective moral reasoning involves conforming to defining moral principles even when doing so is unpleasant, costly, painful, and puts one into disadvantage. Kant argued that moral action is action on principle, and hence, such defining principles or moral rules should be absolutely inflexible and without exception. The moral rightness of an act is its property of being in accordance with a defining moral rule or principle. Acting on principle implies making no exception in any ones favor, or that of the reasoning agent. However, not all moral rules need be absolutely categorical and without exception (e.g., Thou shall not kill, and the killing that happens in a just war, capital punishment or killing a burglar in self-defense; thou shall not steal, and the stealing that is allowed to one dying of hunger). Another universally accepted practical moral principle for moral reasoning is the golden rule stated differently in different cultural and religious traditions. Table 1.7 has a chronological presentation of various religious or cultural versions of the golden rule. Earlier statements of the golden rule have negative injunctions; they become positive in Jainism (600 BC), Christianity (30 AD), Islamism (600 AD) and Bahaism (1850 AD). Maxwell (2004) believes that the golden rule is very adequate for ethics, morality and moral reasoning. The golden rule holds no exception; it applies for everyone and under all circumstances. Hence it is a categorical imperative that can serve as a foundation for morality. Moral rules are universal and universally applicable. Morality is for everyone; it is not a private preserve of any given group or religion. Moral rules cannot be esoteric or abstract; they must be capable of being taught openly. Moral rules should be for the good of everyone alike; they should promote and further common good. Good moral principles are reversible they apply whether you are at the giving or receiving end of it (Baier 1965: 96-109). [See Business Executive Exercise 2.10].

The Social Factor of Moral Reasoning

In this book, we do not consider morality in the abstract or purely at the individual level. In general, and for our purposes, morality presupposes society of individuals and groups, corporations and institutions, nations and cultures. Further, moral reasoning presupposes normal interaction between
30

persons, groups, negotiating parties, corporations and national governments. Even further, moral reasoning becomes necessary when the goals of different individuals, groups and parties come into conflict with one another (Baier 1965: 110).8 Interests can conflict. When they do, should corporations seek their own interest (corporate egoism) or seek the interests of others (corporate altruism)? Often they need to do both, especially, if the others include critical stakeholders. But should corporate egoism be subservient to corporate altruism, or vice versa? Is an altruistic corporation more moral than a self-interested one? Whose interest should have precedence? Can there be economic and moral reasons for preferring other interests to your own, or vice versa? We understand that in the absence of any special reasons for preferring someone elses interests, everyones interest may be best served if everyone puts ones own interests first. This is because , by and large, everyone is himself the best judge of what is in his own best interest, since everyone usually knows best what his plans, aims, ambitions, or aspirations are (Baier 1965: 147). If we assume that everyone is more diligent in the promotion of his own interests than that of others, then by the law of the invisible hand (Adam Smith 1776), things should work out best for all, which Thomas Hobbes called the state of nature. When everyone seeks good (as long as it is not at the expense of the other), then the entire system should benefit. Hence, sometimes enlightened egoism may be a rational way of running things that is better than enlightened altruism. According to Sidgwick (1907), the principle of egoism and the principle of universal benevolence are both equally rational, even though these two principles may conflict. There could be cases, however, when harm may result when everyone follows self-interest (e.g., everyones self interest of driving a personal car to work could cause increased carbon emission; everyones self interest of using cell phones in public places may violate the privacy of public spaces). Thus, when reasons for enlightened self-interest conflict with moral reasons, then moral reasons override those of self interest. Moral rules are universal rules designed to override those of self-interest when following the latter is harmful to others. Principles or moral rules like, thou shall not kill, thou shall not lie, that shall not steal, are rules that forbid the inflicting of harm on anyone even when doing so may be in ones own interest (Baier 1965: 149). Some philosophers (e.g., Thomas Hobbes, Jeremy Bentham) have held self-interest as the supreme moral principle it is a supreme moral obligation to others that you take care of yourself and develop your talents and wellbeing. They hold that moral reasons belong to the foro interno, while self-interest belongs to the foro externo; hence the latter is universal and superior to the former. The supremacy of moral reasons to self-interest is, however, held by a greater number of philosophers (e.g., Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Emmanuel Kant, Jacques Maritain, Bernard Lonergan). They do not argue that there are moral reasons for holding the supremacy of moral reasons over self-interest for this is circular. The supremacy of moral reasons is based on the fact that when everyone follows the path of universal moral reasons or rules, the eventually state of nature has to be good; it will work to the benefits of all . Morality is a system of principles whose acceptance by everyone as overriding the dictates of self-interest is in the interest of everyone alike.

An interesting question linked to this assertion is whether morality is prior to society or posterior; whether morality is the parent or child of society. Thus, are people moral by nature or trained to be moral by society? How do we know what is right and wrong, good and evil, just and unjust? Are they part of our human DNA or they taught and conditioned by society? In other words, are moral convictions and prohibitions dictated by ones human nature or do they arise out of the needs of the society? Is our conscience, and guilt associated with it, the natural and untutored consequence of our doing wrong or are they the result of social conditioning? More importantly, are there eternal and objective moral truths valid for all societies and at all times, or are our moral convictions mere social contingent conventions? These questions are beyond the scope of this book. Interested readers may consult, among other sources, Baier (1965: 110-138).

31

In this book, however, we assume that God has endowed our human nature with great potential for reasoning, moral reasoning, moral judgments, discovering moral truths, and discerning between right and wrong, good and evil, and truth and falsehood. This is our richly endowed human and moral DNA. This potential for reasoning and morality is what distinguishes us from other living beings. But in practice, however, we must learn to reason, to do moral reasoning, to discern right from wrong, good from evil, truth from falsehood, and just from unjust from the society we are born into (e.g., our family, our nursery schools, our K-12 training and thereafter, our self-training, our social customs and conventions, our work ethics and corporate codes of conduct, our religion and our culture). This no doubt brings in some relativism and social conditioning to our social and moral reasoning. But by the endowment of our human nature, we are capable of discerning or discovering, understanding of formulating some absolute moral truths and applying them to our behavior we may call this the conscience, the moral intuition, the mind, the soul, the spirit, or in general, human nature or the state of nature. We need to train our mind, our spirit, and our conscience with the helps (or dis-helps) our society provides us. Left to our own, we may easily fall a prey to our basal instincts, drives, passions, impulses and inclinations it is a tainted nature. But society can train us. Above all, God, grace and religion can transform us. In other words, morality and moral reasoning do not come to us naturally we need moral and spiritual training, we need moral thinking and moral deliberating. Nature does not always prompt us to discern and do what is right and avoid what is wrong; even if it did, we would need to learn, identify and confirm what is right or wrong from an independent source, such as religion, culture or society. If all morality automatically came from pure nature, then we could not take credit or blame for it, but God should. We can learn mores, moral behavior, moral truths, and, therefore, learn and internalize morality from society. To the extent we learn and follow our learning or conscience, we can take credit or blame for it. Learning to be moral is a defining aspect of human beings it makes us moral beings.

Quadri Ethical-moral Reasoning

As applied normative ethics, our methodology seeks to apply several major ethical theories (deontology, teleology, distributive justice, corrective justice and virtue ethics) and its sub theories to concrete executive business turnaround and transformation decisions, choices, actions and situations. In the process of doing so, this chapter develops a somewhat formal (meta-ethical) language of executive moral reasoning using ethical-moral terms, concepts, theories, principles, rules, norms and models. In general, the ethico-moral reasoning advocated in this book involves a quadri-dimensional ethical appraisal:
1. 2. 3. 4. A teleological analysis of positive-negative effects of executive decisions; A deontological analysis of the moral principles, rights and duties underlying these decisions; A distributive justice-based analysis of the spread of costs and benefits, rights and duties of executive decisions; A corrective justice based rectification of social, legal and organizational structures and procedures that ensures a more equitable re-distribution of costs and benefits, rights and duties of executive decisions, and A virtue ethics-based analysis of the ethical and moral quality of the executive agent that informs and inspires his/her decisions and strategies.

5.

For most business decisions, their social costs and benefits are sufficiently clear and documented, and hence, teleological analysis should be relatively direct and easy. If distributive spread of costs and benefits, and rights and duties is also spelt out, then distributive justice related ethical analysis should be also objective. However, deontological analysis that investigates intentions and motivations underlying
32

executive decisions, and the rights and duties they either uphold or violate, is a challenging venture. Equally daunting, if not impossible, is the task of corrective justice in this regard. Some social structures and legal procedures are so deeply embedded in our social cultures that rectifying them for a more equitable re-distribution of costs and benefits, rights and duties may provoke much resistance and opposition. However, morally audacious corporate executives who thrive on resistance and use it as moral resource (Ford and Ford 2009) may be able to foray into this venture. Even more challenging is the identification and assessment of the underlying virtues (e.g., prudence, integrity, honesty, moral courage, wisdom) the executive brings to the decisions and strategies. A typical moral justification starts with:
Specific moral judgments that pronounce an action good or bad, right or wrong, just or unjust, fair or unfair, ethical or unethical, and moral or immoral; Moral rules specific to the context and restricted in scope that defend the moral judgments; Moral principles, more general and fundamental than moral rules, that justify the moral rules; and finally, Moral theories that ground moral principles and integrate bodies of principles, rules and action guides, and Moral virtues that inform and transform ones understanding, internalization and application of moral theories, moral principles, and moral rules in arriving at moral judgments.

The theories backing moral principles may themselves need to be defended unless they are already well accepted among moral philosophers. If the proclaimed ethical theories and moral principles are not commonly accepted, then one could further inquire if they need to be replaced, rejected, revised or expanded. Most executives defend their moral judgments in terms of rules; few in terms of principles, and very few relate them to ethical theories. In general, ethical assessment of executive decisions involves at least four situations:
1. 2. Choice between alternatives based on their costs and benefits; this is teleological assessment; Choice between conflicting ideologies, rights and duties: humanitarian versus profiteering ideologies, consumer rights versus producer-marketer rights, and consumer versus producermarketer duties; this is the domain of deontological reasoning. Choice between other projects and proposals that bring about the same or better net benefits to society; this is the application of distributional justice. Choice between various virtues that should inform and empower executive decisions such as prudence, moral integrity, ethical honesty, moral courage, and spiritual wisdom.

3.

4.

Following Leys (1952), an ethical assessment would involve the following steps:
1. 2. 3. 4. Some fact-finding and troubleshooting; Specifying the situation for decision making or choice; Focusing on an appropriate ethical system, and Asking relevant questions such as: what are the net benefits? (Teleology) to whom? (Distributive justice) and what rights/duties, principles/obligations are at stake? (deontology)

The next session will derive concrete moral rules from the three ethical systems of deontology, teleology, and distributive justice - all of which will further help to judge the ethics and morality of turnaround executive decisions and strategies, projects, products and promotion programs.
33

A typical business turnaround or organizational downsizing or right-sizing decision may involve a series of strategies such as:
Stop cash bleeding by checking your cash inflows and outflows; Rapid recovery of receivables to generate immediate cash; Planned postponement of trade payables to save available cash; Divestiture of fixed assets to generate immediate cash; Plant closings and massive labor lay-offs for major cost-reduction; Domestic or offshore outsourcing for better cost containment; Restructuring debt or converting debts to bonds for better debt/equity leverage; Developing and introducing new product or service brands for revenue generation; Mergers and acquisitions for backward and forward integration; Joint ventures and strategic alliances with competitors for horizontal integration and market dominance; Any other aggressive market busting strategy for rapid cash flow generation, or finally, Opting bankruptcy Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 protection provisions

Concluding Remarks
While writing this concluding note to this chapter, Captain Lakshimi, a freedom fighter, doctor, social activist and a great leader, died, age 98, on Monday, July 23, 2012, fighting to the very end and giving her very best to the marginalized of India. The story appeared in The Hindu next day which is reproduced as Appendix 2.1. Her unique life, decisions, judgments and strategic actions can be very well studied from the fourfold viewpoint of unique individuality, sociality, immanence and transcendence. The corporate human act, in its wider sense, is the meeting point of the intellect and the will, the transcendent and the immanent, the individual and the social, and the executive person and his corporate world. The executive human act, by its very nature, is an interpersonal and social act. The executive personhood in its wholeness experience needs and is motivated to formulate ends and means to the end, and corporate goals and objectives, according to both the personal and social values and norms that form part of the corporate competitive world. These competitive and social values and norms transform intentionality into executive acts that have social consequences. At each stage of this process there is a creative and reconstructive feedback upon the previous steps. Executive action alters the external reality, and in the process alters the internal reality as well. There is no clear dualistic line of separation between the corporate executive and the corporate world, bet the executive person and his acts, between the individual and the social, and between the internal and the external world of act and action. Every choice, every action, every judgment, personal and social, to the extent that it is human in this broadest sense, has moral significance. Our perception, recognition, and actualization of good and evil are defined by human acts and actions in a social context, and these, in turn, affect and alter the development of our shared social context. Every corporate act and action can affect every other member of our globalized and electronically shrinking world. This is the gift and challenge of human acts and actions; this is their agony and ecstasy, and their power to transform or their power to destroy. The corporate executive stands at the cross-roads to eternity. In the final analysis, the corporate executive human act is a creative act made by a human person made in the image of God. This is the great gift of human action: in every human action the human person is imaging God because he is creating social meaning, he is creating himself, he is creating the corporate organization, and hence, he is creating his social community. Thus, the corporate executive call is not just to act, to define ourselves, to exercise our freedom, and to create the world of meaning. The corporate executive call is all this and more: to create meaning and become goodness. It is not
34

enough to say that the corporate executive acted freely and knowingly. He must be able to say that he acted freely and knowingly in such a way that he became more like the God in whose image he is made, and in doing so he empowers others to do the same (Rehrauer 1996: 121-122). .

35

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America, Inc.

40

Figure 2.1: The Human Personhood as the Foundation for Executive Ethics

Internal Stimuli

External Stimuli

Sensitive Stimuli:
Via five senses, Observation

Family & School Stimuli:

Parents, Siblings, Peers, Relatives, Teachers

Affective Stimuli:
Emotions, feelings, Attitudes, Beliefs, Anxiety, Vigilance Instincts & Drives Dreams

Ergonomic Stimuli:
Work, Meaning, Unions; Talent, Skills, Earnings, Risk & Rewards

Human Personhood:
Cognitive Stimuli:
Perception, Thinking, Reasoning, Explanation, Experimentation, Imagination, Intuition Personality Traits; Vision, Mission, Ends, Ideals, Goals, Means, Objectives; Soul, Spirit, Virtues, Habits; Morals, Ethics; Responsibility; Transcendence; Synthesis, Unity Unity,

Market Stimuli:
Products & Services; Supply & Demand; Offline & Online, Local & Global Markets

Volitive Stimuli:
Deliberation, Determination; Free will, Freedom; Decision; Choice, Selection, Election

Ideological Stimuli:
Society, Lifestyles, Governments; Law & Order; Religion, Politics, History, Philosophy, Theology; God and Heaven

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Figure 2.2: The Quadri-Directional Responsibility of Human Personhood: The Challenge of Executive Ethics
[See also Rehrauer 1996:57]

Executive Transcendence:
Body-soul, mind-matter spatiality, temporality, freedom, will, & immortality

Executive Sociality:
Language, love, knowledge, customs, communication, culture & civilization

Executive Personhood:
Self-actualization in terms of values, wisdom, ethics, morality, spirituality and destiny.

Executive Individuality:
Corporeality, Self as a project, personality, drives & passions

Executive Immanence:
Flesh & blood immersion in time, space, society, culture, history and civilization

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Table 2.1: The Phenomenology of the Executive Act

[See also Rehrauer 1996: 83-88]

Order of the Act/Action

Dominant State of Personhood

Stage of the Act

Executive Powers Used and Moral Obligations

Dominantly Intellectual Powers
Perception of the Actionsituation Judgment of the actionsituation

Ethical /Moral Mandate

Objectivize perception

Dominantly Volitional Powers

Acceptance of the act given its perception Intending the act given its perception and judgment Consenting to act given deliberation over means to the end Choosing to act given deliberation and decision over means to the end Assess the desirability and viability of the alternatives Choose time, place, people, schedules, deadlines Volitive election of the plan of implementation

Ethical /Moral Mandate

Morally justify acceptance Objectivize intention

Transcendence

Choosing ends

Unbiased judgment

Order of Intention (Internal)

Deliberation over means to the end

Honest deliberation

Morally defensible consent

Immanence

Choosing Means

Decision over means to the end

Fair decision

Morally defend choice

Individuality

Choosing Strategies/ Tactics given ends and means

Investigate competing alternatives

Intellectual honesty and depth in investigation Executive dedication

Objectivize assessment

Plan Implementation

Honest efficiency and effectiveness

Order of Execution (External) Choosing to Act, Implement. Monitor and Control

Sociality

Intellectual planning of the elected strategy implementtation Public announcement and commencement of the implementtation plan

Fair to all stake-holders

Seek fair justice to all stakeholders

Executive transparency to the public

Persistent assessment and completion of the implementation plan and its social consequences

Corporate social responsibility

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Table 2.2: Distinguishing Executive Human Acts, Actions and Operations

Dimensions of Human Interactions
Executive Individuality

Human Acts as Willed & Deliberate

(We control them)
Personal human acts revealing personhood (who I am)

Involuntary Operations
(These happen in us)

Executive Human Actions Voluntary Voluntary Actions (We bring about these Operations
(We do these internally)
Individual sensing, perceiving, feeling, thinking, choosing, and acting extensions of our individuality Interpersonal sensing, perceiving, feeling, thinking, choosing, and acting extensions of our sociality Immanent actions of sensing, perceiving, feeling, thinking, choosing, and acting extensions of our immanence Transcendent actions of sensing, perceiving, feeling, thinking, choosing, and acting extensions of our transcendence (e.g., highly esoteric executive behaviors) Interpersonal and interactive operations reflecting customs, mores/ conventions (e.g., etiquette, social behavior, conduct) Human operations revealing our immanence and transcendence (e.g., coping, dreaming) Human operations revealing ones immanent individuality (e.g., solitude, silence, fasting, temperance, indulging, egotism) Human operations revealing ones individual transcendence (e.g., trusting, caring, sharing, loving, dedication) Human operations revealing ones social immanence (e.g., social conscientization; sense of social obligation) Human operations revealing our social transcendence (e.g., executive learned trust, kindness, compassion, respect, service in relation to subjects)

externally)

Executive Sociality

Personal social human acts revealing ones personhood (who we are)

Executive Immanence

Personal immersion human acts relative to ones time, space, body, soul, and spirit (where and whence we are). Personal transcendent human acts relative to and beyond ones state, genetics, values, history, heritage, learning, knowledge and wisdom (beyond who we are and whither we go). Interpersonal and socially willed and deliberate human acts (revealing who we are and what we want to become) Deliberate human acts revealing our immanence and transcendence (e.g., faith and trust in God) Deliberate human acts revealing ones immanent individuality (e.g., faith in ourselves, in others, in the environment, world or universe) Deliberate human acts revealing ones individual transcendence (e.g., agape, self-sacrifice, martyrdom, dedication in corporate conduct) Deliberate human acts revealing ones social immanence (e.g., social activism, ecosustainability) Deliberate human acts revealing ones social transcendence (e.g., executive vision, mission, ideology, passion, servant leadership, integrity, honesty, truthfulness)

Executive Transcendence

Executive Individuality Sociality paradigm Immanence Transcendence

Individuality Immanence Individuality Transcendence Sociality Immanence

Executive Sociality Transcendence Paradigm

Individual reflexes, bodily motor functions, instinctual drives, passions, and other metabolic functions Personal reflexes, sudden bursts of anger, tempers, mannerisms, & highly routinized personal behaviors in public Personal reflexive actions given ones immersion in ones own time, space, body, soul, and spirit (e.g., instinctual executive drives and passions) Personal reflexive transcendent habitual actions relative to ones values, history, heritage, learning, knowledge and wisdom (e.g., spontaneous charismatic utterances, shouts, exclamations) Interpersonal and interactive reflexes reflecting customs, mores, and convention (e.g., random or unexpected signs of greetings) Involuntary reflexive actions revealing our immanence and transcendence (e.g., drives, passions) Involuntary reflexive actions revealing ones immanent individuality (e.g., relating to innate beliefs, devotion, fear, anxiety or restlessness) Involuntary reflexive actions revealing ones individual transcendence (e.g., effortless prayer, worship, values, love, hope, aspiration) Involuntary reflexive actions revealing ones social immanence (e.g., organizational holiness and discipline) Involuntary reflexive actions revealing our social transcendence (e.g., executive spontaneous generosity, kindness, compassion, charity, trust, respect for others)

Individual actions revealing our temperament, character, personality, and virtues (vices) windows to our individuality Interpersonal and interactive actions revealing our temperament, character, personality, and virtues (vices) windows to our sociality Immanent interpersonal and interactive actions revealing our temperament, character, personality, values and virtues (vices) windows to our unique immanence Transcendental interpersonal and interactive actions revealing our temperament, character, personality, values and virtues (vices) windows to our unique transcendence (e.g., highly charged executive interventions, rationalizations & justifications) Interpersonal and interactive actions reflecting laws, ordinances, culture, and civilization (e.g., meetings, teamwork, collaboration, camaraderie, humor) Human actions revealing our immanence/transcendence (e.g., faith, worship, trust, vulnerability, hope, aspirations) Human actions revealing ones immanent individuality (e.g., frugality, simplicity, prudence, seeking, searching, aspiring, reading, writing, art work, composing, research) Human actions revealing ones individual transcendence (e.g., worship, meditation, contemplation; fortitude, moral courage, audacity, selfconfidence, self-actualization) Human actions revealing ones social immanence (e.g., corporate social responsibility; ethical social governance; socially embedded moral strategies) Human actions revealing our social transcendence (e.g., executive shared values, shared destiny, shared cause, collective ethical conduct and climate, moral advocacy, ideological missions, and corporate social responsibility)

44

Table 2.3: A Schema of Executive Human Behavior and its Determinants

Focus Stimuli
Corporate Motor Reflexes Corporate Reactions/ Responses Corporate Human Operations Corporate Human Actions Corporate Human Activities Corporate Human Acts Corporate Social Acts

Sensitive Affective Internal Stimuli Cognitive Volitive

x x

x x x

x x x x

x x x x

x x x x

x x x x

x x x x

External Stimuli

Family/ Social Work/ Affiliation Market Ideological

x x x x

x x x

x x x

x x x x

x x x x

x x x x

Immanence Human Personhood Components Individuality Sociality Transcendence Legality Ethicality Morality Spirituality Distributive Justice Corrective Justice Beneficent Justice

x x

x x

x x x

x x x

x x x x

x x x x

x x

x x x

Corporate Responsibility for:

x x x x x x

x x x x x x x

x x x x x x x

45

Table 2.4: Moral Value Judgment as Deliberation, Explanation and Justification

Dimensions
Definition

Deliberation
Is a moral reasoning process of arriving at a moral judgment where one tries, before acting, to determine which course of action is open and is best under the circumstances.

Explanation
Is a moral reasoning process of arriving at a moral judgment

Justification
Is a moral reasoning process of arriving at a moral judgment where one tries, after acting, to argue that this was the best course of action open at the time and under the circumstances; I did it, but cannot be condemned for it nor held accountable for it. In justification, I may either justify the inputs, the process and/or the outputs of my reasoning, evidence and action.

Reasoning Process

One of the reasons why I do this is a particular fact or a moral principle; but I also explore other facts and moral principles, and in the final analysis, no particular facts or moral principles are singly decisive in motivating me to act; collectively, they do. Deliberations should precede explanation. But in real life, all three interact and overlap. There is some conflict between selfinterest and the common good.

Reasoning occurs as follows: The reason why I do or did this is this particular fact or a moral principle, and that was the sole or decisive factor that motivated me to do this. In explanation, Explanation should precede justification; but in real life, all three interact and overlap. There is some conflict between self-interest and the common good. I may not be interested in the right or wrong actions, but merely in what actually did move me as the agent. We are primarily interested in what moved the agent to act. Reasoning responds to two questions: a) What is the factual or moral reason why I did a particular thing, and b) what is the causal efficiency of that reason in moving or obliging me to do such a thing. We may make three mistakes: 1) our behavior was not deliberate (i.e., it could have been unintentional or forced); 2) we did not know what the decisive factor was that led to action, and 3) we did not think that the decisive factor was a reason for acting this way. Two outcomes: the agents explanation is cogent or is not.

Reasoning Sequence

Justification should follow explanation. But in real life, all three interact and overlap. There is some conflict between selfinterest and the common good.

Source of this reasoning

Reasoning Focus

We are not interested why we did not get it right as we are still trying to get it right - exploring the various rights and wrongs of an action that we intend to pursue. Reasoning responds to two questions: a) What is the factual or moral reason why I should do a particular thing, and b) what is the causal efficiency of that reason in moving or obliging me to do such a thing. We face two mistakes 1) whether we deliberated correctly, and 2) whether we acted in accordance with the outcome of our deliberation.

We are primarily interested in the rights and wrongs of a given case. I may also be interested in why I did not get it right, but only secondarily.

Reasoning Form

Reasoning responds to two questions: a) What is the factual or moral reason that justifies me doing a particular thing, and b) what is the causal efficiency of that reason in moving or obliging me to do such a thing such that I am exonerated. We may make two mistakes: 1) the supposed fact cited as a reason for doing may not be a fact; and 2) the adduced fact, even if a fact, may not be a cogent reason for behaving this way. The fact adduced by the person as a reason must be believed by the person to be a sufficient reason to act.

Possible Mistakes

Outcomes

All behavior that follows deliberation is of necessity deliberate. The converse is not true.

Two outcomes: the agent was justified or that the agent was not.

46

Business Executive Exercises

2.1 How do you understand, internalize, and apply the concept of corporate human personhood as described by the following statements or propositions: a) The human being is endowed with the highest of three types of souls or sprits: as a vegetative soul, the human is capable of nutrition, growth, and reproduction; as an animal soul, the human is capable of movement and experiences; as a rational soul that unites the other two, the human is capable of knowledge and choice. b) That is, this rational soul expresses itself in the twofold activity of thinking and willing. c) We are even more: our knowledge is reflective (i.e., we know that we know) and our choices are informed and reflective (i.e., we know what we are choosing, and we know why we are choosing it). d) Our skills and potential for knowledge and choice empower us to be causes or authors of our own action, and hence, accountable and responsible for the effects of our actions. e) Thus, being and action are intrinsically linked in the rational and voluntary nature of our human being.

2.2

How do you further understand, internalize, and apply the concept of corporate human personhood as described by the following statements or propositions: a) The unity of four activities (i.e., sensitive, cognitive, affective, and volitive) that define us uniquely has been identified by many scientists as the nexus of human personhood, the fundamental unity of activity. b) Contemporary science insists on the transcending unity of the human being brought about by different powers, especially, perception, intuition, imagination, experimentation, creativity, innovation, thinking, reasoning, judgment and free will. c) Our thinking is an activity that is highly dependent upon choice and intimately affected by our emotional state (Strawson 1959). d) Feeling is the bridge which enables biological data of sensory perception to reach the mind of evaluation, classification, and choice of a response (Ibor 1964: 157ff). e) I choose to accept or reject ideas based upon how I feel about them, about their source, and about their relationship to my experience and manner of thinking. f) That is, I feel something, I quickly interpret my feelings intellectually, and react to both by choosing a course of action. g) We are publicly identified by the possession of a cluster of different attributes, some bodily, some behavioral, and some mental and volitional.

2.3

Our human personhood receives, internalizes, filters, sorts, unifies, blends, lives and re-lives all the internal and external stimuli in a mysterious, transcending synthesis and unity that really defines us. Given the internal and external stimuli, that is, our physical, spatial and temporal world, our human personhood develops certain personality characteristics, behavior patterns, cultivates certain virtues (or vices), capacities or limitations, needs and wants, desires and dreams, habits and passions of heart, ethics and morals, and transforms us into responsible (or irresponsible) persons. As a corporate executive, how do you experience this unity phenomenon in you regarding the following stimuli (see Figure 2.1): a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) Internal sensitive stimuli; Internal affective stimuli; Internal cognitive stimuli; Internal volitive stimuli; External family and school stimuli; External ergonomic stimuli; External market and social stimuli; External ideological and cultural stimuli.

2.4

The discussion on our unique immanence can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the corporation as a whole, since it is composed of real human persons. Hence, how will you understand, interpret and apply corporate

47

immanence using the following propositions? a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) i) Corporate immanence has also two aspects: a) the corporation is corporeal-material in nature; b) it is also composed of living physical organisms made up of human flesh and blood. Because of corporate immanence, the corporation has needs, wants and desires expressed as mission, vision, goals and objectives. It has also thereby capacities and limitations. Its needs and limitations are sourced in the interactions and unity that exist between each human being that composes the corporation and its environment. The corporation is bound by the physical laws of the universe, and is limited by the physical capabilities of its social and organizational structure. Needs and limitations change and differ depending upon the age, gender, education, occupation, culture, religion, and where the corporation is at any given moment. Needs and limitations, however, do not define the corporation. There is a unity between its corporeality and the flesh and blood living organism that it is. The corporate body is the way in which its persons are; the corporate body is the source of its being in the world. The corporate body is the foundation for corporate feeling and corporate experiences. The corporation is the home of corporate intelligence. Without the corporate body there cannot be a corporation made of human persons.

2.5

The discussion on our unique immanent soul or spirit can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the corporation as a whole, since it is composed of real human persons. Hence, how will you understand, interpret and apply corporate immanence as a soul or spirit reflecting on the following propositions? a) b) c) d) The corporation as a body, however, cannot be the sole source and locus of its corporate human personhood. The corporate body needs a principle to vivify it and to provide it a source of unity with its corporeal function, activities and processes. It is called the corporate soul. Without the corporate soul as the unifying principle the corporation cannot be a human or moral person. Without the corporate body it cannot be human persons either; the corporation is a unique combination of the two. As composed of spirit and body, mind and matter, the corporation can be human persons; to be human beings is to be both spiritual and corporeal. The corporate soul when joined to the corporate body becomes the unifying principle of all activities, and becomes the seat of corporate intelligence and corporate will. Because of this corporate soul or spirit, the corporation is immanent in the world in a unique way: it can sense the world, feel the world, compete in the world, explore, study and know the world, experiment, change and manipulate the world, and control, forecast and predict the world. It is precisely this interconnectedness between the spiritual principle of the soul and the unique corporeality of the corporate body that gives rise to the unique personality by which we identify a given corporation. Given human persons that constitute the corporation, the latter can own its actions as not performed by the corporate body or by the corporate soul in isolation, but as a unity and immanent combination of the corporate body and the corporate soul. Whereby we say the corporation did it or we, the human persons composing the corporation, did it. In the unique joining of its soul and the body, something new comes into being that is greater than the mere sum of the parts (soul and body) added together this is the unique human person the corporation is. Ethics must see the human person the corporation is not only in its universal aspects but in its uniqueness and unique immanence in the world.

e) f)

g) h)

i) j) k)

2.6

The discussion on our unique human individuality can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the corporation as a whole, since it is composed of real human persons. Hence, how will you understand, interpret and apply your corporate individuality given the following propositions? a) The corporation is a unique combination of body and soul, mind and matter, faculties and powers, the conscious and the unconscious, the physical and the emotional, the intellectual and the spiritual, the 48

individual and the social, and the ethical and moral parts of the human personalities that compose it. b) Such a unique combination makes unique corporate individuality of market knowledge, intelligence, talent and skills, choice and freedom possible. c) Such a unique process of individuation is not a simple or random byproduct of our individual body and genes. d) Nor is the corporate individuality a cruel victim of biological and economic exigencies of our human world. e) All these (including our genes and genetic compositions) will not determine and control who we are and who we will become. Nor will our talents and skills, knowledge and thoughts, willed actions and behaviors totally determine the outcome of our corporate individuality and its development. f) They all contribute to our specific personality and uniqueness. 2.7 The discussion on our unique human individuality as a unique image of God can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the corporation as a whole, since it is composed of real human persons, all made in the image of God. This is the foundation for corporate executive spirituality. Hence, how will you understand, interpret and apply your corporate spiritual individuality given the following propositions? a) Our unique, non-repeatable, irreducible and irreplaceable corporate individuality cannot be fully understood and explained unless we accept that our uniqueness comes from being uniquely shaped and molded into the image of God. b) God has made us into this unique and historical (i.e., originated in a specific combination of space, time, motion and gravitation) composition of the body and soul, mind and matter, family, social and historical environments. c) We are a unique meeting point between our corporate soul and corporate body, the corporeal and the spiritual, the physical and the social that we call the corporate human personality or individuality. d) Each of us who are a part of this corporate body and soul, accordingly, is born with a unique destiny that forges and converges each one of us into a unique transcendent openness of possibility that translates (from a near infinite number of possibilities) into a unique combination of talents and skills, knowledge and ideologies, thoughts and actions, moral qualities and events, virtues and values. e) We are a unique (limited edition) but immanent, transcendent expression of unique human personhood we claim as our corporate personal mission, vision, character and self-identity made in the image of God. f) This particular course of our corporate growth and change, consciously or unconsciously, leads to the development of our corporate personality. g) Within the structure of this personality will eventually emerge certain character by which we designate ourselves as we, the Corporate Ego, the Corporate Me and experience consciously, express and project externally in society as our unique Corporate Self. 2.8 The discussion on our unique human individuated personality engineered as a unique image of God can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the corporation as a whole, since it is composed of real human persons, all made in the image of God. This is the foundation for corporate executive spirituality. Hence, how will you understand, interpret and apply your corporate individuated personality given the following propositions? Every impulse of nature in man can be modified, extended, repressed and combined with other impulses in countless variations. In consequence, no human individual is like another, no matter how similar their heredity and environment (Niebuhr 1965: 55). b) To apply systems thinking, the interactions of the various parts of the corporate human person reflect and reveal the structure of the whole. c) The nature of our corporate personality is greater that its expression in the ego; the corporate human person is greater than its individual expression at any given moment. d) This is because the human corporate personhood transcends both our unique corporate body and corporate soul. e) Like the body and the soul, the individual corporate personality with its corporate ego, self, and character can be a locus or the revelation of corporate personhood, but it cannot be its only source (Rehrauer 1996: 34-36). f) Our human corporate personhood characterizes this profound unity between all our powers - bodily, mental, emotional and spiritual this unity defines us (Covey 2004). a) 49

g) For instance, our perception as a corporate unit is a combination of sense perception, intellectual abstraction and evaluation, and affective attraction. h) That is, corporate choice, thought, and feelings combine to move the will to action. A human corporate being functions as a unity whenever it acts as a human being (Rehrauer 1996). i) Corporate Human personhood, therefore, entails a dynamic unity of the activities of affection, cognition, and choice (Thomas Aquinas). j) The particular forms and patterns of interaction of these three activities congeal over time into certain more or less integrated corporate self-structure of habits or virtues (or vices) that, in turn, generate or manifest as a combination we call our corporate personality characteristics such as attitudes, beliefs, tendencies, motivations or psychological traits (Allport 1955). k) These corporate behavior patterns are tested and reified over time and space and stored in corporate memory to form a part of the personal corporate infrastructure for future activity within the unity of the human person. l) This personal corporate infrastructure provides the foundation of an individuated personal corporate disposition that in turn provides a source of integration for all future activity (Rehrauer 1996: 25-27). m) This process is corporate individuation, the formation of an individual style of life that is self-aware, selfcritical and self-enhancing (Allport 1955: 27-28). n) This is the foundation and extension of corporate executive spirituality.

2.9

The discussion on our unique human individuated sociality engineered as a unique image of our social God can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the corporation as a whole, since it is composed of real human persons, all made essentially social in the image of a social (Trinitarian) God. This is the foundation for corporate executive spirituality and sociality. Hence, how will you understand, interpret and apply your corporate individuated sociality given the following propositions? a) Our human nature has evolved in a unique way such that we can and must communicate in a special way with other human beings. We develop corporate language of signs and symbols, pictography and hieroglyphics, and all these can only happen within a social nexus (Asch 1987). Corporate language enables us to share and communicate knowledge with each other, and also to externalize our personality and our own personal experiences. Corporate language makes interpersonal sharing of meaning possible, and so also a sharing of our corporate being in deeper human relationships. The fact that man is a speaking animal determines that the corporation will be culturally shaped distinctly different from the animals. The rational animal (of Aristotle) can be rational precisely because he is an animal that invents and uses words. We are individuals precisely because we are social beings. By our very nature we are gregarious beings. We need contact with other beings like ourselves in order to understand that we are human and what this means. Without sociality there is no individuality. Without corporate sociality there is no corporate individuality. We are born and inserted into society. We cannot be personalized human persons in isolation. It is through our social contacts that we activate and develop the ability to be individual and social, to be ethical and moral. The child becomes aware as a person, as a human being of a particular individuality, as a function of its relations with other human beings. Social action precedes the self and provides the materials for it (Asch 1987: 286; Flanagan 1991: 122). In this sense, our sociality precedes and grounds our individuality. Equivalently, corporate sociality precedes and grounds corporate individuality. The discussion on our unique human individuated sociality can ground corporate personality and sociality, and can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the corporation as a whole, since it is composed of real human persons, all made essentially social in their very nature, being and becoming. This is the foundation for corporate executive spirituality and sociality. Hence, how will you further understand, interpret and apply your corporate individuated sociality and social personality given the following propositions?

b) c) d)

e)

f) g)

h)

i)

2.10

50

a)

Human personhood is more than our personality. We primarily develop our human personalities precisely because all human beings share a common social being. b) Our fundamental nature of human personhood (expressed as being sensitive, affective, cognitive and volitive) becomes alive through our sociality. c) The nature and development of our individuality is a social product of both the social nature of our genetic heritage and the quality of our social interactions with others and with our cultural heritage as a whole. d) We carry in our bones and in our minds, in our genetic and cultural sources, something of all of those who have gone ahead of us and those who have been part of our corporate lives. e) Our basic sociality takes us from the nuclear firm we are associated with into broader groups such as ethnic, cultural, linguistic, national, religious, ergonomic, political, and other group affiliations. f) As a corporate body, we learn to be a member of a given society by coming to know and practice the norms, rules, conventions and mores of that society. g) Societies and social regulations develop, pattern and shape our corporate thinking, action and behavior. We not only learn about social regulations, but also learn to live within the framework and under the guidance of these social regulations (Heller 1988: 19).

2.11

The discussion on our corporate personality and sociality nurtured by social contacts and contracts, can ground, mutatis mutandis, a new theory of sustainable social advantage to complement the traditional doctrine of sustainable competitive advantage, since the corporation is composed of real human persons, all made essentially social in their very nature, being and becoming. This is the foundation for corporate executive spirituality, sociality and sustainable social advantage. Hence, how will you further advance, interpret and apply your corporate individuated sociality and sustainable social advantage given the following propositions? a) Social contact and social contracts are necessary for our very survival as a corporate species. b) Without social contact, contracts and interactions, be they physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual, we cannot develop our corporate personality and our corporate individuality, our corporate community and society, and our corporate culture and civilization. c) The rudiments of language, signs and symbols, expressed in data, facts, figures, subjects and objects, properties, events, knowledge and skills, virtues and vices, conversations and conflicts, - are all very necessary for the development of our corporate self-identity and self-expression, our corporate egoism and altruism, our ethical and moral values, our corporate leadership and followership, our personal and executive behavior. d) To us to be corporate human beings is to be social beings. Our corporate individuality and sociality are grounded on and thrives upon our shared commonality of nature and lives, our inherent and constant need for social interactions and exchanges. e) Our corporate distinctiveness and individuation come into being when we are perceived by the other. As individuals we make ourselves known against the background of our corporate sociality and universality. f) Without human beings and other corporations around us with whom to compare ourselves, who perceive us and interact with us, our corporate individuality really has no meaning. g) Our corporate ego is and should fundamentally other-directed. It needs and wants to be connected, to be concerned with its surroundings, to bind itself to others, and to work with them (Asch 1987: 320). h) This is the metaphysical and transcendent foundation of our corporate individuality and immanence, our corporate parenthood and sociality. i) Our family and society, our history and culture, our values and religion, our interpersonal networking with others around us, all of these contribute to the make-up of who we are and who we are becoming, of how ethical and moral we are and can become (Flanagan 1991). j) In particular, social systems of language, tradition, technology and communication, signs and symbols, leaders, values and history, culture and civilization, morals and mores form an important part of our social, corporate and individual world. k) It is within the context of this specific community that our corporate individuality and sociality, corporate immanence and transcendence are situated and contextualized.

51

2.12

The discussion on our unique and essential experience of transcendence, despite and because of our immanence, individuality and sociality, can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the corporation as a whole, since it is composed of real human persons, all of whom are radically individual, immanent and social in being and becoming. Thus, how can you understand, interpret and apply the construct of your unique and necessary transcendence to define and experience your corporate transcendence amidst your corporate individuality and immanence, individuality and sociality? Use the following propositions on the definition and meaning of human transcendence. Human transcendence implies going beyond ones sense and experience, emo tions and feelings, knowledge and skills, capacities and limitations, in order to achieve market excellence, moral integrity, and extraordinary heights of self-actualization. b) Human transcendence is founded on our nature as human beings, the inherent nature of our selfawareness as I am and as distinct from others, the transpersonal nature of human personhood, the externalizing expression of underlying personhood through the process of character formation, and with a world in which we are immersed yet which is totally other than us all these reveal the foundational reality or human transcendence. c) Human transcendence is rooted in several dichotomies that relate to our human personhood: mindmatter, soul-body, conscious-unconscious, subject-object, self-other, subjectivity-objectivity, subjectification-objectification, personal-transpersonal, individual-social, internal-external, temporaleternal, spatial-universal, hypothetical-categorical, and the like. d) Our self-awareness makes us subjects; others observing us make us objects. When others study us, it makes us objects, events or properties. e) Even when I treat myself as an object in self-reflection, I do not cease to be a subject; but it is only through my objectification that I self-reflect and understand myself that I understand my subjectification. f) Our self-understanding is not purely individualistic; it is relational; that is, in contact with other persons and with the world of other human beings do I begin to understand myself (Fuchs 1983: 177). g) As Erich Fromm (1955: 62) notes, it is only after we have conceived of the outer world as being separate and different from ourselves that we come to self-awareness as a distinct being from others. a)

2.13

The discussion on our unique and essential experience of transcendence can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the corporation as a whole, since it is composed of real human persons, all of whom are radically individual, immanent and social in being and becoming. Thus, how can you understand, interpret and apply the construct of your unique and necessary transcendence that seeks unity and identity in the midst of day-today disparate, divisive and often chaotic experiences in the organization? Use the following propositions describing the concurrent uniting and self-identifying features of human transcendence. a) b) Our self-awareness and self-identity are beyond the sum total of our experiences. We do not identify ourselves with our experiences, even though they may be engaging and memorable. Neither do we define ourselves by what we see since we see, understand and identify ourselves beyond and beneath our day-to-day experiences. That is, we transcend our experiences; our self-awareness and self-identity are beyond the totality of our experiences of sensing, feeling, perceiving, observing, believing, choosing, acting and accomplishing. This is because our human being-ness and our human personhood underlie our experiences and unify them. This underlying personal being is transcendence even of our own personal identity. Our personhood as personhood is often inaccessible even to us because it is a creative reality with continuous possibility for change. But our immanence and transcendence unify all our changes and experiences into a meaningful whole which we call our character or personality or self-identity. Most of our activities center around feeling, thinking, and choosing, and all three are connected because of our transcendence. In every act of reason, in every act of affect or experience, and in every act of choice there is a link between the activities and the one who performs them and owns them. We are more than our thoughts, experiences and choices, even though all three activities are ours. Our transcendence unites them, owns them, and takes responsibility for them. There is an intimate connection between what we do and what we are. We transcend our actions while 52

c) d) e) f) g) h) i)

they still remain our actions (Flanagan 1991: 134 -136). There is a unity between the person who acts and the actions performed that lasts over time and integrates them all into the context of what we have been before, what now, and what we will be in the future. k) The condition for the possibility of this abiding unity between us and all that we do over time is the transcendent principle of human personhood. This principle brings unity to our life and actions, and gives coherence and meaning to what we do and what we become. l) Personhood as transcendence is an existential condition for the possibility and interpretation of our personal unity, individuality, sociality, ethicality and morality (Hildebrand and Hildebrand 1966: 88). j) 2.14 Transcendence can be experienced and incorporated into our otherwise mundane and materialistic, competitive and aggressive corporate personality and strategy. This is the foundation for corporate executive transcendent spirituality. Thus, how can you understand, interpret and apply the construct of your unique and necessary corporate transcendence in the midst of your day-to-day, competitive, aggressive, costcontaining, revenue-generating and profit maximizing strategies? Use the following propositions describing the non-materialist attributes of human transcendence. a) As subjects who are temporal, we transcend our activity, and this demands of us that we actively integrate every moment of our existence into a broader pattern of self-conscious awareness (Rehrauer 1996: 45-47). As temporal beings we are capable of many actions and choose many alternatives; we have within our grasp an enormous range of events with their specific inputs, processes and outputs. We choose some of these, and reject other competing alternatives. We are transcendent because we are temporal beings who are aware of our temporality. Our very nature as temporal beings leads to define and plan our lives in terms of meaningful past, present, and future. Our capacity for the future is the recognition of the reality of our transcendence. It is because of our transcendence we have a future, or better, we are the future, or that we can reinvent our future. In our actions we extend ourselves over a span of time from past into the future. But in our moral act and behavior we transcend even the mere span of time, as we touch on the divine and eternal in us. Our transcendence also grounds are ability to hope, to dream, to design, to create, to invent, to innovate, to discover and venture all these we do for what is not yet accomplished. Our transcendence also empowers us to plan our future, to make plans not only for what we will do, but for what we will not do, and for what we want to become and not become. In the search, deliberation, choice, and subsequent actions lies our transcendence the power to bring unity, consistency and continuity in our thoughts, desires and actions, to bring forth order in otherwise chaotic choices and environments, and correspondingly, into our relationships with others (Asch 1987: 122-123).

b)

c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j)

2.15

Given our individuality, sociality, immanence and transcendence as corporate executives, major values and responsibilities accrue. There is a multidirectional responsibility involved in being human and a corporate executive. We are responsible not only for what we are (immanence), but who we are (individuality), what we do (sociality), and what we have become (transcendence) as individuals, but also as corporate executives; that is, we are responsible to ourselves (corporate individuality), to others, our community, society and culture (corporate sociality), to the world and the universe we are immersed and living in (corporate immanence), and to God who created us and whose absolute transcendence we share, and to something beyond ourselves, society and the universe (corporate transcendence). Given this doctrine, describe and analyze how will you define, specify and execute the following responsibilities: a) As corporate executives, we are responsible to our unique immanence, the way we are uniquely structured and engineered, our genetics and demographics, our psychographics and ergographics, our geographics and cosmographics. b) While we expect others to respect our unique immanence and particularity, we must also learn to respect the unique immanence, individualization and personalization of those whom we serve as an organization and of those whom we chose to be served. 53

c)

As corporate executives, we are responsible to our unique individuality of talents and skills, passions and drives, attitudes and perceptions, feelings and emotions, and that is specifically individuated about us. d) While we expect others to respect our individuality, we must also learn to respect the unique individuality of our employees, customers, distributors, creditors, suppliers, local and national communities, and even our competitors. e) As corporate executives, we are responsible to our unique sociality, our social talents and skills, and our unique capacity to interact, network, bargain, negotiate, argue, persuade, and lead people. f) While we expect others to respect our sociality, we must also learn to respect the unique sociality of our subjects and reports, customers and partners, competitors and regulators, shareholders and all stakeholders alike. g) Lastly, as corporate executives, we are responsible to our unique transcendence, our unique mystique and philosophy, our unique vision and mission, our unique ideals and ideologies, our unique values and virtues, our unique brand of inspiring and moral leadership, and our unique ministry of servant leadership. h) While we expect others to respect our unique transcendence, we must also learn to respect the unique and inaccessible transcendence of others, our subjects and reports, our customers and partners, our employees and their families, our local and global stakeholders alike. 2.16 Study Figure 2.1 and Figure 2.2 that capture our dynamic quadric-directional moral responsibility of our human personhood. Given that our lives are constantly influenced by multiple internal and external stimuli, how do we humanize and divinize ourselves for others? All five major constituents of executive human personhood and responsibility have starry boundaries to indicate ever widening scope, scale and domain of responsibilities under individuality, sociality, immanence and transcendence, and therefore, under executive human personhood. a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j) k) l) m) n) o) p) As a corporate executive, specify your responsibilities in relation to internal sensitive stimuli. As a corporate executive, specify your responsibilities in relation to internal affective stimuli. As a corporate executive, specify your responsibilities in relation to internal cognitive stimuli. As a corporate executive, specify your responsibilities in relation to internal volitive stimuli. As a corporate executive, specify your immanence responsibilities in relation to all four internal stimuli types. As a corporate executive, specify your individuality responsibilities in relation to all four internal stimuli types. As a corporate executive, specify your sociality responsibilities in relation to all four internal stimuli types. As a corporate executive, specify your transcendence responsibilities in relation to all four internal stimuli types. As a corporate executive, specify your responsibilities in relation to external family and social stimuli. As a corporate executive, specify your responsibilities in relation to external ergonomic stimuli. As a corporate executive, specify your responsibilities in relation to external market and competitive stimuli. As a corporate executive, specify your responsibilities in relation to external ideological stimuli. As a corporate executive, specify your immanence responsibilities in relation to all four external stimuli types. As a corporate executive, specify your individuality responsibilities in relation to all four external stimuli types. As a corporate executive, specify your sociality responsibilities in relation to all four external stimuli types. As a corporate executive, specify your transcendence responsibilities in relation to all four external stimuli types.

2.17

As a corporate executive how will you define, characterize and execute an executive human act in your corporation, keeping the following propositions in mind: a) Human acts are those that stem from human actors as human beings. b) Since the human personhood is basically constituted of body and soul, mind and matter, intellect and will, and because of this unique composition has immanence, individuality, sociality, and 54

c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j) k) l)

m)

n) o) p) q)

transcendence, it reasonably follows that human acts are those that define the human person as person; These acts are characterized by knowledge (derived from ones intellect and rationality) and freedom (capacity for choices based on ones will). Human acts are thus freely willed acts. Two elements are essential to human acts: an element of reason and an element of free choice. Human reasoning is the combined effect of the intellect via thinking, intuition, imagination, explanation and experimentation on the sensitive and affective stimuli (see Figure 2.1). Human willing or volition is the combined effect of motivation, commitment, deliberation, and choice on the sensitive, affective and cognitive stimuli (see Figure 2.1). Human acts are deliberate; hence, they imply human control through rationality and will; they are willed. A truly human act as deliberate and voluntary is not forced or unduly stressed or constrained. Deliberation implies knowledge of what one is doing, and voluntary implies a free choice on the part of the human person to act. Hence, executive human are those acts where the executive is the direct causal agent of an activity. In an executive human act, the executive in some way chooses to perform that activity. Not all human acts come under the full control of the human person; to the extent they do not, they are called actions, activities, or reflexive actions. Hence, a creative human corporate or executive act must represent a powerful combination of our organizational creativity and innovation, invention and discovery, venture and entrepreneurship, reasoning and volition, freedom and autonomy, individuality and sociality, and immanence and transcendence. The more of these elements we include in the corporate human act, the more unique it is, the more rare, non-imitable, non-replicable and nontransferable, and hence, generating a higher sustainable competitive advantage. Obviously, no one choice or thought or act or action can perfectly and totally image the person behind it. As human person we are and act as wholes even though our human acts may be spread in space and time, with effects separated from causes in space and time. As a society or a corporation we image ourselves through our values, culture, history and civilization. As executives we image ourselves through our corporation, its vision and mission, its goals and objectives, its values and reasons for existence.

2.18

Although the executive human person behind the action can never be fully known (qua person), we may be able to analyze the executives actions usi ng the four classical (Aristotelian) causes. How do you understand the following causations of the executive human act? a) b) c) d) e) Formal cause that gives shape (form) and identity to executive undertakings and corporate entities; Material cause that represents the stuff from which organizational things and activities are made; Final cause, the reason for which organizations exist or are created; Efficient cause, the organizational power which brings the corporate effect. That is, we can understand the executive human person as an agent of his actions, the reasons for these actions (the final cause), the internal dynamic of the action itself (the formal cause), the nature of what physically happens (the material cause), and the connection between the executive person and his activity (the efficient cause). f) All four causes can be partially known, as the human person in his executive agency can reveal something of himself as a person, because the person and the agency are one. g) Since the person and agent are one, our actions also define the nature of our personhood. h) The executive person and the executive agency are one; the one reveals the other, and vice versa.

2.19

The potentiation-depotentiation theory of human representation makes several assumptional definitions as the following. How do you verify, reason and justify them in the experience of executive human acts in your company: a) Intentional Acts: Acts potentiated at higher levels by virtue of act-outcome (anticipatory) representations are denominated as intentional acts. 55

b) Intentional Motivated Actions: These are intentional acts primarily driven by motivation. Once we are able on a higher level to formulate a plan for the attainment of a goal via cognitive (anticipatory) representations, we are capable of intentional motivated actions. c) Automatic Motivated Behavior: An intentional action differs from automatic motivated behavior by its force of self-regulation and self-initiation. Intentions are motivated formulations of plans; they are plans for the attainment of specific goals. d) Intentionality: Is the formulation of a plan of action for the attainment of a goal that is heavily dependent upon the perceptual capacity and motivation of the one formulating the plan. e) Volitional Power: Motivation is converted to intention and an intention to action or behavior by our volitional power, which is the power of our will aided by experience, cognition and memory. f) Valences: These are motivational forces surrounding the cognitive representations and are critical in moving the actor to transform the intention into behavior. This is the paradigm of motivated behavior grounding action. g) Motivated Behavior Action Theory: In this tradition, an action = motivation + intention + behavior, in a unified whole. h) As a contrast, the social-interactionist paradigm of action traces the origin of any action to its social heredity, history and environment, and only secondarily to motivation (see Rehrauer 1996: 99-114). i) Similarly, the determinist paradigm of action denies free will and reduces all acts and actions to historical determinism (George Hegel, Karl Marx), social determinism (David Hume, John Stewart Mill), or biopsychological determinism (Sigmund Freud, Jeremy Bentham). 2.20 In the volionalist paradigm of human action, the executive human act may be said to originate in the order of intention and terminate in the order of execution. In the domain of the order of intention and execution, both the intellect (reason) and the will have specific roles. The executive human intellect (or reasoning capacity) studies the act-situation, its context, variables, contingencies, facts and figures, antecedents, concomitants and consequences of the possible human act, and in conjunction with the will (volitive power or faculty), does two things: a) choosing ends; b) proposing means to achieve the end. The following stages 1-16 may be said to characterize the value-action chain of the executive human act. Each stage, whether intellectual or volitive, has its own moral content and obligation. Table 2.1 summarizes all the sixteen steps described above under the title: The Phenomenology of the Executive Act. How do you verify, reason and justify these 16 stages in the experience of executive human acts in your company: a) Intellectual perception of the entire context of the act/action situation; b) Volitive acceptance of the act given its perception; c) Intellectual judgment about critical variables of the act/action situation, their antecedents, concomitants and consequences; d) Volitive intention of the act/action given its perception and judgment. e) Intellectual deliberation over means to the end chosen and studied under stages (a) to (d). f) Volitive consenting to act given deliberation over means to the end under stage (e). g) Intellectual decision over means to the end given stages (a) to (f). h) Volitive choosing to act given deliberation, consent and decision over means to the end i) Intellectual investigation of competing alternative strategies for realizing chosen ends and means under stages (a) to (h). j) Volitive assessment of the desirability and viability of the investigated alternative strategies under stage (i). k) Intellectual selection of the best alternative strategy that best realizes chosen ends and means. l) Volitive election of the best alternative strategy under stage (k) and being committed to it. m) Intellectual planning of the elected strategy implementation in terms of identifying, assessing and allocating resources. n) Volitive election of the plan of implementation under stage (m). o) Intellectual announcement and commencement of the implementation plan elected under stage (n). p) Continuous monitoring, assessment, and completion of the implementation plan and assessing the social consequences. 2.21 There is much debate about attributing causality of an executive act or action to a given internal faculty or power of the corporate executive. In this context, how do you attribute causality, ownership and 56

responsibility to your own corporate act or actions, given the following dissenting theories? [See footnote ]. a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) i) Frankfurt (1993) argues that volition and will interact in making decisions concerning second-order choices of first-order values. Davidson (1963) claims that personal agency does not require agent causation, and so reduces actions to bodily motions caused by a primary volitional reason. Hornsby (1980) characterizes volition as a combination of trying and consequences, as an exercise of internal forces resulting in external consequences. Charles Taylor (1964) argues that action consists in rationally (intentionally) directed behavior, while Richard Taylor (1973) defines an action in terms of direct purposeful activation of personal agency or power. For Hart (1968), action is merely a generic description term for a conjunction of the minimum qualities required to make a social contribution of responsibility. Velleman (1993) sees action as the activation of agency, agency being nothing more than the possession of a motive to act according to reason. Thalberg (1977) believes action to consist in a conjunction of sub-events logically and causally related, each of which is replaceable by others without altering the fundamental nature of the specific action itself. These are different understandings of human action. What is common across all these theories that can help you own your corporate executive act and be responsible for its negative social externalities? Table 2.3 distinguishes a hierarchy of manifestations of corporate executive behavior. How do you identify, evaluate, and be responsible for the following behaviors in your firm: a) Corporate Motor Reflexes: Pure instinctual, highly routinized motions in corporate daily life. b) (Corporate Reactions: Spontaneous, often unconscious, responses to the environment of competition and regulation. c) Corporate Human Operations: Given ones industry, product and process technologies, corporate assembly or line operations that involve human subjects and social consequences. d) Corporate Human Actions: more studied, explored, experimented choices in responding to supply and demand environments. e) Corporate Human Activities: Corporate systems of treating human subjects and human stakeholders with respect, dignity, justice, and equality. f) Corporate Human Acts: Intelligence, reasoning, deliberation, commitment, and responsibility in choosing ones mission and vision, in selecting markets and industries, in setting goals and objectives, in choosing means to realize goals; formulating strategies to implement mission, vision, goals and objectives. g) Corporate Social Acts: Executive human acts that deal with all stakeholders, especially employees, customers, and local and domestic communities; monitoring ones corporate integrity, ethics and morals in all actions that have social consequences; planned strategies and acts of corporate social responsibilities. 2.23 As corporate executives we are human persons who have an enduring unity and identity of human acts that hold us together through ever changing strategies, decisions and actions of our corporate life, the latter deriving their source and identity from the executive person acting behind them. How can you internalize, apply and witness to your subject some of the basic values of your executive personhood expressed in human corporate acts, using the following propositions? a) Human personhood is a (divinely) created unique and unchangeable identity that defines us and that we can realize all through our lives. b) Human agency is our creation as human agents that makes us changeable and makes our actions changeable. To be an agent means to have the capacity to bring about change in us, in others, and in the world, and through a wide variety of ways. c) The human personhood is Gods gift to us; our human agency is mediated to us through our individuality, sociality, immanence and transcendence. d) Our human person or personhood perdures and remains as a constant defining entity across and beyond our individual day-to-day human actions. Throughout our life the same human person is acting and 57

2.22

e)

defining, but human agency changes with situations and social interactions. The agent of one action is not exactly the same as the agent of the following action. But the human person transcends his actions and activities and gives unity to all of them regardless of his character as agent in any or more of his actions (Rehrauer 1996: 78).

2.24

Given the propositions under BEE 2.23, it follows that a corporate executive confronts not the human person in his subjects, but only the human agent. Hence, how will you incorporate the following propositions in dealing with your subjects with respect and dignity? a) Our human personhood is transcendental and inaccessible to the external world; our human agency is accessible, observable, controllable and predictable to outside factors. b) Our personhood is the primary reality; it must exist before there can be an agent or action. Our human agency is a secondary and derivative reality. c) It is the personhood that gives actions their human identity and importance. d) Action is the fundamental experience of our transpersonal transcendence as human persons. e) Human persons interface or network with the world as agents, and by doing so, actualize their deeper nature as transcendental interpersonal human beings. f) We not only express our underlying personhood in our actions, we also actualize that personhood in our transcendence by communicating it to others who are observing or participating in our actions.

2.25

Corporate human choice is also an interpersonal reality. Even though most choices originate from a personal disposition made up of some want, need, desire, dream, imagination or some goal attainment, yet the underlying structure for need-want-desire recognition and evaluation is co-created through social interaction. Given the action theory paradigms cited below, and propositions that follow, how do you identify the essential social character of your corporate executive acts, and accordingly, witness the personal and social, ethical and moral, content and responsibility inherent in those executive acts? a) b) c) In the volitionalist paradigm of human action, every choice of a course of action is premised on the recognized value of that action. In the motivation-action paradigm of human action, this value-recognition is both emotional and physiological. In the social-interaction paradigm, the perception and recognition of value are structured according to personal disposition that is the result of an experience of ones life time, which, therefore, has an essentially social quality. Thus, the concept of choice and action presupposes, in the final analysis, a domain of human social interaction (Simon 1982: 29). The perception of a good is dependent upon recognition in knowledge of the nature of a good, which is socially provided to the individual by means of ones culture, ones particular social life experiences, the experience of other persons translated into laws, principles, and norms. Thus, there is no such thing as an absolutely individual human action, particularly in the corporate world; all executive actions are basically social (Messner 1958: 96-97). That is, all human acts and actions, at least those in a corporate executive context, occur in a social context and are dependent upon interpersonal experiences for their meaning (Rehrauer 1996: 120). Thus, every act-action-choice has both a personal and social, ethical and moral, content and responsibility. The human personhood brings this order and unity to the extent the act is truly personal and truly human. Moreover, it is somehow distinct and separate from the person who acts; the act is transcendent to the one who acts. That is, the act has effects that extend far beyond the person who acts. On the other hand, when I act, the act is mine, it belongs to me, it reflects something of who I am; it delimits my individual identity and publicly proclaims something about my own self-understanding. It is in this double-axis quality that the person manifests oneself as personhood. Thoughts can be private (immanent), feelings can be hidden or disguised (individual); but actions are public (social) and external and impacting, irreversible and irreducible (transcendental), and one could be no longer in control. We may remedy the consequences of the action, but not change the action or take it back once it is 58

d) e)

f) g) h) i) j) k)

l) m)

n)

performed or posited (Rehrauer 1996: 70-71). 2.26 There is a marked distinction between employee personhood and employee agency. We can never really encounter the person as he is in himself through his actions. Hence, as corporate executives we must avoid judging persons (as our subjects or reports) from their actions alone; we must understand and try to interpret the person behind them. Thus, how would you objectively identify, evaluate and manage the real agency of your subjects, given the following propositions that constrain your access to the real person behind the agency actions? a) There is a constant interaction between actions and the self-definition of the one who acts. b) Since each free human act changes our own selves, our relationships, and even the lives and reality of others, interpretation of that act never ends. c) We recognize persons from their presence as the source of their activities, but the person transcends what he does. d) The subjectivity of our subjects or employees is accessible to us, but only dependently on their objectification in external and expressive behaviors or actions. e) That is, we can assess people as good or bad, responsible or irresponsible, moral or immoral, ethical or unethical, only by observing their external behavior, or by what they tell us they are. f) In both cases, the transcendent and immanent nature of human personhood behind those actions and selfnarratives can easily escape the corporate executive. g) On the other hand, judgments about personality are easier to evaluate we can judge them from observable and stable patterns of organized reactions, responses, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors, values and lifestyles, and accordingly, classify people by known temperament, character, self-concept, perceptual styles and personality types. h) To the extent that our personality is created and demonstrated by us (through our own individuality and sociality), an understanding of the nature of our personality can clue others to a moral judgment concerning the person behind that personality. i) But it is only a clue; perhaps, one clue among many possible clues. j) A persons actions are an opening, a window into his transcendence. k) Moreover, this judgment assumes that a person specifically chooses to act in this manner. Often, we might be conditioned or programmed to behave the way we do. l) Since the human person as transcendence is also an immanent being who forms part of the natural world, we are often acted upon. m) Further, because we are social beings (rooted in our individuality and sociality), we participate in actions events which we do not directly or personally cause, but which we nevertheless form a part of. 2.27 Corporate executives must first understand and interpret the context in which agency actions of their subjects occur. They must carefully distinguish between agent causality and event causality. Persons do things, cause things, and create happenings this is agent causality. Thus, how would you objectively identify, evaluate and manage the agent causality as distinguished from event causality in judging and sanctioning their actions, given the following propositions that constrain your access to the agent causality of your subjects? a) Things also happen to persons in time, space and situations - this is event causality. b) The distinction between what people do and what happens to them is critical in assessing morality of the act and of the person. c) Persons behind market-conditioned or economically determined actions still remain transcendent to what and how they present themselves. d) That is, even though in ones personality we can discern a pattern of actions, the person still possesses the freedom to alter radically that behavior any time. e) Since there is no end to the possible true descriptions of any individual, only a n agent capable of infinite knowledge can know everything there is to know about any of his actions. Man is emphatically not that agent (Donagan 1977: 118). f) We normally communicate to others via our actions and activities which also include cognitions and verbal communications. g) It is through and in our actions that we express and realize our personhood. Understanding personal acts 59

and actions is the first step toward understanding the person. h) However, we cannot fully describe or objectify ourselves through our acts or actions without remaining at the same time transcendent to the act of objectification. i) That is, there is a big difference between the actor and his activity. j) In assessing a good or evil act we should not only be concerned with the objective moral character of what is done, but also discern whether the objectively good or bad act can be imputed to the agent in the particular context the act was posited. 2.28 According to Baier (1965 v-x), any form of social direction and control that morality implies must attempt to accomplish two major tasks: i) To provide for the members of the group an easy way of understanding and responding to the question of what is required of them by this particular form and direction of control, and ii) To ensure compliance with these requirements. We can accomplish task (i) by formulating appropriate principles, precepts, rules and regulations in a way we can easily instruct people to remember them, apply them to concrete situations, and transmit them to posterity. We can fulfill task (ii) by group practices designed to exert pressure on individuals to satisfy the requirements under (i). The concepts of good and evil, truth and falsehood, right and wrong, just and unjust, ethical or unethical, and moral or immoral, are primarily employed in relation to task (i), while the concepts of virtue, guilt, correction, compensation, retribution and responsibility are primarily the domain of task (ii), while the concepts of duty, rights, moral worth, moral obligation, and justice are relevant under both tasks. Given Baier (1965), what and how could you have avoided the following? a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j) k) l) m) n) o) p) The Enron debacle. The Tyco and Global Crossings scandals. The shuttering of Lehman Brothers. Bankruptcy of Wachovia. Bankruptcy of Bear Sterns The near bankruptcy of AIG. The near bankruptcy of Merrill Lynch. The near bankruptcy of Fannie May. The near bankruptcy of Freddie Mac. The near bankruptcy of Washington Mutual. The federal bailout of Bear Sterns The federal bailout of AIG. The federal bailout of Washington Mutual. The federal bailout of Fannie May. The federal bailout of Freddie Mac. The federal bailout of Merrill Lynch.

2.29

Espousing a moral principle and in acting in accordance with it comes from a moral value judgment, which in turn has three aspects: deliberation, explanation, and justification. All three aspects are based on reasoning; they imply some good will, and some objective surveying and weighting of reasons. Moreover, moral reasoning supports and occurs under all three, but with different vantage viewpoints and persuasion. Review Table 2.4, and check whether the moral reasoning in the following arguments for market success or failure is deliberation, explanation or justification, why, and to what success: (see Hinze 2009) a) Market capitalism privatizes market success while socializing market failure (via bailouts and government interventions). b) If financial markets should continue privatized, then, all aspects of the financial markets should be subject to moral evaluation according to agreed upon principles and norms. c) If financial markets should continue privatized, then, all its major agents should be held accountable to all peoples economic well-being. d) Markets are moral when they serve three fold ends: 1) the material survival and flourishing of all community members of the global marketplace; 2) development and the use of market participant

60

skills and abilities; 3) and the promotion of the common good. The reason for market failure: As financial institutions (from CEOs to consumers) retreated from a culture of prudence and transparently calculated risk, an egregious example of the cycle of decline unfolded. f) Interest overcame intelligence and value as home-buyers and investors gambled on overleveraged debts, with implausible assumptions that housing prices would never stop rising, and the rot of bad debt would be hedged by ingenious financial instruments that would protect everyone from major exposure. g) The dramatic financial debacles of 2008 underscore economic ethical education and formation as pressing agendas requiring sustained participation by academic and religious institutions, economics and business leaders, and citizens. e)

61

Appendix 2.1: A Life of Struggle: Freedom Fighter, Doctor, Communist, Lakshmi Sahgal is no more
[By Parwathi Menon, The Hindu, Tuesday, July 24th 2012, pp. 1, 13] The fight will go on, said Captain Lakshmi Sahgal one day in 2006, sitting in her crowded Kanpur clinic where, at 92, she still saw patients every morning. She was speaking on camera to Singeli Agnew, a young filmmaker from the graduate school of Journalism, Berkeley, who was making a documentary on her life. Each stage of the life of this extraordinary Indian lady represented a new stage of her political evolution - as a young medical student drawn to the freedom struggle; as the leader of the all-woman Rani of Jhansi regiment of the Indian National Army; as a doctor, immediately after Independence, who restarted her practice in Kanpur among refugees and the most marginalized sections of society, and finally, in Post-Independence India, her life as a member of the communist Party of India (Marxist) and the All India Democratic Womens Association (AIDWA), years that saw her in campaigns for political, economic and social justice. Freedom comes in three forms, the diminutive doctor goes on to say on camera in her unadorned and direct manner. The first is political emancipation from the conqueror, the second is economic (emancipation) and t he third is social..India has only achieved the first. With Captain Lakshmis passing, India has lost an indefatigable fighter for the emancipations of which she spoke.

Turning Point
Lakshmi Sahgal was born Lakshmi Swaminadhan on October 24, 1914 in Madras to S. Swaminadhan, a talented lawyer, and A.V. Ammukutty, a social worker and freedom fighter (and who would later be a member of independent Indias Constituent Assembly). Lakshmi would later recall her first rebellion as a child against the demeaning institution of caste in Kerala. From her grandmothers house, she would often hear the calls and hollers from the surrounding jungles and hills, of the people who in her grandmothers words were those whose very shadows are polluting. The young Lakshmi one day walked up to a young tribal girl, held her hand and led her to play. Lakshmi and her grandmother were furious with each other, but Lakshmi was the one triumphant. After high school in Madras, she studied at Madras Medical College, from where she obtained MBBS in 1938. The intervening years saw Lakshmi and her family drawn into the ongoing freedom struggle. She saw the transformation of her mother from a Madras socialite to an ardent congress supporter, who one day walked into her daughter s room and took away all the childs pretty dresses to burn in a bonfire of foreign goods. Looking back years later, Lakshmi would observe how in the south, the fight for political freedom was fought alongside the struggle for social reform. Campaigns for political independence were waged together for struggles for temple entry for dalits and against child marriage and dowry. Her first introduction to communism was through Suhasini Nambiar, Sarojini Naidus sister, a radical who had spent many years in Ger many. Another early influence was the first book on the communist movement she read, Edgar Snows Red Star over China.

In Singapore
As a young doctor of 26, Lakshmi left for Singapore in 1940. Three years later she would meet Subhas Chandra Bose, a meeting that would change the course of her life. In Singapore, Lakshmi remembered, there were a lot of nationalist Indians like K. P. Kesava Menon, S. C. Guha, N. Raghavan, and others, who formed a Council of Action. The Japanese, however, would not give any firm commitment to the Indian National Army, nor would they say how the movement was to be expanded, how they would go to Burma, or how the fighting would take place. People naturally got fed up. Boses arrival broke this log-jam. Lakshmi, who had thus far been on the fringes of the INA, had heard that Bose was keen to draft women into the organization. She requested a meeting with him when he arrived in Singapore, and emerged from a five-hour interview with a mandate to set up a womens regiment, which was to be called the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. There was a tremendous response from women to join the all-women brigade. Dr. Lakshmi Swaminadhan became captain Lakshmi, a name and identity that would stay with her for life. The march to Burma began in December 1944, and by March 1945, the decision to retreat was taken by the INA 62

leadership, just before the entry of their armies into Imphal. Captain Lakshmi was arrested by the British army in May 1945. She remained under house arrest in the jungles of Burma until March1946, when she was sent to India at a time when the INA trials in Delhi were intensifying the popular hatred of colonial rule. Captain Lakshmi married Col. Prem Kumar Sahgal, a leading figure of the INA, in March 1947. The couple moved from Lahore to Kanpur, where she plunged into medical practice, working among the flood of refugees who had come from Pakistan, and earning the trust and gratitude of both Hindus and Muslims. By the early 1970s, Captain Lakshmis daughter Subhashini had joined the CPI (M). She brought to her mothers attention an appeal from Jyoti Basu for doctors and medical supplies for Bangladeshi refugee camps. Captain Lakshmi left for Calcutta, carrying clothes and medicines, to work for the next five weeks in the border areas. After her return she applied for membership in CPI (M). For the 57-year-old doctor, joining the party was like coming home. My way of thinking was already communist, and I never wanted to earn a lot of money, or acquire a lot of property or wealth, she said. Captain Lakshmi was one of the founding members of All India Democratic Womens Association (AIDWA), formed in 1981. She subsequently led many of its activities and campaigns. After the Bhopal gas tragedy in December 1984, she led a medical team to the city; years later she wrote a report on the long-term effects of the gas on pregnant women. During the anti-Sikh riots that followed Prime Minister Indira Gandhis assassination in 1984, she was out on the streets in Kanpur, confronting anti-Sikh mobs and ensuring that no Sikh or Sikh establishment in the crowded area near her clinic was attacked. She was arrested for her participation in a campaign by AIDWA against the Miss World competition held in Bangalore in 1996. Captain Lakshmi was the presidential candidate of the Left in 2002, an election that A. P. J. Abdul Kalam would win. She ran a whirlwind campaign across the country, addressing packed public meetings. While frankly admitting that she did not stand a chance of winning, she used her platform to publicly scrutinize a political system that allowed poverty and injustice to grow, and fed new irrational and divisive ideologies. Captain Lakshmi had the quality of awakening a sense of joy and possibility in all who met her - her co-workers, activists of her organization, her patients, family and friends. Her life was an inextricable part of the 20 th century India - of the struggle against colonial rule, the attainment of freedom and nation-building over 65 tumultuous years. In this great historical transition, she always positioned herself firmly on the side of the poor and the unempowered. Freedom fighter, dedicated medical practitioner, and an outstanding leader of the womens movement in India, she leaves the country and its people a fine and enduring legacy. Captain Lakshmi, 98, died Monday, July 23, 2012, is survived by Subhashini Ali and Anisa Puri, grandchildren Shaad Ali, Neha and Nishant Puri and Sister Mrinalini Sarabhai.

Assignment:
From this story, as well as from other sources: a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) Describe the unique individuality of Captain Lakshimi. Describe the unique immanence of Captain Lakshimi. Describe the unique sociality of Captain Lakshimi. Describe the unique transcendence of Captain Lakshimi. Study the major leadership decisions of her life, and investigate their phenomenology. Describe her life of executive freedom despite the constraints she faced. Study her Theory of Action as an example of the Volitionalist Tradition What do you learn from her life in being a person for others?

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