Springer 2008

Journal of Business Ethics (2009) 86:473484

DOI 10.1007/s10551-008-9859-0

Business is not a Game: The Metaphoric

Fallacy

ABSTRACT. Sport and game metaphors are ubiquitous

in the culture and language of business. As evocative
linguistic devices, such metaphors are morally neutral;
however, if they are indicative of a deep structure of
understanding that filters experience, then they have the
potential to be ethically problematic. This article argues that
there exists a danger for those who forget or confuse metaphor with definition: the metaphoric fallacy. Accordingly,
business is like a game, but it is not the equivalent of a game.
If business is equated to a game, then the potentially negative implications for ethical content and the application of
ethical theories are numerous. This article suggests a fresh
approach to issues of contemporary business ethics discourse, by attending to the business-as-game metaphor.
KEY WORDS: ethical theories, fallacies, game metaphors, language

Business is a game, the greatest game in the world if

you know how to play it.
Thomas J. Watson, Founder of IBM
In philosophy in recent years we have grown accustomed to the use of games as models for understanding
institutional behavior. We all have some understanding
of how rules of games make certain descriptions of
events possible that would not be so if those rules were
nonexistent.
Peter French, Director, Lincoln Center for Applied
Ethics, Arizona State University

Treating games, particularly sports, as a metaphor

for business is certainly not unfamiliar. Phrases such as,
winning strategies, playing hardball, leveling
the playing field, being a team player, and
playing by the rules permeate the language of
business. Many aspects of business are understood as

Maurice Hamington

game-like. Victory is equated with obtaining

contracts, receiving a promotion, or out selling the
competition. Checking the business section of any
contemporary bookstore will reveal numerous titles
directed to business professionals that reinforce the
metaphor of business as a game. For example, in The
Great Game of Business, the authors, Stack and Burlingham (1994, p. 3), declare that business is a game
that everybody in the company can play. Its fun, but
its more: its a way of tapping into the universal desire
to win, of making that desire a powerful competitive
force. Winning the Great Game of Business has the
greatest reward: constant improvement of your life
and your livelihood. You only get that reward,
however, by playing together as a team, and by
building a dynamic company. Note how the metaphor is sustained with references to play, fun, competition, and winning. Stack and Burlingham employ
a metaphor that is ubiquitous in business discourse
whether consciously invoked or not. The usage of this
metaphor is not limited to popular business
improvement books. Business theorists also freely
employ the business-as-game metaphor in both subtle
and obvious ways.1
In this article, I will suggest that explicit game
metaphors applied to business signal a deeper implicit contextual structure of a business-as-game
conceptual metaphor that has potentially negative
ramifications for social morality. This article is neither a condemnation of metaphors nor of games,
both of which play vital roles in our society.
However, I am concerned about the manner in
which metaphors structure meaning in business.
Aristotle observed that metaphors have efficacy in
that continuum between terms that have exactly the
same meaning and those that have no possible
overlap at all. At either extreme, metaphors are
ineffectual, but where there is both shared and

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Maurice Hamington

unshared meaning, metaphors bring new understanding. Life and a bowl of cherries do not
have much in common, but they have just enough
shared meaning to create an evocative understanding
about fate and luck. Mark Johnson and George
Lakoff describe the fundamental role of metaphors as
projecting inference patterns from the source domain to the target domain (Lakoff and Johnson,
1999, p. 128). The terms business and game are
not synonyms, but they have enough in common
that the source domain, game elucidates the target
domain business in a meaningful way. However,
if, as Johnson and Lakoff have contended, there are
deep metaphoric scaffoldings that help to order our
experiences and perceptions, fallacious use of metaphor can negatively influence our understanding and
application of ethics beyond isolated remarks. In
particular, this article addresses the eliding of metaphor with definition. In other words, if we begin to
treat business as if it were truly a game, rather than
merely like a game, then I believe there are detrimental consequences for ethical behavior.2 I will
begin by exploring what I call the Metaphoric
Fallacy.

The metaphoric fallacy

The word metaphor is derived from the Greek
metapherein, which roughly translates as to transfer.
What is transferred is a word and some of its
meaning in the process of explaining one idea in
terms of another. In Poetics, Aristotle describes:
Metaphor is the application of an alien name by
transference either from genus to species, or from
species to genus, or from species to species, or by
analogy, that is, proportion (Sec. 3, Part XXI). This
definition is easy to assent to but what about unintended transference? Since metaphors compare two
unlike terms, there are usually aspects of the terms
that are not alike and do not participate in helping
explain the unknown. This metaphoric residue
may be relatively unimportant in most linguistic uses
of metaphors, but its significance grows when we
address major metaphors, as suggested by the work
of Lakoff and Johnson, that seem to structure our
conceptualization of the world (this is the subject of
the next section). Specifically, I am concerned about
the moral ramifications of the metaphorical super-

structure, business is a game which is ubiquitous

in contemporary social understanding.
It is difficult to argue with the claim that metaphors are important components of communication
and conceptualization. Unless the conversation is a
series of simple declarative statements like those
found in a Dick and Jane reader, metaphors pervade our communication, particularly as we explore
complex ideas that must be explained and understood. Metaphors act as important explanatory
linkages or stepping-stones that allow the imagination to move from familiar to unfamiliar territory.
You might even try an experiment and see whether
you can explain a complicated idea to someone
without engaging any metaphors. Often, we are not
even aware of all the metaphors we employ on a
regular basis. Metaphors are indispensable. When
metaphor works well, it elicits a smile and the aha response of recognition. Metaphor is the stuff of
great literature and the genius of philosophies that
come alive.
Coexistent with the potency of metaphor is an
inherent weakness. Philosopher Josef Stern identifies
the external linguistic context-dependence of
metaphors. For metaphors to work, the sender and
receiver must understand the metaphor in the same
way. For example, Stern (1985, p. 680) recognizes
that an under-attended aspect of analyses of metaphor is what he describes as the semantic competence of those involved in the transmission of
metaphor. Like an inside joke that only a select
group of people understands, a metaphor is only
effective if a common referent is utilized and that
referent has unambiguous meaning. If someone were
to say, a resume is an income statement not a
balance sheet, the audience must have a working
knowledge of these business documents for the
metaphor to make sense and the sender and receiver
would have to attach the same meaning to the terms.
What is important for our purposes is that Stern
brings the human element to the fore with regard to
the use of metaphors. I contend that the pervasive
iterations of business-as-game expressions have
facilitated a loss of semantic competence in that
people forget that a metaphor is employed at all.
This forgetting is the metaphoric fallacy.
The notion of the metaphoric fallacy is analogous
to the concept of the naturalistic fallacy developed
by Moore (1903, p. 13). The naturalistic fallacy is the

Business is not a Game

derivation of value judgment from claims about
natural qualities. One formulation of the naturalistic
fallacy is the common confusion of descriptive and
normative terms: the is with the ought (Donaldson and Dunfee, 1994, p. 253). Accordingly, the
existence of a phenomenon, for instance slavery in
the 1700s, does not mean that the phenomenon is
morally desirable. Similarly, the metaphoric fallacy is
a conflation of definition with metaphor or the is
with the like. Metaphors help us to understand
the unknown by analogy, resonance, or similarity,
but metaphors are not equivalent to that for which
they help to describe. Metaphors are useful and
necessary, but if their role in the imagination is forgotten, then an element of misunderstanding is
introduced. In this manner, the weakness is not really
with metaphors themselves but with human conflation of meanings. X may be like Y (and therefore
helpful in illuminating Y), but X Y. When X is
treated like it is Y, the metaphoric fallacy, or the
equating of the known term with the unknown term
rather than limiting the role of the known term to a
device of understanding, occurs. If I claim, Joe in
marketing is a team-player, I have a particular
meaning in mind for Joe that the term teamplayer provides a rich understanding of. However, I
do not wish to ascribe Joe with all the possible
attributes of team-player, such as wearing a uniform,
being on a sports squad, or regular physical practice.
A common representation of the metaphoric fallacy
is simply to carry a metaphor too far or to hold the
metaphor responsible for too much shared meaning.
Furthermore, metaphors tend to represent conceptual reductions. To state, Juliet is the sun
invokes rich meaning of love and devotion, but it is
still a reduction. As a human being, Juliet cannot be
defined by any single metaphor even by one as
evocative and rich as the sun. The metaphor is a
device of understanding that covers certain domains,
but leaves out others. In some cases, the reduction
has little moral impact but at other times, there are
serious implications if the metaphor is conflated with
that for which it helps describe. Although this
conflation may be significant at the explicit level of
language, it is even more important at the level of
deeper image schemas that frame understanding.
Metaphors are vital tools of understanding but
they are imperfect or at least the users of them are
imperfect. These imperfections have limited conse-

475

quence were it not for the notion that discursive

metaphors foreshadow a deeper structure of conceptual metaphors with far greater influence over
our perceptions.
The deep structure of metaphor
The role of metaphor in knowledge creation or
discovery is not altogether controversial (except
among specialists) or, perhaps, ethically interesting.
However, Mark Johnson and George Lakoff have
made the more provocative claim that deep structures of metaphors are essential to moral understanding. According to Johnson and Lakoff, we
acquire metaphorical understanding of our world
through our physical interactions with our environment. They distinguish between two forms of
metaphors: conceptual or primary metaphors that are
the deep structures which order experience, and
secondary metaphors that we employ in everyday
language. In this manner, Lakoff and Johnson (1999,
p. 128) contend that common expressions of metaphor in our language gesture toward a deeper
ordering of reality that is fundamentally metaphoric.
For example, Johnson demonstrates that expressions
supporting notions of moral character often use the
metaphors of (1) power, (2) uprightness, and (3)
purity. The power metaphor maps the notion of
moral superiority in terms of strength and moral
failing in terms of weakness. Bodily physicality becomes the location of understanding; here are some
examples of statements used:
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
She showed incredible willpower in breaking her
addiction.
Youve got to control your passions.
Get a hold of yourself
I guess Im noting but a slave to my passions.
Manson was overcome with rage.
Sarah has a strong moral character.
Dan suffers from weakness of will (Johnson, 1993, p. 50).

Some are more explicit than others, but in each case,

the statement, or more accurately, the cluster of
statements, reveal an underlying metaphor structure
that draws upon human knowledge of bodily
strength and weakness. Similarly, spatial metaphors
of up and down form another structure, which

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Maurice Hamington

informs moral character as in Paul is high minded

or Gandhi was not above unkind deeds (p. 51).
Finally, purity as opposed to pollution is another
moral metaphor structure as in His motives were
pure or Nixon authorized dirty tricks (p. 50).
What Johnson and Lakoff demonstrate is that
metaphors are not merely independent evocative
phrases but are part of larger structures of understanding or image schemas. Johnson (1987, p. 2)
describes image schemas as a dynamic pattern that
functions somewhat like the abstract structure of an
image, and thereby connects up a vast range of different experiences that manifest this same recurring
structure. The metaphors that appear in language
are explicit indicators of implicit image schemas that
organize knowledge, and, more importantly for the
purpose of this article, organize ethical understanding.3 For example, the previously offered notion of
moral excellence as strength and moral failing as
weakness draws upon a metaphor the body as moral
character. There is much to support this metaphor,
such as the idea that physical strength is an attribute
developed through discipline, practice, and exercise
just as moral character can be the result of practicing
ethical behavior. Physical strength is viewed as a sign
of good health just as positive moral character might
be a sign of psychological health and well being.
Nevertheless, there are many ways in which this
metaphor can be problematic as well. Gender, is one
complication. Average female physiology contains
less muscle mass than the average male. If bodily
strength helps us to understand good moral character, what does it tell us about gender differences?
Certainly many early philosophers espoused beliefs
that the weaker sex was morally inferior.4
Another difficulty with this, and other, metaphors
are the connotations attached to the known concept
that may not fit the concept being explained.
Strength easily fits with a cluster of terms, such as
toughness, justice, and fairness. For example, vote
for politician x, he exudes strength: he is tough on
crime. What a care and compassion? The metaphor
of bodily strength seems ill equipped to include
relational aspects of morality. For example, the
statement look at the way he is hugging and
caressing that grieving little girl, he is showing great
moral strength strikes the reader as odd because it
does not fit operant metaphors for morality. Of
course, this is just the overt expression, but does the

metaphor run deeper to how we structure understanding? Semantic competence may not only be
necessary to understand the context of the metaphor,
but also to see the limitations of the metaphoric
structure as well. Caring and compassion as moral
strength do not resonate as well to the modern era
and are likely lost in the metaphoric understanding.
Initially, I contended that the potential for misunderstanding exists through the metaphoric fallacy.
I punctuated the significance of this fallacy by discussing the role of deep structures of metaphors.
Next, we will turn our attention to the specific
ethical ramifications of the business-as-game metaphor.

The ethical pitfalls of business-as-game

conceptual metaphor
As discursive metaphors intended to evoke meaning,
business-as-game expressions do not pose as serious
an ethical concern as do conceptual metaphors. As a
conceptual metaphor, any error as a result of the
metaphoric fallacy may have consequences for how
we come to relate to and understand our world. In
particular, treating business as if it is ontologically a
game has serious implications for ethics. Perhaps the
most explicit example comes from the oft-quoted
1968 article, Is Business Bluffing Ethical? The
author, Albert Z. Carr, was not being analogical
when he claimed that business was a game: The
game is played at all levels of corporate life, from the
highest to the lowest. At the very instant that a man
decides to enter business, he may be forced into a
game situation (p. 144). What is intriguing about
Carrs argument is that he is specifically claiming a
separate morality for the business sector because
games have their own code of conduct. Although
Carr does not suggest that business should be
unlawful, the law becomes a moral minimum.
Bluffing and half-truths are acceptable parts of the
business game. Carr claims that individuals must set
aside their individual morality in the business world:
The major tests of every move in business, as in all
figures of strategy, are legality and profit. A man
who intends to be a winner in the business game
must have a game players attitude (p. 149). Carr
has made use of the common elements of games
discussed earlier in terms of players and rules.

Business is not a Game

However, instead of game as entertainment and
escapism, Carrs game is a major aspect of social life
with all of its consequences.
In an entanglement of metaphors, Carr employs
poker as an analogy to demonstrate that business is a
game. He claims that when playing a poker game no
one expects the morality of interpersonal relations
among the participants. Accordingly, business should
have its own morality: because a game has its own
rules, and business is a game, business should have its
own rules. For Carr, the rules of the game are
equated with morality in business. Carr appears to
demonstrate a loss of metaphoric meaning. Although
much of business-as-game metaphor works, the
originary notion of games as escapism and entertainment are lost here. Only under the reduced
stakes of escapism and entertainment does the notion
of separate morality roles work but, even then, rules
of the game are not conflated with morality.
In what follows, I will suggest four potential harms
derived from the business-as-game metaphor: compartmentalized morality, truncated ethics, trivialized
stakes, and the privileging of adversarial relationships.
These harms are not novel for those engaged in
theorizing about business ethics; however, the linguistic analysis of metaphor and its role offers new
insight into the motivation and maintenance of these
concerns. Game metaphors have implications for
discussions of the nature of professionalism, the
efficacy of rule-based ethics, the imbalance of business goals, and the competitive nature of the market
all of which have been addressed in various formulations through the literature of business ethics.

Compartmentalizing morality
One implication of business-as-game metaphor is
that it separates moral spheres, a form of contextual
relativism. By making the morality of business self
referential, like the rules of a game, business activity
becomes less morally accountable to sources of
normative ethics in society. The compartmentalization of business ethics is in part a discursive creation.
Once business is nominally understood as an institution made up of a separate class of business professionals, the linguistic category allows for the
imaginative possibility of ethical differentiation.
Overlay a strong metaphoric understanding that

477

business is a game and that differentiation is further

solidified. Among business ethics theorists, the notion of professionalism has been a topic of much
discussion. Intriguing questions that arise include:
What constitutes a professional? Are business people
professionals? And, does professionalism demand
unique moral imperatives? Donaldson (2000, p. 87)
offers a definition of professionalism that explicitly
contains a moral dimension which resists compartmentalization: A professional is someone who
professes skills and knowledge derived from an
ongoing institution dedicated to a broader good that
defines both expertise and service. Donaldson
grounds the commitment to the broader good in
social contract and stakeholder theory that attach
ethical accountability to other social constituencies.
Such an approach appears to oppose ethical compartmentalization, but what if the broader good required a form of ethical specialization grounded in
social roles?
Wasserstrom (1975, p. 2) describes role differentiated behavior accorded to professionals in our
society, which alters, if not eliminates, the significance of those moral considerations that would obtain, were it not for the presence of the role.
Accordingly, lawyers, doctors, and business professionals are allowed to act in a manner consistent with
a specific role and social function that otherwise are
deemed immoral. Wasserstrom is not addressing the
game metaphor, but merely the idea that certain
roles demand behaviors that might be outside social
norms, such as a lawyer not revealing everything
about a client in order to advance their position in
court.
Applbaum (1998, p. 113) takes role-differentiated
behavior and integrates the notion of a game as a
rule governed social practice that permit the use
of tactics that would otherwise be morally impermissible. For Applbaum, game playing persists at
middle-level social institutions that order the
activities of actors who have at least partly conflicting
interests, or who represent others who have such
interests (p. 114). Applbaum proceeds to explore
the conditions that might allow for the compartmentalized game morality including issues of consent. When a hockey player participates in a hockey
game, by stepping out onto the ice to play for a
team, the individual gives consent to play by the
rules of the game. These rules include otherwise

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morally objectionable behavior, such as having

someone body check them into the side of the arena.
The marked physical separation of hockey space, like
boxing and football, signals that participation in
the game entails specific performative acts. Many
domains of social life contain specific behavior
demands including role differentiation that we assent
to through our participation. The question is whether business warrants a game-like moral differentiation that we agree to by working for businesses. If
so, how strong is the differentiation? Goldman
(1980, p. 277) argues for weak role differentiation
for business professionals finding no compelling
reasons to believe that business requires special moral
principles.
As described above, one form of ethical compartmentalization is the perceived disconnection
between morality in business and morality in society
at large. Another form of ethical compartmentalization occurs in the explicit division between individual and corporate morality. In his classic work,
Moral Man and Immoral Society, Reinhold Neibuhr
(1932) describes the challenges for seemingly moral
individuals to act morally in groups. Rather than
posing individual morality as superior to the group
morality, Carr suggests that group and individual
morality are different: If a man plans to take a seat
in the business game, he owes it to himself to master
the principles by which the game is played, including its special ethical outlook (p. 153). Carr readily
admits to the dissonance and alienation that such a
bifurcation creates but his response is that if one
wishes to play the game, one must be willing to be a
player. In The Public and Its Problems, John Dewey
addresses the tension between individuals and the
corporations they are a part of. Dewey (1927,
p. 191) recognizes that the collective morality could
not possibly align itself with individual morality but
coherence is necessary: An individual cannot be
opposed to the association of which he is an integral
part nor can the association be set against its integrated members. Dewey viewed corporations as
imbued with the democratic spirit that includes
abundant consultation and the acceptance of diverse
views. Carr suggests that personal morality must be
set aside, thus, further insulating and relativizing
business ethics. Baldly stated, the business-as-game
metaphor creates the potential for corporate citizens
to engage in moral hypocrisy.

The issue of consent brings the problem of moral

compartmentalization to a head. In one way or another, everyone participates in business through
commerce. Those employed in traditionally understood business professions do so in order to maintain
their livelihood. If I dont like the rules of kickboxing, poker, or chess, then I do not have to participate in the sport. Opting out of the economic
system is not a trivial matter thus clouding the
notion of voluntarism associated with games.
Accordingly, if the marketplace is to be a separate
moral domain, then there is little choice but to
engage with it, thus raising the imperative that it be
tied to wider social ethics.
In summary, although there are many ways in
which a business is like a game, in terms of ethical
compartmentalization, business does not appear to
share the strong self containment and role differentiation evident in games and sports that warrant
significantly distinguished ethical behavior.

Truncated ethical content

Games do not offer the rich notion of ethics necessary for the complexity of human existence. The
rules of games are inadequate in at least two ways.
First, game rules are a mixture of procedures
inherent to the game and rules necessary to insure
fair play. The rule that a football team may have only
four downs in order to advance the ball 10 yards has
no moral content it is merely a defining procedure
of United States football. The rule that a football
player may not hold another players facemask ensures fair play and protects the health of the players.
Although the latter category of rules is admirable, it
covers a limited and prescribed set of behaviors
within the game. Violations elicit punishment
within highly structured circumstances, but do not
provoke moral reflection or cover behaviors outside
specific situations. It is a thin approach to ethics.
Human social life is not nearly so prescribed. John
Caputo (1993, p. 4) suggests that a drawback to
philosophical ethical systems is that they impugn
more structure to social interaction than actually
exists. This exaggeration of social structure is only
further exacerbated through the notion of a game.
Accordingly, human lives require a rulebook to
navigate the vicissitudes of existence. This concern is

Business is not a Game

very similar to the critique that feminist ethicists have
leveled to traditional forms of ethical systems that
privilege principles or consequences over contexts
and relationships (Machold et al., 2007). Although
feminist ethicists do not object to principles or consequences, such systems represent moral shortcuts of
discernment and do not or should not exhaust moral
deliberation (Noddings, 1984, pp. 4647). If game
rules are adequate metaphors for business ethics at all,
then they can only offer moral shortcuts and not
robust considerations of the contexts and relationships that muddy the moral picture.
My second concern about moral content of game
metaphors is of a temporal nature. Can you imagine
a never-ending game of bowling or basketball?
Games have clear, beginnings, middles, and ends.
Social relations are not so clearly delineated. Businesses often focus on short-term victories such as
profitability goals in the next quarterly report while
they maintain long-term relationships with numerous stakeholders. Professionals in a corporation
might celebrate a positive quarterly profit-and-loss
statement as a win, but this success may have been
achieved at the expense of other social interests.
Game-like short-term thinking thats rewarded in
the marketplace is not always in the best interest of
the larger community or even the corporations
long-term interest. Business activity has no clear end
and yet the game metaphor artificially implies that a
conclusion exists. Temporal context can impact
ethical responses.
These concerns about the truncated ethical content of games metaphors, does not preclude the use of
game metaphors to gain ethical insight. Donaldson
and Dunfee, for example, employ game metaphors to
address the notion that ethical understanding cannot
be entirely abstract. Accordingly, one does not
know in advance what the correct rules of business
ethics are for a specific system without knowing
more about the system and its participants (p. 258).
Donaldson and Dunfee use the nature of games to
elucidate the significance of contextualization but
they do not fall prey to the metaphoric fallacy as they
remind the reader economic systems, unlike games
of pick-up basketball, have dramatic implications for
people who are not directly part of the rule-formation process (p. 258). Here, a business-as-game
metaphor is properly utilized as a tool of understanding, but there is no confusion of an ontological

479

claim that business is a game thus implicating a

holistic moral content.

Trivializing stakes
One of the common uses of the game metaphor
outside of business to invoke the notion of game as a
trivializing of the situation at hand, as expressed in
we are not playing games here or our relationship is not a game. This usage implies that games
are for entertainment and have little at stake. Some
games do have considerable financial and psychological ramifications, but more often than not,
people participate in games for personal enjoyment.
If the business-as-game metaphor is taken seriously,
it is easy to forget that in the process of seeking
victory or outmaneuvering an opponent, that business decisions have much greater stakes than most
peoples conception of games. Even the high stakes
found in professional sports games are dwarfed by
business decisions that can impact the health, safety,
and quality of life of numerous constituencies. Given the scope and resources of multinational corporations, such a detachment seems fraught with
danger. Historical incidents, such as the exploding
gas tank of the Ford Pinto, the toxic gas release in
Bhopal, India, the oil leak of the Exxon Valdez, and
the devastating financial fallout of Enrons corruption demonstrate that higher moral standards, or at
least, moral standards that resonate with society-atlarge are necessary for the corporate community.
Games may generally have their own rules of
behavior, but the consequences of the decisions in
games seldom have the impact that business decisions do. The work of stakeholder theorists is an
overt attempt at emphasizing the connected nature
of business activity, such that all the social and
economic ramifications of any decision are considered. In his 1989 film, Roger and Me, Michael Moore
pursues Roger Smith, C.E.O. of General Motors to
ask that Smith return to Flint, Michigan to see what
GMs decision to close plants in the area has meant
to the health and well being of the city. Moore was
attempting to make Smith accountable to the
community stakeholders. Flints economy had fallen
apart giving rise to high crime rates, unemployment,
and personal hardship. Moore wonders whether
General Motors had taken into consideration the

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decimation of the Flint economy when they decided

to move their manufacturing facilities elsewhere.
Applying the game metaphor, if profits are the goal
and one stays within the rules of the game (in this
case, law), has anything unethical transpired? The
conceptual metaphor of business-as-game does not
seem to have the necessary resources to capture
injustice or unfairness outside of the parameters of
rules. My suggestion is not that businesses do not
need to earn a profit or even that GMs decision was
not a justifiable one. The point is that a game
metaphor that promises a notion that what is legal
is moral and winning isnt everything, it is the
only thing as Vince Lombardi is purported to have
said, can make no judgment outside the rules.
Unfortunately, the stakes are too high for such a
limited ethical system.
Another way to conceptualize the trivialization of
stakes in business is to view the aims of business as
disproportionately important to those engaged in
them. In this case, Kenneth Goodpasters notion of
teleopathy is applicable. Goodpaster (2004, p. 5)
claims that business professionals are susceptible to
goal disease or teleopathy defined as the unbalanced pursuit of purpose in either individuals or
organizations. This mindset or condition is a key
stimulus to which ethics is a practical response. The
principal symptoms of teleopathy are fixation,
rationalization, and detachment. Accordingly, the
unbalanced-pursuit of business goals, such as profit
and market share, is emphasized over other social
goals thus trivializing those goals. What Goodpaster
describes is a psychological dimension of business
ethics. Similarly, the metaphoric fallacy, rather than
describing any logical fault with metaphor, addresses
a human error of confusing metaphor with definition; in this case, business as a game. Business teleopathy and game metaphors can support one another
given that within games, the pursuit of narrow goals
(winning) is acceptable.
Perhaps you have had the experience of playing
Monopoly
with a friend and landing on their
property, Boardwalk, with a hotel on it, and thus
owing your friend a great deal of Monopoly money.
You might blurt out, its not nice to make your
friend pay so much money. Your friend may or
may not charge you the entire rent, but the rules of
the game have nothing to accommodate his largesse.
Similarly, business treated as a game has no resource

to accommodate claims made beyond rules. Much

more than play money is at stake, however.

Privileging adversarial relationships

A pitfall of internalizing game metaphors is the
privileging of adversarial relationships. There is
nothing inherently unethical about adversarial relationships, but they represent only a single form of
social interaction. Cooperative relationships are
equally essential to a functioning and improving
society, but mutual and reciprocal relationships are
marginalized in a worldview structured exclusively
by the competitors and adversaries of the game. In
corporate competition, companies vie for market
share and profits in the marketplace making
employees into team players. Competition, as such
has the power to motivate people to new heights of
excellence in effort and ingenuity. However, it can
also cut the world into a simplistic dichotomy of us
versus them. Crushing the opposition might
entail behavior that endangers the interests of various
stakeholders. Ostensibly, even team players must
cooperate to achieve victory but, in the deepseeded understanding of the game metaphor, the
team is an ephemeral construct. If business is truly a
game, one is looking out for the team only so far as
one can advance ones interests. The games are
multilayered and every individual is also attempting
to get ahead or move up so the forms of competition and adversaries come from many directions.
Although some people thrive in a competitive
environment, others do not, as the marketplaces
inevitably creates winners and losers. Winning
and losing in a game is what sparks interest the thrill
of victory and the agony of defeat. Winning and
losing in the marketplace can devastate lives.
Joseph Heath offers a provocative and highly
nuanced examination of adversarial and cooperative
relationships in business ethics. Heath chastises
business ethics theorists for inattentiveness to the
fundamental competitiveness of the business environment. He makes this criticism not to valorize
adversarial relationships over cooperative ones, but
to provide the realistic context in which to offer
efficacious ethical theory. For example, Heath suggests that competition can promote certain unethical
behavior, such as the compulsion to keep up with

Business is not a Game

rivals by adopting their ethically questionable practices. This response can be seen in certain apparel
markets where it is believed that outsourcing to
poorly paid and possibly abused labor is necessary to
maintain a competitive edge. Heath describes relationship between an adversarial environment and
business ethics:
The mere fact that one is embroiled in a competition
does not give one carte blanche to do anything
whatsoever, just because the other person started it.
Ones ethical obligation is always to take the high
road, and refrain from adopting any unhealthy competitive strategies. Nevertheless, it is important for
business ethicists to recognize that managers, because
of the competitive structure of the market economy,
are systematically subjected to external pressure to
engage in unethical conduct in a way that doctors, for
example, are not (2007, p. 371).

In order to adapt Heaths analysis to the present

context, business is like a game in that it is a highly
competitive field, but adversarial relationships alone
do not capture the metaphor or the morality. Heath
describes under emphasized aspects of game metaphors including sportsmanship that run counter to
pure adversarialism. What might be extrapolated
from Heaths analysis is that the game metaphor
being applied in business is of games of a certain sort,
perhaps even reflecting a conflation with war metaphors that eschew some of the more noble aspects
of game and sports. Heath concludes that the
morality of the market should be organized around
the goal of promoting healthy over unhealthy forms
of competition (p. 372).
Even philosophy can be seduced by the appeal of
competitive game playing. Janice Moulton contends
that philosophers have adopted a paradigm of a gamelike adversarial stance that manifests itself in methods
and performativity. According to Moulton (1992, p.
17), The Adversary Paradigm prevents us from seeing that systems of ideas that are not directed to an
adversary may be worth studying and developing, and
that adversarial reasoning may be incorrect for nonadversarial contexts. Perhaps this is why many theorists are attracted to the business-as-game metaphor,
because it makes sense to those who wield theories as a
weapon. Game metaphors seem to reinforce a
Hobbesian view of human nature that overshadows
the human capacity to make common cause.

481

Conclusion: resisting the metaphoric

fallacy
The business-as-game metaphor is a subset of the
larger metaphoric structure that life is a game. As
early as the first century c.e., the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus compares life to a game of dice
and then to a ball game (1998, pp. 8385). The game
metaphor has been applied to war, politics, and
dating with all too familiar ease. Rigney (2001,
p. 123) observes that the life-as-game metaphor has a
double-edged meaning: In North American culture
today, the popular notion that life is a game, to be
played hard and played to win, reflects the positive
values we assign to working hard, having fun, and
beating the competition. A wearier and more cynical
version of the game metaphor depicts work and life
as just a game i.e., artificial, perhaps duplicitous,
and not to be taken too earnestly. We have already
discussed how metaphors can potentially be misused
as a form of definition. Rigney reveals another
challenge of metaphor: which meaning is being
applied? In the case of game metaphors, is it the
positive characterization of fun and competition, or
is it the cynical legalistic characterization of artificiality? Perhaps the two meanings become enmeshed
in one another such that the metaphor is further
obfuscated.
Despite the many aspects of business which appear
to be very much like a game, competition, goal
achievement, coordinated group efforts, etc., similarities do not constitute an identity. French philosopher Roger Caillois comments on the temptation to
elide the domains of social life:
The true problem starts here. For it must not be forgotten that adults themselves continue to play complicated, varied, and sometimes dangerous games,
which are still viewed as games. Although fate and life
may involve one in comparable activities, nevertheless
play differs from these even when the player takes life
less seriously than the game to which he is addicted.
For the game remains separate, closed off, and in
principle, without important repercussions upon the
stability and continuity of collective and institutional
existence (2001, p. 63).

In a world enamored with games of all sorts, Caillois

suggests that we can be easily seduced into viewing
many activities as games, not the least of which,

482

Maurice Hamington

business. Games are fun, have intelligible rules, and

hold out the promise of glorious victory.
So, should we give up metaphors and in particular
game metaphors for business? Were it even possible,
of course not. Metaphors are integral to meaning and
knowledge. As Lakoff and Johnson (1999, p. 129)
declare, Eliminating metaphor would eliminate
philosophy. Our dependence on metaphors is
extensive. I am not even suggesting that we eliminate using game metaphors for business. I have two
modest proposals. One, we need to be attentive to
language. Words matter. The metaphors we use do
not always reveal a deeper structure of conceptualization, but they might. As businesses communicate
their identity through vision and mission statements,
organization charts, business plans, and ultimately
culture, underlying metaphors should be observed
and chosen carefully. No metaphors are intrinsically
evil, and game metaphors are no exception, but
ethical practices may demand more than what normally constitutes game playing. Being attentive to
metaphors may provide us with an indication of
existing ethical practices. Although conceptual
metaphors shape perceptions, the relationship between metaphor and behavior is dynamic, each
influencing the other. Ching (1993, p. 45) suggests
that metaphors raise our consciousness to some
state of affairs that already exist in our culture.
My second proposal is related to the first. Given the
dynamic relationship between metaphor and behavior, we can develop alternative metaphors that can be
used to ascribe different conceptual structures to the
meaning of business activity. There are other metaphors that are operant in business that can supplant or
complement game metaphors. One example comes
from Ben and Jerrys Ice Cream in the mid-1990s,
prior to its sale to Unilever in 2000. I do not wish to
evaluate the ethical merits of Ben and Jerrys which
has been the subject of much scrutiny, I only wish to
offer an alternative metaphor for business activities.
Indicative of the companys literature, the 1996
Annual Report includes a statement by the founders
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, We remain dedicated to producing world class ice cream and actualizing the power of business as a force for progressive
social change (p. 3). The Annual Report includes
the usual information for shareholders but also contains a social report, a philanthropy report, and an
environmental report. Whatever ones opinion is of

Ben & Jerrys business model, they maintained

an overt commitment to ethics. A metaphor that
emerges from this Annual Report as well as their
other materials and reports of the corporate culture is
that of a journey, quest, or mission. There is a sense
that Ben & Jerrys perceived it was traveling a path,
even trailblazing a path, toward what it deemed were
important social goals that entailed producing quality
products and maintaining profitability. Mark Johnson
describes the source-path-goal schema as one of the
fundamental conceptual metaphors that guides human experience. Johnson (1993, pp. 204205) specifically applies the journey metaphor to commerce as
products can be seen as having a beginning, middle,
and end as they are sold to customers. Given that this
conceptual metaphor is familiar to business operations, it is not difficult to more generally apply it to the
mission of corporations and such applications are already being made. The suggestion here is not that
journey metaphors are superior to game metaphors,
but that they have a different relationship to ethics.
One who is on a journey is not necessarily adversarial
and maybe even more open to new ideas and
adventures. A travel metaphor may open new imaginative space for moral reflection that complements
game metaphors. If we can loosen the sediment of
game metaphors, then perhaps we can avoid some of
the pitfalls of ethical game playing.
Wittgenstein (1953, p. 5) claimed that the role of
philosophy is to be attentive to language and specifically the context of language games. He saw
the great potential for error and confusion, which
could impact notions of truth and the good if language is imprecise. Attention to game metaphors in
business is one such attempt at achieving clarity
because sometimes business is like a game and
sometimes it is not.
Notes
1

Examples of business-as-game metaphors among

business theorists are legion. For example, Doyle (1996,
pp. 3540) and Jenkins (2005, pp. 1920). In the latter
article, Jenkins argues that soccer should replace football
as the dominant leadership metaphor in business. See
also, Donaldson and Dunfee (1994, pp. 78) for an
analysis of business ethics using a game metaphor. The
classic discussion of business as a game can be found in
Carr (1968).

Business is not a Game

2

Note that this article is not a criticism of game theory per se but rather the impact of social iterations of the
game metaphor. Game theory is a rich field of decisionmaking analysis that explores the convergence of individual decision making, self interest, and group interest as explored in the much-discussed Prisoners Dilemma.
Game theory does not offer a theory of ethics as much as
it unpacks the motivations of the agents involved. To the
extent that game theory is applied to ethical dilemmas in
business without problematizing the assumptions about
the game metaphor, game theory participates in my wider
concern over the misuse of metaphor expressed. Like Solomon (1999, p. 12), it is the use of game theory as a metaphor of business activity that I object to. For an
excellent discussion of the ethical merits of game theory,
see Business Ethics Quarterly 9, no. 1 (1999).
3
Johnson looks to Immanual Kant for a counterexample to his theory of metaphoric necessity in morality.
Kant, as the supreme apologist for rationality surely
does not require metaphors that draw upon lived experience. However, Johnson finds that even Kant must
employ natural laws as a metaphor for his moral laws.
For Kant, pure moral laws, as an abstraction from existence, cannot be understood or applied without a reference to natural laws (1987, p. 72).
4
See, for example, Tuana (1993, pp. 8688). Tuana
documents how scientists and religious leaders using different suppositions and methodologies supported the
notion of women as morally weak, a conceptual metaphor supported by numerous secondary metaphors.

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Metropolitan State College of Denver,

Denver, CO, U.S.A.
E-mail: hamington@earthlink.net