Levine and Boaks criticize the extant leadership literature for misrepresenting the connection between ethics and leadership. They propose a definition that they claim is novel and based on Aristotelian virtue ethics. This commentary argues that this approach, while it is an interesting idea, is essentially un-Aristotelian and that other approaches, for instance Alejo Sison’s and Joanne Ciulla’s are not only closer to Aristotle, but also do not have the problems that the authors identify in the mainstream of the leadership literature.

In a recent Commentary, Hamish van der Ven criticizes my strategic rationale-based approach to why firms decide to adopt and implement CSR standards. He argues that my approach is analytically flawed; rather than strategic rationale, values motivate firms in favor of CSR. In this response, I explain why I disagree with his criticism and approach. I maintain that strategic rationale, not values, drive firms’ decision-making for CSR.

Jeffrey Moriarty argues for a return to a robust notion of stakeholder theory involving direct procedural voting by stakeholders. He asserts that such voting offers the best possible chance of restraining firm behavior and taking into account all stakeholder interests. I argue, however, that Moriarty proceeds with an overly narrow conception of democracy, ignoring problems that arise from procedural voting. Specifically, paradoxes in voting procedures, the tyranny of the majority, and the inefficacy of representation advantage well-organized and moneyed interests. A stakeholder democracy may in fact undermine the very interests that Moriarty seeks to promote.

In Markets Without Limits Brennan and Jaworski defend the view that there are “no legitimate worries about what we buy, trade, and sell.” But rather than being a unified defense of this position Brennan and Jaworski unwittingly offer three distinct pro-commodification views—two of which are subject to counterexamples. This Commentary will clarify what should be the thesis of their volume and identify the conditions that any counterexample to this must meet.

Aimee Barbeau advances a thoughtful critique of my article, “The Connection Between Stakeholder Theory and Stakeholder Democracy: An Excavation and Defense.” Although Barbeau does much to push forward the debate about corporate governance, she does it without undermining my thesis. For what Barbeau has shown is not that stakeholder theorists should not endorse stakeholder boards of directors, but that they should also endorse other ways for stakeholders to participate in decision-making processes within firms.

James Stacey Taylor offers three interpretations of our thesis, and argues that only one of them goes through. His point is to clarify our view rather than critique our position. In this brief response, we argue that, upon further clarification, we could endorse at least one of the other interpretations, though as Taylor notes, we don’t need to for our book’s thesis to go through.

Storsletten and Jakobsen (2015) try to integrate the instrumental, responsible, and spiritual positions in leadership studies with Kierkegaard’s aesthetic, ethical, and religious modes of existence. Their combination of leadership theory and Kierkegaardian thought, however, seems deeply problematic. In particular, the instrumental-aesthetic and responsible-ethical connections appear weak or at least significantly underdeveloped, and the spiritual-religious connection seems logically inconsistent.

Abraham Singer argues that Rawlsian theories of justice cannot apply to corporate governance and business ethics. On Singer’s view, Rawls regards business corporations as voluntary associations outside of the basic structure, which is the only site where justice applies. In this comment, we show the importance of Rawlsian theory to central questions of corporate governance. The corporation should be considered part of the basic structure, because it is part of society’s system of productive social cooperation. Rawls' proposal for a property-owning democracy also raises crucial corporate governance issues concerning the proper owners of the firm, and the separation of ownership and control.

In a recent critique of the so-called “market failures approach” (MFA) to business ethics Abraham Singer maintains that business firms have ethical responsibilities to voluntarily restrain their profit-seeking activities in accordance with the demands of justice. While I ultimately share Singer’s intuition that the MFA has overlooked the importance of justice in business ethics, I argue that he has not presented a fully adequate case to explain why justice-related responsibilities should be assigned to business firms. I conclude by offering a brief – and supportive – alternative to his position.

Schleper, Blome, and Wuttke attempt to use just price theory to define exploitation. According to the authors, a competitive market equilibrium defines a just price. When certain asymmetries in bargaining power exist, trading at any lower price constitutes unethical exploitation. I argue that a competitive market equilibrium does not provide a price that could be considered just by their own standards, and thus fails to ground a theory of exploitation.

Joseph Heath (2014) argues that the contribution of competitive markets to Pareto-efficiency generates moral constraints that apply to business managers. Heath argues that ethical behavior on the part of management consists in avoiding profit-seeking strategies which, under conditions of perfect competition, would decrease Pareto-efficiency. I argue that because (1) such conditions do not obtain; and (2) the most efficient result – under imperfect conditions – is not achieved by satisfying the largest possible set of the remaining conditions; it is (3) impossible to draw any substantive ethical guidelines from Heath’s approach.

Jacob Sparks has developed a semiotic critique of markets that is based on the fact that “market exchanges express preferences.” He argues that some market transactions will reveal that the purchaser of a market good inappropriately prefers it to a similar non-market good. This avoids Brennan and Jaworski’s criticism that semiotic objections to markets fail as the meaning of market transactions are contingent social facts. I argue that Sparks’ argument is both incomplete and doomed to fail. It can only show that some preferences are morally problematic, not that the transactions that they lead to are immoral.

Cojuharenco and Sguera’s study shows that both perspective taking (empathy) and empathic concern (intuitionism) can reduce the acceptability of lying. This critique outlines a number of conceptual difficulties and limitations with their dualistic model. Specifically, they conflate ethical reasoning with perspective taking and empathic concern with intuitionism. Moreover, by limiting moral thinking to these binary options it restricts the ways in which ethical judgements can be made.

While accepting and welcoming our main thesis and project, Schäfer and Hühn’s Commentary on our paper focuses on two main criticisms, both of which seem to us mistaken. The first of these is that our paper falsely argues “that the existing definitions of leadership out there fall short in describing the role of ethics in leadership.” The second seems to be a belief that (i) we claim to be offering an entirely new definition of leadership and misrepresenting its nature because (ii) in the view of Schäfer and Hühn this supposedly new definition “is essentially un-Aristotelian.”

Jeffrey Moriarty argues that unequal pay for employees who do the same work is not necessarily wrong, but can be wrong if it is discriminatory or deceptive. Moriarty does this in part by stressing that pay should be considered primarily as a price for labor and therefore that our views on price discrimination and unequal pay should mirror each other. In this critique, I argue that Moriarty fails to adequately account for the expressive functions of pay. A pluralist view of pay reveals otherwise overlooked normative concerns regarding pay and cautions against adopting too strong of an analytical connection between price discrimination and unequal pay.

James Stacey Taylor claims that my argument in “Can’t Buy Me Love” is both incomplete and doomed to fail. I grant some of Taylor’s points, but remind him that semiotic objections to the commodification of certain goods are strongest when we think not about individual market transactions, but about what it means for a society to support the market in question.

Welch and Ly register three objections to my argument that the Rawlsian paradigm offers no resources for formulating a normative theory of corporate governance. In this brief response, I note that while I agree with the first of these objection, I don’t think it poses any serious trouble to my argument; the other two objections, on the other hand, I am less convinced by. I then offer two alternative strategies for bringing Rawls to bear on business ethics, which don’t involve trying to apply his principles of justice to the corporation. Finally, I conclude with a reflection on why people are so insistent on talking about Rawls in the first place.

Many proponents of corporate agency take corporations to be responsible for their conduct, but few take them to merit rights over and above the rights of their members. Hasnas (2016) argues that, given a widely-held view of liberal political theory, corporate agency entails that corporations should have the right to vote. In response, I show that there are problems in appealing to liberal political theory, and that the view of voting Hasnas actually endorses need not be accepted. Should it be, however, the implications go far beyond the right to vote.

Comer and Schwartz argue that the business ethics course should aim to cultivate moral courage within our students. Essential to their argument is the use of fictional exemplars of moral courage to motivate our students. I argue that the classroom, even when supplemented by good fiction, is not the right context by which to practice moral courage—the habituation of moral courage requires a context of risk. I suggest a virtue that can be practiced in the classroom—intellectual courage. By aiming at this virtue, we will also get the virtue of moral courage.

Jacob Sparks critiques our recent work on commodification by arguing that purchasing love indicates one has defective preferences. We argue A) it is possible to purchase these things without having defective preferences, B) Sparks has not shown that acting such defective preferences is morally wrong, C) that Sparks’ misunderstands the Brennan–Jaworski Thesis, and so has not produced a counterexample to it, and finally D) that when we examine the processes by which love is gifted, it is unclear whether these processes should be preferred.