The Ethics of Enlightened Self-Interest

Quite often in business discussions you will hear people talking about what they call “enlightened self-interest” – that is, behavior that is both ethically and morally correct and also in the best interest of the person taking it. The implication is that while it would be possible for the person in question to act in an unethical manner, it would not serve their own interests to do so, and so they won’t. This structure will sometimes be advanced as a reason for trusting another party when you are unable to arrange for a formal or contractual obligation; if the “smart” thing to do and the “right” thing to do are the same thing, it is unlikely that any sane person will choose the unethical course merely for the sake of doing so.

By contrast, you will often hear people asking why they should bother making the ethical choice, particularly when the alternative is more profitable, and especially when the alternative will make no real difference. Why should we go to the trouble of acting in good faith, for example, when the entire world is filled with people who will not act in good faith even if you do put a gun to their heads? Why should we clean up after ourselves when the next people will just leave a huge mess, and the janitor will have to pick up after them anyway? Why should we stop to help someone in distress when they’ll probably sue us for something, just because they can?

You might think that there wouldn’t be a business answer to this dilemma; that it would have to stay in the realm of the philosophers. I would like to suggest, however, that it is only in a business perspective, in profit and loss, that a clear answer to this ancient question can be found, and that in order to see that business solution, we need to increase the scope of the answer, not decrease it…

When you consider the world as a whole, it’s hard to say that any one ethical decision will make any difference. But as large as it is, our world is a finite place, and there are only so many decisions (ethical or otherwise) that can be made at any one moment. If you choose the ethical course, do the “right” thing, the number of ethical, fair and decent actions being taken in our world increases. Maybe only by one, but in business terms the distinction is meaningless; the total balance of our world has shifted closer to the black. The reason for doing so is simply because the world that you live in has gotten that much better – and it serves your interest to have a better world.

I don’t mean to suggest that the business people of the world are the saints of some new ethical reformation – I don’t want to see any of you laughing that hard; you might hurt yourselves. I am suggesting that the single best reason for behaving in an ethical fashion (and running a company in an ethical fashion) is because who wants to live in a world where people don’t? If any of you care I can furnish hundreds of examples where public perception of a firm as being an ethically run organization was also insanely profitable, earning the company many times more money than they could ever have made doing the “wrong” thing, but this merely emphasizes my point. It is incumbent upon us, the management professionals of the world, to always attempt to do the right thing; because it will save us a fortune in legal fees and fines and bad reputations, and because it will make us a fortune in customer retention, public relations and increased sales.

And because if we do not, then who will? It’s worth thinking about…