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Abstract

“Business ethics risks becoming subservient to existing economic and financial systems rather than correcting their dysfunctional aspects.” This statement from Pope Benedict XVI’s Encyclical letter "Caritas in Veritate" [Love in Truth] is both a challenge to business ethics and an example of the holistic model on which Catholic Social Thought is based. Ethical issues are embedded in anthropological presuppositions and this article describes the Pope’s analysis of the conflicting presuppositions regarding economic activity and the market in the current economic ideology and that of Catholic Social Thought. He sees the task of business ethics as addressing those presuppositions and he calls on the discipline to address not only the “traditional ethical principles of transparency, honest and responsibility” but also “a deeper reflection on meaning of the economy and its goals.” That reflection must be deeper, go beyond, the dominant view of the economy as a technical matter, autonomous from the rest of social relations and the moral sphere. That can only happen in dialogue among various disciplines, each contributing to a holistic and more adequate view of the economic side of human life and its Truth lived out in Love.

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