Consumption Practices: A Virtue Ethics Approach

Abstract

Ethical research on consumption has focused mainly on the obligations, principles and values guiding consumers' actions and reasons for action. In doing so, it has concerned itself mostly with such bounded contexts as voluntary simplifiers, anti-consumption movements or so-called 'ethical consumers,' thereby fostering an artificial opposition between ethical and non-ethical consumption. This paper proposes virtue ethics as a more apt conceptual framework for the ethical analysis of consumption because it takes into account the developmental dynamic triggered by engagement in consumption practices. We build on MacIntyre's goodsvirtues-practices-institutions framework and Beabout's concept of a domain-relative practice and argue that when engaging in consumption activities, agents may pursue goods internal to practices, further their individual life narratives and contribute to the good of their communities, thus developing virtues that perfect themselves both as consumers and as ethical agents.

Everything Flows: A Pragmatist Perspective of Trade-Offs and Value in Ethical Consumption

“…Practice theories have been taken up both by those with a broad interest in consumption (e.g. Goulding et al 2013;Halkier et al 2011;Skålén et al 2015) and also those with a special interest in ethical consumption and environmental behaviour change (for example Connolly and Prothero 2008;Garcia-Ruiz and Rodriguez-Lluesma 2014;Moraes et al 2015;Røpke 2009;Shaw and Riach 2011). Here, social practices are taken as the everyday and ordinary, enacted in routine and oriented (or not) towards ethical behaviour.…”

“…These, in turn, reflect emerging trends in the wider consumption canon, with identity (see, for example, Bartels and Onwezen 2014;Cherrier 2006;Cherrier and Murray 2007;Luedicke et al 2009) and theories of practice (e.g. Connolly and Prothero 2008;Garcia-Ruiz and Rodriguez-Lluesma 2014;Moraes et al 2015;Røpke 2009;Shaw and Riach 2011).…”

Bringing Morality Back in

“…There has thus developed a body of work which has sought to apply MacIntyre's conceptual framework to organizations of many types, and to management (Moore, 2008;Beabout, 2012). Such work is extensive making both conceptual and empirical contributions and covering diverse practices and organizational types, for example health care, teaching, banking, oil, investment advising, circus and churches (Beadle 2013;Crockett, 2005;Fernando & Moore, 2015;Garcia-Ruiz & Rodriguez-Lluesma, 2014;Grandy & Śliwa, 2015;MacIntyre & Dunne, 2002;Mannion, 2007;Moore, 2002Moore, , 2005aMoore, , 2005bMoore, , 2008Moore, , 2011Moore, , 2012aMoore, , 2012bMurphy, Kallenberg & Nation, 1997;van de Ven, 2011;von Krogh, Haefliger, Spaeth & Wallin, 2012;Wilcox, 2012;Wyma, 2015). …”

Past Trends and Future Directions in Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility Scholarship

“…This is likely due both to the importance of global trade in the 21 st century and to the emergence of new global governance norms regarding business and human rights. Attention to virtue theory has spiked in recent years (e.g., Beabout, 2012; Garcia-Ruiz and Rodriguez-Lluesma, 2014; Hartman, 2008; Moore, 2008; Payne, Brigham, Broberg, Moss, and Short, 2011;. Sison and Fontrodona, 2012), but it is also true that much important work needs to be done to situate and contextualize the role of virtue in the broader range of business ethics and corporate responsibility scholarship.…”