Education in virtues as goal of business ethics instruction

Abstract

The moral development paradigm underlying a particular business ethics curriculum design plays a significant role in determining the goals of business ethics instruction. Concretely, the view of moral development advanced by cognitive developmental psychology that dominates business ethics literature identifies moral development with cognitive processes, but disregards educating students in virtues. The aim of the present paper is to propose an alternative paradigm of moral development to that of cognitive developmental psychology and presents Aquinas’ view of moral development as a suitable framework for a curriculum design that focuses on virtues as a possible goal of business ethics instruction.