The inadequacy of a Deontological Analysis of Peer Relations in Organizations

I argue for the inadequacy of the Kantian approach to the analysis of personal relations in business presented by Moberg and Meyer, in A Deontological Analysis of Peer Relations in Organizations (Journal of Business Ethics). It is unclear or implausible that the (mostly reasonable) principles of business relations they advocate really do follow from Kant's theory. Kant's theory, and deontological theories in general, do not yield reasonable principles of personal relations, particularly in the business context.Robert M. Martin has been teaching at Dalhousie University for over 20 years. His specialties are ethics, philosophy of language, and analytic metaphysics. Among his publications is The Meaning of Language (MIT Press, 1987).