Social Teleology in Business Ethics

Following upon the early work of Geoff Moore (Reference Moore2002; Reference Moore2005; Moore & Beadle, Reference Moore and Beadle2006) and Ron Beadle (Reference Beadle2008; Beadle & Moore, Reference Beadle and Moore2006), a number of business ethicists have drawn upon MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre2007a) account of social teleology in an effort to defend a virtue-based approach to business ethics (see Beadle, Reference Beadle, Sison, Beabout and Ferrero2017). The vast majority of this work has focused on MacIntyre’s notion of a practice, which he defines as “any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended” (Reference MacIntyre2007a: 187). MacIntyre illustrates his definition with examples like chess, architecture, and farming. Within business ethics, the focus has been on “productive practices,” that is, practices that produce goods and services for consumers (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre, Horton and Mendus1994a: 284–85; Sinnicks, Reference Sinnicks2019). Accordingly, a rich body of research has sought to identify a range of productive practices, in some cases arguing that familiar professions, roles, or activities are, in fact, MacIntyrean practices (e.g., Armstrong Reference Armstrong2006; Banks, Reference Banks2012; Richardson, Reference Richardson2012; Rocchi, Ferrero, & Beadle, Reference Rocchi, Ferrero and Beadle2021; Salter, Reference Salter2008; West, Reference West2018; Reference West2025).

This research, involving a substantial empirical element, cannot be easily summarized (see Moore, Reference Moore2017 for an overview). However, it typically follows MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre2007a: 191) in arguing that because some activity is a practice, there is an intrinsic role for the virtues in facilitating and sustaining the activity in question. For example, Robson (Reference Robson2015: S124) argues that “old banking” was traditionally conducted as a type of practice sustained by “the cardinal Aristotelian virtues.” But, as a result of “external pressures created by institutional targets and market competition,” banking gradually lost its focus on the virtues and internal goods that had traditionally defined the practice (Robson, Reference Robson2015: S125; see also Moore, Reference Moore2017: 145). Yet, this example also raises an important question concerning the adequacy of MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre2007a) social teleology. Why should we favor the internal goods of practices over external goods such as profitability (see Moore, Reference Moore2017: 59; see also Whelan, Reference Whelan2025)? From the point of view of someone participating in a traditional form of banking practice, the answer may seem obvious, but considered from an external perspective, it may be equally plausible that the benefits of enhanced efficiency and resulting economic growth demand that banking give up its traditional focus on internal goods (see Miller, Reference Miller, Horton and Mendus1994: 259).

More broadly, there is no way to justify a commitment to a practice from the perspective of the practice in question against external critics who claim that other goals are more important. Instead, it is necessary to ground the practice by showing its importance to a broader range of values within human life. It is this issue that stands behind MacIntyre’s claim that his social teleology needs a “metaphysical grounding” (Reference MacIntyre2007a: xi). This is not to say that MacIntyreans have failed to recognize the importance of human nature as a basis for claims about productive practices. Sison and Fontrodona (Reference Sison and Fontrodona2012: 240–41), for example, argue that as a result of the “social nature of human beings, there is also a need for participatory work” in firms. Likewise, Moore (Reference Moore2017: 84, 78) argues that “in the ideal, we should find that our involvement in our work practice develops us as people, enabling us to realize our true telos,” which he identifies as “human flourishing” and the realization of human nature (see also Hall, Reference Hall2011: 124). However, this research does not explain how and why participation in productive practices—as opposed to other modes of working—contributes directly to the realization of human nature. Similarly, research in MacIntyrean business ethics does not explain how an appeal to human nature provides a further grounding for the moral requirement to structure work as a practice (see Beadle & Knight, Reference Beadle and Knight2012: 440–41). That is, it does not explain why participation in practices is particularly conducive to the realization of human nature. MacIntyre addresses these issues in his later work, especially DRA (Reference MacIntyre1999), to which we now turn.

Human Nature and MacIntyrean Business Ethics

How does the incorporation of an account of human nature augment MacIntyrean business ethics? In short, it offers a means of addressing a fundamental challenge to the MacIntyrean approach—namely, the challenge of relativism—thereby providing a better grounding for a focus on practices in business ethics.

Beadle and Knight (Reference Beadle and Knight2012) explain this challenge, noting Arneson’s (Reference Arneson1987: 528–29) criticisms of claims regarding a right to meaningful work. However, this point also relates to the conflict concerning the proper ends of banking discussed by Robson (Reference Robson2015). Arneson argues that workers typically pursue a wide variety of different aims through work. As such, the demand for meaningful work, where this involves a concern for experienced meaningfulness, a sense of purpose, or personal development, is nothing more than a subjective preference that is not universally shared. Beadle and Knight (Reference Beadle and Knight2012: 433) argue that Arneson’s (Reference Arneson1987) claims represent a significant challenge to the MacIntyrean approach with its focus on practices. Reframed in these terms, this objection appeals to a form of relativism, stating that the demand for work to be structured as a MacIntyrean practice is merely one possible subjective preference among many. As such, it represents a good for individuals with this preference, but not for individuals who prefer to seek other goals from work, such as financial gain or risk-taking. Criticisms of meaningful work, and by implication a focus on practices, by Arneson and others (e.g., Miller, Reference Miller1999: 9; see Roessler, Reference Roessler2012) are supported by more recent empirical research (e.g., Ward, Reference Ward2024) that confirms the heterogeneous preferences of workers concerning meaningful work.

The response of Beadle and Knight (Reference Beadle and Knight2012) to this challenge strongly supports the need to supplement the MacIntyrean approach with an account of human nature. Accordingly, they argue that self-determination theory (SDT), an influential psychological theory of motivation, indicates that “extrinsic orientation”—for example, preferences for external goods rather than the internal goods of practices—“is best understood as a set of adaptive preferences which disorders desires away from inherent human goods of relationship, autonomy and competence” (Beadle & Knight, Reference Beadle and Knight2012: 442). Here Beadle and Knight (Reference Beadle and Knight2012: 441) appeal to SDT’s triad of basic human psychological needs, including needs for autonomy, competence, and relationships (see Ryan, Reference Ryan1995) to argue that desires for external goods are atypical or not normal, resulting from “frequent family disruption” and other negative social influences, leading to distorted desires for objects that are not genuine human goods. However, the appeal to normal development, human goods, and distorted desires presupposes an account of human nature. Accordingly, MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre1998b: 869) argues that “the distinction between human beings functioning well and their functioning badly” must “be learned and understood prior to” scientific inquiry into human capacities and aims.

More broadly, a consideration of the role of practices in actualizing and sustaining the capacity for practical rationality undermines the relativistic objection, since the ability to formulate and act upon reasoned preferences presupposes the capacity for practical rationality. As such, there are grounds to disregard preferences for modes of work that undermine practices, since such modes of work are destructive of the very capacity for practical rationality that is needed to formulate reasoned preferences. It might be objected that it is possible to sustain practical rationality by participation in practices outside of work. While such a possibility cannot be dismissed, given the large amounts of time spent at work and the central place that work has in the lives of most people, it seems unlikely that the negative impact of dehumanizing work can be sufficiently counteracted in this way. Thus, an explicit consideration of the role of practices in actualizing human nature provides a more adequate grounding for the MacIntyrean approach to business ethics, enabling it to better address objections appealing to relativism. We next explain how MacIntyre’s account of human nature provides further criteria for distinguishing practices in good order from other activities.

Human Nature and Productive Practices

Incorporating MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre1999) account of human nature and moral development not only provides further grounding for the focus on practices within MacIntyrean business ethics, as we have argued above, but also offers a better means of understanding whether specific activities are practices in good order. Speaking of business contexts, where the “literature is replete with … claims” about certain activities being practices, Beadle notes that “[m]uch rests on which activities comprise practices in MacIntyre’s sense” (2017: 62), emphasizing the importance of properly distinguishing practices from other activities lacking the requisite characteristics. Moore (Reference Moore2012: 366–67) highlights two dimensions when considering whether an organization houses a practice, namely, goodness of purpose and the prioritization of internal goods over external goods. Beadle (Reference Beadle, Sison, Beabout and Ferrero2017: 62) identifies four criteria for distinguishing practices from other activities, including a focus on internal goods, institutional embodiment, historical development of the practice, and its contribution to a unified life. According to Beadle, these elements must be present for a business activity to be considered a practice. Moore (Reference Moore2017: 63) also notes that “practices have histories.” Similarly, a dynamic or diachronic perspective is already present in the final portion of MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre2007a: 187) original definition of a practice, which states that, as a result of participation in practices “human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended.”

In this section, we argue that MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre1999: 68–98) developmental account of practical rationality in DRA provides a further basis for understanding the historical criterion for identifying practices, as noted by Beadle (Reference Beadle, Sison, Beabout and Ferrero2017: 62) and, thus, offers an additional basis for understanding whether some business activity is a practice “in good order” (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre, Horton and Mendus1994a: 284). A point of clarification should be noted. By focusing on practices that are “in good order,” we are referring to practices that possess all of the necessary characteristics to ensure that they perform their function of fostering the development of practical rationality, including the inculcation of virtues. Accordingly, we treat the concept of a practice as a “functional concept.” Speaking of functional concepts, MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre2007a: 58) says:

Thus, the additional criteria that we introduce in this section, we take to be implicit within the criteria for identifying practices highlighted previously (see, e.g., Beadle, Reference Beadle, Sison, Beabout and Ferrero2017; Moore, Reference Moore2012: 366–67; West, Reference West2025). These conditions also relate to, and further develop, what Rocchi and Thunder (Reference Rocchi and Thunder2019: 99) call “agential conditions,” when considering whether financial trading can be conducted virtuously (see also Rocchi, Ferrero, & Beadle, Reference Rocchi, Ferrero and Beadle2021) and explain what is required to ensure that the internal goods of practices are not subordinated to the external goods of institutions (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007a: 194–95). More specifically, insofar as participation in productive practices ought to contribute to the development of practical rationality, several distinct dimensions of an activity should be considered diachronically to determine whether the activity is actually fostering participants’ capacity for practical rationality over time, including: 1) the ability to separate oneself from present desires, 2) the ability to evaluate one’s reasons for action, 3) the ability to imagine alternative possibilities.

We also note two integrative considerations involving the individual and communal levels, namely the ability to contextualize internal goods in terms of their impact on human flourishing and the common good.

The first diachronic dimension concerns “the ability to stand back from our desires, so as to be able to enquire rationally what the pursuit of our good here and now requires and how our desires must be directed and, if necessary, reeducated, if we are to attain it” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1999: 83). Such re-education occurs within practices, including productive practices (Sinnicks, Reference Sinnicks2019), when participants set aside “felt wants” learning that they “may have good reason to act other than” their “most urgently felt wants dictate” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1999: 69–70). An accountant, for example, may find the painstaking analysis needed to prepare an accurate financial statement or management account tedious. She may not desire to expend the extra time and effort needed to get the numbers right but her appreciation of the internal goods of accounting (see West, Reference West2018: 28) may lead her to set aside her felt wants or present desires, such as to kill time on social media or turn to a more exciting task, to pursue those internal goods. Beyond cases such as this, an ability to set aside present desires is likely to be important to preserve the continuing vitality of practices over time. Especially in productive practices housed within organizations, participation typically involves the performance of various routines (Becker, Reference Becker2004) that may become habitual (Kump & Scholz, Reference Kump and Scholz2022). When this is the case, practitioners may need to resist desires for the familiar, quotidian activities normally performed in the practice to better attain its internal goods (see Feldman, Reference Feldman2000; MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2016: 132; Tsoukas, Reference Tsoukas2018: 338).

In other cases, it may be necessary to resist biases that fuel disordered desires. Cognitive biases, such as confirmation or anchoring biases, clearly unfortunate elements of our natural endowments, may lead one to prefer one’s own opinions over those of others. About this MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre2016: 192) notes, given the work of “Kahneman and Tversky, we need to be more emphatic still about our need for awareness of vulnerability to error in just those milieus in which most is at stake for the achievement of both individual and common goods, home, workplace, and family.” The practical rationality that is fostered by the shared deliberation characteristic of practice-based communities is thus perfective of our nature as creatures prone to these kinds of error.

Similarly, other biases such as racism, sexism and so on, often operate unconsciously, leading to desires to irrationally exclude persons from particular practices. For a pertinent example, Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in the United States (Morantz-Sanchez, Reference Morantz-Sanchez1992: 55), faced opposition when she applied to medical school. The students at Geneva Medical College in western New York, who were asked to vote on her admission, assumed that the proposal was a joke (Markel, Reference Markel2014). After attaining her degree, Blackwell not only made significant theoretical and practical contributions to medicine but also explicitly challenged the unjust, male-dominant authority structure of the practice of medicine. Accordingly, Blackwell (Reference Blackwell1902: 10, 20) says, “It is not blind imitation of men, nor thoughtless acceptance of whatever may be taught by them that is required, for this would be to endorse the widespread error that the race is men,” warning her students of the “special danger” of the “blind acceptance of what is called ‘authority’ in medicine.” As this brief example illustrates, the history of the practice of medicine demonstrates a process whereby arbitrary biases and injustices were overcome—at least to some extent—and, in doing this, it also shows how the capacity for practical rationality is progressively realized in such a process. Thus, it is not sufficient to understand whether some activity is a practice in good order merely by focusing synchronically on its features such as commitment to excellence and a good purpose (see Moore, Reference Moore2012: 366), as important as these elements are, but it is also necessary to consider the activity diachronically, to understand whether the activity contributes to the development and realization of the capacity for practical rationality, by increasingly enabling participants to distance themselves from irrational desires, including those shaped by unconscious biases.

This first point relates directly to a second dimension, involving the “movement from merely having reasons to being able to evaluate our reasons as good or bad reasons and by so doing to change our reasons for acting and in consequence our actions” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1999: 71–72). In the context of practices, the ability to evaluate one’s reasons for action is initially likely to develop through disagreement with more experienced practitioners. A resident physician, still in training, may have to correct her senior attending physician’s judgment when he has misdiagnosed a patient. About this MacIntyre says:

Over time, this ability to distinguish good reasons for action from reasons that are favored by authorities remains important to ensure that the standards of excellence of a given practice continue to evolve and improve. Barring this, the practice of medicine, for example, as it is housed within specific organizations, would lose its vitality, with obedience to managers taking precedence over commitment to the internal goods of excellent medicine, just as academic practices would lose their integrity if academics acquiesced in their administrators’ performance metrics (see Cox, Boaks, & Levine, Reference Cox, Boaks and Levine2024). Thus, an important criterion for distinguishing productive practices in good order from other activities is its potential to foster participants’ abilities to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions and authorities when there is reason to do so.

A third relevant aspect of the transition to becoming an independent practical reasoner, linked closely to the previous dimensions, involves the ability to imagine “alternative future possibilities” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1999: 76). MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre1999: 7) emphasizes the need to understand which “range of goods are presented by alternative futures,” in order to detach ourselves from present desires. In the context of productive practices, this point relates especially to the development of new products and services, a key internal good of these practices (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007a: 189; Moore, Reference Moore2017: 57). As a number of entrepreneurship scholars have argued (Thompson & Byrne, Reference Thompson and Byrne2022; Berglund & Dimov, Reference Berglund and Dimov2023), the ability to imagine alternative futures plays an important role in the development of new products and services. To the extent that such products and services represent genuine benefits for customers (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2016: 170; Hirschfield, Reference Hirschfeld2018: 154), they manifest the “extensions of human powers” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007a: 193) and, thus, the realization of the capacity for practical rationality. Consider, for example, the Cummins Engine Company, where MacIntyre says “technological innovation” enabled it to better respond to customer needs (Reference MacIntyre2016: 172). As such, a diachronic perspective is needed to fully understand the extent to which a specific activity is a practice in good order. This involves more than the pursuit of internal goods at a specific time—that is, the production of a beneficial product—but rather involves an ongoing process enabling participants to become independent practical reasoners by overcoming limited conceptions of the internal goods of their practice, over time, by developing new products and services that better meet customers’ needs. However, it is also important to note that customer preferences may fail to track or even conflict with human flourishing and the common good. As such, the imagination of alternative futures is not merely about creating new products that successfully satisfy demand but rather about identifying new ways to provide goods and services that genuinely benefit customers and society more generally. Similarly, the ability to imagine an alternative future within productive practices may be limited insofar as genuine “needs … are not embodied in demand” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and Hoffman1977: 103, italics removed), which occurs when customers want products harmful to themselves or to society.

It should also be noted that a second type of internal good—concerning the “perfection of the practitioners engaged in the craft or practice” (Moore, Reference Moore2017: 57; see also MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007a: 189)—points directly to the role of practices in shaping and improving participants. The account that we have developed here, drawing upon MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre1999) discussion of human nature in DRA, allows for greater clarity concerning the manner in which productive practices perfect participants: They do so by actualizing the capacity for practical rationality, a key component of human beings’ species-specific good (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2002b: 628; Reference MacIntyre2016: 40).

In addition to these three diachronic dimensions of the development of practical rationality—separation from desires, evaluating reasons, and the imagination of alternative futures—an integrative perspective is also needed to understand the extent to which particular activities are productive practices in good order. Insofar as participation in practices contributes to the development and actualization of practical rationality, participants should exhibit the capacity to act for good reasons, as such, not merely as they are defined within a specific practice. Thus, participation in practices, by enabling practitioners to become independent practical reasoners, should orient participants beyond the practice to more general concerns, specifically, human flourishing and the common good.

About human flourishing, MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre1999: 66) notes, “[F]or each individual there is the question of whether it is good for her or him that the goods of this or that particular practice should have this or that place in her or his life.” Thus, participation in practices should enable members to better understand how their work impacts other important practices that they participate in. For example, work as an aeronautical engineer may enable an individual to design and construct innovative new airplanes that are safer and more sustainable but a high-pressure work environment and long hours may also make it difficult to actively engage in family life and the education of children, while also preventing her from participating in community organizing (see Hayes-Mota, Reference Hayes-Mota2024). There may be no simple way to evaluate such tradeoffs but what is especially important is that participation in a productive practice should empower rather than stifle participants’ abilities to reflect on the reasons they have to continue engaging in the practice, ultimately contributing to their narrative unity of life (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007a: 174; Pinto-Garay, Scalzo, & Lluesma, Reference Pinto-Garay, Scalzo and Lluesma2022). Moreover, this ability should increase over time as practitioners gain a better sense of the practice’s impact on their flourishing, an issue that can only be fully understood from a practice-transcendent perspective,Footnote ¹ namely that of a good life.

This challenge for individuals is mirrored by similar challenges at the broader societal level. MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre1999: 66) says, “[F]or every society there is the question of whether it is good for that society that the goods of this or that particular practice should have this or that place in its common life.” The relationship between the common good and productive practices has been noted in previous research in terms of the notion of a “good purpose” (Moore, Reference Moore2017: 70). Similarly, Sison and Fontrodona (Reference Sison and Fontrodona2012: 220) emphasize the need to “explain how the common good of the firm can be integrated into the common good of the political community.” Yet the focus in much research drawing upon a MacIntyrean framework has been on the role of senior managers in determining the purpose of the firm and ensuring that it aligns with the common good. As Moore (Reference Moore2017: 110) says “It is the role of senior managers in particular to engage in that deliberation, and to put in place appropriate structures to facilitate it” (see also Tsoukas, Reference Tsoukas2018: 336).

Without denying a role for managers in this regard, this focus on management’s role in orientating productive practices toward the common good risks overlooking the extent to which a practice in good order—by actualizing the practitioner’s capacity for practical rationality—should enable participants to self-consciously direct their practice to the common good. MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre2016: 131), for example, speaking about the decline of the quality of work at the BBC says, “Where previously administrators and managers had provided space and resources for those who shared in producing the programs to pursue the common ends that they had made their own and to devise the means for achieving those ends, administrators and managers were now imposing their ends and dictating the means taken by them to be appropriate,” emphasizing that practitioners should not be passive recipients of management’s goals. Indeed, the question of the proper place of management has been a central facet of MacIntyre’s critical view of contemporary society (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007a: ch. 3; Sinnicks, Reference Sinnicks2018; West, Reference West2025).

What should also be noted is that deliberation among practitioners concerning the goodness of purpose should move beyond generalities, such as providing “healthcare to the nation” (see Moore, Reference Moore2012: 376), to consider the specific way a practice may contribute to the common good. MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre2016: 191) notes the “failure in reasoning” that occurs “when someone argues that only by doing such and such will he achieve some good … without having asked what other goods are at stake in this particular situation.” As such, it is important to consider tradeoffs in the specific choices that are made by members of a practice-bearing institution to promote the common good in one particular manner rather than another. For example, car companies have recently been faced with the choice of continuing to focus on gasoline-powered cars or switching to fully electric or hybrid models. Thus, while the production of safe, reliable, and highly fuel-efficient gasoline-powered cars could be considered a good purpose (Moore, Reference Moore2012: 376), it is necessary to consider whether the focus on more fuel-efficient automobiles delays or otherwise makes it impossible to pursue other important goods, such as fully electric vehicles. Likewise, a focus on electric vehicles, while certainly a good purpose, could be too idealistic, and, thus, not as good as the “lesser” but much more attainable goal of introducing a wide range of hybrid vehicles. MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre2016: 191) argues further that “Sound reasoning requires,” an individual “to think or have thought more widely about the range of individual and common goods that it is open to him to achieve.” Thus, over time participants in productive practices should gain the ability to make relevant distinctions, understand tradeoffs, and appreciate how the internal goods they provide to consumers relate to a broader “rank ordering of goods” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2016: 61).

Thus, a diachronic and integrative perspective is needed to understand whether some activity is a productive practice in good order, where participation contributes, over time, to members’ growing abilities to evaluate their reasons for action, by imagining alternative futures and separating themselves from their occurrent desires; in so doing, coming to better understand the relationships between the internal goods of their practice and both the common good and their own flourishing. Table 1 provides an overview of this section; in the next section, we turn to MacIntyre’s account of the natural law.

Table 1: Additional Criteria for Identifying Productive Practices in Good Order Concerning Their Role in Actualizing the Capacity for Practical Rationality

Practical Reason, Natural Law, and Grand Challenges

In addition to providing further grounding for a focus on practices and offering further clarification of the historical criterion needed to identify productive practices in good order (Beadle, Reference Beadle, Sison, Beabout and Ferrero2017: 62), incorporating an account of human nature into the MacIntyrean perspective also expands its scope, enabling it to better address large-scale ethical issues, or “grand challenges” (see George et al., Reference George, Howard-Grenville, Joshi and Tihanyi2016), such as precarious work and climate change (see Moore, Reference Moore2022). More specifically, MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre1994b; Reference MacIntyre1999: 111; Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000; Reference MacIntyre, Andersen and van Kooten Niekerk2007b; Reference MacIntyre and Cunningham2013; Reference MacIntyre2016: 89) account of the natural law provides a means of addressing these large-scale ethical issues and, more broadly, a final point concerning the role of practices and other social relationships in contributing to the realization of the capacity for practical rationality.

Theories of natural law have made some impact on business ethics (see Velasquez & Brady, Reference Velasquez and Brady1997). However, MacIntyre’s account of this notion is distinct from other prominent perspectives in that it is focused on identifying a set of fundamental norms that facilitate mutual learning and must be adhered to by individuals insofar as debate, deliberation, and rational inquiry are to be possible. Moreover, because social relationships involving rational inquiry are essential to fully realize one’s capacity for practical rationality, these norms give expression to our shared human nature as dependent rational animals. As MacIntyre says, “The life that expresses our shared human nature is a life of practical inquiry and practical reasoning, and we cannot but presuppose the precepts of the natural law in asking and answering those fundamental questions through our everyday activities and practices” (Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 109). At this point, an important clarification is needed. While theories of natural law are widely varying (see Angier, Reference Angier2021), this notion is often linked to Catholic theological perspectives (e.g., Porter, Reference Porter1999). However, MacIntyre’s theory of natural law, like his philosophy more generally, while inevitably influenced by his theological commitments (see Reference MacIntyre1994b; Reference MacIntyre, Torrance and Banner2006c), is secularFootnote ² (see Reference MacIntyre and Knight1998a: 266). Rather than appealing to theological premises, that is, authoritative claims deriving from specific religions, MacIntyre’s theory of natural law is a further elaboration of his neo-Aristotelian naturalism (see Reference MacIntyre1999: 64; Reference MacIntyre2002b: 624; Reference MacIntyre2016: 25), in conjunction with insights drawn from Aquinas.

Accordingly, for MacIntyre, the natural law involves a set of norms that serve a dual function. On one hand, the precepts of the natural law direct individuals toward the achievement of goods that realize human nature, goods of three types: “the good of our physical nature …; the goods that belong to our animal nature …; and the goods that belong to our nature as rational animals” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 107). More specifically, the set of basic goods includes aims such as “health,” intimate relationships, and “educating and caring for our children,” as well as “the goods of knowledge… and the goods of a social life informed by the precepts of reason” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 107). As such these norms give expression to human nature’s fundamental capacities, involving a range of “essential and ordered inclinations,” the fulfillment of which would be the “achievement of that to which human nature is inclined” since the fundamental capacities are specified by the goods that realize them (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 107). And though conceptualizations of the basic goods vary between cultures, MacIntyre argues that “the norms and rules of all cultures are to be understood as variously imperfect apprehensions of the natural law,” that is, of the fundamental components of human nature (Reference MacIntyre, Andersen and van Kooten Niekerk2007b: 152).

On the other hand, the natural law represents a set of deontic constraints, obedience to which ensures that deliberation, debate, and shared rational inquiry do not devolve into a power struggle, where stronger parties whose threats of violence or abilities to withhold needed resources from weaker parties prevent the latter from having a genuine voice in the discussion. As such, the precepts of the natural law “are the preconditions of a kind of rational conversation in which no one need fear being victimized,” involving a range of “universal and invariant requirements [that] specify the preconditions for the kind of responsiveness by one human being to others which makes it possible for each to learn from the others’ questioning” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1994b: 184). These constraints are exceptionless and universal in scope, since “[t]here is no one with whom I may not find myself in the future a partner in deliberation concerned with some good or goods that we have in common” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and Knight2006b: 79), or from whom it is impossible to learn, including persons who are severely disabled (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1999: 136). Accordingly, individuals learn about the precepts of the natural law by engaging in deliberation with others insofar as acceptance of their “binding authority” is a necessary condition for constructive debate about “individual and common goods” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and Knight2006a: 48). Specifically, individuals learn norms against the breaking of promises, lying, and “malicious gossip,” as well as injunctions prohibiting murder, theft, and, more generally, offenses against human dignity (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1999: 110; Reference MacIntyre1994b: 177; see Paár, Reference Paár2020: 70), among other considerations that interfere with deliberation, practical reasoning, and mutual learning.

At this point, we should briefly consider an objection to neo-Aristotelian naturalism that is also applicable to MacIntyre’s account of the natural law. John McDowell (Reference McDowell1998: 172) argues that given “the onset of reason … the nature of the species abdicates from a previously unquestionable authority over the behavior of the individual animal.” In other words, because human beings possess practical rationality, they can always question the authority of human nature. As such, we may ask: Why are the precepts of the natural law binding? For MacIntyre, the answer to this challenge is twofold, following the dual role of the natural law. First, human beings must acknowledge the authority of the natural law in practice, particularly its deontic constraints prohibiting harm, in order to engage in rational conversations with others in a way that facilitates learning (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1994b: 184). Failure to do this would, thus, lead to frustration and an inability to exercise practical rationality. As such, the natural law is binding because practical inquiry and mutual learning are essential in any context of life wherein one interacts with others. Second, the natural law, according to MacIntyre, orients human beings toward species-specific goods (Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 107) directly, in such a manner that these goods are known primarily as being good or worthy of pursuit by the agent in question. This occurs by reflection upon one’s natural inclinations toward certain ends (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 107). Thus, while cultural influences may distort knowledge of species-specific goods (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre, Andersen and van Kooten Niekerk2007b: 152), the question of why one should pursue such species-specific goods does not arise since these ends, insofar as they are known, are known primarily as being good. As MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 108) says, speaking of the natural law, “When we are functioning normally, we find ourselves inclined in certain directions and toward certain ends.” Thus, it is not a matter of convincing someone, through argument, why health or harmonious social relationships, for example, are goods, so much as providing them with a good education that enables them to properly appreciate these ends (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 109).

Consider, in light of this account of the natural law, MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre2016: 171–72) recent discussion of the Cummins Engine Company. MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre2016: 172) says that Cummins was a “research enterprise, responsive to its customers’ future as well as present needs, with a remarkable record in technological innovation” that “subordinated the need to achieve higher levels of profitability to the good of making excellent products, and individuals who worked for the company were expected to serve that common good.” This provides an example of a productive practice that is largely in good order. Yet, it also raises an important question about how the MacIntyrean practice-institution framework can address the problem of climate change (see Moore, Reference Moore2022) since participants in this firm’s core practice would seemingly have reason to resist efforts to radically reform production insofar as their practice—from the point of view of its participants (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007a: 189)—realizes distinct internal goods involving combustion engines. In this context, practitioners risk falling into “self-referentiality,” where participants fail “to relate the outcomes of their core practice to the changing needs of outside stakeholders” (Tsoukas, Reference Tsoukas2018: 333–34), namely, the need to be sustainable.

MacIntyreans have rightly emphasized that practices must have a “good purpose” (Moore, Reference Moore2012: 366) and support the common good (Sison & Fontrodona, Reference Sison and Fontrodona2012). However, the question is how practitioners—whose characters are shaped especially by participation in particular practices—are able to accurately determine both what the common good consists of and what demands it places on practitioners. Similarly, Moore (Reference Moore2022: 8) emphasizes the role of “MacIntyrean practices,” as activities “in and through which desires could be (re)educated and potentially transformed in pursuit of the good.” Yet, how can participants in particular practices such as that housed by Cummins Engine Company, whose characters are shaped by its internal goods and standards of excellence, avoid self-referentiality and in-group biases, in order to come to a more accurate determination of the value of the internal goods of their practice, such that their desires can be properly reeducated, given that their practice-shaped desires are directed toward producing combustion engines that contribute to climate change? This issue is compounded because MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre2007a: 192) primary argument concerning the need for virtues within practices emphasizes their importance in shaping relationships between practitioners but does not explain their role in relationships with outsiders, making it difficult to understand why practitioners should be willing to listen to challenges from climate change activists. In this regard, Beadle (Reference Beadle2013: 684) notes the potential for a “breach” between the “evaluative standards” of external stakeholders and those practitioners. However, an account of the natural law provides a more adequate basis for addressing this issue.

The natural law orients practitioners beyond their particular practices in two relevant ways. First, practices—like other contexts of practical inquiry—only function properly and contribute to mutual learning, insofar as participants adhere to the exceptionless precepts of the natural law, especially the negative precepts prohibiting lying, coercion, manipulation, and threats of violence (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1994b: 184; Reference MacIntyre2016: 89, 108). Otherwise, they are likely to devolve into fruitless forms of conflict. Accordingly, by participating in practices, participants learn not only about internal goods and standards of excellence but also about “precepts that bind just because to flout them is to violate one’s nature as a rational being” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre, Andersen and van Kooten Niekerk2007b: 151). As such, practitioners learn that it is always wrong to use threats of violence or manipulation to win arguments, just as it is wrong to ignore or willfully misrepresent an interlocutor. Likewise, practitioners, by engaging in discussions and debates with fellow practitioners, learn the norms that must be followed—any time they interact with other rational agents—insofar as they are to properly realize their own capacity for rationality. In this way, the natural law supplements—without abrogatingFootnote ³—the requirements of the virtues within practices (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007a: 192), providing a fundamental set of deontic constraints that are universally binding, beyond the boundaries of particular practices, insofar as it is always possible to learn from outsiders with very different cultural backgrounds (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1994b: 184).

Thus, when outside stakeholders raise questions about the practice of making combustion engines, questioning whether its internal goods are genuine goods (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2016: 53), practitioners have reason to observe the deontic constraints of the natural law because outside stakeholders may have unique insights from which practitioners can learn. And, insofar as practitioners use coercion, threats, calumny, or manipulation to shield themselves from criticisms from outsider stakeholders, they will undermine their own capacity to evaluate their reasons for action (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1999: 54). As such, the natural law provides a basis for understanding the moral obligations of practitioners in relationships with outsiders affected by their actions. It should also be noted that MacIntyre (Reference MacIntyre, Horton and Mendus1994a: 284; Reference MacIntyre2007a: 264) has emphasized that the requirements of genuine virtues necessarily extend beyond the context of particular practices. Accordingly, the natural law’s deontic constraints serve to specify the requirements of justice when practitioners interact with stakeholders who are not participants in their practices.

Second, the natural law directs individuals towards a range of human goods that are not merely the goods internal to practices but rather goods specific to human beings, as such (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1999: 67), including goods such as life, health, relationships, and rationality (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 107). Thus, the orientation towards basic human goods provided by the natural law enables practitioners to appreciate how goods of particular practices, that is, goods for “agents engaged in this or that form of activity” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1999: 67), give expression to or distort fundamental human goods. The human goods promoted by the core practice at Cummins, for example, include aims such as the preservation of human life and health that are facilitated by increased commerce and agriculture resulting from more powerful and efficient engines. In this way, the teleological orientation provided by the natural law directs practitioners beyond the internal goods of specific practices, providing a standard whereby specific types of internal goods may be evaluated in terms of their adequacy in satisfying the fundamental inclinations toward basic human goods that are constitutive of human nature (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 107).

Thus, when outside stakeholders challenge the core practice at Cummins, they must do so by appealing to a similar range of fundamental human goods, arguing that its core practice fails to promote or respect those basic goods in specific ways. For example, they may claim that regardless of the positive impact of combustion engines on basic human goods such as life and health, their negative impact on the health of others, especially the least well-off, and the long-term risks to human life that they exacerbate far outweigh their benefits. As such, the natural law provides a basic “grammar,” enabling practitioners and others to frame their disputes, articulating the importance of a practice’s internal goods in terms of its impact on human flourishing. Of course, the orientation toward “shared human goods” will not eliminate disputes or intractable disagreements (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and Cunningham2013: 5), but it does provide a basis for understanding how practitioners can avoid self-referentiality (Tsoukas, Reference Tsoukas2018: 333–34), namely by linking the internal goods of the practice with the basic goods toward which we are directed by the natural law. This account of the natural law also shows how reasoning within productive practices may lead to political reasoning with outside stakeholders in a manner consonant with MacIntyre’s (Reference MacIntyre2007a: 227; see also Reference MacIntyre1999: 141) account of the practice of politics.

Another grand challenge that illustrates the importance of incorporating an account of human nature into the MacIntyrean practice-institution framework (Moore, Reference Moore2017) is the problem of precarious work, involving “employment that is uncertain, unpredictable, and risky from the point of view of the worker” (Kalleberg, Reference Kalleberg2009: 2). Precarity has become a prominent feature of public debates relating to work and employment over the past decade (Han, Reference Han2018) and has received some attention within business ethics and political philosophy (e.g., Alacovska & Bissonnette, Reference Alacovska and Bissonnette2021; Bieber & Moggia, Reference Bieber and Moggia2021; Wang & Seifert, Reference Wang and Seifert2022). While there have always been precarious forms of work, its modern incarnation, which includes the “gig economy” and so-called platform work, has increased significantly in recent times (Moisander, Groß, & Eräranta, Reference Moisander, Groß and Eräranta2018; Allan, Autin, & Wilkins-Yel, Reference Allan, Autin and Wilkins-Yel2021), so much so that it is now possible to conceive of the precariat as a distinct social class (Standing, Reference Standing2014).

However, the ethical questions raised by precarious work are not only or even primarily a matter of this type of work lacking the structure of a practice (see Moore, Reference Moore2017: 145). Instead, precarious work is especially problematic because of the uncertainty that it imposes on workers. Consider, for instance, the growing precarity of much academic work (Bone, Reference Bone2021). Adjunct lecturers, like other academics, engage in forms of work that have the structure of a practice (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2007a: 187). A chemist, for example, contracted to teach courses to graduate students is likely to draw upon her knowledge of the practice of chemistry, considering both the latest developments that may be relevant to students as well as foundational principles that are widely endorsed by members of the practice. Similar considerations apply in cases of precarious creative work (Phillipov, Reference Phillipov2022). In these manifestations of precarity, the problem is not specifically a lack of meaningful work (Beadle & Knight, Reference Beadle and Knight2012) or a corruption of the practice (Robson, Reference Robson2015; Moore, Reference Moore2017: 145). Instead, adjunct faculty and other precarious workers are plagued by pervasive financial insecurity stemming from lower wages compared with full-time faculty or permanent employees, frequent fluctuations in the demand for work coupled with contracts offered on short notice that make it difficult to formulate long-term plans, and a lack of adequate healthcare.

Since the most urgent issue facing adjunct faculty or precarious creative workers is not an inadequate provision of practice-based work, the practice-institution framework (Moore, Reference Moore2005), on its own, does not speak directly to this issue. Augmenting it with an account of the natural law provides a better basis for critiquing precarious work. Considered in light of the natural law, productive practices, and work more broadly (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre, Blackledge and Knight2011: 107), should not only contribute to the realization of workers’ rational nature—actualizing the capacity for practical rationality (see MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1999: ch. 8)—but should also enable workers to satisfy their inclinations towards goods of their “physical nature” and “animal nature” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 107), namely, the species-specific goods involving the preservation of life, health, the establishment of intimate relationships, and the education of children. Similarly, work should not interfere with other goods of workers’ rational nature, involving a well-ordered “social life” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 107).

However, adjunct instructors (Bone, Reference Bone2021) and precarious workers in “film, television and certain types of journalism” (Phillipov, Reference Phillipov2022: 4), like precarious workers in the gig economy (Moisander et al., Reference Moisander, Groß and Eräranta2018), more broadly, as a result of their working conditions, are unable to achieve the species-specific goods toward which human beings are directed by the natural law (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 107). More specifically, financial insecurity—for example, low and uncertain wages—frequent lack of healthcare, and poor health outcomes facing workers of all types in the gig economy (Macmillan & Shanahan, Reference Macmillan and Shanahan2021) make it difficult for them to satisfy their basic needs, at the extreme, conflicting with species-specific goods involving the preservation of life and health. Precarity is also at odds with the goods of educating and caring for children, as well as the preservation of well-ordered intimate relationships and participation in social life, more broadly. This is partly because the demand for flexibility and lack of a fixed schedule, typical of precarious work, makes it harder for parents to establish a regular routine that so obviously benefits young children, or to be present for mealtimes, bedtimes, and the like. But it is also because precarity encourages people to put off starting a family (Schmitt, Reference Schmitt2021). Similarly, demands for flexibility, a frequently varying schedule, and work during “off-hours” may interfere with the preservation of the wider net of social relations necessary for a flourishing life, involving “those distinctively human abilities … that enable us to associate cooperatively with others in ways not open to nonhuman animals” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre2016: 29; see also Reference MacIntyre1999: ch. 9).

MacIntyre has lamented the fact that many people are burdened with a “treadmill of a job” (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre, Bielskis and Knight2015: 18). And while much work in the gig economy can be faulted for failing to have the structure of a practice, expanding the MacIntyrean perspective—by incorporating an account of human nature into the practice-institution frameworks—provides a more far-reaching way to critique work in the contemporary gig economy, highlighting the way that precarious work interferes with a range of species-specific goods (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre and McLean2000: 107), not only the goods of rational nature realized within productive practices. An expanded MacIntryean framework that incorporates the natural law also provides a basis for criticizing practices that have become insular or “self-referential” (Tsoukas, Reference Tsoukas2018: 333–34), calling attention to a set of deontic constraints that must be followed when interacting with outside stakeholders to ensure that those interactions facilitate practical rationality (MacIntyre, Reference MacIntyre1994b: 184).