This book is the product of the confluence of a number of distinct philosophical interests and is, accordingly, a product that leaves me indebted to a great number of people and institutions. In particular, I have had a long-standing professional interest in both the philosophy of science and ethics. My interest in the philosophy of science has led me, because of a number of close friendships with colleagues in the discipline of economics, into a great many discussions of theory justification in economics. At the same time, my own theoretical commitments in the area of ethics have led me to feel a deep frustration with the dominant economic view of human rationality as necessarily leading to maximizing behavior.

Roughly a decade ago I undertook to develop a course in Business Ethics in cooperation with my late colleague, Lee Van Zant (Economics, Austin College). That course brought me face to face with the modern managerial corporation in a way that I had not previously experienced. The more I examined the managerial corporation, the more I became convinced that many of the claims that seemed to be made about it by professional economists seemed appropriate claims to make about individual entrepreneurial businesses, but not about large corporations. As a result, I found myself becoming increasingly interested in theories of the firm.

Quite naturally, that interest lent a new direction and a new set of problems to my previous interest in the issue of theory justification in economics. This book is the product of that new direction and new set of problems.