An affective ethics of organizational life

What is it about?

Challenging Levinasian efforts to found organizational ethics on an impossible and unconditional ethics of recognition, this paper articulates an embodied ethics of organizational life through Spinoza’s affective ethics. Neither a moral rule system nor an infinite duty to recognize the other, Spinoza offers a theory of the good, powerful and joyful life by asking what bodies can do. Rather than an unrestrained, irresponsible and individualistic quest for power and freedom, this suggests that we enhance our capacities to affect and be affected - and to live joyful lives - by relating to a variety of different bodies.

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Why is it important?

With Spinoza, this paper offers a realistic account of ethics, which recognizes the political limits, challenges and possibilities of nurturing ethical relations within and beyond organizations. We do not pursue ethical relations with others because we recognize an unconditional duty to do so, but because we enjoy their company and realize that we risk learning and gaining more from interaction than from isolation.