Vandekerckhove, Wim ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0106-7915 and Emmanuel, Myrtle ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7975-9751 (2025) Inherent normativity of metaphors: ethics, organizations, and moral imagination. Philosophy of Management. ISSN 1740-3812 (Print), 2052-9597 (Online) (doi:10.1007/s40926-025-00339-1)

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Abstract

Business ethics scholars have argued that the way business is conceived and theorized can drive out our ability to think ethics. This article examines that problem by drawing attention to inherent normativity in metaphors we use to imagine organizations. We use Levinas-scholarship to characterize ethics as radically other-oriented and undertake close reading of his major work to articulate problematic aspects of images for organizational metaphors. This leads us to distinguish two types of metaphors: (1) images of organization with a Totalizing normativity which reduce all otherness and in that sense are normatively self-referential; and (2) images with a normativity that distorts the image, in which the organization is not the normative reference point. The article provides examples of both types of metaphors and argues that the first type of metaphors maintains a cognitive trap, whereas the second type can trigger moral imagination, i.e. give us operative mental models that allow us to perceive a situation from the perspective of others.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Levinas, metaphors, moral imagination
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BJ Ethics H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Greenwich Business School Greenwich Business School > Centre for Research on Employment and Work (CREW) Greenwich Business School > School of Management and Marketing
Last Modified:	15 May 2025 13:45
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/50414

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