macintyre, emotivism, and permissible manipulation

 I sent this email to my father-in-law, who is a professor of management at Houston Baptist University. 

"I just read this article from a philosopher who works in business ethics. He thinks MacIntyre’s charge of management being wholly emotivistic can be applied to new forms of leadership (e.g. transformative/charismatic leadership). Both of these manipulate workers by affective attachment, so they’re no better than the Weberian models MacIntyre was originally critiquing. 

 

I think that’s fine, but this doesn’t matter unless we think manipulation is categorically bad. Manipulation might be pro tanto bad, but there might be other considerations that outweigh its badness. It’s generally bad to manipulate my friend into giving me money. However, if my friend is going to use his money to do something illegal, then perhaps my manipulation might be an exception. 

 

I see nothing different from forms of leadership that use affective leadership. So what if there is manipulation? And so what if it’s emotivistic? We have to figure out whether or not such manipulation is ethically impermissible. It’s not immediately obvious to me that it is. 

 

One consideration is whether or not leaders have the proper authority over their workers to manipulate in these ways. As a father, I have the authority over my child to manipulate my child to do some things (e.g., I’ll give him ice cream if he cleans up his room). But my neighbor doesn’t have nearly the same kind of authority to manipulate my child to do similar things, at least without my consent. If managers have a similar kind of authority, I take it that these issues can be put to rest. 

 

If I remember correctly, MacIntyre might say that manipulation happens when I treat a person as a means by persuading them to do something apart from rational argument. I guess I just don’t follow. Most of what we do is driven by many other things besides rational argument. Maybe I’m just being too cynical, though."