Understanding Moral Courage PDF

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This material is copyrighted. Please do not upload nor post this excerpt to any website. The citation for this article is: Simola, S. (2015). Understanding moral courage…Journal of Business Ethics, 130, 29-44..

Moral Courage Research on the nature of courage as a general construct has indicated that it involves three key characteristics (Rate 2010). These characteristics are that courage is something freely chosen by the actor; that it is aimed at achieving a noble or morally worthy purpose; and, that it involves substantial risk to the actor. In addition to these common underlying characteristics of courage, researchers have identified three main types of courage (Lopez et al. 2003), which though distinct from one another, are not necessarily mutually exclusive in their occurrence (Putnam 2010; Woodard 2010).1 The first of these is physical courage which involves the surmounting of fear in order to engage in a physical action directed at the achievement of a virtuous goal such as protection of others. The second of these is psychological or vital courage which refers to personal persistence through indeterminate psychological or physical challenges (e.g., injury or illness) in order to live more fully. The third type of courage is moral courage. Several definitions of moral courage have been proposed. For example, Putnam (2010, p. 9) defined moral courage as ‘‘overcoming fear of social ostracism or rejection in order to maintain ethical integrity.’’ Lopez et al. (2010, p. 23) defined moral courage as ‘‘the behavioral expression of authenticity in the face of the discomfort of dissension, disapproval or rejection.’’ Osswald et al. (2010, p. 150) described moral courage as ‘‘a prosocial behavior with high social costs and no (or rare) direct rewards for the actor, ’’ and went on to elaborate workplace situations such as harassment, abuse, mobbing, and illegal or unethical business practices in which such courage might be needed. Although not always included in formal definitions, an additional characteristic that has emerged in the work of various scholars is that moral courage is aimed at ameliorating threats to collective vitality, and therefore involves responsiveness to the networks of others in which individuals are embedded (Putnam 1997; Sekera and Bagozzi 2007; Worline 2010). Within the field of business ethics, moral courage is a highly relevant construct, both in relation to processes leading to ethical action, and in relation to specific types of ethical situations. In regard to the former of these, a recurring theme in the business ethics literature (Bird 2002; Comer and Vega 2011; Gini 2011; Haidt 2001; Hannah et al. 2011) is the tenuous and inconsistent nature of the relationship between moral judgment and moral action (Blasi 1980; Rest et al. 1991). It has been noted that to the extent to which the development and expression of moral courage can be understood and facilitated, the link between ethical judgment and ethical action across a broad range of

business situations might well be strengthened (Comer and Vega. 2011; Kidder 2005 ; Rate and Sternberg 2007). In terms of the particular types of ethical situations in business and organizations for which moral courage is relevant, these are multiple and varied. Serrat (2010, p. 2) argued that moral courage can serve to ‘‘offset groupthink; mitigate hypocrisy and ‘nod-and-wink’ cultures; educate mechanical conformity and compliance…check irregularities, misconduct, injustice and corruption’’ as well as ‘‘consolidate trust, enshrined in formal contracts, oral contracts, and psychological contracts.’’ Additional and perhaps most notable areas in which moral courage is pertinent to business ethics are whistleblowing and other everyday uses of ‘‘voice’’ (Hirschman 1970) versus ‘‘moral muteness’’ (Bird 2002) as forms of ethical resistance or principled dissent (Graham 1986). Indeed, several authors have explicitly discussed both whistleblowing (Glazer and Glazer 1999; Kohn 2011; MacDonald 2011; Shepela et al. 1999) and other uses of voice (Matt and Shahinpoor 2011; Simola 2005) as examples of ethical actions both requiring and reflecting moral courage. Examples of whistleblowing or other morally courageous uses of voice in business and organizational settings include the ‘‘heroic’’ actions of Cynthia Cooper and Sherron Watkins, who disclosed at substantial personal risk the improper accounting practices occurring at WorldCom and Enron, respectively (Lacayo and Ripley 2002); as well as the very courageous, yet high priced uses of voice by Roger Boisjoly in an effort to prevent the Challenger disaster and similar future tragedies (Simola 2005).

1 Examples

of the interrelationships among various types of courage will become clearer following the discussion of moral courage in the subsequent section of the article. In particular, definitions of moral courage reflect concern with maintaining ethical authenticity or integrity even in the face of serious personal consequences such as social ostracism. Hence, to the extent to which individuals enact moral courage and suffer its personal consequences, those individuals might subsequently require psychological or vital courage to persevere and live life more fully through those consequences. Alternately, given the centrality of personal responsibility and authenticity to both psychological or vital courage on one hand (e.g., Putnam 2010) and moral courage on the other hand (e.g., Worline 2010), it is possible that the will to live more fully often associated with psychological courage might support the expression of moral courage....