Personalist Philosophy, the Relational Trinity, and the Business Firm as a Moral Community

Abstract

The aim of this study is to identify the excellent goods that are required for the project of forming a moral community in a business firm. Trinitarian theology is used to reflect on these goods. Though there is a massive gap between the way the triune community expresses itself and the way human communities do, the Christian doctrine that humans are made in the image of God, and therefore imago trinitatis, suggests that Trinitarian theology offers a pattern for moral community in a firm. The Persons of the relational Trinity express love through an I–Thou–We modality. The work of Martin Buber and Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) on the I–Thou or interhuman relation is first discussed. It is then noted that Wojtyla goes further in contending that I–Thou alone does not in and of itself constitute a human community; it is only when a plurality of “I”s act together to advance the common good that we can speak of the “we” (the social dimension). It is argued that a correlational reading of social Trinitarian thought and Wojtyla’s personalist phenomenology indicates what is required in a firm aspiring to be a genuinely moral community—namely, both intersubjectivity (I–Thou relationality) and a social profile (the “we”). It is further argued that these modalities are actualized in a business firm through moral friendship, good will (I–Thou), and commitment to the common good (“we”). These are foundational stones of a moral community.

1. Introduction

The broad field of academic research that this article contributes to is organizational spirituality (OS). There are dozens of books and hundreds of articles available on OS. There is also a small number of academic journals dedicated to research in this field. When one engages with this literature, it very quickly becomes obvious that there is no consensus either on what “spirituality” means or on what the term “organizational spirituality” means. Some have become quite sceptical. Reva Berman Brown states that “[t]he more I read on the topic of Organizational Spirituality (OS), the more apparent it became that the concept is not unclear—it is opaque” (Brown 2003, p. 394). It is beyond the scope of this essay to engage with the complexities around definitions (of both “spirituality” and “organizational spirituality”) and the range of the term OS. Eginli (2017) offers a comprehensive approach, both in terms of defining the key term “spirituality”, and in terms of a double-orientation model that draws in both corporate and individual employee perspectives. Her work therefore serves my purpose of introducing the concept of OS. Eginli (2017) offers a holistic or bio-psycho-spiritual model of spirituality, in which the spiritual dimension is expressed in both transcendent (or religious) and immanent (or finite, this-worldly) modalities. Both aspects are addressed in the present essay.

In the double-orientation model, from the corporate side, managers of organizations see an opportunity to achieve desired outcomes by adding “some structure and implementations to the organisational culture which are fun-providing and support the spiritual growth of employees” (Eginli 2017, p. 87). In relation to the individual employee orientation, a spiritualized organization is one in which workers experience a sense of togetherness or community, affirmation of their worth as persons and as co-workers, and opportunities for self-actualization and spiritual growth.

Aside from the definitional problem, there is the question of whether the components that are commonly identified as core elements in OS can legitimately be labelled “spiritual”. Writers include experiences such as meaning-making, being part of a good team, having fun at work, and realizing personal potential. It is argued by some that to call positive experiences such as these “spiritual” is to trivialize the term (cf. Benefiel 2003). I agree with Benefiel. In this essay, an approach is offered that I believe accords with the call for work in OS that engages with spirituality at a deep level. Leading theological approaches to the relational Trinity—a doctrine at the heart of the Christian tradition—are utilized to develop a fresh understanding of the moral firm.

In their article on advancing the common good in a firm, Helen Alford and Michael Naughton helpfully distinguish between foundational and excellent goods (Alford and Naughton 2002, p. 38). They suggest that profitability and efficiency are worthy goals because their realization forms the foundation of the business as a whole. The business needs to be efficient and profitable to survive. There would be no opportunity to develop excellent goods if the firm went out of business. An excellent good is that which contributes to the flourishing of the agents in a firm.

The endpoint of this essay is naming excellent goods required for the project of forming a moral community in a firm. The method employed to reach this telos is correlational: insights from social Trinitarian thought and personalist philosophy are read together to identify key modalities in the life of a genuinely moral firm.

In relation to the first of our conversational partners, I make this observation. Though there is a massive gap between the way the triune community expresses itself and the way human communities do—God lives through perfect love and humans fall very far short of that ideal—the Christian doctrine that humans are made in the image of God, and therefore imago trinitatis, suggests that Trinitarian theology offers a pattern for moral community in a firm. Older approaches to the Trinity were founded, first, on the category of substance (a Greek philosophical term) and subsequently on absolute subjectivity (a Hegelian category). It is the more recent relational approach to the Trinity that is clearly the appropriate one for this exercise. In constructing a relational model, certain theologians (e.g., Moltmann 1981; Cunningham 1998; McCall 2014) have employed the I–Thou modality that is central in the thought of dialogical philosophers such as Martin Buber, Ferdinand Ebner, and Gabriel Marcel. Interestingly, Heribert Mühlen goes a step further and introduces the category of the “We” (Mühlen 1963). Mühlen (1963) posits the Holy Spirit as the personal agency representing the extension of the divine self-love expressed in the mutuality of the I–Thou relation between the Father and the Son; the Triune God lives not only through an I–Thou relation, but also through a We relation. That is, it is a perichoretic, or mutually indwelling, community of perfect love. Without any reference to Trinitarian theology, Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) suggests that the I–Thou or interhuman relation alone does not in and of itself constitute a human community; it is only when a plurality of “I”s act together to advance the common good that we can speak of the “we” or the social dimension (Wojtyla 1979).

It is argued that a correlational reading of social Trinitarian thought and Wojtyla’s personalist phenomenology indicates what is required in a firm aspiring to be a genuinely moral community—namely, both intersubjectivity (I–Thou relationality) and a social dimension (the “we”). It is further argued that these modalities are actualized in a business firm through the excellent goods of moral friendship, good will (I–Thou) and commitment to the common good (“we”).

It is obviously totally unrealistic to suggest that what is needed to form a moral community in a firm is for all the agents to live through perfect love in imitation of the triune community. In using the relational Trinity as our model, we need to take account of the infinite qualitative distinction between God and humankind. All that we can hope for or expect are faint echoes of the booming symphony of divine love. Moral friendship, good will, and commitment to the common good, I suggest, are such echoes. Moral friendship involves treating the other as an end in themself; it can be distinguished from a friendship of utility. In the latter form of relationship, two people cooperate and work together in a spirit of friendship because it serves a shared goal: advancing respective personal causes through the efficient and successful completion of an assigned task. Moral friendships in a workplace are built on a foundation of good will. Good will involves wishing the other person well; believing that they are worthy of help; aiming to help them; acting so as to help them; and acting for their sake. The common good in the context of a firm is defined as that constellation of conditions that promote the material, moral, intellectual, and spiritual flourishing of all the members of the community.

The structure of this essay is as follows. First, there is a discussion of the use of Trinitarian theology to develop an ethical theory. As we will see, there are serious problems associated with this project that need to be addressed. This discussion is followed by the presentation of a selection of important theories of the relational Trinity. Here, connections with the personalist thought of Buber and Wojtyla will be established. In the third section, the excellent goods of moral friendship, good will (reflecting the I–Thou relationality of the Trinity), and commitment to the common good (echoing the “We” aspect of Trinitarian life) that I take to be vitally important for the development of a firm as a moral community will be outlined. The first task, then, is attending to the challenges associated with my chosen method.

2. The Use of the Trinity in Christian Ethics

When it comes to the use of Trinitarian theology in Christian ethics, there are essentially three views on offer. The first is that theological ethicists should look elsewhere for their inspiration. The naysayers argue that the project is doomed to failure because the obstacles to legitimate use of the doctrine are insurmountable (more on this below).

The second approach is usually called “participation” (Fiddes 2000; Gaines 2014; Vosloo 2023). Frightened off by the problems associated with social Trinitarianism, participation advocates opt for what they see as the more prudent path of working with formation in Christian virtue through participation in the life of God. The Trinity is viewed not so much as a source of inspiration for reimagining ethics but rather as the spiritual source for growth in the moral life.

As much as I appreciate the participation method, it is clearly only useful in developing a theory of the moral life of the Christian. It does not work when doing public theology. Therefore, given this and given my commitment to Trinitarian theologizing, I need to take the third approach—viz, imitation. Proponents of imitation argue that the triune life of God provides a rich resource for thinking about the moral life. There are numerous examples in the literature. Jürgen Moltmann argues that Christian monotheism has been used to justify hierarchy and absolutist systems of governance in both church and state (Moltmann 1981). Patricia Wilson-Kästner takes the view that three-in-oneness supports the feminist ideal of mutuality in relationships held in balance with autonomy and a healthy sense of self (Wilson-Kästner 1983). David Cunningham, following in the long tradition of the vestigia Trinitatis (the traces of the Trinity in human life), argues for three “Trinitarian virtues”—namely, participation (empathy, mutuality, and interdependence), polyphony (Kästner’s approach is a good example of this), and particularity [commitment to the good of the “we” that incorporates the aspirations and needs of the “I’’] (Cunningham 1998). To give one final example, Denis Edwards contends that the triune life models for us a particular way of love. His love ethic is, in essence, as follows: “self- possession as well as self-giving, love of self as well as love of other” (Edwards 1999).

Above, I mentioned problems associated with the copying or imitation method of Trinity-inspired theological reflection. Critics of relational Trinitarianism identify two major flaws in the method. The first of these I have already flagged. In the introduction to this essay, I noted the massive discontinuity between divine and human social existence. Vosloo (2023) captures the nub of the problem: It is “highly problematic to limit the moral life to such an ethic of imitation. Such an ethic of imitation fails to take the discontinuity between God’s identity and our identities seriously. What is meant by ‘person’ or ‘relation’ within the Triune life cannot to be equated uncritically with what we understand about human personhood or relationality” (p. 413; emphasis in the original). The danger that Vosloo and others identify is of course a danger in any analogical method of carrying out theology. The way that God is a maker, a king, a father, and a mother (to use some of the common Biblical analogues) is infinitely different to the way that humans express these roles. However, we simply cannot carry out theology without resorting to analogy and metaphor. The task before us then is to identify and work with analogies that are supported by disciplined and rigorous engagement with Scripture and tradition. It is also the case that those of us opting for imitation must not claim too much for our theological and ethical insights. That is why the use of images such as “a very faint echo” of the divine life is employed throughout.

The other major problem identified by the critics is projection. Christoph Schwöbel warns that it would be “theologically disastrous if one criticizes the projection of certain views of the divine nature on the order of human society for its alienating effects [Moltmann’s point], and then proceeds by projecting a view of desirable human relationships on the divine being” (Schwöbel 1995, p. 11). Karen Kilby goes a step further and adds that this projection “is not accidental, but built into the nature of the social theorists’ approach” (Kilby 2001, p. 439). She gives the example of the use of the concept of perichoresis by social Trinitarians. Kilby (2001) contends that they first fill the concept with their own preferred notions of relationality and then shift to announcing that they have an exciting new moral resource to share with the wider world.

What to do with this deep-seated problem? Obviously, it should not simply be denied. Every theologian, social Trinitarian or not, is subject to projecting their own preferences and values onto God. We can never completely avoid this. It is an occupational hazard, so to speak. An important step to take in limiting the level of projection is to avoid claiming to know too much in the way of detail about the inner life of God. It is very tempting for a theologian to map certain quite precise aspects of a particular ethical theory (feminist, ecological, political ones, for example) onto God’s triune way of being. The approach taken in this essay works initially at a more general level: there is a discussion of how the concepts of I–Thou and the “we” that are central in personalist philosophies are used in certain Trinitarian theologies. It is clearly not very useful to stay at this general level if the aim is to develop the outlines of a model of the business firm as a moral community. The second step is to indicate how I–Thou and “we” relationships are concretely expressed by those committed to this ethical project. I have essentially followed Cunningham’s (1998) suggestion that there are certain “Trinitarian virtues” that we ought to live by. Whether in doing this I have fallen too far down the projection hole is for the reader to judge.

We are dealing here with the version of the triune God known as the “social Trinity”. It is also called the “relational Trinity”. Before proceeding with the argument, we need to explore some leading approaches to this style of carrying out Trinitarian theology.

3. The Relational Trinity

Relational approaches to the Trinity are typically oriented to the personalist philosophy of Martin Buber (Buber 1937, 1947, 1957) and those thinkers that have been inspired by him such as Eugen Rosenstock, Ferdinand Ebner, and Gabriel Marcel.

Martin Buber is famous for his poetic and inspirational philosophical treatment of interpersonal dialogue in his book, I and Thou (Buber 1937). Buber uses the terms “I” and “Thou” to identify a relationship involving two subjects. This relationship is contrasted with the I–It relation. In this way of relating, the other is treated as an object, a thing.

Buber has been criticized for presenting a mystical vision of interpersonal relations that has little application in everyday life. Responding to this criticism, Buber (1947) contends that he in fact has quite concrete interpersonal engagements in mind. He refers to the confirming glance shared between two strangers on a bus or a train. Through the smile or the nod of the other there is a sense of being recognized as a person. Buber (1947) also refers this experience of confirmation to the factory floor. As two workers labour at their machines, battling with monotony and boredom, they validate and encourage each other through a friendly glance.

Buber (1947, 1957) notes, as many others have, that dialogue establishes an I–Thou relation. He goes further. There can be no dialogue without what he calls inclusion. In essence, it means including yourself in the personal reality of the other. This requires an imaginative projection into their inner world of experience. Buber (1957) uses terms such as “personal making present” and “imagining the real” to describe this process in which a person imaginatively enters the inner world of the other. In order to enter into a relation with another person, it is necessary to become aware of the other as “a whole, as a unity, and as unique” (Buber 1957, p. 109). Reaching into the inner domain of another in this way involves an act of the imagination. “Imagining the real” is “not a looking at the other, but a bold swinging, demanding the most intensive stirring of one’s being, into the life of the other” (Buber 1957, p. 110).

Taking a lead from this personalist thinking, Moltmann (1981) contends that we need a correct understanding of the term “person” if we are to rightly understand the Trinity. Against the self-possessing and self-disposing understanding of a person common today, he posits the I–Thou rendering: “[T]he philosophical personalism of Hölderlin, Feuerbach, Buber, Ebner, Rosenstock and others was designed precisely to overcome this possessive individualism: the ‘I’ can only be understood in the light of the ‘Thou’—that is to say, it is a concept of relation” (Moltmann 1981, p. 145).

The main danger in a personalist approach to the Trinity is a fall into tritheism. Moltmann (1981) seeks to avoid this by employing the ancient concept of the perichoresis, or mutual indwelling, of the three persons. An individualistic concept of the person would result in tritheism because then the “I” exists in itself and only subsequently enters into relation. But in Moltmann’s view, the three persons are what they are in their distinctiveness precisely because of their mutual relationships to one another and their co-inherence.

Cunningham (1998) refers to the virtue of participation in referring to the I–Thou relationships in the Trinity. He makes a connection with the intimate relations in loving families. In such households, members participate fully in each other’s lives. They share life at the deepest level, entering lovingly and empathically into each other’s hope and despair, disappointment and celebration, pain and joy.

Miroslav Volf suggests that the Trinity is our social program (Volf 1998). Volf’s interest is in the implications of Trinitarian theology for the way in which the social self and the relations that constitute the self are constructed. He observes that perichoretic relations are founded in the virtue of self-donation. Our social program, therefore, needs to be based on self-giving love. However, it is not possible to make a straightforward move from divine love to human engagement with the world. The fact that our world is an arena of sin and evil means that we are involved in “a process of complex and difficult translation” (Volf 1998, p. 414; emphasis in the original).

In order to make this challenging translation, we need to learn from the “agony of love” Christ displayed in engaging the non-love of the world. Volf suggests that the greatest gifts of the Crucified One—grace and forgiveness—are “the forms which the spontaneously creative cycle of love takes in encounter with prior evil” (Volf 1998, p. 414). This love that Christ showed the world is manifested in us when we engage an “indiscriminate will to embrace” others (Volf 1998, p. 416). But welcoming others without discrimination, Volf is quick to point out, does not mean that one indiscriminately embraces all values, attitudes, and actions. Full embrace cannot be enacted until truth has been spoken and justice enacted.

For his part, McCall (2014, p. 117) notes that the divine persons are “fully personal”; they exist together as “distinct speech-agents” who exist in and through their mutual relationships. McCall (2014) mines the New Testament for narratives that support this understanding. He attends particularly to accounts in which intimate and loving Father–Son language is used (e.g., Matt 2:15; Matt 3:17; Mk 9:7).

McCall (2014) contends that the New Testament also paints a picture of I–Thou relationality between the Father and the Spirit. Jesus pledges the coming of the Holy Spirit (John 14:16) as a fulfilment of the promise of the Father (Luke 24:48–49). The same idea is found in the Paulien epistles: the Father and the Spirit are intimately related, but particularity is carefully maintained (Rom 5:5; 8:14–16; I Cor 2:4–5, 10–14; 3:16; 6:19; 14:2; 2 Cor 5:5).

We see the same interpersonal dynamic, McCall contends, expressed in descriptions of the relation between the Son and the Spirit. The Spirit appears at the baptism of Jesus (Matt 3:17; Mark 1:9). It is the Spirit that leads Jesus into the wilderness and sustains him there (Matt 4:1; Luke 4:1–14). The power behind Jesus’ ministry is the Spirit (Luke 4:18). Finally, Jesus promises the aid and guidance of the Paraclete (John 14:16), and that he will send the Spirit from the Father (John 15:26). McCall (2014) concludes that there is “straightforward biblical support for a robustly relational view of divine personhood” (118).

Above, reference was made to the intersubjective thought of Martin Buber. More recently, Wojtyla (1979) developed an understanding of the “I–Thou” relation in terms of transcendent subjectivity. He begins by observing that the “Thou” (or the “you”) is another “I”. Clearly, there is unity in the I–You relation, but there is also distinction or separateness. As Buber (1957) noted, holding this front of mind is essential in establishing dialogue. There can be no genuine dialogue if, in the act of inclusion, I lose myself in the other’s inner world.

Wojtyla (1979) discusses dialogue—he uses terms such as contact and communion—as follows. When I say “I”, I express a relation that reaches out beyond me, but at the same time comes back to me. “You” is therefore at once a term of distinction or separateness and a term of communion or contact. In dialogue, the other, the “you”, helps me to understand more deeply, to more fully encounter, my own “I”. “In its basic shape the relation ‘I-you’ does not lead me out of my subjectivity; on the contrary, it establishes me in it more firmly” (Wojtyla 1979, p. 294).

Before moving to Wojtyla’s discussion of the social dimension of human life, it is worth noting that in his writing on work after becoming Pope, the themes of subjectivity and self-realization are very prominent. To give just one example, John Paul II writes the following in his encyclical, Laborem Exercens: “As a person, man is therefore the subject of work. As a person he works, he performs various actions belonging to the work process; independently of their objective content, these actions must all serve to realize his humanity, to fulfil the calling to be a person that is his by reason of his very humanity” (John Paul II 1981, p. 8).

Wojtyla (1979) constantly affirms the significance of the “I–you” relation—it reveals the truth of one’s personhood—but he suggests that more is needed. As Buber (1947) also saw, in a genuinely interhuman encounter, a person is accepted and confirmed in their authentic selfhood. In this way, community is established.

For Wojtyla (1979), the essential feature of community is that it is a unifying force. In an “I–you” relation, authentic interpersonal community is established when the “I” and “you” relate through mutual confirmation of the worth and dignity of the person.

Wojtyla (1979) carefully distinguishes the interhuman from the social dimension. The social profile is depicted by the “we”. The “we” is descriptive of many “I”s acting in common, and “in common” means that the existence and action of the collection of “I”s is oriented to some value. This value is the “common good”.

Heribert Mühlen’s Trinitarian thought is highly significant because he explicitly develops a dimension that is only implicit in both dialogical philosophies such as those offered by Buber and Ebner and Trinitarian theologies such as those of Volf, Cunningham, McCall, and Moltmann—namely, the “We” element. Mühlen (1963, pp. 122–48) develops a Trinitarian theology in which the Father is the “I-statement”, the Son is the “Thou-statement”, and the Holy Spirit is the “We-statement”. As is the case with McCall, the first move is to discuss the “Ich-Du-Verhältnis” (the I–Thou relationship) between the Father and the Son. He points out that Fatherhood suggests the existence of a Son. The Father as “I” does not exist in solitude (Ich-Einsamkeit); he exists through a birthing relationship with the eternal Son. The Father begets the Son in an expression of infinite love.

The birthing relationship between the Father and the Son is characterized by Mühlen (1963) as a Thou relation. He uses an analogy with human relations to make his point. The “Thou” in a conversation is the person addressed; the “I” naturally looks for a response. In the same way, the Son is the response-in-person to the loving call of the Father1 (Mühlen 1963, p. 133). This mutuality in the loving relationship between the Father and the Son is an essential feature of trinitarian life.

Mühlen (1963) goes on to point out that this mutuality in the divine love extends beyond the relationship of the Father and the Son to include the Holy Spirit. This reflexivity in the divine self-love is a central focus in his discussion. The circle of life in the godhead is closed within itself. In an act of perfect love, the Father begets the Son and the Father and the Son together breathe out the Spirit. It is in the Holy Spirit that the divine self-love returns to itself. This is the essential meaning of the “We” in the Trinity. The Holy Spirit can be characterized as the “We” because it is through the Spirit’s action that the divine self-love returns simultaneously to the Father and the Son2 (Mühlen 1963, p. 142).

As inspirational and insightful as these reflections on the I–Thou and the “we” in the context of both human society and the Trinity may be, for our purposes, they need grounding in the everyday realities of the business firm. How can flesh be put on the bones of this transcendent vision of life together? How can we transition from a general theory of community to a theory of the firm as a moral community? I suggest that one useful way to do this is to construe the interpersonal dimension in terms of a commitment to friendship and good will, and the “we” profile in terms of that which promotes the common good.

4. The I–Thou Relation, the “We–Attitude”, and the Firm as Moral Community

A number of business ethicists have contrasted the shareholder model of the firm with a community model (see, for example, Alford and Naughton 2002; Dobson 1994; Dyck et al. 2008; Fitzgibbon 2001; Melé 2012; Pinto 2017; Robinson 2016). The shareholder model is based on the economic paradigm. This paradigm in turn has its roots in the individualistic ethos of the past few centuries and the heavily quantitative approach to economic theory that predominated in the 20th century. According to this model, the good firm is the one that efficiently produces goods and services that customers are willing to buy and thereby generates a substantial amount of wealth for shareholders. Those promoting a communitarian orientation in the world of business, on the other hand, argue that a business is more than simply an economic enterprise. It is a community of persons and therefore a human enterprise whose economic and technological activity needs to be grounded in moral values of friendship and solidarity.

Some business ethicists interested in business-as-community have developed a model based on friendships of virtue in the Aristotelian sense (Fitzgibbon 2001; Robinson 2016; Pinto 2017). In any community of persons, including a business, friendships will develop. When people work together on a shared task in a firm they are required to engage in dialogue, to cooperate, to trust each other, and to offer mutual support. It is sometimes the case that a friendship in the moral sense develops in the course of engaging in cooperative work.

According to Aristotle, friendships of moral virtue may develop when two people who have had time to come to an understanding of each other’s character use their knowledge as the basis of a loving and trusting relationship. Further, such friendships are rooted in love of the other for the other’s sake. Here, we find a contrast with a friendship of utility. That is, two people cooperate and work together in a spirit of friendship because it serves a shared goal: advancing respective personal causes through the efficient and successful completion of an assigned task. In a moral friendship, the other is never viewed as a means to an end, but simply as an end. In the I–Thou language of personalist philosophy that we have being using throughout, they are approached as a “Thou” rather than as an “It”.

Clearly, a business firm will display a mix of utility and moral friendships. It is not realistic to advocate for a firm founded entirely on friendships of virtue. However, unless this type of friendship is reasonably common, and unless there is a further commitment to furthering them, it is not legitimate to refer to the firm as a moral community (cf. Robinson 2016).

Virtue friendships begin in decency. In the context of the firm, my co-worker acts with integrity and a spirit of helpfulness in negotiation and shared work, and I reciprocate.

Put differently, moral friendships are based on good will. In developing an African moral theory incorporating the notion of good will, Metz (2007) defines this virtue as follows: “One … wishes another person well (conation); believes that another person is worthy of help (cognition); aims to help another person (intention); acts so as to help another person (volition); acts for the other’s sake (motivation); and, finally, feels good upon the knowledge that another person has benefited and feels bad upon learning she has been harmed (affection)” (p. 336).

Workmates help each other all the time. “Co-worker support” has been identified as an essential element in the experience of a sense of community (Burroughs and Eby 1998, p. 512). But often, co-worker support is offered because it is part of the job description and/or because there is an expectation of some reward. Good will leads to moral friendship because it is not motivated by utilitarian considerations. Even when it is not clear how a benefit will accrue personally to a worker from their actions, they offer help, support, and encouragement to their co-worker. They do all this willingly and happily simply because they consider their co-worker to be a friend.

The Christian love ethic clearly indicates a need to act for the good of the other when and where possible. We saw this above in Volf’s discussion on the relational Trinity where he identifies the centrality of self-donation. When others are in need or have a problem, the Christian is required to give of themself to help out. However, I contend that in expressing good will in the workplace, a follower of Christ is not required to follow an ethic of unrelenting self-denial and self-sacrifice. A Christian is called to self-giving; they are definitely not called to be a doormat for others (cf. Janssens 1977). Self-giving needs to be balanced with appropriate concern for one’s own legitimate needs and aspirations; this is sometimes referred to as “equal regard” (Outka 1992; Browning 1987, pp. 150–56; Browning 1992).

We saw above, along with the interpersonal sphere to which moral friendship belongs, Wojtyla refers to the “We” or the social dimension of a community. The “We” is established through a commitment to the common good. This moral good has a very important place in Roman Catholic social teaching, where it is defined quite precisely. There is no space here to fully discuss the concept; perhaps a brief overview will suffice.

The Roman Catholic teaching on the common good has its origins in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, who in turn was deeply influenced by Aristotelian philosophy (Kennedy 2002, 2007; Marek and Jabłoński 2021). Aquinas’ teaching is based on the notion of a natural social order. In this natural order, persons flourish when they act not only to promote their own interests but also with a concern for the advancement of the good of all. In accenting this perspective, Kennedy (2007) makes reference to imago Trinitatis: “[P]roperly human work and indeed the whole effort of an individual in pursuit of fulfilment are understood to be collaborative because human persons are social by nature. In this they are once again reflections of God since the Trinity is a community itself” (p. 171).

The way in which communities, in general, and business communities, in particular, express a commitment to the common good involves adherence to the following fundamental principles from Catholic social teaching: prioritizing the person and their transcendental dignity over purely material concerns; solidarity or acting for the good of all; and subsidiarity or guaranteeing the right and responsibility of all to participate in community decision making (Kennedy 2007; Marek and Jabłoński 2021).

We just referred to the fundamental principle of going beyond purely materialistic considerations. However, this should not be taken to mean that Roman Catholic social teaching is dismissive of the importance of profit making in a business firm. In his papal encyclical entitled Centesimus Annus, John Paul II (1991) refers to the “legitimate role” of profit and also points out that human and moral factors, including establishing community in the life of the firm, are at least as important:

The Church acknowledges the legitimate role of profit as an indication that a business is functioning well. When a firm makes a profit, this means that productive factors have been properly employed and corresponding human needs have been duly satisfied. But profitability is not the only indicator of a firm’s condition. It is possible for the financial accounts to be in order, and yet for the people—who make up the firm’s most valuable asset—to be humiliated and their dignity offended. Besides being morally inadmissible, this will eventually have negative repercussions on the firm’s economic efficiency. In fact, the purpose of a business firm is not simply to make a profit, but is to be found in its very existence as a community of persons who in various ways are endeavouring to satisfy their basic needs, and who form a particular group at the service of the whole of society. Profit is a regulator of the life of a business, but it is not the only one; other human and moral factors must also be considered which, in the long term, are at least equally important for the life of a business.

(p. 28)

Mention was made above of the fact that business ethicists routinely contend that the stakeholder model is superior to the shareholder model. While in the latter approach, the effectiveness of management is tied exclusively to maximizing efficiency, competitiveness, and profitability, in the former paradigm, effectiveness is associated with wisely and fairly addressing a variety of forms of well-being (e.g., material, individual, intellectual, physical, spiritual, social, and ecological) connected to a number of stakeholders (owners, labourers, customers, suppliers, and neighbours). What this suggests is that the common good has a reference beyond the narrow confines of the workplace. However, it is outside the scope of this essay to identify the conditions under which the common good of all the stakeholders associated with a firm is secured. Instead, the discussion will be limited to the situation of the stakeholders within the firm itself.

Linking with the Roman Catholic thought on the common good summarized above, I suggest that when it comes to the operation of a business firm aspiring to be a moral community, there are three crucially important principles that need to be widely embraced. First, both the economic and non-economic goals of the stakeholders must be addressed (Sison 2007; Dyck et al. 2008 Melé 2009; Abueg et al. 2014). Something beyond the recognition of contributions through promotion and wage increases is required for the agents in a firm to flourish. Their well-being is also secured through creating conditions that are conducive to intellectual, moral, social, and spiritual development. The agents in a firm desire to be supported in their longing for a sense of belonging, for enjoying working relationships characterized by respect, trust, and cooperation, and for opportunities for creativity and self-actualization.

Second, in situations where promoting self-interest will result in the diminishment of the common good, an agent needs to subordinate their personal interests to communal ones (Sison 2007; Melé 2009). In his work on the firm as a community, Naughton (2006) identifies giving and receiving as the relational pattern in the life of the Trinity that needs to be emulated in the workplace. What is required for a moral community to form in a firm is a spirit of generosity and mutuality according to which the various agents both give and receive. In line with this view, Argandoña (1998), in his work on the stakeholder theory and the common good, suggests that stakeholders need to both give that which they have contracted to give, and to receive whatever can be reasonably viewed as due to them: “The main duty of each [stakeholder] is … to contribute to [the]common good: firstly, by providing whichever factor (capital or labour) they have agreed to provide; and secondly, by helping to create the conditions in which the common good of the company can develop, which means creating the conditions in which each member of the company receives from the company whatever he can reasonably expect from it, and whatever he has a right to receive by virtue of his contribution …” (1098–1099). In positing giving and receiving as a virtuous pattern for the life in a firm, it is affirmed that the personal value required to promote the common good for a firm is not self-sacrifice, but rather giving and receiving. Above, I referred to “equal regard” in relation to this value.

The third principle is that the common good of the firm cannot be adequately envisioned in isolation from the common good of the wider community (Dyck et al. 2008; Naughton 2006; Melé 2009). That is to say, it is through an attitude of service that a community—whether it is a family, a firm, or some other organization—secures the good of the entity as a whole. Naughton (2006) identifies mission as one of the marks of the firm-as-community. The mission of a firm is to ensure that its product or service adequately meets the needs of the wider community. “A community of work … is only authentic when it serves the needs of those outside it, which is the basis of developing those within it” (Naughton 2006, p. 54; emphasis in the original). When there is a narrow, inward focus on our needs, our personal development, and our workplace community, where as a consequence the firm’s mission is lost sight of, the common good flies out the window also.

5. Conclusions

The endpoint reached in this investigation was the identification of the excellent goods required for the project of forming a moral community in a firm. To reach this point, a lead was taken from both social Trinitarian thought and Wojtyla’s personalist phenomenology. We saw that just as in the theology of Heribert Mühlen there is both an “I–Thou” and a “We” dimension in the social life of the triune God, so in the philosophy of community provided by Wojtyla, there is a reference to an interpersonal (I–Thou) and a social profile (the “We”). The contribution to thought on the firm as a moral community, then, is that both an interpersonal and a social dimension are required.

In the final section of this essay, the integration of Wojtyla’s thought and the social Trinity were translated into the context of the firm as a moral community by associating the interpersonal (the I–Thou dimension) with the notions of moral friendship and good will, and the principle of the “We” with commitment to the common good. It is only when moral friendships are reasonably common, and commitment to the common good are quite widely established, that it is legitimate to refer to the firm as a moral community.