If Aristotle Ran General Motors

This book, brilliant in every way, attempts, and succeeds, in arguing that wisdom and its concrete manifestation in ethics, should be the cornerstone of business life. The author is a philosopher, and not a business owner, but with his insight into the dynamics of the marketplace and its optimization, his ideas are clearly thinking "out of the box". One can only hope that business leaders (and others) will discover the ideas in this book or some other like it. With today's headlines in corporate fraud and other scandals (some justified and some not), business people need to start believing in the efficacy of ethics in optimizing their business ventures.

The preface to the book concerns "reinventing corporate spirit", the author drawing on the thoughts of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to set up the foundation for his arguments in the book. He recognizes correctly that it is ideas that fundamentally move the world.

Throughout the book are many interesting insights into the psychology of business practices. When speaking of happiness for example, in relation to Aristotle's notion of eudaemonia, one of these is the recognition that money is frequently not the end goal for business people, the real goal being to achieve admiration in the eyes of others. The resulting ostentatious lifestyle is primarily done to impress, this being a transient and ultimately unsatisfying motivation in the eyes of the author.

The book is divided up into four parts: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity. Each of these stand for respectively, the intellectual, aesthetic, moral, and spirtual necessities for achieving true happiness.
In "Truth" the discussion is interesting in that it emphasizes the importance of telling the truth not just from the standpoint of what it will do in relation to others, but what it will do for the individual involved. Telling a lie damages one's self confidence. Individuals who practice the telling of falsehoods are intimidated by truth and do not have any confidence in the efficacy of their own minds. In addition, the author discusses the importance of "open-book management": that the sharing of knowledge results in greater productivity among the employees. This is to be contrasted with the nervous attitude among some managers who feel threatened by information, again lacking self-confidence and are in a perpetual state of worry that the dissemination of knowledge among employees or co-workers will result in their comptetitive demise. These views on truth are most refreshing. "Lying is the most dangerously corrosive and subtly destabilizing activities to be found in human life" he says. He's right.

Quoting the Hindu proverb "The true nobility is in being superior to your precious self", the author encourages the view of competition as being one in which individuals surpass their former abilities, instead of worrying about their status in relation to others. He's right.

Even more important is that the author addresses the influence of philosophy in the development of ethical attitudes in business. Ethical relativism and nihilism have wreaked havoc in society as a whole, not just in business, and the author emphasizes the need for coming to grips with these beliefs, and replacing them with sound philosophical systems that are both rational and meshed with common sense. "Ideas rock the world" he states. He's right.

Most refreshingly, the author does not shy away from addressing the issue of self-interest. Confronting the "What's in it for me?" question that is asked by some, he clearly believes that self-interest is not something to be swept under the rug in discussions on ethics and morality in business. "The view that ethics requires total personal disinterestedness is a dangerous distortion of the truly moral point of view", he states. He's right.

Peer pressure and "going with the flow" are always issues that everyone has to deal with in the business environment. Not being labeled as a "team player" can be detrimental to one's growth in a particular organization. The author asks the reader to count the costs of conformity and not to "associate with evil men, lest you increase their number", quoting George Herbert. He's right.

But ethics is not merely a collection of arbitrary rules to follow, the author argues. The right course of action is built into the nature of reality and meshes with human nature and human needs. Since this is the case, the practice of true ethical norms is not only productive, but pleasureful to the individual, and instead of causing boredom as some might believe, alleviates it, argues the author. He's right.

Some might label, and the author does unashamedly, the framework outlined in the book as "spiritual". Goal-oriented, truth-valuing, truth-loving conduct results in a productive, life-loving spiritual individual, in complete antithesis to that of a sterile, non-creative, cynical one who views life as a burden with crosses to bear.

Some of course might view this book, and one on ethics in general, as being "idealistic" or "naive". Such individuals may not wish to even pick it up, let alone read it. But individuals who practice these ideas, or ones very similar, haved moved the world, and will continue to do so.

Morris falls short perhaps because he is simply a mediocre scholar of Aristotle, perhaps because he was a professor of philosophy at a Catholic university, or perhaps because he is simply just a below-average writer. Regardless, the author comes up lacking in both the style and substance of a book premise that could be truly great in more capable hands.

As to style, the book is replete with anecdotes that sometimes illustrate points quite well and sometimes are clearly inserted only because the author had them at his disposal. Likewise, the book is peppered with quotations that interrupt the flow of the narrative and only rarely have anything more than a tangential relevance to the text surrounding it. One such quote, from the author himself, neatly summarizes my view of this production: "Obscurity is not a mark of profundity, however many confused writers have hoped to bully us into believing otherwise." How true, how true indeed: I wonder how many of his students felt the same way after one of his philosophy lectures.

As to substance, the book is almost a complete loss. I say almost because, to be fair, Morris does come close to painting an Aristotelian view of life when he delves into the meaning of life. The author frames up his answer beautifully but then promptly undermines it in his attempts at clarification. To be more specific, Morris claims that the meaning of life is to be found in "creative love" (or, more accurately, in the love of creativity). While this sounds at first blush to be both logical and promising, not unlike the true motive power behind human innovation, Morris explains his surmise so ineptly that it becomes readily apparent to the reader that any proximity to the truth was merely an accident. Far from leading the reader closer to any meaningful answers, Morris abandons the audience as if in mid-thought, convincing them that his conclusions were as much the product of coincidence as of rational thought.

This is just one example of the sort of philosophical inconsistency that exists throughout this book. In nearly every chapter, Morris makes sweeping, unsubstantiated statements and then proceeds as if these statements were self-evident truths. This might be passable if the author were able to consistently proceed from these sweeping statements in a logical progression. However, the reader frequently gets no more than one or two steps away from an assertion masquerading as immutable law when the author creates transparent straw man arguments to bolster his tenuous premises. Even if the reader can forgive (and accept as true) the first premise of the author's progression, the subsequent steps are so disorienting and fallacious that it is hard to move past them.

Perhaps the most obvious example of this is how Morris routinely equates rational self-interest with intellectual myopia. For instance, in painting the entire philosophical landscape, he cites only three schools of thought: Nihilism, Relativism, and Absolutism. While he aptly defines the concepts of Nihilism and he readily betrays himself as a Relativist, he casts Absolutism as the province solely of religious zealots.

Morris's emphatic use of the relativist's scale on which to measure thought is perhaps the fundamental flaw of his book. It is a small wonder that he finds no thematic consistency when he shows us a different yardstick for the measurement of each new topic. This changing standard sometimes becomes outright silly. For instance, on nearly a half dozen occasions, Morris attempts to weave coherent messages by juxtaposing concepts from the writings of Aristotle next to those of prominent theologians. The result of this sort of conceptual looseness is that better than half of the supposed insights delivered by the book turn out to be little more than fortune cookie proclamations-statements devoid of both context and independently verifiable meaning.

All of this should be hardly surprising from someone who openly claims that any "unifying principle of philosophy is a dream." The question that remains for the reader, however, is: Why choose Aristotle if you believe philosophical unification is unachievable? Why co-opt the one Philosopher who may have come closest to philosophical unity than any other? Why not be honest with your readers? Why not entitle the book: If Dale Carnegie Ran General Motors? Even Plato or Immanuel Kant or William James would have been better choices, but that discussion is for another time.

Like so many academic philosophers and modern business writers, Morris selects philosophical concepts based on their emotional appeal rather than with regard to any underlying consistency. This book, like virtually every business book on the market (with a few highly worthwhile exceptions) simply promotes the art we witness in greeting cards and long-distance phone commercials on television. From it, we get nothing more than the regurgitation of unthinking, it-takes-a-village drivel that characterizes so much of todays supposed non-fiction writing. Morris' entire effort seems to be very much like a Hollywood production-aiming to tug at heartstrings with nothing more substantive as a goal. In the end, that is all this book is equipped to do: provide us with a feeling...sadly, that feeling is simple, straightforward disappointment.

I know i'm really "into" a book if I find myself taking all
sorts of notes on it, not only for my own use--but to share
others . . . the biggest problem I now
face is to edit these down to just a few passages, but let
me try:
If Aristotle ran General Motors, everyone employed there would
think of it as one large partnership, encompassing myriads
of smaller partnerships for the purpose of living well. If he
ran the corner grocery store, he would instill in everyone there
the same mindset. And if he offered you advice, I think that this
would be at its core: Always think of yourself as entering with
other people into partnerships for living well. This highly general
truth about the deep beauty of business can provide us with an
important perspective on many specific decisions we face. We
should always be asking ourselves whether what we contemplate
doing will enhance or diminish this crucial function of the
business within our own domain of influence. Are we building
partnerships for living well?

I saw the professor later that day and asked him about it. He
answered with a big smile, "At Hampden-Sydnery, we have a rule
that every student must greet everyone they pass on campus."
I said, Why do you have a rule like that?" And he explained, "At
Hampden-Syndey, we believe that etiquette is where ethics
meet everyday life. . . . If we don't help our students get
it right in the little things, they'll never be in a position to get
it right in the big things. We teach them to be courteous,
hoping that this will help them to be moral."

In an office building full of hundreds of Ph.D.s, whenever anyone
faces a personal challenge, has trouble at home, is bothered by
any sort of worry or fear, or just needs a spark or renewed energy,
they easily discovered that the wisest course of action is to seek
out the one man in the building who didn't graduate from high
school, Brother Jeff. He whistles while he works, he sings,
he greets everyone with a big smile and a kind word: "How
are you today, my friend?" An otherwise dour face may
brighten and respond, "Fine, Jeff and how are you?" The
inevitable answer: "Everything's pretty!" A conversation
then may or may not ensure, on almost any topic imaginable.
But if it does, it always ends with a hearty send-off: "You
have yourself a great day, my friend!"

Why?

Aristotle's ideas can be like knives cutting through cluttered thinking, but his presentation can be a bit long and dry. Morris does a nice job of presenting Aristotle's virtues of Truth, Goodness, Unity, and Beauty as they can be applied to business while putting a fun and popular face on them.

You can find good arguments in many books for being honest in business as well as doing good and creating a sense of unity. Beauty was a surprise, but Morris argues well for it. I felt that the combination of ancient wisdom with modern examples made Morris' message meaningful and more inspirational than many other business books.

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of these ideas, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone looking to find Aristotle's virtues in the workplace.