ABSTRACT
Moral desires are embedded in markets.1 Individuals act on their moral desires as consumers, investors, and workers and in so doing sometimes create generally accepted and followed moral norms. What is true of markets generally is also true of organizations specifically. Moral desires are embodied in internal markets within organizations. When such desires produce organizational moral norms, do such norms become ethically legitimate? What insights, if any, can be gleaned by thinking about morality within organizations as a marketlike process in which competing moral desires may be “priced” into moral norms? For example, do certain types of organizational environments or policies influence the moral desires held by employees? More generally, how are organizational moral norms produced? How can organizational moral norms be identified? What about problematic organizational norms that impose harms on outsiders or are inconsistent with broader societal standards? This chapter discusses these important issues pertaining to morality within organizations.
