ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the relation between economics and ethics as justification for the rationality of values-driven management in business institutions. Concepts like "ethics pays", corporate social responsibility simply works better" and "good business is good ethics" indicate such a connection between ethics and economics. The chapter argues that the relation between ethics and economics should be conceived exclusively in terms of considering ethics as a kind of "king of economics", where economics is always submitted under the sovereign leadership of ethics. The idea of economic rationality depends on the concept of economic action. This concept is marked by a tension between individualism and altruism and personal responsibility for economic actions. In the view of neoclassical economy, ethics is regarded as external limitations of the market. The debate about the relation of economics to ethics and politics centres on the view of economic anthropology and on the motives for action of human individuals.
