What is the purpose of a
business? According to Aristotle, there are different kinds of purposes. The
final cause of a tree seed, for example, is a tree; the material cause is
whatever biochemistry went into the seed. The final cause of a human sperm entering
a human egg is an adult human being—hence the question of the ethics of
abortion. A human embryo is potentially an adult human being. The
material cause of an embryo lies in the biochemistry of the seed and the egg.
But I digress. As regards a company, we can distinguish different kinds of
purposes. Somewhat crudely, the real purpose can be distinguished from the
ostensible purpose. The former has to do with what can be thought of as the
bottom-line purpose: maximizing revenue or profit. Any ostensible purpose, such
as feeding people or transporting them, is functional in nature, and can
be viewed as a means of achieving the real purpose. A third kind of purpose can
be labeled as a marketing purpose, the promotion of which is merely to serve
the real purpose. In terms of Shankara’s Hindu metaphysical framework, the real
purpose is in the real, the ostensible purpose is in the realm of appearance,
and a marketing purpose is in that of illusion. I contend that business
managers, especially in marketing, are accustomed to conflating these three
types of purposes in being oriented to the real purpose. Not being transparent
about the differences between these three purposes is, I submit, unethical in
nature. I have an incident involving American Airlines in mind.
The full essay is at "American Airlines."