Praxis
Richard P. Nielsen
Is the theory and method of appropriate action for addressing ethics issues and developing ethical organizations.
The difference between theoria and praxis in organizational ethics is not the same as the difference between theory and application. Organizational ethics praxis focuses on ways of acting in addressing concrete ethics situations. Its units of analysis are not the ethical issues themselves, but rather the action methods for addressing and influencing concrete ethics issues and developing ethical organizations.
The perspective of praxis (theory and method of action) is important and different from the perspectives of theoria (theory of understanding), epistemology (ways of knowing/learning), and ontology (ways of being/existing). Praxis is the least developed area within the field of organization ethics.
Within the area of organizational ethics praxis theory, the approaches that have received the most attention include forcing; for example, top down punishment based ethics codes and different types of bottom up forcing methods, such as various forms of secret and public whistleblowing, obstruction, and adversarial processes. Types of organizational ethics action approaches that have received considerably less, but nonetheless significant, attention are organization due process systems, such as grievance and arbitration procedures that include ethics cases in the due process systems; integrating, for example, win win problem solving negotiating methods and integrative ethics organizational change and development methods; and dialogue methods. The distinction between integrating and dialogue may seem a bit ambiguous here, but it will be considered in more detail later. A key to the difference is that dialogue has a priority concern for the ethical, while integrating has a more or less equal concern for ethical and other organizational effectiveness criteria.
In classical philosophy, a contrast is made between two dimensions of life within the whole person: understanding (theoria) and action (praxis). There can be some confusion in the Greek to English translation from praxis to practice. Praxis/practice does not refer to the mundane, or to an anti intellectual person, or to a person who is not concerned with ideas or theory. The end of the praxis dimension of life is living well or living appropriately within the polis, within the community, within the organization. According to Bernstein (l971: x), ‘‘ ‘Praxis’ in this . . . sense signifies the disciplines and activities predominant in man’s ethical and political life’’ within the polis, within the community, within the organization. In contrast, the end of the theoria dimension of life is knowing or wisdom for its own sake. Within the whole person, both dimensions and perspectives are important; they can and should inform one an other.
While classical, scholastic, modernist, post modernist, and hermeneutic discourse ethics philosophers all consider the concept of praxis somewhat differently, the basic contrast between a perspective of understanding more or less for its own sake (theoria) with a perspective of acting and living appropriately (praxis) is maintained. In an organizational ethics context, for example, theoria focuses on whether or not it is ethical to expose workers to certain levels of a particular chemical. Praxis focuses on how to act in ad dressing the worker–chemical exposure issue, for example (1) through such forcing methods as punishment enforced safety codes, whistle blowing, etc.; (2) through internal due process, grievance, and arbitration systems; (3) through integrative, win win negotiating or participative organizational development efforts, for example, with and between those more concerned with safety and those more concerned with reducing costs; (4) through dialogue among managers, or dialogue among managers, workers, and health experts, about what the ethical thing to do is; (5) through some sequence or combination of the above praxis methods.
As referred to above, both perspectives can inform one another. For example, interpretation and explanation theories can precede action and theories of action; and conversely, experiences and theories of action can precede and inform interpretation and explanation theories. That is, one can first theorize about the content of an ethics issue and as a result of such theorizing then theorize about how to act well in addressing the issue in the concrete case, and then act appropriately. Conversely, one can act well in ad dressing an ethics issue in the concrete case and later theorize about how one acted in addressing the ethics issue, as well as theorize about the content of the ethics issue based on the experience. However, there can also be discontinuities. For example, one can, through theoria, under stand that a particular, concrete organizational behavior that one sees and even is part of is unethical. Nonetheless, one can choose not to theorize about how to act in addressing the issue and also not act at all because of lack of interest, concern, courage, and/or constraints, etc. Similarly, one can act well or poorly in addressing an important ethical situation and nonetheless not theorize much or at all about the issue or how to act.
Why should we be concerned about differences in perspectives of theoria and praxis? The more we understand that there are different and multiple action/praxis methods, the more our degrees of freedom and choices increase, so that we can potentially live and act better and more appropriately with respect to the ethical. If we know we have action choices with their relative and contingent strengths and weaknesses, potentially, we can live and act better, more appropriately, more fully.
Confusion or inattention to differences be tween the theoria and praxis perspectives can lead to needless cognitive either/or controversies with respect to ideas with implicitly different emphases on the learning and action dimensions, when those ideas might be complementary rather than antagonistic. In addition, such either/or interactions in the praxis dimension can needlessly alienate and render ineffective on the praxis dimension potentially fruitful and cooperative interpersonal relationships and interactions that could help advance theoria concerns. Understanding these differences can facilitate potential integration, at least to some extent, of apparently mutually exclusive models when differences between theoria and praxis are attended to.
A serious problem that is often overlooked and that sometimes occurs is that what is effective as an ethics learning method is not always effective as an ethics action method. For example, whether we approach dialogue from perspectives of learning, action, or combined learning–action can be important. While Socratic dialogue can be used from both learning and action perspectives, its strength can be more as learning than action. For example, in the case of Roger Boisjoly and the Challenger Launch, at the time the events of this case were unfolding Boisjoly, in effect, was not able to distinguish and separate dialogue as learning from dialogue as action. He incorrectly assumed that since dialogue was effective as a way of learning and knowing what was ethical, it would be equally effective as interpersonal and inter organizational praxis method. At the time, the correspondence between dialogue as learning and action appeared so obvious and direct that he was unable to consider alternative praxis methods such as negotiating, and secretly or publicly blowing the whistle. With an under standing of the praxis limitations of Socratic dialogue, Robert Greenleaf, in the case of gender discrimination within AT&T, successfully used Woolman dialogue to build upon and correct this potential praxis weakness in Socratic dialogue by intentionally and specifically including and combining praxis focused elements with epistemological elements. This is not to suggest that Socratic dialogue is always more effective than Woolman dialogue from a learning perspective, or that Woolman dialogue is necessarily more effective than Socratic dialogue from an action perspective. While this may be the case and a potential area for empirical research, the point is that it can be very important to recognize and attend to differences in the perspectives of epistemology and praxis in organizational ethics contexts.
There are great opportunities for research and theory building in this area. First, as referred to above, organizational ethics praxis has not been studied nearly as much as organizational ethics theoria and epistemology. It is an area in relative need of development. Second, from an epistemological perspective, we can study how different praxis methods can combine epistemological and praxis elements that can then be more and less effective relative to learning and knowing about the ethical. This can help us make appropriate choices of learning/knowing methods. Third, from a praxis perspective, we can try to learn more about how there are different and multiple action methods that can in crease our degrees of freedom and choices so that we can potentially live and act better and more appropriately with respect to the ethical. If we know how we have action choices with their relative and contingent strengths and limitations in organizational ethics contexts, potentially we can live and act better, more appropriately, more fully. Fourth, we can try to learn more about how epistemology and theoria can inform praxis and praxis can inform epistemology and theoria in organizational ethics contexts. Potentially, these are three dimensions of the whole person that may be able to mutually strengthen each other and the whole person. There are opportunities for considering how these distinctions among dimensions within the whole person can be inseparable parts of the same whole, both with respect to a whole and healthy person, and the whole and healthy organization and organizational community.
Bibliography
Bernstein, R. J. (1971). Praxis and Action. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Ewing, D. (1989). Justice on the Job: Resolving Grievances in the Nonunion Workplace. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Nielsen, R. P. (1990). Dialogic leadership as ethics action (praxis) method. Journal of Business Ethics, 9, 765 83.
Nielsen, R. P. (1993a). Organizational ethics from a perspective of action (praxis). Business Ethics Quarterly, 3 (2), 131 51.
Nielsen, R. P. (1993b). Woolman’s I am we triple-loop, action-learning: Origin and application in organization ethics. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 29 (1), 117 38.