Thomas K. Johnson zeigt hier den Zusammenhang zwischen Business und Ethik auf:
In a modern society there are always at least three spheres or societal systems that continually interact with each other: the business/economic, the legal/political, and the moral/cultural systems. Each of the three major systems in society is heavily dependent on the other two systems functioning in a healthy manner. This is interdependence. A healthy economy is dependent on health in both the moral/cultural system and in the legal/political system. A healthy legal/political system depends on healthy cultural and economic systems. And a healthy moral/cultural system depends on healthy economic and political systems. While the preaching of the Christian gospel of reconciliation with God is the leading task of the church, as the carrier of the Christian message the church also plays and should play a massive role in the formation of the moral/cultural system. Culture always goes beyond moral rules and values to include the definition of human nature and destiny, a subject about which the church has a lot to say, always in competition with other definitions, whether Marxist, libertarian, or consumerist. While the political and economic spheres are properly separate from the cultural sphere, human activity in the political and economic spheres is always guided by our understanding of what it means to be a human being and a related set of moral values and practical principles. In this sense, political life and economic life are dependent on the cultural sphere of life for direction and guidance.The moral/cultural sphere of life will never be truly empty; there will always be some moral/cultural content, some definition of human nature and destiny. The problem is that the content of the moral/cultural sphere may be poorly chosen, perhaps with self-destructive values or with definitions of human nature and destiny that do not fit who we really are. Such a failure of the moral/cultural sphere of society will lead to terrible results in the political and economic systems.
