Business friends

Business friends: Aristotle, Kant, and other management theorists on the practice of networking.
Author: Schonsheck, Jonathan. Source: Business Ethics Quarterly v. 10 no4 (Oct. 2000) p. 897-910 ISSN: 1052-150X Number: BSSI00039192 Copyright: The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited.

I. INTRODUCTION TO THE ISSUESThe practice of "networking" is the developing of relationships with other people for business advantage. It is a practice with an abundance of advocates; a search of the topic "networking" in the Business Periodicals Index yielded hundreds of "hits"(FN1) in the last several years, many with titles like "Networking 101,"(FN2) and "Networking for Fun and Profit."(FN3).
After sketching out the practice of networking, and relating the practical advice of some of its proponents, I want to step back a ways--a couple of millennia--in order to examine the practice of networking in the context of Aristotle's discussion of "friendship." I shall argue that networking is a paradigm case of what Aristotle calls building "incomplete friendships for utility." From Aristotle's analysis, I believe, we can gain some important insights into what networking is. More importantly, we can learn much about what networking is not. Quite obviously, the business friends who create a network use their business friends; so stated, a Kantian concern arises: is networking necessarily a violation of the Kantian prohibition against treating others as a "means merely"? I argue that business friendships can be, on Kantian grounds, morally upright--but that, for reasons that shall emerge, there is the continuous peril of their deteriorating into relationships that do not pass moral muster. In the penultimate section, I discuss some the "trajectories" relationships might take, and some of the difficulties we encounter in distinguishing genuine friends from business friends. I conclude with a tense admixture of encouragements and cautions.
II. NETWORKINGAgain, roughly, networking is the practice of developing relationships with others for business advantage. Two preliminary glosses are in order. First, I was tempted to write that it is the development of "personal" relationships with others. But I have resisted that temptation; as I hope to make clear, to say that is to short-circuit the discussion in important ways. Second, I have said that these relationships are developed "for business advantage." Put this way, it prompts the question: "for whose business advantage?" This question has two answers, the less cynical and the more cynical. The less cynical answer is that these relationships are developed for mutual business advantage. Within networks, reciprocity reigns supreme. The more cynical answer is that these relationships are developed for one's own business advantage. It just happens to be the case, however, that in order to receive the assistance of others, one has to assist them. Thus, "mutual" advantage is not really the goal of networking, but rather the price of the practice.
Let us see what some contemporary business theorists say about networking.
Writing in The Journal of Business Strategy, Frank K. Sonnenberg provides an introduction to the practice, and its rationale.
Today, people network by joining clubs, going to lunch with friends, attending conferences, joining industry associations, and going to alumni dinners and reunions; others network with church members, school buddies, and community organizations. But what do these activities help them achieve in return for their time and effort?
...
Networks are built on a foundation of mutual trust and support between and among members. Participants come together because of common interests and objectives, and they voluntarily give of themselves (primarily through a barter system) because they know that by helping others, they will eventually end up helping themselves.(FN4).
In "How to Build a Network," Ford Harding offers this definition of the practice, and some advice for getting started:.
Networking is the mutual exchange of help, and usually you have to give before you get. This means that you must figure out what your contacts would find helpful.(FN5).
In another article, citing yet another source, we find this recommendation:.
When you're networking, always try to give more than you expect to receive. "If all you're thinking is, what can I get out of this, you'll bomb miserably and become discouraged," says Johnson.(FN6).
Indeed, we find the warning that "a big part of networking involves reciprocal sharing of information and resources. So if you're stingy about providing insight and sharing resources, you'll soon find yourself cut out of the loop."(FN7).
Typically, articles on networking feature "bullets," cryptic "Dos" and "Don'ts." "Networking 101" includes these: "Take a long term view," "Before attending a function, prepare yourself," "At receptions or in similar settings, adopt an attitude of host or hostess," "Good listening skills allow you to find ways to segue into common-ground areas on a personal or business level," "As you begin to develop business through networking, it is important to demonstrate reliability," "Maintain relationships by taking the initiative to call or meet with your contacts from time to time."(FN8) Of particular interest:.
Suppress the tendency to prejudge. Coming to the conclusion--based on a person's appearance or type of business--that he or she can be of no help to you often results in lost opportunities. Effective networking requires an open mind.(FN9).
That theme is continued in the first (of ten) bullets in the alliteratively titled "Networking Know-How: Navigating in the Nineties":.
1. Attend appropriate functions. Before agreeing to attend a specific event, review the agenda and the attendance list. Find out from others who plan to attend what you can expect to learn, and who you will likely meet. Determine whether certain functions may be more fruitful for developing new contacts.(FN10).
Another bullet is even more "practical," and no less coldly calculating:.
4. Make new contacts. Sit with people you don't already know. When possible, select a seat in the middle of the row. This gives you a chance to make two new contacts. When choosing a table, wait until others have been seated. Sitting down last gives you more control over your conversation partners.(FN11).
We are all familiar with the platitude, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." In the practice of networking, this is replaced with: "It's not who you know, it's who knows you." The goal of networking is to be known by those who can advance your business interests; in order to render them willing to advance your business interests, you must become known to them, and to advance their business interests. This is networking: establishing, maintaining and expanding your set of business friends.(FN12).
III. ARISTOTLE ON FRIENDSHIPAristotle's Nicomachean Ethics plays a prominent role in business ethics. And this is surely appropriate; some issues that arise in business ethics are most perspicuously viewed, and most profitably treated, as threats to individual virtue. In this paper, however, I shall rely upon a different(FN13) portion of the Ethics, Aristotle's analysis of friendship. That analysis--in particular, the importance of friendship, and the various kinds of friendship--is invaluable in both understanding and assessing the practice of networking.
Aristotle speaks of "three kinds" of friendship--but this is misleading, as it hides a hierarchy. There are two sorts of friendship: "complete" and "incomplete." There are two sorts of incomplete friendships: those based on utility, and those based on pleasure. Our attention will be focused on the first two of these, with special emphasis on the features that distinguish them.
Aristotle opens his discussion of friendship by claiming that "it is a virtue, or involves virtue, and besides is most necessary for life."(FN14) He explains,.
no one would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other goods. For in fact rich people and holders of powerful positions, even more than other people, seem to need friends. For how would one benefit from such prosperity if one had no opportunity for beneficence, which is most often displayed, and most highly praised, in relation to friends? And how would one guard and protect prosperity without friends, when it is all the more precarious the greater it is? In poverty also, and in the other misfortunes, people think friends are the only refuge. (207)(FN15).
The friendships that are "most necessary for our life" are complete friendships; the defining characteristic of these friendships is that one is loved by the other for one's self, for one's character. And a necessary precondition for such a relationship is that both friends be virtuous.(FN16) Aristotle writes,.
But complete friendship is the friendship of good people similar in virtue; for they wish goods in the same way to each other in so far as they are good, and they are good in themselves.... Now those who wish goods to the friend for the friend's own sake are friends most of all; for they have this attitude because of the friend himself, not coincidentally. Hence these people's friendship lasts as long as they are good; and virtue is enduring. (212-13).
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Moreover, in loving their friend they love what is good for themselves; for when a good person becomes a friend he becomes good for his friend. Each of them love what is good for himself, and repays in equal measure the wish and the pleasantness of his friend; for friendship is said to be equality. And this is true above all in the friendship of good people. (217).
Finally, building such a relationship takes time, and can be "high maintenance."(FN17).
Incomplete friendships for utility, in sharp contrast, are not based on reciprocal love of character; the basis is reciprocal utility, reciprocal value. "Those who love each other for utility love the other not in himself, but in so far as they gain something good for themselves" (211).
Numerous important implications follow from this fundamental difference between complete friendships, and friendships for utility.
First, "these friendships as well as the friends are coincidental, since the beloved is loved not in so far as he is who he is, but in so far as he provides some good" (211). That this particular person is a friend is a mere coincidence: were that person unable to provide that good, that person would not be one's friend; were someone else able to provide that good, that other would be one's friend instead.
Second, "utility friends" are eminently replaceable; they are replaced if they are unable to furnish value, or if another is able to furnish value more efficiently, or is able to furnish greater value.
And so these sorts of friendships are easily dissolved, when the friends do not remain similar to what they were ; for if someone is no longer ... useful, the other stops loving him. (211).
Third, it is a humble fact of life that our needs are subject to change over time: new needs are acquired, persisting needs wax and wane, old needs dissipate. Thus, that which is useful to us is subject to change--and so, in consequence, is the set of people who can supply that which is useful.
What is useful does not remain the same, but is different at different times. Hence, when the cause of their being friends is removed, the friendship is dissolved too. (211-2).
Over time, then, one can anticipate that there will be changes in one's set of utility friends, corresponding to changes in one's needs over time.(FN18).
Fourth, friendships based on utility are predisposed toward contentiousness--principally, disagreements about the value of what is given and the value of what is received.
Friendship for utility ... is liable to accusations. For these friends deal with each other in the expectation of gaining benefits. Hence they always require more, thinking they have got less than is fitting; and they reproach the other because they get less than they require and deserve. And those who confer benefits cannot supply as much as the recipients require. (233).
And ultimately, claims Aristotle, it is the recipient who judges the actual value received.
Since the friendship is for utility, surely the benefit to the recipient must be the measure of the return . For he was the one who required it, and the benefactor supplies him on the assumption that he will get an equal return. Hence the aid has been as great as the benefit received, and the recipient should return as much as he gained. (235).
But such an assessment is hardly infallible, of course: and this fact is perfectly consistent with--indeed, fuels--ongoing disputes.
Fifth, and finally, friendships for utility are narrowly circumscribed, tightly constrained. Indeed, as Aristotle says of the people involved in such a relationship, "sometimes they do not find each other pleasant" (212).
As a consequence of all this,.
Those who are friends for utility dissolve the friendship as soon as the advantage is removed; for they were never friends of each other, but of what was expedient for them. (214; italics added).
If you and I have an incomplete friendship based on utility, I do not love you--I love myself. In maintaining our relationship, I am not loving you, I am loving what is expedient for me. Or more precisely: I am loving myself. And I demonstrate my love for myself by garnering something from you that is useful to me. Of course, in order to induce you to provide that which is useful to me, I have to provide something that is useful to you--I have to assist you in loving yourself, in showing your love for yourself. But if that burden becomes too onerous, if I can find better ways of loving myself than that achieved by helping you love yourself, I demonstrate my love for myself in another way--by dissolving the relationship.
To sum up: incomplete friendships based on utility are coincidental, contentious, and narrowly circumscribed; each regards the other as replaceable, and one's set of such friends is highly likely to change over time, as one's needs change over time.
IV. NETWORKING AS THE DEVELOPMENT OF INCOMPLETE FRIENDSHIPS OF UTILITYMy thesis in this section is that "business friends"--the very result of successful networking--are "utility friends." Indeed, I consider "business friendships" a paradigm of friendships based on utility. Let us see how this is so.
Recall the five hallmarks of incomplete friendships of utility: they are coincidental, the friend is replaceable, one's set of friends change with changes in one's needs, they (typically) are contentious (regarding value provided versus value received), and they are narrowly circumscribed.
Quite obviously, business friendships are coincidental; the people with whom one comes into (business) contact, and the people one can benefit, and benefit from--one's potential "network"--depends heavily, and perhaps exclusively, on one's "business." For the most part, business friendships are limited to business functions--though of course "business" can be transacted in a wide variety of settings, some of which are quite entertaining. The exchange of value is the very essence of a business friendship, which is itself the goal of networking. In this, Aristotle anticipates Ford Harding:.
You don't need to know a lot of people to start networking. Rather, you must bring value to those you do know and to those you meet.(FN19).
And who determines what is of value, and how much value? As again anticipated by Aristotle, it is the recipient: "you must figure out what your contacts would find helpful, because help is defined by the receiver rather than the giver."(FN20) Finally, recall that utility friendships endure only so long as they prove useful to the two parties, and that one's needs--that which will be useful--change over time. Consequently, the set of individuals positioned to satisfy one's needs will change over time. In this regard, the business world is even more volatile than the "personal" world. One's "business" will surely change over time: a change in responsibilities (promotion, reassignment, demotion), change in functional area, change in location (exacerbated by the common corporate commitment to "promote and relocate"), change in employer, change from one business to an entirely different business. Each of these changes is likely to require a renewed effort at networking, a new network, an alteration of one's set of "business friends." Some such changes will require the construction of an entirely new network. And of course one's business friends--the members of one's network--are subject to the same sorts of changes; some will be leaving your network.
V. NETWORKING AND THE KANTIAN "CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE"The goal of networking is to initiate and maintain business friendships. And as the foregoing makes clear, the person in business uses one's business friends--specifically, to advance one's own business interests. And the businessperson is, in turn, used by one's business friends--as a means for advancing their respective business interests. Characterizing these relationships in this way triggers Kantian concerns; a straightforward gloss of one formulation of Immanual Kant's "categorical imperative" prohibits the using of other people. Quite naturally, then, the question arises: are business friendships, on Kantian grounds, immoral? Are the actions required for initiating and maintaining business friendships--i.e., successful networking--morally prohibited by the categorical imperative? In this section, I defend a two-part response. First, I claim that business friendships need not violate the categorical imperative--it is perfectly possible to have business friendships that survive Kantian moral scrutiny. Second, I claim that--for a variety of reasons--business friendships are in continuous danger of eroding into relationships that cannot survive Kantian moral scrutiny.
In the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant offers five distinguishable but logically equivalent formulations of the (one) moral law, the "categorical imperative."(FN21) The third formulation is this:.
Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means.(FN22).
But precisely which actions are prohibited; what constitutes treating someone as a "means merely," in contradistinction to treating them as "ends in themselves"? Manual G. Velasquez offers the following, to help make that determination:.
What Kant means by "treating humanity as an end" is that I should treat each human being as a being whose existence as a free and rational person should be promoted. For Kant this means two things: (1) respecting each person's freedom by treating people only as they have freely consented to be treated beforehand and (2) developing each person's capacity to freely choose for him or herself the aims he or she will pursue. On the other hand, to treat a person only as a means is to use the person only as an instrument for advancing my own interests and involves neither respect for, nor development of, the person's capacity to choose freely.
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This version of the categorical imperative implies that human beings each have an equal dignity that sets them apart from things such as tools or machines and that is incompatible with their being manipulated, deceived, or otherwise unwillingly exploited to satisfy the self-interests of another.(FN23).
While it is true that the businessperson--casually speaking--"uses" one's business friends to advance one's interests, this need not be a matter of "unwilling exploitation." Indeed, the most successful business friendships are, and are understood by all parties to be, wholly consensual: a free, open-eyed exchange. Each gives something of value to the other; each receives something of value from the other--and each understands the nature of, and the basis of, the relationship. They may well have read the same articles on the practice of networking. Indeed, more than one might try to be the last person to sit at a table, in a comical reverse of "musical chairs.".
But to say this is to expose one of the omnipresent perils that confront business friendships. To be a consensual relationship, and not a case of "unwilling exploitation," each party must know the nature, context, and consequences of the actions that are asked of one in a business friendship. Conversely, the failure to disclose such information may well constitute treating the other as a "tool" or an "instrument," as a "means merely.".
Imagine that Green and Brown have a business friendship, and Green asks Brown to do some action a, an action that seems wholly unobjectionable. But what Green knows--and Brown does not know--is that action a, in its context or in light of its consequences, is highly objectionable. Indeed, if Brown were fully informed, he would not do it. If Green nonetheless asks Brown to do action a, while withholding the information that would reveal that that action is morally impermissible, then Green treats Brown as a means merely. By deceit, Green induces Brown to behave in ways to which Brown did not, and would not, consent--in violation of the categorical imperative.
It could also happen that what Green asks of Brown is, quite transparently, morally objectionable. It's not the sort of action whose wrongness is hidden; its the sort of action that, ceteris paribus, is wrong. Green asks Brown to "bring value" to the relationship by altering financial statements, fudging figures, delaying a report, revealing proprietary information, shredding a document, losing a file, erasing a disk, altering meeting minutes, etc., etc. (The easy presupposition here is that, in some cases, one's (apparent) business interests can be advanced by the wrongful--perhaps criminal--actions of another.).
What are we to say of this? There is a temptation to say that, while some business friendships are morally upright, some are not: in particular, those that involve deceit, or requests for wrongful acts. But this is not quite right; it masks a subtle but important conceptual point in Aristotle's discussion of friendship.
Before distinguishing complete from incomplete friendships, Aristotle discusses friendship generally: "friendship is said to be reciprocated goodwill" "we should add that friends are aware of the reciprocated goodwill" " to be friends they must have goodwill to each other, wish goods and be aware of it" (210). By definition, then, friends have goodwill toward one another. To treat another person in ways that violate the categorical imperative--deceiving them about the context or consequences of that which one has asked the person to do, or asking the other to do wrongful acts--is to not have goodwill for the other. It would be ludicrous for Green to claim that he has goodwill for Brown when Green has asked Brown to do things that subject Brown to dismissal, civil suit, or criminal prosecution. It would be a mistake, then, to call their relationship a "business friendship"; absent goodwill, the relationship (strictly speaking) is not a friendship at all. A businessperson who deceives another businessperson, or who requests a base action of the other, is not a "business friend," and their relationship is not a "business friendship." The relationship, and its participants, must be described in some other way: a deceiver, a manipulator; co-conspirators, partners in crime.
So I want to say: business friendships can be morally upright; indeed, so long as they are "friendships" strictly speaking, they are morally upright. But I want to say further: the very essence of a business friendship is the exchange of that which is of use to the participants, as judged by the recipient. While the friends have goodwill toward one another, they love not the other, but themselves. And they show that love by garnering goods for themselves. Thus, there will be a continuous temptation to seek too much for oneself, at the expense of the other. In consequence, there is the continuous peril that a "business friendship" will erode, that it will no longer be a friendship (strictly speaking), but will decay into some other kind of relationship--one that is morally suspect, or even morally prohibited.
VI. BUSINESS FRIENDS AND COMPLETE FRIENDSConsider this question: How can I distinguish business friends from complete friends? As stated, this question is deeply ambiguous: is it a conceptual question, or is it a practical question? It is a conceptual question if it is this: What are the correct criteria for distinguishing "complete friends" from "business friends"? It is a practical question if it is this: Of the various people whom I call my "friends," which ones are "complete friends" (write out a list of their names), and which ones are "business friends" (write out a list of their names)? The discussion to this point has centered on the conceptual question--and it will, for the most part, remain so. Specifying and defending the (conceptual) criteria for distinguishing complete friends from business friends is a philosophical matter; applying the criteria to actual relationships is a matter of psychology, sociology, and common sense. Additionally, the philosophical work precedes the practical work; one cannot go about distinguishing one's complete friends from one's business friends until one has adopted criteria for separating one sort from the other sort.
If we are in essential agreement with Aristotle, as discussed above, the fundamental practical matter is to determine whether one is loved by one's friend for one's character, or whether one's friend actually loves only himself or herself, and is maintaining the relationship as a means to benefit himself or herself. And conversely; as regards each relationship we scrutinize, we have to ask ourselves whether we love our friend for the friend's character, or whether (in maintaining the relationship) we are actually loving ourselves by means of the friend, by acquiring for ourselves the benefits that that friend can provide. Investigating one's friend may prove difficult, and the results of the investigation may prove inconclusive. Precisely the same must be said about investigating one's self.
The difficulty of applying Aristotle's criteria is exacerbated by this phenomenon: relationships have trajectories. No relationship can begin as a "complete friendship"; it must grow from humbler origins. Incomplete friendships can evolve into complete friendships, as the importance of one's love for the other's character eclipses that of the business advantages one had sought. And complete friendships can decay into incomplete: one comes to no longer love the other for the other's character, but loves only that pleasure or utility that the other provides--i.e., one comes to love oneself, and to show it by availing oneself of the pleasure or utility provided by that other. Thus, while the conceptual categories are crisp, the practical matter of assessing relationships--especially those in flux, or under strain--can prove difficult or impossible. One may be unable to succinctly assess, or categorize, a relationship as a "complete friendship" or an "incomplete friendship." A given relationship could have some of the elements of both; at any given point in time, it may be impossible for one to say, with any confidence, who is loving whom, or who is loving what.
Despite all this, continuing the discussion of the conceptual criteria for distinguishing complete friendships from other sorts of relationships can be of practical help in applying those very criteria.
It might be thought, from our preoccupation with the "usefulness" of incomplete friendships for utility, that "usefulness" is the distinguishing feature. Not so; according to Aristotle, complete friendships resemble incomplete friendships of utility and incomplete friendships of pleasure in that they are both pleasant and useful.(FN24) If a friendship is a true (complete) friendship, then the relationship yields both pleasure and utility. However, that pleasure and that utility are incidental, and not the basis of the relationship; one is loved for one's character, and not solely for the utility (or pleasure) one brings. Thus, in assessing an actual relationship, one must still determine whether one is loved for one's character, or whether the other loves oneself, and is garnering various benefits for oneself by maintaining the relationship.
There is an interesting asymmetry in the determining of whether one is loved for one's character or one's usefulness. Given the fact that completefriends are both useful and pleasurable, and that relationships have trajectories--betrayal could be just over the horizon--we may never be sure that a particular friend loves us, and not just our goodies. But events could transpire that would prove that a friend does not love us, our character, but loves only himself or herself.
Loving a person for that person's character includes efforts to protect that character--to improve it (insofar as that is possible), and to safeguard it against deterioration. According to Aristotle,.
Equality and similarity, and above all the similarity of those who are similar in being virtuous, is friendship. For virtuous people are enduringly virtuous in themselves, and enduring friends to each other. They neither request nor provide assistance that requires base actions but, you might even say, prevent this. For it is proper to good people to avoid error themselves, and not to permit it in their friends. (223; Italics added).
In the course of a relationship, an event of special moment may arise--an epiphany. For example, a request for an action is made such that the very requesting signals something of profound importance to the relationship. The request itself imperils the relationship--or perhaps reveals it to be something other than it was thought to be by the requestee.
Suppose that Brown knowingly asks Green, as a "business friend," to do some untoward act--an act that is base, contrary to duty--and suppose that Green understands it as such. (For instances, recall the list provided earlier: to reveal proprietary information, to pay a bribe, to shred a file, etc.) Now suppose that Green challenges the request, pointing out that the act is contrary to duty, that it requires a base action--acceding to the request, and performing the action, would worsen Green's character. Much will be revealed by Brown's response to that challenge. We can imagine Brown saying, "My God, you're right! I'm so sorry; I'm in a jam, and not thinking straight. Please forgive me." Assuming that Brown is sincere, he could remain a friend (though presumably only a business friend). On the contrary, we can imagine Brown replying, "Oh come on, don't be such a goody two-shoes. Friends do this sort of thing all the time, and besides--you owe me for the Smith contract. Look, I really need this, and you know that I would do it for you." With such a response, Brown proves that he is not a complete friend of Green, nor even an incomplete (business) friend; he is no friend (strictly speaking) of Green at all. Brown loves himself, and wants Green to do things that would worsen Green's character, so that Brown can manifest his love of himself.
Aristotle is acutely aware of the painfulness of this sort of revelation: "friends are most at odds when they are not friends in the way they think they are" (243). It is excruciating to have believed that one was loved for one's character, and then to discover that one is loved only for the value that one could provide--i.e., that one was not loved at all.
VII. CONCLUSIONSThis brings us to the three conclusions of the article.
1. Developing business friendships--networking--is merely important in some occupations; in other occupations, it is absolutely essential to success. The practice of networking need not erode one's character, nor violate the Kantian categorical imperative. So people in business should do it, and do it well. Read the literature on networking, and adopt (some of) the recommendations.
2. Keep this in mind. Networks are initiated and maintained by taking value to others, and it is those others who determine what is of value, and precisely how valuable it is. In consequence there is omnipresent the possibility of a request, or an expectation--and thus the temptation--to do base things. For that is what a person in business might deem valuable. A person who makes such a request is not a complete friend, and not even a business friend. Such a person is no friend at all, strictly speaking, but rather is a threat to one's integrity.
3. When Aristotle says that "no one would choose to live without friends even if he had all other goods," and that "friendship is most necessary for our life" (207), he must be understood as speaking of complete friendships, of true friends. He is not speaking of business friends. Put more starkly: If all your friends are business friends, then you have no friends.(FN25).
Added material.
JONATHAN SCHONSHECK is professor of philosophy at Le Moyne College; his specializations are social and political philosophy, philosophy of law, and business ethics. Schonsheck has published in Public Affairs Quarterly, Journal of Social Philosophy, and Philosophy and Public Affairs; he is the author of On Criminalization: An Essay in the Philosophy of the Criminal Law (Kluwer). A discussion of the business ethics course he team-teaches in Le Moyne's MBA program has recently appeared in Teaching Business Ethics.
An earlier version of this paper, under the title "Business Friends: Aristotle and Other Management Theorists on the Practice of Networking," was read to the 25th Conference on Value Inquiry: Values in Business (Appalachian State University, April 1997). I profited from the ensuing discussion--especially from the comments of Gerald J. Williams and Chalmers C. Clark. I also wish to acknowledge the helpful suggestions and support of Daniel L. Orne, with whom I team-teach Business Ethics.
FOOTNOTES1 The subject of some articles was the "network" within large organizations--the informal power structure, as contrasted with the formal organizational chart. The subject of most, however, was "networking" as discussed in this paper.
2 "Networking 101: Seeing And Being Seen," Nation's Business, March 1996, p. 11.
3 Julie Bawden Davis, "Networking For Fun And Profit," Nation's Business, May 1994, p. 80.
4 Frank K. Sonnenberg, "How to Reap the Benefits of Networking," The Journal of Business Strategy, January/February 1990, p. 59. Emphasis added.
5 Ford Harding, "How to Build a Network," Journal of Accountancy, May 1996, p. 79. This passage continues with quite specific a suggestion:.
Call someone you would like to network with--you don't need to know him or her well--and say, "We're both out in the market and may be able to help each other. I want to come to your office and learn more about your services so that I can recommend you if I have an opportunity." That offer is hard to refuse.
6 Julie Bawden Davis, quoting James Johnson, in "Networking For Fun And Profit," Nation's Business, May 1994, p. 80. She continues,.
Perhaps you can provide a referral in exchange or offer your professional services free of charge. If these aren't options, consider other alternatives, such as a special gift.
7 Dawn M. Baskerville, "Power Networking," Black Enterprise, July 1993. This insight is attributed to Anne Baber, Great Connections: Small Talk and Networking for Businesspeople (Manassas Park, Va.: Impact Publications, 1992).
8 "Networking 101: Seeing And Being Seen," Nation's Business, March 1996, p. 11.
9 Ibid. While no philosopher could oppose people's having "open minds," this "justification" does engender uneasiness.
10 J. E. Osborne, "Networking Know-How: Navigating in the Nineties," Supervisory Management, May 1994, p. 1. Italics added--though perhaps not necessary.
11 Ibid.
12 I make no claim that these passages are "representative" of the entire literature on networking. Quite to the contrary, they have been selected to illustrate my (upcoming) theses about an Aristotelian analysis of networking. I could have included passages that were less coldly calculating. The contrast between "business friends" and "complete friends" would be less clear, less sharp. Nonetheless, it would endure.
13 Aristotle's analysis of friendship relies heavily upon his theory of the virtues--indeed, it is not intelligible independent of it. Inevitably, then, elements of his theory of the virtues will creep into this discussion.
14 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1985), p. 207. Subsequent references to Aristotle, from this source, will appear in the text in brackets.
15 Generally, "friendship" for Aristotle is a matter of reciprocated good will, combined with awareness of that reciprocated good will (see pp. 209-10).
16 This is neither the time nor the place for a full discussion of Aristotle's claim that only the virtuous can be complete friends. I want to focus more narrowly, on a way to motivate this claim, a way to give it prima facie plausibility--especially if one is teaching this portion of the Nicomachean Ethics.
To be virtuous is to perform actions that exhibit the various Aristotelian means between extremes; to fail to be virtuous is to perform actions that exhibit (to various degrees, of course) the extremes: the extreme of excess, or the extreme of deficiency. Now reflect--as vividly as one can--on the lives and interests and activities of individuals whose actions typically fall far from the mean. In a non-rhetorical way, ask whether such people could initiate and maintain a relationship at all (setting aside for now the issue of the sort of relationship that Aristotle praises). The rash person and the coward would not be able to agree on any activities at all. Two rash people would be so competitive that their relationship would be unlikely to endure. Two cowards would have a dull life indeed. A relationship between a wasteful person and an ungenerous person might last a while, but seems doomed; two ungenerous people would continuously squabble about money. The lives of two insensible people would be joyless; two intemperate people would fight to satisfy their own appetites, at the expense of the satisfaction of the other's appetites. Imagine the interactions between two irascible people. Continue the thought experiment for all the various combinations and permutations of the vices. And then begin thinking about people who exhibit two vices. And then three vices ...
As this thought experiment continues, it becomes less and less believable that such people could continue a relationship, much less have it evolve into a "complete" friendship.
17 "These kinds of friendships are likely to be rare, since such people are few. Moreover, they need time to grow accustomed to each other; for, as the proverb says, they cannot know each other before they have shared the traditional peck of salt, and they cannot accept each other or be friends until each appears lovable to the other and gains the other's confidence. Those who are quick to treat each other in friendly ways wish to be friends, but are not friends, unless they are also lovable, and know this. For though the wish for friendship comes quickly, friendship does not" (213).
18 Of course it is possible that a particular person is able to satisfy a particular need at some point in time, and is also able to satisfy a different need at a subsequent time. This does no damage to the broad claim that, over time, we will witness significant changes in the set of our utility friends.
19 Ford Harding, "How to Build a Network," p. 79.
20 Ibid.
21 For an argument that the formulations are equivalent, see James W. Ellington, trans., Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co, 1981), p. vii.
22 Kant, p. 36.
23 Manuel G. Velasquez, Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases, Fourth Edition (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1998), p. 96. Internal cites omitted.
24 See Aristotle, p. 214.
25 I consider this paper a work in applied moral philosophy: the application of classical philosophical texts to moral issues that arise in contemporary business life.
I teach Business Ethics in an executive M.B.A. program. My students are not undergraduates, but business professionals--not people who are thinking about "networking" when they graduate, but people who are actively engaged in the practice. The session devoted to Aristotle on friendship is both difficult and enlightening for many of them, especially those in selling and purchasing. They are forced to think about the time and energy they devote to business friendships--and the extent to which their true friendships may have been allowed to languish.