Folk economics and folk ethics as problems of moral reasoning : ordonomic inspirations for business ethics

„Folk economics“ is the economic ‘theory’ of common sense, and analogously „folk ethics“ is the moral ‘theory’ of common sense. Typical of „folk-economic beliefs“ are erroneous causal attributions. Typical of „folk-ethical beliefs“ are utopian or dysfunctional criteria for moral judgments. The main proposition of this article is that these two sources of positive and normative disorientation should be made an object of research in business ethics in order to scientifically work on the hitherto neglected area of unjustified moral critiques of the market economy – in addition and complementation to the important area of justified moral critiques of the market economy. In support of this proposition, practical syllogisms are used to show that the scientific critique and correction of „folk-economic beliefs“ requires a slightly different approach than the scientific critique and correction of „folk-ethical beliefs“.