From Ethics to Spirituality: Laszlo Zsolnai on Human Motivations

Abstract

Laszlo Zsolnai’s oeuvre focuses on the individual: the model of economic actor, human motivations in decision making, and the problem of the modern self. The paper seeks, first, to present Laszlo Zsolnai intellectual journey through which he broadened his views on the relevant motivations of economic actors from ethical to spiritual ones. Second, it analyses the pivotal role behavioral models play in the construction of social sciences showing that any social inquiry involves some degree of normative content. Behavioral models are not merely descriptive, but prescribe a certain view on reality. Therefore ‘transformative sciences’, like business ethics or ecological economic, should devote special attention to the problem of human agency. This is a view, which is not necessarily widely shared, but certainly hold by Laszlo Zsolnai.