One of the key debates about applying virtue ethics to business is whether or not the aims and values of a business actually prevent the exercise of virtues. Some of the more interesting disagreement in this debate has arisen amongst proponents of virtue ethics. This article analyzes the central issues of this debate in order to advance an alternative way of thinking about how a business can be a form of virtuous practice. Instead of relying on the paired concepts of internal and external goods that define what counts as virtuous, I offer a version of speech act theory taken from Paul Ricoeur to show how a business can satisfy several aims without compromising the exercise of the virtues. I refer to this as a polyvalent approach where a single task within a business can have instrumental, conventional, and imaginative effects. These effects correspond to the locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary dimensions of meaning. I argue that perlocution provides a way in which the moral imagination can discover the moral significance of others that might have not been noticed before, and furthermore, that for such effects to be practiced, they require appropriate virtues. I look at two cases taken from consultation work to thresh out the theoretical and practical detail.

关于将美德伦理应用于企业的关键辩论之一是企业的目标和价值观是否实际上阻止了美德的行使。在这场辩论中，一些更有趣的分歧出现在美德伦理的支持者之间。本文分析了这场辩论的核心问题，以提出另一种思考企业如何成为一种良性实践的方式。我没有依赖定义什么是美德的内部和外部商品的配对概念，而是提供了一种来自保罗·里科的言语行为理论，以展示企业如何在不影响美德的运用的情况下满足多个目标。我将此称为多价方法，其中企业中的单个任务可以产生工具性、传统和富有想象力的效果。这些效果对应于意义的言说、言外和言后维度。我认为，言辞提供了一种方式，让道德想象可以发现以前可能没有注意到的其他人的道德意义，此外，要实现这种效果，它们需要适当的美德。我查看了从咨询工作中提取的两个案例，以区分理论和实践细节。