CST is widely disregarded in the academic and public discourse. This essay argues that this is the case for two related reasons. Firstly, CST is based on the pre-Enlightenment approach to moral philosophy, virtue ethics, while the mainstream in business ethics favours the rule-based approaches consequentialism and deontology and their variants. Secondly, mainstream approaches also have adopted a positivist epistemology where theories represent the Truth that must not be questioned: they have become ideologies. This paper argues that CST, mainly through the virtue ethical doctrine of the mean, is saved from having become an ideology and is much closer to the ideal of science as a self-questioning system than the mainstream in business ethics. This essay explains this counter-intuitive conclusion by tracing the history of CST and embedding it in an epistemic discussion and then suggesting what business ethics could take from CST to regain the all-important discursiveness it once had.

CST 在学术和公共话语中被广泛忽视。这篇文章认为，情况之所以如此，有两个相关的原因。首先，CST基于启蒙前的道德哲学，美德伦理，而商业伦理的主流则偏爱基于规则的结果主义和义务论及其变体。其次，主流方法也采用了实证主义的认识论，其中理论代表了不容质疑的真理：它们已成为意识形态。本文认为，CST 主要是通过中庸之道的美德伦理学说，避免成为一种意识形态，比商业伦理中的主流更接近科学作为一种自我质疑系统的理想。