Entscheidungsfreiheit als Grundlage wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Forschung

This paper analyses whether freedom of decision as a crucial precondition of normative deci-sion theory is questioned by ethics and neurobiology. It argues for an understanding of busi-ness ethics which sees the economic agents’ freedom of decision as the necessary basis for handling ethical questions in business practice, rather then as a limitation to this end. Analys-ing free will as a main object of scrutiny in neurobiology, it is hypothesised that acting in real-ity lies between plain determination on the one extreme and complete autonomy on the other. It supports the proposition in decision theory that managerial decisions are taken within the conditions of a certain framework. However, in the light of the recent developments in behav-ioural economics, ethics and neurobiology, it argues for the extension of this concept by con-sciously or unknowingly anchored norms.