Thick Evaluation in Business

Many concepts of everyday language have not only descriptive but also evaluative dimensions. These so called “thick evaluative concepts,” such as lie, cruelty, and friendship, “express a union of fact and value” and thus are not only evaluative, but “world guided” (Williams Reference Williams1985, 129) at the same time. Applying them involves a descriptive grasp of the features of an actual situation, as well as an evaluation of these features, and often provides reasons for action. In order to become a competent user of a thick concept, one needs to share the evaluative point of view of those who are competent with the concept, that is, one must learn how a thick concept relates to the other concepts of a vocabulary (Putnam Reference Putnam2002, 37ff.). The competent use of a thick concept involves the ability to make sense of a value given the other values in the situation.

Below we elaborate the idea of “thick evaluation”—making sense of values through the application of thick concepts—in order to argue that evaluations typically involve the simultaneous consideration of different values, and thus to explain how managers can simultaneously engage with different values in decision making. For this purpose, we take the following steps. We start by (1) introducing the idea of thick concepts, and continue by (2) explaining in more detail that the evaluative and descriptive dimensions of thick concepts are inextricably related. This is necessary in order to (3) argue that the competent application of such concepts does not only involve the descriptive, but also the evaluative dimensions of other concepts. This means that making sense of a value is sensitive to the other values in the situation. Subsequently, we (4) explain how the evaluations that result from the application of thick concepts give rise to reasons for action, and how competent users of thick concepts come to practical responses to different values considered simultaneously. This provides a basis for sketching decision making as consisting of four elements that are implied in thick evaluation.

(1) The use of the thick evaluative concepts of ordinary language consists of applying them to features of situations, and through these applications, these features obtain descriptive, but also evaluative meaning (Putnam Reference Putnam2002; Williams Reference Williams1985). Thick concepts thus play a central role in making sense of values in a situation. For example, when we call someone industrious, we do not only mean that s/he has the feature of working hard, but also that something valuable is realized in her/his so working. Likewise, when we say that a car is green we do not only mean that it uses relatively few natural resources, but usually also that it is good that it does so. These thick evaluative concepts provide a description and an evaluation of features of situations. ^{Footnote 2} Frequently discussed examples of thick concepts include cruelty (Putnam Reference Putnam2002, 34), treachery, promise, brutality, courage (Williams Reference Williams1985, 129), lewdness (Gibbard Reference Gibbard1992, 279), and lies (Payne Reference Payne2005, 89). ^{Footnote 3} In daily life, within and outside corporations, we use many of these thick concepts in order to grasp the values in a situation (cf. Anderson Reference Anderson1995, 98; Raz Reference Raz1999, 146). The importance of thick concepts appears in many business practices. When hiring an employee, for instance, we may look for a productive and innovative team player, who feels at home in a culture of respect, purposefulness, and mutual support. Stakeholders and managers use many thick concepts which are full of evaluative contents that help to frame situations and give descriptive and evaluative meaning to them. Of course, this does not exclude the possibility that managers can use the “tools” of normative theories for making decisions. These “normative cores” (Freeman et al. Reference Freeman, Harrison, Wicks, Parmar and De Colle2010, 76-77) are made up of thick concepts and give systematic accounts of the contents of these concepts from the perspective of a specific theoretical tradition. Establishing the usefulness of these tools in a situation—and actually using them—presupposes that managers rely on thick evaluation in order to grasp the values they encounter there.

(2) When in use, the evaluative and descriptive contents of thick concepts cannot be separated (Eklund Reference Eklund2011; Kirchin Reference Kirchin and Kirchin2013; Putnam Reference Putnam2002; Williams Reference Williams1985). This is often discussed by stressing that definitions do not suffice for learning how to apply a thick concept (e.g. Dancy Reference Dancy1995, 263; Garrard and McNaughton Reference Garrard and McNaughton1993, 57-58; Williams Reference Williams1985, 141). For example, understanding what makes certain work industrious and other work being on the make is not only a matter of having command of a certain body of definitional knowledge, but also of understanding the value implicit in industriousness and being on the make. Competently using the concept of industriousness requires—of course—other descriptive concepts regarding the features of the things to which this concept applies (say, to individuals who work more than eight hours per day and exceed their targets). However, in order to learn to apply this thick concept intelligibly, one also needs to grasp why and when industriousness can be valuable. Being industrious and being on the make are different because of the values they have. Of course, a definition of industriousness could be refined by specifying for example that, contrary to being on the make, industriousness is not only self-regarding. Yet, in the end, such specifications cannot entirely determine the application of the thick concept to new cases without relying on other evaluative concepts (which is indeed the case with self-regarding).

(3) Being a competent user of a thick concept requires understanding the place of this concept in the whole of the concepts of the vocabulary to which it belongs from an ethical point of view (Putnam Reference Putnam2002, 37ff, but also Raz Reference Raz and Coleman2001; Raz Reference Raz and Jay Wallace2003; Williams Reference Williams1985, 141-142). In order to understand the value of mutual support in work life, to continue with one of the examples from above, one may have to understand that it can be valuable in itself, but also, for instance, that it may be important for cooperation and psychological well being in teams, that it can jeopardize decisiveness, and may not always go well together with impartiality. In thick evaluation the value of a feature depends on the values of other features of the situation (cf. Dancy Reference Dancy2004). For example, whether mutual support is good, bad, or has no value at all, depends on other values in the situation, such as cooperation, psychological well being, decisiveness, and impartiality. Making sense of a value through the application of a thick concept is thus sensitive to the other values in the situation.

Ethical lapses in actual business practice can indeed be analyzed along these lines: understanding why it was wrong of managers at Enron to think that changing the numbers was valuable as an instantiation of loyalty to the company (cf. Tourish and Vatcha Reference Tourish and Vatcha2005) involves the simultaneous consideration of values other than loyalty. In the Enron case, loyalty was bad, say, because in this situation loyalty doesn’t go well together with impartiality, and threatened values such as honesty, the reliability of information, and the long term value of the firm.

Incompetence with thick concepts is by no means an academic matter only, and can, as this example shows, have serious consequences for business and society. It explains how managers can—and must—consider different values simultaneously in decision making. The competent application of a thick concept necessarily involves other values, so that, even if managers focus on a single value, other values can be taken into consideration and affect the evaluation made. The evaluative dimensions of thick concepts may remain largely inarticulate when making sense of a value (Raz Reference Raz and Coleman2001, 7; Dancy Reference Dancy2004, 191-193). Nevertheless, they are in principle available to, and used by, competent users so that merely applying thick concepts competently involves considering different values simultaneously.

(4) The above approach shows how different values can—and must—be considered simultaneously, but does not suffice for explaining how thick evaluation can support decision making. This also requires the further step of expounding how thick evaluation provides reasons for action. After all, decisions are not only conclusions about what is of value in a situation, but also about how to act with regard to these values. In order to explain how thick evaluation provides reasons for action and guides decision making, we address the practical meaning of the application of thick concepts.

Thick concepts do not only hold together description and evaluation, but are usually action guiding as well (cf. Dancy Reference Dancy2004, 191-192; Tappolet Reference Tappolet and Reboul2014; Dancy Reference Dancy and Kirchin2013b, 57; Payne Reference Payne2005, 93-96). They “are characteristically related to action” so that “if a concept of this kind applies, this often provides someone with a reason for action” (Williams Reference Williams1985, 140). These reasons for action can take many different forms: some values should be admired, other values should be protected, still other values should be created, etc. Moreover, different values require different specific behaviors. For example, the value of privacy often requires our respect, but we should engage with it in a specific way in order to respect it. Respecting privacy may, for instance, require remaining ignorant of certain aspects of the life of others. The appropriateness of such a practical response also depends on other values in the situation (Williams Reference Williams1985, 140; Dancy Reference Dancy and Kirchin2013b, 57). For example, how to respect privacy, and even whether it should be respected at all, may depend on which aspects of life are considered shameful or intimate by those engaged, and also on which other values may have to be abandoned for the sake of privacy.

Competent users of a thick concept grasp which “contribution” (Dancy Reference Dancy2004, 192) its application can make to what should be done in a situation, and also how this contribution can vary depending on the other values in the context. A plurality of different kinds of value is an assumption for any thick evaluation, and engaging with a plurality of values does not require comparing them along the lines of one value (cf. Dancy Reference Dancy2013a). Rather, knowing how to engage with different values involves understanding which practical reasons they can contribute and finding a way to engage with them. Typically “[w]e are faced with several contributing features, and what we know about each enables us to cope somehow with the interfering effects of the context considered as a whole” (Dancy Reference Dancy2004, 192). Managers and stakeholders see the “practical shape of the situation and thereby the nature of the appropriate response” (Dancy Reference Dancy2004, 191) through the application of thick evaluative concepts and thus the simultaneous consideration of different values.

The above leaves open the possibility that only a single thick concept appears explicitly in reflection or communication, while other values are simultaneously considered implicitly. On other occasions, various thick concepts may appear explicitly. In all these situations, the sensitivity of the thick evaluation of a feature to the other values in the situation explains how managers can “holistically” (cf. Mitchell et al. Reference Mitchell, Weaver, Agle, Bailey and Carlson2016) consider different values simultaneously and decide about an appropriate response.

Thick Evaluation in Managerial Decision Making

From this perspective, a managerial decision is the establishment of a practical response to the values in a situation, and the rightness of a decision depends on whether this response is appropriate given the reasons that these values contribute in the context as a whole. The idea of thick evaluation shows that establishing an appropriate response to the values in the situation neither requires a single value to be maximized, nor does it require reverting to a theoretical normative core such as stakeholder theorists sometimes suggest. Even the application of only a single thick concept involves the simultaneous consideration of other values. Decision making thus typically involves a plurality of incomparable values and the rightness of decisions hinges upon the competence of managers to apply thick concepts. On this account, the usual “dilemmas” from the literature on value pluralism—in which two possible responses to the whole of the values in a situation are juxtaposed (e.g. Chang Reference Chang1997)—are potentially present in any decision. These dilemmas do not always appear because decision making does not need to involve developing these alternative responses and choosing one of them. Even if different response alternatives are developed and a choice between them is hard to make, the way forward is a better understanding of what sorts of reasons the different values contribute to what should be done, and finding a way to engage with them. Maximizing a single value or reverting to a substantive normative theory can help reflecting on alternatives and making them comparable, but cannot resolve the dilemma of the practical reasons that different values provide.

This “holism of practical reasons” (Dancy Reference Dancy2004) implies that general principles or normative philosophical theories cannot express the requirements for managerial decision making—these reasons are to be found in the situation using the relevant thick evaluative concepts. ^{Footnote 4} A more obvious strategy for sketching the practical consequences of taking seriously the role of thick concept in decision making, is not a substantive, but a formal approach. Such a formal approach starts from the idea that the value of a feature may be “enabled,” “disabled,” “intensified,” and “diminished” by other values in the situation (Dancy Reference Dancy2004; see Mckeever and Ridge Reference Mckeever, Ridge, Bakhurst, Little and Hooker2013 for a summary in these terms). The value of provocation for instance, may be enabled by the value of probing, disabled by the value of politeness, intensified by the value of a lively discussion, and diminished by the value of a laid back conversation. How to engage with a provocation (whether or not to continue provoking, how, and to what extent) therefore depends on other values in the situation.

This formal characterization of how engaging with a value can be affected by other values in the situation allows us to further flesh out an approach to decision making that explicates the requirements implied in the idea of thick evaluation. Such an approach should commence by noting that almost all thick concepts have a “default valence” (Dancy Reference Dancy and Kirchin2013b, 45). For example: in the absence of disablers and/or diminishers, efficiency and beauty are good-making features, lying is a bad-making feature, nutrition is a good-making feature, etc. ^{Footnote 5} Attached to these default values are default responses: efficiency should be improved, lying should be avoided, beauty should be admired, nutrition should be eaten, etc. These default responses can—and may often do—change depending on other values in the situation: lying may be necessary to expose an impostor, beauty may need to be ignored when admiration would be embarrassing for the person whose beauty is concerned, safety may exclude further efficiency improvements, etc. On this basis we can now sketch in more detail what decision making should entail if thick evaluation is taken seriously. Upon encountering a value that is at stake, the decision maker should:

1. 1. Establish what is the “default response” to this value.

2. 2. Take stock of the other values in the situation.

3. 3. Assess how these values affect the default response.

4. 4. Decide how to respond to this value given the other values in the situation.

This is a conceptualization of the paradigmatic decision making in which one value is encountered and other values affect how to engage with this value. These steps can be performed for different values in the situation. Making a decision consist of finding an appropriate response to the reasons that the values in the situation contribute.

Managerial Competence with Thick Concepts

The formal approach to decision making that we have presented above relies on the competence of managers with the relevant thick concepts. This renders the question as to what makes a manager competent with a thick concept very important. Above, we have argued that competence with a thick concept is the practical ability to apply it intelligibly considering its complex relation to the other concepts of a vocabulary. Therefore, in the end, only (other) competent users of a thick concept can judge the conceptual competence of managers. As a competent user of a thick concept one has “full recourse to the whole of one’s conceptual armory, information and powers of argumentation in reaching conclusions as to which practices sustain goods and which sustain evil, or worthless things” (Raz Reference Raz and Jay Wallace2003, 24). Nevertheless, this idea of conceptual competence may seem to constitute a vicious circularity in which there are no other grounds for deciding between good and bad than the contingent contents of thick concepts that have evolved over time in the practices and conversations of their users. ^{Footnote 6} A solution for this problem, so we have argued above, can neither be found in the development of substantive normative philosophical theories, nor in postulating the maximization of profit. Indeed, if the thick concepts of ordinary language provide the basis for managerial decision making, then this would be a “search in the wrong place.”

Fortunately, relying on the users of thick concepts for judging the conceptual competence of managers does not need to be smothered in circularity. Following Dewey, we suggest that managers and stakeholders are not caught in a network of concepts that only refer to other concepts, but can actually investigate, validate, and reconsider their concepts by (jointly) using them in structuring and making sense of their experiences (cf. Pappas Reference Pappas2008). Raz (Reference Raz and Jay Wallace2003) identifies a similar possibility when he argues that notwithstanding the general dependence of values on social practices, there are values that do not require social practices in order to exist or be experienced (see also Wallace Reference Wallace and Jay Wallace2003). In locating knowledge of values firmly in the concepts of ordinary language, we have therefore not given up the possibility that the competence of users of thick concepts also rests on experiences of actual states of the world. Rather, we have, as Davidson (Reference Davidson1974) puts it, only given up the possibility of a sharp distinction between concepts and experience of the world, and embraced the idea that the thick concepts of everyday language do not only enable, but are also organized by, what we experience as valuable.

An answer to the question as to whether a manager is competent with a certain thick concept is therefore not necessarily circular, but can also be founded on actual experience of the value of which it is the purported concept. ^{Footnote 7} Of course many concepts will play a role in judging the accuracy of the applications of a thick concept that a manager makes in practice, and some—and perhaps even many—of these concepts may be flawed to some extent. Yet, the circularity in judging the accuracy of an application of a thick concept can be interrupted by referring to experience with values in practice. For example: in order to judge whether a supplier has made sufficient efforts to avoid child labor, a manager is not limited to applying thick concepts like child labor, efficiency in production, risk assessment, and profit to the features of this situation. She could also go and see the people working there, try to remember how it was to be a child, imagine how it would have been to work in circumstances like these, take part in (and initiate) conversations with others about these values and their experiences, and subsequently ask herself whether the efforts of the supplier for avoiding child labor are sufficient.

Against this background the most important managerial insight that this article delivers may just as well be that competence with relevant thick concepts is of central importance to any managerial decision and should be developed by engaging with values in practice and in conversations. Without the actual experience of the values of a work-life balance, an inspiring job, and a productive business—to pick up one of the examples we used above—it may be difficult to make appropriate decisions about job redesign. Of course, explications of the values in a situation along the lines of the procedure we sketched above can support managerial decision making. However, without the largely inarticulate evaluative contents of thick concepts that are developed through experience and the actual use of these thick concepts in practice and conversations, these procedures would remain empty formalisms devoid of a substantive understanding that could support making sense of the values in a situation and deciding about an appropriate response. ^{Footnote 8}

Consequences for Profit Maximizers

In the first section we concluded that profit maximizers can encounter two kinds of situations in which they may embrace the idea of the simultaneous consideration of different kinds of value. First, even if managers would make decisions through the maximization of profit, others may consider different values simultaneously, and managers may need to follow their considerations in order to maximize profit. Second, maximization of profit involves simultaneously respecting other goods such as “open and free competition” and avoiding bads such as “deception or fraud”—and there may be more “sacred goods” that require consideration simultaneously with profit. The first kind of situation does not constitute a fundamental challenge for the profit maximizing approach, but only confirms that “the world is structured in sufficiently complicated ways” to make maximizing “difficult or impossible” (Jensen Reference Jensen2002, 238). Here, the idea of thick evaluation explains how it is possible that managers make decisions through profit maximization, even under the condition of complexity that stems from the simultaneous consideration of values by stakeholders. It does not, however, challenge the core of profit maximization.

In the second kind of situation, however, the idea of thick evaluation may have more substantial consequences for a profit maximizing approach. Profit maximizers usually see the simultaneous consideration of different values as “playing by the rules” (literally in Friedman Reference Friedman1970, but also a central idea in Jensen Reference Jensen2002), that is, they conceive of certain values as constraints on profit maximization. However, if understanding these values involves thick evaluation, then they will not have the character of “fixed” constraints. These “constraints” depend themselves on the other values in the situation including the value of profit (and the latter is the very value they were meant to constrain). If it is useful to think about these values as constraints at all, then they are constraints that may in principle need to be set again in each situation through thick evaluation. For example, profit maximization in choosing suppliers should be constrained by avoidance of child labor, but in order to make this constraint practical and to establish which efforts can reasonably be expected of a particular supplier to avoid child labor, other values in the situation such as profit and environmental protection may need to be considered simultaneously. ^{Footnote 13} Even in a situation where constraints are met, and where maximizing is the appropriate way of engaging with profit, this conclusion follows from the simultaneous consideration of other values and the affirmation that these values neither disable nor diminish the value of profit (i.e. when the present efforts sufficiently guarantee avoidance of child labor). Maximizing may well be the default response to profit, but in order to establish whether this default response is appropriate, other values in the situation must be considered simultaneously ^{Footnote 14} even if they are labelled as “constraints.” As we argued above, engaging with profit is thus never maximizing tout court.

If profit is approached as a thick concept along the lines above, then maximizing may be the default response to profit, but yet only one of several ways of engaging with it. If an appropriate response to profit could also consist of, for instance, pursuing, maintaining, or even sacrificing profit, then there may be situations in which maximization is inappropriate given the other values in the situation. For example, it may be inappropriate to maximize profit when child labor is insufficiently avoided by a supplier, and sacrificing profit for the sake of avoiding child labor would be a much better idea. Here, the strategy of profit maximizers could be to require managers to set extra company-internal constraints on the decision making process in addition to the “rules of the game” in order to render maximization appropriate (see Hsieh Reference Hsieh2007b for a proposal in this direction). For example, a business may develop its own code of conduct or engage in the establishment of branch-specific rules with regard to the selection of suppliers in the light of their efforts to avoid child labor, and maximize profit within these boundaries. However, just like in the case of the interpretation of the “rules of the game,” setting and respecting such constraints requires the simultaneous consideration of different values in order to establish whether and how they should be followed (cf. van der Linden Reference van der Linden2013). If setting additional constraints is to help decision making through maximizing profit, then these constraints need to be adjusted time and time again through thick evaluation.

A profit maximizing approach to decision making that can accommodate the two considerations above—and thus incorporates the idea of thick evaluation—would be as follows:

1. 1. Take stock of the values in the situation.

2. 2. Assess how these values affect the appropriateness of maximizing profit.

3. 3. If maximization is inappropriate, set additional constraints for making a decision (and do so considering the other values in the situation—including profit).

4. 4. Make a decision through maximizing profit.

If thick evaluation in decision making is taken seriously, then it appears that engaging with profit is never maximizing tout court. The “constraints” within which maximizing is supposed to take place appear to depend on the other values in the situation including the value of profit, and they must in principle be set again in each situation through thick evaluation—the simultaneous consideration of different values.

Consequences for Stakeholder Theorists

Stakeholder theorists have explicitly embraced the idea that corporations create different kinds of value (see for instance Harrison and Wicks Reference Harrison and Wicks2013). For them, other values than profit do not need to appear as constraints on profit maximization, but can in principle be simultaneously considered from the outset. Our perspective reveals two aspects of this move that have hitherto not been systematically considered.

First, in stakeholder theory, decision making is now often seen as the simultaneous pursuit of the “utility functions” of the corporation and its stakeholders (Hill and Jones Reference Hill and Jones1992; Harrison, Bosse, and Phillips Reference Harrison, Bosse and Phillips2010; Harrison and Wicks Reference Harrison and Wicks2013; Tantalo and Priem Reference Tantalo and Priem2016). These utility functions are often considered to contain different kinds of value. Our perspective identifies a problem for these utility functions, but at the same time proposes a solution. The problem is that it remains unclear how corporations and stakeholders come to attach certain weights to the different values in their respective utility functions. The solution is to assume that managers and stakeholders can be competent with the relevant thick concepts and that their reasoning evolves along the lines of the four steps of thick evaluation in decision making that we sketched above. However, if thick evaluation plays the role in decision making that we have sketched, then the suggestion that the utility for a corporation or a stakeholder can be “calculated” on the basis of a mathematical function, would obscure the challenge of integrating the qualitatively different practical responses that the values in a situation call for. From the perspective of thick evaluation, a utility function could at best be seen as a numerical representation of the outcome of a complex process of grasping the values in the situation and of finding an appropriate response to them through thick evaluation.

Second, so far the utility functions of corporation and stakeholders have been treated as somewhat discrete sets of values created for stakeholders, and considerable effort has been put into explaining how it is possible that corporation and stakeholders are prepared to consider each other’s interests to a larger extent than strictly necessary (Bosse, Phillips, and Harrison Reference Bosse, Phillips and Harrison2009; Bridoux, Coeurderoy, and Durand Reference Bridoux, Coeurderoy and Durand2011; Bridoux and Stoelhorst Reference Bridoux and Stoelhorst2014; Tantalo and Priem Reference Tantalo and Priem2016; Harrison, Bosse, and Phillips Reference Harrison, Bosse and Phillips2010). The arguments in these articles revolve around values such as trust, reciprocity, fairness, etc. From the perspective of thick evaluation, the willingness of managers and stakeholders to consider each other’s interests can be explained without reference to these additional values, but by reference to the interrelatedness of the values in a situation. This interdependence is not necessarily confined to the values within one utility function (see the point just above), but can also transgress the boundaries of utility functions. For example, the disvalue of child labor does not only provide reasons to the engaged children for finding ways to get education instead of work, but can also affect how a business should engage with other values that belong to its utility function (i.e., not maximizing profit when this involves child labor). Thick evaluation can naturally entail considerations of what is valuable for stakeholders beyond what serves the utility of the firm. Dividing the whole of the values in the situation into discrete utility functions for corporation and stakeholders does not do justice to the interrelatedness of all the values in the situation.

A stakeholder approach to decision making that can accommodate the two considerations above—and thus incorporates the idea of thick evaluation—would be as follows:

1. 1. Identify the values in the utility functions of stakeholders.

2. 2. Establish what are the default responses to these values.

3. 3. Assess how these values mutually disable, diminish, and intensify these default responses.

4. 4. Decide how to respond to the values in the situation.

The stakeholder theorists’ move of widening the idea of the maximization of a single profit function of the corporation to encompass the simultaneous pursuit of different utility functions of company and stakeholders emphasizes that “value has been overly simplified and narrowed to economic return” (Harrison and Wicks Reference Harrison and Wicks2013, 97). Thick evaluation explains how managers and stakeholders can deal with the simultaneous consideration of different utility functions and the values within them, but also shows that the idea of discrete utility functions neglects how the values in a situation are holistically related.