Critical Perspectives on Accounting (1999) 10, 833]866

Article No. cpac.1998.0277

Available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

THE THREAT OF ETHICAL ACCOUNTANTS: AN

APPLICATION OF FOUCAULTS CONCEPT OF
ETHICS TO ACCOUNTING EDUCATION AND
SOME THOUGHTS ON ETHICALLY EDUCATING
FOR THE OTHER
KEN MCPHAIL
Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Glasgow,
Glasgow, UK
There are an increasing number of papers within the accounting literature which are concerned with the relationship between accounting education and the ethics of accountants (see, e.g. Gray, 1994). This paper
attempts to contribute to this literature. It draws on the work of Michel
Foucault to argue that ethical accountants may pose just as great a
threat to society as unethical ones. The paper initially explains Foucaults
work on power/ knowledge and delineates his novel perspective on how
power may operate through an individuals sense of moral identity. It is
argued that the way accountancy is taught may predispose accountants
to discipline themselves in such a way that they behave in a manner
which serves the interests of capitalism and subjugates opposition to it.
However, the paper also draws on Foucaults notion of resistance to
explain how accounting education might be able to produce students
who could represent a threat to this hegemony.

1999 Academic Press

This Is Not A Poem

A Poem By David Hume
Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow.
It is profitable for us both that I should labour with you today,
and that you should aid me tomorrow.
I have no kindness for you, and know that you have little for me.
I will not, therefore, take pains upon your account;
and should I labour with you upon my own account,
in expectation of a return,
Address for Correspondence: Ken McPhail, Department of Accounting & Finance, 65-71
Southpark Avenue, Glasgow G12 8LE, UK. e-mail: k.mcphail@accfin.gla.ac.uk
Received 10 June 1997; accepted 28 June 1998

833
1045-2354/ 99 / 060833+ 34 $30.00 / 0

Q 1999

Academic Press

834

K. McPhail

I know I should be disappointed,

and that I should in vain depend upon your gratitude.
Here then I leave you to labour alone:
you treat me in the same manner.
The seasons change; and both of us loose our harvests
for want of mutual confidence and security.
Preamble
This elegy is an extract from a text by David Hume. It was not
originally in the form of a poem nor was it intended to be one
although it is undoubtedly poetic. It was part of an argument in which
Hume lamented how people had come to think about one another. This
extract has been included, in this particular format, because it embodies
two issues central to Humes moral philosophy (see MacIntyre, 1967),
two issues which are also central to this paper. The first issue relates
to the sentiment of Humes soliloquy, that is, the importance of other
people and the significance of how we think about them. One of the
objectives of this paper is to consider the impact that accounting education may have on the way in which accountants think, ethically, about
themselves and other people. The second issue relates to the nature of
Humes argument. In this instance he argues poetically (as opposed to
rationally). Dilthey explains what poetic thinking involves when he says,
Poetry is not the imitation of a reality which exists prior to it; nor is it
the adornment of truths or spiritual meanings which could have been
expressed independently. The aesthetic capacity is a creative power for
the production of a meaning that transcends reality and that could never
be found in abstract thought. Indeed, it is a way or mode of viewing
the world. (Dilthey, Poetry and Experience, in Ferguson, 1995)

Hume appeals to sentiment rather than reason because he firmly

believed that moral judgement did not essentially depend on reason but
rather that it was grounded on feelings and passions (see MacIntyre,
1967). This paper is premised upon Humes assumptions. It suggests
that accounting education may engender an overly rationalistic view of
ethics and may even be partially responsible for constructing dangerously rational and threateningly ethical accountants.
Introduction
This introductory section outlines the problem addressed within the
paper, the perspective adopted and finally the structure of the paper.
The Problem
The ethics of business is currently a high profile issue. This may be

Ethical threat

835

due both to increased social pressure on companies to adopt a socially

responsible approach to doing business (Evans, 1991; Malachowski, 1992)
and, more specifically, how media coverage of some quite sensational
business collapses like Poly Peck, Sock Shop, Coloroll and BCCI seem to
indicate that accountants are failing to meet these expectations. Detailed
analysis of these events has subsequently lead to the questioning of the
morality of business men and women in general (see Touch Ross & Co,
1988) and accountants in particular (Beets & Killough, 1990; Ponemon,
1990, 1992; Schlachter, 1990; Denham, 1991; Stanga & Turpen, 1991).
Hauptman and Hill (1991), for example, conclude that it is professional
accountants, those specialists who purport to have the public interest at
heart (Gaa, 1990; AICPA, 1988; Waples & Shaub, 1991), who have been
the main contributors to the decline in ethical standards in business
(see Modic, 1987 in Davis & Welton, 1991; McCabe et al., 1991; Stanga
& Turpen, 1991).
In the light of growing concern over the apparently low moral standards of some accountants, an increasing number of academics are
suggesting that the education system should bear some of the blame
(Booth et al., 1988; Lehman, 1988; Gray et al., 1994 and by implication
Power, 1991). Merritt (1991; see also Zeff, 1989) for example contends
that,
business schools have not done an adequate job of preparing students
to respond ethically to the complex issues that arise in the work environment.

Indeed, while the evidence is still inconclusive, a growing body of

research suggests that rather than contributing towards students moral
development, compared with other professions, accounting education may
actually inhibit students progression to higher levels of moral reasoning
and ethical awareness1 (see Gray et al., 1994). It has consequently been
suggested that we need to re-examine the type of educational system
that produces accounting professionals who, consciously or otherwise,
appear to act unethically 2 (see Goodman & Crawford, 1974 in Kraft and
Singhapakdi, 1991; Lehman, 1988; Loeb, 1991; Mahoney, 1990; Kraft &
Singhapakdi, 1991; Loeb & Rockness, 1992; Gray et al., 1994; Maklin,
1980; Rosen & Caplan, 1980; Patten & Williams, 1990). Davis and Welton
(1991) for example argue that,
Part of the long-term solution to improving professional ethics is to
address the area as it relates to educating future business professionals,
i.e. college students.

While the evidence from both the business press and the business
ethics literature (see, e.g. Armstrong, 1987; Gavin & Klinefelter, 1989;
Ponemon, 1990, 1992; McCabe et al., 1991; Stanga & Turpen, 1991)
appears, to some extent, to substantiate Merritts conclusion 3 , this paper
attempts to present an alternative, although not entirely incongruous,
Foucauldian analysis of the relationship between accounting education

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K. McPhail

and ethics. The paper contends that there may be a more fundamental
but less obvious ethical dilemma to be addressed.
It was suggested above that it is professional accountants who seem
to be amongst the main contributors to the decline in ethical standards
within business (Modic, 1987 in Davis & Welton, 1991; McCabe et al.,
1991; Hauptman & Hill, 1991). However, while the unethical behaviour of
some accountants presents a major challenge to the profession and
educationalists alike, this paper will argue that the greater problem and
indeed threat to the cohesiveness of society may actually come, not
from the minority of accountants who behave unethically but rather
from the majority of accounting professionals who appear to behave
ethically! Let me explain. A study by Ulrich and Thielemann (1993) has
shown that the, prevailing thinking pattern among managers is not
ethical opportunism or cynicism, as perhaps some of the media often
implies, but economism [that is]... the ethical conviction that economically appropriate action in itself is ethically good as such. Reilly and
Kyj, 1990, see also Henderson, 1991, Maunders & Burritt, 1991) suggest
that accountants in particular are taught to share similar convictions.
They argue that,
marketing, finance and accounting personnel learn that proper behaviour is defined in terms of its impact on the profits of the firm.

Given that our prevailing system of accounting is based upon

marginalist economics (Boland, 1982 in Lehman, 1992; Tinker et al., 1982;
Tinker, 1985, 1991; Lehman, 1988; Reilly & Kyj, 1990; Lewis et al., 1992;
Gray, 1992a,b) accountants will inevitably be taught that economically
appropriate action is that which maximises company profits and consequently that morally good actions are concomitant with economically
good actions.
There is a well established argument within the critical accounting
literature that accounting serves capitalism because of the function it
performs in society and because of the processes intrinsic to accounting
(see, e.g. Tinker et al., 1982; Tinker, 1985, 1991; Lehman, 1988). This
paper draws on this literature and attempts to contribute to this debate
by suggesting that accounting education in particular, contributes to the
dominance of capitalism because it engenders a particular kind of ethical
identity within students which they subsequently use to discipline themselves. It will be argued that this form of ethical identity helps to
maintain the dominance of the kind of instrumental rationality upon
which capitalism is based. It will be contended that capitalism maintains
its pre-dominance within society not because it overtly forces individuals
to behave in a particular way but rather because it creates the circumstances under which individuals exert power against themselves and
discipline themselves to behave in such a way that allows the hegemony of capitalism, along with its concomitant injustices (Gibson, 1984),
for example the exploitation of children; workers; the environment (Gorz,
1989; Atkinson, 1991) and third world economies, to continue unchallenged. Indeed, it will be suggested that individuals discipline themselves

Ethical threat

837

because they believe that by doing so they will be acting in a proper

and ethical way.
The paper argues that this process poses a threat to social cohesion,
or community, primarily because of the way in which it represents other
human beings. However, the paper also contends that accountants could
become more of a threat to this hegemony (see McPhail & Gray, 1996)
if ethics education were able to re-structure ethical subjectivity based on
a collective, we consciousness. Thus, accounting education is viewed
as a dialectic which may have the potential to empower as well as
subjugate individuals.
The Perspective
While the interest in and concern over accounting education appears to
be growing (see, e.g. Lewis et al., 1992; Gray et al., 1994; Owen et al.,
1994), as yet, there seems to be little theoretical analysis of the political
nature of this process (although see Lehman, 1988; Power, 1991 as two
notable exceptions). This paper contends that education in general (see,
e.g. Althusser, 1971; Bernstein, 1976; Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Williams,
1977; Giroux, 1983, 1996; Gibson, 1984) and accounting education in
particular is a powerful and political process. It draws on Michel Foucaults work on ethics in order to consider how power may be seen to
operate through the discourse of accounting education in a hegemonic
and threatening way (Mouffe, 1979; Mercer, 1980; Poster, 1984; Smart,
1994).
While the accounting literature contains a number of studies which
draw on the work of Foucault (see, e.g. Hopwood, 1987; Neimark, 1990;
Armstrong, 1994; Grey, 1994; Hoskin, 1994), there appears, as yet, to be
relatively little application of his work on ethics to accountancy. This is
perhaps because Foucaults conceptualisation of ethics is the least developed area of his work as he died before he was able to complete it.
The paper draws on Foucaults work on ethics to argue that it may
not just be that accounting education stultifies and constricts students
moral development but that it may actually be instrumental in constructing a sense of moral identity which not only covertly serves capitalism
but also the kind of instrumental rationality upon which it is based (see
McPhail & Gray, 1996). The paper suggests that accounting education
may implicitly provide students with an ideal model of the ethical and
just individual which they subsequently use to discipline themselves in
order to behave properly and remain as close to that ideal as possible4.
As such, it will be argued that, while Merritts (1991) observation is
undoubtedly true, there may be a sense in which business education
does prepare students for responding to ethical issues because it effectively constructs their moral identities. It will be contended that accounting education in particular can be seen to be involved in complex
hegemonic processes where power and control are effected in society
not by one group on another in an overt way, but rather by individuals

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K. McPhail

upon themselves (Mouffe, 1979; Mercer, 1980; Smart, 1994). As Hoskin

and Macve (1986) suggest, the means of social control have shifted
from an older punishment on the body to a disciplining of the person
(and its correlative reflexive form, self-discipline).
Within this paper, Foucaults work on power and ethics is used to
investigate the role that accounting education may play in providing
students with a particular kind of economic identity which may serve
the interests of capital. This application of Foucaults work can be
viewed as a development of both Antonio Gramscis notion of hegemony (Gramsci, 1971; Mouffe, 1979; Mercer, 1980; Poster, 1984; Neimark,
1994; Smart, 1994) and the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School (see,
e.g. Wolin, 1992; Morrow & Brown, 1994). Indeed, Foucault situated his
own agenda firmly in line with the Critical Theorists. He says,
...this form of philosophy, that from Hegel, through Nietzsche and Max
Weber, to the Frankfurt School, has founded a form of reflection in
which I have tried to work. (Foucault, in Wolin, 1992)

Wolin (1992) also contends that of all the poststructuralist philosophers, Foucaults project seems closest to that of the early Critical
Theorists. He says,
Foucault and the early critical theorists share not only a common set
of methodological concerns, but share other concerns as well, particularly the mechanisms of domination and power.

Foucault suggested that there was an affinity between his method of

genealogy and the critique of instrumental reason that Horkheimer,
Adorno and Marcuse had been involved with. However, while he attempted to develop the Frankfurt Schools critique of instrumental reason
(and the possibility of resistance) there are some important and quite
fundamental differences between the two perspectives. Foucault, for example, changed the focus of analysis from the study of the negative
effects of power (i.e. rationality as domination in Horkheimer and
Adornos emancipation/ domination dialectic), away from the notion of
reason as repression, and developed a Nietzschein view of power as a
formative force that constituted individuals (Poster, 1984).
The Structure of the Paper
The paper is split into three sections and takes its structure from the
dialectic described above. Section one explains Foucaults work on
power/ knowledge and ethics, and attempts to apply his ideas to accounting education in order to show how ethical accountants may pose
a threat to society. Section two attempts to provide a link between
section one and section three. One aspect of Foucaults thesis on ethics
is that conventional modalities of moral identity are characterised by
what he calls a rationalistic mode of subjection. The second section

Ethical threat

839

discusses some of the moral philosophy literature in an attempt to show

that this rationalistic mode of subjection is only one of a number of
possible modalities. In particular, section two discusses the debate
between those moral philosophers who contend that ethical dilemmas
can be recognised and resolved just through the application of reason
and those who contend that some form of emotional or ethical sense is
required as well. This study is intended to provide the basis for arguing
that the prevailing rationalistic mode of subjection within accountancy is
hegemonic and subjugates other aesthetic and emotional forms of ethical knowledge. The section is also intended to provide the grounds for
developing an understanding of Foucaults notion of resistance.
While Foucault may provide us with the basis for an insightful analysis of the way in which power operates through accounting education,
does he provide any basis for a course of action for resisting the
negative effects of power? From the literature, it would seem that many
accounting academics believe that he does not (see, e.g. Neimark, 1990;
Tinker, 1992; Armstrong, 1994). Section three attempts to present an
alternative view of Foucaults notion of resistance and calls for a form
of opposition founded on subjugated emotional/ aesthetic knowledge. In
particular, this final section discusses a possible course of action for
concerned accounting educators which is based on Baumans (1993)
postmodern ethic of the other.

r Knowledge & Ethics

Section One: Foucault, Powerr
This section introduces Foucaults notion of power and explains how it
relates to the study of ethics. The section provides a general basis for
considering how power may operate within accounting education through
the construction of ethical identity and subsequently how ethical accountants may represent a threat to society. The section contains an introduction to Foucaults modes of analysing power; a discussion of his
concept of power/ knowledge; and finally, a delineation of the characteristics of his form of ethical analysis.
Domains of Analysis in Foucaults Work
Three main domains of analysis can be found in Foucaults work: an
analysis of systems of knowledge; an analysis of power; and an analysis
of the way in which individuals discipline themselves (Davidson, 1994;
Prado, 1995). Foucault used three different modes of analysis to study
each of these three domains: archaeology, for analysing systems of
knowledge; genealogy, for analysing power; and ethics, for analysing
how individuals construct themselves as ethical subjects (Foucault in
Rainbow, 1994; Smart, 1985; Davidson, 1994).
Initially, Foucault employed an archaeological approach in order to
study how individuals were constituted as subjects of knowledge within

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K. McPhail

the social sciences. This was followed by genealogy which focused on

how individuals constitute themselves as subjects acting on others
(Foucault in Rabinow, 1994). Finally, Foucault turned his attention to
ethics in order to study the disciplinary power that individuals exert on
themselves (Prado, 1995). Foucault argued that looking at his work
retrospectively, one could observe three domains for genealogy: truth (in
archaeology) power (in genealogy) and ethics (Simons, 1995). Truth,
refers to the kinds of knowledge the human sciences generate about
individuals. Power, relates to, the relationship between subjects as they
act upon each other, and incorporates, political structures, systems of
rules and norms, techniques and apparatuses of government. Finally,
ethics involves the relationship to oneself, or, ethical self understanding, but this is not detached from the other two areas of study
(Foucault in Rabinow, 1994; Simons, 1995). Thus, after Foucault had
studied the way in which the social sciences construct individuals as
both objects and subjects, his attention turned to focus more specifically on how individuals construct and discipline themselves as ethical
subjects (see Davidson, 1994; Hacking, 1994; Hoy, 1994).
r Knowledge and its Relevance to the Study of
Introducing Foucaults Notion of Powerr
Hegemony
The issue of power was thus paramount in Foucaults work (Dreyfus &
Rabinow, 1982; Smart, 1985) and his work on power is particularly
important for the insights it provides into the ways in which power
operates in multifarious and covert ways within societies like ours that
appear to be democracies, free from oppression and control (Dreyfus &
Rabinow, 1982; Megill, 1985; Smart, 1985). Indeed Foucault suggests that
the movement from overt forms of power and coercive force to covert
forms of government and discipline, in other words hegemony, were,
contemporaneous to the emergence of capitalism (Smart, 1994).
Foucault uses the term power/ knowledge to explain his ideas on how
power operates within society. However, in the same way that Nietzsche
claimed that his concept of, the will to power, was only hypothetical
and not a fact, so Foucault uses his notion of power/ knowledge as a
heuristic for studying power relationships within society. As the term
implies, Foucault employed this notion to convey the relationship
between power and forms of knowledge (Hoy, 1994).
Foucaults notion of power/ knowledge is quite different to other conceptualizations of power (see Robson & Cooper, 1989; Perks, 1993). One
of the biggest distinguishing features of his analysis is that he does not
think of power as something that a particular group deploys for its own
interest over another group (Robson & Cooper, 1989; Perks, 1993; Hoy,
1994; Smart, 1994). This distinction reflects a wider debate within the
social sciences between those who see power as exercised by (individual or institutional) agents on other individuals and subordinate groups,

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841

and those who believe that power is a structural characteristic of the

social system 5 (Hoy, 1994).
In his development of historical materialism Marx suggested that power
was an inherent characteristic of the economic system (Perks, 1993; Hoy,
1994). However, he also suggested that the economic structure reflected
the interests of one particular group in society: the capitalists. Foucault
departs from the classical Marxian model of power which reduces control and domination to a direct correlation between the base (the system of production) and the super-structure (ideology) as reflected in the
economic interests of one particular class of individuals (Hoy, 1994). He
argues that this model fails to adequately address more basic questions.
For example, how it is possible for the human body to be constituted
as labour power? (Hoy, 1994). Foucault argued that, the human body
could only have been constituted as labour power only if there were a
technology or knowledge of the body to make it possible (Hoy, 1994).
In his genealogical analysis Foucault conceptualized power in terms of
conscious and unconscious forms of knowledge which, he argued, had
become embodied in many local forms of material practice (Smart, 1985;
Prado, 1995). Thus, where Marxist theory begins at the, macro-level,
and starts with power at the centre of society, emanating from one
identifiable source: the economic system of production, Foucault begins
at the, micro-level6 , and views power as working through many different locations, such that it coalesces to serve the interests of the bourgeoisie in a more haphazard and less deterministic way 7 (Foucault, 1978;
Smart, 1985; Roberts & Scapens, 1990). In Foucaults analysis, power
cannot be attributed to a specific kind of economic system neither can
it be viewed as the property or possession of any particular group. The
effects of power do not arise, according to Foucault, from the deployment of power by particular individuals who have power upon those
who do not (Smart, 1985; Hoy, 1994)8.
The Frankfurt Schools notion of power was based on the assumption
that the interests of a particular group within society were really different to what they consciously took them to be (Hoy, 1994; Smart, 1994).
However, Foucault represents a departure from this kind of interpretation
which associates power with the reproduction of ideology or false consciousness (see Morrow & Brown, 1994). He argued that knowledge is
not an instrument which is used by those in power to further their own
ends. He also argued against the contention that a new body of
knowledge brings about a new class of people or institutions that can
exercise a new kind of power. These two assertions parallel two opposing thesis about ideology: firstly, that a ruling class generates ideology
conducive to its own interests and alternatively, that a new ideology
creates a niche for a new ruling class (see Aronowitz & Giroux, 1991).
Foucault suggested that what had been understood as the reproduction
of a particular ideology is better understood in terms of an interplay of
different creative forces (in the Nietzschean sense). For Foucault, the
identification of power with false consciousness misses the point that
power is involved in the creation of truth as well as falsity (Hoy, 1994).

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K. McPhail

Foucault suggested that power/ knowledge was ubiquitous. He says

there is, no social existence without power relations. Thus, Foucault
argued that power is a characteristic of modern society which engulfs
everyone (Smart, 1985). He contended that all subjects are engaged in
this, economy of power, arguing that,
power is employed and exercised through a net like organization...
individuals circulate between its threads; they are always in a position of
simultaneously undergoing and exercising power. They are not only its
inert or consenting targets; they are always also the elements of its
articulation (Walzer, 1994, see also Poster, 1984).

However, while such a pervasive concept of power may seem pessimistic and oppressive (Said, 1994), it is important to point out that
power/ knowledge was initially a value neutral term. Power/ knowledge is
essentially a value neutral label which Foucault used to describe the
practices and processes through which new objects and subjects are
created. Whereas Marxist theory seems to present power in negative
terms as domination, coercion, manipulation, authority and repression,
the Nietzschean influence in Foucaults work means that he believed that
power had positive as well as negative effects (Hoy, 1994). There are
two issues here: firstly, power/ knowledge is positive in the sense that
Foucault believed that it could engender desirable effects. Power/
knowledge is not intended to convey the idea that the exercise of
power is purely oppressive (see Hoy, 1994). For example, in his book,
Discipline and Punish (1977) Foucault explained how, within hospitals,
new forms of knowledge contributed towards better health care and yet
also, narrowed the possibilities for subjectification, such that patients
were treated like objects. Foucault thus suggests that the results of
power can be both positive and negative and that it may therefor be
possible to conceive of situations where power/ knowledge produces socially desirable results 9.
Secondly power/ knowledge is positive in the sense of being formative
and creative. Foucault was particularly interested in the way in which
individual subjectivitys are constructed through power as it is enacted
within specific, local discourses. As such, Foucault moves away from the
Early Critical Theorists notion of power as that which operates on
subjects, to a view of power as that which constructs subjects. According to Foucault, this involves processes of production and transformation
rather than control. He says, power is not so much a matter of
imposing constraints upon citizens as of, making up, citizens capable of
bearing a kind of regulated freedom. This position is more radical than
the Marxist notion of false consciousness. In contrast to the Early
Critical Theorists views on ideology, Foucault suggests that consciousness is created through power and not simply deluded by it. He suggests that individuals are formed, form themselves and become comprehensible, through the practice of power. Foucaults work thus displaces
the concept of ideology through which Gramsci sought to theorise,

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843

questions of intellectual and moral leadership, central to the achievement of hegemony (Smart, 1994).
This perspective on power can be interpreted as a, radical re-theorisation, of Gramscis work on hegemony (Foucault, 1978; Hoy, 1994;
Smart, 1994). However, as I have attempted to show above, whereas
Gramscis analysis was grounded in Marxism and as such economism
and ideology, Foucaults work, prises open the problem of hegemony,
(Smart, 1994) and takes us beyond economic determinism. He also
provides us with an analysis of ideology not in terms of false consciousness, but rather in a more sophisticated analysis of the relationship between power and knowledge (Smart, 1994). Smart (1994, p. 160)
explains,
It is in the work of Foucault that an analysis of the various complex
social techniques and methods fundamental to the achievement of a
relationship of guidance, leadership, or hegemony is to be found. Hegemony contributes to or constitutes a form of social cohesion not through
force or coercion, nor necessarily through consent, but most effectively
by way of practices, techniques, and methods which infiltrate minds and
bodies, cultural practices which cultivate behaviours and beliefs, tastes,
desires, and needs are seemingly naturally occurring qualities and
properties embodied in psychic and physical reality (or Truth) of the
human subject.

Foucault explicitly addresses the issue of hegemony in his History of

Sexuality (1978). He says,
Emphasis on the sexual body should undoubtedly be linked to the
process of the establishment of bourgeois hegemony: not because of the
market value assumed by labour capacity but because the cultivation of
its own body could represent politically, economically and historically,
the present and future bourgeoisie. Its dominance was in part dependent on that cultivation; but it was not simply a matter of economy or
ideology, it was a physical matter as well.

Introducing Foucaults Form of Ethical Analysis

Thus Foucault suggested that there was a close relationship between
power and knowledge and indeed believed that both were co-extensive.
However, in his analysis of ethics, Foucault turned his attention to a
particular kind of knowledge, the individuals knowledge of themselves.
Foucault was concerned with a level of ethics below that of conventional moral philosophers (MacIntyre, 1967). He was not concerned with
what is right and wrong, rather he was concerned with how notions of
right and wrong develop; how they become embodied within an individuals self understanding; how they are used by individuals; and the
interests they serve. Foucault believed that the ethical self was not
determined by nature, or self conscious decision making processes, but
rather that it is determined through a discourse which arises from, and

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K. McPhail

reflexively helps to maintain, a particular, system of thought (Hoy,

1994). His argument can be viewed as an extension of Hegels analysis
of ethics. Hegel criticized Kant for looking only at explicit moral rules.
He suggested that the underlying ethic that allowed moral codes to
function was of equal importance. Both Hegel and later Foucault suggested that this underlying ethic consisted of a, shared background of
understanding, that connects the individual to the community of which
they are a part, or, to put it another way, their idea of what it means
to be a good member of the community (Hoy, 1994). Hacking (1994)
explains this in simple terms as the things we worry about if we are
moral individuals, or the kind of people we aspire to be. Foucault thus
suggested that the way in which individuals construct themselves as
ethical subjects may be related to their understanding of their position
in society.
Foucaults concept of ethics had four major characteristics10 (see
Davidson, 1994).
1. The means by which we change ourselves in order to become ethical
subjects: Our self imposed discipline.
2. The Telos: the type of person we aspire to be when we behave
morally.
3. Ethical Substance: that part of ourselves which is taken to be the
relevant domain for ethical judgment.
4. The Mode of Subjection: the way in which individuals are incited to
recognize their moral obligations. For example, some obligations
may be engendered by divine law; others by reason; and yet
others by convention.
The remainder of this section attempts to apply each of the characteristics of Foucaults analysis of ethics to accountancy in order to study
how accounting education may serve capitalism through constructing a
particular kind of moral identity within students.
Self Discipline
The first issue in Foucaults analysis of ethics is self discipline. I have
already commented on the possibility that accounting may be implicated
in this process, however, it may help to clarify the argument a little
further.
From Foucaults work, it may be possible to identify two senses in
which accountancy may be seen to engender disciplinary power. Hoskin
and Macve (1986) discuss the relationship between accountancy and
techniques developed within education for the, surveillance of students. They present a genealogy of the development of the examination
as a technology of power. Hoskin and Macve (1986) also suggest that
there may be a tenuous link between these developments and the
formation of, modern corporate managerialism. In a similarly vain,

Ethical threat

845

Roberts and Scapens (1990, see also Miller and OLeary, 1987) have
discussed the way in which management accounting techniques (like
performance evaluation and the budget process) may predispose individuals to discipline themselves. In an article entitled, Accounting as Discipline, (Roberts & Scapens, 1990) they draw parallels between accountancy and Benthams notion of the Panopticon in order to explore, not
how accounting information is used as an instrument of domination, but
rather how accounting information emerges from and operates within
relations of power/ knowledge (see also Grey, 1994). They seem to imply
that accountancy, like Benthams Panopticon, creates a, field of visibility, which, subjugates those caught within its omnipresent disciplinary
gaze. They suggest,
To know that one is observed by an eye that one cannot see, that one
is seen without being able to engage that eye, to be dependent upon
the judgment of that eye; these are the ways that invisibility becomes a
source of power. Ones own visibility gives knowledge to the other, but
the other cannot be interrogated, cannot be reduced to the subject,
never engages you as the subject. It induces a state of subjection.

In both these papers, the pressure to control ones actions seems to

be external, although it is anonymous. However, in Foucaults later work
on ethics there seems to be a shift of emphasis, such that individuals
are seen to discipline themselves based on an internal, though
never-the-less constructed, moral identity. The metaphor for the disciplinary gaze may be conceptualised as shifting from Benthams Panopticon to The Early of Shaftesburys notion of the, Inner Eye11. Also,
both sets of authors imply that disciplinary power is facilitated through,
the new micro-technology of calculability, (Hoskin & Macve, 1986) by,
substituting for individuality of the memorable man that of the calculable man, (Foucault, 1977, in Hoskin & Macve, 1986; see also Miller &
OLeary, 1987). Hoskin and Macve (1986), for example talk about the
role of examination marks in the disciplinary process. However, it is
suggested in this paper that self discipline, as well as the motivating
force to discipline, may come from within the individual such that they
regulate their behaviour not because the micro-technology of calculability
constrains them to do so, but rather because their sense of Telos
means they want to.
The Telos
This brings us to the second characteristic of Foucaults conception of
ethics: the Telos, or the type of individuals we aspire to be when we
behave morally.
If, as I argued above, accountancy is conventionally taught within the
rubric of marginalist economics (Tinker et al., 1982) then it would seem
at least possible that the accountants sense of Telos might be influ-

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K. McPhail

enced by the kind of profit maximising, rational, economic man within

that system.
In the conventional marginalist economic model of ethics, the corporation is seen to be responsible to society only to the extent that it
maximises its own wealth and efficiency (Friedman, 1982). Rational
economic decisions are justified in terms of their impact on profit rather
than on whether they can be defended morally, even though the appeal
to profitability is itself a moral argument. By assimilating the good with
the profitable the issue of ethics is reduced to a narrow form of
economic consequentialist utilitarianism (Gray et al., 1994).
It may therefore be of little surprise that the, prevailing thinking
pattern among managers is... the ethical conviction that economically
appropriate action in itself is ethically good as such Reilly and Kyj
(1990 see also, Henderson, 1991; Maunders & Burritt, 1991) suggest that
this worldview extends to accountants as well. They argue that,
marketing, finance and accounting personnel learn that proper behaviour is defined in terms of its impact on the profits of the firm.

The economically appropriate action is that which maximises company

profits. However, because of the objective, technical and uncritical nature
of the majority of accounting degrees, most accountants do not seem to
be aware of the economic and moral philosophy which underpin their
ethics, let alone capable of critically appraising them12 (Gray et al., 1994).
Thus, again due to the way in which accountancy is indiscriminately
taught within the rubric of marginalist economics, there may be a sense
in which accounting education influences the type of people accountants
aspire to be when they behave morally.
The sense of Telos discussed here highlights two further issues: firstly,
because of the technical way in which accounting is taught and because
of the way the issue of ethics is resolved in marginalist economics,
then it may be that the question of ethics rarely enters the part of
students lives in which they are accountants. The second issue relates
to the rationalistic subjectivity which accounting education promotes.
Both these issues are considered below.
Ethical Substance
The third characteristic in Foucaults conception of ethics is ethical
substance, that is, those areas of our lives which we take to be the
relevant domain for ethical judgement, or to put it another way, the
parts of our lives which engage our moral reasoning.
Recent evidence suggests that accounting education may affect students sense of ethical substance in that it may encourage them to view
the accountant part of their lives, in contrast to other parts of their lives,
as an area where ethical issues need not be considered (see McPhail &
Gray, 1996). It may be that the acquisition of roles may begin, or at

Ethical threat

847

least be maintained through accounting education, as students learn to

evaluate issues presented within an accounting context in a particular
way (Gleb & Brien, 1971 in Merritt, 1991) even though this may lead to
decisions which conflict with values they hold in other domains of their
lives.
As a scientific and objective construct, conventional economics separates the facts from their concomitant values (see King, 1994). Maunders
and Burritt (1991) for example, suggest that the reason why companies
behave badly,
...has to do with systematic thought: economics excludes ethics as a
consideration in the process of decision making. By starting from the
point at which preferences are already assumed to be defined, economics
of whatever variety has no explicit involvement in issues of morality
(Maunders & Burritt, 1991).

If this is true, then there may be a sense in which accounting

education influences that part of students selves which is taken to be
the relevant domain for ethical judgments. The role of subjectivity within
business decisions may be lost as students make decisions in a technical and programmed way unaware of the fact that underneath the
conventional mode of accounting analysis that informs business decisions lies a whole system of moral beliefs and values (see, e.g. Donaldson, 1988; Dillard & Bricker, 1992).
The Mode of Subjection
The final issue in Foucaults analysis of ethics is the mode of subjection,
or the way in which individuals are induced to recognise their moral
obligations. Foucault studied how different individuals come to comprehend similar moral codes in different ways, for example, as divine rules,
natural laws, or as rational choices (Foucault in Rabinow, 1994). Davidson (1994) provides us with an example, he says,
faithfulness to ones spouse may be imposed as a requirement of
reason or as a consequence of a certain aesthetics of existence.

Within the kind of theory which underpins accountancy, moral rules

and obligations are engendered primarily through rational analysis as
opposed to religious maxims or feelings and emotions. As such, conventional modes of subjection may be seen to subjugate alternative forms
of aesthetic knowledge. Indeed, Foucault argued that the whole of modern, western society was characterised by a rational and instrumental
mode of subjection. He contended that while any particular era will
display a whole range of competing discourses (Hoskin, 1994), contemporary Western society is dominated by one particular hegemonic, rationalistic discourse (Mouffe, 1979; Mercer, 1980; Smart, 1994).
In his book, Critique of Economic Reason, Andre Gorz (1989 see also,

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K. McPhail

Power, 1992; Rossouw, 1994a) argues that within contemporary western

cultures, thinking has been reduced to technique and that this has
allowed economic calculation to emerge as a substitute for value judgement. This may be particularly true within accountancy. It may be that
calculation and the accuracy of calculation have become inordinately
important factors within accounting education such that when students
are taught about investment decisions and cost allocation techniques,
emphasis is placed on the accuracy of the calculations, for example, on
ensuring that the proper discount rate is used or that the number of
years that cash flows are discounted over is correct. They may be able
to rationally defend the technique and how they have used it, and
indeed this may be seen as sufficient justification for their actions in
itself. The values underlying the decision and the consequences of the
decision may be neglected. As such, it may be that within accounting
education, business decisions are, to some extent, constructed as technical tasks, or at least significantly informed, or justified by, or rationalised as, procedures (for example as Cost Benefit Analysis, Net Present Value or Internal Rate of Return Calculations, Linear Programming
and so on). To the extent that this is true, obligations may become
assimilated into and resolved within technical and calculative processes.
As such, there may be a sense in which some or all of the responsibility for decisions is divested from the individual accountants and conferred upon the calculations so that the students only perceive themselves as responsible for getting the calculations right. Donaldson (1988),
in a similar vain, talks of the way in which the technical rationality of
conventional economics,
shift[s] the blame for decisions made by people to impersonal mechanisms such as, immutable, economic laws which, of course are unable to answer for themselves, convenient but mute Dei ex machina
(Donaldson, 1988).

In particular accounting education may promote the idea that the

resolution of accounting problems requires only the proper application of
reason.
This section has attempted to do two things: firstly, to introduce
Foucaults analytic of power/ knowledge and ethics; and secondly, to
apply Foucaults ideas to accountancy to see how ethical accountants
might be considered to be threatening. This section has argued that
Foucault was interested in the formative role of power/ knowledge and
in particular was concerned with the way in which an individuals
knowledge of themselves, i.e. their ethical self understanding, could be
constructed through discourse and how these subjectivitys may come to
serve the interests of one predominant rationality. If we apply Foucaults
novel perspective on power/ knowledge to accounting education then it
may be possible to suggest that the threat of ethical accountants comes
from the possibility that their ethical identities have been constructed in
such a way that they discipline themselves to behave in a manner

Ethical threat

849

conducive to the interests of capitalists and the continued predominance

of the rationalistic mode of subjection upon which it is based. It was
argued that this form of rationality may threaten the cohesiveness of
society because of the way in which it excludes ethical analysis from
business decision making.
The following section attempts to provide a link into the concluding
part of this paper. It focuses on the mode of ethical subjection engendered within accountancy in an attempt to show how accounting may
be seen to subjugate other forms of ethical knowledge.

Section Two: Ethics Emotion & Reason

This section attempts to further elaborate on Foucaults notion of power
and provides the basis for thinking about how the negative effects of
power might be resisted. Hoy (1994) explains that,
Foucault insists that saying there is no social existence without power
relations does not entail that particular, oppressive power relations are
necessary. The field of possibilities that gave rise to such current injustices as Foucault perceives in the carceral society also contained, historical analysis brings out, alternatives that were not acted upon (Hoy,
1994).

Foucault, as the historian of the present not only points out that things
could have been different, but that our understanding of history as
progress may be misguided, and therefore by inference that things
could be better (Hoy, 1994).
This section draws on Alasdair Macintyres Short History of Ethics
(1967) in order to highlight an alternative mode of subjection that has
not been acted upon. It argues that the prevailing rationalistic mode of
subjection within accounting is not innocuous and may be anti-social to
the extent that it actively subjugates other13 , emotional, sympathetic
knowledge of human beings. This section provides a basis for considering how emotional knowledge might be used as a way of locally
resisting the hegemony discussed in the previous section.
The American political and moral philosopher Alasdair Macintyre contends in his Short History of Ethics (1967) that Hobbes was wrong to
suggest that the state was able to maintain order only because individuals feared the punishment that could be imposed upon them if they
contravened the social contract. Thus, for example, he suggested that
not all an individuals actions are determined by the possibility of being
sent to prison, or more precisely, by reasoning out the consequences of
their actions. Within moral philosophy, it seems that the debate over the
form of ethical decision making has been between those who contend
that reason can be used to distinguish between good and bad and
those who suggest that some kind of moral sense14 is involved along
with, passions and emotions.
According to MacIntyre (1967), Kant marks a dividing point in the

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K. McPhail

history of ethics. Kant exemplified enlightenment rationality and, as

such, strongly believed in the power of reason15 (MacIntyre, 1967). Kant
took the existence of moral consciousness as a given and attempted to
discover universal principles, or laws, of moral reasoning. He sought to
ground morality in the nature of reason16 expostulating that we not only
use reason theoretically to find out what the world is like, but that we
also use reason practically to find out how we should behave in the
world (see MacIntyre, 1967; McNaughton, 1988). This kind of ethical
perspective can be seen to follow in a similar tradition to that of
Hobbes and Locke who believed that morality was rational and capable
of demonstration in a similar way to mathematics (MacIntyre, 1967). In
his analysis of this line of moral philosophy, Bauman argues that,
Morality was cast fairly and squarely in the unfeeling domination of
reason. Appointing reason as the sole faculty relevant to the moral
evaluation of action pre-emptied the questions of morality as rule governed and rules as heteronomous. (Bauman, 1993)

Bauman (1993) suggests, and I concur, that within contemporary western societies, the criteria of morality has gravitated towards mere
proceduralism. As I argued in section two, this seems to be particularly
true within accountancy, due to its bases in neo-classical economics
(Donaldson, 1988; Gorz, 1989; Power, 1992; Rossouw, 1994b). Nielsen
(1989) argues that this rationalistic view of ethics has become so entrenched that there is a, danger that it is assumed that to reason is to
be ethical and to be unethical is to reason inadequately.
However, Locke was challenged by his pupil, the Earl of Shaftesbury
(MacIntyre, 1967). Shaftesbury argued that moral obligations were recognised and resolved using a moral sense rather than by reason. He
conceptualised this idea in terms of an inner eye that was able to
distinguish between the equitable and the odious. He says,
A moral judgement is thus the expression of a response of feeling to
some property of an action... just as an aesthetic judgement is the
expression of just such a response to the properties of shapes and
figures (MacIntyre, 1967).

Thus Shaftesbury, like his successor, Francis Hutcheson, assimilated

ethics and aesthetics (see Audi, 1995).
Hume followed Shaftesbury in his rejection of rationalist ethics. He
contended, for example, that virtue was not something that could be
exhibited by facts but is rather a feeling. Hume argued that because
reason is concerned with matters of fact, moral judgements cannot
depend on reason because reason does not lead us to act. He contended that we are moved to act not by the knowledge of the facts but
by the prospect of pleasure or pain (MacIntyre, 1967). As such, he
argued that it is passion and not reason which is the guiding factor in
moral judgements. As MacIntyre (1967) says,

Ethical threat

851

Hume wishes to show that moral conclusions cannot be based on

anything that reason could establish, that it is logically impossible that
any genuine or alleged factual truth could provide the basis for morality

The moral sense theorists have no explanation for why notions like
charity and honesty are preferable to self-interest and avarice they
simply contend that they are.
These two opposing views on morality (the rational and emotional)
reflect a wider and more polemic debate in contemporary moral philosophy. This debate is between cognitivist theorists and non-cognitivist
theorists (McNaughton, 1988). The non-cognitivists believe that value
involves something more than reason and cognition (McNaughton, 1988).
Following a similar argument to Hume (see MacIntyre, 1967; Berlin,
1993) they contend that reason, on its own, can never determine whether
something is or is not moral. They suggest that the individual has to
choose which values to accept and which to reject, regardless of the
amount of factual evidence available to them. If we accept this line of
thinking then it becomes apparent that the requirement to choose is
missing from accounting decision making. As I have already argued in
section two, accounting may implicitly confer the responsibility for ethical choices upon apparently objective and innocuous calculations and
techniques. As such, students may not even recognise the ethical choices
they have made, let alone be able to critical evaluate the various ethical
criterion that could be used as a basis for making ethical decisions.
It is important to point out that non-cognitivists still think that reason
is an important element in moral decisions. They contend that reason
provides the facts which can inform an individuals decisions (See McNaughton, 1988). However, reason itself is not neutral. It may be that
reason provides only specific and partial information and indeed may
determine which facts will be considered in order to resolve moral
dilemmas and which will be ignored (McNaughton, 1988). Thus, it may
be that reason cannot be viewed as something which stands outside
morality and simply and objectively informs it. Rationality is always
already based on a particular view of reality and a particular set of
values17 (see MacIntyre, 1967 in Francis, 1990). Accounting, through the
application of a particular kind of rationality, provides accountants and
other business men and women with only a specific set of facts18.
Indeed, accounting constructs the facts upon which decisions are based.
This of course is not to suggest that emotions are any different, it is
simply the recognition of the subjective, partial and essentially socially
constructed nature of both.
So far, this paper has suggested that it is possible that ethics can
take on the form of a mechanism of control. The paper has considered
Foucaults work on ethics and in particular the role that moral identity
may play in controlling an individuals behaviour. It has been suggested
that accounting education may be seen to provide students with a
moral identity which they may subsequently draw on to decide on a
particular course of action. It has also been suggested that the mode of

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K. McPhail

subjection which characterises accounting students moral identities may

be such that they are incited to recognise and resolve their moral
obligations primarily through the application of reason, as they are
assimilated in the techniques they employ. The final section of this
paper draws on the distinction between rational and emotional modes of
subjection and uses it as a basis for considering Foucaults notion of
resistance, to see whether it provides any help for formulating a course
of action. It will be suggested that accounting education should attempt
to resist the subjugating rationalistic modes of subjection through constructing an emotional sense of obligation towards, the other, that is,
it should endeavour to transform the individual (I) consciousness of
conventional accounting rationality into a collective (we) identity/ empathy
(see Nielsen, 1991).

Section Three: Educating the Emotions & Empathising with the Other
So far this paper has argued that power may operate within accounting
education through the construction of ethical subjectivity and a rational
mode of subjectification in particular. However, while Foucault provides
us with a pithy analysis of power, whether he also provides us with
any system for resisting the negative effects of power or indeed, any
reason for wanting to do so, is a moot point. This section begins to
consider how the hegemony described above could be challenged and
is structured around the following issues:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

The possibility of resistance;

The method of resistance;
The apparatus of resistance;
The modality of resistance;
The basis for resistance;
An example of resistance.

The Possibility of Resistance

Foucaults critics have argued that his concept of power is so pervasive
that it seems that all attempts to oppose it would be futile (Hoy, 1994).
Indeed, when his book, The Order Of Things (1970) was published, it
was initially viewed by many as right wing. It was heavily criticised by
the French Marxist party who actually band it from party circles (Eribon,
1989). Jeannette Colomel expressed concerns then which have been
reiterated in some of the critical accounting literature more recently (see,
e.g. Neimark, 1990; Tinker, 1992; Armstrong, 1994; but see also Grey,
1994; Hoskin, 1994). She attacked Foucault, contending that his work
was conservative and promoted the status quo. She says,

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853

Foucault presents the world as a spectacle and as a game. His is an

invitation to a magical attitude....which contributes to maintain the established order19 (Colomel, in Eribon, 1989).

Foucault is thus criticised for his ubiquitous view of power, yet he is

only arguing, that to live in society is to be involved in power
relations... and that the notion of society without power relations is only
an abstraction (Hoy, 1994). As such, he sounds like the paragon of
common sense.
It is important to point out firstly that although he believed that
power was ubiquitous, Foucault never-the-less argued that individuals
had some degree of free will. Foucault believed that although power
operated to constitute subjects in particular ways, the way in which
those subjects could subsequently act was not controlled or determined
by any laws of causality or economic determinism (although their actions may be delimited). As I explained above Foucault focuses on the
creative as opposed to the control aspect of power. Control is when the
possibility for acting contrary to the influence of others is not possible
(i.e. when a state of domination exists). In Foucaults analysis of power,
individual subjectivity is constantly being constructed. Foucault contended
that power is a relationship between people and groups of people in
which the direction of influence is constantly contestable and open to
change and reconstruction, although he accepted that power relationships were asymmetrical20 (Rabinow, 1994). Foucault explains,
we are in a struggle with the government, and the government is in a
struggle with us. When we deal with the government, the struggle, of
course is not symmetrical, the power situation is not the same; but we
are in this struggle, and the continuation of this situation can influence
the behaviour or non-behaviour of the other. So we are not trapped. We
are always in this kind of situation. It means that we always have
possibilities, there are always possibilities of changing the situation. We
cannot jump outside the situation, and there is no point where you are
free from all power relations. But you can always change it. So what
Ive said does not mean that we are always trapped, but that we are
always free-well any way, there is always the possibility of changing
(Foucault in Rabinow, 1994, p. 192).

In his article, The Subject and Power (1992) Foucault stresses that
power is precisely the ability to act. Indeed, it is because Foucault views
power as ubiquitous that individuals have the potential to resist subjugation. Hoy (1994 see also, Smart, 1985) explains this point when he says
that Foucault conceptualises freedom as both, the condition and the
effect of power. It is the form because power is exercised on free
individuals and it is an effect because there are many instances when
power meets with resistance (Hoy, 1994; Rabinow, 1994; Walzer, 1994).
The Method of Resistance
Given that Foucaults concept of power is so diffuse, his method for

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K. McPhail

tackling the negative effects of power obviously has to be different from

Marxist notions of revolution, where the oppressed over throw those in
power. When Foucault says, the king is headless, what he means is
that the political world does not have a centre from which power
radiates. The implication is that there cannot be a seizure of power if
there is nothing at the centre to seize (Neimark, 1990). If, as Foucault
suggests, power is exercised in many different local contexts then it has
to be challenged point by point, locally 21. As such, Foucault advocates a
plurality of resistance rather than a revolution (Hacking, 1994; Walzer,
1994). However, this resistance takes place without any overarching
totalising theory. As Hoy (1994) explains, For Foucault, neither comprehending the world nor changing it depends on grasping (in either the
theoretical or practical sense) the totality.
The Apparatus of Resistance
Foucault argued that resistance was possible because the process of
normalisation was never fully complete. He suggested that knowledge is
never fully co-opted and that there will always be subjugated22 forms of
(power/ )knowledge that can be used to resist prevailing and hegemonic
forms of (power/ )knowledge (see Megill, 1985). It may be helpful to
pause here and attempt to clarify how this relates to the argument in
section two. The second section attempted to argue that accounting
provides a rationalistic mode of subjection which subjugates other emotional forms of ethical knowledge. This section argues that it may be
possible to use subjugated knowledge as a basis for resisting (or threatening) the hegemony of the predominant mode of subjection within
accountancy. Foucault argues that the aim of his form of resistance
was,
not to attempt to emancipate truth from every system of power, but
rather detaching the power of truth from the forms of hegemony, social,
economic and cultural, within which it operates at the present time
(Hacking, 1994; see also Smart, 1994).

The Modality of Resistance

Thus, while Foucaults opponents often contend that his notion of power
is too general and diffuse to be politically threatening (see Hoy, 1994), I
would argue that he actually provides us with a much more radical
concept of power. Foucault, influenced by Nietzsche, advocates resistance
as a way of life rather than a one-off event. He says,
My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous...If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do.
So my position leads not to apathy but to a hyper-activism (Foucault,
1984 in Simons, 1995; see also Megill, 1985).

Ethical threat

855

Foucault views emancipation as, an antagonism} a reciprocal contest,

where each incites and struggles with the other in a permanent provocation (Hoy, 1994) and this is based on his assumption that resistance
is the manifestation of freedom. Foucault attempted to provide a more
practical and direct connection between political action and theory. Indeed, he implies that through his work he attempted to provide an
analytical instrument for political action. He says,
I think that a rigorous, theoretical analysis of the way in which
economic, political, and ideological structures function is one of the
necessary conditions for political action, in so far as political action is a
way of manipulating and possibly changing, drastically, and transforming
structures.... l do not consider that structuralism is exclusively an armchair activity for intellectuals; I think it can and must be integrated with
practice (Eribon, 1989).

The Basis for Resistance

Thus, far from supporting the status quo, Foucaults histories of the
present were written with the aim of destroying the status quo (Megill,
1985). However, this is a problem in itself as Foucault does not provide
us with any moral basis for challenging the status quo or any new
system to construct in its place. Habermas criticised Foucault for failing
to admit that his analysis of society is based on the modern political
and moral values of liberty and justice (Hoy, 1994) and I think he is
probably right. As Michnik (1990 in Giroux, 1991) points out, battling
this system requires a conscious appeal to morality and an inevitable
involvement in politics. Without this moral basis, Foucaults, shrill
attack on the carceral society, may be only, a bitter and ineffectual
rage, (Hoy, 1994) nihilistic and devoid of the prospect of human happiness. Yet emancipatory myths, as the first generation of critical theorists realised, have long nourished the nobler utopian impulses of humankind, (Wolin, 1992) and driven them to action. Foucault does provide us with fictions, however, these are nihilistic anti-histories of regression, rather than heroic legends. Perhaps his attempts to put things
into crises are intended to frighten us into action but he also is in
danger of engendering an apathetic and fatalistic complacence. Why
bother?
It is therefor important (for me at least) to point out that this paper is
premised upon the belief that accounting education should not only
endeavour to develop students critical and creative capabilities but also
their emotional capacities as well. This assertion is grounded only in my
belief that,
to
our
can
has

suppress what we find in favour of the apotheosis of only one of

faculties} capacity for rational analysis} is a self mutilation which
only lead to a perversion of nature and distortion of truth. Flesh
been given us, and passions; they do not sin by existing; they can

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K. McPhail
be perverted, but the seducer is always cold reason, which desires to
assert its own authority and usurp that of the other faculties (Berlin,
1993).

As such, this paper is firmly grounded in (my) notions of justice,

radical democracy, equity and beauty.
An Example of Resistance
The paper concludes by combining the various issues discussed above
into a possible mode of action. The form of resistance elaborated here
is primarily based on Baumans analysis of postmodern ethics and his
notion of, the other. This may seem a strange place to begin to think
about an alternative perspective for developing ethical sensitivity amongst
accounting students, as many contemporary social theorists blame postmodernity for the prevailing ethical malaise. However, I concur with
Rossouw (1994b) when he says that, ethical descensus is the end of
modernity, not the product of postmodernity. In a similar vain, Bauman
(1993) argues that despite the, hot-headed triumphalism, of some
postmodernists, the postmodern perspective on ethics is not relativist.
On the contrary, Rossouw (1994b) argues that postmodernism has not
invalidated the discussion of values but rather has reintroduced it as a
legitimate concern in areas which were previously closed and taken for
granted.
Bauman (1993) argues that postmodernity, brings a re-enchantment of
the world after the protracted and earnest, though in the end inconclusive, modern struggle to dis-enchant it. I believe that postmodernism
need not necessarily be viewed as an attempt to completely abolish the
achievements or aspirations of the enlightenment, but rather that it can
be used to draw attention both to its restrictions (Cahoone, 1988;
Aronowitz & Giroux, 1991) and to the fact that its goals, despite what
we may think, have not been realised. Rossouw (1994b) explains,
Its aim is to develop a broader rationality which will render rational
discourse possible in those areas traditionally excluded from discourse
such as positivism. The implication of this project is the acknowledgement of alternative criteria for meaningful statements. Not only those
statements that meet the demands of empirical verifiability will be accepted as meaningful. Narratives which make a contribution towards
understanding culture, religion and ethics are also considered to be
legitimate means to convey knowledge of our world in its multifaceted
reality (Rossouw, 1994b).

Baumans (1993) perspective on postmodern ethics is based on two

issues: firstly, it advocates the unmasking of the power behind morality
(or the forces that create ethical subjectivity); and secondly, it attempts
to develop the emotional and moral sensibility of individuals through
the notion of the other.
Bauman (1993) suggests that a postmodern attitude to ethics would

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857

involve, above all, the tearing off of the mask of illusions, in order to
reveal the sources of morality hidden deep within modern societies. He
initially conceptualises morality as a political question (Giroux, 1991;
Mouffe, 1992, Vinten, 1992) and suggests that we need to appreciate the
nature of the relationship between power and ethics in contemporary
society. Section one of this paper has attempted to employ Foucaults
work on ethics in order to unmask the way in which power operates
within accountancy and if Baumans advice were implemented within
accounting education, the first task of ethics education may involve
encouraging students to do the same through critically analysing the
values implicit within what they are taught.
Bauman also suggests that a postmodern approach to ethics would
involve the development of the emotional and passionate elements in
moral judgements. This attempt to re-construct, citizens identities is
identified by Mouffe (1992) as, one of the important tasks of democratic politics, due to the, crisis in class politics, and the, need for
a new form of identification around which to organise the forces struggling for a radicalisation of democracy (Mouffe, 1992).
Loeb (1988), in his recommendations for the development of ethics
teaching in accounting, suggests that, each individual must develop a
sense of moral obligation. There is certainly no doubt that within
accounting education the development of moral sense has been neglected23. However, as Bauman (1993) says,
The mistrust of human spontaneity, of drives, impulses and inclinations
resistant to prediction and rational justification, has been all but replaced
by the mistrust of unemotional, calculating reason. Dignity has been
returned to emotion; legitimacy to the inexplicable, nay irrational, sympathies and loyalties which cannot explain themselves in terms of their
usefulness and purpose (Bauman, 1993).

Bauman attempts to asseverate and conceptualise the emotional element in moral decisions through the notion of the other. Wyschogrod
(1980) defines, the other as the, touchstone of moral existence... not a
conceptual anchorage but a living force. While The other essentially
incorporates anything other than, the self, and may include the environment, God, society and animals, Baumans argument focuses primarily on the other in terms of other people.
Bauman commences his argument from the premise that, to live is
to live with others is obvious to the point of banality. He suggests that
although we may not be aware of it, the basic knowledge that most
individuals have, is the knowledge of existing with other human beings
(Bauman, 1993). Indeed, the notion of ethics can be perceived as the
sphere of relations between the individual and the, other, individuals
they live with in their community. For example, in Callahans collection
of essays on, Ethical issues in professional life, morality is defined as
that which, takes us beyond mere self interest by requiring that we
take the rights and interests of others into account when we act. In a

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similar vain, Nielsen (1991) seems to imply that societies are held
together only when each member is prepared to accept that, the I is
part of a prior and much more foundational we.
This brings us back to the question of moral identity discussed in
section one of this paper and its role in determining ethical actions. It
may be helpful to consider the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau at this
point. For Rousseau, the most important question in ethics was not,
what should I do? but rather, who am I? Rousseau contended that
any answer to this question will place the individual within society and,
as such, within a complex of relationships with other human beings. He
saw the task of the social reformer as constructing educational and
other institutions which actively promoted a sympathy for the needs of
others and a concern for the common good. He suggested that, men
have to learn how, in advanced communities, they can act not as
private individuals, as men, but rather as citizens, (MacIntyre, 1967;
Arrington, 1990, 1996; Mouffe, 1992).
As such, the second characteristic of a mode of resistance may
involve, educating for the other, that is, not only studying those
things that increase our awareness of other people but, more importantly, enhancing our identification with them, not training individuals to
see what is in their own, or their companies best interest, which was / is
the prerogative of conventional accounting education. This kind of moral
education may require a kind of, gazing in the face of the other, that
may be similar to what Scheler (1970), in his ethics of sympathy, has
called fellow-feeling.
Accounting is far removed from the other aspirations of Baumans
postmodern ethics. While individuals, as the objects of accounting
knowledge, are rendered intellectually, procedurally and calculatively near
through accounting processes, these same processes may actually increase the moral distance between people, that is, accounting techniques
may increase anonymity (Hoskin & Macve, 1986; Miller & OLeary, 1987).
Thus, while it may be that accounting is able to provide more and
more information about individuals (employees, customers and line managers, for example) and, as such, has meant that management now
know more and more about individuals within an organisation, it may
be that the type of information that accounting provides has resulted in
less and less empathy with the individual (Hoskin & Macve, 1986; Miller,
1989; Miller & OLeary, 1987). Indeed, it may be that human beings in
accounting processes do not have identities of their own, they have no
face as it were, but rather derive their identity from the classifications
to which they belong, or rather the categories to which they have been
assigned, like employee, standard cost, expense and overhead (Miller &
OLeary, 1987; Miller, 1989). These people are not known, they are
merely known of. They are strangers. Stereotypical strangers. We know
of them in a roundabout sort of way through the information we have
put together about the categories to which they belong. We know of
them, as Schutz says, through the process of typification, as types

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859

with categorical attributes, not passionate, feeling individuals. Francois

Perroux (in Marcuse, 1991) seems to capture the kind of poverty stricken
view of other human beings that accountancy engenders when he says,
The slaves of developed industrial civilisation are sublimated slaves, but
they are slaves. Slavery is determined, neither by obedience nor by
hardness of labour but by the status of being a mere instrument, and
the reduction of man to the state of a thing.

The remoteness of accounting processes renders the face of the other

(people) indistinguishable (Bauman, 1993). As Bauman (1993) says,
The absolute nakedness of a face, the absolute defenceless face, without covering, clothing or mask, is what opposes my power over it, my
violence, and opposes it in an absolute way, with an opposition which
is opposition in itself (Bauman, 1993).

Within accountancy, the face of the other does not confront us,
identity, personality and humanity remain un-visibalised. The knowledge
that accounting provides tends to categorise and classify individuals in
such a way that their identity is lost and, as a consequence, we may
feel little or no moral obligation towards them.
One possible mode of resisting the de-humanisation of accounting
may be to try and develop within students, through a form of ethics
education, an imagination that is capable of empathising with the other.
Samuel Coleridge compared the kind of education of the imagination
that I am proposing, to the poetic power of synthetic integration that
reveals the depths of meaning (Megill, 1985). In a similar vain, Megill
(1985) suggests that through the provision of stories and metaphors, the
imagination enables us to interpret reality and to infer obligations. He
says,
By calling on personal experience.... Imaginative discernment.... entails a
process like the artists perception of a landscape, creatively portraying
from many perspectives a holistic view in which the myriad details fit
together (Megill, 1985).

There are, no doubt, many ways in which this kind of imaginative

creativity could be engendered, however, two issues in particular have
been identified within the medical ethics literature which may be helpful.
The first involves encouraging students to reflect on their own personal
experiences, feelings and emotions. The second involves using literature
(Baylis & Downie, 1991; Weisberg & Duffin, 1995; Chaplan, 1996; Shepard et al., 1997) and film (Green et al., 1995)24. Gaustafson (1970) suggests that both these techniques can have a significant impact on an
individuals emotional development primarily because of their potential to
provide an insight into how others feel within particular circumstances.
Carson (1994) for example explains that careful reading of imaginative
literature teaches, attentiveness to the feelings of other human beings.

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K. McPhail

To a large extent the aim here is not to prescribe a specific mode of

action but rather to call for some creative thinking from accounting
educators on how the pedagogy of accounting could engender a sense
of, fellow feeling, or compassion. This call for creativity is essentially
a reaction against the, regulation, certification and standardisation of
teacher behaviour, which Hoskin and Macve (1986) imply is increasingly
colonising pedagogy in general and accounting education in particular.

Conclusion
For many youths, the experience of schooling becomes synonymous
with the disciplining of the body and the policing of knowledge. As
John Fiske points out, school graduates are not just knowledgeable and
talented, they are disciplined. Schools produce... docile bodies. Largely
technical and behavioural in its focus and effects, pedagogy historically
has embraced the practical at the expense of the theoretical and subordinated politics and ethics to questions of management and control. Far
from employing neutral educational techniques, schools exercise discipline in both controlling what people know and how they behave (Giroux,
1996).

This paper has attempted to study the relationship between power and
ethics in accounting education. The paper has provided an outline of
Foucaults work on ethics and it has attempted to apply his perspective
to accounting education in order to study how power may operate
through the discourse of accounting by constructing the ethical identities
of accounting students. It was suggested that accounting education may
operate in a hegemonic way by constructing individuals who exert
control against themselves such that their actions come to serve the
interests of capital. It has also been suggested that accounting identity
is characterised by an instrumental and rational mode of subjection
which may subjugate other forms of knowledge and suppress the emotional development of students, particularly in relation to the way in
which they view other individuals. The paper concluded by drawing on
some postmodern ethical theory as a possible basis for resistance (in
the Foucauldian sense) and suggested two practical ways in which
concerned accounting educators could begin to conceptualise how they
might be able to challenge the hegemony of rationality within accounting education. At its most ambitious level, this paper has attempted to,
reclaim the importance of critical pedagogy as an eminently political
discourse and practice (Giroux, 1996).

Notes
1. This may be due to the way in which accounting education has conventionally
focused on, techniques acquisition (see, e.g. Gynther, 1983; Sikka, 1987; Lehman,
1988).
2. While I am primarily concerned at the moment just with unethical behaviour in terms
of that which contravenes the relevant social criteria of justice and is therefore

Ethical threat

3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

9.

10.

11.
12.
13.
14.

15.
16.

17.

18.
19.

861

presented as socially unacceptable or even unlawful in the media, this is not to say
that the current practice of accounting is ethical bar these misdemeanours. Indeed,
this paper argues that the normal, uncontroversial and everyday practice of accounting, although it appears to be ethical and innocuous, may actually be more threatening to social cohesion than these more obvious misdeeds because of the way in
which it represents other people. This of course is not to say that embezzling $1
million from a program designed to help poor families obtain housing (Stanga &
Turpen, 1991) is unimportant.
Indeed I dont want to disagree with Merritts argument.
This may not be an explicit or self conscious process. What it means to behave
ethically may be taken for granted and may be embedded within practices.
Both Weber and Althusser, for example, stress the importance of structure over
human agency in their analysis of power (Hoy, 1994).
This characteristic is particularly important when it comes to thinking about how
power could be resisted.
This perspective reflects Focuaults suspicion of all encompassing totalising theories.
While Foucault does not deny that there are individuals and organisations that rule
over other people, he does suggest that the power which characterises contemporary
western society is so multifarious and diffuse that those in power dont fully understand how they remain in power. Indeed, Foucault contends that they do remain in
power only because subordinated individuals continue to play their part in the process
(Hacking, 1994).
Having said this however, it is important to point out that Foucault was primarily
concerned with the negative effects of power. Foucault was particularly interested in
how, the way in which individuals are constructed as subjects, comes, unintentionally,
to serve a particular set of interests. Indeed, to some extent, Foucault reaches the
same conclusions as Marxists and the Critical Theorists. He concludes that the way in
which individuals are constructed servers the interests of capitalism. However, as I
have tried to explain, the way in which Foucault arrives at this conclusion is entirely
different.
As well as these four characteristics, Foucault was also interested in the role that
physical actions play in developing and maintaining ethical identity, for example, the
act of confession and giving an account (see Francis, 1994).
Shaftesbury suggested that an individuals ability to distinguish between good and bad
was based on a moral sense. He conceptualised this idea in terms of an inner eye.
This, of course is our fault not the students.
The word, other is used in the sense of opposite.
This paper is based on the belief that accounting education should attempt to
enhance students ability to responde emotionally as well as rationally to the situation
at hand. As such, it is contended that ethics education should attempt to develop an
ethical sense within students. This does not necessarily imply that there is a natural
sensibility that just has to be enhanced, but rather that a moral sensibility can be
created through thinking about individuals in ways other than conventional economic
terms.
Kant argued that this was not due to the nature of the world but rather to the way
in which we think about the world (MacIntyre, 1967).
He focused on the motives and intentions of the individual in his attempt to discover
what it was that made an action good, contending that moral laws should be
followed without regard to there consequences.
In their book, The Dialectic of the Enlightenment, Adorno and Horkheimer (1997)
argued that western reason was partly to blame for this impasse. Their argument was
based on Max Webers notion of, the paradox of reason. Weber believed that, our
increasing degree of instrumental mastery over the natural and social world, had
been achieved at the cost of freedom. Adorno and Horkheimer represented the
enlightenment tenet of progress as increasing domination. As Wolin (1992) says,
Benjamins notion of history as the incessant process of ruination and decline
appears to be a determinant influence on the thinking of Adorno and Horkheimer.
Adorno and Horkheimer argued that liberation could only be realized through a
complete break from western instrumental reason (Roderick, 1986).
For example accounting generally provides information on events which can be
modelled in monetary terms.
This is the way many postmodernists interpret Foucaults work (see, e.g. Muldoon,
1990) and, as such, perhaps the criticism is valid.

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20. Of course states of domination do exist. Foucault recognised that, in a great many
cases, power relations are fixed in such a way that they are perpetually asymmetrical
and allow an extremely limited margin of freedom, (Foucault in Rabinow, 1994).
21. When Foucault talks about local resistance he is referring to discursive locality rather
than geographical locality. As such, it may be possible to construe accounting as a
site for local resistance.
22. Subjugated knowledge (or controlled and suppressed knowledge) is defined as
knowledge which has been disqualified as a legitimate form of knowledge because,
for example, it is not scientific enough. It may be helpful to remember that I have
argued that within, accountancy, emotional knowledge is a subjugated form of
knowledge.
23. While it may be useful for the arguments in this paper to distinguish between
emotion and reason, it does not necessarily follow that individuals are composed of
an emotional part and a rational part. Letwin (1987) suggests that the physical and
mental elements of each individual are intimately connected. He contends that individuals are, People whose passions, though real, are inextricably connected with their
understanding of the world and of one another (Letwin, 1987). In other words,
Letwin is suggesting that the emotional feelings we have towards other individuals
may be related to the way in which we experience them in a material sense.
24. The impact of visual images has been extensively discussed within attitude and
propaganda theory (see Pratkinas & Arnonson, 1992).

Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Carol Adams, George Harte, John McKernan and Greg Stoner
for their excellent comments on earlier drafts to this paper. Also special thanks
to Rob Gray, Ed Arrington; Jesse Dillard, an anonymous reviewer who reviewed
the paper for the Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting Conference in
Manchester in July 1997; and an anonymous reviewer for Critical Perspectives
on Accounting.

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