Abstract

Electronic commerce has become an important factor in present-day business. The reflection ofbusiness ethics asks four questions: - To what extent does e-commerce improve the ethical quality of decision making and performing in the sphere of commerce? - Does e-commerce promote the »reason« for business? - Does e-commerce reinforce or endanger the market's functional value principles? -Will e-commerce side-Iine or establish the ethical reflexivity of business? The present considerations will not answer definitively the above questions. Although e-commerce comprises dangers as weil as opportunities relative to those questions, it is basic to hold fast at the primacy ofpolitics and consequently demand the responsibility from business toward the »needs oflife«.