Abstract
Academic business ethics is in the thrall of normative political philosophy. As a consequence, the content of academic business ethics is anomalous in the history of moral reflection on commerce, irrelevant to the vast majority of business people in the world, and too grandiose to address fruitfully doing business ethically at the level most business is done. Business ethics can be retrieved by refocusing on the activity of doing business, elucidating principles of action that are modest in aim and in which the business person can have a corresponding confidence.