The Philosophy and Ethics of Time: Implications for HRD

Time and ethics are both complex concepts and are subject to continuing philosophical debate. Each has become of interest and concern to business and management relatively recently with only ethics being a significant focus in HRD research and practice. Exploring the connections between the two concepts is rare outside of the discipline of philosophy. This chapter seeks to establish connections between time and ethics and also to identify the relevance and applicability of those connections to HRD research and practice. The chapter achieves this broad purpose by analysing the possible meanings of time and experiences of time in human lives and the connections of those meanings and experiences to the ethical question of ‘what should one do?’. It then presents some possible implications of the connections for HRD research and practice. These implications include being aware of varying temporal understanding among the clients and recipients of HRD research and practice interventions, with organisation change programmes highlighted as particular examples of interventions where the connections between time and ethics are implicated.