Accounting, Accountability, and Religion: Charles Taylor's Catholic Modernity and the Malaise of a Disenchanted World

This paper introduces Charles Taylor's Varieties of Religion Today and A Catholic Modernity to an accounting audience. His work is used to examine the ethical and moral dilemmas that confront accounting. It is argued that modern accounting theory is infatuated by procedure and submerges shared and collective purposes that can be found in religion. The common purposes that are needed for societies to function are often neglected by modern ethical and accounting theories. According to Taylor, religion is a moral source for many people and must be given recognition if we are to discover the common purposes that bring people together. It is claimed that when religious values are ignored a moral forgetfulness is created and ethical problems emerge. One means to re‐empower our moral sources is to examine the religious dimensions in society. Taylor's work is used to expose weaknesses and inconsistencies in modern accounting theory and offers a different way to think about the world.