Business Ethics

I- Introduction

A) Is Business Ethics is an oxymoron? Perhaps the saying merely refers to how people tend to forget how they should behave when money and wealth are involved, or simply that people tend to ignore moral constraints in business. Or, it might mean something deeper, and more sinister, as some people argue moral principles don't apply in business, or that business relationships are not subject to moral constraints. This position is also known as the "separation thesis." To begin to formulate an answer to that question, consider the following:

1) Who are Sherron Watkins, Sam Waksal, Richard Grasso or Bernie Madoff? Do you own an Explorer? Ever heard of Vioxx or Merck?

2) What kind of problem do these people have on their hands? Put differently, from what different perspectives can we evaluate these situations and what should we take as evidence in these evaluations? If you were in their shoes, to whom would you turn for advice? In what way, if any, would you try to justify your decisions and your actions?

3) Are the people involved in the issues in #1 good people or bad people and why? What would make a person a good or virtuous person?

4) Perhaps a better question to ask is what harmful consequences followed these actions and what good would have resulted from other alternative actions.

5) Finally, maybe is there something about the actions themselves that should be referenced when talking about right and wrong, quite apart from the type of person who would tend to perform an action of one type, and quite apart from the good or bad consequences that result from an action. Such actions violate some moral principles, such as a prohibition on using other people as a mere means to your own ends or projects. Defrauding or stealing from the shareholders is wrong because it uses the shareholders as a mere means to enrich the thief.

B) The point of the class is to begin to understand the relationship between morality and business, that is, the requirements morality places on business. What actions are morally acceptable when selling iPhones, buying oil, selling your services to a boss, or when you have other people working for you? The method here will be to develop a way of analyzing some interesting questions and developing a decision procedure to help us answer these questions. We will use both the standard case method employed in many business schools as well as a more philosophical approach. We are interested in moral justifications, for some, the only kind of justification that matters, or at least the ultimate form of justification. First and foremost, this is a class in ethics, a subject which, whether it's taught in business schools, religious organizations and orders, philosophy departments, day care facilities, or by your mom, is about no less a subject than how we ought to live. And that seems like a subject worth studying and discussing at some length.

Moral Philosophy and The Philosophical Method

A) The word "Philosophy"

B) The Contemporary Philosophical Method

C) Philosophy and Its Sub-disciplines

D) Ethics and Its Sub-Divisions

E) Normative, Especially Ethical, Thinking.