For forty years, successive editions of Ethical Theory and Business have helped to define the field of business ethics. The 10th edition reflects the current, multidisciplinary nature of the field by explicitly embracing a variety of perspectives on business ethics, including philosophy, management, and legal studies. Chapters integrate theoretical readings, case studies, and summaries of key legal cases to guide students to a rich understanding of business ethics, corporate responsibility, and sustainability. The 10th edition has been entirely updated, ensuring that (...) students are exposed to key ethical questions in the current business environment. New chapters cover the ethics of IT, ethical markets, and ethical management and leadership. Coverage includes climate change, sustainability, international business ethics, sexual harassment, diversity, and LGBTQ discrimination. New case studies draw students directly into recent business ethics controversies, such as sexual harassment at Fox News, consumer fraud at Wells Fargo, and business practices at Uber. (shrink)

Every human activity has its characteristic features, the general tendencies that are often difficult to perceive for those engaged in the activity. Such general tendencies are of special concern to those managing in such activities, whether one is coaching soccer or running a corporation, for only with knowledge of such tendencies can one engage in intelligent managing and, more important, intelligent moral action. For the activity of business is not value-neutral, and if one is to manage morally in business, one (...) must come to understand its general tendencies insofar as they affect values. (shrink)

This paper argues that human beings possess the rational capabilities necessary to achieve the goal of more just and peaceable social orders, but that our educational institutions are failing in their responsibility to do what in fact can be done to produce graduates who make decisions in ways most likely to achieve this goal.Data compiled by us, consistent with other research, indicates that only a small percentage of the individuals graduating from universities and professional schools have developed the capacity for (...) post-conventional moral reasoning. (shrink)

As in the field of economics, the questions of business ethics can be divided into two distinguishable types — micro and macro. Micro-ethical questions arise primarily for subordinates in an organization and concern what should be done when the demands of conscience conflict with perceived occupational requirements. Macro-ethical questions arise principally for superiors and concern the setting of policy for the organization in general. The present article elaborates upon this distinction and advances a line argument for resolving micro-ethical problems when (...) their affinity to macro-ethical issues is noted. (shrink)

This paper attempts to explain the significance of the ideologies — or middle-level normative discourse — described by Kenneth Goodpaster in his paper Business Ethics, Ideology, and the Naturalistic Fallacy. It is argued that the propositions constitutive of this discourse are not invokable moral principles (i.e. principles which generate solutions to actual moral problems). Rather, they are characterizations of the normative contexts in which moral decisions are made. As such, they place limits on the ways in which the abstract moral (...) principles of traditional moral theory may be applied or interpreted in making real-life moral decisions. (shrink)

This paper addresses the relationship between theoretical and applied ethics. It directs philosophical attention toward the concept of ideology, conceived as a bridge between high-level principles and decision-making practice. How are we to understand this bridge and how can we avoid the naturalistic fallacy while taking ideology seriously?It is then suggested that the challenge posed by ideology in the arena of organizational ethics is in many ways similar to the challenge posed by developmentalist accounts of moral stages in the arena (...) of individual ethics, namely, how to account for the normative force of frameworks that are theoretically derivative yet practically essential. (shrink)

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This essay seeks to link management action with business ethics. It utilizes two conceptual models of decision making to examine the important processes of information gathering and information processing. This analysis is then related to the ethical aspects of a business decision to help explain differences in the selection of ethical criteria.

The management process affects the level of ethical performance in organizational life. As one part of this process, managers establish priorities which give direction to an organization. In business firms, management typically stresses the attainment of profits and other related economic and technical factors. Since little explicit recognition is given to ethics, the resulting climate makes it easy to ignore ethical factors. Changing this situation by making ethics a significant part of the corporate culture is difficult and requires a combination (...) of management communication and management example. However, managers who choose to emphasize ethics and who skillfully articulate their importance can improve the integration of ethics into the day-to-day operating decisions of the firm. (shrink)

Ethics will not become part of the management decision-making process until it ceases to be viewed as an add-on; first you decide, then you assess the decision ethically. This essay focuses on one ethical concept, the good or the valuable, and shows how to incorporate it in an ethically and economically effective decision process. We focus on this concept because it uncovers a key fault in strategic thinking and generates questions central to any complex decision.The concept of the valuable is (...) used to distinguish goals and purposes. A goal is a more or less specific target toward which one aims. A purpose is a way of being or functioning viewed as valuable in itself. (shrink)