The Greek philosopher Aristotle, writing over two thousand years before Wall Street, called people who engaged in activities which did not contribute to society "parasites." In his latest work, renowned scholar Robert C. Solomon asserts that though capitalism may require capital, but it does not require, much less should it be defined by the parasites it inevitably attracts. Capitalism has succeeded not with brute strength or because it has made people rich, but because it has produced responsible citizens and--however unevenly--prosperous (...) communities. It cannot tolerate a conception of business that focuses solely on income and vulgarity while ignoring traditional virtues of responsibility, community, and integrity. Many feel that there is too much lip-service and not enough understanding of the importance of cooperation and integrity in corporate life. This book rejects the myths and metaphors of war-like competition that cloud business thinking and develops an "Aristotelean" theory of business. The author's approach emphasizes several core concepts: the corporation as community, the search for excellence, the importance of integrity and sound judgment, as well as a more cooperative and humane vision of business. Solomon stresses the virtues of honesty, trust, fairness, and compassion in the competitive business world, and confronts the problem of "moral mazes" and what he posits as its solution--moral courage. (shrink)

What is right in the corporation is not what is right in a man's home or in his church," a former vice-president of a large firm observes. "What is right in the corporation is what the guy above you wants from you." Such sentiments pervade American society, from corporate boardrooms to the basement of the White House. In Moral Mazes, Robert Jackall offers an eye-opening account of how corporate managers think the world works, and of how big organizations shape moral (...) consciousnss. Based on extensive interviews with managers at every level of two industrial firms and of a large public relations agency, Moral Mazes takes the reader inside the intricate world of the corporation. It is a world where hard work does not necessarily lead to success, but where sharp talk, self-promotion, powerful patrons, and sheer luck might; where intense competition is masked by cheerfully bland public faces; where intentions are cloaked and frankness is simply one of many guises; and where words are always provisional and accountability often depends on the ability to outrun mistakes. In this topsy-turvy world, managers must bring often unforgiving technology and always difficult people together to make money, an uncompromising task demanding continual compromises with conventional verities. Moral issues are translated into practical concerns and into issues of public relations. Sooner or later, managrs ask themselves: How does one act in such a world and maintain a sense of personal integrity? Moral Mazes is a brilliant, sometimes disturbing, often wildly funny study of corporate thinking, decision-making, and morality. It is an analytical work of great importance, one filled with compelling real life stories of the men and women charged with running the business of America. It is a book for anyone interested in how big organizations actually function, or who is concerned with the current moral malaise in our public life. (shrink)

Three pictures of integrity have gained philosophical currency. On the integrated self picture, integrity involves the integration of "parts" of oneself into a whole. On the identity picture, integrity means fidelity to projects and principles constitutive of one's core identity. On the clean hands picture, integrity means maintaining the purity of one's agency, especially in dirty hands situations. I sketch each picture and suggest two general criticisms. First, integrity is reduced to something else with which it is not equivalent--to the (...) conditions of unified agency, to the conditions for continuing as the same self, and to the conditions for having reason to refuse cooperating with evil. Second, integrity is understood as a personal, but not also a social virtue; this limits the analysis of what integrity is and why it is a virtue. In the last section, I suggest a way of understanding integrity as the social virtue of standing before others for what, in one's best judgment, is worth persons' doing. (shrink)

This book is a major contribution to the current theory of liberalism by an eminent political theorist. It challenges the views of such theorists as Rawls, Dworkin, and Ackerman who believe that the essence of liberalism is that it should remain neutral concerning different ways of life and individual conceptions of what is good or valuable. Professor Galston argues that the modern liberal state is committed to a distinctive conception of the human good, and to that end has developed characteristic (...) institutions and practices - representative governments, diverse societies, market economies, and zones of private action - in the pursuit of specific public purposes that give unity to the liberal state. These purposes guide liberal public policy, shape liberal justice, require the practice of liberal virtues, and rest on a liberal public culture. Consequently the diversity characteristic of liberal societies is limited by their institutional, personal, and cultural preconditions. (shrink)

In this book of essays, he argues that morality cannot be defined solely by rational and universal principles; instead, a major place must be found for changing and conflicting ideals, values peculiar to specific times and cultures.

This book should prove provocative reading for philosophers, political scientists, social theorists, professionals of many stripes, and ethicists.

This paper examines how unethical behavior in the workplace occurs when management places inordinately strong emphasis on goalattainment without a corresponding emphasis on following legitimate procedures. Robert Merton's theory of sodal structure and anomie provides a foundation to discuss this argument. Key factors affecting ethical climates in work organizations are also addressed. Based on this analysis, the paper proposes strategies for developing and changing aspects of organizational culture to reduce anomie, thereby creating work climates which discourage unethical practices and provide (...) employees with mechanisms to resolve ethical conflicts in a constructive way. (shrink)

Management Ethics provides the rationale, conceptual framework and practical tools needed to build and sustain management and organization integrity over time.

Can ethical character be stimulated and enabled? Cognitive understanding of organizational ethics issues is important and necessary, but not sufficient. Ethical behavior does not emerge automatically. Effective political method is necessary. While it may be difficult to teach ethical character, nonetheless, skill development with respect to joined ethics understanding and action-learning methods can help us develop the skills and confidence we need to actualize our ethical characters and social concerns. An action-learning approach to organizational ethics can help stimulate and enable (...) ethical character. (shrink)

Shows that executive integrity is not merely a moral trait but a dynamic process of making empathetic, responsible, and sound decisions. Describes key features of executive integrity including effective social interaction, open dialogue, and responsive leadershipand explains how integrity can be developed and practiced in today's organizations.

I argue that Plato was right in claiming that justice is more profitable, more rational, and more intrinsically valuable than injustice, and that this is particularly true for business organizations. The research on prisoners’ dilemmas and social dilemmas shows that ethical behavior is more profitable and more rational than unethical behavior in terms of both the negative sanctions on unethical behavior when interactions with stakeholders are iterated, and the positive rewards of habitually ethical behavior when stakeholders can identify those who (...) are predisposed to be ethical. In addition, the psychological research on justice shows that justice is intrinsically valued, both from an outcome and from a process perspective, and so crucial for business organizations, particularly in terms of organizational effectiveness. (shrink)

Managing integrity -- Identifying ethical and legal issues in the workplace -- Understanding decision making in the workplace -- Managing organizational culture for integrity -- Increasing legal pressure for ethical compliance -- Developing an effective organizational integrity program -- Implementing ethics and legal compliance training -- Managing integrity in a global economy -- Creating the good citizen organization -- Benefiting from best practices.

Abstract:In this paper I explore the topic of moral compromise in institutional settings and highlight how moral compromise may affirm, rather than undermine, personal integrity. Central to this relationship between moral compromise and integrity is a view of the self that is responsive to multiple commitments and grounded in an ethic of responsibility. I elaborate a number of virtues that are related to this notion of the self and highlight how these virtues may support the development of individuals who are (...) responsive and reasonable in moral discourse and discerning in establishing moral limits on compromise. I look at how moral regret is closely connected to moral compromise and emphasize its significance for reinforcing personal integrity. The paper closes with a discussion of the relevance of these topics to the field of business ethics. (shrink)

Is the nature of law to be formal procedure or to embody substantive value? This work deals with the traditional conflict in legal philosophy between positivistic and anti-positivistic theories of law. It examines the conflict with respect to seven central issues in legal philosophy--law as a reason for action, law and authority, the internal point of view to law, the acceptance of law, discretion and principle, interpretation and semantics, and law and the common good. This work argues that although this (...) conflict cannot be resolved, the true nature of law is revealed--not obscured--by this perennial situation. (shrink)

This book is about a widely shared desire: the desire among citizens for a vibrant and effective social discourse of legitimation. It therefore begins with the conviction that what political philosophy can provide citizens is not further theories of the good life but instead directions for talking about how to justify the choices they make—or, in brief, "just talking." As part of the general trend away from the aridity of Kantian universalism in political philosophy, thinkers as diverse as Bruce Ackerman, (...) Jürgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Richard Rorty have taken a "dialogic turn" that seeks to understand the determination of principles of justice as a cooperative task, achieved in some kind of social dialogue among real citizens. In one way or another, however, each of these different variations on the dialogic model fail to provide fully satisfactory answers, Mark Kingwell shows. Drawing on their strengths, he presents another model he calls "justice as civility," which makes original use of the popular literature on etiquette and work in sociolinguistics to develop a more adequate theory of dialogic justice. (shrink)

Recent theorists have suggested that human altruism toward non-family members evolved because of the tremendous benefits of reciprocity. Developing further the notion that evolutionary theory can help to explain moral sentiments, Howard Kahane proposes that a sense of fair play is essential to ethics and argues that moral obligation, too narrowly construed, prevents us from living rationally. He brings his account of fair play to bear on the ethics of various domains of social life including friendship, taxes, civil rights, and (...) nation states. (shrink)

A businessperson acts,quabusinessperson, in two institutional contexts which in principle are completely distinct, and normally entail two different ways of relating to other people; on the one hand as an actor in the market, and on the other as the employees’ manager. We shall assume that different sets of norms govern how to relate to trading partners in the market and how to relate to subordinates in the company. The moral problems which arise in the two different institutions for conducting (...) human relations consequently also differ. The main problem relating to market operations originates in the fact that one achieves the most desirable consequences when the objective as such is difficult to justify on moral grounds. Profit is the target, if necessary at the expense of the person one is dealing with. In this context—i.e. in the market—altruistic considerations, or acting out of consideration for the other party, can produce socially undesirable results. The problems confronting the businessperson as manager are of a different nature. We shall not be considering all aspects of management or consultancy ethics, only what we regard as in principle the fundamental problem, one which in fact applies to all management in modern society. (shrink)

What is the relation of business ethics to politics? My answer has two parts. First, business ethics exists quite apart from politics in matters of simple, basic ethical norms like those prohibiting lying, wanton injury, sexual harrassment. One would be foolish to unsettlethis settled ethics as A. Z. Carr does in this article, “Is Business Bluffing Ethical?” For the business community thus loses the public’s trust and invites a government regulation of business smothering to business and burdensome to government.Second, there (...) are issues in business ethics which do not represent a settled and shared and common ethics because they represent a choice between competing, almost equally attractive, values. These problems in business ethics can only have a political solution. Politics here represents the commitment to different basic values and will represent liberal and conservative extremes or somecompromise in-between. The solution acceptable for these problems will change with the political climate and will be unstable. We should strive to keep the basic, simple, settled, ethical issues in business out of politics, and we should strive to be frank about our political differences as we needfully politicize the solutions to the more complex unsettled problems in business ethics. (shrink)

This innovative book takes a new look at environmental ethics and the need for ecological and biological integrity. Laura Westra explores the necessity for radical alteration not only of interpersonal ethics, but also of social institutions and public policy. In the process, Westra denies the validity of majority rule in environmentally ethical concerns. Issues discussed in the book include the link between ecological integrity and human health; an environmental evaluation of business and technology; biotechnology and transgenics in agriculture and aquaculture; (...) and the environmental ethics of the ancient Greeks and Kant. Living in Integrity is a valuable book for philosophers and environmentalists alike. (shrink)

Economic profits differ from accounting profits. Accounting profits are usually defined as revenues minus costs, and those costs as fixed and variable. Economic profits enlist a third cost, opportunity costs. While these costs are difficult to determine with mathematical precision, they are nonetheless significant, especially for decision making in business. They reflect social costs and benefits, tensions between individual and corporate interests, and all internal and external considerations which enter into decision making in business. It is precisely within opportunity cost (...) decision making that Primeaux and Stieber situate business ethics. (shrink)