Business Ethics: Philosophy 325

Fall 2002

Class: MWF 9am, Pawling Hall 301.

Professor: Dr. Ward, 308 Pawling, 8080, Rward0@georgetowncollege.edu

Office Hours: M/W 2-4, T/TH 1-2 or by appointment.

Course Description: Introduction to both the moral issues involved in business management and the ethical concepts and analytical skills relevant to solving those issues.

Texts: Moral Issues in Business, Shaw and Barry

Business Ethics: Annual Edition 02-03, John Richardson editor

Library reserve and handouts.

Evaluation:

1) Written assignments 60%

Reading responses. Fifteen responses to assigned readings must be one page and typed. See the sample review attached. These responses will be reviewed at the beginning of class and used to start discussion. The course schedule entries in BOLD require a response. Responses will be graded on the evidence of careful reading and good writing. Grammar and spelling errors will reduce your grade. Full credit (3pts) will be possible only on responses handed in during the class when the material is discussed. 45%

Book Review. Write a two-page book review of a Business Ethics book. The student will choose a book from the list attached or another with my approval. Some books may have to be obtained through Inter library loan, so make sure to start your work early. Due October 14. 5% of final grade.

Ethics Interview. Write an account of an interview you conduct with a person working in a field related to your interest. 1500-2000 words. See assignment detail. Due November 27. 10% of final grade.

Peer review: Before any written assignments are handed in they will be read by a class peer. The peer reviewer’s job is to check for spelling and clarity.

2) Examinations, 40%. Mid-Term and Final Exam, 20% each. Examinations cover the readings and discussions in class. Dates announced two weeks before exam.

Academic Integrity: By handing in an assignment or examination the student is avowing that they have not given or received unfair help in the completion of the assignment or examination. If there is a violation of this integrity the student(s) will forfeit the grade for the assignment or examination. If a student plagiarizes a writing assignment the student may receive a failing grade for the course.

Bibliography:

Business Ethics for the 21st Century, Adams and Maine, London: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1998.

Ethics and Business Through the Eyes of Faith, Chewning, Eby and Roels, New York: Harper and Row, 1990.

Ethics and Excellencies, Robert C. Solomon, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Tough Choices, Barbara Toffler, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1986.

Toward a Theology of the Corporation, Michael Novak, Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1981.

Working Ethics, Marvin T. Brown, San Francisco: Josey-Bass Publishers, 1990.

For current issues in business ethics see the journal Business Ethics

CLASS SCHEDULE

I. Desire in Business

We will examine the personal foundations of business activity, corporate and individual implications of desire.

1. Introduction to Business Ethics -- Economic Desire.

2. Solomon, “It’s Good Business.” MIB pg. 33. Annual Edition: 4. Doing Well by Doing Good.

3. Movie “Wall Street”

4. Wendell Berry, “Two Economies”

5. Section summary.

II. Traditions of Ethics

We will survey four traditions of ethical thought, Aristotle, Kant, Mill, and Dewey.

6. Challenger case study. (Reserve)

7. Aristotle (Reserve)

8. A7D Case study, MIB pg. 31.

9 Kant, (Reserve)

10. Poverty in America, MIB pg. 128.

11. Mill, (Reserve).

12. Annual Edition: 18. Sorrow and Guilt: An Ethical Analysis of Layoffs, 26. The Parable of the Sadhu

13. Dewey (Reserve).

14. Section Summary.

MIDTERM EXAMINATION

III. The Structure of Business

We will examine the foundations of business life by examining systems of wealth and the organization of business.

15. MIB, The Nature of Capitalism, 147-166.

16. Karl Marx (reserve)

17. MIB, Corporations, 199-222.

18. “Can a Corporation have a conscience?” (Reserve)

19. Big Tobacco (reserve) Asbestos Case MIB,pg. 211.

20. Annual Edition 6. Crime in the Suites, 7. When the Numbers Don’t Add Up, 20. A Hero – And a Smoking Gun Letter.

21. Section Summary.

IV. A Philosophy of Business

We will move toward a philosophy of business that takes account of personal motivation and the traditions of ethics as ways of navigating the world of business.

22. Kiersey Temperament Sorter. (Internet) and Misuses of personality testing (reserve)

23. “Ethical Independence”

24. Speaker:

25. Student presentations of results of interviews.

26.

27.

28.

29. Review

Final Examination

Sample of Reading Response:

Roger Ward 8-08-01

“Conserving Communities” by Wendell Berry

Summary: In this chapter from Another Turn of the Crank, Wendell Berry takes aim at what he thinks is the most compelling sign of the state of our economy and country. That sign is the reduction of land based economies, small rural towns and enterprises, to a level so low that the census bureau no longer records it as statistically significant. It used to be very significant, in fact, it once was the most characteristic form of life in this country. Berry analyses this loss of farms and farm communities as the result of an absentee ecnonomy. An absentee economy is one that focuses on large scale ventures rather than small, that treats farms, forests and people as factories or sources of monetary value, and an economy where the aim is a high paying job doing nothing. This kind of economy reduces or completely ignores land, people and communities. Land, people and communities require care, not efficiency in extracting value. As a function of focusing on care, Berry proposes a list of seventeen questions to ask about economic enterprises. For instance, “9. Strive to increase earnings within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community.” These principles are ways to care for the community and to preserve it against the thinking that propels the “Global economy.” Berry contrasts the global economy that seeks to produce a scale of production beyond our ability with a local food economy that is within our ability.

Evaluation: I think Berry is correct to contrast our current economy with one that values and focuses on local communities. The systematic emptying of the rural communities follows a change in thinking about where value resides. Value appears to be located in the economic centers, and for us today that means big business and big cities. Participation in the economy is therefore oriented from the smaller to the larger – to secure one’s enterprise is to be in place with larger and larger competitors so that there is no competitor larger. This orientation produces two bad consequences. First, it devalues the local and the immediate living context of people, producing a negative reaction to the places and relationships on which we most clearly depend. Second, it presumes that we know enough to sustain all aspects of life in the expansion of trade and size of enterprise, and that this expansion is life itself. One criticism of Berry is that he has not completely analyzed the movement that makes this second point stick. Expansion is life for those who are insecure. There are reasons of insecurity that drove and continue to drive people toward global economies and away from rural living. Treating these insecurities is essential to providing the insight that will eventually expose the vanity of consumer driven economies, local and global.

Read by: