Business Ethics
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Business Ethics
Module 1: Why does business need ethics?
Case: The Ford Pinto
The Ford Pinto and the Dominant View
Reading: Friedman – The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits
Understanding Friedman’s thesis
Friedman’s Justification for Stockholder Theory
Reading: Freeman – Managing for Stakeholders
Freeman’s Stakeholder Theory
Separation and Integration
Returning to the Pinto Case
Module 2: What is Ethics?
Why care about ethics?
Moral vocabulary
What makes things right or wrong?
What can be a source of morality?
Morality from culture
Morality from religion
Morality from feelings
Morality from pain and pleasure
Morality from interests
Morality from rationality
Morality from rights
Morality from relationships
Morality from character
Which theory is the best one?
Case: Jim and the Indians
Module 3: Social Responsibility, Professionalism, and Loyalty
Social Responsibility: The story so far.
Corporate Social Responsibility and the Triple Bottom Line
Leaving Friedman Behind?
Professional Responsibility
Whistle Blowing
Case: SS Challenger
Reading: Davis – Some Paradoxes of Whistle-Blowing
Reading: Duska – Whistle Blowing and Employee Loyalty
Whistle-blower: Hero v. Traitor
Module 4: Business and the Environment
Externalities and the environment
Our relationship to the environment
Morality, Money, and Motor Cars
Reading: Arnold & Bustos – Business Ethics and Global Climate Change
Reading: Desjardins – Sustainability: Business’s New Environmental Obligation
Case: Exporting Pollution to Brazil
Case: Indian “suicide zone”
Sustainability as social responsibility
Module 5: Treatment of Employees
Externalities and Costs
Reading: Maitland – The Great Non-Debate over International Sweatshops
Reading: Arnold and Bowie – Sweatshops and Respect for Persons
Wages and Coercion
Terrible Working Conditions and the Costs of Improvement
Case: Pepsi in Burma
Case: Levi Strauss & Co. in China
Balancing Priorities
Module 6: Privacy, Property, and Technology
Two Questions about Privacy
Reading: Johnson – Privacy
Why do we Value Privacy?
Shi Tao, Yahoo, and China
Thinking about the Shi Tao Case
Property and Intellectual Property
Reading: DeGeorge – Intellectual Property and Pharmaceutical Drugs
Case: Patents and the African AIDS Epidemic
Case: Merck and River Blindness
Conflicting Rights and Ethical Intuitions
Module 7: Advertising
The purpose and kinds of advertising
Branding advertisements
Transactional advertisements
Reading: Arrington – Advertising and Behavior Control
Reading: Brenkert – Marketing and the Vulnerable
The morality of persuasion
Case: Kraft foods Inc.: The Cost of Advertising on Children’s Waistlines
End of module 7, end of course
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Module 3: Social Responsibility, Professionalism, and Loyalty
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