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

Case: SS Challenger

Download text: Case reading: Roger Boisjoly and the Challenger Disaster

Challenger Disaster Live on CNN

Challenger: The Untold Story Part 2 of 10

Challenger: The Untold Story Part 7 of 10

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© Michael Matteson and Chris Metivier 2023