Business Ethics

Richard T. De George is University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the International Center for Ethics in Business at the University of Kansas. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University and he has been a research fellow at Yale University, Columbia University, Stanford University, and the Hoover Institution. He was the Charles J. Dirksen Professor of Business Ethics at Santa Clara University in 1986, and a Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland in 1985.He is the author of over 200 articles and the author or editor of twenty books, including The Ethics of Information Technology and Business (2003); Business Ethics (also available in Japanese, Russian, Serbian and Chinese); and Competing With Integrity in International Business (1993), also translated into Chinese. He has been the President of several academic organizations, including the American Philosophical Association, the Metaphysical Society of America, the Society for Business Ethics, and International Society for Business, Economics, and Ethics. He has given invited lectures on six continents at a great many universities and keynote addresses to a variety of organizations both here and abroad, including such places as Tokyo, Como, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, and Perth. He has been a consultant for Motorola, Hallmark Cards, Kansas City Power and Light, Koch Industries, and General Motors, among others, and is a specialist in international business ethical issues and codes. In 2009 the Society for Business Ethics presented him with a special award “In recognition of a career of outstanding service to the field of business ethics”In November, 1996, he received an honorary doctorate from Nijenrode University in the Netherlands together with Bill Gates and Nelson Mandela.

• Preface xi  IntroductionChapter 1: Ethics and Business 1Horatio Alger and Stock Options 1The Myth of Amoral Business 3The Relation of Business and Morality 5Business Ethics and Ethics 9The Case of the Collapsed Mine 18Study Questions 20  Moral Reasoning In BusinessChapter 2: Conventional Morality and EthicalRelativism 21Purchasing Abroad: A Case Study 21The Levels of Moral Development 22Subjective and Objective Morality 24Descriptive Relativism 26Normative Ethical Relativism 27Moral Absolutism 31Moral Pluralism 32Pluralism and American Business 33Pluralism and International Business 33Pluralism, Business, and the Law 35Business and Religious Ethics 36Approaches to Ethical Theory 38Study Questions 41  Chapter 3: Utility and Utilitarianism 43An Airplane Manufacturing Case 43Utilitarianism 43Act and Rule Utilitarianism 47Objections to Utilitarianism 50Utilitarianism and Justice 52Applying Utilitarianism 53Utilitarianism and Bribery 56Study Questions 60  Chapter 4: Moral Duty, Rights, and Justice 61The Johnson Controls Case 61Deontological Approaches to Ethics 62Reason, Duty, and the Moral Law 63Application of the Moral Law 67Imperfect Duties, Special Obligations, and Moral Ideals 71Rights and Justice 73Study Questions 81  Chapter 5: Virtue Ethics and Moral Reasoning 82The Case of Dora and Joe 82Virtue 82Applying Moral Reasoning 87Study Questions 97  Chapter 6: Moral Responsibility: Individual and Corporate 98The Love Canal Case 98Moral Responsibility 99Excusing Conditions 100Liability and Accountability 104Agent and Role Moral Responsibility 106The Moral Status of Corporations and Formal   Organizations 108 Study Questions 112  Moral Issues in BusinessChapter 7: Justice and Economic Systems 114The Case of the Two Slaveholders 114Moral Evaluation of Economic Systems 115Moral Evaluation of Contemporary Systems 119Economic Models and Games 120A Capitalist Model 121Capitalism and Government 125A Socialist Model 128Comparison of Models and Systems 130Economic Systems and Justice 131Study Questions 133  Chapter 8: American Capitalism: Moral or Immoral? 134The Case of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet 134The American Economic System 136Relation of the American Government to the American   Economic System 138The Marxist Critique 141Non-Marxist Moral Critiques of American Capitalism 146The Moral Defense of the American Free-Enterprise System 148Non-Socialist Alternatives to Contemporary AmericanCapitalism 152Philanthropy 156Study Questions 157  Chapter 9: The International Business System, Globalization, and Multinational Corporations 159The WTO and Agriculture: A Case Study 159Justice and the International Economic System 161The Globalization of Business 164