Business Ethics

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course examines some of the most important ethical issues in business today, such as businesses' responsibilities to workers, consumers, and investors, the pros and cons of 'free markets', the challenges posed by environmental damage and automation, the ideas of 'social' responsibilities and 'ethical' consumption, and the special dilemmas faced by multinational businesses. We will study these issues through a selection of contemporary cases, issues, arguments, and approaches, along with much class discussion, with the aim of helping you to develop a familiarity with the issues and debates and your ability to discuss, reflect on, and defend your own ethical views. Thus, rather than focusing exclusively on strategy (the instrumental management of ethical issues by business), theory (the study of abstract ethical principles, then applied to cases), or virtue (the moral improvement of you as individuals), the course combines aspects of these different approaches in the broader activity of developing your own reasoned views about the ethics of business. The course is divided into three parts. In the first part, we will study and discuss four introductory cases, to start you thinking about some key questions in business ethics. Then, in the second part, we will explore three fundamental debates: over the ethics of free markets, businesses' responsibilities to society, and the government's role in regulating business. For each of these debates, we will first study the main ethical ideas and arguments and then examine a specific, representative case or cases. Following this second part of the course, you will prepare your first written assignment. In the third part of the course, we will examine businesses' responsibilities to consumers, workers, and the environment in more depth, by studying some more specific and sophisticated issues, theories, and cases. Here you will also participate in a more formal group debate in class, and prepare your second assignment based on it. Finally, at the end of the course there will be a cumulative exam.