Why Study Ethics?

[hassan]

Even granting that business ethics is important, many seem to believe that there is no point in studying the subject.  Ethics is something you feel, not something you think.  Finance, marketing, operations, and even business law lend themselves to intellectual treatment, but ethics does not.   

The idea that ethics has no intellectual content is odd indeed, considering that some of the most famous intellectuals in world history have given it a central place in their thought (Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas, etc.). Ethics is in fact a highly developed field that demands close reasoning.  The Western tradition in particular has given rise to sophisticated deontological, teleological and consequentialist theories of right and wrong.  No one theory explains everything satisfactorily, but the same is true, after all, in the natural sciences.   

Even when they grant that ethics has intellectual content, people often say that studying the field will not change behavior.  Character is formed in early childhood, not during a professor’s lecture.

If the suggestion here is that college-level study does not change behavior, we should shut down the entire business school, not only the ethics course.  Presumably the claim, then, is that studying finance and marketing can influence one’s conduct, but studying ethics cannot. This is again a curious view, since ethics is the one field that deals explicitly with conduct. Where is the evidence for this view?  The early origins of character do not prevent finance and marketing courses from influencing behavior.  Why cannot ethics courses also have an effect?

[hassan]

Ethics courses have a number of features that seem likely to influence behavior.  They provide a language and conceptual framework with which one can talk and think about ethical issues. Their emphasis on case studies helps to make one aware of the potential consequences of one’s actions. They present ethical that theories help define what a valid ethical argument looks like.  They teach one to make distinctions and avoid fallacies that are so common when people make decisions.  They give one an opportunity to think through, at one’s leisure, complex ethical issues that are likely to arise later, when there is no time to think.  They introduce one to such specialized areas as product liability, employment, intellectual property, environmental protection, and cross-cultural management. They give one practice at articulating an ethical position, which can help resist pressure to compromise.   

None of this convinces one to be good, but it is useful to those who want to be good.  It may also improve business conduct in general.  How many of the recent business scandals would have occurred if subordinates had possessed the skills, vocabulary and conceptual equipment to raise an ethical issue with their coworkers?

Ethics not only should be studied alongside management, but the two fields are closely related.  Business management is all about making the right decisions.  Ethics is all about making the right decisions.  So what is the difference between the two?  Management is concerned with how decisions affect the company, while ethics is concerned about how decisions affect everything. Management operates in the specialized context of the firm, while ethics operates in the general context of the world. Management is therefore part of ethics.  A business manager cannot make the right decisions without understanding management in particular as well as ethics in general.  Business ethics is management carried out in the real world.  This is why business managers should study ethics.

[tree]

nice post