Text

MORAL ISSUES IN BUSINESS

---

I have found a curiously common reaction among those who discover that I teach a course in business ethics. This reaction takes various forms from the baffled, "Business ethics?" or "Isn't that a contradiction?" to the sceptical, "You've got to be kidding," to the decisive, "There are no ethics in business." If one person's experience can indicate contemporary feeling, then mine suggests that many people believe that ethics and business are fundamentally opposed. In part, this book attempts to dispel that notion and to suggest vigorously that business must incorporate some clearly conceived and seriously implemented moral principles into its enabling assumptions and institutions. If business does not do so, it invites its own dismantling.

While such a lofty intention did somewhat inspire the writing of this text, Moral Issues in Business tries, in essence, to meet three challenges that I've faced in teaching business ethics. The first challenge is to raise the moral recognition level of students. Many students, whether preparing for business or nonbusi- ness careers, simply don't perceive in business decisions the moral dimensions that exist on the personal and organizational levels. As a result, students need to develop and refine their understanding of what is morally at stake in the issues of hiring and firing people, maintaining a healthy job atmosphere, relating con- sumerism and ecology, and so on.

The second recurring challenge is to provide students with the apparatus to make moral decisions in a business context. Even when students recognize the moral aspect of a business decision, they often don't know what to do about it-how to initiate and conduct an inquiry into the problem in order to reach an acceptable moral resolution.

The third challenge I've found in teaching business ethics is to blend theory with practice. This problem seems especially difficult in business ethics courses because they are generally taught by either a professor of philosophy or a pro- fessor of business, but rarely by one grounded in both disciplines. In the first case, the philosophy teacher may supply students with ample ethical theory but fail to concretize the theory in the real world of tough business situations. On the other hand, the business specialist may sacrifice ethical theory entirely and focus instead on interpersonal or intergroup relations. In short, the challenge of providing business ethics students with both traditional moral theory and its practical applications can require much time and energy in teaching.

Unfortunately, most textbooks currently available offer little assistance toward meeting these three challenges-raising the moral recognition level of students, providing theoretical bases for moral business decisions, and blending theory with practice. Moral Issues in Business meets these challenges head-on. To understand how this is done, let's consider the text's structure, style, organization, and coverage.

---

Availability

10000520

174.4 BAR m

RLC MM (Rak Buku Umum)

Available

Detail Information

Series Title

-

Statement of Responsibility

Vincent Barry

Call Number

174.4 BAR m

Publisher

Belmont : Wadsworth., 1979

Collation

xiv, 399 p. : ill ; 24cm.

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0-534-00709-0

Classification

174.4

Content Type

-

Edition

-

Subject(s)

Philosophy and Psychology
Ethics
Professional and Business Ethics

Specific Detail Info

-

Other version/related

File Attachment

Comments

---

You must be logged in to post a comment