Download PHIL 235: Business and Professional Ethics

PHIL 235:
Business and Professional Ethics
Overview and Some Background
Business Ethics: Nature & Scope
According to some wags, the very idea of “business
ethics” is a contradiction in terms, that is, an oxymoron:
(Purported) Oxymorons
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“Jumbo Shrimp”
“Military Intelligence”
“Gourmet Pizza”
“Business Ethics”
 Some people speak this way (or least get a cheap laugh
from the idea). But is it true?
 How could it be true that business and ethics are
somehow deeply incongruous or have nothing to do with
each other?
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One Possibility: Business is a Game
A fairly widespread view (or, in any case, a view often
adverted to) holds that business is, in some sense, a
game – i.e., something distinct from everyday real life.
 If business is (or is relevantly like) a game, then perhaps it
is plausible to say that actions internal to the game are,
strictly speaking, non-moral.
 After all, there seems to be nothing inconsistent in saying
(about a body check in hockey, e.g.): “No hard feelings,
eh? After all, it just a game.”
Maybe, analogously: “There’s no crying in business…”
The ‘Game Play’ View
 On this view, like any other game, the world of business
has internal constitutive rules (i.e., law, custom, the
‘rules of the market’).
 Violations of those rules leads to sanctions (punishment/
fines; loss of trust/status; business failure), but those are
(somehow) not the ultimate rules.
In fact, obedience to the ‘internal’ rules of business is
sometimes offered as a kind of excuse from following what
we might otherwise think to be applicable moral rules…
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A Contrary View
 (Re-) consider the analogy: Even if body checks are part
of the game of hockey, condoned by the rules of the
game, a particularly brutal body check might still be
judged to be assault.
Moves ‘in the game’ are surely also, at the same time,
actions in ‘real life’. And if anything is the proper domain of
ethics, surely real life is.
 So how to account for the seeming popularity of the view
the view that the ‘rules of business’ are somehow distinct
from the rules of morality?...
Business vs. Everything Else
 Practically everything, practically everyone, has some
connection to the world of business: As an employee (or
employer), as a consumer (or producer), as a taxpayer, as
a citizen.
 Both in business and in everyday life decisions need to be
made. Such decisions can be made on various bases–
efficiency, profitability, and/or moral rightness.
In short, business is like life in having a moral dimension.
 The ‘game play’ view may in part result from confusing
these bases.
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What’s the role of moral philosophy
in business?
 Moral philosophers, properly speaking, are not ‘moral
experts’.
 Ethicists are not (or, I’d say, should not be) in the business
of providing a ready-made ‘rule book’ of answers.
This despite the fact that some corporate (and academic
and professional) practices suggest the contrary:
“Let’s get the ethics people to look at this, see if they’ll go
along with it …”
 Instead, moral philosophers are people who have certain
skills and experience in how to argue, how to make
distinctions, etc.
 Philosophers aren’t prophets or moral gumball dispensers.
Instead, they perform more modest tasks: Clarifying the
concepts and distinctions at issue, assessing the available
arguments, examining the fit between moral principles and
moral practice
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Why bother with moral philosophy?
 A traditional (or possibly just clichéd) starting point:
Socrates’ old maxim: “The unexamined life is not worth
living.”
Socrates (470-399 BCE) went around ancient Athens
persistently asking, in effect, “Why?” Why should we
believe the things that we are told?
 For Socrates, and for the philosophical tradition generally,
this question “why” calls for an answer that is rationally
persuasive for anyone. That is, an answer in terms of
reasons.
A Quasi-Socratic Example:
P: “Intentionally harming innocent people is wrong”
S: “OK. But why?”
P: “Because I say so” (Or: “because the gods of our tribe say so,” or
“because the laws of our elders say so.”)
S: But that’s not a reason. Why do you (or the gods or the elders, etc.)
say so? … etc.
 Beyond this, I’d assert, there isn’t much to say in answer to the
question “why bother with moral philosophy?” If you are the sort
of person would wants clarity, who wants their actions to
characterized by consistency and integrity, then you will want
have rationally persuasive reasons for your behaviour.
 If the idea of a life governed by good reasons has no purchase
on you, then (obviously) no amount of reasoning is going to
make it any more attractive. Perhaps the most that can be done
is to continually try to convince you.
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Some Terminology and Distinctions
Etymology
Moral < Latin: mores -- “custom,” the traditional norms of
a people
Ethics < Greek: ethos -- “character,” often the character
or essential spirit purportedly typical of a people or race;
the prevalent sentiment of a community.
Morality vs. Ethics
 For us, these terms will normally be synonymous (more or
less), but philosophers (and others) sometimes observe
the following distinction:
Morality: Actual normative constraints on behaviour
(whether rationally justified or not, arising from any
source). An anthropological or social perspective
Ethics: Reflective judgment about how and whether
moral concepts can be understood and justified, etc. A
personal and/or theoretical perspective.
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Levels of Moral Response
1. Expressive Level
 Unanalyzed expression of feeling: “I hate that sort of thing”;
“People like that are just sick”; “That’s immoral!”
 In itself, an expression of feeling does not constitute a
justification for or a reason to believe anything.
 That doesn’t imply that emotions are entirely irrelevant to ethics.
(Cf. emotivism – the view that moral claims just are expressions
of emotion and nothing else.)
But it is surely the case that the mere fact that you feel that X is
morally bad, cannot by itself be sufficient reason to believe that
X is in fact bad.
2. Pre-Reflective Level
 Justification by reference to conventional norms – values, rules,
or principles that are actually held by a community (i.e., why or
whether these norms ought to be norms is not yet part of the
discussion). For example: “Because that’s what the law says,”
“Because this is what our people have always done,” “For my
Bible tells me so.”
 In pre-reflective judgment, we may mention rules or principles
(“It’s the law” ), but, we do not necessarily ask why we ought to
accept those rules or principles. In short, we often don’t reflect
on why we should act in the way prescribed.
 Instead, our behaviour is externally directed: We accept the
conventional norm either because we will be punished if we
don’t (e.g. authority, rules that parents give children) or simply
because the conventional norm is available (e.g., indicating a
promise by means of a handshake).
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 Many social/legal rules are not intended to set out what is
morally right, but simply to address coordination problems
(e.g., driving on the right side of the road instead of the left).
Similarly, there is often some prudential benefit to be realized in
following a conventionally accepted rule simply because it is
conventionally accepted, without worrying too much about or not
it is the morally right thing to do. (E.g., cooperation may be
promoted through shared expectations and mutual
understanding)
 However: “X is conventionally accepted” ≠ (at least in any
straightforward way) “X is morally right.”
(To say that the first of these expressions implies the second is
a form of moral relativism–a view that most philosophers do
not accept.)
3. Reflective Level
 Justification by reference to norms for which we ourselves are
prepared to offer a reasoned defense – i.e., we consider for
ourselves whether or not any particular rule or principle is or can
be justified.
 Note: Reflective judgment can (and often does) end up
accepting rules and principles that are already conventionally
accepted. (This is one of the things that sometimes irritates
people about moral philosophy—that philosophers spend so
much time attempting to prove what everybody else takes to be
obvious, e.g. that deception is wrong.)
 That said, reflection does not guarantee agreement. Often there
is more than one defensible position.
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