The paper argues that the point of a business ethics course is to improve behavior in business, and that an essential ingredient in that improved behavior is knowing what's right or wrong. To make that claim, the paper attempts to dispose of three arguments which support the contrary claim, that business ethics courses are useless. First, it is argued that morals can't be taught, since they only result from training. Second, it is argued that such courses are unnecessary because business executives already know right from wrong. Third, it is argued that ethical knowledge is impossible, so there is nothing to teach. The first two arguments are dealt with briefly, and the third is addressed extensively. The paper argues that the scepticism about ethical knowledge is part of a pervasive “relativism” in our society, but shows that such a relativism/scepticism is untenable and indicates how ethical knowledge is possible. If, then, knowledge of right and wrong is an essential ingredient for improving business behavior, and such knowledge can be imparted in an ethics course, there is some point to teaching business ethics.

There is a moral dimension in all business decisions. When planning a corporate takeover, which substance to use for a product, whether to hire temps or full-time workers, or where to invest, all reflect values and hence moral considerations. It is not enough to change people, we must change the structure. Within the corporate structure it is important to have special divisions dedicated to the implementation of ethics such as internal audit committees. The same might be said about business schools; to enhance ethicality, we need both that all faculty become more committed to moral education and special departments dedicated to it. Also the neo-classsical, deontological paradigm needs to be combined with deontological, social paradigms. The challenge that one cannot teach ethics because it's unclear whose values we are going to teach, can be dealt with by teaching values we all share, and knowledge and respect for those that divide us.

The dominant approach to the analysis of issues in business ethics consists in the articulation and use of a set of mid-level moral principles. This approach is geared to business practitioners who are not interested in the difficult problems of moral and political theory. I argue that this “practitioner model” is philosophically suspect. I show how the theoretical frameworks prominent business ethicists employ are insufficiently developed. I also show how many of their analyses presuppose substantive views about issues of social justice which they rarely defend or acknowledge. Since no neutral position on these issues is available, I argue that the only alternative is to address the problems such issues raise for the analysis of institutions and the conduct of persons acting under those institutions. I offer suggestions about how we can develop a more philosophically defensible approach to business ethics.

Ethical theory in business ethics texts lacks sufficient specificity to be used as a tool of analysis. The result is that business faculty do not see the course in business ethics as helpful to their students, and the students do not see the course as helpful in their careers.

A further difficulty is the inclusion of material which is not seen by business faculty, as appropriate or germane to the practice of decision-making. Issues such as the legitimacy of the corporation, or capitalism versus Marxism, are of little interest or help to the person in business.

Finally, the text cases are too often of a policy nature, and do not deal with issues faced by a majority of those in business. The result is the lack of engaging the moral imagination of the students.

Unless the course is redesigned so that it is seen by business faculty as more relevant, it will continue to be required by only a small number of business programs.

PROFESSOR Miller, responding to Pamental, suggested that business ethics should be taught to (business) students by adopting or endorsing an ethical approach within which to discuss and evaluate business ethics issues. That is, when teaching business ethics, one ought to reveal to the students, one's own reasoned answers to the issues, and one's bias as between deontological and consequentialist approaches. Miller claims that otherwise, students get confused, having to choose between moral theories while having to decide on the morality of some specific business ethics issue.

Business ethics courses have been launched with professors from business pulling on one oar, and professors of philosophy pulling on the other, but they lack a sense of direction. Let's begin with the basics: What is an ehtical decision? More fundamentally, why the interest in professional ethics in the first place?

There are over 300 centers for the study of applied ethics in this country—why? The events which face our society today (income and wealth disparity, environmental degradation, etc.) are outside the business-oriented collection of shared beliefs that set our public policy agenda. Our beliefs are too narrow, thus we see, understand, and control small slices of life.

Business ethics should be the study of the structure and impact on us of what we call “business science,” e.g., accounting, marketing, economics, law, etc., and the corresponding study of the process of what Carl Jung called individuation: learning to become one's own unique self in the face of these bodies of professional knowledge which have structured our lives and charted the direction for our sensibilities for too long.

My anger at the fishermen, I realize, was directed at the conspicuous costliness of their gear, the excessiveness of the new van, because otherwise, I would have to acknowledge them as other versions of myself. Frustrated because they were where I wanted to be and were doing what I wanted to do, I tried to divert the issue to how they were going about it all. I tried to make it an argument about character rather than envy.1

Having taught management ethics for several years, I have been repeatedly frustrated by the practical mismatch between management problems and moral philosophy…. Unless we can connect ethical theory more closely with management practice, we may be dressing our business curriculum windows with philosophical finery but failing to meet the urgent need for clarity of thought in management ethics.