PHILOSOPHY, BUSINESS AND SOCIETY
The aim of this module is to understand some of the basic ethical concepts in professional
life. For whether we think so or not, business managers, civil servants, advertisers, sales
representatives and employers are all practical philosophers. They may not think explicitly in
terms of philosophical arguments and theories, but every strategic decision they make is
based on philosophical assumptions that can be articulated and assessed. This module
examines some of the central philosophical issues that arise in the course of professional life,
including truth; manipulation; trust; freedom; integrity; responsibility; and detachment.
No prior philosophical training is required to take this module. Each topic will be introduced
without theoretical prerequisites, and the discussion of each topic will be illustrated with
concrete examples from actual professions and real life.
Preliminary Reading:
 Marcoux, ‘Business Ethics’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008, Available
online: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-business/
Lectures: The lectures for this module will be held in **, on Fridays from 6-7pm in the
Spring Term. The lecturer is Prof. Hallvard Lillehammer (h.lillehammer@bbk.ac.uk).
Seminars: The seminars for this module will be held in **, on Fridays from 7-8pm in the
Spring Term. They will be led by the lecturer and by **.
Readings: Every week there is one key reading that is the focus of the seminar discussion.
One of the purposes of the seminar is to help you to understand the reading, so do not worry
if you have not fully understood the reading in advance. Nevertheless, it is essential that you
attempt the seminar reading each week if you are to follow the lecture and to participate in
the seminar discussion. In addition, there is ‘additional reading’ listed that will deepen your
understanding and help you to get the most out of the module. You are especially advised to
cover the additional reading for those topics on which you are planning to write an essay.
Essays (BA/Level 6): This module is assessed by one essay of around 3,000 words (3200
maximum). It must be written in response to one of the set questions listed below, except
with permission from the module convenor. For details concerning submission of the essay,
including deadlines, see the BA Handbook.
Prior to this assessed essay, you may also write up to two essays during the course, taken
from the titles below, and receive feedback on them from your seminar leader. These can be
useful practice for your eventual assessed essay. You should submit the first such essay by
the first seminar after reading week, and the second by one week after the last seminar of
term. [Notes: 1) You are always welcome to submit an essay earlier than these dates; 2) the
seminar leader should not be expected to comment on the same essay more than once.]
Essay (MA/Level 7): This module is assessed by one essay of around 3,500 words (3700
maximum). It must be written in response to one of the set questions listed below, except
with permission from the module convenor. For details concerning submission of the essay,
including deadlines, see the MA Handbook.
Moodle: Electronic copies of course materials are available through Moodle, at
http://moodle.bbk.ac.uk. You will need your ITS login name and password to enter.
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Course content, readings and essay questions
WEEK 1: What is professional ethics? An introduction to ethics in real life
Questions: 1) How do questions of ethics relate to questions of business and professional
life? 2) Is the idea of ethical business based on a mistake?
Essential Reading:
-J. R. Boatright, ‘Does Business Ethics Rest on a Mistake?’ Business Ethics Quarterly,
Vol. 9, No. 4, 1999, pp. 583-59. Available online: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3857936
Further Reading:
- P. Singer, ‘About Ethics’, in his Practical Ethics, Second Edition, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993, Chapter 1. Available online:
http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Peter-Singer-Practical-Ethics-2ndedition.pdf
-M. Sandel, What Money Can’t Buy: the Moral Limits of Markets, London: Penguin,
2012, Chapter 3.
- H. Putnam, The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy, Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 2004, Chapters 1-2.
WEEK 2: Who cares? The ethics of professional detachment
Questions: 3) Is being ethical consistent with being detached or uncaring towards others?
4) To what extent should professionals try to separate their ‘private’ from their ‘public’
life?
Essential Reading:
- F. B. Bird and J. A. Waters, ‘The Moral Muteness of Managers’, California
Management Review, vol. 32 (no. 1), pp. 73-88. 1989.
Further Reading:
J. Oakley and D. Cocking, Virtue Ethics and Professional Roles, Cambridge 2001,
Chapter 6: ‘Professional Detachment in Health Care and Legal Practice’, pp. 137-171.
-H. Lillehammer, ‘Understanding Indifference as a Virtue’, Philosophical Perspectives,
forthcoming. Available online:
http://hallvardlillehammer.weebly.com/uploads/2/1/1/3/21136986/virtue14b.pdf
- D. F. Thompson, Political Ethics and Public Office, Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1987, Chapter 5.
WEEK 3: Ethics for adversaries: thinking ethically in a competitive environment
Questions: 5) How is it possible to be ethical in a competitive environment? 6) Are
ethical values relative to professional roles?
Essential Reading:
- A.I. Applbaum, Ethics for Adversaries: The Morality of Roles in Public and
Professional Life, Princeton 1999, Chapters 3-4; 6.
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Further Reading:
-M. H. Freedman, ‘Professional Responsibility of the Criminal Defence Lawyer: the
Three Hardest Questions’, Michigan Law Review, vol. 64, 1965, pp. 1469-1484.
Available online:
http://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=fac
ulty_scholarship&seiredir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.co.uk%2Fscholar%3Fhl%3Den%26q
%3Dmonroe%2Bfreedman%26btnG%3D%26as_sdt%3D1%252C5%26as_sdtp%3D#se
arch=%22monroe%20freedman%22
-B. Williams, ‘Politics and Moral Character’, in his Moral Luck, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981, pp. 54-70.
-T. Nagel, ‘Ruthlessness in Public Life’ in his Mortal Questions, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1979, pp. 75-90.
WEEK 4: Respecting freedom: coercion, voluntariness and responsibility in professional
life
Questions: 7) When is agreement freely given? When is it coerced? 8) How does
voluntary consent matter to business affairs?
Essential Reading:
- S. Olsaretti, ‘The Moralized Defence of the Free Market: a Critique’, in her Liberty,
Desert and the Market, Cambridge 2004, pp. 109-136.
Further Reading:
-R. Nozick, ‘Coercion’, in his Socratic Puzzles, Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1997, pp. 458-91.
-O. O’Neill, ‘Which are the offers you can’t refuse?’, in her Bounds of Justice,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 81-96.
David Zimmerman, ‘Coercive Wage Offers’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 10,
1981, pp. 121-145, Available online: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2264975
WEEK 5: Customers, clients and their desires: the ethics of advertising
Questions: 9) Should professionals aim to satisfy the desires of their customers and
clients? Do they? 10) Can advertisers legitimately aim to create the desires of customers?
Does it matter how they do so?
Essential Reading:
-R. Crisp, ‘Persuasive Advertising, Autonomy and the Creation of Desire’, Journal of
Business Ethics, vol. 6 (no. 5), pp. 413-418.
Further Reading:
-J.Christman, ‘Autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy’, The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, 2009, Available online: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/autonomy-moral/
-G. Dworkin, ‘Behaviour Control and Design’, in his The Theory and Practice of
Autonomy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 150-160.
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-R.H.Thaler & C.R. Sunstein, ‘Libertarian Paternalism’, The American Economic
Review, vol. 93, 2003, pp. 175-179. Available on JSTOR:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3132220
WEEK 6: Being Truthful: Truth, lies and bullshit in professional life
Questions: 11) To what extent is professional behaviour compatible with lying,
deception, bullshit and other forms of insincerity? 12) What is the value of truth and
truthfulness in business life?
Essential Reading:
- A. Carr, ‘Is Business Bluffing Ethical?’, Harvard Business Review vol. 46 (no. 1), pp,
143-53.
Further Reading:
-B. Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002,
Chapters 4-6.
- H. Frankfurt, ‘On Bullshit’, in his The Importance of What We Care About, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 117-33.
-L. Radoilska, ‘Truthfulness and Business’, Journal of Business Ethics 79, 2008, pp. 2128. Available on JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25075643
WEEK 7: Being trustworthy: the values of trust in professional life
Questions: 13) What is trustworthiness in professional life? 14) Why, and in what form,
is trust important in international business?
Essential Reading:
-G. G. Brenkert, ‘Trust, Morality and International Business’, Business Ethics Quarterly,
vol. 8 (no. 2), pp. 293-317.
Further Reading:
-R. Hardin, ‘Conceptions and Explanations of Trust’, in K. Cook (ed.), Trust and
Society, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 3-39.
-A. Power, ‘Audit, Trust and Risk’, in his The Audit Society, Oxford University Press,
1997, pp. 122-147.
- T. Simpson, ‘e-trust and Reputation’, Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 13, pp.
29-38, 2011.
WEEK 8: Business and integrity: success, character and personal accountability
Questions: 15) What is it for someone to show integrity, and why does it matter? 16)
Should individual integrity be protected even if it is bad for business?
Essential Reading:
- D. Koehn, ‘Integrity as a Business Asset’, Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 58, pp. 125136. 2005.
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Further Reading:
-G. D. Goodstein, ‘Moral Compromise and Personal Integrity: Exploring the Ethical
Issues of Deciding Together in Organizations’, Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 10, 2000,
pp. 805-819. Available online: http://www.asec-sldi.org/dotAsset/292848.pdf
- G. Scherkoske, ‘Two Cheers for Integrity?’, in his Integrity and the Virtues of Reason:
leading a convincing life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 1-32.
- B. Williams, ‘Consequentialism and Integrity’, in S. Scheffler (ed.), Consequentialism
and its Critics, Oxford 1988, pp. 20-50.
WEEK 9: Ethics and organizations: individual, collective and corporate agency
Questions: 17) If organizations as well as individuals act, in what sense can they also be
responsible? 18) Should individuals and organizations be constrained by the same rights
and duties?
Essential Reading:
- M. Velasquez, 'Why Corporations Are Not Morally Responsible for Anything They
Do', Business and Professional Ethics, vol. 2, pp. 1-18. 1983.
Further Reading:
- S. Wolf, ‘The Legal and Moral Responsibility of Organizations’, in J. R. Pennock & J.
W. Chapman (eds.), Criminal Justice, Nomos 27, New York: New York University
Press, 1985, pp. 267-86.
- D. F. Thompson, Political Ethics and Public Office, Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1987, Chapter 2.
- C. List & P. Pettit, Group Agents: the possibility, design and status of corporate agents,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 1-18; 153-169.
WEEK 10: The corporate citizen: social responsibility and business values
Questions: 19) Do corporations have social responsibilities beyond their duties to obey
the law? 20) In want sense, if any, is corporate social responsibility good for business?
Essential Reading:
-M. Friedman, ‘The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits’, New
York Times Magazine, 13 September 1970.
Further Reading:
-A. Kemper & R. L. Martin, ‘After the Fall: the global financial crisis as a test of
corporate social responsibility theories’, European Management Review, vol. 7, 2010,
pp. pp. 229-239.
-T. Mulligan, ‘A Critique of Milton Friedman’s Essay ‘The Social Responsibility of
BusinessIs to Increase Its Profits’, Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 5 (no. 4), 1986, pp.
265-269.
-Vogel, D, The Market for Virtue: the potential and limits of corporate social
responsibility, Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2006, Chapters 1-3 & 7,
Available online: www.lib.mylibrary.com/?id=36184
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Essay questions
The Essay questions for formative and summative assessment may be picked from
questions 1)-20) listed under each topic above. Students writing two formative essays
should answer questions from the readings for two different weeks.
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