Syllabus Showcase: Business Ethics, Cecilea Mun

To take heed to audio recordings of Dr. Mun educating Enterprise Ethics click on here, here and here.

Some philosophers may regard an introductory enterprise ethics course to be the type of course that one has to show so as to educate the type of programs that one desires to show. In response to such issues, I made a decision to showcase my PHIL 225 Enterprise Ethics course. Though enterprise ethics falls outdoors of my main space of experience (philosophy of emotion), I used to be in reality very excited to show enterprise ethics once I was first approached to take action. As a involved client, I take into consideration enterprise ethics as a matter of reality in my on a regular basis life. I take into consideration how the selections I make as a client not solely impact my well-being, but in addition the well-being of those that are concerned within the provide chain of no matter product I’m consuming, in addition to the moral implications of the externalities which can be concerned within the observe of enterprise. I additionally typically take into consideration the methods by which training is a enterprise and the type of moral rules that ought to manipulate establishments of upper training, in addition to its members, particularly in the present day, within the face of the proliferation of the enterprise mannequin in academia. For instance, learn my APA Blog post and Symposion article on using SETs in greater training. I additionally prefer to remember that moral choices, in actual life, are sometimes made underneath situations of inequality, and that issues when making moral judgments.  

I additionally suppose so much about enterprise ethics as a involved citizen, residing in america. As a capitalist nation, with a consultant authorities that’s typically influenced by huge enterprise, by way of the work of lobbyists and coverage analysts working for giant enterprise, I can’t assist however take into consideration the assorted methods by which huge enterprise not solely results client choices, but in addition our public insurance policies. For instance, contemplate the consequences of massive enterprise on our public insurance policies about healthcare. It shouldn’t be a shock to anybody that President Joe Biden, and President Donald Trump and President Barack Obama earlier than him, had been all towards establishing a common healthcare system in america. To place issues briefly: US healthcare is huge enterprise.

After I considered how one may handle these moral issues, I all the time ended up tracing them to the identical root: the best way a businessperson is taught to consider and observe enterprise, which incorporates how they ought to consider enterprise ethics. Though capitalism and ethics are sometimes considered mutually unique, that is in reality false. Enterprise could be moral. Not solely is that this the case, nevertheless it should be the case. What issues is the best way by which an ethics in enterprise is practiced. And whereas reviewing a number of enterprise ethics textbooks in preparation for my first Enterprise Ethics course, I concluded that one drawback with how enterprise ethics was taught on the introductory stage was that enterprise ethics textbooks usually educate enterprise ethics from a enterprise perspective reasonably than a philosophical perspective.

The central intention of most enterprise textbooks is to not educate college students the way to suppose ethically about enterprise, it’s as an alternative to show college students the way to ethically analyze and “clear up,” in accordance with some pre-established enterprise framework (e.g., the stakeholder framework), the moral issues that come up inside a enterprise context. It’s all a really business-like manner of doing enterprise ethics. It’s environment friendly and simple, and in being so, it abstracts away from the messy, heart-breaking, consciousness elevating, vital considering that makes utilized ethics one of the crucial irritating and tough areas of philosophy. Elizabeth Anderson has made an analogous criticism towards modern financial theorizing normally.  

Generally one simply should come to phrases with the truth that the world is such that there actually is not any good, moral resolution for a specific drawback. That’s, till we determine how the world must be modified. And there’s a big distinction between the choice one makes primarily based on the evaluation of a case research, the place the decision-maker (the scholar) is nothing greater than a third-person observer, and the choice one makes in an precise, real-life, real-time scenario, the place one is a first-person stakeholder. We additionally know that in lots of circumstances, ethically unhealthy choices are made as a matter of ignorance: one’s ignorance in imagining or understanding the causal relations concerned between one’s choice and the potential penalties of 1’s choice, one’s ignorance in entertaining quite a lot of potentialities as potential options to the issue at hand, and one’s ignorance in understanding the central values which can be necessary for the pursuit of a very good life—together with in enterprise—which may solely be completed in cooperation with others.

So my central concern was to determine a solution to educate my college students the way to turn out to be an moral businessperson, which incorporates offering them with 1) alternatives to realize an embodied understanding of moral frameworks as approaches to moral decision-making, 2) alternatives to have sensible, first-person, decision-making experiences implementing these moral frameworks as a matter of moral decision-making inside a enterprise context, and three) alternatives to realize sensible, first-person information of the potential causal connections between the choice one makes, in accordance with a specific moral concept, and one’s relationship with different members of 1’s neighborhood and one’s neighborhood as an entire. In different phrases, I used to be centrally involved with the query of the way to educate my college students the talents they might want to ethically pursue a future in enterprise. My preliminary assumption was that each one among my college students already got here geared up with a system of values which knowledgeable them about what it means (not less than for them) to stay a very good life. So my principal problem was to determine a solution to educate my college students the way to perceive and observe these values within the context of enterprise, with the intention of residing a very good life.

My method was to take a distinctly philosophical method in educating enterprise ethics, which was additionally knowledgeable by the best way by which businesspeople really be taught ethics. For the primary half of the course, college students spend the time to realize an in-depth information of the workings of quite a lot of moral frameworks (e.g., advantage ethics, sentimentalism, deontology, utilitarianism, distributive justice, ethic of care, and situationism). They accomplish that by not solely finishing studying assignments about these frameworks, collaborating in in-class lecture-discussions (throughout which I take advantage of the Socratic technique), and finishing weekly multiple-choice quizzes and a multiple-choice midterm examination, but in addition by implementing the moral theories they’re studying in video games of Monopoly with their fellow classmates. For the second half of the semester, my college students are requested to learn a memoir from or about an trade chief in some enterprise and a e-book that addresses what I consider to be one of many main causes of unethical decision-making (normally, but in addition particularly in enterprise)—the ideology of misogyny. They’re then requested to put in writing plenty of mini-papers relating the moral theories they studied throughout the first a part of the semester with the readings launched within the second a part of the semester. For my Spring 2022 course, my college students will start by studying Tom Digby’s Love and War: How Militarism Shapes Sexuality and Romance, after which transfer on to studying Mike Issac’s Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber. Final semester, my college students had been requested to learn Robert Iger’s A Ride of A Lifetime and Sylvia Ann-Hewlett’s #Me Too in the Corporate World: Power, Privilege, and the Path Forward.

I perceive the significance of presenting college students with case research in enterprise ethics, however from my perspective, giving summarized snippets of assorted moral challenges in enterprise and asking them to investigate these circumstances in accordance with some enterprise decision-making framework (e.g., the stakeholder framework) doesn’t educate college students how to make moral choices. Nor does asking college students to put in writing a prolonged analysis paper on a specific case in enterprise, the place details are gathered and analyzed in accordance with some moral framework. I educate my college students to realize a first-person, embodied understanding of the causal relations which can be necessary to think about when making an moral choice and to know the underlying rules—together with the psychological, social, and private rules—that mediate these causal relations. I additionally be sure to assist them all the time remember the central intention of ethics—together with enterprise ethics—is to know the way to stay a very good life.

Extra particularly, with respect to enjoying Monopoly, my college students are requested to embody the moral framework in query whereas enjoying Monopoly underneath situations of inequality. The situations of inequality are led to by assigning every scholar with a standing of being privileged ($1500 to begin and rolling with 2 die) or being underserved ($500 to begin and rolling with 1 cube). The beginning cash represents an individual’s beginning place in life, whereas the variety of die used to roll represents the variety of alternatives which can be obtainable to an individual. College students additionally change statuses after every recreation. As the scholars play Monopoly, I take the time to watch the scholars’ recreation play, reinforce the situation that they play the sport in accordance with the actual moral concept in query, and spotlight any moral questions or issues that is perhaps pertinent to enterprise ethics, which could come up throughout their recreation play. I additionally finish every recreation play class with some questions for college kids to think about outdoors of sophistication, and I counsel that they may additionally contemplate not less than a few of these questions in relation to their mini-papers, which they should full throughout the second half of the course. Some examples of those questions are as follows: How did being virtuous or being vicious differentially affect the best way you considered the Monopoly (enterprise)? Does Kant’s deontology require a elementary change in the best way Monopoly (enterprise) must be performed? What sort of limitations does Kant’s deontology place on the best way it’s best to act in enterprise, ethically talking? Can Kant’s deontology be constantly practiced in Monopoly (enterprise) with out basically altering it? In what methods does practising Kant’s deontology affect the best way you play Monopoly and the dynamics of the sport amongst all of the gamers? How is practising Kant’s deontology completely different from practising Aristotle’s advantage ethics?

With respect to the readings for the second half of the course, the intention is to encourage college students to take their experiences of enjoying Monopoly throughout the first half of the semester and relate them to the experiences of trade leaders and the way the precept of misogyny can work to create a poisonous enterprise setting, whereas additionally studying extra about among the specific sorts of moral issues that may come up within the observe of enterprise. The precise manner by which it will happen will differ primarily based on varied components, together with the actual books I choose for a semester. For instance, for my first semester in educating Enterprise Ethics, I requested college students to first learn Robert Iger’s A Trip of A Lifetime, after which moved on to debate Sylvia Ann-Hewlett’s #Me Too within the Company World. Though Iger’s memoir gave my college students a substantial quantity to mirror on relating to what it takes to be an moral enterprise chief, Iger’s e-book lacked a big dialogue of the consequences of misogyny which can be enacted in enterprise by way of acts of sexual harassment, abuse, and violence towards a variety of businesspeople. I, subsequently, supplemented Iger’s e-book with Ann-Hewlett’s e-book. Moreover, with Ann-Hewlett’s e-book, I used to be capable of deliver the purpose throughout to my college students {that a} purely enterprise mind-set about ethics is impoverished, particularly when the first concern is about convincing businesspeople to be moral businesspeople. For this Spring 2022 semester, my college students first learn Tom Digby’s Love and Conflict, with the intention of introducing them to the assorted methods by which the ideology of misogyny works to create a poisonous setting of zero-sum competitors. We then moved on to a dialogue of Mike Issac’s Tremendous Pumped, by which the intention was to spotlight these moral challenges that arose inside the context of a brave start-up making an attempt to carry its personal and flourish on the earth of enterprise, its evolution in changing into a poisonous and abusive enterprise for its workers in addition to its fellow rivals, and the way—inside the span of solely seven years, in comparison with Iger’s 25 years of employment with Disney—the ideology of misogyny is demonstrated within the varied choices which led to the eventual downfall of Travis Kalanick, the co-founder and former CEO of Uber. As soon as once more, to place issues briefly: there’s knowledge in expertise.

In conclusion, I hope this publish was capable of assist not less than some instructors who’re battling enthusiastic about the way to educate a course like Enterprise Ethics, particularly when it doesn’t fall squarely inside one’s space of experience and even curiosity: join the content material of the course with features of your personal life, with the best way you may philosophically take into consideration issues, and contemplate educating the course from your personal uniquely lived experiences, together with from your personal uniquely philosophical perspective.

The Syllabus Showcase of the APA Weblog is designed to share insights into the syllabi of philosophy educators. We embody syllabi of their unique, unedited format that showcase all kinds of philosophy courses. We might love so that you can be part of this venture. Please contact Sequence Editor, Dr. Matt Deaton by way of MattDeaton.com or Editor of the Instructing Beat, Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall by way of sabrinamisirhiralall@apaonline.org with potential submissions.