As one of the most influential commentators on the role of modern philosophy, Richard Rorty's work impacted all areas of philosophical inquiry, including business ethics. Rorty's post-foundational approach to "moral imagination" can inform how we teach business ethics in a diverse and philosophically eclectic manner. A summary of Rorty's critique of philosophy, ethics, and applied ethics will be followed by a discussion of the implications for a critical pedagogy and the pragmatic use of an expansive philosophical lexicon in a business (...) ethics course. (shrink)

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's death, during 2006 quite a number of cultural events were launched (cf. http://www.ibsen.net/). The article suggests celebrating Ibsen as a potentially useful resource for business ethics teaching. Departing from a short presentation of Ibsen's plays An enemy of the people and A doll's house the main focus of this paper is on two selected scenes from the latter piece -both as raw material for developing scenarios for moral maturity assessment (one (...) of them is strikingly similar to and different from Heinz' dilemma), and for teaching business students moral reflection and imagination. As an open end of the article a few wider questions are asked about the use of literature in addition to or instead of ethics when it comes to triggering moral reflection and imagination. (shrink)