This empirical study of Fortune 1000 firms assesses the degree to which those firms have adopted various practices associated with corporate ethics programs. The study examines the following aspects of formalized corporate ethics activity: ethics-oriented policy statements; formalization of management responsibilities for ethics; free-standing ethics offices; ethics and compliance telephone reporting/advice systems; top management and departmental involvement in ethics activities; usage of ethics training and other ethics awareness activities; investigatory functions; and evaluation of ethics program activities. Results show a high (...) degree of corporate adoption of ethics policies, but wide variability in the extent to which these policies are implemented by various supporting structures and managerial activities. In effect, the vast majority of firms have committed to the low cost, possibly symbolic side of ethics management (e.g., adoption of ethics codes and policies, etc.). But firms differ substantially in their efforts to see that those policies or codes actually are put into practice. (shrink)

This is a short review of Moral Particularism, ed. Brad Hooker and Margaret Little (Oxford University Press, 2002).

ABSTRACT:Whether at the executive or the line-management levels, businesspeople face moral decisions that cannot be easily resolved with reference to a shared ethos, whether because of diversity of ethea in the organization or its environment, or because the organization's ethos is inadequate for the problem at hand. These decisions are made more common by the changing norms of a pluralistic business environment, and require collective moral deliberation to be adequately resolved. Discourse ethics ideally characterizes the form of valid collective moral (...) deliberation. I argue that accommodation for the limitations of actual discourse makes discourse ethics, conceived in terms of the rules of practical discourse, practical for realizing improvements in the openness and validity of moral decision-making over states in which these rules are flagrantly violated. These rules have normative implications at the organizational level for the integrity approach to corporate ethics programs, and at the individual level for ethical leadership. (shrink)

Abstract:The literature contains many recommendations, both explicit and implicit, that suggest how an ethics program ought to be designed. While we recognize the contributions of these works, we also note that these recommendations are typically based on either social scientific theory or data and as a result they tend to discount the moral aspects of ethics programs. To contrast and complement these approaches, we refer to a theory of the right to identify the characteristics of an effective ethics program. We (...) draw from Kant’s ethical theory to identify three guiding principles of a moral ethics program and then apply those principles to the specific components of ethics programs as discussed in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Doing so provides insights as to how an ethics program ought to be designed from a moral point of view and sparks discussion of the moral aspects of ethics programs. (shrink)

The examples of which he complained were trivial in either or both of two ways. Some were examples of the minor perplexities of life, such as returning library books or annoying the neighbours with one's music; some were examples described only in outline rather than in depth; and some examples were both minor and schematic.

Those who deny that general principles are important for moral deliberation have mostly misunderstood how principles work. Principles do not give us algorithms for living. They identify broad requirements we must live up to, but they do not actually tell us what to do. We are left instead to craft responses that honor our general commitments using the materials of the case at hand.

Despite the recent rash of corporate scandals and the resulting rush to address the problem by adding more laws and regulations,seemingly little attention has been paid to how the nature (not the substance) of rules may or may not affect ethical decision-making.Drawing on work in law, ethics, management, psychology, and other social sciences, this article explores how several characteristics of rules may interfere with the process of reaching and implementing ethical decisions. Such a relationship would have practical implications for regulatory (...) policy and managers of organizations, and the article concludes by suggesting how regulations and corporate ethics programs should be able to improve the ethical culture of business and enhance the ethical decision-making skills of employees. (shrink)

1. Presumably the point of, say, inculcating a moral outlook lies in a concern with how people live. It may seem that the very idea of a moral outlook makes room for, and requires, the existence of moral theory, conceived as a discipline which seeks to formulate acceptable principles of conduct. It is then natural to think of ethics as a branch of philosophy related to moral theory, so conceived, rather as the philosophy of science is related to science. On (...) this view, the primary topic of ethics is the concept of right conduct, and the nature and justification of principles of behaviour. If there is a place for an interest in the concept of virtue, it is a secondary place. Virtue is a disposition to behave rightly; the nature of virtue is explained, as it were, from the outside in. (shrink)

If particularism is right, the broad moral claims we make are usually riddled with exceptions. But such generalizations can still be a useful, even necessary part of moral life. They help us show what we should do, and they are essential for understanding why we should do it.

. In this post-Enron era, we have heard much talk about the need for integrity. Today’s employees perceive it as being in short supply. A recent survey by the Walker Consulting Firm found that less than half of workers polled thought their senior leaders were people of high integrity. To combat the perceived lack of corporate integrity, companies are stressing their probity. This stress is problematic because executives tend to instrumentalize the value of integrity. This paper argues that integrity needs (...) to be better defined because the current mode of talking about the subject is misleading. The paper considers three traditions’ understanding of the idea of integrity, argues that integrity is intrinsically valuable, and concludes with some reflections on the way in which integrity, properly understood, functions as a business asset. (shrink)

This article explores differences in the ways in which utilitarian, deontological and virtue/aretic ethics treat of act, outcome, and agent. I argue that virtue ethics offers important and distinctive insights into business practice, insights overlooked by utilitarian and deontological ethics.

Abstract:Alasdair Maclntyre (1984) asserts that the ethical systems of the Enlightenment (formalism and utilitarianism) have failed to provide a meaningful definition of “good.” Lacking such a definition, business managers have no internal standards by which they can morally evaluate their roles or acts. Maclntyre goes on to claim that managers have substituted external measures of “winning” or “effectiveness” for any internal concept of good. He supports a return to the Aristotelian notion of virtue or “excellence.” Such a system of virtue (...) ethics depends on an interrelationship of the community, one’s roles in that community, and the virtues one needs to perform that role well. This article develops Maclntyre’s concept of virtue ethics and shows how this paradigm fits well with existing theories about organizational behavior. (shrink)

Abstract:Alasdair Maclntyre (1984) asserts that the ethical systems of the Enlightenment (formalism and utilitarianism) have failed to provide a meaningful definition of “good.” Lacking such a definition, business managers have no internal standards by which they can morally evaluate their roles or acts. Maclntyre goes on to claim that managers have substituted external measures of “winning” or “effectiveness” for any internal concept of good. He supports a return to the Aristotelian notion of virtue or “excellence.” Such a system of virtue (...) ethics depends on an interrelationship of the community, one’s roles in that community, and the virtues one needs to perform that role well. This article develops Maclntyre’s concept of virtue ethics and shows how this paradigm fits well with existing theories about organizational behavior. (shrink)

Respect, Pluralism, and Justice is a series of essays which sketches a broadly Kantian framework for moral deliberation, and then uses it to address important social and political issues. Hill shows how Kantian theory can be developed to deal with questions about cultural diversity, punishment, political violence, responsibility for the consequences of wrongdoing, and state coercion in a pluralistic society.

Thomas Hill, a leading figure in the recent development of Kantian moral philosophy, presents a set of essays exploring the implications of basic Kantian ideas for practical issues. The first part of the book provides background in central themes in Kant's ethics; the second part discusses questions regarding human welfare; the third focuses on moral worth -- the nature and grounds of moral assessment of persons as deserving esteem or blame. Hill shows moral, political, and social philosophers just how valuable (...) moral theory can be in addressing practical matters. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The purpose of this paper is to formulate and defend a set of moral principles applicable to management. Our motivation is twofold: 1) to increase the coherence and utility of Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT); and 2) to initiate an alternative stream of business ethics research. To those ends, we specify what counts as adequate guidance in navigating the ethical terrain of business. In doing so, a key element of ISCT, Substantive Hypernorms, is found to be flawed beyond repair. So (...) we propose and defend a remedy:prima faciemoral principles. After delineating the appropriate criteria and format for such principles, we formulate, explain, and defend five of them. We conclude with a brief comment on future research possibilities. (shrink)

This article argues for the compatibility of casuistry and the business case method. It describes the salient features of casuistryand the case method, shows how the two methods are similar yet different, and suggests how elements of casuistry might benefit theuse of the case method in management education. Toward these ends, it shows how casuistry and the case method are both inductive and practical methods of reasoning focussed on single settings and real-life situations and how both methods stress that real-life (...) decision making is not the exclusive domain of experts. It also shows how casuistry and the case method are not identical processes but have different purposes and emphasize order and problem-resolution differently. In the end, Casuistry and the Business Case Method suggests that, despite their differences, casuistry and the case method might be brought together to benefit business management and the field of business ethics. (shrink)

Abstract:The literature contains many recommendations, both explicit and implicit, that suggest how an ethics program ought to be designed. While we recognize the contributions of these works, we also note that these recommendations are typically based on either social scientific theory or data and as a result they tend to discount the moral aspects of ethics programs. To contrast and complement these approaches, we refer to a theory of the right to identify the characteristics of an effective ethics program. We (...) draw from Kant’s ethical theory to identify three guiding principles of a moral ethics program and then apply those principles to the specific components of ethics programs as discussed in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Doing so provides insights as to how an ethics program ought to be designed from a moral point of view and sparks discussion of the moral aspects of ethics programs. (shrink)

Integrity is a central topic in business ethics, and in the world of business it is quite possibly the most commonly cited morally desirable trait. But integrity is conceived in widely differing ways, and as often as it is discussed in the literature and given a central place in corporate ethics statements, the notion is used so variously that its value in guiding everyday conduct may be more limited than is generally supposed. Two central questions for this paper are what (...) work the notion does and whether it does any ethical work that is not done better by other concepts. In pursuing these questions the paper explores the most plausible range of understandings of integrity found in recent literature, considers in what sense it is a virtue, and proposes a strategy of clarification and interpretation that can facilitate both ethical reflection and the guidance of moral conduct in business. (shrink)

Integrity is a central topic in business ethics, and in the world of business it is quite possibly the most commonly cited morally desirable trait. But integrity is conceived in widely differing ways, and as often as it is discussed in the literature and given a central place in corporate ethics statements, the notion is used so variously that its value in guiding everyday conduct may be more limited than is generally supposed. Two central questions for this paper are what (...) work the notion does and whether it does any ethical work that is not done better by other concepts. In pursuing these questions the paper explores the most plausible range of understandings of integrity found in recent literature, considers in what sense it is a virtue, and proposes a strategy of clarification and interpretation that can facilitate both ethical reflection and the guidance of moral conduct in business. (shrink)

In this paper the problematic nature of the morality of management, in particular related to business organisations operating under Anglo-American capitalism, is explored. MacIntyre’s critique of managers in After Virtue serves as the starting point but this critique is itself subjected to analysis leading to a more balanced and contemporary view of the morality of management than MacIntyre provides. Paradoxically perhaps, MacIntyre’s own virtues-goods-practice-institution schema is shown to provide a way of re-imagining business organisations and management and thereby holds out (...) the possibility of resolving the issue of the morality of management within such organisations. Implications for management practice are drawn out. (shrink)