We assume that there are certain causes that are morally wrong, worth speaking out against, and working to overcome, e.g., opposition to same sex marriage. This seems to suggest that we should also be boycotting certain businesses; particularly those whose owners advocate such views. Ideally, for the boycotter, this will end up silencing certain views, but this seems to cause two basic problems. First, it appears initially to be coercive, because it threatens the existence of the business. Second, it runs (...) counter to the intuition that we should not force unpopular opinions out of the marketplace of ideas. Boycotting is by its very nature a coercive act, and thus we have to carefully consider what types of actions may warrant this type of coercive action. In this paper, we will argue that an organized boycott is justified if and only if the actions taken by the company have negative consequences that outweigh the negative outcome of the boycott. (shrink)

Late in 1990, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology (lIT) received a grant of more than $200,000 from the National Science Foundation to try a campus-wide approach to integrating professional ethics into its technical curriculum.! Enough has now been accomplished to draw some tentative conclusions. I am the grant's principal investigator. In this paper, I shall describe what we at lIT did, what we learned, and what others, especially philosophers, can learn (...) from us. We set out to develop an approach that others could profitably adopt. I believe that we succeeded. (shrink)

Should professors engage in classroom advocacy? One argument against such advocacy is the autonomy argument offered by Joel Kupperman. Advocacy, in the sense that Kupperman is concerned with, undermines a student’s making informed decisions about important issues. This paper seeks to do three things. First, it seeks to clarify Kupperman’s autonomy argument.Second, this paper extends the argument against advocacy by buttressing the autonomy argument with an argument from citizenship. This will strengthen Kupperman’s general rule against advocacy by expanding beyond concerns (...) merely with individuals to cases where the concern is with groups, at least where the groups are composed of citizens.Last, while the autonomy argument provides a general prohibition against advocacy, it might permit exceptions, as does the citizenship argument. Thus, final part of this paper considers business ethics courses as a possible example for where exceptions might take place. (shrink)

Jeremy Davis offered critical comments on our article that argued some boycotts are pro tanto morally wrong. We argued against organized boycotts over expressive acts where the actor is attempting to engage in the market place of ideas. Davis offered two versions of a direct objection to our position – one that boycotts are not attempts to silence and one that boycotts do not cause a chilling effect – and one objection based on reframing the goals of boycotts. In this (...) Response, we argue that Davis’s direct objections are unsound and his reframing objection is consistent with our initial position. (shrink)

The utilization of Western canonical thinkers to inform and understand thinkers from India and China is nothing new. More specifically, it is very tempting for a Western-trained philosopher to explain the Buddhist conception of the self by reference to David Hume; both seem to be bundle theories. Moreover, in making such a comparison we seem to get a solution to the puzzle that Hume leaves at the end of A Treatise of Human Nature concerning personal identity. Briefly, Hume holds that (...) we are simply bundles of perceptions. He then admits that he has nothing to hold the perceptions together. The Buddhist conception of the self is as a bundle of five aggregates (skandhas) that are continually changing. In the Buddhist .. (shrink)

T. H. Marshall described three stages of citizenship leading to full membership of the community in which one resides: civil, political, and social. This development takes place within the context of states. It is appropriate at this point in history to ask if there is a further change to citizenship that reflects the increasing globalization of the world, to look into the possibility of a global citizen and ask further if this possible global citizen requires also a global or world (...) state. This paper argues that states are not necessary for the concept of citizenship, and thus that a global state is not necessary for global citizenship. One quick objection to this de-coupling of the state and citizenship is the claim that citizenship is a legal status within a full-fledged legal system. Thus, one of the main goals of this paper is to argue that a legal status of “citizen” is neither necessary nor sufficient for citizenship. Citizenship should be understood as a moral concept, not a legal one. Further, for the same reason that a legal conception is insufficient, the traditional liberal view of citizenship is also insufficient; both the legal and liberal views of citizenship are too anemic, only a republican view of citizenship is sufficiently robust to satisfy the promise of citizenship. (shrink)

_Business Ethics: The Big Picture_ asks students to focus on the assumptions underlying the activity of business. Why does society provide special protections for businesses? What is the purpose of a corporation? What do businesses owe society? And are there some things that shouldn’t be distributed by the free market? These questions are addressed through classic readings from such central figures as Adam Smith and Karl Marx, in addition to contemporary selections from Milton Friedman, R. Edward Freeman, Debra Satz, and (...) others. A number of compelling real-world case studies are also included. (shrink)