Morality and Business (PHIL 164.001)

This course offers a broad survey into Business Ethics from a philosophical perspective. We begin by familiarizing ourselves with the basic approaches in ethical theory, using Michael Sandel’s excellent and up-to-date introductory text Justice – What’s the right thing to do? We then take brief tour through the nature and development of capitalism with James Fulcher’s Capitalism – A very short introduction. Finally we survey a number of specific topics, including the ethical responsibilities of the cooperation, the ethical aspects of the employer-employee relationship, ethical issues regarding emerging technologies, ethical issues concerning sustainability and the environment, matters of social and distributive justice, and some issues arising from more recent and controversial business practices in finance. We are going to take a close view on the impact of low wage employment through the very enjoyable read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. Our main textbook is going to be Ethical Theory and Business by Beauchamp, Bowie and Arnold.

Stan Husi’s webpage