March PHL295Y 16th 2012
Review:
- Smith: Trade generates wealth; driven by individual self-interest via invisible hand
- Cocase & Sen: Invisible hand is powerful but not perfect; we need other mechanisms like
ethics
- Freeman: Corporate managers have ethical obligations to a range of stakeholders
- Goodpaster: not all stakeholders are equal; shareholders are special
- Boatright: shareholders and special because of their role in corporate gov., not
- Heath: ethical key to business is preventing market failure
- Buchanan: organizations need to get members to internalize norms to prevent disloyalties
Timothy Casgrain (Guest Speaker)
- Chairman of CBC
- (moral circle within legal circle)
- Employees -> customers -> shareholders (southwest airlines)
- Honesty and competence at top of corporation
- Financial times magazine (London)
Whitbeck:
- Ethics as design
- Not a multiple choice test; not the train scenario
- Sometimes looking back is looking forward
- Ethical problems are practical problems
- Design problems are problems of making things and processes to satisfy wants and needs,
within a set of know n constraints
Lessons:
1. Problems dont always have solutions or one best solution
a. Solving vs. coping
2. But there are always bad solutions
3. Competing solutions are difficult to compare
a. Outcomes vs rights/duties vs Achieve justice/fairness
4. a performance or goal
a. Conform to specifications and constraints
b. Be secure against accidents and changes
The Big Lesson:
- See ethics from the perspective of a moral agent, not a judge or a critic
- Ethics is a creative enterprise, not a simple judgement
Geva:
- Typology of Ethical problems
o Systematic categorization of ethical issues
- Two key dimensions
o Judgement knowing what to do
o Motivation is there a commitment to doing it
- Result in four types of ethical dilemmas (see chart)
o Genuine Dilemma (Motivation determinate, judgement indeterminate)
o Compliance Problem(Motivation indeterminate, judgement determinate)
o Moral Laxity (Motivation indeterminate, Judgement indeterminate)
o No-problem problem (Motivation determinate, judgement determinate)
-
Advice for each type:
o Genuine Dilemmas:
A code of ethics can help
Choose a path, or get creative
o Compliance Problem:
Use a strategy for reinforcing good conduct
A system of incentives (sticks and carrots)
o Moral Laxity:
Clarify responsibilities
o No-problem problem:
How do we build from here, proactively?
How do we improve the odds of acting ethically in the future?
Next class:
- Threats to decision making
o Excuses and rationalizations
- Read Heath carefully
- Skim others
o Duchon and Drake
o Ketola
o Mazar, Amir, and Ariely