The Business Ethics Blog

No, the irony of the term “Corporate Ethics” (or “Business Ethics”) is not the oh-so-tired joke about it being an oxymoron.

The irony of the modern usage of the term is that, most places you look, it’s become a synonym for “corporate law-breaking.” Check out the Washington Post’s Business Ethics Page. See anything that DOESN’T involve criminal charges?

Clue for the uninitiated: this is ironic because, on Day 1 of Business Ethics 101, the first thing you learn is that ethics is not the same as law. I have no idea whether anything can be done to rescue the term “ethics” from it’s current deflationary usage.

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Update, Nov. 16 2008:
I’ve updated the link to the WP’s business ethics page, above. They seem to have moved the page.

Maybe this blog was a mistake. Apparently, I may not be very well
qualified to write a blog on business ethics.

Forget the peer-reviewed publications. Forget being a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Business Ethics. I just took a Business Ethics Quiz and just barely passed. In particular, I scored just 3 out of 5 on this multiple-choice test.
I won’t bore you by explaining why I blew the questions I got wrong. (I long ago came to grips with the realization that my philosophical tendencies implied that I’m morally stunted on Kohlberg’s “Stages of Moral Development.” Stuck around Level 3 or something, as I recall.)
The interesting question here is whether there’s anything to learn from quizzes of this kind. Despite my initial reservations, I have to admit that I think there IS something to learn here. I’m not at all sure that this is any kind of way to gauge character.
But the explanations offered are at least a good starting point for discussion. Of course, constructing a *better* quiz (with better explanations of which answers are right & wrong) wouldn’t be hard.
Sounds like a good assignment for an undergrad course, actually.

A secondary issue is whether the “expert” deciding the correct answers for this quiz has any business claiming expertise. It would be churlish, I guess, to point out that his bio doesn’t mention any special qualification in this regard. But the question of expertise might well be parasitic on the previous question about pedagogical usefulness. So what if he’s not an expert? If the point is to get people thinking — even in a primitive way — about the justification for their choices, any half-way reasonable quiz will do.

Well, that does it. Never one to opt out of a good party, I’ve finally hopped aboard the blogging bandwagon. Better late than never, I guess. You be the judge.

I searched the web this morning for a decent Business Ethics blog, something comparable to the Bioethics Blog at the American Journal of Bioethics. Found a couple of offerings, but nothing that blew me away. So, I guess it’s up to me.