Talk:Business ethics

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[edit] Plagiarism?

I removed a large section added by Cirm because (i) the first segments turned out to be identical copies of an earlier publication at http://www.creativeinvest.com/sri/corpeth1.html, and (ii) no sources were cited for any of the material. Cirm, if you'd like to discuss this, please feel welcome (use my talk page). I'm very happy to guide you as to how to add material based on external sources without actually plagiarising. I'm sure you meant well - you just need to change the way you use external material. Caravaca 05:48, 22 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Section on religious ethics

I put the religious views section in its own section. To my knowledge, most philosophers discussing business ethics do not pay much attention to religious views on business ethics. --LMS

Religious views on business ethics fall within the category of cultural factors in business ethics; cultural factors in business ethics in turn fall within the field of international business ethics (not business ethics per se). At least, that's one way of looking at it, which is usefully strict and logical. Caravaca 13:05, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think this is a wholly philosophical topic; there should, perhaps, be a political section, a philosophical section and a religious one. The views and discussion can probably divided like that. -- Sam
This breakdown is a bad idea. By all means introduce things like Islamic banking up front, but, this is a practical topic, and should be laid out according to the decisions made. Imagine the audience is a manager, not "most philosophers". Not every ethicist is a philosopher, that is an academic bias to say that, LMS. And, if religious authority, political ideology, or a philosophical stance hold some position on an issue, or consider some position particularly idious, that too can be laid out as part of the decision. Certainly it is part of business not to unnecessarily offend those who may become employees, customers, regulators or partners later on. So if making a decision a certain way will offend a whole group very badly, then, that is important input to the decision. EofT

I agree that business ethicists generally do not take a religious and casuistric view of ethical issues. They tend to look for general principles that can be applied in specific situations rather than depending on a particular religious casuistry. But some business people do depend on their religious casuistry and principles so we should probably mention them. My problem is as the article now stands the religious section says little more than "My religion has an extensive body of writing on the topic". If this is all that can be said, it should be erased. mydogategodshat 18:30, 7 Dec 2003 (UT )

il recently, this was a stub article; it doesn't need to be erased. Wikipedia is a work-in-progress, and a great many of our articles are stub articles. Your recent work is an excellent example of why this article should stay here; its very existence is encouraging others to contribute. I wrote about religious forms of business ethics rather than secular forms, merly because I know slightly more about the former rather than the latter. I encourage and welcome new contribution to this article from you and others! RK 18:55, Dec 7, 2003 (UTC)
Well I hope someone can turn the religious section into something more than praise for three religions. mydogategodshat 20:42, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)
A little searching turned up this essay on Sikh business ethics, which are certainly as worthy of inclusion as any of the three already there... but I'm a little leery of adding it myself with just that one source, given the extensive references given for the ones already in place. Maybe someone more familiar with the religion should do it, too. Aquillion 00:01, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Political section and philosophy of business

As for the political section, that is probably better in a philosophy of business article but we don't have one yet, so here is as good as anywhere. mydogategodshat 18:43, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Volunteer

This article is marked as needing attention, so I volunteer to give it. I just finished a university course in Business Ethics a week ago and received an "A," so I'm ready. However, this will be my first major contribution to Wikipedia. Are there others who want me to add the information in pieces or rewrite it as one complete overhaul? I plan to go more in-depth on the philosophers, cultures (religions), and modern issues. --Psients 18:20, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think it would be best to add info in pieces, one section at a time. RK

[edit] Christian business ethics

The purpose of this article is to discuss Business ethics, the field of ethics that examines moral controversies relating to the social responsibilities of business practices, in any economic system. It looks at various business activities and asks "Is this ethically right or wrong?" There are a number of Christian philosophers and economists who have written on the intersection between Christian ethics and real-life practical business situations, and how Christian ethics affects the actual use of money, loans, business, banking, investment, etc. Such work should be discussed here.

I understand that a general statement by someone not involved in business ethics might be "the life of a Christian is informed by more than biblical laws, but also by the loving freedom that the gospel offers.", but that is vague, and is really not connected to the specific topic we are dealing with here. RK

This section still needs much work. Nevermind the fact that there is no specific reference to business ethics, it reads like a sermon and not an encyclopedia. Any ideas other than mine (i.e. scrapping it)? Edwardian 8 July 2005 22:05 (UTC)

An interesting issue to look is the ethics in which slave owners of America's south before the civil war lived by. Being Christian and to own slaves is a very large moral issue that can't really be justified but still took place in early America. Plantation owners had to run a business in which it was thier duty to make the largest profit but also they had to live as a Christian. To be a Christian one must show compassion and understanding to all men. Also Christianity and the bible states that all men are created equal. You can see the problem with this life. --60.230.105.101 10:52, 21 February 2006 (UTC)TD

[edit] Does the Marxism stuff need to be here?

In an article that is focused on different theological positions regarding the Roman Catholic mass, it apparently isn't deemed necessary or appropriate to include a sentence saying that atheists generally take a dim view of all of those positions. An article on such a theological matter is, sensibly, presumed to concern itself with the view of people holding common premises, (see also transubstantiation!) and one could read about views that proceed from very different premises elsewhere. Why does not the same rule apply here? --Christofurio 00:18, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

The bias evident in many of the religious and political articles is a concession made to contributors who will not accept a plurality of perspectives and who engage in edit wars to ensure their beliefs are presented without criticism. The rest of the encyclopedia is subject to a higher standard. mydogategodshat 06:08, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In my opinion the whole Political theorys section should be moved to the philosophy of business article. mydogategodshat 06:15, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
My point isn't that beliefs ought to be presented without criticism. The point concerns different sorts of criticism: within an ambit and outside of it. In other words, suppose I wrote an article about different groups of Star Trek fans -- some who think Kirk was a more interesting Captain of the Enterprise than Picard, some who think the opposite. Within that context, it would make perfect sense to discuss the criticisms that each of the two groups of fans has of the other, but not so much sense to say that "yet other people think the whol Star Trek franchise is worthless." To include the out-of-ambit group in this discussion seems pointless, just like including the view that there can be no such thing as business ethics in a discussion of ... business ethics! --Christofurio 16:40, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC) At any rate, I see that your bottom line conclusion is pretty much the same as mine as regards this article. I'll wait awhile longer before taking any action, though, to see if anyone is prepared to argue the point.
Im not sure that your distinction between contenscious issues within a topic and issues relating to the nature of the topic as a whole is a useful one in deciding the content of an article. I would think both should be discussed. To make either taboo will introduce bias. I think your analogy needs to be recast. I agree that an article on "types of star trek fans" is not the proper place to discuss broad issues of the value of the franchise. That should go in an article on star trek. What does belong in the "fans" issue is a critique of star trek "fanship". The exception to this rule is when an analysis of the fundamental basis of a topic is better handled in a separate article (such as "the nature of star trek fanship"). In this case a one sentence summary and a link is all that is needed in the "types of star trek fans" article. (By the way, Kirk is the more interesting captain. How can anyone find a guy that does little other than sit in his captains chair and say "engage" interesting). mydogategodshat 20:48, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
We're in agreement, and I've just made the change. I introduced a new sentence near the top re: the distinction between business ethics and the philosophy of biz, and with my phasers set to stun I've blanked the whole political-philosophy 101 stuff neat the bottom. --Christofurio 13:51, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Split article - separate religion article?

I support the view that the religious section should be split into a separate article at Wikipedia. Reasons:

  • The article is disproportionate as a result of the current situation. In fact the article needs a lot of expansion, but even that wouldn't justify the number of references to religious views. There are simply far too many issues in business ethics which have priority.
  • The religions cited fail to reflect a proper world view. For example, the position of Confucianism on the status and obligations of business people is critical to world history. Likewise the fact that business people did not belong to the highest castes in Hindu society is something that cannot be overlooked (caste is related to ethics).
  • I teach business ethics, and despite having a theological background, if I tried to force this much religion on my students, I know their reactions would be negative.
  • I wouldn't ever tell my students to read this article as it stands.

Of course, if the religious section is split into a separate article, it will immediately need flagging as failing to reflect a properly global POV. But I think the original author knows that and would like it expanded as such.Caravaca 13:05, 12 January 2006 (UTC)


After about 9 months of deliberation, I really think this split must be done. The previous discussion on this topic (see above) spreads over 3 years, with (it seems) one person on one side - hello RK, are you watching :) - who's a great Wikipedian, and a bunch of people I don't know on the other side (which I favour).

In addition to my above points from January, here's an argument clincher:

  • The sheer volume of the religion material is hindering development of this article. Because the article is oversized, people who want to make additions are reluctant to do so.
  • In fact the religion material needs development (e.g. Asian religions) just as much as the ethics stuff does, but this is also being hindered by the size of the article.

Caravaca 07:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of "ethics"

Would it be appropriate to place a subsection on what business ethicists understand as ethics? Probably early in the article. Comparatively with what other type of research is conducted in philosophy on ethics and action, business ethics mainly consist in (in)validating the morality of business practices. When research is conducted on organizational ethical climate, for instance, the resulting studies aim at making clear what the determinants are of a climate that promotes employees' morality. So, basically, in business ethics, research is about moral acceptability of practices. Researchers then examine various organizational variables (i.e. leadership style) to see which ones play a role in boosting morality. In that sense, it is quite different from bioethics i.e. where part of the theoretical papers deal with how new contexts and new technologies impact on our understanding of what ethics mean. --Maflebouc 17:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

One could go a a meta-level above this, and ask why the emphasis of questioning in business ethics differs from that of other applied ethical areas. It might be that the business ethics is more consumer-driven (in a popularistic sense) than other ethical fields, with the result that the capacity to define its own issues lies less easily within the range of control of its theorists. Caravaca 18:06, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Further information

I'm looking for information on the following topics:

  • Competitive bidding, competitive bids
  • Diversity in the workforce
  • Minority setasides
  • anti-competition laws
  • Disparagement of competitors
    • Denigrating competitors
    • Misleading information about competitors
  • secret disclosure of proprietary information

Anybody got an idea? --Uncle Ed 15:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

antitrust laws:

Capitalism:

--Uncle Ed 15:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

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