reading questions
RQ3: (pp. 34-39)
1. How does Friedman apply the principal-agent relationship to that of business owner and corporate executive? Who are the business owners?
2. What is F.’s understanding of what is meant by the statement, “the corporate executive has a ‘social responsibility’ in his capacity as a businessman?
3. Why does F. think that endorsing corporate social responsibility “harms the foundations of a free society” and “affects the possible survival of business in general?”
4. What is the “one and only social responsibility of business,” according to F.?
RQ4: Freeman (1), “Managing for Stakeholders” (pp. 39-45)
1. What is the basic idea of “managing for stakeholders”?
2. What are the basic features of managerial/shareholder capitalism?
3. What three areas of law have developed to become inconsistent with shareholder capitalism?
4. How does the separation fallacy separate business from ethics? What is an implication of rejecting the separatist fallacy?
5. The integration thesis integrates business and ethics. How does F. define ethics in that context?
6. Do you agree with the responsibility principle that people generally want to and actually do take responsibility for “the effects of their actions on others”? Why or why not?
RQ5: Freeman (2), “Managing for Stakeholders” (pp. 45-53)
1. What is the narrow definition of a stakeholder, and who are its members? Broad definition and members?
2. What is the primary responsible of the executive?
3. What is the executive to do when stakeholder interests conflict?
4. Briefly characterize the argument for “managing for stakeholders” from consequences. The argument from rights. The argument from character.
5. What are some of the aims of pragmatist ethics? What is business about, according to pragmatists?
RQ6: Bowie and Lenway, “Case Study: H.B. Fuller in Honduras: Street Children and Substance Abuse” (pp. 21-33)
1. Why was calling the children who became addicted to inhaling glue “Resistoleros” so potentially damaging to H.B. Fuller?
2. What was the initial response of Kativo’s adverstising agency, Calderon Publicidad, to the newspaper articles calling the addicted children Resistoleros?
3. Social activists proposed adding oil of mustard to Resistol as a solution to the glue sniffing problem. Why did H.B. Fuller decide not to go with that solution?
4. What was the solution to the glue sniffing problem that H.B. Fuller opted for instead?
5. Identify all of the stakeholders in this case.
RQ7: Paine, “Managing for Organizational Integrity” (pp. 274-287)
1. According to Paine, unethical business practices are generally the result of bad apples, the moral failings of individual actors. True or False
2. How does the Sears Auto Centers’ case “illustrate the role organizations play in shaping individuals’ behavior?” (Be sure to explain the systemic features that led some employees’ judgment to suffer.)
3. What do the corporate ethics programs created in response to the 1991 Federal Sentencing Guidelines tend to emphasize? Cite one international and one domestic consideration offered by Paine to show that that emphasis is not enough.
4. What is the difference between a legal compliance program and an integrity strategy?
5. What are the two different approaches to implementing an integrity strategy?
6. In the case of InSpeech (before its turn around and name change to NovaCare), how did therapists and clinicians evaluate company success? Management and executives?
RQ8: Business Enterprise Trust, “Case Study: Merck & Co., Inc.” (pp. 250-256)
1. What was the “intriguing observation” of Dr. Campbell he shared with Dr. Vagelos?
2. How much time, and how many dollars, do studies show it takes to bring a new drug to market?
3. When Merck scientists discovered that ivermectin was a potent antiparasitic, which market did it decide to develop the substance for?
4. What were some of the considerations for developing the substance for humans, despite the risks and economic non-vitality?
5. What were some of the risks in developing the substance for humans?
RQ9: Brenkert, George G, “Private Corporations and Public Welfare,” (handout)
1. What is the “suggestion implicit” within the various forms of objections to corporations engaging in CSR?
2. An individual may receive some kind of welfare assistance from either a corporation or a public institution. When there are problems in how a corporation assists an individual, what are the special problems that arise which are not applicable when there is a problem in how a public institution assists an individual?
3. Brenkert notes that deficient public welfare “stems, at least in part, from inadequate public funding.” What roles have corporations played in this? Why does CSR for public welfare seem appealing for corporations?
4. Corporations tend to take the public as being a “realm of coercion.” What is meant by this? What does Brenkert think is left out of this conception of the public?
5. Why does Brenkert argue that “we require such large corporations be made more fully public, social organizations?”
RQ9: Donaldson, “Values in Tension: Ethics Away from Home” (pp. 476-486)
1. When it comes to resolving the moral problems of doing business away from home, what are the two answers typically used by managers?
2. What are the three “problematic principles” on which absolutism is based? Briefly state what the problem with each is, according to Donaldson.
3. Cultural relativism is equivalent to a respect for local traditions. True or False
4. What do core values define? What are the three core values Donaldson identifies?
5. Donaldson says core values “can help companies to begin to exercise ethical judgment.” What else is necessary to help guide managers through ethical dilemmas?
6. When we view a business practice in “moral free space,” how is a manger to proceed?
7. What are the two types of conflict that commonly arise when two countries have different ethical standards? What sorts of tests or questions are used to resolve each type?
RQ12: Rachels, “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism” (pp. 438-447)
1. What is Herodotus’ story about the Greeks and Callatians commonly taken to illustrate? What are the differing moral beliefs of Eskimos and Americans which is taken to illustrate the same?
2. What is the “line of thought” underlying cultural relativism that persuades many to be skeptical about ethics.
3. What is the form argument at the heart of cultural relativism. Why does Rachels’ think that the conclusion does not really follow from the premise?
4. What are the three consequences of taking cultural relativism seriously?
5. How does Rachels attempt to show that there is less disagreement about morals across societies than is apparent?
6.What three values does Rachels argue all societies hold? Why will societies need to hold these values in common?
7. What are the two lessons we should learn from cultural relativism?
RQ13: Solomon, “Corporate Roles, Personal Virtues: An Aristotelean Approach to Business Ethics” (pp. 66 78)
1.What considerations underlie why it would be “inappropriate if not perverse to couple Aristotle and business ethics?”
2. What approaches does Solomon contrast with the Aristotelean approach to business ethics?
3. What are the two “philosophical myths” that Solomon says are denials of the Aristotelean view that we are first of all members of a community?
4. What is the “familiar tragedy” an employee will probably face if he/she isolates his/her business life from the rest of his/her life?
5. What is a virtue, according to Aristotle?
6. Explain why Solomon thinks the virtues of congeniality are the ones usually required in business, and how these are distinct from the warrior virtues of courage and toughness.
7. Why does Solomon reject the familiar criticism that when corporations are generous (or engage in CSR) because they’re “only doing it for the P.R.”, this has no moral worth?
8. What are the two senses of “the virtue of toughness” Solomon analyzes?
RQ14: Bowie, “A Kantian Approach to Business Ethics” (pp. 56-66)
1. Explain what is required in order for the merchant’s honesty to be truly moral.
2. What are the two kinds of imperatives?
3. What is the first formulation of the categorical imperative? How does Kant use it to show that it would be immoral to borrow money on a promise to pay it back without the intention of paying it back.
4. What is the “respect for persons” principle? Use the principle to frame the issue about whether massive layoffs are moral.
6. What is the third formulation of the categorical imperative? How is it used to establish principle 6: that corporations have a duty of beneficence?
7. Why would the tenet that motives must be pure to be truly moral entail that all corporate actions in abidance with CSR are not truly moral? How does Bowie get around the “austerity” of this position, specifically, in the case of Marriot Corporation’s hiring of welfare recipients?
RQ15: Gustafson, “Utilitarianism and Business Ethics” (pp. 78-89)
1. What kind of method is utilitarianism usually referred to as (“casually and even in business literature")?
2. What is the “most damning” criticism of utilitarianism, according to Gustafson?
3. What are two ways that people “inadvertently” lose the capacity for higher pleasures?
4. What is conscience, and how is it developed?
5. Describe two ways in which utilitarianism can be used in business decision-making.
Williams and Lebsock, “Now What?” (handout)
----------
1. Rather then being a fight between men and women, what do Wililams and Lebsock claim the fight is about when it comes to sexual harassment in the workplace?
2. Which changes in the past decade have brought us to this “startling moment” where the #MeToo movement has met with such success?
3. What is the old stereotype of women, which leads to disbelieving them?
4. What was the typical way that companies settled sexual harassment complaints, and why do Williams and Lebsock claim that quiet “settlements are now becoming harder to justify?”
5. What is Roger Park’s observation about sexual harassment?
6. Why is it illegal and unfair for men to “avoid women completely?”
Kimmel, “Getting Men to Speak Up” (handout)
7. Why do men harass women, according to Kimmel?
8. Why do men “sometimes seem bewildered” when they are accused of sexual harassment for behavior that might have occurred decades ago?
9. What are the three factors that explain the persistence of sexual harassment?
10. Why don’t men speak up when they observe sexual harassment, even if they think it is wrong?
RQ#16: Vicki Schultz, “Sex is the Least of It: Let’s Focus Harassment Law on Work, Not Sex” (handout).
1. According to Schultz, most sexual harassment is really about ________.
2. What is “quid pro quo” harassment?
3. According to Schultz, how has the popular view of sexual harassment proven both too narrow and too broad?
4. True or False? Schultz agrees with Catherine MacKinnon’s definition of sexual harassment as “the unwanted imposition of sexual requirements in the context of a relationship of unequal power”.
5. According to Schultz, how are men subjected to the same debilitating forms of sexual harassment as women?
RQ16: Johnson (1), “Privacy” (pp. 196-210)
1. Explain the concept of Panopticon and its influence on behavior.
2. What are the first three considerations Johnson offers as evidence that there is something different about the kind and degree of record-keeping that is possible in the computer age that wasn’t the case 150 years ago?
3. What sorts of restrictions were put in place by the Privacy Act of 1974 on “data matching,” or data mining, as it is now called?
4. What are the two additional considerations offered by Johnson for the thesis that there is something different about record-keeping now.
5. What sorts of uses do organizations want information for?
6. Why does Johnson hold that framing the computer and privacy issues as a matter of balancing the needs of users of information against the needs or rights of individuals is skewed in favor of information gathering?
7. What is the difference between the two ways that privacy can be valued as either an instrumental or intrinsic good? How does Johnson think the latter can be grounded?
8. What is it that is morally important about being able to control our information when it comes to organizations?
RQ16: Johnson (2), “Privacy” (pp. 210-220)
1. How does Johnson argue for privacy as a social good using the idea of the panopticon?
2. Johnson considers the argument that individuals who have nothing to hide, have nothing to fear in relation to information gathering. What are the three considerations she presents in objection to this argument?
3. Johnson next considers that individuals’ giving information about themselves implies that they have opted to give up their privacy. What is her response?
4. What is the name of the code that has operated as standard through the 70s and 80s, and in what ways is it no longer standard?
5. In Johnson’s discussion of the “broad conceptual changes,” she mentions that we need to re-conceptualize how corporations are treated. How are they currently treated and how ought we to treat them?
RQ18: Bok, “Whisteblowing and Professional Responsibility” (pp. 128-135)
1. At what do whistleblowers aim?
2. What are the 3 moral conflicts faced by a whistleblower?
3. Bok notes that there has been “a shift toward greater public support of whistleblowers.” What are the dangers of whistleblowing that may be overlooked as a result?
4. What are the three elements that lend whistleblowing its special urgency and bitterness?
5. How does Bok use these to offer guidance to the potential whistleblower as he/she is considering whether the choice to whistleblow is the right one?
RQ19: Rawls, “Distributive Justice” (pp. 222-228)
1. Why does Rawls think a rational man would not accept an institution that is based on the principle of utility?
2. What is the “natural alternative” to the principle of utility, and what is its aim?
3. What does Rawls mean when he says that principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance? What is that meant to prevent?
4. What are the two principles of justice that rational persons would chose in the original position?
5. What, according to Rawls, justifies the “inequality in life-prospects” of a son of the member of the entrepreneurial class and a son of an unskilled laborer?