Business, Ethics, and Business Ethics

Abstract

Abstract What are a businessperson’s moral obligations? One might argue that being in business does not excuse immoral behavior and that therefore a businessperson’s moral obligations are essentially the same as those of anyone else; one might then infer that there are no interesting moral issues that relate just to business. Alternatively, one might argue that a businessperson acting in a business capacity does not have an obligation to be moral in an ordinary sense: in the long run, in fact, the important stakeholders in the business system are best off if its individual participants faithfully and even ruthlessly serve their managers and stockholders. If either claim is true, the study of business ethics loses much of its point. If a businessperson’s moral obligations all derive just from being a person, then business ethics is nothing more than ethics, essentially the same whether applied to businesspeople or others. If, on the other hand, a businessperson had better not be moral, then business ethics is truly an oxymoron. To defeat these claims requires that we address an issue we have already discussed in a slightly different guise: what is the relationship between the moral obligations that come with one’s role in the business system and the moral obligations that one normally has anyway?