A Primer on Business Ethics (book)

After reading one review of this book I wanted to see for myself and lo and behalf found that there is a discussion of Enron in the Epilog. (The reviewer spoke out without reading the book, which is dirty pool.) In any case, while the authors are indeed champions of the free market, this doesn't by any means tell the whole story. They also defend a virtue ethics in terms of which various professions are held to their (explicit or implicit) oath. People in business, in particular, are committed to make their enterprise prosper and if they engage, for example, in racial, sexual or other kinds of irrelevant discrimination, they are guilty of violating the ethics of their profession and may also be guilty of injustice in general. This book, thus, is full of precise enough guideliness for how to conduct oneself in business, what would make one an unethical advertiser, manager, personnel director, and corporate executive. The authors' view of advertising as an means of promotion rather than information dissemination is especially useful, as is their discussion of employment ethics. All in all a good text that is by no means easy on business, even if not a business basher as most such texts manage to be.

This informative and well-written book is only as good as the philosophical vision which informs and supports it, which in this case is the philosophy of libertarianism. However, libertarianism extols the virtues of the free market to such an extent that it seems toothless as a basis for business ethics. In my opinion, A Primer on Business Ethics could be retitled as A Primer on Business Apologetics on account to its excessive tolerance towards business practices (including kickbacks and bribery) which most people rightly find ethically dubious. What are we to make of a business ethics book written in 2002, which makes no mention of Worldcom, Enron or ImClone in its text or index? If ripping off stockholders is compatible with a libertarian conception of business ethics, then so much the worse for that conception. If it is not compatible with that conception, the authors should have mentioned it. The silence is deafening.

I would also like to add that the dedication of the book to the victims of 9-11 'because they were members of the business community' is in poor taste, because many of the victims were not business persons, and because the authors (absurdly) make the victims sound like martyrs for capitalism. It sounds like an opportunistic attempt to recruit the dead for the libertarian world-view. Perhaps the dedication is good for the business of selling the book, but that only shows that what is good for business is not necessarily good, period.

This is a clearly written, lucid and interesting business ethics primer that will be useful for anyone interested in business ethics. The main shortcoming of the book in my opinion is the general perspective of libertarianism from which it is written. While it is true that the book does not indulge in 'business ethics', it veers towards the other extreme of business apologetics at many stages. What are we to think of a business ethics primer, with a chapter on insider trading, which makes no mention of Enron or ImClone?