Business Ethics: Brightening the Corner Where We Are

It is suggested that we canmost effectively teach ethics by carrying onactual ethical inquiry – basing our questionsand our analysis on a situation in which allparticipants are invested and in which all areaware of the risks associated with suchinquiry. It is further suggested that inuniversity-based business ethics courses, aninitial focus on the questions that need to beasked about the structure and practice of theuniversity is likely to be useful. Additionally, it is suggested that only whenthese internal questions, and the difficultiesin the way of asking them, have been addressed,should the dialogue be extended to businesscontexts. Finally, it is suggested thatproceeding in this way can help provide aneeded integrative function in the businessschool – that it can help faculty to becomemore broadly collegial and that it can put thebusiness ethics course at the very heart of aliberal education for business students.