Economics as ethics: Bastiat's nineteenth century interpretation

Frederic Bastiat was an influential economic writer of the middle 1800s. In his work,Economic Sophisms (1848), Bastiat proposed a dual system of ethics, containing economic ethics and religious ethics.Bastiat first described the tendency of individuals toward plunder as a means of satisfying their economic needs. Men, he held, could work and produce what they needed by toil, but history had shown that men preferred to take what they could from others who had toiled. Bastiat identified two main types of plunder — force and fraud.Bastiat held that appeals made by philosophers over the centuries had done little to stop plunder. He believed that the best way to reduce physical and moral aggression was by educating individuals to the harmful effects caused by violent and fraudulent behavior.Thus, Bastiat proposed two systems of ethics — economic ethics and religious ethics. Under his system of economic ethics, Bastiat suggested that the recipients of maleficent actions could be stimulated to resist the actions when they were made aware of the true social costs caused by the oppressors. Under his system of religious ethics, Bastiat thought that the perpetrators of maleficent actions could be dissuaded from performing the actions by appealing to their sense of justice and morality.M. G. O'Donnell, Professor of Economics at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, is the author of various articles on early contributions to the discipline of economics, specifically on the writings of Harriet Martineau, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henry Sidgwick which have been published in theJournal of Economic Education, theSocial Science Quarterly and theHistory of Political Economy. She has written various articles on educational techniques which have been published in theJournal of Economic Education andSocial Studies, and is the author ofThe Educational Thought of the Classical Political Economists (1985).     

Economics,ethics, and tort remedies: The emerging concept of hedonic value

This article reviews the development of hedonic value of life as a remedy in wrongful death and personal injury tort cases. Hedonic value estimates the worth of lost pleasures of living in an effort to compensate for intangible enjoyments, such as quality of education and environmental standards. This remedy goes well beyond the traditional approach which has compensated primarily for lost earnings and other expenses directly related to the tortious conduct. Most of the attention regarding hedonic value as a relatively new tort remedy has focused on its application in non-business litigation. However, given the significant damage awards in recent cases, it is likely that this economic theory will arise in commercial litigation, especially products liability cases. The business community must be conversant with the ethical issues raised by this novel tort remedy in order to fashion a reasoned and socially acceptable contra-position.Jack E. Karns, is an Associate Professor of Business Law at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. His research is directed toward corporate law, securities, and government regulation of business issues including ethical considerations. He has published in numerous legal journals including the Dickinson, University of Richmond, and Memphis State University Law Reviews.     

Theological ethics and business ethics

Philosophers have constituted business ethics as a field by providing a systematic overview that interrelates its problems and concepts and that supplies the basis for building on attained results. Is there a properly theological task in business ethics? The religious/theological literature on business ethics falls into four classes: (1) the application of religious morality to business practices; (2) the use of encyclical teachings about capitalism; (3) the interpretation of business relations in agapa-istic terms; and (4) the critique of business from a liberation theological point of view. Theologians have not adequately addressed the questions of whether there are particular theological tasks in the field as they define it, and whether, if they define it, the theological definition is different from the philosophical.     

老年经济学与老龄化经济学

作为新兴的经济学分支学科,老年经济学和老龄化经济学还有一些基础理论方面的问题需要研究.老年经济学和老龄化经济学是两个彼此独立又相互联系的经济学分支学科,它们彼此之间在研究对象、研究内容、基本假设和原则,以及理论支持体系等方面都存在着差别.对这些差别的认识将有助于我们对老年经济学和老龄化经济学分析的深入.     

老年经济学与老龄化经济学

作为新兴的经济学分支学科,老年经济学和老龄化经济学还有一些基础理论方面的问题需要研究.老年经济学和老龄化经济学是两个彼此独立又相互联系的经济学分支学科,它们彼此之间在研究对象、研究内容、基本假设和原则,以及理论支持体系等方面都存在着差别.对这些差别的认识将有助于我们对老年经济学和老龄化经济学分析的深入.     

The business of ethics and the ethics of business

This is an essay in personal business ethics of executives as distinguished from the institutional ethics of corporations. Its purpose is to give practical moral guidance to executives for the conduct of their lives both as corporate decision-makers and as human beings. The pivotal concept in this model of personal business ethics is a direct appeal to the self-interest of executives in their being moral. Our thesis is that generally there is a twofold return on investment in ethics (ROIE) for executives. The first one is related to employee output: by becoming a self-actualizing moral type, executives indicate commitment to excellence. Accordingly, they so manage employees that the latter can also live up to their full potential and excell. And that would increase corporate productivity and product or service quality. The second payback of morality is personal: fully developed, self-actualized managers are generally happier people than those whose growth has been arrested. In brief, moral self-actualization is the same as commitment to excellence and there is a payback in being the best. Return on investment in ethics and return on investment in excellence can both be abbreviated as ROIE. We accomplish the purpose and establish the thesis of this essay by seeking answers to the following questions: What business does ethics have in business? What business does business have in ethics? Is there a return on investment in ethics for executives? and Does being moral help executives become more effective managers? In sketching answers to these questions, we first show why executives need a personal business ethics especially in today's world. Then, we sketch the nature of ethics and of business. After these introductory materials, the body of the paper argues for a personal business ethics for executives by correlating elements of management theory with ethics. Specifically, it links a theory of employee motivation with a scale of values, management character types with moral types, and management leadership styles with morality. Then, the practical technique of life by objectives (LBO) is explained. It can help executives manage their lives more effectively in both the business and ethical sense. We conclude by explaining ideals of excellence which can guide executives in their work and development both as managers and as human beings.     

Teaching ethics without ethics to teach

Changes in American society have brought both increased concern for solving practical problems and decreased concern for whether foundational ethical theory can be, or needs to be, understood when solving them. A systematic study of newly established institutes of applied ethics reveals that the directors of all of them claim that ethical theory, or knowledge of the ultimate bases for moral appeals inherent in human nature, is not necessary for proposing solutions. Quotations from claims of directors of five prominent institutes are cited as evidence for the thesis that teaching applied ethics without teaching theoretical foundations of ethics is the main line policy today.     

Experiential ethics: A blueprint for personal and corporate ethics

There is a tendency to think of ethics as a universal body of principles governing human behavior. Richard R. Niebuhr challenges this universalist perspective by examining the development of human consciousness as an individual enterprise originating in immediate human experience. His conclusions lead us towards an understanding of conscience as likewise individual and experiential. It also enables us to identify a corporate consciousness or conscience which accounts for, yet prescinds, individual differences. In effect, Niebuhr's thinking in these matters provides us with a chart or blueprint for better ethical decision-making in business situations.Marist Father Patrick Primeaux teaches business ethics at Saint John's University, Jamaica, New York. He has a Ph.D. in Theology from Saint Michael's College of the University of Toronto and an M.B.A. from Southern Methodist University. In addition to business ethics, he is doing research and writing in the area of church management.     

Is there any ethics in business ethics

It is argued, against Richard T. De George, that while clarification of concepts, implications, and presuppositions in business ethics largely relies on a neutral territory of reason, determination of what moral intuitions are correct depends on non-neutral ethical theories. The latter posit ethics in business to varying degrees. Thus while the Kantian and utilitarian ethical theories are, for De George, proper (philosophical) approaches to business ethics, they are as reliant on affirming and encouraging moral sentiments outside parameters of pure reason as theological approaches. And hence if theological approaches can make no unique contribution by virtue of relying on more than reason or experience alone, then philosophical approaches can make no distinctive contribution either. Either both are viable or neither are. Oscillation between the mutually dependent notions of business ethics and ethics in business obfuscates what the field of business ethics is and renders De George's position inadequate.Robert Trundle, Jr., received his Ph.D. at the University of Colorado, and is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Northern Kentucky University where he teaches Business Ethics. He has worked at such companies as Stearns-Roger and Rogerson-Hiller Corporation where he was a member of the Hazardous Materials Safety Committee.     

Blockchain and business ethics

This paper provides, from a business ethics perspective, a basic clustering of the morally (a) favorable, (b) unfavorable, and (c) ambivalent dimensions of blockchain technology and its various emergent applications. Instead of proffering specific assessments on particular aspects of blockchain‐based business models, we aim to offer an initial overview that charters the territory so that future research can bring about such moral assessments in an informed and orderly fashion. The main contribution of this paper lies in identifying several morally ambivalent dimensions of blockchain technology, which we finally link to two strands of business ethics research: ethical and legal aspects of legislation as well as a link to Habermasian corporate social responsibility theory arguing for transparent data production and consumption on the blockchain. We conclude that future research is necessary for moral assessment of the ambivalent cases, since their ethical evaluation changes depending on whether one analyzes them through the lenses of utilitarianism, contractarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics, respectively.     

Marxism and business ethics

I explain how a Marxist would understand and respond to the phenomenon of business ethics. In Section I, I maintain that a Marxist would supplement traditional explanations of the increased interest in business ethics by an emphasis on class needs created by a situation of declining profits. I argue, in Section II, that business ethics might be used to address two needs created by this situation: (1) to legitimate the system of capitalist production: and (2) to discipline individual members of the bourgeoisie so that they will refrain from pursuing their individual interests when these conflict with the interests of their class. In Section III, I argue that there is no guarantee that business ethics will develop to meet these class needs, and that the questions to which an interest in business ethics gives rise may themselves lead to serious and effective criticism of business.An earlier version of this essay was read at a meeting of the Society for Business Ethics, American Philosophical Association (Boston, 28 December 1980), and I am grateful to the participants, especially George Brenkert, for their helpful discussion. The position I present has also benefited from comments on that earlier version by David Bayless, David Schweickart, and Daniel Wikler. I would especially like to thank Thomas Donaldson and Richard W. Miller both for their comments on this paper and for discussions of the topics of Marxism and business ethics.     

Framing and situational ethics

Prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979) suggests a number of subjective biases to which human judgment is prone (such as the framing effect). Economic consequences of such biases have received ample attention; however, potentially important ethical implications have been neglected. We conducted an experiment in which 81 M.B.A. students were asked to choose between two courses of action, one less ethical than the alternative. Printed scenarios varied the framing of the choice problems. Findings suggest that the propensity to choose a less ethical course of action over a more ethical alternative can be influenced by how a decision problem is described or framed.     

Issues management and ethics

Issues management (IM) is becoming widely accepted in the business-and-society literature as a policy tool to enhance the social performance of corporations. Its acceptance is based on the presumption that firms have incorporated ethical norms into their decision-making process. This paper argues that IM is simply a technique to identify, analyze, and respond to social issues. It can be used either to improve or forestall corporate social performance. Different values will steer IM practitioners in different policy directions.If IM is to be more than a social gadget, designed to promote the firm's narrow economic objectives, it must be self-consciously grounded in ethics. Stakeholder analysis and the comprehensive corporate ethic are concepts that can help forge links between ethics and the administrative process, between values and decision-making in IM. Jeanne M. Logsdon is Assistant Professor of Management at Santa Clara University. She received a Ph. D. in Business and Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1983. Her dissertation received the Best Dissertation Award from the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management. A brief summary of her dissertation, Organizational Responses to Environmental Issues: Oil Refining Companies and Air Pollution, appears in Research in Corporate Social Performance and Policy, vol. 7.David R. Palmer is Assistant Professor of Management at Santa Clara University where he teaches courses in Business Policy and Business and Public Policy. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration and a Ph.D. in Business and Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley.     

Corporate Strategy and ethics

Corporate Strategy has emerged as a central metaphor for private-sector enterprise. Given inherent imperfections in markets, one important question to consider is how well the practice of Corporate Strategy contributes to social welfare. An account of the implicit morality of free markets is developed as a standard against which two particular, second best solutions to market imperfections — namely, American federal antitrust policy and Corporate Strategy — are compared. Corporate Strategy is subsequently evaluated in terms of the fundamental principles of Rawls' theory of justice. In both analyses, Corporate Strategy is found to depart significantly and systematically from the standards of social justice. An alternative principle, grounded in the concept of duty, is introduced as a means for reconceptualizing Corporate Strategy.Daniel R. Gilbert, Jr. is a doctoral student in the Strategic Management and Organization program, School of Management, University of Minnesota, and also serves as an Instructor in Strategic Management and a Research Associate in the Strategic Management Research Center.     

Culture and Economics

The question of how far it is necessary to include cultural factors in the analysis of economic processes has become topical again in recent years. The first contribution to this Forum introduces a cultural approach to economics. This is followed by an article that examines the transition processes in central and eastern Europe from an econocultural perspective. The next article deals with the concept of a country-specific national tax culture and its implications for tax policy, especially in the context of transformation processes. The final paper discusses Turkey’s economic culture and its possible impact on the country’s integration into the European Union. * This outline is in its main parts the result of cooperation with Bernd Remmele and Joachim Zweynert. The author wishes to express his indebtness to Inga Fuchs for central insights on this subject, and to Michael Wohlgemuth, who helped to finish this paper in a short period of time. ** This article originates in a research project on the historical and cultural path dependence of the transition processes in Central and Eastern Europe (with special focus on the Baltic Sea region). The project is carried out jointly by the Hamburg Institute of International Economics and the University of Hamburg and funded by the VolkswagenStiftung.     

A question of ethics: Developing information system ethics

This study develops a pedagogy for the teaching of ethical principles in information systems (IS) classes, and reports on an empirical study that supports the efficacy of the approach. The proposed pedagogy involves having management information systems professors lead questioning and discussion on a list of ethical issues as part of their existing IS courses. The rationale for this pedagogy involves (1) the maturational aspects of ethics, and (2) the importance of repetition, challenge, and practice in developing a personal set of ethics. A study of IS ethics using a pre-post test design found that classes receiving such treatment significantly improved their performance on an IS ethics questionnaire. It appears to me that in Ethics, as in all other philosophical studies, the difficulties ... are mainly due to ... the attempt to answer questions, without first discovering precisely what question it is which you desire to answer. George Edward Moore, Principia Ethica [1903], preface. Eli Cohen is an associate professor of Management Information Systems at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois. He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University and holds CDP, CCP, CSP and CDE certificates. He is also Midwest Editor for Government Technology Magazine.Larry Cornwell is professor of Business Management and Administration at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois. He is the recipient of the 1988 Midwest Grain Teaching Award and has extensive consulting experience to industry. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri at Rolla. He has numerous publications in statistics, mathematical programming, computer science and information systems.     

Management priorities and management ethics

The management process affects the level of ethical performance in organizational life. As one part of this process, managers establish priorities which give direction to an organization. In business firms, management typically stresses the attainment of profits and other related economic and technical factors. Since little explicit recognition is given to ethics, the resulting climate makes it easy to ignore ethical factors. Changing this situation by making ethics a significant part of the corporate culture is difficult and requires a combination of management communication and management example. However, managers who choose to emphasize ethics and who skillfully articulate their importance can improve the integration of ethics into the day-to-day operating decisions of the firm. Justin G. Longenecker is Chavanne Professor of Christian Ethics in Business at Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University, Waco, Texas 76798, U.S.A. His most important publications are: Management, 6th ed. (Charles E. Merrill Publ. C., Columbus 1984), co-authored with Charles D. Pringle; Small Business Management, 6th ed. (South-Western Publ. Co., Cincinnati 1983), co-authored with H. N. Broom and Carlos W. Moore; and numerous journal articles, including: The Ethics of MBO, Academy of Management Review (April, 1982), pp. 305–312, co-authored with Charles D. Pringle.     

Affirmative action and redistributive ethics

Management faces complex race related issues in which groups arguing entitlement appear to claim benefits historically enjoyed by others. Thus many affirmative action issues provoke animosity because they are framed as zero sum problems. To some extent they are zero sum. Therefore, rationales for corporate policy must address that forthrightly. Up to now the corporate justification has been weak. The article describes a social debt owed interracially resulting from the accumulation of current class benefits from past discrimination, and asserts that affirmative action policies have a firm ethical basis inasmuch as they are affectively redistributing benefits to pay the social debt. Richard F. America is a program manager at the U.S. Small Business Administration and Research Associate at the Howard University, Institute for Urban Affairs. He has taught at the business schools at the University of California at Berkeley and at Stanford University, and was a consultant at Stanford Research Institute. He is coauthor (with Bernard E. Anderson) of Moving Ahead: Black Managers in American Business,McGraw Hill, New York, NY, 1978.