Lectures on Business Ethics, Political Ethics, and Reputational Ethics

The book presents a definition of business ethics as a method of examining whether an action or inaction is permissible for at least one of four key ethical identities: 1) rule-oriented conservative capitalist; 2) creativity-oriented liberal capitalist; 3) rule-oriented conservative manager or employee; 4) creativity-oriented liberal manager or employee. If so, the action is permissible, subject to two further requirements: 1) that the action-permitting identity has been communicated to the other relevant party or parties; and 2) that the action-permitting identity is in a relationship of integrity to the actor’s character.

The book is written in the form of lectures to students. Along with pedagogical material, it contains poems, some of which consider the ethicality or non-ethicality of actions or inactions by the author. The poems and prose apply the author’s four identities approach as well as Joseph Heath’s market failures approach (MFA) to political ethics, cultural ethics, and reputational ethics. The book concludes by considering the relationship between business ethics and idealistic ethics. Given its broad scope and ambitious arguments, the book will be of interest not only to business ethics academics but also to scholars in management, law, philosophy, political science, and other disciplines.

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