Ethics and Business

Introduction 9

Part 1: Ethics and the individual 11
1 What is ethics? 13
1.1 Ethical behaviour? 14
1.2 Ethics as an academic discipline 16
1.3 Morality 17
1.4 The structural analysis 25
1.5 The structural evaluation 28
1.6 Ethics and related disciplines 29
Summary 44
Literature 46

2 Responsibility 49
2.1 The meaning of responsibility 50
2.2 The ability to take responsibility 51
2.3 Situational factors that influence responsibility 59
Summary 64
Literature 66

3 Normative ethics 69
3.1 Directions in normative ethics 70
3.2 Ethics for people 70
3.3 Ethics from people 84
3.4 Directions in ethics applied 91
Summary 93
Literature 95

4 A model for ethical
decision-making 99
4.1 An ethical dilemma 100
4.2 Step 1: moral questions 100
4.3 Step 2: moral stakeholders 102
4.4 Step 3: alternatives 103
4.5 Step 4: an informed choice 104
Summary 108
Literature 109

Part 2: Business and ethics 111
5 A short history of ethics in business 113
5.1 The industrial revolution 114
5.2 Current trends in society 117
5.3 The triple bottom line 124
Summary 132
Literature 134

6 Social values 137
6.1 The industrial revolution and social values of workers 138
6.2 Rights of workers in developed countries 141
6.3 Challenges in developed countries 149
6.4 Challenges in developing countries 171
6.5 Corruption 176
6.6 Social values of consumers 181
Summary 189
Literature 192

7 Ecological values 199
7.1 The tragedy of the commons 200
7.2 Towards a circular economy 216
Summary 225
Literature 227

8 Economic values 231
8.1 Economic values 232
8.2 Profit 235
Summary 250
Literature 252

9 Accountability 257
9.1 Transparency and compliance 258
9.2 The business of business is business 260
9.3 Voluntary accountability 273
9.4 Mandatory accountability 277
9.5 Collective industry self-regulation 280
Summary 287
Literature 289

Part 3: Ethics in a globalized world 293
10 Cultural diversity 295
10.1 Culture 296
10.2 Cultural differences on various levels 300
10.3 Cultural differences and business 301
10.4 Cultural differences between countries 304
Summary 311
Literature 313

11 Globalization: does the system work? 317
11.1 Why globalization is a good thing 318
11.2 Why globalization is a bad thing 328

Summary 339
Literature 341
Index 343
About the author 349