Ethical Challenges to Business as Usual – Second Edition
  • Publication Date: July 19, 2022
  • ISBN: 9781554814510 / 1554814510
  • 424 pages; 6½" x 9"

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Ethical Challenges to Business as Usual – Second Edition

  • Publication Date: July 19, 2022
  • ISBN: 9781554814510 / 1554814510
  • 424 pages; 6½" x 9"

This anthology offers a fresh approach to the ethics of business, casting a critical eye on entrenched assumptions and practices. It includes central works from such thinkers as John Locke, Karl Marx, Milton Friedman, Naomi Klein, and Thomas Piketty, while also introducing new voices on a range of pressing practical topics, including racial discrimination in the workplace, factory farming, climate change, affirmative action, and whistleblowing. A truly applied anthology, this book encourages students to see the real-world applications of the theories at issue and to examine the consequences of business as usual.

Comments

“In a world struggling with the perils of climate change and increased consumer consumption, the second edition of Ethical Challenges to Business as Usual is a much-needed resource for our up-and-coming business students. With its emphasis on environmental sustainability, human rights, and ethical consumption, this anthology provides students with the critical-thinking tools to ask new questions about the proper role of corporations and consumers as global citizens.” — Nancy M. Williams, Chair and Associate Professor of Philosophy, Wofford College

Ethical Challenges to Business as Usual covers classical issues as well as current developments and alternative solutions. Capitalism and socialism are discussed, and the question of universal human rights is addressed. Importantly, environmental issues are shown to be at the forefront of any business ethics discussion. The selected readings include prominent figures in the field as well as new voices. The broad scope of this text and the readable quality of its chapters make it ideal for the college classroom.” — Robert Elliott Allinson, Professor of Philosophy, Soka University of America, author of Saving Human Lives: Lessons in Management Ethics

Preface

1. Ethical and Economic Theoretical Grounding

  • Data for, and Values in, Ethics
  • Ethical Theories
  • Capitalism and Critique

2. Human Rights and Environmental Challenges to Development and Globalization

  • 1. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  • 2. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights Principles and Responsibilities for Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises
  • 3. Thomas Donaldson, Moral Minimums for Multinationals
  • 4. The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
  • 5. Vandana Shiva, Development, Ecology, and Women
  • 6. Devon Peña, Defining Sustainable Development
  • 7. Clive Ponting, Creating the Third World
  • 8. Fauzi Najjar, The Arabs, Islam and Globalization
  • 9. Alison M. Jaggar, Is Globalization Good for Women?

3. Challenges Calling for Corporate Responsibility

  • 1. Michael Nalick et al., Corporate Sociopolitical Involvement: A Reflection of Whose Preferences?
  • 2. Milton Friedman, The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits
  • 3. John M. Darley, How Organizations Socialize Individuals into Evildoing
  • 4. John Danaher and Sven Nyholm, Automation, Work and the Achievement Gap

4. Justification for, and Challenges to, Property Rights

  • 1. John Locke, The Justification of Private Property
  • 2. Karl Marx, Estranged Labor
  • 3. Peter Singer, What Should a Billionaire Give—And What Should You?

5. Challenging Discrimination

  • 1. Elizabeth A. Deitch et al., Subtle Yet Significant: The Existence and Impact of Everyday Racial Discrimination in the Workplace
  • 2. Shelby Steele, Affirmative Action: The Price of Preference
  • 3. David Benatar, Affirmative Action
  • 4. Patrice A. Fulcher, Hustle and Flow: Prison Privatization Fueling the Prison Industrial Complex

6. Environmental Ethics Challenges to Business

  • 1. Aldo Leopold, The Land Ethic
  • 2. Shari Collins-Chobanian, Beyond Sax and Welfare Interests: A Case for Environmental Rights
  • 3. Martha L. Crouch, Biotechnology Is Not Compatible with Sustainable Agriculture
  • 4. Valentin Beck and Bernd Ladwig, Ethical Consumerism: Veganism

7. Challenging Consumption

  • 1. John Kenneth Galbraith, How Much Should a Country Consume?
  • 2. Robert Goodland, The Case That the World Has Reached Its Limits
  • 3. Shari Collins-Chobanian, A Proposal for Environmental Labels: Informing Consumers of the Real Costs of Consumption
  • 4. Naomi Klein, Beyond Extractivism: Confronting the Climate Denier Within
  • 5. Guy Claxton, Involuntary Simplicity: Changing Dysfunctional Habits of Consumption

8. Challenges to Business as Usual

  • 1. Sissela Bok, Whistleblowing and Leaks
  • 2. C. Fred Alford, Whistleblowers and the Narrative of Ethics
  • 3. David C. Korten, Economies for Life

Permissions Acknowledgments

Shari Collins is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University and has co-edited several widely read anthologies, including Being Ethical: Classic and New Voices on Contemporary Issues and Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach.

  • • The readings in this book are substantial without being overly technical, encouraging students to go beyond superficial examination of the issues at hand.
  • • Readings are designed to call into question the status quo, inviting reflection on our economy and on the nature of business.
  • • Special attention is paid to the environmental effects of business practices, and to the consequences of material consumption.
  • • An introductory chapter introduces the ideas of many classic and contemporary thinkers in the fields of ethical and economic theory, such as Kant, Mill, Rawls, Smith, and Piketty.
  • • Each of the book’s section opens with a topical introduction from the book’s editor, and each subsequent reading is preceded by a contextualizing headnote and followed by a series of questions suitable for discussion or essays.
  • • Supplemental multiple choice quizzes and PowerPoint slides are available to instructors.

A companion website is available to instructors adopting this book. The site provides supplemental quizzes as well as PowerPoint lecture slides.

An access code to this website is included with all examination and desk copies. If you received an instructor copy of the book but don’t have an access code, please contact us.

Read a sample from Chapter 4: Justification for, and Challenges to, Property Rights, of Ethical Challenges to Business as Usual. (Opens as a PDF.)