Business Ethics

In a world in which daily reports of questionable business practices, from insider trading to environmental pollution, dominate the headlines, the need to understand the large issues of how business and ethics are, and ought to be, connected is of paramount concern.
This unique collection of essays is the latest volume in the Ruffin Series in Business Ethics. The four lead essays--by Norman Bowie, Kenneth Goodpaster, Thomas Donaldson, and Ezra Bowen--are examples of some of the best thinking about the role of ethics in business. With a combination of wisdom, humor, and insight, these essays examine such issues as the nature of scholarship and knowledge in business ethics, how ethics is a central factor in managerial leadership, the complexities of ethics in multinational and multicultural settings, and the problems of ethical literacy and moral debate in a free society. Each lead essay develops several themes which are then explored by other prominent thinkers, including Robert Solomon, Richard DeGeorge, and Joanne Ciulla.
The book offers the reader a clear and logical approach to an intensely debated and still evolving discipline. Business Ethics: The State of the Art will be an invaluable resource for students of business at all levels, as well as business thinkers, philosophers, and practicing managers.

R. Edward Freeman is at University of Virginia.