Why Study Ethics?

Even granting that business ethics is important, many seem to believe that there is no
point in studying the subject. Ethics is something you feel, not something you think. Finance,
marketing, operations, and even business law lend themselves to intellectual treatment, but ethics
does not.
The idea that ethics has no intellectual content is odd indeed, considering that some of the
most famous intellectuals in world history have given it a central place in their thought
(Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas, etc.). Ethics is in fact a highly
developed field that demands close reasoning. The Western tradition in particular has given rise
to sophisticated deontological, teleological and consequentialist theories of right and wrong. No
one theory explains everything satisfactorily, but the same is true, after all, in the natural sciences.
Even when they grant that ethics has intellectual content, people often say that studying
the field will not change behavior. Character is formed in early childhood, not during a
professor’s lecture.
If the suggestion here is that college-level study does not change behavior, we should
shut down the entire business school, not only the ethics course. Presumably the claim, then, is
that studying finance and marketing can influence one’s conduct, but studying ethics cannot.
This is again a curious view, since ethics is the one field that deals explicitly with conduct.
Where is the evidence for this view? The early origins of character do not prevent finance and
marketing courses from influencing behavior. Why cannot ethics courses also have an effect?
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Ethics courses have a number of features that seem likely to influence behavior. They
provide a language and conceptual framework with which one can talk and think about ethical
issues. Their emphasis on case studies helps to make one aware of the potential consequences of
one’s actions. They present ethical that theories help define what a valid ethical argument looks
like. They teach one to make distinctions and avoid fallacies that are so common when people
make decisions. They give one an opportunity to think through, at one’s leisure, complex ethical
issues that are likely to arise later, when there is no time to think. They introduce one to such
specialized areas as product liability, employment, intellectual property, environmental
protection, and cross-cultural management. They give one practice at articulating an ethical
position, which can help resist pressure to compromise.
None of this convinces one to be good, but it is useful to those who want to be good. It
may also improve business conduct in general. How many of the recent business scandals would
have occurred if subordinates had possessed the skills, vocabulary and conceptual equipment to
raise an ethical issue with their coworkers?