PHIL224W-Business Ethics

1.According to Heath, some understand shareholder theory as “more realistic,” treating firms like self-interested individual market actors. What major issue(s) does this understanding miss? Why is this mistake important?

2.Explain the market failures approach to business ethics. What, according to Heath, makes business ethics a particular kind of ethics? Consider at least five possible practical implications of the approach for the moral responsibility of business managers.

3.What is meant by the idea of “managing for stakeholders?” According to Freeman, the stakeholder model is not only more consistent with actual business practices, but also more consistent with ethics. Explain his four arguments for the latter claim.

4.Consider Heath and Norman’s concerns for stakeholder theory. What sorts of problems or concerns does a normative account of managing for stakeholders raise? How might a proponent of stakeholder theory respond to these concerns?

5.How does the market failures approach understand the morality of the market? In what sense is this morality, and perhaps also business ethics more generally, a “third best” evaluative framework (see p. 185-186 in particular)? What common misconceptions does such a framework correct?

6.What, in your view, is the purpose of business? What is the moral responsibility of business managers? Defend your answer.