The W. Michael Hoffman Center for Business Ethics (HCBE) at Bentley University is one of the world’s leading research and educational institutes in the field of business ethics. Introduces students in the different models of ethical reasoning about business en management on the basis of cases (utilitarianism, deontogy and the problem of whistle blowing), justice oriented theories (with special attention paid to the social contract theory of Donaldson) en virtue ethics (especially the contribution of Solomon and the literature on ‘integrity’ ), with as special case: corruption.
The arguments tend to go as follows: (1) there are serious problems in the world, such as poverty, conflict, environmental degradation, and so on; (2) any agent with the resources and knowledge necessary to ameliorate these problems has a moral responsibility to do so, assuming the costs they incur on themselves are not great; (3) firms have the resources and knowledge necessary to …
