Font Size:
Toward a Jurisprudence for Business Ethics
Last modified: 2011-09-07
Abstract
Corporate executives confront an environment that is both legally complex and ethically challenging. It is legally complex because of the varied and often technical rules of law that govern areas ranging from sexual harassment to workplace privacy to environmental protection. Such legal rules are intertwined with a challenging set of ethical issues. Corporate executives regularly struggle with the contested nature of their roles, conflicts among their multiple constituencies, and divergent popular views regarding their actions. But despite this complex mixture of legal and ethical issues in the corporate environment, business ethicists have devoted surprisingly little attention to examining the basic relationship of law and ethics. This is true even though the interplay between law and ethics is evident in some of business' most significant recent challenges, ranging from AIG's bonuses to BP's massive oil spill. This leaves corporate executives without a potentially rich source of guidance in understanding and grappling with their responsibilities.
Keywords
ethics, law