Teaching Tigers - Can Ethics Be Taught?

This is a difficult question.

Some people suggest that under capitalism, profits and greed are the major motivating factors. Therefore, ethics cannot be taught but are part of one's personality or culture.

Others suggest that ethics can be taught.

I am somewhat in the middle of the road. I do think it is possible that we can each business ethics indirectly through case studies and the introduction of various ethical frameworks.

So how do you define ethical business behaviour?

There is an excellent quote by Potter Stewart, a former Supreme Court Justice, defining ethics:

Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.

Pay particular attention to the second part of this quote, the fact that ethical business behaviour is doing what is right to do which often takes you beyond what you have the legal right to do.

So when you get into ethical business ethics it is really just pure ethical behaviour, however business tends to put a frame around it.

Do ethics go beyond legal requirements?

Well, that when it becomes problematic - it now becomes subjective. Laws give predictability and supposed fairness - a minimum standard code is specified. However, is the law and the right thing to do identical? Well if they were identical you would not need ethics - you would just need laws.

When you get into the second question, what is the right thing to do, it really becomes a matter of judgment (subjectivity) as different societies reach different judgments. For example in Thailand, nepotism is both honourable and an accepted business practice, however other countries think nepotism is neither. That is the dilemma: different societies differ on what is the right thing to do.

Beyond the debate if it is possible to teach ethics or even the debate of defining ethics, I do believe that ethics has a place in formal business education, and as such we will weave ethics throughout our course material.