Profits and Professions: Essays in Business and Professional Ethics PDF
Preview Profits and Professions: Essays in Business and Professional Ethics
PRofiTs ANd PRofEssioNS ESSAYS iN BusiNESS ANd PRofEssioNAl EThics CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN BIOMEDICINE, ETHICS, AND SOCIETY Profits and Professions: Essays in Business and Professional Ethics edited by Wade L. Robison, Michael S. Pritchard, and Joseph Ellin, 1983 Visions of Women, edited by Linda A. Bell, 1983 Ethics and Animals, edited by Harlan B. Miller and William H. Williams, 1983 Who Decides?, edited by Nora Bell, 1982 Medical Genetics Casebook, by Colleen Clements, 1982 The Custom-Made Child?, edited by Helen B. Holmes, Betty B. Hoskins, and Mi~hael Gross, 1981 Birth Control and Controlling Birth, edited by Helen B. Holmes, Betty B. Hoskins, and Michael Gross, 1980 Medical Responsibility, edited by Wade L. Robison and Michael S. Pritchard, 1979 Contemporary Issues in Biomedical Ethics, edited by John W. Davis, Barry Hoffmaster, and Sarah Shorten, 1979 PRofiTS ANd PRofEssioNS ESSAYS iN BusiNESS ANd PRofEssioNAl ET~ics EdiTEd By WAdE L. RobisON KAlAMAZOO COllEGE ANd JOSEp~ EUiN WESTERN MicHiGAN UNivERSiTY HUMANA PRESS • ClifTON, NEW JERSEY Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Date Main entry under title: Profits and professions. (Contemporary issues in biomedicine, ethics, and society) Some of the papers presented at a conference and lecture series in professional and business ethics, jointly sponsored by the Departments of Philosophy of Kalamazoo College and Western Michigan University during the 1979-80 academic year. Includes bibliographical references and index. I. Business ethics-Congresses. 2. Professional ethics-Congresses. I. Robison, Wade L. II. Pritchard, Michael S. III. Ellin, Joseph. IV. Series. HF5387.P76 1983 174 82-23399 ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-5627-4 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-5625-0 001: 10.1007/978-1-4612-5625-0 ©1983 The HUMANA Press Inc. Crescent Manor PO Box 2148 Clifton, NJ 07015 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo copying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise without written permission from the Publisher. Kenneth Kipnis, "Professional Responsibility and the Responsibility of Professions. " © 1978 Kenneth Kipnis. Reprinted by permission of the author. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1978 CONTENTS Preface ................................................ vii Acknowledgments ....................................... ix Part I: Professional Ethics Professional Responsibility: An Introduction ................... 3 by Wade L. Robison Professional Responsibility and the Responsibility of Profes- sions ............................................... 9 by Kenneth Kipnis Professionalization: The Intractable Plurality of Values ......... 23 by Lisa H. Newton Moral Responsibility in Professional Ethics .................. 37 by Gerald J. Postema Professionals, Clients, and Others .......................... 65 by Michael D. Bayles Part II: Business Ethics Business Ethics: An Introduction ........................... 77 by Joseph Ellin Is Action Within the Law Morally Sufficient in Business? ...... 89 by L. Duane Willard The Theoretical Twist to Irresponsibility in Business ......... 101 by Robert V. Hannaford A Laissez Faire Approach to Business Ethics ................ 113 by Donald R. Koehn The Business of Ethics .................................. 133 by Norman Chase Gillespie The Moral Status of Bluffing and Deception in Business ...... 141 by Thomas L. Carson and Richard E. Wokutch The Social Business of Business .......................... 157 by Richard T. De George v vi CONTENTS Part III: Professionals In A Corporate Setting Introduction ............................................ 177 by Michael S. Pritchard Moral Leadership in the Corporate Setting .................. 183 by William F. May Accountability and the Bureaucratization of Corporations ...... 215 by Thomas Donaldson Evaluating Codes of Professional Ethics .................... 225 by John Kultgen Professional Autonomy and Employers' Authority ............ 265 by Mike W. Martin Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Workplace: A Philo- sophical Inquiry .................................... 275 by Robert F. Ladenson Whistleblowing: Its Nature and Justification ................. 287 by Gene G. James On the Rights of Professionals ............................ 305 by Albert Flores Index . .................................... 317 PREfACE Suppose an accountant discovers evidence of shady practices while ex amining the books of a client. What should he or she do? Accountants have a professional obligation to respect the confidentiality of their cli ents' accounts. But, as an ordinary citizen, our accountant may feel that the authorities ought to be informed. Suppose a physician discov ers that a patient, a bus driver, has a weak heart. If the patient contin ues bus driving even after being informed of the heart condition, should the physician inform the driver's company? Respect for patient confidentiality would say, no. But what if the driver should suffer a heart attack while on duty, causing an accident in which people are killed or seriously injured? Would the doctor bear some responsibility for these consequences? Special obligations, such as those of confidentiality, apply to any one in business or the professions. These obligations articulate, at least in part, what it is for someone to be, say, an accountant or a physician. Since these obligations are special, they raise a real possibility of con flict with the moral principles we usually accept outside of these spe cial relationships in business and the professions. These conflicts may become more accentuated for a professional who is also a corporate employee-a corporate attorney, an engineer working for a construction company, a nurse working as an employee of a hospital. For then, not only are there the conflicts that may occur between the requirements of ordinary morality and one's professional obligations and responsibilities, there is also the possibility of conflict between all these responsibilities and the legitimate expectations of employers. The essays in this volume focus on issues involving professional ethics, business ethics, and the ethics of professionals in business. Parts I and II raise the question of whether business and the professions are-or ought to be-governed by principles and standards markedly different from those of ordinary morality. Do lawyers and business ex ecutives, for example, have a right, or even in certain circumstances a duty, to practice deception, ignore the interests of people adversely af fected by their actions, or engage in other practices that ordinary mo rality condemns? Part III brings together the issues raised in Parts I and II: The eth ical problems of being a professional and. those of being in business are compounded for the professional in business. Part III examines the special problems that professionals, following their professional eth ics, might encounter as employees of a business organization. Con sider engineers. To whom do they owe their main loyalty-the firm that employs them, the users of the products they design, or perhaps the taxpayer who often foots the bill? Since the vast majority of engi neers work within a corporate setting, engineering is a profession that, perhaps more than any other, raises clearly the issue addressed in Part III: What special problems do professionals within the business world face? For this reason, we have included several essays that focus on ethical problems in the engineering profession. Unlike other approaches, this book is not meant to be an attack on the current level of ethics in business and the professions. Taken as a whole, these essays constitute a constructive examination of the place of ethics in business and professional life. The essays struggle with the problems faced by those in business and the professions as they try to be responsible. The book is meant to appeal to people in business and the professions, as well as those in philosophy and academic ethics. But, we think the book should also be of interest to every thoughtful person who is concerned about the very important moral questions that the institutions of business and the professions inevitably raise. Wade L. Robison Michael S. Pritchard Joseph Ellin This volume had its inception at a Conference and Lecture Series in Professional and Business Ethics jointly sponsored by the Departments of Philosophy of Kalamazoo College and Western Michigan Univer sity during the 1979-80 academic year. We wish to thank the Michigan Council for the Humanities and the Franklin J. Machette Foundation for their financial support for our Conference. Our volume is not a publication of the proceedings of the Confer ence. Only some of the papers presented at the Conference are in cluded, and each of these has been substantially revised for this volume. Also, many of the papers included were not presented at the Conference. They were selected becaue of their special relevance to the themes of the volume. Several of the essays in this volume have been published else where. We wish to thank the publishers for permission to reprint these essays. Michael Bayles's "Professionals, Clients, and Others" is taken from his book, Professional Ethics (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Co.), 1981. A shorter version of Thomas L. Carson and Richard E. Wokutch's "The Moral Status of Bluffing and Deception in Business" appeared in Westminster Institute Review, Volume 1, April 1981. Norman Gillespie's "The Business of Ethics" appeared in The University of Michigan Business Review, November 1975. Gene James's "Whistle-Blowing: Its Nature and Justification" appeared in Philosophy in Context, Volume 10, 1980. A shorter ver sion of Mike W. Martin's "Professional Autonomy and Employer's Authority" was published in Ethical Problems in Engineering, Al Flores, ed., 2nd edition, Volume 1 (Troy, NY: RPI Press), 1980. Gerald Postema's "Moral Responsibility in Professional Ethics" was published in New York University Law Review, Volume 55, April 1980. Finally, we wish to give special thanks to Gwen West for her in valuable assistance in making arrangements for the Conference and in preparing the manuscript. CONTRIBUTORS MICHAEL D. BAYLES • Westminster Institute for Ethics & Human Values, Westminster College, London, Canada THOMAS L. CARSON· Department of Philosophy and Religion, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia RICHARD T. DE GEORGE • Department ofP hilosophy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. THOMAS DONALDSON • Department ofP hilosophy, Loyola Univer sity of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois JOSEPH ELLIN • Department ofP hilosophy , Western Michigan Uni versity, Kalamazoo, Michigan ALBERT FLORES· Department of Philosophy, Rensselaer Poly- technic Institute, Troy, New York NORMAN CHASE GILLESPIE • Department of Philosophy, Memphis State University, Memphis, Tennessee ROBERT V. HANNAFORD· Department of Philosophy, Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin GENE G. JAMES • Department of Philosophy, Memphis State Uni versity, Memphis, Tennessee KENNETH KIPNIS· Department of Philosophy, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii DONALD R. KOEHN • Department of Philosophy, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Illinois JOHN KULTGEN· Department of Philosophy, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri ROBERT F. LADENSON • Department of Philosophy, Illinois Insti tute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois MIKE W. MARTIN· Department of Philosophy, Chapman College, Orange, California WILLIAM F. MAY • The Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
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