I recently came across a Career Journal article titled Why Teaching of Ethics Continues to be Lacking at Business Schools. Kind of boring, right? I’m not trying to take anything away from the Journal or the article’s author. I mean, there’s only so much you can write about employment issues - just ask Mick, he’ll tell you…

Upon reflecting a bit further, however, I realized that the article was a bit more interesting than I first realized, though in a way that was surely not intended by the author. I mean, really, if you need to study ethics in a classroom to figure out what to do and what not to do in a business setting, there’s probably a problem that requires a bigger fix than some classes. The article leads with:

Business schools have struggled in the post-Enron era to incorporate more content related to ethics and social responsibility in their curricula. Many have added a stand-alone course on corporate responsibility, but some academics consider that insufficient.

Enron WAS NOT about some former MBAs having missed their allotment of ethics courses, and while the article doesn’t suggest that this is the case, the natural disconnect between academics and business is probably to blame for the notion that ethics courses in MBA programs will solve any problems.

I first studied ethics at Mt. St. Mary’s College (now University), where every undergrad acquires the equivalent of a degree in Liberal Arts in addition to his or her chosen major. Ethics was interesting stuff, I’ll grant you (no, for real, it was a great course), but my academic study of the subject didn’t enhance my already-existing ability to make judgments in accordance with a set of social mores that I had developed by merely living my life, albeit with some guidance from my parents and grandparents.

What the class did was allow me to study the great thinkers on the subject - Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Thomas Aquinas’ plagiarism of said Ethics and Aristotle’s other works (with “God” inserted as the “unmoved mover”), Rene Descartes (”I think therefore I am”), Immanuel Kant and his antithesis, John Stuart Mill (of Utilitarian fame). OK, so I forgot to mention that I was actually a philosophy minor at “the Mount”, so these classes actually did make an impression on me, as did the liberal arts education there. Hell, we even read from the Qur’an in some classes, so I got the theological take on ethics as well, Christian and otherwise.

Anyway, the real point I’m making here is not that I studied philosophy in college, but to note that “business ethics” is really just “ethics” applied to business. You’re either the type of person who will conduct him or herself in an ethical manner, or you’re not, and when money comes into play, it doesn’t matter how much you’ve studied Immanuel Kant or Thomas Aquinas. Academics may disagree with me…but really, why would that matter? They’re teaching courses on philosophy, not running businesses and making decisions that involve millions of dollars - they may be the least qualified people on the planet to teach ethics to would-be executives. Those who can, do….those who can’t….well, you know the rest.

Tags: business ethics, business school, career journal

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