Offers managers new tools to deal with the tough problems businesses face today. Reveals how analyzing the ethical dimensions of problems actually offers competitive advantages. Offers illustrative case examples from internally recognized companies showing that high ethics and high profits go hand in hand--and identifies the factors responsible for these companies' success.

Ethics will not become part of the management decision-making process until it ceases to be viewed as an add-on; first you decide, then you assess the decision ethically. This essay focuses on one ethical concept, the good or the valuable, and shows how to incorporate it in an ethically and economically effective decision process. We focus on this concept because it uncovers a key fault in strategic thinking and generates questions central to any complex decision.The concept of the valuable is (...) used to distinguish goals and purposes. A goal is a more or less specific target toward which one aims. A purpose is a way of being or functioning viewed as valuable in itself. (shrink)

Richard Feldman in ‘Actions and De Re Beliefs’ attacks ‘latitudinarian’ accounts of de re belief in terms of de dicta belief, including those defended in print by one or the other of us. Feldman's case against latitudinarian views rests on the claim that such accounts do not allow de re attitudes an explanatory role they obviously can fulfil.

We are plagued today by a decline in ethical behavior. Scandals come so thick and fast that any attempt to list them is out of date in weeks if not days. But ethics isn’t just a matter of headlines; it’s a part of everyone’s life. We’re called on to make ethical decisions, large and small, all the time. This can be particularly tricky in the workplace, where our decisions can affect not just ourselves but coworkers, clients, customers, and even the (...) entire company. Existing ethics books are of limited use. They generally feature one author’s opinions on very specific situations, which may well have nothing to do with the problems we’re facing. And anyway, we don’t need expert advice. Mark Pastin insists every one of us is qualified to resolve even the thorniest dilemmas ourselves, and in this profoundly practical book he gives us the tools to do just that. Pastin argues that we all have an innate ethical –he calls it “the ethics eye.” The problem is, we’re not aware we have it or how to develop it. Here he provides practical tools we can use to open up our ethics eye so that we can consistently see what is right and do it. Make an Ethical Difference shows how to apply these tools using actual ethical dilemmas drawn from Pastin’s decades of experience as an advisor to governments, corporations, and NGOs. The point is not to try to wedge your situation into one of the examples—it’s to show how a tool that can be applied to any situation is used in one particular instance. And once you’ve reached a decision, Pastin offers strategies for building consensus with those who might disagree with you. People often feel hopeless and skeptical that there is anything they as individuals can do to raise society’s ethical level or resolve long-standing impasses. By using the unique tools in this book, we will gain confidence in our innate ethical sense and take actions that will elevate the ethical level of the groups and organizations we belong to and society as a whole. (shrink)

There is no philosophical question more intellectually and emotionally pressing than the question of whether we, human beings, ever do anything freely. The question presses because there are persuasive reasons to think that we never act freely. Upon reading Wilfrid Sellars’s “Reply to Donagan” one must conclude that compatibilism, between the views that human actions are determined and that human beings act freely, has received its definitive defense. Never has a “Reply” contained so much meaty philosophy. Despite the definitiveness of (...) Sellars’s defense of compatibilism, I am unconvinced that compatibilism meets the problem of free will and determinism. My aim is to offer a new perspective on the problem, one which questions previously unchallenged assumptions about the problem. (shrink)

Some of the most important disagreements among value theorists concern what things, if any, are intrinsically valuable, and what role intrinsically valuable things have in determining the value of other things. To understand these disagreements a clear account must be provided of the notion of intrinsic value which is their focus. The account should not prejudge these disagreements. For reasons to be considered I do not think that an adequate account has been provided of a notion of intrinsic value that (...) can be taken to be the focus of these disagreements. I attempt to provide such an account in this paper. In order to do this I outline what I think is a reasonable task for a value theory, the task of “reconstructing value.” In explaining this task I take as a model the task of reconstructing knowledge. (shrink)

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the philosophical foundations of business management. The need for such a review is established. Emphasis is placed upon the role of management ethos in such a philosophy. Philosophical concepts (such as the concept of an intention) which are widely applied in management, but not explored in the management literature, are examined. While the emphasis is on philosophical concepts, the material presented is applicable in the practice of management.

The examples presented by Professor Feldman underscore the need to distinguish several of the notions of warranting examined in ‘Counterfactuals.’ It is tempting to apologize for the complexity of the above considerations. But this complexity reflects the truth of the matter, that our intuitions concerning warranting require a variety of warranting notions. The aim of ‘Counterfactuals’ was to make this complexity manageable by providing a unified method, the method of e-systems and contractions, for distinguishing and explaining the types of warranting.

There is no philosophical question more intellectually and emotionally pressing than the question of whether we, human beings, ever do anything freely. The question presses because there are persuasive reasons to think that we never act freely. Upon reading Wilfrid Sellars’s “Reply to Donagan” one must conclude that compatibilism, between the views that human actions are determined and that human beings act freely, has received its definitive defense. Never has a “Reply” contained so much meaty philosophy. Despite the definitiveness of (...) Sellars’s defense of compatibilism, I am unconvinced that compatibilism meets the problem of free will and determinism. My aim is to offer a new perspective on the problem, one which questions previously unchallenged assumptions about the problem. (shrink)