Possible Exam Questions for the first Business Ethics Exam -- on October 14
Note:
I will transform several questions from this list into multiple choice
questions. Two or three will be presented as essay questions. The essay questions may ask you to explain
and justify your own views on these issues.
You will be able to consult your textbooks but not any notes or handouts
or other papers.
1. Suppose that life in large corporations in the
2. According to Milton Freidman, managers should try to
maximize profits for shareholders (within the limits of the law). He claims that it would be wrong for managers
to pursue any other goals (like protecting the environment or reducing poverty)
unless doing so produces some sort of ‘bottom line’ benefit to the owners of
the firm. Why?
3. In a handout and in class I argued that free markets
do not always produce results that are optimal.
How might one argue that the presence of market defects (like
‘externalities’ and ‘informational asymmetries’) show that Friedman is wrong? How might he reply?
4. R. Edward Freeman advocates a view that he calls
“managing for stakeholders.” Why does he
think that his view is ethically superior to Freidman’s?
5. Does the essay by Wayne F. Cascio, “Decency Means
More than “Always Low Prices”: A
Comparison of Costco to Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club,” tend to support the position of
Milton Friedman (“management for stockholders”) or R. Edward Freeman
(“management for stakeholders”)? Why?
6. Case 3, pp. 101-102, describes Merck & Co.’s
program to provide medication for river blindness free to poor people suffering
from that disease. What might Freidman
and Freeman say about this program?
7. Why does Rawls think that we should imagine that
people are choosing principles of justice behind a ‘veil of ignorance’? Do you think he is right to argue that a
decision made ‘behind the veil’ is more fair than one made with full knowledge?
8. Why does Rawls think that people choosing principles
of justice behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ would choose his principles and not
libertarian (free market) principles or a principle requiring perfect equality?
9. Robert Nozick argues that “liberty upsets patterns”
and that we should not, therefore, choose a “patterned” conception of
justice. Instead we should choose his
“entitlement theory” (a historical theory of justice that says any pattern of
holdings is just as long as it was produced by the right kind of historical
process – in this case, by voluntary transactions). How does the example about Wilt Chamberlain
illustrate and support Nozick’s point of view?
10. In “Do CEOs Get Paid Too Much?” Jeffrey Moriarty
argues that there is no viable justification for the salaries that CEOs are
paid. What are the three possible
justifications for high CEO salaries that he considers? How does he argue against each of them?
11. What is the doctrine of “employment at will?” What would it mean to say that employees
should be afforded “due process’ with respect to
decisions about their employment?
12. Werhane and Radin say that “…treating an employee
‘at will’ is analogous to considering her a piece of property at the disposal
of the employer….” How so?
13. According to Richard Epstein, employment at will
provides benefits to both employer and employee. What benefits?
14. One crucial premise of Epstein’s defense of employment
at will is that competition in the labor market provides employees with
adequate protection against arbitrary or abusive treatment by employers. This puts employees and employers on an equal
footing. How might one criticize this
claim?
15. What sorts of policies are we talking about when we
talk about “affirmative action” and what can be said for and against those
policies?
16. What can be said for and against the goal of
‘diversity’ in hiring?
17. What are the two types of sexual harassment now
recognized by
18. What are some explanations of what is (ethically)
wrong with sexual harassment?