Possible Exam Questions for the first Business Ethics Exam -- on March 4

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 U.S. is much as Robert Jackall describes it in the first four chapters of Moral Mazes.  What ethical issues does this raise in your mind?  Should the world he describes be seen as having its own (acceptable) ethical rules?  Or should it be seen as un-ethical?
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. Sen, Freeman, and Heath all argued that free markets do not always produce results that are optimal.  (See also my handout on ethics and markets.)  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 Friedman’s?
5. Does Case Study #1 in our textbook (about Malden Mills) tend to support the position of Milton Friedman (“management for stockholders”) or R. Edward Freeman (“management for stakeholders”)?  Why?
6. 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?
7. 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?
8. 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?
9. G.A. Cohen argues that it is a mistake to think that capitalism (or free market purism) is clearly the economic system that provides the most freedom.  He claims that communal or socialized property can sometimes give us more freedom than private property.  How so?
10. 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?
11. 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?
12. According to Richard Epstein, employment at will provides benefits to both employer and employee.  What benefits?
13. 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?
14. What sorts of policies are we talking about when we talk about “affirmative action” and what can be said for and against those policies?
15. What can be said (from an ethical point of view) for and against the goal of ‘diversity’ in hiring?
16. What are some reasons for thinking that so-called ‘intellectual property’ is quite different from other sorts of property (especially when it is in digital form), and that therefore it should be governed by different rules. Why, that is, do some people think there is nothing wrong with what others call ‘digital piracy’?