Relativism is the belief that a harmful act is ‘right’ if the perpetrator claims it is ‘right,’ but what is right and what is wrong is not always relative. This video from the McCombs School of business at the University of Texas examines the applications and limitations of relativism.
BY JEREMY WILLINGER Introducing Head to Head: A conversation on behavioral science and ethics, a new eBook created for anyone interested in improving the effectiveness of compliance and ethics (C&E) programs in organizations. About: Head to Head is structured as a series of dialogs between ES collaborator Jeff Kaplan and our CEO Azish Filabi on various facets of compliance and ethics work. By…
An Ethical Systems Highlighted Syllabus BY ETHICAL SYSTEMS Download syllabus for Designing a Good Life, taught at University of Chicago Booth’s School of Business in 2015 by Nick Epley. Download
An Ethical Systems Book Review BY DAVID NEWMAN Cultivating Conscience: How Good Laws Make Good Peopleby Lynn Stout (public library)Summarized by David Newman Overview Conscience, or unselfish prosocial behavior, is a real and powerful force. A growing body of empirical evidence shows how conscience both shapes our lives and is shaped by our society. Yet for decades, scholarly…
An Ethical Systems Book Review BY KATHARINA WEGHMANN Margaret Heffernan’s new book “Beyond Measure: The big impact of small changes,” is an original manifesto for business leaders. Creating strong organizational cultures does not require multi-million dollar programs; instead, small actions by each employee- from Custodian to CEO- matter more and have the biggest impact. Heffernan shows…
BY ETHICAL SYSTEMS Is good ethics really good for business? Crime and sleazy behavior sometimes pay off handsomely. People wouldn’t do such things if they didn’t think they were more profitable than the alternatives. But lets make two distinctions right up front. First, let’s contrast individual employees with companies. Of course it can benefit individual employees…
An Ethical Systems Book Review BY DAVID NEWMAN Managing Business Ethics: Straight Talk About How To Do It Rightby Linda K. Treviño and Katherine A. NelsonJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc., 5th ed. (2011) (public library)Summarized by David Newman Overview Treviño and Nelson present a fresh look at management as an exercise in shaping human behavior. Replete with psychological research on…
An Ethical Systems Book Review Summarized by BRYAN TURNER Written by Nicholas Epley Knopf, Borzoi Books (2014) Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want is a book about our “sixth sense”, or mindreading, but there’s nothing supernatural about it. Epley is an experimental social psychologist, and this is a book about his research…