This expanded second edition offers ten new cases addressing the intricate process of moral and ethical decision making. Focusing on both personal and social context, the authors explore true-to-life situations and encourage readers to think about the possible consequences that could result from the choices they make.
The case studies provide realistic portrayals of current dilemmas in policing, courts, corrections, and juvenile justice. Following each scenario are thought-provoking questions to facilitate personal reflection and class discussion.
Each section contains a bibliography of topical books and articles for readers interested in a more in-depth treatment of the issues. But is this fair and just? Is it ethical for a customer to purchase a digital camera for the sole purpose of using it on a ski trip and then return the item to the store afterwards? Should companies who purchase advertising space on websites that offer pirated videos for download be held accountable for breaking intellectual property laws?
The world of business is fraught with ethical challenges. Some of these are relatively straightforward, but others are complicated and require careful reflection. While there are numerous theories to help people navigate these dilemmas, the goal of this book is to provide a comprehensive biblical perspective on contemporary issues in areas such as consumer behavior, management, accounting and marketing.
Unfortunately, this will not work. In the first place, we should not ignore the enormous problem involved in establishing that God of whatever particular religion exists, and, if that could be satisfactorily done, in establishing that his commandments are indeed those that have been handed down to us.
But even if we do nonetheless subscribe to a particular religion, we have not solved the problem of grounding morality or justifying our fundamental moral assumptions.
For and this applies equally to the Big Chief either we must presume that God commands us to tell the truth or not steal, or whatever because he in his wisdom sees that telling the truth is good or moral, or we are implicitly claiming that what is morally good is whatever God commands i.
What is it about X that God discerns such that he can recognize it as good? For unreflective religious believers this may be neither here nor there: they feel a need to do what God tells them to do. But this is plainly unsatis- factory for those of us who are trying to understand what it means to say that something is our moral duty. But now we are right back with a version, albeit an all-powerful one, of the Big Chief. It may be prudent to do as God demands, and therefore to tell the truth, but that is not the same thing as saying that telling the truth is morally good.
The fact of the matter is that morality and religion are logically distinct and we must not confuse them. There have been religions which are not recognizably moral in any way, and there can be morality without religion. For surely not even the most devout reader is going to deny that the atheist still faces moral choices.
There are religions Christianity is one that are closely tied up with moral viewpoints, but that is a contingent fact — a fact about the world that might have been different. The question of how or in what sense we have certain moral obligations or what it means to say that certain obligations are moral is not going to be answered by an appeal to religion. Throughout history there have also been attempts to ground morality in nature: to argue that what is moral is what is natural.
But this too has proved to be a blind alley. The first problem here, comparable to the problem of deciding whose God we are talking about or what the attributes and com- mands of God may be, is determining what is natural. There is more than one dimension to this problem: not only do different people see different behaviours as natural, there is also a problem about what counts as natural in principle, and the difficulty of disentangling what was literally given in nature and what, though seemingly natural now, was in fact created and developed over time by cultural pressures.
A further problem is that regardless of whether such characteristics should be seen as natural or culturally induced, virtually all of them admit of exceptions: is the woman who has no instinct to bear children unnatural? Assuming we accept that the general female desire to bear children is in their genes rather than the product of social pressures and conditioning, then in one sense women who do not want chil- dren are indeed unnatural. On the other hand, in terms of their own genetic inheritance their wishes may equally be seen as natural.
Do we mean innate, perhaps in the sense of dictated by genetic inheritance, do we mean universally true, or what? The question of whether homosexuality is natural or not, for example, is sometimes treated as the question of whether it is genetically based. It can hardly be argued that it is natural in the sense of universal, in the way that some maintain a sense of self-interest is natural in that everybody has it, but sometimes it is argued that homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality inasmuch as both are equally a matter of choice or, on another view, equally a matter of response to environment.
Certain traits that may be universal and that appear to be innate may in fact be the product of centuries of envi- ronmental pressure and conditioning; thus, they are internalized but they are not necessarily innate proclivities in the sense of being part of the essence of being human.
Just as various other species of animal have been tamed and domesticated over the centuries, so perhaps man has been socialized into the political instincts that Aristotle attributed to nature. But even if it were, could we then look to nature to tell us what is moral? Is being moral the same as acting naturally? There are those who have argued that it is.
One variant claims that what is taken to be moral, what is generally regarded as good, is simply behaviour that suits the powers-that-be, whoever they may be. This argument, however, does not ground or justify morality so much as deny it. It amounts to saying that rules about not telling lies, not stealing, and so on are useful to the rulers and have no other sanction, the consequence of which view must be that, if you can get away with it, you may as well break the rules.
In saying that the view denies morality, I am not suggesting that it can therefore ipso facto be rejected. But I do reject it nonetheless. It could be true — that is to say, it could be the case that there is nothing more to morality than a set of rules imposed by authority with a view to keeping the authority in authority. But it is one of the purposes of this book to argue that, while it is almost certainly true that some so-called moral rules have no more warrant than this, there is nonethe- less such a thing as morality which goes beyond this.
Another variant suggests that what is moral, i. This is at least recognizable as an answer to our question: it seeks to tell us that the justification for morality is to be found in nature. Is it in fact so obvious that it is natural for the strong to dominate the weak? Many have argued, on the contrary, that it is social and amicable tendencies that are natural to humans. But the crucial problem here is that there is no apparent reason to accept the premise that what is natural is what is good.
Certainly for many it is counter-intuitive to accept that because beating up the weak is natural it is morally right. There seems to be a clear gap in the argument here: the fact that something is the case does not in itself make it right that it should be so. If it did, there would be bizarre consequences: because I loathe and despise you, it is right that I should. Because AIDS is rampant, it is right that it should be. But much more significant is the point that there is nothing recognizable as an argument here at all: it is a mere assumption or assertion that what is ought to be.
There are some obvious immediate objections to the intuitionist account, one of which is that intuitions vary. Some people intuit that homosexuality is wrong and some that it is not, and likewise with a number of other topical issues such as cloning, abortion, euthanasia, and prostitution.
But it does make it difficult to accept that the solution to our problem is simply to say that we know what is right by intuition. What needs to be acknowledged here is that, like it or not, there are some things in human affairs or about the human condition that just do have to be sensed, rather than demonstrated, rationally explained or justified.
But surely, regardless of all that, we recognize friendship as, other things being equal, a desirable thing in itself. This does not rule out the possibility of a poor, unrewarding, or dangerous friendship, or even of a rich and deserving enmity. The quality and the consequences of a good thing may be impaired, as there can be a selfish love or a love that leads to tragedy.
But love itself is still inherently a good thing. The same may be said of happiness, kindness, or beauty. And while the fact that intuitions do vary is quite a serious practical problem, it should be pointed out again that physical sight, in common with the other senses, likewise varies and may lead to contradictory reports, but nobody thinks that sight is therefore never to be relied upon.
In other words, it may be possible to argue that no promises should be made, but it is incoherent to engage in promise-giving and not see that in itself a promise should be kept. I have also presumed that in trying to understand why we should not tell a lie, or any other moral demand, we should not be looking to extrinsic advantage.
But this over-simple distinction now needs to be complicated somewhat, because there is one strand of moral thinking which has to be partially incorporated into the final picture and which on the face of it is very much bound up with consequences or, in a sense, extrinsic advantage. In introducing a utilitarian element to the discussion, I have to guard against a commonly accepted view of what it involves that is, in my view, in various ways inadequate and that consequently may lead to a misunderstanding of what I wish to say here.
To get at this crucial aspect I have to introduce another semi- technical distinction between act- and rule-utilitarianism. The central tenet of utilitarianism is happiness. In simple terms, it sees morality as behaviour that is conducive to the ideal of a world in which there is no suffering.
It seems absolutely and indisputably clear to me although it must be acknowledged that it is disputed by some that a utilitarian must, on utilitarian grounds, be a rule-utilitarian. Put simply, if act-utilitarianism were adopted, every indi- vidual would on every occasion be in the position of having to decide what course of action would promote the most happiness or least suffering etc.
We are all clearly better off if in some areas we have some rules; granted that means that sometimes in following the rule we cause more grief than we might have done, nonetheless overall we are better off. If there is no rule and no presumption about people telling the truth, life will be unpredictable, chaotic, and, as a result, in various obvious ways very unsettling and unnerving i.
But the main point is that one fairly obvious thing that humans in general need for their security and comfort are some agreed rules. If we are talking about rule-utilitarianism in the terms that I have outlined, then the claim that it is a teleological theory is true in that it is focused on the end of happiness, but misleading in that it ignores the fact that, having made the rules, utilitarians see a need to follow them because they are rules; in the same way, it is not straightforwardly consequentialist, because one is sup- posed to tell the truth in any situation and not simply when the consequences of so doing will be increased happiness.
The aspect of utilitarianism that I wish to suggest needs to be incorporated into any understanding of morality is its recognition of the significance of something like happiness as a criterion of moral evaluation.
I shall not pursue this issue in detail and will tend to refer to happiness, well-being, or absence of suffering, different as they may be, indiscriminately. But my suggestion is that a part of the grounding for any plausible moral theory must be concern for general well-being.
Yes, there may be rules that ought to be followed regardless of the consequences on particular occasions. Yes, there may be some other elements and principles that define morality besides well-being. Yes, there is still room for debate about what constitutes well-being or happiness. But surely at least a part of the reasoning that explains and justifies the claim that one ought to tell the truth or perform any moral act is that this is for our collective well-being.
In the past some philosophers have been drawn to what are called social contract theories and in recent years there has been revived interest in mod- ification of such theories. I am not specifically thinking in terms of a contract in what I have written here so much as of a few broad and common perceptions which lie behind our sense of why we should or should not do certain things. But it is nonetheless plausible to see morality as a set of principles that, whatever other reasons may be given for recognizing them, represent the sort of rules that enlightened people would choose to adopt if starting a community from scratch.
Reducing morality to power, I have argued, is a mistake; it is neither the whole truth about what has happened historically nor plausible as an account of what we understand morality to be. Turning to God is no use either; even if there is a God, our sense of morality must be something distinct from our commitment to God or else there is no such thing as what we sense to be morality.
Nature is a dangerous guide; even if we knew clearly how to distinguish the natural from the unnatural, there is no reason to equate what happens naturally or what we are naturally inclined to do with what is good or what ought to be done.
Intuition notoriously cannot be relied upon in any field and the specific theory of utilitarianism, at least as commonly interpreted, cannot be accepted as the answer to our problems. Religion, nature, and intuition 41 Already we are beginning to build up an understanding of certain char- acteristics of the moral domain; but before we attempt to consider directly what the fundamental and defining principles of morality are, some remaining preliminary distinctions and cautions need to be introduced.
Commentary The introduction of God brings us to the philosophy of religion. John Hick The Existence of God collects a number of fundamental arguments from the history of the subject. Useful collections of papers are: Basil Mitchell ed. The Philosophy of Religion, Thomas V. Morris ed. It goes without saying in this multicultural age that the focus on Christianity in these references and in the body of the text is merely for illustrative purposes.
A Companion to Ethics and further references in the Commentary on Chapter 4 below on natural rights. He means that a social instinct is implanted in us by nature and he connects this with our capacity for a unique type of language that allows us to express a distinction between the just and the unjust. Hudson Modern Moral Philosophy. On the distinction between act- and rule-utilitarianism, in addition to refer- ences already provided, see the debate between J.
Many dictionaries of philosophy or primers therefore treat the two words as synonyms. There is certainly a case for saying that we should mark the distinction between specific codes of practice for, e.
Unfortunately, though the difference is important, since professional ethics are by no means nec- essarily co-extensive with morality, current usage is so varied as to make it rather futile to attempt to lay down the law on this matter. And this is the case more generally: usage is too variable, and in some cases too entrenched, to make it profitable to try and use the words to mark out clear and distinct concepts.
But the important point for the reader is obviously to recognize that within these pages, on this particular issue, nothing hangs on which word is used. This may be described as a book about ethics or morality, it is an introduction to ethics, ethical theory, or moral philosophy, and it refers to and attempts to deal with a variety of ethical or moral problems, dilemmas, and demands.
Thus to raise a hand is a behaviour, but it becomes an action when it is understood as a cry for help, a greeting, etc. In practice, it is hard to maintain this distinction much of the time, simply because common usage generally refers to behaviour rather than action, whatever the context and the precise meaning intended.
And I shall often ignore the distinction. It matters that we are aware of the difference between talking about the observable physical performance or the behaviour, and the meaning of the behaviour, which is the act or action. The distinction therefore needs to be borne in mind and sometimes to be explicitly noted, particularly when we are talking about moral agency and responsibility.
Morality is not ultimately about behaviours, but about actions, that is, about our intentions, motives, and beliefs as much as our physical behaviour. But let us now turn to some distinctions that do need to be observed. Among the many different kinds of value there is, for example, aesthetic value, which is distinct from, say, economic value; what is legally right is distinct from what is conven- tionally right and continues to be distinct even if they happen to coincide: to say that something is legally right is different from saying that it is conven- tionally right ; a broken knife is a poor knife in a quite different sense from that in which a poor sporting performance is poor.
To repeat: not all values are moral values; there are other goods besides moral goods. So the focus here is not on goodness but on moral goodness; a lot of behaviour may be bad or good in quite non-moral ways as, for example, being drunk, being rude, or being conceited.
Part of what a moral theory has to do is distinguish the moral from the non-moral domain and to explain what makes a moral issue specifically moral. Lying, for example, is a moral issue, whether or not we think it morally acceptable in a given situation, whereas over-eating, on the face of it, though it may be deplorable, disgusting, or unwelcome, is not in itself a moral issue.
Our interest is initially in the moral as distinguished from the non-moral, and only when we have defined the field of the moral in contrast to the non-moral does the distinction between the moral and the immoral i.
Second, we need to distinguish between a specific code of practice whether for a restricted group such as teachers, doctors, or lawyers, or for humanity at large as in the case of a Christian code and a moral or ethical theory. What I refer to as moral codes are determinate lists of specific prescriptions and prohibitions such as the Ten Commandments. Moral philosophy and the theory it gives rise to are not necessarily and I shall argue are in fact necessarily not concerned with a specific list of this sort.
Moral philosophy is concerned to uncover general principles that should govern our behaviour actions , but these principles always need to be interpreted and, because contexts and situations change, the same principles can lead to a need for different conduct at different times and places.
This, essentially, is the point that will help us to explain the issue of relativism: there is relativity or dif- ference at the level of the particular, and often rightly so, but that does not imply that the governing principles are relative, let alone arbitrary. A third distinction to note is between the morally good and the right.
Certain states of affairs e. Certain actions, however, e. It is unfortunately confusingly the case that we can also talk of actions as being good e. The latter are good or bad. This may seem rather pedantic, but it is connected to the issue of the supposed conflict between teleological and deontological types of moral theory. It presumes that one ought to do what one ought to do because it is conducive to the greater good, and that an act can only be morally right if it produces a greater balance of good than alternative actions would do.
One cannot of course deny the possible distinction here: an action can be approved only because it is presumed to increase the goodness in the world, or it can be approved without reference to that consideration.
But it is surely not the case that a moral theory has to rigidly incorporate one or other of these alternatives. The superficial presumption is that those committed to a deontological moral theory will say that the officer should not hand over the criminal to be lynched because that would be a wrong thing to do regardless of consequences, while those committed to the teleological view would say that, given that the man is guilty and that the alternative will lead to the loss of other innocent lives, the greater good demands that in this instance the prisoner be handed over.
Usually, an example such as this is designed to expose the supposed flaw in teleological theories. But there are at least two very strong responses that can be made by those who see themselves as committed to a teleological position. First, they could argue that, notwithstanding the certainty of imme- diate rioting and death to some innocents, the officer should not hand over the prisoner because to do so would be to weaken respect for the law and to encourage other lynch mobs to form and make similar demands in the future, with the consequence that in the long term the greater good would not be served.
Both responses are at any rate prima facie plausible defences of a teleological position. But I want to suggest something more. Presumably, those i. It is, surely, more or less incomprehensible that some- body, whatever the grounds for his moral convictions, should at one and the same time see something as an absolute moral duty and as something that was of no material significance to the moral goodness of the world.
Conversely, those who believe that whether the officer should act in this or that way is a matter of which is for the better whether in terms of following a rule or making an exception to the rule certainly acknowledge that their theoretical position gives rise to a number of specific rules and duties to be followed, generally speaking, once formulated, because they are right. In short, not only is the presumption that teleological and deontological theories will necessarily lead to different judgements and prescriptions false, but, more than that, it seems difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of a theory that does not have at least some reference to both the idea of an ultimate good and particular rights and duties in determining the morally right thing to do.
The question of whether actions are right because they contribute to the good or whether it is good to do what is right regardless of consequences, conceived of as an abstract question about all moral action as opposed to a question asked about particular situations , thus seems a rather meaningless one. A fourth and very important distinction is between a good act and a justified act, with a right act sometimes being equivalent to one, sometimes to the other.
The first makes a statement about kindness in itself per se or intrinsically. Considered simply in and of itself it is a good thing.
But there may be circumstances in which, given the available options, though unkindness is intrinsically bad, it is justified, perhaps, as we say, as the lesser of two evils. It is very important to emphasize that in life we often face dilemmas, by which I mean insoluble problems as opposed to problems which are presumed to be soluble.
Faced with two obligations of equal force, what am I to do? Or, to make the point more strongly, perhaps I clearly ought to do something that is bad or wrong in itself. Thus, killing is wrong, but I kill the brutal psychopath to prevent him raping and murdering an innocent girl. It seems to me that the distinction between this an act that is intrinsically bad or wrong but justified by the context and an act that is inherently right is so important that it should be marked by distinct language, so I shall refer to the former as a justified act and only the latter as a right or good act.
Both charges have been levelled against utilitarianism, for example. But the answer to this is plainly that the utilitarian is not saying that what is wrong is right; he is saying that sometimes what is very far from right is nonetheless justified. And any moral theory, given the facts of life, has to face up to such problematic choices and, on occasion, unavoidable dilemmas.
On what conceivable ground could one argue for the moral superiority of not taking ten innocent lives in the certain knowledge that it would involve thousands of innocent deaths? One could of course simply assert that taking the ten innocent lives was morally unacceptable regardless of consequences, and many people do hold such a position on certain matters. But to assert is not to argue and the question is not, in any case, whether such an act would be morally wrong in the sense of bad which all are agreed it would be , but whether it might nonetheless be morally justified.
On what conceivable grounds, then, could one argue that it must be morally preferable to act in such a way that thousands of innocent people die than to act in such a way that ten die?
The problem here is in the human condition, not the theory of utili- tarianism, and, on any theory, intrinsically wrong acts may sometimes be justified. Hence the importance of making the distinction between a right act and a justified act.
Is there anybody on earth who is seriously going to maintain that everybody should always under any circumstances keep a promise, prevent harm, tell the truth, and be kind? In the first place, sometimes these different principles or those of any moral theory clash, so that it is logically impossible to abide by them all. Thus, most of us, whatever our precise moral position, believe in a principle of freedom and a principle of equality.
But it is impossible to live in this world without recognizing that sometimes these principles are in conflict, so that it is impossible consistently to uphold them both. Second, even when it is possible to uphold a particular principle, it is surely not hard to imagine circumstances which, despite our commitment to the principle, would make it seem wrong to do so. It is not only utilitarians who face dilemmas such as the one in the example.
What is anybody supposed to do when told that ten innocent people will be shot if hundreds of others are not surrendered? What is anybody supposed to do when the burglar is about to murder his wife?
The truth of the matter is that people tend to ask too much of a moral theory: they think it can be legitimately criticized and shown to be faulty in so far as it fails to provide consistent prescriptions for life. But it cannot be expected to do this for all sorts of reason, logical and contingent. It is an important part of my argument that this is not what a moral theory is for. Indeed, I think one of the reasons why some people feel dissatisfied with moral philosophy is that they assume and are sometimes led to believe that they are going to get more than can be got — not because philosophy is like that, but because life is like that.
There are of course instances of very specific rules for living or moral codes such as the Ten Commandments. The problem with a moral code such as this is that it is inflexible, and unsupported by justification. What can a moral theory do?
It can provide understanding of how the domain of morality works; it can provide an argument for a set of principles that are the determinants of moral decision-making.
That means inevitably that it will fail to prescribe specific conduct for every occasion. But it also means that it answers to the human condition and the nature of morality. For if we acknowledge that we are dealing with people who have freedom, then we must realize that there will be the unpredictable, the dilemma, and the difficult choice. One cannot criticize a moral theory for the fact that it does not solve all our problems or for the fact that it might on occasion justify an intrinsically bad action.
One can only criticize it for failing to understand human nature or for some kind of logical incoherence. Is morality, then, an objective or a subjective matter? The first thing that needs to be sorted out is what exactly this question means.
But then there is no good reason to imagine that moral claims would or should be comparable to scientific claims, and no plausible reason for equating objectivity with what can be scientifically demonstrated. Despite thousands of years of moral philosophy, we cannot claim that moral propositions are as conclu- sively established as, say, certain mathematical propositions.
But why should this concern us? Moral propositions are not mathematical propositions any more than they are scientific ones. They are not going to be established in the same way or, very likely, to the same degree. Nor, while we are on the subject, are they going to be supported in the same way as psychological or sociological or historical claims.
All of these fundamental disciplines work in different ways, which is why we recognize them as distinct and funda- mental, and to equate objectivity with only the kind or degree of proof that we associate with any one of these particular disciplines would be absurd. In the case of morality the question is whether there is enough dispassionate reasoning in support of certain truth claims to allow us to conclude that it would be unreasonable to deny them.
In that sense, as I shall attempt to estab- lish in Part II below, morality may be said to be objective; it is objective or the claims may be said to be objectively established in contradistinction to the view that it is subjective in the sense that it is ultimately a matter of varying taste or presumption. All this seems to me very confused. It is true of course that if there were no humans there would be no morality. Just as if there were no humans there would be no human procreation, no relationships, no friendship, no enmity, and no purpose-built dwellings.
Does this mean that procreation, friendship, and houses are not real? Of course not. Does this mean that whether this is an act of procreation, an instance of friendship, or a house is a matter simply of individual perception or preference? The fact is that things institutions, relationships, actions, even buildings can be man-made but nonetheless objective. There can be truth and falsehood even in artificially created or man-made phenomena.
But the questions that really need our attention are precisely what it means to say that such disparate things as football, marriage, and art are human constructs, whether they are all man-made in the same sense or in the same way, whether, to what extent, and in what way they might also be said to be given in nature or natural, and what the implications are of acknowl- edging in each case that they are to this or that extent variously either human constructs or given in nature.
After all, man cannot make anything: he cannot make square circles, he cannot double the number of degrees in a triangle, he cannot make something black and white all over. Conversely, he can build theories that are coherent or incoherent, clear or obscure, complete or incom- plete, and that do or do not conflict with facts about the world including other well-grounded beliefs.
The fact that we recognize that in some sense we create morality ourselves does not mean that what we designate as moral becomes arbitrary. At the very least, we should be looking for a clear, com- plete, consistent, and coherent theory of morality that is compatible with our other knowledge and beliefs.
Take, for example, a library that needs to classify its books. But only some of these approaches even begin to make sense in relation to the purpose of the library, which is to store books in a way that maximizes ease of retrieval or, more generally, use.
Some form of genre categorization is called for because it is a fact not an opinion or a preference that fiction, biography, poetry, history, and essays can be distinguished. All this is true and takes a bit of time to say, so may look like a lot of objections. But there is no valid objection. The point is that given who we are and what a library is for, only a certain number in fact relatively few alternative systems make sense.
But even here, not anything goes: to revert to stacking by colour would give the user no help at all and hence would be a bad feature of the system. I do not dispute, therefore, that some details of a classification system may legiti- mately change because of different circumstances and I shall be saying exactly the same of morality: there are moral differences between cultures, and some of these differences are entirely legitimate in that they make sense and can be justified, but they do not thereby do anything to make the case for the relativity or subjectivity of morality as a whole.
If, of course, everybody or the clear majority say they do not favour it, then something has gone wrong and it is not a good system. Mutatis mutandis, the same may be said of marriage, friendship, or any other human institution; they have to take account of human needs and wishes, which may sometimes vary, but then they have to be devised in a coherent and rational way in the light of the purpose of the exercise as well as human preferences and inclinations.
In the same way, while of course any moral theory is and should be based on human inclinations that is one reason why well-being already figures in this account: people care about their well-being — a moral system that ran counter to it or totally ignored it would be a non-starter , beyond that it has to sort and organize in a coherent and rational way that takes account of what morality is for.
Once that is done it becomes a matter of objective truth whether the theory is more or less adequate. Here again I think the presumed distinction unreal, inasmuch as one cannot neatly distinguish between exam- ining the meaning of moral terms and critically examining moral theories or, yet again, actual moral problems.
Moore Ethics is a briefer, more introductory account than his Principia Ethica. See also W. The world of business is fraught with ethical challenges. Some of these are relatively straightforward, but others are complicated and require careful reflection.
While there are numerous theories to help people navigate these dilemmas, the goal of this book is to provide a comprehensive biblical perspective on contemporary issues in areas such as consumer behavior, management, accounting and marketing. Cafferky explores the biblical resources for moral guidance and ethical consideration.
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By looking at ethical approaches and issues through this multifaceted biblical perspective, Cafferky helps readers appreciate the complex nature of ethical decision making, particularly in the context of business and finance.
Designed from the start with the classroom in mind, each chapter of Business Ethics in Biblical Perspective provides example scenarios, questions for intrapersonal and interpersonal ethical reflection, review questions, ethical vignettes for discussion and an exploration of the chapter material in light of the biblical themes. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.
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