Keynote speaker: Professor Marcia Baron (Philosophy, Indiana
University) – “Reflections on the Standard of the Reasonable Person in
Criminal Law”

Undergraduate and graduate students in all disciplines encouraged to
submit their work on any philosophical topic.

Scope: Original papers on any philosophical topic from graduate and
undergraduate students are welcome. The conference format will be
symposium-style: each session will include presentation/reading,
commentary, and brief Q&A/discussion period. Undergraduate and
graduate authors will be selected for presentation.

Prizes: One prize valued at $100 will be awarded to the most
outstanding paper by a graduate student. Another prize valued at $100
will be awarded to the most outstanding paper by an undergraduate
student. Prizes may take the form of books of the winner’s
choice.Winners will be selected on the basis of philosophical content/
insight, clarity of written expression, and general appeal to a
student audience.

Submission Requirements: Papers must be prepared for blind review
(i.e., no author-identifying information or notes in the body of the
paper, only on the cover page). Papers should not exceed twenty-five
minutes presenting time (3750 words). When submitting, please include
the following in the body of the email:

1. Author’s name
2. Paper/presentation title
3. Brief abstract (~100 words describing topic discussed in paper)
4. Academic status (undergraduate/graduate), major, university
affiliation
5. Regularly checked email address

Submissions that fail to include all of the above will not be
accepted. No more than one submission per author will be considered.
Authors should email their submission as a Word or PDF attachment to
Kyle Hirsch at khirsch1@student.gsu.edu. Students who attend a
school with a local chapter of Phi Sigma Tau must be members at the
time of the symposium.

Deadline: Papers must be received no later than January 20, 2011.
Notification of acceptance will be emailed by February 21, 2011.
Authors accepted for presentation may be asked to comment on another
paper.

Sponsored by the Zeta Chapter (Georgia) of Phi Sigma Tau, The Center
for Ethics – Student Forum, and The Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center for
Ethics, all of Georgia State University

Contact Andrew I. Cohen (aicohen@gsu.edu) or Kyle Hirsch
(khirsch1@student.gsu.edu) w/ queries.

–

Come in for copies of any of the readings you don’t have, for whatever reason. Who doesn’t have the Holley? Isn’t it right here on the blog?

Entine
Is Entine against free media advertising? How would consumers be able to decide which companies are morally sound?

It is interesting to think about that first question! I don’t know! Here is how we could figure it. A lot of free advertising might come to a company that seems socially responsible because of hype. Would Gillette, a company he really likes, get much free advertising? If so, would it be for his standards for real social responsibility?

How can consumers decide what companies are morally sound? They will never know for sure, because companies are “a dysfunctional family writ large”, remember. But we should require ETHICAL AUDITING of companies. This would require outside agencies to come in and determine 1. Does The Company Comply With The Law?
2. Does The Company Have A Sense Of Propriety?
3. How Honestly Do Product Claims Match With Reality?
4. How Does The Company Treat Its Employees?
5. How Does The Company Handle Third-Party Ethics Issues?
6. How Charitable Is The Company?
7. How Does The Company React When Faced With Negative Disclosures?

Aristotle
Be sure you can summarize his view.

Mandeville
Yes, I have a hard time grappling with what his views on society are and why they determine what constitutes a thriving economy.
One student gave a great answer to the above question: “Greed is good”. People are motivated by desire which leads to buying which is good for the economy.
Also: Mandeville’s approach to morality is ironic. People are greedy and that’s why markets exist and flourish. In the case of the bees, strict cooperation spelled doom in the long run because a lack of competition, as Mandeville sees it, hinders progression.

Does Mandeville support greed, or is he merely observing?
A: He seems to be supportive, otherwise we would starve! Personally, I think he meant it a bit tongue-in-cheek, but his point about starving seems pretty serious.

What did he do wrong?
A: He was not an economist, so we can assume he left some things out of his “story”. I suggest he leaves out the need for manufacturing to begin to make ALL items more cheaply. I worried that he might have described an economy that could specialize and make luxury items, but not produce beets cheaply. My example was the islands of bead-traders. They were rapid consumers, rapid producers, specialized: yet still hungry.

Smith
Does he provide a social rationale for human behavior or no?
A: I don’t know what this means!

Some of you said you understood him from other classes. This worries me a bit because our reading is so simple that I wonder what you are importing. Take a look over what he says again, word by word. We just have those two short chapters. They are our sole source for an account of an “invisible hand”. He does not refer to the “invisible hand” in these passages (I have that on the handout) but this is the story. It’s just a story. It should require nothing fancy alongside it. If you can make the story simpler than I have, on the basis of what he says: do it! But we are taking the “invisible hand” story straight out of our reading from Smith. No more! (Ok, I added in mention of marginal utility. But you can take this out. I also used the term “economy of scale” but you can take this out, too.) See if you can sum up what is going on in our reading of Smith. Once you have: that is the invisible hand story you can use.

Are you clear on how to raise moral objections to the invisible hand story?

Take Smith’s explanation in those two chapters, and raise MORAL OBJECTIONS. What would worry you if those chapters are all someone was told about the market?

Here are some we discussed in class, from a fellow student doing the review (good job): The invisible hand is set up to encompass all companies as a whole and as a result no blame can be placed on a single company and if one company causes a major economic issue, all are affected because not one company can be targeted to zone in on and fix the problem. Therefore, companies can use the excuse that the invisible hand made them do it. Also, it is based upon self interest which encourages people to be on their worst behavior in regard to business activities in that anything goes, including illegal activities. This undermines Smith’s principles and twists it in a way he didn’t mean it to be taken.

Marx
Question: I’m still confused on why communism didn’t/wouldn’t work. Besides the pricing problem, what are other problems with communism?

Answer: For our purposes, I would focus on the pricing problem. The “invisible hand” story explains how individuals making choices we don’t know about or understand end up making a system more efficient for their freedom. Smart people did not anticipate this, when they pursued socialist organization of the economy.

Anticonsumerism
Questions: Can you give an example in class on a clear statement?
My only question is how is it possible to write a response to this question in which it would be impossible to disprove? Essentially I would take the pro-consumerist angle, but no matter what I say I think someone could come up with a way to disagree, no matter how good my argument. Any pro-Marxist would be able to find any argument against capitalism and my pro-consumerism stance…

Answer/s: A clear statement would be. “I take any concern about consumerism to be overblown. On an individual basis, perhaps some people suffer from their consumption, but I have an explanation for this that does not end up finding the market at fault. I also think concern for consumerism is, at bottom, elitism or envy. To prove this, let me take the case of “keeping up with the Jonses” that our author considers. She imagines people getting less and less from trying to keep up with TV figures’s fashions and possessions. I will take this same example and show that people are getting a real benefit from their imitation and use of knock-offs…” Do you guys see how this would go?

And please do not be put off by the fact that people will always disagree! They will. Try to cut them off by bringing up their objections to begin with. Present your view in response to their own claims (see how I am doing that above)? It’s a great way to acknowledge objections. A sophisticated answers acknowledges objections.

Milton Friedman and interview.
Everyone seems OK?

John Mackey and SEC.
Seems good! One good question was: what happened with the case? Oh, boy. You’ll be glad we didn’t cover this. Take a look: http://www.antitrustlawblog.com/2009/01/articles/article/whole-foods-and-ftcs-litigation-far-from-checkout/

Anderson: not on final, but helpful.
Q: Her views were somewhat unclear to me. I understand that she addresses how social relationships can be tied into the way the market operates, but I am not quite sure how this really ties in…
She is great at explaining a failure to get something by buying it. Try buying love and you will be disappointed. Why? Love really, sorry for the cliché, can’t be bought. Try buying an education and you can’t (you have to work at it). Try buying respect, you can’t. On and on. She thinks the market works wonderfully for MARKET GOODS. But we make mistakes and take the wrong things to be MARKET GOODS. The best things in life are not MARKET GOODS.

Martin.
is there an ethical difference between internal and external whistleblowing?
A: He does not seem to address external whistleblowing (do you mean Julian Assange-like?) But it cannot be required, ethically.

Q: So should people whistleblow? What is the fine line?

A: He says “you cannot SAY whether people can whistleblow!” He says “There is no fine line! There is no way to figure this out on paper.” I love his view for these reasons. Do you see how he says these things?

Holley
I’m curious what type of question will be asked on this article. I understood it but I thought Holley was embarrassed by it? Is it still usable even though it was criticized?
Answer: Yes, we’re just taking it as it is. He gives us criteria for an ethical sale, and I’ll ask about them. I’ll ask for examples of them. I might not ever get to asking you to criticize him- but hopefully you’ll retain some of our class concerns anyway.

1. Your professor has tried to present to you as much relevant material as she could in order to prove the following: there is not currently available to us a coherent account of the purpose of business or the justification (including its own purpose and what it needs to work) of the market.
Do you, too, believe this is the case? If so, why? What convinced you of this? If not, why not? If not, where else might we need to look to find a clear account of these matters?

2. Tullock seems to suggest that large, named companies in competitive fields benefit from developing “good reputations”. Why, then, did Gymboree not gain customers for its efforts to comply to safety regulations for children’s clothing? Could the Gymboree example show that Tullock’s thesis is wrong?
Be sure to explain Tullock well in your answer. I’ll include the news article about Gymboree in the final exam.

3. Do you think the view John Mackey gave in the Reason interview is compatible with the memo he wrote to his board concerning Wild Oats? Why or why not? Try to prove your take.

4. Can you ethically assess McDonald’s by weighing ethical complaints against economic benefits? I will give you this handout along with the final: http://www.mcspotlight.org/campaigns/translations/trans_uk.html
Please look at it in advance. It lists a number of complaints, just like we did in class against Wal-Mart. How can you balance these against any economic benefits of there being McDonald’s? Come to any conclusion you’d like- but I will be looking for your attempt to at least acknowledge the benefits to general affluence that McDonald’s may bring (despite any complaints like those listed).

5. There is another I warned you about: would you would defend or support consumerism with reasoning? The best way to do this might be to represent Schorr’s views, which we went over in class. If you can’t open her reading still – you can just skip this question on the test. You will have a choice of these questions! Our discussion was also complex enough to give you an opportunity to learn the concerns people have. Articulate a clear position on the matter. Use examples and consider objections others might have.

In addition, by next week Tuesday please take this review. It is required.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/honorsBusinessEthicsfall2010

For this assignment you need to find a relatively recent article in one of the serious journals in business ethics: Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Business Ethics, or Business & Society.

Title of article:
Journal:
Author:

The abstract gets you to expect the paper will be about:
What is the thesis? Identify it *very clearly*. What is it in the author’s own words (find it!)?

Put in your own words:

What is the structure of the paper? What parts does it have?

How did you figure out this was the structure?

What is philosophical about the thesis?

What, in the paper, does not seem philosophical?

What understanding of the justification of the market is at play?

What account of ethics is used?

Type up five complex statements in the article, and decipher them for us.

If you had to give the “other side”, what would it be?

If you were describing to a friend outside of class what articles in business ethics journals are like- what would you say?

If you were working in business, how would this article help you?

How is your paper like and unlike this one?

If you were writing a study guide for us on this article– assume we need to learn it for a test and that we know everything you listed above- what else would this cheat sheet (study guide) include?

Earlier, from 3-4, she is taking questions from students (we were invited) in Stern.

If you attend, I will give you some credit for comments on the blog (or give me some other idea).

Schor’s visit has inspired me to add this to the final exam essay questions you know of:
Do you believe consumerism hurts people in our society, if so how?
Do you believe action should be taken? What sort? Defend your answer.

A very good answer would reference Schor, but you could just articulate and defend your own views. So keep thinking!!!

Tuesday we’ll go over each answer on the last midterm, we’ll talk about writing philosophy papers, and I’ll give you your last assignment (which is: go to the library, find a recent article in a business ethics journal, and sum it up in 2 pages).

I’ll take paper drafts at any time!

Here are the two articles I mentioned in class. The first is long, and you may want to scroll down to the mention of “TV”. The second is short- take a look.

On consumer use of social media, video games, and TV and its psychological impact on us

On the surprising uses for cell phones in Africa