There’s No Such Thing as Business Ethics
Posted on February 25, 2012
This book really talked about the Golden Rule. As you can tell from the title it talks about business but as the title also indicates not just about business. It says that ethics are ethics and you cannot have one set of ethics for your personal life and another for business. The Golden Rule is talked about in every chapter and sets forth that ethics is living the Golden Rule.
A real good read!
Randy J Bradley
June 1, 2012
In fact, you can and MUST have one set of ethics for your personal life and another for business. Business is competitive (like, say, football) whereas family life is cooperative. Being in business raises special duties, just like being a lawyer or doctor does. If the book had been called “There’s No Such Thing as Medical Ethics,” everyone would have seen that it’s a very strange claim to make. Special roles bring special duties.
Chris MacDonald,
The Business Ethics Blog
June 3, 2012
Chris,
Thank you for your insight and comment. We have taken a look at your work on line and appreciate the work you are doing.
To answer your comment we would like to quote from the preface of this great book. Although being in business does create a different set of “duties” and responsibilities, no matter what category of work you might be in, even “Medical” the idea of this book is that if a person is ethical they are ethical in everything they do. Personal, business, sports or anything they are involved in there is only one set of rules for ethics.
Here is the quote:
Several months ago I went to dinner in New York with Laurence J. Kirshbaum, the chairman and CEO of the AOL Time Warner Book Group. As we chatted, at one point in the conversation he looked at me and said, “You know, John, I think you would be the perfect person to do this: What would you think about writing a book on business ethics?”
“There’s no such thing,” I answered.
“What?” He looked a little surprised by my remark. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“There’s no such thing as business ethics – there’s only ethics. People try to use one set of ethics for their professional life, another for their spiritual life, and still another at home with their family. That gets them into trouble. Ethics is ethics. If you desire to be ethical, you live it by one standard across the board.”
Now, we know that not everyone has the same set of standards but if we use the same standards, what ever they may be, for all aspects of our life things might be a little different.
Thanks again for your comment.
November 21, 2012
Spiritual can be enhanced by always making sure that you have compassion to everyone. ”