Best Work of the Best Minds: Business Ethics and Value Creation

Philosophy professor and entrepreneur Stephen Hicks takes a critical look at unquestioned assumptions in the arena of business ethics. (This book was first published in 2002). Excerpt from The Best Work of the Best Minds: Business Ethics and Value Creation: "In the eyes of many a cloud of suspicion hangs over business. The reason is that the moral tradition out of which the competence ethic of business arises conflicts with a competing moral tradition that holds business to be immoral or, at best, amoral. For those who subscribe to this latter moral tradition, ethics is felt to be more a matter of stoically doing one's duty rather than having fun, of fulfilling one's obligations rather than fulfilling yourself, of obeying the rules rather than doing what's practical, of giving away rather than creating. Stooping to stereotypes, if this tradition's view of ethics could be personified, she would appear as a matron who goes about sniffing disapprovingly at anyone who seems to be having a