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(More customer reviews)Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases is widely used as an introduction to the study of business ethics. I have seen it used in first and second year philosophy courses; it is also used at the graduate level in business schools. The author, Manuel Velasquez, was trained as a philosopher but has worked in business programs for a good deal of his career. Not surprisingly then the text tends to reflect the preoccupations of business faculties more than those of philosophy departments.
In several key respects the text is philosophically unsophisticated, especially in chapter two, the lengthy chapter devoted to normative ethical theory. Many philosophers would reject Velasquez' characterization of Kantian ethics, especially his explanation of the first formulation. His treatment of the ethic of caring in chapter two is adequate, but in later chapters the core elements of the caring perspective are lost, to be replaced by a generalized concern for the welfare of everyone, even that of total strangers and distant ecosystems.
One of the chief strengths of the text lies in the high quality of the case studies. These have been carefully crafted to bring out the complexity and uncertainties of everyday moral deliberation.
This the sixth edition of the text reflects the general trend in collegiate publishing to appeal to weaker students who find reading a chore and resent being confronted with their own limitations. It is ironic then that one reviewer has complained that the language employed in the text is unduly sophisticated. This is one of the simpler texts in business ethics. Unlike other texts in the Prentice Hall catalog it doesn't expect students to read scholarly work in its original form, but instead offers predigested summaries of important theories and principles found in ethics.
The fifth edition is more detailed than the sixth edition and doesn't see the need for photographs, sidebar summaries, bulleted lists, video CDs of the nightly news and other props which add to the price of an already overpriced textbook.
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This book provides readers with a clear, straightforward writing style, an abundance of examples, detailed real-life cases, and current data and statistics. It aims to 1) introduce ethical concepts that are relevant to resolving moral issues in business, 2) develop the reasoning and analytical skills needed to apply ethical concepts to business decisions, 3) identify moral issues specific to business, and 4) examine the social and natural environments within which moral issues in business arise. Chapter topics cover ethics and business, ethical principles in business, the business system, ethics in the marketplace, ethics and the environment, the ethics of consumer production and marketing, the ethics of job discrimination, and the individual in the organization. For anyone in business.
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