Philosophy 104: Business Ethics, §CT3FA

Russell Marcus, Instructor. Email me.

Queens College, Spring 2007

Syllabus


Meeting Times and Place:

  • Tuesdays and Fridays, 12:15pm - 1:30pm
  • Powdermaker Hall, Room 152

Required Texts:

  • Moral Philosophy: A Reader, 3rd edition, Louis P. Pojman, ed. Hackett Publishing Company, 2003.
  • Conspiracy of Fools, Kurt Eichenwald. Broadway Books, 2005.
  • Various handouts and/or downloads indicated in the Readings section of this syllabus, and available here.

Course Requirements:

  1. All the readings listed below.
  2. Quizzes (10%)
  3. Two Midterms (25% each) Tentative dates:
  4. Paper, 3-5 pages (25%) Tentative due date:
  5. Final Exam (15%)

Notes:

  • I do not give make-up exams.
  • Late papers will be accepted, but penalized.
  • More information on course requirements is available here.
  • The paper assignment and directions for preparing for exams will be posted during the term.

Tentative Schedule:

January 30:

  • Review Syllabus
  • Cicero, "Three Case Studies in Business Ethics."

February 2-6 :

  • Milton Friedman, "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits."

February 9-16:

  • Kurt Eichenwald, Conspiracy of Fools

February 20 - March 6:

  • Plato, "The Euthyphro Problem," pp 311-312.
  • Kai Nielsen, "Ethics without Religion," pp 327-333.
  • Thomas Hobbes, "Egoism as the Beginning of Morality," pp 62-71.
  • Plato, "Why Should I Be Moral?" pp 53-61.

March 9:

  • Midterm 1

March 13 - March 23:

  • Plato, "What is Right Conduct?" pp 2-18.
  • Herodotus, "Custom is King," p 20.
  • Ruth Benedict, "A Defense of Ethical Relativism," pp 33-37.
  • Louis Pojman, "A Defense of Ethical Objectivism," pp 38-52.

March 23- April 13:

  • John Stuart Mill, "Utilitarianism," pp 141-146.
  • Jeremy Bentham, "Classical Hedonism," pp 113-115.
  • Robert Nozick, "The Experience Machine, " pp 124-125.
  • Kai Nielsen, "Against Moral Conservatism," pp 147-156.
  • Sterling Harwood, "Eleven Objections to Utilitarianism," pp 179-192.

April 17 - April 24:

  • Immanuel Kant, "The Foundations of Ethics," pp 194-213.
  • Fred Feldman, "An Examination of Kant's Ethics," pp 214-228.

April 27 :

  • Midterm 2

May 1 - May 8 :

  • Aristotle, "Virtue Ethics," pp 249-259.
  • Bernard Mayo, "Virtue and the Moral Life," pp 260- 263.
  • William Frankena, "A Critique of Virtue-Based Ethics," pp 264-270.

May 11 - May 15 :

  • John Locke, from The Second Treatise of Government.
  • Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees.
  • Adam Smith, from The Wealth of Nations.

Notes:

  • Page numbers refer to the Pojman collection.
  • If page numbers are not listed, the reading is a handout/ download.
  • Assignments of particular sections of Eichenwald's book will be announced.