Emotion as well as reason: Getting students beyond "interpersonal accountability"

Journal of Business Ethics

Volumn 17, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 295-308

  Kuhn, James W ^a  

^a Och Spine at New York Presbyterian Hospitals   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0031995782     PISSN: 01674544     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1005750308801     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. Andrew Stark, 'What's the Matter with Business Ethics?', Harvard Business Review, May-June, 1993, pp. 38-48.
2. 'What is Business Ethics?', The Public Interest, vol. 63 (Spring 1981).
3. Christina Hoff Sommers points out that many students come to college already dogmatically committed to a moral relativism; further, the average student typically does not come to classes steeped in a religious or ethical tradition in which she has uncritical confidence She asks, 'How do they get what Henry Sedgwick called "moral common sense" ' 'Teaching the Virtues,' The Public Interest, Number 111, Spring, 1993, pp. 4 and 7.
4. Quoted by Jane J Mansbridge, Beyond Self-interest (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1990, p. 12, from Gordon Tullock, The Vote Motive (London: Institute for Economic Affairs), 1976.
5. Quoted by Jane J Mansbridge, Beyond Self-interest (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1990, p. 12, from Gordon Tullock, The Vote Motive (London: Institute for Economic Affairs), 1976.
6. Paul Barrett, 'Influential Ideas: A Movement Called 'Law and Economies' Sways Legal Circles', The Wall Street Journal, August 4, 1986, pp. 1 and 16.
7. See Robert H Frank, Thomas Gilovich, and Dennis T. Regan, 'Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation?', Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring 1993) pp. 159-171. The authors find some evidence that in charitable giving, as well as cooperative and prisoner-dilemma games economists show more free-riding tendencies than does the non-economist. The findings are not compelling, but they point in the same direction. We believe they should be seriously considered.
8. Economic Commentaries (London: Staples Press) 1957, pp. 147-155.
9. Of course, even air, increasingly, if it is unpolluted, becomes scarce.
10. In support of his notion that a competitive market economizes love, Robertson refers to the declaration of his respected teacher and mentor, Alfred Marshall, who was as influential an economist in his day as Paul Samuelson was in his, each having authored the most popular economics textbook of his generation Marshall wrote, "progress chiefly depends on the extent to which the strongest and not merely the highest forces of human nature can be utilized for the increase of social good." Focusing attention on the difference between the adjectives used to characterize self interest and love, he may have overlooked Marshall's initial qualification. "Chiefly" does not mean "exclusively," and since Marshall admitted the possible use of the "highest forces of human nature," we may presume that he believed they played some role in market motivations. Robertson, like other economists referring to the Smith of the second book, skipped too easily from "likelihood" that the stronger self interest will prevail in the market to the conclusion that the highest force of human nature is well and effectively excluded from it.
11. See Robert McGarvey, 'Doing The Right Thing', Training, July 1993, pp. 35-38. He notes that Michael Huffman, director of the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College, Waltham, MA, found that of the Fortune 1,000 in 1990, 90 percent had written codes of ethics, up from 75 percent in 1985.
12. See Robert McGarvey, 'Doing The Right Thing', Training, July 1993, pp. 35-38. He notes that Michael Huffman, director of the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College, Waltham, MA, found that of the Fortune 1,000 in 1990, 90 percent had written codes of ethics, up from 75 percent in 1985.
13. Since 1950 world trade has increased by about 60 times! The average increase over the period has been about 10 percent, rising more slowly in the 1980s at rate of 5 percent See Gary S. Decker, 'Why So Many Mice Are Roaring', Business Week, November 7, 1994, p. 20.
14. Sharon D. Parks, 'Young Adults and the Formation of Professional Ethics', Can Ethics Be Taught? Perspectives, Challenges, and Approaches at Harvard Business School (Boston: Harvard Business School), 1993, p. 51.
15. The same, p. 19.
16. The same, p. 19.
17. See Richard H Thaler, The Winner's Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life (New York: Maxwell Macmillan International), 1992, Chapter 3, 'The Ultimatum Game', pp. 21-35; and Richard H. Thaler, Quasi Rational Economics (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), 1994, Chapter 11 (with Daniel Kahneman and Jack L. Knetsch) 'Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics', pp. 220-235.
18. See Richard H Thaler, The Winner's Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life (New York: Maxwell Macmillan International), 1992, Chapter 3, 'The Ultimatum Game', pp. 21-35; and Richard H. Thaler, Quasi Rational Economics (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), 1994, Chapter 11 (with Daniel Kahneman and Jack L. Knetsch) 'Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics', pp. 220-235.
19. Games where the amount divided is substantial, $100 or more, usually provoke the same outcome A likely explanation may be that since neither party "deserves" any of the stake, recipients even before presented with the ultimatum assume they should get as much as the allocator. Without their approval, neither will get anything. Therefore, if offered less than half, they interpret it as a loss!
20. Robert Frank, Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions (New York: W W. Norton), 1988, pp. ix-x.
21. Robert H Frank, Thomas Gilovich, and Dennis T. Regan, 'Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation?', Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring 1993), p. 170.
22. One particularly able student, a young woman preparing for church ministry, assigned to the "top" group was so gripped by the sense of power she, as group leader, and her colleagues possessed, that they treated the members of other groups most shabbily, and until the last minutes of the game, were ready to spend the whole stake of about $100 on a fine dinner for themselves alone. Only at the last moment did she realize how she and her group had acted in violation of her professed beliefs and values. She insisted that A Group distribute the stake equally among all who had contributed, including the teachers (a rare event!). Later she declared that she would never forget the experience; it was a powerful lesson to her in the ease with which one can lose ethical perspectives.
23. Sharon D. Parks, 'Young Adults and the Formation of Professional Ethics', Can Ethics Be Taught? Perspectives, Challenges, and Approaches at Harvard Business School (Boston: Harvard Business School), 1993, p. 24. Also note the observations of Derek Bok in his Harvard Commencement Address, June 7, 1990: 'At present, Americans are the most parochial of all industrial peoples. Young people in America are less likely to travel abroad, less likely to speak a foreign language, and less likely to know the basics of world history or geography than their counterparts in any other advanced nation. This parochialism already costs us daily in international competition and international affairs and leaves us ill-prepared for the future', Harvard Alumni Gazette (June 1990), p. 70.
24. Sharon D. Parks, 'Young Adults and the Formation of Professional Ethics', Can Ethics Be Taught? Perspectives, Challenges, and Approaches at Harvard Business School (Boston: Harvard Business School), 1993, p. 24. Also note the observations of Derek Bok in his Harvard Commencement Address, June 7, 1990: 'At present, Americans are the most parochial of all industrial peoples. Young people in America are less likely to travel abroad, less likely to speak a foreign language, and less likely to know the basics of world history or geography than their counterparts in any other advanced nation. This parochialism already costs us daily in international competition and international affairs and leaves us ill-prepared for the future', Harvard Alumni Gazette (June 1990), p. 70.
25. Quoted by the Antonio R Damasio, M.W. Van Allen Professor and head of the neurology department at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, in an essay, 'Descartes' Error and the Future of Human Life', Scientific American, October 1994, p. 144.
26. Irving Kristol, ' "When virtue loses all her loveliness" - some reflections on capitalism and "the free society" ', The Public Interest, No. 21, Fall 1970.
27. Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate economist, and well known popularizer of free market values and strong advocate of the competitive economic system emphasized the assumption that parties to market transactions should act voluntarily and be fully informed In Capitalism & Freedom, he wrote: ". . . both parties to an economic transaction benefit from it, provided the transaction is bi-laterally voluntary and informed" (italics in original). He also noted that all participants should be free to withdraw from the market, if the transaction terms are not satisfactory. Such a condition is likely, only if all participants possess enough income and wealth that they can "sit-out" an offer, until a better one comes along. Friedman's realism in the necessity of some minimal ownership of assets, if one is to be an effective market player, is probably the source of his advocacy of the negative income tax - a way of assuring all citizens a way of participating at least minimally effectively in the market.
28. For a selection of such inspirational, religious celebration of the market system and capitalism see Moses Rischin, editor, The American Gospel of Success (New York: New Viewpoints), 1974.