A Method for Progress in Business Ethics

This course takes a practical approach to business ethics, which means we want to learn to do something. Our actions will be the result of reasoning about the details of our situation as well as the ethical principles involved.

As part of our practical approach, though, we also want to make progress: we want to understand ethical problems and solve at least some of them! To do so would be to make progress in business ethics—we’d be advancing our understanding and ability to act when facing ethical problems.

Various obstacles stand in the way of this progress. One is that we almost always have imperfect information. We can’t predict the future, and so we don’t know for sure what will happen when we build a new storefront in a downtown location or begin to sell our products in foreign markets. Imperfect information means we’ll always be finding things we could have done better if we’d known in advance what would happen.

There are other obstacles too. Most businesses work with people, both employees and customers, and people have agency and can act as they please. Regardless of a firm’s commitment to ethical behavior, no one can guarantee that others will respect the firm’s ethical principles.

Beyond these problems, though, there is a much deeper obstacle to progress in business ethics: the ubiquitous, raucous, and almost intractable disagreements about ethics that exist among people with a stake in a business or field. For every argument we’ve given so far in this book, we could find someone who disagrees; for every case study, we could find someone representing every possible position. Is there anything we can say about business ethics that everyone would agree on?

There might be, and we’ll return to this question in future chapters. We’ll also return to another issue related to this one: for many people, it’s tempting to look at disagreements in ethics and conclude that, therefore, the whole field is just a matter of taste; there are no truths about ethics, just opinions. And if there are no truths, how can there be any progress, either? “Progress” would just be persuading others of your views, and it wouldn’t involve getting any closer to what is true or good.

The position that there are no truths in ethics is called anti-realism. The “realism” part means that ethical truths are real, or really do exist, and the “anti-” part goes against that. So anti-realism goes against the reality of ethical truths by claiming that there aren’t any. We’ll see anti-realism and its counterpart, realism, in Chapter 2, and we’ll consider arguments for both these views.

Let’s suppose for now that we can make at least some progress in business ethics, even if we aren’t sure whether there are ethical truths or not. What we need next is a method for making that progress. In reasoning, a method is a way of systematizing everything we think about some issue—a way of gathering all the evidence and organizing it so we can try to make sense of everything at once, in order to know what to think.

We will call our approach to making progress in business ethics the reflect and test method. By “reflect” we just mean “think carefully,” and we can reflect about the ethical implications of anything in business—perhaps it’s a decision we have to make at work, our company’s past actions, or even a case study in this book.

To really reflect requires us to first gather as much relevant information about the situation as possible. Which people are involved, and what are their desires? What are the relationships among those people? Which aspects of our business does the situation involve? What are the short- and long-term consequences for our business? What outcomes could we expect for people and organizations outside our business, even if they are unlikely? Asking questions like these prompts us to seek out the answers, rather than rest with superficial beliefs about what might happen or what we hope will happen.

Another key source of information for reflecting is the values of an individual or organization. Values, simply said, are just things we care about—they are our core principles and beliefs—and they show up in many ethical problems or disagreements about ethical principles. One such value is fairness, and another is avoidance of harm. To value fairness means to treat everyone the same way, to give everyone the same opportunities and goods, and to desire that other people treat everyone equally as well. To value the avoidance of harm means to take actions that minimize or even eliminate harm to yourself and others. This value leads us to prize the well-being of others and take their living and working conditions seriously.

The next step of reflection is to use all our information to look for ethical principles. We’ve seen an example of this step before, when we considered the Masterpiece Cakeshop case study. By drawing from the details of the case and from values we already possess, we can see that the ethical problem demands a principle about discrimination. We came up with the following principle:

  • Discriminating against any person for any reason is always wrong.

This principle comes from our reflection on the details of our problem and on our values. Notice that, in some cases, you may not need to look hard for ethical principles, and you may not even need to look at all. You may already know the principles you need to apply.

With one or more principles in hand, we’re on to the second part of our method, test. Here we test our principle by trying to apply it to other cases. When we change the details of the situation, does the principle still apply? Can we imagine scenarios where it doesn’t apply, and are any of those scenarios relevant to our current problem?

The point of this test is to refine our ethical principle. Generating an ethical principle from a single case is tricky because no single case covers every possibility. As we consider other situations, we’ll see where our principle needs adjustment, and as we adjust, we can continue to test it against other cases.

We saw an example of testing with our principle about discrimination. Our first attempt was too strong—it said that all discrimination is wrong, no matter the reason. Following this principle would put us in some difficult situations, like not being able to reject applicants with a history of pedophilia for a job at an elementary school. In certain cases, rare as they may be, we want to be able to discriminate, so we have to refine our ethical principle to reflect the outcome we think is appropriate for situations with child sex offenders.

Our testing led us to this more refined principle:

  • In general, discriminating against people on the basis of protected classes like sex, race, sexual orientation, military history, and so on, is wrong.

This principle better reflects our values and allows us some flexibility when we need it.

The principle probably isn’t perfect yet, though, and that’s why the reflect and test method is repeatable: once we’ve got a decent principle, we can keep reflecting, continue to gather information, and then test again. As we carry the process forward, the reflecting and testing steps may start to look similar to each other, but that’s fine. It just means our principle is beginning to account for the actual complexity of ethics in a business environment.

With tested, useful ethical principles, we’ll be ready to make strong arguments about ethical problems.

And that’s the method of reflect and test! It’s our way of making progress in business ethics. We reflect on as much information as we can get in order to generate and refine ethical principles. We then test those principles to refine them. As the principles change, we continue to reflect and test until our ethical principles account for our ethical problem, respect our values, and make sense in other cases.1

Here’s a quick reference guide for our method of reflect and test.

  • STEP 1: REFLECT

    • Gather as much relevant information as possible.

      • Who is involved, and what are their desires?

      • What relationships do those people have?

      • Which parts of our business does the situation involve, and what are the possible short- and long-term consequences for those parts?

      • What outcomes could we expect for people and organizations outside our business, even if they’re unlikely?

    • Consider which values are relevant to the situation.

    • Generate or identify relevant ethical principles.

  • STEP 2: TEST

    • Apply our principles to other cases.

      • When we change the details of the situation, do the principles still apply?

      • Can we imagine scenarios where the principles do not apply?

    • Refine the principles by modifying them in response to our tests.

      • Do we need to make our principles more general or less general?

      • Do we need to integrate other values into our principles?

  • STEP 3: REPEAT

    • Reflect on the new principles and their consequences, and test to continue refining them.

We’ll augment our method with two other resources. First, ethicist Laura Nash offers a set of twelve questions to consider in the decision-making process. Here are her questions:2

  1. Have you defined the problem accurately?

  2. How would you define the problem if you stood on the other side of the fence?

  3. How did this situation occur in the first place?

  4. To whom and to what do you give your loyalty as a person and a member of the corporation?

  5. What is your intention in making this decision?

  6. How does this intention compare with the probable results?

  7. Whom could your decision or action injure?

  8. Can you discuss the problem with the affected parties before you make your decision?

  9. Are you confident that your position will be as valid over a long period of time as it seems now?

  10. Could you disclose without qualm your decision or action to your boss, your CEO, the board of directors, your family, society as a whole?

  11. What is the symbolic potential of your action if understood? If misunderstood?

  12. Under what conditions would you allow exceptions to your position?

Nash’s questions can help us be specific in different parts of our reflect-and-test process. The second resource is a list of decision-making steps from Robinson, Dixon, Preece, and Moodley in their book on engineering and professional ethics.3

  1. State the problem. For example, “there is something about this decision that makes me uncomfortable,” or “I may be facing a conflict of interest.”

  2. Check facts.

  3. Identify relevant factors, such as people involved, laws, and practical constraints.

  4. Develop a list of possible actions or responses.

  5. Test options. Use tests such as the following:

    • Harm test: Does this option do less harm than alternatives do?

    • Publicity test: Would I want my choice of this option published in the newspaper?

    • Defensibility test: Could I defend this option before a committee of peers?

    • Reversibility test: Would I still consider the choice of this option good if I were adversely affected by it?

    • Colleague test: What would my colleagues say when I describe my problem and suggest this option as my solution?

    • Professional test: What might the profession’s governing body or ethics committee say about this option?

    • Organization test: What does the company’s ethics officer or legal counsel say about this?

  6. Make a choice based on steps 1–5.

  7. Review steps 1–6. What would you do to make it less likely that you would have to make such a decision again?

    • Are there any precautions you can take as an individual?

    • Is there any way to have more institutional or other support next time?

    • Is there any way to change the organization (e.g., suggest policy change at the next departmental meeting)?

It’s fun to talk about case studies and refine ethical principles. But we should never lose sight of the goal of doing business ethics: to solve real problems now and to improve our ability to solve real problems in the future. Our method can help us do that.

In using our method to reach that goal, one of the most difficult challenges will be resisting the urge to react to an ethical problem, rather than reflect. Many people’s immediate reaction to the Masterpiece Cakeshop case is disgust and anger that someone could have refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. In the same way, many people react to the case of Ross Hopkins by thinking his company or its leadership wronged him.

But these reactions are just that: reactions. And while reactions are great for social media posts, they stay at the level of reactions until we are able to give reasons for why we feel the way we do—reasons that others can appreciate and respect, even if they don’t accept them. We get at those reasons by reflecting and testing.

As we apply the method, we’ll feel ourselves pulled in one direction or another. But we must try to gather the evidence and principles and weigh it all before making a conclusion. Once we reach a conclusion in our minds, reasoning and reflecting stop—even if we try to convince ourselves or others that we’re still evaluating the problem. The more we can reflect and test before writing the conclusion as the last line in our argument, the better.

Making progress in business ethics requires us to move beyond the level of social media posts and into mature, considered positions about difficult problems. Finding these positions is possible, and we can develop the ability to do it through practice.

Let’s finish this section with a case study. This one is about students at Oberlin College and their relationships with a local business.

Case Study: Oberlin College

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio. Its student population is around 2,700. It was one of the first colleges in the United States to admit Black students and was one of the first to admit women as well. In 1850, Lucy Sessions earned a degree, becoming the first Black woman in US history to accomplish that feat. Oberlin College has always seen itself as a diverse, progressive institution.

Figure 1.6: Warner Gymnasium at Oberlin College.

Photo from Columbus Metropolitan Library, 1917, original source, No Copyright via Wikimedia Commons.

Across the street from the college campus is a restaurant called Gibson’s Food Mart & Bakery. In addition to serving pastries, Gibson’s sells goods such as coffee. Gibson’s markets to local residents as well as to college students. The bakery also provides catering for Oberlin.

Gibson’s and other local businesses have not always had a smooth relationship with the college’s student body. Many businesses report high yearly losses due to shoplifting, which they blame on Oberlin students. Krista Long of Ben Franklin, a general store nearby, for example, once spoke about problems with shoplifting, and how people at her store tended to think students were responsible, rather than other members of the community.4

On November 9, 2016, these tensions boiled over. According to court documents, Allyn Gibson, a Gibson’s employee, was tending the store when three Black students were shopping. Gibson alleged that one of the students was shoplifting wine in addition to trying to buy other alcohol items with a fake ID. The student fled the store, Allyn chased and tackled him, and they began to fight.5 The two other students got involved in the altercation, and when police arrived, they found the students punching and kicking Allyn.6 Much later on, they were charged with theft and pled guilty, agreeing to state in court that there had been no racial motivation behind the store’s actions.

Before that plea agreement, though, students at Oberlin responded by accusing the bakery of racist business practices and began to protest and boycott Gibson’s. Several university administrators appeared at some of the protests, and their presence eventually became critical to the later court case. Gibson’s filed a civil complaint against Oberlin for libel, slander, and other charges. In June 2019, a jury awarded the bakery $11 million in compensatory damages and far more in punitive damages. Later, in April 2022, a court of appeals in Ohio dismissed Oberlin’s appeal, capping the settlement at $25 million and ordering Oberlin to pay $6.3 million to the bakery in attorneys’ fees.

Many aspects of this case are interesting, including the allegations of racism and the response by Oberlin administrators. In this case study, though, we won’t focus on the civil case and resulting settlement. Instead, we’ll consider Gibson’s practice of what Oberlin called a chase-and-detain policy toward shoplifters.7

When faced with potential theft, establishments that have a chase-and-detain policy toward shoplifting tend to act as Allyn Gibson did: employees chase the suspected offender and attempt to detain them until police can arrive. From a business’s perspective the advantages of such a policy are obvious: it may be able to stop theft before it happens, it may deter shoplifting in the future, and it signals to police that a store is having problems with theft.

Critics of a chase-and-detain policy, however, argue that it is an ineffective deterrent to crime. They also say that racial or other biases may lead employees to implement the policy in unbalanced or even unlawful ways, and that instigating physical altercations with customers can have violent consequences.

A chase-and-detain approach is not the only way businesses can deal with shoplifting. They may post signs, use silent police alerts, or ask for an increased police presence in their area, all without chasing or trying to detain alleged thieves.

  1. How could we tell whether a business’s use of a chase-and-detain policy toward shoplifting was effective?

  2. What right do businesses have to determine how they will handle cases of alleged theft?

  3. Suppose you were a manager at Gibson’s. How would you determine what policy to take toward shoplifting? What information would be relevant to your decision, and why?

  4. Detaining someone requires probable cause—you must have a reason why you’ve detained them. What sorts of evidence could count as probable cause when deciding whether to detain a suspected shoplifter for the police?

  5. What ethical principles, if any, could justify a chase-and-detain policy? What ethical principles might challenge such a policy?

  6. Is chase-and-detain an ethical business practice? Why or why not?