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Instructor: Dean Joseph

Businesses are a pervasive feature of our social and political lives. We encounter business as employees, consumers, and even as products. In all these areas, moral controversies arise: What can be sold? How can it be advertised? Can corporations be held responsible for harms? Where does business end and government begin? This course explores central moral and political issues at the intersection of ethics and business through contemporary and foundational texts, including case studies on controversies in Amazon and Walmart, financial motives in medical research, and environmental harm. The course begins by exploring the foundations of ethics and the purpose of the firm. We then consider whether corporations have moral status, along with theories of property and justice. Next, we turn to applied ethics in the workplace, advertising, the environment, and global markets. Finally, we consider future challenges, from moral blind spots in artificial intelligence use to existential risk.