Socrates Comes to Wall Street

For courses in Business Ethics

A fresh approach to the assumptions that underlie business practices
Two recent events — the 2008 economic meltdown and the ongoing concentration of the nation’s wealth in the hands of a very small percentage of the population — have led many people to question a number of basic assumptions about business, corporations, and the workings of contemporary free-market capitalism in a global economy. Written as a dialogue between Socrates and a hypothetical contemporary CEO, Socrates Comes to Wall Street leads students to think critically about perspectives and practices that are taken as “givens” in most American business schools and corporations. Employing this original and provocative approach, author Thomas White seeks to encourage the next generation of business leaders to be more astute about the implications of their actions, and to act more prudently and more fairly than we have seen in the recent past.

Thomas I. White is the Conrad N. Hilton Professor in Business Ethics and Director of the Center for Ethics and Business at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California. He has written six books and numerous articles on topics ranging from sixteenth-century Renaissance humanism to business ethics and environmental ethics.

Author of In Defense Of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier, Professor White focuses on the ethical implications of the scientific research on cetaceans. He is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, a Scientific Advisor to the Wild Dolphin Project and served as U.S. Ambassador for the United Nations’ Year of the Dolphin program.

1. Socrates Arrives
2. What Is the “Job” of Business?
3. What Is the “Job” of Business? (continued)
4. Has the CEO Done Anything “Wrong”?
5. Has the CEO Done Anything “Wrong”? (continued)
6. Has the CEO Done Anything “Wrong”? (continued)
7. Ethics on the Job
8. Socrates Returns – The Second Conversation
9. “Ethics Is Rubbish!”
10. “Ethics Is Rubbish!” (continued)
11. Is There an Objective Foundation to Ethics?
12. Is There an Objective Foundation to Ethics? (continued)
13. Business, Ethics, Apple/Proview, and John Stuart Mill
14. Business, Ethics, Apple/Proview, and Immanuel Kant
15. Business, Ethics, Apple/Proview, and Immanuel Kant (continued)
16. Corporate Responsibility – The Gun Company
17. Corporate Responsibility – The Gun Company (continued)
18. Corporate Responsibility and “Return on Infrastructure” –  Caterpillar
19. Corporate Responsibility and “Return on Infrastructure” –  Caterpillar (continued)
20. Business, Ethics, and the Rights of Future Generations –  Climate Change
21. Business, Ethics, and the Rights of Future Generations –  Climate Change (continued)
22. Business, Ethics, and the Rights of Future Generations – The Economy
23. Business, Ethics, and the Rights of Future Generations – The Economy (continued)
24. Business, Ethics, and Ideology
25. Business, Ethics, and Ideology (continued)
26. Epilogue