Bentham/Mills, Kant, Rawls

[Sauron]

That was my take-home midterm in International Business Ethics this weekend. Oh, and a real-world case to examine and analyze through the lens of each philosopher's ethical framework.

20 hours and 30 pages later, I'm done - very much done, thank you - with this topic.

My head hurts.

[godfry n. glad]

Kant? Ouch.

[Doctor X]

Then clearly you need:













. . . wait for it . . .












Noblesse oblige.

--J.D.

[Sock Puppet]

Somebody might need to clue in the good Doctor as to why that pic is probably not what Sauron needs.

[godfry n. glad]

Nah....I think we should all stand at a distance and snicker.

[Nullifidian]

I'm disturbed to see that your professor is teaching business ethics without knowing that Ayn Rand is the final word in both capitalism and ethics, making all previous philosophers superfluous. Yet another sad case of the closed-mindedness of the ivory tower elite.

Rand (and the Randroids) hated J.S. Mill, Kant (of course), and John Rawls, so it's amusing to see you having to address all of their philosophies in one paper. It's almost like Rand holds no sway in reputable academic circles at all.

In fact, if you read Philosophy: Who Needs It?, which I do not recommend, you can see Rand claiming that Rawls is a horrid Kantian, and this is why she refuses to read A Theory of Justice. Rand never read Kant either, she just had her obsessive fanboy Leonard Peikoff prepare her crib notes, so PWNI contains the unedifying spectacle of Rand using a philosopher she never read to predict the tendency of a philosopher she vows to never read.

But in all seriousness, congratulations on getting your midterm in, and it sounds like a fascinating subject you had to grapple with.

[Sauron]

Originally Posted by Nullifidian

I'm disturbed to see that your professor is teaching business ethics without knowing that Ayn Rand is the final word in both capitalism and ethics, making all previous philosophers superfluous. Yet another sad case of the closed-mindedness of the ivory tower elite.

Yah. Damn those Jesuit attorneys on the faculty.

But in all seriousness, congratulations on getting your midterm in,

Thank you.

and it sounds like a fascinating subject you had to grapple with.

Fascinating?
Dissecting a business case with these three philosophies?

It was more like mud-wrestling an octopus - one that may or may not actually exist, depending on your point of view.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by Sauron

That was my take-home midterm in International Business Ethics this weekend. Oh, and a real-world case to examine and analyze through the lens of each philosopher's ethical framework.

I'm pretty sure that viewing people as ends instead of means is antithetical to quite a large proportion of international businesses in the world.

Or at least most American corporations.

[D. Scarlatti]

Did you mention the prison Bentham designed so Bernie Madoff could keep an eye on Ken Lay?

[Sauron]

ROFL

The grades for this ethereal mud-wrestling midterm exam are finally in. The instructor (who incidentally is a former Jesuit and now a successful attorney on the faculty) just sent an email:

I have just posted the midterm exams. The scores ranged from 75% to 107.5% (one person did very well)*. While I do not curve until the final grade, given past experience, the grades would range from B to A+. I will bring the exams on Wed. More later.


* Ahem.