num_pages: 14
description: Philosophy professor and entrepreneur Stephen Hicks takes a critical look at unquestioned assumptions in the arena of business ethics. (This book was first published in 2002). Excerpt from The Best Work of the Best Minds: Business Ethics and Value Creation:In the eyes of many a cloud of suspicion hangs over business. The reason is that the moral tradition out of which the competence ethic of business arises conflicts with a competing moral tradition that holds business to be immoral or at best amoral. For those who subscribe to this latter moral tradition ethics is felt to be more a matter of stoically doing one's duty rather than having fun of fulfilling one's obligations rather than fulfilling yourself of obeying the rules rather than doing what's practical of giving away rather than creating. Stooping to stereotypes if this tradition's view of ethics could be personified she would appear as a matron who goes about sniffing disapprovingly at anyone who seems to be having a good time. Having a good time means self-indulgencebut she would declare we are not here to have a good time; we are here to serve others to be stewards for future generations to be nice to take up as little space in the world as possible. Above all she would continue we are here to sacrifice selflesslyto society as a whole to God for the greatest happiness of the greatest number to Duty to the working class to the ecosystem.ABOUT STEPHEN HICKS: Stephen Hicks Ph.D. is Professor of Philosophy at Rockford University and the Executive Director of the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship. He received his honours B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Guelph Canada and his Ph.D. in philosophy from Indiana University Bloomington. Hicks is the author of numerous essays in magazines and scholarly journals. Hes also the author of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Scholargy 2004; expanded edition 2011) the documentary Nietzsche and the Nazis (Ockhams Razor 2010) and the co-editor of The Art of Reasoning: Readings for Logical Analysis (W. W. Norton &amp; Co. 1998). 
language: English
title: The Best Work of the Best Minds: Business Ethics and Value Creation
publisher: The Atlas Society