We all want to be treated with respect and care. We want to feel we can trust each other. Indeed, it is hard to envision how we could perform routine tasks, much less do business, without a modicum of trust and loyalty. Since we care about virtue, we hold our businesspeople, doctors, lawyers, tradespeople, and others responsible for their behavior. Criminal prosecutions of white-collar workers are increasingly common, a sure sign that, as members of society, we do not believe that business ethics is a silly contradiction in terms.
Businesses have a social contract with government.
No business has an absolute right to exist. The government is under no obligation to license arms dealers who traffic in stolen or forbidden weapons or other rogue enterprises. If a business incorporates, it is effectively pledging to strive to produce goods and services that will truly enrich the life of the community. Since ethics is the practice of knowing what actions are enriching and then doing these actions, anyone in business is tacitly bound by business ethics. Businesspeople are implicitly bound by business ethics for a second reason.