Ethics Essentials

Ethical decision-making is often a puzzling challenge for business leaders. News reports describing indictments and guilty verdicts of corporate CEOs provide a sober reminder that making sound ethical decisions requires care and prior study. Ethical Essentials for Business Leaders pulls all the pieces together in a compact handbook designed for both current and future business leaders. The book offers several distinctive advantages:First, it is oriented towards the role and actions of leaders in a business environment so that reads learn how to act in order to influence good ethical decision-making as they assume leadership positions in all types of organizations.Second, it is written from a practically-minded, pro-business viewpoint by authors who have taught and practiced business ethics for many years.Third, it provides a balanced perspective regarding the appropriate role of the leader's person ethics, as informed by culture and religious belief, toward shaping organizational ethical decision-making.The book begins with a discussion of six reasons why business leaders make bad decisions, then presents an ethical decision frame-work designed to counter-balance those reasons. In other chapters, natural law is explained, the contributions of eight important philosophers are summarized, the four levels of corporate social responsibility are discussed, and the relationship between laws and ethics is presented. In the final chapter, ten steps are recommended for developing and ensuring an ethical organization.ABOUT SOPHIAOMNI PRESSThis text is published by SophiaOmni Press. SophiaOmni is an independent press founded by educators to expand the domain of human wisdom. We publish works in the fields of philosophy, religion, and ethics by past and contemporary authors who have something significant to say about the human condition and our continued existence on this fragile planet. Visit us on the web at www.sophiaomni.org.

Behavioural ethics in business is an emerging field that has challenged some of the established wisdom about ethics and added some truly new insights into our understanding about decision-making and behaviour. Why do seemingly responsible employees and managers sometimes act in bad ways? This book explains how people behave in real situations and what action can be taken to nudge behaviour in a more ethical direction. This concise textbook is ideal for use in the classroom as core or additional reading on courses in business ethics and corporate social responsibility; organisational behaviour and psychology; and any module with ethics content (for example, accounting ethics and strategic management). Each chapter is presented as a story with details about the experimental designs and related research findings. The key features include learning outcomes, suggested class activities, mock assessment questions, and an annotated list of key readings and these provide a one-stop text for tutors and students interested in this increasingly important area of study.

Insider trading... hostile takeovers... union busting... drug testing... environmental disasters Can anything good be said about modern business? Drawing on sources ranging from Newsweek to the Harvard Business Review and featuring such eminent social and business writers as Ralph Nader, Milton Friedman, and Peter Drucker, Essentials of Business Ethics critically appraises the evolution--and lapses--of ethics in the corporate boardroom. This important volume takes a hard look at the idea of business ethics itself, the ways in which employees are treated, how corporations deal with questions of social responsibility and the environment, the ethics of multinationals, and more. It is required reading for anyone who wants to understand the major issues facing modern businesses--and the impact they are having on our world.

An Updated and Authoritative Resource on Nursing Law and Ethics The Essentials of Nursing Law and Ethics, Second Edition focuses on the legal aspect of Nursing as it relates to patient safety and quality, environmental health and safety, error reduction and ethical boundaries of practice. Other timely topics include the appropriate use of social media by nursing staff. The text is written by a nurse attorney who presents complex topics in an understandable manner while providing accurate and well researched content relevant to the practice. Extensive legal research by the author incorporates the most current relevant professional and legal references including case law. The text is uniquely organized into five major sections including: the law and nursing practice; liability in patient care; documentation issues; employment and the workplace; and ethics. New to this Edition: • Professional boundaries and use of social media • Quality and safety initiatives in nursing practice, including Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) concepts and content, Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations • Environmental health and safety, including equipment safety • Staffing issues and implications for patient safety and liability • Workplace issues including factors to consider when accepting assignments, horizontal violence • Additional coverage on medication error reduction and safety initiatives • Updated content on electronic documentation, communication, and recordkeeping • Regulatory processes including state board use of off duty conduct in disciplinary proceedings, and data bank reporting, and remediation as an alternative to discipline • Expansion of content on ethical considerations in areas such as assisted suicide, patients’ rights, and applying the ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses • Moral distress and moral courage in ethical decision making • Update on the processes for basic legal research Key Features: Test bank featuring NCLEX type questions and rationale A glossary of legal terminology found within the text A Table of Cases for easier access to case law Expanded online resources and scholarly references included at the end of each chapter

As threats of infectious disease grow and the nation confronts chronic health problems such as diabetes and obesity, health professionals, citizens, and community stakeholders must address increasingly complex ethical conflicts about public health policies and practices. Essentials of Public Health Ethics introduces students to the field of public health ethics, by focusing on cases. Topics span the discipline of public health and integrate materials, concepts, and frameworks from numerous fields in public health, such as health promotion, environmental health and health policy. By delving into both historical and contemporary cases, including international cases, the authors investigate the evolution and impact of various understandings of the concept of “the public” over time, i.e., the public not only as a numerical population that can be defined and measured, but also as a political group with legally defined obligations and relationships, as well as diverse cultural and moral understandings. While the text examines a range of philosophical theories and contemporary perspectives, it is written in a way that presupposes no previous exposure to the philosophical concepts but at the same time provides challenging cases for students who do have more advanced knowledge. Thus the book should be useful in Schools and Programs in Public Health as well as for undergraduate public health courses in liberal arts institutions and for health sciences students at the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.

In this excellent outline of Christian ethics, Robin W. Lovin achieves a balance between the questions and issues which form the core of the study of ethics and the life situations from which those questions arise. Eschewing a sectarian approach which dismisses other understandings of the moral life, Lovin nonetheless lays claim to a specifically Christian understanding of ethics. He begins with basic Christian convictions about the reality of God and human redemption and weaves these convictions into the fabric of moral concerns that are widely shared in contemporary society. He takes note of the problems that arise when Christians try to act on or enforce their convictions in a pluralistic society and recognizes the variety of theological and moral beliefs that are held within the Christian community, as well as in the wider society.

In his latest book, Tom Nagy offers psychologists valuable lessons in ethical "orienteering." He begins by defining four points of our professional moral compassùcompetence, informed consent, confidentiality, and avoidance of harm and exploitation. Then he provides several decision-making maps and guides the reader through challenging, realistic ethical dilemmas in clinical, research, and education territories. This book reminds us that ethical practice is a career-long journey; I highly recommend it.ùJanet L Sonne, PhD, Independent Clinical and Forensic Practice; Adjunct Professor of Psychology, Loma Linda University, Huntington Beach, CA; Fellow of the American Psychological Association Thomas Nagy's most recent book is replete with practical, accessible, and sound ethical guidance and wisdom. Straightforward explanations of basic ethical concepts provide a foundation on which he constructs sophisticated ethical analyses of issues arising in clinical, research, supervisory, training, and consultative settings. Compelling real-life vignettes illustrating applications of ethics codes and laws are seamlessly woven throughout the book, reflecting virtually every area of psychologists' work. This book is a gift to students and seasoned professionals alike.ùJanet T Thomas, PsyD, Independent Practice, Saint Paul, MN; Adjunct Faculty, Argosy University, Twin Cities and the University of Saint Thomas, Minneapolis, MN; author, The Ethics of Supervision and Consultation: Practical Guidance for Mental Health Professionals

Updated and revised, Ethics: The Basics, Second Edition, introduces students to fundamental ethical concepts, principles, theories, and traditions while providing them with the conceptual tools necessary to think critically about ethical issues. Introduces students to core philosophical problems in ethics in a uniquely reader-friendly manner Lays out clearly and simply a rich collection of ethical concepts, principles, theories, and traditions that are prevalent in today’s society Considers western and non-western viewpoints and religious interpretations of ethical principles Offers a framework for students to think about and navigate through an array of philosophical questions about ethics

This book develops an intellectual framework for analyzing ethical dilemmas that is both grounded in theory and versatile enough to deal rigorously with real-world issues. It sees ethics as a necessary foundation for the social infrastructure that makes modern life possible, much as engineering is a foundation for physical infrastructure. It is not wedded to any particular ethical philosophy but draws from several traditions to construct a unified and principled approach to ethical reasoning. Rather than follow the common academic practice of seeking a reflective equilibrium of moral intuitions and principles, it builds on a few bedrock principles of rational thought that serve as criteria for valid argumentation. It develops the ideas from the ground up, without presupposing any background in ethics or philosophy. Epistemologically, the book views ethics as parallel to mathematics, in that it relies on generally accepted proof techniques to establish results. Whereas mathematics rests on such proof paradigms as mathematical induction and proof by contradiction, ethics can be seen as relying on proof by applying consistency tests, such as generalizability and respect for autonomy. Utilitarianism also plays a key role, but it is reconceived as a deontological criterion. This approach obviously requires that these criteria be formulated more rigorously than is normally the case. To accomplish this, the book begins with the classical idea that an action is distinguishable from mere behavior by virtue of its having a coherent rationale, where coherence requires passing certain consistency tests such as generalizability. An action is therefore inseparable from its rationale, and generalizability is defined in terms of consistency with the rationale. A utilitarian criterion receives a similar treatment with respect to a means-end rationale. Respect for autonomy is grounded in a carefully developed action theory that takes into account such concepts as joint autonomy, implied consent, and the permissibility of interference with unethical behavior. It provides an account of responsibility that is both practical and theoretically satisfying, and it yields a novel solution of the much-discussed trolley car dilemmas. The book is written for a general audience and strives to be as readable and engaging as possible, while maintaining rigor. It begins by dispelling a raft of misconceptions that trivialize ethics and block its development as an essential tool of modern life, such as the notion that ethics is just a matter of opinion without rational foundation. After presenting the ethical principles just described, along with many examples, it provides several chapters that analyze real-life dilemmas, many obtained from the author’s students and professional workshop participants. One cannot understand physics or chemistry without seeing how their principles are applied to real problems, and the same is true of ethics. These chapters demonstrate that a unified normative theory can deal with a wide range of real cases while achieving a reasonable level of objectivity and rigor.