Albert Carr “Is Business Bluffing Ethical?”

Harvard Business Review, 1968


Empirical claims (statements claiming to describe how the business world in fact operates)

1.       Typical business practices violate the rules of ordinary morality (e.g., the golden rule, “Christian ethics,” “private ethics,” the “wife’s ethics,” e.g., like telling the whole truth)

          a.       Examples?

2.       Many/most business people accept these practices as morally permissible

3.       Survival/success (note: two are very different) in business requires such practices

          a.       Failing to engage in these practices puts one at a serious disadvantage

4.       Business people who act according to ordinary moral rules do so out of self-interest and not for sake of morality


Normative claims (statements advocating how the business world should operate)

5.       These practices (ones that violate ordinary morality) are morally legitimate

          a.       This is how business people ought to act; it is the right way to act in business; business people who act this way are virtuous

6.       Morality in business is insured by obeying the law (the letter, not necessarily the spirit, of the law)

          a.       People in business act correctly as long as they obey the law


Possible arguments for 5 (the moral legitimacy of violating ordinary morality while engaged in business)

7.       1&2 provide sufficient reason for 5?

8.       3 provides sufficient reason for 5?

9.       The poker analogy argument: Different ethics in business

          a.       Like poker, business has its own ethics which are different from the ordinary rules of morality

          b.       It is therefore a mistake to judge business practices by rules of ordinary morality

          c.       By its own moral standards (obeying the law), these business practices are morally legitimate



Possible problems with the poker analogy:

10.     Business is not a game; people’s livelihood is at stake

11.     It is not clear that all those involved with business have accepted these alternative rules (as people in poker accept poker’s “ethics”)

12.     One is forced to “play the game” of business (in contrast, one choose to play poker or not)

          a.       Even if “you can’t stand the heat” you can’t take Carr’s advice and “get out of the kitchen”

13.     Not easy or appropriate to separate one’s behavior in business from one’s ordinary “private” morality–one is likely to (and should) affect the other.


The legal analogy argument for Carr’s position

14.     Legal “ethics” an example of permissible behavior that violates ordinary moral norms/rules

          a.       Rationale for “legal ethics”

          b.       Similar rationale for separate “business ethics?”