Editors' Introduction

Pages 1-7

1.       Businesses are not natural objects humans discovered, but social institutions we have created and so we are morally responsible for what they are like (p.2)

2.       Business ethics is as central to business (and business education) as accounting, marketing and so on (p. 3)

3.       Descriptive ethics is different from prescriptive ethics (p. 4) and what people believe is right or wrong must be distinguished from what is right and wrong (p. 5)

4.       Ethical/cultural relativism: What is right/wrong is relative to and depends on the beliefs of the group in which one is involved

          a.       No objective or rational standards to assess these believes or resolve disputes or disagreements

5.       Problems with ethical relativism

          a.       Only power left to settle conflicts

          b.       That people disagree does not prove relativism

          c.       Support for tolerance and diversity goes against relativism rather than supporting it

          d.       There is a lot more agreement about morality than the relativist suggests

          e.       Rational justification is not mathematical proof

          f.       Relativists must accept that morally evil things are okay