Patricia Werhane

Kripke's skeptical interpretation of Wittgenstein's project in the Philosophical Investigations attributes to Wittgenstein a radical skepticism about the objectivity of rules and thus the meanings of words and the existence of language as well as a skepticism about the truth conditions underlying our alleged facts about the world. Kripke then contends that Wittgenstein solves this skeptical paradox by committing himself to what I shall call a Communitarian View of language. There are a number of difficulties with Kripke's interpretation of the project of the Philosophical Investigations. These include his evaluation of the notion of the rule, his interpretation of the private language arguments, his uses of the term intention, and his truncated reading of 201. In this paper I shall address and attack this interpretation of Wittgenstein as a questionable reading of the Philosophical Investigations, and I shall suggest some alternative interpretations of Wittgenstein's views which avoid both radical skepticism and a Communitarian View of language.

The most serious ethical challenge facing multinational corporations in the next century is their exportation of the mental model of Western-style capitalism. This model promises that industrialized free enterprise in a free trade global economy, where businesses and entrepreneurs can pursue their interests competitively without undue regulations or labor restrictions, will produce growth and well-being, i.e., economic good, in every country or community where this phenomenon is allowed to operate. This paper points to some limitations to this model and illustrates how multinational corporations might meet this challenge.

I argue, contra Sabina Lovibond, that one cannot defend a viable form of moral realism from the perspective of linguistic conventionalism. Appealing to the later Wittgenstein, I argue that Wittgenstein's alleged linguistic conventionalism rests on the objective ground of the notion of a rule. While Wittgenstein acknowledges that the subjective and social context out of which we operate precludes getting at reality independent of a perspective, neither is he an anti-realist nor does he replace truth conditions with assertibility conditions. If conventions are grounded in the notion of a rule, we can then use this conclusion to defend a form or moral realism

Although many challenges remain, business ethics is flourishing in North America. Prominent organizations give annual business ethics awards, investments in socially screened mutual funds are increasing, ethics officers and corporate ombudspersons are more common and more influential, and new ideas are being tested in practice. On the academic side, two major journals specializing in business ethics are well-established and other major journals often include articles on business ethics and new organizations emphasizing ethics have been initiated. Within business schools, the number of endowed chairs is growing and the ethics curriculum is expanding. Canada is a major player in the business ethics discipline while business ethics in Mexico is just beginning to emerge as a focus of interest in both the business and academic communities.

The article, Inside Trading Revisited, has taken the stance that insider trading is neither unethical nor economically inefficient. Attacking my arguments to the contrary developed in an earlier article, The Ethics of Inside Trading (Journal of Business Ethics, 1989) this article constructs careful arguments and even appeals to Adam Smith to justify its conclusions. In my response to this article I shall clarify my position as well as that of Smith to support my counter-contention that insider trading is both unethical and inefficient.

This article presents a response to Richard Rorty's paper "Is Philosophy Relevant to Business Ethics?" The author questions Rorty's views on the depreciation of the role of philosophy in applied ethics, and outlines four reasons why philosophy retains its relevance. The author addresses the role of moral reasoning in the development of the moral imagination. The author also concludes that humans have the means necessary to make moral progress and are capable of moral reasoning, and need only to develop a strong moral imagination

I agree with much of Freeman and Reichart’s paper; so, by way of comment, I will simply supplement his argument in two ways. First, agreeing with their conclusion that we can, and should, re-direct business toward environmental protection without embracing a nonanthropocentric ethic, I will show that the pre-occupation of recent and contemporary environmental ethics with the anthropocentrism/non-anthropocentrism debate is avoidable. It rests on a misinterpretation of possible moral responses to the arrogance with which Western science, technology, and culture has treated nature. A better understanding of the history of the idea of nonanthropocentrism will, I believe, strengthen Freeman and Reichart’s case for pluralism in environmental ethics and values. Second, I will emphasize several points that seem to me to fit well with Freeman and Reichart’s approach, and which would provide important detailing for the type of approach he sketches, arguing that much hard intellectual work stands between us and a satisfactory, and useful, but pluralistic, and life-centered ethic for business and the environment.

The global expansion of free enterprise has been underway for some time, and the challenges for global companies are well‐known. Companies often operate in economically blighted communities and in corrupt environments without a rule of law. At the same time Western‐based global corporations are under increasing public pressure to take on responsibilities to these communities that are often beyond their expertise or economic purview. For example, at the 2008 Davos meetings Bill Gates proposed the idea of “creative capitalism, challenging business to ‘meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits’...” In what follows I shall argue that while there have been many successful global ventures, the Gates’ challenge requires academics and managerial leaders to rethink their mind sets and expand their thinking about what we mean by globalization, poverty, and the multiple dimensions of free enterprise.