Lecture on is business bluffing ethical PDF

Preview

Summary

is business bluffing ethical?
by albert Carr...

Description

Lecture on Carr, "Is Business Bluffing Ethical?" give you an idea of what's happening there, but you should read with an eye to asking yourself what is the thesis of each of these sections, what is the thesis of each of the sub sections. read with an eye to identifying the main points. And identification means just that right, noting right putting front and Center what is really at stake. 02:35In addition to identifying the main points you should be reading, with an eye for giving an account of how those main points work. when carr claims, for example, that business is like a game. 03:00And we've identified that point we need to then ask how does that point. Why would car argue that, and why should we think his argument is compelling? Thus, the second sort of thing that you need to do when you're reading is kind of read sympathetically read with an ear towards agreement read with an ear to being persuaded by what someone says. And when you do that, you'll have a good sense of how their argument works and what is at stake for them. 03:43The third thing that you need to do as you read our course materials, this will be easier in some cases than others are asked if there are shortcomings. To the arguments ask if there are shortcomings. The sort of ways in which our authors justify their claims and you can do this sort of in. 04:13With two steps, one is that you can ask if their arguments work with respect to how they present them, in other words, you can ask if the author's arguments work I’ll put it internally so, for example, we know that car makes the claim that business is like a game. 04:39And he spends a lot of time. Explaining this game through an analogy of to poker. 04:52And so we could ask if you grant the poker analogy. Does his argument work or Are there things that he says that the analogy to poker somehow doesn't really cover. I call that sort of an internal critique of the work does it sort of meet its own standards. 05:15We can also. Though raise questions that are external to the arguments presented there might be considerations that come from elsewhere and. put pressure on the arguments, so in this case we wouldn't ask. 05:34You know, does the argument does cars argument work, so long as we grant the poker analogy, but we would ask rather is the poker analogy, a good analogy, or are there other kinds of considerations from elsewhere, that we should. sort of factor in when we think about the problem of business ethics. So, as you read identify the main points try to give an account to have how they work and three asked if there are shortcomings. To those accounts shortcomings that are either internal to them or shortcomings that have to do with the fact that they don't really measure up to larger. External considerations. 06:22Okay. 06:23So, with that in mind. 06:26Looking at the discussion will call it the discussion or debate you know between car and gillespie the real question that is at stake here. 06:39There are two actually two questions, one is a larger question that we looked at last time in our last class is there a special ethics for the professions. Right, that is to say, do specific professions have specific ethical codes that somehow

set them apart from or distinguish them from everyday ethical principles. And more specifically, or in particular. Is there a special code of ethics for business. 07:21Right does the practice of business involve its own ethical standards that are somehow unique to business practice and should be distinguished from everyday morality, you know we can ask the same thing about medical practices are there, specific ethical codes for medical practices that are different from everyday moral judgments and is that difference justified, we could ask the same thing about law and so forth it's just that we're going to ask that question in terms of businesses. Now cars positionamounts to what within the sort of sphere of moral philosophy is called a conventional list position. 08:15The conventional list position says something like the following.conventions of right and wrong are established by actual practices, and so we should refer to those actual practices to see what ethical norms look like.A conventional list position asking about moral considerations in medicine, for example, would look to actual medical practices to see what is accepted as right and wrong. In the case of carr looks to actual business practices to sort of determine what counts as right and wrong let's take a look at his argument. And i'm going to sort of highlight some of the key points. within his presentation and when we meet on Monday we'll take another look at these points, not just with me identifying them or explaining them but we'll. 09:24Take a look at them with an eye to discussing them to sort of testing them to see how they work where their pressure points are and so on. 09:34So the most important thing about cars claim is that everyday normal ethics which he also calls the ethics of religion. should be distinguished from business ethics, he thinks that the norms that are established in business practice mean that there is a sort of special code of ethics for businesses, in particular, that means the following what is acceptable from a sort of ethical or moral standpoint, with respect to business is very different than what is ethically or morally acceptable in our everyday lives. Most importantly, here, what we see is that car wants to claim. That in our everyday moral lives what he also calls the ethics of religion right there are expectations with regard to truth telling and deception that do not hold in the same way with respect to the practice of business. in particular. Within the context of business car seems to think that it is okay to deceive people. there's a special code of ethics for businesses that allow that make allowance for that, even in fact he wants to argue require it, while in our everyday lives it's not okay to deceive. let's push this point just a little bit r car wants to say that businesses should be understood, according to the model, he says, of a game. games include and require strategy. And oftentimes they include as a part of that strategy. A real requirement of bluffing in order to succeed. Car therefore likens business practices to poker he also likens business practices to diplomacy and he likens business practices to the practices of law. Because he thinks that poker diplomacy and law all involve some sort of permissible deception let's talk about each one about those sorts of one case, at a time and then we'll talk more generally, about what he calls the pressure to deceive in business. If you take poker as an example right the parameters of poker include a set of rules and the rules allow you to bluff in fact bluffing is part of the game. You wouldn't play poker very well if you didn't bluff you wouldn't play poker very well if you went ahead and allowed your opponent to know sort of what cards, you have. In the section on in the essay titled the poker analogy right cargo so far as to say that the game calls for distrust right that's an active part of its configuration. It requires a knowledge of the rules, everybody playing knows what the rules are poker requires an insight into the psychology of the other players. If you're going to succeed, you have to sort of not only not trust people that sort of get who's going to bluff when and why and how, and so on.

poker requires he says, a sort of bold front of action by which he means that you know you take risks, you advance your cause towards a certain goal by acting in ways that are risky that are bold. But this also only works when your discipline, so you don't take any risk whatsoever, you have to discipline yourself only take this risk only take that risk in light of this particular person's past In light of this particular situation or hand and so on and so forth, and In poker, we have to be able to act swiftly and respond to opportunities that arise. opportunities such as raising the bet right or an opportunity, such as one person at the table folding which might may allow you to look at your hand differently, and so on. in any case, the point is that, when we play poker there are a set of rules, they allow for deception and it's expected that you're playing to win. And you take advantage of opportunities in doing so in that regard business, he says sort of looks like poker and deception is a part of the practice. He also uses the comparison of deception in business. To something like diplomacy, you know in diplomacy right you don't always assume that the person that you are the country that you have diplomatic relations with is telling the truth, you actually assume that they're not always telling the truth. Again, diplomacy is goal oriented right and both parties recognize that, and you don't always say what you think right, even in the colloquial way in which we talk about diplomacy right to be diplomatic is to have a way of putting things that is. That eases tension, rather than created a way of putting things that you don't always say exactly what's on your mind. Car also invokes the practice of law as a way of recognizing that there are. Professional conditions where we do things that we otherwise wouldn't do such as actually defend the guilty and the rules of law, require that the guilty have someone who advocates for them, and you know that the very nature of defending that case is not presenting evidence to as evidence that will work negatively in relation to your client , so you know you don't present all of the evidence you withhold things you present things in a way that is beneficial to the client. what car wants to say is that, like diplomacy like law like poker right business involves kind of necessary deception. let's take another step, how should we think about deception, what does it mean to deceive right by deceiving we mean to consciously miss state something. But not to lie, we mean the conscious concealment of pertinent facts right or we mean exaggeration. let's take each one of these sort of In turn. You know in business, a conscious this statement might be something like the following. hey you know, this is a really good deal well as the one making the deal, you know that you stand to make a lot of money, and someone could make a better deal elsewhere. concealment of pertinent facts: oh this car is really, really fast right wow. That might be true, there could be an axle that's about ready to break on it, so you don't mentioned that right or you could exaggerate. Certain things such as. In with respect to. To the car, this is an extremely safe car right well in fact it's not rated as well as other cars, but it's somewhat safe, all of this constitutes what car calls bluffing. And the main point here is something like this within business, there is a pressure to bluff there's pressure to deceive right. And the pressure stems you could say from the following basic fact it is disadvantageous to tell the full truth. it's disadvantageous to tell the customer right if you're trying to sell them a car it's really not that good of a deal or it's disadvantageous to tell them about the broken axle right or it's disadvantageous to tell them that the car well it's really not as safe as you might want it to be right now, according to car this pressure to deceive in business is okay. it's okay for two different reasons, the first is that business is like a game. That is to say, everybody is playing by a set of rules right and we all know what the game is like so when you go to buy a car. as the buyer you know that the person has an interest in selling at a higher price, you know that the person has an interest in not disclosing everything. So as a part of the game, you need to be prepared, you need to be able to get the vin number and do a full ID history on the car right, you need to know that

they're going to try to take you for more money than you want to pay and so on. so, the game structure of the. Business deal right that very game structure makes it permissible to deceive we even expect that to some extent. Second, it's okay to deceive in part because the game is impersonal it's neutral, in other words the game doesn't care right the game doesn't have an obligation to you the poker analogy here is, of course ,clear about this right the game doesn't care if you win or lose the game is indifferent to who wins or loses and so that sort of makes it Okay, that there are winners and losers, at least by virtue of this kind of analogy. Now, if you think all of that makes sense. We can move on to the next point that car wants to make, which is that if it's okay to deceive because the game model suggests that's all right in business and the game model is impersonal in neutral, if you grant all of that right. Then we can also add to that that the golden rule does unto others as you want to have others do unto you doesn't apply here. you don't do unto your opponents in poker what you want to have done to you right you don't fold when you have the high cards, because that would be at a disadvantage to you. What car wants to say is that once we enter the game, we are no longer private citizens bound by private morality in the way that we otherwise are rather the real authority, is to be found in two places one the rules of the game. as established by convention, this is what businesses do this is how it works, and two ultimately the law itself so that the morality of business is ultimately determined by what is permissible with respect to the law. the idea here, then of course is that what is legal big becomes synonymous with what is allowable and ethically permissible within a business context. Car goes so far as to say that even industrial espionage stealing secrets from within the industry is okay, as long as it is legal right, it would be no different for example than stealing a recipe from another restaurant or vendor if you happen to be in the business of you know restaurant yourself. In order to make his case.Car there then appeals to he gives some examples of things that are repugnant to the public, things that are the public finds morally reprehensible, but that he says, with respect to business practices are perfectly Ethical, for example, a sort of deceptive packaging right. it is OK, for example, for companies to make their products look better than they are on their packages right you could think about this, also in terms of something like you know food advertising or you know car advertising. this is he says ultimately nothing more than a kind of dramatic instance of just play the game. As long as it is legal according to car, it seems to be okay. I want to interject something here. Which is not a part of the article. What we need to do as people thinking this problem through is ask ourselves what are the pros and the cons of this approach.it seems that there are certain benefits to thinking of this way, for example, there's a clear line there's a clear criterion of what counts here. We can ask however number of questions about that, for example, we could ask it the case that, just because something is legal that it's okay. We could ask, we could we could, for example, be really specific about this, we could use examples, such as the oil industry right if laws allow certain things to happen, does that mean it's okay. Right our oil companies responsible for larger ethical considerations such as those related to climate change, and how does car treatment Of the scope of businesses ethical obligations speak to that or not speak to that and so on. let's see here, what else with respect to car. There were a couple of things we'll talk about in class that he mentions that I’m not going to go over here. Those have to do with the ways in which businesses might self-regulate them. Businesses might regulate themselves the value or the purpose of ethical standards within businesses and so on. 27:39And a question car says on page 9 I believe it is to be a winner, a man must play to win. This does not mean that he must be ruthless cruel heart or treacherous. On the contrary, the better his reputation for integrity honesty decency, the better his chances of a victory will be in the long run. But from time to time every business person like every poker player is offered a choice between certain laws or bluffing within the legal rules of the game. And if he is not resigned to losing

if he wants to rise in his company and industry, then in such a crisis, he will bluff and bluff hard. Right, we should think about that last statement right and we can ask ourselves a couple of questions let's talk about these questions when we meet in class. Car says that honesty integrity decency good reputations are helpful. question, I think that we could ask about this is why is that the case, what does that tell us does that tell us that the perception of ordinary morality matters here, to some extent. And second if it's true that they are allowed to bluff in certain cases. We could ask how does that really differ from everyday life. Are there cases in everyday life, where we're allowed to bluff right? 29:27Finally, I want to ask this question I want you to think about this question. Our cars claim descriptive or normative. Is the conventional in this argument that this is how things are, and so their Okay, is that a descriptive claim or a normative claim. Trying to ask about their internal consistency and whether or not they hold up in relation to some other claims. I’ll also provide a brief lecture sort of summarizing gillespie that will allow you guys to get started with that okay sorry for the delay on these lectures, again I don't think it'll be too big, of a deal for you, though, since the reading is pretty clear okay see you on Monday....