Ethics are guidelines, sometimes clear, often not so. And “goods”: be good, do all the good you can… All? Heavens! That’s very ambitious. Well, you can see that ethics can be extremely demanding. And practice virtue. This virtue of which I speak; it’s so important because ethics, as I have said, are not a matter of yes or no, but of nuance.
Should we be Benchmarking in Social Responsibility?
Over the years I have come to understand what an economist said more than a century ago: there are no absolute truths in the social sciences (except this, he added). Therefore, I will not say yes or no to benchmarking Social Responsibility. However, answering this question well requires us to talk at length about what […]
On the Matter of Bias in Moral Judgement
The 19th International Symposium on Ethics, Business and Society was celebrated recently at IESE. And in one of the parallel sessions we had the occasion to discuss the bias that we often have in our moral judgements. For example, it’s common practice to consider the ethical attitudes of others worse than our own. Or that when […]
Compliance Alone Is Not Enough
Legislative changes have made compliance a focus for companies over their lifespan. The law is tough, and will only get tougher. Companies cannot neglect any aspect of their observance of the law, because it applies to them all, in an integrated way. And it falls directly on the shoulders of executives, who are running out of excuses […]
