In this article, I suggest and support a utilitarian approach to business ethics. Utilitarianism is already widely used as a business ethic approach, although it is not well developed in the literature. Utilitarianism provides a guiding framework of decision making rooted in social benefit which helps direct business toward more ethical behavior. It is the basis for much of our discussion regarding the failures of Enron, Worldcom, and even the subprime mess and Wall Street Meltdown. In short, the negative social consequences are constantly referred to as proof of the wrongness of these actions and events, and the positive social consequences of bailouts and other plans are used as ethical support for those plans to right the wrongs.

Abstract:In this paper I will help provide some suggestions for a “postmodern” business ethic. I will do this by criticizing some recent work done in the field, and then put forth some basic themes in postmodern thinking that might be applied to business ethics. I will here criticize both Green’s and Walton’s articles on the possibility of postmodern business ethics. I will criticize Green on the grounds that his characterization of the definitive elements of postmodern thought are not definitive of postmodern thought. I will criticize Walton on the grounds that his portrayal of postmodern philosophy as inherently nihilistic and relativistic is mistaken. Finally, I will try to provide a few minimal principles (or tendencies) of a postmodern business ethic. Ultimately, what postmodernism has to offer business is not rules, but questions that raise issues of responsibility.

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Of all the major perspectives by which people construe the world, advertising is at once among the most influential and the least examined. 1 Advertisements saturate our social lives. We participate, daily, in deciphering advertising images and messages. . . . Yet, because ads are so pervasive and our reading of them so routine, we tend to take for granted the deep social assumptions embedded in advertisements. We do not ordinarily recognize advertising as a sphere of ideology. 2Much of the literature written on advertising ethics by philosophers focuses on "Truth in Advertising"-puffery, disclosure, and other such issues. 3 My concern here is quite different. I am interested in exploring the moral effects of advertising on individuals in societyparticularly how advertising affects the desires and inclinations of individuals, and then, whether that influence has any moral ramifications. Should advertisers simply follow the dictum "buyer beware"-and maintain no responsibility for the effects of advertisement so long as they are not outright lying? Or should advertisers take partial responsibility for the effects of their advertisements

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