Statutory approaches toward whistle-blowing currently appear to be based on the assumption that most observers of wrongdoing will report it unless deterred from doing so by fear of retaliation. Yet our review of research from studies of whistle-blowing behavior suggests that this assumption is unwarranted. We propose that an alternative legislative approach would prove more successful in encouraging valid whistle-blowing and describe a model for such legislation that would increase self-monitoring of ethical behavior by organizations, with obvious benefits to society at large.

A defense contractor’s inspectors used improper calibration standards when inspecting missile parts and other military products, used noncertified inspectors when inspecting such products, and used employees without top-secret clearance to work on classified projects. This created potentially life-threatening products as well as potential compromises of military secrets.

Quality-control officials on the Trans Alaska Pipeline were threatened with physical harm, demoted, and spied on in an effort to force them not to turn in negative reports or report problems. As a result, the likelihood of damaging oil spills due to improperly built and maintained equipment is heightened.

A major corporation allegedly initiated an analysis of the cost savings that would result from circumventing or reducing compliance with health, safety and environmental standards. Two officers who objected to this noncompliance cost/benefit analysis were subsequently fired.

In a commercial society, said Adam Smith, “every man becomes in some measure a merchant.” If Smith is right, what does that mean for the character of the society? This paper addresses the character forming effects of the market—and, specifically its impact on the “virtues.” There is a long tradition of viewing commerce as subversive of the virtues. In this view, the market is held to have legitimated the pursuit of narrow self-interest at the expense of social and civic obligations and moral restraints. But, as Albert Hirschman has shown, many Enlightenment moralists saw commercial society as a moralizing force. Which view is right? This paper examines how many of the character traits that we commonly call virtues are rewarded—and so presumably reinforced and diffused—by the market. In this way, the market (as it were by a hidden hand) strengthens its own foundations and reproduces a moral culture that is functional to its own needs.

Virtues are habits of character that advance excellence in all of ones endeavors. In the Aristotelian formulation, training in the virtues is driven by a sense of the “good,” that is, by a widely shared agreement on the components of a good society and on the roles (and appropriate virtues or excellencies) of the “social animals” that energize that society. In the modern era, however, a strong sense of community has been much diminished. Freedom from the restraints of the Church and other social institutions and an emphasis on individual autonomy has fostered a different ethical perspective, a perspective in which the market enters importantly into one’s conception of the good. Does the market generate virtues which in turn sustain it? What guides the development of virtue in market economies that are entering the “information superhighway,” and a new millennium as well?

Stakeholder theory has become a central issue in the literature on business ethics/business and society. There are, however, a number of problems with stakeholder theory as currently understood. Among these are: 1) the lack of a coherent justificatory framework, 2) the problem of adjudicating between stakeholders, and 3) the problem of stakeholder identification. In this essay, I propose that a possible source of obligations to stakeholders is the principle of fairness (or fair play) as discussed in the political philosophic literature of Rawls, Simmons, and Cullity among others. The principle of fairness states that, “Whenever persons or groups of persons voluntarily accept the benefits of a mutually beneficial scheme of co-operation requiring sacrifice or contribution on the parts of the participants and there exists the possibility of free-riding, there exist obligations of fairness on the part of these persons or groups to co-operate in proportion to the benefits accepted.” In this essay I discuss the gaps in the current stakeholder literature, elucidate and defend a principle of fairness that fills the gap, compare the fairness model to other similar models of business ethics, and draw some conclusions for the future of stakeholder theory.

It is argued that virtuous peers in work organizations have two elements of character no matter what the nature of the goods the organization produces: loyalty to common projects for their own sake and trustworthiness. Each of these is shown to be a uniquely human attribute, an element of character that contributes to a life well lived, and a trait that leads to the flourishing of an entire work community.