What Business Ethics is about

Abstract

Business is about buying and selling goods and services, like Nike sport shoes, compact discs, transport, banking and leisure facilities. Business is about making money, about profit and success. Some people would say that it is about these three things only, and make the following typical statements about business:

• it’s a jungle out there;

• as long as you are not caught you can do what you like;

• most people cheat in business;

• nobody ever got rich through being honest;

• greed is good;

• everybody else does it, so it must be all right for me too.

These statements paint too black a picture. They give the impression that all business is conducted in this way. But the truth is that business is both bad and good. As with everything else in life, there is right and wrong in business.