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Business and Environmental Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

W. Michael Hoffman
W. Michael Hoffman*
Affiliation:
Center for Business Ethics, Bentley College
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Abstract

This paper explores some interconnections between the business and environmental ethics movements. The first section argues that business has obligations to protect the environment over and above what is required by environmental law and that it should cooperate and interact with government in establishing environmental regulation. Business must develop and demonstrate environmental moral leadership. The second section exposes the danger of using the rationale of “good ethics is good business” as a basis for such business moral leadership in both the business and environmental ethics movements. The third section cautions against the moral shallowness inherent in the position or in the promotional strategy of ecological homocentrism which claims that society, including business, ought to protect the environment solely because of harm done to human beings and human interests. This paper urges business and environmental ethicists to promote broader and deeper moral perspectives than ones based on mere self-interest or human interest. Otherwise both movements will come up ethically short.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , April 1991 , pp. 169 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1991

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References

Notes

This paper was originally presented as the Presidential Address to the Society for Business Ethics, August 10, 1990, San Francisco, CA.

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4 Bowie, p. 91.

5 Bowie, p. 94.

6 Robert Frederick, Assistant Director of the Center for Business Ethics, and I have developed and written these points together. Frederick has also provided me with invaluable assistance on other points in this paper.

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14 Frederick.

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