CAPITALISM'S ACHILLES HEEL Dirty Money and How to

366 CAPITALISM’S ACHILLES HEEL
How? Teach philosophy. Expose undergraduate and graduate students
in business, law, economics, politics, and other fields as well, to
philosophy.
Today, almost all business schools convey a basic lesson—the priority
of maximizing. In other words, the capitalism–utilitarianism union is accepted
as a given and transferred to young minds as an essential element
in their understanding of the world. Strict utilitarian philosophy and its
stuffed progenitor Jeremy Bentham are rarely mentioned, but students
nevertheless learn to act in ways that are not articulated at a philosophical
level. Fundamentally new currents of thinking that are flowing in other
academic departments do not often reach into these classrooms.
If widespread corporate scandals and ongoing rampant illegalities have
demonstrated anything it is that the teaching of ethics or organizational
integrity or business responsibility or whatever else it may be called is not
sufficient. Students I have talked to say that about half their classmates
emerge from ethics courses thinking they have an obligation only to narrowly
obey the law, with the other half thinking that occasionally they
have responsibilities slightly beyond the law, but seldom are they exposed
to inquiries that go much deeper than the status quo. The biggest mistake
that learning institutions can make is to produce graduates without deeply
inquisitive, intensely curious minds. My question to ethics departments in
business, law, and economics is: How many of your students are graduating
with an awareness that the utilitarian underpinnings of the past two
centuries are under attack and that new concepts of justice are rapidly
emerging, potentially having a huge impact on the way we think about the
global community, operate capitalism, do our jobs, and live our lives in
decades to come?
Thomas Pogge nails this point: “We as individuals have no hope of coping
with . . . complexity and interdependence if we take the existing ground
rules for granted and merely ask ‘How should I act?’ or ‘What should I do
differently?’ We can cope only by attending to this all-pervasive scheme of
ground rules which shapes the way persons act and co-determines how their
actions, together, affect the lives of others.” 15
The teaching of ethics should segue into the teaching of philosophy.
Students who have some understanding of Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham,
John Rawls, yes Robert Nozick, and perhaps also Ronald Dworkin, Michael
Walzer, and others will be better equipped to deal with the changing world