Final Thoughts on Ethical Criticism and the Like…
Permalink for this paragraph 0 Thank you guys so much for an incredible class on Wednesday! I thought it went well and I’m glad it got you all thinking about the relationship between texts and readers, as well as texts and ethics. When I was starting on my quest for something to talk about, it was quite daunting and I had no idea where to begin. But I’m glad I ran with what I decided on doing and that the class enjoyed discussing it.
Permalink for this paragraph 1 I also wanted to continue a little bit with my business and ethics tangent from a previous post. I was going to bring it up on Wednesday, but we had some pretty good discussions already happening. When taking my Marketing capstone class last semester, each group had to present a business ethics case. They covered topics like, greenwashing (misleading eco-friendly claims), window dressing (making financials/company appear better than actual) and marketing to disadvantaged (kids, for example). It was interesting to see specific cases of companies who had “committed” these acts, but whose to say they actually did something unethical? There is no business ethics police that reprimands a company for participating in one of the aforementioned actions. So, what holds a company to participating in “ethical” actions when providing services or goods to their consumers? And how to they know what is deemed “ethical”? These questions can’t be easily answered because there are still debates and arguments about what companies should and shouldn’t do when taking consumers into consideration. It also depends on a lot of different variables: who is in your market, whether they will think it’s ethical, whether it matters if others not in your target market think the action is ethical, whether your competitors think it is ethical and so on. I also remember an exercise I did back in my Foundations of Management class, where we were given stories about employees and had to decide who to fire. How much should these stories (whether deemed true or not) be taken into account when firing an employee? Or should the betterment of the company be kept in sight? There is still a lot to be said about what role ethics plays in the business world, but definitely something worth pondering.
Permalink for this paragraph 0 Finally, I wanted to end my post with a little more talk about Booth. I was delighted when Dr. Cordell said Booth was a contributor to The Craft of Research text. I immediately read the introduction and found that he passed away before the book was even finished. After spending so much time with the introduction of his book, I find myself wanting to read the rest of The Company We Keep and seeing what else Booth has to say on the subject of ethical criticism. And just a few of my favorite quotes from Booth thus far…
Permalink for this paragraph 0 “If the maker of the art work did not believe that simply experiencing it constitutes a superior form of life, why was the work created and presented to us in the first place?” -The Company We Keep, Wayne Booth, page 17
Permalink for this paragraph 0 “His dedication to the spirit of research is a lesson to us all. At its moral center was his belief that ‘intellectual understanding is one of the best versions of the Golden Rule: Listen to others as you would have others listen to you. Precise demonstration of the truth is important but not as important as the communal pursuit of it. Put in terms of Kant’s categorical imperative, When addressing someone else’s ideas, your obligation is to treat them as you believe all human beings ought to treat one another’s ideas.’” -The Craft of Research, Wayne Booth, page xvii
This would have probably lead to a very interesting conversation had it come up in class. I am very intrigued, we discussed similar issues in my Women and Work class- but more on the ethics of how business conducts in junction with family lives of employees. As an English major, I am more inclined to side with emotional and expressive values in life, so my views upon business are not the most optimistic. But then we have to question what business is in the first place and how do we let it function/work in society? Great blog post! (and it was a great class!)