A Code of Business Ethics

Chapter 3 argues that the ultimate purpose of business is to create value—for all parties, simultaneously. It explains what the purpose of a firm is, and, on that basis, it offers a proposal regarding what should be part of any firm’s mission statement. It then proposes a code of business ethics that captures the duties of the individual businessperson, and goes on to articulate a conception of honorable business that allows business to achieve its main purpose of the creation of value. This code enables the individual to navigate the inevitable dilemmas that arise in business, which are in important respects not dissimilar to dilemmas that arise in other walks of human life. It also describes a conception of professionalism that connects to business’s purpose and the “hierarchy of moral value” of which it forms a part.