For what it's worth, Ethics was a required course for an undergrad business degree in my college in the 90s. I'm not sure if it still is.
Ethics is easily thrown out the window once some executives falsely proclaim that they are required by law to do what's best for shareholders. Since shareholders have a minimal voice outside large holders, it's easy for those executives to claim, "the shareholders want profits, period." Of course, they don't mention that executives want bonuses too.
An interesting thing about ethics when you study History. When asked how they could indiscriminately kill Jews during the Holocaust, Nazis usually claimed the first few times were difficult, but the acts became a matter of course; normal as anything else in their day. In that same war, the Soviets committed brutal atrocities of the German cities they conquered, as did the Japanese in China. Every country has committed heinous acts in their history. Once it starts, inhumanity can spread like wildfire.
We as developed world citizens believe we are civilized, and for the most part we are; but we are only a stones throw away from being capable of casually committing what we would think of as atrocities as the norm.
Ethics is easily thrown out the window once some executives falsely proclaim that they are required by law to do what's best for shareholders. Since shareholders have a minimal voice outside large holders, it's easy for those executives to claim, "the shareholders want profits, period." Of course, they don't mention that executives want bonuses too.
An interesting thing about ethics when you study History. When asked how they could indiscriminately kill Jews during the Holocaust, Nazis usually claimed the first few times were difficult, but the acts became a matter of course; normal as anything else in their day. In that same war, the Soviets committed brutal atrocities of the German cities they conquered, as did the Japanese in China. Every country has committed heinous acts in their history. Once it starts, inhumanity can spread like wildfire.
We as developed world citizens believe we are civilized, and for the most part we are; but we are only a stones throw away from being capable of casually committing what we would think of as atrocities as the norm.