Workshop on Teaching Professional Ethics

Teaching business ethics in an effective way presents a difficult challenge. Courses that focus on abstract philosophical ethics employ terminology and methodology that are not familiar to most business students. Yet courses that employ the strictly empirical methodology of the social sciences lack a truly normative core. Further, learning about ethics in the abstract is often far removed from the difficult ethical decisions business people confront in the real world of business.

At the McDonough School of Business, we have developed a method of teaching business ethics through experiential learning that is truly normative, communicated in terms readily understood by business students, and involves actual ethical decision-making on the part of the students. We have found that our approach results in students becoming more invested in the course and more committed to successfully resolving the ethical issues that confront them in a business environment.

The Workshop on Teaching Professional Ethics through Experiential Learning: The Georgetown Approach is designed to acquaint those who will be teaching business ethics in both business schools and philosophy departments with the various individual techniques we have developed and train those who are interested in how to use them in an integrated manner to create a highly effective business ethics course.

The workshop is sponsored by the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics. The Institute will cover the cost of travel and two night’s lodging for those attending the workshop.

This year’s workshop will be held at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business on May 29-30. To apply for the workshop send a short CV and a 1-page letter of motivation to the director of the institute, Michael Douma, at . In the first week of February, a committee of the institute’s faculty will meet to select participants for this year’s workshop.