Although business ethics courses are flourishing on the undergraduate level, they have not made a significant inroad on the MBA level. Some argue that not only is no special course in ethics needed in MBA programs, but also that if a separate course on business ethics is given, it creates the impression that ethics is separate from business. The correct approach, they argue, is to integrate ethics in all business courses. The difficulty is that ethics is not usually integrated into MBA courses and so is not taught at all. Others maintain that philosophers, who typically teach business ethics courses, really know so little about business that they should not teach MBA level courses -including business ethics courses. But management professors frequently are neither competent to teach ethics nor interested in doing so. Hence once again business ethics is not taught on the MBA level.
The University of Kansas, under a grant from the Exxon Foundation, attempted to face these criticisms and problems head-on by teaching twelve business professors ethical theory and helping them integrate ethics into their courses.
A Seminar On Ethics for Business School Faculty took place from Monday, May 6 through Friday, May 17, 1985. During the first week the Seminar met during both the mornings and afternoons; during the second week the Seminar met during the mornings. Three members of the University of Kansas Department of Philosophy jointly taught the Seminar. All three were present for all the sessions so they could illustrate both the kinds of disagreements