Rather than being inherently evil, business lobbying is a socially responsible activity which needs to be restrained by ethical standards. To be effective in a business environment, traditional ethical standards need to be translated into language which business persons can speak comfortably. Economical explanations must also be available to explain why ethical standards are appropriate in business. Eight such standards and their validating arguments are proposed with examples showing their use. Internal dialogues regarding the ethics of lobbying objectives and tactics (...) will plausibly occur only in businesses which recognize social responsibility mandates. Public interest stakeholders could hasten this recognition by making use of information made available by the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 to institute external dialogues regarding lobbying by specific businesses and industry groups. Given practical ethical standards and the information on business lobbying provided by the law, the press, corporate activists, consumers, pension fund managers and the public can apply pressure for ethical lobbying practices. (shrink)

Rather than being inherently evil, business lobbying is a socially responsible activity which needs to be restrained by ethical standards. To be effective in a business environment, traditional ethical standards need to be translated into language which business persons can speak comfortably. Economical explanations must also be available to explain why ethical standards are appropriate in business. Eight such standards and their validating arguments are proposed with examples showing their use. Internal dialogues regarding the ethics of lobbying objectives and tactics (...) will plausibly occur only in businesses which recognize social responsibility mandates. Public interest stakeholders could hasten this recognition by making use of information made available by the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 to institute external dialogues regarding lobbying by specific businesses and industry groups. Given practical ethical standards and the information on business lobbying provided by the law, the press, corporate activists, consumers, pension fund managers and the public can apply pressure for ethical lobbying practices. (shrink)

Joining the dialogue on the relationship between the law and business ethics, Jeffrey Nesteruk and Eric W. Orts have offeredconceptions of the law as a positive influence rather than a negative curb on corporate behavior. While these “legal optimists” pursue anoble end in promoting higher ethical standards for corporations through the law, they may be overly optimistic in their suggestion that these more skillfully wielded legal models will influence corporate behavior for the better. Reviewing the basic tenets of their two (...) approaches, this paper uses corporate responses to environmental statutes to suggest that while legal optimism may offer hope for promoting corporate ethics, it has definite limitations in its current stage of development. (shrink)

Abstract:Joining the dialogue on the relationship between the law and business ethics, Jeffrey Nesteruk and Eric W. Orts have offered conceptions of the law as a positive influence rather than a negative curb on corporate behavior. While these “legal optimists” pursue a noble end in promoting higher ethical standards for corporations through the law, they may be overly optimistic in their suggestion that these more skillfully wielded legal models will influence corporate behavior for the better. Reviewing the basic tenets of (...) their two approaches, this paper uses corporate responses to environmental statutes to suggest that while legal optimism may offer hope for promoting corporate ethics, it has definite limitations in its current stage of development. (shrink)

The collusive relationship between the U.S. Forest Service and the lumber industry substantially harms the public interest, and inspires Congressional clearcutting and stumping policies. An anthropocentric1 (or homocentric) culture milieu fosters destruction of America''s old growth forests which results in ethically-relevant questions. It is proposed that corporate moral responsibility be extended to indirect stakeholders and that a transcendent environmental ethic, biocentrism2 (or deep ecology), oblige management to expand the sphere of external stakeholders to include environment objects such as animals, trees, (...) and biotic communities. (shrink)