ABSTRACT
There has been a veritable explosion of books on business ethics, sermons on business ethics, college courses on business ethics. And there can be little doubt that ethics are badly needed in business, though no more so than in governments, in police departments, in universities, and in all other places where there is money, power, or sex. Still, business is a separate institution. It has its own purpose and mission and they are different from the purpose and mission of a hospital or university or church or the Red Cross. It has its own values and its own definition of 'results'. It is, like all our modern institutions, a special-purpose, indeed a single-purpose institution. It exists, however, to perform a social function: the provision of goods and services which we call the 'economic' function. And as such it has specific social opportunities, specific social challenges.
