Welcome back. Good to see you again. What do you think? Can ethics be taught? If you're like me, I was a Jesuit for 12 years and the Jesuit answer many questions is yes and no. Yes in this sense, no in that sense. I'd be interested to know what your thoughts are on this really important and interesting question. One preliminary thought that I'd like to start with is that if it has been done, then it can be done. It has been done that there are great moral teachers throughout history. Think of Jesus, think of Gandhi, think of people like Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Junior, the Hebrew prophets, there are a lot of folks who have certainly taught us something about what is most important in life and how we ought to behave, how we ought to conduct ourselves. If ethics can't be taught then those folks, Socrates, all those folks, they were just wasting their time, I personally don't believe they were wasting their time. I think that all of them had a very profound shaping effect on the thoughts and on the behavior of people and for the better. What are the senses in which ethics can be taught? First of all, we all learn something about ethics at our mothers' and at our fathers' knees. Things like be honest and share your toys and play nice with others and don't lie, all that thing. But it doesn't stop there. We continue to learn how to deal effectively with the moral issues we encounter in life well into our 20s and 30s, and as somebody who's well beyond that, I would say even beyond the 20s and 30s, we can always get better at handling ethics issues. Also, ethics can be taught in the sense there are ethical concepts, there are ethical theories that it's going to be helpful to know about, and you can certainly learn those. There are in particular, approaches to making ethical decisions that can be taught quite easily. Moral imagination is something that can be expanded, that's the capacity to think beyond obvious choices. Like if you're asked to pay a bribe, the obvious choice is you pay the bribe or you don't pay they bribe. Moral imagination is thinking about a non-obvious third choice that enables you to have your cake and eat it too. There was a company in the Middle East once that was asked to pay a bribe and they said to the person requesting the bribe, we can't do that but we'd be happy to build a school for girls in your town and we'll name it whatever you want us to name it. That's moral imagination, that is a skill that can be developed well beyond childhood. Ethical leadership can be taught, ways in which you can develop reputations for being an ethical leader, in which you can lead ethically, and all of that. The other thing that can happen in ethics is that my assumption is that people I'm teaching are good people, so I'm a cheerleader for them, you can affirm good values, you can affirm good moral instincts, and that's something that's really helpful. The other way in which ethics can be taught is that it's not just about good and bad apples, good and bad people in business, it's often about good or bad barrels, good or bad cultures at companies or other organizations, and you can learn how to create an ethical culture. The other profound sense in which ethics can be taught is that it's not my job to tell anybody what they should value and believe but I can do two things, I can challenge you to reflect on what you value and believe and to ask whether you are acting and leading consistently with that, that's a challenge to integrity. That's a challenge to be who you are, morally and spiritually speaking. The other thing that I can do and the other thing that a place like Notre Dame does is to hold up certain ideals for your consideration in the hope that you will embrace them. In Mendoza, we talk about growing the good in business for instance. I think it would be a shame for place like Notre Dame stood for nothing in particular but it stands for very wonderful ideals like that, and that is certainly something that can be done in an ethics class. We just learned about ethics as children in the home and everything, and that's true, but there's an important difference between learning at home, at your mother or father's knees, about the importance of embracing a value like justice or a value like honesty, but there's a big difference between learning that it's important to hold that value and learning the implications of holding that value for a business professional who is encountering certain dilemmas. If you are a finance professional, what is the relevance of justice for a conflict of interest situation? If you are a marketing or advertising executive, what is the relevance of honesty for your marketing and advertising campaigns? Unless your mother or your father was engaged in those positions, you probably didn't learn that at their knee, that is something that you can learn in an ethics class. Usually when I hear people say, "Well, you can't teach ethics. " what they seem to mean is that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. You're somebody who can give them the ideas, but you can't make them care about it. Put it different way, you can't make somebody become a morally better person unless they really want to become a better person. That I think is true but I believe that the people I'm teaching already are morally good people. What I do is help them navigate difficult moral dilemmas that they encounter there. There's a further thought that's worth considering and that is whether ethics cannot be taught in the sense that can somebody exercise leadership in business without imparting some lessons about ethics for better or for worse? I would suggest that you have to be teaching ethics if you are a business leader. In what sense? People will act consistently with what they think is true and what they think is important, so if as a leader you emphasize that this is true and that's most important, you are going to be shaping behavior for better or worse. At Fannie Mae they miraculously hit their earnings per share target every quarter for more than a decade, in that organization at that time, they were emphasizing that the single thing you should most care about is hitting your earnings per share target. That is what is most important. That shape behavior in that case, for the worse, those who lead from within shape behavior for the best. Thank you.
