[Archbishop Vincent] Nichols is hardly alone ”“ and not wrong ”“ in worrying that some businesses have ethical problems. The concern explains why business ethics has become a standard part of the curriculum in MBA programmes, and the existence of numerous initiatives to promote corporate social responsibility and other virtues. The main problem with these worthy efforts is blandness: it’s not clear what business ethics classes are supposed to teach or what, for example, should be the aim of the Westminster archdiocese’s programme “A Blueprint for Better Business”.
One possibility is that ethical instruction should induce qualms. Moral training might have restrained the captains of finance from excessive bets and pay demands before and after the 2009 crisis, but I doubt it.