Abstract
This chapter is intended to be a preliminary foray into the territory where the concerns of the Jewish ethical tradition and the world of modern commerce intersect. It will focus on two particular sorts of activities—one associated primarily with corporations and the other associated principally with individuals. But it is hoped that much of what will be said will be applicable to more general problems and settings in the business world and, perhaps, even beyond.
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Notes
She’eltot of Rav Ahai Gaon (a Babylonian rabbi of the eighth century), Parashat Vayyehi No. 36.
The Wall Street Journal, March 12, 1976, p. 8, column 4.
Ibid.
For a particularly colorful example of an “unorthodox” government approach to taxes, see Arthur L. Kelly, “Case Study—Italian Tax Mores,” in Thomas Donaldson and Patricia H. Werhane (eds.), Ethical Issues in Business: A Philosophical Approach (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1979), pp. 37–39.
Shelly O’Neill, “The FCPA: Problems of Extraterritorial Application,” in Vanderbilt Journal of International Law, Volume 12 (1979), p. 704.
United States General Accounting Office, Impact of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on U.S. Business, March 4, 1981, p. 15.
Foreign and Corporate Bribes: Hearings on S. 3133 before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, 94th Congress, second session (April 1976), p. 41.
Ibid., p. 39.
Charles J. McManis, “Questionable Corporate Payments Abroad: An Antitrust Approach,” Yale Law Journal, Volume 86, p. 219.
Two good articles on the subject are (1) Peter A. French, “Corporate Moral Agency,” reprinted in Tom Beauchamp and Norman Bowie (eds.), Ethical Theory and Business (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1979), pp. 175–186, and
(2) Alan H. Goldman, “Business Ethics: Profits, Utilities, and Moral Rights,” in Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 9 (Spring 1980), pp. 260–286.
McManis, pp. 215-257.
Ibid., p. 252.
Menahem Elon, Hamishpat Ha-ivri [Jewish Jurisprudence], 3 volumes (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1973), pp. 329–330.
See Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Baba Batra 21b, where the Talmud seems to accept (as do the later authorities) the opinion of Rav Huna b. Rav Joshua, who permitted any taxpaying member of the community to set up shop next to an existing business of the same type.
See, for example, the article entitled “Maarufia” in the Encyclopedia Judaica.
Printed in Kerem Hemar, part II of Rabbi Abraham Ankawa, who lived in the nineteenth century. Elon quotes this in Part III of Hamishpat Ha-ivri (see note 13), p. II 663.
Aaron Levine, Free Enterprise and Jewish Law (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1980), pp. 124–128 (and notes).
Quoted in Mordekhai (Mordekhai ben Hillel Hakohen—thirteenth-century Germany), Baba Batra, Chapter 2, No. 516.
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Tucker, R.G. (1990). Jewish Ethical Perspectives toward Business. In: Walton, C.C. (eds) Enriching Business Ethics. Springer Studies in Work and Industry. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2224-3_2
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