Reflective Essay on Three Books
Introduction
Within the western philosophy, the main categories of ethics include meta-ethics, applied ethics, and normative ethics. This reflective essay is specifically concerned with normative ethics. By definition, normative ethics is the study of the ethical actions. This part of ethics is thus primarily concerned with the criteria of what is ethically wrong or right. Therefore, it includes formulation of the moral rules, which have straight implications for what ways of life, institutions, and human actions should be like. It believes that wrong or right are found in a person’s behavior. For this reason, this essay draws on the concepts in the normative ethics in reflecting on three books. These books include “The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government” by Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu, “The MBA Oath: Setting a Higher Standard for Business Leaders” by Peter Escher and Max Anderson, and “Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans” by Wendell Potter.
Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu in their book, “The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government,” describe American politics as over-ritualized and over-rehearsed piece of stage battle between the two traditional ideologies. The two authors offer an inspiring and a visionary re-examination of the democracy in this classic book. In addition, they offer a plan for a new age government and citizenship in the 21st century. This epic piece of writing explores the most recent ideas from the social, economics, and science.
The book reduces to a number of simple precepts related to normative ethics. One of these precepts is that our society becomes how we behave. This means that our behaviors determine how our society looks. This is a concept in normative ethics, which believes that wrong or right are found within our behaviors. Thus, our society will be right if we behave in a rightful manner and wrong if we behave in a wrongful manner. The other precepts that Hanauer and Liu’s book reduce to are that we are all superior off when we are all superior off. The third precept in the book is that instead of the small versus big government; we need a government that is small on the ‘how’ and big on the ‘what’ (Liu and Nick Hanauer, 53).
The two young authors, Hanauer and Liu rank behind Schumacher in their ideas and thoughts in critique of what is wrong in our day. Thus, “The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government,” advices us how we should behave to shape our society. In my opinion, the author’s ideas and thoughts of what is wrong today are always valuable and in vogue. In their book, they want to change how the Americans think about politics. The co-authors want to do this by using a new metaphor in describing how governance must work. According to the two authors, American politics can be improved greatly if we only agree that the nation is like a garden.
We need to care for and tend to the real gardens. However, these gardens are similarly alive, and we should leave them alone to grow. After reading their book, I found Hanauer and Liu seeing a comparable way to govern America. The garden metaphor that the authors use is essentially not a gimmick. It is a powerful refutation of the neoclassical economics. If one thinks that we are atomized persons that only create rational decisions in the market with the goal of maximizing our utilities, Hanauer and Liu will not just differ; they will argue that science has confirmed that opinion to be wrong.
The other thing that I noted after reading this book is that the authors have written it from the left-hand face of the politics. I found myself asking whether their arguments in the book are applicable to the two sides of the spectrum. The other question that I found asking myself is whether the right discovers this view as totally objectionable. Whereas the two authors make their argument from a sturdy liberal as well as a progressive background, it does not mean that the center-right and conservatives do not have a claim to these ideas.
Nonetheless, I do not believe and accept in everything, which the two authors say in this heroic book, as no one individual is ever totally perfect in their thinking. I have to acknowledge that I did not like every idea for reform that the authors present in this book.
The second book, “The MBA Oath: Setting a Higher Standard for Business Leaders,” by Peter Escher and Max Anderson, explores the questions of professionalism and ethics in the world of business. They do not aim this book to the business students only, but they also aim it at anybody who is essentially interested in a discussion of the subject. The authors essentially make their argument for wisdom of calling the MBAs as well as the other business leaders to promise that they will guide responsibly. Thus, this book describes the case for moral cannon in which the business leaders must adhere. The authors have written this text well using facts. The book is a compelling case, which the future of the business is plainly centered on the ethical behavior as well as looking out for the ordinary good.
After reading the text again and again, I now understand that the professionals that possess the ethical cannon are normally more ethical. These professionals (lawyers, scientists, engineers, and doctors) self-regulate themselves. However, they are not perfect, but possess aspirations for the excellence on their shared agreement to adhere to the ethics, common goals, and conduct. This is in line with the normative ethics that calls for the moral standards, which regulate the wrong and right conduct. Just like normative ethics, this book articulates the good habits, which the MBAs and business leaders must acquire, the consequences of their behaviors on others, or the duties that they must follow.
After reading this book, I now comprehend that business leaders must be held accountable. The decisions by these individuals influence the world events besides touching the lives of numerous individuals. The actions by these leaders can essentially lead to the collapse of the entire economies, which ripple all through generations. The MBA Oath opening captures this special responsibility of business leaders nicely. The authors begin by saying, “As a manager, my purpose is to serve the greater good by bringing together people and resources to create value that no single individual can build alone. Therefore, I will seek a course that enhances the value of my enterprise can create for society over the long-term” (Anderson and Escher, 85). I now realize that the society grants business the capability to make special entities, which garner rights. In that case, these rights permit the business individuals to practice their art through giving a shared framework for resolving the disputes, as well as the capacity, to enter into the contracts. In fact, without this framework, the business would sputter and stall. These special rights possess an implied circumstance that the business individuals do not misuse these privileges.
The co-authors do an exceptional job in outlining solid augments why The MBA Oath is necessary. They frame their arguments through the case method that has a lengthy history at Harvard. It is also the basic framework for the way they teach. The cases demonstrate the way an ethical cannon truly does change the behavior, and the way leaders having an ethical compass make reasonable, profitable, and rational decisions, which are similarly for the collective good. Fascinatingly, Escher and Anderson equally disparage the method since it just goes so far in establishing a leader. This understanding is refreshing and adds to the credibility of the authors and this book.
After reading this classic piece of writing, I now understand why every business leader, business manager, and CEO should possess a copy of this useful reference tool. The authors explore the decision- making challenges in business. If the MBA Oath text been written a long- time ago, we might have avoided a number of the scandals that rocked the Wall Street in the earlier decade. Eventually, individuals making personal decisions drove the forces that shut down our economy. The co-authors explore the case examples of the decisions gone wrong and decisions premised on the morally sound reasoning.
The MBA Oath is possibly the book on the market at present if one is essentially concerned in raising the bar for the ethical standards in the world of business. Although Escher and Anderson are humble and fail to pretend that this text answers all the questions, they have plainly staked out discussion boundaries that each thinking and conscientious business individual must be engaged in today. I now understand why the owners and managers should take crucial public steps to bring back the confidence at the economy of our country. The Oath is simply an initial such step. The MBA Oath not only offers wisdom and sound advice, it is also a good read that has a number of fascinating stories.
The third book, “Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans” by Wendell Potter is the story of the way “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010” came into being. The book also talks about how the Insurance lobby attempted to torpedo the act. After reading this text again and again, I now understand how this act was created, and the way an insurance lobby that we expect to protect the consumers torpedoes this vital act. Potter argues that the “Spin-meisters” are part of the insurance lobby, which attempted to stop the mentioned act. Potter is a previous head of public relations at the CIGNA. He was one of the “Spin-meisters” that tried to stop the act. His job at CIGNA was essentially to make and perpetuate the myth that every law that congress passed was a “government invasion of the healthcare system.”
After reading “The Deadly Spin,” I understand how the health insurers made promises that they did not have the intention of keeping. I also understand how they skew the political debate with the multibillion- dollar PR campaigns that they design to spread the disinformation and how they float the regulations that are designed to protect the consumers (Potter, 82). This observable fact is related to the concepts of normative ethics, which examines the standards for the wrongness and rightness of actions. By the insurer lobby acting the way it did, it wrong, since we expect it to act ethically and protect the consumers.
We expect all the corporations to uphold the regulations, which are designed for the consumers' protection, but this is essentially not the case with the company that Potter is a PR. In the book, potter explains that he walked away from a huge salary and 20 years as an executive at CIGNA since he could no longer tolerate the routine practices of the industry where the suffering and sick Americans’ needs take a backseat to the floor line. Potter realizes what is good and bad, and this helps him to make a sound decision. From this book, I now realize how relentless PR assaults participate in a dangerous role, in the political process wherever the corporate profits are essentially at stake from the climate change to the defense policy. The book informs us how and why we should fight back.
I now understand the events that led the author to query the morality of his work including watching Sicko, using his skills in PR to defend the decision of his company to decline to pay for a liver transplant of a young girl, visiting a healthcare aid organization event in the rural Virginia where many uninsured children, men, and women stood in line to get the basic health services in the rain, and Moore’s scathing documentary description of the United States health insurance industry. These together with the other experiences made Potter make a conclusion that his employers, as well as the other health insurance companies’ primary interest, was to boost the stock prices and profits even at patients welfare expense. The book has increased my knowledge of how the insurance corporations are in the routine of raising premiums and denying coverage, which according to the normative ethics is totally wrong.
Works cited
Liu, Eric, and Nick Hanauer. The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government. Seattle, WA: Sasquatch Books, 2011. Print.
Anderson, Max, and Peter Escher. The Mba Oath: Setting a Higher Standard for Business Leaders. New York, N.Y: Portfolio, 2010. Print.
Potter, Wendell. Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate Pr Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010. Print.
