Chapter 7: Considering the Emotional Side of Business Ethics

Daniel Petrocelli, the defense lawyer for former Enron CEO Jeffery Skilling, wrenched this mea culpa out of Andrew Fastow, Enron’s disgraced former CFO, as he cross-examined him in the trial of Skilling and Kenneth L. Lay, Fastows’s former bosses. Fastow’s attempt at repentance is not unlike that many miscreants make when the magnitude of their misdeeds finally reaches their conscience. Before that time, however, they were running largely on emotion, driven by greed and power seeking, and, to a large extent, they were unmindful of the potential for shame or guilt their actions carried. It is human nature to be self-centered. But when self-centeredness spills over into greed impelled by hubris it becomes socially destructive. Overcoming this predisposition among our students is the major problem confronting education for business ethics.