Not long ago in Omaha, a church congregation was planning to buy a building and turn it into a church.  On facebook, there was a discussion about why they wanted to put a church in that particular location.  One of the younger pastors of the new church posted that “there aren’t any gospel-centered churches in that part of town”– perhaps not thinking how that public posting would sound to the Methodists across the street in their church (and they weren’t happy).  Most churches, even liberal ones, would say that the gospel story is somehow a central feature of their church– they are, after all, Christians, and not Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist– so another distinctive must be found.

Similarly, given today’s AACSB accreditation standards, all business schools are required to demonstrate how they are teaching students about ethics, contemporary cases and issues, and corporate social responsibility, as well as how they have exposed students to ways business can contribute to the common good.

So when Catholic and other religious colleges claim to teach ethics, or have values based education, that alone won’t make them stand out as very unique.

As Michael Naughton has written,

There is a danger of falling into the following logical fallacy. Because
ethics and values are elements of being Catholic, business schools
that are committed to ethics and values must be Catholic. The problem
here is that while Catholic business schools may focus on ethics and
values, what makes them uniquely Catholic is the underlying understanding
of these terms. All schools teach some form of ethics and values.
The crucial question is what kind. This fails to comprehend the
unique vision of the Catholic social tradition and implies that other
universities are not ethical or values-based.

Naughton continues:
When my university began to explore the possibility of starting a
new law school, it initially argued that its distinctive mission would be
characterized as a “values-based law school.” This evoked scorn from
the other law schools in the area and the sardonic response: “So we are
values-less law schools?” This exchange showed that the words “valuesbased”
or “ethics-based” add little to the discussion of mission, as every
institution values something. To say that the distinctive quality of a
Catholic business school is values or ethics is to say little. One needs to
take the step of defining whose ethics, and what tradition. If a Catholic
business school is to take ethics and values seriously in regard to its
mission, a logical place for it to explore is its own Catholic moral, intellectual,
and social tradition. In so doing, it will recognize the importance
of the Scriptures, natural law, the cardinal and theological virtues, as
well as the nature of a profession or a practice. There will be differences
as well as similarities with utilitarianism, deontology, consequentialism,
and other ethical systems.

Of course there are degrees of excellence in how one teaches ethics and values, and there is more than ethics to distinguish one’s business curriculum from others (excellence in finance, accounting, etc).  But it is worth thinking about how we go about teaching values in the curriculum, and how we have distinctive values in the culture of our institutions which set us apart.

Andy Gustafson