PHIL 207: Ethical Issues in Business: A Critical Thinking
Approach (*Liberal Learning Foundations- Logical Reasoning)
(No Prerequisite)

This course focuses on applying critical thinking skills to ethical issues raised within a business setting. Critical thinking skills include analyzing arguments for validity, using both inductive and deductive arguments, increasing argument cogency, identifying common fallacies, analyzing statements for consistency, implications, contradictions; distinguishing fact from opinion; identifying inference and argument; addressing vagueness and ambiguity in language.

This particular two-week course challenges students to think critically about business practices and internalize the effects of ethical and unethical actions by seeing firsthand the effects of these actions on the local environment and people in the Bahamas. The Bahamas provides an excellent way to see the effects of commercialization in three discrete stages by visiting three Bahamian islands in different stages of commercialization: Nassau, the center of business and tourist activity; Andros, an emerging but precipitously growing tourist destination; and Acklins, a recondite island with very little commercial activity. In each place, we will compare and contrast the amount of environmental damage and the standard of living of local islanders. In addition, we will have discussions with officials from the Bahamian Office of Sustainability about the costs and benefits of commercialization and measures that the Bahamian government and local businesses are taking to prevent the negative effects of sharp increases in business activity.