Business Ethics and Global Age Cosmopolitanism

This dissertation is a study of business ethics and business education. It is particularly focused on the Business Administration degree and the business ethics literature, while also considering university students, professors, and business practitioners. The key problem I address is how to create and teach an ethics of Global Age Cosmopolitanism (GAC). I approach this problem through a philosophical analysis focusing on political, economic, and educational principles. It is my hope that such an ethics will cause university professors and students to become engaged citizens who seek to solve the many problems that affect society and to sustain structural justice in global institutions, both economic and political. The GAC ethic presupposes civic universalism, a theory of living well in accordance to the values and customs common to the global society. This includes pluralistic political, economic, and educational ideas that deal specifically with social and economic inequalities. While these issues have been neglected in business ethics to date, my goal is to make the elimination of such inequalities an inherent part of all global business practices. In other words, GAC is not only a mentality that maximizes economic benefits for periphery countries. It is also an approach that serves immigrants and emigrants who are constantly on the move in the search of economic autonomy. Finally, GAC provides theoretical and practical tools for business educators and practitioners who seek to effect social justice on a global scale