Question

Explain William Kline's argument that the purpose of business is to produce a good or service for trade and how does this view provide an ethical standard?

Answer 1

Answer: This argument by William Kline that the purpose of a business is to produce a good or service for trade is based on the market based business ethics. It means that by producing a good or service that is tradable and serves the needs of the intended customers is enough for a company to act in ethical manner. As per his view, the social good is a thing that is most suitable for a charity. He considers that the basic purpose of any businesses is to look into the fundamentals of trading and decisions made by the businesses needs to be based on money rather than any other factor. If a business overlooks this fact then it is overlooking its basic nature. Overlooking one’s basic purpose or value cannot be considered as ethical from any point of view. Hence this view provides an ethical standard to the businesses that if they want to be ethical then they should focus on creating and trading goods and services rather than any other type of occupation.   If a business is taking investment from its investors and not reciprocating them then it is a form of theft where you take something away from someone and this is unethical in nature. Hence businesses should also ways focus on trade.