In this course, we will explore key topics of Business Ethics and Politics by addressing them in terms of the profound philosophical questions that underlie them. Our main focus will be the form of Corporate Business in contemporary capitalism. Accordingly, we will commence with a concise examination of some of the primary ethical and political issues arising within this socio-economic landscape.

Following this introduction, we will explore the concepts of profit, capital, and labor as developed in Marx’s seminal work, “The Capital.” Additionally, we will assess key ethical philosophies like Utilitarianism and Kantianism in relation to the moral evaluation of labor conditions in a capitalist context. In the second part of the course, we will examine the dominant political philosophies of neo-liberalism and socialism to question the political dimensions of the human experience within capitalism. In the concluding segment, we will expand our political analysis of capitalism and reflect on the forms of life within this system. We will approach this question from two viewpoints: Foucault’s concept of biopolitics and the Aristotelian-Marxist notion of the species being of man.

The primary goal of this course is to equip students with the essential philosophical tools to assess the limitations and opportunities inherent in today’s socio-economic context.