When: June 9, 2023, 9:00 am - Friday

Where: Pembroke

Session 6

Session Abstract

In keeping with the conference theme, Lamar Reinsch asks “What Will Be Our Future…If We Keep Teaching Ethics as if We Were Gnostics?” and offers a new tool for business ethics called the “Ethical Guardrails Model” (EGM).  The EGM, recently presented in a co-authored article in the Journal of Business Ethics Education, will be reviewed, highlighting the links between the model and a Christian, whole-person anthropology. Two respondents will offer critical commentaries.  Application of the EGM will be one feature of a complementary presentation, “The Stiff-Necked Syndrome,” a paper co-authored with Joshua Sauerwein.

Paper Abstracts

Lamar Reinsch, Georgetown University, “What Will Be Our Future – If We Keep Teaching Ethics as if We Were Gnostics?”

How do you handle ethics in your classes? Do you maintain a Christian view of humans as created creatures? Or have you unknowingly slipped into talking about ethics from a Gnostic perspective? Lamar Reinsch—drawing on a recent publication in the Journal of Business Ethics Education (copies to be distributed)—will argue that many treatments of business ethics are more Gnostic than Christian. Jooho Lee (Pepperdine) and Monty Lynn (Abilene) will critically respond, and Regan Schaffer (Pepperdine) will facilitate a discussion on the topic of how business ethics should be approached in a faith-related business program.

 

Joshua Sauerwein, Lubbock Christian University, and Lamar Reinsch, Georgetown University, “The Stiff-Necked Syndrome: The Development of the Theory of Immoral Rights”

Prior ethical decisions can have a profound impact on future decisions, yet a large portion of the ethical decision-making literature does little to address this phenomenon.  As one engages in poor decisions it is often much easier to justify future ones, not admit personal fault, and continue doing them in the future, causing one’s mind to become seared to the truth.  The longer one persists, the more rigid they become.  We call this process the Stiff-Necked Syndrome.  This syndrome appears to have intuitive connections with concepts of self-deception, moral license, shame, motivated forgetting, and moral disengagement.

Speakers

Regan Schaffer, Pepperdine University, Convener

• Lamar Reinsch, Georgetown University, “What Will Be Our Future – If We Keep Teaching Ethics as if We Were Gnostics?”
• Jooho Lee, Pepperdine University, Respondent
• Monty L. Lynn, Abilene Christian University, Respondent
• Joshua Sauerwein and Lamar Reinsch, Lubbock Christian University; Georgetown University, “The Stiff-Necked Syndrome: The Development of the Theory of Immoral Rights”