c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Ethics scandals at Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia and numerous other corporations challenge the effectiveness of traditional methods of business ethics education. Educators in search of new ways to discuss moral principles and reasoning may find an examination of literature, even children’s fiction, in order.

While the newly popularized “Chronicles of Narnia” seems an unusual ethical textbook for college students, the unique approach to traditional virtues found in its pages may be just the ticket to developing “men with chests,” as “Narnia” author C.S. Lewis elsewhere described young people of sincere ethical persuasion.

Traditionally, ethics education in business programs has involved scrutiny of select chapters from various business textbooks, examining different schools of thought on the topic. John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, for example, argues all moral decisions should be evaluated on a “benefit versus harm” scale rather than an inherent moral code. Other famed philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham argue similarly. As a professor of business, I’ve been privy to countless college courses on ethics where, typically, students read, evaluate and discuss hypothetical cases as presented in the text.

This method is flawed in that it merely exposes students to varying notions of ethics, rather than providing achievable ethical examples inspiring them to develop as ethical people. Where traditional business school curriculum fails in this regard, I posit, great works of literature such as Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables,” Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” and, yes, Lewis’ “Narnia” series can provide just such a challenge and serve as proxy for the educator desiring to teach a holistic moral reasoning.

Lewis, the eccentric writer and legendary Oxford don, used a number of imaginative tools and characters _ including talking animals _ to make his moral arguments display the beauty and responsibility of ethical autonomy.

Lewis’ most poignant example may be from “The Magician’s Nephew,” the book in the “Narnia” series which details that world’s creation. In it, the Creator, Aslan the lion, gives the special tool of speech to some of the beasts and then declares in a phrase packed with meaning enough to fill six books with stories of ethical trials and victories: “Creatures, I give you yourselves … I give forever this land of Narnia. I give you the woods, the fruits, the rivers. I give you the stars and I give you myself.”

Lewis is setting the stage for Narnia in such a way that allows the creatures to discover that virtuous service to others shields the world from the complete terror of evil.

Not only does reading literary greats provide context to ethical dilemmas but, perhaps most importantly, it helps students find heroic vision for their own lives. They are challenged to use their imaginations to envision a better neighborhood, a better city and a better world. Each student is encouraged to make a commitment to model integrity and to live for others, for as Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables” realizes, life’s successes must begin with a commitment to give unselfishly to others.

The ethical servant-leader inspires the creation of a better world. It is a lesson literature teaches well, but our business leaders have largely forgotten.

To further combat this trend, for several years I have taken undergraduate students to Oxford and Cambridge, the stamping grounds of Lewis and other historical moral greats like transformational abolitionist William Wilberforce and Isaac Newton. The students study literature of vision and explore the center of university learning, all the while absorbing not only the past context of moral transformation, but the spirit of purpose those transformers carried forward in their writings.

Ultimately, my students have been learning, not from a textbook chapter on ethics, but from Lewis’ talking beasts and Valjean’s controlled strength, that ethical leadership is keeping faith with a promise to one’s self and contemporaries to live with honor. It is a lesson many business school graduates these days don’t learn until it’s too late.

MO/PH END RNS

(L. Keith Whitney is the chair of the Business Administration Division at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.)

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