The end of the year is upon us. It is traditionally a time for reflection and self-assessment.

With this in mind, I supposed, BusinessWeek had a piece last week on ethical self-assessment. They looked at Peter Druker's Ethics of Prudence and declared it "timely" in light of recent events like the bribery scandal at Seimens and Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

I like Druker's complaint about the concept of "business ethics." Ethics are ethics. To qualify the concept with a modifier (in this case "business") implies that ethics change with the situation. It's like saying that some things that aren't "okay" really are okay in a business environment. That, of course, isn't true.

You can read the whole article here. Then, as an end of the year sort of thing, you can go look at yourself in the mirror.


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