I received an email from Bentley University in the US this weekend encouraging recipients to get their colleges to embrace a pledge upon graduation.

The pledge goes:

"I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work."

What I like about the pledge is:

• simplicity
• encourages the graduate to explore, i.e. to ask questions. I believe that most ethical (social and environmental) issues at firms begin with people who fail to ask questions
• it encourages the pledgee to recognize their freedom of action, their individual moral agency

What I like less about the pledge is:

• it does not mention ethics or, even more boldly and generally, something like "the firm's negative impacts on other people". Graduates will be faced with many more ethical challenges than solely social or environmental ones
• it does not make explicit that an ethical outcome might result in not taking on a suspect piece of business i.e. that an ethical solution might not be the most profitable, at least in the short term. The email I received makes it clear that some have taken it this way, but something about "not compromising an ethical outcome for profi maximization" would make explicit that the pledge is worthless if maximum profit must be achieved even at the cost of broader ethical concerns.

My only other concern is the "is that all?" point: I know that institutions that encourage adoption of the pledge will often require students to undertake a business ethics course - at least I hope they do. They may even offer a course on corporate social responsibility.

But the pledge seems to me first and foremost to be about being aware of one's agency - of one's choice of action - of having consciousness of that, and that is a tall order for a single sentence.

To my mind, that degree of consciousness emerges from the development of the habit of questioning, and in particular the habit of questioning the "taken-for-granteds" of business.

Not everyone feels comfortable questioning the basic tenets of contemporary business ideology; fewer still are able, even though we insist that contemporary capitalism is about freedom. Freedom begins with free thinking.

Even those who are willing to question need an opportunity to develop the skills for doing so constructively and relevantly. Where else will that occur but in a business school degree?

It is high time we built on the pledge movement by demanding that not just business ethics and CSR, but rather the philosophy of business be integrated as a core foundation stone of every business school program.

Get more information about the pledge from the Graduation Pledge Alliance homepage.

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