Professor Brian Berkey: Teaching Moral Demandingness and Obligations of Justice at Wharton
CompanyRoots recently interviewed Professor Brian Berkey– an Assistant Professor of Business Ethics and Legal Studies at the Wharton School, with a focus on moral and political philosophy. Professor Berkey’s work deals with moral demandingness, individual and corporation obligations of justice, and climate change ethics. Professor Berkey’s research has also appeared in several journals and publications such as the Mind, Philosophical Studies, and the Canadian Journal of Philosophy.
From early on in his career, Berkey discovered that he had a deep interest in philosophy. After completing his undergraduate degree, Berkey decided to go to graduate school and pursue a degree in philosophy and continue to stay in academia. Once he received his PhD, Berkey began working in the Wharton School of Business, a fairly unique opportunity as many business schools did not hire philosophers.
Currently, Berkey’s work mainly focuses on the task of envisioning possibilities of what society in the future will look like. Deliberating such questions as what humans should do in contrast with what humans want to do even if they do not consider that action is a large part of Berkey’s work. He also often considers the idea of moral demandingness. To illustrate this point he says, “For example, walking away from a child right in front of us, who’s drowning. In order to prevent our nice clothes from getting ruined. So the thought is something like this. If you’re walking by the pond and there’s a child drowning, you could rescue the child, but it’ll ruin your saying nice, you know, $500 suit or something like that.”
Berkey believes that morality is much more demanding than ordinary people perceive it to be. “We actually have much stronger obligations to do things that will make the world a better place that will help people more,” he says, “And in particular, [the] people who are most in need.” In consideration of the ideals of ethical values and morality in human nature, Berkey emphasizes the importance of connection between humans and understanding that society must work as a cohesive whole to create change. Regardless of the empirical facts, Berkey notes that there are several independent philosophical questions we should take seriously, whether it be about moral obligations or personal motivations.
At Wharton, Berkey also teaches several classes including ethics and social responsibility, international business ethics, and even a seminar in law and society. Many of these classes are often discussion based and allow students to talk through various arguments and provide their perspectives on arguments. They have covered topics such as ethics in companies, employing people in sweatshops, the treatment of animals in the business world and more.
Before moving to Wharton, Berkey pursued a fellowship in Stanford and Harvard. He recalls how in many of the ethics centers, “there’s kind of a mix of philosophers and people from some other disciplines who work on adjacent issues that have some kind of normative component to them.” At Stanford, Berkey was exposed to various people and perspectives who were working on and studying a variety of issues regarding social justice, climate change, and ethical ideologies. Berkey greatly appreciated the diversified exposure at his fellowships where he was surrounded by people at the same career stage and with whom he shared common interests and thought processes. Berkey also mentions that his dissertation revolved around a “general theoretical degeneracy of the view that individuals are directly subject to the principles of justice.”
Berkey encourages high school students to consider many of the ideas mentioned during his interview and put themselves in the position to be able to make positive differences in the world. Additionally, students who look to make big or small changes in our society have many responsibilities which sometimes entail making genuine sacrifices in order to move on a path forward to successfully address an issue. “Us being willing to make some pretty radical changes to the ways that we live that might involve some real sacrifices,” Berkey says. Making a change may require a deep analysis and responding to difficult questions and situations as mentioned above, but after overcoming these obstacles it will help one to make decisions that are better guided and beneficial to society on a larger scale.
You can watch the full interview here.
Authors: Megan Chen and Neha Jampala
Editor: Ayan Lateef
Interviewers: Rahul Kavuru and Sourish Jasti
Graphic: Sraavya Penumudi