Living with the dragon : thinking and acting ethically in a world of unintended consequences /

Using J. R. R. Tolkien's admonition not to "leave a live dragon out of your calculations," Koehn (business ethics, Univ. of St. Thomas, Houston) has provided an intriguing study of the ethical dimensions of unintended consequences in business, government policy, and daily life. The "dragon," unintended consequences, is defined as an unforeseen adaption to a rule or policy. For example, although the Americans with Disabilities Act was designed to encourage greater employment of disabled workers, it resulted in the opposite. Employers feared disability lawsuits and thus hired fewer disabled persons. The book proposes that people's common moral frameworks, such as utilitarianism, do not help them to anticipate or avoid unintended consequences. Instead, Koehn proposes practical remedies to enable business and government policy makers to be more adept at considering and reducing the risk of unintended consequences. Noting Samuel Johnson's warning that "hell is paved with good intentions," Koehn advises that people are morally foolish to ignore the possibilities of unintended consequences in their planning. Replete with examples, this book would be a good supplementary text in business or environmental ethics or a business and society course. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections. T. R. Gillespie Northwest University