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Ethical Principles in Business Decisions

The document discusses ethical principles in business, focusing on moral decision-making frameworks such as utilitarianism, rights and duties, justice and fairness, ethics of care, and virtue ethics. It outlines key questions for moral decisions, the significance of utilitarianism in evaluating actions based on their consequences, and the importance of rights and justice in ethical considerations. Additionally, it highlights the role of psychology and social institutions in shaping moral intuition.

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Subido, Sarah Grace M.
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25 views5 pages

Ethical Principles in Business Decisions

The document discusses ethical principles in business, focusing on moral decision-making frameworks such as utilitarianism, rights and duties, justice and fairness, ethics of care, and virtue ethics. It outlines key questions for moral decisions, the significance of utilitarianism in evaluating actions based on their consequences, and the importance of rights and justice in ethical considerations. Additionally, it highlights the role of psychology and social institutions in shaping moral intuition.

Uploaded by

Subido, Sarah Grace M.
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Module 8

Ethical Principles in Business

Five Questions to Moral Decision


Does the decision maximize the good and minimize the bad?
Does the decision respect people’s rights?
Is the decision just? Does the decision express caring?
Does the decision flow from virtue and not from vice?

Approaches to Moral Decision Making


I. Utilitarianism: Weighing Social Costs and Benefits Utility
– the result of combining the beneficial and costly consequences of an action

The ethical action is the one that had the most beneficial consequences for society or
that at least minimized the harmful consequences.

Mill: “Actions are right… they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce
the reverse of happiness.”

Happiness – eudaemonia

The Summum Bonum – The End Goal of Human Life

The Good Life

Utilitarianism: Weighing Social Costs and Benefits


Significant features:
A. It attempts to provide an ethical principle that serves as a publicly acceptable basis
for determining the best social policies, as well as the ethically best courses of action.
B. An action is right from an ethical point of view, if and only if, the net sum of utilities
produced by that action is greater than the net sum of utilities produced by any other
action the agent could have performed in its place.
Key Takeaways:
1. Advocates policies that provide the greatest benefits
– “the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people”
2. Impartially considers everyone’s interests – betterment of the society as a whole 3.
Explains why some activities are right or wrong – actions that foster happiness are right
and actions that causes unhappiness are wrong
Criticisms:
1. Distasteful - I don’t like it or It doesn’t suit my way of thinking
2. Impossibility – to apply because happiness cannot be quantified or measured
3. Impracticality – we cannot calculate all the effects for all the individuals
4. Insufficiency (of scope) – some values can be conflicting with other values

Utilitarian Problems with Rights and Justice:


1. It does not take into account how evenly utility is distributed among members of a
society.
2. It does not take into account the negative impact on the rights of those negatively
impacted by its calculus.
Act Utilitarianism
-​ Whenever we are deciding what to do, we should perform the action that will
create the greatest net utility
-​ The end justifies the means
Rule Utilitarianism
-​ Stresses the importance of moral rules
-​ a. Action is morally justified if it conforms to a justified moral rule
-​ b. Moral rule is justified if its inclusion into our moral code would create more
utility that other rules (or no rule at all)

II. Rights and Duties


A right is an entitlement
-​ To act in a certain way.
-​ To have others act in a certain way towards the right-holder

2 kinds of Right
A. Legal Rights
– derived from the legal system of a particular jurisdiction

B. Moral/Human Rights
- universal, inalienable, indivisible, interdependent

Moral Rights
-​ Can be violated even when “ no one is hurt”
-​ Are correlated with duties others have towards the rightholder
-​ Provide individuals with autonomy and equality in the free pursuit of their of
interest
-​ Provide a basis for justifying one’s actions and for invoking the protection or aid
of others
-​ Focusing on securing the interests of individual

Positive Rights – Negative Rights

Contractual Rights
-​ Special rights
-​ Conferred only by parties involved
-​ Require publicly accepted rules
-​ Require (1) the parties know what they are agreeing to
(2) no misrepresentation
(3) no duress or coercion
(4) no agreement to an immoral act

Kant’s Categorical Imperative


-​ Golden rule
-​ Requires acting only on reasons we would be willing to have anyone in a similar
situation act on
-​ Universalizability
-​ Reversibility
-​ Treat humans as ends not means to an end
Criticism
Nozick’s Claim about Rights and Freedom Rights require freedom.
-​ Freedom must be restricted for the fulfillment of other rights (i.e. negative).
Freedom is unjustifiable.

III. Justice & Fairness


DISTRIBUTIVE
-​ Concerns with the fair distribution of society’s benefits and burdens
RETRIBUTIVE
-​ Refers to the just imposition of punishments and penalties on those who do
wrong
COMPENSATORY
-​ Concerns with the just way of compensating people for what they lost when
others wronged them

Justice & Fairness


John Rawl’s Justice Principles

Principle of Equal Liberty (Freedom)

Principle of Difference (Concern for the Disadvantaged)

Principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity

Conditions of Just Punishment


1. Ignorance and Inability
2. Certitude
3. Consistency and Proportionate to the wrong Justice & Fairness

Conditions of Just Compensation


1. The action that inflicted the injury was wrong or negligent.
2. The person’s action was the real cause of the injury.
3. The person inflicted the injury voluntarily.
IV. Ethics of Care
-​ Feminist ethics
-​ Partiality
-​ Importance of Relationships
-​ communitarian ethics
-​ Caring for those dependent on and related to us
-​ Argues that since the self requires caring relationships with others, those
relationships are valuable and should be nurtured

V. Virtue Ethics
VIRTUE
-​ Are habits of dealing with one’s emotions and actions in ways that regularly strike
the reasonable mean between extremes of excess and deficiency
VICE
-​ Are habits of regularly going to the unreasonable extreme of either excess or
deficiency

THOMAS AQUINAS
-​ Virtues are means to achieve not only happiness in this life but happiness in the
next life that is through the union with God
ALASDAIR MACINTYRE
-​ Virtues are dispositions that enable us to deal well with all exigencies of practice
EDMUND PINCOFFS
-​ Virtues are dispositions that enable us to deal well with all exigencies of human
life

Roles of Psychology, Culture and Social Institutions


Moral Intuition
-​ our ability to understand something quickly, without the need for conscious
reasoning
-​ HARDWIRED
1. Action principle – harming others is worse than harming by omission
2. Intention principle – harming as a means to a goal is worse than harming as a
foreseen side effect
3. Contact principle – harming by physical contact is worse than harming without
physical contact

Common questions

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In virtue ethics, Thomas Aquinas views virtues as means to achieve happiness not only in this life but also in the next through union with God . Alasdair MacIntyre, however, considers virtues as dispositions enabling individuals to manage the exigencies of practices effectively . These perspectives highlight virtues as essential traits for moral excellence and dealing with life's challenges .

Kant's Categorical Imperative emphasizes acting according to universalizable maxims and treating humans as ends in themselves, not merely as means to an end . It reflects a deontological approach, focusing on the inherent morality of actions. In contrast, utilitarianism bases morality on the consequences of actions, aiming to maximize happiness or utility . Kantian ethics prioritizes moral duties and rights, differing from utilitarian emphasis on outcomes .

John Rawls' principles of justice include the Principle of Equal Liberty, which ensures basic freedoms for all, the Principle of Difference, addressing inequalities by benefiting the least advantaged, and Fair Equality of Opportunity, ensuring equal access to similar opportunities . These principles aim to create a just society by systematically addressing unfair distributions of advantages and promoting equality and liberty .

Utilitarianism focuses on actions that maximize the net utility – the overall happiness or welfare of the majority . However, it often fails to consider how evenly this utility is distributed, leading to potential infringements on individual rights . The ethical framework does not account for individual rights affected negatively by actions that, while beneficial to the majority, may be detrimental to a minority .

Universalizability demands that actions be acceptable as universal laws, complicating moral decisions when individuals face situations with potential for conflicting universal rules . Ethical dilemmas may arise when specific actions, although justified locally, cannot be universally applied, challenging consistency in moral reasoning and action .

The major criticisms of utilitarianism include its distastefulness in individual preferences, the impossibility of quantifying happiness, its impracticality in calculating all possible effects, and its insufficiency due to conflicting values with other ethical considerations . It also faces challenges regarding rights and justice, as it does not address the distribution of utility and may negatively impact rights .

Moral and human rights are universal, inalienable, indivisible, and interdependent, focusing on securing individual autonomy and equality, while legal rights derive from specific legal systems . Moral rights can be violated even without harm, correlating with duties others have towards the rights-holder . Legal rights are enforceable within their jurisdiction, whereas moral rights justify actions and calls for protection at a broader level .

Positive rights require the provision of certain resources or actions, enabling individuals' freedom through access to what is necessary for autonomy . Negative rights preserve freedom by demanding others refrain from interference. Balancing them can be challenging, as ensuring positive rights may impose on others' negative rights, leading to conflicts and requiring careful ethical justification .

The Ethics of Care emphasizes relationships, partiality, and nurturing care for those dependent or related to us, contrasting with deontology and utilitarianism which focus on abstract principles and general welfare . It argues for the value of personal relationships and community, promoting care's centrality to ethical life over the impartiality prevalent in deontology and utilitarianism .

Just retribution involves imposing fair penalties consistently proportionate to the wrongdoing, considering factors such as ignorance and ability . Compensatory justice focuses on righting wrongs with fair compensation, ensuring the action causing harm was negligent, directly inflicted by the wrongdoer voluntarily . These considerations require balancing fairness, responsibility, and proportionality in ethical judgments .

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