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| the kinds of actions believed to be morally right and wrong as well as the values placed on the kinds of objects believed to be morally good and morally bad. |
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| specialized study of moral right and wrong that concentrates on moral standards as they apply to business institutions, organizations, and behavior |
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· systematic- social systems within which businesses operate
corporate- an individual company taken as a whole
individual- a particular individual within a company and their behaviors and decisions |
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· theory that there are no ethical standards that are absolutely true and that apply or should be applied to the companies and people of all societies |
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| objections to theory of ethical relativism |
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| some moral standards are found in all societies, moral differences do not logically imply relativism, it is incoherent, it privileges the current moral standards of a society |
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| Kohlberg’s three levels of moral development- |
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Preconventional- punishment and obedience; instrumental and relative
Conventional- interpersonal concordance; law and order
Postconventional- social contract; universal principles |
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| objections to bringing ethics into business |
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| in a free market economy, the pursuit of profit will ensure maximum social benefit, a manager’s most important obligation is to the company, business ethics is limited to obeying the law |
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| arguements supporting ethics in business |
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| ethics applies to all human activities, business cannot survive without ethics, ethics is consistent with profit seeking, prisoner’s dilemma argument, customers and employees are about ethics |
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| elements of moral responsibility |
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| individual must cause or fail to prevent an avoidable injury or wrong doing, individual must know what he is doing, individual must act of his own free will |
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| · advocates maximum utility, matches well with moral evaluations of public policies, appears intuitive to many people, helps explain why some actions are generally wrong and others are generally right, influenced economy |
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| evaluating utilitarianism |
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| critics say not all values can be measured, utilitarian’s respond that monetary and commonsense measures can measure everything, critics say utilitarianism fails with rights and justice, utilitarian’s respond that rule-utilitarianism can deal with rights and justice |
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| characteristics of a right |
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| a right is an individual’s entitlement to something, rights derived from legal systems are limited by jurisdiction, moral or human rights are based on moral norms and are not limited by jurisdiction |
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| tightly correlated with duty, provide individuals with autonomy and equality in the free pursuit of their interests, provide a basis for justifying ones actions and for invoking the protection or aid of others |
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Negative- require others leave us alone
Positive- require others help us
Contractual or Special- require others to keep agreements |
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| Kants categorical imperative |
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| never do something unless you are willing to have everyone do it, never use people merely as means, but always respect and develop their ability to choose for themselves |
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| categorical imperatives are unclear, Kant’s rights can conflict, Kant’s theory implies some mistaken moral conclusions |
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· Distributive- distributing society’s benefits and burdens fairly
Retributive- blaming or punishing persons fairly for doing wrong
Compensatory- restoring to a person what the person lost when he or she was wronged by someone |
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| principles of distributive justice |
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· Fundamental- distribute benefits and burdens equally to equals and unequally to unequals
Egalitarian- distribute equally to everyone
Capitalist- distribute by contribution
Socialist- distribute by need and ability
Libertarian- distribute by free choices
Rawls- distribute by equal liberty, equal opportunity, and needs of disadvantaged |
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| claims ethics need to be impartial, emphasizes preserving and nurturing concrete valuable relationships, says we should care for those dependent on and related to us |
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| objectives to care approach to ethics |
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· Charge- ethic of care can degenerate into favoritism
Response- conflicting moral demands are an inherent characteristic of moral choices
Charge- ethic of care can lead to “burnout”
Response- adequate understanding of ethic of care will address the need to care for the caregiver |
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| basis of moral judgements |
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| evaluation or social costs and benefits, respect for individual rights, just distribution of benefits and burdens, caring for those in concrete relationships |
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· Aristotle- habits that enable a person to live according to reason
Aquinas- habits that enable a person to live reasonably in this world and be united with God in the next
MacIntyre- disposition that enables a person to achieve the good at which human practices aim
Pincoff- dispositions we use when choosing between persons or potential future selves |
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| we should exercise, exhibit, and develop the virtues, we should avoid exercising, exhibiting, and developing vices, institutions should instill virtues not vices |
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| complicating factors in a foreign country |
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| questionable local laws and governments, morally questionable practices, level of technological, social, and economic development, cultural understandings of actions and events |
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| In Lockes state of nature |
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| all are free and equal, each person owns his body and labor, and whatever he mixes his labor into, people agree to form a government to protect their right to freedom and property |
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| weakness of Lockean rights |
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| assumption that individuals have natural rights, conflict between positive and negative rights, conflict between Lockean rights and principles of justice, Locke’s individualistic assumptions |
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| market competition ensures that the pursuit of self-interest in markets advances the public’s welfare, government interference in markets does not advance the public’s welfare |
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| rests on unrealistic assumptions, false assumption that all relevant costs are paid by manufacturer, false assumption that human beings are solely motivated by self-interested desire for profit, some degree of economic planning is possible and desirable, Keynes’s claim that government can affect unemployment |
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| · advocated by Smith with idea of absolute advantage, advocated by Ricardo with idea of comparative advantage, favors globalization |
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| difficulty in applying ricardos theory today |
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| easy movement of capital by companies, false assumption that a country’s production cost are constant, influence of international rule settlers |
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| Marx’s principle claim of Injustice in Capitalism |
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| exploitation of workers whose surplus is taken by owners as profit, alienation of workers from product, works, self, and others, subordination of government to interests of ruling economic class, immiseration of workers |
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| claims of injustice are unprovable, justice requires free markets, market efficiency is more important than equality, free markets can encourage community, immiseration of workers never happened |
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| Moral Outcomes of perfectly competitive markets |
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| achieve a certain kind of justice, satisfy a certain version of utilitarianism, respect certain kinds of moral rights |
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| monopoly market characteristics |
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| one seller, high entry barriers, quantity below equilibrium, prices above equilibrium and supply curve, can extract monopoly profit |
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| ethical weakness of monopolies |
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| violation of capitalist justice, economic inefficiency, lack of respect for negative rights |
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| unethical practices in oligopoly |
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| price fixing, manipulation of supply, exclusive dealing arrangements, tying arrangements, retail price maintenance agreements, price discrimination |
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| main views on oligopoly power |
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| do nothing, antitrust view, regulation view |
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