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Ethics summary
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A detailed summary of all lectures provided in the course Ethics
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Ethics lecturesLecture 1
Business science and business ethics:
• Business science focuses on organizations:
§ Organizations as agents
§ Organizations as environments
• Both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical questions, e.g.:
§ If organizations are agents, their behavior can be evaluated on ethical
grounds
o Which of their actions and decisions are ethically justifiable?
§ If organizations are environments (i.e., structured groups of agents), then
how does the organizational structure affect the behavior of the individual
agents within the organization and outside the organization from an ethical
perspective?
• Business science focuses on markets:
§ Markets as environments in which organizations operate
§ Markets as coordination systems alternative to organizations
• Again, both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical questions, e.g.:
§ If markets are environments in which organizations operate, how do
organizations balance their need to be competitive with their ethical
standing?
o And how should markets be regulated in a way that makes it possible
for organizations to find a balance?
§ If markets are alternative to organizations, then in which ways this difference
affects the forms of evaluations (including ethical evaluations) practiced
within and outside organizations?
• Business science focuses on markets in society:
§ The impact of markets on society
§ The impact of society on markets
• Both perspectives elicit fundamental ethical questions, e.g.:
§ To which extent current societal values are affected (or should be affected)
by “what is good for the markets”?
§ To which extent should regulations on markets reflect societal values?
Theoretical bases for business ethics:
• Sandel, M. (2010) Justice: What is the right thing to do?
§ Aristotle’s virtue ethics
§ Kantian deontology
§ Utilitarianism & libertarianism
§ Social contract theory & Rawls
§ Communitarianism
,Ethical decision-making:
• The process of evaluating and choosing among alternatives in a way that is
consistent with ethical principles
• This entails:
§ Recognizing alternatives
§ Recognizing stakeholders
§ Recognizing consequences
• Decision-making processes are typically multi-dimensional
• Hence, decisions involve clashes of legitimate rights or values different principles
and notions of what is good
• Core to ethical decision-making is the ability balance clashing values
• No clash of values -> no ethical problem
What ethical behavior in NOT:
• Not the same as acting according to one’s feelings/emotions
• Not the same as acting according to religious beliefs
• Not the same as abiding by the law
• Not the same as following social conventions/ culturally accepted norms
• Not the same as acting on the basis of scientific knowledge
• Thus, although feelings, beliefs, legal and social norms, and true facts and evidence
might provide valuable input to consider, they often are not enough, and ethics
cannot be reduced to any of these aspects
What is hard about ethical decision-making:
• Is there an unquestionable basis on which we can ground our ethical principles?
• Different answers:
§ Aristotle: do what brings you closer to virtue
§ Kant: do what respects human fundamental dignity and self-determination
§ Utilitarianism: do what provides the most good and the least harm
§ Rawls: do what is necessary to “share one another’s face”
• These general ethical principles might clash with each other when we try to apply
them to concrete situations
Active learning in groups:
• Amos Tversky (1937 – 1996) and Daniel Kahneman, 2002 Nobel prize in Economics
§ “Both Amos and I were critical and argumentative, he even more than I, but
during the years of our collaboration neither of us ever rejected out of hand
anything the other said.”
§ “We developed a routine in which we spent much of our working days
together.”
§ “We quickly adopted a practice that we maintained for many years.”
§ “Our research was a conversation, in which we invented questions and jointly
examined our intuitive answers.”
§ “Each question was a small experiment, and we carried out many
experiments in a single day”.
o Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
,Aristotle:
• Aristotle describes ethical virtue as a tendency or disposition, induced by our habits
• To develop virtue, we need to train it
• This is not just important for the sake of this course, but build your skills as a
decision-maker
Lecture 2
Beginning of this journey:
• The word ethics is derived from the Greek word ἦθος (êthos) meaning character,
custom or habit
• Today ethics can mean:
§ A set of moral principles
o A theory or system of moral values
§ The discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and
obligation
Aristotle (384 – 322 BC):
• Greek philosopher
• Student of Plato’s Academy of Athens
• Tutor of Alexander the Great
• Founder of the Lyceum in Athens
• The Corpus Aristotelicum is what is left
§ Logic, physics, metaphysics, ethics & politics, rhetoric’s & poetics
• What Aristotle used to say:
§ “Quality is not an act, it is a habit”
§ “All virtue is summed up in dealing justly”
§ “He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is
sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god”
§ “I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded
what others do only from fear of the law”
Ethics for Aristotle:
• Ethics is not a theoretical discipline:
§ We are asking questions not because we want to satisfy our curiosity, but
because by knowing we will be more capable to reach it
§ Give an answer to the practical question:
o How should men best live?
§ Give an answer to questions such as:
o What is the highest good?
§ And these questions are always connected to politics
• Since political science employs the other sciences, and also lays down laws about
what we should do and refrain from, its end will include the ends of the others, and
will therefore be the human good
, • For even if the good is the same for an individual as for a city, that of the city is
obviously a greater and more complete thing to obtain and preserve
• For while the good of an individual is a desirable thing, what is good for a people or
for cities is a nobler and more godlike thing
• Our enquiry, then, is a kind of political science, since these are the ends it is aiming
at
The highest good and the Telos:
• Eudaimonia (eu= good, daimōn= spirit):
§ Often translated as happiness, flourishing, well-being, welfare
• Aristotle:
§ “Verbally there is a very general agreement, for both ordinary men and wise
men say that it is (eudaimonia), and identify living well and faring well with
being happy, but bout what (eudaimonia) is they disagree, and the many do
not give the same account as the wise.”
• What could eudaimonia consist of:
§ Pleasure?
§ Wealth?
§ Honor?
§ Having virtue?
• Aristotle continues:
§ “For the former think it is some plain and obvious thing like pleasure, wealth
or honor”
• According to Aristotle, the highest good:
§ Is self-sufficient
§ Is desirable for itself
§ Is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and
§ All other goods are desirable for its sake
• Hence, the highest good is the ultimate purpose, or end
• Telos:
§ Goal, end, purpose, function
• Teleological:
§ Relative to purpose
• Goodness resides in the fulfilment of one’s telos
Logos as human telos:
• Logos:
§ Speech, structured thought, reason, ratio
o “Life seems to be common even to plants, but we are seeking what is
peculiar to man. Let us conclude, therefore, the life of nutrition and
growth. Next there would be a life of perception, but it also seems to
be common even to the horse, the ox, and every animal. There
remains, then, an active life of the element that has a rational
principle.”
• Addendum:
§ Man as political animal
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