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Summary Business and Consumer Ethics
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Summary of the course Business and Consumer Ethics based on slides, notes and the book For Business Ethics. Passed in June
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Introduction: What is (applied) ethics?Normativity – Humanity – Individuality
o geworfenheift, jemeinigkeit (Heidegger), obligation/ethical demand of claim
geworfenheit: being thrown into a world (we didn’t ask this)
jemeinigkeit: mineness, each-their-own-ness: nobody can replace myself, everybody is
different
o ethics is about normativity; about what we ought to do (vs what is)
freedom: boundaries to our freedom? if so, which, where? are we free?
comparison to animals: are they unfree?
o humanity
we, humans, are raising questions on our actions ( no reflexivity within animals)
normativity: we are speaking about us humans humanity
o individuality: speaking about humans speaking about individuals
0.1 The threefold characteristics of the ethical demand
‘Demand:’ is there something that we are obligated to (not) do? Is there an ethical demand? Yes
threefold they refer to each other and make clear what we mean with ethical demand
Demand can not be relativistic because than we do what we want (~ relativism)
1. singular: ‘silent character’ of the demand
o what we do is not indifferent – reflections are always singular: first reflection is about what I should
do/what is expected of me
o we always refer to our situation first
o ~ jemeinigkeit: different reflections
o ‘silent’: we cannot share something in the demand with others, because we live our lives as
individuals
2. absolute: life is a gift
o always already there from the moment we are human, we are born ~ geworfenheit
o escaping ethical obligation = escaping life
o gift: het kado van leven is ons toegeworpen geworfenheit
3. infinite: ‘life is lived forwards and understood backwards’
o ethical obligations do not end, they have an infinite characteristic
Disruptive nature of ethics: “A person can never be sure that he or she acted in the right manner. Our
uncertainty is our guilt”
o existential guilt: we never know if we acted right
Morals, morality, ethics
o morals = totality of rules of conduct, rules and norms of a community
o morality = reflection on morals; individual deliberate action
fe eating meat
o ethics = systematic and critical reflection reflection on morals and morality
religion: criticizing vs not criticizing
Twofold meaning of ‘ethos’
o éthos = belief from which someone does something
morals
o èthos = reflexivity
morality
Two forms of ethics
o non-normative ethics:
1
, descriptive ethics: a description of what morals are at stake in a group – is needed to be able
to reflect on
meta-ethics: beyond or above the physical world
fe why are there values, what do we do when we reflect,..
o normative (prescriptive) ethics
transition from is ought – prescription of what humans should do
fundamental ethics: consequentialism, deontological ethics, virtue ethics
applied ethics: bio-ethics, medical ethics, animal ethics, media ethics, business ethics,..
0.2 General remarks
Negatively framed: that what [ethics] can not and may not be
o no supermodel of ethics
o ethics is not a form of praxis
o ethics is no moral education: we only provide a method
o ethics cannot and may not bypass personal and contextual specificity (phronesis)
Positively stated: offering a theoretical, reasonable funding
o normative character: is ought
o related to existing fields of morals
o presupposes individual responsibility and autonomy of the will
Relation with law: similarities but no reduction
o law = compulsory and enforceable
o legitimacy ≠ justice (mediation = jurisprudence)
o exception: moral laws are the opposite of laws, fe dictorial regimes need to break the law
Chapter 1: Against Business ethics
A) Foreclosing philosophy
Foreclosure = something that is closed/finished before it should be
Problem with the way that business ethics do philosophy
o 20th century philosophy is actually clearly excluded from or misrepresented in business ethics
Solution:
1. rereading business ethics in the light of developments in contemporary thought
2. turning to sources that have been pretty much ignored in the development of business ethics
go back to the basics of traditional ethical theory at first
B) Foreclosing society
Problem is individualism – ignorance of social context
o individualism in business ethics: corporate scandals or other wrongdoings are attributed to
the selfish character of individuals
Solution: stress that individual action always takes places in relation to social structures
o look at individual responsibility and social context
Sometimes we need to criticize the actions of individuals, but sometimes also social structures
C) Foreclosing ‘the ethical’
Problem: business ethics rests on a very narrow definition of what counts as ‘the ethical’
o by labeling certain things as ethical issues; other things are treated as if they do not involve
ethical questions business ethic has treated many practices of contemporary organized
life as if they do not present ethical concerns
2
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